His military career was dealt with so sparsely that to the trained eye it was obviously classified. From Sandhurst Military Academy he had joined the Army Intelligence Corps. He experienced war very quickly, only three months later, as a second lieutenant attached to 42 Commando. Afterward, his posting was to Army Intelligence Corps headquarters in London, where he had served for the rest of his career, retiring in the rank of major in 2003, before being elected a Member of Parliament for a place called Stokely that same year. As he had indicated, he enjoyed the rank of under secretary of state, although in no special ministry. Nothing but mystery piling on mystery here.
“Who in the hell is he?” Blake murmured to himself. “Or, more to the point, what is he?”
No answer, so he closed his laptop down and went to bed.
ON THE FOLLOWING DAY,
Blake was doing the driving. Miller had a military canvas holdall beside them, and he rummaged in it and produced a map. It was a gray and misty morning, dark because of the pine trees crowding in.
“Looks as if there’s been no upkeep on this road since the war,” Blake said. “What’s between here and Banu?”
“Not much at all.” Miller put the map back in his holdall. “Depressing sort of place, isn’t it? You’d wonder why anyone would want to live here.”
“I suppose so.”
“Are you married?”
“For a few years, but it didn’t work out, mainly because of the demands of my job. She was a journalist.”
“Do you still see her?”
“No, she’s dead, murdered actually, by some rather bad people.”
“My God.” Miller shook his head. “That’s terrible. I can only hope there was some kind of closure.”
“The courts, you mean?” Blake shook his head. “No time for that, not in today’s world, not in my world. The rules are no rules. The people concerned were taken care of with the help of some very good friends of mine.” He shrugged. “It was a long time ago, Major.”
“Why do you call me that?”
“Tomas, the innkeeper. You had to show him your passport.”
“You were military yourself, I think?”
“Yes, I was also a major at the early age of twenty-three, but that was Vietnam for you. All my friends seemed to die around me, but I never managed it. Are you married?”
Although he knew the answer, it might seem strange to Miller not to ask, and he got an instant response. “Very much so. Olivia. American, actually. She’s an actress. Twelve years younger than me, so she’s in her prime. Gets plenty of work in London.”
“Children?”
“Not possible, I’m afraid.”
Blake didn’t say he was sorry. There just didn’t seem any point, and at that moment, there was the sound of shooting and they went over a rise and saw a young peasant riding a cycle toward them. He was swaying from side to side, his mouth gaping, panic stricken. Blake braked to a halt. The man on the cycle slewed onto his side and fell over. Miller got out, approached him, and pulled him up.
“Are you all right? What’s wrong?” He spoke in English. The man seemed bewildered, and there was blood matting his hair on the left side of the head. “Banu?” Miller tried.
The man nodded energetically. “Banu,” he said hoarsely, and pointed along the road. There were a couple more shots.
“I’ll try Russian,” Miller said, and turned to the man. “Are you from Banu?”
His question was met by a look of horror, and the man was immediately terrified, turned and stumbled away into the trees.
Miller got back in the jeep and said to Blake, “So much for Russian.”
“It frightened him to death,” Blake said. “That was obvious. I speak it a certain amount myself, as it happens.”
“Excellent. Then I suggest we go down to Banu and find out what’s going on, don’t you think?”
Miller leaned back and Blake drove away.
THEY PAUSED
on a rise, the village below. It wasn’t much of a place: houses of wood mainly on either side of the road, scattered dwellings that looked like farm buildings extending downward, a stream that was crossed by a wooden bridge supported by large blocks of granite. There was a wooden building with a crescent above it, obviously what passed as a small mosque, and an inn of the traditional kind.
A sizable light armored vehicle was parked outside the inn. “What the hell is that?” Blake asked.
“It’s Russian, all right,” Miller told him. “An armored troop carrier called a Storm Cruiser. Reconnaissance units use them. They can handle up to twelve soldiers.” He opened his holdall and took out a pair of binoculars. “Street’s clear. I’d say the locals are keeping their heads down. Two soldiers on the porch, supposedly guarding the entrance, drinking beer, a couple of girls in head scarves crouched beside them. The shooting was probably somebody having fun inside the inn.”
“So what do we do?”
“Well, to a certain extent I represent United Nations interests here. We should go down and take a look at what’s happening.”
Blake took a deep breath. “If you say so.”
“Oh, I do, but I like to be prepared.” Miller produced a Browning from the holdall. “I know it might seem a little old-fashioned, but it’s an old friend and I’ve always found it gets the job done.” He produced a Carswell silencer and screwed it in place.
“I wouldn’t argue with that,” Blake said, and took the jeep down into the village street, his stomach hollow. There were people peering out of windows on each side as they drove down and braked to a halt outside the inn. The two soldiers were totally astonished. One of them, his machine pistol on the floor, stared stupidly, his beer in his hand. The other had been fondling one of the girls, his weapon across his knees.
Miller opened the jeep door and stepped out into the rain, his right hand behind him holding the Browning. “Put her down,” he said in excellent Russian. “I mean, she doesn’t know where you’ve been.”
The man’s rage was immediate and he shoved the girl away, knocking her to one side against her friend, started to get up, clutching his machine pistol, and Miller shot him in the right knee. In the same moment, Miller swung to meet the other soldier as he stood up and struck him across the side of the head with the Browning.
The two girls ran across the road, where a door opened to receive them. Blake came around the jeep fast and picked up the machine pistol on the porch floor.
“Now what?”
“I’m going on. You take the alley and find the rear entrance.”
Blake, on fire in a way he hadn’t been in years, did as he was told, and Miller crossed to the door, opened it, and went in, his right hand once again behind his back holding the Browning.
THE INN
was old-fashioned in a way to be expected deep in such countryside: a beamed ceiling, wooden floors, a scattering of tables, and a long bar, bottles ranged on shelves behind it. There were about fifteen men crouched on the floor by the bar, hands on heads, two Russian soldiers guarding them. A sergeant stood behind the bar drinking from a bottle, a machine pistol on the counter by his hand. Two other soldiers sat on a bench opposite, two women crouched on the floor beside them, one of them sobbing.
The officer in command, a captain from his rank tabs, sat at a table in the center of the room. He was very young, handsome enough, a certain arrogance there. That the muted sound of Miller’s silenced pistol had not been heard inside the inn was obvious enough, but considering the circumstances, he seemed to take the sudden appearance of this strange apparition in combat overalls and old-fashioned trench coat with astonishing calm. He had a young girl on his knee who didn’t even bother to struggle as he fondled her, so terrified was she.
He spoke in Russian. “And who are you?”
“My name is Major Harry Miller, British Army, attached to the United Nations.” His Russian was excellent.
“Show me your papers.”
“No. You’re the one who should be answering questions. You’ve no business this side of the border. Identify yourself.”
The reply came as a kind of reflex. “I am Captain Igor Zorin of the Fifteenth Siberian Storm Guards, and we have every right to be here. These Muslim dogs swarm over the border to Bulgaria to rape and pillage.” He pushed the girl off his knee and sent her staggering toward the bar and his sergeant. “Give this bitch another bottle of vodka. I’m thirsty.”
She returned with the bottle, and Zorin dragged her back on his knee, totally ignoring Miller, then pulled the cork in the bottle with his teeth. But instead of drinking the vodka, he forced it on the girl, who struggled, choking.
“So what do you want, Englishman?”
A door opened at the rear of the room and Blake stepped in cautiously, machine pistol ready.
“Well, I’ve already disposed of your two guards on the porch, and now my friend who’s just come in behind you would like to demonstrate what he can do.”
Blake put a quick burst into the ceiling, which certainly got everybody’s attention, and called in Russian, “Drop your weapons!”
There was a moment’s hesitation, and he fired into the ceiling again. All of them, including the sergeant at the bar, raised their hands. It was Zorin who did the unexpected, dragging the girl across his lap in front of him, drawing his pistol, and pushing it into her side.
“Drop your weapon or she dies.”
Without hesitation, Miller shot him twice in the side of the skull, sending him backward over the chair. There was total silence, the Muslims getting to their feet. Everyone waited. He spoke to the sergeant in Russian.
“You take the body with you, put it in the Storm Cruiser, and wait for us with your men. See they do it, Blake.” He turned to the Muslims. “Who speaks English?”
A man moved forward and the girl turned to him. “I am the mayor, sir, I speak good English. This is my youngest daughter. Allah’s blessing on you. My name is Yusuf Birka.”
The Russians were moving out, supervised by Blake, two of them carrying Zorin’s body, followed by the sergeant.
Miller said to Birka, “Keep the weapons. They may be of use to you in the future.”
Birka turned and spoke to the others, and Miller went outside. Blake was standing at the rear of the Storm Cruiser, supervising the Russians loading Zorin’s body and the wounded man. There was an ammunition box on the ground.
“Semtex and timer pencils. I suppose that would be for the mosque,” Blake said.
The soldiers all scrambled in and the sergeant waited, looking bewildered. “If these people had their way, they’d shoot the lot of you,” Miller told him.
To his surprise, the sergeant replied in reasonable English. “I must warn you. The death of Captain Zorin won’t sit well with my superiors. He was young and foolish, but well connected in Moscow.”
“I can’t help that, but I have a suggestion for your commanding officer when you get back. Tell him from me that since you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, we’ll treat the whole incident as if it didn’t happen. Now get moving.”
“As you say.” The sergeant looked unhappy, but climbed up behind the wheel and drove the Storm Cruiser away, to the cheers of the villagers.
People milled around in the street, staring curiously. Some of the men arrived now, but they kept their distance as Miller and Blake talked with the mayor, who said, “How can we thank you?”
“By taking my advice. Keep quiet about this. If they come again, you have arms. I don’t think they will, though. It’s better for them to pretend it never happened, and better if you do, too. I won’t report any of this to the Protection Corps.”
The mayor said, “I will be guided by you. Will you break bread with us?”
Miller smiled. “No, my friend, because we aren’t here. We never were.” He turned to Blake. “Let’s get going. I’ll drive this time.”
As they moved away, Blake said, “Do you think the villagers will do as you say?”
“I don’t see why not. It’s entirely to their advantage, and I don’t think it’s worth us mentioning it to the Corps because of, shall we say, the peculiar circumstances of the matter.”
“I’ve no problem with that,” Blake said. “But I’ll have to report back to the President.”
“I agree. I’ll do the same with the PM. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been informed of this sort of thing. Meanwhile, you’ve got your laptop there, and the information pack you were given by the Protection Corps people includes Russian military field service codes for the area. See what they have on Captain Igor Zorin and the Fifteenth Siberian Storm Guards.”
Blake opened his laptop on his knees, got to work, and found it in a matter of minutes. “Here it is,” he said. “Forward Field Center, Lazlo, Bulgaria. Igor Zorin, twenty-five, decorated in Chechnya. Listings for the unit, home base near Moscow.”
“Sounds good,” Miller said.
And then a magic hand wiped it clean, and the screen went dark. “Dammit.” Blake punched keys desperately. “It’s all gone. What have I done?”
“Nothing,” Miller told him. “I imagine the sergeant called in and gave his masters the bad news within minutes of his leaving us. It didn’t happen, you see, just like I told you. Except the Russians are being even more than usually thorough. So is it back to Zagreb for you?”
“No, Pristina. I’m hitching a lift from there back to the States with the Air Force. How about you?”
“Belgrade for me, and then London. Olivia’s opening on Friday in the West End. An old Noël Coward play,
Private Lives.
I hope I can make it. I disappoint her too often.”
“Let’s hope you do.” Blake hesitated, awkward. “It’s been great meeting you. What you did back there was remarkable.”
“But necessary. That’s what soldiers do, the nasty things from which the rest of society turns away. Zorin was something that needed stepping on, that’s all.” And he increased speed as they went over the next rise.
Nantucket
London
3
SEATED BY THE FIRE IN THE BEACH HOUSE, BLAKE FINISHED HIS ACCOUNT OF
what had taken place at Banu. There was silence for a while, and it was Cazalet who spoke first.