The First Billion

13

Water, Konstantin Romanovich? You look a bit flushed. Something to eat?”

“A sherry would be nice. Perhaps some foie gras.”

“I can offer water and a cracker,” said Yuri Baranov.

“Thank you, but no.” Folding his hands in his lap, Kirov adjusted his immaculate posture and the smile of infinite goodwill that went with it.

For two hours, he had been seated in the same chair listening to Yuri Baranov, the nation’s prosecutor general, rant about the sum of one hundred twenty million dollars missing from the coffers of Novastar Airlines. Theft of government property. Illegal exportation of hard currency. Grand larceny. Fraud. Even treason. The accusations went on and on and Kirov was quickly growing tired of them. How many times could a man say he was sorry, but he had no idea what had happened to the money?

“Let us proceed on a new tack,” declared Baranov grimly, selecting a document from one of the bottomless stacks that littered his desk. “May I ask if the name Futura Holding conjures any memories?”

“Futura Holding, you say? I’m sorry, but it is not a name to me.”

“So I may take it that if you were listed as a director of the company, it would come as a surprise?”

“I am a businessman. I sit on the board of a great many companies. It’s difficult to keep track.”

Baranov leaned forward in his seat and offered him the document. He was seventy if a day, a gray, stiff man in an ill-fitting suit with yellowing teeth and a well-worn expression of permanent outrage. A poster boy for the old regime, thought Kirov, hating and fearing him in equal measure.

Baranov was known to every Russian over the age of fifty as the man who had tried the arch-spy Oleg Penkovsky, the GRU colonel and war hero who had fed his nation’s secrets to JFK and the Americans over an eighteen-month period in 1961 and 1962. Kirov could still remember the fuzzy black-and-white images of Baranov standing on the steps of the Lubyanka calling for Penkovsky to confess his crimes, name his co-conspirators, and publicly apologize to his countrymen if he wished to receive the Rodina’s mercy.

Confess! Collaborate! Apologize! Only then will the Motherland shower her mercy upon you.

“Do you wish then to deny that you are a director of Futura Holding S.A., domiciled in Lausanne, Switzerland?” Baranov asked.

Kirov shook off the memory and concentrated on the document in his hand. He recognized it immediately. The articles of incorporation for said Futura Holding S.A. The paper was dated March 13th of last year. Kirov was listed as 51 percent shareholder in the company; the purpose of the holding noted as “investments in foreign corporations.” “So I am a director of Futura. So what?”

“On March 15th, shares in Novastar were auctioned to the private sector. As the winning bidder, you were permitted to purchase forty-nine percent of the company. A month later, the shares were transferred to Futura in Lausanne, Switzerland.”

“That’s hardly news. Everybody in the country knows I purchased Novastar. About time someone decided to run one of our national airlines properly. Besides, forty-nine percent is hardly a controlling stake. If I recall, the government owns fifty-one percent.”

“A formality. Managerial control of the airline was ceded to the private sector as a precondition to the auction. Therefore Futura is responsible for Novastar’s day-to-day operations. The government is a silent partner.”

“Apparently no longer.”

Baranov continued. “On the seventeenth of March, Novastar management sent a directive to all its foreign sales offices ordering all remittances to be wired to an account in an offshore bank.” He picked up a new document and read from it. “I quote, ‘All proceeds from advance ticket sales, tour bookings, late fees, and penalties are to be paid into the account of Futura S.A. at the Banque Sino-Suez.’ The directive is, in itself, an infraction of our legal code. Revenues accruing to the Russian government are to be transferred to Moscow. I could have you thrown in Lefortovo for that alone. What was the purpose of this measure?”

Lefortovo. Stones dripping with damp. Lice-infested beds. Midnight searches of prisoners’ cells.

“Ease of accounting. A Swiss firm does all our work.”

Baranov dismissed the answer with a sneer. “What concerns me more, however, is that since the time of this directive there has been a shortfall in income of over one hundred million dollars from last year’s sales.”

“Business has fallen off this year,” Kirov explained, his mouth grown parched. “It would help if the government initiated a campaign to bring tourists to the motherland.”

For once the pasty lawyer smiled. “Actually, bookings are up fifteen percent over last year.”

“Fifteen percent?”

“Fifteen point six to be exact.”

Kirov held the attorney’s eye, hoping to conceal the tide of unease crashing inside him. First Futura and now mention of Novastar’s bookings. Next thing Baranov would say he had the banking records to boot. A word scratched at Kirov’s throat, begging to be acknowledged, spoken, screamed. Spy. Someone was slipping his organization’s most important records out of his offices.

“I don’t involve myself in the day-to-day affairs of my companies,” he finally said. “I know nothing of the directive, but you have my word it will be discontinued immediately. I’m sure the shortfall in revenues is simply an accounting error.”

“One hundred twenty million dollars is more than an accounting error.”

“Then the error is surely yours, not mine.”

“I think not, Konstantin Romanovich. Don’t be surprised to find a government delegation coming to your offices for an early visit one of these days. You know my boys—the ones with ski masks, camouflage utilities, and machine guns. I’ve been made to understand that you are a demon for order—some might even say obsessive. Who knows what we might find. Perhaps some documents with the Banque Privé de Genève et Lausanne name?”

The Banque Privé de Genève et Lausanne? How the hell had Baranov come up with that name?

Kirov colored, but his voice remained calm and modulated. “Is that a threat?”

“One hundred twenty million dollars is missing,” said Baranov solemnly. “Return to the state that which it is due and this inquiry will be terminated.”

Confess! Collaborate! Apologize! The iron voice echoed across forty years.

“A raid will not be allowed,” protested Kirov. “If you wish to launch a formal investigation into my handling of Novastar’s affairs, you’re welcome to do so. But use the proper channels.”

Baranov slammed an open hand on the table. “The Rodina is in a pitiable condition. Our people need money, not justice. The rule of law must take a backseat to economic necessity. We will no longer stand by as you and your like continue to rape the country, as you strip Mother Russia of her wealth to line your own pockets. You oligarchs are jackals, one and all.”

“Never have I robbed the Rodina,” said Kirov, his voice silk to Baranov’s sandpaper. “I do not sell her minerals on the cheap. I do not smuggle her diamonds or gold out of the country. I do not squander her oil. I am a builder. A creator. Look around you. Half the new buildings in this city are mine. Offices. Apartments. Restaurants. I started a television station from nothing and built it into our city’s most popular. A thousand rubles says the radio in your car is tuned to my station. It is I who have upgraded our country’s phone lines, I who have brought the Internet to our young people and businesses.”

“Yes,” said Baranov, all outward calm evaporating. “You have constructed buildings, but at twice the true cost. Your offices charge outlandish rent to your own companies. Advertising billings collected by your television station are booked to offshore companies. Income tax—I don’t even dare ask what you pay… or don’t. As for Mercury Broadband and your interest in the upgrading of our nation’s infrastructure, it is as suspect as the rest of your operations. Be most assured, Konstantin Romanovich, we are aware of your ambitious plans—all of them—and we will decide which are acceptable.”

Kirov was not blind to the threat. He shuddered to think what might happen to the Mercury Broadband IPO should his offices be raided by government troops. The press would be forewarned. Pictures would be broadcast over Russian television by noon and in America by nightfall. The offering would be postponed, or more likely canceled. Two billion dollars gone. And why? Because Kirov had conducted himself according to standard Russian business practice? Because he’d dared to prosper in perilous times?

He blinked, and despite himself his eyelids stuttered. Whatever else might happen, the IPO had to go through. Too many people were relying on its success. He, to build the first great company of the new millennium and to gild his path through the corridors of power. Others, to advance ambitious plans of their own, plans that would restore luster to the country’s sword and shield.

Fathoming for the first time the insidious nature of the forces arrayed against him, he shed his mantle of insecurity and donned his fighting gear. If Baranov expected him to roll over and give up, he was sorely mistaken. Kirov had been fighting intimidation his entire life. As a Jew. As an intellectual. And as a businessman.

“Your threats are reprehensible,” he declared in a soft, dangerous voice. “But nothing more than I expected from one of Brezhnev’s bullyboys. I remind you we live in a democratic society these days. I’ve even heard a rumor we have rights.”

“Thieves have no rights!” Baranov stood, his chair tumbling behind him. “Return to the state that which is its due and the inquiry will disappear. You have my word.”

“Your word? Your word is as reliable as the false accusations you’ve been tossing at me all afternoon.” Only his mother’s ingrained good manners prevented him from spitting on the floor. Suddenly, he could stand it no longer: the musty room, the weak lightbulbs, the worm-eaten furniture. Any moment, Khrushchev himself would walk through the door and start banging his shoe on the table.

Standing, Kirov buttoned his jacket. “Excuse me,” he said politely. “I have a pressing engagement.”

Lowering his head, he rushed from the room. There was a spy burrowed inside Mercury, and Konstantin Kirov had to root him out.