country’s most famous museum.
Hawke tried to imagine an American president strolling into the Metropolitan Museum in New York and saying to one of the docents, “Wrap that one up and have it sent to the White House, will you please?” Never happen. But then, this was Russia, after all.
A swarthy manservant in a green felt jacket with bone buttons entered the great room and asked the prime minister if he or his guests would like something to drink or eat. Putin responded without querying the guests: vodka and caviar. At one end of the room was a large bay window that went up two stories and was filled with beautiful afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees. There were four large leather chairs, very deep, arranged in a circle around a table that had once been a millstone.
Putin took his favorite seat, propped his boots on the table, and said, “Sit, sit.”
After the frigid vodka and caviar had been served, he sat back in his chair and looked at Hawke with a wolfish grin.
“So, Mr. Hawke, last week you saved my life. Now you come to Russia to exterminate my worst enemies. Are you sure you don’t want something from me?”
Hawke and Concasseur both laughed.
“Only the red Bugatti,” Hawke said.
“It’s yours,” Putin said, digging into the pocket of his faded jeans. He pulled out a key on a red leather fob and tossed it across the table. “Take it, my friend. I’m serious. I don’t even use it that much. Just to go from here to the airstrip and back.”
Hawke picked up the key, examined Ettore Bugatti’s black initials on the red cloisonne emblem, and tossed it back to Putin. The Russian PM snatched it deftly out of the air like the highly trained athlete he was. Returning the key to his pocket he said, “So you two gentlemen have a plan? I am most anxious to hear it. I want to be rid of these Tsarist horseflies once and for all.”
Hawke spoke first.
“Volodya, as you well know I’m in the midst of a violent blood feud with these damn Tsarists. They are responsible for imprisoning, torturing, and threatening to murder the mother of my son. They have made two failed attempts to assassinate my son. I’m sure there will be more. They want me dead and they want you dead. All this by way of saying it’s time for the mailed glove to come off and reveal the mailed fist inside. I want to take these bastards out. Not one at a time. All at once.”
Concasseur said, “Prime Minister, there’s to be a dinner next week at the Tsarist mansion. Their annual celebration, according to my sources. At least three hundred attendees from all over the world.”
“The host, of course, will be the chief Tsarist himself, General Kutov,” Hawke added. “That utterly charming man to whom we both owe our meeting in Energetika Prison, Volodya.”
“There are words for this pig Kutov that only Concasseur here would know the meaning of, Alex. I won’t waste my breath. So you have some way of taking out Kutov?”
“We have a way of taking them all out, Volodya.”
“No? The whole damn lot?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me and then I will pour more vodka.”
Hawke, with the help of Concasseur, outlined their plan in great detail.
When they finished, Putin was stone-faced.
After a few very, very long moments, he burst forth into loud and sustained laughter, his eyes watering, totally helpless with mirth. Hawke got up and poured him a glass of water from the carafe.
When Putin finally got himself under control, he said, “It’s brilliant. What do you need from me?”
Hawke handed him the list of necessities he’d made on the plane.
“This is going to work,” he finally said, scanning the list. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“Everything,” Concasseur said, raising his glass. “But Hawke and I will muddle through somehow. We always do.”
The Tsarist Society’s club in the heart of Moscow was all aglow, lights blazing from every window of the imposing mansion. There was a line of limos stretching from the covered entrance all the way around the corner and into Pushkin Square. Instead of a naked fat man hanging from the flagpole, tonight there was a great red banner with a golden two-headed eagle emblazoned upon it. Hawke and Concasseur would not be using the main entrance. They entered through the kitchen, a beehive populated by buzzing white bees.
It was a madhouse.
“Organized chaos,” Ian whispered to Hawke, who thought Concasseur looked completely ridiculous in his tall toque blanche and spotless white chef’s uniform with two rows of brass buttons gleaming on his chest. He also wore a full reddish-blond beard to complete the disguise. “Over there, that’s the head chef and his sous-chef. Follow me. I’ll do all the talking.”
“I certainly hope so. I’m just a mute saucier, remember?”
There were five other men with them, all splendidly decked out in haute cuisine kitchen apparel. It was hard to believe they were members of Putin’s handpicked security force at the Kremlin. Each of them was carrying a large aluminum box, the bulky container caterers use to bring precooked food to an affair.
“Dimitry,” Ian said to the head chef in Russian, “it’s me, Nikolai.”
The big bearded man, who was drenched with sweat and tossing an amazing number of blinis into the air with a huge frying pan, looked over at Ian, frowned, and said, “Who?”
“Nikolai. The pastry chef from Parisian Caterers. We worked that gala at the Bolshoi opening night, remember?”
“No. But I’m a chef, I don’t have time to remember people. Where is Ivan Ivanovich? I asked Parisian expressly for him tonight.”
“Quite sick, I’m afraid. Food poisoning, ironically enough. Parisian sent me instead. This is Vlad, my saucier, and those guys over there washing up are mine, too.”
“Fine, fine. I have to get back to work. You’re dessert, right?”
“Right. Dessert.”
“Remind me what you’re serving?”
“A bombe.”
“Bombe?”
“Bombe au chocolat. Spherical, like a bomb. My signature dish.”
“Good. We haven’t done that in a while.”
“So it will be a big surprise for everyone.”
“Well, get to work. And don’t fuck anything up.”
Ian and Hawke headed back to the rear of the kitchen where their team was preparing the dish.
“I liked that ‘bombe’ idea,” Hawke said in a low voice. “Did you make that up on the spot?”
“Indeed. I was rather pleased with it, too.”
A n hour later it was almost time for the dessert to be served. Ian had the team lined up with the other waiters, all ready to enter the grand ballroom where the dinner was being held. It was as raucous an affair as Hawke had ever witnessed, fueled by high-octane Russian vodka consumed in heroic proportions.
Hawke, excused by Ian from any culinary duties, had found a narrow back staircase that led to an orchestra balcony overlooking the huge wedding cake of a room. He had removed his toque blanche and peered cautiously over the balustrade, not that anyone would take any notice of him, hidden high above as he was by cumulonimbus clouds of cigar smoke. There were thirty round tables of ten men, the “gentlemen” seated under massive crystal chandeliers, sparkling diamond-like above.
A semicircular stage with a podium had been set up at the far end of the room. A small orchestra was playing rousing renditions of works by Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff, Hawke had no idea which. The few club members who could still propel themselves under their own steam were making their way to the rostrum to shower slurry encomiums upon General Kutov. The old bastard sat at the table nearest the stage, red-faced and popping the buttons on his ceremonial KGB uniform, throwing back gold-rimmed beakers of Russian jet fuel as if there were no tomorrow.
Under the circumstances, Hawke thought with a rueful smile, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea.
The waiters were just clearing General Kutov’s table to make way for dessert. Hawke knew it was time to
