Chapter 33
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
I VANOV carefully lowered himself into his chair at SVR headquarters in the Yasenevo District of Moscow. Last night had been a wild one. He had closed a very lucrative business deal. A group of foreign investors were looking to pick up some natural gas contracts and were willing to give Ivanov a seven-figure retainer and a nice piece of the action if he could guarantee the acquisition. Now all Ivanov had to do was talk some sense into one of his countrymen who had already made a nice profit on the fields. And if he couldn’t talk some sense into him he would have Shvets and a crew of his loyal officers pay the man a call and make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Ivanov smiled as he thought of his favorite movie, The Godfather. He would very much like to meet Francis Ford Coppola some day. The man had captured the essence of power perfectly.
That was what Russia was all about in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The two systems were not, at the end of the day, all that different from each other. Both were corrupt to the core, and both systems served to line the pockets of the powerful. Under the old Soviet system, the inefficiencies were ridiculous. People who had no business holding a position of authority did so often, and their inability to make smart decisions doomed the communist experiment from the start. There was no motivation for the talented to rise to the top. In fact, it could be said that there was the opposite motivation. If you dared criticize the foolish systems put into place by some imbecile who held a post because he was the brother-in-law of an important official, you were more likely than not to get your meager pay cut. Everyone wallowed in that subaverage world except the lucky few.
Today things were dynamic. Money was to be made everywhere, and lots of it. Startup companies were popping up at an incredible rate and foreign investors were lining up to get into the game. The game, though, was a treacherous one. Remnants of the Soviet system were still in place, sucking off the system and causing a huge drain on the efficiency of the new economy. And then there were the corrupt courts, police, and security services. It was The Godfather, the Wild West, and 1920s gangster America all rolled into one.
These bankers and businessmen could either wallow in that inefficiency and red tape for months, costing them valuable time and money, or they could come to Ivanov and he could make their problems go away. Unlike the army of Jew lawyers who had descended on the city, who claimed they knew what they were doing, Ivanov could actually follow through on those claims and deliver real results to his new partners. And they were always partners. Depending on the deal, Ivanov would sometimes lower his fee, but never his percentage. The 10 percent ownership stake was non-negotiable.
He was not alone in this, and that was yet another parallel to the Academy Award–winning movie. There were others in Moscow and across the vast country who were doing the same thing, although, Ivanov would argue, not as well. Ivanov was not shy about touting the importance of his role in this brave new world, and defended it as a natural extension of his state security job. Someone needed to keep track of all these foreign investors and make sure they weren’t stealing the Motherland’s natural resources. After all, he was far more deserving of the profits than some twenty-five-year-old business-school graduate. At least that was what he told himself.
Shvets entered the office looking far too rested and handsome, which had the effect of worsening Ivanov’s mood.
“Good morning, sir.” Shvets remained standing. He knew better than to take a seat unless he was ordered.
“Get me some water,” Ivanov grumbled.
While Shvets poured a glass he asked, “You look like you stayed out all night. Would you like some aspirin as well?”
“Yes.” He snapped his long tanned fingers to spur his assistant to move faster. He could feel his headache passing from one temple to the other and then swinging back, as if he were being scanned by an irritating beam. He downed the three pills and the water. For a split second he thought of adding vodka. It would definitely help with the headache, but it was too early to surrender. Shvets and the new breed would take it as a sign of weakness.
“I heard you got them to agree in principle to the partnership.”
“Yes,” Ivanov moaned.
“Would you like me to have Maxim bring the contracts over?”
“Yes … and so. I want to know when you are leaving for Beirut and who you’re bringing with you.”
“Tomorrow, and I’m bringing Alexei and Ivan.”
Ivanov thought about that. Alexei and Ivan were two of his best. Former Spetsnaz, they’d fought with valor and distinction in Afghanistan but had gotten in trouble when their regiment’s political officer had turned up with his throat cut one morning. They had more than likely done it. Political officers were notorious for being a*sholes, and in those final days of the USSR more than a few of them simply disappeared. Ivanov was always looking for men who were good with their hands, and these two were better than good. “Why Alexei and Ivan?”
“Because they’re from Georgia and they look like they could be Lebanese.”
That was true, but Ivanov didn’t like having his two best gunmen leaving his side. In Moscow these days, the only thing you could count on was that sooner or later someone would try to take you out. It was just like the American mobsters. The vision of Sonny Corleone being mercilessly gunned down at the toll booth, betrayed by his own brother-in-law, the snake, sent chills down Ivanov’s back. He shuddered and then decided he would keep Alexi and Ivanov close. They were his Luca Brasi times two. “Take Oleg and Yakov.”
Shvets frowned.
“Why can’t you just follow my orders?”
In a calm voice, Shvets said, “When have I once failed to follow your orders?”
“You know what I mean. Your face. I am in no mood for it this morning.” Ivanov lowered his big head into his hands and groaned.
“I might as well go by myself.”
“That is a brilliant idea. Travel to the kidnapping capital of the Mediterranean by yourself so they can snatch you off the street and hold you for ransom. Brilliant!”
“Is it my fault that you stay out drinking and screwing until sunrise?”
“Don’t start.”
“I am half your age, and I can’t keep up with you.”
“You are half my size, too, so we’re even.”
“You need to slow down or there will be problems.”
Ivanov’s head snapped up. “Is that a threat?”
“No,” Shvets said, shaking his head, with a pathetic disappointment in his boss. Why must my loyalty always be questioned? “I am talking about your health. You need to take some time off. Go someplace warm. Maybe come to Beirut with me.”
“Beirut is a hellhole. It was once a great place … not anymore. You will see.”
“I heard it’s coming back.”
“Ha,” Ivanov laughed. “Not the part where you’ll be going. The famous Green Line looks like Leningrad in 1941. It’s a bombed-out shell. Our friends are trying to reconstitute it before the Christians take it over. It is not a nice place.”
Before Shvets could respond there was a knock on the office door. It was Pavel Sokoll, one of Ivanov’s deputies, who worked exclusively on state security financial matters. And if his ghostly complexion was any hint, he was not here to bring glad tidings. “Sir,” Sokoll’s voice cracked a touch. It did that when he was afraid he was going to upset Ivanov. “We have a problem.”
“What kind of problem, God dammit?”
Sokoll started to explain, and then stopped, and then started again when he realized there was no good way to spin the bad news. “We have certain accounts that we use to move money overseas. For our various activities, that is.”
“I’m not an idiot, Sokoll. We have accounts all over the place. Which ones are you talking about?”
“The ones in Zurich … specifically the ones”—he glanced at his notes—“at SBC.” He closed the file and looked at his boss.
Ivanov glared at the pasty man. They had 138 accounts with the Swiss Bank Corporation. “Which accounts, dammit!”
Sokoll opened the file again. Rather than trying to read the numbers, which even he didn’t understand, he reached across the desk and handed the paper to his boss.
Ivanov looked down at the list of accounts. There were six, and he was intimately familiar with whom they belonged to. “What am I supposed to learn from this? There is nothing. Just account numbers.”
“Actually, sir”—Sokoll pointed nervously at the sheet—“on the far side those are the balances of each account.”
Ivanov’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “This says these accounts are empty!”
“That’s right, sir.”
“How?” Ivanov yelled as he jumped to his feet.
“Swiss Interbank Clearing executed the order at nine-oh-one Zurich time this morning. The money was emptied out of these accounts electronically.”
“I know how it works, you f*cking moron, where did it go?”
“We don’t know, sir.”
Ivanov made a fist, as if he might come over the desk and bash his deputy over the head. “Well, find out!”
“We can’t,” Sokoll said, fearing for his life. “Once the money is gone, it is gone. There is no way to trace it. Swiss banking laws—”
“Shut up, you fool,” Ivanov yelled. “I am well aware of Swiss banking laws, and I don’t give a shit. You’d better find a way around them or you are going to be either dead or looking for a job.”
Sokoll bowed and left without saying another word.
The vodka was on the sidebar. It was always on the sidebar. Five different kinds. Ivanov could barely see, his head hurt so much, and he really didn’t care which bottle he was grabbing, vodka was vodka at this point. He poured four fingers into a tall glass, sloshing a bit over the side. He took a huge gulp, clenched his teeth, and let the clean, clear liquid slide down his throat. No one was supposed to know about those accounts, let alone have the ability to drain them of their funds. This could seriously jeopardize his standing within not just the Security Service but the entire government as well. It could potentially destroy all of his investments. Without the power that came with his office, he would be worthless to his partners. The long list of enemies that he’d made over the years would think nothing of coming after him. His hand started to shake.
Shvets finally asked, “How much money?”
Ivanov had to take another drink to gain the courage to speak the number. “Twenty-six million dollars … roughly.”
“And it belonged to …”
It took Ivanov a moment to answer. “Our friends in Beirut.”
Shvets thought of the different militant terrorist groups. “Their money or ours?”
“Both…”
“Both?”
“Yes! Think of it as a joint venture.”
“We invested money with those zealots?” Shvets asked, not bothering to hide his surprise.
“It’s control, you idiot. I don’t even know why I bother explaining sometimes. We put in money so we would have a say in how it was used. Think of it as foreign aid.” It was more complicated than that, but Ivanov didn’t have the time or clarity of mind to explain the complicated arrangement this morning. Or the fact that approximately ten million of it was KGB money that had been siphoned off over the years.
“Foreign aid to terrorists? Lovely.”
“Stop with your judgments. You know nothing. They put money in the accounts as well. In fact, most of it was theirs.” Ivanov had helped them find new revenue streams by peddling black market items such as drugs, guns, and porn. The drugs and guns were shipped all over the Middle East and North Africa and the porn was smuggled into Saudi Arabia.
“If the majority of the money was theirs, why did we have control of it?”
Ivanov gave an exasperated sigh as it occurred to him that he would have to go upstairs and tell the director. He tolerated these side business deals, but only to a point. This he would not like very much. In fact, there would be a great deal of suspicion that Ivanov had stolen the money for himself, if for no other reason than that they could all imagine themselves doing it.
Shvets repeated his question, and Ivanov said, “It was part of the deal. If they wanted our help, we wanted to know what they were doing with it, and we wanted them to put their own funds in as well.” It was only a half truth, but Ivanov did not feel the need to go into details with one of his deputies.
“I’m assuming the twenty-six represents the bulk of their assets.”
“Yes.” Ivanov took another gulp. The vodka was starting to lubricate the gears in his brain. He began to make a list in his head of who he would need to talk to.
“Who had access to the account information and pass codes?”
“They did and I did. Any withdrawal of more than twenty-five thousand had to be authorized by each of us separately.”
“So you had one pass code and they had the other?”
“Yes.” Shvets was asking too many questions.
“Who had access to both sets of pass codes?”
“No one.” The headache was starting to come back, although this time it was in his neck. He began rubbing the muscles with his left hand while he took another drink of vodka. “It was intentionally set up so that neither party would have both pass codes.”
Shvets considered that for a moment and then said, “Someone had to have both codes. Someone at the bank. How else could the codes be verified and the money moved?”
Ivanov stopped rubbing his neck. Why hadn’t he come to the same conclusion sooner? “Dorfman.”
“Who?”
“The banker.” Ivanov looked up Dorfman’s office number and punched it in as fast as his fingers could move. It took more than two minutes, three people, and a string of threats to get an answer that told him things were not good. Dorfman had not shown up for work, and they had been unable to reach him. Ivanov hung up the phone and laid his head down on the desk.
Shvets opened the office door and asked the secretary to bring them coffee. He then walked over to the desk and took the glass of vodka. Ivanov tried to stop him.
“This is not helping,” Shvets said in a paternal voice. “I am tied to you whether I like it or not, and if we are going to avoid being interrogated by our colleagues in the Federal Security Service, we need to clear your head and get you thinking straight.”
Ivanov’s entire body shuddered at the thought of the FSS goons dragging him into the basement of Lubyanka, the once-feared grand headquarters of the KGB. He knew all too well what went on in those prison cells in the basement, and he would kill himself before he ever allowed that to happen.