CHAPTER SIX
They reached their respective rooms and packed, then met in the lobby where Raulf paid the bill with his stack of rouble notes.
“Now what,” he asked.
“We wait for the General.”
They waited in one of the lounges for an hour, their cases by their side, until the concierge approached, and having received previously a favourable tip from Vincent, proceeded to motion them along a hallway to the back stairs.
“You will be met outside, safe journey.” The concierge motioned them to the Fire escape doors.
In the alleyway they found a taxi standing. The driver hoisted their cases and dumped into the open boot. They themselves were shown quickly into the back, then they were driven sedately to the outskirts of the city, occasionally the driver would stop the vehicle by a convenient kerb wait a few minutes, checking for tails.
They entered a thick birch forest and eventually arrived at some dacha. The driver had not spoken once but drove up a long snaking driveway and stopped close to a barn like structure close to the house. He got out opened their doors and lifted their luggage out.
Raulf handed him his fare. The driver pointed to the barn, then drove off.
They entered the barn with Vincent in the lead; it was lit inside and remarkably warm.
“Close the door gentlemen, keep the light and warmth in if you please. Now come over here and have some vodka to warm you on a chilly night, I’m General Grotinov. You are Vincent and Raulf.”
They shook hands and accepted the small heavy glasses.
“You have a name for me General?” Raulf asked as he sipped his drink.
“Alas no Raulf, not at this precise minute, but I had one within reach two days ago.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Please sit, I’ll explain, also I have some dinner coming over for us.”
“We will be here some time General?” Vincent sat down in a separate lounge chair, facing the door they had come in.
“Yes, alas Vincent, maybe a day at most. I assure you both are perfectly safe.”
“Alas?”
“The information was here but is not now, it’s taken off but I have searchers out.”
“Could we please start at the beginning whilst we are waiting?” Raulf took another sip.
“Right at the very beginning or halfway?” The General nodded to Vincent who nodded back.
“You are Raulf Turpin the nephew of Tom Turpin who lived at a Dacha called Morton?”
Raulf nodded.
“Your passports if you please.”
They both handed them over whilst the General studied them.
“A good forgery.”
“I beg your pardon.” Raulf erupted.
“No, Mr. Lazlo’s, Hubert must still have his contacts in the trade.” The General handed them back. The Barn door opened and two ladies carried in dishes and a tray.
“My wife and daughter, you will eat and I will talk.” General Grotinov waited till the ladies left and closed the door. Vincent returned his right hand from his pocket to his lap.
Whilst they served themselves and ate the General spoke.
“Some years ago I was the in an opposite unit to your Hubert, and I also had people like your Uncle who worked for me. You heard the old truism about who watches the watchers; we watched the KGB and the GRU. Oh yes, there were times when they tried to infiltrate but Yuri Andropov gave us a special dispensation to act alone and report to him. When he was Director of KGB he had little ferrets in the GRU. He knew what went on there but when he became General Secretary, he needed torchlight kept on his old organisation. We were that torch. As each General Secretary subsequently followed we were kept on. During the debacle that Mikhail Sergeyevick Gorbachev faced, we remained loyal, because of this we became subsequently of little use to Boris Yeltsin. It was at that time that I was elevated to my present title and immediately retired on a satisfactory pension.
I had a fear that Boris would do the same to both the other organisations, which he subsequently did, little change to the Army GRU but total annihilation of the KGB. He set up an entirely new security force employing only the lower echelons and tossing out the top. Some of the top went criminal, they run our Mafia, they back our old political communists, and they make contracts with your western gangs. These men are well organised, ruthless and no match for your insipid western criminals. They are the soul of the old KGB and one in particular is the arch villain. The grand master, Boss of Bosses, the Head of the Commission, call him what you like, this city and St.Petersburg already jump to his tune, the militia are ineffective, soon he will have rejoined the old Union back together.
We had, under Mikhail Sergeyevick, identified certain people who were a danger to him, but we weren’t believed. At the same time I had an Uncle Todd investigator by the name of Alex Federova. His job was to keep track on the ones most likely to profit from the changes. Of course the changes took a dive and Mikhail returned with Yeltsin in his wake. Alex had known your Uncle; there now I’ve said it. The Iron Lady and Mikhail had come to an arrangement of mutual information and discussion. Alex and Todd was the conduit through Hubert and myself. Later that arrangement was curtailed and finally stopped when both were taken out of power.
Alex forecast a rise in problems with our very clever security emperors; they liked their positions of power, and wealth. Before Yeltsin disbanded us Alex had discovered the future plans of the emperors. They are little use to us now as they’ve all been put into place, they are no longer secret, even the everyday Muscovite knows what’s going on.
More importantly he discovered who the mastermind was. I told Hubert’s successor that I would have this information for both him and the FBI in a short while. We needed to stop the growing links to the west and east.
Sadly Alex was killed in a vehicle accident; he’d been transferred to the militia in the traffic department as a Major investigating accidents. Much later your Uncle was killed.
Your parents also died in a traffic accident when you were young. Hubert could not see the connection but remember it was about the time Alex and Todd met, being the unofficial liaison officers for the two leaders. Your father was certainly killed by orders from our wet Directorate. They loathed the idea of secrets passing between the leaders, particularly going on to the Americans. Of course they botched up the identification, or maybe it was a more complex plan we shall never really know.”
Raulf interrupted the General,
“Do you know who actually carried out the attack on my parents?”
“No Raulf, I have my suspicions, but no proof. Certainly it was instigated from over here but Hubert might know more than I, it could have been carried out by people already in England.”
“What are your suspicions General?”
“The latter, Hubert probably knows more. Let’s get on shall we. Alex had not told either Todd or myself the name. He told his son that if anything happened to him, he was to give that name to an Englishman man called Turpin. At the time Misha would have been about fourteen. We tried to look after the family but his widow moved back to the Ukraine and we lost touch when Yeltsin sacked us all. We found Misha in a juvenile detention centre two months ago, he’s sixteen but looks younger, his mother died last year of pneumonia, they lived in a frightful state, and Alex’s pension was rarely paid. It appears Misha stole with a young gang and was caught. It took some of my old colleagues all this time to get him here. Well he was here, my wife has tried to settle him but he’s turned into a very frightened street kid. He vanished last night.”
“Is he in danger?”
“Yes Raulf, I believe the mafia heard the same story about the passing of the name from father to son, I had reports they were looking for him in Moscow, I’m sure that’s the real reason his mother moved. She cursed me, and the department, at Alex’s funeral. They’ll kill him if they find him, they obviously suspected Todd had been told beforehand, though they waited a long period before they got to him.”
“Presumably that’s why Vincent is here with me, just in case I also learn the name.”
“Precisely.”
“The taxi that bought us here?”
“A cousin of my wife.”
“Where would the boy be heading for, has he old friends here, at school, close to their old home?” Vincent joined the discussion.
“I’ve got people looking, Alex had some decent friends in the militia, they are also looking.”
“He’s become a street kid, he may revert to places he once knew, are there such places he can go to?”
“Lets leave it until tomorrow, the militia or my colleagues should be able to track him down. This barn is where we’ve been keeping him. Up in the loft are beds for you both. He may come back here by himself so sleep here. I wish you both a pleasant sleep, so goodnight.”
Vincent scoured the barn and checked the entrance before following Raulf upstairs. They passed one small room with a cot, which Misha had obviously used. Under it was a small navy blue backpack, badly soiled and containing a threadbare red and white stripped shirt, a leather wallet and some old worn socks. Vincent opened the wallet and an old creased photo fell on the cot.
“Alex and wife and Misha.”
Raulf looked at it carefully, he pointed to the foreground showing a housing estate, and further behind, a bridge in the background.
Vincent nodded, “The General may get the location by that bridge, the estates all look much like one another, can’t be too many by a river…Worth a try, lets get some sleep.”