But despite himself, words flew out of his mouth.
“What if something should happen to me?”
“Like what?” Volodin asked.
Like you have your man slit my throat as soon as I set up your new accounts, Limonov thought. But he said, “I fulfill my end of the bargain, and then an accident befalls me.”
“You see monsters in every dark corner, don’t you, Limonov?”
The young financier did not reply.
Volodin said, “If you do not trust our arrangement, I can’t depend on you to fulfill our agreements, can I? You will be paid what I told you I would pay you, and you will have a job for life.”
Limonov knew what Volodin meant. Limonov would know all about Volodin’s money. He would always know, as long as he lived.
“I know you could have me killed.”
“And I know you could have me destroyed in the event of your untimely death. You must already be thinking about your dossier.”
“My what?”
“A secret file, hidden, but with an automatic launch mechanism. You die, you are threatened, and my account numbers are handed over to my enemies.”
A clock ticked somewhere outside the room.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“I would,” Volodin said.
Limonov didn’t feel much better about the arrangement, but he let it go. He said, “I need to relocate to London. I will require an office outside of Moscow to be certain I am not monitored by FSB.”
Volodin said, “You don’t think I can reach you in London?”
Limonov said, “Of course you can. But it would be an annoyance for you to do so. I plan on making you incredibly satisfied with my work, and I plan on you putting your trust in me for years to come. I only ask that you assure me of my protection.”
It was a shrewd demand, especially considering the fact that Andrei Limonov was scared shitless at the moment, but once Volodin thought it over for a long time, silently, letting the tension build in the room almost to the point where the equity manager told his president to forget the whole thing, Volodin smiled. “I only hope you treat my money as cleverly as you considered this arrangement.”
“Your money will be safer the moment we shake hands to begin the deal, Mr. President.”
A minute later Limonov found himself out in the hall, with Vlad Kozlov in front of him.
Kozlov said, “Mr. Limonov, the president has conveyed to me the importance of your task. You can expect to find me at your side throughout the entire process.”
Limonov could not hide his discomfort. “Very well. But…” He searched for the right words.
Kozlov helped. “You are in charge. I am here as a problem solver. Nothing more. Will we be traveling soon?”
We? Limonov’s concern increased even more. “I will need to set up the London office. I will then begin the preliminary work of setting up the network. This will take some weeks, and not a single ruble will move until the entire structure is in place. There are bankers and lawyers and registration officials in several places throughout the world I will need to speak with. There is a man in Luxembourg I know who can make the introductions I need to the Bitcoin expert. I really don’t think it’s necessary for you—”
“I am coming with you. These men you speak of. Do you know them already?”
“Some of them, yes.”
“Find other men. Volodin wants no existing network used.”
“But—”
“He was clear on that, but I can tell him you have doubts about his plan. See what he says.”
“No… let’s not do that. I’ll need some time to find suitable replacements, but I will go to London immediately.”
“Of course,” said Kozlov. “I will pack my bags. Then I will meet you at your office in the morning. We will go over the logistics of your plan, and then I will wait until you are ready to go.”
Limonov cocked his head. He was going to ask why Kozlov needed to sit in his office day in and day out, but he didn’t bother. He realized the ex — FSB operative was part of the deal, and he needed to just accept it and move on.
He told himself he should not be at all surprised that $120 million came with a few strings attached.
25
Jack Ryan, Jr., woke from a dead sleep, and he realized his mobile phone on the bedside table in his Luxembourg apartment was chirping. He could tell by the cobwebs in his brain it was early in the morning, and that gave him a pretty clear idea about who was calling. As he lay down the night before, he fully expected to be yanked out of a deep sleep — the IT director for The Campus was sure to hack into Guy Frieden’s network, and Jack had no doubt Gavin would do so at a speed that ensured he’d call Luxembourg at an inappropriate time.
Jack answered the phone with a tired voice. “Morning, Gavin. Ten p.m. there, I see.”
“Ten-oh-five. I didn’t want to call before four a.m. your time.”
“Thanks for the five-minute snooze,” Jack said sarcastically. “You got into Frieden’s network?”
Biery said, “Well, the decryption of the files themselves is going to take a little more time. But I did manage to crack into his contact list and his calendar. These applications weren’t locked down like the files, which he keeps under special protocols to take into account attorney-client privilege. Thought I’d share what I had, since it might give you something to go on in the short term.”
Jack rolled out of bed. His body was sore from last night’s workout. “That’s great. I’d be interested in anyone he has been in contact with, either by phone, e-mail, or instant messaging in the last six months.”
“Done. It’s a lot of people. You ready for the number?”
“Hit me.”
“Twelve hundred eighty-eight.”
Jack rubbed his eyes. “You’re joking!”
“This guy gets around.”
Ryan said, “How about people with Slavic names. Can you sort those out?”
“Done.”
“How many?”
“One hundred fourteen.”
“Damn.” Ryan sighed. “Well, that’s better, anyway. Can you send everything to me? I can run pattern analysis, see if anything jumps out.”
“It’s already waiting for you in your inbox. Going to take some days to get deeper into Frieden’s network.”
Jack said, “Honestly, his contact list is the most important piece of this puzzle. The files themselves will be a maze of shells, offshores, and other ways to obfuscate his clients and their relationships between each other. I am certain that decrypting the files will just lead us to another layer to break through. I’ll get started on his contacts, and I’ll take whatever else you get, whenever you get it.”
“Okay. Enjoy your beauty sleep.” Gavin hung up.
Ryan rolled out of bed and into the shower, knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep. Twenty minutes later he was sitting at his desk in his apartment, hot coffee in his hand, scrolling up and down a list of the 1,288 names. After a quick check, he looked at Gavin’s tab on the spreadsheet of the Slavic names. He recognized some of them, they were the usual suspects — Kremlin-affiliated cashiers, investment bankers, economists, and the like — but eighty percent of the names meant nothing to him.
He poured them all into a computer program that ran data and link analysis, checking them for relationships to one another, as well as against other sources The Campus kept in a database for Russian money laundering.
From the results of the analysis it looked like Guy Frieden was a busy guy, well connected to a lot of the players in the known realm of offshore banking, but almost instantly Ryan felt a sense of disappointment. It was clear by his associations that he had only mid-level access. There wasn’t a single big fish in his contact list, not even the secretary or the attorney of a CFO or the assistant to a CFO at any one of Russia’s state-owned companies. No. Frieden’s Russian contacts were secondary moneymen — worker bees.