The Hunted

17

Late 1994 The apartment bought by Alex and Elena Konevitch was riverside, on the sixth floor of the sprawling co-op building, gazing fitfully over the brown muddy waters of the broad Potomac and within yelling distance of the majestic Kennedy Center. Even after a year, Alex remained dismayed by how preposterously small it was. A two-bedroom, one for sleep, the other converted to a tiny, cluttered office shared by the two of them. At an amazing cost of almost a million, it had to be the most expensive eight hundred square feet in the city.

But it was safe. Lots of important and famous folks made their nests inside this famous building-they demanded privacy and good security, they paid out the nose for it, and they got it.

Elena adored its simplicity. The small space suited her fine-it was easy to clean. Alex felt cramped, squeezed, slightly claustrophobic. He loved big, open spaces and frequently cursed Golitsin for stealing his home, for exiling him to an apartment that would be swallowed by his old bedroom.

The contract for the co-op, their phones, their cars, their insurance-everything was registered under Elena's maiden name. The name Konevitch disappeared from sight. On Mikhail's expert advice, to be on the safe side, every two months Alex flew in and out of Chicago, brief trips where he liberally sprinkled the Konevitch name around Russian nightclubs and neighborhoods. On the first visit he even signed up for local cell phone services with unlisted numbers. Maybe the bad people were still hunting them, maybe not.

Safe beats sorry every time, Mikhail advised him.

Alex and Elena were one year into their new life, and their new careers were flourishing. The requests for political asylum had come through ten months before. Their lawyer, Martie P. Jones, MP to friends, or to anybody, really, had been as good as advertised. Better, in fact. MP had started his career laboring in the trenches as a lawyer in the stodgy legal office at the Immigration Service. He knew exactly what buttons to push, with a Rolodex that would put the New York phone book to shame.

A few calls to the right people and Alex and Elena's request was stamped "expedite." A few weeks later they were ushered into a sterile room before a small panel of serious people, sworn to honesty, and asked to present an abbreviated version of their sad case. The panel looked bored and impatient initially. That quickly changed. For starters, Alex opened his shirt and offered a long, nauseating gaze at the hammer-and-sickle emblem fried on his chest. A minute later, out popped the photos of Alex's overall physical condition, blowups of the photos taken by the doctor two days after they landed at Kennedy International. They were color and close up. MP accompanied the visuals with vividly horrifying descriptions-see, this is where the chair broke on his leg; the bruised lumps here, well, those are fractured ribs; and so forth. The wounds were brutal. Several members of the panel gasped and looked away. The verdict was returned promptly.

Approved, but only conditionally-welcome to America, land of the free and the brave-now go out there and make us proud you're an American.

Just one glitch: you must have a job-a place of permanent employment before permission to apply for full residency was granted.

Any job with a domestic corporation was also easily traceable, and therefore out of the question, so Alex immediately contacted his old friend Illya Mechoukov. They had met four years before, when Illya was first toying with the idea of jumping into mass-market advertising. No such thing existed in the Soviet Union, at least not in the same sense as in the West, where big companies spent billions each year shoving their names out into the marketplace. Illya was young, only twenty-five, and seized with the progressive idea that he would mimic the huge Western advertising firms. His business would explode quickly, he was sure, and the money would pour in.

A great idea that instantly hit a brick wall. Illya was odd-looking, with a hooked nose, unbalanced features, long woolly hair, and a thick black beard that looked revolutionary. But he was filled with brilliant concepts that poured out of his lips in quick, nervous bursts. He was inventive and wildly creative; unfortunately, he was also far ahead of his time. The former communists had no idea what he was talking about, or why it mattered. People went to stores. They grabbed the item off the shelf. The very idea of spirited competition sounded confusing, possibly immoral. The notion of trumpeting your own product struck them as haughty, self-indulgent, a blatant waste of money.

Three minutes into his initial pitch in Alex's office, Alex leaned across his desk. "Okay, I've heard enough. Here's the deal: I'm buying you. Not just your advertising, you. I'll fund your company, but you'll service my accounts before all others. I'll be the chairman of the board, you'll be the president, the chief of daily operations, and the brains. It's your show to run, and I expect great results."

Illya tugged on his beard and briefly considered this remarkable offer. "You're kidding."

"Yes, it's a joke. That's why I am about to write a check for five million dollars. Buy the best film and printing equipment on the market, hire good people, and call me if you need more."

The company was legally incorporated in Austria, close to Russia's border and surrounded by cutthroat Western competitors. Alex insisted on this. Rivalry was healthy. To survive, Illya and his people would be forced to absorb the best Western practices, sharpen their own wits, and bring that state-of-the-art knowledge to the Russian market.

Better yet, Orangutan Media, as Illya had named it, was not technically part of Konevitch Associates. To get through the doors of Alex's competitors the firm had to be notionally independent. The only legal documents that evidenced Alex's financial interests were filed with the Austrian authorities. Thus, Orangutan slipped under Golitsin's radar.

Alex now offered to represent the company in America, and the timing could not be better. The big American corporations were floundering in Russia. All those years of a wall separating the two worlds left the Americans clueless about the local culture, local wants, local psychology. What worked like magic in the good ol' USA, resoundingly belly-flopped in Russia. The Pepsi generation caused deep bouts of head-scratching; how could a generation be defined by some stupid soft drink? Doctors recommending this pill or that antidote were unconvincing. Russian medicine was dreadful; anything they recommended was promptly blacklisted from the family shopping cart. And as for all those sports stars hawking products, another bust; who cared what some muscle-bound freak gobbled or drank or rubbed on his body?

Alex would make the rounds of the big American companies and sell them on Orangutan Media-an all-Russian outfit with a native feel for how to pitch to a home audience.

Alex would work for commission only; he wouldn't hear otherwise. Illya was gaining traction with Russian companies, but the business remained an uphill struggle. Monthly payrolls were always uncertain. The costs of production in Austria were staggering. Russian companies remained skeptical about advertising, and proved hard-fisted and stingy. They undervalued it as a matter of habit.

Within six months Alex and Elena were bagging millions in new accounts. They opened ambitiously with all-out attacks against certain large American candy companies and gargantuan consortiums that produced everyday household products, among other things. Most signed on-small, hesitant contracts at first, but once the clients gained confidence in this no-name Russian start-up, they couldn't throw enough money at Illya.

To cover more ground, Alex and Elena split up. Weekends were reserved for each other: rarely, though, was a weekday spent in the same town. She hit the big movie studios in Los Angeles, he bounced around the oil patch in Houston. The next week, Alex trolled New York City; he signed fat contracts to serve as subcon-tractors for three large Madison Avenue firms who recognized that their own efforts in Russia were failing abysmally. Two days later, Elena snagged a large Tennessee drug company with a slew of dietary products. A day after that, she hooked a New Jersey luxury cosmetics outfit that was salivating to decorate Russia's new class of uninhibited wealth. And so it went, week after week. Illya was elated. He tripled his staff and shifted the operation into an expansive new sixty-thousand-square-foot warehouse in Austria. It was expensive and risky, but what the hell. Spend money to make money, he figured. He struggled to keep up with demands that seemed to double by the week.

Their new life in America was coming together nicely. Over a million in commissions that first year. Not bad, but not good enough. The second year, they promised themselves, would be three million. With a little luck and more elbow grease, four million. Elena was happy. Alex was restless as always, but that was his nature, and part of his charm. It was Saturday, and they had just finished a leisurely lunch at an excellent Georgetown restaurant followed by a brisk stroll along the lovely tree-lined canal to burn off the calories. Harold, the doorman, gave them a distressed look as they passed through the entrance on the ground floor. "Hey, Mr. K," he said in almost a whisper, "you got guests upstairs."

"I'm not expecting any."

"Yeah, well you got 'em. Guys in suits. They flashed badges and… hey, I tried, I swear I did. They wouldn't take no. They been up there about thirty minutes now."

Alex and Elena exchanged horrified looks. A race for the elevator and Alex punched six. They sprinted down the hallway. Alex gently pushed Elena aside before he stuffed his key into the door. No need, it swung open. He stepped through the entry, tense and ready to swing.

What a mess. The couches were overturned and knifed open, their interiors gutted, drawers emptied on the floor, lamps broken, books torn apart. The place had been tossed with cruel deliberation. The new furniture and furnishings Elena had picked out with such loving care were ruined. Two men in gray suits loitered by the living room window, ignoring the glorious view of the river while they admired their own handiwork. They took quick looks at Alex and Elena but didn't budge.

"Who are you?" Alex demanded, making no effort to disguise his fury.

"FBI," came the prompt reply. Two sets of identification were quickly flashed, then quickly put away.

"Why are you here?"

"Welcome to America, pal," said one of them with a nasty sneer. "We had a tip you and the wife were harboring a fugitive."

"That's ridiculous."

"Yeah? Seemed real enough to us."

"Do you have a warrant?"

"What are you, a lawyer?"

"Show me your warrant or get out."

They rocked back on their heels and laughed. Take a strike at us, their body language screamed. Look what we did to your home, look at your wife's horrified face, and do what any real man would do. Go ahead, run across the room-throw your best punch. We'll slap your ass in cuffs, cart you off like trash, and, as an undesirable, have your ass on the next flight to Moscow.

Alex was mad enough to do it, but at that moment a third man strolled out of their bedroom. Alex glanced in his direction, and froze. The man was tall and thin, dressed in a rumpled trench coat, and wrapped in his arms was their home computer. He looked, in fact, remarkably like his old friend Colonel Volevodz-but it couldn't be. Not here, not now. This was America.

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Konevitch." Amazing-he even sounded like Volevodz, right down to the clipped arrogance.

Alex drew a few heavy breaths and struggled to get himself under control. He felt a large lump in his throat. He snapped at Volevodz, "I thought your friends in external security were territorial. What are you doing here?"

In Russian, Volevodz replied very coolly, "You're a wanted felon. I'm here to take you back."

"Then you're going to be disappointed," replied Alex in English.

"Am I?" Volevodz stayed with Russian so the Fibbies couldn't understand a word. He had arrived two weeks before, after a call from Tatyana to Tromble offering his services and expertise.

The Konevitches' year of dodging and ducking was over. No more hiding behind his wife's name. Nicky's boys had been chasing ghosts in Chicago for a year, cowering in an embattled outpost in a forlorn corner of the city, and coming up empty. What they could not do, the FBI handled with speed and ease. A polite inquiry to the INS revealed the Konevitch address, working situation, and immigration status. Another call to the IRS revealed the full details of their financial status. All information the FBI gave Volevodz that he passed on to Nicky, via Tatyana. Hide-and-seek was over, a new game was about to begin.

One way or another, dead or alive, but on a plane to Russia, Konevitch was going to lose.

"I don't think I will," Volevodz countered, arrogance rising to full pitch. "You've tangled with the wrong people. There will be no second chance, Konevitch. You're a fool, you should have taken the deal."

"Think again. I have political asylum."

"I strongly advise you to come along willingly. This is inevitable, believe me. Make it easier on all of us."

"Get out of my apartment. Now."

A switch to English. "What will you do, Konevitch? Call the police? These are the police," he said, nodding his sharp chin in the general direction of the two agents by the window.

They smiled and waved. Real smartasses.

Elena bared her teeth and said to the two agents, "You should be ashamed of yourselves. Even in Russia, citizens aren't treated this way anymore."

"How much did you pay for this place?" one of the agents asked without a trace of curiosity. It was a statement of fact, an accusation, or, worse, a verdict.

"None of your business," Elena shot back.

"Nine hundred and seventy thousand," the agent replied, scowling. "Almost a million bucks. Lotta money. Cash, too. Where'd it come from?"

Alex placed a hand on Elena's arm-they were deliberately goading her. It would do no good to answer, so she stifled her reply.

"You stole it," the agent said, directing a long finger at Alex. "You robbed your own investors. You fled with hundreds of millions of dollars. You're crooks who lied to the immigration board to procure your status. You're nothing but lying thieves."

Elena had passed the point of rage. She was going to have her say, no matter what. "That's a lie. I don't know what this man told you, but he's a liar. You're stupid and he's a liar. Get out."

More smiles from the two agents. Large slack jaws, bunched shoulders, simple responses-actually they did look a little stupid.

Before things escalated, Alex decided to put an end to this. He stared coldly at the pair of agents. "Am I under arrest?"

No reply.

"Under investigation?"

The start of a nod, before it quickly turned into a crick of the neck that needed to be rubbed.

"It's time to call my lawyer," Alex announced, moving with feigned confidence toward the phone.

About two seconds passed. "There'll be time enough for that later," one of the agents said. It sounded like a threat.

Alex kept moving toward the phone. The agents appeared nonchalant, but the threat of a loudmouthed attorney showing up at this scene clearly unnerved them. No wonder. Without a warrant they had broken into a private residence, vandalized thousands of dollars' worth of property, then begun questioning a suspect without reading his rights. Worse, a foreign official without any legal status had been invited to the smashmouth party.

Any lawyer worth his salt would have their balls on a plate.

Alex lifted the phone and faced the two agents. "Give me your names. My lawyer will want them," he demanded.

They shuffled their feet and seemed to shrink. They exchanged matching looks of confusion.

"We'll be going now," one of them mumbled, one foot planted, ready to bolt.

"Not with my computer, you won't," Alex insisted.

"We're seizing it as evidence. Have your lawyer take it up with our lawyers," one said derisively. Having gotten the last word, and after firing off a final set of contemptuous looks, they walked quickly out of the apartment. Volevodz had that thin smile as he filed past Alex and Elena.

Alex slammed the door behind them, a loud shot that shook the walls.

Elena couldn't take her eyes off the mayhem in their apartment. Her only photograph of her parents had been torn out of the frame; it was on the floor, ripped into dozens of tiny pieces. The vindictiveness of it turned her stomach.

"Alex, I'm scared."

"So am I."

"What does this mean?"

"It means it's not over."

"Why would the FBI allow that man inside our home?"

"I don't know."

"We need to see MP, right away."

Alex lifted the phone.

Elena began picking up.

MP was at home, babysitting the kids while his wife shopped for groceries. He promised to drop everything and meet them at his office in two hours.