Daniel Silva - Moscow Rules

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to finish what you started when you arranged to meet with your old friend Olga Sukhova. I want you to tell me the rest of the story.”

Five miles due east of Saint-Tropez, the rocky headland known as the Pointe de l’Ay juts defiantly into the Mediterranean Sea. At the base of the point lies a small beach of fine sand, often overlooked because it is absent any boutiques, clubs, or restaurants. The girl with shoulder-length dark hair and scars on her leg had taken great care in choosing her spot, selecting an isolated patch of sand near the rocks with an unobstructed view out to sea. There, shielded from the sun by a parasol, she had passed a pleasant if solitary afternoon, now sipping from a plastic bottle of mineral water, now delving into the pages of a worn paperback novel, now peering out to sea through a pair of miniature Zeiss binoculars toward the enormous private motor yacht called October adrift on the calm waters some three miles offshore.

At 3:15, she noticed something in the ship’s movements that made her sit up a bit straighter. She watched it another moment to make certain her initial impression was correct, then lowered the glasses and removed a BlackBerry PDA from her canvas beach bag. The message was brief; the transmission, lightning fast. Two minutes later, after complying with a request for confirmation, she placed the device back into her beach bag and peered out to sea again. The yacht had completed its turn and was now making for Saint-Tropez like a frigate steaming toward battle. Party’s over a bit early, the girl thought as she traded the glasses for her paperback novel. And on such a lovely day.

Elena began by setting the scene, as much for her own benefit as for his. It was autumn, she said. November. Mid -November, she added for the sake of clarity. She and Ivan were staying at their country dacha north of Moscow, a palace of pine and glass built atop the remains of a smaller dacha that had been given to Ivan’s father by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. It was snowing heavily. A good Russian snow, like falling ash from a volcanic eruption.

“Ivan received a phone call late in the evening. After hanging up, he told me some business associates would be coming to the house in a few hours for an important meeting. He didn’t identify these business associates and I knew far better than to ask. For the rest of the evening, he was on edge. Anxious. Pacing. Cursing the Russian weather. I knew the signs. I’d seen my husband in moods like this before. Ivan always gets very excited before a big dance.”

“Dance?”

“Forgive me, Mr. Allon. Dance is one of the code words he and his men use when discussing arms transactions. ‘We have to make final arrangements for the dance.’ ‘We have to book a hall for the dance.’ ‘We have to hire a band for the dance.’ ‘How many chairs will we need for the dance ?’ ‘How many bottles of vodka?’ ‘How much caviar?’ ‘How many loaves of black bread?’ I’m not sure who they think they’re deceiving with this nonsense but it certainly isn’t me.”

“And did Ivan’s visitors actually come that evening?”

“Technically, it was the next morning. Two-thirty in the morning, to be exact.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes, I saw them.”

“Describe the scene for me. Carefully, Elena. The smallest details can be important.”

“There were eight of them in all, plus a team of Ivan’s bodyguards. Arkady Medvedev was there as well. Arkady is the chief of my husband’s personal security service. The bodyguards have a joke about Arkady. They say Arkady is Ivan on his worst day.”

“Where was the delegation from?”

“They were from Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa.” She managed a smile. “Sarah’s area of expertise.”

“Which country?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Did you meet them?”

“I’m never allowed to meet them.”

“Had you ever seen any of them before?”

“No, just different versions of them. They’re all the same, really. They speak different languages. They fly different flags. They fight for different causes. But in the end they’re all the same.”

“Where were you while they were in the dacha?”

“Upstairs in our bedroom.”

“Were you ever able to hear their voices?”

“Sometimes. Their leader was a giant of a man. He was a baritone. His voice made the walls vibrate. He had a laugh like thunder.”

“You’re a linguist, Elena. If they spoke another European language, what would it be?”

“French. Most definitely French. It had that lilt, you know?”

They drank first, she said. There was always drinking involved when Ivan was planning a dance. By the time the hard bargaining began, the guests were well lubricated, and Ivan made no effort to control the volume of their voices, especially the voice of their baritone leader. Elena began to hear words and terms she recognized: AKs. RPGs. Mortars. Specific types of ammunition. Helicopter gunships. Tanks.

“Before long they were arguing about money. The prices of specific weapons and systems. Commissions. Bribes. Shipping and handling. I knew enough about my husband’s business dealings to realize they were discussing a major arms deal-most likely with an African nation that was under international embargo. You see, Mr. Allon, these are the men who come to my husband, men who cannot purchase arms legally on the open market. That’s why Ivan is so successful. He fills a very specific need. And that’s why the poorest nations on earth pay vastly inflated prices for the weaponry they use to slaughter each other.”

“How big a deal are we talking about?”

“The kind that is measured in hundreds of millions of dollars.” She paused, then said, “Why do you think Ivan didn’t bat an eye when I asked him for two and a half million dollars for your worthless Cassatt?”

“How long did these men stay in your home?”

“Until early the next morning. When they finally left, Ivan came upstairs to our room. He was soaring. I’d seen him in moods like that, too. It was bloodlust. He crawled into bed and practically raped me. He needed a body to pillage. Any body. He settled for mine.”

“When did you realize this deal was different?”

“Two nights later.”

“What happened?”

“I answered a phone I shouldn’t have answered. And I listened long after I should have hung up. Simple as that.”

“You were still at the dacha?”

“No, we’d left the dacha by then and had returned to Zhukovka.”

“Who was on the line?”

“Arkady Medvedev.”

“Why was he calling?”

“There was a problem with final arrangements for the big dance.”

“What sort of trouble?”

"Big trouble. Merchandise-gone-astray trouble.”

Ivan had a tradition after big transactions. The blowout, he called it. A night on the town for the clients, all expenses paid, the bigger the deal, the bigger the party. Drinks in the hottest bars. Dinner in the trendiest restaurants. A nightcap with the most beautiful young girls Moscow had to offer. And a team of Ivan’s bodyguards serving as chaperones to make sure there was no trouble. The blowout with the African delegation was a rampage. It began at six in the evening and went straight through till nine the next night, when they finally crawled back to their beds at the Ukraina Hotel and passed out.

“It’s one of the reasons Ivan has so many repeat customers. He always treats them well. No delays, no missing stock, no rusty bullets. The dictators and the warlords hate rusty bullets. They say Ivan’s stock is always top drawer, just like Ivan’s parties.”