Heads You Win

During the short flight to Boston, he decided he would go straight home and explain to Anna and Konstantin why he would never be going back to the Soviet Union again.

After he’d disembarked, he was pleased to see Miss Robbins standing outside the arrivals gate waiting for him, a perplexed look on her face.

“It’s wonderful to be home,” he said as he sank down into the back seat of his limousine. “You’ll never believe what I’ve been through, Pamela, and how lucky I was to escape.”

“I’ve heard part of the story, chairman, but I can’t wait to hear your version.”

“So you’ve been told about Major Polyakov and his KGB thugs waiting for me in the hotel restaurant?”

“Would that be the same Colonel Polyakov who died a year ago?” asked Miss Robbins innocently.

“Polyakov is dead?” said Alex in disbelief. “Then who was the man in the restaurant with the two KGB minders?”

“A blind man, his brother, and a friend. They were attending a conference in Leningrad. Jake was just about to tell you he’d spotted his white stick, but by then you were already on the run.”

“But the scar? It was unmistakable.”

“A birthmark.”

“But they broke into my room … I heard him shouting ‘There he is!’”

“That was the night porter. And he didn’t break into your room, because he had a passkey. Jake was standing just behind him and was able to identify you.”

“But someone was chasing me, and I only just managed to jump onto the tram in time.”

“Dick Barrett said he had no idea you could run that fast…”

“And the ambulance, the road block, not to mention—”

“I can’t wait to hear all about the ambulance, the roadblock, and why you didn’t get on your own plane, chairman, where you would have found a message from Jake explaining everything,” said Miss Robbins as the limousine swung off the road and drove through a gate marked PRIVATE. “But that will have to wait until you get back.”

“Where are we going?”

“Not we, chairman, just you. Jake called earlier this morning to say he’s closed the deal with Mr. Pushkin, but a problem has arisen because you told the chairman of the Commercial Bank in Leningrad that the contract wouldn’t be valid without your signature.”

The limousine drew up next to the steps of the bank’s private jet awaiting its only passenger.

“Have a good flight, chairman,” said Miss Robbins.

BOOK FIVE

41

SASHA

London, 1994

“Order! Order!” said the Speaker. “Questions to the Foreign Secretary. Mr. Sasha Karpenko.”

Sasha rose slowly from his place on the opposition front bench, and asked, “Can the Foreign Secretary confirm that Britain will finally be signing the Fifth Protocol of the Geneva Convention, as we are the only European country that has so far failed to do so?”

Mr. Douglas Hurd rose to answer the question, as a badge messenger appeared by the Speaker’s chair, and handed a slip of paper to the Labour whip on duty. He read the name before passing it down the front bench to the shadow minister. Sasha unfolded it, read the message, and immediately stood and walked uneasily along the opposition front bench, stepping over and sometimes on his colleagues’ toes, not unlike someone who has to leave a crowded theater in the middle of a performance. He stopped to have a word with the Speaker to explain his actions. The Speaker smiled.

“On a point of order, Mr. Speaker,” said the Foreign Secretary, leaping up, “shouldn’t the honorable member at least have the courtesy to stay and hear the answer to his own question?”

“Hear, hear,” shouted several members from the government benches.

“Not on this occasion,” said Mr. Speaker without explanation. Members on both sides began to chatter among themselves, wondering why Sasha had left the chamber so abruptly.