American Assassin (21 page)

CHAPTER
38
MOSCOW, RUSSIA

I
VANOV
placed the handset back in the cradle and reached for the glass of vodka. It was snatched from his grasp a split second before his hand got there. His fingers closed and found air. He blinked several times before looking up and seeing Shvets holding the glass. “Mine,” was all he could manage to say.

Shvets wanted to tell him he spoke like a toddler when he was drunk, but it would do no good at this point. “What did he say?”

“He has no idea.”

“Your sure?” Shvets should have listened on the extension. When his boss got like this he was extremely unreliable.

“What’s there to be sure about?” He pushed himself away from his desk and leaned back in his high-back leather chair. “The man is a camel jockey. He is not smart enough to steal this money from us.”

Shvets would have loved nothing more at this exact moment than to tell his alcoholic boss that Sayyed was smarter than him, but he’d seen him shoot people for such insolence. “I should go to Hamburg?”

“No. I need you here. Send Pavel.”

Now there was an idiot,
Shvets thought. Pavel Sokoll was fine with numbers and balance sheets, but borderline retarded when it came to everything else in life. Sending him to Hamburg would get them nowhere. “We need answers, and I’m afraid sitting here will not get us any. Sending Pavel will only add to the confusion. You won’t allow me to discuss this with anyone other than you or Pavel, so getting those answers is going to be very difficult.”

“But I need you here.”

“There will be no ‘here’ in a few days,” he said with some force. “Once word gets out that the money is missing the phone will start ringing and sooner or later it will be kicked upstairs, or worse across town, and once that happens, they will pull you in.”

“Us! You mean us!” he half screamed. “Your wagon is hitched to mine.”

“Trust me, a minute doesn’t pass that I don’t think of it.”

“And I have been good to you.”

“Yes, you have,” Shvets said halfheartedly.

“And I will continue to take care of you. We just need some answers.”

“What we need is money,” he said, trying to get Ivanov to see the fundamental problem. “Answers might lead us to the money, but we will not get those answers sitting here in Moscow.”

“Stop speaking in riddles.”

“Just let me go to Hamburg and see what I can find out. I will fly out tonight, and if all goes well, I’ll be back on the first flight in the morning.”

“And what am I going to do?”

Shvets’s solution was suddenly very clear. “Go out and get drunk. Order up some women and go to Hotel Baltschug.”

Ivanov frowned. He was in no mood to socialize.

“You must keep up appearances. You know how this town is. If rumors start that you are in trouble and no one sees you in public they will believe the rumors. If they see you out acting as if everything is normal they won’t believe the rumors.” Shvets was willing to say almost anything to convince him. Sitting here in this office was getting them nowhere. He’d seen his boss in these funks before. Usually only for a day or two. Always a pity party, but somehow the heaps of despair and recrimination eventually focused him, and he came out of it like a bear ready to charge. And when that happened, Shvets had better have a better understanding of what had happened, or he could end up being the casualty.

He suggested, “Bring Alexei and Ivan. They will make sure you are taken care of.”

Yes
, Ivanov thought.
My two Luca Brasis. No one would dare challenge me with them as my companions.
Ivanov felt better just thinking of his two loyal soldiers, and besides, some flesh might be the remedy for his dismal attitude. And he wanted a drink. “Fine,” he relented, “but I want you to call me as soon as you hear something.”

Shvets turned tentative. They’d done enough talking on the phones today, and in this new era of electronic surveillance, there was no telling who was listening. “I promise,” he lied as he started for the door. “And remember … act like nothing has changed tonight.”

CHAPTER
39
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

R
APP
entered the study a few minutes before six and found Hurley alone, a phone in his left hand and a drink in his right, staring out the French doors at the snow-capped mountains in the distance. Hurley glanced casually over his shoulder, the phone pressed against his left ear, to see who it was, and then went back to what he was doing. Rapp glided across the room, stepping from the hardwood floor onto a large Persian rug. The library was on two levels. The second floor consisted of a catwalk that accessed the stacks of books lining the four walls. There wasn’t a dust jacket on a single book.

A large wood-paneled door to Rapp’s left opened with a click. Herr Ohlmeyer appeared, a warm smile on his face. He held up one of his long fingers and silently motioned for Rapp to join him. Rapp glanced at Hurley to see if the man wanted to discuss anything, but he was still on the phone, so he followed Ohlmeyer into a much smaller windowless office.

Something about the room felt different. Off in some way. When Ohlmeyer closed the door, there was a click of finality and then near total silence. Only the faint hum of a CPU. Rapp became aware of his own breathing and then realized the room was soundproof. The floor was elevated a few inches, and the walls and ceiling were built-in and covered in fabric. Behind the desk with the triple screens was a bank of black-and-white security monitors three high and five across. In front of the desk was a small conference table maybe forty-eight inches across. It had four bland wood chairs. The room was such a stark contrast to the rest of the house that Rapp couldn’t help but take notice.

Ohlmeyer could see the younger man’s interest and said, “In my business one must take certain precautions.” He pulled out one of the chairs, told Rapp to sit, and then grabbed a file from his desk. Placing it on the conference table, he said, “I admire what you are doing. This is not an easy life you have chosen.”

Rapp nodded in a noncommittal way, but other than that did not respond.

“Do you have any regrets so far?”

Without hesitation, Rapp said, “No.”

“No problems sleeping … no second thoughts?”

“I’m not a big sleeper.”

Ohlmeyer smiled and scratched the dimple on his chin. “Your type rarely is.”

“My type?”

“Yes. The hunter. It is imprinted in your genetic code. Almost everyone has it, dormant for thousands of years. In many there isn’t enough of it left to do them any good. They spend their days in sedentary jobs that challenge them neither physically or mentally. They do not have your abilities and your drive, of course.”

Rapp supposed there was a good deal of truth in his words; he simply had not put a lot of time into thinking about it.

“I have some documents here,” Ohlmeyer said as he tapped the file. “Stan knows about this, but he does not want to know the details.”

“Details?” Rapp asked, wondering what Hurley was up to now.

“You are in a very dangerous line of work. You are but a small vessel in a harbor packed with giant supertankers. Those supertankers bump up against each other sometimes, causing little harm to themselves, but to you it is the end.” He clapped his hands together, signifying the destruction of Rapp’s boat. “In your work, you need a special kind of insurance, and do you know why?”

Rapp could hazard a guess but he got the idea Ohlmeyer would prefer to do the talking. “Not really.”

“Because those supertankers don’t really care about you. They may lament your misfortune, but only briefly. The tanker, the ego of the captain, all comes before you. Think of it as the ship of state, if you will. You are young, and if you are lucky your career will last for another four decades. During that time your handlers will come and go and the political winds of change will reverse directions more times than you will be able to count, and sooner or later it is likely that someone within your own government will begin to think of you as a problem. Ships of state do not like to be embarrassed, and if that means sinking a small vessel every once in a while … well, that is a price they are willing to pay.”

Rapp had a bad feeling. He looked at the file and said, “What’s that all about?”

“It is your insurance policy.” Ohlmeyer opened the file and clipped to the first sheaf of documents was a Swiss passport. “Stan has assured me that your French is perfect.”

Rapp nodded.

“And your Italian, German, and Arabic?”

“My Italian is good, my German is weak, and my Arabic is pretty good.”

Ohlmeyer nodded. That matched with what Hurley had told him. “I have prepared three separate legends for you. Swiss”—he slid the set of documents out of the file, followed by two more. “French, and Italian. You will need to memorize everything in these files and, most important, you will need to visit Paris and Milan in the coming weeks.”

“Why?”

“You now own a safety deposit box in each city, and one in Zurich, but I will take care of that one for you. You will want to place certain things in these safety deposit boxes. Things that will help you survive should you need to go underground, as they say.”

Rapp frowned. “Does Stan know about this?”

“It was his idea. Mine as well, but we did the same thing for him years ago.” He slid over a blank sheet of paper with three names on it. The first two were French and the third was Italian. “Please practice signing each of these a few times before I have you sign the signature cards.”

Rapp took the pen and began practicing the name Paul Girard. “Why isn’t Stan handling this?”

“He does not want to know the details.”

“Why?”

“Because every man in your profession needs a few secrets.”

“Even from his own boss and government?”

“Especially from your boss and your government.”

Rapp was wondering how he was going to keep all of these different aliases straight. Hurley had already given him two, and here were three more. He practiced a few times on the other names and then signed the cards.

“In each box,” Ohlmeyer said, “will be twenty thousand dollars in cash, various documents, such as birth certificates, in case you lose the passport, and a matching set of credit cards and driver’s license. As I said, you will want to add certain things to each box, but you should talk to Stan about that. There is also a numbered account here in Switzerland that I will be administering.”

“A numbered account,” Rapp said, barely able to conceal his surprise.

“Yes, Stan has requested that as well, and told me that it is up to my discretion to release the funds.”

Rapp was tempted to ask the size of the account, but instead said, “May I ask you a personal question?”

Ohlmeyer nodded, with a smile, as if he already knew the question.

“Why are you doing this … helping us?”

“We will discuss it over dinner tonight, but the short answer is that I believe in freedom.”

“Freedom,” Rapp said as he turned the word over in his mind for a second. “That’s a pretty vague term.”

“Not really, but if it helps you understand my motivation, you’ll need to understand that I grew up in East Germany. I saw what the Soviets were really like.”

Rapp’s mind was filled with a menagerie of black-and-white atrocities, courtesy of the
World at War
shows he saw as a kid. “So you hate the Russians.”

Ohlmeyer gave a little laugh and said, “Let’s just say I believe in good guys and bad guys.”

CHAPTER
40
HAMBURG, GERMANY

B
Y
early afternoon they learned that Dorfman was dead. The news sent Ivanov into a fit of rage. He went on for a good five minutes, ranting that he had never trusted the man, which caused Shvets to silently ask himself why the fool had let a man he didn’t trust handle such a large sum of money. After that, Ivanov, whose job and nature was to be paranoid, spewed out no fewer than a dozen conspiracy theories in as many minutes. He was convinced that Dorfman had gotten drunk and whispered secrets in the wrong person’s ear. That this person had then decided to bump Dorfman off and take the money for himself. But then again, there were supposed to have been safeguards in place, so the criminals had to have had a certain level of sophistication.

Ivanov had a long list of enemies that he ran through. There was a Cuban general he’d screwed over in an information swap five years earlier. How that man could possibly fit into this scenario was beyond Shvets, but he’d asked for the list of possible suspects so he simply listened and let Ivanov purge the information from his vodka-soaked brain. There was a German industrialist whom he’d fleeced a year earlier, a Spanish tycoon as well, and then there were a host of Jews and Bolsheviks who had been out to get him for years. None of it appeared to be useful, but then again maybe it was.

Shvets took the information and boarded a Lufthansa flight to Hamburg. Before leaving he’d called their man at the consulate and told him to work his contacts with the local police and get him a copy of the crime scene report. When he arrived at five-thirty-six that evening, Petrov Sergeyevich was waiting for him, the report in hand. Shvets had met Petrov briefly a few years earlier. After a polite exchange, Shvets told him to drive him to the bank. He sat in the passenger seat and read the report. Herr Dorfman had been stabbed in the thigh and shot once in the head. His wife was found bound and gagged and locked in the basement. She reported two men wearing masks entering the house at approximately ten in the evening. She did not hear them speak and could not give police a description other than the fact that they were roughly the same size.

The dogs, strangely enough, were unharmed. One was locked in the basement with the wife and the other was found wandering around the first floor. At some point the latter dog stepped in the pool of blood by Dorfman’s head and then tracked it around the first floor. There was no sign of forced entry and none of the neighbors had seen a thing. Shvets found it interesting that the wife and dogs were unharmed. That more than likely ruled out the vying factions in Moscow, although if Shvets was advising them, he would have tried just this thing to throw off a man like Ivanov. Whoever they were dealing with was very professional.

Shvets finished the report, closed it, and decided it was nearly useless. Anything was possible. Dorfman could have told someone about the money and that someone could have gotten the idea in his head to steal it. Twenty-six million dollars could do that to certain people. Shvets had thought about it himself. He had the skill set to make it work. It would have been so much easier if Dorfman had stolen the money and tried to disappear. They would have tracked him down. They always did. The fools habitually ran off to some beachside resort where they naively thought they would blend in with the locals and tourists.

They reached the bank shortly after six-thirty and Shvets weighed the benefits of having Sergeyevich accompany him into the building. He decided against it. There was no need for muscle. At least not yet, he hoped, and besides, the fewer who knew about Ivanov’s vulnerable position the better. The bank was typical. Tall, covered in glass, and imposing, all meant to give the impression of stability and security. It was one of many things Shvets was counting on.

The armed guard who tried to stop him in the lobby told him the bank was closed, but Shvets assured him that he did not wish to make a financial transaction. He was tempted to add that that was, of course, unless the guard could somehow refund the $26 million that had been stolen from Shvets’s employer and associates, but Shvets was fairly certain that this man was incapable of making that happen, so he instead asked to see the head of security.

When the security guard hesitated, Shvets said, “Of course this has something to do with Herr Dorfman’s death.”

That changed things significantly, and in less than a minute Shvets had been escorted to the top floor, where he came face-to-face with another, much older security guard. Same white shirt with black epaulets and black pants. Shvets flashed his SVR credentials and told the man secrecy was of the utmost importance. He was then told that the bank president was extremely busy.

“No doubt meeting with the board of directors.” The uncomfortable look on the man’s face gave him the answer he was looking for. “I will wait no more than two minutes. Tell him now, and tell him that it involves Herr Dorfman. There are some very influential people in Russia who require some immediate answers.”

Shvets sent the man off to deliver the message. Less than a minute later, the guard came back down the hall with a well-dressed man who looked as if he had been through a difficult day. The guard stood awkwardly nearby while the bank president said, “I am Herr Koenig. How may I help you?”

“I am Nikolai Shvets. I am with the Russian government.” He again flashed his gilded badge and then, nodding toward the receptionist, said, “Is there a place where we can have a word in private?”

“Yes,” the banker offered, nodding enthusiastically. “Please follow me.”

Shvets was disappointed when they ducked into a glass-walled conference room instead of the man’s office. There was nothing to learn from this bland space. No photos of loved ones. Not a single hint of personal information. He would have to ask Sergeyevich to look into the man’s life for some leverage.

Koenig remained standing, obviously impatient to get back to the board. “What is it you wish to discuss?”

“I understand,” Shvets said, “that Herr Dorfman had a very unfortunate evening last night.”

The man nervously cleared his throat. “The police have advised me not to discuss matters surrounding the murder of Herr Dorfman.”

“Would you like me to inform the police that $26 million of Mother Russia’s money went missing this morning, or would you like me to go straight to the press with that announcement?” Shvets was well aware of his lie, but he could hardly tell the man the money belonged to various terrorist groups and the head of the SVR’s feared Directorate S.

The banker’s gray pallor deepened, and he steadied himself against the back of a nearby chair while he mouthed the number.

“I do not wish to go to either the police or the press, but that is up to you, Herr Koenig.”

“What would you like to know?”

“How much money is missing?”

“Counting your twenty-six million … forty-seven. But none of the money was actually in our bank,” Koenig said defensively. “In fact, we are trying to sort out what Hans has been up to for all these years.”

“What do you mean the money was not in your bank?”

“The deposits were all in Swiss banks or offshore accounts in the Caribbean and Far East.”

“But Herr Dorfman managed the accounts in his official capacity as a vice president of this bank.”

Koenig raised a cautionary finger. “We are not sure on that point. So far we have found no official records of any of these accounts in our system.”

Shvets wasn’t so sure he believed the man. “Up until a minute ago you were thinking your exposure was roughly twenty million. It has now more than doubled. What makes you think it won’t double again before tomorrow?”

“I disagree with your use of the phrase ‘your exposure.’ As best we can tell, Herr Dorfman was in no way acting as an officer of this bank while he managed these various accounts.”

“Herr Koenig,” Shvets said with a sad laugh, “you and I both know that will not stand up. Those deposits may not have sat in your vault, but you had an officer of this bank who was managing on a daily basis a minimum of forty-seven million, and quite possibly more. This bank earned fees off that money…”

“But—”

“Please let me finish, Herr Koenig. I am not here to assign guilt. I am here to catch whoever took this money so we can get it back to its rightful owners.”

Probably for the first time since midmorning, a touch of color returned to Koenig’s face. “As there always is in these situations … a financial forensic investigation is under way.”

“How long will it take to complete?”

“It could take some time.”

“Please be honest with me. I am going to head back to Moscow tomorrow and the men I work for … they are not nice. They could never have a conversation like this. They would much prefer to strap you to a chair and attach things to your testicles, so I suggest you tell me what you know.” Switching to a friendly tone, he added, “Then I can go back to them and tell them you are a reasonable man. Someone we can trust.”

Koenig struggled with what he was about to say and then blurted it out. “I’m afraid we will never find that money.”

“Why?”

The banker threw his arms out. “It has been spread to the wind. I have never seen anything like it in all my years. The initial round of transfers was executed via fax in three waves. They came from all over the world.”

“Where?”

“Hong Kong, San Francisco, New York, London, Berlin, Paris, Istanbul, Moscow, New Delhi…”

“Moscow?”

“Yes.”

“I would like to see the faxes.”

The banker shook his head.

Shvets sighed, “Ohhhh … why must we do this the hard way? Herr Koenig, I know where the accounts were held. Your branch in Geneva. You are not as innocent as you would like me to believe. You will show me those faxes, and if you don’t, some people will come visit you in the middle of the night and do to you what was done to Herr Dorfman.”

Koenig swallowed hard. “I think I can make that concession.”

“Good. Now why do you say we will never find the money?”

“My legal counsel has informed me that not a single bank that we transferred the money to today has consented to our request for information.”

“Certainly there’s a way.”

“It would involve years of lawsuits, and even then you would be lucky to track down a fraction of the funds.”

“Well, maybe you need to turn up the pressure.” Koenig watched as his words seemed to have the opposite effect from the one he’d intended.

Koenig stiffened. “I should warn you that a faction of the board feels very strongly that this is dirty money.”

“Dirty money?” Shvets asked, as if the accusation were an insult.

“There are rumors that Herr Dorfman was an agent for the East German Stasi before the wall fell.”

“Rumors are bad things.”

“And there is another rumor that he worked for your GRU as well. That he helped certain people launder money.”

Shvets gave him a wicked grin. Dorfman had, in fact, been a spy for the KGB, not the GRU. “Where have you heard such things?”

“From people who know such things,” Koenig answered cagily. “Would you like to talk to them?”

Shvets suddenly got the feeling that he’d lost the upper hand. He needed to say something to fluster Koenig. “Back to these banking laws for a moment. I assume these very same laws could be used to conceal gross incompetence of your branch in Geneva … or better yet, that one of Herr Dorfman’s colleagues at the bank helped himself to millions of dollars that did not belong to him. Don’t they say that most bank heists are inside jobs?”

“That is pure, unfounded speculation.”

“As is your gossip about Herr Dorfman being a GRU spy.” Checkmate.

Koenig squirmed for a moment and then offered, “Would you be willing to talk to the people who have sworn that Herr Dorfman was a spy?”

“Absolutely,” he said, even though he had no such intention, “but I would like to see those faxes first. Especially the one that originated in Moscow.”

Koenig studied him cautiously for a moment and then said, “I will have copies of the faxes made for you. Give me a minute.” He left the room, glancing back over his shoulder with a frown.

Shvets paced while he waited. This was starting to look like a big mess. Once these thieves in suits confirmed that Dorfman had worked for the KGB, they would not be the slightest bit inclined to repay a single dollar. The Germans hated the Russians almost as much as the Russians hated the Germans. Koenig came back a few minutes later. He had two other men with him this time, and Shvets knew the jig was up. Koenig handed over the stack of faxes. They were blank, except for the sending and receiving fax numbers. The man might as well have written “Fuck you” in large letters across the top sheet. Still, it was better than nothing.