The English Girl: A Novel (21 page)

36

CHELSEA, LONDON

V
iktor Orlov had always been good with numbers. Born in Moscow during the darkest days of the Cold War, he had attended the prestigious Leningrad Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics and had worked as a physicist in the Soviet nuclear weapons program. At the suggestion of his superiors, he joined the Communist Party—though many years later, in an interview with a British newspaper, he would claim he was never a true believer. “I joined the Party,” he said without a trace of remorse, “because it was the only avenue of career advancement available to me. I suppose I could have been a dissident, but the gulag never seemed like a terribly appealing place to me.”

When the Soviet Union finally breathed its last, Orlov did not shed a tear. In fact, he became wildly drunk on cheap Soviet vodka and ran through the streets of Moscow shouting, “The king is dead.” The next morning, thoroughly hungover, he renounced his membership in the Communist Party, resigned from the Soviet nuclear program, and vowed to become rich. Within a few years, Orlov had earned a sizable fortune importing computers, appliances, and other Western goods for the nascent Russian market. Later, he used that fortune to acquire Russia’s largest state-owned steel company along with Ruzoil, the Siberian oil giant, at bargain-basement prices. Before long, Viktor Orlov, a former government physicist who once had to share an apartment with two other Soviet families, was a billionaire many times over and the richest man in Russia. He was one of the original oligarchs, a modern-day robber baron who built his empire by looting the crown jewels of the Soviet state. Orlov was unapologetic about how he had become wealthy. “Had I been born an Englishman,” he once told a British interviewer, “my money might have come to me cleanly. But I was born a Russian. And I earned a Russian fortune.”

But in post-Soviet Russia, a land with no rule of law and rife with crime and corruption, Orlov’s fortune made him a marked man. He survived at least three attempts on his life, and it was rumored that he had ordered several men killed in retaliation. But the greatest threat to Orlov would come from the man who succeeded Boris Yeltsin as president of Russia. He believed that Viktor Orlov and the other oligarchs had stolen the country’s most valuable assets, and it was his intention to steal them back. After settling into the Kremlin, the new president summoned Orlov and demanded two things: his steel company and Ruzoil. “And keep your nose out of politics,” he added ominously. “Otherwise, I’m going to cut it off.”

Orlov agreed to relinquish his steel interests but not Ruzoil. The president was not amused. He immediately ordered prosecutors to open a fraud-and-bribery investigation, and within a week he had an arrest warrant in hand. Orlov wisely fled to London, where he became one of the Russian president’s most vocal and effective critics. For several years, Ruzoil remained legally icebound, beyond the reach of both Orlov and the new masters of the Kremlin. Finally, Orlov was convinced to surrender it as part of a secret deal to secure the release of four people who had been taken hostage by a Russian arms dealer named Ivan Kharkov. In return, the British rewarded Orlov by making him a subject of the realm and granting him a brief and very private meeting with Her Majesty the Queen. The Office gave him a note of gratitude, which had been dictated by Chiara and handwritten by Gabriel. Ari Shamron delivered the note in person and burned it when Orlov had finished reading it.

“Will I ever get the opportunity to meet this remarkable man in person?” Orlov had asked.

“No,” Shamron had replied.

Undeterred, Orlov had given Shamron his most private number, which Shamron had given to Gabriel. He called it later that morning, from a public phone near the Grand Hotel Berkshire, and was surprised when Orlov answered himself.

“I’m one of the people you saved by giving up Ruzoil,” Gabriel said without mentioning his name. “The one who wrote you the note that the old man burned after you read it.”

“He was one of the most disagreeable creatures I’ve ever met.”

“Wait until you get to know him a little better.”

Orlov emitted a small, dry laugh. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“I need your help.”

“The last time you needed my help, it cost me an oil company worth at least sixteen billion dollars.”

“This time it won’t cost you a thing.”

“I’m free at two this afternoon.”

“Where?”

“Number Forty-Three,” said Orlov.

And then the line went dead.

N
umber Forty-Three was the street address of Viktor Orlov’s redbrick mansion on Cheyne Walk in Chelsea. Gabriel made his way there on foot, with Keller running countersurveillance a hundred yards behind. The house was tall and narrow and covered in wisteria. Like its neighbors, it was set back from the street, behind a wrought-iron fence. An armored Bentley limousine stood outside, a chauffeur at the wheel. Directly behind the Bentley was a black Range Rover, occupied by four members of Orlov’s security detail. All were former members of Keller’s old regiment: the elite Special Air Service.

The bodyguards watched Gabriel with obvious curiosity as he headed up the garden walk and presented himself at Orlov’s front door. The doorbell, when pressed, produced a maid in a starched black-and-white uniform. After ascertaining Gabriel’s identity, she conveyed him up a flight of wide, elegant stairs to Orlov’s office. The room was an exact replica of the queen’s private study in Buckingham Palace—all except for the giant plasma media wall that flickered with financial newscasts and market data from around the world. As Gabriel entered, Orlov was standing before it, as if in a trance. As usual, he wore a dark Italian suit and a lavish pink necktie bound in an enormous Windsor knot. His thinning gray hair was gelled and spiked. Reflected numbers glowed softly in the lenses of his fashionable eyeglasses. He was motionless except for the left eye, which was twitching nervously.

“How much did you make today, Viktor?”

“Actually,” said Orlov, still staring at the video wall, “I think I lost ten or twenty million.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Tomorrow’s another day.”

Orlov turned and regarded Gabriel silently for a long moment before finally extending a manicured hand. His skin was cool to the touch and peculiarly soft. It was like shaking hands with an infant.

“Because I am a Russian,” he said, “I’m not easily shocked. But I have to admit I am truly surprised to see you standing here in my office. I assumed we would never meet.”

“I’m sorry, Viktor. I should have come a long time ago.”

“I understand why you didn’t.” Orlov smiled sadly. “We have something in common, you and I. We were both targeted by the Kremlin. And we both managed to survive.”

“Some of us have survived better than others,” said Gabriel, glancing around the magnificent room.

“I’ve been lucky. And the British government has been very good to me,” Orlov added pointedly, “which is why I want to do nothing that might upset the powers that be in Whitehall.”

“Our interests are the same.”

“I’m glad to hear that. So, Mr. Allon, why don’t you tell me what this is all about?”

“Volgatek Oil and Gas.”

Orlov smiled. “Well,” he said, “I’m glad
someone
finally noticed.”

37

CHEYNE WALK, CHELSEA

V
iktor Orlov had never been reluctant to talk about money. In fact, he rarely talked about anything else. He boasted that his suits cost ten thousand dollars each, that his handmade dress shirts were the finest in the world, and that the diamond-and-gold watch he wore on his wrist was among the most expensive ever made. The current incarnation of the watch was actually his second. He had famously destroyed the first in Switzerland, when he had struck it against a pine tree while skiing. “Silly me,” he told a British tabloid after the multimillion-dollar crash, “but I forgot to take the damn thing off before leaving the chalet.”

His wine of choice was Château Pétrus, the famous Pomerol that he drank as though it were Evian. It was a bit early in the afternoon, even for Orlov, so they had tea instead. Orlov drank his Russian style, through a sugar cube that he held between his front teeth. His arm was flung toward Gabriel along the back of an elegant brocade couch, and he was twirling his costly spectacles by the stem, something he always did when he was speaking about Russia.

It was not the Russia of his childhood, or the Russia he had served as a nuclear scientist, but the Russia that had stumbled into existence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was lawless Russia—drunken, confused, lost Russia. Its traumatized people had been promised cradle-to-grave security. Now, suddenly, they had to fend for themselves. It was social Darwinism at its most vicious. The strong preyed on the weak, the weak went hungry, and the oligarchs reigned supreme. They became the new tsars of Russia, the new commissars. They blew through Moscow in bulletproof caravans surrounded by heavily armed security details. At night, the security details fought each other in the streets. “It was the Wild East,” said Orlov reflectively. “It was madness.”

“But you loved it,” said Gabriel.

“What was not to love? We were gods, truly.”

Early in his career as a capitalist, Orlov had run his burgeoning empire alone and with an iron fist. But after the acquisition of Ruzoil, he realized he needed a second-in-command. He found one in Gennady Lazarev, a brilliant theoretical mathematician he had worked within the Soviet nuclear weapons program. Lazarev knew nothing of capitalism, but like Orlov he was good with numbers. Lazarev learned the business from the ground up. Then Orlov placed him in charge of Ruzoil’s day-to-day operations. It was, said Orlov, the biggest mistake he had ever made in business.

“Why?” asked Gabriel.

“Because Gennady Lazarev was KGB,” Orlov answered. “He was KGB when he was working inside the nuclear weapons program, and he was KGB when I placed him in charge of Ruzoil.”

“You never had any suspicions?”

Orlov shook his head. “He was very good—and very loyal to the sword and the shield, which is how the KGB thugs like to refer to themselves. Needless to say,” Orlov added, “Lazarev betrayed me. He gave the Kremlin mountains of internal documents—documents that the state prosecutors then used to fabricate a case against me. And when I fled the country, Lazarev ran Ruzoil as though it were his own.”

“He cut you out?”

“Completely.”

“And when you agreed to give up Ruzoil in order to get us out of Russia?”

“Lazarev was already gone by then. He was running a new state-owned petroleum company. Apparently, the Russian president chose the name for this enterprise himself. He called it Volgatek Oil and Gas. There was a joke running round the Kremlin at the time that the president wanted to call the company KGB Oil and Gas but didn’t think that would play well in the West.”

Volgatek, Orlov resumed, was to have no role in domestic Russian oil production, which had already leveled off. Instead, its sole purpose was to expand Russia’s oil and gas interests internationally, thus increasing the Kremlin’s global power and influence. Backed by Kremlin money, Volgatek went on a shopping spree in Europe, purchasing a chain of oil refineries in Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary. Then, over the objections of the Americans, it signed a lucrative drilling agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. It also signed development deals with Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria.

“Do you see a pattern here?” asked Orlov.

“The deals Volgatek struck were all in the lands of the old Soviet empire or in countries hostile to the United States.”

“Correct,” said Orlov.

But Volgatek wasn’t content to stop there, he added. It expanded its operations into Western Europe, signing distribution and refinery deals in Greece, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Then it set its sights on the North Sea, where it wanted to drill in two newly discovered fields off the Western Isles of Scotland. Volgatek’s geologists estimated that production would eventually reach one hundred thousand barrels a day, with a large portion of profits flowing directly into the coffers of the Kremlin. The company applied to Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change for a license. And then the secretary of state for energy asked Viktor Orlov to pop over to his office for a chat.

“And what do you think I told him?”

“That Volgatek was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kremlin, run by a former member of the KGB.”

“And what do you think the secretary of state for energy did with Volgatek’s application to drill in territorial waters of Britain?”

“He dropped it into his shredder.”

“Right before my eyes,” added Orlov, smiling. “It was a most satisfying sound.”

“Did the Kremlin know that you were the one who sabotaged the deal?”

“Not to my knowledge,” replied Orlov. “But I’m sure Lazarev and the Russian president suspected I was somehow involved. They’re always willing to believe the worst about me.”

“What happened next?”

“Volgatek waited a year. Then it filed a second application for the drilling license. But this time, things were different. They had a friend inside Downing Street, a man who they’d spent a year cultivating.”

“Who?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Fine,” responded Gabriel. “Then I’ll say it for you. Volgatek’s man inside Downing Street was Jeremy Fallon, the most powerful chief of staff in British history.”

Orlov smiled. “Perhaps we should have a bottle of Pétrus after all.”

T
hey had sailed into dangerous waters. Gabriel knew it, and Orlov surely knew it, too, for his left eye was beating a furious rhythm. When he was a child, the twitch had made him the target of merciless teasing and bullying. It had made him burn with hatred, and that hatred had driven him to succeed. Viktor Orlov wanted to beat everyone. And it was all because of the twitch in his left eye.

For now, the eye was staring into a goblet of dark-red Pomerol wine. Orlov had yet to drink from it. Nor had he answered the rather straightforward question that Gabriel had posed a moment earlier. Why Jeremy Fallon?

“Why
not
Fallon?” the Russian said at last. “Fallon was Lancaster’s brain. Fallon was the puppet master. Fallon pulled a string, and Lancaster waved his hand. And better yet, he was vulnerable to an approach.”

“How so?”

“He didn’t have a pot to piss in. He was poor as a church mouse.”

“Who suggested targeting him?”

“I’m told it came from the SVR
rezidentura
here in London.”

Rezidentura
was the word used by the SVR to describe its operations inside local embassies. The
rezident
was the station chief, the
rezidentura
the station itself. It was a holdover from the days of the KGB. Most things about the SVR were.

“How did they go about it?”

“Lazarev and Fallon started bumping into each other in all the wrong places: parties, restaurants, conferences, holidays. Rumor has it Fallon spent a long weekend at Lazarev’s place in Gstaad and cruised the Greek islands on Lazarev’s yacht. I’m told they got along famously, but that’s not surprising. Gennady can be a charming bastard when he wants to be.”

“But there was more than just a charm offensive, wasn’t there, Viktor?”

“Much
more.”

“How much?”

“Five million euros in a numbered Swiss bank account, courtesy of the Kremlin. Very clean. Completely untraceable. The SVR handled all the arrangements.”

“Says who?”

“Says I’d rather not say.”

“Come on, Viktor.”

“You obviously have your sources, Mr. Allon, and I have mine.”

“At least tell me the direction your information comes from.”

“It comes from the East,” said Orlov, meaning it came from one of his many sources in Moscow.

“Go on,” said Gabriel.

Orlov partook of the wine first. Then he explained how Volgatek filed a second application for a license to drill in the North Sea, this time with the backing of the second most powerful man in Whitehall. But the prime minister was still ambivalent at best, and the secretary of state for energy remained absolutely opposed. Fallon prevailed upon the secretary not to reject the application outright. It was technically alive, but just barely.

“And then,” said Orlov, raising one arm toward the ceiling, “the secretary of state suddenly approves the license, Jonathan Lancaster jets off to Moscow for champagne toasts in the Kremlin, and the man who accepted five million euros in Russian money is about to become the next chancellor of the exchequer.”

“I need to know your source for the five million.”

“Asked and answered,” replied the Russian curtly.

Gabriel changed the subject. “What’s the state of relations between Volgatek and your business here in London?”

“As you might expect, we are in a state of war. It’s rather like the Cold War—undeclared but vicious.”

“How so?”

“Lazarev has outbid me on a number of acquisitions. It’s easy for him,” Orlov added resentfully. “He’s not playing with his own money. He also takes great pleasure in hiring away my best people. He throws a pile of money at them—Kremlin money, of course—and they bolt for greener pastures.”

“Are you on speaking terms?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Orlov said. “When we encounter one another in public, we nod politely and exchange frozen smiles. Our war is conducted entirely in the shadows. I must admit Gennady’s gotten the better of me lately. And now he’s going to be drilling for oil in the waters of a country I’ve come to love. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Then maybe you should do something about it.”

“Like what?”

“Help me blow up the deal.”

Orlov stopped twirling his eyeglasses and stared directly at Gabriel for a moment without speaking. “What is your interest in this matter?” he asked finally.

“It’s strictly personal.”

“Why would someone like
you
care whether a Russian energy company gets access to North Sea oil?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Coming from you, I would expect nothing less.”

Gabriel smiled in spite of himself. Then, quietly, he said, “I believe the Kremlin blackmailed Jonathan Lancaster into giving Volgatek those drilling rights.”

“How?”

Gabriel was silent.

“I gave up a company worth sixteen billion dollars in order to get you and your wife out of Russia,” Orlov said. “I believe that entitles me to an answer. How did they do it?”

“By kidnapping Lancaster’s mistress from the island of Corsica.”

Orlov didn’t bat an eye. “Well,” he said again. “I’m glad
someone
finally noticed.”

T
hey talked until the windows in Viktor Orlov’s magnificent office turned to black, and then they talked a little longer. By the end of their conversation, Gabriel felt confident he understood how the game on the hillside had been played, but precisely how the players had sided themselves remained just beyond his grasp. He was certain of one thing, though; it was time to have a quiet word with Graham Seymour. He called him from a public phone in Sloane Square and confessed that he had once again entered the country without first signing the guestbook. Then he requested a meeting. Seymour recited a time and a place and rang off without another word. Gabriel replaced the receiver and started walking, with Christopher Keller running countersurveillance a hundred yards behind.