A Chateau Under Siege, page 23
Finally, after the cheese and salad and the fresh peaches, they adjourned to the library. Cassandra brought coffee, and Kirk offered cognac, Armagnac and a Talisker malt scotch as a digestif. Angus reminded his friends to be ready to leave for their balloon ride at six-thirty the following morning. Then Krish rose to speak.
“I am humbled to be speaking in this room where Thomas Jefferson sat to write letters and his journal nearly two and a half centuries ago. Recalling that great man and the American and French Revolutions through which he lived may help us to put our current concerns into some perspective,” Krish began, before launching into a strikingly well-informed analysis of the current global situation and what he saw as the looming crisis in China.
He began with the country’s demographics, and the distortion of the population imposed by thirty-five years of a one-child policy. He cited a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which calculated that some twelve million female fetuses had been aborted, since families tended to prefer that if they could have but one child it should be male. The usual ratio of births among humans was 105 male infants for every 100 females. In China, it was 118 males for every 100 females in the year 2005. The one-child policy also meant that China was now one of the fastest-aging populations in the world, and that the number of Chinese of working age had been declining since 2014. The relative shortage of women meant that many millions of Chinese males were likely to have trouble finding mates and having children; the Chinese had developed a term for such men, calling them “bare branches.”
“China is also likely to be hard-hit by the environmental crisis,” Krish went on. “A quarter of the population lives in coastal regions, which means that some three hundred million people are highly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Above all, China faces a crisis in its supply of fresh water. China’s crucial main rivers, the Yangtze, the Yellow River and the Mekong, all come from the Tibetan Plateau, where the glaciers are melting at an alarming speed.”
Krish opened a notebook, looked up and said, “Let me quote Qin Dahe, the former head of the China Meteorological Administration, who issued the following assessment in 2009: ‘Temperatures on the plateau are rising four times faster than elsewhere in China, and the Tibetan glaciers are retreating at a higher speed than in any other part of the world. In the short term, this will cause lakes to expand and bring floods and mudflows. In the long run, the glaciers are vital lifelines for Asian rivers.’
“Let me cite another source,” Krish went on, and quoted a study, led by the University of Leeds in Britain, which concluded that Himalayan glaciers were shrinking far more rapidly than glaciers in other parts of the world—a rate of loss the researchers described as “exceptional.”
The paper, which Krish explained had been published in Scientific Reports, reported that the glaciers had since lost around 40 percent of their area and are now shrinking ten times faster than they were fifty years ago, with a loss of some five hundred cubic kilometers of ice, which is more than all the ice in the European Alps, Scandinavia and the Caucasus combined.
“Bear in mind that the Tibetan Plateau is sometimes known as the Third Pole, being the greatest concentration of fresh water other than the poles,” Krish added.
He closed the notebook and went on to explain in his own words that China was not the only country dependent on the water from the Tibetan Plateau and the mountain ranges that surrounded it. India, Bangladesh and Pakistan depended on the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Rivers. Southeast Asia depended on the Mekong.
“Moreover, the plateau is also a vital factor in India’s other supply of water, the monsoon,” Krish went on. “The air over the plateau is warmed in summer and rises, creating a low pressure zone that draws in air from the Indian Ocean, which brings moisture with it. That moisture falls on India and all of South Asia as the vital rain of the monsoon.”
Krish paused, looking almost grimly around the room from face to face, letting the tension build.
“We are facing a situation in which three billion people in China and the Indian subcontinent, nearly half the human race, appear to be faced in the next few decades with an existential crisis over their water supply,” he said. “I need hardly remind you that three of them, India, Pakistan and China, possess nuclear weapons.”
Krish paused again, casting his eyes slowly over each member of his audience. “This is a situation which has filled me with despair for the future. But earlier this week, I heard something that gave me hope. It came from our friend Hartmut, in his talk on the potential of 2D graphene for the future of microchip technology. But he also said, almost in passing, that 2D graphene also had the potential to transform the efficiency and economics of desalination of seawater. I know we use the term ‘game changer’ very loosely these days, but affordable and massive desalination could really transform the prospects for human survival in southern and eastern Asia. I urge us all to consider whether this technology should not go right to the top of our own investment planning. We certainly are unlikely to lose money by doing so, and we might just save humanity.”
Chapter 19
Bruno was still glowing from his morning run when he saw the guests off to their balloon ride down the Dordogne Valley. He returned to his room to shower and change into civilian clothes, and then he and Balzac walked to the roadhouse restaurant in the hope that he might meet Patsy’s secret friend. As a precaution, he had used a burner phone he kept in his Land Rover to send a brief text message to Isabelle to say where he was going and why, adding the telltale reference to the woman known as Africa. If he failed to check in with her within the hour, he suggested she should report to Lannes.
The place was not busy, but there were some guests in the dining room. A breakfast buffet table offered fruit juices, croissants and various jams, slices of ham and cheese, bowls of fruit salad. On a black slate, the management had chalked that oeufs à la coque ou brouillés, boiled or scrambled eggs, were available on request. A noisy machine delivered espresso or café au lait, tea or hot chocolate, all for a cent less than eight euros. Bruno helped himself to orange juice, a double espresso and a croissant and took a solitary table by a window. No sooner had he sat down than the door to the men’s room opened and a stocky man in sunglasses came out wearing jeans, a baseball cap and a gray polo shirt. He filled a breakfast tray and took a place at Bruno’s table. His hands were large for his frame, the fingers long and elegant and the first dark spots of age had emerged just below the knuckles.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Bruno,” the man said in serviceable French with an unusual accent, and then removed the sunglasses. He did not look particularly Asian, far less Chinese. From his face he might have been a weather-beaten Japanese. If he had to guess, Bruno would have said he was some kind of Inuit.
“Thank you for coming, and I am so glad you brought your dog. I believe his name is Balzac,” he went on, offering his hand to be shaken. He had a firm grip and an amiable smile showing good teeth and the flash of gold from a filling.
“Are you Dular or Alalet?” Bruno asked, shaking hands. “Or do I just call you Patsy’s secret friend?”
“Call me Dular,” came the reply as Dular bent down to fondle Balzac and give him a corner of his croissant. “From the precautions you have taken, it seems that you know there is a great threat to Brice Kerquelin and his friends at the château.”
“Yes, but a threat from whom?” Bruno asked. “And who exactly are you?”
“I’m usually known as Nomokonov. My great-great-uncle was a famous sniper in the Great Patriotic War who claimed three hundred sixty-seven kills. He died when I was a little boy, but his fame secured me an education, a place at officers’ school and a career with the GRU. I hold the rank of polkovnik, or colonel. The threat comes from some of my wilder colleagues in Russian intelligence.”
“Why did you want to see me?” Bruno asked.
“Because we looked into the crazy stunt that Africa and her people tried to pull off with those Spanish fascists,” Dular said. “One of her reports mentioned you, so through an online subscription to Sud Ouest I ran a search for your name and found a great deal of interesting material about you, your work as a local policeman and even your dog. I think we share a common goal in preventing any foolish attack on Monsieur Kerquelin and his friends.”
Bruno tried to conceal his surprise by taking a bite from his croissant and then keeping his eyes on Dular as he chewed, finally washing it down with a sip of coffee before speaking. “The only sign of any hostile activity we’ve seen so far was a probe from nearby on our communications system, and we think it came from a drone,” he said.
“If it was circling over Château de Fénelon it was probably my team,” said Dular. “The real threat comes from some of Africa’s old friends at Moscow, the ones from Khimki, better known as Unit 74455, and the real crazies of Unit 29155.”
“But they are GRU, like you, military intelligence,” said Bruno.
“It’s a big organization, almost as big now as it was before they slashed us, back after they fired Kobelnikov in 2009…” Dular broke off. “You don’t know what I’m talking about do you?”
“Not in the least,” Bruno admitted.
“No matter. They were looking for a scapegoat after the less than impressive military action against Georgia in 2008,” he said. He went on to explain that Kobelnikov, the then chief of GRU, had been blamed and dismissed from his post. New men came in with grandiose talk about modernization, bringing the GRU into the twenty-first century, cyber-warfare, social media and fake news. The Spetsnaz was placed under the direct orders of the general staff, losing its precious autonomy. The GRU’s name was changed to the GU. The Wagner Group was launched as a supposedly private group of paramilitary consultants, and therefore deniable.
“Then they started playing God, using fancy software to get into political campaigns in the West and playing favorites,” Dular said. “So there is the Sandworm team, Unit 74455, that got into the Clinton campaign’s computers in 2016 and tried to sink Macron in 2017. They hacked into the Ukraine power grid in 2015 and tried to sabotage the Winter Olympics in 2020. There is Unit 26165, the Fancy Bears, who hacked into the German chancellor’s office in 2018 and tried to sabotage the Dutch investigation into the shooting down of that Malaysian airliner. And there is Unit 29155, the psychos, who used nerve agents in Britain to kill Sergei Skripal, tried to launch a coup in Montenegro and blew up that Czech weapons warehouse in 2014. They were behind that Catalan operation that you know about.”
“None of those operations could be called an unqualified success,” said Bruno. “Even when they succeeded, they left Russia’s dirty hands all over it. And mostly they failed, or were found out.”
“Exactly, and that’s why some of us want to stop this particular operation against Kerquelin.”
“Why?” asked Bruno.
“Killing American, European and Indian civilians is a very bad precedent,” Dular said, tapping the table to reinforce his words. “And we don’t think it’s healthy for most of the new cyber-technologies to be American or Chinese. We think Kerquelin is right to partner with Taiwan to build a European semiconductor industry, and we wonder who is really behind this plot to kill him and his friends or, at least, who is paying for it.”
“Is that because you in Russian intelligence would find it easier to steal that technology from Europe?” Bruno asked. “Or are you worried about the Chinese?”
Dular grinned. “Russians have worried about the Chinese since they were conquered by the Mongols eight centuries ago.”
“Putin has a funny way of showing it,” said Bruno.
Dular threw up his hands. “Putin will do anything to bring back that Greater Russian space he talks about.”
Bruno finished his coffee and sat back. “You do realize that I’m just a village policeman who sometimes gets caught up in things that are way beyond my usual work?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Dular, slicing a sliver of ham and feeding it discreetly to Balzac. “But you have the ear of General Lannes and I want you to tell him about this conversation and meet me again here tomorrow. As soon as we know when and where these thugs are assembled nearby, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, tell Lannes that they have been using the area east of Grenoble as a base for years. It’s a summer and winter resort area, lots of rentals, Airbnbs. It’s near the Swiss and Italian frontiers, and their people fly to Nice or Paris, rent cars, take trains.”
He pulled out a wallet from his hip pocket and handed Bruno two passport-sized photos.
“These guys are the ones known to the British police as Alexandr Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the ones accused of trying to poison Sergei Skripal in Salisbury with the nerve agent. Their real names are Alexandr Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga. Mishkin is a doctor, studied at the Kirov military medical academy. He was awarded Hero of Russia status in 2014 and also goes by the name Nikolai Popa. I’ve written these details on the back of the photos. If Lannes runs them through surveillance cameras around Grenoble, he’ll get some hits.”
“Very kind of you,” said Bruno, drily. “Why should we believe a single word you say?”
“I don’t care what you believe. I just want you to make Lannes aware of my credentials, that I want to cooperate and that I come bearing gifts. Your work, Bruno, is then done.”
Dular pulled a twenty-euro note from his wallet and put it on the table, saying, “This time you are my guest, but perhaps someday I will have the pleasure of eating at your table. Our file on you says that your cooking is highly regarded.”
“How will I contact you after I speak to Lannes?”
“I’ll see you here tomorrow. Or you could call him now, while I get us two more coffees.”
Bruno took photos of the two headshots on his phone, then reversed them and took a photo of the details on the backs and emailed them all directly to Lannes. Then he called Lannes’s office number, spoke to the duty officer, explained the photos he had sent, gave the name of Colonel Dular Nomokonov and related what he’d been told about Unit 29155 having a regular base camp west of Grenoble. Then Lannes came onto the line as if he’d been listening to Bruno’s explanation.
“Is he still there?” Lannes asked.
“Yes, he’s just coming back to the breakfast table.”
Bruno handed over the phone to Dular, saying simply, “Lannes on the line.” Then Bruno rose, picked up the double espresso Dular had brought and strolled away out of earshot with Balzac. He thought it wise to give Dular some privacy but not before he’d heard Dular speaking Russian and Lannes apparently replying in the same language.
Had he known Lannes spoke Russian? Bruno recalled that Lannes and Jack Crimson had worked together on an Anglo-French project to rescue Mikhail Gorbachev from his house arrest in Crimea during the abortive coup of 1991. The coup had collapsed in the face of Boris Yeltsin’s defiance in Moscow, and Gorbachev had been freed while the Anglo-French plan was still on the drawing board.
Bruno stood on the covered terrace, looking across the river to the Fénelon château, thinking that Fénelon had been no stranger to the intrigues and power games of his own day. The reactionary clerics at court who supported the absolute monarchy of King Louis XIV had targeted Fénelon as a dangerous liberal, at the same time that Czar Peter the Great was establishing himself as another absolute monarch. And Czar Peter had succeeded so well that Russian power had loomed over Europe ever since, a tradition Putin sought to continue.
There was a line of Fénelon’s that had always appealed to Bruno and it had stuck in his memory: “Each individual owes incomparably more to the human race, which is the great fatherland, than to the particular country in which he was born.” Even today, he thought, not all French citizens would agree with that, nor many British or Americans, let alone Russians. The patriotic instinct was strong, and reinforced by schools and history textbooks and politicians.
Much as he admired Fénelon’s sentiment, Bruno wasn’t sure if he entirely agreed. France, and the ideals of its revolution, had a profound grip upon him, just as Pamela was devoted to Scotland and Jack Crimson loved his Britain, even though they had both been dismayed by the vote for Brexit. Like Bruno, they shared a hope, often sorely tested, that the European Union could yet match their dreams of a wider homeland rooted less in national pride than in the shared heritage of Greece and Rome, Renaissance and Enlightenment, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Bruno gave a half shrug, half grimace, as Balzac stirred and Dular appeared at his side, handing Bruno back his phone.
“There is news,” Dular said. “Lannes has decided to come down here this evening, as soon as he’s arranged the security sweep in the Alpine base of Unit 29155. And he asked me to give you this and ask you to take it to your technical experts at Domme.” He took an unfamiliar phone from an inside pocket and handed it to Bruno, saying, “180615—remember the code.”
“Why are you doing this?” Bruno asked, scribbling down the number and noting that it happened to be the date of the Battle of Waterloo, while trying to conceal his confusion. He found it hard to think of this man as a traitor to his own side. But handing over an operational phone would almost certainly be seen as treachery by Dular’s colleagues in GRU.
“Would you be convinced if I said it’s because I don’t want to see Europe at war again,” Dular said. “I saw enough of it in Chechnya and Syria. And if I said that I think there are stupid people in the Kremlin who puff themselves up with foolish dreams of new glories for Greater Russia? Would that be enough to convince you? How about if I said that I like Kyiv and Odessa and don’t like seeing them bombarded by heavy guns and multiple rocket launchers?
“We’ve forgotten the main lesson of the Cold War, the need to contain conflict,” Dular went on. “The Korean and Vietnam Wars stayed within their regions even when other great powers intervened with troops, weapons and supplies. Great power boundaries were respected. NATO didn’t intervene when Soviet troops crushed revolts in Hungary and Prague. But now Europeans and Americans and Britain are sending arms and military assistance to Ukraine.”
