by Tim Heath
“Get it?” Alex said as Sasha climbed into the passenger seat, Alex pulling away moments later.
“I certainly hope so,” Sasha said, opening the folder once he’d slipped on his seatbelt.
Five minutes later Alex was turning the car around. Not only had the information––a personnel file, complete with a photo for the barman in question––given an address, it listed the name of the establishment: Duke’s club.
“We’ll be there in less than fifteen minutes,” Alex said, navigating through a part of London he knew a little better than most areas. Alex recognised the venue as soon as they pulled up, two men again visibly on guard just inside the doors.
“We called at this place twice after the murder, the first time getting nowhere as they demanded a search warrant, the second time with a warrant but the place was empty. They’d most probably cleared everyone out through the fire escape.”
They sat there for a moment. There was no visible activity, but it was also clear the two agents wouldn’t get into the place without a warrant. Duke’s was an extremely private Gentleman’s club, frequented during the day by a host of high-level figures who wanted their conversations––and those of the people they were meeting with––done away from listening ears. The evening crowd was different, but anyone there in the daytime was by invitation only––the waiting list was long, those deemed acceptable exclusively few. Designed for that purpose, in fact. And one of those lucky few had been their previous DDG, Thomas Price. His body had been found just metres from the front entrance in an alley.
“Makes perfect sense now. Price would have been grabbed not long after leaving the place. Putin’s men must have stayed behind,” Alex said, though the entire party had been tracked and had all left together the night the Russian President had been in London.
“You still think it’s him?” Sasha hadn’t jumped to that conclusion as easily as Alex had.
“I think it fits perfectly. A club Putin’s convoy happens to swing by and Price found dead hours later. Who else could it be?”
“Do we try and reach this barman?” Sasha said, holding up the photo of a man in his thirties with dark hair, brown eyes.
“We know he identified the body. If he’d been working that day, he would have witnessed the meeting between Price and Putin. But it risks getting word back to the Kremlin, assuming there is an ongoing connection here,” Alex said, knowing full well from what Sasha had told him that in these situations, such connections never expired. “I say we head back to the office. There is no need to blow your cover trying to get in when we aren't allowed. We can run the name through the police database, and look into the club itself. I think that’s a lot safer.”
“Okay,” Sasha said, happy to go along with the suggestion. “Drive us back,” he said and sat back reflecting for the entire journey to Vauxhall House just how much his world had changed over the last few months.
The Kremlin, Moscow––Russia
There were now just five days before the first round of voting started in the most closely fought and unpredictable Russian Presidential elections in modern history. Within the inner chambers of the Kremlin, Putin was meeting with his campaign team. The final surge was before them.
“We’ve run a good race so far,” the President said, addressing the room. He was trailing by two points in the polls, Filipov currently leading, and Kaminski seemingly dropping back even more to a now more distant than ever third place. “But we must do better.” Putin had always been leading by that stage in all of his three previous elections, and had won outright each time in the first round of voting. Only once, in 1996 and before his time as a candidate, did the vote ever go to a second round, Boris Yeltsin winning that one in the end. That was also the only year––the reason for the second round, as well––where a third-placed candidate had received more than ten per cent of the vote. Up until now, the Communist Party candidate had always been second.
Now, everything had changed. Like they say about buses, you wait for ages for a viable challenger to the Presidency and then two come along at once. The appearance of both oligarchs in the race had thrown the election wide open, and the numbers were dictating that a second round of voting was all but inevitable.
Unless, of course, Putin and his team could do something about that.
It was clear that in the first round of voting, those not backing their President would most probably split the vote between the two independent candidates. Putin was the only candidate with a proven track record. He viewed those who didn’t vote for him as betraying his years of service to the nation. The split votes gave Putin his best chance of an outright victory, as both oligarchs battled each other for a share of the votes. However, the arithmetic seemed to suggest they all had the numbers. An outright win in the first round, this time, looked impossible.
It would take a monumental effort to get folks to change their mind now. However, Putin's team were repeatedly reminding the President, if they could shave five, or ten per cent of the voters from each oligarch and deliver them back into the Putin camp, it might be enough. Even if a second round was still required, it might be enough to put doubt in the minds of those who had voted against the President. It was clear in Putin’s mind, anyone not voting for him was an adversary.
Of course, given a second round of voting, there would then be all the Communist Party voters up for grabs. Historically this represented ten to twenty per cent of the vote, though the numbers were misty at best, due to the unusual nature of that year’s election. Would these voters just refuse to vote in the second ballot? Or would they prefer to keep Putin in power, than hand their country over to either of the capitalist loose cannons? Putin was confident there were voters to be picked up in that scenario.
“Remember, it’s not how you start the race that matters,” Putin continued, standing in front of them, speaking to them as if they were the watching world, “but how you finish that counts!” They had anticipated this line but it still brought a vocal response.
Pep talk over, they all got back to work. Putin left the front of the room, walking over to one side and gathering around him his three closest political aides.
“We need every single vote this time, friends,” he said. They just didn’t have the budget or media reach that they’d almost taken for granted in the last three elections. Only now did they appreciate how that had made it all the easier in the past. “And get me the stats on those Communist Party voters. They could just be what saves us, ironically.” And it was ironic. It had been the most senior of the three Putin aides who had first made that suggestion. Never before had Putin been in that situation. He’d always defeated his opponents––the Communist candidate each time his nearest challenger––in the first round. In all those elections, the Communist Party voters were merely the opposition, those willing to betray the country for ideas and mindsets that were thirty years expired. Putin couldn’t ever live to see the day that they got back in power. He loathed even the concept of communism, as well as those who could turn up year after year and vote for it. Now, should it come to a predicted second round and if encouraged enough, these same voters might be what got him over the finish line.
They all left Putin, going away to put into place what he had asked of them. Over the next two days they would profile the average Communist Party voter––who they were, why they voted that way and what aspect of the candidate did they connect with most to keep them voting, for what Putin deemed such old-school politics. They knew Putin could never openly reach out to them at the moment. These voters were still going to vote for their usual party in the first round, so anything Putin did to move nearer to that group would only damage his support base. They were, therefore, prepping ahead of the inevitable second round of voting.
The news from the UK, therefore, came as a bombshell just four days before the election. In reportedly leaked files––akin to Snowden and his antics in the USA––Putin was explicitly named in the murder of the former Deputy Dire
ctor General of Britain’s MI6. The Sun newspaper, who reported the exclusive, had detailed images of the Russian President’s convoy, including the moments of silence, when it had seemingly vanished.
Mobile phone data––it’d been the same data that Alex and Anissa had used based on the phone numbers Sasha had sent them––was also included in the article to show the world that Putin had taken the unusual detour. Unusual and needless, that is until you considered the crime that was about to take place.
There was then a full double page spread going into great detail of the crime itself: where they found Thomas Price’s body and the likely timeline of his death.
They stated there was a known gap between when Putin’s convoy had gone past and the probable time of the death of the DDG.
The accusation was plain to see, however: the serving President of Russia used his trip to London to send a message to those in power. He personally ordered the execution of an active service member of MI6, even if he didn’t do the deed himself. Is this the sort of man Russians should re-elect? Is this the sort of man the world should allow to carry on in office?
Putin thumped the conference table hard the first time he read the article, upsetting cups from their position and sending employees scampering.
“This is libel, and I’ll make them pay! Get me the name of everyone who worked on this story, and get me the supposed source of the leak!”
By the following morning––the election now three days away from the first round of voting––the story had broken globally. While in previous votes Putin would have used Sokoloff to suppress the impact the story had on his nation, a people so easily persuaded by what they read, he didn’t now have that luxury. All the leading newspapers ran with the sensational story––some praised his actions––most questioned the move if it was indeed true.
It was apparent most believed it was true. Presented in the way it was––apparently from secret MI6 internal documents––people lapped it up. Amongst his mainstream voters, there was a noticeable drop in the polls––the story had cost him at least five points, both oligarchs moving up two, the Communist Party one. However, his team did wonder if, even if the story was fabricated, it might go some way to rally those Communist Party voters come the second round.
Twenty-four hours after the story first broke, however, it was anyone’s guess if he would even make it to the second round. Only the two front-runners would qualify––Putin was now dangerously close to Kaminski, despite the oligarch's apparent and well documented personal lapses.
The Kremlin had officially contacted The Sun newspaper in London, demanding the story be retracted and a full apology issued, though the paper stood by their report. Legal action now threatened, and the process started––it would take months for it to work itself out, and the primary focus was the next few days. Getting through the first round of voting was an absolute essential when they would then have three more weeks to prepare and gain every possible supporter come the second and final round. They knew they had a real fight on their hands to keep Putin in power––though the fiercer the battle, the more valiant the warrior. Putin wasn’t afraid of a confrontation.
The British government had also been constantly trying to speak to Putin, or someone close to him. The Kremlin had failed to take those calls. Another huge diplomatic crisis was looming.
28
California, USA
For a man three days away from an election, Matvey Filipov was doing his best to keep his mind free. While most of the other candidates were frantically travelling around the country trying to gain the last vital votes, Matvey had crossed the world. He was going to spend one day in Los Angeles before flying directly to Moscow, where he would land for the final day before the vote. He hoped to have added one extra player to his growing inner circle by then.
Matvey had travelled with a full media team. They were there to allow him to continue to give interviews, to broadcast live speeches and keep him before the nation back home. To aid that––the sunshine of California might look a little out of place compared to the mid-March chill most of the country of Russia was feeling at the moment––they’d brought with them the backdrop they’d used for all their broadcasts.
To the average viewer, it would seem as if he was still in Moscow as he’d always been.
He was currently driving through Beverley Hills, sitting in the back of a hired limo, his driver shielded from him in the front. Matvey was looking at the latest numbers, and his lead looked good. He’d always known it would go to a second round––no challenger would be able to win outright at the first attempt––and he felt well placed. The key would be gaining as many of those other non-Putin voters as possible, people who hadn’t voted for Matvey in the first round, maybe opting for Kaminski or the Communist Party. A few per cent––probably not even worth chasing––would waste their vote on another candidate. All these people still got to vote the second time around, many with their candidate no longer in the race.
The best guess had that voting block at around twenty-five per cent of the entire vote. It was enough to swing the result one way or the other. These were the electorate who would win the election for someone. Matvey was determined to go after that group and have the lion’s share.
He was heading towards the film studios and arrived just before lunch. There was apparently filming still going on in various halls, crew members walking back and forth regularly. At half-past twelve, Matvey got out of the car––the sun warm and welcoming––and walked across to the largest of the trailers stationed on the far side of the parking area. He tapped on the door, the two men standing on guard expecting his visit, as did the occupant, who opened the door to the oligarch just seconds after he’d arrived.
“Matvey,” Svetlana Volkov said. “Please, do come in.”
The pair were alone and talked for half an hour about several things. The Games came up before too long.
“I should never have let you join,” she said, now over the hurt that the decision had initially caused her, the Games pulled apart after Matvey’s inclusion, though the final call had been her doing. She smiled. Few women in the world of cinema could light up a room without makeup as Svetlana had just done. She had always possessed a natural beauty, an innocence that defied what life had done to her.
“I hope you understand my reasons,” is all he said, coming back to his central theme that he had only done what needed to happen for everyone’s good, though he was about to offer her a lifeline. “Come and work with me and maybe one day we’ll see you doing something similar again.”
“Work with you? How?”
“Join my campaign team.”
“For the election?” and she laughed, though it wasn’t mocking. “Getting desperate, are you? I’m not sure what I could do with so little time on the clock.”
“It would annoy your husband, for one.”
She paused at that moment. The divorce was going through the motions––not yet finalised, so Sergej technically still was her husband––and the thought of sticking one to him sparked something inside, as Matvey was sure it would.
“Go on,” and Matvey explained a little about the Machine, the fact Sergej had been a part of it all along, together with Lev Kaminski and Mark Orlov. She was stunned by the revelation about Mark. He’d been in her T10 group from the very start. She’d confided in him maybe more than most. He was a linchpin who had helped hold it all together. And all along he’d been working with her husband, no doubt laughing behind her back.
“You have my curiosity spiked, for sure,” she said after Matvey paused for a moment. He needed to tell her what he wanted to say in small sections. There was no use saying it all at once. She was interested.
Over the next half hour, Matvey outlined his plan, that Svetlana could be the bright new face of his campaign. Her endorsement and partnership would put him in a strong position. She was only too aware of that. She still held massive sway within her nation, though just a few weeks ago, w
hen the divorce was made public and her life had come crashing down, she had wondered if she had turned her back on it for good.
Los Angeles had become a refuge for the time being––but Russia was in her blood. Matvey was offering her a way back in, and given what he said, not just a place at the ball. He was giving her a seat at the top table. Should Matvey succeed in the election, she would have a place of prominence in his new regime.
She might one day be allowed to host her own style events as well. She cancelled her scenes for the rest of the day––she only had two small ones, anyway, and the crew could work with the rest of the cast so that no time was wasted––and accepted Matvey’s invitation to lunch. The beautiful thing about Hollywood was that most celebrities were left to themselves, especially two Russians who weren’t known locally, though they had, of course, heard of Svetlana, and would soon know all about Matvey if everything went to plan.
They stopped in Rodeo Drive. There were some top class restaurants there and Matvey felt that perfectly fitted the situation. They spent a good couple of hours working through a few delicious courses, Svetlana eating very little of each, though they shared out the wine somewhat more evenly.
By the end of their meal––Matvey was due to fly out that evening and had a constant eye on the clock, with so much to fit in before he took off––she was fully persuaded to join Matvey’s campaign team, her endorsement assured. They would film some material together that afternoon, his team editing it on the flight back to Moscow. Slots on the morning TV shows had already been secured ahead of time in anticipation. The timing couldn’t have been better. It put the betrayal of Foma––a man who, had things worked out differently, could have been the public face endorsing Matvey––into perspective. In Svetlana Volkov, Matvey had someone far more recognisable, a personality far more loved by all in Russia, and she was going to state on camera that she viewed Filipov as the ideal man to take the country forward.