The Hunted

Book Two: The Exile
12

September 1993 The promised call from Moscow had not been returned at ten; it was now eleven, so it was likely another broken promise, one in a long string of dashed hopes. Alex stood by the hotel window and stared down at the chaotic street seven stories below. Among the wash of humanity below, his eyes picked out the businesspeople-the lawyers, the moneymen, the entrepreneurs, the two-bit hustlers-scurrying around this loud and important city in search of the next deal.

Alex's mind was locked firmly on the last deal.

From the bed, Elena kept a wary eye on him. She was deeply worried about him, but so far had not broached those thoughts. The bathrobe that hung loosely from his shoulders had not been removed in days. A man who put punctuation points on restless and driven, the past week had barely crawled out of bed. Ordinarily he required a mere three or four hours of sleep to recharge his juices; he was now edging toward twelve. The room-service meals were nothing short of delicious-at these prices, they better be. He shoved the food around on his plate. He squished everything into mush and rearranged it all into untidy puddles. The fork rarely left the plate; it even more rarely went near his lips. Elena calculated he had shed at least fifteen pounds.

He looked gaunt and haggard, thoroughly beaten. An insomniac in reverse; the excess sleep had left him listless and drained. The change since their arrival day in New York nearly three weeks before was more than alarming and there was no bottom in sight.

After they hopped off the plane at JFK Airport, they had dashed through customs and hijacked the first available taxi for a fast sprint into Manhattan, where they checked into this plush suite in the Plaza. After quick showers, they slept three hours. Then Alex dragged her out of bed and they flew out the door. They raced to and through a few local shops, pausing only long enough to stuff a few bags with new clothes, toothbrushes, razors, shaving cream-enough essentials, and no more, to squeeze through two fast and furious days, Alex insisted.

Moscow beckoned. Two days was pessimistic, he warned her; half a day was more like it. Yeltsin might even dispatch a military plane to haul them back. Should he request one? he openly wondered. No, he would demand it-along with an armed military escort to keep the bad guys at bay, an armored car for the ride home, and an army of investigators to round up the crooks. A quick dash around the corner and he darted into a crowded office supply store. Alex emerged a short while later loaded with furious determination, typing paper, a few notebooks, pens, a cell phone, a laptop, and somewhere in this frantic rush he found software to convert the computer fonts to Cyrillic.

That afternoon, fully armed, Alex began his all-out assault on Moscow. He set up camp in the nicely equipped business center on the ground floor of the hotel. With care, he selected a small desk in the far corner of the room where foot traffic was minimal. With his arsenal of pens and pencils, his supply depot of notepads and stacks of typing paper all neatly arranged, he plugged in his computer and launched in, daring anybody to poach on his turf.

For seven frenetic days, Alex lived there. He bombarded Moscow with phone calls and faxes. Between his new cell and the landline in the business center, he often had a phone loaded in each fist, sometimes speaking into both at once. His voice was enraged but controlled, precise, and quick. His ability to explain the story improved with each retelling, becoming shorter, honed to the gory essentials. Sometimes he juggled the listeners and bounced back and forth between conversations. The pace never withered except when Elena enforced a cease-fire long enough for hurried visits on doctors and dentists to repair the damage inflicted by Vladimir. If the ministrations took too long, Alex cursed and walked out. The leg was slow to heal. He lurched and hobbled from one lamppost to the next, in a crippled race back to the hotel. He couldn't wait to return to his battle station, to fire off another fusillade of phone calls to anybody who would listen, the next flurry of faxes to whoever promised to read them.

After seven long and exhausting days, the assault faltered almost as suddenly as it began. By day eight, it waned to a dull skirmish-a few aimless shots fired without energy or optimism. Nothing but lingering echoes of a battle that had been desperately waged and apparently conceded.

"Come back to bed," Elena told her husband, fluffing his pillow and giving it a loud, inviting smack.

"I'm not tired."

"Neither am I. We're in a glorious luxury suite in a great city. Make love to me, Alex."

"I'm not in the mood." A moment later, with his back still turned, "Sorry."

"Listen to me, Konevitch. I am so in the mood I caught myself winking at the toothless old homeless guy across the street. His name's Harry. He's heavy, and dirty, and has only one eye, but sort of a cute butt. Now get in this bed and do your damnedest to satisfy me before Harry shows up."

He never turned around-never even glanced at the skimpy black teddy she had secretly purchased the day before at Victoria's Secret and slipped into two minutes before in the bathroom. Two thimbles and a string would've been more modest. Nearly two hundred dollars for barely three ounces of fabric, but that was the whole point. She had painted her face, something she seldom did. Her golden locks were brushed to a high glean. She had saturated herself in so much perfume, a thick mist of vapors hovered around her skin. She was taking no chances. No corner had been unpampered or overlooked or spared. A bottle of ridiculously expensive champagne cooled its heels in a frosted bucket beside the side of the bed.

She had schemed and prepared this seduction. If she had to slam his head with a mallet, he would damn well get in the mood.

In a marriage that rarely passed three days without sex, Alex had not been Mr. Ready-and-Able since Budapest. He was in a black depression, trapped in a bottomless funk, and she would do her damnedest to bring him out of it.

She climbed out of bed and approached him from behind. She grabbed his arm and spun him around. "Look what I bought for you. And I damn well better hear a gasp," she ordered. With that, she pranced and strutted and flaunted her sculpted dancer's body shamelessly, like a brassy stripper.

Three weeks before she wouldn't have made two steps before he tossed her on the bed and the ravaging began.

Ten steps. Twenty steps. Thirty.

He crossed his arms and weathered the distraction.

The hussy routine came to an abrupt halt. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and looked him dead in the eye. "Get on the bed, now," she demanded, pointing a finger in that general direction.

"I warned you, I'm not in the mood."

"I can see that, Konevitch. But I bought this silly outfit, and primped and plucked my eyebrows and shaved my legs, and now I look like a whore, but I did this for you. You're not getting out of this if I have to kill you."

He took in the flared nostrils, the sparks in the blue eyes, the gripped fists, and he made the only sensible choice: a swift, meek retreat to the bed. He sat stiffly on a corner, enough to placate her-enough also to signal his stubborn indifference.

She sat on the opposite corner. She crossed her legs and for a moment did not say a word. Then, "Tell me what's happening. It's my life, too, and you're keeping everything to yourself."

"I'd rather not talk about it."

"I'd rather you do. No, I insist."

"Are we having a fight?"

"Not yet." She pulled a pillow over and rested it against her back. "But we're about to have a bloody world war if you don't tell me what's going on. I'm not bluffing."

"I don't want to depress you."

"Your depression is depressing me. Frankly I don't care if we lost everything. I'd actually be quite pleased if somebody else is now living in that musty old mansion."

"It's a good thing. I did, I lost everything. The money, our homes, our companies… everything."

"I thought the money was safe."

"Apparently they found the account numbers and security codes. They were better prepared than I anticipated."

"Well… it's only money, dear."

"A million or two is only money, Elena. But two hundred million in cash, and stock worth another hundred million, I think that deserves a slightly better modifier than 'only money,' don't you?"

She had no idea it was that much. "Yeltsin won't allow it. He owes you everything, Alex."

A long sigh. "I can't get through to him. And believe me, I've tried. I've called his office countless times, and flooded it with faxes."

"Maybe he's busy. I'm sure that's it. This is urgently important to us, but I think he has a few other problems on his plate."

"No, I'm being stonewalled. I call and get foisted from one unimportant assistant to another. I know damn well what's going on."

"Okay, what is going on?"

"Somebody inside is pulling strings. Somebody clever and powerful enough to block me from Yeltsin. Each time it's a fresh new assistant, each time I have to start over from scratch. They're taking turns. They're trying to wear me down, and it's worked."

"You're smarter than they are, sweetheart. Shift your approach."

"Do you think I haven't attempted that? I tried every path into the Kremlin I could think of. Among many others, I've contacted the minister of security, the secretary of the Security Council, the minister of finance, the mayor of Moscow, even the chairman of the Central Bank."

"And what do they say?"

"They said it sounded terrible and promised to look into it." He turned away from her and stared again at the window. "That was last week's line. Now they won't take my calls."

She reached over and hauled the champagne bottle out of the bucket. Over the long days and nights they had stayed cooped up in the hotel she had managed to make only one friend, Amber Lincoln, a large, warm-hearted black woman who ran the phone bank in the basement. During Alex's week of furious activity, as Alex ignored her and as the switchboard people in the basement pulled hairs to keep up with his incessant requests for calls to various numbers in Russia, Elena had considered it the least she could do to reward their help by bringing food and an occasional bottle of wine.

This had been her only respite from Alex's bout of frenetic activity, and now his dark mood.

Champagne and sex were long overdue.

Her tiny fingers worked the aluminum cover before she handed off the bottle to Alex for the honors. "What do you think is going on?"

"Sergei Golitsin."

"The security chief? That ugly old toad?"

"He put this together, he and all the KGB crooks he brought into the company with him. He took over my company, and now has the nerve to rename it after himself. He stole everything I built, everything, Elena. He's now living fat and happy in our house."

He can have it, she thought, but said, "Everybody knows it's your company. He can't just steal it."

"Last week he fired every vice president. Called them all into my office, and ordered them to depart the building immediately. Armed guards pushed and shoved them out onto the street. Remember Mishi? He said it was the most frightening moment of his life. Even before they were called in, Golitsin's thugs already had taken over their offices." Alex rubbed his eyes and stared off into space. "All those decent, hardworking people, now they're out on the street, unemployed. It's my fault."

"How was it your fault?"

"I was stupid. And worse, careless. I became desperate after the killings, so I brought Golitsin in to protect the company. I've thought about it for days, and the pieces have fallen into place. From the very beginning he was plotting to steal it. I'm a fool."

"No, you're brilliant. You're the most talented man I ever met, and the most decent. You just don't think like they do." He was gripping the bottle tightly, and she took it away from him. He was the least self-pitying man she'd ever met, but he was utterly miserable. Then again, everything he had built had been stolen, his life turned upside down. The frustration was boiling his soul. She went to work on the cork. She squinted and grunted and twisted with all her might.

Alex seized it back. A single hard wrench and-POP-gold liquid gushed over and dribbled onto the carpet. The bottle cost two hundred bucks. Every drop was precious. She bounced off the bed and made a hasty scramble for the flutes.

Alex said, "The story spent five days on the front page of every paper in Moscow. I'm accused of stealing from my own banks and running off with the money. Can you believe it? They stole my money and they're blaming it on me. The prosecutor's office in Moscow is conducting an investigation. I'm being framed, and I'm not there to defend myself. I'm sure they'll issue an indictment."

She handed him a pair of tall crystal flutes she had borrowed from the dining room downstairs. He slowly filled them, one for her, one for him. She grabbed her flute and inched a little closer. Little of what he was now telling her was news. Over the past few days she had sneaked downstairs to the privacy of Amber's office and made her own calls back to Russia. She had her own sources, and if her husband kept her in the dark, she would use them.

Her family and a few close friends had fully apprised her about what had happened, the whole ugly story. For a few terrible days, Alex had been the talk of Moscow, with considerable interest throughout the rest of Russia. The story was irresistible and the press lunged into a predictable frenzy-on TV, in newspapers, and in magazines, Alex was loudly tried and all but convicted. The millionaire genius was on the lam. He had stolen the money and fled. Behind the glitz and glamour, behind that mysterious facade of quiet brilliance, he was nothing but a two-bit crook, a highway robber with a swollen IQ in a nice suit.

The day the news broke there was a frenzied stampede on Alex's bank: after two frightening days, though, it quickly stagnated to a mild panic. Only fifty million was supposedly stolen-a small drop from a massive bucket. And twenty percent interest, after all, was still the sweetest deal in town. The commercials with the lovely girl who adored men with interest and the treacly old couple fondly eyeing their shiny Mercedes flooded back onto the airwaves. Much of the money that had raced out limped back in.

As usual, the initial spate of news stories was brief and shallow and disgracefully inaccurate. Few details were known beyond the basic fact: Alex Konevitch was a lying, conniving thief who took off with a fortune. But somebody kept dropping more and more tips, inflaming interest in a bonfire that required no fuel. The stories turned longer, the lies more sensational and deceitfully toxic. Alex stole fifty million, a hundred million, a billion! He was holding out in a jungle palace in Brazil, guarded by snarling bandistas, flipping the bird and daring anybody to come after him. Using a false identity, he had checked into one of those California detox clinics, and now was doing cumbaya with the doped-out, besotted dregs of Hollywood. He was hiding here, in Moscow, in a plush safehouse protected by fierce syndicate killers in exchange for a cut of the loot.

The theories about Alex's wheres and whys changed daily. Alex had snapped under the pressure and flew out the door, laughing deliriously, hauling grocery bags leaking cash. Alex had plotted this theft from the start. Everything he built and accomplished was only to create the edifice for a massive heist; the only mystery was why he waited so long. Alex was bipolar and Jekyll finally smothered Hyde. A war was waged on the front pages as each paper tried to outdo the newest disclosures, the wildest suspicions. The same paper that dubbed him "The Kid with the Midas Touch" rechristened him "The Kid with the Sticky Touch."

Fortunately for Alex, Russians are bred to be jaded and skeptical. After seventy years of communist manipulation and distortions, any news fit enough to print was bound to be twisted enough to disbelieve. Besides, fabricating conspiracies is part of the Russian national character, and this story hit the street pregnant with lush possibilities. Golitsin's long career in the KGB did not work to his favor. This sounded like something the bad boys from the Lubyanka would cook up; and as everybody knows, old toads don't change their warts. Rumors and theories flew around Moscow, and ran heavily in Alex's favor.

Foul play was suspected, though nobody could put a finger on exactly how Golitsin pulled it off.

But the incredible idea that Alex would plunder his own bank and, before racing out the door, take the trouble to legally transfer everything he owned-not to his partners, not to his businesspeople, but to his chief of security, of all people-smelled rotten. What sense did that make? Besides, why would he care who snatched up the crumbs he left behind? And only fifty million from his bank customers? For a man rumored to have billions? Why squander his reputation and name for pocket change? And if he was willing to snatch fifty million, why leave behind billions more?

Even among those skeptics, however, very few pitied Alex. A rich man brought down, big deal. It was funny, actually. Live by the dollar, die by the dollar, seemed to be the general sentiment among a nation of former communists. Besides, nothing satisfies the average Ivan more than the spectacle of a high-and-mighty chopped down to his knees. Alex's downfall was weighed and deliberated around dinner tables with no small measure of delight.

"So what's next?" Elena took a long sip from the flute.

"I honestly don't know. I've tried everything I can think of."

She was now pressed firmly up against him, and between sips and explanations, he was stealing furtive glances at her thread-bare teddy. She lowered her left shoulder and encouraged a strap to slip off. "What's the worst that can happen to us, Alex?"

"This is the worst."

"No it's not. Not by a long shot. We could be back in Budapest, dead."

"True enough. But if we return to Moscow, that could still happen."

"But they can't drag us back to Russia, can they? Without an extradition treaty, they can't touch us. They can add a library of charges but you're here. If they try, we'll just stay here."

"You wouldn't miss Russia?"

"A little, sure. But alive anywhere with you is better than dead there. But one thing's going to change."

He turned and looked at her.

"We're in this together. I wasn't involved in your business back in Moscow, I didn't need to be, and frankly I never cared to be. But our lives are different now. Our marriage changes with it."

"What does that mean?"

"From now on, no matter how depressing, keep me informed of everything. I'm scared, but I'm not some breakable china doll, and I won't be treated like one."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I love you, and I want to help."

He put his arm around her. Elena slid back and dragged him down onto the bed. The champagne flutes tumbled to the floor. Three weeks of pent-up energy and the frustration of three hundred and fifty million in stolen dollars and stocks were compacted into the first long, smoldering kiss.

The expensive little teddy was quickly ripped off-it sailed through the air and landed on the lampshade. Alex paused only long enough to ask, "What time did you tell Homeless Harry to be here?"