Prologue

October 1998 – Moscow

Smoke drifted in the air like the aftermath of an artillery bombardment, presided over by the ghoulish features of a nightmarish Politburo of the dead and the damned. The busts of Lenin and Felix Dzherzinsky surveyed the nightclub with grim disapproval from their perches high up. Instead of the boom of shellfire there was the boom of the bass and the scream of a guitar. Searchlights danced upon the faces of revellers and not  bombers. A lone girl peeled off her clothing on stage in a pool of white light. Men jostled for position at the edge of the stage, swilling beer and vodka shots, their faces cast in shadows under the low lights.

                   Grigor carved a path through the mass of shuffling dancers and voyeurs towards the bar meeting little resistance, like a Soviet ice-breaker oblivious to spilled drinks and shattered egos. He was a bear of a man, leaving a trail of cigar smoke in his wake. A porcelain limbed girl stood aside with a fragile smile and murmured a greeting that he didn’t hear. He nodded at her, and her eyes sparkled, reaching out a hand that didn’t touch him. Her male companion glared.

                   A gaunt barman in a stained white jacket signalled Grigor with a wiggle of a glass and he nodded, bouldering his way to the front of the crowded bar. It was a busy night at Red Nights, and for that he should be grateful. The barman poured a shot then slammed the glass and a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka on the copper counter in front of him. He settled on a bar stool and knocked back the vodka, savouring its icy passage as it slid down his throat. It was just past eleven. Olensky was late.

                   A small clearing had formed around Grigor’s place at the corner of the bar, and he sat there with bloodshot eyes watching Fyodr work the doors, drawing on a thick Cuban Cohiba. Fyodr was on face control duty: they could afford to be selective about their clientele these days. No riff-raff. They should put a sign on the door, thought Grigor.

                   He glanced at his watch the instant Olensky appeared at the doors. Twenty-past-eleven, and Fyodr raised both hands in a forlorn shrug, looking across the room at Grigor as Olensky pushed past with a phalanx of heavies packed around him like extras from ‘On the Waterfront’. A crowd eddied and thrust behind Fyodr and he turned back to admit two men and block another who remonstrated loudly for effect but left in a hurry. Grigor waited for Olensky and his bodyguard to make their way to the bar, without standing up.

                   Olensky had a twisted, equine face with a long nose and nascent beard and was half a head smaller than Grigor. He wore a long overcoat. His men were larger and wore short leather jackets that must have been stylish in America at the time of Elvis Presley. Olensky gave a curt nod but said nothing. Tina Turner sang ‘Private Dancer’ and in another dimension a girl performed a naked cartwheel. Grigor stepped down from his stool making a casual gesture as he led the way through to his office at the rear of the club.

                   Grigor’s office was insulated from the noise of the club, but even so when he closed the heavy oak door the thump of the music was all-pervasive. Olensky seemed about to seat himself behind Grigor’s desk but he caught Grigor’s warning look and changed his mind. There were deep leather couches around the room and a Soviet era steel filing cabinet that looked as though it had been rescued from a war zone whilst an ochre Afghan rug that really had been, covered the bare boards. On the desk a pile of bills was anchored by an army issue pistol. Grigor sat down and glared at Olensky who remained standing. The other men lowered themselves into couches, looking bored.

                   ‘So what do you want, Arkady Ivanovich?’ said Grigor at last, addressing Olensky.

                   ‘I like what you’ve done to the place,’ said Olensky. ‘Nice. And you attract a good crowd.’ He perched on the side of Grigor’s desk. ‘Peaceful too,’ he added with a pointed note.

                   ‘That’s what I’m paying you for,’ said Grigor. From a drawer he extracted a bottle of vodka and a single glass.

                   ‘Thirsty work,’ said Olensky, looking at the bottle with undisguised longing.

                   ‘The bar’s open,’ said Grigor pouring himself a shot and nodding at the door.

                   ‘You’ve made something quite special here, Grigor Vassilyich,’ pursued Olensky, choosing to ignore the snub. He seemed to be chewing something. An idea, or a wasp, thought Grigor. Olensky stood up and began pacing the room, looking at objects in a proprietary way: He patted a bust of Andropov on the head. ‘Looks like nostalgia sells—even Soviet nostalgia.’

                   ‘It’s worked out so far.’

                   ‘I’ll be honest with you, Grigor. I’m seriously thinking about taking it off your hands.’

                   ‘It’s not for sale.’

                   ‘Who said I was going to buy it?’

                   ‘It’s my place.’

                   ‘Lenin said ‘The land belongs to those who will till it.’ I want to till it.’

                   ‘Lenin was full of shit.’

                   ‘We can reach some kind of understanding. You can still manage it if you want.’

                   ‘Get the fuck out of my nightclub,’ said Grigor, reaching for the gun on the desk.

                   Olensky nodded at the gun, ‘Does that antique work?’

                   ‘You don’t want to find out,’ said Grigor, pointing the barrel. The men in the couches tensed and leaned but didn’t reach for their weapons. Olensky looked unperturbed.

                   ‘Our protection fees just went up,’ said Olensky heading for the door. ‘You’ll be hearing from us.’

                   ‘It’s been nice chatting,’ said Grigor.