Chapter Twenty Seven
The red phone rang at two in the morning MSK, Moscow standard time. Vladimir Putin, in his study with one of the Labradors sleeping at his feet picked up the hand set.
It was the head of the SVR, Mikhail Fradkov.
“I am sorry to phone so late. A rather large problem has arisen. It will result in our London ambassador being summoned to Downing Street tomorrow morning. The news has just been printed in tomorrow’s London newspapers.”
“I haven’t gone to bed yet. You know I keep long hours. Please proceed.”
“Two prisoners escaped from the prison camp that Timur Kuschenka of the British desk set up about eighteen months ago. You will recall that this involved removing rogue demonstrators at fracking sites. The ones that had found out it was a Russian plot. I thought at the time that this was a risky enterprise, removing British nationals from the UK.”
“Please get to the heart of the matter, Mikhail.”
“Yes, Sir. The escaped prisoners, two of them, arrived in England last night. They had sailed from Saint Petersburg in a yacht, I think it was stolen.
“One of the Englishmen is a journalist, who phoned a newspaper when they landed, and now all the newspapers are carrying the news on their front pages.”
Putin said, “Their government will demand an apology. Not surprisingly. What are we going to say?”
“Well, I have had Kuschenka arrested. He has not been charged yet, I am still considering what to charge him with. Something that will warrant a twenty year sentence of hard labour. I think we must repatriate the rest of the prisoners, and perhaps give each of them a cash sum to compensate them.”
“Well done. Get that information over to the London Embassy before say six am their time. This will ensure that the ambassador is ready to go and grovel. Tell him that we had no idea this was happening. Kuschenka did this on his own instigation and didn’t reveal it to his superiors. Mention the arrest. Be open.
“And arrange for a telephone link between me and David Cameron, their prime minister. I will give him a personal apology. But link up the call to my study here. And get an interpreter here. Arrange the call for ten thirty our time. I shall have to get up earlier than I had planned. Also make an appointment to visit me at the palace tomorrow afternoon. Tell my secretary there to clear a space for you. Then we will review our actions. Good night.”
Mikhail Fradkov was happy with the call. Say what you like about Putin, and some had been disparaging, but he was resourceful, and quick to make sensible decisions. No other country in the western world had a leader who had an eighty five percent popularity rating. No one had leader with even half that rating.
He got through to the night duty officer at SVR headquarters.
“Open a new file: subject British Prisoners in Russia. I want to see all correspondence and phone call transcripts. Item two, I need an English interpreter here at Mr Putin’s home tomorrow at ten o’clock in the morning.
“At ten thirty in the morning arrange a telephone link up between Mr Putin and Mr David Cameron. If Mr Cameron is not available, then the deputy prime minister. You can start on that now, contacting the London Embassy.”
In London the news was the top item in every television news bulletin. In the United States as well. But by twelve o’clock, the reports were swinging round more in the Russians’ favour. As commentators were reporting Mr Putin’s horror at discovering the action of a department head in the SVR who had done this clandestine deed, unbeknown to his superiors. What is more, Mr Putin had spoken directly to the Prime Minister. He had offered instant repatriation and compensation to the prisoners. There was thought to be upwards of a hundred men. At this stage nobody wondered why the men had been taken prisoner. That would come later. Especially when Ben had written his diaries. But for the moment, Putin had successfully contained the scandal.
Mikhail Fradkov got out of his official car, the chauffeur holding the door open. He walked the few yards to the palace entrance, the chauffeur holding aloft an umbrella to protect him from the fine snow that was falling.
He was met by Mr Putin’s Secretary, a rather stern looking man.
“Good afternoon, Mr Fradkov. Would you like to step this way. Mr Putin is ready to see you now.” In his hand he held the familiar leather file.
Together they walked through the large waiting room, now thronged with seated men and women who were waiting for their own appointments.
The secretary opened the large double doors into Mr Putin’s office.
“Mr Fradkov to see you, Mr President.”
Putin seated at his large desk, bare except for a perpetual calendar, did not rise. But he did smile, an action he accorded to very few.
“Good afternoon Mr President,” said Fradkov, who was in his general’s uniform.
The secretary went to Putin’s side of the desk and laid the leather-bound file at his left. Putin pulled the file towards him, opened it and began to read the contents. Fradkov, having not been invited to sit, stood to attention and gazed at the painting on the wall in front of him.
After a few minutes Putin looked up.
“Sit down, General.”
Fradkov sat in the ornate chair. “The reaction in London was favourable, considering. Public opinion was moving in our favour.”
Putin had been reading the file again.
“Yes. But the test comes tomorrow, when they realise that we have been manipulating the fracking protests.”
“What do you suggest we do?”
“Do? Why nothing of course, except we stop financing the demonstrators. That money can now go towards reimbursing the prisoners.”
“And what about the fracking protests?”
“It is funny how economics comes to our aid. Now the price of oil has fallen to such low levels, it is not worthwhile pursuing fracking. The companies will close down the test drilling, waiting for better times.”
“And we will save money by closing down our work in the UK.”
Putin actually beamed. “Exactly. Put that policy into immediate effect. When the time comes, and oil prices rise we will start again. It may be many months away, but believe me, the price will rise.”
It was pandemonium in 10 Downing Street that morning. Cameron held a cabinet meeting at seven o’clock, attended by the five top ministers. It was agreed to ask the Russian Ambassador to visit Mr Cameron during the course of the morning. During the cabinet meeting he heard that Mr Putin would be telephoning.
At the end of the meeting which lasted only half an hour, Cameron summed up.
“They are making such an effort to play this down, it must be bigger than it looks.”
A special press conference was held by Cameron himself at twelve thirty, just in time to catch the television news bulletins at one o’clock and the journalists stirred expectantly as he strode into the room and stood behind the lectern.
“Good Morning. Yesterday, as you probably read in your own newspapers,” a few of the journalists smiled, “two English nationals came ashore in Northumberland. They had apparently sailed a small boat from Saint Petersburg in Russia. One of the men was a freelance journalist. He claimed that was imprisoned along with other English Nationals in an old Gulag style camp. He had been captured in England and taken against his will to Russia.
“This morning I requested that the Russian Ambassador in London attend number ten to give an explanation. I also had a personal call from President Putin expressing his sorrow that this outrage had taken place. The Ambassador expanded on this and told me that arrangements had been made to repatriate all the English prisoners as soon as possible. He informed me that there may be as many as one hundred prisoners. He had been empowered to tell me that compensation would be paid to each prisoner. He further told me that a senior official in the SVR had acted without authority and the knowledge of the State, to carry out this plot.
“The official, who has not yet been named, has been arrested and will face charges that, if proven
will result in a lengthy prison sentence.”
“This evening I will be interviewing one of these returned prisoners, and will give you further news on this at tomorrow’s regular press call.”
Jenny Stockton’s telephone rang at seven o’clock. Jenny and Ben were getting ready to go out to a restaurant to celebrate Ben’s return. Jenny sighed and almost didn’t answer it, angry that anyone was bothering them.
“Ms Stockton. I’m from The Cabinet Office, Number Ten Downing Street. I’m trying to track down your brother.”
Jenny smiled, wondering who of her friends was pulling this prank.
“He’s not taking calls this evening. He’s just returned from several months abroad.”
“I’m aware of that. It is the Prime Minister who wants to speak to him. It is rather urgent.”
Jenny looked across at her brother. “The bloke on the phone says the Prime Minister wants to speak to you.”
Ben took the phone. “If this is a joke, I’m really not laughing.”
“This is no joke, Sir. If you just hold the line, I’m putting you through now.”
The phone clicked and a voice that certainly sounded like Cameron spoke.
“I know you are tired, but I need to get some quotes from you that I can use at tomorrow morning’s press conference. I would rather have met you face to face, but I understand that you are in York at present, so that will not be possible. Will you just give me ten or fifteen minutes?”
Ben pulled a face at his sister. “Okay, Sir. But please keep it brief, I’m just going out to dinner.”
“It’s up to you to be brief but do cover everything, how you came to be captured, the whole affair in your experience. Someone will be taking it down on an extension. If you like I can email you the draft, so you can alter anything that is not correct. Give me your email address, and then go straight ahead, and you can go and have dinner.”
“I had heard that the demonstrators at fracking sites were not only the Green Party, but also Russian help using strong arm tactics. I don’t think the Greens were aware of the Russian angle. The SVR used sleepers that had been set up in the nineties, when the SVR emerged from the ashes of the KGB. One of the sleepers was Ivanovich, a huge man with a beard. There was something odd ball about him. He had a fearsome temper and I’m convinced he is insane. He offered young unemployed men money to live at the fracking sites, even paid for their tents. So that is how I got there. How Ivanovich persuaded the SVR to lay on a prison camp for men who were a threat, I don’t know. But he was getting results. Nobody was fracking, even though all the political parties here were up for it. After all it would solve the National Debt problem, eh? The SVR could go along with anyone who was producing results. To keep the prisoners, they needed a prison camp, and God knows, they had plenty of those. From the Gulags of the Stalin era to the camps to keep Nazi prisoners in during the war. They were still there, a bit decrepit, including the one they used.
“I think they chose that because it wasn’t far from Saint Petersburg. Well, about two hundred and fifty miles, but it’s a big country isn’t it? Well the biggest in the world. Saint Petersburg was where the container ships docked. Did I say that was how they got us out of England?
“All you needed at the prison camp was some dead beat ex-army guards. And you had the remoteness miles away from civilisation. Deep in the pine forests, this one. I do think there was only one camp. I really do think it was the only one. There were maybe a hundred prisoners at the end of my time there. I was held there for about four months. When I first got to the camp, there were probably only half as many as at the end. Ivanovich could have been shipping out about five a month. Well, with his friends at other demo sites. He told them how to get rid of the problem. I think, in the end, he was getting rid of people just because he didn’t like them. Apparently he started shipping people out after he was seen beating someone, a fellow demonstrator to death. The witnesses were shipped out, about three people. That was the start of it.
“Of course, in my case, I really was a threat. I was on the verge of exposing the whole thing. And after I’d gone, my sister asked John McBride if he would help find me. He went down the same route, and walked into the camp asking for me.
“Getting out of the camp was dead easy, once John showed us how. But the SVR were chasing us all the way.”
The Prime Minister’s press conference the next morning was full to capacity. Journalists who hadn’t got seats, stood two deep along the back wall.
The Prime Minister strode in and looked round.
“Good Morning to you all. First on the agenda is the Russian prison affair. As promised I spent some time last night listening to Mr Stockton’s account of his time in Russia. He was able to confirm that in all cases the prisoners had been involved in anti-fracking demonstrations. It seems that the Russians were helping in these protests. In order, frankly, to protect their own export of oil and gas to Europe. They also had some cash contribution from the Middle East oil producers in this connection. That they have been successful can be shown by almost total fracking ban in Europe. They have propaganda experts working round the clock to convince people that fracking is dangerous.
“When they stoop to such levels by trespassing, we cannot let this pass without taking action. My government is putting new laws into effect, subject to parliamentary approval. I am proposing that every Russian national living in this country will have to register with their local police station. All SVR sleepers will be deported immediately. We already have a list held by MI5.”