Winter Palace

by T. Davis Bunn

  * * *

  The United States Consulate in Saint Petersburg was built to fit within the hollowed-out shell of a once prestigious city dwelling. Set upon the fashionable Furshtadtskaya, the outer stairs were as worn and pitted as the rest of the city. Beyond the double set of bulletproof doors and past the watchful Marines on guard duty, however, all was pure Americana—plush, neutral-colored carpets, warm wood-veneer walls, fluorescent lighting, decent air conditioning, color photographs of the President.

  Jeffrey waited in a cramped security lobby while Casey went elsewhere and reported in. Eventually the Consul General’s private secretary arrived, introduced herself, and led him into an elevator operated by a key suspended from her belt. Jeffrey tried not to gawk as he was led down a bustling corridor past ranks of bombproof filing cabinets stamped “Top Secret” and clamped with combination safe locks.

  The Consul General’s office had once been the house’s central drawing room, and no amount of bland paint and dull-colored carpet could completely erase the chamber’s former splendor. As Jeffrey was ushered inside, a vigorous-looking man rose from his desk and walked around it with hand outstretched. “I’m Stan Allbright. Good of you to stop by.”

  “Jeffrey Sinclair,” he replied. “I didn’t have much choice.”

  “Casey didn’t get too carried away, I hope.” Allbright’s softly measured midwestern twang had been polished by distance and time and foreign tongues to the point that the accent seemed to come and go at will. “Why don’t you take a seat over there in the comfortable chair, and let’s talk it over. You like a coffee? Maybe a pepsi?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Even when the Consul General was seated, he appeared to be in motion. He was a wiry bundle of energy, the sort of man who brought people to attention just by turning their way. He was dressed in what Jeffrey had once heard described as diplomatic fatigues—dark suit, white shirt, black shoes, bland tie. His gaze was intelligent, cautious, measuring. “What brings you to town, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “I’m working on a project.”

  “Mind if I ask what sort?”

  Jeffrey explained the Markov estate purchase. “This is the first assessment.”

  “You have any idea what’s behind the interest in that particular project—what’d you say their name was?”

  “Artemis Holdings Limited. And no, I’m not sure what they want to use it for, besides something to do with their company’s operations. Exporting metals, I think.”

  “The name Artemis is new to me. The international corporate community is still small enough for us to have a handle on most movers and shakers, especially somebody big enough to go for a winter palace backing up on the Fontanka. You know that’s what it used to be, don’t you?”

  “I figured it had to have been somebody’s private residence,” Jeffrey hedged.

  “Yeah, these royal families, they all had their estates out in the back of beyond, and believe me, you can’t get farther out in the sticks than some of these places in Russia. So off they’d all go and rule their serfs and farm their lands and make their money during the summer, then hightail it back to the capital and civilization before the first snows. A winter out in the boonies meant eight, maybe nine months without contact to their nearest neighbors. Taking care of the estates during the cold, lonely days was what overseers were for, right?”

  “I suppose so,” Jeffrey agreed, wondering where the man was headed. Wishing he would get there.

  “These people, their holdings were big. Twenty, thirty, even a couple of hundred square miles. Tens of thousands of serfs. Folks like these, they’d have their family castles back on the home range, then set up a second winter palace here in downtown Saint Petersburg. Most of these houses are in pretty bad shape after seventy years of Communism, but the ones that haven’t been trashed would make your head spin. What’s the condition of the one your people are looking at?”

  “Stripped bare,” Jeffrey replied. “But otherwise not too bad, considering.”

  “And they weren’t interested in any other property but this one?”

  Jeffrey shook his head and winced at the motion. “Why are you so concerned about this?”

  “I’ll get around to that in just a minute. What’s the matter with your neck?”

  “Your man Casey pushed me into a wall.”

  “Yes, he told me. I’m sorry about that, but he assures me it was important to get you out of view. You say you’ve never heard the name Tombek before?”

  “Not until this afternoon. Who is it?”

  “Local trouble.” The tone turned deceptively easy. “How’d you get involved in this project, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “My boss in London and the head of Artemis are business associates.”

  “Mind if I ask who’s behind the Artemis group?”

  “Sorry, I can’t answer that.”

  “No, of course you can’t.” Long legs stretched out in a parody of calm. “I have to tell you, Mr. Sinclair, I get the impression you’re not telling me everything.”

  “You haven’t told me anything at all.”

  “No, suppose not. We’ve got ourselves a problem here, you see, and it must be kept quiet. I’m tempted to go against the grain and let you in on it, but I can’t get a handle on whether or not I can trust you.”

  “If you mean trust me to help, I can’t answer that unless I know more,” Jeffrey answered. “But if you mean trust me to keep my mouth shut, I guess the way you feel about the answers I’ve given so far are the best response you could have.”

  Consul General Allbright gave a genuine smile. “You know something? I do believe if we ever had the time we could get to be friends. Mind if I call you Jeffrey?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Fine. What we’re facing, Jeffrey, is one utter mess. We had someone kidnapped a little over a week ago.” Allbright opened the file in front of him, extracted a photo, handed it over. “Young lady by the name of Leslie Ann Stevens.”

  Jeffrey inspected the picture, saw a fresh-faced young woman in her early twenties with auburn hair, alert eyes, and a sweet smile. “An American?”

  “Peace Corps volunteer,” Allbright confirmed. “Picked up right in front of your little palace too, far as we can tell. A couple of neighbors didn’t actually see the girl get snatched, but did spot a truck parked outside the manor late that same night. Only activity on the whole street. Crime’s so bad these days, you don’t see much moving after dark except on the main boulevards—which this isn’t, not anymore. Everybody we talked to agreed on one thing; they were unloading something from that truck. A lot of boxes.”

  “Into my palace?”

  Allbright nodded. “That’s why I was asking, Jeffrey. You sure you didn’t find anything that could have been packed inside boxes and shuttled inside?”

  “Not a chance.” Jeffrey was emphatic. “The place looks furnished from a jumble sale. And all the warehouse section has in it is a lot of rusting pipes and sheet metal.”

  “You’ve been all over the place?”

  “Top to bottom.”

  “Casey’s been all through the grounds, says the house must be all of ten thousand square feet. Big house like that, you might have missed a room.”

  “Not unless there’s a hollow wall. I’ve already worked out a basic floor plan.”

  “Mind if Casey takes a look around inside?”

  Jeffrey hesitated, then decided, “I suppose not.”

  “Thanks. Any way we might be able to get in without attracting attention?”

  “I’ve got a key. Why would somebody want to kidnap a Peace Corps volunteer?”

  “Can’t say for certain. We do know she’s been kidnapped, though.” Allbright rubbed a hand through thinning hair. “We know because we’ve received a ransom note and her Bible. The pastor at the local English-speaking church identified it as hers. Seems she was returning home from a prayer service.”

  “And the palace was on her way home?”

  �
�It was if she took the shorter route, which she wouldn’t have if she’d showed the brains given a very small rabbit. She could have walked on down Nevsky Prospekt, which she didn’t, according to one of the people who saw her off. It was twice as long that way, and maybe she was tired. Maybe she thought she’d be safe, that close to home. Maybe she just didn’t think.” Allbright managed a weary smile. “My biggest concern right now is whether the lady’s still thinking at all.”

  “Have you been to the police?”

  Allbright grimaced. “Any crime involving a foreigner is still the KGB’s bailiwick. They’re a strange bunch to work with these days, let me tell you. Always have been, of course, but before at least you knew where you stood. With the changes facing everybody these days, you can’t be too certain they won’t turn around and bite off the hand you’re offering.”

  “So you’re going to pay the ransom?”

  “Washington is busy giving me the royal runaround, but if we could have some assurance the lady’s still alive and kicking, yes, we’ll pay.”

  “So what can I do to help?”

  “That’s what I like to hear. No beating around the bush, just straight up and straight out.” The Consul General rose to his feet. “Tell you what. We’re having a little reception for some people tonight over at my residence. Why don’t you stop by? We’ll discuss it then.”

  “All right, thanks.”

  “Good. What we could do is have Casey come by for you.”

  “At the palace,” Jeffrey said, understanding. “An hour or so early, and I could just offer to show him around.”

  “See? Just like I said.” He extended his hand. “Nothing like a man who knows how to get things done.”

  Chapter 22

  St. Isaac’s Square was dominated by St. Isaac’s Cathedral, which had been the largest church in Saint Petersburg before the Communists declared it a museum. Its marble exterior still bore the scars of Nazi guns; it had been bombed almost daily during the Nine Hundred Day Siege. The high gold cupola had remained visible to the German gunners stationed across the Baltic even when everything else in the city had been masked beneath the smoke from bombs and countless fires.

  Across the square, by the Blue Bridge, was the Marien Palace, the home of the new city government. Between them and slightly to one side was the newly renovated Astoria, one of the city’s two exclusive hotels. Room prices were higher than a five-star hotel in the heart of Paris, meals more costly than a restaurant overlooking New York’s Central Park. By Western standards neither were worth half their cost—especially the meals. But the hotel was clean, and visitors could be fairly assured that what they ate would not make them sick. Western businessmen kept it booked solid six months in advance.

  The young man leaned across the coffee table and asked, “You’re absolutely certain they can’t trace this back to me?”

  He wore a rumpled suit in the latest Western fashion. His hair was carefully trimmed, his shoes softest Italian leather. He looked like an up-and-coming young executive exhausted from a hard week’s work—which he was, after a fashion.

  He was also extremely frightened.

  “You have our word,” Yussef replied for both himself and Ivona.

  They were seated in the lobby of the hotel’s ruble section, where their language and appearance drew fewer stares. The Astoria was in effect two hotels—one for rubles and one for hard currency—with different entrances, reception desks, key systems, gift shops, and restaurants. Staff relegated to the ruble hotel were perpetually disgruntled, barred as they were from ever seeing dollar tips.

  “How was trading today?” Ivona asked.

  “Like always.” He stood and cast off his jacket. Dried sweat stained his expensive shirt in darkened splotches. He could not have been over twenty-five years of age, but his eyes held the blank confusion of a tired old man. He lit a fresh cigarette from the ashes of his last and drank thirstily from his beer.

  “Buy, sell,” he rattled. “Took fifty thousand pairs of stockings in exchange for a hundred personal computers this morning. You like a pair?”

  “You are very kind to ask,” Ivona replied. “But no.”

  Before, when a Russian company needed something—anything, no matter how small or large—it would place a requisition through the Moscow-based central planning agency called Gosplan. Gosplan would then, hopefully, approve the request and forward it to the appropriate supplier, who could sell nothing unless Gosplan first approved the order. The product would inevitably arrive late and be of poorer quality than requested, but to a point the system had worked.

  All that had vanished with the fall of Communism.

  In an attempt to stifle an inflation rate approaching fifty percent per month, the government had dried up the source of rubles. Companies with products to sell suddenly found themselves either without buyers, or with buyers who had no hard cash. So they had begun to trade.

  By the second summer after Communism’s fall from grace, the government owed two hundred and twenty billion rubles in unpaid salaries. Cash-starved factories paid workers with truckloads of fresh oranges and ton-lots of clothes. Company apartments were completed by trading steel wire for concrete, then having skilled machinists work overtime as plasterers and carpet layers. The world’s largest steel works, the Metal-lurgical Complex in Magnitogorsk, was reduced to paying workers with fifty-pound sacks of sugar and pieces of steel that their employees could then resell.

  The fastest growing industry, in a country whose economy had contracted thirty percent in a two-year period, was the commodities exchange. Russia resembled a vast factory in a panic bankruptcy sale. The commodities markets sold everything from vodka to new MIG jet fighters.

  Whenever the government told the commodities brokers that selling a certain item was against the law, that item was simply removed from the floor and offered on the street just outside the exchange. New laws were tossed out as easily as the floor sweepings each evening. Computerized barter houses overloaded the outdated phone systems and took a taste off the top from every deal cut.

  The majority of dealers were under twenty-five. They had been born at a time when their culture was coming to realize the Communist social structure was based upon a lie. Thus the propaganda and brainwashing had not stuck so well. Initiative had not been stripped away nor traded for the promised security of socialism.

  Ivona received the nod from Yussef. “Could you please tell us what you have learned?”

  The frightened look returned. “I need to know I’ll be safe.”

  “We seek only for ourselves,” Yussef soothed. “What you tell us will go only to the bishop, no further. He will treat it as though it came from the confessional.”

  The young man leaned forward, said quietly, “There are rumors of a matrioshka shipment.”

  “This is news,” Yussef said, clearly pleased.

  Russia’s matrioshka dolls were known worldwide: a series of smiling wooden figurines in graduated sizes, each figure nesting in the next larger size. A matrioshka shipment meant hiding an illegal product inside a legitimate export. The technique was normally used for transporting heroin from the Asian states to the West.

  “This is mafia work?” Yussef asked.

  “Who knows? But that is how it sounds, and what the rumors say. The bribes are too high for anyone else to use the transport route, and the mafia controls the docks.” He looked from one to the other. “It is the mafia you are up against?”

  “We do not know who was behind the theft,” Ivona replied.

  “We know,” Yussef retorted, his face like stone.

  “We are not sure,” Ivona insisted.

  The young man flashed a weary smile. “Confusion is a sign of the times.”

  “What will the outer shipment be, do you know?” Yussef demanded.

  “Hard to say, but my guess would be raw metal. There is more of this than anything else going out just now. One group I know does forty tons per week to Estonia. They’re hooked up with West
ern buyers who like the Russian prices but don’t want to have to bother with Russian bureaucracy. The group clears four thousand dollars a week.”

  Yussef whistled softly. “They’re mafia?”

  “Not the group themselves, but anything this rich will have the mafia circling like vultures around a kill. They take a taste, never fear.” The young man stubbed out his cigarette with jerky motions and lit another with a gold Dunhill lighter worth more than the average Russian’s annual salary. He snapped the top shut, said with the smoke, “Copper, bronze, zinc, titanium, strategic metals—we see the trades every day, and we know the end buyer is in the West. The factories are crumbling, they have no money to pay salaries, and the Westerners are ready to pay in real dollars. Anything the companies can smuggle out, they do; it’s the difference between life or death for many of them.”

  “Big business,” Yussef agreed thoughtfully.

  “Listen, I’ll tell you how big. Estonia has no metal resources at all, and only a handful of factories. But this year Estonia became the sixth largest exporter of copper in the world. There is one trial before the courts right now, where a group was caught trying to ship five thousand kilometers of aluminum irrigation tubing from Saint Petersburg. One deal.”

  “We think this would be shipped from Saint Petersburg,” Yussef replied. “Have you heard of anything here?”

  “A new player?” He flicked his cigarette in the ashtray’s general direction. “They come and go like the wind. But something this big would require big financing, maybe more than one shipment if what you say is correct.” He thought a moment. “There is word of a new metals dealer with backing from a Swiss group. Nothing definite. Nothing on the market. But big enough to attract interest. Traders are like wolves. They sniff the wind and travel in packs.”

  Ivona concluded, “So you think the mafia might handle such a deal—”

  “They handle nothing,” the young man said impatiently. “They control. They falsify the export documents. They pay bribes. They frighten. They threaten. They eliminate all that stands between themselves and profit.”