The table was covered with papers, evidently the subject of the meeting, and expensive-looking briefcases sat on the floor beside the chairs. The fire had started in a waste bin containing more paper, and I had no problem stamping it out. But I'd hardly finished when there was a commotion outside the door and in strode Ivan the Bear, with Sasha at his heels.
Ivan advanced towards me, grinning, and said something which Sasha translated as, "Breelliant! He congratulates you very much."
"Your guys did it." I gestured round.
"They were first class.
Ochen khorosho."
Ivan accepted the praise with a nod and turned his attention to the bodies. Almost at once he gave an exclamation and began to talk at speed into a mobile phone.
"It is Keet the Whale," Sasha translated, pointing at the corpse of a huge man with close-cropped grey hair that lay on its back almost under the table. As he was speaking, Ivan bent down and unceremoniously ripped open the perforated, bloodstained shirt to reveal a foot-long tattoo of a whale's head and open jaws, tilted upwards towards the man's left shoulder. From the half open mouth the feet of a human being were protruding. By a horrible fluke one round had gone in almost exactly through the whale's eye, leaving a bloody hole.
With a jerk on one arm Ivan rolled the body over and kicked the shirt up round its head. There, between the shoulder blades, was a tattooed portrait of Stalin.
"Old Uncle Joe didn't save that bugger, did he?" Whinger was staring at the effigy, fascinated. Then, as he surveyed the scene, he added, "I like the delicate way they handle things round here, I must say.
Ivan brought out a pocket knife, slipped the blade inside one leg of Whale's trousers, at the ankle and slit the grey material open to half-way up the thigh. Then he pointed contemptuously and gave a short laugh.
"He has stars on the knees," Sasha translated.
"Like I told you.
The sign he would never kneel."
It seemed that all the villains bar one were known to Ivan. By any standards it was a terrific coup for the security forces: five godfathers at one hit, plus four bodyguards and a haul of incriminating papers. Nor was that all. The two most fancy briefcases crocodile leather by Gucci, no less were closed with gold combination locks. Ivan picked one up, laid it on the table and started trying to open it. Frustrated, he called to Igor, who produced a small jemmy.
"Hey, wait!" I said, thinking of Toad and Pavarotti.
"That thing's worth a few grand. One of our guys will open it without wrecking it."
But Ivan wasn't in a mood to wait, and in a few seconds he'd burst both locks. When he lifted the lid, everybody who could see gave a gasp, because the case was packed solid with fifty dollar bills done up in little paper sleeves holding bunches of twenty notes: a thousand bucks a throw.
When you see cash in that kind of quantity, you realise how little space it takes up: I could have put ten grand in my hip pocket, no bother.
As if reading my thoughts Ivan plunged a hand into the case and brought out a fistful of bundles, holding them in my direction.
"Take," said Sasha.
"He wants you to have it."
"No, no." I waved it away.
"Yes, please. He inseest. He thinks like Russian soldiers you not being paid well. You need more."
Looking round under the table, Ivan spotted a far cheaper briefcase made of imitation black leather, with a flap closure and no locks. Having tipped the papers it contained on to the table, he proceeded to stuff it with handfuls of fifty-dollar bills and thrust it at me.
From this point things became more and more surreal.
Somebody discovered bottles of special, high-octane vodka in the freezer compartment of the fridge, brought them out and began pouring slugs into short, squat glasses. Whinger and I declined, but as the icy spirit went down other people's throats in repeated doses, the volume of voices rose. While a minion collected up the papers from the table and stowed them away, Ivan himself carefully removed gold watches from three dead wrists and a couple of crocodile wallets from the jackets still on the chairs.
"Present to English friends!" he beamed, holding a watch out in my direction.
"No, for fuck's sake!" I exclaimed.
"Spasibo but keep them."
Then some of his guys arrived with body bags, and at last bundled the corpses out of sight.
Outside, in the corridor, there was a great commotion as other inhabitants of the block argued with the guards on the door, trying to get in and find out what had happened.
"Let's get the hell out of here," Whinger muttered.
"There's going to be a monster piss-up."
"We'd better sign off with Ivan."
"He's busy. Another day."
"OK.".
I looked round for Sasha and beckoned him over.
"We need to get back to Balashika," I told him.
"Can someone give us a lift?"
"Konechno. I drive you."
"How many vodka shave you had?"
"Vodka? Nothing! Two only."
So it was that we pushed our way past the new guards on the door, through the crowd outside and into the lift. Downstairs there was a heavy military presence on the entrance to the block, but Sasha spirited us through it, found the car he'd been driving, and set off I felt plagued by guilt first by the thought that we should all have been in a formal debriefing session, recalling and recording every move of the raid; second by the knowledge that we had lost a man; and third by the fact that I was carrying a small fortune of ill-gotten gains in a Mafia briefcase.
"Misha," I said.
"He was dead?"
Sasha nodded.
"Absolutely. We found his body. How did he fall?"
"Just lost his nerve."
"It is a pity. But nichevo!" He smiled broadly.
"We have beeg victory. Like in football Arsenal nine, Tottenham Hotspot one!"
He gave a merry laugh and drummed his hands on the steering wheel. Then he added, "Only one problem."
"SXJhat's that?"
"Mafia bosses will be angry. For sure, they make counterattack."
"On Omon?"
"No, on government. The President, the Vice-President, the Minister of the Interior. Perhaps one of them will be their next target."
NINE.
I thought I was going to have nightmares, but in fact I slept like the dead, and woke up unable to remember where I was. Until I heard Whinger snoring, that is: then everything flooded back.
"All in a day's work," I'd said cheerily to Rick when we came in the night before and a hell of a day we'd had. But it had been exhilarating too, and a sharpening change from the routine of training.
Naturally we'd had a wash-up with our own lads as soon as we had come in: they'd got a brew on, and we'd sat up till after midnight analysing the hit. We had also had a discussion not quite an argument about what had come to be known as the 'diplomatic bag'. A count had shown it to contain 110,000 dollars.
When the lads saw that amount of money tipped out on the kitchen table they uttered, "Firekin ell!" in a kind of chorus.
If there's one thing that makes SAS lads take leave of their senses it's money. Normally they're pretty straight-up, but somehow the sight of cash sends them bananas.
"There's my Jag!" Pavarotti cried with his eyes glazing over.
"Bugger the Jag!" Pete told him.
"What about my kitchen extension?"
"Bet it's all forged," said Dusty, ever the cynic.
"Never," Mal told him.
"Big Mafia players wouldn't be carting fake stuff around. Whose is it, anyway? Geordie's and Whinger's, I suppose."
"No, no," I said.
"If it belongs to anyone, it belongs to the team.~ "Buy a team Mere," said Pavarotti.
"Get a five-hundred or something. Smoked-glass windows. Then we can take on the hoods at their own game. How much did you say they had?"
"Meellions," I said, imitating Sasha.
"Christ knows. It was a big briefcase and it was jam-packed. This lot was only a fraction of what we saw. There could have been stuff we didn't see as well.
We never looked in the other croc briefcase or in drawers or cupboards. The flat could have been full of money. Drugs too, I daresay. God knows what they were at: it looked as though they were carving up their empire."
It was Rick who produced the idea of sending the cash back to the UK.
"Put it in the Diplomatic Bag," he suggested.
"Then at least it'll be safe, and a nice little bonus for when we get home."
"Bollocks to that," said Pay.
"Split it up now. Then we can go out and start spending."
"What on?" demanded Dusty derisively.
"Rotten onions?
Crappy cabbage? You'll get fuck-all else in Balashika."
"Funny," said Mal.
"At Sandhurst it's the other way round. It's the students who have the money. Arabs slip their instructors gold watches to get an early look at exam papers. Here, the students are penniless and the instructors are loaded."
Whinger, who'd been keeping quiet, butted up and said, "They offered Geordie a gold Rolex as well."
"You bastard!" roared Pay.
"Where is it?"
"I told him to keep it."
"Bloody idiot," Pay cried.
"I'd have taken it."
"I know you would," I told him.
"But the person who needs money is Sasha. I bet that mean bugger Ivan didn't give him anything. The poor sod hasn't been paid in months."
I brought up the saga of my having to buy clothes for him in Hereford, which the lads hadn't heard, and finished with, "I vote we slip him a couple of grand, anyway."
Our Chinese parliament passed the suggestion unanimously with the exception of Toad, who, as usual, was lurking at one side of the room, outside the main circle, listening, watching. He said nothing just gave us a sly look so I considered him over-ruled and said, "Right then here's a couple for Sasha," and separated out two of the little bundles.
"What about the rest?"
In the end it was agreed that we keep it all together for the time being, and send it back to UK as Rick had suggested.
"All right, then," I said.
"It's going in a Lacon box for now, and the next time we go in to the Embassy, it heads for home."
Next morning Sasha was on top of the world, beaming at everyone, bringing thanks and congratulations from Omon's highest brass. He also brought a personal invitation.