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And they heard him. By radio and television they heard him across the wide steppes. The soldiers of the once-great Russian army heard him, huddled under canvas, expelled from Afghanistan, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in an endless series of retreats from empire.

The peasants heard him in their cottages and izbas, scattered across the vast landscape. The ruined middle classes, heard him among the bits of furniture they had not pawned for food on the table and a few coals in the hearth. Even the industrial bosses heard him and dreamed that their furnaces might one day roar again. And when he promised them that the angel of death would walk among the crooks and gangsters who had raped their beloved Mother Russia, they loved him.

In the spring of 1999, at the suggestion of his PR adviser, a very clever young man who had graduated from an American Ivy League college, Igor Komarov granted a series of private interviews. Young Boris Kuznetsov picked the candidates well, mainly legislators and journalists of the conservative wing across America and Western Europe. The purpose of the reception was to calm their fears.

As a campaign, it worked brilliantly. Most arrived expecting to find what they had been told they would find: a wild-eyed ultra-right demagogue, variously dubbed racist or neo-Fascist or both.

They found themselves talking to a thoughtful, well-mannered man in a sober suit. As Komarov spoke no English, it was his PR aide who sat by his side, both guiding the interview and interpreting. Whenever his adored leader said something he knew might be ill-interpreted in the West, Kuznetsov simply translated it into something much more acceptable in English. No one noticed, for he had ensured that none of the visitors understood Russian.

Thus Komarov could explain that, as practicing politicians, we all have constituencies and we cannot needlessly offend them if we wish to be elected. Thus we may on occasion have to say what we know they want to hear, even though to achieve it may be much harder than we pretend. And the senators nodded understandingly.

He explained that in the older western democracies people broadly understood that social discipline began with oneself, so that externally imposed discipline, by the state, might be the lighter. But where all forms of self-discipline had broken down, the state might have to be firmer than would be acceptable in the West. And the MPs nodded understandingly.

To the conservative journalists he explained that the restoration of a sound currency could simply not be achieved without some draconian measures against crime and corruption in the short term. The journalists wrote that Igor Komarov was a man who would listen to reason on matters economic and political, such as cooperation with the West. He might be too far right for acceptance in a European or American democracy, and his powerful demagoguery too frightening for western palates, but he might well be the man for Russia in her present straits. In any case he would almost certainly win the presidential election in June 2000 The polls showed that The farsighted would be wise to support him

In chancelleries embassies ministries and boardrooms across the West the cigar smoke rose to the ceilings and heads nodded.

¯

IN the northern sector of the central area of Moscow just inside the Boulevard Ring road and halfway down Kiselny Boulevard, is a side street. Midway along the west side of the street there is a small park, about half an acre in size, surrounded on three sides by windowless buildings and protected at the front by ten-foot-high green steel sheets, over the top of which the tips of a line of conifers can just be seen. Set in the steel wall is a double gate, also steel.

The small park is in fact the garden of a superb pre-revolutionary town house or mansion, exquisitely restored in the mid-1980s. Although the interior is modern and functional, the classic facade is painted in pastel shades, the plasterwork over doors and windows picked out in white. This was the real headquarters of Igor Komarov.

A visitor at the front gate would be in full view of a camera atop the wall and would announce himself via an intercom. He would be talking to a guard in a hut just within the gate, who would check with the security office inside the dacha.

If the gates opened, a car could roll forward for ten yards before stopping at a row of spikes. The steel gates, sliding sideways on rollers, would close automatically behind it. The guard would then emerge to check identification papers. If these were in order, he would retire to his hut and press an electric control. The spikes would recede and the car could go forward to the gravel forecourt where more guards would be waiting.

From either side of the dacha chain-link fencing ran to the edges of the compound, bolted firmly to the surrounding walls. Behind the chain-link were the dogs. There were two teams, and each responded only to one dog handler. The handlers worked alternate nights. After dark, gates in the fencing were opened and the dogs had the run of the whole compound, front and back. Thereafter the gate guard stayed inside his hut, and in the event of a late visitor he would have to contact the handler to call off the dogs.

In order to avoid losing too many of the staff to the dogs, there was an underground passage at the rear of the building, leading to a narrow alley which itself led to Kiselny Boulevard. This passage had three keypad doors: one inside the dacha, one at the street, and one midway. This was the access and egress for deliveries and staff.

At night, when the political staff had left and the dogs prowled the grounds, two security men remained on duty inside the dacha. They had a room of their own, with a TV and facilities for snacks, but no beds because they were not supposed to sleep. Alternately, they prowled the three floors of the dacha until relieved by the day shift arriving at the breakfast hour. Mr. Komarov came later.

But dust and cobwebs are no respecters of high office, and every night except Sunday, when the buzzer from the rear alley sounded, one of the guards would let in the cleaner.

In Moscow most cleaners are women but Komarov preferred an all-male environment around him, including the cleaner, a harmless old soldier called Leonid Zaitsev. The surname means rabbit in Russian and because of his helpless manner, threadbare ex-army greatcoat worn winter and summer, and the three stainless steel teeth that gleamed at the front of his mouth—Red Army dentistry used to be pretty basic—the guards at the dacha just called him Rabbit. The night the president died they let him in as usual at 10:00
P.M.

It was one in the morning when, with bucket and duster in hand dragging the vacuum cleaner behind him he reached the office of N. I. Akopov the personal private secretary of Mr. Komarov. He had only met the man once, a year ago, when he had arrived to find some of the senior staff working very late. The man had been extremely rude to him, ordering him out with a stream of invective. Sometimes, since then, he had got his own back by sitting in Mr. Akopov’s comfortable leather swivel chair.

Because he knew the guards were downstairs, the Rabbit sat in the swivel chair and reveled in the lush comfort of the leather. He had never had a chair like that and never would. There was a document on the desk blotter, about forty pages of typescript bound at the edge with a spiral binding and covered front and back with heavy black paper.

The Rabbit wondered why it had been left out. Normally Mr. Akopov put everything away in his wall safe. He must have, for the Rabbit had never seen a document before and all the desk drawers were always locked. He flicked open the black cover and looked at the title. Then he opened the file at random.

He was not a good reader, but he could do it. His foster mother had taught him long ago, and then the teachers at the state school and finally a kindly officer in the army.

What he saw troubled him. He read one passage several times; some of the words were too long and complex, but he understood the meanings. His arthritic hands trembled as he turned the pages. Why should Mr. Komarov say such things? And about people like his foster mother whom he had loved? He did not fully understand, but it worried him. Perhaps he should consult the guards downstairs? But they would just hit him about the head and tell him to get on with his work.

An hour went by. The guards should have patrolled but they were glued to their television where the extended news program had informed the nation that the prime minister, in accordance with Article Fifty-nine of the Russian constitution, had taken over the duties of president, per interim, for the prescribed three months.

The Rabbit read the same few passages over and over until he understood their meaning. But he could not grasp the meaning behind the meaning. Mr. Komarov was a great man. He was going to become the next president of Russia, was he not? So why should he be saying such things about the Rabbit’s foster mother and people like her, for she was long dead?

At two in the morning the Rabbit stuffed the file inside his shirt, finished his work, and asked to be let out. The guards reluctantly left their TV screen to open the doors and the Rabbit wandered off into the night. He was a bit earlier than usual, but the guards did not mind.

Zaitsev thought of going home, but decided he had better not. It was too early. The buses, trams, and subways were all shut down as usual. He always had to walk home, sometimes in the rain, but he needed the job. The walk took an hour. If he went now he would wake his daughter and her two children. She would not like that. So he wandered through the streets wondering what to do.

By half past three he found himself on the Kremlevskaya Quay beneath the southern walls of the Kremlin There were tramps and derelicts sleeping along the quay, but he found a bench with some space, sat down, and stared out across the river.

¯

THE sea had calmed down as they approached the island as it always did in the afternoon as if telling the fisherman and the mariners that the contest for the day was over and the ocean would call a truce till tomorrow. To right and left the skipper could see several other boats heading for the Wheeland Cut the northwestern gap in the reef that gave access from the open sea to the flat lagoon.

To starboard Arthur Dean in his open
Silver Deep
raced past making eight knots better than the
Foxy Lady
.
The islander waved a greeting and the American skipper waved back. He saw two divers in the back of the
Silver Deep
and reckoned they had been exploring the coral off Northwest Point There would be lobster in the Dean household tonight.

He slowed the
Foxy Lady
to navigate the cut, for on either side the razor-tipped coral was barely inches below the surface, and once through they settled down for the easy ten minutes down the coast to Turtle Cove.

The skipper loved his boat, his livelihood and mistress all in one. She was a ten-year-old thirty-one-foot Bertram Moppie—originally so named after designer Dick Bertram’s wife—and though not the biggest nor the most luxurious charter fishing vessel in Turtle Cove, her owner and skipper would match her against any sea and any fish. He had bought her five years earlier when he moved to the islands, secondhand from a yard in South Florida via a small ad in the
Boat Trader,
then worked on her himself night and day until she was the sassiest girl in all the islands. He had not regretted a dollar of her, even though he was still paying off the finance company.

Inside the harbor he eased the Bertram into her slot two down from fellow American Bob Collins on the
Sakitumi,
switched off, and came down to ask his clients if they had had a good day. They had indeed, they assured him, and paid his fee with a generous gratuity for himself and Julius. When they had gone he winked at Julius, let him keep the entire tip and the fish, took off his cap, and ran his fingers through his tousled blond hair.

Then he left the grinning islander to finish cleaning off the boat, fresh-water rinsing all the rods and reels and leaving
Foxy Lady
shipshape for the night. He would come back to close her up before going home. In the meantime he felt a straight lime daiquiri coming on, so he strolled down the boardwalk to the Banana Boat, greeting all he met as they greeted him.

CHAPTER 2

TWO HOURS AFTER SITTING ON HIS RIVERSIDE BENCH
, Leonid Zaitsev still had not worked out his problem. He wished now he had not taken the document. He did not really know why he had. If they found out, he would be punished. But then, life always seemed to have punished him and he could not really understand why.

The Rabbit had been born in a small and poor village west of Smolensk in 1936. It was not much of a place, but one like tens of thousands scattered across the land—a single rutted street, dusty in summer, a river of mud in autumn, and rock-hard with frost in winter. Thirty or so houses, some barns, and the former peasants now herded into a Stalinist collective farm. His father was a farm worker and they lived in a hovel just off the main road.

Down the road, with a small shop and a flat above it, lived the village baker. His father told him he should not have anything to do with the baker, because he was
“yevrey.”
He did not know what that meant, but clearly it was not a good thing to be. But he noticed his mother bought her bread there, and very good bread it was.

He was puzzled that he should not talk to the baker, for he was a jolly man who would sometimes stand in the doorway of his shop, wink at Leonid, and toss him a
bulochka,
a warm sticky bun fresh from the oven. Because of what his father said, he would run behind the cattle shed to eat the bun. The baker lived with his wife and two daughters, whom he could sometimes see peeping out from the shop, though they never seemed to come out and play.

On a day in late July 1941 death came to the village. The little boy did not know it was death at the time. He heard the rumbling and growling and ran out of the barn. There were huge iron monsters coming from the main road up to the village. The first one came to a halt right in the middle of the houses. Leonid stood in the street to have a better look.