by Alex Dryden
It was getting dark and it would be as dark as it had been the night before when we had crossed the river. There was little river traffic at this hour, just the occasional barge pushing its way slowly up against the current in the opposite direction.
Finn took the wheel and we were making good way with the current in our favour. We had to be careful not to overshoot the target and become entangled with the guards who watched the bridge where the borders of Ukraine, Transdnestr and Moldova met.
I saw the pontoons first. They were over to the right-hand side of the river-to starboard, as Finn said–until I told him to talk in left and right. I realised how hard it was going to be to dock a 150-tonne barge against a pontoon with all the power of the current behind it.
Finn headed straight for the upright post at the far end of the pontoon and as we seemed to be about to hit it, he slammed the engine in full reverse and spun the wheel. The barge choked and struggled against the current coming up behind us and then slowly, its engine roaring, the barge hauled its stern towards the pontoon while the bow pressed against the post ahead.
I jumped on to the pontoon at the stern and Finn threw me a rope, which I secured, and then ran to the bow and did the same. The barge edged towards me, I hauled in the line and secured it again as we docked parallel to the pontoon.
Then I climbed back on to the barge and we picked up our packs.
As we stepped off on to the pontoon, we heard shouts from farther up the bank. I heard feet running along the pontoon from the shore and saw at least three men in uniform. We turned back, climbing on to the barge. Finn pointed into the fast-flowing black water and then we jumped.
The water was very cold, a start-of-summer temperature, and I gasped with shock. My leg hurt again where I’d fallen on it. I heard feet behind me on the wooden deck of the barge, then shouts. Finally there were gunshots ploughing wildly into the water. But we were travelling fast in the current and were soon fifty yards away, holding tight to each other, our packs gone.
Finn shouted at me to strike out for the shore. I saw, perhaps a mile ahead, twin searchlights that seemed to be coming from a bridge and which were shining their beams on to the river’s surface. It was the frontier with the Ukraine, below which was the Black Sea. The bank we were striking out for was Moldovan territory.
‘Don’t let go!’ Finn shouted, and we both struggled with one arm, inch by inch, working half with the current as we tried to cross it.
I felt nothing, no pain from my leg now, no fear, I was completely controlled by adrenalin. And I knew that this loss of all feeling would last me as long as it took to get to safety.
When we were nearly at the shore and the lights on the bridge ahead seemed dangerously close, a broken branch stretched its dead wood out from the bank and we both grabbed it and held on desperately, too exhausted to do anything else. Finally we pulled ourselves along the rotting wood until we touched the muddy bottom of the river. I hauled myself out, freezing in the cool night, and Finn followed. Without talking, we ran straight into the woods that lined the bank, hoping to avoid the patrols from the right where the pontoons were, and from the left where the bridge loomed now, close up and fully lit.
The woods ran all along the Moldovan side of the river and for several hundred yards inland. It was completely dark now. There were shouts from not far off, and dogs barking in the distance, the guards trespassing now on to the Moldovan side.
And then we suddenly came out of the trees and into a field. There was some spring-sown crop that was barely visible above the earth. We ran down the edge of this field and heard the dogs in the wood behind where our pursuers had now come far into Moldovan territory. I saw a vehicle coming down a road a few hundred yards ahead. We ran faster. We were well into Moldova now, but I knew that it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to our pursuers. I could still hear the dogs.
We ran on to the road before I realised in the darkness it was there. It must have curved sharply from where the vehicle was approaching and I fell with the shock of the drop in the ground. I heard a vehicle slamming on its brakes and then I must have passed out.
35
I WOKE UP IN BED. I didn’t know where I was or how long I’d been here. I could remember the race across the border, the truck, but then nothing. My head throbbed.
I saw Finn sitting at a laptop on the other side of the room. We were in a hotel bedroom, I saw. The sun was pouring through open windows and net curtains puffed in a warm breeze. Finn heard my grunt and looked around.
‘You’re awake, Rabbit.’
‘Mm.’ I leaned on one elbow and he grinned at me frowning. ‘It’s quite bright, isn’t it?’ I said.
‘It’s a beautiful day in Chisinau.’
‘Chisinau. So we made it.’
‘Of course we made it.’
‘You’re very full of yourself,’ I complained.
‘It’s nearly over,’ he said. ‘All this. We’re nearly at the end of the road.’
He brought a room-service menu over to me and kissed me.
‘There’s a doctor who can look at your leg, if you’d like. How’s your head?’
‘Hurting.’
‘Your leg’s not broken anyway.’
‘I’m fine. You choose something, will you?’ I said, handing him back the menu and sinking back on to the pillows.
When I’d eaten half of what he’d ordered and pushed the tray away, he said, ‘I’m going to Germany. Just for the night.’
‘You’re seeing Dieter?’
‘Yes.’
I thought for a moment.
‘Was it really worth it, what we did?’ I said. ‘Transdnestr?’
‘What you did, yes. Every intelligence agency in Europe will have to act.’
‘Will they? Act, I mean?’
‘I’ve been waiting to give Adrian something like this for years. How can he ignore it? A high-profile German firm illegally running huge sums of illegal Russian cash across European borders.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
Finn kissed me again and told me he’d see me the next day.
Finn meets Dieter at a Spanish restaurant in Frankfurt at four in the afternoon, having persuaded the manager to stay open by the simple expedient of ordering two bottles of his most expensive Vega Sicilia wine.
‘We’re celebrating,’ he tells Dieter.
The German, always less flamboyant than Finn, looks uneasy at the vast cost, and at the quantity.
‘Come on, Dieter. Relax,’ Finn says. ‘You’ve found what you’ve been wanting to find for fifteen, eighteen years. You have the five names, you know what Exodi exists to do.’
‘What difference will it make?’ Dieter replies grumpily.
Going out to this chic, expensive restaurant is more than a celebration. There is something reckless about it, and Dieter, I believe, sees that too. There is an element of carelessness in Finn’s exuberant mood. It’s as if coming close to the end of the job for him means nothing more than beating Adrian.
It is tempting to wonder if he asked me to marry him as one last-ditch attempt to save himself; to give himself a new beginning, something to live for, a way to look beyond the job.
They eat and drink a great deal, but Dieter refuses to talk about his findings while they are in the restaurant.
They take a taxi away from the centre of the city to the Schwan-heimer forest. Finn has bought a bottle of whisky, and Dieter knows a path that leads straight into the forest’s heart.
‘The five names in the Dresden file are linked to Exodi by the payments they receive, of course,’ Dieter began. ‘But it’s the reason they’re being bribed that shows us what the real sums, the huge sums Exodi possesses, are intended for,’ he says. ‘The five are all German citizens. They have many directorships in different companies, but they are all connected to just one company. This company is unique to all of them.’
‘The Russians want information about the company,’ Finn asks impatiently.
‘
Very special information, yes. The company’s a defence contractor named Hammerein,’ Dieter says. ‘Based in Essen. It’s one of Germany’s biggest defence contractors. Hammerein has a large stake in Europe’s defence enterprise, European Air Defence Systems.
‘One of the five is on the board of the company,’ Dieter continues. ‘The other four–three men and a woman–are non-executive directors. One has access to a highly discreet department that is concerned with technological secrets. But this, I think, is a blind to suggest that it is technology the Russians are after. It isn’t technology. It’s something much bigger than that.’
Finn drinks the whisky on its own.
‘And what’s that, Dieter?’ Finn says. ‘What’s the ultimate goal?’
‘It’s a typically complex, post-war German phenomenon,’ Dieter says wearily. ‘The whole system was designed so that no one could get their hands on all the vital organs of the German state as Hitler did. It goes like this. Every seven years, for one day only, the board of Hammerein resigns, including the senior government minister who sits on the board.
‘On this single day, for a few hours and only every seven years, it is possible for anyone to buy shares in the company, to buy enough shares to take control of it. This has always been just a formality, of course. The members of the board are always automatically reappointed by shareholders, and the day passes as it has done for more than fifty years, without anything changing. It is an old post-war construct in order to guard against any company from the military-industrial complex becoming a law unto itself.’
‘And this special day? When is it?’ Finn asks the German.
‘In just over eight months’ time.’
‘And if Exodi is paying these employees, what is it buying? Not just the date?’
‘The date is important. No doubt the date and this curious window of opportunity itself were unknown to the Russians. Nobody outside the board and a few key shareholders really know it. So, yes, the Russians bought that. But they’re also buying the strategy. They plan to buy one of Europe’s biggest defence companies on the one day it can be bought. They’re buying the expertise to buy enough shares during the course of twenty-four hours before the government can react. Six billion dollars’ worth. That would take inside knowledge. These board directors would be key to that. They can line up which shareholders will sell and which won’t.
‘So. To pursue the end of taking over one of Europe’s three key defence companies, Exodi is paying large sums of money into Merrill Lynch in Paris and into Goldman Sachs in New York. These brokers will be the ones actually buying the shares, but of course in a client name set up for the purpose, which is impossible to trace in so short a time. It is a hit of enormous proportions.’
Whether it’s because of the whisky on top of the wine, or because of the incredible prospect of Russia buying one-third of Europe’s air defence industry, Finn doesn’t seem to grasp what Dieter is saying.
‘Exodi are trying to buy…?’ he says.
‘The Russians are aiming to buy the European air defence pro-gramme,’ Dieter replies. ‘That’s Hammerein’s particular speciality. Effectively buy it, with Germany’s third, anyway.’
‘Christ. Dear, beautiful Mikhail…’ Finn mutters.
‘Mikhail?’
Finn nods vaguely and Dieter doesn’t pursue it.
‘But that’s not the end of it,’ Dieter says. ‘Buying control of Hammerein you would think would be enough, even for the Russians. But Exodi has many more billions at its disposal than what is needed to buy just Hammerein. Buying one of Europe’s main defence contractors is, incredibly, only the tip of the iceberg, Finn. The Russian strategy is broader than that and Europe’s defence industry is just the beginning. The two hundred and fifty company names in the Dresden file? They are all potential targets. The Kremlin intends to buy whatever it needs in Europe to give it control over Europe. Principally, that’s energy companies, pipelines they have the product, the oil and gas themselves- but the Plan is to ensure that Western European governments will answer to the Kremlin for all their energy needs by 2025. They’ll own the supply and control the demand. In a decade or so, the Ministry of Defence in Moscow would like to control the way the European Union works, through its very bloodstream.’
‘And Europe’s defence industry is just another company for them? Christ.’
To Finn, this is at last a vindication of everything he’s said and worked to achieve for over six years. It’s what he lost his job for, what the boy in Luxembourg died for, it’s his revenge on Adrian, the other bad father in Finn’s life. It’s also the end. It’s the way he’s chosen that leads in his imagination to me–to us–for good. This is close to all he needs and he’s barely listening to Dieter.
‘The price of oil has given the Russians the thing they’ve always lacked; a very large chunk of the world’s riches.’
And then Finn seems to snap out of whatever dream line he’s been following.
‘So Exodi is a secret fund that amasses Russian government money. It adds into this pot the billions from drug and arms sales, brought over the old Soviet borders in Reiter’s trucks. Some powerful people in Luxembourg protect Exodi’s illegal account and other powerful people in Germany protect Reiter, Otto Roth’s brother. The five names are there to provide information to buy just one compan–a huge company that has close to a controlling interest in Europe’s defence industry.’ Finn pauses. ‘So who else are the Russians paying? What’s next? What other industrial giant do they have in their sights?’
‘Look at the list of the companies in the Dresden file,’ Dieter says. ‘That is the Russians’ list.’
‘I can go to Adrian with this,’ Finn says. He looks at Dieter. ‘And you’ll have to tell your bosses at the BND.’
‘Former bosses,’ Dieter corrects him. ‘No.’
‘What do you mean? Why not? It’s your government that’s best placed to stop what’s happening with Hammerein. You have to tell them.’
Dieter looks off into the darkness.
‘We’re close to the truth, Finn.’
‘We have the truth,’ Finn protests.
‘Why don’t we leave it at that?’ the German replies quietly. ‘Why bang our heads against a wall trying to get others to believe it, when it’s evident that they know and that they’re ignoring it? For whatever reason, I don’t know, but they are ignoring it. You know what happened with Schmidtke, what already happened to me fifteen years ago. The whole operation was closed down. Do the BND want to hear this, do you think? Nothing’s changed since then. Nothing. And that, you’ll find, is true with London too. Our governments are either walking blindfold into this, or they know, and are conniving in it for some short-term gain in terms of Russian energy supplies, for access to Russian oil and gas. Finn, our countries don’t want to upset the status quo with inconvenient facts.’
‘Then what?’ Finn says.
‘Tell me about Liechtenstein.’
Finn shows Dieter the photographs from the farmhouse in the mountains and Dieter leans over the pictures to identify the figures.
And Dieter knows all the faces in the pictures.
I can feel Finn’s childish triumph at this. He has found in these pictures what Dieter has been looking for for fifteen years, what the German was close to finding when his investigation of Schmidtke was terminated by the BND. He has found a picture of one of Roth’s brothers, who all along was at the head of one of Germany’s great firms.
‘With these pictures and your information, Dieter, the circle is closed,’ Finn says.
‘Yes,’ Dieter says when he has struggled to put his reading glasses on and looks at the photographs a second time. He points at the German politician. ‘Finn, you think I can take these pictures to the BND along with what we know about Hammerein and Exodi? The chances I would live–that either of us would live–are nil. The BND is not some organisation independent of political control. If this politician is involved, as he obviously is, who else knows? Wh
o in our intelligence services, in government…? This politician isn’t acting in some vacuum.’
‘It’s really so bad?’
‘Of course it is. All I know is how much was covered up fifteen years ago. I don’t think anything’s changed, do you? The German government is locking itself into dependency on Russian energy every day’.
‘Then get a message to the company. To Hammerein itself. Give them the evidence.’
‘Yes. I can do that. Anonymously. But will they believe an anonymous contact?’
‘With this evidence, yes. Or take them to a newspaper.’
‘That too. It’s possible.’
When they walk back along the path through the forest, Finn is heady from the approaching end, and I guess from the fuel of the drink. And Dieter is worried. Finn is not listening to anyone any more.
That night in his hotel room, Finn writes in scrawled biro: ‘Exodi is the vehicle to buy what the Russians lost in 1989. Exodi overturns seventy years of their failed communist experiment, since the day Lenin arrived in Petersburg. And Exodi achieves what the occupation of half of Europe failed to achieve.’
36
FINN’S EXCITEMENT is so naive. The almost boyish enthusiasm he exhibits in the lead-up to the final meeting with Adrian is doomed to disappointment.
But he writes about the meeting in two sections: the first section he wrote before the two of them met and is exuberantly optimistic; the second section he wrote after the meeting, about the meeting itself, and I can feel his anger and despondency leaping out of the pages. I can’t bear to record now what his earlier mood was, it’s too painful to see the contrast. But this is how he tells the encounter with Adrian, between 12.45 and 2.35 on a Monday in June 2006.
‘It’s the same scene at Boodles, with the same crew braying about whatever it is today that they think they know better than anyone else. This time it’s the French tennis championships at the Roland Garros, and the way they talk about the players you’d think they were all ex-Wimbledon champions instead of desk-bound, money-bound public schoolboys who, if you put them in a car park in the Gorbals without a set of car keys, would be begging for mercy to the first bag lady who walked by. When you scratch the veneer you find there’s just more veneer underneath.