‘It means, Mr Prosecutor General, that his meeting with the mayor of Moscow was no courtesy visit. Not when we know for certain that Straker can now connect Mayor Pavlova to the oligarch Obrenovich.’
SIXTY-ONE
Dusk fell over Barvikha. A clear afternoon gave way to some cloud as the sun went down, causing twilight to come a little earlier than it had done for the last few days. Major Ustinov sat in the police's makeshift control room, keeping watch on every aspect of the mansion via the bank of CCTV cameras. He had increased their coverage even further that afternoon, including the precaution of installing a number of cameras in Mrs Baryshnikov's own apartment.
With daylight fading, Ustinov decided to turn on all the outside lamps and arc lights around the grounds. The residence and gardens were immediately bathed in halogen floodlight. Ustinov scanned each one of his TV screens to make sure that all was well around the house. Reassuringly, he could spot his three foot patrols in very different parts of the estate, illuminated by the glare.
Having seen for himself that all his deployments were as they should be, Ustinov went to make a coffee – getting ready to settle in for the night.
Before he even got to the kitchen, the whole house shook.
There was a massive explosion.
Everyone felt the blast.
‘Where the hell was that?’ Major Ustinov shouted as he ran back into the control room to stare at all the TV monitors. He couldn’t see anything of an explosion on any of his screens.
Grabbing the radio he yelled: ‘All stations, all stations. Report on that explosion – NOW!’
Two radios responded at once, completely blanking each other out.
‘One at a time!’ Ustinov yelled. ‘One at a time.’
‘Control, this is Charlie,’ came one of the call signs.
‘Charlie, come in.’
‘We’re in the woods. Behind the house. It sounded like it came from down by the road – down by the main gates.’
‘Okay,’ replied Ustinov, ‘go and investigate – right now. Out to you. Hello Alpha – this is Control.’
‘Alpha here, over.’
‘What can you see of the explosion?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What do you mean, nothing? The explosion was down by you.’
‘No, sir,’ replied the main gate. ‘We can’t see anything.’
‘Wait out.’
Major Ustinov hurriedly flicked through the pre-set “F” keys on his computer keyboard, trying to get a view of the explosion through one of the CCTV cameras.
Nothing.
Ustinov tried swivelling and zooming in with the one mounted on the end of the house, to get any kind of visual on the explosion. It didn’t take long to realize the blast was in a blind spot. Homing in with one of his cameras, though, he could just about pick up a glow through the trees; there was no direct light – the density of the forest was too great.
Ustinov then saw movement down by the lake at the bottom of the lawn.
‘Hello Delta,’ he radioed.
‘Delta, send over.’
‘Get your patrol from the lake to the area behind the main gate, right now. Report in on the explosion.’
‘Right, sir.’
The moment Ustinov had given that instruction, he heard something quite unexpected.
An agitated voice said: ‘Control, this is Charlie.’
‘Charlie, send over.’
‘Call off the dogs! Call off the dogs!’
‘Dogs? What dogs? We don’t have any dogs.’
‘We’re being attacked by guard dogs – Rottweilers. Vicious. We’ve had to take cover – we’ve shut ourselves in the swimming pool building.’
Major Ustinov stood incredulous for a moment.
Another radio message was heard: ‘Control,’ shrieked the voice, breathing heavily – panting, even. ‘Call off the fucking dogs!’
Major Ustinov looked down at the TV monitors. In a number of them he saw scenes he could not believe. How many of them were there? Ten, fifteen, twenty?
‘Where the fuck have all those animals come from?’ he yelled at the room.
