Jack Higgins: A Darker Place

“That bastard Ferguson, to treat me like this.”

“I should point out that we’re on his patch, Colonel. He has the legal right to do what he has threatened.”

“And we would have the right to respond, to kick people out from the British Embassy in Moscow.”

Bounine was all lawyer now. “But perhaps Prime Minister Putin wouldn’t like that, or President Medvedev.”

“I don’t care about all that,” Luzhkov raged.

“It would be a pity if one or both of them came to the conclusion that you had acted unadvisedly in this matter. It’d be a great pity to lose the delights of London after thirteen years.”

It was enough, and for Luzhkov obviously a sobering thought. “Yes, it makes sense.” He sighed. “Maybe we should cancel the operation.”

“I wonder how Ali Selim will take that?” Bounine said. “Half a million up the spout.”

“He’ll be sensible. We’ve worked together before and we’ll work together again.”

Bounine nodded. “Do you want me to stay while you phone him?”

Luzhkov was not happy, and it showed. “A phone call he would take badly. He is a man of uncertain temper, as you will have noticed.” He turned to the wall safe behind his desk, opened it, and disclosed stacks of cash. He took a canvas bag from a lower shelf and tossed packets of money in it. He pushed it across the desk. “Give him this. Fifty thousand pounds, with my compliments for his time.”

“Fifty thousand pounds for nothing?”

“Believe me, it’s the safest course with that one. Take it to him now.” He frowned. “Are you refusing to obey my order, Major?”

“Of course not.”

“Then the sooner you go, the sooner you get back.”

If I get back, Bounine thought. He took the bag and withdrew.

HE LEFT AT once and was at India Wharf in little more than half an hour. Yuri Bounine was a brave man, for he could not have survived Afghanistan and Chechnya if he had not been, but in this case he was dealing with a very unbalanced human being. He had a Stechkin pistol in his raincoat pocket, which he suspected would not do him much good if it came down to a hand-to-hand struggle. So he would just have to trust his luck.

He opened the doors at the head of the companionway and called, “Ali Selim, it’s Bounine. Colonel Luzhkov has sent me to see you. He has a message for you.”

“Then come below and give it to me.”

HE WAS SITTING at the end of the table, the Beretta pistol at his right hand beside an early edition of the Standard, which carried a picture of the Garden of Eden on the front page.

He looked up. “I’m just bringing myself up to speed on what’s happening. I was watching it on television a little while ago.” He frowned, then said calmly, “There’s something up, isn’t there?”

Bounine tried a joke. “You know what they say. Don’t shoot the messenger. He wants to cancel.”

Ali Selim poured a cognac. “Has he got a reason?”

“He thinks Moscow won’t like it. It’ll cause too much trouble on the international scene.”

“Why didn’t he come himself?”

“Because he’s afraid of you.”

“And you are not?”

“When I was in the Russian Army, I fought Afghans for long enough to learn something about them. You invited me in, I’m a guest in your dwelling.” He put the bag on the table. “He said this is his gift to you for your trouble.”

“How much?”

“Fifty thousand pounds.”

Ali Selim laughed out loud. “At any other time, I might have said yes, but today not only does his fifty thousand quid mean nothing, even his half million means fuck all.”

“Could you explain that?” Bounine sat down on one of the benches.

“You want to know why I’ve been pouring cognac down me like it’s gone out of style? Pains in my gut, started four weeks ago, and I discovered that a slug of cognac kills the pain for a while.”

“A short while,” Bounine said.

“Exactly, so I saw the doctor, had the tests, and he phoned me up an hour ago. Wanted me to go and see him, but I’m a big boy now, so I told him to come straight out with it.”

“And?”

“Cancer in my liver and lights, already spreading like wildfire. No chance with surgery and too late for chemo.”

“How long?”

“Three months tops.” He laughed and poured more cognac. “And I don’t fancy that, Bounine. It sounds too much like a kind of torture.”

“So what do you fancy?”

Ali laughed wickedly. “Like going out in a blaze of glory-or should I say Semtex. Now, how do you think Luzhkov would feel about that? It would be like one of those old black-and-white war movies with a title like Torpedo Run.”

The smile was quite mad, but he obviously meant it. “I don’t think Luzhkov would approve at all,” Bounine said.

“What a shame. He’d be getting it for free and I’d give him all the credit.” He got up, went behind the bar, and opened a cupboard. “This is where I keep my flags.” He rummaged around and turned with a red flag. “Hammer and sickle and God bless Mother Russia. So what do you think?”

“That Luzhkov would be so hostile to the idea that he might warn the British Security Services or Scotland Yard about what you intended.”

“No, I don’t think so. I’ve handled a number of operations for him over the years, and I’ll just mention one. It was before your time here, four years ago, the Liverpool shopping-mall bomb that was put down to Al Qaeda. Twelve dead, twenty-one injured. That was me. Part of Luzhkov’s breakup-of-modern-capitalism campaign. Ten years ago, I arranged five different bombings in Belfast during the Troubles, also part of his obsession with causing chaos in the Western world. I could prove all this. The Russian journalist, Dolishny, who supposedly committed suicide from the terrace of his tenth-floor apartment in Clapham two years ago? Him too. He didn’t fall, he was pushed.”

“By you?”

“Who else? And in that case, I’ve got a tape of our discussions setting the thing up.”

“So everything else would be just your word? What would he have to do to persuade you to give him that tape?”

“This. He comes here and faces me, he doesn’t inform on me to the British authorities, he gets the tape-and I leave at once to intercept the Garden of Eden. Too late for anyone to stop me.”

The smile was that of a raving lunatic, and he laughed harshly and looked at his watch. “You’ve got plenty of time. Go and speak to him.”

Bounine nodded. “I’ll do as you say.”

As he got to the companionway, Ali said, “Bounine, just remember this: I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to die, and if it isn’t today, it’s going to be soon. So there’s nothing he can do to me. Got it?”

BOUNINE DROVE BACK to the Embassy as quickly as he could. The whole thing was out of control, and yet some sense of military discipline and loyalty to his country still argued that his duty was to support and defend Luzhkov in any way possible. It then struck him that that must have been the argument some young SS officer had faced when his boss was Heinrich Himmler.

He found Luzhkov in his office. “Yuri,” his boss said, “is the matter concluded?”

“Anything but.” Bounine told him exactly what had taken place.

Luzhkov was thrown. “But this is terrible. What can I do?”

“Well, you obviously can’t warn Ferguson or anyone else in intelligence, because if they get their hands on Ali Selim, you’ve had it. That tape alone would ruin you, never mind his confession on other matters.”

“He’s mad,” Luzhkov said.

“No, he’s dying, and he doesn’t care. Now, what are you going to do about the Garden of Eden? Would you consider a phone call to the authorities?”