Next to Kelly was a passenger, a bruiser named Regan from one of his clubs, dressed roughly in boots, jeans, a black leather bomber jacket, and a dark tweed cap. He was pulling on black leather gloves with some sort of studs in the knuckles.
“What do you intend to do, kill him?” Kelly joked.
“I thought that was the idea.”
“I don’t want it to look like it was premeditated,” Kelly told him. “It should look like it could have happened to anybody, just another tragic mugging. Take his wallet, cards, watch, mobile—everything.”
“What if he doesn’t walk? Maybe he gets a taxi.”
“I heard him ask how long it took to walk to the White House from the hotel. The doorman said it was raining and Miller said he liked the rain, it would freshen him up and clear his head and he’d been traveling too long.”
At that moment, Miller appeared in the hotel entrance. The doorman said, “I thought you’d at least like a hotel umbrella, Major.”
“That’s kind. What was your war?”
“Vietnam, infantry sergeant, best forgotten. If I may say so, muggers have been known to frequent even this neighborhood.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right.” Miller gestured across to the lights of the White House. “I’ve an appointment with the President.”
“You mean that, Major?”
“As you say in America, I sure do.” He went down the steps, and on the other side, Kelly started the engine of the sedan and said, “Out you get, and hurry. Get well ahead. I’ll drive round to the other side and wait for you.”
He drove away, and Regan dodged into the darkness, moving fast. Miller walked toward the statue of President Andrew Jackson and paused, ostensibly looking at it. He had excellent vision coupled with a trained eye, and all those years in and out of Northern Ireland had left an indelible mark. Everywhere was like a crime scene, everything and everybody had to have a reason for being there. He’d noted Tod Kelly when he entered the hotel because he was interesting, a certain kind of man. Just now, standing talking to the doorman, Miller had looked across, alerted by the car suddenly starting up, recognized Kelly behind the wheel, and had even sensed the figure of Regan jumping out and vanishing into the dark.
It was a skill, honed over the years, the thing that had kept him alive for so long. As Dillon had said all those long years ago, you always had to make sure the game wasn’t playing you, that you were playing the game.
He lowered the umbrella, rolled it tightly and fastened it, then suddenly he slipped away from the park, through the bushes and trees, making his way to the other side, the rush of the falling rain hiding any sound of movement.
Regan was totally outfoxed. He waited behind a tree, looking back toward Andrew Jackson, and started to worry. Perhaps Miller had slipped into another path. He felt for the backup in the waist of his jeans at the rear, the one he hadn’t mentioned to Kelly, a short-barreled Smith & Wesson that used to be known as a Banker’s Special in the trade. He held it ready in his right hand as he moved to the edge of the trees and paused. Miller simply stepped in behind him and rammed the end of the umbrella into his spine.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you.” Regan froze, and Miller reached over and relieved him of the Smith & Wesson. “That’s better. A little old-fashioned, but it does the job, I’m sure.” Regan started to move. “No, don’t turn round, I told you. Who are you working for?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“An impossibility. Now you have two choices. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll stick the barrel in the back of your knee and blow it off. I’m not calling the police, I wouldn’t waste my time, I’ll just leave you screaming your head off and walk away. No? All right, here we go.” There was a distinctive click as he cocked the weapon.
Regan said, “Jesus, no—I work for Tod Kelly.”
“And he was the man with you in the black Ford sedan?”
“Yes.”
“What did he tell you about me?”
“That you were English, you were named Miller, and he was doing a big favor for a friend who wanted you dead.”
“And who would that be?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea.” Bitterness overflowed. “You could always ask him yourself. He’s supposed to pick me up on this side of the square.”
It was so obviously true that Miller didn’t even argue. He slammed the Smith & Wesson with brutal force into the nape of Regan’s neck, sending him down, first on his knees, then headfirst into the bushes. There was no railing at that point, and keeping out of sight in the trees, Miller waited. The Ford sedan coasted by slowly and pulled in at the curb. Miller kept to the trees on his approach, moving fast once he got behind the vehicle, and at the last minute wrenching the passenger door open and sliding in.
“Harry Miller, and you’d be Tod Kelly.”
The usual bluster began. “What the hell is this?”
“Shut up. I’ve left your friend back there in the bushes in a poor way. He tried to pull a gun on me, would you believe that, but as you can see, I have the gun now. Your chum told me you were doing a favor for someone, so tell me all about it.”
“Like hell I will.”
“From the sound of you, you hail from Belfast, Mr. Kelly, so let me tell you I’ve eaten the IRA for breakfast in that city in my time, so you’ll know what this means.” He rammed the barrel of the Smith & Wesson into the side of Kelly’s right knee. “I’ll try one, and if that doesn’t work, the other.”
Kelly, experienced by years of the Irish Troubles, knew a real pro when he saw one. “Michael Quinn, Scamrock Securities, Dublin. I worked under him in Derry in the old days. He called in a favor for a friend. He wanted you to meet with a nasty accident.”
“Who was this friend?”
“I asked him if it was anyone I’d know and he said the guy was strictly a middleman. Some kind of broker.” There was a pause. “Are you going to shoot me or can I go?”
So Miller did the former, the bullet plowing through the fleshy part of the leg, just behind the kneecap. Kelly groaned and clenched his teeth. “Damn you, it’s the truth.”
“I think it is. If it wasn’t, I’d have really done some damage.” He took out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and put it between Kelly’s lips. “Derry in the old days. Better than this. Drugs, prohibition, anything to turn a pound. Where did it all go, Tod?”
“We lost the war and bastards like you won it.”
“Did we? I’m not so sure.”
“Just fuck off and leave me to call an ambulance.”
WHICH MILLER DID,
using his Codex to call Holland Park, and was instantly in the hands of Roper.
“Hey, eight o’clock on a dark evening in Washington, I’d say, and raining from the weather report. How are you, Harry?”
“Listen and learn, my friend.”
He stood by a tree, his umbrella raised, and gave Roper the details. When he had finished, Roper said, “Here’s the thing about Quinn. As head of Scamrock, he’s responsible for all security at Belov International, and Volkov’s been acting CEO of Belov while Max Chekhov is recovering. So our mystery man, the Broker, has handled the deal, obviously on behalf of Volkov. You’ve annoyed them, Harry.”
“Kosovo?”
“Probably. I’ll discuss this with Ferguson. Where exactly are you?”
“Walking along East Executive Avenue.”
“Take care. I’ll call Blake.”
Miller stayed where he was, lighting a cigarette. Volkov? That was interesting. A Russian dimension.
A Chrysler sedan swept up beside him almost noiselessly ten minutes later, and a fit-looking black man in a good suit got out of the passenger seat. Miller noted that the driver had an automatic weapon on his knees.
“Major Miller? I hear you’ve had some trouble. Clancy Smith. I’m Secret Service, assigned to the President.”
“Well, trouble there certainly was. I was foolish enough to walk from the Hay-Adams. Stupid, I suppose, muggers and so on.”
“Major Roper indicated there was more to it than that.”
“Yes, I did have to shoot somebody.”
“So I understand.” Way back down the road there was an ambulance by the Ford.
“There’s also a man in a bad way in the bushes.”
“It’s all in hand, Major, not a police matter. If you care to get in, the President’s waiting for you. He was quite concerned.”
“No need.” Miller got into the rear.
“No, Major, I can see that.”
Clancy got in the front and nodded to the driver, who carried on to the East Entrance, the best way into the White House if you didn’t want to draw attention. They were waved through the gate. From then on, it was smooth sailing. Clancy escorted him through many corridors until Miller finally found himself in the Oval Office, where he discovered the President in his shirtsleeves at his desk, receiving a line of documents to sign from Blake Johnson.
“Great to see you again, Harry,” Blake said. “Trouble just seems to follow you around.”
IT WAS ALL VERY PRIVATE
. Cazalet and Blake sat on one side of the large coffee table, Miller on the other. Nobody else had been allowed in except Clancy, who saw to the drinks.
“The fascinating thing about the whole affair is the involvement of this man, the Broker, and his link with Volkov,” said the President.
“And whenever you mention Volkov’s name, you include Putin himself,” added Blake.
“Your meeting at the UN yesterday—what did you make of it?”
“Russia seems to be everywhere, involved in other countries’ affairs.”
“Well, we do that,” Cazalet told him.
“Not like this. Take that audacious raid by Israeli F-15s on the Syrian target suspected of containing nuclear equipment. Syrian air defenses are pretty formidable and yet the Israelis succeeded in penetrating them. So what are the Russians busy doing? Improving Syrian air defenses for them.”
“It’s all about things fitting together,” Blake put in. “Take our little jaunt in Kosovo, the business of Captain Igor Zorin and the Fifteenth Siberian Storm Guards. Okay, these were only at patrol level, but they were a unit from a crack special forces outfit which shouldn’t have been there at all.”
“And whose purpose was to stir the pot,” Miller put in.
“That’s what I mean, just bits and pieces a lot of the time, but it could all be part of a general plan. Putin’s proven himself at the sharp end of war, he’s a thoroughly able leader, and he’s an old-fashioned patriot. I believe he wants to see Russia back where he thinks she deserves to be—as a major power.”
“Back to the Cold War?”
“But not with nuclear submarines this time, but oil and gas pipelines. Gas from Siberia now crawls across northern Europe all the way to Scandinavia and Scotland.”
Blake said, “Come to depend on it too much and it’s a powerful weapon in an argument. All somebody has to do is threaten to turn the tap and switch it off.”
There was an even deeper silence. Cazalet said, “Major, how are things in London these days with the Russians?”
“At the moment, they have over sixty diplomats accredited to the embassy, trade missions and so on. We reckon thirty have an intelligence link. It used to be their interests were only in political or military secrets, but the popularity of London as a destination, even as a residence, has grown so enormously that the oligarchs and Russian millionaires have distorted the housing market as well. The traditional British open-doors policy has also attracted dissidents.”
“And, of course, dissidents require investigation by Russia,” Blake put in. “In the old days, it would have been KGB, now it’s SVR.”
“And to a certain extent we have our own problems here in Washington,” Cazalet said.
“With the greatest respect, Mr. President, the British situation is unique. We’ve even had the odd murder or two, notorious dissidents meeting accidental deaths.”
“And you think SVR assassins are responsible?” Cazalet said.
“Actually, I don’t—because I believe Volkov is behind them, and he’s GRU.”
“Russian Military Intelligence,” Cazalet said.
Miller nodded. “The GRU has six times as many agents operating in foreign countries as the SVR. They even control the activities of the Spetsnaz and they’re as good a special forces outfit as you’d find anywhere in the world—Lenin created them, you know.”
“Lenin?” Cazalet nodded. “I never knew that. Strange how his name still resonates.”
“I did a special study of him when I was at Sandhurst,” Miller told him. “The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, that’s what he said—it’s the only way in which a small country can take on an empire with any hope. Remember the British being taken on by the original IRA in 1920, led by Michael Collins? It was his favorite saying.”
“A bad idea for all of us,” Cazalet said. “But it surely tells us something about the world of today. We’re fighting a war, gentlemen, a war against terrorism, a war we can’t afford to lose, or the whole of civilization faces a return to the Dark Ages.”
“Amen to that,” Blake said.
“So, Major, I understand you’re now corresponding with Charles Ferguson and his people.”
“I look forward to it, Mr. President.”
“I couldn’t be better pleased, because it means coming on board with us from time to time, and working with Blake and the Basement. You’re aware of what that is?”
“It’s been explained, Mr. President.”
Blake said, “Great, Harry, and remember our motto. The rules are that there are no rules. In today’s world, if we don’t accept that, we might as well give in.”
“Enough talk of business for now,” Cazalet said. “I understand you came over on Ferguson’s Gulfstream. That means his pilots, Squadron Leader Lacey and Flight Lieutenant Parry, are here. I hear they both wear a ribbon for the Air Force Cross these days.”
“With a rosette, Mr. President. They’re staying at the Hay-Adams, too.”
“Wonderful. I have a weakness for heroes. Blake has already booked us a table for late dinner at the Hay-Adams, and Lacey and Parry can join us.”