Tomas Read Free Page A

the West’s devastating economic tsunami.
    Then it occurred to him. What was the opposite of communism and played the West at its own game? A menace difficult to anticipate and impossible to resist. The answer was so simple that it could be described in a single word. A commodity which after only a few years was already debauching Western values and behaviour.
    Money. Russian money and all it brings: envy, the corruption of scruples, social dysfunction. Western bankersaccept a Russian rouble without questioning its origin. Oligarchs, the new weapons of war, are welcomed with open arms by society, irrespective of their backgrounds. Yachts, mansions and jetted-in prostitutes are envied as symbols of the Great Bear’s new empire. Previously good people now bow in submission to the vulgarities of Russian taste, behaviour and power.
    The beast’s black eyes fix on the boulder that serves as a door to his cave. The rot is set, he thinks, as sure as stone. Soon it will be time for his final plan.
    He pads over to the boulder and turns his mind from his great design to a seemingly microscopic issue: reports of a gunman on a killing spree on the French Riviera, the world headquarters of decadent and licentious behaviour, where Russian yachts patrol offshore like battleships and oligarchs command armies of hitmen and hookers. No wonder the gunman, styling himself as a celestial avenger, has chosen this latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah.
    Normally, such news would be inconsequential to the Great Bear. A lone killer, clearly mad, touting automatic weapons and a moral message with no hope of success. A few dozen deaths of society types, including some Russians. So what?
    But the beast’s long hibernation hasn’t dulled his instincts, if anything the opposite. His senses are as sharp as the cold. For the first time in two decades, he takes a fateful decision. He rolls back the boulder and steps out of his cave. His retinue, camped outside, is shocked. The Great Bear never leaves his lair; his enemies must come to him.

    His attendants scatter in fear and confusion. Ignoring the commotion, the Great Bear raises himself high on his hind legs like a predator hoping to catch the scent of blood in the wind. He tilts his head back sharply and with a vertical snout sniffs the snow-and-rain-drenched air with short, sharp breaths which billow puffs of steam above his head. He’s right. Something’s wrong.
    Pride comes before a fall
…
    A helicopter clatters overhead on its descent to the port’s landing pad. Tomas watches as its owner tumbles out. He has a normal trunk but an enormous stomach, which Tomas imagines is detachable. His belly is so big that its top is parallel to his mouth and he has to shout to be heard. Perhaps he has had a treatment at a Swiss clinic to distribute weight only to his stomach. This allows him to eat as much as he wants while leaving him lithe elsewhere. His stomach, being detachable, provides the ultimate in corporal flexibility. Maybe he leaves it on a cot by his bed at night and only brings it out during the day for meals and for show.
    The detachable-stomach man pauses on the step of his helicopter. He’s surrounded by journalists and photographers. ‘Boss Olgarv,’ shouts a reporter, ‘are you frightened of the killer?’ Russia’s oligarch-in-chief, arriving to investigate the situation and do a little business, doesn’t reply. Instead he snaps, ‘Wait!’ to the photographers. He flips a mobile to his ear. ‘OK,’ he obliges. The photographers get to work. His imaginary telephone conversationadds to his magnificence. This is the picture he wants, exiting his helicopter, eyes narrowed on the horizon – a man of vision as well as wealth; the world transfixed by what he might be saying: ‘Buy it now, damn it!’ ‘OK, sue the bastards.’ ‘Yes. One hundred million euros, not a euro more.’
    The fat Russian walks