“Thank you for not gloating,” he said without turning around.
“Nothing to gloat about,” she said in a cautious voice. She was really not sure how to respond.
“You were right. Putilin wants me dead. You’ve saved my life twice. Thank you.”
“As you pointed out, it’s what I get paid to do.”
“For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to be gracious here,” he said through gritted teeth.
“And doing such a great job of it too,” she snapped back. He looked at her over his shoulder, then laughed, presumably at the irritation in her tone before turning away again.
She continued,” Besides there is no need to be gracious, even if a miracle occurred and you somehow managed it.” He exhaled heavily, obviously frustrated, but didn’t say anything else. “What did you say to those people back at the church?”
“I told them the guy had fallen dead at our feet. I don’t think they believed me, but with no evidence to contrary…” he paused then turned again with an inquiring brow.
“They won’t find the ricin unless they’re looking for it.”
He nodded. “As I thought.”
They stood in silence again.
“The funny thing is, I think I knew all along,” he said.
“Of course you did. That’s why you were such a stubborn jackass about it.”
Ignoring her insult he continued. “It’s a hard thing to swallow. Knowing that the president of your country not only wants you dead, but is willing to actually send assassins after you.”
“I’ve gone up against plenty of bad guys, but I can’t say I know how that feels,” she said with an involuntary shiver.
He looked down at her. “Are you cold?”
“For God’s sake Leo, it’s twenty-three degrees out here. Of course I’m cold!”
“Sorry, lets go inside and have some tea.”
Safely ensconced in his study drinking sweet Russian tea, Vries sat on a large overstuffed sofa near a roaring fire while Leo occupied a large wingchair set at a right angle to her. It was still early afternoon but the fire was quite welcome, as they’d removed their heavy outerwear upon returning downstairs. Vries looked around the room, appreciating the contrasts. When they’d first arrived at the house, she’d been surprised at the colors used in this room. It was a bright robin’s egg blue. And while the furniture was heavy and masculine with lots of oxblood leather, it wasn’t nearly as ornate as the furniture in the rest of the house or his home in Milan, for that matter. He’d recently had the study re-done and she suspected the rest of the house reflected his taste when he first acquired wealth. This room was who he was now.
He held his tea in his hand, but wasn’t drinking it. He seemed to be in a contemplative mood. Given the events of the day, she wasn’t surprised.
“I’ve done some bad things,” he said in a totally flat tone.
“Well I’m hardly one to criticize you for that,” she said with a sardonic twist of her lips.
“I grew up poor. Wretchedly poor. My father was every Russian stereotype a boorish alcoholic, boorish and abusive. One day he simply didn’t come home. I can’t say we missed him. My mother eventually died of tuberculosis.”
Vries frowned. “Tuberculosis?”
“Yes. Sounds like something out of Les Miserables, doesn’t it?” She nodded.
“I’m not making excuses, I was a full-grown man and fully complicit in all my actions. For a long time I was an ardent Communist. Despite our poverty I believed our Revolution had been hijacked by the Cold War with America and our dreadful circumstances were caused by that, not the fact that our government was poorly structured from the onset of the Revolution.”
“I don’t think the Cold War was good for either country.”
He kept talking as thought she hadn’t spoken, and she realized he wanted to get all this out in the open. He went on as though compelled to do so. She took his hand to comfort him as he’d done at the church, loving its size and rough, masculine texture. He squeezed her hand lightly and raised it to place a brief kiss on her fingers.
“Our government fell apart shortly after my mother died. I was desperate to make money to save her then I became obsessed with making money. I had been a fanatical Communist, now I was a fanatical capitalist. I guess I thought if I could make enough money I could still save her somehow.” His laughter echoed in the room, the lack of humor in the sound echoed her own demons and made her heart ache.
“It’s so hard to lose a parent. I did some crazy stuff after my folks died too,” she said.
His brief smile acknowledged her words and he continued. “I was smart and managed to come up with some early software designs. Nothing earth shattering, but in my country at that time, there was nothing. I had good friends in the government and was allowed to make a lot of money.”
Vries nodded, she’d heard this part of his story before. At least the computer software part.
“You have to understand, my government had no money. Decades of trying to keep up with the U.S. and then the war in Afghanistan had left us penniless. Industry was decades behind and in dire need of updating. Infrastructure was almost nonexistent. We’d put everything we had into the military. Diseases were running rampant, but our people were too poor to pay much in taxes. Besides the tax collection system was corrupt and broken down. Almost twenty years ago there were suddenly some very wealthy men in my country. They called us the oligarchs.”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard.”
“It’s not meant to be flattering. We came up with a scheme whereas we would lend the government money. As collateral, it would put up blocks of stock in state-owned companies. Everyone knew, including the government that they would default, leaving us owning the companies. The president at the time, Beltsin was a drunken boor and an incompetent idiot. Your country loved him,” he said wryly.
“Yes, I remember,” she said.
“He spent most of his administration fighting off coup attempts. He was too weak to fight against us, and we raided our country’s mineral wealth like Vikings plundering a monastery. I got some oil and natural gas wells, a couple of factories and a platinum mine. Finally I had the kind of fabulous wealth I’d always dreamed of.” He sighed, staring off into space. “And now it’s time to pay the piper, as they say. Take what you want said God. Take it, and pay for it,” he recited the old proverb as though he’d said it often.
Vries stared at the fire crackling in the huge limestone fireplace. She curled up on the sofa and rested her chin on her upraised knees. Leo leaned forward toward the coffee table to pour more tea, which she declined. “But was any of this illegal? Why did you think they were going to put you in jail?”
“Because that’s what they did to nearly every other man involved in our scheme. There were twelve of us. Four escaped, the rest are in prison, and then there’s me. You have to understand, we were still under the Soviet-style rules at the time. Everything about us was illegal. Capitalism was illegal. No one has enforced those laws for years and now Putilin will.”
Vries shook her head at the Machiavellian schemes. Of course, she’d already known some of the story, but hearing it directly from him…
“When I got the companies they were in deplorable condition. The workers were literally starving. I went in and updated all the companies, mines and wells. I poured every dime I had into them. Soon they were operating at a profit and then I became a very wealthy man. Now they are making a profit and the president wants them. Over time I came to realize that was the main problem with our country. It is run like a small village, a fiefdom really. Inefficient, bloated and unprofitable. We rely too heavily on mineral resources and not enough on intellectual development.”
“So what did you do?”
“I went to the president with a Power Point presentation.”
Vries stared at him, amazed at both his audacity and naïveté. “Oh. My. God.”
He continued as though she had not spoken. “I pointed out that our eco
nomy loses thirty billion dollars a year due to corruption and bribes. Our young people prefer to become civil servants rather than engineers despite the comparable low pay. Obviously they expect to make up the difference in bribes. Corruption is costing us a very valuable asset. We rank very high on the corruption and bribery indexes.”
“There’s a corruption and bribery index?” she said, staring at him.
“Of course there is. Businessmen need to know the cost of doing business in a country before they invest there. I told the president that we must modernize our economy and develop a knowledge and expertise base as opposed to just raw material.”
“Oh my God,” she said again. “You really do have a death wish. Didn’t anyone try to talk you out of this?”
“Of course. Everyone tried to talk me out of it, but you must understand, I know Vlad. We grew up together in Pitr.”
“What? That’s not in your file.” Lelia would be fit to be tied.
“I have a file? With whom?”
Vries shook her head, no way was she telling him about Lelia’s dossier. “So you thought your connection meant he wouldn’t kill you?”
“No. No. Putilin was always quite ruthless even when we were young. I thought the fact that we were boys together meant he would listen to me. That he would understand that I had his, and the country’s best interests in mind.”
“But don’t you think you were being a bit hypocritical? After all, you’d schemed to rob the state as well.”
He nodded. “Looking back now I can see my hypocrisy. At the time I was so excited about the prospect of transforming my country I didn’t realize how it would look to others. Of course, I explained that I was willing to work with others to implement these ideas and repatriate the money to the state.”
“That’s generous, especially if the companies weren’t profitable when you took them over, but somehow I doubt any of this went over well.”
“That is an understatement. I am not an idiot. I understand that there is corruption. There is the Mafia. But I thought if I could show the president a way to make things more efficient and profitable, he’d understand there would be even more money available to him. He, unfortunately, didn’t see it that way.”
Vries pushed her hair back as she thought about what he’d said. Static electricity from wearing the hat had left it in wild disarray. “He saw you as a threat. He thinks you want to be president.”
His face twisted in distaste. “I can’t imagine anything I would want to do less, and I thought Putilin understood that.”
“Apparently not. Honestly if he wasn’t so paranoid, he probably would realize you have no interest in being president, or even in being a politician.”
“I should say not. People who are dishonest tend to assume everyone is dishonest as well. I always say what I mean. Vlad, I’m sorry to say, seldom does.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“Do you know him?” he asked with a frown.
“No, but I’ve seen him around enough to get a pretty good bead on his character, and I’ve certainly known plenty of men like him. Anyway, once he told you where you could go, why didn’t you just leave it alone?”
He took a long sip of tea his hands with their long elegant fingers wrapped around the ornate tea glass. With any other man the contrast would have been incongruous, but somehow his looked just right. She shivered, remembering just how talented those fingers were at seeking out and satisfying her erotic needs. As though reading her mind he gestured for her to take a seat on the low ottoman in front of him. Vries complied, leaning back between his outstretched legs.
He placed his tea on a side table and began slowly massaging her scalp. For a moment Vries thought she was going to have an orgasm just from his touch alone.
“Your hair has been driving me crazy. I love it all wild like this.”
“You really need to talk to somebody about your obsession with my hair. It’s not crazy about Russian winter.” She sighed as he hit a particularly sensitive spot. Apparently her head was an erogenous zone. Who knew? Considering that over the course of her career she’d had dozens of attractive men do her hair she suspected it was only a turn on when Leo touched her.
He leaned down to kiss the side of her neck and Vries lay back against him, savoring his touch.
She struggled to focus. “You were saying…”
“I was?” he said threading her hair through his fingers.
“You were telling me why you were…oh God, if you do that again I’m going to yank you out of that chair. Come on Leo why didn’t you leave him alone? You had to know how dangerous he is.”
“Because I know what is right for my country. I started doing speaking engagements,” he said.
“For God’s sake, why didn’t you just shoot yourself in the head?” she said turning to look at him in consternation.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m not suicidal. I know I’m right. Why should I give up when I am trying to do a good thing?”
Vries rolled her eyes, but refused to state the obvious: He should give up before he got his fool self killed. It wasn’t like she hadn’t told him that a dozen times already.
“But Putilin saw you as campaigning for president.”
“He started having people arrested. My business partner was one of the first. That’s when I sent Pasha to Milan. I didn’t want her available to be used against me. I liquidated a lot of assets and sent the money out of the country too. Then I waited, but they never came for me.”
“Why do you think that is?” she said with a frown.
“Well I know now. He doesn’t want me in jail, he wants me dead. This whole trial is just an elaborate trap.”
Vries nodded. Glad he’d finally seen the light. “So when are we leaving?”
“Leaving?”
“Aren’t we leaving Russia?”
“I thought it was understood, I will not be leaving until after the trial,” he said dropping his hands from her hair.
She turned to face him. “Are you kidding me? There’s not going to be any trial.”
“There has to be a trial. They’re not planning on me being alive for it, but it still has to happen, and my reasons for testifying are still valid. There must be an accounting, in writing, for what we did. What we all did. The governments and the oligarchs.”
Vries took a deep breath, then exhaled heavily through her nose. “Dead men can’t testify,” she said as softly as she could, though she really wanted to grab him by the neck and drag him all the way back to Milan.
“I won’t be dead.” Vries snorted her disgust, but he continued. “They have no idea I have you. They don’t know what you are. They think you are just another rich man’s toy. You will keep me alive.” He gave her a considered look. “Your U.S. State Department paid you a great deal of money to make it so.”
Vries gasped. “You knew who hired me?”
“Of course I knew. I told you, I’m not an idiot.”
She gave him a sharp look. Had anyone in the history of the earth ever behaved more idiotically?
As she had intended he got her point without a word. “My current stance notwithstanding, it was quite easy to determine who your employer was. Who else would bother?” he asked with a shrug. “They want me alive to serve as a focus of opposition for an overthrow of the president. They believe they might be able to build a coup around me. Governments do this type thing all the time.”
Vries stared at him. Oh no, not again. The Department had used her that way in Laritrea and a lot of people had died.
“I would never agree to such a thing. One, because I’m not stupid, but also because your country is not being fair to mine. They want to cut off our head, even though we have no one to replace it. It would be a very foolish thing to do.”
“They have you.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “That is out of the question. Is that part of your government’s plan? For you to lure me into agreeing with their scheme?”
&
nbsp; “I’m not even going to answer such nonsense. I told you what my assignment is; keep you alive until you testify at this trial. Period. Why are you determined to see the worst in me?”
“You are right. I am not being fair to you, there’s no indication that you are acting in bad faith, but…anyway I lack the skills to be a politician. Politics require a level of duplicity of which I am incapable.”
“You mean you want Putilin to stay in power?” Vries rubbed her forehead, totally confused by what he was saying.
“Who else is there? We need a strong leader. Russia is still a new country we don’t have hundreds of years of democracy. Barely a century and a half ago we still had serfs! We had weak presidents right after the Soviet Union fell. Crime and yes, looting was rampant. We had to be reined in and he was the only person strong enough to do it. The money must be repatriated to the people.”
“You mean to give all the money back?”
“He can have everything but Zenit,” he said referring to his beloved soccer team.
“But he tried to kill you.”
“I know, but I understand. It is difficult for you, I know, but I do understand.”
He reached over and pulled Vries off the ottoman and into his arms. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck, struggling not to cry. They sat that way for a long while. Vries relaxed against him, so glad to be in his arms again. There were plenty of obstacles in their way, but when she was with him like this she could almost believe everything would be okay.
When his lips met hers there was a sweetness that hadn’t been there before. He seemed hesitant, even shy, and she responded in kind, loving this aspect of him. The soft caress was punctuated with tender endearments and her heart just melted.
“Why do you always speak Russian when we make love? I want to know what you’re saying to me,” she said against his lips.
“I speak Russian because I can’t think in any other language when I’m with you like this. I’m barely thinking. All I can do is feel and it’s impossible for me to express myself adequately in English. I will teach you the love words.”
He kissed her again, their lips pressed together in a slow drugging kiss. Taking her bottom lip between his teeth, he nipped it slightly. Vries groaned as the slight pain blossomed into blazing desire as it coursed through her body.
The Lion in Russia Page 10