Read Online The Reluctant Hero by Michael Dobbs - Free Book Online

on places like the Maldives. That’s what this game is about. Just be careful not to get trampled in the rush.’
    ‘I’m not like that,’ Malik protested, a little piously, ‘I don’t see my job as a matter of privilege.’
    ‘Then welcome to Ta’argistan.’
    There was a welcome, of sorts. While most of the passengers joined the shuffling queue to have their passports checked, Bowles and his group were taken to a VIP lounge, a solemn affair with severe furniture and dusty artificial flowers, and two armed guards on duty outside the door. There the group was greeted by an official with agitated eyes and stiff English who introduced himself as Sydykov. He collected their passports, offering them tea while he dealt with the formalities and their luggage. That got Martha going.
    ‘I’ve got three bags,’ she declared, slowly, her voice rising as though speaking to a village bumpkin. ‘Three,’ she repeated, holding up the appropriate number of fingers. ‘One is small, so please make sure it isn’t overlooked.’
    Harry winced at the performance. He could tell a military man even in his civvies. Sydykov seemed to reciprocate, coming across to introduce himself to Harry more formally.
    ‘Your rank?’ Harry enquired, shaking his hand, noticing its firm grip.
    ‘I hold the rank of major,’ Sydykov replied.
    ‘In which service?’
    But the man simply smiled and moved on, as though he hadn’t understood.
    Sydykov was there once again as they gathered in the foyer of their hotel two hours later, his smile still stretched in that fixed, dutiful manner, as stiff as the covers of the passports he handed back. The visitors had been given time to unpack and rest and were now waiting to be driven to the Presidential Palace for dinner, their first formal engagement of the tour. Martha Riley was still behaving like grit in a shoe. She looped her arm through the major’s, as though they were now old friends.
    ‘Now, I don’t wish to complain,’ she began, ‘but I couldn’t find any sign of a hairdryer in my room.’
    With her free hand she ruffled her hair and returned his smile, while he appeared temporarily speechless, almost stunned.
    ‘And may I ask what that elderly lady is doing, sitting outside our rooms at the end of the corridor?’
    Sydykov stiffened. ‘She, Mrs Riley, is there to ensure your comfort,’ he replied, his lips now taut in exasperation.
    ‘I asked her about the hairdryer, of course I did, but she didn’t seem to understand. How can she help us if she doesn’t speak English?’
    Once again Sydykov seemed anxious to move on. ‘Forgive me, Mrs Riley, while I make arrangements for your hairdryer.’
    ‘That’s so kind of you,’ she said to his retreating back. ‘A girl’s got to look nice for the President.’
    Harry found himself torn between rising irritation and the gentle tickle of amusement. How could she be so crass? Hadn’t she realized who the hell Sydykov was? Yet the sight of a major in the internal security service being used as a dog to fetch a stick held its own small pleasures. This was touted as a goodwill visit, yet they weren’t even trusted to wander around the hotel on their own. He’d already spotted the additional plain-clothes security, two of them sitting stiffly in the foyer. The hotel was constructed in the monumental, almost brutal style of the Soviet era and its public parts had all the sense of fun of a funeral parlour. The foyer could comfortably hold two hundred, yet there weren’t twenty. There was no crowd to get lost in, everyone stood out, particularly two goons.
    Harry’s mind went back to the researcher from Human Rights Watch whom he’d met in a coffee house in Bloomsbury, near the British Museum. He was an old, wizened Russian named Pyotr whose crooked back and pronounced limp told of a life of troubles behind what had once been the Iron Curtain. He had a cracked voice and a thick Slavic accent, and as he spoke tears formed in his eyes. Harry