December. James Steel

nodded in agreement. ‘Hmm, as von Moltke said: “When your enemy has only two options he invariably chooses the third.”’

      Sergey pondered it for a moment and smiled before he clapped his hands. ‘Anyway, that’s the Moscow end of things. Now explain your plan for the camp.’

      Alex sat forward, pulled some maps out of his wallet, laid them on the table and talked them through his initial ideas for an attack. Fyodor leaned over and took a keen interest whilst Lara and Grigory sat back. Sergey listened carefully whilst Fyodor asked useful questions.

      Alex wrapped up his presentation: ‘I have been in touch with my usual team and they are interested in the job. Colin Thwaites is in the UK already, Arkady Voloshin and Yamba Douala are on their way back here from Africa, and I have contacted two more people.’

      Sergey nodded with satisfaction. ‘Hmm, very good, Major Devereux. Now, my only input on this is your call sign for the operation—it will be “Baba Yaga”!’ he grinned.

      Lara rolled her eyes. ‘Sergey, is this necessary?’

      Sergey looked at her with exasperation. ‘Lara! Will you indulge me for once?’

      She turned to Alex. ‘His enthusiasm for Russian folk stories sometimes gets the better of him.’

      Sergey’s excitement was undeterred. ‘It’s a good name!’ He too turned to Alex. ‘She’s a witch who flies around Russia doing harm to people—just like you! Although she has iron teeth and she eats children!’ He grimaced, gnashed his teeth and made clawing gestures with his hands. ‘Anyway, Alex should read some Russian literature if he wants to understand what this is all about! The struggle for the soul of the Motherland!’ he declared grandly.

      ‘Hmm…’ Lara sounded unimpressed; Alex had the idea that this was a well-worn argument between them but that she was happier just to let it go for now.

      Sergey jabbed a finger at Alex. ‘You see, you asked me last night—will we win? And I say, yes! We will win because we have the Russian soul!’ He emphasised the words Russkaya dusha. ‘All you Western bastards say we’re all slaves but the Russian soul is not a slave soul!’ He banged the table. ‘Our free spirit will overcome this Krymov son of a bitch!’ He tossed his head so that his thatch of blond hair flayed around.

      Lara put a hand on his and smiled at him sweetly. ‘Sergey, my little fish, can we get on with the briefing, please?’

      Sergey harrumphed but she ignored him and looked at the others. ‘So, now we have Raskolnikov, how are we going to get him back to Moscow?’

      The airforce officer Fyodor came into his own here. He pulled a document wallet out of a briefcase; his eyes narrowed as he looked at the papers. ‘Moscow has the best air defence system in the world but I have some ideas for getting around it.’

      He talked them through, with Alex and the others chipping in suggestions. After a while they had finalised things as much as they could, and Sergey’s attention began to wander.

      ‘Right! I now want you all to piss off downstairs and eat and drink! I am going to explain to Alex why we are fighting for the soul of Russia!’

       Chapter Five

      The authoritarian side of the soul of Russia was making itself felt to Roman Raskolnikov that same evening.

      He lay on his bunk in Barrack 9 and looked at the ceiling. He was at the top of the stack of four beds, shoved right under the planks. He slept there so that no one could get at him during the night—it was not unheard of for prisoners to be found with their throats slit in the morning. Two politicals who supported him and Big Danni slept in the three bunks below him to act as protection.

      It was the half-hour after dinner when the men were allowed a few dingy electric lights so that they could get ready for bed and do their chores: darning socks and bartering for cigarettes with favours of one kind and another. He could hear the hundred other men in the hut moving around, muttering and cursing. They were only allowed a bath once a week and the place had the reek of old sweat.

      He knew he should be using his time wisely—repairing boots and clothes, chatting to find out useful information, filing down a small knife to use or sell—but he was just too exhausted after his day dragging logs in the forest. The sinews in his shoulders and forearms felt like they had been pulled out of him.

      His sawdust mattress was thin and conformed to his hipbone so that it rested on the hard wooden bed boards. He lay still, staring at the cobwebs of hoar frost in the corner of the roof. It was below freezing in the hut and he slept fully clothed with his feet stuffed into the arms of his jacket and his head under an old blanket.

      That had been his 868th day in the camp and he was still alive, so he had something to be grateful for. The slack-mouthed rapist, Getmanov, had watched him closely during the day but hadn’t gone anywhere near him and none of the guards had beaten him up as they sometimes did when the mood took them. So, overall, it had been a good day.

      There were only 4,607 more to go.

       Chapter Six

      In another world, in an opulent, warm mansion in South Kensington, Sergey peered at Alex through his fringe in a way that made him unsure if he was drunk or just being very searching. They were now alone in his office.

      Sergey said slowly and emphatically, ‘Sashenka, I can see from your face that you are not a man of no consequence, you are not a man who is blown here and there.’ He flapped his right hand back and forth on the table. ‘You are a man who understands the meaning of suffering.’ He laid the hand, palm up, on the table between them in a gesture inviting assent.

      Alex narrowed his eyes and looked back at him suspiciously. He didn’t want to have a deep conversation with Sergey. The Russian’s typical lack of personal boundaries was invading Alex’s very well-defined English ones.

      He could guess why he had said what he did; old girlfriends had always told him that he had a brooding look. His height, dark hair and the strong bones of his face gave him an air of authority that they said they liked. But Alex had never realised how his personal demons manifested themselves.

      Sergey pressed on.‘Last night you questioned the integrity of my motives for this coup—that maybe I am in it just for the money. Well, a lot of people are!’ he admitted. ‘But to be me, and to take the lead in this, to risk everything,’ he gestured around at the magnificent house, ‘you need much more than that.

      ‘And you,’ he pointed at Alex, ‘need to understand that I am committed.’ He held a hand to his heart.

      ‘OK,’ Alex said calmly.

      Sergey swept his hand out. ‘We all look for something for meaning to coalesce around in our lives and for me this operation is the meaning of life!’ He banged the table and then stood up, and began pacing around. ‘I know we Russians are a bunch of miserable fuckers—“Today is worse than yesterday but better than tomorrow”,’ he repeated the expression with a tired wave of the hand as he walked around and then turned back to Alex. ‘Comrade, forgive me, the lack of light eats away at the soul. But,’ he held up a finger and looked at Alex, ‘this Russian sadness is actually a truer appreciation of humanity. You see you can only be truly happy once you have been truly sad. A Russian understands this—that all emotions are just facets on the jewel of the human soul! In the west of Europe you have this obsession with happiness that demeans that jewel; you see only half of it, but the Russian soul has many sides.’ He used that expression again: Russkaya dusha.

      Alex was struggling to keep up with the way Sergey was flicking from one thing to another.

      ‘The world of the soul