The Russian Affair

by Adrian D'hage

  Dragunov began to tap his fingers on the bar, watching the young men gyrating to the rhythm of Marvin Gaye and ‘Got to Give It Up’. The exclusive club in the middle of Paris was Dragunov’s escape. Escape from the years of imprisonment of the straitjacket of the Russian armed forces and the ever-increasing demands of President Petrov. Escape from his ever-demanding wife, Svetlana – to be seen at this ballet, or that opening night. Escape from the histrionics and the screaming matches. ‘My functions may not be important to you, Danilo, but celebrities have to be seen! My ratings were down a whole point this week! How many times have I suffered through your boring bloody parades and military dinners?’ Here, no one knew who he was. It was an oasis, and he watched absentmindedly, the activity on the darkened dance floor. Hands down each other’s crotch, sweating figures were gyrating now to Michael Jackson’s ‘Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’. His thoughts turned to the evening ahead. Three to choose from. It would be a merciful release from those eternal briefings at the Kremlin. Compared to the deadly intrigues of the Russian corridors of power, those from whom he would choose tonight were all wonderfully innocent.

  Dragunov downed another vodka and then followed Dominique to the rear of the basement where three young boys aged 9, 10 and 13 were watching television. They looked up momentarily, their demeanour bleak, their eyes vacant. Dragunov surveyed the offerings. The older one held no appeal, and it came down to the other two. The slight, dark nine-year-old was intriguing. Nigerian, Dragunov thought. He hadn’t had a Nigerian, and it might be interesting, but in the end he chose the pudgy red-haired ten-year-old. It had been a while since he’d been in bed with a red-head, and young white, flawless skin always held an attraction. Dragunov fished €5000 from his jacket pocket. ‘You’ve got the address. I’ll see him there in half an hour.’

  The next morning, Odeh rose and checked the feed from the bedroom and study cameras on his laptop. The first showed the main bedroom, but no one in it. He fast-forwarded, but to no avail. An empty bedroom was all they had to show for their efforts, but when Odeh switched to the camera covering the spare bedroom he was immediately rewarded. The vision was not unlike that from a CCTV, but it clearly showed Dragunov, minus his jacket, leading the chubby red-headed boy into the room and sitting him on the bed. Dragunov slipped his hand up the boy’s shorts and began to fondle him to an erection. He pulled the boy’s shorts off, undid his own belt, slipped out of his trousers and slid the boy’s reluctant hand inside his jockey shorts.

  ‘I think we have just scored more than one nuclear warhead, Said,’ said Odeh, a menacing tone to his voice. ‘You have the number?’

  ‘Yes, our cell at Sarov did well,’ Jarrah said, dialling Dragunov’s iPhone.

  ‘Dragunov.’

  ‘General Dragunov. Good morning. We have something you would like to see before you go off to your conference tomorrow.’

  ‘Who is this?’ the general demanded.

  ‘That’s not important, General. Some time ago, Doctor Pavlenko, who works for you at Sarov, put a request to you that you failed to action. It’s a request that we need to discuss, General. In Dubai you challenged us to get some evidence of your secret. We’ll come to you.’

  Jarrah looked at Odeh. The line had gone deathly quiet.

  ‘General? Are you there, General . . .? He’s hung up, so we’ll have to give him some encouragement.’

  Odeh nodded and inside two minutes, he had a still of the boy sucking on Dragunov’s erection. ‘I’ve sent it. You should have a copy in a moment.’

  Jarrah’s cell phone pinged and he nodded. ‘Got it.’ Jarrah selected it to be forwarded as a text image to Dragunov’s iPhone and he filled in the comments section.

  Either you let us in, General, or this goes public on the internet. What’s it going to be? And just in case you get any ideas, I wouldn’t plan on using that Makarov pistol you keep in your desk drawer. We’ve removed the ammunition, and if anything untoward happens to us, a complete video of your dirty little secret will be uploaded by another of our people. We will be on your intercom in three minutes.

  Jarrah waited for the image to load onto Dragunov’s phone with the confirmation of ‘Delivered’.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Together they descended the stairs that led from their apartment to the street outside and walked the short distance to the intercom on the outside of Dragunov’s apartment building. Jarrah pressed the button for apartment 6. There was no voice but an immediate click to indicate they had access.

  ‘What do you want?’ The blood had drained from the general’s face. He was holding his cell phone and his hand was shaking as he sat down on one of his Louis Philippe lounges.

  ‘It’s very simple, General. You provide Doctor Pavlenko with two of your thermonuclear warheads, or we publish your disgusting activities online. You will be dismissed from the military in disgrace, but that will be nothing compared to what awaits you after that. The Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk is bleak at the best of times, General, but behind the razor wire of the notorious prison for serious offenders, it’s bitterly cold and life is intolerable. Not that you would likely survive for very long. Have you ever heard of the criminal code of honour, General?’

  Dragunov didn’t answer. He just sat there, his face ashen.

  ‘There’s a hierarchy in prisons, General. Informants are on the second lowest rung. Child molesters are at the bottom. Not very long after you enter the Krasnoyarsk prison, Pravda, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Radio Mayak and NTV will make a brief announcement that disgraced former General Dragunov was last night found dead in his prison cell inside Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk prison. Police have announced there were no suspicious circumstances. And you will disappear into oblivion.’

  Silence descended on the apartment.

  ‘You are trying our patience, General,’ Odeh said, fingering his cell phone.

  ‘All right,’ the general croaked. ‘I will attend to it after I get back to Sarov.’

  ‘Not good enough, General. You will attend to it immediately you get back to Sarov.’

  ‘The day I get back is the day the president is scheduled to visit the facility to meet our scientists and get a personal update on our progress. It will be late in the day, so that won’t be possible.’

  ‘It will be possible, General,’ Odeh insisted, a menacing tone to his voice, ‘and you will make it possible. The exchange will be made after the president leaves, and you are to use your considerable influence to provide transport.’

  Dragunov listened to the daring ISIS plan and took a deep breath. ‘I will talk to Pavlenko, but I want the video.’

  ‘Whatever the world might think of us, General, there is honour amongst ISIS as well. You will get your video when we get our warheads,’ Odeh replied, neglecting to mention that in accordance with General Waheeb’s instructions, the tiny surveillance systems had all been left in place in Dragunov’s apartment. The Russian general would undoubtedly look for any hidden cameras, but Odeh was equally confident they wouldn’t be found.

  Rabinovich was met at Charles de Gaulle by another suitably impressed Mossad officer, Romain Dubois.

  ‘They’ve refurbished the Ritz, ma’am, but it’s a bit out of my league,’ he added with a grin.

  ‘Mine too,’ Rabinovich replied, returning his smile. She had checked the rates. They started at €1100 a night. ‘But I’m not paying.’

  The traffic was heavy, and the trip from Charles de Gaulle took nearly an hour. They drove down Rue St Honoré, past the famous Hôtel de Vendôme and turned into the equally famous cobblestoned Place Vendôme. The buildings around the square were in the French Baroque style of the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, and at the centre of the square stood the Place Vendôme column. Napoleon had ordered the column erected to celebrate the battle of Austerlitz. Clad in spiralling bronze plates, the column had been made from the captured cannon, and a bronze statue of the French emperor and military commander had been erected on the apex.

  Dubois’s driver pulled u
p outside the Ritz.

  ‘Enjoy your stay, ma’am. Can I help you with your bags?’

  ‘They’re fine – and thank you so much for picking me up,’ she replied, shaking him by the hand.

  ‘My pleasure, ma’am. And if you need anything at all, just call me.’ Dubois, she thought, was charming and just as good looking. Fleetingly, she wondered if she might change her mind about men.

  Minutes later Rabinovich looked around her accommodation. The Ritz had indeed been renovated. In 2010, the French Ministry of Tourism established the ‘Palace Status’ and awarded it to a handful of the finest five-star hotels in France – hotels like Le Meurice in Paris and Le Château de la Messardière in St Tropez. But surprisingly, the Ritz had failed to win the award and in July 2012, the owner, Egyptian business magnate Mohamed al-Fayed, decided to close the doors of the 118-year-old hotel for refurbishment. It had taken more than three years and reportedly cost over €200 million.

  Rabinovich moved to her window overlooking Napoleon’s column and the Place Vendôme. If the stone walls of the famous hotel could talk she knew they would reveal over a century of opulence and style, punctuated by decadence, scandal and tragedy. When ‘Bertie’ wasn’t sitting in his fellatio chair at Le Chabanais, the future King Edward VII could often be found at the Ritz, and on one occasion, he got stuck in the bath with his mistress and the hotel staff had to free them, prompting the fitting of larger bathtubs. The Marquise Casati had famously kept two cheetahs in her suite, along with a python that was fed live rabbits delivered via room service. When Paris fell to the Germans, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring took over the sumptuous Imperial Suite. The obese, cross-dressing Luftwaffe chief kept silk kimonos, lavender pants, mink gowns, jewelled sandals and diamond earrings in his wardrobe, and when he wasn’t putting on perfume and make-up and patronising Chez Suzy, Le Sphinx and the rest of Paris’s opulent maisons closes, he was addled with drugs and planning his next art gallery heist. F. Scott Fitzgerald, for whom the hotel named a suite, became an alcoholic at the hotel bars. And in the bedrooms, Ingrid Bergman was entertaining the war photographer Robert Capa, Marlene Dietrich was bedding the American general ‘Jumpin Jim’ Gavin, and while the Duke of Windsor was back in Britain plotting to regain his throne, Wallis Simpson had her leg over for the bisexual and very wealthy Jimmy Donohue. Hemingway did what Hemingway always did – drank and bedded a mistress, in this case from the press corps. But when Hemingway was the first to ‘liberate’ the Ritz from the retreating Nazis, the hotel duly named a bar in his honour where Cole Porter was said to have composed ‘Begin the Beguine’. And more recently, Dodi Fayed and Diana, Princess of Wales, had dined in the Ritz’s Imperial Suite on the night of their fatal car accident.

  Rabinovich’s thoughts turned to her own ‘tryst’ with Bartók. Why, she wondered, had Bartók decided to come to Paris early? Was he up to something? Was he about to get cold feet? Seven p.m. It was time to get him over for dinner and find out.

  Bartók paid the cab driver and nervously headed for the Ritz’s huge black wrought-iron doors underneath the hotel’s iconic igloo-shaped canvases. He made his way across the red carpet and into the sumptuously decorated oval-shaped hotel lobby. The roof was supported by massive brown marble columns and a huge but elegant chandelier hung from the high ceiling. Bartók spotted her immediately. He was confused as to what the night might hold and his pulse quickened. Lisa was sitting just past one of the marble columns and she rose to meet him.

  ‘Denis!’

  Bartók felt awkward as she kissed him on both cheeks. ‘You came to Paris early, you naughty boy. Have you got another lover here?’ she added in a whisper.

  Bartók went red. ‘N—no,’ he stammered.

  ‘Are you sure now?’ she said, taking his hand and leading him to the famous Hemingway Bar.

  Bartók lowered his voice. ‘Once I had the data —’

  Rabinovich stopped him mid-sentence. ‘Not here, Denis. There’ll be time for that later in my suite. First we’ll have a drink, then we’re dining in the legendary L’Espadon.’

  ‘You’re looking decidedly delectable tonight, Denis. A Scotch for you?’ Rabinovich suggested as she slid onto one of the round leather stools at the Hemingway Bar.

  ‘I might have a lemon squash, I think,’ Bartók replied. His heart raced. It was Rabinovich. He hadn’t taken any notice of it when he’d met her. Nor had he taken much notice when he’d compared the photo of Doctor Ilana Rabinovich with the Lisa Cohen he’d met in Los Alamos, but now it hit home like a force nine gale. She had a mole just above her left eyebrow. What had he got himself in to, he wondered. Had Rabinovich perhaps left Russia to work for wealthy clients in the Middle East? If so, why the change of name?

  Rabinovich smiled seductively, ignoring the fact that Bartók was staring at her, but wondering why he had a sudden need to stay sober. It was out of character, so something was afoot.

  ‘Nonsense, Denis. We’re in Paris – the romantic capital of the world.’ Rabinovich turned her attention to the drinks menu, maintaining her composure at the price of the Ritz Sidecar. It was made with 1830 Ritz Reserve Cognac, the vines for which had been wiped out by an insect plague in the 1860s. The grapes had long since ceased to be available, and the price for the cocktail was now a cool €700, the most expensive cocktail in the world. Rabinovich turned to the bartender who was waiting patiently with a neutral expression on his face. He had seen many more odd occurrences than the one playing out in front of him.

  ‘Two champagne cocktails,’ Rabinovich said finally, refraining from winking at the barman. She could read his mind. What is an attractive woman like you doing with a blustering nerd like this? But her own mind was in high gear. Bartók was clearly not himself and she wondered again if he was getting cold feet. She found out soon enough. After a memorable dinner at the Ritz’s L’Espadon, with for her equally unmemorable company, they repaired to her suite.

  ‘You didn’t seem yourself tonight, Denis.’ Braless in a sexy black silk evening dress, Rabinovich leaned forward toward him, exposing her full creamy breasts. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can go through with this,’ Bartók said, more nervous than ever.

  Rabinovich fingered the lapel mike she had placed under her evening dress. The recording was destined for Regev. It was there to both allay any suspicions he might still hold against her, as well as further ensnaring her target.

  ‘Oh? And why is that, Denis?’ Rabinovich asked nonchalantly. ‘You said you have the thumb drive – do you?’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘You do realise,’ said Rabinovich, her voice hardening, ‘that you can’t go back to the States? You do realise that by now, they will have discovered you’ve downloaded the most classified document in the country? You do realise that if you do go back, they’ll arrest you and find you guilty of treason. Do you know what the penalty is for that?’

  Rabinovich had come prepared for just the eventuality she was now faced with and she had committed the law to memory. ‘It’s covered by Chapter 115 of the US legal code, Denis,’ Rabinovich said, quoting it to him. ‘Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States levies war against them or adheres to the enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death.’ Rabinovich left out the lesser sentences and let ‘death’ hang in the air. ‘That’s you, Denis.’

  ‘Y—yes . . .’ Bartók stammered. ‘But if I don’t hand the data over, I’m not guilty of that.’

  Rabinovich turned to Plan B. She reached for her digital recorder, put it on the table in front of Bartók and pressed ‘play’.

  ‘I think I’ll go for the pan-seared crab cakes and for a main, what’s the Union Special Lobster?’

  ‘That, sir, is a baked medium lobster with New England seafood stuffing, topped with the claws . . .’

  Rabinovich looked up, delighted to find that Bartók was ashen. She fast-forwarded the recorder to a point she had
previously marked.

  ‘But if what I’ve read is right, scientists have been working on this for decades, and no one has even got close.’

  ‘Up until now, yes. But what if I were to tell you, Lisa, that I have a solution?’

  Rabinovich let the tape run. Bartók looked shattered as he listened to his own alcohol-fuelled outline of his highly classified research.

  ‘So, Denis, you don’t actually have a choice. I want the thumb drive. It’s a simple as that.’

  ‘And the money?’ asked Bartók desperately. ‘I would need to know who your client is before I hand it over.’

  ‘My “client” is the Israeli government so you’re in much bigger trouble than you think. You really are naïve, aren’t you?’ Rabinovich added. There was more than a touch of steel and contempt in her voice as she piled on the pressure to secure the thumb drive. ‘Given the position you’ve put yourself in, we could refuse any money and let you swing, but the Israeli government is not like that. You will be paid, and you’ll be offered asylum in Israel. Depending on your attitude, and that’s entirely up to you, if you demonstrate loyalty to your new state, you will be assessed for clearance. With your capabilities, you may even be permitted to continue your research into nuclear physics. So . . . the thumb drive, and we’ll make arrangements for getting you to your new home.’

  Bartók slumped back in his chair. ‘I didn’t bring it here tonight,’ he croaked, ‘but I will get it to you, I promise. I’ll hand it over once I finish at the conference.’ Bartók was more nervous than ever. Relatively sober, he was weighing up his options and buying time.

  Rabinovich too, was applying her laser-like intellect to the arcane art of espionage and the game of chess she was playing with her quarry. Bartók was, she assessed, in a fairly fragile state and there was nothing to be gained by putting him in a vice. That said, the Mossad agents in Paris would need to keep their eye on him.