THE OLIGARCH: A THRILLER (by G W Eccles)

Nadia fought her way against the flow and entered the hotel. Glancing fleetingly back at Murat, her accomplice, who carried a briefcase a few paces behind her, she nodded almost imperceptibly. Inside, two security guards stationed behind a table stopped people for random checks. As she approached, she tripped, tumbling over in front of them. With her skirt hiked up enough to be interesting, she winced and clutched her ankle. The two guards rushed to help her to a chair, and Murat slipped quietly past.

A few moments later, she rose to her feet, aided by the guards, and hobbled across the foyer to the lifts. Murat awaited her on the fourteenth floor, and together they made their way through the labyrinth of corridors to Suite 1493. Nadia knocked on the door. As expected, there was no answer. Murat ran a card through the reader and the door clicked open.

The two of them had studied the layout in advance and each knew their role to the last detail. Quickly they headed for Ramaz’s office.

                                                          ***************

 Outside the National, the demonstrators still surged relentlessly towards Red Square. Nadia threaded her way through into the Manezh gardens until she reached the shelter of the Kremlin’s outer walls. In the grand scheme of things the problems facing oligarchs like Blok and Ramaz ranked pretty low on the scale, she reflected, looking out over the massed banners that stretched as far as the Kremlin walls and the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In the current economic meltdown no economy had been more devastated than Russia’s. Protest rallies like this were an expression of the people’s anger at losing their jobs and savings, and they were taking place all over the country. 

Murat wrestled through the crowd to join her.

"Ramaz has just gone in," he murmured in her ear. "Should reach his office any moment now."

An instant later, Nadia felt the air shake around her from the force of the explosion, and glanced back towards the National. Glass and masonry rained down on the crowd, which for a split-second froze, uncomprehending. Then the screaming started. Hemmed in on all sides by the weight of numbers, few could reach cover. Their panic escalated as beneath their feet blood tainted the snow.

Silent among the screams, Nadia saw a child in a yellow knitted hat clutching his mother’s hand, severed from her arm by a falling shard of glass. Transfixed, he stared down at her body bent double at his feet.

Nadia turned away. One hand reflexively traced the contours of the scar on her cheek as she tried to block out the wails of the injured and grieving. Why did her victims always include the innocent, each time caught in the fall-out of her actions?

She looked back as the smoke cleared. Murat touched her arm and pointed to where, high in the hotel’s shattered frontage, a crater gaped as big as a car. Reluctantly Nadia glanced up and then looked at him. She nodded slightly, with no hint of satisfaction.

Yes, Murat, another job well done. 

 PART ONE

Chapter 1

 It had all the slickness of a military operation. Traffic police manned every junction, blocking the constant tide of Moscow’s morning traffic to let the two unmarked FSB cars flash by unimpeded. In front and behind, an armed cavalcade; above, a helicopter tracking their progress.

In the back of the second car, Alex Leksin keyed a number into his mobile and waited impatiently for the connection. Dressed in his trademark dark navy blazer, for once he wore a tie over his crisp, blue-striped shirt.

“Joe?” he snapped, a rare note of urgency in his voice. “We’re two minutes away.”

He slipped the phone back into his pocket as the cars flew across Novy Arbat and swept into Maly Plotnikov, a quiet street just off Moscow’s bustling centre. Halfway down, they screeched to a halt outside a cafe. Leksin bent forward over his long legs to watch as Joe Clinton emerged and was shepherded across the pavement to join him. The sirens resumed, and they sped away.