by Steven Gore
Agent Zink had seemed pleased when he left and said he’d covered all the bases, an American idiom she didn’t at all understand. He also invited her to San Francisco to testify at a grand jury two weeks later. Expenses paid. She’d never visited San Francisco, so she gladly accepted. One never knew, perhaps she might find a stash of her husband’s money there.
As Alla drove them toward the Fitzhughs’ detached cottage west of London, Matson didn’t know how Totie would greet him. Calling her Isabella, the name of Fitzhugh’s Lugano girlfriend, the first time they met hadn’t been a good beginning. Matson wondered whether this was the reason she hadn’t returned his increasingly urgent calls since he’d arrived in London.
Mickey, trying to stay with Alla through the morning commute traffic, nearly croqueted a Mini into the rear of her Jaguar when she sped up unexpectedly, then abruptly slowed. For the first mile, Gage thought she was engaged in rather daring countersurveillance, but then concluded that it was rather daring for her to be driving at all.
Jet lag hadn’t ceased making occasional visits to Gage, so over Mickey’s small objection, he opened the passenger window of the boxy white Volvo sedan. The chilly mid-November air buffeted the interior and cleared his head as they drove into the countryside. The image of Fitzhugh as a black hole returned, but with the sense that, at least for the moment, he remained the gravitational center of the SatTek’s offshore money flow.
Alla turned from a narrow lane into a hedge-lined driveway. The stucco and timber Tudor cottage sat toward the back of the large, wooded lot. She parked near the front door.
Mickey pointed at the house number, “It’s Fitzhugh’s.” He then pulled to a stop across the lane in a spot offering just a glimpse of Matson and Alla as they stood knocking, Alla in a waist-length fur jacket and gray slacks, Matson in a black wool overcoat.
“Bli-mey,” Mickey said. “Look at those legs.”
Gage watched Matson knock, first lightly, then vigorously. Alla pinched her nose and brushed away a bug buzzing around Matson’s face, then swiped at one near her ear and scurried back into the Jaguar. Matson knocked a few more times, then also returned to the car. The two of them sat looking at the unanswered door as if deciding whether to wait or come back later when the occupant returned. After a few minutes they drove off.
“I think we better go in,” Gage said, “before the police do. It may be the only chance we’ll ever have.”
“I was thinking the same thing. I’ll ring up Hixon One and ask him to catch on to Matson when they return to the flat.”
Five minutes after the Jaguar pulled away, Mickey drove to the front of the cottage. Neither he nor Gage bothered to knock on the front door. Gage walked down the left side of the house peering into the windows. Mickey took the right. They met at the rear.
“She’s in the dining room,” Gage said.
Since he was the younger by nearly twenty years, it fell to Gage to kick in the back door. Impatient house-flies pursuing decaying flesh raced in with them.
An hour and a half later Chief Inspector Devlin and Homicide Inspector Rees arrived to assume control over the crime scene from the local branch of the Metropolitan Police.
“Superintendent Ransford,” Devlin said, reaching out his hand. “I never expected to find you in a place like this again.”
“Well, Eamonn, if it weren’t for my friend Mr. Gage here, I wouldn’t be.” Mickey pointed first to his left, then to his right. “Mr. Gage, Chief Inspector Devlin. By the way Eamonn, I’m now officially Mickey.”
“So…Mickey. What do we have here and how did you end up in the middle of it?”
“I’ll let Mr. Gage fill you in.”
“Apparently, you failed to mention to Devlin that we followed Matson out to the Fitzhugh cottage,” Mickey said, as he and Gage sat in a borrowed blue Fiat parked just west of Matson’s flat late in the afternoon.
“There were so many details to remember, it could’ve slipped my mind. How about I’ll drop him a line when I get back to the States?”
“Excellent.” Mickey’s eyes lit up. “And equally excellent is the timely emergence of the lovely Alla, as if a butterfly from a cocoon. Unfortunately, the water beetle is with her.”
Mickey fell in behind Alla’s Jaguar as she led them haltingly from Knightsbridge, through Kensington toward Notting Hill Gate, then pulled into a space near Holland Park. Mickey found a spot near the squash courts and crawled out of the Fiat to follow Matson and Alla on foot. He returned fifteen minutes later, mixed in among the aging pigeon feeders while he checked for countersurveillance, then drifted away and called Gage.
“They both went into the Ukrainian consulate. She presented a packet of papers to a clerk. I couldn’t tell what it was. But I saw Matson reach for something in his coat pocket and pull out airline tickets to get to it. The ticket jackets were for Aurigny Airlines. Bright red and yellow. Aurigny flies to Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney in the Channel Islands.”
Gage thought for a moment. “There’s a company in Guernsey that’s connected to SatTek, Cobalt Partners. Find out what Hixon Two is doing for the next few days.”
“You don’t want to do it?”
“No. I’ve got something else to take care of.”
Matson and Alla returned to their car and drove directly back to the flat. After Gage was certain that they were in for the night, he returned to the hotel to start his something else.
CHAPTER 31
Allo,” the heavy voice spoke into the phone.
“Dobredin, Slava, this is Graham Gage.”
“What can I say? Little misunderstanding. We friends again. Right?” Slava didn’t wait for a response. “Your little interpreter from America. What’s his name?”
“Pavel.”
“Da, Pavel.” Slava laughed. “Saved your fucking life and he can’t tell nobody how.”
Pavel did it by losing bladder control when he thought the leader of Russia’s largest organized crime group was about to blow Gage’s brains down a Moscow street just weeks earlier. Gage smiled to himself as he remembered Slava’s shadowed face transforming from fury to puzzlement as he watched a puddle form on the sidewalk around Pavel’s shoes.
Slava laughed until he erupted in choking, wheezing coughs.
“Those cigars will kill you,” Gage said, after Slava’s coughing died down.
“No, other vory-v-zakone kill me, I just be smoking at time.”
“I read about that car bomb in Tbilisi in the Herald Tribune. Helluva close call. I didn’t even know you worked in Georgia.”
“I went hunting.”
“For whom?”
“For what. Wild boars.”
“Somehow I can’t imagine you hiking through the woods trying to sneak up on pigs.”
“Nyet. Like farm. You sit in wood hut with bottle vodka, little fish satsivi, and rifle. After time, they come walking, and boom.”
“Speaking of boom…”
“I all sorry I…” Slava paused as if he knew he hadn’t gotten the phrasing quite right. “That how you say it?”
“Close enough.”
“That guy, you know who I mean, I can’t say name on phone, tricked me to think you set me up for hit. I not realize you just want to talk about natural gas deal. It broke my heart, you know, I thinking I have to kill you.”
“You didn’t look sorry.”
“I cry on inside, really.”
Gage didn’t believe it. He found it hard to imagine that Slava ever cried, even as a baby. He let it go.
“You’re almost forgiven.”
“Spaseeba.”
“And you’re almost welcome.”
Gage heard Slava draw on his cigar, then clear his throat. “I know you not call to talk old times,” Slava said. “What you need?”
“To see you. Just an hour or so.”
“Sure. I owe you.”
“How about tomorrow in the city by the big lake?”
“Why not?” Slava once again erupted into hacking, fol
lowed by an explosive spit. “I want to visit my money anyway.”
By eleven o’clock on the following morning, Hixons One and Two had followed Matson and Alla to Victoria Station, then to Gatwick Airport, where Two followed them onto an Aurigny Airlines flight to Guernsey.
By 2:15 Gage was walking down the long neoclassical hallway from the reception area to the restaurant in the Metropole Hotel across a wide boulevard from Lake Geneva. As he crossed the threshold, he felt the enormous presence of Viacheslav Gregorovich Akimov, aka Slava. Gage’s eyes were drawn to his right as if by gravitation. He spotted Slava sitting at a corner table with a bodyguard who carried Slava’s same weight but on a frame that was a foot taller. Slava struggled to his feet as Gage approached. He was wearing his usual black wool suit and matching turtleneck, both in enormous sizes. He stuck out a hand and Gage shook as much of it as he could, then sat down. Slava introduced his bodyguard as Ivan Ivanovich, the Russian version of John Smith.
“You want little something?” Slava asked, signaling to the black-tied waiter, who approached with a menu.
Gage glanced at the first page, then handed it back. “Just smoked salmon and artichoke soup. What are you having?”
“Page two,” Slava said, then stuffed most of a dinner roll into his mouth.
“Just one bodyguard?” Gage asked when the waiter was out of earshot.
“Here. Neutral. Meeting back in ’92. Miami. Agreement. No hits in Switzerland.” Slava laughed. “Bad to bleed on money.”
Slava sniffed a half-filled glass of fifteen-year-old Bordeaux and smacked his lips. “Ah! Only good thing about France.”
Gage watched Slava take a sip, then close his eyes and slosh the wine around in his mouth; his ruthless criminality redeemed for a few seconds—but only for a few—in his willingness to suspend himself in the pleasure of the moment.
Slava opened his eyes, then nodded. “Sveta would like this.”
“How is she?”
“Good. Good. At spa in Montreux. Keep her relaxed. Thank God.” Slava looked heavenward, then sighed. He picked up a piece of dried Grisons beef and shoved it into his mouth just ahead of a much more aggressive draw on the Bordeaux.
“Hey, I got something for your wife.” Slava wiped his hands on the white tablecloth, then reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a satin pouch. He poured a ruby onto the white tablecloth.
“Is this hot?” Gage asked, picking it up and examining it.
“Stolen?” Slava stretched out his hands, palms up. “I not give you nothing stolen. I paid. Myself. Out my own pocket.”
“And the money?”
“Money is money.”
“Thanks.” Gage set down the stone. “But I’ll pass.”
“Gage, you always too straight for your own good. But that’s why I trust you…except that once. So what you want to talk about?”
“I need to see if you can identify some guys I saw in London.”
Slava narrowed his eyes at Gage. “How come?”
“A friend of mine is in a little trouble.”
“Good friend?”
“Best. Jack Burch.”
“Burch?” Slava glanced toward his bodyguard, then toward the entrance. He leaned forward, clenching his fists on the table, his face turning crimson.
Gage realized too late that he introduced the subject in the wrong way. While natural gas was off his radar, it was still blinking in the center of Slava’s.
Slava’s voice was as insistent as a diesel rock crusher. “I not have anything to do with that. If that’s why you—”
Gage flattened his palms against the bottom of the table, ready to flip it over on them if Ivan or Slava made a move. “That’s not—”
“Nobody in gas deal touch Burch. Nobody. Not Russia. Not Ukraine. My people look. Turn everything upside down.”
Gage shook his head. “It was something else. A stock fraud. A company called SatTek.”
Slava hesitated, then relaxed his fists and leaned back. A self-conscious smile appeared on his face and he shook his head and exhaled. “I think I need vacation. Get too tense, too fast. Maybe I go to Montreux after Sveta leave.”
Gage lowered his hands to his lap. “The place not big enough for the two of you?”
“Few places big enough for one of me.” Slava grinned, then took a gulp of wine and set the glass down. “Okay. Business. What kind trouble your friend?”
“He set up some companies that were used in a fraud.”
“In States?” Slava shrugged. “I know nothing about States.”
“The stock was issued in the U.S., but the companies that bought it were in all the usual offshore tax havens.”
Gage pulled out prints of the photos he took outside the Ax Man Pub.
Slava pushed his plate away and laid them out. He picked up each in turn, inspected it, then laid it down. He took a sip of wine, then gazed out of the side window toward the landmark Jet d’Eau fountain. He then focused on photo number three, showing a blockish, square-headed, flat-faced, forty-year-old man with thin lips surrounded by ruddy skin. To Gage it gave the impression of a face that led its body up the hard way and was fated to live on for another generation in photo lineups and grainy covert videos.
“Gravilov,” Slava said. “Vory-v-zakone from Moscow. He protect Ukraine president son. Like umbrella. You know, krysha, roof. Son in dirty stuff. Needs one of us to protect interests. Big man needs a big krysha. Gravilov is biggest in Eastern Ukraine since I left for Moscow.”
“As in the Russian Gravilov Group?”
“Da. Does lots of paper scams. Got people in States.”
Slava examined the others. “Number six, I not know. Eleven is Velichko, Boris Vasilievich. Russian, too. Independent. Biznessman.” He turned sixteen toward Ivan Ivanovich, who grunted his professional opinion.
“Molotok,” Slava said. “Hammer. Work for Gravilov. Can’t tie own shoes.”
“Why does Gravilov keep him around?”
Slava smirked. “To stop bullet. What else?”
“And the little guy in the Rover?”
“Chechen. His name is Britva. I see him in Kiev once. Ugly.” Slava pointed toward Quai Général Guisan, the tree-lined boulevard bordering Lake Geneva. “I think one time of putting contract on him to celebrate day where everybody clean streets.”
“International Earth Day.”
“Da. International Earth Day.”
“What’s Britva mean?”
“Razor. He like cutting people. Maybe revenge for disgusting appearance. Face all twisted.”
Gage pointed at the photos. “What would bring Gravilov and Velichko together?”
“Big money. Maybe even your stock fraud. Velichko is launderer. Offshore. Otherwise I not know. I ask my people. More Russians or Ukrainians in this?”
“A stockbroker named Kovalenko in California. He handled the domestic sale of SatTek stock.”
Slava squinted into the distance for a moment. “I knew a Kovalenko once. In Belarus. Old, old man. No sons.”
The waiter approached with Gage’s meal. Slava covered the photos.
“How this scam work?” Slava asked. “Maybe I learn something.”
While they ate Gage described the SatTek false invoices, the offshore companies, the bank accounts, and the pump and dump. He also described the shooting of Burch and the murders of the Fitzhughs.
“I think Matson is trying to cut a deal with the U.S. Attorney to lay the whole thing off on Burch,” Gage concluded. “And somebody is trying to contain the case by killing off the potential defendants.”
“Strange,” Slava said, expressionless as a shark. “Usually we just kill witness.”
“I didn’t need to hear that.”
“You heard worse.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard worse.” Gage thought for a moment. “There’s one more. A woman Matson is involved with in London. Alla Tarasova.”
Slava drew back. “Tarasova?”
“Yeah.”
“What
’s her patronymic?”
“Petrovna. Alla Petrovna Tarasova.”
Slava looked at Ivan Ivanovich, then clucked.
“Petrov Tarasov. Got to be father. Budapest. Business there. Sell Ukraine steel. But real money in protection racket and money laundering.” Slava raised his eyebrows. “Maybe even SatTek money. You know skhodka?”
“Sure, the vory-v-zakone internal court.”
“One in Budapest last year. Tarasov was head. I sat. Maybe he use daughter to stay close to guy in scam.” Slava propped his forearms on the table and cupped his hands together. “Maybe Tarasov even make syndicate to do deal. How much money?”
“At least fifty million shares were sold, maybe more. It started at two dollars but topped out at over six.”
“So maybe two-fifty, three hundred million dollars?”
“At least.”
Slava shook his head. “Matson better watch back. When Alla Petrovna tell Poppa time for Matson to go, he go. And that happen right after Gravilov and Tarasov grab Matson money.” He grinned. “Matson think they launder for him, but they take him to cleaners.”
After leaving Slava to finish the menu, Gage walked along Lake Geneva. He needed to get himself oriented in a new SatTek world, one that now contained two gangsters nearly at Slava’s level and linked to Matson, either of whom could’ve reached across the Atlantic and ordered the hit on Jack Burch.
He called Faith. She was driving to UC Berkeley to teach an early morning anthro class.
“Jack opened his eyes,” Faith told him, her voice giddy. “He’s out of the coma. I just got the call.” Gage’s legs wobbled as if a weight was lifted from his shoulders and he wasn’t ready. He stopped, then leaned against a tree. “Graham?”
“I’m still here. I just…”
“I know. He still needs the breathing tube. But he’s responding, so they hope there’s no brain damage. Where are you?”
“Geneva.”
“I can’t wait until you get home.”
“Me too. Tell Jack…”
“I will.”