An Agent of Deceit

by Chris Morgan Jones

  In Russia itself he was inclined to be cautious for a while. He and Hammer had discussed this at length. Hammer wanted him to let Lock, in particular, know that people were asking questions about him, but Webster wanted to wait until he knew his subject better. For now, then, all he had done was to ask Alan Knight, the oddest Englishman in the Urals, to do a little work for him.

  So this was what was on the wall. First, he knew that few people knew anything about Malin. In Russia you had to look hard to find him at all, and in the West, nothing. His name was on a list of attendees at a Kremlin meeting in 2000 that had brought together managers of energy companies with academics and policy-makers. In 2002, he had attended talks in Budapest as part of an official Russian delegation that had included the then Minister of Industry and Energy; the following year he had been in Almaty as part of a similar group. He had been mentioned on a Ukrainian blog as one of a number of Kremlin insiders influencing the Russians’ decision to block gas supplies to Ukraine in 2006, and later that year he had been awarded The Order of Honour by the state, for ‘high achievements in economic production and for promoting the true value of Russia’s economic resources’. Real Five Year Plan stuff, Webster had thought, but the Russian press had barely shown any interest.

  Webster had expected to find dirt on Malin, because there was dirt on everyone of note. If you were powerful you had enemies and your enemies wrote bad things about you – made them up if that was easier. This, in Russian, was kompromat, or compromising material. There was no kompromat on Malin – it was difficult to believe that someone quite so corrupt could appear quite so polished – and without it it was difficult to know where to start.

  Nor was there much of interest on Lock. His name was on a thousand corporate documents and countless press articles but none was instructive. Whenever Faringdon bought something, or sold something, or formed a partnership, he was there as a spokesman for the company, providing a quote – always bland, always taken from the approved press release. Webster’s researcher had found two photographs in Profil, the gossip magazine of Moscow, that showed Lock at gaudy parties with improbably glossy young women. Webster was pleased to know what he looked like, at least: ash-blond, broad-faced, his thin lips, almost entirely disappeared, suggesting someone who had said ‘no’ too often to the world. His skin was lightly pockmarked around the cheekbones but his eyes were blue and clear. Less worn, his face would have been handsome. In both pictures he was smiling and looking studiedly carefree, and in both was wearing well-cut suits that somehow contradicted his casual expression and seemed out of place amid the Moscow glitz.

  This was all that Webster knew about Lock’s life now. He knew a little about his life before he went to Russia as well, but the two ends hardly matched. He was born in 1960 in Den Haag. His parents were Dutch, but had moved to London in the late 1960s when his father was transferred there by Royal Dutch Shell. In Britain Lock had had a good, regular, middle-class education – boarding school, history at Nottingham University, law conversion at Keele – and on leaving had joined a decent second division London law firm called Witney & Parks, which specialized in shipping and commodities work. He had a sister but Webster hadn’t found her yet. In his last year at school his parents had moved back to Holland but he had stayed on in England. In 2002 his mother had died in the same hospital where Lock had been born; his father now lived in the seaside town of Noordwijk.

  Otherwise there was nothing: no profiles in the newspapers, no public spats with competitors, no scandals of any kind. No one had stopped to find this man interesting before – or no one had seen the use in doing so. Grachev was worse, a complete nonentity; and while the companies were busier, there was nothing that caused Webster’s instincts to spark. His researchers had given him histories of Faringdon and Langland but each was merely a list of transactions, on the surface irredeemably dry and impenetrable underneath. He imagined reporting so little to Tourna and realized just how much they had taken on.

  There was no story here, and he knew the story was essential. What he was hoping to find was a route, the first few feet of a path: it might be a hint of a character, a glimpse of some hidden incident. He didn’t have it yet. Hammer was fond of saying that if what you needed wasn’t within reach on a piece of paper it would be in someone’s head. So perhaps he would simply have to talk to people sooner than he would have liked. The names circled on the wall knew Lock or Malin and had done business with them. Some would be loyal to them, and some would not, and he would have greatly preferred to leave them until he was sure of his plan and their allegiances. So be it. And in the meantime there was always Alan Knight.

  The only signs that Alan Knight was English were his name, his briefcase and his accent, a soft Derbyshire burr that when nervous lowered to a mumble. Otherwise, he was Russian; he had steadily become so over the last twenty years. Even now, in a barely autumnal London, he wore heavy rubber-soled black shoes and a thick quilted coat that ended well below his knees. Underneath that, Webster knew, would be a blazer, and his shirt would be shortsleeved. His trousers were half an inch too short, mid-grey, and pressed to a military finish. He had metal-framed glasses with light brown lenses, and the only colour in his face was in his ruddy nose and, just detectable, in his grey-blue eyes. He was fifty, or thereabouts, and walked with a stoop, bowed by the weight of what he knew.

  Knight lived in Tyumen, in the eastern Urals, the capital of Russia’s oil industry, a thousand miles from Moscow on the edge of the rich, bleak flatlands of western Siberia. There were many Westerners in Tyumen, but they all lived in expatriate compounds, sent their children to the American school, and left as soon as they could. Knight was a local. He had met his future wife there in the last days of the Soviet Union and when it became possible had married her and stayed. He had three children, all of whom were in the local Russian school. He supported his family by writing about oil for the Western press, and by working for companies like Ikertu.

  Webster had no idea whether this had made him wealthy or poor, but he was valuable, without doubt. Knight knew oil and gas better than anyone but the Russians themselves. How he was suffered to know so much was a question that had always intrigued Webster: either he was in the pay of someone, or he was merely too lowly to be noticed. But Webster had known him for fifteen years, since his own days in Russia, and had never detected any bias in his information. In any case it hardly mattered here: if Knight failed to tell him anything interesting no damage would be done, and if he knew that Ikertu was investigating Malin and told people, that would merely accelerate things.

  Knight resembled his adopted countrymen in one other respect: he was authentically scared of power. Giving him instructions was complicated and expensive. Email correspondence to his Russian account about anything of substance was forbidden. He came to London regularly; Webster knew his schedule, but if he had an urgent task he had to send him an email enquiring when he would next be in England. Knight would then leave Tyumen and fly to Istanbul, where he would retrieve from a Turkish email account the real brief that Webster had also sent him. Until Knight flew out of Russia to report, any further correspondence about the case was impossible unless Webster was prepared to bring him to London for the purpose. Clients who breached these rules were struck off. Webster and others put up with this degree of caution because Knight was good and because he had no competitors. If Russian business was famously opaque, energy was its dark centre, and Knight was one of the few peering in from the very rim.

  This time they met in the Chancery Court Hotel in Holborn. Webster had chosen it because it was anonymous and quiet and because no Russians ever stayed there. Knight wouldn’t go to the Ikertu offices. It was mid-morning and the lobby was more or less empty. Webster was early; he took a chair and started playing idly with his BlackBerry. This was an important moment. Knight had better know something useful.

  After five minutes he arrived, looking agitated and hot in his coat. As Webster greeted him and shook his hand he remem
bered his sour, soft smell of tobacco and must.

  ‘Good to see you, Alan,’ said Webster. ‘You look well.’

  ‘Hi, hi,’ said Knight, looking round at the three or four guests checking out or sitting waiting themselves. ‘Can we go somewhere else? Let’s go somewhere else.’

  ‘Why? We’re fine. There’s no one here.’

  ‘That’s not it. Who knows we’re meeting?’

  ‘One or two people at Ikertu. Alan, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing. No, nothing. I just need to be sure.’

  ‘Really?’ said Webster, the subtlest shade of exasperation in his voice. ‘All right. Let’s go.’

  They left the hotel and Webster hailed a taxi. ‘Ludgate Circus please.’ He turned to Knight. ‘I know a cafe about ten minutes from here,’ he said. ‘There’s never anyone there between breakfast and lunch, and if there is it’s big enough for no one to overhear us. If you think we’re being followed let me know.’ He sat back and watched the world through the window, wondering what on earth went on in Alan’s mind. Knight shifted in his seat from time to time to look at the cars behind.

  In the cafe, which was indeed empty but for them, they ordered teas and took a table in the furthest corner, away from the window. Knight took his coat off and sat with his back to the wall, monitoring the door.

  ‘Is this better?’ said Webster.

  ‘I’m sorry. Yes. Yes, this is better.’

  ‘Did you get my email?’

  ‘I did. I should have deleted it. Actually, what I should have done is just tell you no.’

  Webster looked at him, not understanding.

  ‘Have you got your phone on you?’ said Knight.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We should take the batteries out.’ Knight took a phone from an inside pocket and after a struggle with the case removed its battery. Webster did the same and waited for Knight to speak.

  ‘Your Russian friend – the big one. Christ, Ben. He’s the real deal. I’m not kidding.’

  ‘You mean Malin?’

  ‘Are you working for Tourna?’ Knight was talking down into the table and so quietly now that Webster could hardly make out what he was saying.

  ‘Do you want to know?’

  ‘Christ. No. I don’t, no.’ Knight played with his spoon in both hands, staring hard at it and occasionally glancing up.

  ‘Alan, I know you think I’m a greenhorn who plays with things he doesn’t understand but you can be too sensitive. No one’s here. No one can hear us. If anyone knows we’re together they don’t know what we’re talking about. You clearly know something about all this. Knowing you it’s a lot. And so far I haven’t found a sodding thing. What can you tell me?’

  Knight looked up and at Webster, as if trying to gauge his honesty once and for all. After a moment he said, ‘I don’t want a fee, no contract, nothing. What I tell you here is just what I know now. I’m not doing any work on this. And no notes.’

  ‘All right. That’s disappointing but I understand. Just tell me what you can.’

  ‘OK. OK.’ Knight was still fiddling with the spoon. ‘OK.’ He leant forward again, as if there were people at the next table intent on every word. The cafe was still empty. ‘First of all, he’s powerful. In his own right. He’s been in the ministry for longer than anyone else. He runs it. Has done for the last seven or eight years.’

  ‘How did he manage that?’

  ‘New minister, new administration. He saw his chance and took it. He knew more than anyone else. Controlled it all already, really. And he sold the Kremlin an idea of what Russia could be.’ Knight looked up at the door and back to Webster, who drank his tea and waited for Knight to go on.

  ‘Mighty once more. Not a second-class world citizen. Do you know how much gas Russia’s got? A fifth of the lot. Some days it produces more oil than Saudi. You look at how output’s gone up since Yeltsin went. That’s not private sector dynamism, that’s Kremlin pressure. And your friend is at the heart of it. He’s in the Kremlin directing policy and in the ministry enforcing it.’

  Knight put his spoon down and looked at Webster steadily for the first time.

  ‘So why is he so frightening?’ said Webster, returning his gaze.

  ‘Because of what he wants to do.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Every winter Russia switches off the pipelines to Ukraine, right? The press goes nuts, the Ukrainians make a lot of noise, not much happens in the negotiations and then the tap’s on again. That’s not about how much Ukraine pays for its gas. That’s Russia reminding the world that it’s there, and that it can’t be trusted. Anything might happen. Maybe they’ll stop supply to Europe altogether. Last winter the Romanians were freezing, next time it might be the Germans.’

  ‘OK. So what does Malin have in mind?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘It’s not going to help your case.’

  ‘Alan, just tell me. I need something. If I can’t use it you have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘OK,’ said Knight and looked set to begin when he called the waitress over and ordered more tea. ‘Do you want anything?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  When the waitress was the other end of the room he resumed. ‘OK. This is the thing. He wants to make Russia more powerful still. That’s what Faringdon’s for. Your friend was right.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘The girl. The journalist. In her article.’

  ‘Inessa?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What article? She never wrote about it.’ He was thrown, and annoyed to think that Knight knew something about Inessa that he did not. Even now any mention of her gave him a sharp jolt of parallel emotions: an urge to protect her memory; a need, still raw, to know who had killed her; a terrible lingering fear, almost an assumption now, that he would never be sure; and behind it all a thread of shame that he hadn’t done enough to find out. He hadn’t felt it in a long time, but here it was, familiar and fresh.

  ‘She was the only one who did. Years ago.’ He looked at Webster for a moment, genuinely puzzled. ‘You haven’t read it?’

  Webster shook his head. He knew all Inessa’s work. In the months after her death he had read every article, taking them apart, organizing them into themes, searching behind every word for some sort of certainty. Had he forgotten something? Or was Alan confused, finally addled by twenty years immersed in oil and conspiracy theories?

  ‘In Energy East Europe. Must have been summer ’99,’ said Knight.

  ‘No.’ Come to that, how had his researchers missed it?

  ‘Well read it. There wasn’t much of it but it caused a stir in my world.’

  Webster nodded. He hated to feel foolish; particularly, he hated to be unprepared. ‘I will.’

  ‘I don’t mean to open old wounds.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ He unclasped his watch, took it off his wrist and began to wind it. ‘I will.’ He looked up at Knight. ‘Tell me about Faringdon.’

  The look of incredulity hadn’t wholly left Knight’s face but he consciously changed mode and began. ‘It’s a vehicle. It buys things. Look at everything it owns. What we know it owns. Refineries in Bulgaria and Poland, new fields in Uzbekistan, producing fields in the Caspian and the Black Sea – Christ, PVC manufacturers in Turkey for God’s sake.’ Knight was excited now, talking faster but no louder than before. ‘Upstream, downstream, midstream. It’s huge. It must be the biggest private energy consortium in the world, and I probably don’t know half of it. You definitely don’t. Your friend caught it when it was newborn, more or less. It’s been growing ever since. Now, what do you think it’s for?’

  ‘A nest egg for Malin? Somewhere to put all that money he’s skimming.’

  ‘That’s part of it, but no. It’s for winning back what Russia lost in 1989. It’s part of the new economic empire. Put Faringdon together with everything that the oil majors own, and Gazprom, and everything else, and y
ou get Russia controlling half its neighbours’ energy industry – more even.’

  ‘Frightening thought.’

  ‘Isn’t it? It means they know everything that’s going on. And if the shit hits they own half the companies that matter.’

  Webster sat and thought about it. He wasn’t sure any of this made sense.

  ‘I can see some logic in it. What I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is why they’d bother. If there’s a real crisis they won’t be able to control what they own. And if they’re hiding the fact that they own it, it won’t make anyone more afraid of them.’

  ‘It’s about influence, Ben. And having options. And they know they own it, which makes them feel clever. Which they are, of course.’

  ‘And making money.’

  ‘And making money.’

  ‘What about Lock? Why involve him?’

  ‘The dummy oligarch? Because someone has to own everything. Or be seen to.’

  ‘But why him?’

  ‘Why any of those people? There’s always one. I don’t think it matters who it is.’

  Knight was right, thought Webster: this is less than useful to me, no matter how much of it is true. I need to expose Malin for corruption, not megalomania. Knight’s tea arrived. The first two fingers on his left hand were orange with nicotine. Usually by now, thought Webster, he’d have had at least one cigarette. He remembered him ranting inconsolably after Aeroflot finally banned smoking on all its flights.

  ‘Do you know Grachev?’ said Webster.