We Present The First Instalment Of The Thriller The Debt Collector

April 27, 2009

Today we present the first instalment of the futuristic thriller, The Debt Collector, set in post-Putin Russia. It is the story about an undercover agent who is investigating the link between a group of Russina oligarchs and the assassination attempt on the wife of the new Russian President.

The Debt Collector

‘I am a Ghost. I walk this earth in sorrow and no one knows who I am. When I was among the living, I led a double-life and even my family had no idea who I really was. My dark secret went with me to my grave and now I pay the price. I roam among the sinners, I weep, but there is no one to blame but myself…

‘This story though, is not about me. It’s about the “debt collector”, who battles with the ones who steal from others. He tracks them down, one by one, and makes them pay for their crimes. You might say he collects bad debts from bad people. And he is very good at what he does. He is probably the best in the business.

‘But now the stakes have risen for the “debt collector” has taken on very powerful and dangerous enemies. These are not just thieves and robbers, oh no! These are criminals with billions at their disposal and with influence at the very top. They are ruthless and cunning and will go to any lengths to protect their ill-gotten wealth. They will betray and kill and hold whole nations hostage in order to enrich themselves even more.

‘They think that they will reign forever. But they are wrong. For the “debt collector” is out to get them…’

Part 1. The new man in the Kremlin

Moscow, August 30, 2012. Time: 15.35…

It was a blistering Friday afternoon…

The heat wave that had lasted throughout most of August was taking its toll; Moscow seemed to be ‘melting’ under the relentless onslaught of the sun, with parts of the roads becoming soft and falling through and weirdly shaped cracks appearing in the dry ground in parks and alleys, like wrinkles on the giant haggard face of the metropolis.

With not a drop of rain falling for weeks a thick layer of dust had settled everywhere – on buildings, street kiosks, sheltered bus stops, trees and bushes. Cars left parked for no more than a couple of hours would look as if they had not been washed for days.

Exhausted by the heat the people on the streets seemed to be walking in slow motion, stopping in the shade for a breather. Even the traffic on the roads slowed down to a sluggish crawl, as if like humans cars too were affected by the hot weather.

I thought this bloody heat was supposed to end today, Vadim Kotov thought, with irritation, having stopped his taxi at the kerb on Kutuzov Avenue. Doesn’t bloody look like it. I bet they got their weather forecast all wrong again.

He turned the ignition off and then looked around, slowly, as if trying to guess where he was exactly. He knew, of course, where he was: fifty bloody metres from the Borodino Panorama, a round-shaped ugly looking concrete and glass building housing the panoramic view of the famous battle of Borodino between the invading Napoleon’s army and Russian troops under the command of Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov. Hence the name – Kutuzov Avenue.

Vadim then looked straight ahead, at the marble Triumph Arch in the centre of the avenue that had been built to commemorate Russia’s victory over the French in the 1812-1814 war. It was a good piece of architecture, that arch, he thought. They sure knew how to build things back in the old days. Not like now when they could not even build a bloody apartment block properly, with everything starting to fall apart the moment people moved in.

All that capitalism never really worked out in Russia. Just a bunch of thieving bastards ripping off everyone else – that’s what Mother Russia’s capitalism was all about.

Vadim sighed and wiped his brow with the top of his right hand. He had spent nearly eight hours behind the wheel of his white Toyota that day, mostly stuck in traffic jams, and felt absolutely worn out. The air conditioning in his car did not work properly, making things even worse.

He glanced at himself in the rear view mirror – his blond hair was dishevelled and greasy, his face gaunt with darkish semi circles under his large grey eyes.

Vadim shook his head.

‘I work too much,’ he said, out loud. ‘It just isn’t worth it, the money I’m making. It just isn’t worth the bloody effort…’

He got out of the car, slammed the door and stretched his arms. He was of middle height, strong built, with a tattooed anchor on his right arm – a reminder of his three years in the navy. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a yellow short-sleeve shirt. His soft beige moccasins were badly scuffed and the left one had a crack at the front caused by constant pressure from the toe.

Vadim locked the car and walked in the direction of the Little Green Light café, a favourite haunt of Moscow taxi drivers. The food there was nothing special and the interior didn’t exactly stimulate the appetite with its cheap white plastic tables and chairs and faded yellow walls. But it was a good place to meet other drivers and catch up on the latest gossip. And, what was even more important, it had air conditioning that actually worked; on some days, that is.

Vadim walked into the Little Green Light, shut the door behind him and paused in eager anticipation… Yes, the air conditioning was definitely working that day. He breathed in the cool air and exhaled slowly, reluctant to let it out. He then glanced around, but could not see any familiar faces. It was nearly half past two and most of the drivers had already had their lunch and were now busy hustling for passengers who were trying to get to railway stations or bus terminals, desperate to flee from the city and get to their country houses, dachas.

This obsession with spending every available weekend in the countryside originated back in Soviet times when owning a country house, however small and however lacking in basic facilities, was seen as an important status symbol. People would usually start getting fidgety days before the trip itself, storing groceries and booze in advance and drawing up lists of what needed to be fixed or replaced at their treasured dachas. Most of them, of course, spent their time there drinking, overeating and watching the box, just like they did in their Moscow homes, but it was still considered worthwhile as all those things were done ‘in the fresh country air’, ‘na svezhem derevenskom vozdukhe’. Not to mention that at work the following Monday they could always slip into the conversation that they had spent the weekend at their ‘country retreat’ and had ‘an absolutely wonderful time’ there.

Vadim picked up a brown plastic tray from the stack at the counter and got himself a bowl of cold soup, okroshka, a large portion of meat dumplings, pelhmenni, and a cup of black coffee and settled at his usual table at the window facing Kutuzov Avenue. As he ate his lunch, he watched the people walking past the café. Most of them were carrying several grocery bags and looking restive, anticipating a weekend break away from the hassle of the big city.

As for Vadim, he usually worked on weekends. Not that he was forced to; he was his own boss and could decide for himself when to work and when to take it easy. But as he was renting his three-year-old Toyota from his taxi company he had to spend a hell of a lot of time on the road to earn enough to pay for it and still have some money left. Especially as the cost of living was going through the roof, with household bills leading the way.

Since the previous government had privatised all of the utilities, a lot of people found themselves struggling to pay their bills. In addition to the extortionate property tax, they now had to tighten their belts even further or face having their electricity, water or gas cut off. The overall feeling was that selling the utilities to private operators was just another big swindle at the expense of long-suffering Russian people. It was clear to everyone that just like in the past government officials who’d been involved in the privatisation of the utilities received huge kickbacks in return for making sure that the asking price was well below the real value. In a matter of months the businessmen close to the Kremlin, who’d bought the utility companies, were making huge profits.

The only consolation was that the recently elected President had promised to introduce a system of state allowances for those families who were finding it near impossible to pay their household bills. Soon after he was sworn into office in May 2012 he publicly reprimanded several tycoons for ‘squeezing’ money out of their customers. A couple of weeks later a dozen or so senior government officials were summoned, one by one, to the Prosecutor General’s office and questioned about their role in the privatisation of some of the major enterprises, including the utilities. They weren’t sacked and no criminal charges were brought against them, but they got the fright of their lives and alarm bells started ringing throughout the entire government machine.

The new President, Vladimir Abramov, a former army General who had taken part in both wars in Chechnya, came to power after a dramatic turn of events during the election campaign. He was running second in the opinion polls behind the firm favourite, a former KGB General endorsed by the outgoing President, Dmitri Medvedev. But three weeks before election day, the Kremlin’s candidate suffered a massive heart attack and died on the way to the hospital. The word was that he’d taken too many Viagras before getting into bed with his secretary and, as a result, all that excitement proved way too much for him.

In any case the election was suddenly thrown into turmoil and there was even talk of it being postponed for a year or more. And about a week later the Kremlin suddenly announced that it was throwing its full weight behind Abramov and that he was now the new Medvedev’s chosen successor.

The announcement took everyone by complete surprise. Soon rumours started flying around that the former General struck a deal with the Kremlin in return for its support. Some people were even predicting that the new ‘chosen successor’ would turn out to be no more than a puppet, with Medvedev’s people pulling all the strings.

Despite all this uncertainty and confusion Abramov still received more than 60 per cent of the vote – enough to avoid a second round of elections. The majority of people reckoned that as a complete outsider the former General would still be able to introduce changes at the top and put pressure on all those Yeltsin’s and Putin’s cronies who stole from them and had the audacity to parade their ill-gotten wealth at every opportunity. All those huge villas outside Moscow, all those fancy foreign cars, private planes and yachts, football and hockey clubs had been bought with money made ripping off ordinary folk. Russia was a rich country and it was obscene that a tiny minority prospered while millions either struggled to make ends meet or existed in dire poverty.

Vadim sipped his coffee, trying to get rid of all those depressing thoughts. He then looked around: the café was practically empty, apart from a couple of people finishing their meals and a group of four youngsters sitting in the far corner. They’d drunk several bottles of some cheap strong wine and were now shouting their heads off and making a nuisance of themselves.

Vadim shook his head in disapproval and then looked outside. From the window he could see a stretch of the busy Kutuzov Avenue. The new President, like his predecessors, used this route to get to the Kremlin from his country retreat outside Moscow in the morning and return in the evening. In the past the presidential motorcades consisted of at least a dozen security vehicles, packed with armed bodyguards, and there was even a special ambulance with enough equipment to stock the emergency ward of a small hospital. All along the route traffic would be kept waiting, sometimes for a whole hour, with plain clothed agents of the Federal Security Service, Federalhnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, FSB for short in Russian, and armed police patrols looking out for any suspicious activity. There were times when half of central Moscow would ground to a halt simply because the President, or some other top government official, was going places. On many occasions the whole thing bordered on total idiocy – the motorcade running late but the cops still kept the traffic on hold. Just in case.

Unlike Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev, President Abramov was not paranoid about his personal safety; his limousine was accompanied by a single jeep at the front with four armed agents of the Presidential Protection Service (PPS) and by two police BMWs at the rear. And the traffic cops no longer stopped all the other cars to let him pass – under the new arrangement a couple of minutes before the presidential motorcade was due, several motorcyclists would temporarily cut off the traffic from major side streets and provide a ‘green corridor’.

Vadim was one of the many people who directly benefited from the new system of presidential travel, no longer having to wait in endless traffic queues. Although he never trusted all those ‘servants of the people’, as he mockingly called all politicians, he liked the way the new man in the Kremlin was settling into his job – no fancy speeches or empty promises, no pompous ceremonies and no more of that stupid TV coverage of the President meeting this official or that, as it was under Putin and Medvedev. Vadim also reckoned that the new top man looked impressive, like a head of state should – tall, wide-shouldered, with thick short grey hair, dark eyes and a strong determined chin. He was a good speaker and didn’t need to look at his notes all the time, like his predecessors did. And he could get his message across, tell a good joke, and have a drink if needed. And his wife looked okay, and both of their children were not spoilt or anything.

Some people claimed that it was all part of Abramov’s image conjured up by his spin-doctors. But the way Vadim saw it, the new man still looked better than all that previous lot. He still remembered the times when Boris Yeltsin appeared at official ceremonies, having already had several large vodkas, and made a total idiot of himself. And then there was Putin, that ‘guarantor of stability’, as he was presented to the nation, who was always grinning and smirking and saying things that often made no sense at all. He was a cunning operator, that Putin. Stepped down after his second term in office in 2008, arranged for his close ally Dmitri Medvedev get ‘elected’ as President, then faded into the background but left his people behind at top positions to keep an eye on things. No one knew why Medvedev stayed in power only one term but it was clear that the KGB mafia must have had something to do with his sudden departure. In any case a former KGB General sprang out of nowhere and was just about to enter the Kremlin as the new head of state when things went wrong and he kicked the bucket allowing General Abramov to squeeze in.

Vadim finished his coffee. The four rowdy young idiots were now on their way out, talking and laughing loudly. There was only one man left in the café now. He was sitting in the far end corner, dressed in a creased dark-blue linen jacket, white cotton T-shirt and blue jeans, drinking Coke with lots of ice and glancing lazily around him. He was a big man, with short dark hair, bushy eyebrows and a large meaty nose. Beside his table stood a large black leather briefcase.

Vadim wasn’t bothered by the man’s presence, as he was quietly minding his own business. But just as he was beginning to enjoy the new peace six cops walked into the café. They were all dressed in the black uniforms of OMON, an elite police force which was created back in the 1990s to carry out special assignments. They wore bulletproof vests and weird looking black backpacks and carried machine guns. All were grim-looking, especially one who had a long scar running down his left cheek, all the way from the temple to the jaw.

In recent years more and more cops were being issued with machine guns as Moscow, like many other major Russian cities, began to resemble a fortress under siege: armed police and soldiers patrolled the streets, people were stopped and searched at random and check-points were set up on roads across the city. Mop-up operations, zachistki, happened practically every day with large areas cordoned off and house to house searches conducted. The cops could arrest anyone and detain them for as long as they wanted – all in the name of fighting terrorism. And yet, in spite of all that tight security, the terrorists somehow managed to continue their attacks and seemed to be growing in numbers and confidence.

The six cops pushed two tables together and sat down around them placing their machine guns on the floor. They ordered mineral water and nothing else. It was obvious that they weren’t planning to stay long. The waitress, a plump dyed blonde in a white dress and a red apron, brought them glasses filled with ice cubes and six small plastic bottles on a tray, but they all unscrewed the tops and drank straight out of the bottles while talking to each other in lowered voices.

Vadim watched them for a while. They looked strange, this lot. Too quiet for cops, too subdued and too tense. Vadim knew cops well; as a taxi driver he had to deal with them on a regular basis. During the day he would sometimes be stopped by them a good half dozen times. Either there would be supposedly something wrong with his car, or he’d be accused of breaking the speed limit, or jumping a red light, or, his personal favourite, ‘behaving suspiciously’.

He often wondered, what did it actually mean – to behave suspiciously? Did it mean driving too slow or too fast? Or maybe it meant fidgeting in the car and looking confused?

He knew, of course, exactly what it meant! The cops simply needed an excuse to make some quick money. He usually needed just one glance at their arrogant mugs to figure out what they were up to and how much he’d have to pay to get them off his back. But these six cops in the Little Green Light seemed unusual to him; there was something not quite right about them.

One thing which struck Vadim as especially odd was that they were all wearing black trainers with specially cushioned soles for running instead of the customary heavy shoes or jack-boots. Next thing they’ll start wearing shell suits, Vadim thought and couldn’t help smiling as he imagined a burly red faced-cop, standing at a road junction wearing an Adidas track suit, a baseball cap and white trainers. But then he reckoned that trainers were probably more suitable for chasing criminals and that was these six cops were wearing them. Although, in all honesty, he could hardly remember the days when cops actually bothered to catch any of the bad guys. Instead they spent their time harassing law-abiding citizens and extorting money from businessmen and shopkeepers. Corruption in the police under Putin had got completely out of control and later, when Medvedev took over from him, things did not improve. In essence it was one huge protection racket run by the Ministry of Interior. Everyone knew that the cops were corrupt as hell and yet nobody at the top did anything about it; they were all busy enriching themselves and hiding their money abroad.

To delay the moment when he’d have to get up and return back to the hot seat behind the wheel of his Toyota, Vadim took his mobile phone out of his shirt pocket and started browsing through its function menu. It was a slim black handset with sensor buttons, a digital night vision video camera, a microphone that could pick up sounds at considerable distances and a superfast Internet connection. And, naturally, it could be used as a miniature TV, a player, a game console, a portable computer and a satnav. The full lot.

Vadim switched on the camera, froze the frame and pointed it in different directions, admiring the quality of resolution. At one point the camera caught the cops huddled together round the two tables, talking in lowered voices. He switched on the video camera and filmed them for a moment, recording what they were saying. Then he sent the video clip via the Internet to his home PC. He often did that hoping that one day he’d film something really unusual which he could then sell to the newspapers for a lot of money.

Vadim then noticed that the man in the linen jacket was looking at him, as if saying, ‘You shouldn’t be filming cops on duty, you know.’ He felt slightly embarrassed, but the next moment he felt an overwhelming urge to tease the man. He pointed the phone at him and snapped him a couple of times. The man frowned and quickly turned away, obviously upset.

Vadim shrugged his shoulders – it was no big deal, he thought, as he sent the photos of the stranger to his computer and then put the phone back in his shirt pocket. He was definitely going to have a serious look at his collection of film clips and photos that night and delete most of the junk that he’d been snapping and sending to himself recently.

The cops finished drinking their water, picked up their machine guns and walked out of the café. A moment later the man in the corner got up, took his briefcase and hurried outside.

Vadim felt that it was time for him to get back to work. On a Friday he could expect to earn several grand easily. He rose from the table, waved goodbye to the waitress and walked out of the café.

Once outside he stopped for a moment. It was only then that he noticed that the weather had started to change. Clouds had appeared in the sky and a slight wind was now blowing. Several swallows shot overhead at lightning speed – a sure sign of impending rain.

I sure hope that it’ll rain at last, Vadim thought, as he walked in the direction of his car. The loud roar of several powerful motorcycles made him stop in his tracks. The presidential motorcycle squad sped past him. All the riders were wearing white helmets with a red stripe and black leather suits. The word was that their motorcycles were custom-made at some top-secret factory in Siberia and each one was equipped with a machine gun and had several secret compartments for storing firearms and grenades to defend the presidential motorcade in case of attack.

Vadim could never understand who in his right mind would even try to attack the President of Russia. He always thought that only a total idiot could come up with an idea like that, especially as everyone knew that the presidential bodyguards had orders to shoot first and ask questions later.

Two of the motorcyclists stopped at the point where a busy road joined Kutuzov Avenue, cutting off the incoming traffic. Two more occupied the dividing auxiliary line in the middle of the avenue, at regular distances from each other, prepared if necessary to deal with any emergency occurring in the opposite lane. The rest of the team sped off to prepare the route for the approaching motorcade.

‘Weird, this whole stuff!’ Vadim said out loud and walked on.

What he meant by ‘weird’ and ‘stuff’ he didn’t really know himself. It sort of flashed in his mind and he said it.

He came up to his car, pushed the button on the key lock and all four knobs popped up with a loud click. He liked the sound of that click – crisp and sharp, as if inviting him to get in and get back on the road. Then he noticed a black jeep with the presidential bodyguards in the distance. It had one bright flashing blue light in its radiator and another on its roof. It was followed at a distance by a black Mercedes and still further behind – by a blue, white and yellow police 5-Series BMW.

Vadim froze, looking at the motorcade. He was not alone; many passers-by stopped to stare at the approaching cars, as if at that moment nothing else mattered in the whole wide world.

Then Vadim noticed an unusual movement on the other side of the avenue…

Then Vadim noticed an unusual movement across the avenue. At least a dozen OMON policemen, all in their black uniforms and bulletproof vests and carrying machine guns, ran out from behind a row of kiosks. From the corner of his eye Vadim caught a flash of similar activity on his side of the avenue and looked to the left to see about fifteen armed cops running out of the arch of one of the block of flats facing Kutuzov Avenue. Among them he noticed the man with the long scar on his face whom he’d seen in the Little Green Light earlier.

The cops spread along the pavement, aiming their machine guns at the approaching motorcade. One of them was carrying a rocket propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder. He too was aiming it at the motorcade.

What the bloody hell’s going on? Vadim thought. Are they staging some exercise here or what?

But the next moment it became clear to him that this was no exercise. The cops opened fire at the motorcyclists, killing two of them instantly. The other two who were positioned on the auxiliary lane in the middle of the avenue quickly got off their motorcycles, pushing them to the ground and hurling themselves down beside them. They took small sub-machine guns out of special compartments and started to shoot back.

Vadim was so shocked by what he was seeing that for a moment he couldn’t move and just stood there motionless, watching the gunfight raging in front of him. His heart was beating fast. What is this? he was thinking frantically. What the bloody hell’ going on?

And then a loud explosion shook the ground. The cop with the grenade launcher had fired at the jeep carrying the presidential bodyguards. The grenade exploded in front of the jeep, sending it swerving off the road where it smashed into a lamp post. Four agents scrambled out of the damaged vehicle and opened fire on the attackers.

People on both sides of Kutuzov Avenue were now running for cover. Some fell down and remained on the ground, injured or just too terrified to get up. Vadim hid behind his car, but could still see what was happening on the road. A boy of about ten or eleven was running down the pavement on the other side and then stumbled and fell, probably hit by a stray bullet. A woman with several shopping bags stood motionless for a brief moment, frozen in horror, and then started running. A trader was trying desperately to pull down a shutter on his stall, hoping that it would protect his merchandise from the flying bullets…

Another explosion thundered. This time the grenade blew up in front of the black Mercedes and it spun around several times before screeching to a halt.

Vadim still could not believe his own eyes. He suddenly had a strange notion that a huge shadow had fallen on the ground, as if a giant bird were hovering overhead. But when he looked up at the sky there was nothing there but grey clouds.

This can’t be happening, he was thinking. I must be dreaming. I’m imagining all of this. And then it hit him – the camera! I need to film this.

He took out his mobile phone, switched on the camera and pointed it at the road in front of him.

It was then that some of the cops started running towards the black Mercedes. The bodyguards from the jeep, the two motorcyclists and the policemen from the BMW that had been following the Mercedes opened fire killing several of the attackers. The rest retreated, hiding behind parked cars at the kerb.

Three people got out of the Mercedes. Two were definitely bodyguards, wearing light bulletproof vests over their white short-sleeve shirts and holding guns. The third was a slim woman in a dark blue two-piece suit and a light blue blouse.

It must be the President’s wife! Vadim thought as he kept on filming. The bastards are trying to kill the wife of the President!

He then lowered his mobile for a moment. His heart was beating very fast.

‘Bastards!’ he shouted. ‘Bloody murderers!’

The sudden burst of emotion caused him to choke and splutter violently. Tears welled up in his eyes, blurring his vision. He continued filming, but couldn’t see what he was picking up with his camera.

The deafening sound of several explosions ripped through the air. It wasn’t immediately clear what had just happened, but it looked like the attackers must have been carrying explosives on them that detonated practically all at once.

Suicide bombers! Vadim thought with horror. Suicide bombers are trying to reach the President’s wife and blow her to smithereens. By now the Mercedes was engulfed in smoke and it wasn’t clear whether the people who had got out of it earlier were still alive.

It was then that the motorcyclists who had initially gone further down the avenue returned. They opened fire from the machine guns installed on their motorcycles beneath the headlamps. From a distance came the collective wail of police sirens.

And then all hell broke lose. One by one the retreating attackers began to explode and it seemed as if the ground itself was shaking.

Vadim fell down on the pavement clenching his mobile in one hand and covering his head with the other. Oh God, please don’t let me die, he thought. Please don’t let me die.

Thick black smoke was everywhere now and alarm systems in cars parked further up and down the avenue, triggered by the explosions, joined the deafening racket. Sporadic gunfire continued and several more explosions shook the ground.

Vadim lost all track of time. It seemed to him as though the madness around him was lasting forever although in reality only a few minutes had passed since he left the Little Green Light. He heard the sound of several people running past him and someone shouting something.

Then gradually the gunfire subsided. Vadim raised his head, looked around, and slowly got up. The pavement and the avenue itself were littered with the bodies of the dead and wounded. Cars and trading stalls were burning. There were at least half a dozen police cars on the road now with emergency lights flashing.

It was like a scene from a war movie or computer game. In fact, it was war itself…

Vadim suddenly noticed the man in the crumpled linen jacket, white T-shirt and jeans who had sat across from him in the café. He was cowering beside a shattered flower stall holding a machine gun. He was wearing a strange looking respirator on his face and Vadim only recognised him because he’d seen him at the café only several minutes before, his image still implanted in his brain.

Must be an undercover agent, he thought, probably watching these bastards and is now helping to round them up.

Then he felt that after all that excitement he just had to go to the toilet. His bladder was on the verge of exploding. He started running in the direction of Little Green Light. Through the din of the car alarms and police sirens he heard the man in the linen jacket shouting something.

Vadim stopped. The man aimed his machine gun at him.

‘Throw me your mobile!’ he shouted. ‘Do it! Now!’

Vadim froze. He couldn’t understand why the man in the blue linen jacket wanted to have his mobile phone. Did he need to call anyone urgently and didn’t have a phone of his own?

‘I said throw me your mobile, you dumb fuck!’ the man screamed, still half hidden behind the stall. ‘Do it!’

Vadim slowly took out his mobile from his shirt pocket and threw it to the man who caught it with his left hand and put it in his jacket pocket.

‘Shouldn’t have been taking all those pictures!’ he shouted to Vadim still pointing the machine gun at him. ‘Big fucking mistake!’

A short burst of gunfire pierced the air…

August 30. Time: 22.35

By evening the weather worsened.

The cold northern wind picked up and the temperature dropped sharply. It was as if autumn was sending the first signal of its impending arrival. After several heavy downpours the rain eventually turned into a steady, irritating drizzle.

A black Bentley drove slowly down a narrow road that ran through a thick pine forest just outside Moscow, until it finally stopped at a set of steel gates. The car’s headlights picked out the tiny raindrops that seemed to be suspended in mid air. Two searchlights switched on with a loud click and lit up the front of the Bentley. A security camera installed on the fence scanned the licence plate and a moment later the gates opened. The Bentley drove through and two guards came out of a small gatehouse and saluted the passenger in the back. The car moved slowly down the long driveway and stopped at a large three-storey house with four columns at the front and marble steps leading to the enormous double-paneled solid oak entrance doors.

There were cars parked outside to the left of the house, mostly Rolls-Royces and Bentleys. The drivers and the bodyguards were standing in clusters, smoking and talking in lowered voices.

As soon as the black Bentley stopped the entrance doors opened and a tall, thin faced man in thick glasses with a long nose and dark hair came out and ran down the stairs. His wore an open neck white shirt and casual black trousers. By the time he approached the Bentley, the driver had already got out, ran around the car and opened the rear right door.

A big, bulky man got out of the Bentley with a loud groan. His double-breasted light grey suit seemed a size too large for him, his light-blue shirt was wrinkled and his yellow tie was loose at the collar. In his right hand he was holding a string of black beads. He signalled to the driver to take a hike and he quickly got into the car and drove off.

‘Well?’ asked the tall man anxiously. ‘What the hell happened? When I heard over the radio that the bitch survived I immediately thought: how on earth are we going to explain to the others that things didn’t work out as planned? They’re all here you know, waiting to hear the full story. So tell me, what happened out there? Why didn’t they whack the bitch?’

The big man winced at this verbal onslaught on him. His large face was covered with pockmarks and his dark hair was disheveled, as if he had just washed it and dried it energetically with a towel without combing it afterwards. He had a large meaty nose and small piercing eyes.

‘How the hell should I know what happened,’ he said with irritation and frowned as if this whole conversation was causing him pain. ‘It seems the idiots couldn’t hit her. My man on the ground has not yet been in touch with me. He’s still busy sorting out some… some unfinished business. But once I see him I’ll know everything.’

The tall man shook his head.

‘You’d better come up with a good excuse why your people fucked up,’ he said. ‘Because the guys are pissed off big time. Say that they’ve invested a hell of a lot of money into this operation and it turned out to be a total mess. In a way I can understand them. I mean it’s not every day that they spend millions of their own money.’

The big man scowled.

‘Well, well, look who’s talking,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘You’ve had your cut from the deal, haven’t you? Twenty fucking million! Not bad for doing nothing. And now you’re telling me that I have to explain myself while you sit there quietly and watch me handle the others. Nice going.’

The tall man waved his hands and looked around, checking whether anyone overheard them.

‘Not so loud,’ he hissed. ‘Do you want the others to find out that we paid ourselves a commission? That’s just what we need now – a fucking war between ourselves. For your information I’ve had a hell of a time trying to keep everyone at bay, telling them that is was money well spent. I’m just saying that we need to sell the whole bloody thing to them as if it’s no big deal that she didn’t get whacked. That’s what I’m saying.

The big man waived his hand, indicating that he didn’t really care what the others thought. They went up the steps and entered the house. There were no servants about as the owner sent them away so that he could have some privacy with his guests.

Having passed through a dimly lit large hall with a round marble table in the middle and several large paintings of old masters in gold frames on the walls the two men walked through a short corridor a reached a brightly lit dining room. There was an enormous crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, above a long red wood dining table in the middle. Two portraits, of Yeltsin and Putin, both looking very statesmanlike, were hanging on the wall to the right. The portrait of President Medvedev was conspicuously missing.

The owner of the house always said that he was indebted to Yeltsin and Putin for ‘bringing him luck and prosperity’. If not for them he would have probably either remained the small-time black market wheeler-dealer that he was back in Soviet times or would have been banged up in jail for a very long time for fraud, bribery and tax evasion once he made it big.

Eight people were sitting round the table in the dining room, all casually but expensively dressed. They were sipping wine from large crystal glasses and nibbling on cheese and grapes from the large wooden platters in front of them. All heads turned in unison as the big man accompanied by the host entered the room. Eight pairs of eyes were watching them closely.

The tall man smiled nervously and raised his hand as if there was a need to attract the attention of his guests.

‘Well, it’s official now,’ he said nodding in the direction of the big man standing beside him, as if he just got confirmation from him, ‘Abramov’s wife has definitely survived. But there’s no point in getting all upset about it. The most important thing is that her hubby got our message – touch our interests again and next time your darling wife won’t be so lucky.’

The big man stood beside the host looking annoyed and picking on his beads. He obviously didn’t like the introduction. There was a silent pause that lasted a few seconds. And then everyone started talking at once.

‘I knew it, I knew it, I fucking knew it!’ cried out a man with short curly ginger hair and a thick ginger stubble thumping the table with his fist. His yellow polo shirt had a red wine stain on it and there were breadcrumbs stuck to his chin. ‘We blow millions of dollars of our own hard-earned money and what happens? Nothing happens! A few shots are fired and a couple of Kremlin bodyguards get whacked. All very impressive for a hundred million fucking dollars!’

A plump man with a round red face, a double chin and small, pig-like eyes was nodding in agreement.

‘We should have checked whom we’re getting for our money,’ he said. ‘I mean, we forked out a bloody fortune and what did we get? A bunch of idiots who can’t even carry out a hit properly. Weren’t they supposed to be some fucking professionals? Highly trained killers and all that? Some professionals they turned out to be. Couldn’t even shoot properly.’

At the other end of the table a thin faced bald man with glowing dark eyes rubbed his monkey-like hands.

‘Didn’t I tell that we should all have been involved,’ he said. ‘Things like that have to be planned properly. It’s not some fucking picnic, it’s a fucking hit! And we shouldn’t have paid everything in advance. Who pays upfront nowadays? Only on delivery. That’s how I always operate. I p-a-y o-n-l-y o-n d-e-l-I-v-e-r-y!’

A fat man with a triple chin, watery grey eyes and a crew cut blond hair was shaking his head disapprovingly.

‘So what do we do now?’ he said. ‘This prick Abramov might get it into his head that because his wife survived he might just as well go on tightening the screws even further. Or even worse – he might go on the warpath and go after us. We should have simply offered him and his people a chunk of our profits and by now he’d be sucking our dicks and enjoying it. Just like the previous lot did. But now it’ll cost us even more money…’

While all this outpouring of emotion was going on the host gestured to the big man to sit at the top of the table. He walked around and sat down at the far end. The host sat across from him at the other end of the table. He filled his glass with wine.

‘Friends,’ he said in a loud voice, raising the glass, ‘let us not fall out. Whatever happened out there we still managed to send a clear signal to the Kremlin. No one meddles with the Committee.’

He looked around the table, encouraging others to join him. One by one all present, some with visible reluctance, raised their glasses.

‘To the Committee!’ the tall man proclaimed and drank his wine. The others followed. Anticipating a possible desire on the part of some of his guests to smash their glasses in the traditional boisterous Russian fashion the host said, ‘I’d ask all of you guys not to throw your glasses on the floor. They cost two hundred bucks each, you know.’

But he needn’t have bothered. None of the people around the table felt that there was anything to celebrate.

‘And now let’s hear the details,’ the host said sitting down on his chair.

‘Yes, let’s hear them in all their glorious detail,’ the man with the ginger hair said sarcastically in a low whisper which everyone around the table heard clearly.

All eyes in the room were once again fixed firmly on the big man. He looked around the table a couple of times. His right hand holding the beads was trembling slightly as he tried to control his anger.

‘I heard someone here saying that we’ve wasted our money for nothing,’ he said finally. ‘That the people we hired to do the job are basking in the sun and laughing at us. Well, let me tell you something – no one’s basking anywhere! All of them are dead. Blown up to pieces, to tiny shreds. There’s nothing left of them, nothing! Got that? The backpacks my people gave them with additional ammo and flasks with water contained remote controlled explosives. And when the time came – Boom!’ – and the big man banged his fist on the table – ‘they were all blown up to pieces.’

The veins on his neck were bulging and beads of sweat appeared on his brow. His paused for a moment to catch his breath. There was total silence in the room.

‘And tomorrow,’ the big man continued in a lowered voice, ‘the Chechens will take the rap for the whole bloody thing. They’ll post a message on the Internet demanding the withdrawal of all federal troops from Chechnya and all that other shit about independence and freedom. So you can stop worrying; no one’s gonna be looking for you.’

The fat man with the triple chin shook his head in defiance. He looked unconvinced.

‘But what about the one who slipped away?’ he asked with suspicion in his voice. ‘I’ve heard over the radio that one of them got away,’ he added looking around the table, as if asking the others for support. ‘What if he’s caught and talks?’

The big man looked at him in disgust.

‘He’s being dealt with as we speak,’ he said. ‘He won’t talk to anyone.’

‘And what about the cops?’ the man with three chins persisted. ‘What if they find out about us?’

The big man shook his head.

‘They’ll find nothing,’ he said. ‘My people on the inside will see to it.’

The men at the table were watching him in silence. But it was still a hostile silence. The big man grinned, showing off a diamond in one of his front teeth.

‘And another thing about your money supposedly being wasted,’ he said. ‘For your information they’re now shitting themselves in the Kremlin. I know because I’ve got access to certain people. The new crowd understands that their beloved President stepped out of line by interfering in the affairs of big business and that he won’t last long if things continue as they are. They’re not idiots there you know. They’re worried for their own shitty lives. So they’ll try to convince him to slow down. And he’ll listen to them.’

The big man fell silent and glanced around the table. Here they are, some of Russia’s top businessmen, he thought. All former KGB operatives or informers turned multi-millionaires ten times over all thanks to Putin’s twelve-year reign. Total wealth probably exceeds what? Thirty to forty billion? And yet they squeal that they’ve spent several million each and didn’t get the bitch’s head delivered to them on a platter. As if it makes any difference whether she was killed or not. When it comes to blowing money on parties and hookers they don’t feel any regrets. But ask them to finance really important things and they start counting every bloody penny. Bastards and pricks, all of them!

The whispering around the table was picking up. The big man frowned.

‘Let me make it clear once again,’ he announced in a loud voice, ‘President Abramov got our message! He may be a military man but he understands that there’s no way he can win this war. And I promise you that he won’t be meddling in our affairs anymore. From now on he’ll mind his own business and we’d able to do our thing in peace.’

They were watching him, but the look in their eyes was changing and the initial hostility was ebbing away.

‘And if he doesn’t,’ the big man added ominously, ‘then next time…’

He stopped abruptly. But everyone in the room got the message loud and clear.

August 31. Time: 09.30

The next day after the attack on Kutuzov Avenue Moscow seemed eerily quiet.
There were fewer pedestrians in the centre of the city than usual and even fewer cars. The grey and windy weather that had firmly settled in during the night added even more gloom to the overall feeling of despair. Most people just could not come to terms with what had happened. The very idea that a group of heavily armed men could attack an official motorcade carrying the wife of the head of state in the centre of Moscow in broad daylight seemed absurd and terrifying in equal measure. If terrorists were prepared to kill the wife of the top man in the country so brazenly, many reckoned, what about us, mere mortals? No one could feel safe in Russia anymore.
Meanwhile panicky rumours were spreading all over the capital. The number of suicide bombers gradually rose to several hundred and the casualty count at one point reached a thousand dead and wounded. According to some ‘witness accounts’, the President’s wife had grabbed a gun from one of the bodyguards and taken part in the battle with the terrorists. There was also talk that the President had supposedly rushed from the Kremlin in a helicopter to help save his wife.
Most people were convinced that the attack was the work of Chechen terrorists who were sending a message to the new man in the Kremlin that their campaign of terror would continue to escalate unless he withdrew his troops from Chechnya and gave the republic full independence from Russia. But it was the first time ever that the Chechens had actually dared to attack a member of the first family. In the past they had always chose soft targets outside Chechnya itself, killing civilians including women and children. The attack on the President’s wife seemed to signal a dramatic change in their strategy.
All the morning newspapers carried blanket coverage of the assassination attempt with stories of suicide bombers spreading death and destruction in the heart of Moscow. Details of the attack were still sketchy when they went to press so they mostly published photographs of the carnage left by the explosions, the bodies of the dead and wounded, the burnt out cars and street stalls, the smashed security jeep and the bullet-ridden Mercedes that had been taking the President’s wife to the Kremlin. Eyewitness accounts portrayed horror and total chaos that followed the attack. Some people complained that it took the emergency services nearly half an hour to respond to the incident and that some of the wounded had to wait for more than an hour to be taken to hospital.
All the papers published the photo of the boy who was killed in the crossfire, lying dead on the pavement. In her interview to one of the newspapers his distraught mother called for an ending to the moratorium on the death penalty in Russia and applying it to terrorists who killed innocent people.
Throughout the night and the following day most TV channels showed extended news bulletins and live reports from the scene of the attack, which was cordoned off by police and FSB agents. But no one seemed to raise any serious questions, like, for example, how was it possible that the authorities, who were always boasting about ‘watertight security’ in Moscow, had missed a large group of armed terrorists getting together to attack the wife of the President of Russia? And none of the TV reporters even raised the possibility of any heads rolling as a consequence of that breach of security.
Since Putin came to power security chiefs were never held responsible for anything, even when their incompetence was blindingly obvious to everyone, as it happened during the infamous theatre siege in Moscow or the school siege in the town of Beslan or on countless other occasions. And as the new President had not removed a single security chief after coming to power, no one expected this to change.
Senior officials, gathered at Kutuzov Avenue, seemed to be more preoccupied with a public relations exercise than with the investigation itself. They did their best to demonstrate that they were in total control of the situation and yet provided no new information about the events of the previous day.
‘It was a monstrous crime,’ an FSB general, a tall man with a cold stare was telling the journalists. ‘But rest assured, we’ll do whatever it takes to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. The FSB Director has taken personal control of the investigation. We’ll leave no stone unturned in our search for the savages who carried out this atrocity.’
The police general, a fat, red-faced man with watery eyes, was even vaguer. ‘Our investigators will work round the clock and won’t rest until they find all the criminals behind this attack,’ he said. ‘The best people in the force are conducting the investigation. They’re closing in on the conspirators as we speak.’
By that time it had been established that about thirty men, all in police uniforms, had been involved in the attack. All of them wore backpacks packed with powerful explosives that were detonated once it became clear that the attack had failed. Five Kremlin bodyguards were killed and three were seriously wounded. Twenty-four passers-by had died and about a hundred were wounded. One of them, Vadim Kotov, a driver from the number 12 Moscow Taxi Park, was in a coma in hospital having been hit by three bullets in the chest and one in the head. The doctors were saying that his chances of survival were very slim.
The investigators had compiled a list of more than fifty eyewitnesses. The most startling revelation from several of them was that some of the attackers had been shot by two unknown assailants before the explosives they were carrying went off. Who these people were and why they fired on the attackers was still a mystery.
By mid-morning the press-office of the FSB issued a brief statement about the assassination attempt, giving the exact time of the attack – 16.15 pm – and the exact number of people killed and injured, including the attackers. The statement said that an unknown Chechen terrorist group calling itself Grey Eagles had taken responsibility for the suicide attack demanding the immediate withdrawal of Russian federal troops from Chechnya and the release of all prisoners. The FSB statement also said that the terrorist attack demonstrated that ‘Chechen bandits were prepared to go to any lengths to achieve their aims’ and that the Russian intelligence service was going to do everything to find the people responsible.
Once an obscure Chechen terrorist group had taken responsibility for the assassination attempt security chiefs in Moscow privately breathed a collective sigh of relief. Chechen terrorism, they reckoned, was something the Russian people understood and had even got used to. For the last twelve years attacks by the Chechens had become a regular occurrence in Russia. Schools, hospitals and even nurseries had been taken over by terrorists and scores of people killed and wounded during these attacks. The view was that Chechen terrorists were the lowest of lowlife, the scum of the earth, capable of any atrocity in their fight for independence from Moscow. So at least in this case there was an unpredictable and ruthless foe, and the government could once again resort to patriotic slogans and call on the people to unite in the face of the common enemy.
By midday Federal forces in Chechnya had already carried out several ‘revenge’ attacks on rebel strongholds in the mountains and hundreds of people suspected of links to the resistance movement were rounded up and taken to secret locations for brutal interrogation. In Moscow itself dawn raids had taken place and several hundred people, mostly illegal immigrants from the southern Russian republics of Ossetia and Ingushetia, were arrested on suspicion of ‘having links with terrorists’.
In the afternoon the Kremlin’s press-office issued its own statement clarifying that the President’s wife had been on her way to the Kremlin to greet a visiting foreign head of state and his spouse. She was supposed to show the wife around the Kremlin and then host a tea party in her honour. The statement said that Mrs. Abramova had not been harmed in any way and was recovering from shock at home. It also said that many world leaders had sent their messages to the President, expressing their support and condemning the people behind the attack.
But one thing was missing from the statement. Only a handful of officials knew in advance exactly when the motorcade carrying Mrs. Abramova was supposed to be passing down Kutuzov Avenue. So whoever had passed the information to the terrorists had to be an insider, and a very senior one…

* * *

August 31. Time: 17.45

‘And I still can’t understand how it was possible for a large group of heavily armed men to attack the car carrying the wife of the head of state in broad daylight!’

President Abramov was pacing up and down in the large study of his official country retreat outside Moscow. The retreat had been hastily set up for him in a former government country guest house as the previous presidential country residence was given to Vladimir Putin and his family to occupy for the rest of their lives at the taxpayer’s expense. The exact same thing happened when Boris Yeltsin stood down after handing power over to Putin in a very strange and, some even said, blatantly unconstitutional way. He was also allowed to keep his official residence outside Moscow for life.

Democracy in Russia didn’t come cheap, especially when it came to looking after top government officials, both acting and retired…

Abramov stopped beside his desk for a moment, drumming the surface with his fingers. He was dressed casually – in a blue short-sleeve shirt and light-brown trousers. A tall man with short thick grey hair and brown eyes, he had a thin straight nose and dark eyebrows without a hint of grey in them. Above his upper lip was a small scar that turned red whenever he got excited.

He was talking to a man who was sitting in an armchair by the window. His dark hair was going grey at the temples and he had dark deep set eyes, a rather large nose and a determined chin. He was wearing a white shirt with a slightly loosened tie and dark blue trousers. His jacket was hanging on the armchair.

‘Maybe you can explain to me, Sasha, how it could have happened!’ Abramov said, turning to face the man in the armchair. ‘Or maybe I’m just too stupid and old fashioned to grasp the new realities?’

The man in the armchair bit his lip in frustration. General Alexander Komarov, a former military intelligence operative, had been recently appointed by the President to head the newly created State Committee on Economic Crimes, set up to fight serious financial fraud committed by criminals, big businessmen, government officials and elected representatives on all levels, including members of parliament and regional assemblies. The committee was still in its organisational stage and many of the positions were still vacant.

Without waiting for General Komarov to respond President Abramov walked to the window and stood there, looking out. Two gardeners were mowing the grass in the back garden, occasionally shouting something to each other over the noise. For a while Abramov watched them in silence, as if trying to work out what they were saying. He then turned round to face General Komarov once again. The expression on his face showed that he was still waiting for an answer to his question.

The General shifted uncomfortably in his armchair.

‘I can understand how you feel, Volodya,’ he said quietly. ‘The mere thought that Anya could have been killed yesterday still gives me the shivers. Nevertheless, we need to keep our nerve…’

‘Sure, sure!’ Abramov exploded. ‘I might have known that you’d start telling me to keep my nerve! You now sound like a typical KGB man, a chekist. A warm, compassionate heart coupled with a cold, calculating mind – if I remember correctly, that was how their founding father Felix Dzerzhinski defined a perfect KGB agent. Yet he himself didn’t really live up to that description, did he? Not much compassion shown on his part when sending hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths.’

Abramov fell silent. General Komarov was looking at him in saddened silence.

‘But none of that really matters now,’ Abramov said finally. ‘It’s just that sometimes restraint and caution are not just unhelpful, they’re downright damaging and even dangerous. If you don’t respond adequately, your enemies tend to get the wrong idea and think that you’re afraid of them. And then there’ll be no stopping them. The only problem is, we have too many enemies. Most of those former KGB people who made millions under Putin and the current lot in the FSB are probably plotting against us as we speak. They still can’t forgive me for winning the election and throwing all their plans into disarray. Just when they were preparing to enrich themselves even more, a total outsider, a military man lands in the Kremlin promising to put an end to corruption. All of them must be feeling nervous, not knowing what to expect.’

Abramov started pacing back and forth again, his hands now clasped behind his back. After a few moments he stopped in front of General Komarov.

‘Do you know what I think?’ he said. ‘I think that I should summon all those Putin’s and Medvedev’s protégés and tell them that if they don’t change their ways and pay back the state what they owe it in tax they’ll have to suffer the consequences. And give them a deadline, say until December, so that they won’t be able to claim that they didn’t have enough time to think it over. And then, if they don’t do as they’re told, I’ll sack most of the top officials in one go and force the oligarchs to pay up to balance the state books, so to speak.’

Abramov looked hard at his friend.

‘Well, what would you say to that?’ he asked.

General Komarov drew a deep breath. By the expression on his face it was clear that he didn’t like what he’d just heard.

‘I thought we’d agreed not to rush things,’ he said. ‘I thought we were supposed to replace Putin’s and Medvedev’s people gradually and deal with corruption step by step. We’re still too weak to act decisively, we need more of our supporters to take over key posts in the government. At the moment most of the security chiefs and top policemen are still loyal to the previous regime. Even the Prime Minister isn’t exactly our biggest fan, to put it mildly. Not to mention most newspapers and television which are owned by our enemies. But once we tilt the balance in our favour we can start to introduce real changes. And besides, you promised the Kremlin people that you wouldn’t rock the boat during your first years in office. So how would it look if you were to go back on your word now, only several months after the election?’

Abramov walked back to the window and stood there with his back to the General. Judging by the tightness with which he was now clenching his hands behind his back it was clear that the General’s words had hit him hard.

He remembered that meeting at the Kremlin clearly, as if it were only yesterday. It was a cold, grey morning in February when he was driven to see Putin’s closest aides. The election was only two weeks away, but after the sudden death of Semyon Ivanov, the front-runner, the whole election campaign was in disarray. All of a sudden Abramov became the firm favourite. His nearest rival, a former communist, trailed him by ten points and had no chance of catching up in time for the election.

Suddenly the spotlight was on Abramov. Journalists started following him around and his campaign team was inundated with requests for interviews from newspapers and TV stations. Everybody wanted to know what Abramov thought of this and that, what he did in his spare time, what books he read and what TV programmes he liked. His campaign rallies suddenly turned into mass gatherings and people he had never met or even heard of before were asking to see him in private to discuss ‘urgent matters’. General Komarov, who was Abramov’s main campaign organiser, had to hire an additional hundred people to cope with the overwhelming workload. The feeling in Abramov’s camp was that victory was just a stone’s throw away.

But there were also sinister signs that having pushed out Medvedev and failing to install their man in the Kremlin Putin’s people were getting ready to cancel the elections altogether. Several newspapers published articles openly saying that the death of the leading presidential contender meant that the forthcoming contest could no longer be fair and that it would make sense to postpone it for a year or even more. Several deputies in parliament even tabled a motion calling for a snap-referendum to appoint Putin as head of state for life.

It was then that Abramov received that fateful phone call from the Kremlin’s chief of staff, Aleksei Rudin, who asked for an urgent meeting to discuss, as he put it, ‘the new situation’.

‘I think it would be best for everyone, General, if you come to see us,’ Rudin said in his usual arrogant manner. ‘And I suggest that you come alone, so that we can speak candidly. There’s no need to advertise our discussions, is there?’

At the meeting in the Kremlin, attended by Rudin and his five deputies – four of whom were former KGB officials – Abramov was presented with a simple choice: unless he agreed to preserve the status quo if elected the elections would be postponed indefinitely. He was told that the Constitutional Court of Russia had already drafted a document decreeing that the death of the front-running candidate meant the results of the election could not be considered ‘lawful’ and it would have to be postponed.

‘As you understand, General,’ one of Rudin’s deputies, a big man with a red face, said with a nasty grin, ‘we could always use this document to declare the results of the election void, even after it takes place. So there’s no point in thinking of promising us one thing now and then going back on your word’.

Another deputy, a short, skinny man with thin lips and closely set eyes, demanded that as soon as Abramov was elected he signed an ‘irrevocable’ presidential decree giving the outgoing head of state, members of his family and his closest aides total immunity from any criminal or civil prosecution.

‘I’m not implying, General, that our current President and his inner circle have anything to fear,’ he said, watching Abramov closely, ‘but as a tradition of providing legal protection was established when Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin stepped down, it would only be fair to do the same thing on this occasion.’

Abramov could not believe what he was hearing. The Kremlin thugs were actually threatening him, the official presidential candidate, with sanctions and punishment if he did not agree to play by their rules! For a brief moment he even had a strong urge to walk out of the meeting, but then decided that it would be best to avoid a confrontation at this stage. He was dealing with cunning, treacherous people who had serious financial backers and he had to play his cards right. The reality was that Putin’s camp was calling the shots and that they were perfectly capable of carrying out their threats.

Rudin, a tall, skinny, bald man in thin rimmed glasses, was obviously enjoying the way Abramov was being humiliated by his deputies. He knew that the presidential hopeful really had no choice but to agree to their conditions.

‘The future of Russian democracy rests on your shoulders, General,’ he said with faint smile on his thin lips. ‘Depending on your decision it’s either stability or a period of uncertainty for our country.’

That was how the deal was struck to allow Abramov to become the new President of Russia. He had to give his word not to conduct any drastic reshuffles in the Kremlin administration itself and to leave several heads of key departments in their places for at least the first two years of his term. It was a humiliating arrangement, but it was still better than letting Putin’s people run the show for another four or even more years.

And now, several months later after that meeting in the Kremlin, Abramov was an elected head of state who’d just nearly lost his wife to hired assassins and yet could do practically nothing about it. Even his closest friend and ally was calling on him to keep his part of the deal with Putin’s crowd. For a while at least.

Yes, it’s true, he was thinking, reflecting on what General Komarov had said to him, I did promise to keep the status quo and I did sign that decree giving Putin and his closest people total immunity from prosecution. But I had no other choice then. Otherwise his people would have postponed the elections and then made sure that their own man became President. I simply couldn’t allow that to happen. I couldn’t let them pull off another coup, like Yeltsin did twelve years ago when he plucked Putin from obscurity and made him his successor. But I never promised them to sit around doing nothing. This was not part of the deal. I said that I wouldn’t conduct a radical shake-up of the government and create problems for the oligarchs. But that didn’t mean that I was offering a free ride for all. And after what happened yesterday I now have the right to take at least some preventive measures.

He turned around to face General Komarov.

‘For your information, Sasha, the national interests of Russia are much more important than the promises I gave to Putin’s people,’ he said in a coarse voice. ‘And if national interests require me to go back on my word, I’ll do just that. I won’t just sit quietly and watch all those thugs plot against me and steal billions while children and pensioners go hungry. Yes, I’ll go back on my word if the national interests demand it.’

General Komarov rose up from the armchair and walked to the far end of the study. He then turned around.

‘I understand how you feel,’ he said. ‘I too sometimes despair at how all those disgusting lowlifes who rose to prominence under Yeltsin and Putin continue to suck the lifeblood out of Russia. But we must be patient and not respond to provocation…’

President Abramov shook his head but said nothing. He turned around and looked out of the window again. The two gardeners had stopped mowing the grass and gone for a smoke. Several rooks had flown down from the branches and were pecking the ground for insects. Abramov watched the birds in silence for a while.

General Komarov walked to a small table where a jug of ice cold water stood on a tray along with several empty glasses. He poured himself a full glass and drank it in one go, nearly choking on it. No wonder people say that water isn’t vodka and that unlike vodka you can’t drink a lot of water, he thought, remembering the old saying that was so popular in his younger days. A lot of booze was consumed then, but in the past ten years General Komarov was staying away from it. He saw what it did to many of his fellow officers and even some of his close friends. It destroyed their own lives and the lives of their families.

He went back to the armchair and sat down. He had done a lot of walking that day and his left leg was throbbing, a painful reminder of the wound he had received during the civil war in Prednistrovye in Moldova in 1992 where he first met Vladimir Abramov, then a colonel in the Russian army.

A lot of water had passed under the bridge since then. They met again in Chechnya in 1995. Abramov was then commander of the joint forces in the North Caucasus and Komarov, then a Colonel of GRU, the military intelligence, was acting as his deputy in charge of special operations. It was in Chechnya that they became close friends and political allies. They both realised then that drastic changes had to be introduced in the country to avoid a total meltdown.

The war in Chechnya was proving to be a disaster, as the politicians in Moscow stubbornly rejected any opportunity to start a peace process. No one in the Kremlin was ever prepared to take responsibility for anything. At times it even seemed that the government actually wanted the conflict to drag on as long as possible so as to distract the nation’s attention from the appalling blunders in domestic policy. And while the politicians were playing their games, tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Chechen conflict continued to pay with their lives…

General Komarov snapped out of his thoughts and rubbed his leg. Abramov turned away from the window to face him.

‘So what do you suggest we do?’ he said.

The General frowned.

‘I know you’ll probably get all wound up again,’ he said, ‘but I must advise caution and restraint at this point in time. I’d even suggest toning down your rhetoric for now so that whoever was behind the attack thinks that you got their message. That way you’d win yourself some time…’

Abramov’s face flushed with anger, his scar turning dark red.

‘So you’re suggesting that I swallow my pride and lie low!’ he thundered. ‘Keep quiet, in a sort of dignified manner. Like in that saying, “Everyone around me is in shit and I’m all clean and tidy, riding a white horse and wearing a white suit”. Some advice! And to think I’m hearing that from my closest ally and friend!’

General Komarov shook his head energetically.

‘I’m offering nothing of the kind,’ he said. ‘Everything will go according to our plan. Whatever happens, our plan remains the same. It’s just that you need to be careful and not make too many enemies.

There are thousands of people in Moscow closely monitoring your every step. As soon as you put pressure on Putin’s people and the oligarchs they’ll panic. And, judging by what happened yesterday, some of them are prepared to go to any lengths to protect their interests.’

General Komarov paused to catch his breath. The events of the previous day had shocked him no less than his friend. He was prepared for anything – opposition from Putin’s people in government, a hate campaign in the media controlled by their opponents. But he never anticipated that someone would actually try to murder the President’s wife.

‘You leave all the dirty work to me and my men,’ General Komarov said with a faint smile. ‘That was the whole point of creating my state committee. Give us time and we’ll start recovering the money that is owed to the Russian people. And another thing – I won’t rest until I find the thugs who ordered to kill your wife. Don’t you worry about that. I’ll leave no stone unturned. I’ll find the best people for the job…’

At that moment there was a knock on the door.

‘Yes, come in!’ Abramov said loudly.

The door opened and Anna Abramova, the President’s wife, walked into the room leading two children by the hand. The girl, Anastasia, had just turned ten and the boy, Dimitri, was eight. Anna had a piece of plaster on her forehead, the only visible reminder of the horrific events of the previous day. She was tall, slim, with long dark hair and her slightly narrow green eyes and high cheekbones betrayed her Eastern roots.

Abramov’s face lit up as he hurried to greet them. General Komarov rose from his armchair. As he watched his friend hugging his children he grew even more determined to find the people behind the attack on the President’s wife. Before they struck again…

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