Kompromat

Popov nodded. ‘Wasn’t there a bad moment when that wild woman – what was her name?– managed to get the UK Supreme Court to rule that if the Brexit campaign had been about “taking back sovereignty” then at the very least the UK government should consult Parliament before making the formal application to Leave?’

Yuri Yasonov laughed. ‘Tina Moller – what a brilliant woman! She had the Supreme Court eating out of her hand. Mrs Killick caved in and agreed to a parliamentary vote. What else could she do once the Supreme Court had ruled? Luckily, the British Parliament is a bit like our Duma. They’ll do what they’re told if you slap them around a bit. They call it the “whipping system”.’

‘In the good old days we had the knout,’ Popov mused. ‘So two years from now Britain’s out of the EU?’

‘Exactly,’ Yuri Yasonov replied. ‘March 29th, 2019 is Brexit Day. Article 50 has been triggered. It’s a non-recallable missile.’

‘What about the rest of Europe? How are we doing?’ Popov asked.

‘The Dutch result was a bit disappointing. Our man, Geert Donkers, did well, but not well enough. We have high hopes in France, though. Martine Le Grand is bound to make it through to the run-off in the presidential election. Too early to say what’s going to happen in Germany. That’s the big one of course, from our point of view.’

Popov turned to Galina Aslanova, Head of the FSB’s Special Operations Unit.

‘What about the US, Galina? Why isn’t President Craig playing the game?’ he asked. ‘I thought we had a clear understanding with Craig. Lay off Assad. That’s what we told him. And what does he do? He fires off sixty Tomahawk missiles. Why did we push so hard to get Craig elected, if he’s going to kick us in the teeth at the first opportunity? It’s a pity, isn’t it, that the Golden Shower tape turned out to be fake? We could have used that now, couldn’t we?’

Of course, Galina Aslanova knew that President Popov was joking. By now she had learned to read the telltale signs: the slight twitch in the left eyebrow, the faintest hint of a smile in the upper lip. But his remark about the Golden Shower tape set her thinking nonetheless.

Back in her office in the FSB’s Lubyanka building, she summoned Lyudmila Markova.

‘There’s something fishy, Lyudmila,’ she began. ‘When you and your team were beating up on Fyodor Stephanov that day in St Petersburg, looking for the Golden Shower video, why didn’t Stephanov cry foul? Why didn’t he say he was an old mucker of Popov’s, going way back?’

‘Maybe he didn’t want the president to know he had been freelancing?’ Lyudmila Markova replied. ‘As a matter of fact, Popov still doesn’t know that Stephanov was freelancing, does he? Of course, the FSB has been happy to claim the credit, happy to see Stephanov given the Golden Shower Award and elevated to the rank of full colonel. It reflects well on all of us, but still I think there’s something that doesn’t smell right.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’ Lyudmila Markova Sokolovna was quite adept at the heavy stuff, but she sometimes found it difficult to follow her more intellectual colleagues when they started talking about zero-sum games and so forth.

Galina Aslanova opened her desk drawer and brought out the Ronald C. Craig wig which Fyodor Stephanov had been wearing at the election night party in the Popov’s presidential dacha.

‘If Stephanov was freelancing, where did he get this?’ she asked. ‘I don’t think he could have got it in Russia. I’ve had it examined by wig-makers here in Moscow. This is a very high-quality hairpiece. It’s made out of real human hair, expertly crafted and totally realistic, as we saw when Stephanov was wearing it that night at the dacha. Here, watch this.’

She flipped open the lid of her laptop and pressed a button. ‘This is Craig talking at a black-tie dinner the evening before his inauguration in January, just a few weeks ago!’

On the screen before them they saw the unmistakable figure of the soon-to-be-inaugurated President of the United States. He was standing on the stage in evening dress, microphone in hand, radiating confidence.

‘Some of you have been wondering about my hair,’ Craig told the crowd. ‘Well, just take a look. If it rains tomorrow, my hair won’t turn a hair, if you follow me. It’s all my own!’

As the clip came to an end, Galina passed the hairpiece to Lyudmila.