He gazed at the couple loitering under the lamp across the street. Had he seen them earlier in the day? Maybe. He took another sip of the Brunello. There was also Maya. But with her background spying for the CIA, there was no way she would risk revealing her current contacts with Steve. Her image floated before him. He could almost smell her perfume. It was frustrating to know she was only a few miles away. But contacting her at this point would be far too dangerous for both of them.
The next morning he awoke at eight. He had only a couple more start-ups on his list, but absolutely no appetite to deal with yet another young billionaire wannabe. He sprawled in bed zapping idly between news channels on his TV, then walked towards the bathroom to take a shower. It was then that he saw the envelope that had been slipped under his door. The message on the one sheet of plain paper inside was typed in Russian:
“Good morning. There is a very nice new shopping center in the Crocus City Mall in Krasnogorsk. You should go to the Lapidus watch store (next to Louis Vuitton) and admire the new Rolexes in their window.
“Be there at precisely 12:30. Wear a coat and carry today’s FT. Someone will bump into you and place something in your left pocket. It will be encrypted. The password is xyz8v9b. Make sure you are not followed. We will also check.
“Signed, Your new friend.”
Krasnogorsk was a western suburb of Moscow. Steve took a circuitous route, backtracking a couple of times, before getting off the metro at the elegant new Myakinino stop, the first station to be built outside of Moscow. He crossed the street to the hulking new exhibition center and entered the Crocus City Mall. It could have been any thriving mall in any prosperous city on the planet. All the global glitz was there: Armani, Aquascutum, Calvin Klein, Prada, and on and on. It was Saturday and the mall was thronged, the excited burble of the crowd mingled with whatever was the latest Russian rock hit being blasted throughout the sprawling complex. Everything here, thought Steve, belied the stories that Russia was facing severe economic problems. But who knows?
He waited until 12:27 p.m. before pushing his way through the jostling crowds toward the Lapidus jewelry store, the Financial Times under his right arm. He then stood in front of the window, gazing at the shimmering display of gold and diamond-studded watches. “Don’t hog the space,” said a burly man beside him, reeking of garlic. He butted Steve out of his path as Muscovites were wont to do. Instinctively, Steve shoved back. Then he felt a hand in his left pocket. Turning quickly, he got a quick glimpse of the retreating man’s face before he disappeared in the crowd. It was the same hulking agent who’d “arrested him” at his hotel two days earlier.
Steve then walked to the nearest bathroom, entered one of the stalls, and removed the small plastic envelope that had been placed in his pocket. Inside was a USB key. He took it out and placed it inside the hollow heel of his left shoe. Then he continued browsing the shops. In case anyone was following him, he wanted to make it look as if the visit to this new mall was for idle sightseeing, rather than the clandestine passing of highly secret information. After lunch at a Lebanese restaurant, he took the metro back to his hotel. Once in the room, he inserted the key into the USB port of his laptop and entered the password that had been on the note slipped under his door that morning. Several PDF documents appeared on the screen. He opened the first. It was written in Russian.
“Summary. Here you will find the information promised. Checking the data on the USB key you provided us yesterday, it seems your hacker friends have given considerable material on many luminaries of our new nomenklatura. The case of the offshore company Pyotr1 which you asked them about, however, is another story. The person listed as the owner of that company, Alexander Vasiliev, is a well-known Russian violinist and also one of our President Kozlov’s oldest friends. He is, of course, the owner in name only. The real owner is Kozlov himself.
“You will see that the holdings are very extensive. You will also see the many financial ties with your President Stokes. That includes purchases of several U.S. properties for amounts far above their market value. Also there are listed loans by two banks controlled by Kozlov: The Alpha Trust and Atlantis Group. Those loans were to Stokes for a total of nine hundred million dollars. Finally, there are three partnerships between Stokes and Kozlov’s offshore companies for construction of a new port in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a shopping mall in Nairobi, and a superhighway in Taiwan. You will find extensive back-up documents confirming all those holdings.
“Remember our agreement!
“Your new friend.”
Steve’s heart beat wildly as he opened the rest of the documents: sales records, bank statements, confidential memos. It was all there. The Sirotskys had screwed him – well, not entirely. They’d made a cool ten and a half million dollars in exchange for damning information about the links between Stokes and top Russian oligarchs. But when it came to taking on Russia’s president, revealing the activities of Kozlov’s own holding company, they’d backed off in fear. And they’d gotten away with it.
But assuming the information General Borovik just gave him was for real, he now had the evidence he needed. Ironically, it had cost him (and Pearlstein) nothing. He could only imagine the frustration – the bottled-up fury of Borovik and other Russian military officers – he could only imagine their outrage, compiling this information, piece by sordid piece, over the years; knowing the depths of Kozlov’s corruption but unable to do anything about it.
Early that evening, he walked down the street to Olivio’s, the Italian restaurant where he’d eaten the night before. He ordered fettuccine Alfredo with another bottle of Brunello and considered his next steps. First, he had to arrange for the damning information on Stokes and Kozlov to be broadcast nationwide in the United States. Once aired, there was no way the Republicans could avoid launching the impeachment process any longer. In fact, like Nixon, Stokes might even be forced to resign of his own free will before Congress acted.
But proceeding to that next stage, checking out the information he’d been given and arranging for the broadcast, could not be done in the Russian capital, blanketed by the FSB and other intelligence agencies. The U.S. would also be risky. He would leave immediately for London, where Jake Pearlstein had already offered him the highly secure facilities of his Belgravia residence. That would be the perfect spot.
Steve was just finishing his pasta when the headwaiter came to his table. “Excuse me, are you Mr. Robb?”
“Yes.”
“A young man just gave me this. He told me to hand it to you.”
Steve thanked him, opened the envelope, and removed the typewritten message inside. Who would believe this? Today is turning out to be like a scavenger hunt, he thought, one secret typewritten message after another.
This one, to his surprise, was from Maya. “Taking the children to see the penguins at the Moscow Zoo tomorrow. The feeding time is 10:30 a.m. I thought you would enjoy the outing. Dancing Bear.”
His heart was beating quickly again as he returned to the hotel. She must have followed him to the restaurant and then had someone else deliver the message. Or perhaps the concierge, who had booked the restaurant for him, had told her where Steve was eating. If she hadn’t found him, would she have slipped the message under the door of his room? He hadn’t wanted to risk contacting her, but now she was contacting him. Was there some emergency? The medicine for her daughter cut off? What?