by Jack Higgins
Panic ensued. “Where the hell is he?” Kirov cried, just as floodlights were turned on to reveal the underground hall Ramsan had mentioned. On a stone shelf about four feet high, two light machine guns on tripods were mounted, with two men behind each one. Other men were ranged at the sides, AK-47s at the ready.
Ramsan, still on the run, was making for the broad steps he had mentioned, soldiers waiting there, and Shadid Basayev walked through.
One of the Tigers called, “You lying bastard,” raised his AK to fire at Ramsan, and was cut down by a burst from one of the machine guns.
“Is this what the rest of you want?” the General asked. “I am Shadid Basayev. If I say slaughter the lot of you now, my men will be happy to oblige. It’s all one to me. Who is Kurbsky?”
“That would be me.” Kurbsky stepped forward.
“And these are the Black Tigers?” Basayev nodded. “A sad-looking bunch, if you don’t mind me saying so, and only eleven?”
“We used to be fifty.”
“That’s good, we must be winning the war.” He stood there, hands on hips. “Come on, Lieutenant, what’s it to be?” He stepped very close. “Of course, you could shoot me now in a mad moment, but my men wouldn’t like that.” Kurbsky stared into his eyes, trying to work him out, and Basayev smiled. “One soldier to another. Articles of war strictly observed at all times.”
It wasn’t that Kurbsky believed him. It was just that if there was even the smallest of chances that he was telling the truth, it was better than all of them being reduced to bloody pulp on the spot here.
“All right, lads, stand down.”
He started to remove his packs and placed his weapons on the ground, and, reluctantly, his men followed his example. Chechens moved in and started stripping the Tigers of anything worth having. Father Ramsan stood on the steps, watching impassively.
“So our man of God is still with us,” Kurbsky said.
Bounine did a strange thing. “Bastards.” He bit the end of his thumb. “Infamità. May you rot in hell.”
“Hey, what is this? Is your sergeant an Italian or something?” Basayev demanded.
“No, he’s Russian, but he studied law at the university in Rome.”
Basayev was confounded. “So did I.”
“I was some years after you,” Bounine said.
“Did they remember me?”
“They spoke of the Italian girl who became your wife as a most wonderful person, and much loved.”
“She was… she was. We must talk.” He turned to Kurbsky. “Now, what am I to do with you? Like me, I suspect you are a true soldier. I’ve been reading this German philosopher lately. He says that for authentic living, what is necessary is the resolute confrontation of death. Would you agree?”
“Heidegger,” Kurbsky said. “His writing was Heinrich Himmler’s bible.”
“You’ve read Heidegger? We must talk some more.” He turned to one of his officers. “Take these two to the cell on floor one. No need to tie them. Lock them up with a bottle of wine. I’ll send for them later.”
Kurbsky said, “What about my men?”
“They’ll be dealt with.”
“You gave me your word. One soldier to another.”
“So I did. Do you doubt my word? That would make me very angry. Take them away-now.” His voice lifted, the officer nodded to four men, and they herded Kurbsky and Bounine up the steps in an echoing hall, then up a second flight. There was an iron-banded door at the top with a key in the lock, and they were pushed into a room with two narrow beds and a barred window.
The officer said, “One of my men will be back with the wine, but may I offer some advice? Do not annoy the General in any way. The results could be disastrous.” He went out.
Kurbsky said, “I get the feeling I may have handled this whole affair terribly badly.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Bounine told him. “We were sold out by the man of God before we even got here. So much for General Chelek’s reliable source.”
The door opened, they turned, and a soldier tossed a bottle of wine at them, which Bounine just caught. The door closed, the key turned.
“Some sort of brandy with a screw top. Must be good.” Bounine got it off, tried it, and shrugged. “Not bad, really. A kind of plum brandy.” He handed the bottle to Kurbsky, who tried it, and at that moment, elsewhere in the monastery, someone screamed.
“Mother of God, not that,” Bounine said in a kind of prayer. He put out his hand for the bottle and held it against him. After a while, the screaming stopped. “Thank God.”
“I’m afraid not.” Kurbsky stood at the barred window, looking down into the courtyard. Bounine joined him.
A long pole was stretched between two tripods about seven feet above the ground. Three men manhandled a body with a noose around its neck and a hook on the end, which they slipped over the pole, and the corpse simply hung there.
“Could you tell who it was?” Bounine asked in a low voice.
“Too much blood on his face.” Kurbsky held out his hand. “Give me the bottle.”
He took a long drink, and someone else screamed. “The bastards,” Bounine said. “They’re going to finish all nine.”
“All eleven when he remembers he’s got us waiting.” Kurbsky handed the bottle over.
AN HOUR AND a half later, there were seven out there hanging shoulder to shoulder. “Like washing on a line to that bastard,” Bounine said.
There was thunder again, a rumble, and the skies opened in a deluge again. They watched body eight hung up.
“Not long now.” Bounine put the bottle to his lips. “Christ, it’s finally empty.”
He looked as if he was going to toss it away, but Kurbsky took it from him and smashed it against the wall. He handed it back, ignoring new screams, and the broken and splintered end looked incredibly dangerous.
“Hold it carefully. It’s a hell of a weapon.”
“What for?” Bounine asked in despair.
“To fight with. I’ve got a weapon too.” His hand went down to his right boot; he found the gutting knife, pulled it out, and held it up and sprung the blade. “My little secret.” He closed the blade. Whoever it was had stopped screaming. He went to the window and watched as they hooked him up. Shadid Basayev and Father Ramsan walked down steps from the main door. Laughter drifted up, and Basayev said something to Ramsan, who turned and went back inside.
“What are we going to do?” Bounine asked.
“Kill whoever enters this room, if possible, and then run like hell back down to those cellars. Remember, Ramsan left the secret door ajar. If we can get out to that truck, we could be driving away before they realize what’s happening.”
“But where to? They’ll be after us with every vehicle they’ve got.”
“I could have an answer to that back at the farm.” There were steps in the corridor, voices, the key turned in the lock.
Ramsan himself had come or, more probably, had been sent. He entered hesitantly, and a burly Chechen with a Muslim-style beard moved in behind him, holding an Uzi machine pistol at the ready.
“The General has sent me to bring you. I’m sorry.”
The Chechen moved to one side and gestured with the Uzi. Bounine said to Ramsan, “Sorry are you, you bastard?”
Kurbsky half turned to the Chechen, pressed the button of the gutting knife, and thrust the razor-sharp blade under the chin, penetrating the roof of the mouth and sticking into the brain. At the same moment, Bounine’s hand swung from behind his back, where he had been concealing the bottle. He stabbed Ramsan in the side of the neck, severing the carotid artery. He pushed his falling body onto the bed. Kurbsky pulled the knife out of the body, picked up the Uzi dropped by the Chechen, opened one of his belt pouches, and found three clips of ammunition, which he stuffed into the pockets of his combat jacket. He was through the door, and a moment later, Bounine was on his heels and rushing down the stairs.
Strangely, the only thing on his mind as he ran thr
ough the cellars was if Ramsan had left the key in the truck. He had, and Kurbsky scrabbled up behind the wheel, Bounine joining him, reversed out of the vineyard, turned, and drove as fast as possible back to the farm.
Bounine said, “What was it you had in mind? They’ll be after us soon.”
“I’ll show you,” Kurbsky said as they turned into the barn.
He jumped down and went to the Montessa. “This will go where they can’t. It was specially built for riding in rough high country. I’ll drive, there’s a pillion for you, and the rear-side panniers could take a jerry can of petrol on each side. I’ll strap them on while you go in the house and fill a bag with food and find a couple of overcoats. There’s bound to be something in there. Cross-country to Grozny over the mountains will be rough, but we could do it in a couple of days.”
Bounine was back in minutes. “This is the best I could do.” There were a couple of old army greatcoats and they pulled them on, and he managed to stuff the food somewhere along with the jerry cans.
“I’ve been thinking-Chelek isn’t going to be pleased.”
Kurbsky, astride, started the engine. “Screw Chelek, but the army’s the army and there are rules. You always report to your commanding officer.”
Bounine sat astride the pillion. “So let’s go.”
Which they did, climbing up rough tracks. Bounine looked back and saw a couple of trucks in the far distance, but then the rain started again and they simply vanished.
THEY REACHED GROZNY in four days, not two, and reported to Chelek’s headquarters, to discover that the previous day he’d insisted on making an inspection of his sector of Grozny standing in the turret of a tank and a Chechen sniper had shot him in the head.
The desk colonel controlling things while waiting for a new general to arrive told Kurbsky and Bounine to put their report in writing, which they did. He actually read it, shaking his head.
“Nine guys, just like that. These Chechens are animals. As for Shadid Basayev, we’ll put him on the most wanted list as a war criminal.”
“And us?” Kurbsky asked.
“There’s a shortage of good people in intelligence these days, and it seems you’ve got a law degree, Bounine, which interests the GRU. You’re going to leave all this shit behind. It’s Moscow for you, and there’s a commission waiting.”
“But I don’t want a commission, Comrade.”
“What you want isn’t the point, Bounine, it’s what your country wants.”
“And me, Comrade?” Kurbsky asked.
“You stay, Lieutenant-or should I say Captain? You’re promoted. You stay here in the killing ground of Grozny. I’d say it suits your particular talents to perfection.”
And to that, of course, there was no answer.
HOLLAND PARK / MAYFAIR
10
Bad memories led to an extremely disturbed night for Kurbsky, who didn’t fall asleep until the early hours. He came awake suddenly, surprised to discover it was eight o’clock. He tried to rouse himself with a good shower, but it didn’t have much effect, and when he examined himself in the mirror, the circles around the eyes really did look much darker. He dressed and went in search of life and discovered Roper, in the computer room as usual, who looked him over.
“You look satisfactorily ill,” he said. “That’s the only way to describe it. Bad night?”
“You could say that.”
“It’s not surprising. You’ve been through it in a big way in the last day or two. I’d get yourself to the dining room. There you’ll find a lady named Mrs. Maggie Hall, the pride of Jamaica, whose specialty is the great English breakfast. If that doesn’t revive you, nothing will.”
“Sound advice, and I’ll take it.”
He came back dressed for the street, his bag slung from his shoulder, his gutting knife stuffed down his right boot. The knife he’d taken from the youth at Wapping the previous night, he took from his pocket and placed on Roper’s desk.
“Present for you.”
Roper pressed the button and the blade jumped. “Nasty,” he said. “Where did you get that?”
“Unlooked-for gift. I thought you might find it useful as a letter opener. I’ll be on my way.”
“Give the ladies my regards and take your time, Alex. I’m here for you day or night in this damn chair. It’s the one constant in an uncertain world.”
“My anchor?” Kurbsky said.
“If you like.”
“I’ll try and remember that.” He turned and went out.
HE WALKED DOWN past Holland Park, thinking about it. Svetlana and Katya would be expecting him at Chamber Court, and he needed to visit the local shop to establish his credentials, but that could wait. He glanced at his watch. It was just before nine and he knew where he wanted to be, had to be, if you like, and he emerged onto the main road, flagged a black cab, and told the driver to take him to Marble Arch.
He’d already taken the first step on a journey for which there was no going back. In the apartment at Holland Park he’d found a paperback of London AZ, with maps, streets, everything you needed to know. He’d already checked on church listings and discovered St. Mary and All the Saints in Hive Street, Mayfair. He’d chosen to alight at Marble Arch so as to be inconspicuous, and a brisk fifteen-minute walk brought him to St. Mary’s. Rain started to fall and it occurred to him that it might possibly put Basayev off, but if so, there would be other days. He pulled up the hood of his combat jacket.
The church looked familiar to him from the television report. He didn’t go in by the main doors, which had a pseudo-medieval look about them, oak banded by iron, but followed the side path, which brought him around to the cemetery at the rear.
There were cypress trees, rhododendron bushes, pine trees. Not much in the way of flowers, but that was the season of the year. On the other hand, this was Mayfair and the paths and grass verges were scrupulously kept.
Kurbsky had always rather liked cemeteries and their melancholic atmosphere, and St. Mary’s was a superb example: Victorian Gothic tombs, winged angels, poignant effigies of the children of the rich, and symbols of death on every hand.
The television footage helped him find Basayev’s wife’s grave quickly too. It was neat enough, a curve of speckled marble rising in the center to a portrait of a handsome, dark-haired woman in a circle of glass. “In Memoriam Rosa Rossi Basayev. Never Forgotten,” was the inscription in gold lettering, followed by a date.
Kurbsky stepped back to the other side of the path, where there was a marble doorway, a bench across it, a standing cross behind. He sat down, opened his bag, and found the silenced Walther. He cocked it and held it by his side, remembering Kuba, the monastery, and what Basayev had done so long ago. He felt calm, quite detached, and it was quiet, just the rain rushing down. Maybe Basayev wouldn’t come after all, but that was all right. He could come back.
THE MERCEDES pulled in at the front of the church. The chauffeur had served under Basayev in Chechnya, had been his driver for years. He had an umbrella on the floor beside him, which he took with him as he went to assist his master. He opened it and handed it to Basayev as he got out.
A few yards from the church on the corner of a side street, a young woman sat under a canopy with flowers for sale. “The usual, Josef, bring them to me,” Basayev told him.
He turned into the side path to the cemetery, and Josef got another umbrella from the back of the car and approached the girl.
BASAYEV WAS QUITE close to his wife’s memorial before he noticed Kurbsky, and he slowed. “What are you doing here?” He spoke in English. “What do you want?”
“You,” Kurbsky told him in Russian. “It’s been a long time since Kuba. Remember the monastery, the courtyard, the nine Black Tigers who weren’t dancing on air because you’d butchered them before you hung them up? It was raining then, too.”
“What in the hell are you talking about? Who are you?”
“Alexander Kurbsky, and don’t tell me that name hasn’t meant so
mething to you over the years. Remember the cellar in the monastery where you persuaded me to surrender? You gave me your word, one soldier to another, that the articles of war would be strictly observed at all times, then you butchered nine of my men.”
At that moment, Josef came around the corner with the bunch of flowers in one hand, the umbrella in the other. “Here I am, boss,” he said in Russian.
Basayev turned and shouted, “Help me, Josef, he’s going to kill me.”
Josef dropped both the flowers and the umbrella and drew a pistol. Kurbsky, with no option, shot him in the heart and turned to find Basayev already scrambling away through the gravestones. He shot him in the back of the head, fragments of bone and brain spraying out as he fell on his face. He walked back up the path to Josef, still dying, and finished him off with a head shot.
He stood listening for a moment, but everything was still, no evidence of any disturbance, thanks to the silenced Walther. It was now that his examination of the street maps paid off. He walked quickly to the other end of the cemetery and found what he was looking for, another gate leading out to a quiet backstreet, and he started to walk through Mayfair, one street after another.
He felt no elation, no satisfaction. It was not needed. Shadid Basayev had been responsible for carnage and butchery and the ethnic cleansing of several thousand people. Thanks to the stupidity of society, he had been rewarded with many millions and the right to live in luxury in the best part of London. Now his account was closed.
AN HOUR LATER, he stopped in a small square with a garden and benches. There was no need to tell Roper and company about what he’d done. On the other hand, Moscow would be delighted to hear of Basayev’s assassination, and he had Tania to think about, after all. It would be to his credit.
He used his encrypted mobile to reach not Luzhkov but Bounine, and got him straightaway. “Yuri, it’s me, Alex. Where are you? Can you talk?”