“And you get a cut of our ‘money affairs’?” he asked pointedly.
“In a nutshell. We take five percent of all goods and money you bring to us as the price for money laundering. In the end you get a much better rate and a safer situation than you have now. We work with some Swiss banking interests as well as some in Belgium, South Africa, Hong Kong, and Canada.”
“How about America?”
“Too volatile. Too many of the Mafiosos are in jail or are dead.”
The rest of the men nodded their heads in agreement with that observation.
Michaele took a turn, “We will keep a somewhat more active hand in certain other areas. We plan to do some real estate, unions, transportation industry, and construction industry investing that will require some of our … let’s say well-established methods. We have excellent contacts in almost fifty countries for gunrunning. What we would like to do there is to assist in the transactions between your organizations, the manufacturers, and the buyers. That will be for our usual five percent cut.”
“Sounds pretty tame,” observed Pierre Saint-Denis. “You just going to sit around in your office like legal advisors, Laird?”
“Not quite. There are two other areas where we will take an active but behind-the-scenes role. We have comparable links to local and national governments, senior police officials, judges, prosecutors, and prison officials, to those of the Solntsevskaya Bratva.”
Breslava’s interest perked up. He did not like the sound of this.
“Don’t get yourself all heated up,” Antoine told him. “Nothing changes in the Russian sphere except that you get to make use of our contacts and vice versa when situations demand. The rest of us will have full use of our present contacts and those we develop in the future. As evidence of good faith, we will take only five percent—our usual fee—based on the amount of the transaction involved. When it becomes necessary for us to intervene in a court case, we will request a flat fee—one that will be reasonable.”
“Sounds like fairy dust to me,” said Withers. “We all have our soldiers. We all have a lot of blood on our hands and don’t care if we get a little more. Don’t seem to me that that’s gonna change. Seems to me that your fairy dust ideas will fail because there’s no control from one outfit to another.”
Antoine gave Withers a direct and disconcerting look.
“That brings us to our last proposal, Gregory, and everybody else. You know that we are effective and efficient. We have an excellent intelligence service. Since we will not have territory to protect or business interests to steal, we can keep ourselves free of alliances on one side or another. What we propose is that our organization become the universal enforcers between organizations. You can all keep order in your own territories and among your own people for the most part. When there is a growing friction between groups, we step in to take care of it. You come to us and present your cases. We become the impartial judge and jury and decide what will be done to prevent a war. We will be for the whole group what the Boevik [warriors] and the Kryshas [violent enforcers who protect businesses of the winning side from the losers] are for the Russians.”
“You’ll do the contract killings, Laird?”
“Exclusively. Our participation will be extremely secretive and discreet. No one will ever be able to pin anything on you. Think of it like the role of the ancient Spartans of Greece. When two city-states found themselves so unable to agree that war became imminent, they would ‘send for the Spartan,’ a man of high respect in Sparta—the most potent military machine in the world. He would come to the area and listen to both sides, then deliberate. He would then deliver a decision which would be obeyed by both sides or the dissenting side would face the Spartans in a war that could only be considered suicidal. If the Spartan sent to do the deliberation was injured or killed, the offenders would face Sparta and extermination.
“We ask that power and responsibility, and for that, just compensation and silence. Our people are warriors, make no mistake about that. Cross us and you will pay a sevenfold price. Once we are crossed, there will be no place for you to hide. However, if you abide by the agreements, you will have peace—and you will have it at a reasonable price.”
“It’ll take us some time to consider this revolutionary proposal, Laird,” Breslava said.
“It doesn’t have to take too long. It depends on your power, strength, and will. I ask each of you the key question: can you control the people and organizations in your sphere of interest? You go first, Leonid Zaslavskevich, if you please.”
Thus challenged, Breslava responded, “We guarantee the cooperation of the Dolgoprudnenskayas [Russia’s second largest criminal gang] and every organized outfit throughout the Rodina and in all of the Soviet satellites. How’s that?”
“Great. How about you, Pierre?”
Saint-Denis was very much in favor of Antoine’s proposals, especially since it would increase his wealth, his security, and his power.
“The Milieu guarantees the full participation and cooperation of every local Milieu working, and that includes every major city in France—Marseille, Grenoble, Paris, and Lyon. We can persuade, and—if necessary—control, the Corsicans, the Maghrebis, the French Blacks and the Gitans [ethnic Manush and Yeniche], the Tractions Avant, the French Connection, the Guerinis, Venturis, and the Brise de Mer Gang which are small but can be difficult. They will act in their own best interests and will not pick a fight with the Milieu. In all honesty it will take time to reign in the North Corsican traveler gangs we call ‘Gitans’ or ‘Voyageurs’ because they are so nomadic and violently independent. The Hornecs are sensible men and can be influenced by the promise of easier and more money and better protection. They can bring the other travelers around in … let’s say, six months, at the outside.”
Antoine turned to Gregory “Freight Train” Withers, “So, Mr. Withers, what can you bring to the table?”
“We’re in a bit of a state of flux at the moment,” he said, squirming a little, “and not all that big of an outfit. I can guarantee the East End and what’s left of the Sabinis and probably the other Mafiosos whose connections to Cosa Nostra aren’t too strong, which is most of them. We are almost in full control of the boxing scene and the Jewish bookmakers. No one has ever been able to control everything in Great Britain, and we have no influence over the West side club rackets. We’ll need real help there. Agree to help us without horning in on our business when we get control, and we are your guys. The new interest in drugs and upscale escort services and houses is an area we can get control of from the get-go with a little help.”
“You have our help—just ask,” said Michaele. “I think we may have a viable interest in the heroin and cocaine trade that we might be able to assist you in developing. For a modest price, of course.”
Of course, “Freight Train” said to himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Corporate Offices of European International Conglomerate, No. 13 Upper Belgrave Street, London, September 8, 1960
The final intelligence reports came into the office by courier. Obtaining the information had required two years of work by employees of the intelligence department of the European International Conglomerate, the Solntsevskaya Bratva, and the Dolgoprudnenskaya, a Washington, DC, branch of the Cosa Nostra, a confidential informant in the Argentine Secretaría de Inteligencia, a woman who worked for the French Ministery of the Interior who had an encyclopedic knowledge of the intelligence services of the National Police and a cocaine habit that allowed her to be the victim of blackmail, and a source inside a loose British criminal network. All of the individuals were paid a king’s ransom to betray their masters, and all of them knew full well that they would die if they were found out. The cost of obtaining the information would have been staggering to any ordinary office, but was considered just the cost of doing business by the two men who considered it to be invaluable—something for which they had been waiting fifteen years. The information was in the form of dos
siers on men from the Soviet Union, the United States, Argentina, France, and Great Britain.
The opulent office in which the two men were sitting had gold lettering on the pane glass of the door reading: “Private Library of CEO Laird Eagen and President Randolph Bellwether.” The names were only two of the many pseudonyms employed by the men over years. As huge and rich as the corporation was, the two were virtual unknowns in the UK; and that is the way they liked it.
“Once we get this done, will you be thinking about retiring and disappearing? We’re not getting any younger,” Michaele asked his long-term partner.
Antoine just shrugged.
The two men met with their trusted confidants, the Gebirgsjägers, and the four men who survived the Allied occupation camps with them after the war and their misery in the gulag.
“We have enough money now to do pretty much whatever we want. More than two hundred million dollars pour into our legitimate business channels every month, and another three hundred comes in from our other activities—which includes and necessitates our money-laundering service,” Antoine said. “Michaele and I think it is time for us to phase in more legitmate business enterprises and to phase out our secret activities. We look to the time—maybe ten years from now—when we have no involvement in criminal activities or with criminals. That would mean that we could retire with wealth and without risks from the law or the other side of the law. We want to know what you think about it.”
“I see it differently, Antoine. The power that our wealth gives us is the real insurance. We own coppers, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards. That is expensive and getting more expensive all the time. I want those layers of protection; so, I don’t have to trust anyone. I don’t know anything about legitimate business; so, I would be like a lamb going to the slaughter,” said Serge.
He knew he could say his piece without getting Antoine angry, and he certainly did not want that. He had been present when Antoine felt like he was betrayed. No one survived Antoine’s impression of betrayal.
“Anyone else?” asked Antoine.
The men were quiet for a few moments, then Willibald spoke up, “Antoine, you and Michaele and I have gone through a lot. I wish you would stay on in our business. I don’t see myself sitting in a soft chair in my smoking jacket and slippers sipping peppermint snapps for the rest of my life. If you’re serious about it, maybe we could separate with a substantial nest egg for those of us who want to go it alone.”
“I guess I should ask: who is going to stay with Michaele and me?”
Hugues Beauchamp and Jérôme Christophe Mailhot nodded their heads, and the three other men—Willem Dortman, Fritzi Gerhardt, and Adolf Wagner who joined up with the Gebirgsjägers after the escape from POW Camp 63 in Brienne le Chateâu, France, followed suit. Willem always went where Adolf went, and Fritzi was Michaele’s bodyguard. The choice was not difficult for any of them.
“Michaele and I respect your decisions. I ask one thing of you and Willibald,” Antoine said, his attention on Serge Rounsavall who had been captured by the Russians on the same day in 1945 as Antoine, Michaele, Hugues, and Jérôme.
“Name it, Antoine.”
“We have unfinished business with the Russians, Americans, French, Argentines, and the Brits. It will take our whole team. I think you and Willibald want to see a little justice come out of our miserable lives before we decide to fade away. I don’t demand it—or require it of you—but I ask as an old friend: will you help us with a few erasures?”
“Of course. I have waited what seems like a lifetime to be able to even our scores.”
“We’ll never be even, Serge; but we can get some satisfaction. We are simple men, and we don’t ask for much. It’ll take a lot of planning.”
“And some nerve.”
“We’re good at both,” Michaele said. “We should get started today.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Arkady Hotel, Central Moscow, USSR, October 8, 1961
The preparations, planning, bribing, and efforts to convince Leonid Zaslavskevich Breslav—the Pakhan of the vory v zakone [thieves-in-law] Solntsevskaya Bratva—consumed most of the ensuing year, and nearly five million dollars. Leonid Zaslavskevich argued that the project that Antoine and Michaele were planning could compromise the goodwill with Khrushchev that had taken so long to foster; and besides, the mission would require a great many men and considerable supplies. It was likely that some of the russkaya mafiyas would get injured, killed, or compromised, which would jeopardise his organization. Antoine saw Breslav’s protests as disingenuous bargaining and was certain that the Pakhan would lend his support in the end.
Antoine and Michaele took rooms in the Stockholm Grand Hotel under assumed names. They kept to themselves and did not venture out of the hotel. They ate a late dinner in the hotel’s exclusive restaurant—a small gastronomic event. The beginning of the courses involved little brown paper surprise bags holding krisp bread. Antoine had a selection of Soup of Morels from Turkey with poached egg and green asparagus. Michaele had French onion soup, as good as was served at the Hotel de Crillon in Paris. Both had thick, brown crusty bread spread with thick salted butter. The next course was crisp round croquettes of nettles from Kälinge farm served with a half lemon and dusted with sea salt.
For his second course, Antoine selected fresh white asparagus from Rhineland-pfalz and rilette of crab, egg, and parsley. Michaele ordered breaded fillet of lemon sole from Kattegatt. The fish was presented as two rectangles of golden sole with a generous line of black caviar on the mid-center surface lying on a bed of piped celeriac cream. Both men ate too much bread, but they were still unable to pass up the desserts displayed for them on a silver platter. Since it was the start of the Swedish rhubarb season, they indulged themselves too generously in the fried raw rhubarb from Holland, lemon sponge cake, quenelle of vanilla ice cream, and browned sugar.
Sweden did not produce anything exciting in the way of wine because it was too cold to ripen grapes properly. Sweden’s favorite—and national drink, and the only thing the two men liked about Russia—was vodka made from rye, wheat, corn, and potatoes. They topped the vodka off with generous goblets of Zumbali Chenin Blanc from South Africa. The formerly destitute concentration camp internees who had spent more than a decade in the worst that three nations had to offer laughed at how marvelous the food was and at the fact that they had consumed almost enough to make themselves sick. How far they had come.
It was sobering to get up early the next morning, to change identities into the appearance of common Swedish workers, and to wonder together if they were about to wreck their now almost idyllic existence. With directions from the concierge, they took the train to the harbor then went by ferry to the Tallinn, Estonia Soviet Socialistic Republic. The process of getting into the Soviet satellite buffer state was as unpleasant as the Soviets could make it—long, complicated, slow, and ponderous, with every one of the six separate border representatives they encountered being surlier and ruder than the next. The outside world’s policy of nonrecognition of the Soviet state of Estonia gave rise to the principle of legal continuity, which held that de jure, Estonia remained an independent state under illegal occupation throughout the period after the war. The officials of the regime–high and low–resented what they considered the disrespect of the westerners and their condescension. However, the two “Gebirgsjägers” spoke the universal language—money—which significantly greased the skids for their entrance.
“I remember now why I hated them so much. It was the world’s greatest mistake that the Soviets won the war. The Fourth Reich can’t come too soon,” Michaele said.
“True enough, but don’t say anything like that again until we are safely back in England, Michaele. No mistakes,” said Antoine soberly.
Michaele nodded and frowned. He had not needed to be told.
The two men arrived in the capital of the Estonian SSR on October 7, the USSR Constitution Day celebration. On the streets there was lackluster ent
husiasm—no outright protests, but occasional mutterings. The Tallinn citizens were unhappy about two things. The Soviets had chosen to continue their destruction of Estonian graveyards and war memorials even during what was supposed to be an important day of celebration, with the powers in Moscow granting a day off work for all workers. The graveyards were still in the process of being dismantled, and the materials hauled away with no attention paid to the dismay that project caused the citizens of the city and the country. The Tallinn Military Cemetery was almost denuded of its original gravestones which were placed there between 1918 and 1944. Since then, that graveyard was being used by the Red Army.
The Baltic German cemeteries were now nothing but empty fields. The Kopli and Mõigu cemeteries from the seventeen hundreds and the oldest one in the city—the Kalamaja cemetery—which was established in the sixteenth century, were becoming unrecognizable. The monuments erected by the Republic of Estonia were being knocked down; and to add insult to injury, the stones were being used to construct drab utilitarian soviet block buildings. The Red Army had a designated Destruction Battalion with bright red right shoulder patches that made them stand out as perhaps the most despised unit of the most despised armed force in the country save only the KGB.
Two years after the end of World War II, Estonian private business disappeared, and along with it any vestiges of prosperity. The once vibrant city with its colorful Hanseatic League buildings was now a dull soviet gray with many of the war-torn buildings still windowless hulks. Even a brief step outside rekindled the hatred Antoine and Michaele had for the entire soviet regime. The citizens—now nearly fifty percent ethnic Russians—walked about like inmates of a huge prison compound, heads and eyes down, not speaking to one another. The majority of the intelligentsia, military officers, university professors, and respected businessmen were sent to Russian prison camps and never heard from again. The remaining people were as docile and colorless as their cities. The missing professors at the universities were replaced by politically reliable stooges, many of whom did not even have an education in the subjects they taught. The Balkans were a shadow of their former selves and a sad comparison for Antoine and Michaele who had now lived for years in the splendor of Paris, London, and Bonn.
The Charlemagne Murders Page 30