force equals rule of law, the Kremlin summoned Konychev and Lishin to a meeting and put a deal on the table. Cut us in or spend the next twenty years in a cell down the hall from Khodorkovsky in Siberia.
They were quick to agree. A third partner joined the firm, Taras Batkin. His Cheka background and Kremlin contacts gave the BEC another layer of insulation. Business grew faster than ever. Somewhere along the line, Konychev’s younger sister, Alyona, who had been married to Lishin for more than a decade, took up with Batkin. The divorce and new marriage, about six months apart, had taken place three years earlier, apparently without incident. Nobody wanted to upset the apple cart carrying the golden goose, or so my cynical mind suggested. I put the mixed metaphor down to too much Pilsner Urquell.
I finished reading and went back to the computer. Ivanov had no pictures of either Lishin or his ex-wife, but he did have one of Konychev, accompanying his latest post. Taken with a long telephoto lens, it showed the same man I’d seen on Tverskaya, wearing an overcoat and scarf, climbing out of the backseat of another armored Mercedes. A bodyguard held the door from behind, another stood in front, partially blocking the camera’s view. His hand reached under his overcoat, no doubt wrapped around a large caliber firearm. Konychev looked straight at the camera, unaware of its presence. Handsome face, soft features, intelligent eyes. Hard to read much into them.
Something behind his head caught my attention, and I leaned in for a closer look. The number of the building, large brass digits affixed to a marble façade—140. The same “1” and “4” and “0” that adorned the exterior of 140 West Forty-eighth Street—Leitz’s building. That could be coincidence, plenty of buildings with the number “140” in plenty of cities. Maybe even one or two that used the same stencils. The Mercedes had New York plates. Still, Konychev could be going to visit any one of a score of tenants. He could have been going to the building next door. Everything about his presence in New York could have been coincidence, but I was ready to bet my newly acquired Repin that Konychev was paying a visit to Sebastian Leitz.
CHAPTER 9
I got up at my usual 6:00 A.M. and ran a half mile downtown until I found a pay phone I hadn’t hit in a while. I used a prepaid card to dial Aleksei’s office in Moscow.
“Good morning,” I said. “Feel like coffee? I’m buying.”
A brief pause, then, “Give me forty-five minutes. Usual place?”
“Fine.”
I continued my run, five miles through the cold, dark, empty streets, thinking about the Leitzes, Efim Konychev, the honesty of my client, and how far I wanted to take this. A million dollars is a million dollars, I reminded myself more than once, and I still had a clear vision of Suprematist Composition on Leitz’s wall that I could transfer easily enough to my own. A stiff wind kept me away from the rivers, I ran fast and was early getting back so I reversed direction and trotted up to City Hall where I found another pay phone and dialed another number, this one belonging to a disposable cell phone.
Aleksei answered on the first ring. I wouldn’t describe either of us as paranoid, at least not overly so. I spied on the United States for twenty years, and I suspect there are some old members of the U.S. intelligence community who are sufficiently curious about what I’m up to these days to listen in to the occasional phone call. Aleksei has more immediate reasons to worry. He’s an honest cop in a system where honesty is not only shunned but feared. That makes him a target, and there’s little question that his phone is tapped. We’d agreed on one thing when we saw each other in Moscow—a system for getting in touch, using phones that can’t be traced and a fake coffee date to set a time.
“How’re you doing?” I said.
“Don’t ask.”
“Bad day?”
“One more in a
They were quick to agree. A third partner joined the firm, Taras Batkin. His Cheka background and Kremlin contacts gave the BEC another layer of insulation. Business grew faster than ever. Somewhere along the line, Konychev’s younger sister, Alyona, who had been married to Lishin for more than a decade, took up with Batkin. The divorce and new marriage, about six months apart, had taken place three years earlier, apparently without incident. Nobody wanted to upset the apple cart carrying the golden goose, or so my cynical mind suggested. I put the mixed metaphor down to too much Pilsner Urquell.
I finished reading and went back to the computer. Ivanov had no pictures of either Lishin or his ex-wife, but he did have one of Konychev, accompanying his latest post. Taken with a long telephoto lens, it showed the same man I’d seen on Tverskaya, wearing an overcoat and scarf, climbing out of the backseat of another armored Mercedes. A bodyguard held the door from behind, another stood in front, partially blocking the camera’s view. His hand reached under his overcoat, no doubt wrapped around a large caliber firearm. Konychev looked straight at the camera, unaware of its presence. Handsome face, soft features, intelligent eyes. Hard to read much into them.
Something behind his head caught my attention, and I leaned in for a closer look. The number of the building, large brass digits affixed to a marble façade—140. The same “1” and “4” and “0” that adorned the exterior of 140 West Forty-eighth Street—Leitz’s building. That could be coincidence, plenty of buildings with the number “140” in plenty of cities. Maybe even one or two that used the same stencils. The Mercedes had New York plates. Still, Konychev could be going to visit any one of a score of tenants. He could have been going to the building next door. Everything about his presence in New York could have been coincidence, but I was ready to bet my newly acquired Repin that Konychev was paying a visit to Sebastian Leitz.
CHAPTER 9
I got up at my usual 6:00 A.M. and ran a half mile downtown until I found a pay phone I hadn’t hit in a while. I used a prepaid card to dial Aleksei’s office in Moscow.
“Good morning,” I said. “Feel like coffee? I’m buying.”
A brief pause, then, “Give me forty-five minutes. Usual place?”
“Fine.”
I continued my run, five miles through the cold, dark, empty streets, thinking about the Leitzes, Efim Konychev, the honesty of my client, and how far I wanted to take this. A million dollars is a million dollars, I reminded myself more than once, and I still had a clear vision of Suprematist Composition on Leitz’s wall that I could transfer easily enough to my own. A stiff wind kept me away from the rivers, I ran fast and was early getting back so I reversed direction and trotted up to City Hall where I found another pay phone and dialed another number, this one belonging to a disposable cell phone.
Aleksei answered on the first ring. I wouldn’t describe either of us as paranoid, at least not overly so. I spied on the United States for twenty years, and I suspect there are some old members of the U.S. intelligence community who are sufficiently curious about what I’m up to these days to listen in to the occasional phone call. Aleksei has more immediate reasons to worry. He’s an honest cop in a system where honesty is not only shunned but feared. That makes him a target, and there’s little question that his phone is tapped. We’d agreed on one thing when we saw each other in Moscow—a system for getting in touch, using phones that can’t be traced and a fake coffee date to set a time.
“How’re you doing?” I said.
“Don’t ask.”
“Bad day?”
“One more in a
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