Stroika

Chapter 33

^LENINGRAD

Misha looked around the vault. Viktoriya stood next to Grigory, who was idly weighing up wads of dollar bills in his hands before placing them back where he had found them.

‘Did we get the last of Kostya’s money,’ Misha asked Grigory.

‘Over two hundred million US. He seems in a hell of a hurry.’

‘That’s way up on what he told me,’ Misha said, frowning.

Misha cast a glance in Viktoriya’s direction as if she might be able to throw some light on Kostya’s extra millions. It was odd. She guessed Moika was not the only bank Kostya was pushing his money through and Misha would definitely not have been his first choice. Why the rush now? There was less chance of it being noticed by the authorities if it were drip fed.

The wall phone rang and Grigory picked it up.

‘Ivan on the phone.’

They had been waiting for news on Roslavi. Ivan had joined Major Gaidar’s brigade and entered the plant at first light. They had little idea what to expect, only Federov’s hazy report.

‘Put him on speaker,’ said Misha.

‘We have the plant under control, but they were waiting for us, someone must have tipped them off… a heavily armed local gang, maybe fifty, ex-army I suspect, ten dead, four of ours.’

It was almost useless speculating who had leaked their arrival, thought Viktoriya, but they did need to improve their own intelligence about such matters.

‘And the plant director?’

‘Not very cooperative, at first… he’s onside now. If he gives us any trouble he’ll be out and he knows it. Vika, you can send in your tankers in forty-eight hours, but it’ll take time to get back to half-decent production levels. The place is a mess.’

The Soviet Union writ large, thought Viktoriya. No wonder Federov was so keen to secure the place, and thank God for Yuri. Between him and Ivan it had taken less than ten days to assemble a small army, kit them out and put them in position.

‘Comrade director says that requisitioning spare parts is futile; he’s been doing so for months. The only thing it generates is more paperwork – not what he needs.’

‘Ivan, just tell him to give you the list,’ said Misha. ‘We’ll sort it out, bring in the parts from Europe. It’ll be much quicker, and tell him to get hold of some contract engineers. Put them on our payroll. Let’s get this refinery up and running. Who knows how long we’ll have to benefit.’

The sums they were looking at on the trading side were enormous if they could get back to anything like the capacity levels Federov had told them had been achieved two years before; sinking some of their profit into improving their return would be a small price to pay. Besides, Federov had even hinted that he might get the ministry to cover the cost ultimately, but first things first, thought Viktoriya.

‘I’ve LF setting up the transport depot as we speak,’ said Viktoriya, ‘on the outskirts of Smolensk, courtesy of Federov. I’ll fax you the details. I’m positioning the first five freighters there this week, more next. They’ll need security.’

Smolensk was no safer than any other city.