Read Online The Kremlin Device by Chris Ryan - Free Book Online

traffic jam, my mother is driving it, she sees two gun-machines in her ears, this side and that side. “Give me the keys.” Finish.’
    â€˜Can’t the police do anything?’
    â€˜Police!’ He shot me a hopeless look. ‘They are worst. They are cowards. And anyway, half of them are paid by Mafia.’
    The highway into town was wide but rough: four lanes in each direction, treacherously pitted with dips and potholes. I realised that when Sasha had described the Russian roads as diabolical he hadn’t been exaggerating. We were really getting thrown around – and this on one of the main thoroughfares. We were also being overtaken on both sides simultaneously: anybody with a reasonably fast foreign car was weaving in and out of the traffic like a lunatic.
    Set back on either side of the road were terrible, drab tower-blocks of flats, nine or ten storeys tall. Closer to the road, old-fashioned hoardings carried advertisements, many for Western products. When I spotted some familiar red and yellow colours and slowly picked out the Cyrillic letters for McDonald’s I couldn’t help grinning at my own linguistic prowess.
    It took us fifty minutes to reach the city centre, the traffic thickening all the time. I noticed several good-looking older buildings, mostly pale yellow with green copper roofs, but the general run of architecture was abysmal. Then, as we were crawling downhill along another broad street, Sasha pointed ahead and announced, ‘There is Kremlin.’
    I peered out through the relatively clean area of the windscreen and saw in the distance a red star glowing on top of a steeply pointed tower. Only that one corner of the citadel was in sight, but even so my neck prickled. Here was the centre of Russian power, the focal point of a vast country, the power-base that had dominated world politics for all our lifetimes. If ever there was to be a breakdown of relations between Russia and the West, this was where it would start.
    A moment later Sasha pulled the car over in front of a tall, faceless, modern high-rise building on the right-hand side of the road, and parked end-on to the kerb.
    â€˜Hotel Intourist,’ he announced. ‘I help you check in.’
    Outside the entrance a few rough-looking young men were standing around, all smoking; they were hard to see clearly, but whenever the glow of a cigarette lit up a face, I didn’t like the look of it. They could have been taxi-drivers, yet their presence seemed vaguely threatening.
    The little glass-walled lobby was full of security men – half a dozen overweight, slovenly guys with pistols in holsters. The women staffing the reception desk were wearing bright red tunics pin-striped with white – a cheerful touch which wasn’t matched by any warmth of greeting. One of them gave us forms to complete and moved off towards her office without a word, carrying our passports.
    â€˜When do we get them back?’ I asked.
    â€˜Tomorrow.’
    Her lack of common civility pissed me off. I can’t believe all the women in Moscow are having their periods right now, I thought. Then I heard Sasha saying, ‘Programme for tomorrow: eight-thirty, I collect you and drive to Balashika for inspection of camp. OK?’
    I nodded.
    â€˜Four o’clock, visit to British Embassy. Meeting with Chargé d’Affaires. Also meet your interpreter and liaison officer. At Embassy, same time.’
    â€˜Fine.’
    I thanked him for collecting us, and he was gone.
    Our rooms were on the fifteenth floor – 1512, 1513 and 1514. We went up in the lift, sharing it with a couple of overweight Yanks, a man and a woman, obviously on vacation.
    â€˜Been to the Kremlin yet?’ the man asked in a southern accent.
    I shook my head. ‘Only just arrived.’
    â€˜One helluva monument, that place. Sure is. How long are you guys here for?’
    â€˜Couple of days.’
    A quick inspection revealed