Stella Rimington - Illegal Action

“Tarkov was slated to become a senior official in the new nationalised company. After twenty years in the Kremlin, he was looking forward to working somewhere else—and to the perks of the job. At the last minute, Putin gave the post to someone else. Who knows why? But it served to alienate Tarkov from Putin. He still has a government position but is no longer on the inside track. Which may explain what he told me.”

Fane could see Adler was enjoying himself, so he took a sip of his drink and leant back. There was no point in trying to rush the old boy.

“Last summer, Tarkov attended a wedding, at a dacha outside Moscow. It was a lavish affair—the groom’s father had made a fortune in platinum during Yeltsin’s time, I believe—attended by many senior political figures and businessmen. There was a lot to drink—perhaps you have been to a Russian wedding—and towards the end of the evening Tarkov found himself sharing a bottle of vodka with a colleague named Stanislav Stakhov.”

Fane nodded. Stakhov was one of the few senior Yeltsin aides who had managed to prosper under Putin.

“He and Tarkov have known each other since they were boys. They grew up together in Minsk; they even joined the Party in the same year. Yet, Tarkov told me, he was careful when they talked, since Stakhov is a Putin man and always much in favour. Tarkov says he didn’t grumble about the president or about his own fall from grace, though I take that with a grain of salt since the man seems incapable of opening his mouth without complaining.”

Fane smiled. He had long ago learnt that Victor Adler performed best before an appreciative audience. Adler continued, “However, according to Tarkov, the drunker Stakhov got, the more he became critical of Putin. He said Putin was starting to act erratically, power was going to his head. He was growing insecure, almost paranoid.”

Fane nodded, not entirely surprised. It was almost an axiom in his experience that the greater the accumulation of power, the greater the fear of losing it. One had only to look at Stalin, without a challenger to his authority in sight, yet obsessed with conspiracy phobias by the time he died. Fane asked quietly, “Any particular people he’s paranoid about?”

“That is the odd thing.” Adler paused and took a sip of whisky. “Apparently, he’s not worried by the Russian mafia—most of them are on his side anyway—and internal political opposition is negligible. What seems to concern Putin are the new oligarchs.”

“But they’re utterly dependent on him. He can ruin any one of them just by nationalising their company.”

“Indeed, so. But it’s the oligarchs who’ve left Russia that he’s scared of.”

“Most of them are here,” said Fane. There were said to be thirty Russian billionaires living in London alone.

“Exactly. Putin is terribly uneasy that so many are in one place.”

Fane frowned. “What does he think, they’ll form a government in exile?” he asked. “That’s just the old Bolshevik neurosis about émigrés, like the White Russians congregating in Paris before the war. They never stood the slightest chance of toppling the Communists.”

The little man in tails reappeared, and placed a bowl of macadamia nuts on the table next to them. Adler offered them first to Fane, who shook his head, then took a handful himself, with a large hairy hand, munching thoughtfully for a moment. Then he said, “I doubt it’s anything that extreme. Stakhov can be a little dramatic.”

“I know Putin a little,” Adler continued, and Fane knew this was true. “I don’t view him as paranoid. Stakhov might call him that, but I think the appropriate word would be ‘careful.’ He can see a threat before anyone else can even imagine it. Of course on a personal level, Putin despises these expatriate oligarchs because he thinks they are decadent. He is, after all, ex-KGB. But their money makes them powerful. They don’t like him and some of them have become quite vocal. They could help fund opposition to him within Russia and certainly on Russia’s borders. That’s what concerns Putin.”

Though President Putin’s concerns were interesting, Fane didn’t imagine for a moment that Victor Adler would have asked him here just to relay high-level Kremlin gossip emanating from a late-night session with a vodka bottle. He waited patiently, looking as if he had all the time in the world. No one would have guessed he had a dinner to go to.

“Tarkov claims he didn’t react when Stakhov started spouting about Putin. He just waited to see what would come next. It seems that Stakhov thought he didn’t believe him. It was then he told Tarkov about the plot.”

Fane raised an eyebrow and crossed one leg languidly across the other. Only those who knew him very well would realise this indicated a sudden raised interest. “Plot?” he asked mildly.

Adler nodded vigorously. For the first time, he looked around the room, which was slowly emptying as its occupants moved to the dining room or left for engagements elsewhere. He leant forward and spoke again in a lowered voice. “It has been decided to make a pre-emptive strike against the oligarchs. One of them is going to be silenced, pour encourager les autres . By removing one thorn in its side, the government intends to convey a very strong warning.”

“‘Silenced’?” asked Fane.

Adler merely shrugged in reply. They both knew what it meant.

“Here in England?” Fane asked casually, as if it happened all the time.

“Apparently.”

“Which oligarch has been selected for this privilege?” He kept his tone light, but he was watching Adler intently.

“That Tarkov couldn’t tell me. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know. He said he had the distinct impression the plan hadn’t been finalised yet.”

“Would he be able to find out?”

Adler looked doubtful. “Probably not. He told me he phoned Stakhov a week later to ask him to lunch, but Stakhov didn’t take his call.”

Fane was thinking hard. “Wouldn’t they try and lure their target back to Russia? Surely, he’d be easier to deal with there than here.”

“Of course. But then it would lose its symbolic power. If they’re hoping to show that no enemy of the state is safe, wherever they live, it will happen abroad.”

“God knows it’s happened often enough before,” said Fane grimly. The Kremlin’s assassination of opponents overseas had a pedigree dating back to Trotsky’s murder. In Mexico, of all places. But then, thought Fane, the story might be nothing more than a rumour, inflated into certainty by too much vodka, relayed to Sir Victor for some Byzantine Muscovite motive, as impenetrable to British observers as tarot cards. And what about Sir Victor himself? He was not exactly a spring chicken, thought Fane, taking the last sip of his whisky. Might he not be mistaking some tittle-tattle for a state secret, out of some inflated sense of self-importance perhaps, or even incipient dottiness?

“Did he have any more specific information about this plot?”

“He said he had told me all he knew,” said Adler, and his dark, sad eyes were unwavering.

“If Tarkov attended this wedding in the summer, then he’s waited long enough to tell anyone.”

“I know. But I think it was only this autumn that Tarkov’s hopes of a job in the private sector were extinguished. After that, he decided to approach me.” Adler reached down and scooped up another handful of nuts. But he paused before popping them into his mouth. “I think Tarkov is intent on an old-fashioned act of revenge. Not professional perhaps, but perfectly understandable in personal terms. That’s why I believe him.”

Fane nodded. It made sense. He looked around the room and realised that he and Sir Victor were alone. “So,” Adler said shortly, “I was asked to communicate this to the appropriate person—someone who would know who should be informed. You and I have seen each other over the years, and I knew I could trust both your discretion and your judgement.”