December. James Steel

door of his house and up the Fulham Road to the upstairs room of the Fulham Tup pub, which they had agreed to use as a meeting point.

      Sergey had an arrangement with the owner to use the room, which was normally let out for parties only in the evening, during the day. It wasn’t perfect but they could both slip in via a back entrance and it was less obvious than Alex turning up at Sergey’s house, or his offices in Mayfair, which he was pretty sure were under observation by the SVR.

      Alex squeezed through the back door, stamped the snow off his feet and ran up the stairs into a room filled with empty tables, the noise of his footsteps echoing on the floorboards.

      Sergey was already there, sitting at a table away from the window, wearing an Aquascutum overcoat, his hair as tousled as ever. He rose as Alex came in and strode over to shake his hand, offering profuse apologies.

      ‘Alexander, I am so sorry to call you out of your house in this weather!’

      Alex demurred and they sat down.

      For once, Sergey seemed in a sombre mood. He looked at Alex in the wintry light from the window.

      ‘I’m not sure what is going on…’ he started hesitantly.

      Alex waited for him to continue. Could this whole fucking madhouse scheme be about to collapse? A sudden urge within him hoped it would.

      ‘Krymov called me yesterday after you left; he wants me back in Moscow.’ Sergey pursed his lips and looked across at the window.

      Alex frowned. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

      Sergey nodded. ‘They might know something. Gorsky, the SVR guy you met at the party, might have picked something up.’ He narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘No, it’s too quick, we haven’t done anything yet for them to pick up on.’ He looked at Alex candidly. ‘Krymov sometimes calls me in the middle of the night to discuss things. He trusts me.’ Having voiced his concerns, he seemed to have come to a decision. ‘No, he wouldn’t have taken fright so quickly; it’s nothing that I can’t smooth over with him.’ Having convinced himself that he was safe, he perked up again. ‘So, I will fly to Moscow today and see what it is all about. For you, just ignore it.’

      Alex spoke calmly: ‘Well, I’ll need a week to get the team sorted out in Herefordshire anyway, so I guess you will know for sure by then what it is about?’

      ‘Yes, exactly! We’ll know for sure by then. I’ll keep sending you the all clear signal about the mail order,’ he waved his BlackBerry at Alex, ‘but if they do screw me over then it will stop and you will know to call off all the plans. If they start interrogating me then I have no illusions about my ability to resist the boys in the Lubyanka. They really know what they are doing in there,’ he said with grudging respect, ‘so I’ll tell all and they’ll just kill me quickly and the whole thing will be over anyway.’

      Alex was disturbed by Sergey’s clinical assessment of the possibility of his own brutal death. He suddenly had a sense of the ruthlessness that had built Sergey’s vast business empire.

      ‘So, Lara will have to fly down to your house to check up on you on her own, eh?’ He cocked a knowing eyebrow at Alex, who responded with an innocent expression, even as he fought to control the surge of interest that this comment provoked inside him.

      Alex had decided to assemble his team of mercenaries at Akerly. It still had a huge area of parkland around it and so was completely private. It was also snowbound, which would be good training for cross-country skiing and other drills he wanted to put the team through, plus it had sufficient accommodation and no outsiders need be involved. All in all, at short notice, it had seemed the perfect place.

      The idea had been for both Sergey and Lara to fly down in Sergey’s helicopter to inspect the team, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen now.

      Alex didn’t rise to Sergey’s bait. ‘Well, I’m sure we’ll manage without you.’

      ‘Hmm,’ Sergey mused. He didn’t seem to have given up on his game entirely. ‘Well, I brought you some Russian literature to read in the long dark nights by the fire.’

      Alex groaned internally. He couldn’t stand it when people pressed their favourite books on him.

      ‘Oh, OK,’ he said in an unconvincing display of enthusiasm.

      ‘No, really, it’s good stuff!’ said Sergey defensively, as he pulled a slim paperback out of his overcoat pocket. ‘I told you you needed to read more Russian stuff to know what this coup is all about.’ He handed the book to Alex: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

      ‘It’s acknowledged by George Orwell as the basis for 1984,’ Sergey continued in a self-justificatory tone. ‘The fucker ripped off the plot completely. Written in 1920, really ahead of its time.’

      ‘What’s it about?’ Alex took an interest now, despite himself.

      Sergey grinned a little too smugly for Alex’s liking. ‘It’s a story about a straightforward guy who falls in love with a crazy girl who is trying to overthrow a totalitarian state.’

      He looked at the Englishman meaningfully. Alex blanched. He was beginning to learn that it was typical of Sergey to mix apparently trivial and serious issues.

      Sergey shrugged apologetically. ‘Look, it’s OK. Just be careful, huh?’ He grinned. ‘In Russia, we tell folktales about Brother Wolf and Sister Fox. Now, what you have to know is that Sister Fox is the smart one and she always wins. Watch out for her, she’s a man-eater.’

       Chapter Eight

      Sergey settled back into his luxurious white leather chair and watched the lights go out across London.

      His Gulfstream G550 intercontinental jet had got one of the last take-off slots of the day at London City airport. For once, the snow had stopped falling and it was a clear, dark evening, so he had a perfect view through the porthole as the aircraft banked over the East End and they shut off the electricity substations one by one.

      A whole block of Dagenham suddenly winked out, the orange grid of street and house lights all went in an instant, leaving just a few car headlamps floundering in the murk.

      Well, oppressed people of Britain! You won’t have to put up with that for long if my plan works out! Sergey broadcast in his head.

      As the plane levelled off, Bayarmaa sauntered in from the kitchen section at the front of the aircraft in a tight black cocktail dress with a tray of Sergey’s homemade vodka, pickled mushrooms and meats. She knew him well enough to see that he wanted to be left alone so after stroking his hair and kissing his cheek she slunk back out again. Sergey followed her slim backside with a dangerous look in his eye. He hadn’t yet got through the lust phase with her; he knew he would move on, but he was enjoying it at the moment.

      Other things occupied his mind now, though; he took a shot of vodka and chewed on the food slowly as he thought. The softly lit cabin was a good brooding cocoon as they hurtled out over the North Sea towards Moscow. His face darkened and he pursed his lips, staring into the night and thinking hard.

      Although he had been full of bravado with Alex he was actually deeply troubled about the forthcoming encounter with Krymov. He thought about what the summons could mean; it was hard to tell, as the President was such an erratic character.

      Sergey wondered at his own capacity for duplicity. He was a good example of Soviet era ‘double think’—the ability to think opposite thoughts at once. He had grown up with it as a boy: the ability to swear passionate allegiance to Marxist-Leninism at school and then go out and indulge in the raw, black-market capitalism that was necessary to survive it.

      He remembered an Uzbek expression that one of his operations managers from a refinery there had told him: Uzbeks can say one thing, think another and do a third.

      Sergey