Sleeper Spy

by William Safire

  “Here, you can spread out all your papers,” said Liana Krumins, rearranging the stacks of printouts and mail on her desk by sweeping them into a basket. “Did you see the show? Did you like it?”

  Shu decided it would be prudent to keep all his documents in his briefcase and work from his lap. “The program was a great success, Liana. The ratings were amazing for a documentary, and all the hype beforehand was only a part of it.”

  “The network went all out,” she admitted, ruffling her hair, which was getting longer. “But did you like it? Was it good journalism? Is Irving proud?”

  “Irving Fein hasn’t talked to me in a year,” he said sadly. “But the reviews—well, you saw them, it should win every prize they give. I spoke to Viveca, in California, and she’s grateful for the way you and Irving made her the heroine of the whole story.”

  “You spoke to her? You’re the only one who has. Was it okay, the recreation of the bedroom scene, where she discovers he’s the real Berensky? And it wasn’t painful for her to see the replay of the drugged newscast?”

  “She thought the way you set it up beforehand, showing how the sleeper drugged her to stop her from exposing him, restored her reputation. Made a lot of network brass feel guilty as hell, which is one reason they promoted the show, to rehabilitate her.” Shu thought Liana’s personality—an admixture of old-world mystery and youthful enthusiasm—enhanced the program. Viveca would have been her cool self, and she would have had to be at least apparently modest about her role in finding out the secret of Dominick/Berensky. At any rate, Viveca’s refusal to return to television and Irving’s insistence that Liana be his narrator and star had worked out well all around.

  “Wait till they read Irving’s book,” Liana said. “He credits her with brains and bravery and just about everything. Not objective. Do you suppose he loves her?” Without waiting for an answer, which Michael did not have, she ran to the baby’s room, shushed the kid, and came back. “Ace was on the phone this morning, says he has the book clubs in a bidding war. I love the title.”

  “The Return of Iron Feliks will be a best-seller,” Shu was certain. “The videotape of the program will be in every journalism class at the Newhouse School in Syracuse, as you wanted. The CD-ROM, with all the money-transfer data and use of derivatives, will back up a Harvard Business School case study, as your late father wanted.” He snapped open the lid of his briefcase and contemplated the well-organized accordion files. “Now you and I have some work to do.”

  She adopted a serious look and folded her hands in her lap.

  “As sole executor of the estate of your father, Aleksandr Berensky, also known as Edward Dominick,” he said formally, “I have the fiduciary obligation to give you a preliminary accounting of the estate’s assets, and his last will and testament’s disposition thereof, one year from the date of his death.”

  “Today is the anniversary,” she said. “I didn’t forget.”

  He drew a breath. “I have the privilege of informing you that you are the major beneficiary of your father’s estate. As your television program indicated, the value of the estate is in the neighborhood of eighty-five billion dollars, pretax. Since most of the assets are held outside the United States in various tax havens, I estimate the after-tax corpus to be about sixty billion. Half of that goes to you.”

  “Half?”

  “Thirty billion. Liana, you are a very wealthy woman.” He cleared his throat to utter a sentence that would sound like hyperbole but was a simple statement of fact. “You are the wealthiest person in the world—not just that but you have more assets in your name than anybody has ever had in the history of the world.” The accountant was overwhelmed by what he was saying. “What this means is, you’re richer than hell.”

  “Good. I promise to spend it wisely.”

  “You’ll need an accounting firm, legal advisers, investment advisers—”

  “I want you to meet my chief adviser.”

  She gestured toward Nikolai Davidov, brushing his jet-black hair, shirt open to the waist, standing at the bedroom door. “How much?” he asked Shu.

  “Thirty net to her.”

  “What we figured.”

  Shu, who had been able to buy a major accounting firm with part of his bequest and his anticipated ability to direct the award of great chunks of long-term accounting business, suggested that the adviser would have a full-time job, ultimately employing hundreds of people full-time.

  “Niko’s unemployed,” Liana explained, as if that settled it. “Fired the minute Antonia Krumins was appointed Minister of Federal Security. Irving faxed us a draft of his chapter on how the Feliks people took over the KGB in Moscow.”

  “Three billion in gold helped Madame Nina,” Davidov added. “The President in Moscow was plenty sore at me for failing to stop her seizure of the gold. I was lucky to be fired instead of being prosecuted.”

  Mike Shu thought fast of a way to keep him occupied. “The second major beneficiary of the will is the Shelepin Foundation, fifteen billion to provide pensions to veterans of the KGB and the old Red Army. Liana was given the power to appoint the board. You could be chairman. It would be a post of enormous power and prestige.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Davidov said. “You’re right about hiring the best advisers. Liana has in mind funding a Berensky Institute of Epistemology in a new University of Riga.”

  “The most modern university anywhere, multilingual, multinational, multicultural, multimedia, multi-everything.” She did not hide her excitement. “And a huge fund to help Russians in Latvia who are unhappy here to build houses in Russia. And—”

  “You’ll need an accountant who knows where all the bodies are buried.” Shu bit his tongue; that might not have been the best figure of speech.

  “I’ll ask Irving,” she said brightly. The accountant cleared his throat; that was not a reference he wanted checked. “Come see my baby, Michael. Fourteen weeks old today.”

  At the door to the tiny nursery, Shu ventured to whisper, “Davidov’s?”

  “Um,” she answered. He could not tell whether that was yes or no.

  “You two going to marry?”

  “I would like to. Niko is thinking about it.”

  “Be sure to make a marriage contract first,” he advised. “Your husband, especially as the father of your child, would have a claim on billions.” He looked down at the red-faced, sandy-haired, kicking baby in the crib, swinging a tiny fist at the mobile overhead. The accountant started, swallowing hard, as he saw what he could swear was the infant image of Irving Fein.

  FRANKFURT

  “That damnable, libelous program has all but ruined me, Mr. Shu,” Karl von Schwebel fumed. “The lie that I am backed by mafiya money has been perpetrated by my media enemies, and they are legion. You are the executor of Berensky’s estate?”

  The accountant nodded.

  “I have a substantial claim against it,” the media baron declared. “I was his silent partner. It was solemnly agreed between us the day he was murdered by that Nina fanatic.”

  “You have a contract in writing?”

  “Of course not. Sirkka here, who was his closest colleague throughout the earning of his fortune, who was indispensable to him, is my witness to our verbal contract.”

  “Meaning no disrespect, we have a saying in America that a verbal contract is not worth the paper it’s written on.”

  “We shall see, in court if necessary. Why have you come?”

  “To see your wife, sir. May I talk with her in private?”

  “No. We are a team. We have no secrets from each other.” He turned to Sirkka Numminen von Schwebel, seated quietly at a writing desk in the couple’s library.

  The tall, slender woman, with what struck Michael as the most intelligent violet-blue eyes he had ever seen, agreed: “My husband’s interest and my own are inseparable.”

  “That’s admirable, ma’am. But I was directed by Mr. Berensky, as he was preparing his will, to deliver a mes
sage to you privately before discussing his bequest. I must carry out his wishes to the letter.” To take the sting out of what might be construed as an insult to her husband, or to avoid his nascent suspicion, the accountant added, “For all I know, it may be a coded security matter.”

  “Ah, then,” said the husband. “Take him into the garden, darling, where there is no possibility of being overheard.”

  Shu reminded himself that overhearing was a specialty of Karl von Schwebel’s, who had penetrated the elaborate security of the “war room” at the Memphis bank by owning the company that set it up. The Finnish woman led him out to the formal garden, where Shu figured directional microphones were hidden in every bush. He insisted to Mrs. von Schwebel that they talk in his rental car in the driveway. She acceded without argument.

  “How much?”

  “Five hundred million dollars to you, with an ‘if.’ ”

  “Though the sleeper sleeps, he does not rest,” she said. “What must I do?”

  Good way of putting one of Berensky’s final manipulations, the accountant judged. But despite her sardonic smile, she appeared ready to do whatever was required.

  “Mr. Berensky evidently had the highest respect for you, but not for your husband. The bequest will be made available to you, specifically not subject to any joint ownership agreement you may have with your husband, in the form of securities that will be acquired in a holding company in the Antilles that controls the parent company of Unimedia.”

  “The stock of which has fallen through its low because of that terrible, though quite accurate, television program by the brash Mr. Fein.”

  The accountant nodded; that low price made the purchase of control all the easier. “Mr. Berensky wanted you and another person to control that media empire. He wanted the decision to be yours—whether or not to keep Mr. von Schwebel in management or terminate his services.”

  “Who is the other person?”

  This woman did get right to the heart of the matter; Michael could see why Berensky had such a high regard for her acumen. “I’m not yet at liberty to say, but it’s a person with experience in the media, who has been bequeathed similar resources. The testator believed your experience would complement each other’s. Between the two of you, control of the Unimedia holdings will be removed from the Feliks organization.”

  “Who did Aleks have in mind as my partner?” she pressed.

  “I will inform you of that as soon as I have a meeting with that person.”

  She nodded reluctantly. “I take it by your frequent use of the word ‘person’ that it is a woman. So be it. And one billion between the two of us would be enough to control a five-billion-dollar empire. Do your duty, Mr. Shu.”

  The accountant had a personal note to add. “I was with Aleks Berensky when he was drawing up the will in Memphis. He wanted you to know that he appreciated your fine work over the years, and that—these are his words—he was ‘drawn to Sirkka Numminen more than to any other woman I ever met.’ I suppose that’s why he wanted you to have your independence. And for what it’s worth, he also sympathized with you as a dog owner for having to follow a veterinarian’s advice to put down your mountain dog.”

  She sat still for a long moment. “I was useful to him. There came a moment when I was vital to his plan.”

  At first, Michael Shu presumed she meant the grand currency coup, but that was too obvious; he reminded himself to think like Irving at moments like these. Perhaps Sirkka was alluding to the killing of the Swiss banker in Bern; from Berensky’s remark about putting down a Bernese mountain dog, the accountant suspected the woman from Helsinki had arranged for his accidental death or done the deed herself. That would have been really useful.

  “Aleks knew the risk he was running, going to see them in Riga,” she said. “He wanted to be sure the fortune was used to rebuild a Russia capable of defeating the West. That called for discipline and patriotic intensity, not the Russian mafiya’s corruption and greed.”

  “He was disciplined, all right.”

  “Curious, isn’t it, Mr. Shu—Shelepin’s purpose in creating a sleeper was defeated by an enemy he created, without intention, at the same moment. In the end, the husband and wife canceled each other out.” She put her hand on the door handle, and said with affectionate detachment, “I hope Aleks was given a moment to appreciate the irony of that before he died. The mafiya and its allies are taking over in Moscow without his fortune. His life—all those years of self-denial—turned out to be a waste.”

  The future media baroness opened the car door. “You said ‘drawn to’ me was the phrase he used?”

  “Those were his words.”

  “And I to him. I have been useful to Stasi, useful to the KGB, useful to FI, useful to my husband. Of all those I have served, Berensky alone gave me the sense that I was not merely ‘useful.’ ” She walked, head thrown proudly back, into what was—for the time being—her husband’s mansion.

  NEW YORK

  “I appreciate your bringing us together in your office, Mr. McFarland,” said the accountant, drawing his chair up to the desk. “May I call you Ace?”

  “Tell him to call you Mr. McFarland, the disloyal creep.” Irving Fein was lounging on the couch.

  “I used to disapprove of that racy nickname,” said the agent, “but age is mellowing me. Irving here finds your transfer of allegiance to Berensky in midstream reprehensible, which is why he prefers to deal with you through me.”

  “I can’t blame him.” Shu produced two envelopes. “You, Mr. McFarland, are entitled to a copy of the will because you are mentioned in it”—he handed a manila envelope across the desk—“in reference to the document on these disks.” He handed over the smaller envelope containing Berensky’s twenty-year diary and memoirs.

  “I am to represent his estate in the sale of this book?”

  “Actually not. The diary is his bequest to you, as is stated on page forty-seven of the Berensky will, in recollection of a dinner party in your home at which he met his daughter. The royalty is all yours.”

  “Smart bastard,” Irving called across the room. “That way, Ace, you’ll knock yourself loose to get the biggest advance; that’ll force the publishers into a big first printing, making them advertise like crazy to get their nut back. And Berensky will get his message across to the biggest possible public, making that murderous commie bastard look like a victim and a hero.”

  “That’s substantially what my client had in mind,” Shu admitted.

  “I have represented villains as well as heroes,” said Ace with solemnity, “in line with my lifelong dedication to the principle of free speech.” He ignored the loud noise imitating the sound of regurgitation coming from the couch. “Mr. Shu—why did you ask me to persuade Irving to come here today? Is he in the will, too?”

  “No. I wanted to explain to him my seeming betrayal.”

  Fein was instantly on his feet. “Seeming? Seeming? You sold out, you little shit! He put ten million bucks in your name in a secret Swiss account not two months after you went to Memphis—on an assignment I sent you on, and paid you for. You were working for two opposing clients at the same time, and I’ll have you up on an ethics charge and drummed out of the satisfied public accountant’s dodge for the rest of your life. Y’unnerstand? And what piece of the estate do you get as an executor’s fee—the usual five percent? Five billion for your sellout?”

  “The will specifies one-tenth of one percent, or ten million, whichever is greater,” Shu acknowledged. Irving would find out sooner or later.

  “A lousy ten million. You were a cheap buy. You’re rich, all right, but you’ll be dead meat in the eyes of every bean counter in the world. No matter how you try to buy respectability, in your obit it’ll say ‘traitor to accounting and journalism.’ Just try to enjoy your blood money, big shot—I’ll dog your steps for the rest of your double-crossing life.”

  Shu closed his eyes and took the abuse from the man he respected so much, comforting himself wi
th the thought that at least they were in direct communication again. When Irving subsided, Michael said only, “I didn’t sell out.”

  Irving then went into another long fulmination, replete with facts and dates, evidently drawn together for a follow-up story on the sleeper’s subornation of a greedy and ungrateful Vietnamese-Russian-American. When the reporter wound down, the accountant told his story.

  “Remember the time, after Clauson’s death, you went to see Dorothy Barclay at the CIA?”

  “Listen to that weaseling ‘after Clauson’s death.’ You mean after your client murdered him, don’t you?”

  “Right. I don’t know it for a fact, and neither does anybody, but it’s a fair assumption that Berensky killed him.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anyhow, remember when you went to Langley? And the Director of Central Intelligence gave you the brush-off?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you must have shaken her up. She turned the whole Clauson file over to the FBI Director right away quick, so she wouldn’t get hit later with an Ames-type delay. And that’s when the FBI agents came to me.”

  Fein said nothing, listening. Ace was the one who said, “Go on.”

  “They wanted me to work for the Bureau while I was in Memphis with Dominick. They said it was my patriotic duty.”

  “But you were on retainer to me, to a private U.S. citizen, and nobody suspected back then that Dominick playing Berensky was really Berensky playing Dominick.”

  “You’re wrong about that, Irv. I think Director Barclay was tracking the sleeper, maybe starting after she walked back the cat on Walter Clauson. Something fishy was in the file about Clauson and Dominick working together on a trip to Kiev a few years back. She gave that to the FBI, and the FBI leaned on me to arrange a tap on von Schwebel’s tap. And I gave them our encryption code. I figured—it was the FBI, right? They’re on our side.”

  “They’re on the side of the law. You were supposed to be on the side of the truth.” Irving, as ethical Savonarola, was unrelenting. “You had a CPA’s obligation to come to the client who was your meal ticket, kiddo. That was me.”