‘Go on then,’
‘It would seem that your President got so impatient with Bazarov that the poor man had an accident – or are the two not connected?’
‘Of course they’re connected,’ laughed Mikhail, ‘accidents like the complete disappearance of a prominent Muscovite don’t just happen – it’s all cause and effect here. Why do you ask about poor old Bazarov, hardly anyone outside the coterie surrounding the President has ever heard of him?’
‘Before he was assassinated, we believe he was looking for my team here on Craithe and for Athena,’ said Angus. ‘GCHQ found out that he had boasted for too long that he was going to deliver us to the President on a silver platter. Trouble is he went to the grave still without knowing where we are.’
‘That’s the story going around here too.’
‘I don’t want you to risk anything but do you still know some of the President’s inner circle?’
‘Aha, you want me to spy for you?’ suggested Mikhail. ‘Well, of course I still know almost all of them but you should also know that because Boris went down to see that my property in the Crimea to see if it was still okay after the annexation down there, as a result, I’m now a persona non grata as is Boris. But what exactly is it you wanted to know?’
‘We know that Igor Komarov is trying to find out to where I’ve moved Athena and the team. It would be helpful to know if any more of the President’s inner circle are looking as well. We’re just trying to assess how many people are on the hunt for us.’
‘Well, even though I’ve known many of them for years, right now, as I just said, some of them might be chary about talking to me. Having said that, I don’t see why I shouldn’t contact a couple of them who were very close. I’ll do that and see what I can come up with. But keep your expectations low.’
‘I’d be most grateful, but don’t go getting yourself into trouble,’ said Angus.
‘Don’t worry on that score, I’ve learned over the years how to look after myself. I’ll ring you as soon as I have anything and if the worst comes to the worst, I’ll send whatever I’ve picked up back with Tatty when she returns to Craithe for Easter.’
‘That would be great, look forward to hearing from you in due course.’
They rang off and Angus replaced the receiver slowly, his mind distracted by visions of secret meetings between Mikhail and his old friends – huddled in doorways? Or boldly out in the open? He was naturally pleased that something might come of it but, at the same time felt a pang of disquiet for Mikhail – if the President could have Bazarov murdered simply because he was impatient, matters were not that much better in today’s Moscow than they were under the infamous Ivan the Terrible.
Chapter 9
Wednesday 9 March
Craithe Castle
It was fortunate that Tom Traynor had so little time left with IPI for they had not troubled him with an assignment. For as he took the call from Angus Macrae, there was a sharp and hurried edge to his voice – so much so that almost as soon as Angus had begun the call, Traynor had started to take notes. Something of a panic in the voice told him that there was a crisis afoot – one that sounded as though Angus could not handle it on his own. He finished the call with a plea.
‘So, if you’re not tied down to something with IPI, and as this kind of thing is right up your street, do you think you could come up with some helpful suggestions as to what we can do in this nightmare?’
The call had lasted at least twenty minutes so it was as well that he had so much of it down in brief note form. As soon as Angus had finished, Traynor had reassured him as best he could and said he would check right away to see if IPI would release him. He knew the answer to this before even before Angus’s call but he used it as an excuse to pause for half an hour to digest the problem and come up with a sensible solution before ringing back.
He now ran through his notes slowly and carefully, and on a separate, larger piece of paper wrote down some tentative solutions. He then read back slowly through this second page. In essence it was a tale of treachery, of lies and duplicity and it needed a firm response.
In full, the tale that had poured out of Angus was that, at his request, Mikhail had begun to canvas opinions from some of his old friends amongst the President’s innermost circle. One of them in particular had been especially friendly, remembering old times, asking after Mikhail’s family, indeed so much so that Mikhail asked his opinion on another, personal matter.
This personal matter concerned the president’s current sensitivity to matters connected to the Crimea. He needed to know this as Tatiana had especially asked if, as spring was but days away, could they go down to the Vassilov Dacha in the Crimea. Mikhail’s immediate reaction had been an emphatic ‘no’ but his daughter had always managed to get her way with him and he had relented. He remembered well asking his old friend the question and that the answer had been that the president was no longer much bothered about the Crimea. This had surprised Mikhail as the President’s paranoia over any internal Russian criticism of this internationally condemned annexation move had resulted in his security contractor, Boris Boreyev being put on the dissidents list, and when Mikhail had personally rung the president and had a furious row over the telephone, he two had been added to the dissident’s list as well. It was typical of Mikhail as he and his old friend were ending their conversation, Mikhail had flippantly added ‘but what the hell’ and that he was going down to the Dacha come what may. Later, with hindsight, he would come to regret adding, ‘I’m already on the dissidents list, what else is he going to do to me?’
* * * * *
Tom now read through his notes again trying to visualize exactly what had happened after Mikhail had decided ‘but what the hell’ and taken the family down to the Dacha.
The family had all set off together, Mikhail, Tatiana, little Jerry, Anastasia the au pair and three members of staff. No one had questioned the flight plan and Mikhail thought no more about the dissident’s list or the President. It was just going to be a lovely spring holiday for his immediate family.
He was not entirely reckless, however, and when they all got to the Dacha and began to settle in, one of the first things he did was to check on the panic room that had been installed some years back. In fact, it was less a panic room and more a small suite, for it had an eating and sitting-out areas, sleeping quarters, showers and toilets and cooking facilities with ample food storage facilities.
From here on in the story Traynor closed his eyes and let the story unfold in his mind. Having stayed there once with Angus before his wedding, he could just picture a lovely spring evening with Mikhail and Tatiana having a quiet drink together on the large patio. Anastasia with little Jerry nearby and then, suddenly an irritating distant noise, and as it gets closer, becomes recognizable as an approaching helicopter.
Mikhail quickly picks up the pair of binoculars, the ones always in their particular place by the patio doors. Peering with growing anxiety he studies the approaching aircraft. Tatiana watching her father, turns pale as she sees the change in his expression; his mouth drops open, followed quickly by the usual signs of his growing fury – the scowl, the reddening cheeks, the quietly muttered curse.
‘Quick, all of you into the panic room, now,’ he shouts the word ‘now’ as he himself runs into the sitting room behind him. From a drawer in the largest of the two chests of drawers he snitches a pistol and ammunition and his mobile phone.
Running back, following the route the other three had taken, a volley of shots rattles down from the helicopter, smashing up the heavy stones of the patio, ricocheting off them and into the walls and breaking some of the low windows around it. Just before he jumps the last steps to the doors he beckons to a young member of the staff who is standing rooted in fear nearby; seconds later both are finally through the double steel doors. The heavy curtains that normally hide the doors are left drawn back, and some more heavy helicopter-mounted machine-gun shots ricochet off the doors smashing into sto
ne and woodwork, splinters and half-spent rounds flying everywhere. Turning he sees, as the doors are closing, the helicopter wheels and several pairs of army boots waiting to jump down as soon as they get close enough to the ground.
Inside, he presses the buttons to lock the panic room doors and flicks the lever that put the panic suite onto a separate secret power supply. From this point in his story Mikhail seemed almost matter-of-fact, just dealing with matters in an orderly manner and Traynor could almost hear him saying it.
‘We’re perfectly safe in here,’ he even managed a reassuring smile. ‘I’ve got some telephone calls to make so I’ll just be through there.’ He indicated a small corridor that ran off the sitting-out area were they stood. ‘I won’t be long so I suggest you watch television; they can’t even cut that off easily – you’re sure to be able to find something to amuse you.’
He patted Jerry on the head as he passed and indicated with a nod of his head that Tatiana should follow him.
‘My God, what are we going to do?’ she said, ‘What if it’s the president who’s behind this?’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get this sorted one way or another. But I asked you to follow me in here to make some suggestions which will look better if they come from you and also look as though you are in control as well as I am, okay?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Get the young man to start preparing an early supper for us all. That’s really for the benefit of Jerry but it will keep him occupied. If there’s something on the TV for him that’s great, if not you can all have some fun organizing who sleeps where and making up the bunk beds. Off you go and do that – I’ll set about sorting this.’
As soon as Tatiana had left he went over to a small desk and from a console on top of it switched on a CCTV system. Soon the bank of screens came alive and he could see how many invaders there were and what they were doing. Within a minute or so he had a good picture of what was going on out in the Dacha and the surrounding grounds.
There were just six of the invaders. Army-type uniforms but no insignia or markings of any kind, not even cap-badges.
‘Dammit, FSB,’ he muttered to himself.
‘Then, quite suddenly there was one of them who was dressed slightly differently to the others who had come on the screen next to the panic room doors – probably an officer thought Mikhail.
‘Mr. Vassilov, you really need to come out of there, we need to talk to you,’ he said peering around the closed doors, looking for the camera and microphone which he knew would be hidden there somewhere.
‘As you can see, if I want to talk to you, I can do so through this link,’ said Mikhail in reply. ‘If I don’t wish to speak to you I merely have to flick a switch in here and although I can still see you, I don’t need to communicate with you.’ As he spoke the officer looked even harder, pulling at the heavy curtains and running his hand along the beam above them.
‘I hope you won’t think me rude if I go now, I have a number of calls to make.’ With that he flicked the sound to mute. As he turned away. he saw the officer losing his self-control and smashing the butt of an automatic gun hard against the closed doors.
Moving away Mikhail went to check that the link to the telecoms satellite was working and put a call through to Boris Boreyev. He was fortunate that Boreyev was there as by now and most of his security staff gone home. But a few of the key personnel protection people were with him having been on one of their spot check training exercises – exactly the people who would perfect to intervene in this crisis.
By the time they could fly down from Moscow it would be dark and anyway, with staff around in the Dacha when they got here, it would be too dangerous to attempt a rescue in darkness for fear of what people now label collateral damage. Boreyev decided that a team would fly down at dawn to the company’s base in the south and attack as quietly by vehicle and stealth shortly after daylight.
Mikhail’s second call was to Angus to tell him everything that had happened and of Boreyev’s plans for a rescue the following day.
‘I’m afraid it’s all my fault,’ said Mikhail after he had given Angus the detail of the attack. ‘I should have realized that with all the pressures on the president from the collapsing oil price’s effect on the Russian Economy, the sanctions from the West aimed at many of his innermost circle and the wars in the Middle East, and heaven knows what besides has made him overly sensitive to almost any setback.’
‘Is there anything just recently you might have done to upset him?’ asked Angus.
‘Yes, I’m afraid there is,’ replied Mikhail. ‘I’ve been nosing around rather openly and I should have been far more cautious when enquiring about a man called Bazarov. I must have unwittingly touched on an exposed nerve – a bit like chomping down on an ice cream and finding you’ve got a filling missing. Ah well, no doubt Boris will be able to sort things out when he gets here in the morning.’
‘I’ll give it some thought too,’ said Angus. ‘And I also have a friend who I’ll ask to give it the benefit of his experience in this kind of thing.’
Traynor opened his eyes having visualized the whole thing. During his visualizing he had also let some solutions float in on him – two of them in fact. After sifting through both of these possible answers several times over, and trying to act as devil’s advocate at the same time, he then picked up the telephone and rang Angus back.
As soon as Traynor said it was him on the line, Angus said, ‘thank God you’ve rung me back I’ve been worried out of my mind with what to do. Have you had any constructive thoughts on our predicament? And can you get away from IPI if you think there’s anything you could contribute?’
‘Yes to both,’ replied Traynor. There was a great gasp, almost a sob from the far end of the line. ‘But, first I have some questions for you,’ he added, ‘and, depending on your answers, some pretty swift actions too.’
‘Fire away,’ said Angus.
‘Firstly you’ll have to excuse my almost complete lack of knowledge of your very advanced computer technology. So, can you now just give me answers to the questions I’m going to ask you as far as possible with just a simple yes or no?’
‘I can try.’
‘Good. First question. In your opinion is the Russian President likely to keep records of the conversations, emails and so on between himself and his innermost circle of friends and confidants – like Nixon did over Watergate?’
‘Funny you should ask me that as only the other day …’
‘Just a yes or a no please, Angus,’ cut in Traynor.
‘Yes he does, I know it for a fact.’
‘Good,’ said Traynor. ‘Next question. Could your wonderful invention Athena find where these files are hidden - with or without the help of GCHQ?’
‘Yes, we can – though because you only want a yes or a no, I resist telling you how I know that.’
‘Good, I don’t need to know why. Next, could Athena take copies of say the last three months of all this private material and put the whole lot of them into safekeeping, up on a website perhaps?’
Angus thought about this for a moment before answering. ‘I cannot for the life of me think why not,’ he said at last.
‘A yes or a no,’ said Traynor, trying to force his friend to leave out the emotional content in the problem. ‘So if you stole the last three months of the President’s darkest secrets, what could he do about it short of shooting all your family in the Crimea and then sending someone over here with a vial of Polonium to fix you too?’
‘He’d be powerless to prevent me making his private material public on the internet, if that’s what you’re asking me – like the Wikileaks chap, there’s nothing he could do to rescue his files either.’
‘Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. I need you to consider what I’m about to suggest. I’m going to give you one hour till I want you to ring me back. That means you will have the time to ring Mikhail and Tatty in the Crimea and to speak to Boreyev if need be. All right?’
>
‘Yes, one hour. Okay, what’s the suggestion?’
‘As fast as you can, you’re to get you whiz kids to steal some three months of the President’s most private secret files and conversations. Once you’ve got them secured, someone is to contact the president – probably through Mikhail would be best as he can probably get access. Get him to tell the President that you will publish all of these secret files on the internet unless he intervenes to give everyone down at the Dacha safe passage back to Moscow at a time and manner of their choosing. Got that?’
‘Got it.’
‘That should eventually get those troops out of Mikhail’s Dacha. After that, I want to Boris to come up to Moscow to meet me there. The two of us will meet whomever the President nominates to formalise this agreement. Any rash act by the president’s himself or any of his people and you publish for the world to see what sort of a man he really is.’
‘Christ, Tom you’re blackmailing one of the most powerful and vicious men on the planet.’
‘Of course we are, but what’s he going to do? He’d be a laughing stock for a start and that’s something I don’t believe any tyrant, however powerful can stomach.’
‘Isn’t this putting Tatty and all the rest into the crosshairs of death?’
‘I’m the one asking questions here, Angus,’ snapped Traynor. ’They’ll be in no greater danger than they are already. All we’re doing is talking in the only language that tyrants understand. Full on Stuff You! You have one hour to make your investigations about the theft of the President’s files and to speak to Tatty, Mikhial and Boris, have you got that?’
‘Yes,’ came a weak reply and with that he put the telephone down and prayed that he handled it the way that was needed.
It was less than half an hour later when Angus rang him back.
The President's Fixer: (A Financial and Conspiracies Thriller – a prequel to the Legacy Thriller Series) Page 8