Authors: Greg Wilson
‘The problem is, that’s not where it stops, Kel. It
might
have stopped there if people had started listening sooner but they didn’t. It was always too hard. Or too political. Or the people who were trying to sound the alarms were all decried as a bunch of paranoid crazies. We had what we wanted. Russia had turned around overnight and embraced democracy and capitalism. Why spoil the party? But you know what capitalism really was for the guys at the top, Kel?” He answered his own question. “Just a new way of slicing up the cake, that’s all. Sure, it meant they had to cut some new players into the action but what of it, there was plenty to go around. And if they let the right players into the game they knew the cake was going to get even bigger.” His lips bent in a cynical twist. ‘The
new entrepreneurs.
Guys who were smart enough to understand economics and international business and who knew their way around the system inside Russia. The guys at the top knew that if they were given a clear run and protected, pretty soon they’d be able to take on the world.” He tossed his head towards the wall. “Men like that, for example.”
Kelly unwound her legs and turned back following her father’s gaze.
Taped to the wall at the end of the maze was an oversize photograph of a huge bear of a man with swept back hair and a dark goatee, streaked with gray. In his fifties, Kelly guessed. Good-looking in a Russian sort of way. He wore a black tuxedo and a broad, confident smile and he was standing beneath the south portico of the White House, shaking hands with the President. And the colored strings that threaded around the brass tacks pinning the other photographs and clippings and reports to the cork tiles all came together wrapped around a single four-inch nail that pierced the photo’s edge.
“Men like Marat Ivankov,” she heard her father say. “Take a look at this, Kel.”
Kelly turned back again. Her father was shifting papers aside, turning the computer screen towards her. She set her glass down and moved in closer, staring at the rows of shimmering letters and numbers. There was a company name at the top, glowing in bright blue capitals: ELECTROSET. In brackets beside it a string of letters she recognized as a NASDAQ code. Beneath the heading a list of dates and numbers and prices. Recent trades in the corporation’s stock. She looked up from the screen towards her father, her eyes asking the question.
“This company, ELECTROSET is a NASDAQ listed technology company. Up until a few months ago Malcolm Powell was on the board. Those trades you’re looking at represent around 40% of the stock changing hands while he was a director.”
Kelly looked between the open file and the screen, trying to make the connection. It wasn’t there. Or if it was, she couldn’t see it. Hartman rolled his lips.
“Stay with me here, Kel. From ‘92 I was second in charge of the Russian Division at Langley. That was when I started to realize how big a threat the whole Russian crime issue really was. The link between the politicians and the security forces and the new entrepreneurs, and where it could all lead if it wasn’t taken seriously. Back then all of our agencies were falling over one another trying to protect their territories but it occurred to me that if we didn’t put together some kind of cohesive structure to deal with this problem as a whole we were going to lose control. So I started lobbying for support. It took a long time but finally I broke through. Tom Gaines came around first, then the Deputy Director of Operations and finally the Deputy Director and even the Director as well.
“When I went back to run the Moscow station in ‘95 one of my priorities was to pull together evidence that would support our case and I was only there a few weeks when exactly what I needed dropped into my lap. A young guy from the Russian Security Service – the FSB – stumbled onto some videotapes that showed a clear connection between some heavyweight political figures on the take,” he paused, lifting his eyes beyond his daughter, “and the guy at the end there. Ivankov.”
Kelly watched her father’s gaze drift aside.
“His name was Aven. Nikolai Aven.
“I only met him once but after you’ve been in this game as long as I have you get a feeling about someone. He was a decent guy trying to do his job and he’d ended up with a live grenade in his hand.” He paused, reflecting, chewing his lip. “If I could have gotten him out with the evidence that would have been all we needed.” He drew a breath. Turned back slowly towards his daughter. “But they crashed the operation, Kel. At the last minute someone back here came in over the top and tied my hands. Then Aven was arrested for treason and that was the last we ever heard of him.”
Kelly stared at her father, her mind playing back to the days and months following his sudden return from Moscow. His distance. The distraction. So that was what it had all been about. The gray shadow of frustration and guilt and betrayal. And now she saw it all again in the cast of his face and the leaden fix of his eyes. He looked at her, meeting her gaze.
“Malcolm Powell served as Ambassador to Russia between 1994 and 1997, Kel.”
He paused, letting her reach her own conclusion. Her head moved aside a fraction and her eyes narrowed.
“And you think it was him? That he was the one who intervened?”
Hartman shrugged. “Had to be.” His eyes drifted aside again. “How he did it I still don’t know. I sent a secure email back home with my request to lift Aven, then even before I got the response Powell was in my office telling me to butt out. That there were political issues involved and I was to get my nose the hell out of the whole affair. Someone back home in the chain of command must have alerted him as soon as my request came through then, somehow or other, through his connections he managed to pull the rug.”
Kelly leaned closer. “And you think Malcolm Powell was involved with this…” she cast around for the name, ‘… this Ivankov, even then?”
Her father opened his hands. “How else? Whether it was Ivankov directly or someone else in his network I don’t know. Either way, Aven’s exfiltration was pulled.” His eyes flicked up to meet his daughter’s. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, Kel. It’s all still classified. But I’m sick to hell of it, all the compromise and the deceit. Aven had a wife and a little girl. I was going to bring them all out. I promised him they’d be safe.” His eyes fell to the desk and his voice drifted lower. “In the end I tried to pull Aven and his family myself but that didn’t work.” He drew a long breath and let it run out. “You know what the worst part was, Kel? I was there when they took him and he saw me and I saw the look on his face and there was no mistaking it. He thought it was me. He thought I’d double-crossed him.” Hartman paused, looking up. “A year or so after I quit the Company I went back to Moscow, you remember?”
Kelly nodded. “You said it was for research.”
Her father smiled. “Up to a point it was, but there was something else as well. I had to try and find them, try and find his wife and kid. Christ knows what I thought I was going to do if I did, but I had to do something – anything!” He drew a breath and shook his head. “I was too late, Kel. Their building was empty and no one I spoke to had a clue where they’d gone.” The room ran to silence, the intermittent whir of the computer’s hard drive the only sound. Kelly slumped in her chair staring down at the half-empty glass. A minute passed.
“So, all these years.” Her voice was gentle. “This crusade. That’s what it’s been about.”
Hartman shrugged again. “Some of it, I admit that. And some of it has been just trying to do what should have been done earlier. In the end it’s just coincidence that the same characters are the key.”
Kelly nodded, slowly. “So,” she flicked a glance back at the computer screen. “Malcolm Powell, ELECTROSET, MISSION TECHNOLOGIES, this guy Ivankov… Where’s the fit?”
“The fit?” Hartman straightened up. He drew a breath and leaned forward, looking sideways at the monitor. “Here’s the fit, Kel.” He shuffled through the papers on his desk, found the one he was looking for and spun it around towards his daughter. She looked down, tracing the lines of company names and the domiciles beside them: Monaco, Grand Cayman, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Andorra. Half a dozen others. Her father’s voice started up again.
“List one: the offshore companies listed here are all ultimately controlled by Marat Ivankov. Don’t ask me how I found out but it cost me a lot of money so don’t expect a big inheritance.” He rifled through the pages again. Another sheet of paper; another list. “List two: the names of these companies will be more familiar.” He watched his daughter’s sharp gray eyes scan down the page. “Six major US-based Fortune 500 corporations in which the offshores on list one have acquired major interests over the last eighteen months and…” he passed her a third printed page. “List three: Six Fortune 500 companies where Malcolm Powell is either a director or advisor to the board.”
Kelly drew the last page closer. Compared it with the one before. “They’re the same.”
“Exactly.” Hartman parted his hands. “And now it looks like you can add a seventh. MISSION TECHNOLOGIES. That was one I didn’t know about. So while you were whipping up that great clam linguine I did some more research on recent trades in MISSION TECHNOLOGIES stock.” His fingers skipped to the mouse beside the keyboard and another page jumped open over the ELECTROSET data. Kelly’s eyes tracked the lines on the screen, counting numbers. Her father’s voice intercepted.
“Let me save you the trouble. Close to two per cent of MISSION TECH changed hands over the last couple of weeks before it was announced they were the front-runner for the contract to develop the high-powered microwave system. That’s near enough to half a billion dollars.
Her eyes widened and she looked up.
“It’s going to take me a few weeks and what’s left of the family fortune to trace the buyer, but I don’t think there are going to be any surprises.
“Bottom line, Kel? I believe Malcolm Powell is Ivankov’s point man here in the States. Powell is establishment with impeccable credentials and connections. How does it all work? My guess is Powell uses his connections to identify the opportunities then relies on them to get himself positioned on the inside of these businesses with some kind of board appointment or advisory role. Then when he’s on the inside he does two things. First he feeds price sensitive information and intelligence back to Ivankov who places his bets accordingly. Second – because government relations is Powell’s acknowledged specialty – he’s able to use his influence and the company’s money to finance rewards in the way of donations to his political patrons… All out in the open and declared, and completely above board.
“And as for the connection with ELECTROSET? Hartman rifled through the pages strewn across his desk, found what he was searching for and passed it to his daughter. Take a look at this, Kel.
It was an extract from a
Wall Street Journal
article several weeks before. Kelly scanned the printed headline.
NASDAQ Junior ELECTROSET announces Microwave Shield Breakthrough
Hartman watched her. “Upstairs when you mentioned how MISSION TECHNOLOGIES is involved in developing the high-powered microwave system, something clicked. Then I remembered seeing this piece in the Journal a while back so I came down and ran an archive search and presto! Where would we be without computers?”
Kelly’s eyes dropped to the story below the banner.
Chicago-based electronic technology minnow Electroset Inc. has announced a possible research breakthrough in its quest to develop a repulse shield to protect computers against the threat of high-powered microwave attack. The company’s announcement late yesterday saw Electroset stock spike 30 per cent to an all-time high in late trade, taking the NASDAQ listed junior’s market capitalization to just under the $1 billion mark. However analysts predict that if system trials due to be undertaken later this month show the technology to be as solid as the company claims, this could be just the beginning of a meteoric rise in stock
value.
Kelly’s gaze tracked up from the page to the screen.
Hartman nodded at the numbers. “Like I said, close to 40 per cent of ELECTROSET has changed hands over the last three months. I haven’t done the math but I’d say that cost someone two or three hundred million. I’d also guess that most of it’s been picked up by the same offshores on the first list or a dozen more related to them.
His daughter looked across at him sharply. “If Ivankov’s the buyer without declaring it, wouldn’t that be in breach of Securities & Exchange laws?”
“Probably. Not to mention the whole insider trading thing. But since when do you think minor details like that would be a worry for someone like Ivankov?”
Kelly’s eyes returned to the screen. Hartman watched.
‘Still don’t get it?”
She shook her head.
“Ivankov’s playing both sides of the table. If you were MISSION TECHNOLOGIES and you’d just been awarded a major contract to develop high powered microwave for the US government, would you want another company out there with an opposing technology that would render your own worthless? I don’t think so.”
Kelly’s eyes widened in realization “So MISSION TECHNOLOGIES is going to have to buy ELECTROSET?
“Correct. Well, probably correct. Consider this, Kel: It’s not just the commercial worth of the technology, it’s the strategic and defensive value. What’s ELECTROSET worth to any regime that may be nervous we might try and zap them with microwaves sometime in the future?”
Kelly’s eyes tracked back and forth considering possibilities. “So it could turn into a bidding war. And Ivankov can’t lose because he’s playing both hands.”
Hartman nodded. “Exactly. There’s no way we can be sure of the final game plan but you can bank on the fact that Ivankov’s going to walk away from this with billions.”
He shook his head with reluctant admiration. “Clever, huh? The big issue for us though is that with technology like this in play it’s also a matter of National Security, which is the message I’ve been trying to get them to understand in Washington. These technologies are strategic assets but for Ivankov they’re just pawns in a game. It’s all about money and power and the need to be smarter and tougher and more ruthless than everyone else to survive and claw your way to the top, and then stay there. That’s the way it is in Russia. The way it’s always been. The problem is, these guys aren’t just contained within Russia any longer, Kel, they’re on the loose.