by Greg Wilson
“So, how much do you know about me, Mr Aven?”
“Not much. Only what Vari has told me. That you were CIA, of course. That he met you in 1981, when you were first stationed here in Moscow, and that over the next few years you and he built up something of a… I suppose relationship is the appropriate word. And then you were transferred back to the United States and he had no further contact with you until he bumped into you in the Arbat a few weeks ago.” Nikolai paused, considering what he had just said, wondering who had bumped into whom and whether the meeting had really been accidental. “Apparently you told him that you have come back to take up a new posting as Political Officer with the Embassy.”
Hartman let the sarcasm of the emphasis glide past. “That’s pretty much it.”
Nikolai gave a considered nod. Looked aside for a second then back to the American. “Vari believes you may be able to suggest how I should deal with my… situation, as you put it.”
Hartman gave a non-committal shrug. “Maybe.” He leaned forward and poured more coffee. “I don’t know yet, but then that’s why we’re here, so why don’t you tell me about it? Your situation.”
Nikolai drew a breath and flicked his hands apart. “So, where should I start? With myself? My background, perhaps?”
Hartman tossed his head lightly. “That’s not necessary. We know all we need to know about you.”
The casual assurance of the response struck Nikolai with an unexpected jolt. It was barely two hours since Vari had made his call, so whatever Hartman knew about him must have been assembled and absorbed within that short time. That meant it must have already been on file somewhere before that, available for instant access. It occurred to Nikolai that a dimension of his life had been stolen without his knowledge. An image rose within his mind: nameless people in dimly lit rooms, industriously compiling details, notes and opinions regarding his family, his friends, his work, his loyalties. Poring, uninvited, over photographs of Natalia and Larisa and himself. Photographs they had never even been aware had been taken. Hartman’s words replayed in his mind: you can never be completely sure who’s on the other side of a lens. The American’s voice drew him back from his thoughts.
“Why don’t we start from when you began to take an interest in Ivankov?”
Nikolai looked up sharply. Another jolt. Hadn’t he and Vari agreed that no names should be used on the telephone? Hartman read his expression.
“I don’t mean to surprise you, but we were already aware of your interest in Mr Ivankov.”
Nikolai stared back at him in blank astonishment. “How?”
Hartman’s shoulders rose and fell. “It’s our job to watch people who watch other people.”
Could this be real, Nikolai wondered? Or had he somehow tumbled through the looking glass?
“So then,” Hartman’s soft, even tone scribed a line through his dismay, “how about we get started?”
Ten minutes was all it took. A remarkably short time, it seemed to Nikolai, to explain the series of events that had bounced his world from its axis. At times he noticed Hartman studying him with a curious intensity, while at others the American appeared totally detached, more interested in his coffee. When Nikolai finished he fell silent, waiting for Hartman to speak, but the older man said nothing. Just extended an open hand in Nikolai’s direction. Nikolai took the meaning and reached inside his jacket, drawing the folded transcripts from his pocket. He began to hand them across, then stopped.
“They’re in Russian.”
Hartman drew a pair of reading glasses from a leg pocket in his chinos and gave a lazy shrug. “Russian’s fine.” Followed it up with a brief, unassuming smile. “I read Russian.” He leaned forward and slid the papers from Nikolai’s grasp, straightened them along their fold, set the glasses on his nose and sat back on the sofa, starting to read.
Now it was Nikolai’s turn to study him. He watched as the American scanned the lines without expression, placing each finished page face down on the cushion beside him. Every so often he would pause and go back, pick up the previous sheet and run a finger down the text until he found what he was looking for, then nod to himself, replace the page and continue on. When he reached the end of the first transcript he glanced up at Nikolai for a moment, his gray eyes giving away nothing, then poured himself more coffee and returned to his reading. The second document took longer than the first. Eventually he came to the last page, read it, turned it over and placed it face down, on top of the others. For what must have been a minute he sat silently, contemplating the carpet. Finally he lowered his glasses and looked up, his eyes fixing on Nikolai’s.
“Interesting material, Mr Aven.” He picked up the sheaf of papers and leaned forward, stacking them evenly on the edge of the table. “And you say these are exact transcripts of the two videotapes you have in your possession?”
Nikolai nodded.
Hartman drew the transcripts back and set them down again on the cushion beside him. Nikolai noticed the proprietorial assumption. The American took his time folding away his glasses then looked up with a forced smile.
“So, Nikolai. What do you want?”
Nikolai blinked. What did he want? Everything was happening so fast he had no idea.
Safety for Larisa and Natalia, of course, but beyond that… His head began turning, sweeping slowly from side to side. “I honestly don’t know.” He stared at the American. “Since it would seem I am in your hands and you are more experienced at these things, perhaps you can tell me. What should I be asking for?”
Hartman regarded him strangely for a moment, as if the guilelessness of the question had somehow unsettled him. Why was that, Nikolai wondered. A conflict of interest or a test of integrity? He noticed the way Hartman’s right hand had settled across his left, shielding it. The way the thumb and forefinger had begun toying with the gold wedding band, twisting it back and forth. Finally the American broke his hands apart and pulled a breath.
“Okay, I’ll tell you.” He leaned forward, his expression suddenly grim, the soft, even voice exchanged for a tone as sharp as a razor. “You want to get the fuck out of here, Nikolai. Before you and your wife and kid are drowned in this godforsaken sewer!”
The unexpected intensity of Hartman’s answer stunned Nikolai. He stared back, grappling for a response.
“But this is my country.” Even as he spoke he realized how trite his own words sounded.
Hartman tossed his head dismissively.
“Wrong, son. It’s their country.” His tone twisted with sarcasm. “It’s changed hands. Maybe you missed it? People like Ivankov and Stephasin and Patrushev own it now and you know what? And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.” He watched as Nikolai’s gaze drifted aside. “Forget about the idealism, the only sane thing you can do is to use whatever leverage you’ve got to get yourself and your family out of here before it’s too late. You can’t beat them, Nikolai.” Nikolai’s eyes swung back, meeting his. “the truth is, no one can beat them. Not here, anyway.”
His tone softened. “Let me tell you something, Nikolai. Organized crime in any country is a mirror of its society. The only way it can be controlled is by the will and ability of government, so ask yourself: what the hell hope is there here?” He left the question hanging.
“I’m not a pessimist by nature, but just take a look at your history. Okay, life under the tsars may not have been that great, but then back in 1917, when Nicholas abdicated, Russia was almost on its way to democracy, then along comes Lenin and screws everything. The only way Lenin and his pals could cling to power was by institutionalizing terror, so that’s exactly what they did. They made criminality the accepted way of life. Then Lenin dies and Stalin steps in, and over the next three decades he manages to advance it to an art form. Hell, you know the numbers, Nikolai. More than thirty million sent to the gulags, six million in the two years between ‘36 and ‘38 alone. Imagine it! And this guy was on our side against Hitler, can you believe it? And while we’re talking
about Stalin, how about his side-kick, Beria? There’s another world-class crazy.”
Nikolai listened with a blank expression. Lavrenty Beria had come from Georgia, an architectural student who had gone on to find his niche in the Chekha before Stalin saw his potential and made him head of the NKVD. Like Stalin, Beria had been intelligent, cunning, depraved and totally ruthless. Together they had left a chilling legacy that helped explain why even today the Georgians were still the most feared of all the ethnic criminal groups. In between running Stalin’s purges and the A-bomb program Beria got his kicks by personally supervising hundreds, if not thousands, of murders and entertaining himself with an endless stream of young girls plucked at random from the streets. In the end even Stalin had come to regard him as a threat, probably too late since, by coincidence, Beria had been the last person to see Stalin alive the night he suffered what was supposedly his fatal stroke. In the confusion that followed Beria had seized control only to be deposed by Khrushchev a few months later and unceremoniously executed in a basement room of the Lubyanka.
The American’s voice cut across Nikolai’s thoughts.
“You know a lot of people believe it was Khrushchev who personally shot him?”
Nikolai knew the rumor. When you considered the raw brutality of the Soviet leaders it wasn’t difficult to believe.
Hartman shrugged. “Whatever. At least Khrushchev was a bit of an improvement on the others, but he was still cast from the same mold. He got rid of Beria’s guys and broke up the NKVD, but then he set up the KGB and used it in the exact same way.”
Of course by then some of the apparatchiks were beginning to wake up. They weren’t stupid. They knew all the propaganda about the better-than-ever harvests was utter nonsense because they were the ones making it up. They could see for themselves that communism wasn’t working for the country but, what the hell, they figured. Maybe it could still work for them. And it did.
“You know the numbers don’t you, Nikolai?” Hartman didn’t wait for a reply. “Thirty billion dollars in oil revenues siphoned off by party officials during the Brezhnev era alone. Two thousand tons of gold moved to the West during Gorbachev’s regime, then another $30 billion, give or take, flicked across to our American banks after the failed coup, and it’s been running at that rate every year since. That’s $150 billion ripped out of Russia’s heart over the last five years alone, and that’s just what we know about.” Hartman leaned in closer, his face just inches away from the younger man’s. “Is it any wonder this place is fucked?”
His eyes gleamed like gunmetal. Challenging.
“Think about it, Nikolai. Is it any wonder there’s no money left to buy any medicine for the kids?”
The words had been chosen carefully and they hit Nikolai as they had been intended to, like a fist slamming into his guts. He stared at the American, his mind stumbling back over everything Hartman had said, seeing it all, now, from a very personal perspective.
Hartman was right. The Revolution had been the breeding ground for the institutionalized corruption that had strangled the entire nation.
“And the crime rings – the mafiya. Of course you know how that all started.”
Nikolai’s eyes fell to the patterned carpet. He knew.
The gangs had existed long before Lenin had come on the scene but it was Lenin and his colleagues who had seen the potential in harnessing them to the political cause. When the revolutionaries ran short of money they cut deals with the crime bosses, effectively franchising the right to steal from the banks and the wealthy in exchange for a major cut of the proceeds. Their philosophy was simple and pragmatic: Why worry about the law when before long they would be the law!
But the revolutionaries were smart enough to realize that the gangs had to be kept under control so once they seized power that was where Politburo – the leadership committee – came in. The Politburo became the equivalent of the mafia padrone, the single unchallenged authority that had the power to reward loyalty, punish disobedience and sanction any action, with the decisions of its leaders forever beyond question.
Hartman picked up the line of Nikolai’s thoughts.
“The way I understand it, it was only after Stalin that things started to get out of hand. The Cold War. The space race. The arms race. All that muscle-flexing with the West. The cost was phenomenal and the only way to pay for it was by increasing production, but that was virtually impossible because the system was falling to pieces.”
Nikolai nodded. “Production was the responsibility of the party officials. If you were an official and you met your quota you were promoted. If you didn’t you could expect to end up in a gulag. But how do you meet a production quota when there are no raw materials, no machinery, no chemicals, no spare parts. So the party officials turned to the mafiya for help because – for a price – they could get anything.”
“Exactly.” Hartman rose to his feet and walked across to the window, hooking back the edge of the curtain, peering out towards the river. “A marriage of convenience, just like the old days. The only difference being that the gangsters were now a whole lot smarter. They played the game by looking after the needs of the establishment and getting rich while they did it, but this time round they had no intention of being kept on a leash, so they started to build their own power bases as well. To survive they knew they needed…” Hartman let the curtain drop and turned back to Nikolai. “… what do you call it?”
“Krysha.”
“That’s it. Krysha. Protection. A roof over their heads. The money was flowing freely so they bought their roof by bribing party members who then used their access to the system to turn their bribes into hard currency which they then shuffled offshore. The pakhans who ran the gangs knew that once any of these guys started taking money they were snagged by the balls. Then after a while they began to squeeze.” Hartman weighed a hand in the air, tensing his fingers and closing them gradually in a vice. “Not too hard. Just soft and firm, so the person on the other end got to understand power and fear. Help me out here and I’ll help you. But fuck with me…” He clamped his fingers closed in a fist, “and you’re finished!”
He flicked his hand open and let it fall to his side.
“So that gave the pakhans access to hard currency which they then used to buy luxury goods abroad, then – with official protection, of course – they smuggled this stuff back here and sold it for rubles, which were laundered again through the official system, with the apparatchiks getting their cut.” Hartman’s lips drew taut in a cynical grin. “And all this time, over there in the West, we’re thinking we’re the masters of capitalism. Let me tell you something, son. These guys were smarter, tougher, more instinctive capitalists than we’ll ever be, and that was just the sixties and the seventies. The second generation. Now we’re into the third. People like your friend Ivankov. And the species has evolved even further.” He stepped back slowly across the room and stopped a meter from where Nikolai sat, looking down at him.
“This is the third wave, Nikolai, and they’re more sophisticated and even more dangerous than the last. These are the guys who saw the fall of communism coming and prepared for it. They have protection at the highest level. They’re intelligent, educated, financially smart, internationally connected and they have no fucking fear or morals whatever.” His features set tight with a grim expression.
“This place is theirs now. They own it and they know it and no one here is going to stop them doing exactly whatever they want.”
Nikolai stared at the American in silence then gradually shifted his gaze to the transcripts resting on the sofa.
“If that’s true,” he looked back at Hartman, his voice edged with a bleak acceptance, “then what value is all of this to you? What’s the point?”
Hartman edged a step closer to him.
“What’s the point?” He echoed the question. “Five years ago there were less than eight hundred organized crime groups here in Russia. Today there are over six thousand! The point is
Nikolai, Russia isn’t enough for them.”
Nikolai lowered his gaze, trying to reconcile the meaning.
“Think about it,” Hartman continued. “This is a species that has adapted and evolved inside one of the most restrictive regimes mankind has ever devised. The skills they’ve had to develop to survive and prosper here in Russia put them light years ahead of the other international criminal organizations. And now, on top of that, they’ve been able to recruit thousands of disenfranchised former security and military personnel: dangerous, highly trained people the system threw onto the trash heap. These organizations are lean, sophisticated, utterly ruthless and now, suddenly, the cage door’s been opened and there’s nothing to hold them back. They can travel where they want, when they want, move their money any place they choose. They’re breaking out, Nikolai. They’re breaking out and now they’re coming after us!”
Hartman paused, letting the significance of his words sink in.
“This isn’t a joke,” he shook his head. “These people are a greater threat to Western society than the Soviet Union probably ever was. They’ll do anything for money – drugs, extortion, racketeering, kidnapping, contract killing, prostitution, people smuggling, weapons. Given time they’ll reach our politicians and our corporates and our professionals and corrupt them in exactly the same way they’ve corrupted the system here. In fact, it’s happening right now. They already have outposts in practically every significant city in the world. New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Paris, London, Hong Kong, Tel Aviv… You name the place, their sign’s already up! And while all this has been happening, back in the States our politicians have been sitting in Washington scratching their balls, wondering whether maybe we ought to be doing something about it.” Hartman drew a breath, let the pent-up anger dispel and tossed a hand aside.
“Okay, so maybe we’re finally making some progress. We’ve got an FBI Legal Attaché’s office here in Moscow now, but those guys are flat out working the Russian end of stuff that’s already gone down back home. Then we’ve got our investigation and exchange programs with your FSB guys, the Interior Ministry people and your Procurator’s Office, generously sponsored by our Department of State.” The corner of Hartman’s mouth rose in a cynical twist. “The only problem being that since half your guys are on the take, all we’re doing is training them in how to avoid being caught! And now on our end we’ve suddenly got every man and his dog wanting control of this thing.” He made a fist, counting off fingers. “We’ve got the FBI, the DEA, the IRS, the ATF, even the fucking Customs Service, all bitching and fighting while, meanwhile, the mafiya continues happily on about its business.”