Book 19 in the Quiller series, 1996

More vicious than the Sicilian brotherhood, and more powerful than the dons of New York, the Mafiya is omnipotent in post-Soviet Russia. Even Quiller thinkstwice about moving unarmed and unprotected into into its deadly labyrinth.

But now he has no choice. In a mission deemed suicidal even by Croder,Quiller is up against the most evil man in Russia…

As the TU-154 bounced and floated and bounced again I wiped the mist off the window with the back of my hand and the flashing lights out there became brighter, and I could see a white carpet of fire-foam with yellow-caped figures wading through it.

The smell of garlic came suddenly on the air as Ivan leaned across me to take a look. Ivan had been my fellow-passenger all the way from Paris and I knew the names and ages of his six grandchildren but still wasn't sure what had happened to Rudi, the third-from-youngest: Ivan had been reticent on the details, and all I knew about little Rudi was that he had 'been an angel' and that hundreds had sobbed when they'd lowered the casket into the ground, hundreds.

'The last one,' Ivan said now with disgust as he stared through the window at the wrecked jetliner, 'was in Tashkent, only a week ago.