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About the Author

James Brabazon is an award-winning frontline journalist and documentary filmmaker. Based in London, he is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir My Friend the Mercenary and the thriller The Break Line. Arkhangel is his second novel.

By the same author

MAX MCLEAN NOVELS:

The Break Line

Arkhangel

NON-FICTION:

My Friend the Mercenary

Dedication

For Bella

Epigraph

This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be.

Alan Turing

Prologue: Appointment in Arkhangel

Sunday 27 January 1991

‘So, tell me,’ she said. ‘How does it start?’

‘Where all stories do,’ I said. ‘At the beginning.’

‘And where’s that?’

‘In Moscow. A long time ago. There was a merchant there, you see, very rich and very powerful. And one morning this merchant, he sent his servant to the market to buy food. In a little while the servant came back, empty handed. The master was about to punish him, but he saw that the man was terrified. He was white and trembling, and could hardly talk. So, once he’d calmed his nerves …’

‘With vodka?’

‘Of course! It’s Russia. Always with vodka. So, once he’d calmed his nerves, the merchant asked him what was wrong. And he said, “Master, just now, when I was in the marketplace, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd. I turned around to look at her, and when I did, I saw it was Death who jostled me.”’

‘What did she say, Max?’

‘Nothing. She just looked at him and raised her old, bony finger, like this.’ I unfolded my right index finger and beckoned her with it. She shuddered, and pulled herself closer to me. ‘The servant was scared out of his wits, of course,’ I continued, ‘and asked the merchant to lend him his horse so he could ride away from the city and avoid his fate. “I’ll ride all day and all night and go to your house in Arkhangel,” he said. “Death will not find me there.”’

‘So, what happened?’

‘Well, the merchant lent him his horse and the servant climbed up into the saddle.’

‘What kind of horse was it? You have to tell me all the details. Was it a stallion, or a gelding?’

‘No, it was a mare. A pale mare, sleek and beautiful and fast as an arrow.’

‘Could it have jumped the old fence at O’Byrne’s farm?’

I smiled and wrapped her fingers in mine.

‘Oh, yes. And then some. She’d have taken the Aughrim River at Woodenbridge with a single stride.’

‘That’s some horse he has there, Max Mac Ghill’ean.’

‘Do you want to hear the story, or what do you want?’

‘Well I would if you’d ever get on with it,’ she laughed.