“The committee wants a full report on that gathering. Madame Nina will ask why you were invited.”
Arkady’s unexpected communicativeness was good news. Evidently Madame Nina—he knew the woman only as that, and accepted the secrecy around her as part of the mystique of the organization—wanted him to be prepared for the questioning. That meant she had an interest in his success. Following up on Arkady’s opening, he asked: “Who will be at the meeting?”
“Kudishkin from the old KGB. Then our Agrarian Party man, close to the former communists. One of the bankers in the Group of Fifty capitalists. The leader of the Chechen gangs, a killer, becoming more important now that enforcement is needed.”
The only one von Schwebel did not know was the Chechen. Oleg Kudishkin had been head of the KGB’s Second Chief Directorate, in charge of internal security and counterintelligence, and had been fired when Yeltsin first took over. The long-feared counterspy was able to maintain a network of unreconstructed agents still inside, as well as an allied network of apparatchiks who had left to become strategically placed in major industries. The Agrarian Party politician was a man von Schwebel knew to be at the center of political payoffs by the new capitalists, because he had employed his fixing services himself.
Whichever banker came from the Group of Fifty was unimportant, because its members were interchangeable; that group was the Baltic window on the West for the mafiya fiefdoms channeling untaxed money out of the republics of the former Soviet Union, and the source of funds that made possible the creation of von Schwebel’s empire in television news, books, feature films, broadcast stations; it was also the source of $2 billion in seed money for his newest venture in computer hardware and software. He presumed that the Chechen gangs, from the rebellious area of corruption and violence in the midst of Russia, dispersed after the uprising in Chechnya had been crushed, provided extortion and enforcement muscle to the other parts of the Feliks organization.
He flipped open his subnotebook and called up the directory of files. Before the meeting, he would have to print out hard copies for the committee, whose members still liked the feel of paper reports in their hands. He was especially proud of the report on his penetration of what he was sure was the Fein-CIA proprietary in Memphis; that would prove he was ahead of both the KGB and the CIA in the hunt for the sleeper, not behind them.
He closed the lid and looked out at the bleak Baltic countryside and the cheap housing built on it by the Russian colonizers. Madame Nina had just let him know that she would be asking why he had been invited to the New York party of Matthew McFarland; Kudishkin would probably follow up by asking who had suggested he and his wife, Sirkka, be included. It was known that the literary agent called Ace had visited Nikolai Davidov in Moscow; did the new head of the KGB’s Fifth Directorate know of Unimedia’s control by the Feliks organization?
Why me? he had to ask himself. Who wanted Sirkka and me there? And he had to have an acceptable answer.
The former KGB chief, Kudishkin, asked the first question: “On your advice, we permitted the Krumins woman to accept the CIA trip to New York. Has the sleeper tried to contact her there, as you said was likely? And was the contact made and observed?”
Von Schwebel hated the atmosphere of these meetings. Instead of being conducted in a conference room with decent lighting and audiovisual capabilities, the organizatsiya insisted on the melodramatic venue of a basement room in an old café. The murky lighting made it difficult to catch expressions on faces, much less refer to documents. It was as if organized crime in the East refused to accept the need for modern organization, as had its counterpart in the West; instead, the Russians preferred the dank atmosphere of forgotten penny mysteries. The cultural gap was troubling, but he could not argue with success; in their own archaic way, the disgruntled and corrupt Feliks people had created a syndicate in a few years with a savage esprit that had taken the Italian mafiosi centuries and the Americans generations to attain.
“I call your attention to section three of my report, in your blue folder, on the simultaneous Davidov and Krumins visits.” There was some shuffling of papers around the table, but in this light he would have to summarize orally.
“American intelligence, through its front of Irving Fein and his so-called literary agent McFarland, arranged the Krumins visit and her surveillance. Fein established close rapport with her and traveled with her to Syracuse, a city in New York State about a fourth the size of Riga. They have separate rooms on the eighth floor of the Hotel Syracuse; our man is in the room adjacent to hers with through-the-wall surveillance. No contact has been made so far by Berensky.”
“Does Krumins know that she was selected because the sleeper is her father?” Kudishkin was following section three of the report the most closely.
“No.”
“Does the CIA know?”
“Evidently not.” Von Schwebel was not certain. “Their agents Fein and Farr have given no indication that they know.”
“The Fifth Directorate knows.”
“Of course. Davidov saw the files that the Krumins girl led us all to, and has access to the Shelepin file. He is fully aware of Shelepin’s selection of his bastard son, Berensky, as the sleeper, and of the pregnant wife the young man left behind.”
“I believe the KGB is working with the CIA on this,” said Kudishkin. “They are in direct contact. They have a mutual interest in keeping the Feliks fortune out of our hands.”
“All I can report,” von Schwebel said carefully, “is that we have picked up no evidence that Davidov has informed the CIA or the Krumins girl of her relationship with Berensky.”
Madame Nina, arms folded and sitting back in her chair, said nothing. Her round, lined faced impassive, she looked to the representative of the Group of Fifty, who changed the subject.
“What did you observe at the remarkable party hosted for Davidov by American intelligence? Forget the French actress—focus on the search for Berensky.”
“Section two, green folder.” Did they know about his rendezvous the afternoon afterward with Ari Covair? Unlikely; his Globocop security subsidiary was on the lookout for a second surveillance, and reported none, not even KGB. Unimportant in any event, except it might show a lack of seriousness on his part.
“As we expected, the front man Fein used the occasion to cement his relationship with Krumins. Davidov’s contact with the Director of Central Intelligence and the senator was minimal; everyone was being careful not to be alone with anyone for more than a few moments.”
“What about Davidov and your wife, Sirkka?”
“Casual contact. Believe me, I had my eye on that.”
“Does she know we are aware of her work for Stasi and later for the KGB?”
“No. I have never told her I know.”
“Are you aware that Sirkka von Schwebel met the following afternoon with Davidov for forty-five minutes at the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel, while you were entertaining the French actress?”
He swallowed; they had been watching him. And Sirkka had betrayed him.
Madame Nina leaned forward. “You must assume from now on that your wife is an active asset of the KGB. She will tell them whatever you tell her about our search for the sleeper. She is the enemy.”
“But do nothing to let her know of your knowledge,” Kudishkin instructed. “We may want to use her to send back disinformation.”
“That was a serious failure on your part, von Schwebel,” said Madame Nina. “We are disappointed.”
“Come back to the dinner party,” said the banker from the Group of Fifty. “Tell us what you observed about the banker from Memphis, Dominick.”
“The import of your question,” von Schwebel said, setting up his comeback, “is whether we have fallen behind the CIA and KGB in our search for the sleeper. I direct you to section one of my report, the red folder.”
Nobody touched any papers; they were looking at him for the explanation.
“Edward Dominick is a banker, born
in Dyersburg, Tennessee, parents dead, no siblings, a widower, two teenage daughters. He is forty-eight years old and was educated at Emory University in Atlanta and Wharton. He has been working for Memphis Merchants for fifteen years and has built it into the third-largest bank in the area. His net worth is about seven million dollars, though more than half of that is in restricted bank stock.”
He turned to a new page in the red folder. “Dominick’s office, and telecommunications serving it, is extremely—suspiciously—secure. Windows vibrated to block long-range surveillance, for example. Also sophisticated encryption of data.” He paused for effect. “Davidov’s KGB team has been unable to penetrate this, which I believe has led them to suspect Dominick may be a front for Berensky, if not the sleeper himself.”
“You think this is an elaborate deception,” said his questioner. “An American version of the Trust.”
“It is,” said von Schwebel with finality. “I am certain of this because the firm that the Memphis Merchants Bank hired to set up the computer security is Globocop, a subsidiary of our Unimedia. Our supervisor there recommended an affiliate to handle the telephonic encryption and daily sweeps. We track everything. The Committee was wise to finance my purchase and expansion of these companies.”
“I supported that,” Kudishkin reminded everybody.
“The key operative in these offices is Michael Shu,” von Schwebel continued, “an accountant connected to Irving Fein, the CIA contract agent. Shu’s transmissions show he is using Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury data to discover the mutual funds and banks used by the sleeper agent. Dominick’s transmissions show he is running a parallel operation to the Berensky trading, though heavily hedged because he does not have the huge capital of Berensky.”
“You are convinced this Dominick operation in Memphis is a CIA proprietary.”
“Yes. The alternate possibility is that this is a purely journalistic enterprise, run by one reporter and a television newscaster, with incredible access to U.S. government data, with a large bank’s active cooperation, and financed by a book advance from a division of Unimedia.”
That far-fetched notion drew the first smile from those around the table, except for the Chechen, a criminal who apparently did not appreciate the fine points of intelligence work.
“Back to the McFarland party,” von Schwebel said to the Group of Fifty banker. “Dominick was obviously allied with Viveca Farr, the newscaster, whose home in the suburb Westchester he slept in that night. The following week, we have an audio pickup of their lovemaking on his office couch and videotape of some groping in the building elevator. Dominick was also a visitor to the CIA in Langley two months ago. There is no doubt in my mind that that Memphis operation is masterminded by Dorothy Barclay of the CIA, and that Davidov does not know what to make of it.”
“Where is the money?” said the Chechen. He did not deal in subtleties.
“You mean the real Berensky assets?”
“The money. The tens of billions. Where we can get our hands on it?”
“It’s not in gold or in cash,” von Schwebel explained. “You cannot just walk in someplace and take it.” He took a deep breath. “Often it is in an option, an agreement, to buy a commodity or currency, held by a mutual fund, which is owned by a shell company, which is controlled by a secret group of investors, who are designees of Berensky. That’s putting it simply. It’s much more complicated than that.”
“For example?” said the banker.
“Two days ago, Shu informed Fein in New York that an affiliate of a bank in the Antilles controlled by the sleeper owned a shipping company headquartered in Athens.”
This transmission, he did not bother to say, went by the most secure method of all: “snail mail,” requiring the opening of an apartment mailbox at night, removing and steaming open and copying the contents in the most old-fashioned and nonelectronic way, and replacing the originals in pristine condition. The team leader surveilling Fein was certain that as soon as he dropped his guard, Shu would start transmitting through this technique. Von Schwebel was doubtful: Fein was obviously being careful about his home telephone and fax modem, on which there were three separate taps, and would not be wholly confident about his snail mail.
“Thus, we can put on the Feliks asset list seven of the largest supertankers, worth one hundred million dollars each. The capacity of each of those tankers is two million barrels of oil; at seventeen dollars a barrel, that’s thirty-four million times seven tankers, or two hundred and thirty-eight million dollars in oil being carried by the tankers.” Von Schwebel added it up in his head. “To round it off, that’s just short of a billion dollars in tankers and oil. Then add the contracts the shipping company owns to buy oil in the future at a fixed price, which may be worth a few hundred million more.”
Even Madame Nina looked impressed at his grasp of the scope of the sleeper’s assets.
“Dominick, in his Memphis operation mimicking the Berensky trading, but on a small scale,” said von Schwebel, “just used a shipping company to buy a few oil wells in Qatar. Now, if Berensky has been doing this for five years, God knows how much he controls in oil reserves.”
Kudishkin turned to the Chechen. “He means we must have Berensky himself. Only he can turn his assets into gold and deliver it to us. We need the sleeper’s willing body and brain.”
“When I get my hands on him,” said the Chechen, “he will be willing.”
“First we must identify him, ahead of the Memphis CIA operation,” said Madame Nina hoarsely, “and then bring him here to cooperate with us, the only legitimate successors to those who sent him to America in the first place.” She looked at von Schwebel. “He will make another attempt to reach his daugher.”
“Not without our knowledge.”
“Why do you suppose you and your wife were invited to the McFarland party?” she asked, as Arkady had forewarned she would. “The literary agent did not know you or she were intelligence assets.”
“The simple and logical answer is that I am the head of the parent company of Fein’s publisher. My visitation to the subsidiary was long planned, and a well-connected literary agent would make it his business to know about it and cultivate me.”
“And what is the real answer?” asked the woman dominating the table.
“My guess is that Director Barclay made up the guest list. She must know of my wife’s connection to the KGB, or knew of my connection to the Feliks organization.”
“You are saying that we may be penetrated,” said Kudishkin.
“The presence of a KGB or CIA mole within the Feliks organization is something for you to consider,” said von Schwebel, hoping it would turn suspicion inward instead of toward him.
After a long look around the table, Madame Nina rose, which ended the meeting.
NEW YORK
Viveca indulged Irving’s fixation on secrecy by calling his answering services, identifying herself as Ava Gardner—evidently his beau ideal of womanhood—and telling him to meet her on the set of The Barefoot Contessa in Portofino for dinner. That meant the coffee shop on the ground floor of her studio on the West Side for breakfast. The silly intrigue had a practical purpose, she knew: it would add to the drama of the retelling of the story on television.
“You look a little hung over, kiddo.”
“I have never been happier or better-looking in my life,” she replied. Half of that was true; Edward was the first man she had become involved with who was secure enough not to resent her success. In long talks at little restaurants, they compared and consulted rather than competed; he absorbed the details of her harassment by envious brass and other network talent, and advised her with the intense interest of a long-term lover. She, in turn, was picking up the elements of financial derivatives, the delicious complexities of which he delighted in explaining. She was sorry she could not help him with the intimate details of Liana Krumins’s life, as they had hoped; the uptight Latvian girl was obviously envious of her and froze a rival newsw
oman out. Let Irving work on her.
The other half of her rebuttal to Irving’s crack, Viveca was aware, was false: she was looking drawn from commuting to Memphis almost like a FedEx package. And at thirty-three, she was beginning to give thought to a chin tuck and doing something around her eyes. Not her nose; that was a little off, but was distinctive, and Evelyn, her makeup woman, thought the imperfect nose might be the key to the authoritative cast of the planes of her face. She would have to cut back on alcohol one of these days, too; it was adding to her caloric intake, and both Edward and the camera liked her angularity. The reminder made her thirsty.
“Really stuck on him, hunh?” Irving kept jabbing away. “Don’t let it interfere with his work. I finally got him going down the money trail to finding the sleeper.”
In her new emotional state, Viveca hoped she and Irving could cut the bickering and be friendly colleagues. Even Edward admitted the reporter’s instinct and information had been right about the direction of the investigation into the currency markets.
“Lookit—” She bit her tongue, noting she was picking up New York speech habits. “I was with Edward last night. He can’t call you on the phone, and snail mail takes too long. He needs to know what your Fed contacts say about the meeting scheduled for day after tomorrow on interest rates. Will the interbank rate be cut or not? He thinks Berensky will be going after billions if what you say is true about his mole in the Fed. He wants to parallel the sleeper’s trades and try to spot the main broker dealing for Berensky.”
“Makes sense. I’m seeing my Fed guy this morning. You’ll know by COB tomorrow.”
She smiled at his close-of-business initialese. “What’s with you and COB?”
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