The First Billion

by Christopher Reich

  From their vantage point three miles to the west of Army Forward Observation Post 18—recently ceded to Konstantin Kirov and renamed, according to secret transcripts of Kirov’s conversations “the dacha”—Mnuchin and Orlov had an unobstructed view of the wooded hilltop. Their assignment was to maintain Level 1 surveillance on Kirov’s men—that is, to keep track of their whereabouts, but not to worry about their specific activities. It was an undemanding job, nothing like their usual work involving the installation and monitoring of sensitive eavesdropping apparatus. Both held doctorates from Moscow State in electrical engineering. Today all that was required were a pair of binoculars and a logbook to note the time and nature of their targets’ movements.

  “A hundred rubles he doesn’t do it,” Mnuchin said, a loving hand appraising the stubble of his new crew cut.

  “You’re on. Konstantin Romanovich is every bit as cold as the General. If he were here, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did the job himself.”

  “Never. No man can kill his own daughter. Frankly, I think he’s sick. I would have told the General to fuck off.”

  “The hell you say,” Orlov said with a smirk. “You would cut your dick off with a butter knife if General Kirov told you to.”

  Shrugging his agreement, Mnuchin picked up the binoculars. “Anything for Mother Russia.” A moment later, his posture stiffened and the grin dropped from his face. “They’re leaving.”

  “Already? Impossible. They’ve been there hardly thirty minutes.” Orlov picked up the logbook and noted the time: 12:47. Laying the journal by his side, he drew on his seat belt, taking care that it did not interfere with the pistol he wore beneath his left arm, and checked that the mirrors were adjusted properly.

  “False alarm,” called out Mnuchin. “Only one vehicle.”

  “You get the signal?”

  “Not yet.”

  The komitet had its own man inside Kirov’s organization. He had promised to signal when the executions had been carried out: Two flashes of his high beams would mean that the American and Kirov’s daughter were dead. The Suburban rushed past, its midnight-tinted windows making it difficult to get a clear look into the interior.

  “Give the plates to dispatch,” said Mnuchin, settling back into his seat. “If they want, they can assign a team.”

  Orlov called in the license plates and advised central dispatch of the events. The report would be forwarded to their superior officer, who would either contact General Kirov with the news or make a decision for himself. Either way, it meant another few hours of sitting in the car. “You think we should call up there? See what’s going on?”

  Mnuchin trained his binoculars on the dacha. All he could see were the broken fence and the tail end of the second Suburban. “Why? We wouldn’t want to interrupt their fun.”

  The cell phone rang again.

  Cate checked her watch. It was nearly four o’clock. They were driving south on the M4 motorway, nearing the Moscow city limits. For miles they would see no one, then traffic would come to a halt as they came upon a convoy of ten or twelve broken-down trucks, tailpipes spewing exhaust, tires wobbling precariously, lumbering down the center of the road. Jett would steer the Suburban onto the shoulder, negotiate the borderland of waist-deep potholes and basketball-size rocks, until once past the trucks he could reclaim his position on the pavement.

  “Leave it,” said Gavallan.

  Cate stared at the phone as if it were a bomb. She knew her father. She knew his impatience. He was not a man who allowed “atmospherics” to stand in his way. “No,” she said brusquely, surprised at the force of her reply. “I won’t.”

  And before Jett could make a move, she picked up the phone and put it to her ear.

  “Da.” It was another woman’s voice, rougher, more unpolished than her own. If it didn’t sound exactly like Tatiana, it didn’t sound like Katya Kirov either.

  “Give me Boris,” ordered her father.

  “He is busy,” Cate responded.

  “Is Gavallan talking?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Tell Boris to hurry up.”

  “Sure.”

  “And my daughter . . .”

  “What about her?” Cate stared out the window, willing her soul to become as desolate as the passing countryside.

  “Please make it as painless as possible. Surprise her if you can. It is better if she does not know it is coming. As her father, it would please me. It is the least I can do.”

  “You are too kind.”

  A long silence followed. As Jett stared daggers at her, Cate wondered if she had gone too far, if she’d tipped her hand. Then her father’s voice came back, as focused and self-centered as before. “Have Boris call me as soon as he’s done. I’ve been having a terrible time getting through. The pilot says it’s the aurora borealis acting up this time of year. If there is a problem, have him try me at my hotel. He has the number.”

  Cate hung up.

  “What did he say?” Gavallan asked.

  Cate met his eyes. “He wants Boris to call him when we’re dead.”

  Moscow.

  Rush hour in the Center. Ten minutes inside the city limits and Gavallan decided it was every third world hellhole he’d ever known. Jakarta. Bangkok. São Paulo. Traffic was snarled. Militiamen stood impotent amid the blaring horns and packed metal, smoking cigarettes. The pollution was choking and oppressive. Inside the narrow urban canyons, the sky was bleached a puke yellow, a swirling sea of grit, garbage, and carbon monoxide. The heat was oppressive. Combined with the noxious smells, the jangling din, the stop-and-go traffic, it left Gavallan off balance and wary.

  “There’s the embassy,” said Cate, pointing ahead of them at a large traditional yellow and cream colored building on the right-hand side of the road. “That’s the main building there. But the consular offices are around the corner.”

  “Where do I park?”

  “You don’t. Just pull over.”

  A tall concrete wall painted white surrounded the complex. Entrance was gained through a reinforced gate guarded by two Marine sentries and untold plainclothes security guards. Spotting the Stars and Stripes flying behind the wall, Gavallan pulled into the right lane and cut his speed.

  “You ready, pard?” he asked, catching Byrnes’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “When I stop, you skedaddle. Don’t let anyone stop you from getting inside those four walls. They touch you, scream bloody murder.”

  “Don’t worry about me. That there is sovereign territory of the United States of America. I’m as good as home.”

  Gavallan shifted his gaze to the side-view mirror and the gray Chaika sedan that had been on his tail, precisely three cars behind him, for the last thirty minutes. He looked at the two men inside the car—dark suits, dark glasses, short haircuts, chilling caricatures of the once and future totalitarian state. He looked back at Byrnes, not betraying a thing.

  “Yeah, well, don’t get too comfortable. I want you out of there tomorrow morning.”

  “Swissair flight 1915 to Geneva,” Byrnes recited. “Departs at nine-fifteen; arrives ten-fifteen local time.”

  They’d gone over the formalities several times already. Byrnes was to ask to see Everett Hudson, the consular officer with whom Gavallan had spoken when he was in San Francisco. He was to explain that he had been kidnapped and to ask for immediate medical attention. Any requests to have him speak with the local police were to be politely but vigorously turned down. The embassy would supply clothing and a place to sleep.

  “If they give you any trouble about issuing a new passport overnight, tell them to call the senator.” Gavallan figured his contributions to the winning side had been hefty enough to guarantee him at least one favor. Besides, the senator was a former mayor of San Francisco. It was the least she could do for one of the city’s own.

  Byrnes leaned against the door, his fingers gripping the release. “You’re sure about what you’re doing?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. It’s the only
way.” Then a lick of pragmatism tempered his confidence and he added in a subdued voice, “You might want to have a word with the defense attaché. Give him some advance warning. I’ll have the other side warmed up and waiting.”

  “Just keep it low and slow. Even if we are all buddy-buddy now, remember, you’re not flying the friendly skies of United. And watch out near the Polish border—they scramble on a heartbeat these days.”

  “You know, some people might think you’re still my CO.”

  Byrnes didn’t smile. His eyes did not flicker. “Good luck.”

  Gavallan stopped the car directly in front of the embassy, but only for a second. “Go. Get the hell out of here.”

  The passenger door opened and Byrnes was gone, running across the sidewalk to the Marine security guards. Gavallan accelerated. In his rearview mirror, he watched his close friend pass into the compound and disappear from view. It was only then that he voiced his newest suspicions to Cate. “Bad news.”

  “Oh?”

  Discreetly, he poked a thumb behind him. “We’ve got company.”

  60

  Mr. Kirov, it is an honor to welcome you to New York and to Black Jet Securities,” boomed Bruce Jay Tustin as he greeted Konstantin Kirov outside the main entrance of 11 Madison Avenue.

  “The honor is mine,” said Kirov, climbing from the limousine. Shaking Tustin’s hand, he glanced up at the building, a noble façade of steel and glass. “It’s a privilege to be here.”

  “If you don’t mind, let’s get upstairs. We’re in a bit of a hurry. We’ve got a lot of people waiting for the big event.”

  “Do I have time to button my jacket?” He was always taken aback by the American ability to be overly polite and unbearably rude at the same time. He followed Tustin through the swinging doors and into the lobby, where Tustin pinned a badge on his jacket and shepherded him past the security desk.

  At three-thirty in the afternoon, the lobby was pleasantly busy. A steady stream of men and women churned past Kirov. White, black, mulatto, Asian, Hispanic—as many ethnic mixes as in the former Soviet Union. There was an eagerness to their faces, an alacrity to their step, a forthrightness in their demeanor, that both amazed and frightened him. Such confidence in the world. Such faith that the system would not disappoint. He was sure every one of them held a valid claim on dreams of expensive cars and luxury apartments and vacations in Paris. No doubt they already possessed color televisions, PCs, cellular telephones, digital cameras, Japanese stereos, and closets full of fine clothing, most of which they never wore. They owned refrigerators choked with fresh vegetables, eggs, milk, cheese, leftover Chinese food, soda, and foreign mineral water. Still, they ate out twice a week. They had bank accounts and ATM cards and Swiss watches and cable TV. Many owned automobiles. In short, they had everything. And look at them. Hungry as wolves for more. Bravo!

  Kirov was a student of the American brand of greed, a fan of the excess that capitalism bred. He had always been curious as to how the old barons of the Kremlin, all dead and buried (and, he hoped, rotting in hell), could have believed that dogma and political creed could suffocate the competitive drive of the human soul, could stifle man’s innate desire to exploit his talents to the best of his abilities, to toil and be compensated accordingly. What hubris! What arrogance! What barbarity!

  I am the first of the new breed, Kirov told himself with the same ambitious cynicism he read painted on the faces around him. I am a pioneer sent to show my countrymen the path to success. To midwife Russia’s transition to a modern economy.

  A few bold Americans had lit the way a century earlier. Men who had overseen the growth of the railroads, the introduction of oil, the mass manufacture of steel. Some called them “robber barons,” but Kirov thought differently. They were men of vision, builders, creators, founders of a new empire. The riches they amassed were small compensation for the legacy they left behind.

  He was no different. Bold? Yes. Aggressive? Always. Immoral? Unethical? Unscrupulous? Let the next generation judge. He was a modern-day Gould. A twenty-first-century Vanderbilt, if not quite a Rockefeller.

  They entered a waiting elevator and Tustin pressed the button for the twelfth floor. “Tired, sir?”

  Kirov breathed deeply, suddenly feeling quite at home. “On the contrary, invigorated.”

  He looked closely at Tustin, standing with his arms behind his back like a latter-day Napoleon. The banker was dressed in a bold gray pinstripe, a pink broadcloth shirt, and a blaring red necktie that could be heard back in Petersburg. His hair was slicked back with enough pomade to fill a lake. There was a slight bruise on his lip where Gavallan had punched him, but Kirov decided not to mention it. He was playing it by the book, pretending to be a client just like any other.

  “Any word from Mr. Gavallan?” he asked.

  “None, but I’m sure he’ll check in shortly.”

  “I’m sure he will too. Still, it is disturbing.”

  Tustin simply lowered his eyes, and Kirov thought, Here is a man who cares less for Gavallan than I. “I see the markets are up today,” he said.

  “The Dow’s up one twenty, the Nasdaq about the same. Sentiment is very positive lately. Maybe you’re bringing us luck. After all, you brought us some blue skies. For the last couple of days, the city has had nothing but rain.”

  “You know the old saying. ‘When angels travel, the heavens smile.’ And what about the pricing?”

  “I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised. There are a couple of formalities we like to engage in before we make an official announcement. We’ve got a conference room reserved. Like I said, a few people will be joining us.”

  “Very good,” said Kirov, keeping the smile pasted to his face. Inside, however, he was worried. Formalities? What formalities could remain at this eleventh hour?

  The doors slid back and Tustin requested that Kirov follow him. They walked past the elevator bank and onto the trading floor, threading their way through aisle upon aisle of men and women seated in front of a myriad screens. And as they walked, something strange and marvelous happened. The room grew hushed. The incessant chatter died down. At first Kirov heard one pair of hands begin clapping, then another. He looked around, eager to spot the source of the applause, wondering in his vain yet insecure mind if it was mocking or adulatory. The next thing he knew every person in the room had risen and was pounding his or her hands together. Respectfully. Enthusiastically. Lovingly. Every living soul on the trading floor of Black Jet Securities was saluting his arrival.

  Slowing his gait, Kirov raised a hand to acknowledge the applause. He selected an expression of imperious solemnity to greet the masses. He was Alexander riding into Macedon. Caesar returning to Rome. Chuikov arriving in Red Square after taking Berlin.

  “It is too much, really,” he said, bowing to speak into Tustin’s ear.

  “Nonsense.”

  And then Kirov heard the music and he stopped walking altogether. The strains of “The International,” the majestic Russian national anthem, played from hidden loudspeakers. The applause died and all eyes fell on him. Kirov was stunned, and for a few seconds he didn’t know what expression to choose. The music grew louder, and his skin shivered with goose bumps. Emotion plucked at his eyes, and Kirov was damned if he wasn’t crying, this man born to peasant stock, this servant of free speech, this disciple of technology. This son of Russia.

  Tustin patted his shoulder, nodding as if to say it was all right to shed a tear, that his pride was well-deserved, and for a moment Kirov loved him, too, as he loved everyone else in the room. This handsome, well-attired, overtly intelligent assemblage of financial professionals.

  The anthem came to an end and the applause again started up, but only briefly. Kirov offered the victor’s smile expected of him, gave a final wave, then followed Tustin to a conference room that took up a corner of the floor. Twenty or thirty people were milling about the glassed-in room, drinking champagne, munching on canapés, and making small talk.

&
nbsp; “Janusz, Václav, Ed, hello. So glad you could make it.” One by one he greeted his underlings from Mercury, then the others who had shepherded the Mercury offering through the offering process. Lawyers, bankers, accountants. And there was old man Silber himself—gray, bent, and exceedingly ugly, a Swiss gnome indeed. Kirov shook his hand. Apparently, the dinosaur hadn’t yet gotten the word about the fate of his in-house tout, Pillonel.

  “Welcome to Black Jet,” said Antony Llewellyn-Davies, tapping him on the shoulder and handing him a glass of champagne. “We’re delighted you were able to make it on time. One never knows with those small jets.”

  “What is small about a G-5?”

  “Oh, nothing, I just . . .”

  “Thank you.” Kirov accepted the champagne, averting his gaze. The Englishman always left him feeling nervous and inadequate, with his soft eyes and snobby manner.

  A spoon clinked a glass and the room fell silent. Bruce Jay Tustin cleared his throat, and those around him stepped back to clear a small space. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I might have your attention, please. It’s time for us to conduct some important business. . . .”

  Don’t look behind you,” Gavallan instructed Cate, laying a hand on her leg. “They’ve been there since we got into the city. Maybe before, but I didn’t pick them up.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I got the first two numbers of their license plates. I’m sure.”

  “It could be routine,” said Cate. “The traffic militia getting ready to shake us down for a little bribe.”

  Gavallan eyed her doubtfully. “We both know better than that.”

  “But why didn’t they stop Graf?”

  “I can’t say. Probably they didn’t have orders to. All I know is that we stick out like a sore thumb in this car. We’ve got to ditch it in a hurry.”