Steven Gore - Final Target

“Do you think he got a cut of SatTek?”

“At least indirectly,” Ninchenko answered. “It’s a complicated relationship. Basically, Gravilov provides physical protection and intelligence. Hadeon Alexandervich has lots of enemies, and Gravilov keeps track of what they’re doing, especially the political opposition. He also leans on people if Hadeon Alexandervich takes an interest in a factory or a business. Like his father, Hadeon Alexandervich is insatiable. He has to be fed all the time.”

“The Thais have an expression for corruption,” Gage said. “They call it eating the state.”

“If not for me,” Slava said, “he eat everything. I elbow him once in a while to keep my seat at table-but there is difference.” Slava thumped the table with his forefinger. “I never take from poor. No one freeze in winter because of me.”

Slava opened a vodka bottle, poured three shots, then pushed himself to his feet, rattling the glasses and dishes on the table. Gage and Ninchenko also stood.

“To Hadeon Alexandervich, may he go to hell. Head-first.” Slava paused to let the image complete itself in his mind. “On heels of fucking father.”

Slava clinked his glass against Gage’s and Ninchenko’s, then tossed the vodka to the back of his throat and swallowed. He then noticed that Gage hadn’t emptied his glass.

“I not say I send, just he go.”

Gage downed the vodka, and then the three of them sat down.

A waiter in a tuxedo shirt and black pants knocked, then entered and removed the appetizers and their plates. He returned a minute later with bowls of red beet borscht, a dollop of sour cream centered in each one.

As Gage stirred his soup, his mind looped back through the conversation.

“Matson needs a place to hide his assets where the U.S. can’t reach them,” Gage said. “And Gravilov needs hard currency. It’s a perfect marriage.”

“But first they need to find something for him to invest in,” Ninchenko said. “In a way that allows Gravilov to take a cut.”

“That must be on tomorrow’s agenda.”

“Why not just go to the prosecutor now?” Ninchenko asked. “And tell him what you think Matson is doing over here.”

“I can’t take the chance. For all I know the U.S. Attorney sent him to meet up with Gravilov. He let him travel to London once before.”

“They allow informants to do that?”

“They’ve let them travel to Afghanistan to put heroin deals together and to Colombia to fly cocaine back to the U.S., so sending a financial crook like Matson to Europe isn’t considered much of a risk.”

“Except to him,” Slava said. “Matson may think he buy, but he not keep. Alla poppa and Gravilov take everything.”

Slava went silent as Gage tasted the soup.

“What you think?” Slava asked.

“I think Matson may end up dead.”

“Of course.” Slava pointed at Gage’s bowl. “But I mean about soup.”

“Perfect.”

“It proves the rule about borscht,” Ninchenko said. “There’s no in-between. It’s either good or bad.”

Slava smiled. “Not like Ukraine. Everything here is in-between.”

Gage smiled back. “Maybe you should’ve been a philosopher or a food critic, instead of a…”

“Gangster?” Slava finished the sentence.

“I was trying to think of a euphemism.”

Slava looked uncertainly at Ninchenko.

“It’s a word that means the same thing,” Ninchenko explained, “but doesn’t sound quite so derogatory.”

Slava’s puzzlement didn’t fade.

“Bad. Derogatory sort of means bad.”

Slava grinned. “Just like gangster.”

The waiter returned, removed their soup bowls and replaced them with plates bearing wild partridge in juniper sauce, potatoes, and sauerkraut salad with carrots and apples.

Ninchenko’s cell phone rang. He answered it, but didn’t speak until the waiter left the room.

“Matson and his lady have retired for the evening,” Ninchenko said, after hanging up. “They ordered room service breakfast for eight o’clock.”

Gage looked at Slava, then back at Ninchenko. “I wonder if he’ll live long enough to digest it.”

At 9 A. M. Gage and Ninchenko entered a battered Volkswagen van in the courtyard of his apartment building. Two boxy Russian-made Lada chase cars, one white and one light blue, were already stationed along Shevchenko Boulevard outside the Lesya Palace Hotel, ready to follow Matson whichever direction he traveled.

Ninchenko’s cell phone rang like a starter pistol.

“Matson just got in the car,” Ninchenko reported five seconds later. “Alla isn’t with him. Black Mercedes 430. Four-digit plate, 0087. Government. The police aren’t allowed to stop it. Whoever is inside has immunity.”

“A get-out-of-jail-free card,” Gage said.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Ninchenko glanced over at Gage. “Do you have those in the States?”

“No, it’s a card in a game called Monopoly.”

“A monopoly I’ve heard of.” Ninchenko grinned. “That’s what we were told the great Soviet struggle was against.”

“Now you have your own,” Gage said.

Ninchenko made a call to check the plate while his driver sped from the courtyard onto Pushkinskaya, and then right onto Shevchenko, following 0087 from a block behind. The low clouds that had released a steady flow of mist overnight turned Kiev’s streets into black ice. The van’s defroster struggled against the condensation on the windshield while the wipers swept away light raindrops. The other windows were scummed with dirty water that the driver had splashed on to provide cover for Ninchenko and Gage in the rear seat.

“We’ll find out who it is in an hour,” Ninchenko said, after disconnecting. “My guess is that it is a representative of the State Property Fund. They handle privatizations of government-owned assets.”

“You’d think somebody like him would be more discreet. Wouldn’t anyone who saw him with a foreigner like Matson assume that he’ll be getting an offshore kickback for setting up a deal?”

“Discretion isn’t much of an issue because there are no secrets in Ukraine. Everything gets found out in the end. The president knows everyone’s schemes.”

“And he doesn’t stop them?”

Ninchenko signaled their driver to drop back and allow the blue Lada to take over close surveillance. They then followed it onto Oleny Telihy, heading toward the northern part of Kiev.

“You need to ask yourself how the president keeps power,” Ninchenko said. “But don’t think like a Westerner. He’s violent. He’s corrupt. He’s universally hated. He was elected through fraud.”

“He stays in power the way other corrupt leaders do,” Gage said. “Through fear.”

Ninchenko looked over. “Fear of what?”

“Illegal arrest, imprisonment, execution. The same things people in dictatorial regimes all over the world are afraid of.”

“This isn’t everywhere else. This is Ukraine. It is a new kind of political order. Ukrainians are afraid of everything all of the time, so they don’t suffer particular fears. There’s almost nothing they do that isn’t in violation of some law. You want to license a car, pay a bribe. You want to get your child into school, bribe the principal. You want a passing grade, bribe the teacher. You need over sixty separate permits to open a business in Kiev. You think there’s a single business in Kiev that has them all? No. They couldn’t afford all the bribes. Sure, officials occasionally get arrested for corruption. And while those arrests might seem random from the outside looking in, they’re strategic from the inside looking out.”

Gage shook his head. “That’s no different than any other corrupt government in the world.”