Clearly showing her irritation, Alexandra didn’t exchange cards with anyone, and the air-kisses that followed were chilly. The party split up in the lobby.
“I’m going to do some shopping,” Alexandra announced. She didn’t invite Malko along, which was unusual. The others headed for the elevators.
Malko hadn’t been in his room for more than ten minutes when the phone rang. Probably Alexandra, he thought. She’s feeling guilty.
It was Zhanna.
“I’m downstairs in the spa,” she said in her somewhat harsh voice. “Alexei has gone to the bank, and will be there for a while. We could have a drink together.”
Malko nearly hung up on her. After a long silence, the Russian woman continued, sounding seductive:
“I absolutely must see you before you leave.”
There was more than sexiness in her tone, and Malko was intrigued.
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you in person. It’s important.”
She hung up without waiting for his answer.
After a long hesitation, Malko put on a jogging outfit and a white terry-cloth robe. Something told him that libido wasn’t the only reason Zhanna wanted to see him.
Chapter 3
A small elevator led directly to the spa on the ground floor. It had a view of the harbor and included an indoor pool, fitness and massage rooms, and a sauna. It also had a snack bar, whose only customer was Zhanna Khrenkov.
Seeing Malko, she brightened.
“I knew you would come!”
“How did you know?” he asked, sitting down.
“Because you’re not afraid of jealous husbands,” she said.
“Do you cheat on him often?” he asked sharply.
“Never. Besides, what makes you think I want to cheat with you?”
She really is a cool customer, thought Malko, remembering the scene in the Bentley and the young Russian woman’s tongue diving for his tonsils.
As if she could tell what he was thinking, she smiled and said:
“I know, I behaved like a teenager in heat. It was because of your strange golden eyes. It was a kind of fantasy, but it isn’t going any further.”
“In that case, why did you want to see me?”
“You’re a fascinating man. And right now I need somebody like you.”
“To do what?”
“I can’t tell you yet. I don’t have much time.”
“Then I don’t see how I can help you. As my friends the Ponickaus probably told you, I’m just a country squire who lives quietly in a castle in Austria.”
“They told me many good things about you. You’re a very romantic character.”
“Thank you,” said Malko, looking at his watch. “I’m going to join Alexandra in her shopping now. You and I probably won’t see each other again.”
A cloud crossed her face.
“If that were the case, I would be very disappointed,” she said. “I will be in London next month, and my husband is going to New York for a few weeks. I’d like to see you there.”
“I don’t live in London.”
“There are flights from Vienna.”
Zhanna had gotten to her feet. She gave him a searching look.
“If you come, you won’t regret it,” she said quietly.
Malko merely bowed, kissed her hand lightly, and headed for the door. He was determined to never again see this odd woman.
He took the only exit from the spa, a little hallway leading to the elevator. When he reached it, two people appeared behind him: burly guys in white T-shirts and pants, built like weight lifters.
Probably masseurs, he thought.
They politely stepped aside to let Malko into the small elevator cabin, which barely had room for the three of them. Suddenly one of the men turned and faced him. When Malko met his eye, he immediately understood he was no masseur. Before he had time to wonder further, the stranger viciously head-butted him.
Luckily, the man was a good six inches taller than Malko, so the blow landed between his eyes instead of breaking his nose. Malko groggily fell against the second “masseur,” who elbowed him in the ribs so hard he almost threw up.
Now bent over, he took a punch in the stomach that felt like a battering ram, and this time he vomited bile on his attacker’s crisp white T-shirt. The man jerked back, growling furiously. Then a muscular forearm clamped a headlock around Malko’s throat. He felt himself being lifted off the ground as the pressure on his carotid arteries increased.
He dimly realized that he was going to die in the little elevator without even knowing why.
After a few seconds, the pressure eased enough for Malko to gulp some air, but his relief was short. He screamed, feeling something sharp jab a quarter inch into his left side: a knife.
The man facing Malko leaned close enough to touch his face, and asked:
“Vui gavarite po russki?”
Malko nodded that yes, he spoke Russian. The man continued in that language:
“If you don’t want to die, never approach Zhanna Khrenkov again. Understand?”
Malko gulped and said, “Da.”
The man backed away and pulled the knife out. Then a hand ran down his body, and huge fingers grabbed his balls, crushing them.
“Never, got it?” the man said.
Malko thought he was going to throw up again.
Then the man pressed his thumbs on Malko’s carotids. In seconds, he felt the blood leaving his head and passed out, slumping heavily to the elevator floor. He vaguely felt the second man stepping over him, then nothing.
—
A woman’s screams finally brought Malko back to consciousness.
Opening his eyes, he saw sandals, a pair of sunburned calves, and the hem of a blue dress. Then the panicky face of a fat woman who was awkwardly trying to help him up.
“Are you all right?” She spoke French with a strong British accent. “You must call a doctor.”
Bracing himself against the elevator wall, Malko managed to get to his feet and force a smile.
“I’m okay,” he assured her in English. “I just got dizzy. The heat, you know.”
He stumbled out of the cabin, which was still at the spa level, and the elevator went up with the British woman on board. Leaning against the wall so as not to collapse, Malko felt he’d been put through the wringer.
It was unreal: he’d been savagely attacked in the most stylish hotel in Monte Carlo! Though truth be told, security wasn’t the Hôtel de Paris’s strong suit. Guests were checked as they came in through the main revolving doors, but after that, nothing. Anybody could go upstairs to the rooms, and there were very few security cameras.
Malko pressed the elevator button and glanced down at the spreading bloodstain on his shirt. The attack had been no dream.
He began to feel better only when he got to his room. Alexandra hadn’t returned, which was just as well. Malko tore off his clothes and ran to the bathroom for a long shower.
The hot water did him good.
Then he bandaged the wound and stretched out on the bed.
He cursed Zhanna Khrenkov, who knew full well how jealous her husband was. But he wasn’t especially surprised by the treatment he’d gotten. It was typical Russian brutality. The men who beat him up were professionals: military veterans turned bodyguards, used to killing first and asking questions later.
One thing mystified him, however. They seemed to know that he spoke Russian, whereas only Zhanna was aware of that. Who could have tipped them off?
Malko hadn’t answered the question before drifting off to sleep.
—
This time, Malko invited the Ponickaus to dinner at the Rampoldi, the famed Italian restaurant up the street from the casino. Alexandra, who hadn’t noticed anything unusual, was very much at ease. Also, she was delighted with her latest purchase: a tight, uniform-style dress with officer epaulets and a neckline that flirted with indecency. Teetering on six-inch heels, she was taller than any of them.
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Helmut Ponickau couldn’t take his eyes off Alexandra’s tanned breasts, and he wound up spilling half his basil spaghetti on the tablecloth.
Which tended to reinforce Malko’s suspicions. Maybe Alexandra actually did have two men come in her mouth the evening before.
“Let’s have a drink at the Hôtel de Paris bar,” suggested Ponickau, who was in no hurry to lose her, especially as the bar was within walking distance.
They had barely been shown to a table when the two women got up and went to the bathroom. Malko took advantage of their absence to ask:
“Helmut, have you told your Russian friends much about me?”
Ponickau gave a small, satisfied laugh.
“Of course. I told them how much I liked you.”
“Is that all?”
The Austrian baron leaned close, looking mysterious.
“I told them that nobody knows where you get the money you’re spending on your castle.”
“They must think I’m a crook.”
“Oh, no! I said a lot of people in Vienna think you’re a spy, that you work for the CIA. It’s an open secret, isn’t it?”
Before Malko could answer, the two women returned, and the men stood up for them.
—
With its dark woodwork and wide windows, the ambassador’s private dining room was pleasantly luxurious. The embassy was located on Boltzmanngasse, and Vienna’s famous Prater Ferris wheel could be seen in the distance.
Sitting at the table, Matt Hopkins grinned as happily as a schoolboy playing hooky.
“We’re lucky to be able to get in here,” said the Vienna CIA station chief to Malko. “The ambassador is a stickler for the rules. When he goes out of town, he locks his dining room. But His Excellency is in Washington all this week, and I’m friendly with his secretary.”
A Marine waiter took their drinks order the moment they sat down. Malko asked for vodka; his CIA colleague, Chivas on the rocks. They waited for the waiter to serve their drinks and a gazpacho appetizer before discussing anything serious.
“Did you come to Vienna by yourself?” asked Hopkins.
“No, Alexandra is with me. She’s out shopping. Then she’ll go home for the grape harvest.”
“You’ll have to introduce me to the countess sometime,” said Hopkins with a somewhat dreamy smile. “I’ve been told she’s very beautiful.”
The station chief had clearly been hearing about Malko’s voluptuous fiancée.
“Next time, Matt. I promise.”
As Hopkins finished his gazpacho, Malko said:
“So tell me, have you found out anything interesting about my two Russian friends?”
“You bet! They’re crooks, both of them. Big-time crooks.”
Hopkins pulled a file sheet from his pocket and summarized its contents. Born in 1962, Alexei Khrenkov was a brilliant graduate of the Moscow Institute of Finance and Economics. At age twenty-eight he went to work for Inkombank and soon became its president. In 1998 the bank started to collapse, and angry American stockholders discovered they’d been relieved of sixty million dollars.
“But Alexei goes on to bigger and better things,” said Hopkins.
In spite of his shady past, he became minister of finance for the Moscow region in March 2000. Four years later, he became vice minister of the Moscow Oblast, handling all real estate transactions and public contracting.
“This is where our boy really shows what he can do,” said Hopkins. “It’s also when his wife comes into the picture. This is Zhanna, formerly Bartok. After spending a few years in the United States, she returns to Russia and meets Alexei. They fall madly in love.”
They also become accomplices.
Advised by her husband, Zhanna Khrenkov set up a series of shell companies to process orders from the Moscow region, submitting invoices inflated by 40 to 75 percent. The scammed money was deposited in their offshore accounts.
“Meanwhile, Zhanna travels back and forth to the United States,” continued Hopkins. “Thanks to the money embezzled from the Moscow Oblast, she makes a splash in New York. She buys a residence on East Eighty-Third Street off Park Avenue and becomes a boldface name through her charity work. She brings the Russian National Orchestra to town and organizes a ‘Russia’ show at the Guggenheim Museum and in Miami.
“Zhanna also treats herself to a few trinkets,” he went on. “An investigation by the Moscow FSB’s financial section found that she spent twenty-six thousand dollars on shoes and lingerie in just one month in 2003.”
“Now there’s a woman who knows how to live!” exclaimed Malko sarcastically.
“At Inkombank’s expense, in those days,” said Hopkins. “But that was peanuts, compared to what comes next. Between 2004 and 2008, the two manage to skim twenty-seven billion rubles from the Moscow region; that was about seven hundred million dollars at the time. In 2008, they feel the wind shifting, and they quietly leave Russia and go abroad, dividing their time between New York, London, and the French Riviera.”
“So what did the Russian authorities do?” asked Malko.
“The Moscow FSB and the MVD both filed lawsuits against them, but no international arrest warrant was issued.”
“That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?”
“Our sources in Moscow say that Alexei Khrenkov has long been protected by General Boris Gromov, the commander of Soviet troops in Afghanistan until 1989. He was probably on the take as well.”
Just then, the waiter brought in lamb chops and broccoli and poured them an excellent Château La Lagune 1994.
“It’s a typical Russian story,” said Malko after the man left.
“So where did you run into our two friends?” Hopkins asked.
“At the Red Cross Ball in Monte Carlo, this summer.”
“Quite a step up for a forty-three-year-old Belarusian schoolteacher!” said Hopkins with a smile. “Why did you get interested in them?”
Malko saw no reason not to satisfy the station chief’s curiosity.
“It started with an innocent flirtation at the dinner,” he explained. “And it almost ended up very badly for me.”
Hopkins listened to the story of the elevator attack in fascination.
“Well, that completes the picture!” he said when Malko finished. “Not only is Zhanna Khrenkov a crook, she’s also cheating on her husband. I’ll add that to her file.”
“What do you make of the incident in the elevator?”
“Pretty much what I’d expect,” said Hopkins. “A guy like Khrenkov will have bodyguards, and you know the Russians aren’t given to subtlety.”
“That’s true, but I still don’t understand why this woman came on to me so strongly.”
The American burst out laughing.
“Malko! Everybody knows that you’re a born seducer. Zhanna’s probably bored, for all her money. She wanted to have a fling.”
“It still seems odd,” said Malko, shaking his head. “She just isn’t the type. She’s a cold fish, and doesn’t have any special charm.”
“You’re being too modest. What other reason could she have?”
“I don’t know,” Malko admitted. “But her persistence surprised me. The last time we talked, she asked me to come see her in London, where she has an apartment. She spoke of some mysterious reason that she would tell me about later.”
“That’s normal enough. She’s following through.”
“But she has a husband who keeps an eye on her.”
Hopkins grinned again.
“Here’s what I find interesting, Malko. I get the sense that you want to see her again. And mind you, I can’t provide Agency protection in that case. It’s strictly private business. So try not to get yourself roughed up too badly.”
Malko smiled without answering, and they talked about other things until the coffee came.
Privately, he had to admit that the CIA station chief was right. Was Zhanna drawn to him because Helmut had hinted that he worked in intelligence? Or did the two croo
ked Russians have some twisted plan to use him?
He glanced at his Breitling. Alexandra would be getting impatient.
“I’ll be heading back to Liezen later,” he said. “You’ll have to come visit sometime. It will give you a chance to meet Alexandra.”
A delighted Hopkins walked him out to the embassy courtyard, where Malko’s butler/bodyguard, Elko Krisantem, was waiting at the wheel of the Jaguar.
—
Alexandra was sitting in the Rote Café, wearing a print dress Malko had never seen before. It was tight and revealing in all the right places, the way she liked it. Malko sat down and put his hand on her thigh.
“You’re looking very sexy!”
“That’s exactly what one of your friends said a moment ago,” she said with a teasing smile. “So what did those spooks of yours have to say?”
Alexandra hated Malko’s parallel existence, but she recognized that he needed the CIA assignments to support his lifestyle—and hers.
“There might be a little something in London. Making a contact. You like London, don’t you?”
Alexandra frowned.
“You know perfectly well that I can’t leave the vineyard now. The fermentations are complete, and I have to do the tastings, not to mention keeping an eye on the pruning. I probably shouldn’t even have come to Vienna today. Anyway, I’d like some champagne before we head back to the country.”
Within minutes they were toasting each other with Taittinger Brut.
“Ah, that’s better,” she said with a contented sigh. “Champagne really is a wonderful drink.”
A little later, as they were driving to Liezen, Malko wondered why he had lied to her. It was far from clear that he would be seeing Zhanna Khrenkov, or even that he wanted to.
His id had spoken in his stead.
—
While Alexandra was changing, Malko went into the library to read, and Krisantem brought him the day’s mail on a tray. A large envelope with a British stamp caught Malko’s eye, and he opened it first.
Printed on gold embossed stationery, it was an invitation from the ambassador of Kazakhstan to Great Britain to an evening at Christie’s the following week for a gala honoring Kazakh art.
Turning the invitation over, Malko saw a large red mark on the back: it was a kiss, in bright scarlet lipstick.
Lord of the Swallows Page 3
