Stanley Johnson: Kompromat

With his mouth full of pickle, Barnard did his best to stick to the party line. Officially, Britain was all for ratcheting up the sanctions. But there was a strange disconnect between the increasing hoarse language now being used on both sides of the Atlantic and the idyllic pastoral setting in which they now found themselves A few months ago, it had all looked so hopeful.

He decided to strike an upbeat note.

‘Congratulations on the Karelia transnational biosphere reserve,’ Barnard said. ‘That’s a magnificent achievement.’

Galina Aslanova agreed. ‘When we all come to look at the president’s achievements, this Karelia reserve will rate very highly. And we must thank the Finns, too.’

‘Amazing people,’ Popov conceded. ‘A handful of their fighters held up the whole Russian Army for months. On our side, heads rolled, I can tell you.’

Popov had a sudden mischievous idea. ‘Remember that time when I raced you to Khabarovsk? You were in Jack Varese’s Gulfstream 550; I was flying my Ilyushin Il-96.’

‘Of course, I remember. How could I ever forget it?’

‘Let’s have another race now,’ Popov said. ‘All the way to the border. Perhaps Mrs Barnard would like to come with me. Galina can go with you. She knows the way by the back roads in case you get lost. Actually, I’ve had another thought. I’ll drive the Rolls. I’ve always wanted to drive a Rolls Royce Phantom VI. Maybe you’d like to take the UAZ. First one to the border post wins?’

‘OMG!’ thought Barnard. You could hardly make it up. The president of the Russian Federation was about to drive off in the British ambassador’s Rolls Royce to the Finnish border without realizing that he had one of his own FSB agents crammed in the boot, heading for freedom!

Jim Connally asked the obvious question. ‘So Galina’s going to come with us in the UAZ to make sure we find the way. That’s great. But who’s going to drive, sir?’

Barnard thought back to all those years he had driven his Land Rover over the Wiltshire Hills. He had had some pretty good scrapes in his time.

‘I’ll have a go,’ he said quietly. ‘You might have to show me the gears.’

It wasn’t so much a question of engine capacity, though the Rolls-Royce Phantom VI’s 6.75 litre engine certainly outgunned the UAZ’s 2.5 litre engine. Given the terrain, there was never a moment when the Phantom could go flat out. No, what distinguished Popov’s driving from Barnard’s was the sheer determination the Russian President showed to gain and hold the lead.

‘God knows what the ambassador’s going to say when I bring the car back to her,’ Connally said as he watched the Rolls accelerate away from them, hurling itself over ruts, potholes, and fallen branches.

‘Has Popov been a rally driver too, Galina?’ Barnard asked, doing his damnedest to keep up.

‘He’s done everything,’ Galina shouted. ‘Try a shortcut here. We can run though the bog. The president won’t risk it with the Rolls. Too heavy.’

‘So you know this part of the world as well as the president, do you?’ Jim Connally asked.

‘This isn’t the first time I’ve stayed at the dacha,’ Galina replied.

Connally pressed her. Too good an opportunity to miss. Personal details were often the most important. She might be a good lead to cultivate for the future. Rumour had it she was going to step up a rank soon in the FSB, so getting close to Aslanova would be a real coup.’

‘Are you in a relationship with the president then?’ Connally asked.

‘What does it look like?’ Galina laughed. ‘But I won’t be much longer, if Popov loses today, I can tell you. The president doesn’t like losing.’

Of course, Popov won. He was already at the border post, standing next to the Rolls with Melissa by his side, when Barnard drove up in the UAZ-469.

Popov beamed. ‘Great car, your Rolls Royce! Fantastic race! Mrs Barnard was tremendous. We were bouncing all over the place but she hung on in there. Hate to think what it would be like for someone in the boot!’

The Russian border guards saluted. ‘Good afternoon, Mr President.’

Popov mopped the sweat from his brow. ‘No formalities, please. These are high-level guests of the Russian Federation. Rolls Royce. CD plates. Whatever.’

They shook hands all round. The president, no longer shirtless, once again kissed Melissa Barnard’s hand.

Galina Aslanova winked at Barnard. ‘All’s well that ends well.’

Then she gave him big hug. ‘Come back soon,’ she said.

The Finnish border guards, tipped off in advance by MI6, waved the Rolls Royce Phantom VI and its cargo on through.

Once they were safely on the Finnish side of the border, Edward Barnard got out of the car, followed by his wife. He walked round to the boot. As he did so, Connally pressed the button to raise the lid.

Moments later, a pale and sweating Fyodor Stephanov staggered out. ‘Never been bounced around so much in my life,’ he said. ‘Not since that evening in the Kempinski anyway!’

They had less than a hundred miles to travel from the border to Helsinki. Stephanov sat up front, next to the driver. The Barnards sat in the back.

The road ran along the coast. ‘It’s motorway all the way now,’ Connally said. ‘We take the E18, then join up with the E75 outside Helsinki. You’ll be okay to talk if I put some music on. Shall we stick to Sibelius? We had the “Karelia Suite” already. What about “Finlandia”? You can’t beat “Finlandia”, can you?’

The Rolls Royce Phantom had a brilliant sound system. Since the car retailed at over £300,000 you’d expect a pretty good sound system, thought Barnard. What he didn’t expect was to hear Ronald Craig’s distinctive voice: ‘ Are you telling me, General ,’ the president was saying, ‘that at this moment in time we don’t actually know whether President Assad was responsible for gassing those poor innocent kids or not? You’re the National Security Adviser. If you don’t know, who the hell does?’

Then they heard the sound of a toilet flushing, and another voice, deeper than the president’s but with a southern twang: ‘ Hang on a moment, sir. I’ll be right out .’

Oh my God, Barnard thought. They’re still bugging the president. This is Popov’s way of letting us know.

‘Shall I turn it off, sir?’ Connally asked.

‘No, let’s hear a bit more,’ Barnard replied. ‘They must have picked this up last week, when Liu Wang-Ji, the Chinese president, was making a state visit to the Florida White House as they call it: Hasta La Vista. They had to interrupt their dinner, as I understand it, so that the president could go into a huddle with his advisers. Looks like they met in the loo. That’s got to be the national security adviser, General Ian Wright.’

‘ What I mean, sir ,’ they heard General Wright say, against the sound of running water, ‘is that it’s quite possible that ISIS or Daish or whatever was responsible for the chemical attack, rather than Assad.’

‘ Then why the hell am I about to authorize a Tomahawk strike on a Syrian Government Air Base? ’

‘ People will expect you to do something, sir. Provided it’s an appropriate and proportionate response, of course .’

Then they heard Craig say, ‘Those little kids! Goddammit, I can’t stop thinking about them .’

That evening, while Jim Connally took Stephanov off to the British Embassy in Helsinki for the first debriefing of many, the Barnards had a quiet dinner on the waterfront.

Edward Barnard raised his glass. ‘ Hyvä terveys! ’ he said.

‘What does that mean?’ Melissa asked.

‘It means “good health” in Finnish. Years ago I had a Finnish girlfriend.’