Ganglands: Russia: Russia by Ross Kemp

the third van and turned his back on Alexei. Trying to ignore the anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach, Alexei jogged over to the vehicle and jumped inside.The dingy confines were crammed with skinheads, none of whom Alexei recognized.The van reeked of body odour and bad breath.Deafening thrash metal pounded out from the car stereo at the frontof the van, where Medved was hunched in the front seat, his hands drumming on the steering wheel.Alexei had barely taken his seat when someone slammed the van door shut, and they were moving.
    It was impossible to be heard above the music, and no one was going to ask Medved to turn it down, so the men kept their own counsel as the van made its way north through the Moscow suburbs.Alexei almost wished that Marat was with him – at least they knew each other.He tried to ask a bullet-headed teenager where they were going, but the boy scowled and refused to answer.
    Finally the van came to a stop.Alexei hurriedly opened the doors and leaped down on to the sunlit road, pleased to be out in the fresh air.He was standing on a quiet street in the shadow of a large, unfinished building – a forbidding complex of slate-grey levels, with black holes where the windows should have been.Even from this distance, Alexei could see the gaps in the walls where the concrete had crumbled away.
    As he looked on, Marat climbed down from the second van and jogged over to him.
    ‘Alexei!’ the blond-haired boy hailed cheerily. ‘Thought you weren’t going to make it.’
    ‘What’s the big deal?What are we doing here?’
    Marat jerked a thumb at the building.‘Training day.’
    Alexei tried not to let the relief show on his face: training, he could handle.He followed the gang as they entered the complex grounds and snaked their way through an untamed forest of Japanese knotweed.Judging by the height of the plants, construction here on what wasapparently going to be a hospital must have been halted several years ago.The Eagles reached the edge of the knotweed, and scrambled inside the building through a yawning hole in the wall.
    Even in the dingy half-light of the interior, it was clear that the hospital was in a terminal condition.The floor was riddled with holes, and the gang had to skirt around piles of rubble as they made their way up to the roof of the complex. Water streamed through the ceilings and down the walls.Reinforcing rods poked out of the concrete as they vainly tried to keep the structure from falling apart.Everywhere Alexei looked, the walls were daubed with Nazi slogans and the Eagles’ tag.
    By contrast, the roof was bathed in warm spring sunshine.Viktor Orlov stood by the edge of the roof, dressed smartly in a full-length leather coat, dark trousers and a pair of sunglasses.Skinheads were changing into combat fatigues around him, against the bright-blue backdrop of the Moscow skyline.
    Amid the heaps of green camouflaged rucksacks and multipacks of bottled water, Alexei was surprised to see Nadia sitting on a fold-up chair, her blonde hair tucked behind her ears and her brow creased in concentration as she typed at a laptop. Glancing up from the screen, she caught Alexei’s eye: he gave her a friendly smile, but she immediately looked away.He still wasn’t sure whether she had believed his story about the email back at the university – and whatever her relationship was with Viktor, Nadia certainly had his ear.As Alexei struggled into a set of musty fatigues with the rest ofthe gang, the leader of the 88s went over to place his hands on Nadia’s shoulders, fondly kissing the top of her head as he inspected her screen.Then he clapped his hands together.
    ‘Gentlemen!’ Viktor called out.‘We stand alone at the front line of a war, my brothers: the true army of the White Russian.An army needs to be fit.An army needs to be lean.Days like today – tests like these, tests of the body and of the heart – are crucial if the Eagles are to be ready for war.We will be watching