Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

“The militia are in on it?” clarified Charlie.

“Just wait until I get to the cast list,” confirmed the American, topping up their glasses again. “Now we get to the broader picture. The president of the United States gets some domestic difficulties and needs a diversion. The president of Russia doesn’t look as ifhe’ll make second term unless he gets a big one. A marriage made in heaven. But the Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii see an even greater potential. The American secretary of state commutes back and forth forever, dangling a treaty banning the U.S. Nuclear Missile Defense System. An American presidential visit was trailed for months, time enough to organize the assassination of two world leaders, ensure a communist reentry into the Kremlin and wreck, to and for the communist benefit, all Russia’s intelligence organizational reforms. Everything goes back as it was before 1991, with Gorbachov a blip in Russia’s history and Yeltsin the joke he always was …”

“That’s not a broader picture,” complained Charlie. “That’s a panoramic screen.”

“Sit back and listen to the coup of the century,” promised Kayley. “Colonel Sakov’s out of the army by now. Working for NTV-still the ideal posting to roam with a TV identification where he wouldn’t be permitted otherwise-and where Vasili Gregorovich Isakov is chief cameraman and delighted to help an old army photographer colleague.”

“But Sakov thinking there isn’t a coincidence?”

“It isn’t a coincidence,” agreed Kayley. “As chief cameraman Isakov gets all the plum assignments and has even better access to places. He’s singled out for positive FSB approach to become a source before the treaty shuttling starts. When it does our conspirators find a very different use for the guy.”

“When do I get names?” demanded Charlie, finally giving way to the impatience.

“Two that Sakov positively knows are Nikolai Ivliyev and Aleksandr Kashva, both Communist Party deputies in the Duma. But there’ll be more when the shit hits the fan,” set out the American. “The Lubyanka traditionalists are General Gennardi Nikolaevich Mittell, first deputy director of the FSB, and General Boris Andrevich Lvov, commander of the presidential protection division. Real jewel in the crown-keeping them in front of every turn in the investigation-is Militia General Leonid Sergeevich Zenin: he’s the bearded guy in court. And Sakov also told me that although he’s not sure he thinks Pavl Filitov is in there. Zenin told him it wasFilitov, not anyone in the Justice Ministry, who rejected a murder investigation into the death of Vera Bendall. And you already know about Agayan. How’s that for having a king in every castle?”

“In theory, unbeatable,” said Charlie. Mittel was the deputy with whom Natalia clashed on the first day of the commission hearings, he remembered. “How was it supposed to work?”

“Did work, almost completely,” insisted Kayley. “Sakov stages an accidental encounter with Bendall, who’s cruising his favorite hotel, the National. During the reminiscences, Sakov drops the fact that Vasili Isakov is the chief cameraman at NTV. The tearful reunion takes place that same night. Isakov’s got a lot of pull: it’s easy to get the long-lost Bendall the gofers job. It’s happy families again. The conspiracy need is to get Bendall under some sort of manipulative control. He starts to settle down again but Sakov suggests to Isakov that his boyfriend will benefit from seeing a psychiatrist. Enter Guerguen Agayan, Mr. Mind Bender himself from the Serbsky Institute. In less time that it takes to say labotomy, they’ve got their Pavlov dog …”

“Who’s planning all this?” broke in Charlie.

“Sakov isn’t clear on that. He thinks there’s a group, a committee, in the Duma. Mittel’s the liaison, with Lvov-who’s supposed to keep the president alive! — ready to supply the route details when the time comes. But let’s get back in sequence …”

“Sorry.”

“Sakov says they can’t believe their luck when the presidential summit is announced, knowing they’re going to get the top prize. It’s the signal to press the well-prepared button on Bendall, by killing Isakov …”

“ Who killed him?” interrupted Charlie, again.

“Sakov says he doesn’t know but I think he does. Maybe it was Sakov himself. He was certainly involved, admits to being with them both the night Isakov died. Bendall is distraught-inconsolable, which is what he’s supposed to be. Agayan starts putting in the fix. Convinces Bendall, whom he can apparently make jump through hoops, that Isakov was murdered on the orders of the president, Lev Yudkin. Sakov works hard to cover his ass here: claims not to know where Bendall got the rifle but I can’t see how it could have beenanyone but him. To know so much about everything else and have a blank here doesn’t make sense. He also says he doesn’t know how Agayan kept the pressure up on Bendall but that doesn’t square with me either. Like I said, a lot of the gaps are going to be filled by the Grand Jury and the outcome back here. He certainly doesn’t denybecause he can’t-knowing that Bendall was going to shoot, because his job was to kill Bendall afterwards, as we know and can prove: Sakov says that had he got Bendall over the edge but he’d survived, the intention was for the waiting Lvov to shoot him on the ground. But that Lvov couldn’t, because of the delay of the fight alerting everyone to what was happening.”

“Now it’s all falling apart around them?” accepted Charlie, adding to their glasses.

“Panic time, because of what Sakov’s said during the fight,” agreed Kayley. “But these guys are resilient. They know from Lvov, who’s right there literally on top of Bendall, that the guy’s unconscious. By the time he comes round in Burdenko after surgery, Agayan is there, authorized to surgeon-administrator Badim’s satisfaction by General Leonid Zenin, in over-all charge of the militia investigation …”

“Why doesn’t Agayan kill him?”

“Sakov says he doesn’t know how Agayan managed it-it’ll certainly be a hard question for Badim-but no one else at the hospital apart from Agayan was ever totally alone with Bendall. If Bendall died we’d have demanded an autopsy. Agayan would have put himself in the frame, slipping him some unauthorized drug. And obviously he couldn’t do it in front of Badim or the nurses or the guards. It was just always too busy.”

“Jesus!” said Charlie. “And we thought only Sakov would be shitting himselfl”

“I told you Agayan was Mr. Mind Bender. The way Sakov understands it Agayan convinces Bendall he’s got a second chance of revenge against Lev Yudkin, in public. By making the exposing declaration he was trying in court when Davidov shot him …”

“Now there’s a lot of questions here,” stopped Charlie. “Bendall knows Sakov tried to kill him.”

“Because all along, according to Agayan, Sakov was in on the plotto kill Isakov. Which he was ! But Agayan convinced the poor bastard that Sakov was working for the Kremlin, under Yudkin’s orders! That was going to be part of the courtroom denunciation.”

“Which gets us to Davidov. How’s he get into the picture?”

“Panoramic screen,” corrected Kayley, smiling. “According to Sakov a KGB department unaffected by the supposed reforms and still maintained within the FSB is the Executive Action Department-Department V-to organize and carry out assassinations. Davidov served in it. He was simply ordered by Deputy Director Mittel to carry out the killing. Davidov was heading for a particular door because he’d been told his escape was arranged: actually there was another shooter outside-probably one of the gunmen who shot at the presidential group outside the White House-waiting to take Davidov out. But the militiaman put him down first.”