Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [68]
Outside was one of those sparkling days London sees too rarely. He carried his breakfast onto his balcony and ate standing up, taking in the expanse of the old city. He loved London. He’d spent most of his adult life here and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
In the kitchen he carefully washed the dishes in the sink, then set them to drain. Back in the bedroom he meticulously dressed in a startling white broadcloth shirt with striped tie and a nearly black Anderson & Sheppard suit from Savile Row. Finally, he slipped on the black banker’s shoes he preferred.
Caroline Bynum stirred in the bed as he slipped on his gold Rolex. Not yet twenty years old, born with more money than God, she was crazy about him, still in the early bloom of the relationship.
“Caro,” he said quietly. “I have to leave now. Take your time. Lock up when you go, there’s a dear. I’ll call later today when I’m free.” The young woman gave a grunt, then lapsed into deep sleep. Manfield smiled, took his cell phone from on top of the dresser, and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
It was just a ten-minute walk to his office. On such a beautiful day, he never considered driving or taking a taxi. Arriving five minutes early, he greeted the receptionist, then went straight to his office, where he perused the Financial Times as he had another cup of tea. Then he checked his e-mail, dashed off four replies, and settled in with the newspaper.
Special Applications Security, or SAS as it was known, had been created twenty years before by two former Special Air Service operatives who selected the name for its meaningful initials. Five years earlier they’d sold the lucrative international company to Lanson Security, one of the UK’s oldest security companies. SAS had, however, been largely untouched by the transition. The company specialized in security measures and hardware for private companies and small governments worldwide. The former manager had been named president of the company and business had gone on as before.
Manfield had worked at SAS for just over three years and was considered the company’s brightest star. He spoke five languages, which had proven helpful to the company in recent years, and was adept at blending in with various cultures. He traveled on average eight times a year for the company, his usual trip lasting two weeks. Though he could present and pitch the latest offerings in terms of security gates and twenty-first-century technology, he was most skilled with small weapons and was inevitably dispatched when an order for such was in the offing. More than once his consummate skill with the German HK MP-5 submachine gun had resulted in a larger-than-expected order. He boasted he could write his name with a burst of automatic fire from fifty yards, then did so.
Except that the name he wrote was not really his own. Brian Manfield was born Borz Mansur in Grozny, Chechnya, to a British mother, a devoted Communist, and Chechnyan father, at that time a general in the Soviet army. Until the fall of the Soviet empire, Borz had lived in the Soviet Union, attending school in Moscow while living with his parents. When Dzhokhar Dudayev declared Chechen independence in 1991, Borz was eleven years old, so his father had sent mother and son to London for safety. Borz’s father had then flown to Grozny, where he’d promptly sided with the rebels against the Russian army.
When Russia invaded in 1994, General Mansur had organized the ongoing resistance after the occupation and had directed guerrilla operations from the Caucasus Mountains. Three times he left to seek help from various affluent Muslims, once managing to reach London for a brief visit with his wife and son, whom he decided to take back with him.
In 1996, following a period of phony negotiations, the Russians once again invaded the country. This time Borz took part in the fighting, where he proved adept at night ambushes and the assassination