The Russian Affair

by Adrian D'hage

  In the Kremlin, President Petrov had been listening intently. He nodded in agreement, a grave expression on his face. Ever since Travers’s election, Petrov had been wondering if the new President of the United States understood the implications of detonating nuclear warheads. Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, worked very well, but only if those on opposing sides were aware of the risks. All the more reason, he thought, to find out what the Americans and Israelis were up to. In Petrov’s view, a strategic advantage in nuclear missiles was not only critical, it was essential that his enemies knew he possessed it. Petrov had ensured that Rabinovich’s speech would not only fall into the hands of the Israelis, it would also find its way into the classified corridors of the CIA’s headquarters in Virginia.

  ‘I want to finish tonight,’ Rabinovich concluded, ‘with an issue closer to home. My mother was a Jew, and over the last few years, I have watched with mixed feelings, as an aliyah, a renewed migration of Russian Jews to the Promised Land, has gathered strength. Disillusioned Russian Jews are now deserting this country for a more stable Israel.’

  ‘Boris!’ Vaseliev hissed. ‘This is treason! We should arrest her now!’

  ‘Nyet. We get her in the car park.’ The FSB commander held firm.

  ‘Over the past year, figures provided by the Jewish Agency for Israel indicate there’s been a 50 per cent increase in immigration, and while immigrants still flow from Western Europe, the increase is mainly due to Jewish emigration from Russia, where a major factor is fear. If you protest in Russia today, that is now a criminal offence and you can go to gaol for five years, just for expressing your views. Anyone who dares to be critical of the Kremlin will suffer the consequences. But the data also shows that the emigrants leaving Russia are younger and more educated. They mainly come from here in Moscow and St Petersburg and we can ill afford that brain drain.’

  Rabinovich’s speech was greeted by a stony silence from the ministers, generals and academics seated in the first row, and only a smattering of disjointed applause echoed off the auditorium pillars. Suddenly, two young men and a woman rose to their feet chanting ‘Down with Petrov! Down with Petrov!’ Twenty security guards immediately appeared and descended on the protestors’ aisle. After a brief scuffle the trio were overpowered, and roughly bundled toward the stairs at the rear of the auditorium.

  ‘We go – now!’ Captain Lebedev whispered. The three burly FSB agents exited quietly and minutes later they took up their positions within sight of Rabinovich’s Audi.

  ‘I will not be escorting you to the entrance, Colonel Rabinovich.’ Any colour that had returned to Professor Glagolev’s face could only be attributed to anger. ‘Your speech tonight was nothing short of a disgraceful attack on the government and on President Petrov’s policies, and I shall be putting in an official complaint to the Kremlin this very evening.’ Glagolev stormed off, leaving Rabinovich to find her own way out.

  She had, the previous week, taken the trouble to reconnoitre the maze of corridors. It was an old military maxim that was common to more than one army in the world: ‘time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted’. Rabinovich slipped into a toilet, her high heels echoing on the polished marble floor. She delved into her bag and quickly changed into jeans and runners. If anyone had thought her shoulder bag somewhat large for a visiting speaker, no one had mentioned it. Her assumption that she would not have to exit through the main entrance in the company of the rector had proven correct, and she checked her PSS pistol. The special forces weapon was deadly at up to 25 metres, and Rabinovich knew she would have to be close to use it, but she also knew it would not be heard above the Moscow traffic. The propelling charge fired the 42-millimetre-long 7.62-millimetre necked round out of the barrel, but the cartridge also contained a piston which sealed the neck of the round, preventing any smoke or noise from escaping.

  Rabinovich headed out of the bathroom toward a small exit in the eastern wing. She quietly emerged from beneath a red brick archway and scanned the surrounds. A black Mercedes and a high-powered Ducati Desmosedici Grand Prix racing bike were parked a short distance from where she’d left the Audi. Rabinovich smiled grimly. They were not leaving anything to chance. The six-litre, V12 SL65 Mercedes would go close to matching the Audi on a straight road, but around the tight streets of Moscow, the 1000 cc V4 Ducati would have a decided advantage. For her part, Rabinovich would have much preferred to have slunk into the night and escaped on the Moscow Metro. It was a system she knew well, and she had even planned her escape. During peak hours, trains arrived every two minutes at the stations and unlike most undergrounds, Moscow’s stations were famous around the world for their elegant architecture, be it art deco or baroque. And each station was different. Graceful crystal chandeliers hung from the white ceilings of Arbatskaya. Polished marble arches supported the ornate roof of Komsololskaya, and still others were uniquely characterised with paintings from Russian history or mosaics. Even more surprisingly, the stations had their genesis in General Secretary Joseph Stalin’s first Five-Year Plan of the late 1920s, designed in part to showcase Communism to the rest of the world. But there was no point on dwelling on that escape route. The President himself had overruled her. Her flight from the Moscow University was to be captured for public consumption, and more importantly by the Israelis and the Americans.

  Rabinovich spotted one of the FSB agents immediately. She had been warned there would be three, but this one seemed to be alone. He had taken cover behind a large spruce tree and he had his back to her. His Makarov pistol was still holstered and he was focused solely on the parked Audi, which left him vulnerable to an attack from behind. Young, and inexperienced, she thought as she drew her own pistol and approached him, her runners silent on the grass. At the last moment, when Rabinovich was within a metre of him, he turned. Before he could draw his weapon, Rabinovich drove her left knee hard into the young FSB agent’s balls. He grunted in pain and as he fell to the ground, Rabinovich knocked him unconscious with her pistol butt. Two muffled shots rang out immediately from the other side of the Audi, and a small branch from the spruce tree seemed strangely out of place as it floated to the ground. Rabinovich felt a surge of adrenaline. It was game on, but if she was to escape in the Audi, she would need to draw her assailants out of their positions and away from it. Rabinovich waited until there was traffic on the broad Tsentralnaya Avenue which ran past the university. She broke cover and ran onto the road, darting and weaving between cars and buses to the accompaniment of horns and two-fingered salutes. ‘Ty che, blyad! . . . What the fuck!’ A van driver swore angrily as he swerved to avoid her.

  ‘Suka! Bitch!’ Sergeant Federov waved the barrel of his pistol back and forth as he attempted to take aim at Rabinovich through the traffic.

  ‘Nyet! We take her alive,’ ordered Captain Lebedev.

  ‘Look at Vaseliev!’ Federov, his blood well and truly up, waved his pistol toward his junior sergeant who was lying motionless at the base of the spruce tree.

  ‘Our orders are clear,’ Lebedev reminded him, ‘although that doesn’t mean we can’t accidentally rough her up . . . badly. Let’s go! She’s headed into the park. We can corner her there.’

  Captain Lebedev waited for a break in the traffic and the pair dashed across the road in pursuit of their quarry.

  The park opposite the university contained a long, rectangular pool and a large fountain. Three hundred metres beyond the fountain, the Moskva River wound its way through the centuries-old city. But that was relatively open ground, and Rabinovich headed north, to the left of the pool where her reconnaissance had revealed a heavily wooded area. She took cover behind an old, graffiti-covered gardener’s shed, from where she could cover the pool area and she didn’t have long to wait. Lebedev and Federov, guns drawn, were sprinting toward the pool. It was longer than lethal range, but she took aim at Federov and fired. Federov screamed, falling beside the pool, clutching his leg. She aimed at Lebedev and fired again.

  ‘Blyad! Fuck!’ Lebedev swo
re as a round tore a chunk out of his arm. He dropped to the ground and took cover behind an oak tree, uncertain as to where the shot had come from.

  ‘Can you see her?’ Federov winced in pain and crawled toward his commander.

  ‘She’s got to be in amongst those trees. Cover me!’

  Lebedev ran from the pool area toward the thick growth, but Rabinovich was already on the move away from him. She headed south-west back toward the university, hugging the tree line for cover until she reached Tsentralnaya Avenue again. This time, she waited for a break in the traffic. Rabinovich broke cover and sprinted across the road toward the Audi, but Federov spotted her almost immediately.

  ‘Captain! Back here!’ Federov, still wincing in pain, fired twice and then gave chase, running back toward the car park.

  Rabinovich threw herself into the leather racing seat, fired the engine and roared out onto Tsentralnaya Avenue. She weaved in and out of the traffic and overtook a BMW just before the intersection with Ulitsa Lebedeva. Rabinovich flung the Audi into a sideways drift in front of the BMW and tore off down the tree-lined street, leaving the BMW driver blasting his horn. The planets are not aligned, she thought, as the lights up in front at the intersection with Universitestkiy Prospekt turned to orange, then red. Rabinovich glanced in the rear-vision mirror. In the distance she could see Federov, hard over on his Ducati, rounding out of Tsentralnaya in hot pursuit. No doubt Lebedev would not be far behind in the V12 Mercedes, she thought. The Audi’s rear wheels smoked as Rabinovich left a trail of rubber on the road and she flung the Audi into a drifting right turn. She quickly reached 130 kilometres an hour down the normally sedate street, but the bike was gaining. Federov was only 50 metres behind.

  ‘Ublyudok! Bastard!’ she swore. Once again, the lights up ahead were changing and the Ducati, revs screaming, was gaining fast.

  ‘Fuck you, you bitch!’ Federov’s left leg felt as if a red-hot poker had been jammed into his calf. ‘This will just have to be an accident.’ He cursed through clenched teeth and fired twice as he closed the gap.

  Rabinovich calmly ducked as the Audi’s rear window shattered. She kept her speed as they approached the next intersection, but as the Ducati reached her right rear fender, she opened her door and hit the brakes. The Ducati slammed into the door with a ferocious bang and the door disappeared in a shower of sparks. Federov was catapulted forward 50 metres onto the roadway ahead. The driver of the car in the right-hand lane skidded into the prostate Federov and amid a cacophony of brakes and horns, four cars piled into the back of one another. Rabinovich gunned the Audi past the wreckage of the Ducati and the other cars, and raced toward the intersection. She glanced in her rear-view mirror and swore again. The black Mercedes was weaving in and out of the chaos and closing fast. The lights turned green and Rabinovich flung the Audi in a hard smoking turn onto Prospekt Vernadskovo. She glanced in the rear mirror again to see the Mercedes fishtailing out of the corner. With the Mercedes in hot pursuit, Rabinovich headed toward the bridge over the river Moskva. Engines snarling and topping 150 kilometres an hour, they approached the bridge with the Mercedes now a bare ten metres behind. Rabinovich swerved into the left lane and touched the brakes. Lebedev, caught off guard, careered past. Rabinovich floored the accelerator, closed on the Mercedes and tapped Lebedev’s rear left fender. Lebedev spun, collected a Passat, rolled, and bounced upside down onto the top of the bridge’s round steel guardrail in an explosion of sparks. As she roared past, Rabinovich caught sight of Lebedev, desperately trying to free himself as the Mercedes oscillated precariously. Lebedev struggled with the door, shifted the weight balance and the Mercedes slowly toppled, before falling in a surreally graceful plunge to the river nearly 50 metres below. A crunching bang was followed by screams from the river. The Mercedes had smashed onto the top of a tourist barge and burst into flames. Rabinovich accelerated away and then slowed to Moscow’s city speed limit of 60 kilometres an hour. Two ambulances, three police cars and a fire engine could be heard in the distance. The night was filling with more and more sirens and Rabinovich could see the flames from the stricken tourist barge in her rear mirror. She continued down Komsomolskiy Prospekt, turned off and parked the Audi down a back alley near the Park Kultury Metro. It would not take long before the expensive Audi racing sports car, sans door, was noticed by someone, although hopefully, she thought, the Politsiya would not find it until the following day. If she continued to drive it, she would almost certainly be pulled over and she allowed herself a wry smile. More than enough carnage had been created to satisfy the Israelis she was genuinely on the run and she felt sure President Petrov would approve.

  Rabinovich walked the short distance to the Metro and descended the steep escalator to the platforms 130 feet below. Like other underground stations on the Moscow Metro, the 1950s Park Kultury had been uniquely designed and a sporting theme featuring young Soviet sports men and women dominated the white marble walls. The escalator was uniquely lit with metre-high posts topped with big round lamps. Rabinovich exited the escalator onto grey and black granite tiles laid in an imitation of carpet. She moved past the marble pylons and onto the elegant platform. Barely a minute later, Rabinovich boarded a train for Troparyovo to the south-west of the Kremlin. Even though she knew the authorities would have their hands full with the fire on the tourist barge and the carnage on Universitestkiy Prospekt, Rabinovich was on high alert, and she chose a seat from which she could survey the entire carriage. There was no telling how many traffic cameras might have recorded her at the wheel of the Audi.

  Troparyovo was the last station but one on the Sokolnicheskaya line, but the 17 kilometres took just 23 minutes. Rabinovich emerged from a cave-like entrance that was topped with Moscow Metro’s distinctive red M. She paused and looked around. Satisfied that no one was following her, she walked the short distance to the apartment block that overlooked Leninsky Avenue, rode the lift to the fifteenth floor and knocked – two short, one long, two short. Sometimes the simplest codes were the best. The door opened and Rabinovich was greeted by a fit, rugged-looking man in jeans and a leather jacket who checked the corridor beyond her.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘Leonid Feldman. You’ve caused quite a stir, Colonel,’ he added, ushering her into the lounge room where the television news was covering the carnage in the city. Myriad flashing lights emanated from the Prospekt Vernadskovo Bridge over the Moskva River. The bridge was closed in both directions, adding to the chaos.

  ‘Are you sure no one followed you here?’

  ‘Quite sure, and I’m hopeful they will not find the Audi until morning.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘It’s not far from Park Kultury Metro, but down an alley.’

  ‘So when they find it, they’ll assume you’ve taken a train,’ Feldman said, a note of disdain in his voice, ‘and they’ll be checking the fucking security camera footage, which will lead them here.’

  ‘When they find it, yes,’ Rabinovich replied icily. After all she’d been through tonight, she wasn’t about to cop a lecture from some jumped-up Israeli agent. ‘And yes, they’ll be checking the camera footage, if they’re not doing that already. But there are 234 stations on the Moscow Metro, Mr Feldman, and they’ll be starting with the Moscow Circle. Troparyovo is the second last station on the Sokolnicheskaya line, and 10 million people use the Metro every day, so unless they get lucky, I think we may have a little time yet. The Audi is a wreck, and there are two hundred police cars out there on the roads looking for it, so I doubt I would have gone more than 10 kilometres without being pulled over. Had I caught a taxi, given the publicity on television and social media, the driver would likely have recognised me.’

  Feldman grunted. ‘A private jet is waiting at Vnukovo Airport. We are scheduled to leave at 0300 hours tomorrow morning.’

  Rabinovich checked her watch. ‘You mean this morning.’ It was already past midnight.

  ‘Vnukovo is 15 kilometres away,’ said Feldman, ignoring Rab
inovich’s pointed remark. ‘The flight plan is logged as departing Vnukovo for Farnborough in the UK. That will be changed once we’re airborne and out of Russian-controlled airspace. I will be posing as a wealthy businessmen, and you will be posing as my secretary. Your passport, under the name of Felicity Featherstone-Walkley, and your travel documents are in this folder, along with a brief on my business and private background. Memorise the brief and then burn it. We are scheduled to use the VIP departure lounge – the same one the president and senior politicians and generals use, so I don’t expect any problems, but we leave nothing to chance. You will notice that your passport photograph portrays you as a blonde. The boys and girls in the Mossad have provided you with a wig that will enable you to match your passport photograph. When we get to Israel, we’ll make a more permanent job of it. You’ll also be given a new identity for your own protection – Lisa Cohen.’

  Rabinovich just nodded. She suddenly felt very tired, but this, she reminded herself, was no time to relax.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  Rabinovich shook her head.

  ‘There’s a frozen dinner in the fridge.’ Feldman’s tone was a little softer.

  ‘Shit!’ said Feldman. The floodlit dome of Vnukovo’s main terminal came in to view, but so too did a Politsiya checkpoint. A temporary boom gate had been put in place and one of the police was waving a flashlight in a signal to stop. ‘I’ll do the talking,’ Feldman said. Feldman brought his racing green Jaguar to a halt and lowered his window.

  ‘Pasporta, pozhaluista. Passports!’

  Feldman handed over his and Felicity Featherstone-Walkley’s British passports, Feldman’s in the name of Nigel Pemberton.

  ‘You are English?’ asked the policeman in a thick Russian accent. He slowly scrutinised first one passport, then the other.

  ‘Both of us. This is my secretary. We’re returning to London.’ Feldman was good, Rabinovich thought. His accent could have easily passed amongst the British aristocracy.