LITMIR.BIZ

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raised their hands. It was Zorin who did the unexpected, dragging the girl across his lap in front of him, drawing his pistol, and pushing it into her side.

      ‘Drop your weapon, or she dies.’

      Without hesitation, Miller shot him twice in the side of the skull, sending him backwards over the chair. There was total silence, the Muslims getting to their feet. Everyone waited. He spoke to the sergeant in Russian.

      ‘You take the body with you, put it in the Storm Cruiser and wait for us with your men. See they do it, Blake.’ He turned to the Muslims. ‘Who speaks English?’

      A man moved forward and the girl turned to him. ‘I am the Mayor, sir, I speak good English. This is my youngest daughter. Allah’s blessing on you. My name is Yusuf Birka.’

      The Russians were moving out, supervised by Blake, two of them carrying Zorin’s body, followed by the sergeant.

      Miller said to Birka, ‘Keep the weapons, they may be of use to you in the future.’

      Birka turned and spoke to the others and Miller went outside. Blake was standing at the rear of the Storm Cruiser, supervising the Russians loading Zorin’s body and the wounded man. There was an ammunition box on the ground.

      ‘Semtex and timer pencils. I suppose that would be for the mosque.’

      The soldiers all scrambled in and the sergeant waited, looking bewildered. ‘If these people had their way, they’d shoot the lot of you,’ Miller told him.

      To his surprise, the sergeant replied in reasonable English. ‘I must warn you. The death of Captain Zorin won’t sit well with my superiors. He was young and foolish, but well connected in Moscow.’

      ‘I can’t help that, but I have a suggestion for your commanding officer when you get back. Tell him from me that since you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, we’ll treat the whole incident as if it didn’t happen. Now get moving.’

      ‘As you say.’ The sergeant looked unhappy, but climbed up behind the wheel and drove the Storm Cruiser away, to the cheers of the villagers.

      People milled around in the street, staring curiously. Some of the men arrived now, but they kept their distance as Miller and Blake talked with the mayor, who said, ‘How can we thank you?’

      ‘By taking my advice. Keep quiet about this. If they come again, you have arms. I don’t think they will, though. It’s better for them to pretend it never happened, and better if you do, too. I won’t report any of this to the Protection Corps.’

      The mayor said, ‘I will be guided by you. Will you break bread with us?’

      Miller smiled, ‘No, my friend, because we aren’t here. We never were.’ He turned to Blake. ‘Let’s get going. I’ll drive this time.’

      As they moved away, Blake said, ‘Do you think the villagers will do as you say?’

      ‘I don’t see why not. It’s entirely to their advantage, and I don’t think it’s worth us mentioning it to the Corps because of, shall we say, the peculiar circumstances of the matter.’

      ‘I’ve no problem with that,’ Blake said. ‘But I’ll have to report back to the President.’

      ‘I agree. I’ll do the same with the PM. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been informed of this sort of thing. Meanwhile, you’ve got your laptop there, and the information pack you were given by the Protection Corps people includes Russian military field service codes for the area. See what they have on Captain Igor Zorin and the Fifteenth Siberian Storm Guards.’

      Blake opened his laptop on his knees, got to work and found it in a matter of minutes. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Forward Field Centre, Lazlo, Bulgaria. Igor Zorin, twenty-five, decorated in Chechnya. Listings for the unit, home base near Moscow.’

      ‘Sounds good,’ Miller said.

      And then a magic hand wiped it clean, the screen went dark. ‘Dammit.’ Blake punched keys desperately. ‘It’s all gone. What have I done?’

      ‘Nothing,’ Miller told him. ‘I imagine the sergeant called in and gave his masters the bad news within minutes of his leaving us. It didn’t happen, you see, just like I told you. Except the Russians are being even more than usually thorough. So, is it back to Zagreb for you?’

      ‘No, Pristina. I’m hitching a lift from there back to the States with the Air Force. How about you?’

      ‘Belgrade for me, and then London. Olivia’s opening on Friday in the West End. An old Noël Coward play, Private Lives. I hope I can make it. I disappoint her too often.’

      ‘Let’s hope you do.’ Blake hesitated, awkward. ‘It’s been great meeting you. What you did back there was remarkable.’

      ‘But necessary. That’s what soldiers do, the nasty things from which the rest of society turns away. Zorin was something that needed stepping on, that’s all.’ And he increased speed as they went over the next rise.

NANTUCKET

       3

      Seated by the fire in the beach house, Blake finished his account of what had taken place at Banu and there was silence for a while and it was Cazalet who spoke first.

      ‘Well, it beats anything I’ve heard in years. What do you think, Charles?’

      ‘It’s certainly given the Russians a black eye. No wonder they wiped the screen clean,’ Ferguson replied. ‘It’s the smart way to deal with it.’

      ‘And you think it could stay that way? A non-event?’

      ‘As regards any important repercussions. How could the Kremlin complain while at the same time denying any involvement? OK, these things sometimes leak, Chinese whispers as they say, but that’s all. Miller will mention it to the PM, but it’s no different from the kind of things I have to tell him on a regular basis these days. We’re at war, whether we like it or not, and I don’t mean just Iraq and Afghanistan.’

      ‘One thing does interest me,’ Blake said. ‘According to his entry on the computer, except for the Falklands as a boy out of Sandhurst, Miller spent his eighteen years behind a desk at Army Intelligence headquarters in London.’

      ‘What’s your point?’ Cazalet said.

      ‘That was no desk jockey at that inn in Banu.’

      Ferguson smiled gently. ‘All it does is show you how unreliable information on computers can be. I should imagine there are many things people don’t know about Harry Miller.’ He turned to Cazalet. ‘With your permission, I’ll retire.’

      ‘Sleep well, Charles, we’ll share the helicopter back to Washington tomorrow afternoon. I’ll see you for breakfast.’

      ‘Of course, Mr President.’

      Ferguson moved to the door, which Clancy held open for him, and Cazalet added, ‘And, Charles, the redoubtable Major Miller. I really would appreciate learning some of those “many things” people don’t know about him, if that were possible, of course.’

      ‘I’ll see what I can do, Mr President.’

      Ferguson lay on the bed in the pleasant guest room provided for him, propped up against the pillows. Ten o’clock London time was six hours ahead, but he didn’t worry that no one would be in. He called the Holland Park safe house and got an instant response.

      ‘Who is this?’

      ‘Don’t play silly buggers, Major, you know very well who it is.’

      ‘What I do know is that it’s four

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