Commander-in-Chief

18

Valeri Volodin sat at his desk in the Kremlin, his eyes running over a single sheet of paper lying on his blotter. It was the list of the FSB’s most trusted financial minds in the nation. He read every name on the list — thirty-eight in all. He knew of all the men, of course — these were well-known technocrats involved in government finance and, more important, the personal finance of the government elite.

He was looking for one name in particular, and when he came to the end of the list, he smiled with satisfaction, because Kremlin Security Council Director Mikhail Grankin’s list confirmed to Volodin exactly what he expected.

There was no mention of a local private equity manager named Andrei Limonov, and this meant, to Volodin, that Andrei Limonov would do just fine.

He’d researched Limonov through the Interior Ministry officials as well, just to make certain the man was trustworthy politically, and found the man had a refreshing lack of ambition in politics. Volodin appreciated this greatly, because if one thing could corrupt a man faster than money, it was the power that the Kremlin offered.

Volodin recognized Limonov as a bean counter, a damn good one, but nothing more than that.

He snatched up the phone on his desk, and his assistant answered immediately. “Yes, sir?”

“I am playing hockey tonight?”

“Yes, sir. The match is at ten p.m. Shall I cancel it?”

“The match will continue. I want to add a player to our team.”

“Of course.”

“Who is our left-winger this evening? Is it Kuklin?”

There was a pause as Volodin’s secretary scrambled to pull up the right file on her computer. Finally, she said, “That’s correct, sir.”

“Remove him. Contact Andrei Limonov, director of Blackmore Capital Partners, and tell him he will be playing on my left tonight. He suited up against us once, a year ago. He was terrible, couldn’t skate the wings if his life depended on it, but no matter. I’ll see him through.”

“Yes, sir.” A pause. “Shall I tell him he will be meeting with you here in the Kremlin after the game?”

Volodin’s secretary knew the president liked to invite men to play sports with him before a meeting. It was a good way to take the measure of the man, and to also show who was in charge. Volodin replied, “No. Tell him nothing. I’ll decide if I want to speak with him after the game.”

Andrei Limonov pulled up to the VIP entrance to Luzhniki Olympic Complex at nine p.m., rolling his sleek Mercedes S65 coupe through the gates after giving his name to a guard with a clipboard.

The coupe rumbled, restrained by Limonov’s foot on the brake pedal. The 621 twin-turbo V12 wanted to blast through the complex, but the driver controlled it expertly, negotiating a second security check and two more open gates before coming to a stop in front of the Luzhniki Small Sports Arena, the only major building in the area with its lights on on this August evening.

Limonov climbed out wearing a black suit with a burgundy tie, his blond hair combed into a part that partially covered a small bald spot that bothered him in a way he could never let on to others. In his line of work it helped to be young and vibrant and vigorous, and although he was only thirty-five, he was already considering a hair transplant that would help him hold on to his youth for a few years more.

Limonov was met at the player entrance to the stadium and checked in, and then an attractive young female employee from the Kremlin introduced herself and led him to the locker room.

Limonov had been only fair at hockey, and that was back when he was fifteen years old, so he was surprised to be here. He hadn’t played hockey in several months, though he retained a great passion for the game.

He’d been told the president himself had invited him to join the weekly match, which was stunning, but Limonov had heard that Volodin extended invitations to important people in the city, mostly when he wanted something from them.

Limonov had met Valeri Volodin only a couple times, most recently a year earlier, when Limonov’s amateur hockey team, made up of friends from university, had been invited to play against Volodin’s team.

Volodin’s side won that night, as they did every night they played, for two important reasons. One, Volodin’s team was partially made up of current and former players from Dynamo Moscow, Volodin’s favorite professional squad.

And two, nobody wanted to body-check the man who controlled the military police and the Army.

Valeri Volodin, consequently, scored a lot of goals.

While he kitted up for the game, Limonov looked around at the other men on the team. He recognized all of them, as most had been famous national hockey stars just a few years ago, and those that weren’t former pros were well-known Volodin confidants in the government who, thanks to their boss’s passion for the sport, spent a lot of time playing hockey. The private equity man knew he was out of his league, to put it mildly. This was an uncomfortable feeling for him, because he was normally the most confident man in the room.

Andrei Limonov was smart, and he was successful. He also was supremely self-assured. He knew without a doubt that if he’d been more than a small child back in the nineties he would be one of the main power players in the nation now. Back then the assets of the Soviet state were carved up and handed out to a select few in Russia, then snatched up by the most ruthless of them, making a hundred billionaires in a nation with a quarter-billion in abject poverty. Limonov was certain he would have been one of the toughest, smartest, and shrewdest, had he only been around to enjoy that brief moment in time when all the fortunes were made.

Still, he was making good money now. He was a millionaire, and his private equity firm could not have been on stronger footing.

One could not work with banks or in trading here in Moscow without having ties to the Kremlin and the FSB, as the siloviki ran both institutions as well as the Russian economy. Business and government were one and the same here, so many of Limonov’s top clients were also the powerful elite who ran the government and government-controlled ventures. That said, Limonov was no inside man in the Russian government. He’d worked for senior officials at Gazprom and Rosneft and other state-controlled companies, and he’d done work for senior officials at FSB for a time, building up shell networks to launder funds into Western banks, but recently he turned down an FSB offer to handle a large portfolio for them. He looked at the proposition carefully, but in the end he didn’t need the headache, so he rejected the offer. From this decision he’d lost a couple of siloviki clients, but in the long run he was sure it would work to his advantage. He’d shown several top men in the government that he wasn’t going to be their bitch, and he kept his nose cleaner than many of the other men in his profession here in Russia’s capital.

At ten-fifteen p.m. the door to the locker room opened and several men in suits entered. They were clearly security, and they quickly walked the room. A pair of bomb-sniffing dogs on leashes did the same, sniffing every locker, gym bag, and even a jock strap that had been cast aside by one of the ex — Dynamo Moscow players.

A few minutes later when the team was stretching and chatting in the middle of the room, Valeri Volodin entered, wearing a suit and tie. He nodded to the group perfunctorily and began to change clothes at his own private locker.

Limonov had wanted to speak with the president as soon as possible to thank him for the invitation, but soon it became clear that unless he thanked the man through his mouth guard on the ice, he wouldn’t get the opportunity till after the match.

The game started after eleven p.m., with only a minute or two on the ice for Limonov to warm up. He’d been told the opposing team was made up of bodyguards of the Russian prime minister, and although they would not touch Valeri Volodin, they could be extremely aggressive toward the other players on Volodin’s team. One of the Dynamo guys patted Limonov on the helmet right before the start of the match and told him the other team couldn’t catch the pro players on Volodin’s team, so they took out all their frustrations by body-checking the hell out of any amateurs invited as the president’s guest.

And tonight there was only one man in that category.

And the prediction had been correct. Within the first minute of play Limonov had been knocked on his back twice, and in the first period he’d been slammed violently against the boards so many times he’d lost count.

In the second period he thought he’d broken a rib after a pass to the president that Volodin converted for an easy, uncontested goal. Limonov climbed slowly off the ice to his knees and asked for a substitution, but Volodin just skated up past him and said, “Be tough, Limonov. That was nothing.”

Andrei Limonov used his stick to hoist himself back up to his feet, and then he went back to his position.

The fact the opposing side battled as hard as they could against most of Volodin’s team — even taking their frustration out for having to play the role of whipping boys by body-checking some of the big-name players — made the game look legitimate in some respects, but it also drew a stark contrast with the play reserved for Valeri Volodin. When the Russian president was on the puck, he was only lightly grazed by a shoulder here and there.

Consequently, Valeri Volodin scored four goals, and no one else scored more than one.

Limonov had not managed to get into position to take a single shot.

When the match was over, Limonov was literally doubled over in pain. He had to ask one of the other players what the final score was, because it was too much effort to look up at the scoreboard.

He staggered back to the locker room, well behind the other players, and just as he sat down on a bench at his locker and began removing his gear, Volodin appeared in front of him and punched a fist into Limonov’s shoulder. It hurt like hell, but Limonov thought this was a good sign. The president was treating him like a childhood chum.

“You played better than I thought you would, Andrei Ivanovich.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Of course, I had expected you to be horrible, so you didn’t have to do much to exceed my expectations.”

Limonov nodded. “You were excellent, Mr. President. Your third goal was a thing of majesty.”

Volodin’s half-smile disappeared. “And what of the others?”

Limonov hesitated, but then said, “Number two was very good, also. Number one should have been called back after the illegal check Pavel Yurievich placed on their defender to take the puck in the first place. I hope you don’t mind my saying that, or the fact that your fourth goal was handed to you. Dmitry Petrovich sent you a back pass that rightfully should have been his shot. He had an open goal, yet he passed to you.”

Other than a hint of nervous laughter, there was no sound in the locker room for several seconds. Finally, Volodin said, “A detailed accounting of tonight’s ledger. Spoken like a true accountant.”

Only when Volodin smiled at his joke did the other men in the room recognize it as a joke, at which point they themselves broke into uproarious laughter.

Volodin put his hand on Andrei Limonov’s shoulder again. “I want you to come and see me. Tonight.”

He turned and walked off without waiting for a response.

Limonov wanted an ice bath more than a visit to the Kremlin, since the pain in his side and in his legs and in his lungs was at the forefront of his mind now, but he knew there was no way out of such an invitation. He had no idea what the president wanted from him, but Volodin was already out the door to the locker room, and he would not have dared ask, anyway.

“Don’t worry, Andrei Ivanovich,” a forty-year-old ex — Dynamo right back named Pavel said. “If Volodin wanted something bad to happen to you, it wouldn’t happen at the Kremlin.” He smiled. “It would just happen.”

The other men chuckled, but Limonov could see on their faces that they were all worried for him.

Limonov pulled himself up into a standing position by using the door of the locker, and then he headed for the showers.