The Reluctant Hero by Michael Dobbs

traders, and the Russians were, amongst other things, taxi drivers. ‘You want to get hold of the Opposition,’ Pyotr had said, wiping foam from his thick moustache, ‘you ask a taxi driver to meet the Horsemen, that’s what they call themselves. Whether the driver will take you, of course, is another matter. If he thinks you’re setting him up, you’ll find yourself out with the rest of the rubbish in a frozen ditch on the other side of the airport . . .’
    ‘Horsemen,’ Harry repeated.
    The light inside the taxi had gone out, leaving Harry in darkness that was interrupted by the occasional glow of the driver’s cigarette. Outside the Marriott the snow continued to fall, trickling down the windscreen in slow, meandering rivulets.
    ‘British politician. Friend,’ Harry insisted.
    The driver muttered something – a curse, judging by its rough edges, an invitation for him to fuck off – and took another slow, uninterested drag of his cigarette. Yet suddenly he was alert, his eyes gleaming. Harry, with the skill of a magician, had produced a hundred-dollar bill and was thrusting it at the other man. In a country where most people’s annual income was less than three thousand, it was bound to get some response, and the driver’s face flooded with a mixture of both greed and suspicion. This wasn’t any innocent enquiry, not with that amount of money on offer, there was danger here, for them both. Yet Harry was undoubtedly a foreigner, and the note was new, crisp, freshly printed, not the sort that normally circulated in the black markets of Ashkek. Where this one came from, there might be many more. In one move, the driver snatched the bill and slammed the car into gear. They took off into the night, the tyres scrabbling for purchase on the ice.
    Much to Harry’s relief, they weren’t headed for the far side of the airport. Instead, they arrived outside the railway station, a relatively elderly and relaxed building that someone had decided to spruce up by painting it in garish shades of green, pink and white, like an Italian ice cream. Beside it stood an even older building, a hotel, one that had been in the process of reconstruction when the recession struck and the money dried up. Now it stood abandoned, its empty windows staring out lifeless into the night. There was little sign of activity at the station, either. The driver drew to a halt, managing to clip the kerb as he did so, stopping beside a ramshackle shelter made of pieces of wood and corrugated iron. He disappeared inside and Harry followed. The shelter was cramped and stuffy, with only a tiny twenty-watt bulb for light and
heated by a foul-smelling stove that stood in the centre. Huddled around the stove Harry found not only his driver but two other men, one of whom was glaring angrily at the driver, his face full of suspicion. The driver was jabbering and pointing towards Harry.
    ‘Do you speak English?’ Harry demanded, anxious to take control of the situation.
    ‘ Ingliz? ’ the angry man repeated from beneath an enormous nicotine-stained moustache. Then he nodded.
    ‘I want to meet the Horsemen.’
    ‘Why?’ The voice was deep, the accent thick.
    ‘I want to help. I am a British politician,’ Harry explained yet again. Once more he produced his pass, allowing the man to examine it closely. ‘And I want your help, too.’
    ‘What help?’
    ‘That is for me to discuss with your leader.’
    From his wallet Harry brought out a printed business card with a portcullis and his personal details on it. He also brought out another crisp hundred-dollar bill. The man took both, examined them, then threw the card into the fire. ‘We know who you are,’ he growled. ‘This is small place.’
    ‘Then you will do as I ask?’
    The bill was first stretched between his thick fingers then folded carefully before disappearing inside an inner pocket. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘I must know. I have very little time. And there could be more money in it for