The Kingmaker

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Later that day was worse. Katrina was coldly and efficiently avoiding me. I knocked on her door a dozen times and called on the phone two dozen times. No answer. She was there, though. She was walking on her tiptoes, but I could hear her breathing and the toilet flushing.

I called Imelda, briefly explained what happened, and sought her advice. She was a woman and should be able to offer a solution to this mess. She said I should kill myself in some extravagantly excruciating manner and leave a note explaining I was sorry. She said it wouldn’t buy forgiveness but would show that my heart was in the right place. She further informed me that the calls from Eddie’s office were now incessant, and he was threatening to withdraw the offer of a meeting if I didn’t get back to D.C. immediately.

I called the embassy and spoke with the same lousy political officer who had given the green light for our extended stay. I told him to send Golden a message confirming our situation or I would call a judge back in D.C. and have the officer cited for impeding our case.

I finished the Jackie Collins novel. The heroine ended up with the sensitive, handsome guy who was hung like a horse and made love like a tireless animal-big surprise.

At five o’clock I yelled through the connecting door, “Katrina, I know you’re in there. And I know you’re leaving any moment. We need to talk before you go. This is business, Katrina. Be professional about this.”

No answer. Not a peep of acknowledgment.

Ten minutes passed before there was a knock on the door. I opened it, and she stared up at me, deadpan expression, hair still blond and swept up, a new dress, this one passionately red in color, and although slightly less revealing, still sexy enough to have men tugging at their crotches. I, however, had learned to keep my prudish observations to myself.

I smiled very charmingly and said, “Hello.”

“I have to leave. What do you want?”

Goodness. “You look… well, great.”

“Thank you.”

Didn’t sound like thank you. Sounded like screw you. I said, “Can you step in a moment… please?”

She did, as I said, “Look, I got out of line last night. I’m sorry.”

“What else?”

“About tonight…”

“What about it?”

“I’ve thought about everything you told me. Look, I’m not saying it’s not true.”

She appeared mildly surprised. “You’re not?”

“No. I’m a typical American, and what the hell do I know about this region? Maybe it’s just like Arbatov says.”

“Are you humoring me?”

“I’m dead serious.”

“Then you agree with me?”

“Not yet. Tonight, you need to press Arbatov for substantiation. Katrina, it’s a wild story, and you and I are inclined to want to believe it. Golden won’t be. And a jury won’t be. We need to get something hard out of him.”

She regarded me a moment, still rather coldly. “Have you even considered Alexi’s position in this?”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s been working with our government for over a decade. He has done this as a matter of conscience. Now he could be in serious trouble.”

“And as the defense attorney for a man accused of treason, I’m in serious trouble. What’s your point?”

“Now he’s working with us to save Bill. He’s risking these meetings with me and disclosing everything he knows, out of loyalty to Morrison.”

“And please be sure to tell him I appreciate that.”

“What I’m telling you is that he is a remarkable man.”

“Yes he is. I agree.”

“Courageous, principled, and noble.”

“All the above.”

She studied my face to see if I was serious. I was, and she said, “No curfews.”

“Uh… okay.”

“No second-guessing what I do.”

“No guessing at all. Honest.”

“All right, then. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“Breakfast it is.”

“You’re buying. And fresh flowers on the table would be nice.”

“Roses. A dozen of them.”

“You can’t get roses in Moscow in November.”

“Right… ragweed or whatever.”

She walked out, leaving me with the uncomfortable sensation that I had somehow agreed to something below the surface of our conversation. It struck me that she might be infatuated with Alexi Arbatov. It further struck me that the problem with a civilian contract employee is that you have very little leverage over them. Were she a soldier, I would have reminded her of her duty and my rank, and that would be that.

At 5:00 A.M., after a night of tossing and turning, I heard her door open and shut, her shower running, and, a few minutes afterward, the sounds of her settling heavily into bed.

Katrina looked like hell at breakfast: limp-haired, rosy-cheeked, eyes bloodshot. I bit my tongue. A deal’s a deal, no matter how hard it is to stomach.

We exchanged a few banal pleasantries of that awkward kind where we avoided each other’s eyes and inner feelings. That done, I shot straight to the subject. “Well?”

“He has no proof. At least nothing definitive.”

“I see.”

We both began playing with our spoons, the way people do who make each other uncomfortable. She said, “But he said we should look more closely at Yeltsin’s reelection in 1996.”

“What specifically?”

“He said that if we go back and check the news accounts, as late as three months before the election, Yeltsin’s poll numbers had him down in the single digits. Three other candidates led him by huge amounts. Every prediction said Yeltsin would lose, that he didn’t stand a chance.”

“So he ran a good campaign.”

“Alexi said that wasn’t it. He said the country was a complete mess. The war in Chechnya was enormously unpopular, the Mafiya had taken over, and Yeltsin’s cronies had stolen or seized every valuable asset in the country. Shootings and murders were hourly occurrences in Moscow. People were freezing and starving, and it was one public scandal after another. Even Yeltsin’s daughter was accused of stealing millions of dollars. Everybody in Russia blamed Yeltsin, his alcoholism, his crookedness, his inability to govern the country. He didn’t stand a chance.”

“Then how did he win?”

“This cabal. Hundreds of millions of dollars suddenly flowed into Yeltsin’s campaign chests, bribes were given out everywhere, even the Russian press mysteriously stopped criticizing Yeltsin. Alexi said it was extraordinary, the most massive political fraud in history.”

I recalled that Yeltsin’s reelection had been a huge upset, but the details escaped me. I said, “That’s quite a charge. Does he have evidence, Katrina?”

“He says there is something we should check. In the fall of ’96, at the height of Yeltsin’s unpopularity, the American President came to Moscow and on Russian television gave a speech praising Yeltsin. The visit was deliberately timed to influence the election. The President even went so far as to justify the Chechen War, telling the Russian people it was the same as our own civil war.”

I sat back and fingered my coffee cup. Katrina’s voice, tone, and demeanor conveyed that she believed every word of this. Of course her actions the night before further conveyed that her objectivity got lost somewhere in Alexi’s sheets.

Since I wasn’t sleeping with Arbatov, I hadn’t lost mine, however. A very powerful impulse wanted to believe Arbatov, because if there was such a cabal, and the Morrisons were trying to expose it, well, then, we had a defense to build on. That said, the notion that our own President was a puppet at the hands of this group had sort of drop-kicked this thing fairly far beyond the goalposts of credulity.

I very politely asked, “So he’s saying this cabal arranged the President’s speech?”

“I think what he was suggesting is that the cabal has tentacles into Washington, that it could actually control the White House and our actions toward Russia.”

“Like… what the President says… his policies, whatever?”

“Something like that, yes. Alexi said he was always amazed that Russia could get away with what it was doing, or at least appeared to be doing, in the former republics, and Washington never took any firm stand or action.”

“I see.” I put down the spoon I had been playing with. “That’s a very bold charge. And does he have evidence of this?”

“He said we should go find the President’s speech.”

“That’s it?”

My skepticism was beginning to get on her nerves, and she put down her spoon, too, and said, “Stop it.”

“Stop what? Evidence, Katrina. You’re an attorney. Where’s the evidence?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I see what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re pissed because of my relationship with Alexi.”

“Ah, well, now that you’ve raised the issue, it’s in play. In fact, you’re right. It’s unprofessional and perhaps damaging to our client.”

“Unprofessional?”

“That’s what I said.”

She nodded and drew a few deep breaths. “I see.”

I coldly asked, “Now, do you have anything else to report?”

She even more coldly replied, “Only one thing. I told Alexi you were having difficulty believing these things without corroboration. He said that can be very easily cleared up. He said you should speak with the Morrisons and the CIA. It turns out the CIA agrees with him completely. They’ve been hunting for this cabal the whole time as well.”

My jaw dropped, or whatever it is people do when they are experiencing a cold shock. I said, “The CIA agrees with him?”

“That’s what I said.” She stood up and looked down at me. “I have to pack, and if you don’t mind, I’ll take my own taxi to the airport.”