Bannerman's Promise

by John R. Maxim

  “Are you worried about Elena? Tell the truth.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Why Elena, especially?”

  ”I meant... my father, too.”

  He exhaled, then shook his head. “I'd like to know why Corsini was so interested and in whose behalf. And what Yuri was holding back. But no, I can't imagine Leo putting them in danger.”

  The chugging stopped. The words search ended appeared on the screen. Bannerman slid Volume 2—annu to Baltic—from his shelf and opened it carefully. He removed a set of silver lead-lined envelopes and began booting another series of disks.

  She watched in silence as he scanned, in turn, lists of known drug traffickers, smugglers, arms dealers, and even corporate executives. The latter, he explained, were known to be involved with the former. There seemed to be hundreds of such companies, most of them European, German, and Italian firms.

  He lingered longest over the drug-trafficker files. They were by far the most extensive. Much of the data, many of the names, organization charts, international connections, had been provided by Irwin Kaplan to supplement and update what the Bruggs already knew. Leo Belkin contributed more of it from the KGB computers in Bern.

  She knew how these files had been used when the Bruggs and her father, with Leo's help, set out to clean up Zurich. Key drug traffickers, dealers, and laboratories were hit at random. It was a terror campaign, basically. The idea was that they would have no idea who was hitting them or why. The effect was chaos, paralysis, interfactional warfare. Drug traffickers blamed covetous rivals or their own ambitious lieutenants. They began killing each other. In the end, all that was left for the Bruggs was a mopping up.

  Their interest, and that of her father, was limited strictly to Zurich. Zurich is to them what Westport is to Banner-man's people. It's their home. They protected it.

  Leo Belkin's interest, quite aside from his friendship with the Bruggs, was certainly to use Zurich as a test of this strategy. To gain experience with it. To try it out on a larger scale. As Bannerman pored through his drug-trafficker files, she wondered aloud whether that larger scale might be Moscow.

  That had crossed his mind as well, he said, but he didn't think so. Russia has a drug problem, he told her, but it's far less serious than their problem with alcoholism. Further, there's no real money in it. Even if the ordinary Russian could afford drugs, the ruble is useless to the international traffickers. Finally, he said, what internal trafficking there is should be none of Leo's business. It's the job of the former Second Chief Directorate, which, as it's now organized, is the equivalent of the FBI and the DEA combined.

  The computer made a shuddering sound, search ended. Bannerman had scanned the last of the disks.

  “Still nothing?” she asked.

  He shook his head, disappointed.

  “Why would you think Aldo was a drug dealer?”

  ”I didn't, especially.” He had hoped, he explained, to find something in the drug file if only because traffickers were the most obvious common thread between Belkin, Lesko, and Elena. But there was no Aldo Corsini, not even as a known alias.

  “Paul?” Susan was staring into the distance. “Should Carla be alone? Shouldn't somebody be with her?”

  He'd been thinking about that, he said. Yuri will be out half the night. Carla, who had apparently gone from a romantic high to slashing her lover to death, all in the course of an hour, will not be thinking dispassionately.

  “I'm considering sending Molly,” he said, “but she can't get to Bern before tomorrow morning, Swiss time. By then, Yuri could have Carla on a flight to New York,”

  ”I could go. We could fly back together.”

  Absolutely not, he thought. Even Molly might have trouble handling her. He looked at his watch. Yuri should be halfway to Bern.

  “Well . . . let's see how she sounds first. You can talk to her when she calls.”

  “There had to be more to it. Carla wouldn't have killed him over a slap. Would she?”

  “Sweetheart... I don't know.”

  At the moment, he was more interested in Aldo. Interpol might have something, but he had no discreet access to that agency's files. Even if he had, he couldn't very well ask about a man who might be found dead in the morning. He had neglected, he realized, to ask Yuri what he intended doing with the body.

  The Bruggs had excellent contacts at Interpol, but Bannerman was reluctant to involve them for the same reason. That left Roger Clew.

  He knew that Roger could telex Interpol and have the information, if there was any, within the hour. But Roger would want a favor in return. And Roger, if he found anything, would surely begin snooping on his own. It almost wasn't worth getting him interested.

  Except, he realized, Roger had seen Aldo at the wedding and was probably as startled as anyone to see Carla Benedict in love. He might have run a check on the man already. Just out of curiosity. Just because he could.

  Bannerman reached for the phone.

  11

  For several blocks, Valentin had twisted and darted through traffic, making more sudden turns, slowing and speeding up for no apparent reason. At last, he parked the Chaika in what Lesko presumed to be an illegal spot, all four wheels on the sidewalk in front of a hotel.

  “Hotel Rossiya,” said Valentin, spreading his arms. “Biggest in Soviet Union . .. Europe . . . world.”

  ”I know,” Lesko muttered, climbing out. “Stalin liked big.”

  It was big but dull. Featureless. As if someone had taken about ten of those concrete apartment blocks and encased them in glass. The revelation, if true, that it was the world's biggest came as less of a surprise than the Baskin & Robbins ice cream store that stood just to the left of the lobby entrance and the lunch truck featuring Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs that stood at one end of a tour-bus parking area.

  “Oh, look.” Elena seized his hand and pointed. Uphill from the Rossiya was a postcard view of the Kremlin, its crenellated red brick battlements and watchtowers extending far in two different directions. Inside, a forest of white bell towers topped by golden domes. In the foreground, the familiar multicolored towers of St. Basil's Cathedral.

  “Come,” said Belkin. ”A good time to stretch our legs.”

  Valentin, Lesko noticed, did not bother to lock the car. Nor did he remove his windshield wipers to prevent their theft, a practice that John Waldo said was universal. Unless, thought Lesko, you happen to be driving a KGB car. He saw no obvious identification on the windshield. Maybe the license plate. It read MOC331. Lesko memorized it. It seemed a good idea.

  Leo Belkin led them to a long pedestrian tunnel that passed under the traffic to the edge of Red Square. Two young men, early twenties, stood at the tunnel's entrance. They were dressed in three-quarter-length jackets, blue jeans, and they carried gym bags that said Adidas on them. One seemed about to approach them, his expression bright and friendly. The other whispered something. The first backed off.

  In the underpass itself, they encountered other young men who seemed equally hesitant and several children who, taking their cue from the older boys, affected looks of idle innocence.

  They were there, Belkin explained, to trade with foreign tourists. Each carried wads of rubles which they would sell at black-market rates. The gym bags contained caviar, fur hats, and probably lacquered boxes for sale or trade. They would buy virtually anything a Western tourist wore or carried. The children trade lapel pins for one or two cigarettes, although Lenin pins, now collector's items, can be worth a whole pack. Meanwhile they watch and learn the business.

  Much of this was still illegal, he warned, certainly the exchange of currency. Although the risk of dealing with them was not great, arrests were occasionally made. Best to steer clear of them. Belkin appeared to consider saying more, but he did not.

  Lesko slowed, allowing Elena to gain a few steps. He glanced behind him. Already, he saw, two separate transactions were under way with tourists who had entered the underpass after them. Money openly exchanged. Nothing furti
ve about it.

  “They made you, right?” he asked Leo. “They know you're KGB.”

  Belkin doubted it. The first two, perhaps. They had seen the letters MOC on the license plates. For the others, it was more likely Lesko's face, not his or Valentin's, that had caused them to be circumspect. Stalin would have loved a few hundred Leskos. This one, he would have used as breeding stock.

  ‘They were not frightened,” he said. “Only prudent. The time of fear is over.”

  Lesko curled his lip. “Glad to hear it.”

  Belkin stared ahead. A sigh. “Very well, Lesko. What's on your mind?”

  Lesko shrugged innocently. “I'm relieved, is all. The new Russia, right? No more looking over your shoulder.”

  “Lesko ...”

  ”I mean, if there was a problem here, you would not have involved my pregnant wife, right? You would have told us to stick with the Poconos.”

  Belkin understood the sense if not the reference. He waited.

  “Things are so loose here, if I decide to trade my old Levi's for a few jars of caviar, it's no big deal, right?”

  “You brought Levi's?”

  “Hypothetical. What if I did?”

  “Don't even think of it. It's against the law and the caviar is probably stolen.”

  Lesko shook his head. This is from a guy whose life's work is stealing other people's secrets.

  ”I mean, as long as I'm prudent about it. Like Valentin, who never drives in straight lines. Like those kids back there who deal black-market in an underpass that could be sealed off in two seconds.”

  Another sigh, more weary than the last. “What are you saying, Lesko?”

  ”I don't know. I just want to score some caviar.”

  “I'll show you where to buy it. Don't trade for it.”

  “Leo . . .” He placed a hand on the smaller man's shoulder, stopping him. “Is that because I'm going to be watched all the time I'm here?”

  Belkin hesitated.

  “Yes or no, Leo.”

  “Assume yes. Prudence, remember?”

  “Were we tailed from the airport?”

  ”I don't think so. I truly don't.”

  “Okay. They waited at the hotel instead.”

  Belkin grunted. “You noticed.”

  “No, Leo. Elena did. I was too busy banging my head against the roof of your car.”

  “My apologies for that. The sudden turn was to see if they would react to us.”

  “They did. Were they KGB?”

  Belkin almost smiled. “If they were, I'd be ashamed of them. More likely, they are street informers of the sort you used in New York.”

  “And like the KGB uses here. Right or wrong, Leo?”

  He heard Elena calling him. She was up ahead, in the daylight, pointing at something, grinning like a kid, urging him to come look. Belkin started in her direction. Lesko held him back.

  “Why, Leo? Why are they interested?”

  Belkin shrugged. A gesture of dismissal. “There are rivalries . . . jealousies in any organization,” he said. “Your New York police force was no exception. Break no laws and this will not affect you.”

  “You're saying their interest is in you. Not me or Elena.”

  “Curiosity is a better word. But yes.”

  “This rival you have. Any chance of Elena getting caught in the middle?”

  “If I thought there were, I would have you both on an airplane in one hour.”

  “What's your rival's name?”

  “I'm . . . not certain. That's the truth.”

  “Say I believe you, Leo. But say, with the right kind of bait. . . maybe you could flush him out.”

  Belkin's eyes flashed. “That was an insult. Did you intend it so?”

  “Hey. Fuck you, Leo. This is Russia we're standing in and you're still KGB.”

  “And you are Raymond Lesko,” he answered angrily. “You have married Elena Brugg. You have a close personal association with Paul Bannerman. Your daughter even shares his bed in Westport. Do you imagine, Lesko, that there's a country in the world, including your own, which you could visit without the local authorities wondering what you're doing there?”

  Lesko fingered the smaller man's lapels. He started to speak. Belkin brushed the hand away.

  “Yes, you will be watched,” he said. “Accept that and behave accordingly. But as a favor to yourself, try not to become tiresome about it just because you're being watched in my country.”

  Elena called again, this time impatiently. Belkin turned and walked toward her.

  “Come, Lesko,” he said over his shoulder. ”I will show you Red Square. You can tell me how ugly it is.”

  12

  When asked where he got that Scottish hat, and why he wore it all the time, Arkadi Kulik would only sigh.

  “Ask someone else,” he would say.

  This, of course, encouraged gossip.

  The story most often repeated was that it had belonged to a KGB defector who had gone over to British Intelligence. He was a major who had served under Kulik. The British gave him a new name and a house in the town of Dumbarton near Glasgow. He took up golf. The British gladly paid for his lessons because this defector had so much to tell them. No fool, he doled it out a little at a time.

  Kulik, they say, took this defection personally. He tracked this man to Dumbarton. He tied him to a chair and beat him, starting at the knees and elbows, with something called a niblick. Humming an aria, they say, all the while. General Kulik is known for his singing voice.

  Fully half the bones in this man's body were broken, but he was still alive and conscious when Kulik burned his house down around him. He kept this man's new Scottish tam as a trophy. Here, in his dacha at Zhukovka, there is also a bent and twisted golf club leaning by the fireplace.

  The man who never smiled—his name was Sostkov— believed this story. It was why he did not hesitate that morning near Yekaterinburg when General Kulik's eyes told him that a certain former colonel had let sentiment get the best of him and there was a need for more aggressive leadership.

  Sostkov had seized the opportunity. He showed what he was made of. He finished off the flatbed driver who had wrecked the general's Zil. The lorry driver, however, had led them on quite a chase before they boxed him in on the other side of Vigirsk. He was easy to follow because his truck was on fire from the smashed kerosene heater in the back. But he was a stubborn one. He turned on them and rammed one of their cars, head on, his fuel tank exploding, cooking two of their men but also himself and his helper.

  General Kulik was not so pleased at such a mess. All that fire and smoke. But at least it was still near enough to Vigirsk where there was no one left to see it.

  What did impress him, however, was when Sostkov told him that he could operate a bulldozer. He filled in the rest of the pit. He pushed the lorry in, still smoking, and the car it crashed into. The Zil, a total write-off, was the last addition. It went in right on top of the colonel who had gone soft.

  General Kulik picked that moment to ask if we are sure we got them all. Did we make a count in the confusion? Sostkov had not, but the answer from the others was firmly yes. Six of them, they said, plus three of ours. If you need proof, they said, you can dig them up yourself.

  “Sostkov?”

  “Sir.” The former captain, far richer now, sprang to attention. He stepped to the door of the general's library where the general had been working with his figures and his charts. As he entered, he glimpsed one big chart that seemed to show a chain of command. One name at the top, many names in many boxes beneath it. He knew the name at the top was not yet that of General Kulik. But it would be one day. Of that he had no doubt. Kulik covered the chart as he approached.

  “What have you got for me, Sostkov?”

  He hesitated. “It might mean nothing. A call from your man at Ostankino. General Borovik has asked for voice contact from one of his Italians in Zurich.”

  Arkadi Kulik peered up over his spectacles. “Any idea w
hy?”

  “None.”

  “Might it concern Leo Belkin's visit?”

  The younger one shrugged. “Not necessarily. If it were not for the timing ….”

  ”I take it that Belkin's party has arrived.”

  “About an hour ago, yes.” Sostkov anticipated the general's next question. “Our people in Customs saw no sign that he is under surveillance. He was definitely not followed when he left Sheremetyevo.”

  Kulik nodded, somewhat satisfied. “And it's been made clear to Borovik that he is to take no action?”

  “Very clear.”

  “No surveillance for Belkin to spot? No microphones for him to find? We stay far away from him?”

  “He argued, but he agreed.”

  The former general grumbled. “Borovik agreeing and Borovik using his head are two differing things. You will monitor this voice contact?”

  “It's arranged, yes.”

  Kulik frowned. “Leo Belkin, the Brugg millions, and this Lesko who is practically related to Mama's Boy. With all we have happening, that's one row of dominos we don't need falling in our direction.”

  Sostkov said nothing.

  “Borovik says he's got Bannerman out of his system. Do you believe him?”

  Sostkov hesitated, then shook his head. “If it were me, I could not forget.”

  “You would be so ... sentimental?”

  “Not sentiment. Humiliation. I could not live while Bannerman lived.”

  Kulik nodded with a sigh. He lifted one corner of the chart he had been working with. His eyes fell on Borovik's box. “More trouble than he's worth,” he muttered after a time. He chewed his lip thoughtfully. “What is your opinion of Viktor Podolsk?” he asked.

  A shrug. “He hates working for Borovik.”

  “This makes him normal. But what do you think of him personally?”

  “You've never met him?”

  “He doesn't know I exist. But that might have to change.”

  Sostkov pursed his lips thoughtfully. “By all accounts he is ... intelligent. A realist. A good organizer. And he has a natural head for business.”