Icon (37 page)

Just off Durova Street was a railed enclave whose gardens and buildings showed a different spirit, one of care and attention. There were three principal buildings within the railings: a hostel for wayfarers visiting from the provinces, a very fine school built in the mid-1990s, and the place of worship itself.

Moscow’s principal mosque had been built in 1905, a dozen years before Lenin struck, and it bore the stamp of pre-Revolutionary elegance. For seventy years under Communism it had languished, like the Christian churches persecuted on the orders of the atheist state. After the fall of Communism a generous gift from Saudi Arabia had enabled a five-year program of enlargement and restoration. The hostel and school dated from the mid-1990s program.

The mosque had not changed in size, a quite small edifice in pale blue and white, with tiny windows, entered through a pair of antique carved oak doors. Monk slipped off his shoes, put them in one of the pigeonholes to the left of the lobby, and went in.

As with all mosques, the interior was completely open and devoid of chairs or benches. Rich carpets also donated by Saudi Arabia covered the floor; pillars held up a gallery that ran around the building above the central space.

According to the faith, there were no graven images or paintings. Panels on the walls contained various quotations from the Koran.

The mosque served the spiritual needs of Moscow’s resident Moslem community, excluding the diplomats who mainly worshiped at the Saudi Embassy. But Russia contains tens of millions of Moslems, and its capital two public mosques. As it was not a Friday, there were only a few dozen worshipers.

Monk found a place against the wall near the entrance, sat cross-legged, and watched. Mainly the men were old: Azeris, Tatars, Ingush, Ossetians. They all wore suits, frayed but clean.

After half an hour an old man in front of Monk rose from his knees and turned toward the door. He noticed Monk and an expression of curiosity crossed his face. The suntanned face, the blond hair, the lack of a string of prayer beads. He hesitated, then sat down with his back to the wall.

He must have been well over seventy and three medals won in the Second World War dangled from his lapel.

“Peace be unto you,” he murmured.

“And to you be peace,” Monk replied.

“Are you of the faith?” asked the old man.

“Alas, no, I come seeking a friend.”

“Ah. A particular friend?”

“Yes, one of long ago. We lost contact. I hoped I might find him here. Or someone who might know him.”

The old man nodded.

“Ours is a small community. Many small communities. Which one would he belong to?”

“He is a Chechen,” said Monk. The old man nodded again, then climbed stiffly to his feet.

“Wait,” he said.

He came back ten minutes later, having found someone outside. He nodded in the direction of Monk, smiled, and left. The newcomer was younger, but not much.

“I am told you seek one of my brothers,” said the Chechen. “Can I help?”

“Possibly,” said Monk. “I would be grateful. We met years ago. Now that I am visiting your city I would be happy to see him again.”

“And his name, my friend?”

“Umar Gunayev.”

Something flickered in the older man’s eyes.

“I know of no such man,” he said.

“Ah, then I shall be disappointed,” said Monk, “for I had brought him a gift.”

“How long will you be among us?”

“I would like to sit here awhile longer and admire your beautiful mosque,” replied Monk.

The Chechen rose.

“I will ask if anyone has heard of this man,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Monk. “I am a man of great patience.”

“Patience is a virtue.”

It was two hours before they came, and there were three of them, all young. They moved quietly, stockinged feet making no sound on the deep pile of the Persian carpets. One stayed by the door, dropping to his knees and leaning back on his heels, hands on the tops of his thighs. He might seem to be at prayer, but Monk knew no one would get past him.

The other two walked over and sat on either side of Monk. Whatever they carried under their jackets was hidden. Monk stared ahead. The questions when they came were murmurs that would not disturb the worshipers in front of them.

“You speak Russian?”

“Yes.”

“And you ask about one of our brothers?”

“Yes.”

“You are a Russian spy.”

“I am American. There is a passport in my jacket.”

“Forefinger and thumb,” said the man. Monk eased out his U.S. passport and let it fall to the carpet. It was the other man who leaned forward, retrieved it, and scanned the pages. Then he nodded and handed it back. He spoke in Chechen across Monk. The American suspected the burden of what he said was to the effect that anyone can have a forged American passport. The man to Monk’s right nodded and resumed.

“Why do you seek our brother?”

“We met, long ago. In a faraway land. He left something behind. I promised myself that if ever I came to Moscow I would return it to him.”

“You have it with you?”

“In that attaché case.”

“Open.”

Monk flicked the catches on the case and lifted the lid. Inside was a flat cardboard box.

“You expect us to bring this to him?”

“I would be grateful.”

The one on the left said something else in Chechen.

“No, it is not a bomb,” said Monk in Russian. “For if it were, and it were opened now, I too would die. So open it.”

The two men glanced at each other, then one leaned forward and lifted the lid of the cardboard box. They stared at what lay inside.

“That is it?”

“That is it. He left it behind.”

The one on his left closed the box and lifted it out of the attaché case. Then he arose.

“Wait,” he said.

The man by the door watched him leave but made no sign. Monk and his two watchers sat for another two hours. The hour of lunch had come and gone. Monk felt the yearning for a big hamburger. Beyond the small windows the light was fading by the time the messenger returned. He said nothing, just nodded to his two companions and jerked his head toward the door.

“Come,” said the Chechen who squatted to Monk’s right. All three arose. In the lobby they retrieved their shoes and put them on. The two flankers took up position on either side; the watcher by the door brought up the rear. Monk was marched out of the compound to Durova Street where a big BMW waited at the curb. Before he was allowed to enter it he was expertly frisked from behind.

Monk went into the center of the backseat with a flanker on either side. The third man slipped into the front beside the driver. The BMW moved off and headed for the ring road.

Monk had calculated the men would never defile the mosque by offering violence within it, but their own car was a different matter, and he knew enough of men like those around him to be aware they were all supremely dangerous.

After a mile the one in the front reached into the glove compartment and withdrew a pair of wraparound dark glasses. He gestured to Monk to put them on. They were better than a blindfold, for the lenses had been painted black. Monk completed the journey in darkness.

In the heart of Moscow, down a side street that it is wiser not to penetrate, is a small café called the Kashdan. It means “chestnut” in Russian and has been there for years.

Any tourist wandering idly toward the doors will be met by a fit-looking young man who will indicate to the stranger that he would be advised to take his morning coffee elsewhere. The Russian militia do not even bother to go near it.

Monk was helped out of the car and his black glasses were removed as he was led through the door. As he entered, the buzz of conversation in the Chechen language died. Two-score eyes watched in silence as he was led to a private room at the back beyond the bar. If he failed to come out of that room, no one would have seen a thing.

There was a table, four chairs, and a mirror on the wall. From a nearby kitchen came a smell of garlic, spices, and coffee. For the first time the senior of the three watchers, the one who had sat by the entrance of the mosque while his subordinates did the questioning, spoke.

“Sit,” he said. “Coffee?”

“Thank you. Black. Sugar.”

It came and it was good. Monk sipped the steaming liquid and kept his eyes away from the mirror, convinced it was a one-way device and that he was being studied from behind it. As he put down his empty cup a door opened and Umar Gunayev entered.

He had changed. The shirt collar was no longer worn outside the jacket, and the suit was not cheaply cut. It was of an Italian designer label and the tie of heavy silk probably from Jermyn Street or Fifth Avenue.

The Chechen had matured over twelve years, but at forty was darkly handsome, urbane, and polished. He nodded several times at Monk, with a quiet smile, then sat down and put the flat cardboard box on the table.

“I received your gift,” he said. He flicked the lid open, and picked out the contents, holding the Yemeni gambiah to the light and running a fingertip down the cutting edge.

“This is it?”

“One of them left it on the cobblestones,” said Monk. “I thought you might use it for a letter-opener.”

This time Gunayev smiled with genuine amusement.

“How did you know my name?”

Monk told him about the mug shots the British in Oman had collected of the incoming Russians.

“And since then, what have you heard?”

“Many things.”

“Good or bad?”

“Interesting.”

“Tell me.”

“I heard that Captain Gunayev, after ten years with the First Chief Directorate, finally became tired of the racial jokes and having no chance of promotion. I heard he left the KGB to take up another line of work. Also covert, but different.”

Gunayev laughed. At this the three watchers seemed to relax. The master had set the mood for them.

“Covert, but different. Yes, that is true. And then?”

“Then I heard that Umar Gunayev had risen in his new life to become the undisputed overlord of all the Chechen underworld west of the Urals.”

“Possibly. Anything else?”

“I heard that this Gunayev is a traditional man, though not old. That he still clings to the ancient standards of the Chechen people.”

“You have heard much, my American friend. And what are these standards of the Chechen people?”

“I have been told that in a world of degeneracy the Chechens still abide by their code of honor; that they pay their debts, the good and the bad.”

There was tension from the three men behind Monk. Was the American making fun of them? They watched their leader. Gunayev nodded at last.

“You have heard correctly. What do you want of me?”

“Shelter. A place to live.”

“There are hotels in Moscow.”

“Not very safe.”

“Someone is trying to kill you?”

“Not yet, but soon.”

“Who?”

“Colonel Anatoli Grishin.”

Gunayev shrugged dismissively.

“You know him?” asked Monk.

“I know of him.”

“And what you know, you like?”

Gunayev shrugged again.

“He does what he does. I do what I do.”

“In America,” said Monk, “if you wished to disappear, I could make you disappear. But this is not my city, not my country. Can you make me disappear in Moscow?”

“Temporarily or permanently?”

Monk laughed.

“I should prefer temporarily.”

“Then of course I can. That is what you want?”

“If I am to stay alive, yes. And I would prefer to stay alive.”

Gunayev rose and addressed his three gangsters.

“This man saved my life. Now he is my guest. No one will touch him. While he is here he will become one of us.”

The three hoods were all around Monk, offering their hands, grinning, giving their names. Aslan, Magomed, Sharif.

“Has the hunt for you begun already?” asked Gunayev.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then you must be hungry. The food here is foul. We will go to my office.”

Like all mafia chieftains, the leader of the Chechen clan had two personae. The more public one was that of a highly successful
“biznizman”
controlling a score of prosperous companies. In the case of Gunayev his chosen specialty was that of property.

In the early years he had simply bought prime development sites all over Moscow by the simple expedient of purchasing or shooting the bureaucrats who, as Communism collapsed and state property became available for public purchase, had the sales of these prime sites at their disposal.

Having taken title to the development sites, Gunayev was able to take advantage of the wave of collaborative planning ventures set up between the Russian tycoons and their Western partners. Gunayev provided the building sites and guaranteed strike-free labor, while the Americans and West Europeans erected their office buildings and skyscrapers. Ownership then became a shared venture, as did the profits and rents from the offices.

With similar procedures, the Chechen took over control of six of the top hotels in the city, branching out into steel, concrete, timber, bricks, and glazing. If one wanted to restore, convert, or build, one dealt with a subsidiary owned and controlled by Umar Gunayev.

That was the overt face of the Chechen mafia. The less visible side of the operation, as with all Moscow gangsterdom, remained in the provinces of black marketeering and embezzlement.

Russian state assets such as gold, diamonds, gas, and oil were simply purchased locally in rubles, at the official rate and even then at knockdown prices. The “sellers,” being bureaucrats, could all be bought anyway. Exported abroad, the assets were sold for dollars, pounds, or deutsche marks at world market prices.

A fraction of the sale price could then be re-imported, converted into a blizzard of rubles at the unofficial rate, and used to purchase the next consignment and pay the necessary bribes. The balance, in the region of eighty percent of the foreign sale, was the profit.

In the early days, before some of the state officials and bankers got the hang of things, a number refused to cooperate. The first warning was verbal, the second involved orthopedic surgery, and the third was permanent. The successor official to the one who had shuffled off the mortal coil usually grasped the game rules.