Dorothy and
Tom arrive at
Arkady's flat to discuss recent developments regarding the
Institute for Progress and Development. Arkady's niece and
Dot Chan intern
Katya is also there. Arkady starts by revealing that - as suspected - his friend
Sergei removed the
Vavasor Papers from the briefcase given to Tom at the climax of the events described in
The Truth About Archie and Pye, thus saving them from the subsequent explosion. However, Sergei did not, as anticipated, manage to return the papers to
Isaac Vavasor as he was forced to go into hiding. After this, Sergei became increasingly worried that he was being followed by someone, as it turned out, from the Institute for Progress and Development. After this, Sergei left the country, not saying where he was going. Three days ago, Arkady hears from Sergei's girlfriend
Carla saying that Arkady has disappeared and that the papers have been stolen. The team conclude that the Institute is behind it and that they must break into their headquarters and steak them back.
Dorothy, Tom, Arkady, Katya and Balvinder, the other Dot Chan intern, break into the Institute for Progress and Development, aided by Balvinder's lock-picking skills. They fail to locate the Vavasor Papers, although Tom does find a file on Sergei Kravchenko, as well as someone called Dominic Bilston, who seems to have been killed in suspicious circumstances. However, it now turns out that they are not the only people there, as Helen Matheson and one of her cronies are also spying on the Institute. Helen kidnaps Tom and takes him to a safe house in Margate with the intention of blackmailing him into working for her. In the course of this, she uses his phone to give Dorothy the impression that Tom has been having an affair with her. Matheson's plan is for Tom to impersonate the chaotician Rory Milford, who has apparently been hired to do some work by one of the Belarusian mafia gangs, in order to find out what has happened to one of her agents: Sergei Kravchenko.
Tom is to travel to Minsk, pretending to be Rory Milford, but travelling under the name of Wilberforce. He will be met on arrival by Yevgenei Smirnov, who will take him to the Minsk Metropole where he will meet his client Nikita Petrov, head of the Petrov family. In the event, he is not met by Smirnov - instead he is picked up by Anya, who has apparently already disposed of Smirnov. Anya takes Tom to a camp in the forest near to the border with Ukraine, near Pripyat. This turns out to be the rural headquarters of the Gretzky family. Here he meets their current leader Yuliya Gretzky and the young prodigy and heir apparent Alexei Gretzky. It turns out that Alexei met the Vavasor twins when he was very young, and is something of an enthusiast for their work. Apparently Rory Milford also knew them, which is news to Tom. Alexei gives Tom a mathematical paper that he's written for him to evaluate.
Tom knuckles down to life in the camp, taking part in the activities and secretly trying to make sense of the equations that Alexei has given him, under the watchful eyes of Anya and her scary sidekick Novikov. Disaster strikes, however, when the Gretzkys hear of someone else arriving at the Minsk Metropole claiming to be Rory Milford. They show Tom a picture of him and it turns out to be Benjamin Unsworth. Tom manages to laugh the whole thing off, but decides that he needs to make a getaway. He steals a knife and some steaks from the kitchen and uses the steaks to keep the two guard dogs Fang and Slobber occupied while he sneaks out of the front entrance, taking Alexei's mathematical paper with him. After a terrifying journey through the darkened forest, he finds an abandoned cottage, breaks into it and beds down for the rest of the night.
He awakes to find that the cottage isn't abandoned after all, but very much occupied by Artem and his mother. Artem permits him to stay there and he and Grandma hide him from Anya and Novikov when they come looking for him. They celebrate that evening by getting very drunk on homemade vodka. The next day, Tom borrows Artem's phone and climbs onto the roof to get a signal. He manages to have a brief conversation with Benjamin Unsworth, having obtained his phone number from Margot Evercreech via his father. He gets Helen Matheson's number from Benjamin, but at this point the battery runs out and he has to come back down again. The power fails at this point, so he can't recharge Artem's phone. However, it turns out that Artem's son Mikhail, a lawyer, is due to arrive soon and he can give Tom a lift to Minsk.
A week later, Mikhail arrives and after a couple of very drunk evenings, he and Tom depart for Minsk. After evading a Jeep almost certainly sent by the Gretzkys, they arrive at the Minsk Metropole, where Tom checks in and asks the receptionist Svetlana where he can find Rory Milford, thinking that he will find Benjamin Unsworth that way. However, when he goes to Room 341, he is greeted by the real Rory Milford.
More to come.
