Phantom

Twenty-nine

Moscow

Just off Moscow’s widest and busiest street, Tverskaya, is a short narrow alley, ending in a cul-de-sac, a few paces from Pushkin Square. It had a name once, years ago, but the signs were vandalized and no one bothered to find an old street map and put up new ones. Generations had come and gone neither knowing nor curious about the street’s name. And there was a certain irony to be found in that. Because at the end of that street stood an infamous two-hundred-year-old Beaux-Arts mansion full of murderers.

It was called, in public at any rate, the Tsarist Society.

It was a secret society in the traditional Russian way: wheels within wheels, layers upon layers, hiding in plain sight, open and closed, opaque and transparent. Few knew what lay behind the great bronze doors facing the street. The only way to gain entrance was if you were a club member in good standing, or if, like Captain Ian Concasseur, the military attache at the British Embassy, you were an invited guest.

As Concasseur extricated his angular bulk from the black embassy car that had brought him, and while his head was still lowered, his eyes went up-to gaze at a massive, highly polished bronze flagpole angled up over the club’s entrance. From it hung a magnificent banner, barely moving in the fresh breeze. On its broad red field was the ancient medieval symbol of Russia from the time of the Ivan III, the two-headed golden eagle surmounted by three crowns.

The captain found every aspect of the building very grand from the street, the epitome of early nineteenth-century opulence and sophisticated urbanity. Its colossal columns and projecting facades, all rendered in marble, limestone, and granite, displayed a potent symbol of power and classical imagery. He imagined you didn’t get many tourists cheeky enough to risk climbing the broad marble steps to have a quick peek inside.

A splendidly uniformed doorman, all brass buttons and gold-fringed epaulettes, was now leading him to the Grand Salon. There he would be joining an old Russian friend for an early evening cocktail. Concasseur was a formidable figure. With a classically sculpted head, he was blond and blue-eyed, but battle hardened and tough as old leather. He knew more than a few chaps in London who suffered fools gladly-he was not among their number.

But he had a wry sense of humor that took a bit of the edge off. He was attending a formal embassy function after this meeting. He was thus dressed in “mess dress.” He wore a double-breasted mess jacket with peaked lapels and six gilt buttons. Captains RN and above also wore gold-laced navy trousers. So he was sporting the gold-lace stripes known in the service as “lightning conductors.”

As he passed through many different rooms and galleries, he found the interior splendid as well, with a dazzling amount of gilded surfaces, enormous crystal chandeliers, some resembling frozen waterfalls lit from within. There were marble statues of notable eighteenth-century Russian Romanovs, poets, artists, politicians, royalty, and military figures everywhere one looked. In a rotunda, Peter the Great was mounted atop a massive white marble stallion, his sword raised in battle.

A massive and powerful equestrian portrait of Peter the Great also hung over the fireplace, dominating the Grand Salon, as well it should. He had been Tsar of Russia during its grandest epoch, when the Motherland had been dragged, pushed, and pulled into modernity by the unflagging energy, imagination, and iron will of Pyotr Alekseyevich Romanov.

As a bit of a military historian himself, the captain had read every word ever written about the famous Tsar. Peter was the hero of the Great Northern War in which his men defeated the Swedish forces, evicting them, and leaving Russia as the new major power in the Baltic Sea and a new power to be reckoned with in European politics. Thus began a pattern of Russian expansionism that would only be stopped two centuries later. If that weren’t enough, Peter also single-handedly founded the Russian Navy.

Concasseur was a warrior, too. He was one of the great heroes of the SAS, Britain’s Special Air Service, a commando force that rivals the Navy SEALs in toughness and skills. It is tasked with special operations in wartime and primarily counterterrorism in peacetime. Concasseur had served with distinction in the first Gulf War. In 1991, his 22 SAS Regiment, B Squadron, had received battle honors for victories in fierce combat outside of Baghdad. Captured and imprisoned, Concasseur had formed an enduring friendship with a fellow captive, a young Royal Navy pilot named Alexander Hawke.

He was now attached to Hawke’s Red Banner unit in Moscow, using the military attache position at the embassy as his cover. Hawke, having learned of the existence of the Tsarist Society from Kuragin, and its true nature, had tasked Concasseur with the job of infiltrating this secretive and powerful group, and interfering with their objective of killing his son.

As it happened, this daunting task was vastly simplified when one of the members, Vasily Nikov, had rung and invited Concasseur there for a drink. He and Nikov had formed a semiprofessional friendship when both had been operating in London. He’d called him “Vaseline” in those days, just because it irritated him so. Recently, he’d taken to calling him “Vaz.”

“There he is,” Vasily said, leaving his drink on the bar and walking over to shake hands with the much taller and formidable Concasseur. Vasily had a long, lean, doleful face with a slightly undershot jaw and a pair of symmetrical folds framing his mouth in what would have been a rugged, horsey, mountain-climbing arrangement had not his melancholy stoop belied every trace of his few drops of Tartar blood.

“How the devil are you, old man? You look bloody marvelous, Ian! Moscow suits you, eh? You must admit our women are vastly better looking.”

The Englishman smiled. He’d forgotten how easily these Russians slipped into the foreign vernacular once they’d been posted to London for a few months. He shook his hand vigorously and said, “I bloody well love it here, Vaz. I’m already engaged to a good half-dozen girls named Svetlana.”

Vasily laughed. “Come have a drink, old man, and then I’d like to introduce you to a few friends. First time here?”

“Oh, no. Been here countless times, actually. I use it for practice. I break in late at night and steal priceless objects, wait a week or so, then break in again and replace them. Keeps me at the top of my game, and no one’s any the wiser.”

“You haven’t changed a bit, old man. What will you have? Scotch? Vodka?”

“Johnnie Walker Black if they’ve got it. Neat.”

They sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments and then Concasseur said, “Rather a splendid old palace. What’s its history?”

“Originally built by the Stroganoffs, the old family that conquered Siberia. After the Revolution, the Bolsheviks used it as a headquarters. The society bought it soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was in terrible shape, empty for years, but we spruced it up, as you can see.”

“How’ve you been, Vaz? Keeping your rather prominent nose out of trouble?”

“Never. I’ve started a company, old man. Security. We provide protection for visiting dignitaries, rock stars, businessmen, whatever. Lady Gaga is my latest client, good buzz in Hollywood. Doing quite well, as a matter of fact.”

“Good on you, mate. You look prosperous at any rate.”

“There’s money to be made here, you know. We bend the rules a bit-it’s the Russian way-but if you’re connected and willing to take a few chances, well, next thing you know you’re on a yacht in the south of France.”

“That simple, is it?”

“Sure. Just like your old friend Hawke. Hobnobbing with the prime minister on his yacht off Cap d’Antibes recently.”

“Hawke? You don’t mean Alex Hawke?”

“Of course.”

“You’ve met him?”

“No, no. But it’s one of the reasons I asked you to join me this evening. His name came up at a dinner here a week or so ago. I recalled the name, then remembered you mentioning him a few times back in the London days.”

“Ah.”

“Tell you what. Let’s retire over to that table by the window where we can have a bit of privacy. There are some unpleasant things you need to know about your friend Lord Hawke.”

“Certainly. Lead on.”

Once they were seated and had ordered another round, Vasily got down to cases.

“The Tsarist Society is an interesting establishment, Ian. We all share a nostalgic fondness for the grandeur that was Rome, so to speak. We were the prime movers in the removal of that band of thieves in the Kremlin. And the installation of a new Tsar, Korsakov.”

“Yes, short-lived reign, as I remember.”

“You know how he died?”

“Some kind of an accident, I think. An airplane crash, wasn’t it?”

“No. The Tsar was murdered.”

“Was he really?”

“Yes. He was killed by your friend Hawke.”

“Yeah? Funny. He never mentioned that.”

“I’m going to tell you something important now. Out of respect for our friendship, you understand. Otherwise, I say nothing. Let the chips fall, you know.”

“I’m listening.”

“This is a very complex organization. We have members, mostly older, who are university professors, historians, scholars, scientists. We have very successful businessmen, men who control major industries here in our country. This is the top level. At the lower level are people you don’t want to know. Former KGB agents who were fired for various reasons I won’t go into. We have former soldiers of OMON. I’m sure you know about them. They were the death squads who marched through Chechnya, what was left of it. And then we have, of course, the Mafiya. This is the muscle of the organization. OMON, they are the terror experts. And the KGB, assassins for hire. They report to the head of the organization. But they are also a profit center.”

“So it’s a little bit like the Playboy Club is what you’re saying.”

“See? Funny. Nothing fazes you. It’s why I like you so much.”

“Thank you.”

“But here is the problem. I’m telling you only out of friendship. I don’t give a shit about this Hawke, whoever he is. But there are people here, at the very top of this organization, who don’t like him. They don’t appreciate him coming into a sovereign nation and assassinating our beloved Tsar. They don’t like him fucking the Tsar’s daughter. And they especially don’t like him kidnapping a Russian child and smuggling him out of the country. Yes? You with me?”

“I’m still listening.”

“What else don’t they like about this guy? Oh, they don’t like him floating around in the Med on Putin’s yacht. Cooking up more trouble. Maybe for us, I don’t know. They don’t like him waltzing into Lubyanka for a little chat with one of our naval officers. You see where this is going.”

“They don’t like him?”

“Understatement. They despise him.”

“He has many enemies. One more will not faze him.”

“Not like us. Our enemies have short life spans.”

“Vasily. You tried to kill his son, for God’s sake.”

“And he killed two of us. Another item on his resume.”

“You are telling me this as a warning.”

“Yes. Because I am loyal to my friends. As I say, I don’t give a flying fuck about this Hawke one way or the other. It’s not an area of the organization that concerns me personally. I am a simple businessman. But he’s your friend. So I thought I would tell you this message.”

“Vaz, I appreciate your telling me all this.”

“You’re most welcome.”

“Is there some kind of time frame? Some kind of deadline?”

“He who asks no questions is told no lies.”

“Well, in that case, let me tell you something, Vasily. I have spoken to him. Your colleagues have now made two separate attempts on the life of his son. He suggests that if you want to kill a Hawke, try killing him. In fact, he would welcome it. He likes the odd challenge now and then. But if you make one more move against his child, your organization will pay a price you can’t even imagine. Do not underestimate this man. He has killed more people than most SAS regiments. You see where this is going?”

“Yes. Your friend Hawke is either stupid, or he is suicidal.”

“He is neither. I heard him once described as a man of ‘radiant violence.’ It is not an overstatement. If your organization chooses to ignore this warning, this beautiful palace will be a smoking ruin, littered with the bodies of your membership.”

Vasily didn’t speak for a few long moments, just sat there staring at the Englishman. Concasseur was about to take his leave when the Russian finally spoke.

“So. Ian, my old friend, these women you are engaged to, they are all named Svetlana?”

“Odd, isn’t it? Shall we have another round? I’d like to enjoy the splendor of this magnificent club while it still exists.”