Patriot

CHAPTER 58

As I was saying,” Halter said, collapsing ever more deeply into his chair, “I went down to London to meet with Sir David immediately upon his return from the States. Behind closed doors in his office at MI6. Trulove said he’d been witness to a rather grueling White House session with President Rosow, but he had managed to come away with U.S. approval to forge ahead with Hawke’s Cuban operation.”

“Yes, I got the very same message. I was on with Alex in Miami early this morning. Preparations for the joint naval operation are nearing completion aboard Blackhawke. Switching gears for the moment, Stef, please tell me what the hell is going on in Moscow. That singular town of yours lies at the heart of danger, now, it does seem to me. All that’s dire. Save the murderous thugs establishing an unholy caliphate in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen, of course. Any chance of getting Putin to put more pressure on Assad and Syria to assist the Kurdish militia in efforts to stand up to the ISIS savages?”

“None. Putin’s insistence on keeping Assad’s government intact is couched in a reading of the conflict in Syria far more cold-blooded than the views of those in Washington. It’s merely engaged in an ancient religious war as far they’re concerned.”

“Bottom line?”

“Western attention has shifted dramatically from the murders carried out by the Assad regime to those carried out by Islamic terrorists. Simply another sign of the overwhelming complexity of this new multifront Middle East war.”

Congreve paused to digest this. Sometimes his friend adopted a more professorial tone in his locutions, and one had a bit of a time of it putting two and two together.

“What a nightmare, Stef. I often feel like the man falling from a building and saying something to a chap in an office window on the way down. We are going to war with Russia, you know. Any day now. Unless you and I manage to do something brainy in a hurry.”

“Indeed we must, Constable. And the very best thing we can do at the moment is not let this attack by Russian-sponsored Cubans on the American homeland stand without answer. It will only encourage the Kremlin’s ambitions in North America.”

“It just doesn’t feel like Putin somehow. Attacking America with the foreknowledge that the West will retaliate against Cuba in all likelihood. Has the real Vladimir Putin finally emerged from the closet of statesmanship and shown his true colors?”

“That’s why I invited you to Cambridge, Ambrose. I don’t know the answer to that question. Haven’t a clue, in fact. Perhaps we can cobble together an explanation for all this.”

“You said you believed this may be a Kremlin outsider of some kind. What do you mean by that?”

“I’m not sure. It’s purely a gut feeling. There is certainly nothing subtle about shooting down your own passenger planes. If indeed, Putin was responsible. And yet that’s just what he may have done. If it was him, of course.”

“Who else could it be?”

“There are rumors within rumors, worlds spinning within worlds, as you of all people know best. Nothing new within the ancient walls of the Kremlin, of course. But still. There’s substance enough to be found in there somewhere, if we dig deeply enough. A power behind the throne, perhaps.”

“Go on, Stefan,” Ambrose said, tossing off the remains of his whisky. This, now, was the reason he’d driven all this way to Haversham.

“Mmm. I wonder. You will perhaps recall a remote KGB outpost in the frozen tundra of Siberia. Near a small railway outpost called Tvas. It was the former winter palace of the tsars before the late Count Korsakov acquired it. Know what I’m talking about?”

“Of course. Hawke’s beloved Anastasia is currently imprisoned near there. He’s visited once or twice, the last time to bring home his son. The boy’s mother, I believe, is held captive by the KGB. The mother of his only child. Awful situation for her. And him.”

“She’s no captive, Ambrose. She is there of her own free will. She married the old officer who’s in charge there. General Kuragin was his name, as you remember.”

“Was his name?”

“Probably dead. I never see him in Moscow anymore. There are rumors about him, too, of course. That he fell into disfavor. That Putin had him assassinated using polonium-210. Same stuff used to take out Litvinenko in London, you’ll recall.”

“Alex never told me Anastasia had married.”

“I hardly blame him for not wishing to speak of it. It fractured his heart. It was their cherished secret.”

“What made you think of looking at Tvas in the first place?”

“Something is going on out there, Ambrose. I hear things, seeping from beneath closed doors. There are KGB black ops within ops. Black sites. And then there are KGB black holes. This is the latter.”

“A black hole, huh? Putin behind it? He’d be at the top of my list.”

“I can’t run it back to him. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stick Putin with a damn thing. That’s where I’ve hit the wall. For the life of me, I just cannot. Unless, of course, Putin has acquired a proxy bully to protect him in the court of public opinion.”

“Interesting concept. Tell me, Stef. Unless you can’t tell me. Did Sir David ever ask you to keep anything from me? Or even Alex?”

Halter shrugged. “He has done. But, no, not this time.”

“Good.”

Halter got to his feet and went over to the broad Georgian desk. It stood solidly beneath a huge canvas depicting the Battle of Stalingrad. Ambrose, looking at the painting, thought, Is it a constant reminder of the motherland Halter is betraying? That would certainly be in keeping with his ability to survive on both sides of the game. Alliance to all, allegiance to none.

Congreve wondered about that, Stefan’s true allegiance. To one or the other. And not for the first time, either.