A Matter of Honour (8 page)

“No, no, don’t bother,” said Adam, and
grabbed the piece of paper away from the girl. He turned back to the boy and
said, “Thank you for the game. Sorry to have bothered you,” and walked
hurriedly out into the corridor, heading for the front door.

“Did you find ‘im, sir?”

“Find him?” said Adam.

“Hans Kramer,” said the porter.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” said Adam. As he
turned to leave he saw the young boy and his girlfriend were following close
behind.

Adam ran down the drive and hailed a passing
taxi.

“Where to?” said the cabbie.

“The Royal Cleveland
Hotel.”

“But that’s only just round the corner.”

“I know,” said Adam, “but I’m already late.”

“Suit yourself, guv,” said the cabbie, “it’s
your money.”

As the cab moved off Adam peered out of the
back window to see his table-tennis opponent in conversation with the porter.
The girl stood alongside them, pointing to the taxi.

Adam only relaxed when the cab turned the
corner and they were out of sight.

In less than a minute the taxi had drawn up
outside the Royal Cleveland. Adam handed the cabbie half a crown and waited for
the change. Then he pushed through the revolving doors of the hotel and hung
around in the foyer for a few moments before returning to the pavement again.
He checked his watch: twelve thirty. Easily enough time for lunch, he thought,
before going on to his interview with the Foreign Office. He headed across the
Bayswater Road into the park at a brisk pace, knowing he couldn’t hope to find
a pub until he reached Knightsbridge.

Adam recalled the table tennis match. Damn,
he thought. I should have thrashed him. At least that would have given him
something else to think about.

Romanov’s eye ran down the list of the
fourteen banks. There was still an outside chance that one of them might be in
possession of the Tsar’s icon, but the names meant nothing to him. It was
another world, and he knew he would now have to seek advice from an expert. He
unlocked the top drawer of his desk and flicked through the red book held only
by the most senior ranking officers in the KGB. Manv names had been scratched
out or overwritten as regimes came and went but Aleksei Andreovich Poskonov had
remained in his present position as Chairman of the National Bank for nearly a
decade, and only Gromyko the Foreign Secretary had served in any office longer.
Romanov dialled a number on his private line and asked to be put through to the
Chairman of Gosbank. It was some considerable time before another voice came on
the line.

“Comrade Romanov, what can I do for you?”

“I urgently need to see you,” said Romanov.

“Really.”
The gravelly tones that came from the other
end of the line sounded distinctly unimpressed. Romanov could hear pages being
flicked over. “I could manage Tuesday, say eleven thirty?”

“I said it was urgent,” repeated Romanov. “It
concerns a State matter that can’t wait.”

“We are the nation’s bankers and do have one
or two problems of our own, you might be surprised to hear,” came back the
unrepentant voice. Romanov checked himself and waited. There was more flicking
of pages. “Well, I suppose I could fit you in at three forty-five today, for
fifteen minutes,” said the banker. “But I must warn you that I have a
long-standing engagement at four.”

“Three forty-five it is then,” said Romanov.

“In my office,” said Poskonov. The phone
went dead.

Romanov cursed out loud. Why did everyone feel
obliged to prove their manhood with the KGB? He began to write down the
questions he needed answered in order to put his plan into operation. He couldn’t
afford to waste even a minute of his allocated fifteen. An hour later he asked
to see the Chairman of the KGB. This time he was not kept waiting.

“Trying to play the capitalists at their own
game, are we?” said Zaborski, once Romanov had outlined his intentions. “Be
careful. They’ve been at it a lot longer than we have.”

“I realise that,” said Romanov. “But if the
icon is in the West I’m left with little choice but to use their methods to get
my hands on it.”

“Perhaps,” said the Chairman. “But with your
name such an approach could be misunderstood.”

Romanov knew better than to interrupt the
brief silence that ensued. “Don’t
worry,
I’ll give you
all the backing you need – although I’ve never had a request quite like this
one before.”

“Am I allowed to know why the icon is so
important?” Romanov enquired.

The Chairman of the KGB frowned. “I do not
have the authority to answer that question, but as Comrade Brezhnev’s
enthusiasm for the arts is well known you must have been able to work out that
it is not the painting itself that we are after.”

What secret can the painting hold?
thought
Romanov, and decided to press on. “I wondered if...”

The Chairman of the KGB shook his head
firmly.

Bugs don’t have eyes, thought Romanov, but
you know what that something is, don’t you?

The Chairman rose from his desk and walked
over to the wall and tore another page from the calendar. “Only ten days left
to find the damn thing,” he said. “The General Secretary has taken to phoning
me at one o’clock every morning.”

“One o’clock in the morning?” said Romanov
joining in the game.

“Yes, the poor man can’t sleep, they tell
me,” said the Chairman, returning to his desk. “It comes to all of us in time –
perhaps even you, Romanov, and maybe earlier than you expect if you don’t stop
asking questions.” He gave his young colleague a wry smile.

Romanov left the Chairman a few minutes
later and returned to his office to go over the questions that did need to be
answered by the Chairman of Gosbank. He couldn’t help becoming distracted by
thoughts of what could possibly be the significance of such a small painting,
but accepted that he must concentrate his efforts on finding it and then
perhaps the secret it contained would become obvious.

Romanov reached the steps of Neglinnaya 12
at three thirty because he knew he needed more than the fifteen minutes he had
been allocated if he was to get all his questions answered. He only hoped
Poskonov would agree to see him immediately.

After announcing himself at the reception
desk he was accompanied by a uniformed guard up the wide marble staircase to
the first floor, where Poskonov’s secretary was waiting to greet him. Romanov
was led to an anteroom. “I will inform the Chairman of the bank that you have
arrived, Comrade Romanov,” the secretary said, and then disappeared back into
his own office. Romanov paced up and down the small anteroom impatiently, but
the secretary did not return until the hands on the clock were in a straight
line. At three fifty, Romanov was ushered into the Chairman’s room.

The young major was momentarily taken aback
by the sheer opulence of the room. The long red velvet curtains, the marble
floor and the delicate French furniture wouldn’t, he imagined, have been out of
place in the Governor’s rooms at the Bank of England. Romanov was reminded not
for the first time that money still remained the most important commodity in
the world – even in the Communist world. He stared at the old stooped man with
the thinning grey hair and bushy walrus moustache who controlled the nation’s
money.
The man of whom it was said that he knew of one
skeleton in everyone’s cupboard.
Everyone’s except mine, thought
Romanov. His check suit might have been made before the Revolution and would
once again be considered ‘with it’ in London’s King’s Road.

“What can I do for you, Comrade Romanov?”
enquired the banker with a sigh, as if addressing a tiresome customer who was
seeking a small loan.

“I require one hundred million American
dollars’ worth of gold bullion immediately,” he announced evenly.

The chairman’s bored expression suddenly
changed. He went scarlet and fell back into his chair. He took several short,
sharp breaths before pulling open a drawer, taking out a square box and
extracting a large white pill from it. It took fully a minute before he seemed
calm again.

“Have you gone out of your mind, Comrade?”
the old man enquired. “You ask for an appointment without giving a reason, you
then charge into my office and demand that I hand over one hundred million
American dollars in gold without any explanation. For what reason do you make
such a preposterous suggestion?”

“That is the business of the State,” said
Romanov. “But, since you have enquired, I intend to deposit equal amounts in a
series of numbered accounts across Switzerland.”

“And on whose authority do you make such a
request?” the banker asked in a level tone.

“The General Secretary of
the Party.”

“Strange,” said Poskonov. “I see Leonid
Ilyich at least once a week and he has not mentioned this to me,” the chairman
looked down at the pad in the middle of his desk, “that a Major Romanov, a
middle-ranking” – he stressed the words – “officer from the KGB would be making
such an exorbitant demand.”

Romanov stepped forward, picked up the phone
by Poskonov’s side and held it out to him. “Why don’t you ask Leonid Ilyich
yourself and save us all a lot of time?” He pushed the phone defiantly towards
the banker. Poskonov stared back at him, took the phone and placed it to his
ear. Romanov sensed the sort of tension he only felt in the field.

A voice came on the line. “You called, Comrade
Chairman?”

“Yes,” replied the old man. “Cancel my four
o’clock appointment, and see that I am not disturbed until Major Romanov
leaves.”

“Yes, Comrade Chairman.”

Poskonov replaced the phone and, without
another word, rose from behind his desk and walked around to Romanov’s side. He
ushered the young man into a comfortable chair on the far side of the room
below a bay window and took the seat opposite him.

“I knew your grandfather,” he said in a
calm, matter-of-fact tone. “I was a junior commodity clerk when I first met
him. I had just left school and he was very kind to me but he was just as
impatient as you are.
Which was why he was the best fur
trader in Russia and thought to be the worst poker player.
”

Romanov laughed. He had never known his
grandfather and the few books that referred to him had long ago been destroyed.
His father talked openly of his wealth and position which had only given the
authorities ammunition finally to destroy him.

“You’ll forgive my curiosity, Major, but if
I am to hand over one hundred million dollars in gold I should like to know
what it is to be spent on. I thought only the CIA put in chits for those
sort
of expenses without explanation.”

Romanov laughed again and explained to the
Chairman how they had discovered the Tsar’s icon was a fake and he had been set
the task of recovering the original. When he had completed his story he handed
over the names of the fourteen banks. The banker studied the list closely while
Romanov outlined the course of action he proposed to take, showing how the
money would be returned intact as soon as he had located the missing icon.

“But how can one small icon possibly be that
important to the State?” Poskonov asked out loud, almost as if Romanov were no
longer in the room.

“I have no idea,” replied Romanov truthfully
and then briefed him on the results of his research.

There was an exasperated grunt from the
other chair when Romanov had finished. “May I be permitted to suggest an
alternative to your plan?”

“Please do,” said Romanov, relieved to be
gaining the older man’s co-operation.

“Do you smoke?” asked the banker, taking a
packet of Dunhill cigarettes from his coat pocket.

“No,” said Romanov, his eyebrows lifting
slightly at the sight of the red box.

The old man paused as he lit a cigarette. “That
suit was not tailored in Moscow either, Major,” the banker said, pointing at
Romanov with his cigarette. “Now, to business – and do not hesitate to correct
me if I have misunderstood any of your requirements. You suspect that lodged in
one of these fourteen Swiss banks” – the Chairman tapped the list with his
index finger – “is the original Tsar’s icon. You therefore want me to deposit
large amounts of gold with each bank in the hope that it will give you immediate
access to the head of the family, or chairman. You will then offer the chairman
the chance to control the entire hundred million if they promise to co-operate
with you?”

“Yes,” said Romanov. “Bribery is surely
something the West has always understood.”

“I would have said ‘naive’ if I hadn’t known
your grandfather, though to be fair it was he who ended up making millions of
roubles, not me. Nevertheless, how much do you imagine is a lot of money to a
major Swiss bank?”

Romanov considered the question.
“Ten million, twenty million?”

“To the Moscow Narodny Bank perhaps,” said
Poskonov. “But every one of the banks you hope to deal with will have several
customers with deposits of over a hundred million each.”