The First Billion

by Christopher Reich

  The wind died. The icy curtain fell, and for a minute or two the men were permitted a view of the bleached panorama around them. It was a bleak vista, white hills rolling away to the east and west, an endless plain advancing before them. The sky hovered low and gray, a sweeping expanse of nothingness. It was a pale, barren land with no sign of animals, vegetation, or human habitation. Man did not belong here, so far north; his existence counted for nothing. As punishment for their intrusion, the wind picked up so abruptly as to slap the men across the face. They were not welcome here.

  Still they ran. Invaders of the Arctic Circle. Five kilometers remained to the halfway point, then back again to base by a different, more difficult route. Another twenty kilometers over uneven, climbing terrain. It was their last training run, a brutal, delirious culmination of four months’ preparation. Four months without leave, without a single day’s rest, without alcohol, tobacco, or women. Physical conditioning was placed at a premium, but there were mental exercises as well: endless hours mastering English, in particular the American roughneck’s slang. Courses in engineering, physics, and the mathematics of high explosives. And, of course, the endless repetition of their tactical objectives. Practicing over and over until every step was memorized and every permutation analyzed, countered, and defeated.

  They had been chosen from the best. In other times and other places, similar men had made up the elite forces that had carried names like La Légion Étrangère, the SAS, and the Delta Force. More familiar to them was the Spetsnaz, their own country’s vaunted Black Berets.

  They were called, simply, Team 7. If the name did not carry the same mystique as those of their illustrious antecedents, it was for good reason: Team 7 did not exist. No record could be found anywhere in the administrative logs of the army, navy, or air force testifying to their founding. No roster listed their names, their ranks, the units from which they had been seconded. When they completed the operation, they would disband and flee to the four corners of the globe, sworn never to speak with one another again.

  They were all munitions specialists, five drawn from artillery, four from infantry, and three from underwater demolitions. Explosives were their game, and there were no soldiers anywhere who could better their adeptness with plastique, C-4, or gelignite. They had blown bridges in Kunduz and waterworks in Grozny. They had mined highways in the Sudan and mosques in Eritrea.

  It was not, however, their skill under fire that recommended them, but the artist’s care with which they practiced their craft. Deft fingers shaped the soft, explosive putty as a sculptor handled his clay, and with the same eye for effect. They could blow out a lock and leave the door standing or bring down a ten-story building with a single charge.

  Their target lay thousands of miles away, across the roof of the world. The mission would require speed and stealth, but mostly care and concentration. With the smallest of charges, they would wreak the greatest of damage. Nature would have its revenge on man. And man would fall to his knees in apology. Never again, he would promise. Never again.

  The shadows moved into the distance, their steps slower, but still confident, a faint humming now dancing from their lips. It was a song they knew well: the anthem of their birthplace. And as their fatigue grew, they hummed louder. They would rebuild their country. They would make it strong once again. Formidable. A force.

  A strong wind lashed across the landscape and they were gone, faded to obscurity inside the umbrella of grit and rain and sleet.

  Ghosts who had never been.

  Soldiers who never were.

  A team that did not exist.

  12

  In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti . . .”

  Konstantin Kirov was dizzy. He had been standing in the front row of the Church of Christ the Savior for two hours, listening with the rapt attention expected of the guest of honor as Archbishop Nikitin, primate of Moscow, droned on and on, giving thanks for Kirov’s gift of a fifteenth-century icon by the master Rublev depicting St. Peter slaying the dragon. The icon rested upon the altar. Only fourteen by seven inches, the portrait was a masterpiece of its kind, watercolors and gold leaf applied to a wood canvas, then glazed with albumen. Peter rode astride his stallion, lance carried high. His face was fevered, yet calm, his fear replaced by a trust in the Almighty. A faint halo crowned his head. The dragon, of course, was unseen. Iconography demanded that full attention be given the subject.

  Kirov clamped his jaw as the archbishop passed close to him, swinging the censer and scenting the air with pale, acrid smoke. The columns swirled upward toward the cathedral’s vaulted ceiling, the vanishing fingers signifying man’s prayers lifting unto the Lord. Kirov followed the smoke along its course, viewing the church’s interior with a mixture of piety, awe, and disgust. The acres of stained glass, the armies of tortured sculptures, the fabulous array of frescoes and trompe l’oeils awash in gold leaf: It was the Sistine Chapel times ten, without a trace of its grandeur. But what could one expect? Michelangelo had needed seven years for the chapel’s ceiling alone; the entire Church of Christ the Savior was constructed in three. Its religiosity was so overwhelming as to be garish, laughable even, thought Kirov. There was not a better example of the contemporary Russian soul to be found in the entire country.

  The Church of Christ the Savior was Moscow’s latest miracle and the mayor’s crowning achievement. Four inferior onion domes crowned each of the cathedral’s transepts and surrounded a fifth and dominant dome whose enormous golden gilt swirls were visible across central Moscow—a candle’s flame unto the heavens indeed. The church was a larger replica of the original Church of Christ the Savior that had been built on the same site between 1833 and 1883, designed by the architect Konstantin Toms and inaugurated by Czar Alexander II. Stalin in his good graces had torn the church down, melting the gold leaf for the Communist Party’s coffers and using the land to erect one of his “Stalin Skyscrapers,” atop which he wished to mount a ten-story statue of Lenin. When the land proved sandy and unstable, Stalin shelved the skyscraper and built instead Europe’s largest outdoor swimming pool, which he personally christened “the Lido.”

  “Konstantin Romanovich Kirov, please step forward.”

  Awoken from his daydream, Kirov placed one foot in front of the other and advanced toward the ornate altar.

  “In the name of the holy church, I commend your generosity of heart and spirit, and thank you for the wondrous gift to our diocese.” Archbishop Nikitin grasped Kirov’s shoulders and bestowed three kisses upon his cheeks, his long, grizzled beard scratching Kirov’s face. The mayor followed, placing a bronze medal around his neck. “The city of Moscow is grateful, Konstantin Romanovich,” he whispered. “You have done a great service.”

  “It is my pleasure.” The mayor might reek of vodka, but at least he was clean-shaven.

  The choir chanted. An organ played. The congregation was dismissed.

  In front of the church, Kirov posed for photographs with the archbishop and mayor. It was a happy union of commerce, church, and state. Come morning, the beaming threesome would be on the front page of the city’s newspapers.

  “Should you need anything, I insist you call me,” the mayor said as the crowd broke up. “We must lunch at the Café Pushkin soon. At my table in the library.”

  Kirov smiled dutifully. “I look forward to it.”

  The mayor went on talking about his favorite dishes at the tony restaurant, but Kirov only pretended to listen, for a voice in his earpiece had begun speaking. “Excuse me, sir. Rosen here. We have a small problem.”

  “Yes?” mumbled Kirov, his chin pushed into his chest. The Russian flag decorating his lapel was, in fact, the microphone of his cellular phone.

  “Some news on the Net regarding Mercury. This fellow the Private Eye-PO again. You will not be pleased.”

  “I’ll be there at noon,” he said.

  The mayor eyed him queerly. “I’m sorry, Konstantin Romanovich, but I am not free at noon. Perhaps next week
. And if you can get another icon like that, we’d love to have it in the Novodevichy’s chapel. Name your price.”

  We must find him,” Kirov declared. “I want no expense spared.”

  “It isn’t a question of expense, I’m afraid,” replied Janusz Rosen. “He leaves us no name, no address.”

  The two were standing in Kirov’s spacious office on the second floor of Mercury Broadband’s Moscow headquarters, located in a newly renovated building one block from the Arbat.

  “What do you mean, ‘no name, no address.’ Look here”—Kirov brushed a hand against the monitor displaying the Private Eye-PO’s latest attack on Mercury Broadband—“someone is sending us this page, some server at some ISP. He has even given us his E-mail address. Surely we have contacts at Hotmail, if not at Microsoft.”

  “I’ve done my best to track him down. He’s sharp. He knows how to make himself invisible. If he wishes to remain anonymous, it will be impossible to find him.”

  “Nothing is impossible.” The admission of defeat crouched within the Pole’s words angered Kirov. Ten years ago he was lying on a bunk in Lefortovo Prison, Moscow’s main military jail, surviving on hardtack and water; today he was on the verge of a deal that would make him a billionaire. “If the mouse won’t come to you, offer him some cheese,” he said playfully, advancing on the gangly computer scientist. Then the eyes narrowed and the voice dropped a notch. “Find him, Janusz. Or I’ll find someone who can. Someone a little hungrier for shares in our nation’s most promising public offering. Remind me, will you . . . are there many U.S. dollar millionaires in Gdansk?”

  “No, of course not—I mean yes, I’ll do my . . .” Rosen raised an acquiescent hand, his words drifting off as he scurried down the hallway.

  Kirov shut the door quietly and walked in measured paces to his desk. “Anonymous!” he scoffed, shooting the monitor a killing glance. Who would wish himself such a terrible fate?

  A hunched, dark man in a houndstooth jacket sat in a chair in the far corner, mumbling angrily into a cellular phone. Kirov ignored him. Picking up the phone, he dialed an internal number. “Boris,” he said when a male voice answered. “Bring round the cars. We’ve a meeting with the prosecutor general himself in half an hour, and a little bird whispered in my ear that it would be wise to be punctual.”

  Hanging up the phone, he collected a sheaf of papers and shoved them into his briefcase. The papers were unimportant, just something to give the case a little heft.

  “So?” asked the swarthy guest. He had mournful black eyes and a swirling salt-and-pepper mustache.

  “Nothing more than a ‘chat,’ ” said Kirov, not looking up from his briefcase. “Still, one never knows these days.” It was an understatement. Political winds were swirling in violent, unfamiliar patterns; the government a clumsy Hydra, with each head acting independently of the other. One day the boys in the Kremlin were doing their best to promote the affairs of the country’s more prominent businessmen, the next they were accusing them of every violation in the penal code, littering included.

  “Be careful,” ordered the man.

  Kirov did his best to smile. “As always.”

  13

  Water, Konstantin Romanovich? You look a bit flushed. Something to eat?”

  “A sherry would be nice. Perhaps some foie gras.”

  “I can offer water and a cracker,” said Yuri Baranov.

  “Thank you, but no.” Folding his hands in his lap, Kirov adjusted his immaculate posture and the smile of infinite goodwill that went with it.

  For two hours, he had been seated in the same chair listening to Yuri Baranov, the nation’s prosecutor general, rant about the sum of one hundred twenty million dollars missing from the coffers of Novastar Airlines. Theft of government property. Illegal exportation of hard currency. Grand larceny. Fraud. Even treason. The accusations went on and on and Kirov was quickly growing tired of them. How many times could a man say he was sorry, but he had no idea what had happened to the money?

  “Let us proceed on a new tack,” declared Baranov grimly, selecting a document from one of the bottomless stacks that littered his desk. “May I ask if the name Futura Holding conjures any memories?”

  “Futura Holding, you say? I’m sorry, but it is not a name to me.”

  “So I may take it that if you were listed as a director of the company, it would come as a surprise?”

  “I am a businessman. I sit on the board of a great many companies. It’s difficult to keep track.”

  Baranov leaned forward in his seat and offered him the document. He was seventy if a day, a gray, stiff man in an ill-fitting suit with yellowing teeth and a well-worn expression of permanent outrage. A poster boy for the old regime, thought Kirov, hating and fearing him in equal measure.

  Baranov was known to every Russian over the age of fifty as the man who had tried the arch-spy Oleg Penkovsky, the GRU colonel and war hero who had fed his nation’s secrets to JFK and the Americans over an eighteen-month period in 1961 and 1962. Kirov could still remember the fuzzy black-and-white images of Baranov standing on the steps of the Lubyanka calling for Penkovsky to confess his crimes, name his co-conspirators, and publicly apologize to his countrymen if he wished to receive the Rodina’s mercy.

  Confess! Collaborate! Apologize! Only then will the Motherland shower her mercy upon you.

  “Do you wish then to deny that you are a director of Futura Holding S.A., domiciled in Lausanne, Switzerland?” Baranov asked.

  Kirov shook off the memory and concentrated on the document in his hand. He recognized it immediately. The articles of incorporation for said Futura Holding S.A. The paper was dated March 13th of last year. Kirov was listed as 51 percent shareholder in the company; the purpose of the holding noted as “investments in foreign corporations.” “So I am a director of Futura. So what?”

  “On March 15th, shares in Novastar were auctioned to the private sector. As the winning bidder, you were permitted to purchase forty-nine percent of the company. A month later, the shares were transferred to Futura in Lausanne, Switzerland.”

  “That’s hardly news. Everybody in the country knows I purchased Novastar. About time someone decided to run one of our national airlines properly. Besides, forty-nine percent is hardly a controlling stake. If I recall, the government owns fifty-one percent.”

  “A formality. Managerial control of the airline was ceded to the private sector as a precondition to the auction. Therefore Futura is responsible for Novastar’s day-to-day operations. The government is a silent partner.”

  “Apparently no longer.”

  Baranov continued. “On the seventeenth of March, Novastar management sent a directive to all its foreign sales offices ordering all remittances to be wired to an account in an offshore bank.” He picked up a new document and read from it. “I quote, ‘All proceeds from advance ticket sales, tour bookings, late fees, and penalties are to be paid into the account of Futura S.A. at the Banque Sino-Suez.’ The directive is, in itself, an infraction of our legal code. Revenues accruing to the Russian government are to be transferred to Moscow. I could have you thrown in Lefortovo for that alone. What was the purpose of this measure?”

  Lefortovo. Stones dripping with damp. Lice-infested beds. Midnight searches of prisoners’ cells.

  “Ease of accounting. A Swiss firm does all our work.”

  Baranov dismissed the answer with a sneer. “What concerns me more, however, is that since the time of this directive there has been a shortfall in income of over one hundred million dollars from last year’s sales.”

  “Business has fallen off this year,” Kirov explained, his mouth grown parched. “It would help if the government initiated a campaign to bring tourists to the motherland.”

  For once the pasty lawyer smiled. “Actually, bookings are up fifteen percent over last year.”

  “Fifteen percent?”

  “Fifteen point six to be exact.”

  Kirov held the attorney’s eye, hoping to conceal t
he tide of unease crashing inside him. First Futura and now mention of Novastar’s bookings. Next thing Baranov would say he had the banking records to boot. A word scratched at Kirov’s throat, begging to be acknowledged, spoken, screamed. Spy. Someone was slipping his organization’s most important records out of his offices.

  “I don’t involve myself in the day-to-day affairs of my companies,” he finally said. “I know nothing of the directive, but you have my word it will be discontinued immediately. I’m sure the shortfall in revenues is simply an accounting error.”

  “One hundred twenty million dollars is more than an accounting error.”

  “Then the error is surely yours, not mine.”

  “I think not, Konstantin Romanovich. Don’t be surprised to find a government delegation coming to your offices for an early visit one of these days. You know my boys—the ones with ski masks, camouflage utilities, and machine guns. I’ve been made to understand that you are a demon for order—some might even say obsessive. Who knows what we might find. Perhaps some documents with the Banque Privé de Genève et Lausanne name?”

  The Banque Privé de Genève et Lausanne? How the hell had Baranov come up with that name?

  Kirov colored, but his voice remained calm and modulated. “Is that a threat?”

  “One hundred twenty million dollars is missing,” said Baranov solemnly. “Return to the state that which it is due and this inquiry will be terminated.”

  Confess! Collaborate! Apologize! The iron voice echoed across forty years.

  “A raid will not be allowed,” protested Kirov. “If you wish to launch a formal investigation into my handling of Novastar’s affairs, you’re welcome to do so. But use the proper channels.”

  Baranov slammed an open hand on the table. “The Rodina is in a pitiable condition. Our people need money, not justice. The rule of law must take a backseat to economic necessity. We will no longer stand by as you and your like continue to rape the country, as you strip Mother Russia of her wealth to line your own pockets. You oligarchs are jackals, one and all.”