Bannerman's Promise

by John R. Maxim

Bannerman heard the bleat before he saw the blue Volga.

  He watched from behind a sheltered tram stop as Lechmann, Susan in the front seat with him, made one slow pass, doubled back, and began a second. He had not expected Susan but he was glad she came. If Lechmann allowed it, it was safe. Still, he waited one more pass before he showed himself. Lechmann pulled to a stop at the far curb.

  Only Susan got out. She put a hand on Lechmann as if bidding him to stay. She came to him. As she drew near, Bannerman started to speak. She walked through the words, reached her arms around his neck, and held him tightly.

  He wanted to tell her that Russians don't do this, not out in the open. But he knew what she would say. “Just shut up, Bannerman. Shut up for a minute.” He held her, smelling her, feeling the warmth and the life of her. No one would have taken them for Russians anyway.

  She bit his ear. “Let's take a walk,” she whispered.

  It was a broad, tree-lined street of mansions and townhouses. Several were now embassies or consulates. The Swiss embassy was just ahead and across the street. Bannerman could see Yuri at an open second-floor window, watching their backs. He caught Bannerman's eye and shrugged.

  Susan had not spoken again. She had punched him, however. He began to move out of range when he saw the fist rising again, but she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back. Lechmann, he gathered, had not left much out.

  “Elena's talking a little,” she said at last.

  ”I know. Yuri spoke to Willem. I can't imagine better news.”

  This last caused Susan to look up at him, but she said nothing. They walked a little further in silence. Only a toss of her hair, a couple of private sighs.

  “You do know how to shake people up, don't you, Bannerman.”

  He grumbled softly. He wanted to hear Irwin's response to his note, but it could have waited. In another half block or so he might have thought of something personal and affectionate to say that did not sound foolish. Given the circumstances. Given that she was more inclined to hit him.

  “Paul?” She stopped, folding her arms. “Have you ordered the deaths of sixteen men?”

  He hesitated. There went the moment. He shook his head.

  “Irwin sure thinks you have.”

  He shook it again. “Nothing will happen if we get home safely”

  “Are they the men behind all this?”

  A noncommittal grunt.

  “Bannerman…talk to me.”

  “They are the names of prominent people, mostly from Europe, who would have to be involved in what I think is happening. A couple were named on Borovik's videotape. The others I picked pretty much at random from Kulik's papers.”

  “Roger doesn't think they were so random.”

  “Then Roger knows more than I do.”

  Bannerman steered her toward an ice-cream vendor. He felt a need to do something normal. He ordered two cones, paying with a dollar bill, and handed one to Susan.

  “You said you had something to tell me. You said it was personal.”

  “It's a candlelight kind of subject. Later, okay?”

  “Later is fine.”

  “Paul, those sixteen men . . .”

  He stopped her. “My note said hit, by the way. Not kill”

  “There's a difference ?”

  “Hitting can be a car that blows up with nobody in it. If you mean people harm, you don't warn them first. That list was a warning.”

  ”A bluff?”

  “Not a bluff. No.”

  “What happens now? If you don't get what you want, I mean.”

  “Anton has the list. By now, he's on the phone. He'll put out word that all sixteen are my enemies and he'll arrange a few near misses. He will escalate at his discretion until I'm physically back in Westport. It's just insurance, Susan.”

  She was silent for a long moment. Chewing, he supposed, on the morality of random terror. He supposed wrong.

  “Well, I have news,” she said finally. “Whoever you're up against doesn't do near misses.”

  She produced a slip of paper from her purse. It was another list of names, shorter, only five.

  “These men have been murdered,” she told him, “here in Moscow, during the past few hours. Ernst Lechmann says none of you did it. But my father says you knew it would happen.”

  Bannerman studied the list. It had been copied in Lesko's hand. The last two names were Arabic. Probably those two Sudanese, he imagined. The other names were Russian, and they seemed familiar. He'd probably seen them on Kulik's charts. He had half expected to see Nikolai Belkin on it. Perhaps they don't think he's worth bothering with.

  Susan touched her finger to the second name.

  “This one was pushed in front of a train—by my father, according to witnesses—at a time when he was twenty miles away with you and Irwin. You and Irwin were seen killing two Arab diplomats.”

  She told him what her father was said to have shouted. Recompense? Bannerman had to smile, but, on reflection, it wasn't so funny. Whoever had given that order was all the more dangerous for being stupid. If not stupid, then vain. It bespoke a party-boss mentality shaped by too many years of no one daring to question a witless order.

  “Did Roger trace a license number for me?” he asked.

  She nodded. “He says it's a pool car, a Security Ministry limo used by no one in particular. But the Russians say it never left its garage last night. Roger thinks John must have misread the plate.”

  ”I suppose he might have.”

  But Bannerman didn't think so. Waldo had a burglar's night vision. He could probably have read a newspaper at that distance. More likely, either the Russians were covering or it was someone whom Roger had chosen to protect.

  Either way, Bannerman wasn't sure that he cared. Except that he'd like to have given Podolsk a name.

  “Paul, I need to ask you something,” she said. “Am I putting you at a disadvantage here?”

  “Um .. . how do you mean?”

  “Is it hitting instead of killing because you said you'd tell me everything? I mean, are you starting to do things differently for my sake?”

  He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “It could come to that, I guess. But no.”

  “We'll talk about that later, too.” She looked at her watch. “That plane you're supposed to be on by five-thirty. Is there a bomb on it? Irwin told me to ask you.”

  “He thinks I'd know?”

  “Irwin thinks you know everything.”

  A soft smile. ”I have no idea. I'm just not about to go near a plane that so many people think I'll be boarding.”

  “Roger told him you'd say that.” She gestured toward the Swiss embassy. “He guessed that you'd be coming here, by the way. He really wants those papers. He'll try to get them from the Swiss.”

  “There's more than one set. But then he knows that, too.”

  She nodded. “Which brings us to Mr. Fuller. On the chance that Elena can be moved, he's sending an Air Force MedEvac plane from Wiesbaden. The deal is that you and anyone you care to designate—that's his emphasis—are guaranteed safe conduct into our embassy, from the embassy to Vnukovo, and from there to Wiesbaden. You will be searched but not detained, you go out with the clothes on your back He asks if you realize how generous that offer is.”

  “He's saying I can take Russians out. What does he want in return?”

  “You're to take no further action from this moment. You will leave none of your people behind. You'll either surrender all documents to Roger or deliver them to Fuller personally within twenty-four hours of departing Russian soil. Agree and you leave Vnukovo noon tomorrow.”

  “Wiesbaden's a two-hour flight. Why not today?”

  “Because I'm going with you when you leave but I want some more time with Elena.”

  She touched his lips when he started to object. “And especially some time with you. My father's going to stay at the hospital. He gave us his hotel room.”

  “Ah... the embassy compound would be safer, Su
san.''

  She shook her head. “The embassy has Roger, Irwin, and about nine other people waiting to talk to you privately. It has Barton Fuller waiting for you to call him. It also, I assume, has a microphone in any room they'd put us in. Not that I'm bashful, but at some point I might want to screw your brains out and have no wish to be the entertainment at the next embassy smoker.”

  “Um…yes, but. . .”

  She spoke to the sky. “He blows two men away without blinking, but he stammers if I talk dirty.”

  “Susan . . . your father's room . . .”

  “Is wired too?”

  “Almost certainly, yes.”

  “We'll take a very long shower.”

  “Listen, Paul. I'm not an airhead. I know this isn't over.”

  He said nothing.

  “Are you going to take Fuller's deal?”

  They had turned back toward Lechmann's police car. “I'll take the plane ride. We'll talk about the rest of it when everyone's out. That includes Elena whenever she can travel.”

  “He's not going to like that.”

  “Susan, he expects it.”

  She licked ice cream from her fingers. “That's what Irwin said. He told Fuller to go fuck himself.”

  “Susan…”

  “Irwin said it, not me. He thinks you're amazing, by the way.”

  An indifferent grunt.

  “You are amazing. You're in Moscow eight hours and you've got two governments jumping through hoops.”

  “Susan, not to burst your bubble…”

  “You didn't do a thing, right? You're just passing through.”

  ”I did almost nothing. I have those papers because John Waldo can't walk past a safe without trying it. That includes mine at home.”

  “But John didn't know what he had. Lechmann said it's this massive conspiracy but it took you to understand it.”

  “It's not a conspiracy. Not the way you mean.”

  “Then what's in those papers that's so important?”

  “If I'm right, it's more in the nature of a business plan.”

  Use the words “business plan,” thought Bannerman, and people start to nod off. But that, he was fairly sure, was what he had.

  Most of the documents had to do with cash transfers into some thirty Western banks and the purchase of large blocks of stock in what looked like hundreds of European corporations.

  Some of the banks and a few of the corporations were listed by name. Most were in code. The cash amounts were also coded, but the dates were not. About half the dates fell during the third quarter of 1991. Given the timing, from just before to just after the Gorbachev coup, that money seemed likely to have come from the party treasury.

  Everyone seems to see the looting of that treasury as part of some grand design. He didn't. To him, it had the look of a free-for-all. Everyone grab what you can.

  This money, in any case, is what Fuller is trying to recover for the former Soviets. That's according to Kaplan. But even Kaplan, given his outburst at Fuller, has apparently developed some doubts.

  Bannerman could hardly blame him. First Fuller tells him they're after some stolen nerve gas to keep terrorists from getting their hands on it. Next it's a drug network, the Sicilian Mafia, and then global smuggling in general. Finally it's the missing party funds and something about the Sudan, of all places, becoming money launderer to the world.

  There would be no cash in the Sudan. Certainly not ore ships full of gold and diamonds. Irwin realized, on reflection, that no one would be so stupid as to trust infidel treasure to an Islamic military government. Any laundering through Khartoum banks, cash transfers, would be done strictly electronically. The only actual money there would be the bribes that were paid. The gold reserves, at least, are probably still in Russia.

  Either way, Fuller claims it's all of a piece and it probably is. But what he was doing, Irwin finally realized, was laying a trail of crumbs, telling Irwin just enough to get him to help keep Mama's Boy under control while giving him as little of the big picture as possible.

  Okay, then . . . what's the big picture?

  Looking at Kulik's papers, it was the odd mix of criminal and apparently legitimate enterprises that started him thinking. What Kulik seemed to have charted out was a good portion of his country's economy, criminal and otherwise—he makes no distinction— and a fair-sized portion of the European market as well. In particular, that part in which Russians—not Russia— have a substantial financial interest via the dispersal of the party funds. It was, Bannerman suspected, a blueprint for trying to control all of it.

  He told Susan what he thought. She had not nodded off.

  “You don't call that a conspiracy?”

  “Well... he's basically charting out where the money is now, who controls it, and where the power and influence is generally. That's why the Bruggs are on several of the charts. I'd call that doing one's homework.”

  “Homework,” she said blankly.

  “It's what CIA analysts do, Susan. It's also what corporate raiders do.”

  “Except these people are gangsters.”

  “Yes, but you can't think that way. The trick, I guess, is to understand that the market economy here is essentially criminal. Most ways of making money still break the law and require wholesale bribery. All the things you think of as criminal—smuggling, black market, drug dealing, theft of resources—try to think of them as industries, because that's what they are. They provide jobs, Susan. They put food on the table and keep money in circulation.”

  She scowled. “That's pretty cynical, Bannerman.”

  “Susan, I'm quoting Yuri. The criminal economy, for now at least, is the only one that works.”

  She chewed her lip. “The stolen party treasury. Do these papers lead to it?”

  “Some of it. Maybe most of it, eventually.”

  “If Fuller had them, would he help the Russians get it back?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Irwin doesn't think so either anymore. Why don't you?”

  “Because Fuller works for his own country, not this one. I'm sure he wants to keep it from total collapse, but he'd also like the fire sale to go on for another twenty years. Is that pretty much what Irwin said?”

  “Just about.”

  “That's not a conspiracy either, Susan. That money, remember, isn't stashed in a vault somewhere. It's been invested in the West. Whatever portion is returned to the former republics, therefore, would have to be pried out of some other economy—say Italy or France—that has benefited from the infusion. If Fuller asked those governments to give it up, they'd tell him to get lost.”

  “Then why do he and Roger want the papers so badly?”

  “There are other ways to milk them. All those names, for one. Everyone who's now in power was a major party figure when the party grabbed that money. A lot of them seem to have a piece of this. Most of the Western names are business and political leaders who have knowingly helped them launder the money. Kulik would have put the squeeze on them one way or the other. So will Roger if he gets those documents.”

  “You're talking blackmail.”

  “It's called diplomacy at that level.”

  Susan made a face. “And you won't give them to the Russians either, because you think they're all a pack of thieves.”

  Bannerman shook his head. If he felt that way, he told her, the solution would be simple. Get out, print up a hundred copies, and mail them to the world press.

  But what made this such a rats' nest is that some of those names, now high in government of the various former republics, are, at least in Yuri's opinion, essentially honest men. Some, he says, are convinced Communists who wanted that money stashed away for the eventual return to Marxist values. They feel entirely justified: Let the workers get a taste of dog-eat-dog and unemployment and they'll come to their senses soon enough.

  Others, who are more pragmatic, knew that if they didn't take it, someone else would. They, at least, intend to put it to good use on
ce the political situation stabilizes. But on the whole, Yuri agrees with Susan. The majority were probably thieves. Some rationalized it. Some just took it.

  Going public with Kulik's papers might easily do more harm than good. It might bring down a few governments, cause financial chaos, years of lawsuits. And to no good purpose. What the lawyers don't grab for themselves will probably vanish all over again.

  Giving them to the Russians was no solution either. Give them to the wrong man and he'll just take over where Kulik left off. Give them to an honest man and having them could get him killed.

  “Well, what's left? Do you have a plan or don't you?”

  “My plan is to get us home. Maybe dig a moat around Westport.”

  “I'm serious. I meant what to do with these papers.”

  “Susan ... look at us. We're walking down the street in a city where we don't want to be, trying to dope out a situation that was never any of our business. This isn't my problem to solve.”

  She said nothing.

  “I'm just one man.”

  “Paul

  “What?”

  “Like it or not

  He took a breath, expelled it wearily.

  ”I know. They think I'm still Mama's Boy.”

  He knew what Susan meant.

  “Like it or not,” she said to him, “you scare a lot of people. They know you have those papers. Make a plan or they will.”

  She was right. But it was all so damned dumb.

  On the question of what made him so important, why Fuller wanted him out of it, he knew that answer.

  It wasn't just him. Fuller saw Carla involved with one Aldo Corsini who was clearly part of a Moscow-based network. He saw Lesko and Elena heading for Moscow with Leo Belkin. He could not imagine that the two were unrelated. He reasoned—correctly, as it happened—that Leo meant to use the Zurich program against the people who were looting his country. He assumed—not correctly— that Lesko and Elena had thrown in with Leo and maybe Carla was part of it as well. If that was true, it would only be a matter of time before Mama's Boy got into the picture. If he wasn't in it already.

  What's Fuller's real interest? Basically, he probably agrees with Yuri. The criminal economy is the only part that works. The new robber barons will be running this country, and that has no end of implications where U.S. policy is concerned. Fuller's thinking probably ran something like, Let's not have Bannerman opening up this box while we're still learning where the real power is, and who we need to talk to when we want to get something done. And let's not have him hitting, by chance or design, the ones who are already in our pocket.