Читать книгу December - James Steel, James Steel - Страница 13

Sergey was ushered quietly into Krymov’s office in the Kremlin.

Even though it was Saturday evening, the President was still hard at work. Being unable to let go was all part of his instability.

He followed the classic dictator-kitsch style of having a huge office with his desk set at the far end of it to intimidate anyone who had to take the long walk towards him.

Although, to be fair, this desk did have history. His particular office lay on the top floor of the Senate House, a triangular building around a central courtyard, along the eastern wall of the Kremlin, with Lenin’s Mausoleum in Red Square just over the great outer wall to the east of it.

It had been the office of the Russian head of state since 1918 so the other occupants had included Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernyenko, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev.

Now Krymov sat at his huge desk with a green-shaded lamp illuminating the wall of paperwork that he liked to hide behind. It was ten o’clock at night and he was hunched over the desk, pen in one hand, signing documents. He looked up and glowered at Sergey like an angry pig.

Sergey walked nonchalantly across the deep pile carpet towards him, wearing his crumpled suit and tie, his hair askew and his diamond earring glinting in the low lights.

Krymov wagged his finger at him threateningly.

‘Shaposhnikov, what’s this I hear about you meeting up with a man called Devereux in London?’

Sergey froze halfway across the carpet.

‘You said he was a geologist you were flying out to Krasnokamensk but Gorsky has checked him out and tells me he is a well-known British mercenary. What’s going on?’ he barked. ‘If you don’t want to smell, then don’t touch shit!’

Behind him stood Major Batyuk, the head of Echelon 25, Krymov’s élite bodyguard unit. A tall, balding man with a hardened face, wearing a tight-fitting uniform, he had had his right ear sliced off years ago in a fight and the angry little stump of red cartilage stuck out of the side of his head, giving him a weird, lopsided look.

The major clenched his fists at his side, knowing that this was going to be another of those sessions when some poor subordinate was dragged into the office and shredded. Krymov would probe them to start off with; they would then be terrified, which encouraged him to bully them more so the whole thing would end with the President in a screaming fit and Batyuk having to beat someone senseless and then drag their battered body out of the office. He looked at Sergey now, waiting for him to sweat and start pleading for his life.

Sergey swaggered forward right up to the desk, looking straight at Krymov.

‘I’ve hired him to go hunting elephants, comrade.’

Krymov sat up and frowned. ‘Hunting elephants? What shit are you coming out with now, Shaposhnikov?’ he shouted, unsure whether to be angry or confused.

‘Yes, Devereux’s worked in Africa a lot. He’s an expert tracker to help me track down the Russian elephant.’

‘What? The Russian elephant! Shaposhnikov, you’re a head-fucker!’

‘Ah! Comrade President, you know me.’ Sergey waved a hand.

The overly familiar tone made Major Batyuk grind his teeth.

‘Yes, you know, the Russian elephant. It has a trunk and two ears. Yes, like this, you see, it has one ear on one side of its head,’ Sergey paused and pulled out the lining of his left-hand trouser pocket, ‘and one ear on the other side of its head.’ He pulled out the lining of his right-hand trouser pocket. ‘And then it has a trunk. Yes, a trunk, like this.’ Sergey paused again.

Krymov stared at him, not comprehending what was happening.

Sergey then unzipped his trousers.

Major Batyuk could not believe it. He knew that Shaposhnikov was a joker, but to come out with this in the face of an accusation of treason by the President was too much. He was going to have to shoot this guy here and now.

Sergey pulled his shirt tail out through his fly and started waving it around and laughing manically.

Krymov gave a weird sound, halfway between a scream and a wheeze. His face went bright red and he creased up, bent over his desk and banged it with his fist.

‘Shaposhnikov!’ he wheezed. ‘I embrace you!’ Tears of laughter streamed down his face. ‘Russian elephant!’ He staggered round the desk and embraced Sergey, both of them laughing hysterically now. ‘Russian elephant!’

Krymov got hold of Sergey’s shirt tail and pulled him around the office. ‘Off to the circus!’ he shouted, making trumpeting noises.

They pranced around Stalin’s office until they collapsed on a pair of chairs to one side.

‘Shaposhnikov, you make me laugh!’ Krymov eventually wheezed. He looked with loathing at the pile of work on his desk. ‘This job does my head in, I tell you. But you make me laugh. Come on! Batyuk, get the car! Fuck work! Let’s go and drink vodka!’

The heavily armoured black Zil limousine swept west along Kutuzovskiy Prospekt. Using the central lane in the road reserved for government vehicles they were able to maintain a steady eighty miles an hour despite the snowy conditions.

The two Russian tricolours fluttered on its bonnet, another Zil followed behind with the nuclear launch codes and two large Ural military vehicles travelled in front and behind, loaded with Major Batyuk and two squads of heavily armed Echelon 25 troops.

In the back of the Zil, Sergey and Krymov sat facing each other, reclining in the black leather seats with their feet stretched out in front of them. They bantered and picked at a plate of pickled fish, mushrooms, salamis and other delicacies, occasionally breaking off to toast each other with shots of vodka when a good idea came to mind.

Krymov held up a pickled mushroom. ‘That’s the problem with the West, you know. Whenever I go there I can never get a good pickled mushroom.’

Sergey looked at him blankly. It wasn’t one of the main issues he faced in London. He nodded sagely, though. ‘Yes, that is the legacy of capitalism. You see,’ he pointed a finger knowingly at the President, ‘under capitalism, man exploits man.’ He paused and they both nodded wisely. ‘But under communism,’ Sergey continued, ‘it was the other way round.’

Krymov continued nodding and looked out of the tinted window. He then glanced back at Sergey, who was grinning at him. Krymov wheezed with laughter and slapped his leg. ‘The other way round! Ah! Shaposhnikov!’

They continued eating, drinking and bantering and the MKAD, Moscow’s main ring road, shot past unnoticed behind the black tinted glass.

After a while Sergey shouted, ‘Here’s to those British fuckers, to keep ’em warm tonight!’

‘Yes! Fuck ’em! Do ’em good to get the cold up ’em!’

Soon they were heading down the long drive of Novo-Ogaryovo, the country estate that Krymov had taken over from Putin.

The President’s official residence was an imposing nineteenth-century classical house set amidst snow-covered pine woods. Ice and gravel crunched as the convoy drew up outside the colonnaded porch. Golden light shone from carefully polished lanterns, and soldiers and uniformed servants stood at attention lining the steps up to the grand front door.

The convoy swept up and Krymov’s limousine parked neatly in front of the steps. The Echelon 25 troops debussed and took up positions around the convoy to cover the President’s movement up the steps.

There was a long pause as they all waited in the cold. After two minutes nothing had happened and eyes darted to and fro across the lines of attendants. Had something happened to His Excellency? Major Batyuk walked up to the Zil, anxiously trying to see in through the tinted glass.

The door burst open and Krymov fell out of the limo, laughing. Guards darted forward anxiously and then backed off. He rolled over in the snow and lay on his back shouting: ‘The British are a bunch of pussies! Bunch of pussies!’

Sergey staggered out of the car, tripped over Krymov’s outstretched foot and fell face down next to him. He shouted in anger and thrashed around trying to get the snow off his face.

Krymov hooted with laughter. He crawled over to him on his hands and knees and then staggered to his feet and helped Sergey up.

‘Come on, comrade! You see, this is what living in Britain does to you! You can’t take your vodka!’

Servants came forward to help but Krymov waved them away angrily and continued supporting Sergey on his shoulder up the steps.

Once inside they lurched down a series of long corridors to the banya complex overlooking the gardens at the back of the house. Saunas are to Russian male culture what the pub is in Britain: a place for men to be together and talk in private. Krymov’s major-domo hurried along nervously behind them, fearing his boss’s unpredictability in these sessions.

The President entered the changing room first, clapped his hands and ordered more vodka and food before stripping off his overcoat and suit and dumping them on the floor. The major-domo scurried about picking them up.

Sergey followed his example until both were stark naked facing each other. Krymov’s body sagged with age: the bags under his eyes, and his flabby male breasts. His stomach hung down over his crotch and his skinny legs stuck out under the mass. Sergey was also rotund but slightly better built; his hair looked particularly dishevelled and ridiculous after his fall in the snow. The only thing he was wearing now was his diamond earring.

Krymov ignored the servant, thrust his chest out and looked Sergey straight in the eye. A moment of understanding passed between them before Krymov flung open the sauna door and they both strode into its swirling steam.

Krymov’s sweating face leered up close to Sergey’s.

Sergey could see that the pores in the President’s vodka-raddled skin had opened up like moon craters. He was out of breath and his eyes were crinkled up with pleasure.

Sergey was retelling a scene from Peculiarities of the National Hunt—a cult Russian comedy film—in which the pilot of a nuclear bomber is trying to explain to his squadron leader why he has a smuggled cow strapped into the bomb bay of his aircraft.

‘We’ve been infiltrated!’ shouted Sergey with just the right note of defensive indignation in his voice.

Krymov screamed with laughter and fell off the bench that he was sitting on. Sergey lay back on his bench, snorting weakly with laughter. Both were exhausted by their humour-making and silence settled on the banya for a minute.

Eventually Krymov clambered off the floor, poured himself another shot of vodka and stretched his sweaty, white, flabby body out, face down on his front on his bench, with a joyful sigh.

The two lay still for a while before Krymov muttered, his chin tucked down by his shoulder, ‘Come and whip me.’

Sergey heaved himself to his feet, pulled a bunch of birch twigs from a holder on the wall and began expertly to flutter them rapidly over Krymov’s back, starting at his shoulders, drawing the blood to the surface and cooling it at the same time with the airflow. Krymov groaned at the sensation.

‘Shaposhnikov, you are good to me,’ the President muttered, incapacitated with pleasure.

There was a pause as Sergey continued his work; brow furrowed with concentration.

Krymov continued, ‘Everyone needs someone close to them.’

Krymov’s industrially proportioned wife was known as ‘Mrs Stale Bread’. They slept in separate beds and hardly said a word to each other. He didn’t seem to need intimacy and no one expected it from him, so Sergey’s eyes flicked up in surprise from his work when the President returned to the subject in a slurred voice.

‘It does get to me, you know, reviving Russia…there’s so much to do…she needs such a great big kick up the arse…get her going, up there again as a superpower.’

Sergey moved this gentle flagellation down past Krymov’s shoulders, wondering where his train of thought was going. He was so absorbed in the challenge of misleading Krymov that it came as a distasteful shock when he really did open up, as if he was breaking the rules of the game.

‘Hmm, they do say that everyone needs someone to trust…but you see, you have to be careful who you trust.’ Krymov pulled his chin away from his shoulder and rested his head on his hands so he could speak freely. Sergey continued his work.

‘You see, I always think about Ivan the Terrible…’ Sergey knew Krymov admired him, ‘…how he was betrayed by Prince Kurbsky.’

Sergey tensed at the mention of his name. Kurbsky was the most famous traitor in Russian history, who had abandoned the Tsar and run away abroad to join the hated Polish enemies of the Motherland.

‘His most trusted adviser!’ continued Krymov, twisting round and resting on an elbow so he could look Sergey in the eye.

Sergey stopped flapping his twigs and stood looking down on Krymov, who became more animated as the idea gripped him.

‘His closest adviser! A man as close as this!’ He gestured to Sergey standing next to him. ‘A traitor!’ He sat up and swung his legs round onto the floor, staring accusingly at Sergey.

The sudden mood swing caught Sergey off guard. Was Krymov being serious? Was this an elaborate setup?

What he was saying was just too close to reality to be coincidence. Was this why Krymov had hauled him all the way back to Moscow: to spring this trap on him?