"Then who?" she asked.
"You don't want to know."
"If you ever expect to sleep with me again, you'll tell me." The other half of the Danish disappeared into her mouth and she chewed it with vigor.
"Okay. Eric and his partner arrived about an hour before us. They drove by, just like we did. Two men were loitering outside the terminal. At nearly two o'clock, in front of a closed building, the killers couldn't have been more conspicuous or sloppy. Whoever's behind this apparently doesn't hold a high opinion of us. So Eric snuck back on foot, surprised the two men, and forced them at gunpoint into their car. The cigarettes belonged to the pair of thugs he captured. Eric was interrogating them."
"And what did they say?"
"They claimed they had no idea why. Just had orders from their boss to kill us."
"Who was this boss?"
"A name neither of us would recognize. It's irrelevant. They're part of a crime syndicate, gunmen at the bottom of a long chain doing what they were told."
"Where are they now?" At the bottom of a deep river, she hoped. After murdering one man, brutally torturing her husband, and trying their best to add three more kills to the tally, she hoped the weasels died slowly and horribly.
"I didn't ask," Alex replied. "I don't think either of us want to know."
"Don't be so civilized. I'd love to know."
"I doubt we would hear the truth, anyway."
Eric was suddenly standing at their side, as if he had materialized out of thin air. Tell me, did you kill them, she wanted to demand, and don't go light on the details. "Time to board," he said with that reassuring grin. "Jacob and I are on the flight, too. We don't get first-class freight, but we'll be tucked in the back in seats where we can observe you. So don't you worry. Kick back, drink all the champagne you can stand, eat till your stomachs are sore, then nap till that pilot says you're in New York."
The plane lifted off ten minutes after they boarded, at which point Alex and Elena were downing their second champagne, with plans to keep sipping until New York or they passed out, whichever came first.
Elena eased back into her seat and asked, "Will the bodyguards stay with us in New York?"
"No," Alex said, waving at the stewardess for a refill. "My company paid the bills. Somebody in the security division last night faxed a termination order to Malcolm Street, effective upon delivery. The people after us are thinking of everything."
Elena paused to think about that. "That's not a good sign, is it?"
"It's a terrible sign. Whoever's behind this obviously has control over my companies, for the moment anyway. But Eric and Jacob will stay with us until we're safely checked into a hotel. After that, we're on our own."
"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.