Ill drink to that. Kurbsky went to the sideboard and poured a large vodka. Heres to nine good friends of mine who suffered appallingly at his hands. I wasnt quite honest with you when you asked me if Id known him and I said everyone in the Russian Army did. The truth is I was involved with a unit in Chechnya called the Black Tigers, a special-ops paratroop outfit. A reliable source discovered Basayev was at the monastery in the mountains. We were dropped in to try to assassinate him, only the reliable source turned out to be not so reliable.
Oh, dear, it was ever thus, Roper said.
There were only eleven of us left. He had nine tortured and strung up, and my sergeant and I managed to escape and got back to Grozny.
Pass me the whiskey. Kurbsky did, and Roper said, The sergeant would be Bounine? He must have been a useful chap.
Good God, you know all this? Kurbsky managed to look amazed. But how?
Your army career on the Internet. Theres a brief citation next to each decoration explaining the reason for the award. In this case, it also said you jumped without training.
Several of us did. He became very open now. Bounine had jumped a time or two in Afghanistan. The most unlikely-looking paratrooper you ever saw. He had a law degree he kept secret from the army, too.
What happened to him?
Somebody found out about the law degree and he was transferred to the GRU. There was some talk of a commission, but I was promoted to captain and back in deep shit. I never heard from him again. He looked at Roper. But something tells me you know more than I do.
Roper grinned. Well, cyberspace can reveal all. Hes done well for himself. A major and still in the GRU, posing as a senior commercial attaché at the Dublin Embassy.
Roper grinned. Well, cyberspace can reveal all. Hes done well for himself. A major and still in the GRU, posing as a senior commercial attaché at the Dublin Embassy.
He always had a brain, that was the lawyer in him. That would make him stand out in any crowd. He sat back. So tell me, whats not being reported? You must know the right people at Scotland Yard.
Oh, I do, and its almost funny. Josef Limov, the chauffeur, had been Basayevs hit man for years, and he had a Walther, drawn, but not discharged. Basayev also had a Walther, only his was still in his pocket. The postmortems have not been completed, but rounds already recovered from the bodies indicate the weapon used to kill them was also a Walther.
It isnt almost funny, it is funny. Kurbsky went to his bag, opened the secret compartment, and produced the Walther hed been issued. So this one makes four. A very popular weapon, thanks to James Bond, easy to use and a hell of a stopping power. The preferred weapon of many hit men in Moscow So you think it was a professional hit?
Hard to say. Here you have a thoroughly nasty bit of work full of himself on London television, rich beyond most peoples wildest dreams, and amongst the two or three million Londoners watching the program, there are bound to have been refugees and asylum-seekers who suffered at Basayevs hands.
In other words, who would have loved the chance to bump him off? You could say his appearance at the church was an open invitation. Theres only one thing wrong with that. From what you say, both men were armed and Josef got as far as drawing his weapon, and yet the killer got both of them. Thats the mark of a professional.
So that means the Kremlin, either directly or through a contract killer. Since the fall of Communism and the advent of capitalism, the battle for that money has led to an incredible rise in contract killings in Moscow. Journalists, politicians, businessmen. In this case, Id say the only questions are who paid and whether the killer was imported or local.
Roper poured another scotch. And if its local, there are plenty of possibilities. The criminal scene has changed a lot since the old days of the East End gangsters. The Moscow Mafia has made its mark, and powerful Albanian and Romanian groups have moved into London.
Not to mention the Irish Troubles, said Kurbsky. Wars in Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo, the first Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. That adds up to thousands of men not only trained, but used to war. Im sure many of them would be perfectly capable of doing something like the Basayev killing, especially for money. There used to be a man in Moscow, known as Superkiller, who charged fifty thousand dollars for a hit and was seldom unemployed.
Roper nodded. What youre really saying here is that we might never get anyone for these killings, because there are just too many possible suspects? The general public sees a perfectly vile man sitting on his money and laughing at the world, and when he unexpectedly gets whats coming to him, the truth is, theyre rather pleased. I guess thats why I cant get particularly worked up about the bastard myself. Anyway, theres something else I want to discuss-Ferguson asked me to raise it with you.
And whats that?
Weve always had a close working relationship with President Cazalet, who has an outfit very similar to ours operating in Washington. Its called the Basement, and its run by a very good friend of ours named Blake Johnson. Hes coming to London tomorrow for a NATO conference with the Ministry of Defence.
And? Kurbsky asked.
And we do a great many things in tandem with them. Ferguson wonders if youd agree to him passing on your story to Blake, and through him to the President. Itd be under the strictest of secrecy.
No way. I made it plain that I would embark on this venture only if I was guaranteed anonymity. General Charles Ferguson gave me his word on the matter. He has a moral obligation to keep it.
He totally accepts that.
Then let that be the end of the matter.
Ill see that it is.
KURBSKY LEFT AT ten oclock, refused a lift by Sergeant Doyle, and walked slowly down through Holland Park toward the main road. He paused at the end of one lonely street and phoned Bounine.
Have you heard anything else regarding this Blake Johnson business?
A certain amount. He invited me to have a drink and was very excited. Apparently, weve just reached a deal with a private airfield at Berkley Down that specializes in jets for millionaires. The place is about twenty miles out of London in Kent. Luzhkov talked about being able to book a Falcon wherever he wanted.
And the point of this is?
Im getting there. He got quite worked up about all this. Told me more about the previous attempt on Johnsons life the other year. The mistake, he said, was to trust a low-life gangster and pay him well for the contract. Luzhkov got quite drunk when he was telling me this. Apparently, the gangster farmed the work out on the cheap to two second-rate specimens who were foiled by this man Dillon, an ex-IRA enforcer who now works for Ferguson, and someone called Salter, who also works for Ferguson.
Did this business involve anyone being killed?
I understand there was some damage done to those concerned. He said Dillon had a bad habit of shooting ears.
I wonder if Oleg and Petrovich are aware of the opposition they are up against.
I suppose if the affair proceeded in the right way, they wouldnt expect any opposition. We live in a world where anything is possible. You dont need to hunt for a public telephone, you have a mobile phone in your pocket that can handle a call to the other side of the world. And you can bang a man on the head in a London street and bundle him off in a car twenty miles into the Kent countryside, where a Falcon jet will have him in Moscow in five hours, instead of eating breakfast in the American Embassy guesthouse in Peel Mews.
I get it now. And this is your idea of fun, Yuri, for this poor bastard?
The American version is called extraordinary rendition. You fly some unlucky bastard from one country too civilized to harm him, to another where you can get someone to torture him for you.
No honor in that.
No honor, either, in refueling the Falcon in Moscow for an onward flight to Siberia and Station Gorky, the last place God made.
Kurbsky said, Okay, youve made your point. If I ever need a defense lawyer, it will be you, Yuri.
Yuri said, Are you okay, Alex? You sound tense.
What would I have to be tense about? Ill speak to you tomorrow. Look for me round about noon.
HE THOUGHT ABOUT it as he walked to the main road and flagged a black cab, and instead of asking for Holland Park, he told the driver to take him to Grosvenor Square, because he knew thats where the American Embassy was. In the back of the black cab he put the light on and examined his London AZ guide, found Peel Mews off of South Audley Street running down from Grosvenor Square.
He put the guide away, turned off the light, and sat there thinking. Boris Luzhkov, feeling his oats, was considering this mad idea of kidnapping the personal security adviser for President Jack Cazalet. It was a crazy escapade, yet, as Bounine had said, in this modern world of today, when hours meant so little, it was eminently possible.
But it was a nasty business. In the shadowy world of spies and assassins, that sort of thing was to be expected, and the interrogations that went with it. A man like Johnson, so close to the President, would be subject to the most horrendous torture to extract the incredible amount of information he must have. But what would be the consequences?
But it was a nasty business. In the shadowy world of spies and assassins, that sort of thing was to be expected, and the interrogations that went with it. A man like Johnson, so close to the President, would be subject to the most horrendous torture to extract the incredible amount of information he must have. But what would be the consequences?
He told the cabdriver to drop him on the other side of the square by the statue of General Eisenhower. As the cab drove away, he turned, aware of the great ugly slabs of concrete designed to protect the building against a terrorist attack, and walked back across the square and entered South Audley Street. Peel Mews was to the left some little way along. He paused for a quick moment.
It started to rain lightly, and he looked around him, taking everything in. Fine buildings, Georgian, Victorian, some superb shops. Mayfair night in the rain, cars swishing by, not too many people walking. It was dreamlike in a way, or was that just him? He continued steadily to the end, where he turned toward Park Lane and discovered the Dorchester Hotel, which was reasonably busy, night porters on duty, umbrellas at the ready, cars in and out, and on the other side, the darkness of Hyde Park, the traffic cutting between in long streams.