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“Would you like one, Sir Nigel?”

“Not for me,” said Irvine. “Upsets the tummy, burns the throat. But I will join you with something else.”

He unscrewed a silver hip flask from his attaché case, and tipped a measure into the silver cup attached. He raised it toward Vincent and took an appreciative sip. It was Mr. Trubshaw’s vintage port from St. James’s.

“I actually think you’re enjoying all this,” said ex-Sergeant Vincent.

“My dear boy, I haven’t had such fun in years.”

The train deposited them at the Moscow terminus just after dawn. The temperature was fifteen below zero. However bleak a railway station in winter may appear to those hurrying home to a blazing hearth, they are still a lot warmer than the streets. When Sir Nigel and Vincent stepped down from the Kiev overnight express, the concourse of the Kursk Station was awash with the cold and hungry poor of the city.

They huddled as close as they could to the warm engines, sought to catch the occasional wave of heat emerging from a café, or simply lay on the concrete trying to survive another night.

“Stay very close to me, sir,” muttered Vincent as they moved toward the ticket barrier, beyond which was the open concourse. As they were heading to the taxi stand, a swarm of the derelicts approached, hands out, heads muffled in scarves, faces unshaven, eyes sunken.

“Dear God, this is awful,” muttered Sir Nigel.

“Don’t reach for your money, you’ll start a riot,” snapped his bodyguard. Despite his age, Sir Nigel was carrying his own grip and attaché case, leaving Vincent with one free hand. The former special forces soldier had it lodged under his left armpit, indicating that he had a gun and would use it if he had to.

In this manner he shepherded the older man ahead of him through the crowd, toward the outside pavement where a few taxis waited hopefully. As he brushed aside a supplicant hand Sir Nigel heard the voice of its owner shouting at his back:

“Foreigner! Damned foreigner!”

“It’s because they think we’re rich,” said Vincent in his ear. “We’re foreign so we’re rich.”

The cries followed them to the pavement. “Fucking foreigner. Wait for Komarov.”

When they were safely seated in the clattering taxi, Irvine leaned back.

“I hadn’t realized it had got so bad,” he muttered. “Last time, I just went from the airport to the National and back out again.”

“It’s full winter now, Sir Nigel. Always worse in winter.”

As they drove out of the forecourt a militia truck swung in front of them. Two stone-faced policemen in heavy greatcoats and fur shapkas sat in the warmth of the cab. The truck swerved past and they could see into the back.

Rows of feet, the rag-bound soles of human feet, were visible for a second as the canvas flaps swung open with the movement of the truck. Bodies. Bodies frozen rock solid and stacked one on top of the other like corded timber.

“The stiff wagon,” said Vincent shortly. “The dawn pickup shift. Five hundred of them are dying every night in the doorways, along the quays.”

They were booked into the National, but did not wish to check in until late afternoon. So the taxi dropped them at the Palace Hotel and they spent the day in deep leather armchairs in the residents’ lounge.

¯

TWO days earlier Jason Monk had made a brief transmission, in code, from his specially adapted laptop computer. It was brief and to the point. He had seen General Petrovsky and all seemed to be well. He was still being moved around the city by the Chechens, often in the guise of a priest, an army or police officer, or a tramp. The Patriarch was ready to receive his English guest for a second time.

It was the message which, beamed across the world to the headquarters of InTelCor, had been retransmitted to Sir Nigel in London, still in code. Sir Nigel alone had the replica one-time pad to unlock the cipher.

It was the message that had brought him from London-Heathrow to Kiev and thence by train to Moscow.

But the message had also been caught by FAPSI, now working almost full-time for Colonel Grishin. The senior director of FAPSI conferred with Grishin while the Kiev-Moscow train steamed through the night.

“We damn near had him,” said the director. “He was in the Arbat district, while last time he was out near Sokolniki. So he’s moving around.”

“The Arbat?” queried Grishin angrily. The Arbat district is barely half a mile from the Kremlin walls.

“There is another danger I should warn you about, Colonel. If he’s using the sort of computer we think he is, he need not necessarily be present when transmissions take place or are received. He can preset it and leave.”

“Just find the set,” ordered Grishin. “He’ll have to return to it, and when he does, I’ll be waiting.”

“If he makes two more, or a single one lasting half a second, we’ll have the source. To within a city block, maybe the building.”

What neither man knew was that according to Sir Nigel Irvine’s plan, Monk would need to make at least three more transmissions to the West.

¯

“HE’S back, Colonel Grishin.”

The voice of Father Maxim down the phone was squeaky with tension. It was six in the evening, pitch-dark outside, and freezing cold. Grishin was still at his desk in the dacha off Kiselny Boulevard. He had just been about to leave when the call came. As per instructions, the switchboard operator heard the word
Maxim
and passed the call straight to the head of security.

“Calm yourself, Father Maxim. Who’s back?”

“The Englishman. The old Englishman. He’s been with His Holiness for an hour.”

“He can’t be.”

Grishin had spread a large sum of money throughout the Immigration Division of the Interior Ministry and the FSB Counter-intelligence apparat to receive forewarning, and it had not come.

“Do you know where he is staying?”

“No, but he used the same limousine.”

The National, thought Grishin. The old fool has gone to the same hotel. He was still bitterly conscious that he had lost the old spymaster the last time because Mr. Trubshaw had moved too fast for him. This time there would be no mistake.

“Where are you now?”

“In the street, using my portable.”

“It’s not secure. Go to the usual place and wait for me there.”

“I should get back, Colonel. I will be missed.”

“Listen, fool, ring the residence and tell them you are feeling unwell. Say you have gone to the pharmacy for medication. But get to the meeting place and wait.”

He slammed down the phone, picked it up again, and ordered his deputy, an ex-major of Border Guards Directorate, KGB, to report to his office immediately.

“Bring ten men, the best, in civilian clothes, and three cars.”

Fifteen minutes later he spread a photograph of Sir Nigel Irvine in front of his deputy.

“That’s him. Probably accompanied by a younger man, dark-haired, fit looking. They are at the National. I want two in the lobby, covering the elevators, the reception desk, and the doors. Two in the downstairs café. Two on the street on foot, four in two cars. If he arrives, watch him go in, then let me know. If he’s there, I don’t want him to come out without my knowing.”

“If he leaves by car?”

“Follow, unless it’s clear he’s heading for the airport. Then arrange a car crash. He does not reach the airport.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

When the deputy had gone to brief his team, Grishin phoned another expert he had on the payroll, a former thief specializing in hotels who reckoned he could unlock any hotel door in Moscow.

“Get your kit together, get to the Intourist Hotel, sit in the lobby, and keep your mobile phone switched on. I want you to take a hotel room for me, tonight, hour unknown. I’ll call you when I need you.”

The Intourist Hotel is two hundred yards from the National, around the corner in Tverskaya Street.

Colonel Grishin was at the church of All Saints of Kulishki thirty minutes later. The worried priest, beaded with sweat, was waiting for him.

“When did he arrive?”

“Unannounced, about four o’clock. But His Holiness must have been expecting him. I was asked to show him straight up. With his interpreter.”

“How long were they together?”

“About an hour. I served a samovar of tea, but they ceased talking while I was in the room.”

“You listened at the door?”

“I tried, Colonel. It was not easy. The cleaning staff were about, those two nuns. Also the archdeacon, his private secretary.”

“How much did you hear?”

“A bit. There was much talk of some prince. The Englishman was proposing a foreign prince to the Patriarch, in some capacity. I heard the phrase ‘The Romanov blood’ and ‘extremely suitable.’ The old man speaks softly, not that it matters; I can’t understand English. Fortunately the interpreter speaks louder.

“The Englishman did most of the talking, His Holiness most of the listening. Once I could see him studying a plan of some sort. Then I had to move.

“I knocked and went back in to ask if they wanted the samovar replenished. There was silence because His Holiness was writing a letter. He said no, and waved me away.”

Grishin was pensive. The word
prince
made perfect sense to him, if not to the valet.

“Anything else?”

“Yes, there was one last thing. As they were leaving, the door opened a fraction. I was waiting outside with their coats. I heard the Patriarch say, ‘I will intercede with our acting president at the first suitable moment.’ That was quite clear, the only whole sentence I heard.”

Grishin turned to Father Maxim and smiled.

“I’m afraid the Patriarch is conspiring with foreign interests against our future president. It is very sad, very unfortunate, because it will not work. I’m sure His Holiness means well, but he is being most foolish. After the election, all this nonsense can be forgotten. But you, my friend, will not be forgotten. During my time with the KGB I learned to recognize the difference between a traitor and a patriot. Traitors may in certain circumstances be forgiven. His Holiness, for example. But a true patriot will always be rewarded.”

“Thank you, Colonel.”

“Do you ever have time off?”

“One evening a week.”

“After the election, you must come and dine at one of our Young Combatants camps. They’re rough-hewn lads but good-hearted. And of course extremely fit. All fifteen to nineteen. The best of them we take into the Black Guards.”

“That would be very ... agreeable.”

“And of course after the election I shall suggest to President Komarov that the Guards and the Combatants will need an honorary chaplain. Certainly the rank of bishop will be necessary.”

“You’re very kind, Colonel.”

“You will find I can be, Father Maxim. Now back to the residence. Keep me informed. You had better take this. You will know what to do with it.”

When the informer had left, Colonel Grishin ordered his driver to take him to the National Hotel. It was time, he thought, that this interfering Westerner and his American troublemaker learned some of the facts of modern Moscow.

CHAPTER 17

COLONEL GRISHIN ORDERED HIS DRIVER TO PARK A
hundred yards down Okhotny Ryad, Hunter’s Row, which makes up the northwestern side of Manege Square where the National is situated.

From inside his car he could see the two vehicles of his watcher team parked near the shopping mall facing the facade of the hotel.

“Wait here,” he told his driver, and got out. Even at seven in the evening it was almost twenty below zero. A few huddled figures shuffled past.

He crossed the street and tapped on the driver’s side window. It creaked in the cold as the electric motor brought it down.

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Where is he?”

“He must be inside, if he was in there before we arrived. No one has left that even looks like him.”

“Call Mr. Kuznetsov. Tell him I need him here.”

The propaganda chief arrived twenty minutes later.

“I need you to play your American tourist again,” said Grishin. He pulled a photograph from his pocket and showed it to Kuznetsov.

“That’s the man I’m looking for,” he said. “Try the names of Trubshaw or Irvine.”

Kuznetsov was back ten minutes later.

“He’s in there, under the name of Irvine. He’s in his room.”

“Number?”

“Two-five-two. Is that all?”

“That’s all I need.”

Grishin returned to his own car and used his mobile phone to call the professional thief he had stationed around the corner in the lobby of the Intourist.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Stay on listening watch. When I give the command, the room I want searched is two-five-two. I want nothing taken, everything searched. One of my own men is in the lobby. He will come with you.”

“Understood.”

At eight o’clock one of the two men Grishin had posted in the lobby came out. He nodded across the road to his colleagues in the nearest car, then drifted off.

Minutes later two figures in heavy winter coats and fur hats emerged. Grishin could see wisps of white hair escaping from under one of the hats. The men turned left, up the street toward the Bolshoi Theatre.

Grishin called up his thief.

“He’s left the hotel. The room is vacant.”

One of Grishin’s cars began to crawl slowly after the walking men. Two more of the watchers, who had been in the National’s ground-floor café, came out and turned after the Englishmen. There were four walkers on the street, four more watchers in two cars. Grishin’s driver spoke.

“Shall we pick them up, Colonel?”

“No, I want to see where they go.”

There was a chance Irvine would make contact with the American, Monk. If he did, Grishin would have them all.

The two Englishmen paused at the lights where Tverskaya Street leaves the square, waited for the green, and crossed. Seconds later the thief came around the corner from Tverskaya.

He was a thoroughly experienced man and always looked the part of a foreign executive, almost the only breed who could still afford the top Moscow hotels. His coat and suit were from London, both stolen, and his air of self-confident ease would fool almost all hotel employees.