66
Ivan Sergeyevich Platonov, commonly known as Platon, was the man entrusted with expanding the Podolskaya crime clan’s activities in Western Europe. He had been in bed in his Paris apartment with one of the women whose bodies provided so much of his gang’s revenues when Olga Zhukovskaya called.
“How are you, Ivan Sergeyevich?” asked Olga Zhukovskaya.
“Very well, thank you, and you?”
“Also well. You know, my husband always spoke very warmly of you…”
“He was a great man. My condolences. You received my wreath, I hope.”
“Yes, thank you, very impressive. I’m not disturbing you?”
The girl had woken up, yawned, and then dutifully started running her fingers down Platon’s stomach. He shooed her away.
“Of course not. What can I do for you?”
“I need something collected, or perhaps retrieved would be a better word…”
While Platon listened, occasionally breaking in with specific, practical questions, the deputy director explained about a missing document, the property of the Russian people, that was currently sitting in a safe in a house in the South of France, about 550 miles from where he now lay. It was currently guarded by four Georgians, led by a low-rank gang leader named Bagrat Baladze. Within the next twenty-four hours, it would be either sold to a filthy Arab terrorist or stolen by the agents of an even more despicable American, unless Platon and his men could get to it first.
“You have fought for the Motherland in the past,” said Zhukovskaya. “Now she calls you for one more mission.”
There was something almost seductive in her voice; it was less the command of a senior officer than the request of a vulnerable woman made to a mighty warrior.
Platon wasn’t falling for it.
“Naturally, I am a patriot,” he said. “Even now, when I live as a peaceful businessman, I am willing to do my duty. But there will be costs. Men may die. Their families must be considered.”
He had never paid a single ruble to a widow or orphan in his life, a fact of which Zhukovskaya was fully aware.
“Of course, you must be compensated,” she agreed. “I was thinking, you may be aware that my late husband was involved in the production and sale of certain munitions, on behalf of the state.”
Platon knew that, all right. Zhukovski had made a fortune flogging land mines until that English princess had stuck her interfering nose in his business. That had been the death of her… and of him, too. Since then, as political pressure against them grew, the mines had been rotting in warehouses all over Russia. But the illicit demand for them was unabated. Mines sold by the tens of thousands, and each one was worth three hundred U.S. dollars in pure profit. If he could secure the concession, there was a massive fortune to be made.
“I would be proud to assist my country, but it will not be easy,” he said. “I must take my best men away from their current assignments. They will need equipment. And of course we must all get to the property as fast as possible. A helicopter will be the fastest method. The French make one called a Dauphin. It will easily seat six men and take us all the way there, right to the front door, with just one refueling stop. If I can charter one this morning, I can be at this place by early afternoon.”
As it turned out, Platon’s takeoff was delayed. The chopper he hired had technical problems. It was not until lunchtime that the Eurocopter Dauphin left the Paris heliport and began the three-hour flight south.