The Eleventh Commandment (1998) (27 page)

Connor swung his legs off the bunk, placed his bare feet on the stone floor and faced his visitor. The Chief took a long drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke high into the air. ‘Filthy habit,’ he said, in flawless English. ‘My wife never stops telling me to give it up.’

Connor showed no emotion.

‘My name is Vladimir Bolchenkov. I am the Chief of Police of this city, and I thought we might have a little chat before we think about putting anything on the record.’

‘My name is Piet de Villiers. I am a South African citizen working for the
Johannesburg Journal,
and I wish to see my Ambassador.’

‘Now there’s my first problem,’ said Bolchenkov, the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. ‘You see, I don’t believe your name is Piet de Villiers, I’m fairly sure you’re not South African, and I know for certain that you don’t work for the
Johannesburg Journal
, because there’s no such paper. And just so we don’t waste too much of each other’s time, I have it on the highest authority that you were not hired by the Mafya. Now, I admit that I don’t yet know who you are, or even which country you come from. But whoever it is that sent you has, to use a modern colloquialism, dropped you in deep shit. And, if I may say so, from a very great height.’

Connor didn’t even blink.

‘But I can assure you that they are not going to do the same thing to me. So if you feel unable to assist with my enquiries, there is nothing I can do except leave you here to rot, while I continue to bask in the glory that is currently being undeservedly heaped upon me.’

Connor still didn’t react.

‘I see that I’m not getting through to you,’ said the Chief. ‘I feel it’s my duty to point out that this isn’t Colombia, and that I will not be switching my allegiance according to who I’ve spoken to most recently, or who offers me the thickest wad of dollars.’ He paused and drew on his cigarette again before adding, ‘I suspect that’s one of the many things we have in common.’

He turned and began walking towards the cell door, then stopped. ‘I’ll leave you to think it over. But if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t wait too long.’

He banged on the door. ‘Let me assure you, whoever you are,’ he added as the door was opened, ‘there will be no thumbscrews, no rack, or any other, more sophisticated forms of torment while I’m St Petersburg’s Chief of Police. I don’t believe in torture; it’s not my style. But I cannot promise you everything will be quite so friendly if Victor Zerimski is elected as our next President.’

The Chief slammed the cell door closed, and Connor heard a key turn in the lock.

T
HREE WHITE
BMWs drew up outside the hotel. The man seated next to the driver in each car leapt out onto the pavement and checked up and down the road. Once they were satisfied, the back door of the middle car was opened to allow Alexei Romanov to step out. The tall young man was wearing a long black cashmere coat, and didn’t look to either side as he walked quickly into the hotel. The other three men followed, forming a semi-circle around him.

From the description he had been given over the phone, Romanov immediately recognised the tall American standing in the middle of the hall, looking as if he was waiting for someone.

‘Mr Jackson?’ enquired Romanov in a guttural accent.

‘Yes,’ Jackson replied. He would have shaken hands if Romanov had not simply turned round and headed straight back towards the entrance.

The three cars’ engines were running and their doors were still open when Jackson stepped out onto the street. He was ushered towards the back door of the centre vehicle, and sat between the man who hadn’t been willing to shake hands with him and another equally silent but more heavily built man.

The three cars slipped into the centre lane, and as if by magic every other vehicle moved out of their path. Only the traffic lights didn’t seem to know who they were.

As the little motorcade swept through the city, Jackson cursed himself again. None of this would have been necessary if he had been able to get through to Lloyd twenty-four hours earlier. But that was hindsight, he thought - a gift only politicians are born with.

‘You need to meet Nicolai Romanov,’ Sergei had said. He had dialled his mother’s number, and when the phone was eventually answered, he behaved in a way Jackson had not witnessed before. He was respectful, listened attentively, and never once interrupted. Twenty minutes later he put the phone down.

‘I think she’ll make the call,’ he said. ‘The problem is that you can’t become a member of the “Thieves in Law” - or the Mafya, as you call them - until you’re fourteen. It was the same even for Alexei, the Czar’s only son.’

Sergei went on to explain that he had asked that Jackson should be granted a meeting with the Czar, the leader of the Thieves in Law. The organisation had been founded at the time when Russia was ruled by a real Czar, and had survived to become the most feared and respected criminal organisation in the world.

‘My mother is one of the few women the Czar will talk to. She will ask him to grant you an audience,’ said Sergei.

The phone rang, and he immediately picked it up. As he listened carefully to what his mother had to say, he turned white and began to tremble. He hesitated for some time, but finally agreed to whatever she was suggesting. His hand was still shaking when he put the receiver down.

‘Has he agreed to see me?’ asked Jackson.

‘Yes,’ said Sergei quietly. ‘Two men come to pick you up tomorrow morning: Alexei Romanov, the Czar’s son, who will succeed him when he dies, and Stefan Ivanitsky, Alexei’s cousin, who is third in command.’

‘Then what’s the problem?’

As they do not know you, they make one condition.’

And what’s that?’

‘If the Czar thinks you waste his time, the two men will come back and break one of my legs, to remind me not to bother them again.’

‘Then you’d better make sure you’re not around when I get back.’

‘If I’m not here they pay a call on my mother and break her leg. And when they catch me, they break both my legs. It is the unwritten code of the Mafya.’

Jackson wondered if he should cancel the meeting. He didn’t want to be responsible for Sergei ending up on crutches. But the boy told him it was too late. He had already accepted their terms.

One glance at Stefan Ivanitsky, the Czar’s nephew, who was seated on his right, was enough to convince Jackson that breaking a leg would take him only a moment, and would be forgotten even more quickly.

Once the BMWs had passed the city boundaries, the little motorcade quickly accelerated to sixty miles per hour. As they climbed the winding roads up into the hills, they met few other vehicles. They sped past peasants on the side of the road with their heads bowed, and no sign in their faces that they cared about either the past or the future. Jackson began to understand why Zerimski’s words might excite any last flicker of hope left in them.

Without warning, the leading car suddenly swung left and stopped outside a massive wrought-iron gate dominated by a crest with a black falcon’s outstretched wings. Two men holding Kalashnikovs stepped forward, and the first driver lowered a smoked-glass window to allow them to peer in. It reminded Jackson of arriving outside the CIA’s headquarters - except that at Langley the guards had to be satisfied with side-arms that remained in their holsters.

After all three cars had been inspected, one of the guards nodded and the wings of the falcon split open. The motorcade proceeded at a more stately pace along a gravel drive that wound through a thick forest. It was another five minutes before Jackson caught his first glimpse of the house - though house it was not. A century before it had been the palace of an Emperor’s first-born. It was now inhabited by a remote descendant who also believed in his hereditary position.

‘Don’t speak to the Czar unless he speaks first,’ Sergei had warned him. ‘And always treat him like his imperial ancestors.’ Jackson preferred not to tell Sergei that he had no idea how to treat a member of the Russian Royal Family.

The cars crunched to a halt outside the front door. A tall, elegant man in a long black tailcoat, white shirt and bow tie stood waiting on the top step. He bowed to Jackson, who tried to look as if he was used to this sort of treatment. After all, he had once met Richard Nixon.

‘Welcome to the Winter Palace, Mr Jackson,’ said the butler. ‘Mr Romanov awaits you in the Blue Gallery.’

Alexei Romanov and Stefan Ivanitsky accompanied Jackson through the open door. Jackson and the young Romanov followed the butler down a long marble corridor, while Ivanitsky remained standing by the entrance. Jackson would have liked to stop and admire the paintings and statues that would have graced any museum in the world, but the steady pace of the butler did not allow it. The butler stopped when he reached two white doors at the end of the corridor that stretched almost to the ceiling. He knocked, opened one of the doors, and stood aside to allow Jackson to enter.

‘Mr Jackson,’ he announced, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Jackson stepped into a vast, lavishly furnished drawing room. The floor was covered by a single carpet a Turk would have traded his life for. From a Louis XIV winged chair of red velvet rose an elderly man in a blue pin-striped suit. His hair was silver, and the pallor of his skin suggested that he had suffered a long illness. His thin body was slightly stooped as he took a step forward to shake hands with his guest.

‘It is kind of you to come all this way to see me, Mr Jackson,’ he said. ‘You must forgive me, but my English is a little rusty. I was forced to leave Oxford in 1939, soon after the war broke out, although I was only in my second year. You see, the British never really trusted the Russians, even though we were later to become allies.’ He smiled sweetly. ‘I’m sure they show much the same attitude when dealing with the Americans.’

Jackson wasn’t sure how to react.

‘Do have a seat, Mr Jackson,’ said the old man, gesturing towards the twin of the chair he had been sitting in.

‘Thank you,’ said Jackson. They were the first words he had spoken since leaving the hotel.

‘Now, Mr Jackson,’ said Romanov, lowering himself slowly into his chair, ‘if I ask you a question, be sure to answer it accurately. If you are in any doubt, take your time before replying. Because should you decide to lie to me - how shall I put it? - you will find that it’s not only this meeting that will be terminated.’

Jackson would have walked out there and then, but he knew that the old man was probably the one person on earth who could get Connor out of the Crucifix prison alive. He gave a curt nod to show that he understood.