by Mark Blair
‘Grigory Vasiliev,’ he said, introducing himself. Viktoriya took in the heavily set man, his jowly face and alert eyes.
‘Meet our new currency and – soon to be – commodity trading floor,’ said Misha. She looked at him quizzically.
‘Roubles for US dollars, yen, Deutschmarks… it’s just another trade when it comes to it.’
‘Perhaps a bit more complicated than that,’ countered Grigory, clearly not wanting to be downgraded.
Misha ushered her to a meeting room on the first floor overlooking the courtyard to the rear. A van that hadn’t been there when they arrived had pulled in close by the warehouse door. The movement of an armed man on the rooftop caught her attention. She counted at least ten men in the yard. What had happened to the man who never bothered with security? Two men were busy hauling boxes from the rear of the vehicle into the warehouse. The driver skirted round the side of the vehicle trying to get a look in. A security guard blocked his way and pushed him back with the barrel of his gun. She wondered what the van contained that was so valuable. When she turned around she found Misha quietly studying her, a look of faint amusement on his face.
‘So what is this new idea?’ she said, trying to sound enthusiastic. He was clearly inured of her cynicism.
‘It’s not so new. I’ve been thinking about it for a while… well, a couple of weeks at least. It was you who planted the seed.’
‘Well it can’t be all bad then,’ she said, sitting up straighter.
‘I’m going to register one of these new cooperatives tomorrow – you know, private companies by another name. The city gorkom have been pushing me to do something; those communists are not so dumb that they can’t smell an opportunity. It’s the how that baffles them. Nothing is for free; they’ll want their cut, of course.’
‘To do what precisely,’ she asked, intrigued.
‘Trade in diesel to start… you’ve told me Leningrad Freight runs half-empty trucks all over the country to meet some ridiculous quota that has nothing to do with efficiency. Am I right?’
‘Yes.’ She had been complaining about it since she joined.
‘Well no one cares about quotas anymore. Tell your director boss that you are going on a maximum economy drive. I want Leningrad Freight to transfer its surplus diesel to our new cooperative enterprise… at cost.’
Viktoriya could see where this was going.
‘At the state subsidised price, which is nowhere near the market price?’ she filled in.
‘Precisely, and we ship it over the border at Smolensk where we sell it for quadruple what we pay for it… in hard currency, US dollars. No loss to Leningrad Freight – they charge us what it cost them. We repay them in six months, a year with depreciating roubles. And the second phase… you start requisitioning fuel in much greater quantity than you use now and pass it through.’
‘And if the director won’t cooperate…?’
‘…the gorkom will lean on him. He’ll have nothing to complain about anyway. He’ll be looked after, as he always has been. And before you say anything, I’m going to make you a significant shareholder in the new cooperative… I couldn’t do this without you, Vika.’
Misha got up from the table and walked over to the window. From where she was sitting she could see another van had taken the place of the previous one, and the same unloading process was underway.
‘Come,’ he said firmly as if he had suddenly made up his mind about something.
Misha led her downstairs to the ground floor. For an instant she thought he was going to give her another guided tour of the warehouse and show her his latest favourite thing, but instead he pointed to another flight of stairs she hadn’t noticed before. She followed him down.
Misha had not said a word since leaving the meeting room. As they stepped around the last curve of the newly constructed concrete stairwell, she was totally unprepared for what she saw next. She let out a gasp. A large open vault door, perhaps six feet in diameter, set in the middle of a recently cast grey concrete wall, stretched floor to ceiling, from one side of the building to the other.
‘A Mosler,’ Misha said proudly, pointing at the name engraved on the vault door. ‘One of these even survived the blast at Hiroshima.’
A man pushing a trolley with two of the boxes she had seen being taken out of the van exited the service lift and steered past them and the two armed guards at the strong room door.
‘After you.’ Misha gestured with his hand, a huge grin on his face.
She stepped inside the steel and concrete sarcophagus; it was a step up from the old lock-up she remembered on the English Embankment. The intensity of the light inside was almost painful. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She blinked hard, not believing what she was seeing. In a space as large as the warehouse above, piles of dollars lay on open shelves wrapped tightly in clear polythene. The man with the trolley emptied a box of dollars onto a large counting table, where two men sorted through mixed denominations.
Misha took one of the packets off a shelf and threw it to her. She caught it.
‘Ten thousand US dollars. Hold on to that; it will help oil the wheels of our new venture.’
She was dumbfounded.
‘It’s not all mine… I hold some for other people. I’m officially a bank now – Moika Bank… Grigory’s idea.’
She looked around the room again, trying to calculate how much might be sitting there.
‘There must be what… fifty million here?’ she guessed wildly.
‘Not even close! Let’s walk over here.’
Misha led her to the back of the vault and a small safe embedded in the concrete wall. Misha spun the dial lock with his fingers.
‘Russian dolls,’ she said.
‘Yes, a safe within a safe. Ivan, Grigory and I have the code for the main vault but this one is just you and me, Vika.’
She stood there about to ask what it contained and the combination number, but he had already turned his back on her and was halfway back to the steel door.
Chapter 21
Smolensk
Misha rose from the table. He was freezing. A lone paraffin heater struggled vainly to cast off the winter chill gripping the small barrack meeting room and the Arctic air that forced its way past the newspaper stuffed into the gap between the rusting metal window frame and the sill itself. The state of decay only seemed to reinforce the low mood that had set in when he and Viktoriya had landed at Smolensk an hour earlier. Like some ghostly armada, row upon row of rotting aircraft fuselages lined the taxiways and airfield, engines stripped and cavities boarded over, standing there useless, abandoned and desolate, somehow a symbol of what the Soviet Union was or had become. Misha wondered how long it would be before the whole edifice collapsed and whether he would be dragged down with it.
Outside, a soldier shouted something towards the sentry box. In the near distance, snow-capped domes cast themselves against a deepening grey sky and blue and brown high rises. The Dnieper eased its way lugubriously towards them.
‘I think I’m going to die of cold,’ Viktoriya said, hugging herself for warmth. ‘How long do you think he will keep us waiting?’
‘We’re early,’ he reminded her.
Outside, the crunching of tyres alerted them to a jeep pulling up in front of their hut. A young man in his early thirties wearing a padded khaki winter Afghanka and a grey fish fur ushanka climbed out and bounded up the narrow cindered path towards their hut. Misha wondered if he had been sent by the colonel to collect them.
‘I see they’ve put you in the warmest room,’ he said with a wide grin on his face. He was tall, perhaps six foot two, broad-shouldered with thick dark eyebrows and close-cropped black hair. His blue eyes darted between him and Viktoriya. The two red stripes and three gold stars on his chest gave him away.
‘Colonel Marov?’ Misha said, extending his han
d.
The young colonel pulled off his gloves and shook hands.
‘I think we should go somewhere a bit more comfortable, certainly somewhere warmer. The city is only a few minutes away. I know a restaurant; the food’s passable, not great… if you haven’t eaten lunch yet?’
‘That would be fantastic,’ said Viktoriya with obvious relief. The colonel’s natural exuberance had already begun to snap them out of their low mood.
The restaurant was warm, hot even. They peeled off their winter coats and hung them over their chairs. A young waitress, recognising the colonel, made a beeline for them.
‘Sausage and cabbage with rye bread or hot cheese pasties today, Colonel.’
‘Like the rest of the week, Alisochka.’
‘The sausage is new, sir.’
Misha noticed that the colonel had used her diminutive name. Alisochka’s eyes hardly left Marov’s.
‘Have you seen the freighter cab yet?’ the colonel asked once they had made their choice. ‘Not that there is much that can be done with it… spare parts, perhaps.’
On arrival they had been directed to the burnt and bullet-ridden Kamaz in the military vehicle park close to the gate. It was a wonder anyone had survived, Misha thought.
Viktoriya shook her head. ‘I doubt even that. Can you dispose of it?’
He nodded.
‘You were in the forces?’ he said, turning to Misha.
‘Conscript, rose to the rank of corporal, two years in Afghanistan, 1981 to 1983, more of a fixer than a fighter.’ Misha reflected on how he had become a sort of unofficial quartermaster with generally more success than the official version at procuring anything from cigarettes to mortars.
‘Well, fixing is often a lot more useful, and now… still the fixer?’
‘Colonel, you probably have a better idea about what I do than I do.’
There seemed little point in beating about the bush. After all, how many Leningrad freighters had the colonel seen carrying merchandise across the border from Western Europe?
‘The last time I looked at a manifest it was computers, fashion, perfume, CDs, players, TVs… and oh, brandy,’ he added, almost as an afterthought, a faint crease of amusement on his face.
The door opened, and a man walked in and took a table in the far corner of the room.
‘How many men under your command, Colonel?’ Viktoriya asked. ‘You have quite a border to patrol.’
‘Twenty thousand regulars and conscripts,’ he replied, as though it were nothing in itself. The colonel turned and looked at the man who had just walked in. He was reading a newspaper, a steaming hot cup of tea in front of him.
He turned back to address Viktoriya.
‘And you are a friend of Konstantin Ivanivich Stolin?’
Viktoriya blushed, taken by surprise, not knowing quite how to respond. He had clearly done his homework.
‘The three of us all went to school together,’ Misha cut in. He’s the main reason I ship my stuff through Smolensk. He and the local military have Leningrad pretty much under siege when it comes to freight: land, sea or air. You, on the other hand, seem more reasonable, Colonel.’
Misha noticed that the man in the corner had not turned the page of his newspaper.
‘KGB…’ said the colonel. ‘Old habits die hard… at least it keeps them out of trouble.’
‘Are you a security risk?’ Viktoriya half joked.
‘We all are… the question is to whom? There are so many opposing views and factions.’
‘And which side of the debate are you on?’ Viktoriya asked, trying to regain the initiative.
‘Progress…’
The colonel looked at his watch. Misha decided it was time to come to the point. He wished he had more time to get to know him but his gut feeling told him that the colonel was someone they could trust. He hadn’t robbed them thus far.
‘I think we are on the same side, Colonel. Progress comes in many forms. I provide people what they want… and make a profit – still a dirty word in Russia – doing it. And there are, of course, plenty of people who try and stand in my way. I am sure this is not foreign to you.’
The colonel did not reply but continued listening.
‘I am starting a new venture. It has some small but important political backing in Leningrad, buying diesel and oil from state companies and shipping it across the border.’
‘At Smolensk.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And you want my support.’
‘Yes.’
‘And for me?’
‘A stake in the business, a significant stake. I need partners, long-term partners with the same interests. There are going to be plenty of opportunities out there. It strikes me that you are just the sort of person we need… progressive, by your own admission – not like Vdovin in Leningrad – of a similar age to us, plenty of contacts, and you can organise… like Viktoriya here. I could go on. Weren’t you strategic command in Afghanistan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Graduated top at the General Staff Academy, a rising star until your reformist views had you consigned here. Somehow I don’t think you are the sort of person who will be held back long, and in the meantime… this is an opportunity – dare I say historic – to make serious money. The smart communists already have a sniff of it, but years of doing what they are told has deadened their senses. The world belongs to our generation now, at least Russia…’
The colonel nodded, stood up abruptly and held out his hand. ‘Let me think on it. I have to take my minder for a walk now. It’s been a pleasure meeting you both.’
And with that, he and the man in the corner were gone.
January 1988
Chapter 22
Leningrad nightclub
General Vdovin leaned forward and helped himself to a Cohiba from the lacquered box sitting on Konstantin’s desk. Dance music interspersed with loud cheering and clapping filtered from the club floor above. Someone wolf-whistled, joined by several others.
‘Busy night?’ he asked in between puffs of the aged cigar. ‘This is very good.’ He helped himself to another and put it in his jacket pocket.
‘Help yourself,’ Konstantin said sarcastically.
Despite the millions he had placed in the general’s Zurich bank account, Vdovin still clung to the old dress code: an ill-fitting dark grey double-breasted suit. Konstantin could even picture the store he purchased it from in the GUM arcade opposite the Kremlin, one of those outlets exclusively reserved for party members. It was a joke, ridiculous, that such things were still regarded as a sign of privilege. He wondered which bright bureaucrat years ago had come up with the original design and how many committee meetings he had had to endure while the lapel size and number of cuff buttons were finally determined. Konstantin reached for a cigar himself, and, without lighting it, put it in his mouth.
‘There’s talk of a pull-out,’ said Vdovin.
‘We’ve been here before.’
‘Serious talk… it’s an unpopular war and the new general secretary wants an accord with the Americans. The arms race is beyond the country’s means, he says… not that it has ever bothered any other general secretary that I have known.’
‘And does he have the support to do it.’
‘At the moment… but there is increasing internal opposition… not just with his policy towards the imperialists.’
Imperialists, thought Konstantin, hadn’t the Soviet Union donned that epithet when it invaded Afghanistan? How long ago? Christmas Eve, 1979… at least, the Catholic Christmas Eve when the so-called imperialists were waiting for Santa. Brezhnev should have left well alone, but then again he would have missed a huge business opportunity. The drugs business was booming.
‘And will they continue to support Najibullah?’
The general shrugged.
‘I don’t know, perhaps, but I doubt it will be decisive. The Americans have created a monster in the mujahideen. They will tear the country apart.’
And the price of opium sky will rocket, he thought. If Vdovin was right, the general secretary would indeed prove to be a sore in his side. He would have to renegotiate his supply routes and make friends with a whole new circle of tribal leaders, who might not be quite so well disposed to a Russian.
Above, someone had turned up the music. Konstantin looked at his watch – eleven o’clock. He wondered whether the new girl Bazhukov had hired would be on the floor yet. She had been sitting at the bar when he had entered earlier that evening before the club had opened. For some reason he had found it hard to concentrate on Bazhukov’s daily update and had found himself staring at her across the room. Wearing a T-shirt and stretch jeans, she was tall with alabaster white skin, jet-black hair, and a wide, sensuous mouth. At first she had ignored him, intent on the men checking out the stage floor lighting. Perhaps she had thought him a punter. It was Bazhukov, sensing his distraction, who had finally waved her over.
‘Adriana… meet the boss.’
‘Where are you from?’ he’d asked.
‘Horlivka,’ she had replied in a deep, throaty voice. He didn’t know the place but recognised her Ukrainian accent. She was older than most of the girls at the club; he guessed late twenties, sexier, more mature-looking.
‘First time in Leningrad?’
‘She knows Cezanne’ said Bazhukov, interrupting. She was another Ukrainian, with a reputation for doing a lot of coke.
Half an hour later she had been ushered down to his office by one of the guards. Wordlessly, he had unbuttoned her blouse and slid his hands under her bra, cupping her breasts. She had stood motionless and looked unflinchingly into his eyes as he had caressed her nipples and then pinched them hard. Her eyes had only closed when he found the moist space between her legs and forced her back on the sofa, roughly pulling down on her jeans and taking her.