Authors: Brian Haig
“The answer’s no, Alex. They claim you’re a flight risk.”
“They can let her go. They’ll still have me in jail.”
“Alex, you’re not listening. They want her in jail, too.”
Understanding what MP was saying came slowly, but it finally struck with full force. He tried to swallow the huge knot in
his throat. It wouldn’t go away. The U.S. government was using Elena as a hostage, as leverage to force him back to Russia.
He prayed her conditions were better than his. He hoped she was in a private cell. His cell was filthy and so thoroughly overcrowded
that the men took turns sleeping on the hard floor. They fought with one another for a turn at the toilet, trading insults
in an array of languages that only contributed to the frustration. The room was cold and noisy: between the sounds of a toilet
constantly flushing and the constant drone of fearful men sharing loud complaints, sleep was nearly impossible. The food was
awful, microwaved garbage mixed together on a tin tray.
MP pushed on. “By law, they can hold you four days before a release can be applied for. I’ve demanded a hearing tomorrow.
They can’t say no.”
“What am I charged with?”
“An expired visa.”
“But you can easily prove that’s false?”
“Of course. As long as everybody sticks to the truth, it should be easy.”
“Get Elena out, MP. I don’t care about me, I don’t care what it takes, get her out.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Yuri Khodorin’s first hint of trouble was anything but subtle; five of his corporate executives ended up splayed out on tables
in various morgues around the city. In less than three hours, five dead. An array of methods had been used, from shootings
to stabbings to poisonings. The swath of killings spread from Moscow to St. Petersburg; it made it impossible to determine
where the next strike might land, or, indeed, if there would be another.
On day two, this question was answered with an unmistakable bang. Six more dead. For sure, it was no longer an unlikely coincidence,
or a sated spike of revenge, or spent anger: the killings weren’t incidental. They were deliberate, and they weren’t about
to stop.
At thirty-three, already Russia’s second richest man, Yuri Khodorin was perched within one good, profitable year of landing
at number one. Like Alex, he had started young and early, even before the crash of communism opened the door to huge money.
He sprinted out of the starting block and cobbled together an aggressive empire as wildly diversified as it was vast, profitable,
and hungry. Central Enterprises, it was named, an innocuous title for a holding company that had a grip on everything from
oil fields to TV stations, including myriad smaller businesses, from fast food through hotels, and almost too many other things
to count. It created or swallowed new companies monthly and spewed out an almost ridiculous array of products and services.
A pair of Moscow police lieutenants appeared unannounced at Yuri’s Moscow office the morning after the second set of killings—an
odd pair, one an oversized butterball, the other thin as a rail. They unloaded the bad news that the Mafiya was kicking sand
in his face. And no, sorry about that, no way could the city cops protect him; they were stretched so thin they could barely
protect their own stationhouses. But in an effort to be helpful they generously left behind the business card of somebody
who surely could.
Day four opened with three of Yuri’s corporate offices fire-bombed; suspiciously, the local firefighters were dispatched to
the wrong addresses, and all three buildings burned to the ground. Insurance would cover the losses, but droves of his terrified
employees were threatening to stop showing up for work. At the sad end of day four—having once more been refused municipal
protection—Yuri bounced his problems up to the next rung. He placed a desperate call to the attorney general, Anatoli Fyodorev,
and pleaded loudly and desperately for help. Fyodorev made lots of sympathetic noises, and promised an abundance of assistance
of all sorts. He was just disturbingly vague about what that meant.
The best Yuri could tell, it meant nothing. Not when day five opened with a car bomb in his headquarters parking lot that
slaughtered three more employees.
Late that evening, reeling from the brutally rolling shocks, Yuri sat in his office alone, brooding and speculating about
the future. At this rate, there would be no future. He had been shuttling around to funerals all day, trying his best to console
sobbing widows and their crying little children. His mood was ugly. He wanted to be left alone, to stew with self-pity.
His secretary interrupted this bout of dark depression and informed him that a man was waiting in the lobby. “Doesn’t he have
a name?” Yuri barked. He refused to give one, she replied. “Send him away,” Yuri said. Think twice, she insisted; he claimed
he might know a few things about the murders plaguing their firm.
“Nobody else seems to,” Yuri muttered. “All right, show him in.”
The man entered and fell into the seat across from Yuri’s desk. There were no handshakes, no empty attempts at pleasantries.
Mikhail studied Yuri for a moment. Dark cropped hair, rimless glasses, an efficient-looking type with a mass of excess energy
he couldn’t control. Constantly shifting in his seat, intermittently twisting the wedding band on a long, skinny finger.
This was Yuri’s office, and he’d be damned if he was going to be outstared by anybody. He stared right back at Mikhail with
a show of great intensity. The harder he stared, the less he learned—just a normal-sized, nameless male of about forty-eight
years, with a hard, weathered face, dressed casually and nondescriptly.
After they stared at each other long enough, Mikhail broke the ice. “Alex Konevitch informed me that you and he were old buddies.”
“We did a lot of business together, Alex and I. I miss him. Trying to keep up with him was a ball. He a friend of yours?”
“A good friend.”
Yuri relaxed a little. “Where is Alex now?”
“America. Washington, D.C.”
Yuri clapped his hands together in delight. “I knew it. All those theories about Brazil, or detox clinics, I always said they
were bunk.” Yuri’s face turned grim. “Too bad he stole that money. Like I said, I miss him.”
“That what you think happened, he ran with the money?” A year before this had been the most popular game in town—the Alex
quiz. Where was the money? Where was Alex? How much did he steal?
“Sure, of course.” A furious nod. “That’s what the news said happened.”
“Great tale, isn’t it? What’s your theory about it?”
“I’m a big fan of the ‘he snapped’ camp.”
“Just freaked out, grabbed as much he could haul, and fled, huh?”
“Yeah, something like that. It probably makes more sense to me than it might to you. Tell the truth, I sometimes dream of
doing the same thing.”
“Having all that money isn’t fun, huh?”
“Twenty-hour days, thousands of people who depend on you, constant crises where everything’s on the verge of crashing down
on your head. Oh sure, it’s a blast.” A brief pause, accompanied by a few more hard twists on the wedding band. “Now, who
are you, and what do you want?”
“Mikhail Borosky. I did a lot of private investigation work for Alex. Still do.”
“And what? Alex asked you to drop by?”
“Yes.” Mikhail stretched his legs out and leaned back in the chair. “Alex asked me to keep my eye on the news. See who’s next.
Apparently, you’re the guy.”
A slight flinch. “Next? What does that mean?”
“It means you’re at stage one of the same treatment Alex got. For some reason, you’re getting it a bit rougher than he got.
And they’re a lot sloppier. I’m not sure why. Guess they’re a little over-confident this time.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Did you receive a visit from two of Moscow’s finest?” From his tone, Mikhail already seemed to know the answer.
“Yes.”
“A blimp and a beanpole, right?” It wasn’t really a question. From a parking lot across the street, Mikhail had watched the
pair enter the headquarters the day before yesterday.
A slow nod.
“They give you a business card recommending somebody who could put a stop to all this?”
Yuri tried to hide his surprise but found it impossible. This strange man knew so much. The card in question, in fact, sat
on Yuri’s blotter, in easy reach of his fingers. Only three minutes before, he had been within seconds of dialing the number
and pleading for help.
Yuri shoved the card across the table. Mikhail bent forward and studied it a moment. The name on the card was unrecognizable
and meant nothing. But the name didn’t matter. If he bothered to check, which he had no intention of doing, the résumé would
reveal a long career in the KGB and some kind of deep attachment or connection to Sergei Golitsin.
“You know the old story about the Trojan horse?” Mikhail asked, pushing the card back in Yuri’s direction.
A careful nod. “Sure, who doesn’t?”
Mikhail directed a finger at the business card. “There’s your Trojan horse. Those two cops are crooked to the core. They were
sent in to kick open the door. Once you call that number, the worm will find a way to let the barbarians inside your company.”
“This is what they did to Alex?”
A knowing nod, and for the next twenty minutes Mikhail revealed everything that happened to Alex, how the scheme worked, the
kidnap, the torture, being framed for the theft of everything he owned. The whole ugly tale. To verify his story, he passed
Yuri morgue forms that confirmed the death of Alex’s employees, as well as one of the statements prepared a year before by
Alex that he had faxed to all the senior officials around Yeltsin.
Mikhail sat back and allowed Yuri time to read the evidence, to see the similarities, and to realize that he was indeed the
newest target.
Long before he finished, Yuri looked sad, confused, and scared out of his wits. He gripped his hands together and studied
his blotter for a long moment. “So what do I do now?”
“I think you got two options. One, take as much money as you can, and run.”
After everything this man had just told him, option one sounded impossibly irresistible. Screw option two. He had millions
stored in a Swiss vault, a hoard of cash large enough to live happily ever after. A fraction of his current fortune of course,
but he’d at least be alive to spend it. His private jet was tucked in a private hangar at the airport, fueled up and ready
to go. He could have breakfast at his spacious London flat, or lunch at his favorite Azores resort. That indecision lasted
seconds. The British have always been so very civil and accommodating to wealthy Russian exiles who drop by for breakfast,
and asylum.
Mikhail allowed him a moment to bask in this hopeful reprieve before he warned, “Course, that option’s not quite as clean
as it sounds.”
“Why’s that?”
“They’re still trying to murder Alex. They’ve got teams of killers hanging in his shadows. Also, they’ve somehow fooled the
American FBI into shipping him back here. He’s long past the point where he can do anything to them. They don’t care. They
still want him dead.”
“What’s option two?” Yuri asked very quickly, very solemnly.
“Fight them.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m a businessman. I don’t know what I’m up against, or even who these people are.”
Mikhail stood and began pacing in front of the desk. “That’s why I’m here. I do know who they are. And every time they meet,
wherever they go, I learn more. They’re very powerful, very dangerous people. And they’re very, very corrupt. It’s a large
conspiracy with lots of money that gets bigger by the month.”
“Is this supposed to be encouraging?”
“If you’re listening carefully, yes. That size now works against them. And, as I mentioned, after Alex, they’ve become overconfident
and incredibly sloppy. Understand that this thing works only when they have complete surprise. They have to be in the shadows,
totally anonymous.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“For starters, forget the name on that card. I’ll leave you the number of a former police captain. He’s competent, tough as
nails, a born street fighter. Call him first thing in the morning, pay him whatever he asks, and don’t anticipate overnight
results. Expect a few more killings and bombings. Over time he’ll find a way to protect you and your people. If he needs money,
write the check without questions. It’s not just a matter of a few more guards and extra precautions. Alex tried that, and
look where it got him. He’s going to have to bribe people, and he’ll probably need to buy you a little help from a competing
syndicate. He’s going to fight fire with fire.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Stay in the shadows. Keep my eye on them. Eventually, I might come to you for money. It might be expensive, but I promise
it’ll be the best money you ever spent.”
“So you expect me to just stay tough.”
“Way I see it, you can stay tough or get dead.”
T
uesday, at 9:00 a.m., Alex was again called out of the cell and led to the booking area. Elena was already there—like him,
she now was dressed in oversized orange coveralls. Chains ran around her leg irons, looped around her waist, and were connected
to her handcuffs. This was so ridiculous, Alex thought; no, on second thought, not ridiculous, it was outrageous. She was
being treated like a serial murderer when all she was accused of was an expired visa.
The guards set to work on him next. Within two minutes he and Elena stood side by side, in ugly orange suits and matching
chains.
They were led outside and helped into the back of a long, windowless van. The chains were locked down to bolts on the floor
before the guards left and shut the rear door.
It was their first chance to speak since Friday night. “I’m so sorry,” Alex told her.
“Don’t be silly. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
He tried to rub his eyes but the chains wouldn’t reach and forced him to bend over. Elena asked, “Are you all right?”