Chasing the Storm

by Martin Molsted

  “Did we have a tail?” Rygg asked.

  “I have no idea. But we take must take every precaution.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace special. As Lena has told you.”

  They drove out of the city, along a highway, and then south on a rutted country lane, moving past stands of birches and fields of green wheat. Marin kept glancing in the rear-view mirror, but they encountered no other vehicles except a horse-drawn cart piled high with manure, driven by a boy who looked about eight. He doffed his cloth cap at them as they passed, and Rygg suddenly felt he was back in Tolstoy’s era. After a while they turned onto an even smaller lane, and bumped down it for fifteen minutes until they arrived at a grove of old trees. Marin drove the car in under the trees before stopping beside an ancient van. They got out and stretched. The air smelled fresh and green, faintly of turned earth and melt-water. The ground was soggy underfoot. They walked through the trees on a narrow track, eventually reaching an A-frame wooden cottage, tiled with mossy cedar shakes, set in the ruins of a flower garden. It had crumbling gingerbread molding around the eaves. One window was bashed in and had been covered over with taped plastic. A twist of smoke rose from the chimney.

  “This was the dacha of my grandfather,” Lena said to Rygg. “You know dacha?”

  He shook his head.

  “Is like a house for the summer.”

  “Ah. Summer cottage kind of thing. This looks more like a modernized longhouse from the Viking era, though, with its A-shape.”

  “I came here when I was little girl, every summer in July. We swim in river. We pick mushrooms in autumn. Then when my father become rich, he make another dacha, very big, like palace, in Peredelkino, with all the other rich man. But always I like this dacha. I have good memory. Now it is forgotten, no one come here.”

  The door opened, and a skinny boy with long hair emerged. He kissed Marin on both cheeks and pumped his hand, speechless with pleasure, then kissed Lena’s cheeks and placed a hand on Rygg’s shoulder, pulling him inside. Three more young people crowded round them: two men and a plump, bespectacled girl. They greeted Marin with a joyful reverence, and Rygg thought the girl was even a little teary-eyed. Marin introduced Rygg. “These are my friends,” he said. “Yonas, Oleg, Mikhail, Valentina. I have not seen them for some months. They are the ones who do the arranging here in Russia. I have other friends, of course. Many are now in prison.”

  The dacha was cozy, with a bank of windows along one wall that laid trapezoids of sunlight across the wooden floor. A samovar burbled in a corner, and a couple logs fizzed in the fireplace. It smelled of tea and wood smoke. They sat around a long table before the windows. Valentina set out glasses and poured the tea. She laid out platters of pickled mushrooms and herring and black bread and cucumbers. Looking around the table, Rygg saw the four young people watching Marin with the kind of attentiveness he’d seen in business-school prospectives back at Iversen Foss. Marin smiled at them with a fatherly air. He lit a cigarette. Then he put a hand on Rygg’s shoulder.

  “First, Torgrim, we would like to hear about your meeting with Mr. Petrovich last night.”

  “I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to remember. I got pretty drunk, I’m afraid.”

  “Likely their intent. Do not worry. Lena will help you.”

  So, with Lena filling in details here and there, Rygg told the group about Petrovich.

  “Nikolai Petrovich is part of a new group of people,” Marin said. “He is what is known as a Yeltsinian oligarch. After perestroika, the government sectors were privatized. A number of the … unscrupulous members of society seized portions of the industrial and mining sectors. Coal, oil, gas, nickel. They became in a short time very, very wealthy. Mr. Petrovich is himself worth more than three billion dollars. He has, besides the house you saw yesterday, houses in France and Italy and the United States. He owns one of the largest private yachts in the world, which he has boarded only once because he is afraid of water. His favorite activity, as you saw yesterday, is to sit in his house with his friends, smoking and drinking vodka. This is also one of my favorite activities, of course, so I cannot blame him for this.” He looked at his cigarette ruefully and the young people laughed.

  “Despite his appearance,” Marin went on,” Mr. Petrovich is not a stupid man. He is not educated, but also he is not stupid. He knows how to use violence, for example. For him, violence is a tool and he has no restraint. He has no morals regarding violence. For this reason, we are careful around him.”

  “But why Petrovich?” Rygg said. “He’s in oil, like me. I mean, with different tactics, I suppose. But I thought we were after the weapons.”

  Marin nodded. “As Petrovich has pointed out to you, weapons and money are closely linked in modern Russia. In order to get to his position, it was necessary for him to be friends with the military. Particularly with the Ministry of Defense. In fact, his day-to-day business, as with many of the larger businesses in Russia, is actually run from the Ministry of Defense. There are two reasons for this.” Setting his cigarette on the rim of the ashtray, Marin held up a hand and gripped a finger. “One is protection. The Ministry of Defense is like a fortress. It is protected by tanks and soldiers, and there are three screens before you can get to the offices.” He seized a second finger, holding it against the first. “The second reason is that, while many of the other Russian ministries are rotting under bureaucracy, the Ministry of Defense is quite well run. Much better managed than the Ministry of Natural Resources, for example. There is corruption, but it is well-organized corruption, if you get my meaning.”

  “All right.”

  “Now,” Marin went on. “It would be impossible for me, or for any of these people, to get into the Ministry of Defense building. We are fingerprinted, and many signals would be set off. This is why we are delighted that you are able to visit Mr. Petrovich tomorrow, Torgrim.”

  “Ah ha, I see where we’re going, I think.”

  Marin nodded slowly. “Perhaps. But it will be difficult. It is, as the Americans say, a long shot.”

  “Okay. What’s the plan?”

  Oleg, the long-haired boy, brought a roll of paper from a side table while Valentina cleared a space on the table. Oleg slipped off the rubber band securing it and opened out the paper, pinning the corners with saucers. Marin stood up.

  “This,” he said, “is a blueprint of the Ministry of Defense.”

  For half an hour, Marin described the route Rygg would probably take, showing him the different checkpoints, the elevators, the hallways, and offices.

  Marin tapped the drawing in three places. “Here, here, here,” he said. “Look carefully now. Memorize.” He looked up. “Now, you occasionally wear spectacles, Torgrim.”

  “Just for reading, and not that often even then. My eyes are actually pretty good,” he said, a little defensively. It was an odd point of vanity with him.

  “But when you go to the Ministry of Defense, you will be wearing spectacles. Please give me your spectacles.” Rygg opened the briefcase and handed the glasses case over. Marin took out the glasses and replaced them with an identical pair. He slid the case back to Rygg. “Now you will put them on,” he said.

  Rygg did so. “What’s up?” he said. “They seem just like the others.”

  “And they are,” said Marin. “The same prescription, the same style. With one small difference. Here.” He held out his hand and Rygg passed the glasses over.

  “Look,” Marin said. He pointed to the round screw head beside the left-hand lens. “This is a miniature camera shutter. And look here.” He pressed the front of the frames, in the area between the lenses. There was a tiny click, barely audible. “If you press this area, just as if you are adjusting your spectacles, you understand, you will take a photograph.”

  “Let me see them again.”

  Marin handed them back. “Try,” he said. “Take a picture of me.”

  Rygg put on the glasses and pressed them back onto the bri
dge of his nose. He heard the tiny click.

  “Make the motion natural,” Marin said. “You are merely adjusting the spectacles. That is all. No facial expression. Better. Try again. Better.”

  “Can I see the pictures?”

  “To retrieve the pictures we must entirely dismantle the spectacles. This will be done at the end of the mission.”

  In the afternoon, Valentina handed baskets around and they all went out among the birches to hunt for mushrooms. Valentina and Oleg walked off hand in hand. Lena stayed by his side, leading him into the darkest corners of the forest, where the trunks leaned together and the mushrooms were most likely to grow, like stars sprung from the earth. She was like a little girl, pouncing on a cluster and exclaiming in Russian, teasing them up with gentle movements of her fingers. She had crumbs of soil on her palms, and each fingernail bore a half-circle of dirt.

  Rygg discovered a patch of half a dozen large morels, and she kissed his cheek. “These are the most delicious,” she said. “You will see!” They broke off orange shelves of fungus and found tiny golden mushrooms on long tapering stems, and fat gray ones that looked like the mushrooms he was used to.

  “In Anna Karenina,” she told him, as they rummaged through the sodden leaves, “there is a beautiful scene. Levin’s brother, Koznyshev, and Kitty’s friend Varenka are in love. But they are so shy. They go to hunt mushrooms. Everyone think they will come back and say they are engaged. But Koznyshev says nothing. He is shy. They come back, and nothing. Only mushrooms.”

  “So what are you saying, Lena?” Rygg asked with a grin.

  “It is a famous scene,” she said, avoiding his eye. “Look! There are mushrooms in there. I can smell them!”

  But when they reached the patch, she stayed his hand. “These are poison,” she said.

  “But they look just like the ones in your basket.”

  “Yes. Almost the same. And many people have died mistaking the difference. Now listen, Torgrim. Marko has asked me to tell you this. After you return from the ministry, at exactly two o’clock, a waiter from the hotel will come to your room to ask for rubbish. You will give him the can for the rubbish. But into the can you will put spectacles. You understand?”

  “Got it.” But why hadn’t Marin told him in the dacha? Had he forgotten?

  Chapter 13

  Ministry of Defense

  May 9

  The Russian Ministry of Defense building was a gigantic, graceless structure that sprawled along a riverbank. Innumerable tiny windows speckled the gray concrete of the exterior, which was roughly divided into three parts: two lower sections flanking a twelve-story central cube. A couple military trucks filled with riot police stood beside one of the lower sections, and half a dozen heavily armed guards scowled at Rygg as he got out of the Mercedes. One strode up to him and barked something. He handed over his passport and a paper Petrovich had given him, and the guard gestured that he should stay where he was. He felt as though snipers were peering at him from every tiny window, their rifles aimed at his brain. He didn’t typically intimidate easily, but this was definitely intense.

  Two of the guards conferred over the paper. Then one carried it inside, holding it in both hands. He was gone a long time. Rygg nodded and said, “How’s it going?” looking to the guard closest to him, but only succeeded in eliciting a more corrugated frown.

  Finally the guard who had taken his documents returned, accompanied by a man in a light-blue polyester suit. He had a thin, gray face and an ineradicable beard-shadow on his jaw. He smiled wanly. “Mr. Petrovich is awaiting you inside, Mr. Torgrim Rygg,” he said, in excellent English. “But first, the security checkpoints.”

  Under a vast square archway, Rygg had to place his briefcase on the trolley, then his belt and shoes and suit jacket. He walked through a metal detector and opened up the briefcase for the uniformed inspector, then busied himself with his belt and shoes while the inspector went through the documents. He took out the laptop and placed it in a tray behind him. “Mobile!” he barked.

  “You want my mobile phone?” Rygg held a closed hand to his ear.

  The inspector nodded.

  Rygg shook his head. “Left it back in Oslo,” he said. “I use email.” He pointed to the laptop. The inspector looked dubious, then shrugged. He tapped at the sides of the briefcase, then held the case up to his ear and knocked at it. Rygg’s heart gave a sluggish lurch: he’d found the hollow compartment. The inspector dumped out the documents and shook the briefcase beside his head. He shook it again. Then he set the folders back inside and shoved the case across the counter to Rygg.

  “My laptop,” Rygg said.

  “Chto vy govorite?”

  “My laptop. My computer.” He pointed to the tray.

  “Nyet. On ostaet sya zdes’.” He placed a palm firmly on the computer.

  Rygg shrugged. “Fine. Take care of it, though.” And he muttered “rasshøl,” as the blue-suited man led him off.

  “What?” the suit turned to him.

  “Nothing.”

  They had to go through two more metal detectors and a full pat-down (by a stern-faced blonde, to Rygg’s lasting delight) before they entered the elevators.

  Petrovich’s office was at the very top of the central structure. It was more like a hotel lobby than an office, with a bar along one side, two complete sofa sets, and a vast desk, polished to an ice-like gleam, on which lay only a cell phone. Not a book, not a pencil, not a picture of his kids. Just a cell phone. Everything in the room was shiny: chrome, polished leather, polished wood, marble flooring.

  Petrovich was standing at the far end of the room as they entered, his back to them, smoke curling above his head. The blue suit led Rygg past the sofa sets and the desk to where he stood looking out the window. Rygg stopped beside Petrovich and looked down. A barge trudged past on the river, but not a whisper of engine noise entered the room. Petrovich dragged on his cigarillo and spewed the smoke at the glass. “I am tsar,” he said. “You know tsar?” He spread his palm flat against the window, leaving a greasy print.

  “King, emperor.”

  “Yes. I am tsar. Of Moscow. Of Russia. Soon, of world.”

  “I came to the right place, then.”

  Petrovich turned to him and took his hand. “Come. Vodka.”

  They sat on fat leather armchairs that stank of old smoke. The leather, up close, was not as immaculate as it had seemed: there were round burn marks in several places. The blue suit, whose name Rygg never learned, fetched them glasses of vodka and then stood to one side, like an old-fashioned butler. Petrovich lit another of his black cigarillos and downed his vodka in a single swig. Holding his glass in both hands, he looked at Rygg for a minute, just staring at him. Finally he spoke, in a droning, grating monotone. The butler translated.

  “Romashkino oilfield,” he said, “has the potential to be one of the biggest in Asia. But it will take much of his money to complete exploration and begin drilling. Once the oil is streaming, however, the revenue will be many billions.”

  Petrovich stopped, and after a moment Rygg nodded encouragingly. “I understand you, Mr. Petrovich,” he nodded. “Yes. Lots of money to do the exploration. Sounds similar to the challenges we’re facing in northern Norway or the Alberta sands.”

  Petrovich made a flicking motion with his thumb and forefinger and said something to the butler. “Mr. Petrovich indicates that the Alberta oilfield is very small compared with Romashkino. Extraction will be difficult, but the results will be extraordinary.”

  “All the more reason for us to get involved.”

  “So what can you provide?”

  “Cash. Expertise. Contacts. Whatever you need, really.”

  “And how will the cash arrive?”

  “Bank to bank.”

  “And discretion?”

  “Three people will know about this at Iversen Foss: me, the boss, and our accountant, who’s on our side, if you know what I mean. That’s it.”

  “The government?’


  “The government’s completely shut out. Anyway, we’ve got a guy on the inside if necessary. Old university friend. Sits on the finance committee.”

  Petrovich stared at him for a painful thirty seconds, then heaved himself forward, clambered free of the clutches of the armchair, and stretched out his hand. “Congratulation,” he said.

  “I’m delighted to be a part of your endeavors, Mr. Petrovich. And now, I have a question for you. I drank a few glasses of your Russian tea this morning and the security people took up more time than I’d anticipated. If you take my meaning.”

  The butler relayed this, and Petrovich looked blank. The butler turned back to Rygg. “You would like tea?” he asked.

  Rygg shook his head. “I have to take a piss,” he explained, patting his bladder. Without a morsel of amusement, the butler conveyed this information, and Petrovich laughed his expressionless laugh. He waved at Rygg with the back of his hand and nodded to the butler.

  Rygg made a show of putting the briefcase on the chair. It will be an indication of your honesty, Marin had said. “Watch this for me,” he winked at Petrovich, patting the case. “Important documents inside.” Then he followed the butler out the door.

  At the end of the hall, the blonde security guard stood at attention, her weapon at her side. She was young, and buxom, with a hard-edged look. The butler handed Rygg over to her. She angled a cold stare at him, then swung about on her boot-heel and banged down the hallway. She led him left, left again, then right. Rygg could have done it with his eyes closed, thanks to Marin’s blueprint. He watched the blonde’s muscular haunches pumping within the khaki pants. At the door of the bathroom, she stopped and indicated it with the muzzle of her gun. Then she stood aside. Clearly, she had no plans to leave. Rygg paused a moment, hand on the door. Suddenly he had an idea.