The Take(90)

The decree was also known as the “grand bargain,” the brilliant piece of political chicanery that secured the president his job by granting his predecessor immunity, and then protected himself against all financial misdeeds he might undertake during his own tenure.

For perhaps the thousandth time, Borodin marveled at the man’s audacity. Was there ever a more telling way to begin a regime?

The second dossier, dated 2002, was titled “Nord-Ost.”

The third, dated 2007, discussed the Ivanchuk affair.

The fourth, the invasion of Crimea.

There was nothing damning about the events taken alone. In fact, it was possible to argue that the president’s decisions in each case were made for the benefit of the country. It was impossible, however, to ignore payments to a series of shell corporations—set up in the name of the president’s closest friends and housed in places like Liechtenstein, Panama, and the Cayman Islands—that corresponded precisely to the dates of these events.

The largest of the payments dated to October 2014, one week after the invasion of Crimea, totaled two billion dollars. The recipient was one Platinum Holdings of Cura?ao, a shell company set up in favor of one Oleg Kharkov, aged eighty-seven, retired judo instructor and, by odd coincidence, the man who had taught the president during his youth.

Good luck explaining that, mused Borodin, to a group of generals living on a pension of twenty thousand dollars a year.

“But why would anyone pay me to invade Crimea?” the president would surely demand. “Or Ukraine?”

To which Borodin would pass out the documents his men had obtained detailing secret NATO meetings in which top U.S. generals had argued for a substantial increase in military spending to counter the “rising threat in the East.”

“Because,” Borodin planned to explain, “without a threat, the West has no excuse to re-arm itself.”

Some traitors came cheap. Some even betrayed their country for free, so eager were they to do their homeland harm. Not this one. For him, every action was for sale. Every decision carried a price tag. The man viewed the country as his own candy store, which he could sell off piecemeal. Timber for two billion. Aluminum for six. Oil for ten. The highest price was for the store itself, the Rodina, Mother Russia.

Borodin slammed a fist onto his desk. His Russia.

The sum total of these payments came to sixty-one billion dollars. Not bad for a lieutenant colonel passed over three times for promotion and stationed in Dresden of the former German Democratic Republic, a backwater so unimportant its offices had been equipped with computers nearly twenty years old. No wonder the man hated his country.

One day soon he, Vassily Borodin, would present all this information to a group of senior government ministers and high-ranking members of the military. It was imperative his case was airtight. For that, he needed the letter. It was the detonator that would ignite the explosives he’d labored years to gather. With a sweep of his arm, he gathered the folders and replaced them in his private safe.

The moment of truth had arrived.

First a call. “Kurtz. Bring the car around in five minutes.”

“Where are we—”

“Just bring it.”

Springing from his chair, he dashed past his secretary with a speed she’d never before witnessed. He eschewed the elevator and ran down the stairs to the ground floor, reining himself in to a brisk but officious walk as he exited the building. Decorum.

It was a crisp, sunny day, a tinge of burning wood in the air, distinctly fall-like, though the autumnal equinox was three weeks hence. He crossed Andropov Plaza and made his way toward a modern single-story building constructed a year earlier. The building housed the SVR’s administration and banking section.

He slowed to a suitable pace as he nodded to the two armed security guards situated on either side of the door. He continued past a reception area and down a long corridor. He stopped at a steel door, again guarded by two armed sentries.

“Open,” he said.

A guard pressed a buzzer. A voice asked who was there. He answered, “Director Borodin.” A loud, pleasing click as the lock disengaged. Borodin opened the door and entered the SVR’s private bank.

“Good morning, sir,” said the bank manager, a portly, pink-cheeked man with ginger hair, rushing to greet him. “This is a surprise.”

Borodin had never set foot in the building. It was not the director’s job to gather cash for an operation. In this instance, however, he could trust no one but himself. He dismissed the manager with a sideways glance and walked directly to the teller’s window. On a withdrawal slip, he filled in the boxes with a ten and six zeroes. There was a space at the bottom for two signatures, one for the case officer and one for the director. He scrawled his signature on both lines and handed it to the teller.

“Ten million euros?”

“That’s correct.”

“Needed?”

“Immediately.”

“Any particular denominations?”

“An even split of hundreds, two hundreds, and five hundreds. Vacuum sealed and placed in the smallest bag possible. I believe it should fit into a standard-sized suitcase.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Mr. Voroshin,” said Borodin. “Not a word.”

Voroshin flushed a violent shade of crimson and shook his head.

“You have fifteen minutes.”