“What fresh hell lies this way?” Hawke asked, not expecting a reply but feeling an overwhelming sense of relief that any new hell could hardly be worse than the one he’d believed most assuredly he was headed for.
“The dungeon,” the moon-faced jailer said simply.
“The dungeon? And what, pray, do you call where I slept all night? With wee beasties scratching their way across my floor? The bridal suite?”
His attempt at gallows humor elicited no reply, but it lightened his own heavy spirits as he descended into whatever subterranean inferno they had planned for him. The oubliette, most likely, a traditional feature of ancient forts, a deep well where a man was thrown and simply forgotten.
What the hell, he thought. He had to get off the bloody ride at some point. If this was his stop, so be it.
They passed along a few very grim corridors indeed, arches along both sides, each enclosing heavy wooden doors with small barred windows.
“This is us,” the jailer said, pulling out a huge key ring and inserting one of them into the lock. It clicked, and the door squeaked open. Hawke followed the jailer inside, still in the grip of the guards. They lowered him to the stone floor, first to his knees and then letting him fall over on to his side.
“I am back in one hour,” the jailer said, and with that, he and the two guards left, a great thud and a metallic clang as they pulled the heavy door closed behind them.
“Hello?” Hawke said, knowing he was not alone.
It was pitch black, but to his right, he saw the orange glow of a cigarette glow brighter and then dim as the smoker inhaled and exhaled.
“Good evening,” a disembodied voice said pleasantly. Heavily accented English. “If you can manage to crawl over here, you’d be better off sitting up here next to me on the cot.”
Hawke managed to sit upright on the damp floor, facing the strangely familiar voice.
“And why is that?” he asked, straining his eyes in the dark to see whom he was addressing.
“I’ve got a lead-lined mattress.”
“Sounds comfy, but no thanks.”
“Suit yourself. This prison was built on top of the deadliest radioactive dump in Russia. The Navy’s been dumping poisonous nuclear waste here for fifty years. Eat a fish caught anywhere in these waters, and you’ll glow in the dark for weeks.”
“Surely you’re not serious? A prison built atop a radioactive-waste site?”
“Fiendish, isn’t it?”
“Helps me understand our cultural divide.”
“You Brits lack Mongol blood. It’s your great weakness.”
“Perhaps I’ll join you up there after all. A bit chilly down here on the floor.”
“Deceptively chilly. Quite hot, in fact. One of the secrets of survival here is staying off the floor as much as possible This lowest level of Energetika is as close to hell as you can get.”
“Survival is possible? But how?”
“Sorry. I should have said postponing the inevitable.”
Hawke immediately clambered to his feet. “I’ve definitely decided to accept your offer.”
“Here, I’ll move over. Plenty of room.”
“Where are we?” Hawke asked his fellow prisoner, taking a seat next to the man on the lead-shielded cot.
“A small island off St. Petersburg. Energetika was originally a fortress built by Peter the Great to guard the approach to Kronstadt Naval Yard.”
“Might I have a cigarette?” Hawke asked, getting as comfortable as he could, his back against the cold stone wall, his shackled legs dangling over the edge of the thin mattress.
“Hmm, of course. How rude of me. I should have offered you one.”
The man leaned forward with the pack, the cigarette still in his mouth, and in the red glow, Hawke finally realized whom he was speaking to.
“Thanks,” Hawke said, raising his manacled wrists and pulling a smoke from the pack. He stuck it between his lips, opened the matchbook, and lit up, puffing hungrily.
“Not at all,” Vladimir Putin replied. “I’ve got an endless supply. That jailer’s on my payroll. As are a majority of the guards. Vodka?”
“Good God, yes.”
The former president of the Russian Federation produced two small tin cups and a bottle of Stolichnaya. He filled both cups to the brim and passed one to Hawke. He took a small, burning sip despite his urge to down it all at once. Nothing had ever tasted so good, so pure, so absolutely necessary before. Nothing.
Hawke said, “I’d heard you were in residence here. Never expected to pay you a visit, of course. I’m Alex Hawke, by the way.”
“Oh, I know who you are, Lord Hawke, believe me. I’ve been expecting you.”
“Call me Alex, won’t you?”
“Doesn’t care for titles,” Vladimir Putin said, and extended his hand. “I recall that now, from your file. Alex, I am called Volodya.” Hawke shook it with both of his. The man’s grip was firm and dry and somehow reassuring.
“You’ve been here for some time, yet you’ve still got your hair and teeth, Volodya,” Hawke said. “Unlike most of the poor wretches I saw wandering around up in the yard.”
“My lead-lined mattress, you see. Miserably uncomfortable, but it serves its purpose. And I’ve got lead liners in my shoes as well. I can’t stay here forever, but I’m all right for the time being.”
“If you call this all right.”
“Better than the forest of limbless trees up in the yard, believe me. I’m sure you saw it? Our orchard of death.”
“The orchard of death. Good God, impaling. Who’s responsible for that barbarism?”
“Your new friend, of course. Count Korsakov. Or Tsar Ivan, I should say. An old-fashioned Russian, he quite enjoys the spectacle of impaling. I’m sure he plans to attend your introduction to the stake, whenever that should happen.”
“They really made him Tsar?”
“Hmm. It’s been his plan all along. Now that he’s eliminated every obstacle and hint of opposition, it’s reality.”
“He put you here?”
“He did. Or rather, he had Kuragin do it. Korsakov prefers to stay in the background while others achieve his ends. Fancies himself the wizard behind the curtain. Never dirtied his hands once in all the years I’ve known him.”
“What was your crime? The world never knew why you disappeared. Even Auntie Beeb was stumped on that one.”
“Auntie Beeb?”
“Sorry. Slang for the BBC.”
“Success was my greatest failing in Korsakov’s eyes. I brought Russia back from the brink of absolute chaos. And naturally, he loathed the fact that I was a democrat.”
“You? A democrat? That’s hardly our perception of you, sir.”
“You in the West never understood me. I was in the process of building democracy, but doing it at my own speed. At a pace suitable to a country with a centuries-old tradition of autocracy. You saw what happened when we rushed headlong into democracy. Utter disaster and chaos. The greatest political disaster of the twentieth century. Anyway, that’s ancient history. The simple truth is, I was far too popular and thus too powerful for a man who dreamed only of autocracy, of Tsardom.”
“Sounds like he’s come out swinging now.”
“He has, certainly. He’ll rule the world, you know. It’s only a matter of time.”
“We’ve heard that before. I believe Stalin and Lenin had similar notions. The great workers’ revolution it was called back then.”
“Korsakov is different. He’s a legitimate genius. Nobody can stop him now. Even the Americans blasting satellites out of the sky with all their secret Star Wars weaponry can’t touch him. More vodka?”
“Yes, please. Perfect. Thank you.”
“I’ve got to say, under the circumstances, you’re the cheery one, aren’t you, Lord Hawke? Sorry. I mean Alex.”