Winter Palace (24 page)

“How was trading today?” Ivona asked.

“Like always.” He stood and cast off his jacket. Dried sweat stained his expensive shirt in darkened splotches. He could not have been over twenty-five years of age, but his eyes held the blank confusion of a tired old man. He lit a fresh cigarette from the ashes of his last and drank thirstily from his beer.

“Buy, sell,” he rattled. “Took fifty thousand pairs of stockings in exchange for a hundred personal computers this morning. You like a pair?”

“You are very kind to ask,” Ivona replied. “But no.”

Before, when a Russian company needed something—anything, no matter how small or large—it would place a requisition through the Moscow-based central planning agency called Gosplan. Gosplan would then, hopefully, approve the request and forward it to the appropriate supplier, who could sell nothing unless Gosplan first approved the order. The product would inevitably arrive late and be of poorer quality than requested, but to a point the system had worked.

All that had vanished with the fall of Communism.

In an attempt to stifle an inflation rate approaching fifty percent per month, the government had dried up the source of rubles. Companies with products to sell suddenly found themselves either without buyers, or with buyers who had no hard cash. So they had begun to trade.

By the second summer after Communism's fall from grace, the government owed two hundred and twenty billion rubles in unpaid salaries. Cash-starved factories paid workers with truckloads of fresh oranges and ton-lots of clothes. Company apartments were completed by trading steel wire for concrete, then having skilled machinists work overtime as plasterers and carpet layers. The world's largest steel works, the Metal-lurgical Complex in Magnitogorsk, was reduced to paying
workers with fifty-pound sacks of sugar and pieces of steel that their employees could then resell.

The fastest growing industry, in a country whose economy had contracted thirty percent in a two-year period, was the commodities exchange. Russia resembled a vast factory in a panic bankruptcy sale. The commodities markets sold everything from vodka to new MIG jet fighters.

Whenever the government told the commodities brokers that selling a certain item was against the law, that item was simply removed from the floor and offered on the street just outside the exchange. New laws were tossed out as easily as the floor sweepings each evening. Computerized barter houses overloaded the outdated phone systems and took a taste off the top from every deal cut.

The majority of dealers were under twenty-five. They had been born at a time when their culture was coming to realize the Communist social structure was based upon a lie. Thus the propaganda and brainwashing had not stuck so well. Initiative had not been stripped away nor traded for the promised security of socialism.

Ivona received the nod from Yussef. “Could you please tell us what you have learned?”

The frightened look returned. “I need to know I'll be safe.”

“We seek only for ourselves,” Yussef soothed. “What you tell us will go only to the bishop, no further. He will treat it as though it came from the confessional.”

The young man leaned forward, said quietly, “There are rumors of a
matrioshka
shipment.”

“This is news,” Yussef said, clearly pleased.

Russia's
matrioshka
dolls were known worldwide: a series of smiling wooden figurines in graduated sizes, each figure nesting in the next larger size. A
matrioshka
shipment meant hiding an illegal product inside a legitimate export. The technique was normally used for transporting heroin from the Asian states to the West.

“This is mafia work?” Yussef asked.

“Who knows? But that is how it sounds, and what the rumors say. The bribes are too high for anyone else to use the transport route, and the mafia controls the docks.” He looked from one to the other. “It is the mafia you are up against?”

“We do not know who was behind the theft,” Ivona replied.

“We know,” Yussef retorted, his face like stone.

“We are not sure,” Ivona insisted.

The young man flashed a weary smile. “Confusion is a sign of the times.”

“What will the outer shipment be, do you know?” Yussef demanded.

“Hard to say, but my guess would be raw metal. There is more of this than anything else going out just now. One group I know does forty tons per week to Estonia. They're hooked up with Western buyers who like the Russian prices but don't want to have to bother with Russian bureaucracy. The group clears four thousand dollars a week.”

Yussef whistled softly. “They're mafia?”

“Not the group themselves, but anything this rich will have the mafia circling like vultures around a kill. They take a taste, never fear.” The young man stubbed out his cigarette with jerky motions and lit another with a gold Dunhill lighter worth more than the average Russian's annual salary. He snapped the top shut, said with the smoke, “Copper, bronze, zinc, titanium, strategic metals—we see the trades every day, and we know the end buyer is in the West. The factories are crumbling, they have no money to pay salaries, and the Westerners are ready to pay in real dollars. Anything the companies can smuggle out, they do; it's the difference between life or death for many of them.”

“Big business,” Yussef agreed thoughtfully.

“Listen, I'll tell you how big. Estonia has no metal resources at all, and only a handful of factories. But this year Estonia became the sixth largest exporter of copper in the world. There is one trial before the courts right now, where a group
was caught trying to ship
five thousand kilometers
of aluminum irrigation tubing from Saint Petersburg. One deal.”

“We think this would be shipped from Saint Petersburg,” Yussef replied. “Have you heard of anything here?”

“A new player?” He flicked his cigarette in the ashtray's general direction. “They come and go like the wind. But something this big would require big financing, maybe more than one shipment if what you say is correct.” He thought a moment. “There is word of a new metals dealer with backing from a Swiss group. Nothing definite. Nothing on the market. But big enough to attract interest. Traders are like wolves. They sniff the wind and travel in packs.”

Ivona concluded, “So you think the mafia might handle such a deal—”

“They handle nothing,” the young man said impatiently. “They
control.
They falsify the export documents. They pay bribes. They frighten. They threaten. They eliminate all that stands between themselves and profit.”

“And they tell the suppliers what will be hidden inside their metal for shipment,” Yussef finished.

The look of genuine fear returned to the young man's face. “You now have my life in your hands.”

“We will guard it well,” Yussef promised, rising to his feet. “We thank you. All of us.”

Chapter 23

Casey arrived at the palace exactly on time. He shook hands with Jeffrey, and said, “No hard feelings, I hope.”

Jeffrey found the man's casual attitude as fake as his smile. “I still don't know what it was all about.”

Casey motioned toward the door. “Mind if I have a look around?”

“That's why we're here.” Jeffrey led him into the central foyer. “Do you even know what you're looking for?”

“Tell you what,” Casey replied in his lazy drawl, looking over the papers jumbled on the trestle table, “why don't you just keep on with your business plan or whatever it is you've been doing and let me mosey about on my own.”

Jeffrey waved a free hand. “Be my guest.”

Ninety minutes later, Casey interrupted his continued sketching of the floor plans with an abrupt, “Guess I've seen all I need to. Matter of fact, we were due at the Consul General's a half-hour ago.”

Jeffrey stacked up his work. “Find anything?”

“Like you said, a lot of dust and steel. Nothing else. Come on; this place's got too many dried-up memories for my liking.”

Jeffrey followed the man down to the waiting car. They drove through the gathering dusk in silence.

The evening's beauty rekindled his yearning for Katya. The blankets of smog and airborne soot burnished the sky a hundred fiery hues. He wished for her to share this night, when only main streets had lights, and former palaces had their wounds soothed by soft illumination. During the day he had been sorry to be alone, yet glad she was not there. This world was too harsh. The people were drawn with jagged lines. Safety was a word with little meaning. This evening, however, as he sat in the American car's plush luxury and
watched the silent orchestration of colors, he ached for her with a longing that scarcely left him room to breathe.

As they turned onto the Nevsky Prospekt, Casey interrupted his reverie with, “How's the neck?”

“Better, but still sore.”

“Didn't mean to handle you so rough.”

“I hurt it a while back, I guess it's not completely healed.” His hand went up automatically to massage it. “Who is this Tombek anyway?”

“The bad guys.”

Talking to Casey was like drilling through stone with a toothpick. “What makes you so sure somebody was following me around?”

“If you don't know,” Casey replied, “don't ask.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“A smart one.” Casey hesitated, then went on, “There aren't a lot of black and white lines to be drawn around here right now. Too much gray in this country for my liking. But Tombek's all black. Not anybody you want to mess with. Definitely not.”

Jeffrey thought of Yussef and Ivona's work, asked, “But why would Tombek want to have me followed?”

“Brother, that's the million dollar question.”

“I've got another one for you,” Jeffrey said. “Why does a local consulate official know this much about the Saint Petersburg bad guys?”

“Like I said, there's too much gray in this world. Not many people we can rely on. Best way to get things done is to do it ourselves.”

“Consul General Allbright indicated the KGB weren't much help.”

“You said it. These days, the KGB's like a dead elephant lying in the middle of the Russian road to progress. All that weight is hard to shift, and it stinks to high heaven. But it's blocking traffic something awful, and sooner or later it's got to go.”

“Have they done anything for you at all?”

“Lot of paper flying back and forth, lot of telephone calls asking these double-edged questions. But we haven't seen much in the way of real results. No, this thing's gotta be baked at home.” Again Casey hesitated, as though debating something internally. Then he went on, “There is hope, though. Maybe. We've made contact with a sort of subgroup, a new offshoot within the KGB that appears to mean business. They've offered to help us on this.”

“And you think this guy Tombek might be involved in your kidnapping?”

“Tombek is not a person; it's a gang,” Casey corrected. “They're involved in just about everything else. Might have their hand in this as well.”

The Consul General's official residence was located in a short alleyway off one of the city's main thoroughfares. When they arrived, the cul-de-sac was filled with late-model Western cars and grim-faced Russian bodyguard-chauffeurs.

The residence still maintained a vestige of its former glory. High ceilings supported brilliant chandeliers whose light shone down upon chambers of vast proportions. The well-dressed crowd milling about the carpeted expanse could have been lifted from any major international community.

Jeffrey circled about the trio of rooms filled with the city's movers and shakers. He paused beside a group paying careful attention to a heavyset Russian who spoke with authority: “Step by step we make progress. It is a long voyage from Communism to liberty. Very long. No one expects to make it overnight. But if I have one criticism of my countrymen, it is that they concentrate overmuch on the unsolved and do not take hope from the successes. Yes, the positive aspects are small when taken against all that is left undone. But these are steps in the right direction, and for this reason it is most important that they be given a place in the limelight.”

“I guess seeing goods on the shelves has helped reassure the people,” a listener offered.

“Yes and no. Appearance of Western goods and high-priced foods is pleasing to those who can afford them, but a source of great tension to everyone else. Most people find these products completely beyond their reach. They see them, but cannot buy them. This is like one of our ancient fables.” He shrugged. “We are a patient people. We are very hard to get moving, but once we are going, we are very hard to stop.”

Somebody asked, “How does the situation look for this winter?”

“Difficult, but we hope not dangerous.” He tossed back the remainder of his drink. “So long as there is not a coal or rail strike and the roads stay open, we will make it. Famine combined with no heat would end everything.”

“At least there is some help coming from the West,” another offered.

“Not enough, and too slow,” he replied. “We are starving on the West's cautious assistance. The biggest lesson we have learned recently is that capitalist money is a coward. The spenders hear the word risk and they zip up their pockets. We are fed with words, when what we need is the machinery to make our own bread.”

“Speaking of bread,” someone asked, “is there any hope that Russia will ever be able to feed itself?”

“At the turn of the century,” the Russian replied, “my nation was exporting more food to England than it consumed itself. In the years before the October Revolution, after the system of serfdom was abolished and Russians worked the land as free men, the farming villages had a higher level of income than the cities. But the Bolsheviks feared the peasants' power and smothered the villages with their policy of collectivization.”