Kompromat

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Spring comes late in Moscow. There were still piles of slushy snow on the streets that morning in April 2017, when President Igor Popov summoned Yuri Yasonov and Galina Aslanova to his private den in the Kremlin to hear their latest reports on Operation Tectonic Plate.

‘Let’s look at Europe first,’ he said. ‘Yuri, please give us your summary of events to date.’

‘I’d say we are totally on track, Mr President,’ Yuri Yasonov replied. ‘Britain’s new prime minister, Mabel Killick, wasn’t a Leaver during the Referendum campaign. She wasn’t very active as a Remainer either. She kept her powder dry. Then, when David Cole, the former justice minister, stabbed Harry Stokes in the back before committing hara-kiri himself, Mrs Killick seized her opportunity. She threw her hat in the ring and was elected by the Conservative Party as their new leader. That meant she became prime minister too, since the British Constitution doesn’t require the prime minister to be actually elected by the people before taking on the job.’

Popov was puzzled. ‘I thought Britain was the “cradle of democracy”.’

‘Basically not!’ Yasonov explained. ‘In the old days, Conservative Party leaders would emerge from smoke-filled rooms. They do better nowadays. Actually, no one in the end stood against Mrs Killick, so she didn’t have to fight an election of any kind.’

‘As prime minister,’ Yasonov continued, ‘Mabel Killick has been an out-and-out Brexiteer. We couldn’t have asked for more.’

Popov nodded. ‘Wasn’t there a bad moment when that wild woman – what was her name?– managed to get the UK Supreme Court to rule that if the Brexit campaign had been about “taking back sovereignty” then at the very least the UK government should consult Parliament before making the formal application to Leave?’

Yuri Yasonov laughed. ‘Tina Moller – what a brilliant woman! She had the Supreme Court eating out of her hand. Mrs Killick caved in and agreed to a parliamentary vote. What else could she do once the Supreme Court had ruled? Luckily, the British Parliament is a bit like our Duma. They’ll do what they’re told if you slap them around a bit. They call it the “whipping system”.’

‘In the good old days we had the knout,’ Popov mused. ‘So two years from now Britain’s out of the EU?’

‘Exactly,’ Yuri Yasonov replied. ‘March 29th, 2019 is Brexit Day. Article 50 has been triggered. It’s a non-recallable missile.’

‘What about the rest of Europe? How are we doing?’ Popov asked.

‘The Dutch result was a bit disappointing. Our man, Geert Donkers, did well, but not well enough. We have high hopes in France, though. Martine Le Grand is bound to make it through to the run-off in the presidential election. Too early to say what’s going to happen in Germany. That’s the big one of course, from our point of view.’

Popov turned to Galina Aslanova, Head of the FSB’s Special Operations Unit.

‘What about the US, Galina? Why isn’t President Craig playing the game?’ he asked. ‘I thought we had a clear understanding with Craig. Lay off Assad. That’s what we told him. And what does he do? He fires off sixty Tomahawk missiles. Why did we push so hard to get Craig elected, if he’s going to kick us in the teeth at the first opportunity? It’s a pity, isn’t it, that the Golden Shower tape turned out to be fake? We could have used that now, couldn’t we?’

Of course, Galina Aslanova knew that President Popov was joking. By now she had learned to read the telltale signs: the slight twitch in the left eyebrow, the faintest hint of a smile in the upper lip. But his remark about the Golden Shower tape set her thinking nonetheless.

Back in her office in the FSB’s Lubyanka building, she summoned Lyudmila Markova.

‘There’s something fishy, Lyudmila,’ she began. ‘When you and your team were beating up on Fyodor Stephanov that day in St Petersburg, looking for the Golden Shower video, why didn’t Stephanov cry foul? Why didn’t he say he was an old mucker of Popov’s, going way back?’

‘Maybe he didn’t want the president to know he had been freelancing?’ Lyudmila Markova replied. ‘As a matter of fact, Popov still doesn’t know that Stephanov was freelancing, does he? Of course, the FSB has been happy to claim the credit, happy to see Stephanov given the Golden Shower Award and elevated to the rank of full colonel. It reflects well on all of us, but still I think there’s something that doesn’t smell right.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’ Lyudmila Markova Sokolovna was quite adept at the heavy stuff, but she sometimes found it difficult to follow her more intellectual colleagues when they started talking about zero-sum games and so forth.

Galina Aslanova opened her desk drawer and brought out the Ronald C. Craig wig which Fyodor Stephanov had been wearing at the election night party in the Popov’s presidential dacha.

‘If Stephanov was freelancing, where did he get this?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think he could have got it in Russia. I’ve had it examined by wig-makers here in Moscow. This is a very high-quality hairpiece. It’s made out of real human hair, expertly crafted and totally realistic, as we saw when Stephanov was wearing it that night at the dacha. Here, watch this.’

She flipped open the lid of her laptop and pressed a button. ‘This is Craig talking at a black-tie dinner the evening before his inauguration in January, just a few weeks ago!’

On the screen before them they saw the unmistakable figure of the soon-to-be-inaugurated President of the United States. He was standing on the stage in evening dress, microphone in hand, radiating confidence.

‘Some of you have been wondering about my hair,’ Craig told the crowd. ‘Well, just take a look. If it rains tomorrow, my hair won’t turn a hair, if you follow me. It’s all my own!’

As the clip came to an end, Galina passed the hairpiece to Lyudmila.

‘Just think about the timing, Lyudmila, of that Kempinski scenario. Imagine the sequence of events. Stephanov is in his office when he gets word that Barnard is on his way back to the hotel after that dinner in the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. He has the US-flag boxer shorts and the Ronald C. Craig hairpiece with him. The cameras are already set up in the room. But still Stephanov has to move quickly. He has to get to the hotel, then up to the room, get the wig and the underpants on, so as to be primed and ready for action when the girls arrive. He has outside help, Lyudmila. I’m sure of it.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Just bear with me,’ Galina said.

She picked up a paper from her desk. ‘Did you read Ambassador Tikhonov’s report of his morning at London Zoo? Tikhonov obviously had our new Earwig phone in his pocket, the one that can pick up even whispered conversation fifty yards away. Actually, he wasn’t fifty yards away, I believe. More like twenty. They were all looking at the tigers in the new enclosure.’

On the podcast, they heard Harry Stokes’ unmistakable voice:

Galina switched the recording off. ‘Doesn’t that surprise you?’ she asked. ‘When we sent them the tapes, we simply wanted them to confirm that the man on the bed wasn’t Craig. But they go one further and actually recognize our old friend Fyodor Stephanov. How did they do that?’

‘Well, maybe they’ve got his face on file,’ Lyudmila replied. ‘They could have ID’d him through a facial recognition system.’

‘Of course they could,’ Galina Aslanova agreed. ‘Particularly if Fyodor Stephanov is already working for MI6! I feel convinced the Brits helped Stephanov set this one up. The Ronald C. Craig hairpiece probably came in via the diplomatic bag.’

She held the wig up. The fluffy, blond hair positively glowed in the spring sunshine which flooded Galina’s office. ‘See how beautiful it is!’

She Googled ‘best wig-makers in London’. Less than a millisecond later the answer flew back. ‘Archibalds of Bond Street have been making high-quality wigs for more than four centuries. Satisfied clients include King George II and the Lord Chief Justice.’

Another thought struck her. ‘And where did he get the boxer shorts? Did MI6 buy those in Bond Street too, or did they send off to New York for them? I wonder what happened to those shorts. I bet Stephanov’s still got them.’

‘If he has, we’ll find them.’ Lyudmila Markova felt suddenly cheerful. She rather fancied having another go at Stephanov. The team wouldn’t let him off so easily this time.