Cold East

ALEX SHAW spent the second half of the 1990s in Kyiv, Ukraine, teaching Drama and running his own business consultancy before being headhunted for a division of Siemens. The next few years saw him doing business for the company across the former USSR, the Middle East, and Africa.

Cold Blood, Cold Black and Cold East are commercially published by HarperCollins (HQ Digital) in English and Luzifer Verlag in German.

Alex, his wife and their two sons divide their time between homes in Kyiv, Ukraine, Worthing, England and Doha, Qatar. Follow Alex on twitter: @alexshawhetman or find him on Facebook.

Cold Blood

Cold Black

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Alex Shaw 2018

Alex Shaw asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © September 2018 ISBN: 9780008306342

Version: 2018-07-26

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Also by Alex Shaw

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Dear Reader

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

To my wife Galia, my sons Alexander and Jonathan,

and our family in England and Ukraine

Donetsk Region, Ukraine

‘I can’t see them yet.’

‘They’ll be here soon, he said so.’ Vitaly Blazhevich peered into the distance towards the besieged city of Donetsk. Smoke rose from tower blocks on the outskirts, the result of early-morning shelling by Russian-supplied Grad rockets. The ceasefire agreement between the Ukrainian government and the Russian-backed insurgent organisations of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) had been in operation for several months, yet attacks continued. The men around Blazhevich were a mixture of regular Ukrainian infantry and young, hastily trained members of a volunteer battalion. Despite the cold, the Ukrainians kept their spirits high as they rotated manning the vehicle checkpoint, cooking, and resting. Blazhevich had nothing but respect for the volunteers who, until recently, had been carrying on normal lives as university students, mechanics, bus drivers, doctors, and businessmen. Every now and then the group would spontaneously start singing Ukrainian folk songs or old Soviet tunes in Russian. They were Ukrainian and what mattered to them most was one country, not one language. The checkpoint was to the north of the small town of Marinka and straddled the road towards Donetsk. The adjacent flat fields of fertile black earth had been left barren in the conflict zone. A click away, the road forked and the treeline started.

‘Here.’ Nedilko handed Blazhevich a mug.

‘We should be doing more to help him,’ Blazhevich replied to his SBU colleague before sipping the bitter-tasting army coffee.

‘He likes pretending to be Russian.’

‘That’s true.’

Blazhevich saw movement ahead. He put his drink on the ground, raised his field glasses, and focused on the road. A white Toyota Land Cruiser appeared from the treeline. As it neared, the blue flag and markings of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) became visible on its paintwork. The Ukrainian soldiers manned their weapons, ever wary of a surprise attack. The checkpoint had changed hands several times so far; the men were taking no chances.

Nedilko’s phone rang. ‘Hello? OK.’ He pointed at the SUV. ‘It’s him, or at least he’s is in the vehicle.’

‘It’s four-up,’ Blazhevich replied.

Nedilko removed his Glock from its holster. ‘What’s the saying? “Plan for the best, prepare for the worst”?’

‘Something like that.’

As the Land Cruiser came to a halt, just short of the checkpoint, a series of rumbles rolled across the fields. The DNR were shelling again. A thin man, wearing a blue OSCE vest over a grey, three-quarter-length jacket, stepped slowly from the front passenger door. He held his arms aloft as a pair of Ukrainian soldiers advanced, weapons up. The rear door now opened and out climbed an Asian man followed by someone both SBU agents couldn’t mistake: Aidan Snow.