David Duffy - In for a Ruble

“How did you get on to them?”

“Usual way—get a tip, get lucky, bust a warehouse full of servers. Follow the data, apply pressure, work it up the line. BEC is big enough to require organization, so there is a chain of command, and we followed that. We also tracked the money, which is harder to hide, as you know. It was an international effort, us, the Germans, French, Brits, U.S. DoJ. We followed a half-dozen trails. One of the most productive was a child porn operation over there, busted five or six years ago. That led to the company processing the payments, that led to a couple of European banks, that led to shell companies here.”

“And you think the BEC’s behind them?”

“You asked about Konychev. He runs the BEC, with two partners—Lishin and Batkin. He’s one of yours.”

I ignored the barb. “I read that on Ibansk. Ivanov got his facts right?”

“Yes. Not Konychev’s choice, even if he is his brother-in-law.”

“Ivanov says the partnership was Kremlin enforced.”

“Cheka wanted one of its own on the inside. Surprised?”

Ivanov confirmed. Putin himself reportedly boasted, not long after becoming president, that thousands of Cheka operatives had been dispatched to take control of every government, business and, no doubt, criminal institution. Except…

“Batkin’s based here now.”

“I know. Ambassador Batkin. Russian-American Trade Council. I’m told he sets great store by his title. We’re not allowed to go anywhere near RATC, as I call it. I assume it’s a front for Chekists making their second career in organized crime.” Definitely a bitter edge to his voice now.

“He one of your targets, along with Konychev?”

“Don’t ask. Not that it matters. Lid’s been slammed on. Right at the time when the BEC leadership’s in disarray.”

He made no attempt to hide the frustration.

“Who’s being protected?”

“Everyone and anyone, as usual. Watch your step. The tall guy who beat you up, he probably still works for Konychev.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.”

“I hope you do.… I mean that.”

“I mean it too.”

I walked home, Beria by my side.

He doesn’t trust you.

What do you know?

I’m the Cheka. I know everything.

I let him keep me company. It was his ground we were covering. Nobody stopped to ask, Who’s he? Why are you talking to him? Nobody paid us any mind.

This morning’s conversation with Aleksei had been the longest since dinner in Moscow when he’d walked out. We’d met twice while I was there. I’d gone looking for, if not reconciliation, at least a start down that road. I was prepared to tell him the truth about my past—the Gulag, the Great Disintegration of my marriage to his mother—and was terrified of his reaction. I hoped he wouldn’t hold it all against me. I was most worried about the shame of the Gulag and how badly Polina had poisoned the well. I found I had bigger problems. I should have seen them coming—he’d been more than clear last summer—but one of the hardest prisons to break out of is your own point of view.

The first meeting took place two nights after I arrived, at a restaurant the hotel concierge recommended. I wouldn’t be seeking his advice again. A dark, close cave, carved out of the basement of an old building near the Kremlin walls, with atmosphere to match. The raucous laughter from an American tour group bounced around the subterranean room, growing in volume as the waiter brought more vodka. The food was a jumble of Russian standards and what’s called “continental”—a menu of generic dishes that could have been concocted anywhere. Aleksei was in a bad mood, for reasons he wouldn’t specify. I suggested we move venues, but he waved with indifference and said this place was fine. I could barely hear, he didn’t have much to say, and I failed to find a path to get a conversation moving.

Outside, afterward, in the cold winter air, he apologized. “My fault. Nothing to do with you. It’s… Just a bad few days. How about we try again Thursday? I’ll choose a place.”

I walked back to the Metropole, hopefulness over the next meeting tempered by the sense that one opportunity had been wasted and I wouldn’t get too many more. I also wondered how often the “bad few days” came around.

The second meeting started well enough. His choice was a small neighborhood café, above ground and airy, even in the winter dark, with a limited, but appetizing menu and good draft beer. His mood seemed better, if still distant. That was to be expected, I supposed. I had suggested meeting at his apartment—I was curious to see where, and how, he lived—but he quickly parried that. I wondered if we were in his neighborhood. In New York, the Basilisk could have told me in an instant. As Foos is fond of pointing out to anyone who’ll listen, Europeans—including Russians—are more protective of their data.

Aleksei was at a table by the window when I arrived. He wore a dark jacket over a navy turtleneck and wool trousers. Two inches taller and thirty pounds lighter than I am, his thick black curly hair was close to needing a trim, but still kempt. He’d been described as resembling a young Mark Twain, and it fit. The black eye patch was in place—the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone gunned down Andrei Kozlov, first deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank, in 2006. The someone, of course, was widely presumed to be working for the Cheka.

We’d given the waitress our orders—meat for him, fish for me—when he said, “Okay, tell the story.”

I was taken aback by the abruptness of the request—or command, hard to tell which.

“What story do you want to hear?”

“You and Polina. You and Iakov. You and the Cheka. Where you came from. Why you left. Why you live in New York. You decide. It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

I listened for emotion—anger, bitterness, resentment, curiosity—but heard none. His voice was flat, almost professional in tone. He was a cop—to the extent he wanted to conduct an interrogation, he’d have a plan for how to go about it.

I didn’t have a plan. I’d thought about it, tried to develop one—before I left New York, on the plane, over the last few days. I still didn’t know where to start.

“What did your mother tell you?”

I assumed, perhaps unfairly, that Polina had imparted the worst. Maybe worse than that, although she wouldn’t necessarily have seen a need to exaggerate.

He shook his head. I thought at first he was refusing to answer. “She didn’t tell me much of anything. I asked, of course. All she said was, we were a family of the damned—doubly damned, was the way she put it.”

“She didn’t say why?”

He shook his head. “She believed it though.”

She would have, no doubt about that. “So you really don’t know anything about me?”

“Only what I learned in New York.”

I was looking at a mostly clean slate—with all the temptations such a vessel presents. I told myself to stick to the facts.

“Let’s start with the Cheka,” I said. “That’ll take us to matters closer to home.”

“It’s your story.”

The voice was still flat. I told the tale of my career, from the Foreign Language Institute through the Second Chief Directorate (counterintelligence) to the First Chief Directorate, whose attention in my time was focused almost entirely on the Main Adversary—the United States—and my five assignments abroad.

“Iakov Barsukov was my guide and mentor throughout,” I said.

“That explains one thing.” Something else crept into his voice—anger or bitterness or both.