Pipeline (13 page)

“Who do you think they are allying against, Rudzhin? They say ‘Don’t worry, we’re just modernizing the alliance.’ Horseshit! Against whom is all this military expansion directed? We all know it’s against us, Rudzhin. We’re the target. We’re the bull’s-eye.”

Zhironovsky walked back around the room to his seat on the sofa in front of Rudzhin. His breathing was labored, but his eyes were less wild now. Nonetheless, they signaled a steely determination.

“A few years ago, we succumbed to the illusion that Russia had no enemies. We paid dearly for this, Piotr. As Russia’s leaders, we have a responsibility to push back. To show that we have cards and that we’re willing to play them. And, my young friend, the biggest, nastiest, loudest card we have is gas. Lots and lots of expensive gas.”

Rudzhin took advantage of a pause as the old man threw back the rest of the clear liquid in his vodka glass.

“Chairman Zhironovsky, please don’t mistake my questions for doubts. You know the endless admiration and appreciation I have for you. You know that I am with you, sir. I too believe that the blessings of our natural resources give us a unique opportunity to reassert the strength of our country. My only question is whether we should find a way to slow down the Latin American effort until we know whether this new opportunity of the Bering Strait will bear fruit.”

Zhironovsky was much more relaxed now. Rudzhin’s soothing words had had the right calming affect.

“Piotr, my dear boy, you will see that age brings the wisdom to assess the risks and opportunities of every move. Less than two years ago, we shut the Ukrainian pipeline down for nearly three weeks and everybody worried that this would send Europe into a frantic frenzy to build alternative pipelines from Algeria and Libya. Nothing happened. But the French and the Germans got the message. Last year, we told the Byelorussians, who became too intimate and comfortable with us, that they would have to pay market price or we would shut the gas down. After what happened in Ukraine, they believed us.

“I don’t play children’s games, Rudzhin. Russia doesn’t play children’s games. Remember this, Piotr. This isn’t about a few little movements on a chessboard. The crisis in California has given us a strategic opening. In one fell swoop, we now have a chance to rebuild and strengthen our country and weaken the Americans at the same time. There can be no reconsiderations or second thoughts.”

Zhironovsky was now on a roll.

“No, Rudzhin, this is not about economics. It’s about power. For the past year, you have helped me to plan and implement a secret takeover of Latin America’s largest natural gas fields. Once we get the Humboldt contract, it won’t matter if the Americans find out that Anfang Energie is a cover for Volga Gaz. It will be too late to do anything about it. They will scream. They will protest. But the gas fields in Peru and Bolivia will belong to us. And we will control the movement of liquefied natural gas on tankers to California for the next fifty years.

“Everybody had been aware of a coming natural gas shortage in California. But the stupid Americans can’t make long-term political decisions. Our analysts were smart enough to understand that bringing liquefied gas to America’s shores on boats was their only medium-term answer. That is why we wanted Peru and Bolivia. The natural gas in those two countries can provide nearly the totality of America’s liquefied natural gas imports. They’ll soon be investing billions in loading facilities and infrastructure to take the Latin American gas. There will be no turning back; they will be stuck with depending on us.”

Zhironovsky paused, sucking in a deep breath of air. Piotr Rudzhin took advantage of the split-second lull to try to further placate the chairman.

“Your plan has been impeccable every step of the way. Our financial offer for the operation of the Bolivian fields was done in the open, as Volga Gaz. You were absolutely right that the Americans would not protest our bid; they didn’t see a single foray into one Latin American country as a threat. And you were also correct about our
need to disguise our Peruvian bid under Anfang’s corporate cover. Control of a single Latin American country’s large gas fields is one thing. Control of both Bolivia and Peru’s fields at the same time is quite another. The Americans would have taken us down.”

Zhironovsky waved his hand in the air. He didn’t want interruptions.

“Stop looking at the tactics, Rudzhin. Don’t get fixated on the little movements. If you want to go further, learn two lessons, Rudzhin. Learn them now.

“First, never forget that the beauty of life is in the strategy. It’s the end result that counts. The destination. History won’t give a damn how we got there. What the books will write about is the audacity that suddenly put Russia in control of a huge percentage of the liquefied gas needs of the United States of America.

“They will write about that day as the time when the world’s power equation shifted,” said Zhironovsky, his voice ponderous.

“Now here is the second lesson, boy. You need balls to seize an opportunity. Roman generals had a name for knowing how to take advantage of the enemy’s smallest battlefield mistake. They called it carpe diem—seize the day.

“This is what we will do now with the Bering Strait. We are going to behave very elegantly with our American friends. We are going to show interest. We are going to say the right things about building a whole new alliance and we will talk about global interdependence. Something as huge as a project to cross the Bering Strait might never happen at all; and if it turns out to have been a dream, we will still have them by the neck in Latin America.

“But God have mercy on the Yankees if they really want to build a chunnel between our countries.” Zhironovsky smiled. “Because when they make this great battlefield mistake, the liquefied exports from Latin America and the piped gas across the Strait from Siberia will make up nearly one hundred percent of America’s gas needs. All of it controlled by Russia. We will have the power to detonate a thousand Californias with a mere snap of our fingers.”

Zhironovsky looked at the ornate ceiling of the CDL’s Pushkin Room.

“History will write about that day as more than just a ‘shift’ in power. History will identify that exact moment as the end of the American empire.”

MOSCOW
AUGUST 3, 5:40 P.M.
THE HOTEL BALTSCHUG KEMPINSKI

The next day, Daniel Uggin’s flight from La Paz, with a change of planes in São Paulo, landed punctually, late in the afternoon, at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, the city’s largest airfield. For a man who just eighteen months earlier had no more than a handful of plane rides under his belt, flying had now become second nature.

As Sheremetyevo’s mechanical doors slid open, Uggin looked around and saw a man dressed in a gray suit walking his way.

“Oleg from the ministry of the interior, sir. Very nice to see you. I have instructions from Deputy Minister Rudzhin to pick you up and take you directly to the hotel to relax. Later, Mr. Rudzhin has arranged a social gathering for you. The deputy minister and his friends will be waiting for you at GQ around midnight.”

Uggin was pleased with the attention. Tomorrow would be an important day; Volga Gaz’s big boss had invited him to lunch. By now, he had become accustomed to the occasional business meeting with Viktor Zhironovsky. But this was to be the first meal with Volga Gaz’s chairman. By Russian standards, it was a breakthrough.

He followed Oleg across the busy hall and outside toward a waiting Mercedes-Benz. A man jumped out of the driver’s seat and took Daniel’s bags. Oleg opened the rear door and Daniel got in, immediately scooting behind the driver to allow Oleg to take the
seat next to his. Instead, Oleg closed the door and swung into the front seat.

Sheremetyevo was the closest of Moscow’s three airports from the city center, so the ride had taken under an hour. Daniel smiled as the car made the turn into the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski’s elegant driveway. When he was in Moscow, the hotel became Daniel’s home away from home. Andrei, the Baltschug Kempinski’s outstanding concierge, always made sure he got his favorite room—suite 914 was one of the rooms designed by Her Royal Highness, Princess Michael of Kent; it had one of the most panoramic views of the Kremlin and the Moskva River as it wound its way through the city.

After leaving his suitcases in the suite, Daniel took a stroll to bring some life back into his limbs, still numb from the fourteen-hour flight. He returned to his room and napped for two hours exactly. His room-service dinner was followed by a long, hot shower. At 11:45
P.M
., Daniel descended in the elevator to find Piotr Rudzhin and his friends.

He walked out of the Baltschug Kempinski’s ornate lobby and strolled the half block down Baltschug Street to the marble-columned seventeenth-century mansion that today housed GQ Bar. Though it was still hours before the GQ Bar would reach its usual 3
A.M.
frenzied pitch, he noticed that the sidewalk was already littered with sports cars, Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, and the occasional Ferrari.

Daniel Uggin’s eyes had to adjust to the cavernous lounge, attempting to quickly find his friend. He tried—and failed—to avoid being distracted by the women. Despite its name, this fashionable joint venture between the American men’s magazine and Arkady Novikov—Moscow’s king of fine, ultratrendy dining—was known as a favorite gathering place for the city’s best-looking beauties.

Trying to make his way toward the balcony, Daniel walked past the smooth, glossy bar crowded with a jumble of dressed-to-kill hipsters. As he walked through the noisy lounge, he automatically
registered the time. It was shortly past midnight. That was the hour that the soothing, dining-time piano music was replaced by a DJ spinning international hits. Uggin recalled a sign at the bar’s entrance announcing this week’s guest disc jockey as a music genius from St. Tropez. Daniel looked up at the glass-enclosed elevated cabin and smiled as the French DJ pumped his fist rhythmically in the air, his long brown locks framed by oversize headphones.

As he stepped out onto the far quieter balcony, he saw his friends. The elegant terrace, just minutes away from the lights of Red Square, jutted right over the banks of the Moskva River. Sofas and plush cushions were arrayed al fresco in a purposely haphazard mélange of jumbled furniture. Silken white fabric, hung from almost invisible dark wiring, swayed to and fro in the soft summer breezes. The sofas and aisles, abuzz with laughter and conversation, were crowded with stylish patrons dressed in the latest fashions.

Tonight Rudzhin had asked a couple of friends to join them for an easy evening of after-dinner drinks. The group was uncomplicated—Antoni owned a prominent Moscow-based real estate agency, clearly a good business in a city recently identified by London’s
Financial Times
as having the most expensive living accommodations in the world.

Antoni’s fiancée, Andrea, was the top recruiting agent for Fashion Twins, the city’s hottest modeling agency. The last fifteen years had brought the world an explosion of modeling talent from Russia. The disheveled Soviet Union had morphed into one of the primary breeding grounds for the planet’s top-money runway women.

Tonight Andrea had come accompanied by her two best friends—Nina and Dariya—both high-cheeked, blond goddesses with similarly streaky, diagonally modern haircuts. They were drop-dead gorgeous.

Comfortably seated with a Johnnie Walker Black Label on ice in his hand, Daniel’s mind rewound momentarily back to the fight with his wife in Germany. Drinking in the high style around him, Daniel Uggin thought about the argument in Hermann Perlmutter’s
living room. It had been brutal. Ugly. Daniel regretted the tone, but not the substance.

He was thankful, though, that in the last weeks, things with Anne-Sophie had receded to a cool truce that, at the very least, returned some semblance of normalcy to their home.

Daniel Uggin was in an introspective mood this evening. How could he not be? The previous night’s long, first-class transatlantic journey, the elegant meals in Moscow’s best restaurants, and tonight’s high-flying scene at the GQ Bar all testified to the vast changes in his life. But perhaps what impressed him most was how quickly he had become accustomed to his new fast-lane status.

Daniel Uggin had met many of Piotr Rudzhin’s Muscovite friends in the past eighteen months. Piotr had been generous about introducing Daniel to the big city. Rudzhin always had a dinner, a drink, or a reception to attend and would always bring Daniel in tow.

The small group gathered around the GQ Bar’s sofa was one of Daniel’s favorites. They were easygoing, without the flitting pretensions and floating pomp of the highfliers at many of Rudzhin’s parties. It was nice to spend an evening with people who had nothing to do with work.

He had met Dariya, one of the models, on an earlier trip. She was now seated to his left. Her skin was perfect—a pale creamy color shimmering with translucent beauty. Her blond hair and high cheekbones accented a smile showing magnificent white teeth. The multiple-pleat black skirt was hemmed below her knees. However, its conservatism was deceptive. When she crossed her long legs, the skirt pleats turned out to be hidden slits, revealing endless miles of legs ending in medium-heeled sandals with tan-colored straps that crisscrossed, Greek style, up her silken calves.

Dariya was in the midst of laying into Piotr Rudzhin for a derisive comment about the uselessness of the press.

“Piotr, should you say these things if you’re now the deputy minister? It’s just not right. I don’t know anything about politics, but your friends in this government need to stop overreacting to criticism. I
just worked six weeks at the Paris fashion shows—you should see how those French journalists talk about their politicians. But here we close newspapers and fire television personalities just because we don’t like what they say. It makes the government look paranoid. You guys need to grow up.”

Dariya noticed the sudden heavy silence around the table. If she was either embarrassed or worried, it didn’t show.