The Moscow Code

by Nick Wilkshire

  Ivanova turned to Sophie and gave her a look that was somewhere between compassion and guilt. “I just heard about Steve a few days ago. I am very sorry.”

  “Thank you. How well did you know him?” Sophie asked, getting right to the point.

  Ivanova smiled demurely. “We met through work about three months ago. Steve hadn’t been in Moscow very long.”

  “Do you work at Technion?” Charlie asked, flipping open a little notebook he had brought from the office.

  Ivanova shook her head. “I work for a different company — office supplies. I was making a delivery to Technion when I first met Steve.” She smiled, seeming to recall the occasion well. “He was very … charming and funny.” She stopped and looked guiltily at Sophie, who urged her on.

  “Were you in a relationship with him?”

  “Yes, we began seeing each other. Not serious … I mean, we just enjoyed each other’s company very much. We went to dinner and some parties. I introduced him to some of my friends.”

  “Were you at the party where he was arrested?” Charlie asked, prompting an emphatic shake of her head.

  “I was not feeling well. Steve tried to convince me to go, but I didn’t. I heard from a friend who was there what happened. I tried to visit Steve when I heard …” She looked at Sophie, who was doing a good job of reining in her emotions. “They wouldn’t allow anyone to visit. Then the other day, I heard he had died.” She stopped and her eyes welled with tears. “I just don’t understand.”

  “What did your friend tell you about what happened the night of the party?” Charlie asked, more aware than ever of Sophie’s struggle to maintain her composure.

  Ivanova reached for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “The police raided the party. They said they were looking for drug traffickers, and they took everyone downstairs and threw them into their trucks. But then they let everyone go. Except Steve.”

  “Did they say why they were keeping him?” Charlie prompted.

  “No … I don’t know. Nobody knew. It was so stupid that the police would even come.”

  “Why?” Sophie asked.

  “It was a nice party, just some friends. A couple of people had some marijuana, but it was not a drugs party, you know?”

  “Do you know if Steve was smoking marijuana that night?”

  Ivanova shrugged. “He usually had a joint — at a party, I mean,” she added quickly.

  “Look Ms. … Can I call you Tania?” Sophie was leaning forward on the edge of the sofa.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I know Steve smoked the odd joint. All I’m interested in is anything that could explain why he was the only one who was taken away that night, apart from being a foreigner.”

  Ivanova was shaking her head. “No, it makes no sense.”

  “Were there any other foreigners at the party that night?” Charlie asked.

  “I don’t know. There could have been, but I wasn’t there. I’m sorry.”

  He glanced at Sophie before moving on. “Did Steve mention a trip he made to Kazakhstan?”

  Ivanova seemed to perk up at the mention of it. “Yes, he went to Astana — in August. He seemed very excited, but I don’t really know why.”

  “Astana’s nothing to get excited about?”

  Ivanova shrugged again. “I have never been, but no, I don’t think so. But Steve was very eager to go.”

  “He didn’t say why?”

  “Not really. He said it was important for something he was working on.”

  “What was he working on?” Sophie asked, eager to get back into the exchange and sensing they were entering new ground.

  “I asked him a few times. I told him I could tell he was very … excited, but he would just smile and say he’d tell me later, when he got back.”

  “And did he?” Sophie was practically falling off the sofa by now, but her hopes were dashed by another of Ivanova’s shrugs.

  “No, he was very different when he returned. As though he had lost something.” Ivanova paused and looked at Sophie, then at Charlie before continuing. “I don’t think he was ever the same again after he got back from Astana. Whenever I asked him what was wrong, he would just say no —”

  “No biggie?”

  Ivanova looked up at Sophie and smiled. “Yes, exactly.”

  “One of his favourite expressions,” Sophie said, then a pall of silence descended on the room.

  “What about Paris?” Charlie said, restarting the conversation. “Did Steve mention going there? It would have been a couple of weeks after he got back from Astana.”

  Ivanova looked puzzled. “Paris? No, he never said anything about Paris. Did he go there?”

  “We think so, yes,” Sophie said.

  “It must have been around the time I was very busy at work. I didn’t see Steve for about a week. What was he doing in Paris?”

  “We were hoping you might tell us,” Charlie said, then flipped over a page in his notebook. “Back to the night of the party. Is there anyone else we could talk to who was there? What about Steve’s friend, Sergei Yermolov?”

  Ivanova’s face hardened. “I wouldn’t call him a friend.”

  “No?” Charlie looked up from his notes. “Steve gave me his name as someone I could talk to. I got the impression they were friends.”

  “Sergei thinks only of Sergei,” Ivanova said in a tone that made her feelings about him clear.

  “But they knew each other.”

  “Yes, and I wouldn’t be surprised that Sergei was there. There were a lot of girls there — girls he would have been interested in.”

  “Do you mean … party girls?” Sophie asked.

  “Yes, that kind of girl is Sergei’s specialty,” she said with a frown. “Girls he can impress with his fancy clothes and expensive clubs. No friends of mine.”

  “You don’t like him,” Charlie said. “Why not?”

  “He is very full of himself — arrogant. And like many other things and people in this city,” she added, her eyes narrowing with contempt, “corrupt.”

  Charlie prompted her and tried to tease out more information, but it was clear Ivanova had little else to add. Fifteen minutes later he and Sophie were back out on the street, where the rain had turned to icy pellets of sleet.

  “Well, she wasn’t much help,” Sophie said as they set off for the Metro station.

  “Maybe, maybe not. I’m curious about this trip to Astana, especially since Steve’s co-worker didn’t seem to think it had anything to do with work.”

  “So why the hell would Steve go to Kazakhstan? And why was he so excited about it?”

  “Why indeed,” Charlie said as the bright light above the station beckoned to them from down the busy street. One thing was for sure, he was going to have another chat with Sergei Yermolov.

  Chapter 20

  Charlie gave the text of the diplomatic note one more glance before signing it and putting it on top of his out tray. He continued to stare at it for a few seconds, in some fruitless attempt to render it more meaningful. But he knew that it would elicit a very polite response from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the effect that he could take his request for an extension of Dr. Sophie Durant’s visa and shove it up his ass. Despite his assurances to Sophie the evening before, he knew he was virtually powerless to extend her stay beyond the end of the week, even with a well-placed call from the ambassador.

  Since the meeting at the MFA, Charlie had been receiving not-so-subtle hints that the Russians didn’t like Sophie’s line of inquiry. For starters, he had been informed upon his arrival at the embassy this morning that the release of the official police report was going to take a few more days. As for the report on the internal investigation at the prison — if such a document actually existed — it seemed to have fallen into the same bureaucratic black hole. Charlie was beginn
ing to wonder if Sophie would have either of the reports in hand before she was forced to leave the country. She was due to call in around mid-morning, and the thought of breaking this unhappy news added to the gloom he felt each time he looked out the window at the grey morning sky. If his performance at the MFA meeting the day before had left her with the impression that he was an inept and ball-less bureaucrat, this latest development would do little to improve her impression of him, not to mention his own self-esteem.

  Charlie sipped the tepid coffee at the bottom of his cup and scanned the papers on his desk, settling on the BayCo logo. After staring at it for a few seconds, he clicked open his email address book and typed in a name, then an alternative spelling, before coming up with his counterpart in Astana. He dialled the number and tapped the letter with a pencil while his call rang through. Charlie had never been to Astana, although he had been on a conference call with someone in Almaty — the former capital, before the Kazakh president had decided to relocate it to what twenty years before had been a frozen wasteland.

  “Doug Cullen.”

  “Charlie Hillier, from Moscow. How are you?”

  “Not bad, not bad,” Cullen replied, in a friendly tone. “Though the weather’s taken a turn for the worse here. How’s Moscow?”

  “Not too bad so far. Getting cold there?”

  “Went down to minus twenty last night and it’s only November. Makes Ottawa seem like Florida.”

  Charlie laughed. He knew Cullen was into the second year of his posting to Kazakhstan, having arrived the summer before, and he had the distinct impression that Cullen was looking forward to the end of his two-year stint. “Hope you brought your parka.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t planning on breaking it out until after Christmas. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to ask you about a company — a property de­­veloper, actually. It’s called BayCo.”

  “They looking to build us an embassy in Moscow?”

  “So you’ve heard of them.”

  “I guess so. They sold us the official residence here and wanted to build us a new embassy last year, but HQ couldn’t make up its mind.”

  “I didn’t realize the Department had dealt with them before.”

  “Oh, yeah. Dmitri Bayzhanov’s quite a character. A real schmoozer, and he can put the vodka away like you wouldn’t believe.” Cullen sighed, as though recalling an awful hangover. “I heard he was getting into the Moscow market. He might as well — he’s already built half of Astana.”

  “So he’s a big player there?”

  “He owns half the city, literally. Close friend of the president’s, too.”

  “And how’d the residence work out?”

  “It’s all right. It’s got a few leaks, but that’s par for the course around here. The building standards leave a little to be desired, but he’s probably the best of the local builders. Are you looking at a new build or to rent?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s actually Rob Brooker who’s in charge of the property file, and it’s early days. I was just curious about the company, generally. Whether they’re legit.”

  “I’d say they’re legit, to the extent any developer can be in this neck of the woods,” Cullen added with a chuckle. “I’m sure Moscow’s even worse.”

  “You mean corruption?”

  “I wouldn’t even call it that, really,” Cullen continued. “It’s so ingrained in the system, it’s just a normal part of doing business.”

  “So BayCo’s no better or worse than any of the others?”

  “You could talk to the property guys in Ottawa if you want a better sense of what BayCo’s like. They had some preliminary discussions about a new building with a few local developers, including Bayzhanov. Like I said, they ended up leasing something shorter-term, until we can figure out what we’re doing with the Almaty office.”

  Charlie tapped his finger on the BayCo letter, eyeing the logo again. “And you figure these guys are pretty new to Moscow, then?”

  “Pretty sure. But it makes sense that they’d move into that market. I hear it’s on fire, and Astana’s overbuilt now.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie said, remembering what Brooker had said about Moscow’s commercial real-estate market recently surpassing London and Paris on a cost-per-square-metre basis. “It’s pretty crazy around here. And now word’s out that we might be looking to buy, they’re starting to come out of the woodwork.”

  “I’ll bet. Listen, I’m gonna be in Moscow for meetings later this week. I’ll do a bit of digging on BayCo before I come, if you want.”

  “Sure,” Charlie said. “I’ll buy you lunch if our schedules match up.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Charlie hung up the phone and was still staring at the letter in his hands when he sensed someone at his office door. He looked up to see Rob Brooker standing there, an excited look on his freckled features.

  “What is it?”

  “Petr Square got the green light. Oleg just called.”

  “So he wasn’t bullshitting us at the reception.”

  “Apparently not. They officially got their permit and construction’s supposed to resume tomorrow. Oleg wants to set up a meeting.”

  “I’ll bet he does,” Charlie said, as his assistant appeared at the door.

  “The MFA called,” Irina said. “That report from the prison that you’ve been waiting for is ready. Do you want them to send it or shall I have a driver pick it up?”

  “Let’s have it picked up for sure,” Charlie said, not wanting to wait three weeks for it to be delivered. “Thanks.”

  “I’ve got to deal with this right now,” he said to Brooker, fumbling through the papers on his desk for the Marriott’s number. “But let’s talk about Petr Square later,” he added, picking up the phone as Brooker disappeared with a nod. He dialled the number and was soon connected to Sophie Durant’s room.

  “Hello?” She sounded groggy. He checked his watch and hoped he hadn’t interrupted a sleep-in.

  “It’s Charlie. I wanted to let you know the report from the Ministry of Corrections is ready.” He heard a sneeze at the other end of the line.

  “Excuse me. I think I’m coming down with a cold, on top of everything else.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m going to have it picked up this morning, and we’ll do a rough translation right away. If you wanted to come by to go over it … or I can just drop it off at the hotel.”

  “My Russian’s kinda non-existent,” Sophie said. “I’m meeting with another investigator at three for an hour, and I’m told it’s a bit of a hike from here, so I might not be back until after five.”

  “You arranged a hotel car?”

  “You think I’m going to trust a cab in this town?”

  “Just making sure.” He paused to consider options. “Well, I can have my assistant make a translation and take you through it when you get back.”

  “That would be great. Do you want me to drop by the embassy, or …”

  “Why don’t you call when you get back and I’ll swing by.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. As for this investigator, I thought you already had one.”

  “I did, but he was useless. I did some research online and found a firm that looks legit. I’m meeting with an investigator named Povetkina — Natalia Povetkina.”

  Charlie frowned but said nothing. “All right. Good luck.”

  “I’ll call you later. And thanks, Charlie. I appreciate this.”

  He hung up the phone and sighed, looking from the file sitting in the middle of his desk to the one on top of the pile at the far left corner, trying to figure out which was more pressing. Neither was particularly interesting, but both had the potential to bite him in the ass if he didn’t spend some time on them. He opted for the one in front of him, and as
he looked up at his monitor for the latest email traffic, he noticed an information bulletin sitting unopened in his mailbox. Clicking on it, he saw that it was a reference to the same story that had been circulating for the past couple of weeks, about the massive and anonymous online deposit of information exposing the offshore holdings of thousands of Russians. He read the summary update, which covered far more than just Russia, with millions of electronic files detailing various tax-shelter schemes around the globe, some legal but most not. Most of the Russian money was apparently being stashed in Cyprus or Panama, whereas the Cayman and Cook Islands seemed more popular for Western European and North American tax dodgers. The more he read, the more interested he became, especially when a link redirected him to a list of companies and individuals whose shareholdings had been leaked. He scanned the list for a minute, finding himself in the Bs and realizing there were literally thousands of listings. He was about to close the link when a name caught his eye — Bayzhanov. He leaned forward in his chair and focused on the list. There were actually three Bayzhanovs, and working his way up the list, he made out Bayzhanov, Oleg; then Bayzhanov, Fedor; and finally, Bayzhanov, Dmitri. He stared at the name for a moment, holding the cursor over the column to the right of the name that listed the number of shares Bayzhanov purportedly held in a Cyprus company called Kvartal.

  He stared at the screen for a few more minutes, then made some scribblings on a pad and headed out the door with a sheet of paper. He was on his way to the other building when he bumped into one of the trade officers on his way to the cafeteria.

  “Bill, I had a question for you — sort of trade-related.”

  “Shoot,” the other man said. In his mid-thirties and always well-dressed, Bill Halston was the prototypical foreign-service officer, designed for the easy banter of trade fairs and other events aimed at facilitating Canadian business contacts with the Russian market.

  “I’m looking for shareholders in a particular company.”

  “Russian company?”

  “Russian and Cypriot, actually.”