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“You’ve forgotten one thing,” said Probyn. “He’d have to speak fluent Russian. George the First arrived speaking only German, and Bernadotte spoke only French. But those days are gone. Nowadays a monarch must address his people. The Russians wouldn’t take kindly to a stream of, say, Italian.”

Sir Nigel Irvine arose and took a slip of paper from his breast pocket. It was a check, and a generous one.

“I say, that’s awfully decent,” said the herald.

“I’m sure the college has its overhead, my dear doctor. Look, would you do me a favor?”

“If I can.”

“Cast your eye about. Run through the reigning houses of Europe. See if there is any man who fits all those categories.”

¯

FIVE miles to the north of the Kremlin in the suburb of Kashenkin Lug lies the complex of the television centers from which are transmitted all the TV programs beamed across Russia.

On either side of the Boulevard Akademika Koroleva are the TV Center (Domestic) and the International TV Center. Three hundred yards away the needle spire of the Ostankino TV tower juts into the sky, the highest point in the capital. State TV, very much under the control of the incumbent government, is broadcast from here, as are the two independent or commercial TV stations that carry advertising to pay their way. The buildings are shared, but on different levels.

Boris Kuznetsov was deposited at the domestic center by one of the UPF’s chauffeur-driven Mercedeses. He carried with him the videocassette of the hugely impressive rally at Vladimir that Igor Komarov had conducted the previous day.

Cut and edited by the young genius of a director Litvinov, it had emerged as a triumph. To a wildly cheering crowd, Komarov had trashed the itinerant preacher who was calling for a return to God and the czar, and treated with thinly veiled sarcasm posing as regret the maunderings of the old general.

“Yesterday’s men with yesterday’s hopes,” he roared at his supporters, “but we, my friends, you and I, must think of tomorrow, for tomorrow belongs to us.”

Five thousand people had been at the rally, which Litvinov’s skillful camera work had made to look three times that number. But broadcast across the nation, despite the awesome cost of buying an entire hour at commercial rates, the rally would reach not five thousand but fifty million Russians, or a third of the nation.

Kuznetsov was shown directly into the office of the head of programs for the larger commercial station, a man he regarded as a personal friend and whom he knew to be a supporter of Igor Komarov and the UPF. He dropped the cassette onto the desk of Anton Gurov.

“It was wonderful,” he said enthusiastically, “I was there. You’ll love it.”

Gurov fiddled with his pen.

“And I’ve got better news for you. A major contract, cash on the barrelhead. President Komarov wishes to address the nation every night from now until election day. Think of it, Anton, the biggest single commercial contract this station has ever had. Some credit to you, eh?”

“Boris, I’m glad you came personally. I’m afraid something has cropped up.”

“Oh, not a technical hitch. Can’t you ever sort them out?”

“No, not exactly technical. Look, you know I support President Komarov to the hilt, right?”

As a senior program planner, Gurov knew exactly how the coverage by TV, the most persuasive single medium in any modern society, was playing in the countdown to the election.

Only Britain, with its BBC, continued to attempt unbiased political coverage using state television channels. In all other countries across Western and Eastern Europe, the incumbent governments used their national television to support the regime of the moment, and had done so for years.

In Russia the state TV network carried copious coverage of the campaign of acting president Ivan Markov, while giving only occasional mentions, always within a dry news context, to the other two candidates.

Those other two candidates, the smaller fry having dropped out along the way, were Gennadi Zyuganov for the neo-Communist Socialist Union and Igor Komarov of the Union of Patriotic Forces.

The former was clearly having problems raising money for his campaign; the latter appeared to enjoy a cornucopia of it. With these funds, Komarov had been able to buy publicity in the American manner by paying for hours of TV time on the two commercial channels. By buying this time, he could ensure that he was not cut, edited, or censored. Gurov had long been happy to oblige with prime-time slots for the full-length screenings of Komarov’s speeches and rallies. He was no fool. He realized that if Komarov won there would be some heavy firings among the state TV staff. A lot of the bigwigs would go; Komarov would see to that. For those with their hearts in the right place, there would be transfers and promotions.

But something was wrong now. Kuznetsov stared at Gurov in puzzlement.

“The fact is, Boris, there’s been a sort of policy shift. At board level. Nothing to do with me, you understand. I’m just the errand boy. This is way up above my head, in the stratosphere.”

“What policy shift, Anton? What are you talking about?”

Gurov shifted uncomfortably and again cursed the managing director who had saddled him with the task.

“You probably know, Boris, like all big enterprises, we are heavily indebted to the banks. When push comes to shove, they have a lot of clout. They rule. Normally, they leave us alone. The returns are good. But ... they’re pulling the plug.”

Kuznetsov was aghast.

“Hell, Anton, I’m sorry. It must be awful for you.”

“Not quite for me, Boris.”

“But surely, if the station is going belly-up, down the tubes …”

“Yes, well now, it seems that wasn’t quite what they said. The station can survive, but there’s a price.”

“What price?”

“Now look, friend, this is nothing to do with me. If it was down to me, I’d screen Igor Komarov twenty-four hours a day, but …”

“But what? Spit it out.”

“Okay. The station won’t be screening any more of Mr. Komarov’s speeches or rallies. That’s the order.”

Kuznetsov was on his feet, face scarlet with rage.

“You’re out of your fucking mind! We buy this time, remember. We pay for it. This is a commercial station. You can’t refuse our money.”

“Apparently we can.”

“But this one has been prepaid!”

“It seems that the money is being returned.”

“I’ll go next door. You’re not the only commercial TV channel in this town. I always favored you, Anton. Well, no more.”

“Boris, they’re owned by the same banks.”

Kuznetsov sat down again. His knees were shaking.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“All I can say, Boris, is, someone’s been got at. I don’t understand this any more than you. But the board handed it down yesterday. Either we decline to screen Mr. Komarov for the next thirty days or the banks pull.”

Kuznetsov stared at him.

“That’s a lot of screen time you’re passing up. What are you going to air instead? Cossack dancing?”

“No, that’s the odd thing. The station is going to program coverage of the rallies of that priest fellow.”

“What priest fellow?”

“You know, the revivalist preacher. Always urging people to turn to God.”

“God and the czar,” muttered Kuznetsov.

“That’s him.”

“Father Gregor.”

“The same. I can’t understand it myself but …”

“You’re crazy. He hasn’t two rubles to rub together.”

“That’s just the point. The money seems to be in place. So we’re carrying him on the news and the special events slot. He’s got a hell of a schedule. Want to see it?”

“No, I do not want to see his bloody schedule.”

With that, Kuznetsov stormed out. How he was going to face his idol with the news, he had no idea. But a suspicion that had been in his head for three weeks had concretized into total belief. There had been looks between Komarov and Grishin when he broke the news of the printing presses and then General Nikolayev. They knew something that he did not. But one thing he did know; something was going catastrophically wrong.

¯

THAT night, on the other side of Europe, Sir Nigel Irvine was interrupted at his dinner. The club servant held out the phone to him.

“A Dr. Probyn, Sir Nigel.”

The herald’s chirpy voice came down the line from his office where he was clearly working late.

“I think I’ve got your man.”

“Your office, tomorrow, ten o’clock? Splendid.”

Sir Nigel handed the phone back to the hovering steward.

“I think this calls for a port, Trubshaw. Club vintage, if you please.”

CHAPTER 16

IN RUSSIA, WHAT WESTERN COUNTRIES WOULD CALL THE
police is named the militia and comes under the direction of the Ministry of the Interior, the MVD.

Like most police forces, it has two main strands: the federal police on the one hand, and the local, state, or regional police on the other.

The regions are called Oblasts. The largest of them is the Moscow Oblast, a chunk of territory encompassing the entire capital of the federal republic and the surrounding countryside. It is like the District of Columbia with a third of Virginia and Maryland thrown in.

Moscow therefore plays host, though in different buildings, to both the federal militia and the Moscow militia. Unlike Western police establishments, the Russian Interior Ministry also has at its disposal a private army—one hundred thirty thousand heavily armed MVD troops, almost a match for the real army under the Defense Ministry.

Shortly after the fall of Communism the mushroom-like rise of organized crime became so open, so pervasive, and so scandalous that Boris Yeltsin was forced to order the formation of entire divisions within the federal and Moscow Oblast police to fight the spread of the mafia.

The job of the feds was to fight crime across the entire country, but so concentrated in Moscow was organized crime, much of it economic, that the Moscow Organized Crime Combat Department, or GUVD, became almost as big as its federal counterpart.

The GUVD had only moderate success until the mid-nineties, when it was taken over by General-of-Police Valentin Petrovsky. Petrovsky became the senior ranking general of the Collegium controlling it. He was an out-of-town appointment, brought in from the industrial city of Nizhny Novgorod, where he had established the reputation of a no-bribe “hard man.” Like Elliott Ness, he inherited a situation resembling Chicago under Al Capone. Unlike the leader of the Untouchables, he had a lot more firepower and a lot fewer civil rights to bother about.

He started his reign by firing a dozen top officers whom he designated as being “too close” to the subject at hand, organized crime. “Too close!” yelled the FBI Liaison Officer at the U.S. Embassy. “They were on the god-dam payroll.”

Petrovsky then ran a series of covert will-they-take-a-bribe tests on some of the senior investigators. Those who told the bribe offerers to get lost received promotions and big pay hikes. When he had a reliable and honest task force to hand, he declared war on organized crime. His Anti-Gang Squad became more feared among the underworld than any such previously, and he was nicknamed “Molotov.” This was not a tribute to the long-dead foreign minister and cohort of Stalin; the word means “hammer.”

Like any honest cop he did not win them all. The cancer ran too deep. Organized crime had friends in high places. Too many gangsters went into court and came back out again with their smiles still in place.

Petrovsky’s response was not to be overly careful about taking prisoners. To back up their detectives, both the federal and city anti-gang divisions had armed troops. Those of the federal police were called the OMON, and Petrovsky’s own rapid reaction force, the SOBR.

In his early days Petrovsky led raids personally and without forewarning to prevent leaks. If the raided gangsters came quietly they got a trial; if one of them reached under his armpit or sought to destroy evidence or escape, Petrovsky waited until it was all over, said “Tut-tut,” and called for the body bags.

By 1998 he realized that the largest mafia group by far, and seemingly the most impregnable, was the Dolgoruki gang, based in Moscow, controlling much of Russia west of the Urals, immensely rich and with its wealth able to buy awesome influence. For two years prior to the winter of 1999 he had waged personal war against the Dolgoruki and they hated him for it.

¯

UMAR Gunayev had told Jason Monk at their first meeting that there was no need for him to forge identity papers in Russia; money could simply buy the real article. In early December Monk put that boast to the test.

What he had in mind would be the fourth time he had secured a private talk with a Russian notable while flying under false colors. But the forged letter from Metropolitan Anthony of the Russian Orthodox Church in London had been created in that city. So had the letter purporting to come from the House of Rothschild. General Nikolayev had asked for no identity papers; the uniform of a General Staff officer had been enough. General Valentin Petrovsky, living under daily threat of assassination, was guarded night and day.

Where the Chechen leader got them from, Monk never asked. But they looked good. They bore the photograph of Monk with his short-cropped blond hair and identified him as a police colonel on the personal staff of the First Deputy Head, Organized Crime Control Directorate, Federal Interior Ministry. As such he would not be personally known to Petrovsky, but would be a colleague from the federal police.

One of the things that did not change after the fall of Communism was the Russian habit of setting aside entire apartment blocks for senior officers in the same profession. While in the West politicians, civil servants, and senior officers usually live in their own private homes scattered through the suburbs, the tendency in Moscow is to live rent-free in groups in state-owned apartment houses.

This is mainly because the post—Communist state simply took over these apartments from the old Central Committee and created rent-free residences. Many of these buildings were, and remain, strung along the north side of Kutuzovsky Prospekt where Brezhnev and most of the Politburo once lived. Petrovsky lived on the eighth floor, just below the top floor of a building on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. A dozen other senior police officers had apartments there too. There was at least one advantage to lumping all these men from the same profession into one building. Private citizens would have become exasperated by the security; police generals completely understood the need for it.