The Edge of Madness by Michael Dobbs Read Free Book Online Page A

changed, and Lavrenti was part of that change. A media man.
    He had come to Shunin’s attention when his daughter,Katya, had brought him home at a time when Shunin had been under pressure from a political opponent, Kamenev. Within two weeks of Shunin meeting Lavrenti, a video of Kamenev had been aired on RTR, the state-run television channel, showing ‘a person resembling’ Kamenev fumbling around with two much younger women. Exposing him to such ridicule was as good as putting him up in front of a firing squad; even before the world had finished laughing. Kamenev was gone, Lavrenti Konev was in, and ever since Shunin had allowed the younger man to run the media side of things. Lavrenti had become election mastermind, propagandist, chief censor and son-in-law, and had spread his wings into ever more lucrative enterprises. He’d masterminded the campaign that brought together a subtle mix of persuasion, corruption and intimidation which had persuaded the International Olympic Committee to award the winter games to the town of Sochi, a resort on the Black Sea where even in January the temperatures rarely touch freezing. Not an ideal location for snow and ice, some people thought, but an ideal spot to make a fortune from the property market. He learned quickly. While Shunin rode a white horse in public, more privately the son-in-law cleaned up the mess that was inevitably left behind. It had become a fruitful partnership.
    Deep down, Shunin hoped that one day Lavrenti might do more, become more–perhaps and in time even his successor. Yet Lavrenti was his son-in-law and there were still areas of power that Shunin had shieldedfrom him. Lavrenti had never been asked to get his hands dirty–really dirty, in the Russian way, Shunin had protected him from that. The hands that touched his daughter must be clean. Yet if Lavrenti were to grow, to follow in his footsteps, there must come a time when he would have to show his mettle, be tested. But in the meantime there could be only one master in any house, and Lavrenti needed to be reminded of it.
    Already the guard had turned from his seat in front and was holding out a demanding hand.
    ‘It’s such a waste,’ Lavrenti objected. ‘Ridiculous. I need it.’
    ‘Not on this trip, you won’t. And if that toy means so much to you, I’m sure you can always get your very good friend to give you another.’
    ‘For God’s sake, this is pathetic.’
    ‘So is being bought for the price of a golden trinket.’
    ‘Nobody’s bought me!’ Lavrenti spat back, rising to the bait.
    ‘Then prove it.’
    The younger man tried to hold Shunin’s gaze, hoping for a reprieve, but none came. They rarely did.
    ‘May Heaven piss on your picnic, Papasha,’ Lavrenti snapped in defiance before thrusting the phone at the guard, who released a lock and opened the door by a fraction, just sufficient for the gadget to be dropped in the track of the vehicle’s wheels. Half a ton of pressure beneath each wheel would do for most things; a mere gadget would have no chance, even if it was gold-plated.Lavrenti sank sullenly back into his seat, where he began chewing savagely at a fingernail, one of the disconcerting habits he’d picked up recently–and one of the reasons why Shunin watched, and wondered. There was so much for a leader to wonder about in this new world, even a son-in-law.
    They had been stationary too long; the guard was growing anxious, muttering into his radio. Then, with a wave of his hand, he directed the driver to squeeze his way off the road and onto the pavement. The car rose up the kerb with a bump. Pedestrians looked on in bewilderment, their faces turning bright with panic before throwing themselves to one side as the convoy carved its way towards them, twisting around lampposts, at one point running over a hastily abandoned bicycle. A whiskery old man emerging from a shop doorway waved his rolled-up newspaper in protest, being either too blind to see, or too old to care