"And the crooks have all our money, right?"
Alex pushed back his seat, extending it fully to the reclined position; the champagne was working its medicinal magic and taking the edge off his physical pain. He closed his eyes. "Not without my account numbers and security codes, they don't. They're locked in my office safe. Until we get this cleared up, though, I can't access that money," he said. "Except for $2 million tucked in a Bermudan bank. A rainy-day fund I never imagined I would have to use. The account numbers for that fund are in my head, so no matter what, they can't touch it."
"Was that the best you could do?" she asked, laughing.
Alex was asleep already. Three sets of steady fingers punched the keys in unison. The clack of computer keys was the loveliest sound Golitsin could remember, a rich symphony in synchronized harmony.
The operation lasted ten minutes. He stood, arms crossed over his stomach, watched over their shoulders, and enjoyed every minute of it. Clack, clack, clack-another five million sent here, another ten million there. Money was flying everywhere, massive electronic whirls of cash, shuttling from Konevitch's accounts to banks in Switzerland, Bermuda, the Caymans, and a few Pacific islands with tortuous names nobody could pronounce. Who cared to? The money would barely touch down, gather no dust, then clack, clack, clack-scatter off to the next bank. The wonderful process would proceed for hours.
Within ten minutes after opening time that morning, Alex Konevitch's immense personal hoard of cash was gone. Nearly two hundred million sprinkled around the world like fairy dust. The operation had been planned with exacting precision and rehearsed until the fingers of the pianists peering into the terminals ached and stiffened.
At noon, it would all be bundled back together in a dark Swiss vault where nobody could touch it but Golitsin.
In his pocket was the secret code for a new account at yet another Swiss bank only he had access to. He would sneak upstairs, punch the number into a computer he would dispose of afterward, and transfer all that money into a hole nobody could find but him.
A thirty-minute break for lunch. At one o'clock, the computer wizards would reassemble and the process would start again. This time on the hoards of savers' money in Alex's banks. Clack, clack, clack-not all of it, only fifty million, but enough that Alex Konevitch would be charged with looting his own bank and absconding into the sunset with that pretty little girl bride of his.
Two business reporters from Kommersant, the Russian equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, were at that moment cooling their heels downstairs. They had been promised the story of the year, how that wunderkind Konevitch had proved to be a rotten crook but was thoughtful enough to leave behind a letter transferring his businesses and properties to his trusted former chief of security.
"Yes," Golitsin would tell them with an appropriately grave nod, "for the sake of the twenty thousand employees, and for our valued customers everywhere," he, General Sergei Golitsin, "would restore the blemished reputation and keep the business up and running." Maybe you noticed the new sign over the headquarters entrance?
Golitsin Enterprises-it has a nice ring, don't you think?
By close of business the haul would be complete. Two hundred million of Alex's cash, plus fifty million more stolen from his banks-$250 million in liquid cash. Then, Alex's shares in his companies would be split with his co-conspirators, leaving Golitsin with probably another hundred million in stock. A moving van was already parked in front of Alex's Moscow home, unloading the new owner's possessions.
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.