The minister showed every sign of wanting to get back to her office, but Felix clearly thought the opportunity of building on Richard’s persuasive introduction to the Zubr was too good to miss. He seemed set on turning what had been proposed as a short fact-finding mission into the full guided tour with the relentlessness of a used-car salesman. Perhaps fortunately for Patience Aganga, her Benincom cell phone began to ring even as the Russian was shepherding her off the bridge towards the high-temperature gas turbine engines, already launching into an explanation of how they powered two sets of fans, one set of which kept the skirts inflated while another provided the propulsion.
‘I have to take this,’ the minister said. ‘It’s Colonel Kebila.’ She turned away, talking rapidly. Then she stopped and turned back. ‘I know it’s a long shot,’ she said, ‘but do any of you know a Russian by the name of Yagula?’
‘We both do,’ said Richard. ‘He’s the chief prosecutor of the Moscow law enforcement system — of the whole of the Russian Federation, in fact. Lavrenty Mikhailovich Yagula. What does Kebila want to know about him?’
‘No,’ said Patience, her dark brow furrowed. ‘This one’s called Ivan. Ivan Yagula. And he’s not in Moscow. Or even in Russia. He’s in detention at the airport for trying to smuggle a sizeable arsenal of weapons into the country.’
There was a stunned silence. Richard looked at the minister, who was looking at him. They both ended up looking at Felix.
‘Ah,’ said Felix, with the closest Richard had ever seen him come to a blush. ‘I think I might know what’s happening …’
In one of life’s irritating little inevitabilities, Max had just left the airport and was caught in traffic on his way back to the hotel when Felix got through to him. There was no chance that he could get back and sort out matters between Ivan Yagula and the airport authorities. Though, from the tone of what Richard could hear coming out of Felix’s cell phone, Max wasn’t too happy about the situation either.
‘I’ll have to go myself,’ the Russian announced to Patience Aganga. ‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid your tour of the vessel may have to wait, minister.’
‘I believe I will survive the disappointment,’ she answered with every evidence of relief. ‘But if Captain Zhukov will supply paper I will write a letter of authority for you to take with you, and I will call the airport formally myself when I get back to my office.’
Richard, who had never seen Felix wrong-footed, let alone flustered, found his interest piqued. ‘Mind if I ride along, Felix? Robin’s taken my car anyway, and I’d love to know more about this chap.’
Probably because he was still a little off balance, Felix agreed and did not even seem to regret his decision until their saloon was snaking out on one of President Chaka’s new highways towards the airport. ‘So,’ said Richard in the cheery tone he knew irritated Felix most. A tone he usually reserved for when he thought Felix had stepped over one of the lines that defined their relationship. ‘Another Yagula? Father? Uncle? Cousin? Brother?’
‘Son,’ answered Felix grudgingly, the way he tapped the minister’s envelope against his immaculately tailored knee betraying his irritation.
‘Really? I never knew. Though I do realize the federal prosecutor has a reputation with the ladies that almost rivals Max’s …’
‘Son and heir. Acknowledged and legitimate. Mother dead,’ said Felix.
‘I never even knew Yagula had been married,’ said Richard more soberly.
‘One marriage, one christening, one funeral. Old story.’
‘OK,’ temporized Richard as he watched the inbound A380 from Paris begin to settle on to its short finals, swooping lazily towards their own destination. ‘So why is he here?’
‘We asked him to come,’ said Felix. ‘We and Lavrenty Mikhailovich.’
That gave Richard pause. His mind raced. Whole new vistas of Muscovite mendacity opened before his inner eye. ‘Lavrenty Mikhailovich,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me. The federal prosecutor has a finger in the Bashnev/Sevmash pie!’
‘You were bound to find out eventually. Or work it out, now that Ivan has arrived. I’m surprised you didn’t know — you or your spies at London Centre. But what’s to tell? He was born, what, twenty-seven years ago. Brought up at home until his mother died. Sent to school by his busy father. Came back to Max’s in the vacations, friends with Max’s two …’
‘Anastasia and Ivan Asov, yes.’
‘Indeed. Anastasia and the two Ivans. Until Ivan Asov died.’
‘Drugs overdose at his eighteenth birthday party. Yes. London Centre was on top of that one.’ And more than that, too, thought Richard — who was little short of Anastasia’s godfather.
‘In the meantime Ivan Yagula had transferred to the Moscow Military Commanders Training School. Then into special forces. He resigned three years ago and now runs Risk Incorporated, one of Moscow’s most successful security firms. It is a subsection of our business, of course.’
‘Risk Incorporated,’ said Richard. ‘Catchy.’
Felix just gave a curt nod and continued. ‘Anastasia and Ivan Asov had gone to private school in Moscow too — The Hope School, before you ask — so the three of them continued to meet. But the parental trajectories were different. Ivan Yagula was being trained to take on a military career and parallel what his father had done in the law-enforcement world. Ivan Asov was always going to take over Bashnev/Sevmash — especially as I have no children. It was a dynastic — Russian — thing. Passing the keys of the kingdom from father to son. When he wasn’t at school, Ivan Asov was being shown how to run our business and Anastasia just went along for the ride because the two of them were inseparable, as you well know. The three of them, in fact, when young Yagula came home from Commanders Training School.’
‘Then Ivan Asov died.’
‘And Max blamed Anastasia — she arranged the party, employed the entertainment, a band called Simian Artillery which was briefly notorious back in the early noughties. And they apparently supplied the drugs that killed Ivan. So Max became increasingly isolated from her. Disowned her in the end. Hasn’t spoken to her in years, as far as I know. You probably know as much as I do. And he has been trying to replace his son and heir ever since.’
Richard thought of the number of nubile — fertile — women Max had slept with during the years of their acquaintance. ‘Drug overdose. Tragic,’ he said. ‘So young Ivan Yagula has, what, replaced the deceased heir-apparent in the scheme of things? Until Max manages to make another baby boy?’
‘To a certain extent. His father has always been … Something of a …’
‘Sleeping partner?’ suggested Richard innocently. ‘The only kind that Max isn’t trying to get pregnant?’
Felix gave a grunt of laughter. ‘You could put it like that. What do the French call it? Eminence grise? The man behind the scenes who pulls the strings. Yes, Yagula would approve of that. He is our grey eminence. And his son, in this expedition, given the size and importance of the objective, will be the grey eminence’s eyes.’
Ivan
I’d have known you anywhere, Ivan Yagula, thought Richard. And, unless your late mother stood six foot six in her stocking feet, was bald as an egg and built like a Ukranian combined harvester, then you are most definitely your father’s son. After his conversation with Felix, he had half expected camouflage cargo pants, green sleeveless vest, dogtags and a range of military tattoos. But the young man huge in statue standing serenely surrounded by well-armed soldiers and outraged security staff was suited in single-breasted, elegantly tailored, mid-grey gabardine, shirted in white cotton, and boasted a gold silk tie with a Windsor knot between the pearly dots of his button-down collar. The huge black brogues shone like mirrors, and Richard knew from bitter experience that footwear that large just had to be handmade. The gold tie had no regimental crests, but there was the familiar Batman logo of the Spetsnaz special forces honourable discharge pin on the lapel above Ivan’s heart.