Jack Grimwood - Moskva

His father shot him a sharp glance.

Vladimir grinned. ‘Look what I’ve found you.’

‘Welcome to my humble holiday home,’ said Minister Vedenin.

His heavy fingers gripped Tom’s hand for just longer than was comfortable, then his arm came round Tom’s shoulders and he began steering him through the crowd and towards a door beyond. ‘Vladimir will look after Svetlana. You come with me. We should talk.’ They went out on to a small wooden terrace with white painted rails. ‘Valentina doesn’t like me smoking indoors.’

‘Your wife?’ asked Tom, watching the man shake a Cohiba Robusto from a branded leather case. The minister lit the cigar and shook his head.

‘My wife’s dead, sadly. Valentina’s a friend.’

He offered Tom a cigar and winced when Tom held up his papirosa. The back door opened behind them. Vedenin scowled, until he saw it was his son.

‘We’re just having a quick word.’

‘I thought our visitor might like a drink.’ Vladimir held up a goblet of mulled wine. ‘He must be cold after the drive.’ Smiling, as if he’d only just noticed Tom was there, he added, ‘It was my mother’s recipe…’

‘My son makes it every winter,’ said Vedenin.

Vladimir smiled again. ‘Every year since she died.’

The wine was hot and sweet and spiced with cloves. There was brandy in there somewhere. Some kind of spirit certainly. The overwhelming taste was of honey though. Tom could feel its stickiness on his lips.

‘You like it?’ Vladimir asked.

‘Very much,’ Tom told the young man.

‘I’m glad.’

The door to the kitchen closed on the noise inside and left Tom and the minister to the creak of firs, the slight whistle of the wind in the bushes and the sudden hoot of an owl. The minister laughed as Tom froze. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘a cigar is simply a cigar and an owl is simply an owl. You should have called us earlier, you know. When her trail was still warm. We could have acted before this.’

‘It wasn’t my decision.’

‘All the same. You must start thinking of us as friends.’

‘You knew, though? You must have done.’

‘Not officially.’

The man drew deep on his Cuban cigar, held the smoke for a second and let it trickle into the chilly air. ‘Officially I don’t know now. The KGB knows the ambassador’s stepdaughter has run away. The local militsiya know delinquents are squatting a deserted house twenty miles from here. The Vnutrenniye Voiska know they have to clear a house of cultists using minimum force. I alone know these things are linked. I would be delighted if you’d join me. The others will stay here.’

‘The others?’ Tom asked.

‘It’s my son’s birthday,’ Vedenin said. ‘How could I break up his party? We’ll be back soon enough and most of my friends are so drunk on sbiten they’ll barely notice we’re gone. How did you find Major Milova?’

‘Impressively professional.’

The minister smiled. ‘Good. She can drive us.’

White trucks parked in the depths of a lay-by, a bank of Scots pine screening them from the road. An empty stall with its back to a ditch showed where someone local sold provisions in the summer to lorry drivers on the road between Moscow and Leningrad. Major Milova pulled in and parked behind the last truck.

The drive from Vedenin’s dacha to the lay-by had been slow to the point of sedate and conducted in absolute silence, on her part at least. Vedenin had talked non-stop, pointing out landmarks, roadkill and types of local tree. She’d opened her window only once, when smoke from her boss’s cigar had made it briefly impossible for her to see the road ahead.

Suddenly Vedenin said, ‘We’re here.’

Major Milova took it as a question instead of a statement of the obvious. ‘Yes, sir. We’re here.’

‘You should know,’ Vedenin told Tom, ‘these men aren’t aware that one of the cultists they’re retrieving is English. Let’s leave it that way.’

A knock on the major’s window made Tom jump.

The ghostlike figure’s uniform was entirely white, down to his facemask and goggles. He held an AKSU-47 wrapped in pale sacking. What little showed of its barrel was wound with white tape.

Tom got the minister’s door.

The ghostlike figure’s report was brief and to the point.

A ruined house stood a quarter of a mile back from the road, hidden by forest. His men, an elite force of Spetsnaz within the VV, had it surrounded on all sides. They’d been in position since mid afternoon without being spotted. There had been no movement since dusk and no lights currently showed. Delinquents or gypsies would have lit lamps or built a fire. Since none were visible, they were obviously dealing with those intent on staying hidden.

The man stared at Tom once. He ignored Svetlana.

‘Very good,’ Vedenin said. ‘Now, what’s your plan?’

The first part seemed to involve asking the comrade minister if, once they neared the ruined house, he’d be prepared to stay back as he and his guests weren’t in camouflage. Tom didn’t hear the second part, because the man took Vedenin to one side. Their conversation was short but intense.

Ice made climbing the path difficult, and the hundred yards through firs and dead brambles had Comrade Vedenin gasping. They followed the glow of the Spetsnaz officer’s torch, which had been taped to leave only the narrowest beam. The minister slipped so often that Tom ended up taking his elbow. The man was trembling by the time he reached the edge of a frozen lake.

‘Where do you want me?’

‘We’ve prepared a hide, sir.’

White netting had been thrown over a frame. Inside, fold-out stools, a huge Thermos flask and heavy night-vision binoculars waited on a tarpaulin that was acting as the floor. The makeshift hut felt like a shooting hide of the kind Tom’s in-laws used. The Spetsnaz officer looked relieved when Vedenin slumped on to the nearest of the stools.

‘As little fuss as possible,’ Vedenin said.

‘We understand, sir.’

‘Go, then.’

The air inside the hide was clean and cold and tinged with smoke trapped in the minister’s jacket. Tom was reminded of Guy Fawkes Night and the last time he’d seen Charlie. Then it had been back to boarding school for the boy and a refresher course in Russian at a country house in Surrey for him. A quick telephone call on Christmas Day, cut short because lunch was beginning, had been their only contact since.

Tom had written, of course. Charlie had asked him to write. But Tom’s own letters were stilted and Charlie’s read as if a housemaster checked them first.

Picking up the binoculars, Vedenin stared across the lake. ‘Hope they’re right,’ he said. ‘That place looks deserted to me.’

He handed the glasses to Tom, who looked in turn. The house was wooden and had three storeys. An octagonal turret rose from one corner. Several windows were smashed. Darkness and the night-vision lenses of the glasses made it impossible to tell what colour the walls had originally been.

The front door was open and slightly off its hinges. The turret had an intricately carved fascia hung below cedar tiles. The fascia had slipped in two places. One bit hung down like a tongue.

It was, even in ruins, an impressive building.

‘I’m surprised it hasn’t been repaired,’ Tom said.

The minister shrugged as if he wasn’t surprised at all.

Sweeping the binoculars along the edge of the ice, Tom saw mounds that might be camouflaged men or simply banks of snow. Except for slowly falling flakes there was no movement out there at all. Everything suggested the house was deserted. To Tom, that probably meant it wasn’t.