Boris Akunin - The State Counsellor

And that had been the situation when Green discovered the sheet of paper with the neatly typed lines of words, lying folded in two on the table. He had burned the paper, but he remembered what was written on it word for word.

Better not touch Khrapov for the time being; he is too well guarded now. When there is a chance to reach him, I shall inform you. Meanwhile, I can tell you that Bogdanov, the Governor of Ekaterinburg, visits house number ten on Mikhelson Street in secret at eight o'clock in the evening on Thursdays. Alone, with no guards. Next Thursday he is certain to be there. Burn this letter and those that follow as soon as you have read them.

TG

The first thought that had occurred to him was that the party was overdoing its conspiratorial methods. Why the melodramatic touch of leaving the letter like that? And what did 'TG' mean?

He asked Melnikov. No, the party Central Committee had not sent the note.

Was it a gendarme trap? It didn't look like one. Why beat about the bush like that? Why lure him to Ekaterinburg? If the police knew his clandestine apartment, they would have arrested him right there.

It had to be a third option. Someone wanted to help the Combat Group while remaining in the shadows.

After some hesitation, Green had decided to risk it. Of course, Governor Bogdanov was no major VIP, but the year before he had been condemned to death by the party for his vicious suppression of peasant riots in the Streletsk district. It wasn't a top priority mission, but why not? Green needed a success.

And he had got one. The operation went off wonderfully well, if you disregarded the scuffle with the police. Green left a sheet of paper at the scene - the party's death sentence, signed with the initials 'CG'.

Then, at the very beginning of winter, a second letter had appeared: he found it in the pocket of his own coat. He was at a wedding - not a genuine wedding, of course, but a fictitious one. Two party members had wed for the sake of the cause, and at the same time an opportunity had been provided to meet legally and discuss a few urgent matters. There had not been any letter in his coat when he took it off. But when he put his hand in the pocket as he was leaving, there was the sheet of paper.

The lieutenant general of gendarmes, Selivanov, who is well known to you, is inspecting the foreign agents of the Department of Security incognito. At half past two in the afternoon on 13 December he will go to a clandestine apartment at 24 rue Annamite in Paris.

TG

And once again everything had happened exacdy as the unknown TG had promised: taking the cunning fox Selivanov had been almost child's play, in fact - something they could never have dreamed of in St Petersburg. They waited for the gendarme in the entrance, Green grabbed him by the elbows, and Rahmet stuck the dagger into him. The Combat Group became the sensation of Europe.

Green had found the third letter on the floor in the entrance hall earlier this year, when the four of them were living on Vasilievsky Island in St Petersburg. This time the writer had directed his attention to Colonel Pozharsky, an artful rogue who was one of the new crop of gendarmes. The previous autumn Pozharsky had destroyed the Warsaw branch of the party, and he had just arrested an anarchist sailors' organisation in Kronstadt that had been planning to blow up the royal yacht. As a reward he had received a high post in the Police Department and an aide-de-camp's monogram for saving the imperial family.

The note had read as follows:

The search for the CG has been entrusted to the new deputy director for political affairs at the Police Department, Count Pozharsky. He is a dangerous opponent who will cause you a lot of trouble. On Wednesday evening between nine and ten he has a meeting with an important agent on Aptekarsky Island near the Kerbel company dacha. A convenient moment: do not let it slip.

TG

They had let the moment slip, even though it really was convenient. Pozharsky had demonstrated quite supernatural agility, returning fire as he melted away into the darkness. His companion had proved less nimble and Rahmet had caught him with a bullet in the back as he was running off.

Even so, the operation had proved useful and caused a sensation, because Green had recognised the man who was killed as Stasov, a member of the party's Central Committee and an old veteran of the Schlisselburg Fortress who had only just returned illegally to Russia from Switzerland. Who could have imagined that the police had people like that among their informers?

The latest message from TG, the fourth and most valuable, had appeared yesterday morning. It was hot in the house, and they had left the small upper window open for the night. In the morning Emelya had found the letter wrapped round a stone on the floor beside the window. He had read it and gone running to wake Green.

And now it is Khrapov's turn. He is leaving for Siberia today by the eleven o'clock express, in a ministerial carriage. I have managed to discover the following: Khrapov will make a stop in Moscow. The person responsible for his security while in Moscow is State Counsellor Fandorin, Prince Dolgorukoi's Deputy for Special Assignments. Description: 35 years old, slim build, tall, black hair, narrow moustache, grey temples, stammers in conversation. Extreme security measures have been planned in St Petersburg and Moscow. It is only possible to get close to Khrapov between these points. Think of something. There will be four agents in the carriage, and a duty guard of gendarmes in both lobbies (the front lobby is blind, with no access to the saloon). The head of Khrapov's guard is Staff Captain von Seidlitz: 32years of age, very light hair, tall, solidly built. Khrapov's adjutant is Lieutenant Colonel Modzalevsky: 39years of age, stout, medium height, dark-brown hair, small sideburns.

TG

Green had put together a daring but perfecdy feasible plan and made all the necessary preparations. The group had left for Klin on the three o'clock passenger train.

Once again TG's information had proved to be impeccable. Everything went without a hitch. It was the Combat Group's greatest triumph so far. It might have seemed that now he could afford to relax and congratulate himself on a job well done. The match had not been extinguished, it was still burning, and meanwhile the fire it had kindled was blazing ever more furiously.

But his enjoyment was marred by the mystery. Green could not abide mystery. Where there was mystery, there was unpredictability, and that was dangerous.

He had to work out who TG was - understand what kind of man he was and what he was after.

He had only one possible explanation.

One of his helpers, or even a member of the actual Combat Group, had someone in the secret police from whom he received confidential information that he passed on anonymously to Green. It was clear why he did not make himself known. That was to maintain secrecy; he did not wish to increase the number of people who knew his secret (Green himself always behaved in the same way). Or he was shielding his informant, bound by his word of honour - that sort of thing happened.

But what if it was entrapment?

No, that was out of the question. The blows that the group had struck against the machinery of state with the assistance of TG were too substantial. No tactical expediency could possibly justify an entrapment operation on that level. And most importantly of all: not once in all these past months had they been under surveillance. Green had an especially keen nose for that.

Two abbreviations: CG and TG. The first stood for an organisation. Did the second stand for a name? Why had there been any need for a signature at all?