The Backup Asset

…8

Vitaliy Myatlev sat in front of his computer, in the comfort of his home office housed in the Kiev villa. Almost two weeks had passed since Piotr Abramovich had called and invited him for a visit to the Kremlin. Almost two weeks of anguish, of sleepless nights, and careful planning.

Abramovich was famous for throwing people in the depths of Siberia for lesser shortcomings. Myatlev knew he couldn’t hide forever in his Kiev fortress, and there was nowhere else he could go. Abramovich had already run out of patience and had called him again, reminding him in a firmer tone of voice of his standing invitation. He had continued to sound friendly on the phone, but that friendliness could change on a dime. The Russian president was notoriously unpredictable and easily offended.

Myatlev had spent the past weeks moving assets, waiting for bank transfers to complete, organizing his vast operations to be led from outside Russia, and preparing for the worst-case scenario. He hoped Abramovich hadn’t learned of his activities, but Myatlev was no fool. Abramovich’s internal state security, the all-feared FSB, was everywhere, and even Myatlev’s Kiev residence was not as secure as he liked to believe.

Myatlev had a long history of facing terrible odds fearlessly and coming out of dire situations unscathed. The KGB in his earlier career, followed by his years of service as an intelligence officer, had taught him how to sense danger and prepare for it. Then he had applied all he had learned in the emerging post-glasnost capitalist economy, building his fortune. Business had proven to be just as treacherous to navigate as foreign intelligence had been. That’s why he always had a back-door exit built into his plans. He always prepared for the worst-case scenarios, and he always survived.

This time he wasn’t so sure. He was missing critical information. What if Abramovich had his home in Moscow under surveillance, waiting for him to show up? The FSB could arrest him the moment he’d walk through that door. What if the FSB had already raided the place, opening his safe and turning his secrets into incriminating evidence, enough to put him away for the rest of his life? There was only one way to find out.

“Ivan?” Myatlev called his bodyguard and assistant, who came promptly.

“Boss?”

“I need you to help me with something.” He paused, thinking what amount of information would be safe to share with Ivan at this point. The less he knew, the better off he’d be.

“Yes, sir,” Ivan acknowledged.

“I need you to go to the house in Moscow and bring me some documents.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m going to trust you with some very critical information, Ivan, I hope you will not disappoint me.”

“Nyet, Vitaliy Kirillovich, you can count on me,” he replied, addressing his boss with the utmost deference, by his given name and patronymic

“I will give you the combination to my safe and trust you to bring everything in it to me, right away.”

“Your safe, boss?” Ivan looked confused, almost scared. The man, an ex-Spetsnaz, who didn’t hesitate to kill with his bare hands, seemed flustered at the thought of opening his boss’s safe.

“Yes, Ivan, I trust you,” Myatlev said. “Am I wrong to trust you?”

“N — no, sir, nyet.”

Myatlev stopped for a second, thinking of the best way to do this. If he was right in his worst fears, Ivan was never to be heard from again. He hesitated a little, thinking whether to send Ivan on his personal jet, the Citation X. If worst came to worst the twenty-million dollar plane would be gone, confiscated by the FSB immediately after its wheels touched down on Russian soil. On the other hand, if he sent Ivan on a commercial flight he could be caught leaving the country with his documents, and those were enough to compromise him and start a shit storm, even if one hadn’t already started yet. Ivan’s life and the plane were the risk he had to take to ensure he could return safely to Moscow.

“I’m going to send you on my plane, and you can leave as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, boss, consider it done.”

“Bring me everything you find in my safe. Don’t read anything, don’t open anything, just grab it all, and bring it to me, understood?”

“Yes, sir. I will leave now.”

Myatlev told Ivan how to access the safe and gave him the code, making him repeat the information. He tapped his empty glass with his index finger, and Ivan replenished his Stolichnaya dutifully before leaving the room.

He leaned back in his chair, feeling some relief. Soon he would know. But he wasn’t safe here either, not entirely, although he was in a different country. Ukraine had been an independent country for many years, but the Russian president had armies of separatists operating within the Ukrainian border, a border that was becoming more irrelevant, especially after Crimea.

“Who am I kidding?” he muttered between two rounds of cursing that would have made career sailors jealous.

He got up from his desk and went to the safe in the corner of the room. He opened it and took all the papers out, sorting through them. A small pile went back into the safe. A larger pile accompanied him to the terrace, where Myatlev personally held each piece of paper as it burned, ashes blown by the wind staining the spotless white of the fresh-fallen snow.