The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [31]
All the while, though, Anya was careful to preserve the anonymity of the captors. She asked no questions that might cause them to reveal who they were. This would not help her escape and it might make them kill her if they thought she could identify them later. So, in a way, she was grateful for the blindfold.
Sometimes, during the arguments, she could make out words— there seemed to be a man and a woman. She heard the woman call the man an idiot once. ‘Valery Kozkov is not rich,’ she had screamed. Anya hoped the kidnappers wouldn’t ask for too much money. The woman was right. Her father wasn’t rich, not like the oligarchs. Anya thought she had better not say that though. In case they got angry.
She tried to think practically, to tell herself she was coping well, to swallow the terror she felt. Her determination had got her into this mess; she hoped it would be enough to get her out.
Only ever when she was in Russia did Stevie have caviar for breakfast. A soft-boiled egg filled with the grey roe, slithers of thin black toast on the side, was the consolation for much that was difficult in Moscow.
When she had arrived back at the Metropole the night before, she had called Hazard and explained the situation to Betterman in K&R. Constantine Dinov, the negotiator, was on stand-by to fly in. She would do an ongoing assessment in the meantime so that Dinov would have as much information as possible on the family, the political situation on the ground, and the kidnappers—if possible—for when the time came to deal. Every little bit could help.
Stevie only hoped David Rice didn’t hear of it. In any case, she was on leave. There was nothing to say.
She poured herself a second cup of boiling black coffee and shook out the papers.
Izvestia was full of news on energy, particularly the new Baku-–Tblisi-–Ceyhan pipeline that stretched from Azerbaijan to Turkey through Georgia. Armed guards were to be stationed every three metres to protect the underground pipeline from rebels threatening to blow it up as it passed through the Southern Caucasus.
There was also news of battles with the Chechens that seemed to have been going on forever. Stevie remembered seeing the Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev announce on television that he had hidden a ‘dirty bomb’—a canister full of cesium—somewhere in Moscow.
A ‘dirty bomb’ was a regular explosive, such as dynamite, mixed with radiological pellets or powder. Cesium was a radioactive substance that could, in certain isotopes, be produced by atomic energy plants as waste. The explosion was designed to disperse radiological dust as far as possible.
Rather than cause mass casualties, like an atomic bomb, only those very close to the explosion would likely be killed. The radiation, however, was harmful to health, and would contaminate a large part of Moscow for a very long time. The main effect therefore would be mass panic, and a loss of any confidence that citizens had in the Russian government’s ability to protect them.
Basayev had directed a television crew to Izmailovsky Park, where the device was found buried at the entrance, just as the rebel leader had described. The bomb was never detonated but the message had been heard loud and clear in the Kremlin: ‘We can reach right into your capital city, and we can do it with dirty bombs. No one is safe.’
Even without detonation, the legitimacy of the politburo had taken a heavy blow. Four years later, under a new president, a second war was started in Chechnya, fought mainly by ill-equipped conscripts who were often more in danger of being bullied to death by their officers than being shot by enemy fighters. Since then, the Chechens no longer called in their bomb threats but just carried them out.
On 24 October 2002, terrorists took over the Dubrovka theatre during a performance. The audience initially thought the fighters in fatigues and the women in black burqas—the Black Widows—were all part of the show. Until they showed their bodies, strapped with explosives. At least 129 hostages died after a bungled raid in which