The Hunted, page 18
The theories about Alex’s wheres and whys changed daily. Alex had snapped under the pressure and flew out the door, laughing deliriously, hauling grocery bags leaking cash. Alex had plotted this theft from the start. Everything he built and accomplished was only to create the edifice for a massive heist; the only mystery was why he waited so long. Alex was bipolar and Jekyll finally smothered Hyde. A war was waged on the front pages as each paper tried to outdo the newest disclosures, the wildest suspicions. The same paper that dubbed him “The Kid with the Midas Touch” rechristened him “The Kid with the Sticky Touch.”
Fortunately for Alex, Russians are bred to be jaded and skeptical. After seventy years of communist manipulation and distortions, any news fit enough to print was bound to be twisted enough to disbelieve. Besides, fabricating conspiracies is part of the Russian national character, and this story hit the street pregnant with lush possibilities. Golitsin’s long career in the KGB did not work to his favor. This sounded like something the bad boys from the Lubyanka would cook up; and as everybody knows, old toads don’t change their warts. Rumors and theories flew around Moscow, and ran heavily in Alex’s favor.
Foul play was suspected, though nobody could put a finger on exactly how Golitsin pulled it off.
But the incredible idea that Alex would plunder his own bank and, before racing out the door, take the trouble to legally transfer everything he owned—not to his partners, not to his businesspeople, but to his chief of security, of all people—smelled rotten. What sense did that make? Besides, why would he care who snatched up the crumbs he left behind? And only fifty million from his bank customers? For a man rumored to have billions? Why squander his reputation and name for pocket change? And if he was willing to snatch fifty million, why leave behind billions more?
Even among those skeptics, however, very few pitied Alex. A rich man brought down, big deal. It was funny, actually. Live by the dollar, die by the dollar, seemed to be the general sentiment among a nation of former communists. Besides, nothing satisfies the average Ivan more than the spectacle of a high-and-mighty chopped down to his knees. Alex’s downfall was weighed and deliberated around dinner tables with no small measure of delight.
“So what’s next?” Elena took a long sip from the flute.
“I honestly don’t know. I’ve tried everything I can think of.”
She was now pressed firmly up against him, and between sips and explanations, he was stealing furtive glances at her thread-bare teddy. She lowered her left shoulder and encouraged a strap to slip off. “What’s the worst that can happen to us, Alex?”
“This is the worst.”
“No it’s not. Not by a long shot. We could be back in Budapest, dead.”
“True enough. But if we return to Moscow, that could still happen.”
“But they can’t drag us back to Russia, can they? Without an extradition treaty, they can’t touch us. They can add a library of charges but you’re here. If they try, we’ll just stay here.”
“You wouldn’t miss Russia?”
“A little, sure. But alive anywhere with you is better than dead there. But one thing’s going to change.”
He turned and looked at her.
“We’re in this together. I wasn’t involved in your business back in Moscow, I didn’t need to be, and frankly I never cared to be. But our lives are different now. Our marriage changes with it.”
“What does that mean?”
“From now on, no matter how depressing, keep me informed of everything. I’m scared, but I’m not some breakable china doll, and I won’t be treated like one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I love you, and I want to help.”
He put his arm around her. Elena slid back and dragged him down onto the bed. The champagne flutes tumbled to the floor. Three weeks of pent-up energy and the frustration of three hundred and fifty million in stolen dollars and stocks were compacted into the first long, smoldering kiss.
The expensive little teddy was quickly ripped off—it sailed through the air and landed on the lampshade. Alex paused only long enough to ask, “What time did you tell Homeless Harry to be here?”
13
The black limo idled in an otherwise empty parking lot that overlooked the ice-cold Moskva River. Mid-October. The sky was gray, overcast, and dreary; another winter that threatened to be long and harsh had produced its first cold snap. The driver had been ordered out of the car. He stood some twenty feet away in the bone-aching darkness, smoking, shivering, stamping his feet, and eyeing the heated car with considerable bitterness.
Three people sat in the rear.
They had agreed to meet like this, one or two days each week. They were bound together by the money and the single enduring emotion that thieves hold for one another: poisonous distrust. For obvious reasons, the three could not be seen together in public under any circumstances, so Golitsin took the initiative and arranged the inconspicuous rendezvous.
Tatyana Lukin sat in the middle, her splendid legs skillfully folded, impossible to miss or ignore. The men who were seated on each side of her—Golitsin to her left, Nicky her right—could barely stand the sight of each other. Golitsin hated to have his authority questioned. Nicky detested authority generally, and loathed Golitsin’s prickly brand of it particularly.
Both men were arrogant, selfish, pushy, ill-tempered, and crooked to the core. They had so much in common it was scary. One was brains, one brawn, and for this to work they had to remain together. She was a woman; she could handle them. Without her to referee, they would have their hands around each other’s throats in seconds flat. Tatyana liked to be needed.
She was saying, “I lost count of how many times he called. More than a hundred, probably. We’re running an office pool. The operators in the basement are given a daily tag sheet of who to put the calls through to. Yeltsin still has no idea Konevitch is trying to reach him. He’s seen the summaries of the news accounts, and heard—”
“And what was his response?” Golitsin interrupted.
“He called in my boss… the chief of staff,” she added for Nicky’s edification. “Said this did not sound like Alex. He wanted Konevitch tracked down so he could hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Asked my boss what he thought.”
Golitsin smiled and rubbed his hands. “I’m sure you had already explained to him what he thought.”
The answer was too obvious to merit a response. “He told Yeltsin he always considered Konevitch a conniving crook. Charming and likable, perhaps. But for sure, nobody earns that kind of money, they steal it. Warned him that he always believed Yeltsin allowed Konevitch to get too close. Whatever emotional or political bonds they shared, the only tangible connection was money. Konevitch didn’t contribute all that cash out of the goodness of his heart. Plus, the Congress is filled with mutinous former communists who want to cut Yeltsin’s balls off. He’s walking a tightrope between trying to placate them and the frustrated reformers in his camp. They’re always threatening to impeach him, and here’s Konevitch, making a huge splash on the front pages. Exactly the kind of connection Yeltsin doesn’t need.”
Nicky yawned. Politics bored him to death. It made absolutely no difference to him whether commies or democrats or pansies in birthday suits were in charge. His business was bulletproof regardless of whichever idiots ruled the land.
“Did Yeltsin buy it?” asked Golitsin.
“He wasn’t not buying it. He knows he’s got enough problems already. There are dirty rumors regarding his daughter flying all over the city. She has almost literally hung out a sign saying, I’m daddy’s little girl—leave your bags of cash here and I’ll twist old poppa around my pinkie and bring home the goods.”
Nicky perked up at this hint of corruption in high places. “Is it true?”
“Yes, and stay away from her,” Tatyana warned with a knowing wink. “She doesn’t know it, but she’s already being investigated by the chief prosecutor. Bugs and undercover cops surround her everywhere she goes.”
Nicky laughed and slapped his thighs with a loud thump. At least his brand of crook made no pretenses.
Golitsin merely grunted. He already knew about Yeltsin’s daughter, of course. He could in fact educate Tatyana about how much little Miss Piggy had stashed in a Swiss bank, the account numbers, who gave her the money, and why. It was invaluable knowledge he had no intention of sharing.
“Tell you what, babe,” Nicky announced. He leaned toward her and his left hand landed with a lecher’s grip high on Tatyana’s right thigh. “You still gotta get Konevitch. Put up all the roadblocks you want, eventually he’s gonna find a way to get through. You thought about that?”
A twitch of irritation crossed Golitsin’s face. “We’ll take care of it,” he sneered in Nicky’s direction.
“Yeah? Like you took care of him in the first place?” Nicky snapped back.
“Stick to your own business.” The two men glared at each other, Golitsin’s face glowing with anger, Nicky sneering, as if to say, “You couldn’t find a needle if it was sticking in your ass.”
Tatyana waited until the men cooled off, then said to Golitsin, “Where’s the money?”
“Tucked away in a safe place.”
“I know that. Where?”
“None of your business.”
“Okay. Will you take a little advice?”
“That depends.”
“Don’t be that way, Sergei. I’m looking out for all our best interests.”
Golitsin sniffed and stared straight ahead. Bullshit. Given half a chance she’d rob him blind. She was smart and beautiful, and utterly without a conscience.
Tatyana plowed on. “You know why Konevitch was so popular with Yeltsin and his people? Money. He bankrolled Yeltsin’s election. He bought them all their jobs. Literally. An election is coming in another few years, and believe me, they’re scared. Yeltsin is being blamed for the mess we’re in. His popularity’s in the toilet and it’ll take a load of cash to get him out of it. They’ll miss Mr. Moneybags.”
“You’re assuming he’ll still be alive in another year.”
“I assume nothing. I’m just telling you there’s an opportunity for whoever’s clever enough and rich enough. Somebody is going to pump cash into the big hole Konevitch left. Why not us?”
Golitsin thought about it a moment. What was there not to like? Nothing, really. A million a year could buy a world’s worth of influence; a few million, in the right hands, at the right moments, and who knew? It was a no-brainer, actually—he was only surprised he hadn’t thought of it himself. He puffed a few times, stretched out the contemplative pause, then nodded. “Let’s do it.”
“Good decision,” Tatyana said. “Funnel it through me. I’ll make sure everybody knows where the money came from.” And who inside the Kremlin arranged this infusion as well, though of course there was no need to point that out.
“How much are we talking?” Golitsin asked, suddenly concerned because it was his money.
“Not much. Relax, Sergei. A hundred or two hundred thousand a month, for starters. As the election draws closer, we’ll increase it, have a real impact.”
She had clearly thought this through and prattled a bit about the details—plans for secret bank accounts, blind contacts, how the money would be laundered, and so forth and so on, the typical architecture for large-scale graft and bribery. The irony that they were using Alex’s money to replace Alex was lost on none of them. In fact, Golitsin had arrived at this meeting ready to pitch and hatch his own bright new idea about how to spend more of Alex’s hoard of cash, and was waiting impatiently with his hands clasped to pop it. But Tatyana’s suggestion fit right in, so he let her rattle on.
As soon as she finished, he said, “Do we all agree this has worked out beautifully?”
Nicky had been staring out the window. But he swallowed his usual nasty cynicism, looked over, and admitted, “Yeah, it’s real sweet.”
Tatyana merely nodded.
“Then why stop now?” Golitsin asked them, shifting in his seat and facing them. “There’s lots of little Konevitches out there, building businesses and creating millions that are just waiting to be taken away.”
Tatyana appeared thoughtful, though she had long held the same idea. The only surprise was that it took Golitsin so long to broach this rather obvious inspiration. In her mind, all along Alex Konevitch was just a guinea pig, a test case for them to see if they could pull this off and get away with it. Young millionaires were growing on trees these days, just waiting to be fleeced. But she played dumb and asked, “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“It will even be easier next time, less risky. None of the other rich kids have Konevitch’s warm relationship with Yeltsin. We now know how it works, and we’ve got plenty of money to use for whatever we try. We’ll get even better at it.”
Nicky replied, predictably, “What’s in it for me?”
Tatyana, speaking as the lawyer she was, answered, “Right now, Nicky, you get what our agreement called for, your share of company stock, and Konevitch’s banks to launder your money. But you and the rest of your syndicate pals are making a very big impression. You’ve turned Moscow into a bloody war zone. The Russian people are screaming for law and order. Believe me, it’s a sore topic in the Kremlin these days. The world is paying close attention to your fun and games, too. Yeltsin is tired of being lectured by Americans and Germans about getting your ilk under control.”
“Talk, talk, talk.”
“Not much longer, believe me,” she replied, wagging a finger in his face.
“They have to catch us first.”
“Adapt to the new rules. People now vote, Nicky. They make their displeasure known at the polls. Yeltsin knows he has to show tangible progress on the law-and-order front, and soon. A big crack-down is around the corner. Believe me, plenty will be caught.”
“The dumb ones.”
“That’s right. The smart ones, like you, will get ahead of the curve.”
“I like what I’m doing now.”
“How much do you score in a year?” she asked him.
“Plenty.”
“Don’t play games, Nicky. How much?”
“Millions. I don’t know. Thirty, maybe fifty.” Twenty was more like it, but with Golitsin in the car he wasn’t about to sound like a small fry. He squirmed in his seat and tried to look sincere.
“Not bad,” Tatyana commented, arching her eyebrows. “How much did Konevitch make last year?”
“A lot, I guess,” Nicky replied through gritted teeth. “I don’t know.”
“Around two hundred million. And there are others, like him, who will soon be hauling in billions. All of it considered legal, too.”
“Billions?”
“Billions,” she repeated, with cool enunciation, as if the word picked up velocity the more slowly it was pronounced. “It’s time to take your game up a notch, Nicky, climb out of the gutter. Keep your whorehouses and drug business if they amuse you. But the real thievery, the big money, will be in big business. Billions, Nicky, billions.”
Nicky adored that word, “billions.” It rolled out of her lips so beautifully. She could repeat as often as she liked.
They chatted on a while, and—while the driver’s toes turned black—settled on an equitable division of labor and responsibilities. Golitsin would scout the possibilities, determine the targets, and apply his devious talents to designing the takeovers. They had done it once, and the blueprint was perfectly adaptable for the next victim. Tatyana would build the political cover, grease the right palms, and buy their way into the hearts of Yeltsin’s people. Nicky would continue to push whores and dope and gray-market cars, and bide his time until he was told who needed to be terrorized, or chased out of the country, or murdered.
The conversation ended right where it started, on the perplexing issue of Alex Konevitch. Nicky wanted him dead—as soon as it could be arranged, however it was arranged. Just dead. In a business with few troublesome principles, Nicky steadfastly adhered to one: the fewer witnesses the better.
Golitsin, too, wanted Konevitch dead. Very, very dead. For a man whose emotions generally veered between heartless dispassion and expressive fury, he had developed a fatal preoccupation with Alex Konevitch. It was unhealthy, he knew, he just couldn’t help himself. He enjoyed thinking about how Alex would die.
Also, though nobody needed to mention it, if Konevitch did eventually make contact with his old pal Yeltsin, this whole thing could come apart. The lush owed the boy wizard a huge debt. And no matter how hard Tatyana schemed and conspired, eventually Alex would break through—there were too many loose threads, too many suspicious connections, too many holes that could spring leaks. And as with all criminal conspiracies, they would inevitably be pitted against each other. The three of them knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they would gladly hang the other two, if it came to that.
A legitimate investigation conducted by any halfway honest and competent official would be a catastrophe.
Tatyana confidently assured her partners she had a plan for their boy Alex, and ordered them to cool their heels until she told them otherwise.
The combination of champagne and sex worked like magic. The past three nights Alex had slumbered a more reasonable six hours. He was eating again, even exercising for two hard hours every morning in the nicely equipped hotel gym.
He was toweling off after a shower, preceded by a fierce early-morning workout. Elena lay on the bed nibbling toast and browsing through the morning paper. A delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and fresh coffee had just been wheeled in for Alex when the phone erupted.
