Brian Freemantle - Bomb Grade

The purpose was to provide as forceful a warning as possible to any other Russian or supposed middleman who thought it was easy to cheat, so the man who’d tried this time had been horrendously tortured throughout the night.

First they had cut out his tongue, to quieten his screams. His testicles formed the gag, completed by his lips being sewn together. The body, naked to show the mutilations, was cast adrift in a skiff on Berlin’s Wannsee Lake. It was mid-afternoon before a curious rower came close enough to discover it. And went insanely hysterical.

Stanislav Georgevich Silin had prided himself – become complacent – that he’d done it all, knew it all. Which he had. And did. Except for this. Which was a dangerous mistake. Fatal, even. Except that he’d been warned in time. Still, something he shouldn’t have allowed to happen. Hadn’t he, when he’d made his bid, used complacency, like his was being used against him now? Trying to be used against him now. But wouldn’t be, because now he knew. He smiled across the room at Petr Markov, who’d guarded him for so long and given him the warning on the way here this morning. Misunderstanding, Markov crossed the room enquiringly towards him. Silin hadn’t wanted the man for anything – except to show his gratitude, which he would do, later – but then he thought of Marina and changed his mind. She was never alone – since becoming boss of bosses Silin had always ensured she had her own bodyguards – but he didn’t want to take any chances now. Certainly not with Marina: she could never be endangered. He whispered his instructions before sitting back in his chair at the table around which the rest of the Commission were assembling, still annoyed with himself. He should never have forgotten how he’d used complacency as the weapon to get where he was now, at the pinnacle.

Silin, a silver-haired, determinedly courtly man, savoured the word, enjoying it. The pinnacle: the absolute peak. Where he’d been for so long. And intended to stay. Complacent again, he thought: wanted to stay. And would, at any cost. But not to himself. To others.

Through thick-lensed glasses Silin gazed steadily around the assembled group, decided who those others were going to be, separating friend from enemy. Wrong again, like complacency. No friends. Never had been. Theirs wasn’t a business of friends. Theirs was a business of stronger or weaker, winner or loser, living or dying. Who then, until it suited them to change, was loyal; which of these six, each the head of a Family in his own right, was prepared to go on supporting him as boss of bosses of the Dolgoprudnaya?

Impossible to assess, Silin decided. Making everything so uncertain. He should have moved on his earliest suspicions of an overthrow, not waited for Markov to confirm it. He’d given Sobelov time to get organized, to trickle his poison and make his promises and establish the rival allegiances. Too late now to cut out the cancer by the obvious incision. By now the bastard most probably had his informants within the Dolgoprudnaya itself – Silin’s own Family – so Silin knew he couldn’t risk a hit being turned back upon himself.

He had to do it another way and knew he could. He simply had to be cleverer than Sergei Petrovich, prove himself and his worth to the Commission, and let them make the choice. Which he was sure they would when he declared his own intended coup. And in his favour. Because he had the way – a better way than a bullet or a bomb – although none of them knew it yet. All he had to do was let Sergei Petrovich Sobelov over-expose himself and his inadequacies for the rest of them to realize how close they’d come to disaster by doubting him. That would be the time physically to dispose of Sobelov. He’d make it as bad as he could, as painful as he could, as an example to any other upstart. And not just Sobelov. Those of the six – and as many traitors as he could find lower down – who’d already pledged themselves to his rival, too. The Militia were never a problem and certainly wouldn’t be now, after he’d set everything up, so the bloodier and more obscene the killings the better, as a warning to all who deserved to be given one.

It wasn’t complacent to think he could virtually stop worrying about Sobelov and concentrate on the snares for those others he hadn’t, at the moment, identified. As the thought came to Silin his rival rose from the table around which they were grouped and went to where the drinks were. Visible disdain for the benefit of the rest of the Commission, Silin recognized. In the past, just a few months ago, there would have been a gesture, not for permission but some sign of deference. But not that morning. Sobelov simply stood, without even looking at him. And didn’t appear immediately interested in the drinks display, either. Instead, briefly, the towering, deep-chested man stood splay-legged, his hands on his hips, regarding central Moscow beyond Ulitza Kuybysheva as Silin supposed would-be invaders of the past would have stood triumphantly on the battlements of the just visible Kremlin. Silin enjoyed his analogy. Would-be invaders of the past hadn’t succeeded in conquering the city and neither would Sergei Petrovich Sobelov.

The posturing complete, Sobelov turned back into the room although still not to Silin but instead to the two men, Oleg Bobin and Vladic Frolov, who’d seated themselves either side of him. Both nodded acceptance and Sobelov poured vodka for all of them. Such a little thing, Silin decided. But so significant. They weren’t accepting vokda with those nods: they were accepting their death penalty. He’d have them tortured, of course. Just as badly as Sobelov, so it would be fully reported in the newspapers. Maybe have them tied together and thrown into the river, to float on public display through the centre of the city, like that idiot who had been cast adrift on the Berlin lake by whoever he’d tried to cheat and whose death was in all the newspapers that morning.

The reflection took Silin’s mind to Berlin. No cause to doubt his people there. Proper family: blood relatives. And all very important to him, vital to him, in defeating Sobelov. He’d have to arrange a quiet recall, when most of the other things were finalized. It might be interesting, in passing, to find out what the lake business had been about: whether his people knew the would-be purchaser who’d demonstrated his anger so obviously.

Silin straightened in his chair, a thin, fastidiously dressed man. Wanting the censure, as well as a warning to the uncommitted, to be understood, he said, ‘Does anyone else want a drink…?’ And after the various head-shaking refusals finished, ‘So let’s begin, shall we?’

‘Why don’t we do just that?’ said Sobelov, at once. The voice fitted the man’s size, loud and deep.

‘You’ve got a point to make?’

‘The same that I’ve made at two previous meetings,’ said Sobelov. ‘The Chechen are encroaching on our territory. We should hit them.’

‘You want a war?’ invited Silin. It was important to draw the man as much as possible, for the others in the Commission to judge between them.

‘I’m not afraid of one,’ rumbled Sobelov, predictably.

‘None of us are afraid of one,’ said Silin, hoping the others would appreciate how much Sobelov remained part of a past where everything was settled by a gun or a grenade. ‘Do we need the distraction of one?’

‘It’s my particular territory they’re coming into: they’ve taken over six of my vodka outlets in the last month.’ Bobin was a small man so fat he seemed almost round and the protest squeaked out, like a toy squeaks when it is pressed.