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Chapter 35
Nine Years Ago
Another op. Another country that God seemed to have forgotten. Another time apart.
Ben had been in Iraq. A very successful mission. If a dead seventeen-year-old heir to the country’s oil minister could be called successful.
Aleksey knew Ben was home, obviously, but he hadn’t actually seen him.Benhad no choice in that, of course.Hedecided when they would meet. He decided how long they met for and he, once again, decided the tenor of those meetings. Obviously they fucked, that was a given. But what else Aleksey allowed Ben was always negotiated and fought over—not between him and Benjamin Rider, clearly, but between his own demons. Sometimes a lesser devil allowed some latitude to the lockdown. As with the Paris trip.
But now he had not seen Benjamin and had not had the pleasure of debriefing him on his latest mission. Again, entirelyhisdecision. Nothing to do with the fact that Ben had gone immediately from the armoury to his new fucking cottage, and had replied to a text with a hotel address, “I’m busy”.
Aleksey didn’t care one way or the other, obviously. Ben Rider would have been a very pleasant hour of amusement. Nothing more than that.
He was a little preoccupied himself anyway. Not floundering, of course. But he would admit to being…slightly more stretched than usual.
Gustav M was proving to be a more audacious blackmailer than Aleksey had anticipated. He was gleeful about his power over Pooky, Chilly Cheeks, Naughty Norseman, or whatever other embarrassing endearment he could invent. Aleksey was pondering this turn of events whilst making the most of the situation, as he always did. Even Gustav M beat a solitary handjob. Well, wasn’tworsethan one, anyway. At least didn’t leave the sheets sticky—he always used a condom with the Honourable. Who knew where he’d been?
No, Gustav M and the HRH situation he was more than capable of adding to the impressive number of things he was able to juggle in the air at one time. And sometimes, when he did find himself restless and unable to sleep, thinking of all those balls and the immaculate timing and control they demanded, he reminded himself he wouldn’t care all that much if the whole lot came tumbling down anyway. Let it fall. He’d pull himself from the wreckage and walk away. Again.
Sometimes, however, he wondered what it would be like for it all to stop without there needing to be major trauma first. If he could just lay down the accessories of this Nikolas life, and then quietly slip out into the dawn of a new day. Entirely free.
Who would he find at the end of that journey?
Fortunately, it was some ridiculous little English celebration that coming weekend where they all burned effigies on bonfires of someone who had unsuccessfully tried to assassinate the Royal Family, and thus being the Royal Family’s favourite night of the year, even without being able to torture the poor chap to death first, they wereallthere, at the Prince’s residence, immolating poor Guy. Even Philipa had been invited, despite the young wife and hismotherbeing expected. Awkward. Sometimes, Aleksey reflected, the way his wife passed unnoticed at family gatherings was similar to the way he lived amongst them. It was possibly why they got on so well.
So, Gustav M was a very minor ball, in more ways than one, and Aleksey had a whole weekend to himself at Barton Combe to happily anticipate. Things were looking up.
Once he’d sorted the psychotic Arab sitting across from him, that was.
It had occurred to Aleksey very early on in his association with theThe Familyand his consequent insertion into this cushy number in Whitehall that everything was going a little too smoothly in his escape bid from the Primakov legacy. When he had picked up his brother’s passport, he hadn’t done much more than envision a remote Danish consulate and talking abouthyggefor the rest of his life. He hadn’t lived in Denmark since he was ten, and the prospect hadn’t thrilled him.
Anything that came too easily, however, was also not to be trusted, so it had seemed a very good idea when he’d thought about it, during a briefing with the PM on a rainy afternoon at No. 10 about his new role, to branch out a little. Have his own private aims and objectives, so to speak. That he wanted to fuck with this irritating ex-Etonian was just an added bonus. Extra-curricular activities, it was apparently called in English. He didn’t need the money, obviously, but it felt good to have a small release valve, something he did that was not controlled and corralled by people who had done nothing, as far as he could see, to deserve being where they were.
That one day his past might catch up to him was also a very real possibility. There were people in Russia who might one day question his death and his brother Nikolas’s odd involvement in it: Aleksey Primakov falling to an unseemly and frankly quite messy death to a pavement in Moscow; Nikolas, his twin, fleeing the county with diplomatic immunity and an alacrity that had not even seen him attending his brother’s funeral. No, Aleksey knew very well there were certain people who would still be pondering that, waiting perhaps, watching.
If he were caught, he could argue that he was not aiding and abetting the enemy at all. He was merely aiding and abetting himself.
But his new hobby did involve having to deal with some pretty unsavoury people, and as a man who had murdered, sodomised, cannibalised and tortured his way to power, Aleksey reckoned he had the right to make such assessments.
The Allouni family were a case in point. Risen to great influence on the back of a dictator who considered deflowering virgins whilst being watched by monkeys quite normal, they were now the most influential powerbrokers in Iraq—Ibrahim Allouni was Minister for Oil. He was negotiating with the British government for a peaceful transfer of power—in other words, he wanted the monkey-fucker out and him in, and the ex-Etonian thought this was a very good idea.
Peaceful anything was always a very bad idea, however, for anyone whose money came from armaments. Aleksey had got used to buying little trinkets for himself on a whim whenever he felt like it andpeace in our timewas a notion to scupper any such future purchases.
Negotiating with Ibrahim, however, had brought Aleksey into the delightful company of his younger brother Usama. Usama loved the story of the monkeys and had then proceeded to explain to Aleksey how, after their fun night with the boss, the broken girls were subsequently taken to his private zoo in the cellars of the palace. It wasn’t a petting zoo, and the lions were always kept hungry.
It was a great treat apparently, a sign of personal favour, if you were invited to partake of one these evenings. Being so favoured had gone to Usama’s head. He didn’t want his brother’s dealings with the British fucking up his new prospects—with monkeys, lions or dictators. He wanted his brother dead. He wanted it, but had no way to actually bring this dream to fruition. Until he’d been introduced to this overly tall, very odd, British government administrator. This blond giant, Usama was convinced, could do the job very nicely indeed.
The bewildering man had not disabused him of this notion, but had, in fact, given him an even better idea.
But Aleksey was a helpful sort of chap like that.
So, this meeting, at a very private club in London, was a little more challenging than the Gustav M situation, Aleksey had to admit.
They had waited until their drinks had arrived before speaking more than a polite greeting. When the waiter retreated, Usama murmured in his mangled accent, “Thank you. I am pleased. It go very well.”
Aleksey merely nodded.
“My brother think it official British Secret Service hit. Bang, bang. Son dead. No more peace deal.”
