The First Billion (43 page)

Cate shook her head, fashioning an answer, but the words died on her tongue.

“Remember what you said to me back in Florida when we were boarding the plane?” Gavallan asked. “You said canceling the offering wasn’t enough. You said that you wanted your father to pay for Ray Luca, for the others at Cornerstone, for Alexei and Graf. Well, now you can add the three that Graf saw killed too. And the others to come.”

Byrnes leaned forward to be nearer to Gavallan and Cate. “What are you saying, Jett? That you’re not going to cancel the deal?”

“Of course we’ll cancel it. We have to. Just not now.”

“But when? Look around you, buddy. We’re a hundred miles from Moscow. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. I hope you don’t plan on delivering the message in person. Given what you told me about Kirov and his family relationship with the KGB, I don’t think it’s going to be a wise idea to line up at the Aeroflot counter and purchase three first-class tickets to New York—if, that is, there’s even a flight leaving tonight.”

“I’ve got until nine-thirty tomorrow morning New York time.”

“You’re pushing it, Jett. This is way outside the envelope.”

The envelope?
They’d broken through the envelope days ago. All he wanted was a return to earth. A chance to get back to where he was before all the madness had begun.

Cate laid her hand on Gavallan’s, and when she spoke her voice had acquired the edge of dangerous dissatisfaction that he himself felt. “What do you have in mind?”

Gavallan looked at her, and saw she was game. “Plenty.”

59

Just because the
komitet
was bankrupt
did not mean they stopped doing their job. . . .

The car was a black four-door Chaika, property of the FSB, the division of the directorate concerned with internal security. The binoculars had been lifted from Directorate 6, the Border Guard, but the men seated sternly behind the dashboard, Lieutenant Dmitri Mnuchin and Major Oleg Orlov, were from FAPSI of the Eighth Chief Directorate, and as such, Major General Leonid Kirov’s own.

Mnuchin and Orlov were old hands at this sort of thing—the sitting and waiting, the long idle hours, the marathon sessions of chai and chewing gum. You would not know it, however, from their looks. Both were lean, athletic, and possessed of an alert, aggressive gaze. Both spent their free time in the gym and on the soccer field. They were the new breed: the smart young men who would reinvigorate the
komitet
.

From their vantage point three miles to the west of Army Forward Observation Post 18—recently ceded to Konstantin Kirov and renamed, according to secret transcripts of Kirov’s conversations “the dacha”—Mnuchin and Orlov had an unobstructed view of the wooded hilltop. Their assignment was to maintain Level 1 surveillance on Kirov’s men—that is, to keep track of their whereabouts, but not to worry about their specific activities. It was an undemanding job, nothing like their usual work involving the installation and monitoring of sensitive eavesdropping apparatus. Both held doctorates from Moscow State in electrical engineering. Today all that was required were a pair of binoculars and a logbook to note the time and nature of their targets’ movements.

“A hundred rubles he doesn’t do it,” Mnuchin said, a loving hand appraising the stubble of his new crew cut.

“You’re on. Konstantin Romanovich is every bit as cold as the General. If he were here, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did the job himself.”

“Never. No man can kill his own daughter. Frankly, I think he’s sick. I would have told the General to fuck off.”

“The hell you say,” Orlov said with a smirk. “You would cut your dick off with a butter knife if General Kirov told you to.”

Shrugging his agreement, Mnuchin picked up the binoculars. “Anything for Mother Russia.” A moment later, his posture stiffened and the grin dropped from his face. “They’re leaving.”

“Already? Impossible. They’ve been there hardly thirty minutes.” Orlov picked up the logbook and noted the time: 12:47. Laying the journal by his side, he drew on his seat belt, taking care that it did not interfere with the pistol he wore beneath his left arm, and checked that the mirrors were adjusted properly.

“False alarm,” called out Mnuchin. “Only one vehicle.”

“You get the signal?”

“Not yet.”

The
komitet
had its own man inside Kirov’s organization. He had promised to signal when the executions had been carried out: Two flashes of his high beams would mean that the American and Kirov’s daughter were dead. The Suburban rushed past, its midnight-tinted windows making it difficult to get a clear look into the interior.

“Give the plates to dispatch,” said Mnuchin, settling back into his seat. “If they want, they can assign a team.”

Orlov called in the license plates and advised central dispatch of the events. The report would be forwarded to their superior officer, who would either contact General Kirov with the news or make a decision for himself. Either way, it meant another few hours of sitting in the car. “You think we should call up there? See what’s going on?”

Mnuchin trained his binoculars on the dacha. All he could see were the broken fence and the tail end of the second Suburban. “Why? We wouldn’t want to interrupt their fun.”

The cell phone rang again.

Cate checked her watch. It was nearly four o’clock. They were driving south on the M4 motorway, nearing the Moscow city limits. For miles they would see no one, then traffic would come to a halt as they came upon a convoy of ten or twelve broken-down trucks, tailpipes spewing exhaust, tires wobbling precariously, lumbering down the center of the road. Jett would steer the Suburban onto the shoulder, negotiate the borderland of waist-deep potholes and basketball-size rocks, until once past the trucks he could reclaim his position on the pavement.

“Leave it,” said Gavallan.

Cate stared at the phone as if it were a bomb. She knew her father. She knew his impatience. He was not a man who allowed “atmospherics” to stand in his way. “No,” she said brusquely, surprised at the force of her reply. “I won’t.”

And before Jett could make a move, she picked up the phone and put it to her ear.

“Da.”
It was another woman’s voice, rougher, more unpolished than her own. If it didn’t sound exactly like Tatiana, it didn’t sound like Katya Kirov either.

“Give me Boris,” ordered her father.

“He is busy,” Cate responded.

“Is Gavallan talking?”

“Not yet.”

“Tell Boris to hurry up.”

“Sure.”

“And my daughter . . .”

“What about her?” Cate stared out the window, willing her soul to become as desolate as the passing countryside.

“Please make it as painless as possible. Surprise her if you can. It is better if she does not know it is coming. As her father, it would please me. It is the least I can do.”

“You are too kind.”

A long silence followed. As Jett stared daggers at her, Cate wondered if she had gone too far, if she’d tipped her hand. Then her father’s voice came back, as focused and self-centered as before. “Have Boris call me as soon as he’s done. I’ve been having a terrible time getting through. The pilot says it’s the aurora borealis acting up this time of year. If there is a problem, have him try me at my hotel. He has the number.”

Cate hung up.

“What did he say?” Gavallan asked.

Cate met his eyes. “He wants Boris to call him when we’re dead.”

Moscow.

Rush hour in the Center. Ten minutes inside the city limits and Gavallan decided it was every third world hellhole he’d ever known. Jakarta. Bangkok. São Paulo. Traffic was snarled. Militiamen stood impotent amid the blaring horns and packed metal, smoking cigarettes. The pollution was choking and oppressive. Inside the narrow urban canyons, the sky was bleached a puke yellow, a swirling sea of grit, garbage, and carbon monoxide. The heat was oppressive. Combined with the noxious smells, the jangling din, the stop-and-go traffic, it left Gavallan off balance and wary.

“There’s the embassy,” said Cate, pointing ahead of them at a large traditional yellow and cream colored building on the right-hand side of the road. “That’s the main building there. But the consular offices are around the corner.”

“Where do I park?”

“You don’t. Just pull over.”

A tall concrete wall painted white surrounded the complex. Entrance was gained through a reinforced gate guarded by two Marine sentries and untold plainclothes security guards. Spotting the Stars and Stripes flying behind the wall, Gavallan pulled into the right lane and cut his speed.

“You ready, pard?” he asked, catching Byrnes’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “When I stop, you skedaddle. Don’t let anyone stop you from getting inside those four walls. They touch you, scream bloody murder.”

“Don’t worry about me. That there is sovereign territory of the United States of America. I’m as good as home.”

Gavallan shifted his gaze to the side-view mirror and the gray Chaika sedan that had been on his tail, precisely three cars behind him, for the last thirty minutes. He looked at the two men inside the car—dark suits, dark glasses, short haircuts, chilling caricatures of the once and future totalitarian state. He looked back at Byrnes, not betraying a thing.

“Yeah, well, don’t get too comfortable. I want you out of there tomorrow morning.”

“Swissair flight 1915 to Geneva,” Byrnes recited. “Departs at nine-fifteen; arrives ten-fifteen local time.”

They’d gone over the formalities several times already. Byrnes was to ask to see Everett Hudson, the consular officer with whom Gavallan had spoken when he was in San Francisco. He was to explain that he had been kidnapped and to ask for immediate medical attention. Any requests to have him speak with the local police were to be politely but vigorously turned down. The embassy would supply clothing and a place to sleep.

“If they give you any trouble about issuing a new passport overnight, tell them to call the senator.” Gavallan figured his contributions to the winning side had been hefty enough to guarantee him at least one favor. Besides, the senator was a former mayor of San Francisco. It was the least she could do for one of the city’s own.

Byrnes leaned against the door, his fingers gripping the release. “You’re sure about what you’re doing?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s the only way.” Then a lick of pragmatism tempered his confidence and he added in a subdued voice, “You might want to have a word with the defense attaché. Give him some advance warning. I’ll have the other side warmed up and waiting.”

“Just keep it low and slow. Even if we are all buddy-buddy now, remember, you’re not flying the friendly skies of United. And watch out near the Polish border—they scramble on a heartbeat these days.”

“You know, some people might think you’re still my CO.”

Byrnes didn’t smile. His eyes did not flicker. “Good luck.”

Gavallan stopped the car directly in front of the embassy, but only for a second. “Go. Get the hell out of here.”

The passenger door opened and Byrnes was gone, running across the sidewalk to the Marine security guards. Gavallan accelerated. In his rearview mirror, he watched his close friend pass into the compound and disappear from view. It was only then that he voiced his newest suspicions to Cate. “Bad news.”

“Oh?”

Discreetly, he poked a thumb behind him. “We’ve got company.”

60

Mr. Kirov, it is an honor to welcome you to New York and to Black Jet Securities,” boomed Bruce Jay Tustin as he greeted Konstantin Kirov outside the main entrance of 11 Madison Avenue.

“The honor is mine,” said Kirov, climbing from the limousine. Shaking Tustin’s hand, he glanced up at the building, a noble façade of steel and glass. “It’s a privilege to be here.”

“If you don’t mind, let’s get upstairs. We’re in a bit of a hurry. We’ve got a lot of people waiting for the big event.”

“Do I have time to button my jacket?” He was always taken aback by the American ability to be overly polite and unbearably rude at the same time. He followed Tustin through the swinging doors and into the lobby, where Tustin pinned a badge on his jacket and shepherded him past the security desk.

At three-thirty in the afternoon, the lobby was pleasantly busy. A steady stream of men and women churned past Kirov. White, black, mulatto, Asian, Hispanic—as many ethnic mixes as in the former Soviet Union. There was an eagerness to their faces, an alacrity to their step, a forthrightness in their demeanor, that both amazed and frightened him. Such confidence in the world. Such faith that the system would not disappoint. He was sure every one of them held a valid claim on dreams of expensive cars and luxury apartments and vacations in Paris. No doubt they already possessed color televisions, PCs, cellular telephones, digital cameras, Japanese stereos, and closets full of fine clothing, most of which they never wore. They owned refrigerators choked with fresh vegetables, eggs, milk, cheese, leftover Chinese food, soda, and foreign mineral water. Still, they ate out twice a week. They had bank accounts and ATM cards and Swiss watches and cable TV. Many owned automobiles. In short, they had everything. And look at them. Hungry as wolves for more. Bravo!

Kirov was a student of the American brand of greed, a fan of the excess that capitalism bred. He had always been curious as to how the old barons of the Kremlin, all dead and buried (and, he hoped, rotting in hell), could have believed that dogma and political creed could suffocate the competitive drive of the human soul, could stifle man’s innate desire to exploit his talents to the best of his abilities, to toil and be compensated accordingly. What hubris! What arrogance! What barbarity!

I am the first of the new breed,
Kirov told himself with the same ambitious cynicism he read painted on the faces around him.
I am a pioneer sent to show my countrymen the path to success. To midwife Russia’s transition to a modern economy.

A few bold Americans had lit the way a century earlier. Men who had overseen the growth of the railroads, the introduction of oil, the mass manufacture of steel. Some called them “robber barons,” but Kirov thought differently. They were men of vision, builders, creators, founders of a new empire. The riches they amassed were small compensation for the legacy they left behind.

He was no different. Bold? Yes. Aggressive? Always. Immoral? Unethical? Unscrupulous? Let the next generation judge. He was a modern-day Gould. A twenty-first-century Vanderbilt, if not quite a Rockefeller.

They entered a waiting elevator and Tustin pressed the button for the twelfth floor. “Tired, sir?”

Kirov breathed deeply, suddenly feeling quite at home. “On the contrary, invigorated.”

He looked closely at Tustin, standing with his arms behind his back like a latter-day Napoleon. The banker was dressed in a bold gray pinstripe, a pink broadcloth shirt, and a blaring red necktie that could be heard back in Petersburg. His hair was slicked back with enough pomade to fill a lake. There was a slight bruise on his lip where Gavallan had punched him, but Kirov decided not to mention it. He was playing it by the book, pretending to be a client just like any other.

“Any word from Mr. Gavallan?” he asked.

“None, but I’m sure he’ll check in shortly.”

“I’m sure he will too. Still, it is disturbing.”

Tustin simply lowered his eyes, and Kirov thought,
Here is a man who cares less for Gavallan than I
. “I see the markets are up today,” he said.

“The Dow’s up one twenty, the Nasdaq about the same. Sentiment is very positive lately. Maybe you’re bringing us luck. After all, you brought us some blue skies. For the last couple of days, the city has had nothing but rain.”

“You know the old saying. ‘When angels travel, the heavens smile.’ And what about the pricing?”

“I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised. There are a couple of formalities we like to engage in before we make an official announcement. We’ve got a conference room reserved. Like I said, a few people will be joining us.”

“Very good,” said Kirov, keeping the smile pasted to his face. Inside, however, he was worried.
Formalities? What formalities could remain at this eleventh hour?

The doors slid back and Tustin requested that Kirov follow him. They walked past the elevator bank and onto the trading floor, threading their way through aisle upon aisle of men and women seated in front of a myriad screens. And as they walked, something strange and marvelous happened. The room grew hushed. The incessant chatter died down. At first Kirov heard one pair of hands begin clapping, then another. He looked around, eager to spot the source of the applause, wondering in his vain yet insecure mind if it was mocking or adulatory. The next thing he knew every person in the room had risen and was pounding his or her hands together. Respectfully. Enthusiastically. Lovingly. Every living soul on the trading floor of Black Jet Securities was saluting his arrival.

Slowing his gait, Kirov raised a hand to acknowledge the applause. He selected an expression of imperious solemnity to greet the masses. He was Alexander riding into Macedon. Caesar returning to Rome. Chuikov arriving in Red Square after taking Berlin.

“It is too much, really,” he said, bowing to speak into Tustin’s ear.

“Nonsense.”

And then Kirov heard the music and he stopped walking altogether. The strains of “The International,” the majestic Russian national anthem, played from hidden loudspeakers. The applause died and all eyes fell on him. Kirov was stunned, and for a few seconds he didn’t know what expression to choose. The music grew louder, and his skin shivered with goose bumps. Emotion plucked at his eyes, and Kirov was damned if he wasn’t crying, this man born to peasant stock, this servant of free speech, this disciple of technology. This son of Russia.

Tustin patted his shoulder, nodding as if to say it was all right to shed a tear, that his pride was well-deserved, and for a moment Kirov loved him, too, as he loved everyone else in the room. This handsome, well-attired, overtly intelligent assemblage of financial professionals.

The anthem came to an end and the applause again started up, but only briefly. Kirov offered the victor’s smile expected of him, gave a final wave, then followed Tustin to a conference room that took up a corner of the floor. Twenty or thirty people were milling about the glassed-in room, drinking champagne, munching on canapés, and making small talk.

“Janusz, Václav, Ed, hello. So glad you could make it.” One by one he greeted his underlings from Mercury, then the others who had shepherded the Mercury offering through the offering process. Lawyers, bankers, accountants. And there was old man Silber himself—gray, bent, and exceedingly ugly, a Swiss gnome indeed. Kirov shook his hand. Apparently, the dinosaur hadn’t yet gotten the word about the fate of his in-house tout, Pillonel.

“Welcome to Black Jet,” said Antony Llewellyn-Davies, tapping him on the shoulder and handing him a glass of champagne. “We’re delighted you were able to make it on time. One never knows with those small jets.”

“What is small about a G-5?”

“Oh, nothing, I just . . .”

“Thank you.” Kirov accepted the champagne, averting his gaze. The Englishman always left him feeling nervous and inadequate, with his soft eyes and snobby manner.

A spoon clinked a glass and the room fell silent. Bruce Jay Tustin cleared his throat, and those around him stepped back to clear a small space. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I might have your attention, please. It’s time for us to conduct some important business. . . .”

Don’t look behind you,” Gavallan instructed Cate, laying a hand on her leg. “They’ve been there since we got into the city. Maybe before, but I didn’t pick them up.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I got the first two numbers of their license plates. I’m sure.”

“It could be routine,” said Cate. “The traffic militia getting ready to shake us down for a little bribe.”

Gavallan eyed her doubtfully. “We both know better than that.”

“But why didn’t they stop Graf?”

“I can’t say. Probably they didn’t have orders to. All I know is that we stick out like a sore thumb in this car. We’ve got to ditch it in a hurry.”

They had crossed the river and were driving south on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a broad boulevard eight lanes across. Traffic was heavy, but moving. Stone apartment buildings five stories high, each a block long, lined the street. Gavallan maneuvered the large SUV into the center lane, checking the rearview mirror. A few seconds later, the Chaika followed, a hearse amid a carpet of colorful Fiats, Fords, and Opels.

They’re obvious about it, that’s for sure,
thought Gavallan.

“You know where we are?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“It’s time to abandon ship. Find us a good place around here for us to get away from those goons.”

“Ahead is a factory district. There are a lot of side streets, alleys really, that separate the different warehouses and manufacturing plants. It used to be kind of run-down. You wouldn’t want to go there at night, I’ll tell you that.”

“Sounds good.”

“You really want to just leave the car?”

“They won’t be expecting us to. It’ll give us a head start at least.”

Gavallan kept the Suburban in the center lane, pointing out to Cate their best possible path. Approaching the next stoplight, he slowed to insure he would be the last car across as it turned red. The light turned from green to yellow. He waited, watching the cars nose in aggressively from his left. The light turned red. At the last instant, he gunned the engine, making it through the intersection amid a barrage of horns and obscene gestures as a wave of cars closed off the street and left the Chaika behind him, marooned.

He drove twenty yards farther and then, blocked by the grid of automobiles in front of him, stopped. “Get out.”

He and Cate opened their doors and ran across the three lanes of traffic. Reaching the sidewalk, Gavallan glanced behind him. “Holy shit.”

Heads were popping out of several of the cars stuck in traffic ahead of them. Two men appeared from a yellow Fiat. Another two from a white Simca. A lone man from a Mercedes. All left their vehicles and began threading through the gridlock toward them. Swallowing hard, Gavallan looked back. The goons from the Chaika were out too, rushing through the intersection as if fording a stream, brandishing pistols for cars to stop.

“Move! Move! Move!” Gavallan yelled.

Cate led the way, running up the sidewalk to the first side street and dashing right. Fifty yards up she crossed the pavement, took another left, then ducked into an alley that ran between two apartment buildings. Her strides were long, her arms pumping, her eyes aimed to the fore. Gavallan stayed at her heel, daring a glance behind them every ten or fifteen steps. He counted seven men running after them. They looked to be bunched in groups: three a hundred yards back, another three seventy yards away, and a lone man fifty yards and closing.

Coming to the end of the alley, Cate darted to the right. They were confronted by two crumbling roads that led at odd angles toward low, decrepit wooden warehouses set in fields of uncut grass. Cate continued to the right. They passed through the field, Gavallan stumbling in a pothole and catching sight of the lone runner, nearer now, a gun in his right hand.

“We’ve got to get off the road,” he panted, catching up to Cate. “There’s one guy back there we’re not going to shake.”

Cate nodded, her lips drawn taut. At the far side of the warehouse, they came to another street. Apartments on both sides. All of them newer, almost modern—the prefab monstrosities the press used to mock: paper-thin walls, plumbing that leaked from the ceiling like rain, air currents that rushed between the crevices that separated one unit from the other. They found another alley. Cate ducked left and after ten steps halted.

“What?” asked Gavallan.

“Come on. Hustle.” She was already crawling through an open window into a ground-floor apartment. Gavallan followed, slamming the window behind him, ripping the curtains closed. He was in a bedroom. It was neat. A nicely made-up single bed covered with a red top sheet. Posters of Los Angeles and Mexico City on the walls. A crib. A dresser with mirrored drawers.

Into the hallway. A shout. Gavallan found Cate in the front room, speaking feverishly to a young dark-haired woman cradling a baby on her lap. The woman stared at Gavallan with intense, frightened eyes. Smells of soup and burnt toast. Another instant and they were out the front door, walking briskly down a dim corridor.

Up the stairs. One flight. Two. Gavallan followed, too winded to ask any questions, happy to have someone else take the lead. After four stories, they reached the rooftop. The door was locked. Gavallan stepped past Cate, raised his leg, and kicked viciously at the handle. Wood splintered. The door flung open, rebounding on its hinges. Sunlight flooded the stairwell.

Cate ran to the edge of the roof and peeked her head over. Raising her arm, she signaled Gavallan back. He dropped to a crouch and eased himself toward the parapet. The seven men were gathered in the street. Arms gesticulated wildly. Raised voices drifted up to them. Then there was a screech of tires. A silver sedan rounded the corner, shuddering to a halt, disgorging four men.

“We can’t wait here,” said Gavallan, mopping the sweat from his eyes. “They’re mustering an army down there.”

Cate backed away from the precipice. Setting her hands on her hips, she looked first left, then right. “These apartments are built one next to the other. We can work our way along the roof. At the end of the block, we’ll go downstairs and come out on the next street over.”