by Daniel Silva
Seymour returned the volume of Greene to its original place. “I’m not opposed to having a look at a bank’s ledgers every now and again,” he said after a moment, “but I do draw the line at theft. After all, we’re British. We believe in fair play.”
“We don’t have that luxury.”
“Don’t play the victim, Gabriel. It doesn’t suit you.” Seymour plucked another book from the shelf but this time didn’t bother to open the cover.
“Something bothering you, Graham?”
“The money.”
“What about the money?”
“There’s a good chance that some of it is held by British financial institutions. And if several hundred million pounds were to suddenly vanish from their balance sheets . . .” His voice trailed off, the thought unfinished.
“They shouldn’t have accepted the money in the first place, Graham.”
“The accounts were undoubtedly opened by a cutout,” Seymour countered. “Which means the banks have no idea who the money really belongs to.”
“They will soon.”
“Not if you want my help.”
A silence fell between them. It was broken eventually by Graham Seymour.
“Do you know what will happen if it ever becomes public that I helped you rob a British bank?” he asked. “I’ll be standing in Leicester Square with a paper cup in my hand.”
“So we’ll do it quietly, Graham, the way we always do.”
“Sorry, Gabriel, but British banks are off-limits.”
“What about branches of British banks on foreign soil?”
“They’re still British banks.”
“And banks in British overseas territories?”
“Off-limits,” Seymour repeated.
Gabriel made a show of deliberation. “Then I suppose I’ll have to do it without your help.” He rose to his feet. “Sorry to have dragged you away from the office, Graham. Tell Nigel I can find my way back to Heathrow.”
Gabriel started toward the door.
“You’re forgetting one thing,” Seymour said.
Gabriel turned.
“All I have to do to stop you is tell Waleed al-Siddiqi to burn that notebook.”
“I know,” replied Gabriel. “But I also know that you would never do that. Your conscience wouldn’t allow it. And deep down, you want that money just as badly as I do.”
“Not if it’s deposited in a British bank.”
Gabriel looked at the ceiling and in his head counted to five. “If the money is in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, or any other British territory, I get it. If it’s here in London, it stays in London.”
“Deal,” said Seymour.
“Provided,” added Gabriel quickly, “that HMG puts those assets in a deep freeze.”
“The prime minister would have to make a decision like that.”
“Then I’m quite confident the prime minister will see it my way.”
This time, it was Graham Seymour who looked at the ceiling in exasperation. “You still haven’t told me how you intend to get the notebook.”
“Actually,” said Gabriel, “you’re going to do it for me.”
“I’m glad we cleared that up. But how are we going to get al-Siddiqi to come to Britain?”
“I’m going to invite him to a party. With any luck,” Gabriel added, “it will be the last one he ever attends.”
“Better make it a good one, then.”
“I intend to.”
“Who’s throwing it?”
“A friend of mine from Russia who doesn’t care for dictators who steal money.”
“In that case,” said Seymour, smiling for the first time, “it promises to be a night to remember.”
43
CHELSEA, LONDON
A FALLEN BRITISH SPY, A ONE-EYED Italian policeman, a master art thief, a professional assassin from the island of Corsica: this was the menagerie of characters through which the affair had flowed thus far. And so it was only fitting that the next stop along Gabriel’s unlikely journey was 43 Cheyne Walk, the London home of Viktor Orlov. Orlov was a bit like Julian Isherwood; he made life more interesting, and for that Gabriel adored him. But his affection toward the Russian was rooted in something far more practical. Were it not for Orlov, Gabriel would be lying dead in a Stalin-era killing field east of Moscow. And Chiara would be lying next to him.
It was said of Viktor Orlov that he divided people into two categories: those willing to be used and those too stupid to realize they were being used. There were some who would have added a third: those willing to let Viktor steal their money. He made no secret of the fact he was a predator and a robber baron. Indeed, he wore those labels proudly, along with his ten-thousand-dollar Italian suits and his trademark striped shirts, specially made by a man in Hong Kong. The dramatic collapse of Soviet communism had presented Orlov with the opportunity to earn a great deal of money in a brief period of time, and he had taken it. Orlov rarely apologized for anything, least of all the manner in which he had become rich. “Had I been born an Englishman, my money might have come to me cleanly,” he told a British interviewer shortly after taking up residence in London. “But I was born a Russian. And I earned a Russian fortune.”
Raised in Moscow during the darkest days of the Cold War, Orlov had been blessed with a natural facility with numbers. After completing his secondary education, he studied physics at the Leningrad Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics and then disappeared into the Russian nuclear weapons program, where he worked until the day the Soviet Union breathed its last. While most of his colleagues continued to work without pay, Orlov quickly renounced his membership in the Communist Party and vowed to become rich. Within a few years, he had earned a sizable fortune importing computers, appliances, and other Western goods into the nascent Russian market. Later, he used that fortune to acquire Russia’s largest state-owned steel company along with Ruzoil, the Siberian oil giant, at bargain-basement prices. Before long Viktor Orlov, a former government physicist who once had to share an apartment with two other Soviet families, was a billionaire many times over and the richest man in Russia.
But in post-Soviet Russia, a land with no rule of law and rife with crime and corruption, Orlov’s fortune made him a marked man. He survived at least three attempts on his life and was rumored to have ordered several men killed in retaliation. But the greatest threat to Orlov would come from the man who succeeded Boris Yeltsin as president of Russia. He believed that Viktor Orlov and the other oligarchs had stolen the country’s most valuable assets, and it was his intention to steal them back. After settling into the Kremlin, the new president summoned Orlov and demanded two things: his steel company and Ruzoil. “And keep your nose out of politics,” he added ominously. “Otherwise, I’m going to cut it off.”
Orlov agreed to relinquish his steel interests, but not Ruzoil. The president was not amused. He immediately ordered prosecutors to open a fraud-and-bribery investigation, and within a week Russian prosecutors had issued a warrant for Orlov’s arrest. Faced with the prospect of a long, cold stay in the neo-gulag, he wisely fled to London, where he became one of the Russian president’s most vocal critics. For several years Ruzoil remained legally icebound, beyond the reach of both Orlov and the new masters of the Kremlin. Finally, Orlov agreed to surrender the company in what was effectively history’s largest payment of hostage ransom—$12 billion in exchange for the release of three kidnapped Office agents. For his generosity, Orlov received a British passport and a very private meeting with the Queen. Afterward, he declared it the proudest day of his life.
It had been more than five years since Viktor Orlov had come to financial terms with the Kremlin, yet he remained at the top of the Russian hit list. As a result, he moved about London in an armored limousine, and his house in Cheyne Walk looked a bit like the embassy of an embattled nation. The windows were bulletproof, and parked at the curb was a black Range Rover filled with bodyguards, all of whom were former members of Christopher Keller’s old regiment, the Spec
ial Air Service. They paid Gabriel little heed as he arrived at the appointed time of half past four and, after slipping through the wrought-iron gate, presented himself at Orlov’s stately front door. The bell, when pressed, produced a maid in a starched black-and-white uniform, who escorted Gabriel up a flight of wide, elegant stairs to Orlov’s office. The room was an exact replica of the Queen’s private study in Buckingham Palace except for the giant plasma media wall behind Orlov’s desk. Usually, it flickered with financial data from around the world, but on that afternoon it was the crisis in Ukraine that held Orlov’s attention. The Russian army had invaded the Crimean Peninsula and was now threatening to push into other regions of eastern Ukraine. The Cold War was officially on again, or so declared the commentariat. Their logic had but one glaring flaw. In the mind of the Russian president, the Cold War had never ended in the first place.
“I warned this would happen,” Orlov said after a moment. “I warned that the tsar wanted his empire back. I made it very clear that Georgia was just the appetizer and that Ukraine, the breadbasket of the old union, would be the main course. And now it’s playing out live on television. And what do the Europeans do about it?”
“Nothing,” answered Gabriel.
Orlov nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on the screen. “And do you know why the Europeans are doing nothing while the Red Army runs roughshod over yet another independent nation?”
“Money,” replied Gabriel.
Again Orlov nodded. “I warned them about that, too. I told them not to grow dependent on trade with Russia. I pleaded with them not to become addicted to cheap Russian natural gas. No one listened to me, of course. And now the Europeans can’t bring themselves to impose meaningful sanctions on the tsar because it will hurt their economies too much.” He shook his head slowly. “It makes me sick to my stomach.”
Just then, the Russian president strode across the screen, one hand rigidly at his side and the other swinging like a scythe. His face had been recently put to the knife again; his eyes were stretched so tight he looked as though he were a man of the Central Asian republics. He might have appeared a comical figure were it not for the blood on his hands, some of which belonged to Gabriel.
“At last estimate,” Orlov was saying, his eyes fixed on his old enemy, “he was worth about a hundred and thirty billion dollars, which would make him the richest man in the world. How do you suppose he got all that money? After all, he’s spent his entire life on the government payroll.”
“I suppose he stole it.”
“You think?”
Orlov turned away from the video wall and faced Gabriel for the first time. He was a small, agile man of sixty, with a head of gray hair that had been coaxed and gelled into a youthful, spiky coif. Behind his rimless spectacles his left eye twitched nervously. It usually did when he was speaking about the Russian president.
“I know for a fact he pocketed a large portion of Ruzoil after I surrendered it to the Kremlin to get you out of Russia. It was worth about twelve billion dollars at the time. Rather small beer in the grand scheme of things,” Orlov added. “He and his inner circle are growing vastly rich at the expense of the Russian people. It’s why he’ll do whatever it takes to stay in power.” Orlov paused, then added, “Just like his friend in Syria.”
“So why don’t you help me do something about it?”
“Steal the tsar’s money? I’d love nothing more. After all,” Orlov added, “some of it is mine. But it’s not possible.”
“I agree.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
“That we steal his Syrian friend’s money instead.”
“Have you found it?”
“No,” Gabriel answered. “But I know who’s controlling it.”
“That would be Kemel al-Farouk,” said Orlov. “But the man who’s actually managing the investment portfolio is Waleed al-Siddiqi.”
Gabriel was too stunned to offer a reply. Orlov smiled.
“You should have come to me a long time ago,” he said. “I could have saved you a lot of trouble.”
“How do you know about al-Siddiqi?”
“Because you’re not the only one searching for the money.” Orlov looked over his shoulder at the video wall, where the Russian president was now receiving a briefing from his generals. “The tsar wants it, too. But that’s hardly surprising,” he added. “The tsar wants everything.”
At the stroke of five, the maid appeared with a bottle of Château Pétrus, the legendary Pomerol wine that Orlov drank as though it were Evian.
“Care for a glass, Gabriel?”
“No, thanks, Viktor. I’m driving.”
Orlov gave a dismissive wave of his hand and dumped several inches of the dark red wine into a large goblet.
“Where were we?” he asked.
“You were about to tell me how it is you know about Waleed al-Siddiqi.”
“I have sources in Moscow. Very good sources,” he added with a smile. “I would think you’d know that by now.”
“Your sources are the best, Viktor.”
“Better than MI6’s,” he said. “You should tell your friend Graham Seymour to take my calls every now and again. I can be of great help to him.”
“I’ll mention it the next time I see him.”
Orlov settled at one end of a long brocaded couch and invited Gabriel to sit at the other. On the other side of the bulletproof windows, evening traffic flowed along the Chelsea Embankment and across the Albert Bridge to Battersea. In Viktor Orlov’s world, however, there was only the faintly comedic figure striding across the screens of his video wall.
“Why do you suppose he rose to the Syrian president’s defense when the rest of the civilized world was ready to use military force against him? Was it because he wanted to protect Russia’s only friend in the Arab world? Did he want to keep his naval base at Tartus? The answer to both questions is yes. But there’s another reason.” Orlov looked at Gabriel and said, “Money.”
“How much?”
“Half a billion dollars, payable directly into an account controlled by the tsar.”
“Says who?”
“Says I’d rather not say.”
“Where did the half a billion come from?”
“Where do you think?”
“Since there was nothing left in the Syrian treasury, I’d say it came directly from the ruler’s pocket.”
Orlov nodded and looked at the screen again. “And what do you think the tsar did after he received confirmation that the money had been deposited into his account?”
“Since the tsar is a greedy bastard, I suppose he ordered his old colleagues at the SVR to find the rest of it.”
“You know the tsar well.”
“And I have the scars to prove it.”
Orlov smiled and drank some of his wine. “My sources tell me the search was conducted by the SVR rezident in Damascus. He already knew about Kemel al-Farouk. It took all of five minutes for him to come up with al-Siddiqi’s name.”
“Does al-Siddiqi control the entire fortune?”
“Not even close,” replied Orlov. “If I had to guess, I’d say about half of the ruler’s money is under his management.”
“So what’s the tsar waiting for?”
“He’s waiting to see whether the ruler survives or whether he ends up like Gaddafi. If he survives, he gets to keep his money. But if he ends up like Gaddafi, the SVR is going to grab that list of accounts that al-Siddiqi carries around in his pocket.”
“I’m going to beat them to it,” said Gabriel. “And you’re going to help me.”
“What exactly do you need me to do?”
Gabriel told him. Orlov twirled his eyeglasses by the stem, something he always did when he was thinking about money.
“It’s not going to be cheap,” he said after a moment.
“How much, Viktor?”
“Thirty million, bare minimum. Maybe forty when everything’s said and done.”
“What do you say
we go Dutch treat this time?”
“How much can you spare?”
“I might have ten million lying around,” said Gabriel. “But I’d have to give it to you in cash.”
“Is it real?”
“Absolutely.”
Orlov smiled. “Then cash would be fine.”
44
LONDON—LINZ, AUSTRIA
THERE WAS A SPIRITED DEBATE over what to call it. Orlov demanded that his name be associated with the venture—hardly surprising, for he was footing the lion’s share of the bill. “The Orlov name stands for quality,” he argued. “The Orlov name stands for success.” True, said Gabriel, but it also stood for corruption, double-dealing, and rumors of violence, charges Orlov didn’t bother to deny. In the end, they settled on the European Business Initiative: stoic, solid, and without a hint of controversy. Orlov was grudging in defeat. “Why don’t we call it twelve hours of unmitigated boredom,” he muttered. “That way we can be certain that no one will bother to attend.”
They announced the venture the following Monday in the pages of the Financial Journal, the venerable London business daily that Orlov had acquired for a song a few years earlier, when it was on the verge of insolvency. The stated goal of the gathering, he said, was to bring together the brightest minds in government, industry, and finance to produce a set of policy recommendations that would lift the European economy out of its post-recession doldrums. The initial reaction was tepid at best. One commentator called it Orlov’s Folly. Another christened it Orlov’s Titanic. “With one critical difference,” he added. “This ship will sink before it ever leaves port.”
There were still others who dismissed the conference as yet another in a long line of Orlov publicity stunts, an accusation he denied repeatedly during a daylong blitz of interviews on the business news networks. Then, as if to prove his critics wrong, he embarked on a quiet tour of Europe’s capitals to build support for his endeavor. His first stop was Paris, where, after a marathon negotiating session, the French finance ministry agreed to send a delegation. Then he was off to Berlin, where he won a commitment from the Germans to attend. The rest of the Continent soon followed suit. The Low Countries fell in an afternoon, as did Scandinavia. The Spanish were so desperate to attend that Orlov didn’t bother to make the trip to Madrid. Nor was it necessary for him to go to Rome. Indeed, the Italian prime minister said he would attend personally—provided, of course, he was still in office at the time.
