A couple years on…
Ξ June 28th, 2008 | → 1 Comments | ∇ FOX HUNT |
This time two years ago I had finished my edits of FOX HUNT and it was on its way to the printers. It seems like a lifetime ago yet I sometimes wonder what I’ve been doing in the meantime… Perhaps one of the harder things about being a full-time novelist is convincing myself that what I’m doing is work. Certainly the last few weeks of a deadline, and the numerous edits, and the touring, they feel like work. But all this in-between time kinda melds into itself and now, having completed the final edits of BLOOD OIL (actually, I have a proof read copy coming my way this week, for one final finesse), I’m looking at the calendar and wondering where the first half of 2008 has gone. Anyway, my reason for this blog post is a reflection on FOX HUNT. More specifically, some of the themes and events in there, starting with Chechnya.
Sadly, the “Second Chechen War”, which started in 1999, is still going on. It is still a spot on the globe where the worst happens on a daily basis yet since September 2001 Western press has been relatively quiet about it due to our “front-line on terror” being Afghanistan and Iraq. One of many books that I found interesting in preparing FOX HUNT was “Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror”, written by Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky. The book explains in close detail the 1999 terrorist bombing campaign that precipitated Russia’s second war with Chechnya and propelled Putin to the presidency - and provides varied evidence that it was in fact organised by Russia’s own security services. This, and 1962’s Operation Northwoods of the US military, are grounds for many conspiracy theorists (and I’m not among them) when arguing that the S11 attacks were designed by the US. The book has its faults inherently built in as it straddles a need to protect some informants as well as the lives of the authors. Sadly, that failed.
Felshtinsky is still alive and lives in America, and was in some ways inspirational for my character of Vladimir Pushkin. I’d originally given much more background to Pushkin’s defection, including the later referencing in a White House scene of some of the papers that Pushkin published before he was assassinated by the KGB (now FSB). And yes, I did use the name Pushkin as a tip of the hat to the poet Alexander Pushkin.
Litvinenko was assassinated in 2006 in England. He was poisoned with radionuclide polonium-210, and the British government has since sought the extradition of a Russian national to face criminal charges. The Russian government has declined all extradition requests.
Litvinenko left the following statement:
I would like to thank many people. My doctors, nurses and hospital staff who are doing all they can for me, the British police who are pursuing my case with vigour and professionalism and are watching over me and my family. I would like to thank the British government for taking me under their care. I am honoured to be a British citizen.
I would like to thank the British public for their messages of support and for the interest they have shown in my plight.
I thank my wife Marina, who has stood by me. My love for her and our son knows no bounds.
But as I lie here I can distinctly hear the beating of wings of the angel of death. I may be able to give him the slip but I have to say my legs do not run as fast as I would like. I think, therefore, that this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition.
You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed.
You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value.
You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women.
You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.
I remember reading this at the time of its press release, and feeling helplessly sad. Clearly we’ll never know the full details of what goes on behind closed doors of power, whether in Washington or Canberra or Moscow. But when civilians are targeted for murder or rape or any violence, particularly when they are making a stand against such acts, I am despaired that we are still living with such violence in our world. That we don’t have a type of freedom of speech that is protected - rigorously protected - by a global body, shows how far we still have to travel in our societies. I’ll leave the final word here to Litvinenko:
“If your partner bilked you, or a creditor did not pay, or a supplier did not deliver - where did you turn to complain? …When force became a commodity, there was always demand for it. “Roofs” appeared, people who sheltered and protected your business. First it was provided by the mob, then by police, and soon even our own guys realized what was what, and then the rivalry began among gangsters, cops, and the Agency for marker share. As the police and the FSB became more competitive, the squeezed the gangs out of the market. But in many cases competition gave way to cooperation, and the services became gangsters themselves.”
