The Take(25)

The yacht belonged to Alexei Ren, the fifty-year-old Russian billionaire and owner of the Olympique de Marseille football club.

Coluzzi realized then that he was making an error trying to barter the letter through a minor diplomat posted to a second-rate consulate who sounded as if he’d gone through puberty the week before. A man who couldn’t even afford a blow job at Jojo’s.

Boris Stevcek had as much chance of reaching Vassily Borodin as Coluzzi did the president of France.

“Hello? Sir? Sir?”

Disgusted with himself, Coluzzi ended the call and walked toward the imposing yacht. Music blared from the top deck, where a party was in full swing. He was not the only man on the docks staring at the bevy of topless women dancing energetically, champagne flutes in hand. The yacht drew closer and soon passed.

A lone figure sat in the shade of the aft deck, studying a laptop. He had dark hair and a thick beard—a pirate in appearance, too—his white linen shirt billowing in the wind.

Alexei Ren.

Coluzzi stared at the figure, transfixed.

He had his answer.





Chapter 13



It was raining when Borodin landed in Moscow. As he stepped from the plane, a biting wind snapped at his cheeks. He rode alone into the city, his mood as stormy as the sky.

“I’m running late,” Borodin informed his driver. “Get me to Yasenevo by four.”

The sedan surged ahead, and in moments he was traveling at one hundred fifty kilometers per hour in the private lane reserved for government officials and the wealthiest of the land. Next to him, traffic on the outer ring road was at a standstill. Three o’clock and rush hour was in full swing. In fact, Borodin had noted, traffic was always bad. The experts dismissed the problem as a side effect of the growing economy. One more lie. The economy was cratering and everyone knew it.

He arrived in Yasenevo fifty minutes later. Located in the southwestern suburbs of the city, the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Service comprised three towers grouped around a central lawn, as well as several single-story buildings spread over a grassy campus. The largest tower, and first to be built thirty years earlier, had suffered from shoddy construction and had begun sinking into the soft Muscovy earth months after it was occupied. During Borodin’s first years as an agent, the building’s frame had become so warped that the windows would not open. While the central heating worked like a dream, air-conditioning was sporadic at best. During the short but extremely hot and humid Russian summer, air inside the building would grow warm and ripe. Worse, it was an ingrained habit of Russians, many of whom who had grown up sharing apartments with two or even three families, to ration their showers. A good wash once a week was as much as one could expect. Recalling the ungodly stench on the hottest of summer days, Borodin winced. Because of the smell, the main building had garnered a nickname repeated to this day. “The Outhouse.”

“Everything all right, sir?” asked the driver, noting his expression of disgust.

“As good as can be expected,” said Borodin.

Only after Boris Yeltsin came to power—his protégé, an undistinguished KGB agent formerly exiled to the hinterlands of East Germany, at his side—were funds discovered to retrofit the building and replace the HVAC system.

“Three fifty-five,” announced the driver as he pulled to a halt in front of the main building. He turned, his eager face beaming. “Five minutes early.”

Borodin patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you. Now if you’ll give me an umbrella.”

The driver’s face fell. “A what?”

Outside, the rain was falling heavier than before. Twenty meters separated the car from the entrance: Borodin maintained a dignified gait as he walked to the building. He refused to run or appear at all put out by the dismal conditions. He knew that subordinates were watching, eager as always for something to gossip about, even if it were only how the director had made a clumsy dash to the lobby, or, God forbid, slipped and fell. If anything, he walked more slowly than usual. To hell with them. Heavy rain and whipping winds were of no consequence to the director of the SVR.

Once inside, he took his private elevator to the tenth floor. His secretary took one look at him and flung herself from her desk, rushing to his side, helping him take off his sodden overcoat.

“Get me a towel and a change of clothing,” he said politely. “Oh, and tea.”

His secretary was older and rotund, and immune to fashion. “With a little something to lift your spirits?”

“Thank you, but no. Just hot. Very hot.”

It was then that Borodin noticed the blond woman seated outside his office. He passed her without a word or a glance. At his desk, he busied himself reading messages and checking his favorite American websites for the requisite time. At some point his secretary entered with a change of clothing. Borodin’s job often required him to stay at his desk for days at a time. Over the past few years his closet here had filled to overflowing while his closet at home had thinned to the bare essentials. He changed and combed his hair before taking his place at his desk, a slab of mahogany as big as an aircraft carrier. A new headline appeared on the New York Times’ website. Any other day, it would have made his blood boil. Today, it was exactly what the doctor ordered.

“Send in Major Asanova,” he said, speaking into his speakerphone—like the desk, a relic from a bygone era.