‘Thank you,’ is all he said, without elucidating.
Forty minutes until his car arrived. He looked at his uniform and pressed shirt hanging on the wardrobe door and then at the woman on the bed looking up at him with those smokey eyes, her lips distractingly parted.
‘Ten minutes… ten minutes!’ he heard himself say.
Five minutes later than he normally would have been comfortable with, Yuri took the lift to the ground floor. He passed the concierge seated behind an expensive-looking reception desk, more sculpture than furniture, and took the revolving door onto the street. His staff car was directly outside. The driver, a young dark-haired Chechen, jumped out of the vehicle and rushed round to open the rear passenger door. As Yuri bent down to get in, he noticed a man standing on the other side of the road, ten feet from a parked Lada. He wasn’t sure why he noticed him that morning. Maybe it was a gap in the traffic that was normally bumper to bumper. But his brain had registered something. Without giving the Lada or the man a second glance, he climbed in and settled back into his seat as his driver pulled away from the kerb.
Yuri shifted his position so that he now had clear sight of the wing mirror. The man he had spotted opposite was climbing hurriedly into the Lada, which had pulled up swiftly beside him. A second later, the man and the car disappeared from view.
Had he been imagining things? Could it have been a simple coincidence, he thought? He went through a mental list of likely suspects: CIA, MI6, and MSS. One was almost as likely as another. But this was Russia, he reminded himself, where not even generals were to be trusted.
Chapter 28
‘Viktoriya Nikolaevna Kayakova. I have a ten thirty appointment with the minister of oil and gas.’
As the receptionist checked the minister’s calendar, Viktoriya looked across the entrance hall towards the front door where Yuri stood making sure that everything went smoothly.
An hour earlier, the two of them had had coffee together to discuss strategy in a café close by the GUM. Yuri had seemed distracted, directing her to a corner table out of earshot of other patrons and telling her to keep her voice down. He was clearly wary of something. She wondered what he did now that he was back in Moscow. It was not something he ever raised or discussed; she knew better than to broach it with him. All she knew was that he worked at general staff headquarters. Misha guessed it was all to do with the Afghan pull-out, which according to official media was nearly complete. But whatever his role, where her director had failed, Yuri had succeeded. There had been no hesitation from the minister in meeting them once there had been a call from his office.
‘ID?’ said the receptionist, a dowdy-looking woman in a grey uniform. Viktoriya wondered if she was always as rude or had just taken an exception to her. There was a tap on her shoulder.
‘I have to be going,’ said Yuri as he kissed her on both cheeks. ‘You’ll have to give me a full report later.’
Viktoriya held his arms for a moment.
‘Everything all right, General,’ she said, using his title affectionately. Outside, it had begun to rain heavily. A passing truck hit a pothole in the road, sending a sheet of water over the pavement.
‘Yes, absolutely,’ he said, his normal smile returning. ‘A lot going on, that’s all.’
A young man interrupted them and motioned for her to follow. Viktoriya watched as Yuri ran out into the street and jumped into his staff car. Despite his protest, she couldn’t banish her sense of unease.
‘Please wait here,’ said the young man. He parked her in a bare-looking meeting room, all wood and frosted glass, and pointed to a pot of coffee brewing on the table.
Before she had time to pour herself a cup, an older man – she guessed late fifties, in a regulation Soviet double-breasted grey suit – stepped into the room and introduced himself as Stephan Federov.
Viktoriya wondered if Federov had any real sense of the power he wielded, his fiat over every well, refinery, and fuel distribution centre. Most state-level bureaucrats she had met simply had no understanding of how the real system worked.
‘Viktoriya Nikolaevna, a pleasure to meet you,’ he said, self-consciously tidying his hair. ‘What can I do for you? General Marov made the introduction, I gather? Can I ask what your relationship is with him?’
Viktoriya explained that Leningrad Freight had dealt with him on customs and security issues when he was a colonel in charge of Smolensk and he had been kind enough to recommend her. It was halfway to the truth.
‘I also have a letter of introduction from the Leningrad gorkom and my director at Leningrad Freight.’
‘You do indeed come highly recommended,’ said Federov, glancing at the documents before returning them. He took off his glasses and placed them on the table.
‘So, Miss Kayakova… back to the beginning. It says in my notes that you wish to discuss fuel supply problems for… Leningrad Freight. Normally I would not get involved in such matters but, as I said, you come highly recommended, not least by General Marov, who tells me you are trustworthy and discrete.’
Viktoriya had the impression Federov was beginning to talk in code.
‘Leningrad Freight is the second largest shipping company in Russia,’ he continued. ‘You have done well to rise so fast. You must only be…’
‘Twenty-eight.’
‘Yes, I have that here too,’ he said, referring to his notes, ‘first-class honours in Economics at Leningrad State.’
Viktoriya felt this was turning into an interview.
‘You will appreciate I like to know who I am dealing with.’
He turned a page. It was a list of diesel supplies to Leningrad Freight over the past four months.
‘I am a petrochemical engineer,’ he added apropos of nothing. ‘Your requisitions have increased substantially. It’s good to know that at least someone is moving goods around Russia,’ he said with a deadpan face and shut the folder.
‘May I suggest we continue at a café close by? They do much better coffee and it has stopped raining now.’
The café was indeed close, a few doors down from the ministry. It was spacious with a freshly painted vaulted ceiling and newly installed red velour booth seating.
‘I think this will be more private, Miss Kayakova.’
Coffee arrived almost instantly.
‘I’ll come to the point. You have a supply contract with Mikhail Revnik’s cooperative to supply him diesel, in which… how shall I put it, the gorkom also have an interest?’
The minister for oil and gas was not a simple state-level bureaucrat, after all, she thought.
‘Yes, fuel surplus to Leningrad Freight requirements.’
‘Quite, sound economics… Tell me, do you know of the oil refinery at Roslavi?’
Viktoriya said she did. Leningrad Freight had made sporadic deliveries for it going back years. It was south of Smolensk, halfway to Bryansk.
‘General Marov, I am sure, is very familiar with it from his previous command,’ added Federov. He paused, and she wondered for a moment whether he would continue.
‘It will not come as a surprise to you that perestroika has turned everything on its head. First there were rules, and now there are none. Many of our industries, and that includes oil refineries, are plagued by criminal gangs. In our motor industry there is wholesale theft from the production line of spare parts, even cars. No one dares challenge them, not if you value your life. Mikhail Dimitrivich has his bank – Moika – and accounts in Switzerland?’ he continued.
She nodded.
‘Do you think that between yourselves and General Marov you can secure Roslavi?’
Secure Roslavi? Occupy it, militarily? That was a tall order, she thought.