The First Billion (49 page)

Gavallan walked up to his former friend, gently prying the gun from his hand. “Go on now. Get out of here. I never want to see you again.”

68

Konstantin Kirov mounted the stairs to the balcony slowly, a valedictory climb to his new orbit high in the capitalist universe. Reaching the top, he crossed the narrow landing. There was room for fifteen people, maybe a few more. Advancing on the podium, he let his eyes wander over the trading floor. He had expected to play to an audience, but the preoccupied traders were going about their business as if he were not there. One by one his colleagues joined him, and he greeted each with a firm handshake.

The clock directly across the room read 9:28:45. The swell of voices rose as Richard Grasso, president of the Exchange, showed Kirov how to ring the bell, jocularly begging him to wait until the appointed moment. Kirov only half listened. His eyes were scouring the floor for sign of Antony Llewellyn-Davies, the sly Englishman who three months before had agreed to be his spy inside of Black Jet Securities. Minutes ago, Llewellyn-Davies had rushed off, worried he’d seen Gavallan. Kirov was left to wonder whether in fact he had, and if so, whether the Englishman had done as he’d been told.

A crew from Russian Channel One gathered on the floor below, camera pointed in his direction, a red light indicating film was rolling. Reflexively, Kirov stood a little straighter. He was aware that at that very instant his image was being broadcast across the Russian continent. To Moscow. To Leningrad. To Kiev and Minsk. To Odessa, Alma-Ata, Ulan Bator, and Vladivostok. Across eleven time zones, the picture of Konstantin Kirov, Russia’s “first Western businessman,” the “patron saint of the second Russian perestroika,” was gazing down upon the country’s citizens. He forgot about Gavallan and Llewellyn-Davies. His heart fluttered madly.

Grasso nudged his shoulder. “Thirty seconds, Mr. Kirov.”

The clock read 9:29:30.

Meg Kratzer rubbed his back. “Congratulations,” she said. “We’re all so happy for you. Just thrilled.”

Kirov mouthed a thank-you, wishing he could have arranged for a prettier woman to be at his side.

“Kirov!”

The voice came from below. Nervously, he looked to the left and right.

“Kirov!”

Good Christ, it was Gavallan. He had climbed on top of the trading post nearest the podium and was shouting at
him.

“The offering is canceled. Mercury’s over. The specialists are closing their books. The FBI is in the building. Come down right now. We want to talk to you.”

Richard Grasso looked appalled. “Jett, mind telling me what is going on here?”

“Just hold on to Kirov. Keep him there. We’re coming to arrest him.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Grasso nodded his head vigorously, but when he checked over his shoulder all he saw was Kirov’s narrow shoulders retreating down the stairs.

It had been a stressful day for the president.

New uprisings in Grozny threatened the fragile Chechen peace. A group of demonstrators from Greenpeace had camped in front of St. Basil’s protesting the country’s use of mammals, dolphins in particular, as instruments of war. And an independent newspaper in the south had uncovered decade-old evidence of a bribe he’d carried for Mayor Sobchak back in his days in Leningrad. The travails of politics. Sometimes he didn’t think it worth it.

Pouring himself a glass of mineral water, Volodya settled into his chair and turned on the television. Quickly, he found Channel One. The screen filled with the picture of Konstantin Kirov standing on the podium of the New York Stock Exchange. Finally, some good news. He didn’t care for the man, but as a representative of Russian business he was acceptable. His English was colloquial and flawless, his dress impeccable. And there was no doubting the man’s resourcefulness. Given the proper training, he might have made a decent spy.

The president turned up the volume. An American stock analyst was calling for Mercury stock to rise dramatically the first day, touting the inauguration of Russia into the club of Western nations. Henceforward, the commentator intoned, one could expect a flood of Russian multinationals to be quoted on the world’s major exchanges.

The president smiled.

He looked closer. There was a commotion brewing. Konstantin Kirov’s face had taken on a decidedly worried cast, and he was looking this way and that. The president leaned forward, eyes glued to the television. The camera panned lower, focusing on a wild man who had climbed atop one of the trading posts on the floor of the Exchange. The commentator stopped speaking, and one could hear with astonishing clarity what the man was shouting. “Kirov. The offering is canceled. Mercury’s over.” And then, to the president’s horror, “The FBI’s in the building.”

The camera panned back up and Kirov could be seen fleeing the balcony, leaving his colleagues and advisers questioning one another.

Lifting the remote control, the president turned off the television. He felt sick to his stomach. Kirov had despoiled his country’s reputation in front of millions of viewers. Tomorrow, the story would be front-page news. One more Russian thief. Another doomed enterprise. Worse, the man had failed the Service. There would be no money. No money at all.

The president reached for a phone. One fiasco he might be able to explain away; two would reek of conspiracy. There could be no more embarrassments, not even the hint of intrigue. His budding relations with America and the economic favors they promised were too valuable to risk.

His assistant answered, and Volodya roared, “Find me Major General Kirov. Immediately!”

Konstantin Kirov rushed down the stairs from the podium, eager to be free of the building. To be free of the city. Of the whole damned country. Four of his men were waiting on the ground floor. They were new faces, dark, sullen, part of the New York crew he’d summoned the night before.

“Get me to the car,” he said. “Yours, not mine. A bit of trouble. We must move quickly.”

“Follow me,” answered one of the men, his accent southern, unfriendly.

Kirov eyed the man, not liking his swarthy features, his dead eyes. But what choice did he have? They set off down the hallway at a dignified clip. Off the floor, the building was quiet and well-lit, and for a few seconds Kirov maintained the illusion that he would be able to waltz scot-free from the building. He soothed himself with the notion that he could still salvage Mercury. He would put his own money into the firm. He would upgrade the infrastructure. He would create the company he had sold to all of Wall Street. If he didn’t take the company public today, who cared? He would be back in six months or a year with something even better. Forget Black Jet. Forget Gavallan. He would go to the big boys this time. Bulge bracket only. Salomon. First Boston. Lehman. They’d fight over themselves for the deal.

Fifty feet ahead, twin sets of brass-framed double doors led to the street. A black sedan lolled at the curb, its back door opened. Kirov saw daylight and thought,
Freedom
.

Then he heard the strident voice coming from behind him.

“Mr. Kirov, this is the FBI. Please stop where you are. You are under arrest, sir.”

Turning, he saw a tall brown-haired man in a summer suit walking toward him, his gun drawn and hanging at his side. Gavallan was next to him. Two more men whom Kirov took to be law enforcement agents followed close behind. “You’re under arrest, Mr. Kirov. Lie down on the floor, sir. Tell your men to do the same.”

“Come on, Konstantin,” said Gavallan. “Do as you’re told. Don’t make this tougher than it has to be.”

Kirov looked back toward the exit. At the end of the hallway, a pair of the Exchange’s security guards, clad in dove gray uniforms, their hands drifting toward their holsters, walked slowly, uneasily, toward him and his bodyguards. Passersby hugged the walls, sensing trouble.

Kirov took another look at Gavallan, then darted toward the exit. At the same time, his bodyguards moved in the opposite direction. They had no guns. They made no move to appear menacing. They simply walked rapidly toward the federal agents, obstructing their line of sight.

Passing the gray-clad security guards, Kirov murmured to his men, “Hold them here. I just need a minute.”

Both men, soldiers belonging to the New York side of the Solnetsevo Brotherhood, nodded and took up position in the center of the hallway.

Kirov ran, not daring to look behind, as if he were being chased by the ghosts of his own conscience. He heard the sounds of a scuffle, Gavallan’s voice calling after him. Strangely, he sounded more perfunctory than upset. The life seemed to have gone out of the man. Funny—he hadn’t pegged Gavallan as a quitter. Passing through one door, then the next, Kirov emerged on the sidewalk. Twenty feet away a car door stood open, and a man inside was gesturing for him to hurry. He caught the words “Hurry, damn you. Run!” Kirov slowed only to lower his head and threw himself into the backseat.

“Thank God,” he whispered, his cheek touching the cool black upholstery. “Get me out of here. Fast!”

One moment the Beechcraft was flying straight on its course, its speed a comfortable 250 knots, altitude 400 feet. It had lined up perfectly on its inbound azimuth. The landing site, a circle of knee-high heather sprouting from the snow, was visible. The pilot had opened the cockpit door. Leaning out of his seat, he offered a thumbs-up to the valiant warriors. “Godspeed,” he said, though with the tumult of the air invading the fuselage and the propeller engines buzzing so close it was doubtful anyone heard him.

The next moment the plane was no longer there.

Three pounds of plastique ignited the four hundred gallons of jet fuel in the starboard wing, which in turn ignited the auxiliary tanks housed at the rear of the fuselage and then the fuel tanks in the port wing. Expanding at 7,800 meters per second, an enormous, wickedly powerful fireball engulfed the plane. Joint tore from joint, bolt from superstructure. In one-hundredth of a second, the elemental explosion shattered the plane and everyone inside of it into ten thousand pieces, showering the pristine Alaskan tundra with a black and silver rain.

Some attributed the melted tire and grotesquely twisted propeller that landed squarely in the infield of Pump Station 2’s summer baseball diamond to a practical joke played by some local miners. Others offered no explanation at all, content to merely scratch their heads. No planes had been reported in the area. The explosion was heard only faintly and seen by no one. Alaska was nothing if not mysterious.

In Severnaya, Leonid Kirov removed his hand from the transmitter. He had tried and he had failed. There would be no bust in Red Square. No promotion waiting upon his return. The president had made his disappointment abundantly clear. The penalty for failure was as severe as the reward for success was generous.

Such it had been in Russia, and such it would always be.

His hand fell to his jacket, hanging on the chair behind him. His fingers probed the jacket’s pocket. It was there, as he knew it would be. He felt the cool metal, the smooth expanse of the grip, the curled menace of the trigger. Slowly, he drew the pistol out and laid it on the table. He lit a cigarette, but the smoke tasted harsh, unwelcome.

Standing, he put on his jacket and straightened his tie. He spent a moment adjusting the tie clasp, his gift from Andropov, then drew himself to attention. And raising the pistol, he was careful to keep his chin raised just so, his eyes to the fore. The gun touched his temple, and as he pulled the trigger he made sure to lean his head sideways into the barrel.

Settled into the town car’s backseat, Konstantin Kirov expelled a sigh of relief. He was hardly home free, but with a little luck, he’d make it to Teterboro and be airborne and en route to his private hideaway in the Exumas before the authorities could track him down. A man did not make it to his position in life without taking a few precautions, without setting aside a few dollars for a rainy day or establishing a place to keep his head down if the waters grew too rough. He’d lie low for a few years, cultivate his relations with the country’s entrepreneurs, work on his memoirs. A return to Moscow was out of the question, at least until a new president took office. As for Mercury, that too would be put on hold. His plan to bring the company public had dissolved the moment he’d heard the words “FBI” and “under arrest.”

Looking over his shoulder, he caught sight of Gavallan running down the stairs of the Exchange, pulling up in the middle of the street, arms raised high in exasperation.

“Yeb vas,”
he muttered. Fuck you.

He truly hoped he’d never see the man again in his life.

Suddenly, he was very thirsty. “Do you have something to drink? Some water, perhaps? Perrier? Evian?”

Two men sat in the front.

“Of course,” said the one in the passenger seat. He turned and looked at Kirov. “Anything for my partner,” said Aslan Dashamirov.

“But—why—how?” Kirov choked on his own confusion.

“You’ve been a naughty boy, Konstantin Romanovich,” said Dashamirov, waving a slim silver disc between his fingers. “Have you never heard of honor among thieves?”

Kirov threw a hand to the door, fingers clawing for the release. He would make a deal with the FBI. He would show them the inner workings of the Russian underworld. He would forfeit his entire fortune.

With a sturdy thump, the doors locked, and Dashamirov laughed.

Konstantin Kirov cast a last look behind him. Katya had joined Gavallan, and the two stood in the center of Wall Street. He thought he saw his daughter raise a hand and wave, but he couldn’t be sure. Tears had blurred his vision.

Epilogue

The gavel slammed with finality and a short, exultant cry went up from the executives gathered on the podium. Jett Gavallan shook hands with the Russian president, and then it was everyone else’s turn, Meg’s and Bruce’s and Graf’s. Each received the same firm grip, the same swift shake, the same sober nod. The president turned to Cate and kissed her on the cheek three times in the Russian custom. He had been learning English, and Gavallan overheard a few words.

“We are grateful to you both for saving our airline. I only hope the public will treat it as fairly.”

“I’m certain it will,” answered Cate graciously.

Novastar Airlines had begun the day trading on the New York Stock Exchange at $14 a share and had closed at $15.25. As thanks for returning to Novastar the money that Kirov had stolen, the president had awarded Gavallan the mandate to bring the company public a year later. Black Jet Securities had brought the $500 million offering to market at the upper end of its price range. A first day’s jump of nearly 10 percent wasn’t too bad for a Russian company, all things considered.

The president clapped a hand on Gavallan’s arm. “Now we must talk about our aluminum industry. It is not in good condition. When can you come again to Moscow?”

“Not for a while, I’m afraid. This is our last trip until the big day. Cate can’t fly much longer and I don’t want to be away when the moment arrives.”

“A boy or a girl?”

Gavallan looked at Cate. Her cheeks wore a slight flush, but at seven months pregnant, she’d never looked more beautiful. “It will be a surprise,” he said. “But Mr. Byrnes will be happy to travel to Moscow—say in a week? He has some business with another company we’re helping to sell.”

“Mercury, yes?” asked the president.

“Yes,” said Gavallan. “Mercury’s being purchased by Bluephone, an Anglo-French telecom company.”

“What is the price?”

“One billion.”

“Rubles or dollars?”

Gavallan smiled. They both knew the answer to that one.

Cate wrapped an arm through his and gave him a squeeze. Actually, if you added the 50 percent stake in Novastar Cate had inherited from her father and her 85 percent ownership of Mercury, they would be nigh on billionaires. But they had decided not to keep the money, feeling that it didn’t really belong to them. The shares in Novastar and her proceeds from the Mercury sale were to be placed in a philanthropic foundation Cate would chair.

With a final handshake, the president left with his entourage. Graf Byrnes headed down the stairs a moment later, with Bruce Jay Tustin and Meg Kratzer in tow. Gavallan stood at the podium, looking over the paper-strewn floor, the blinking monitors, the bold American flags. Ten minutes after the end of trading, the floor of the New York Stock Exchange was quiet, though not deserted. Traders had returned to their posts to tally their books. Brokers were on the phone with their head offices. Over a billion shares had exchanged hands. The cogs of capitalism never stopped turning, Gavallan mused.

Slipping his hand into his wife’s, their fingers intertwining, he walked with her down the stairs and across the floor. “See you at seven,” he said. “You thinking dinner out?”

“How ’bout room service?”

“You got it.”

They walked outside the building. A fierce summer sun cut through the latticework of skyscrapers, warming their cheeks. Ahead, Graf Byrnes was climbing into the rear of a limousine that would take them to Black Jet’s midtown offices. “You coming?” he shouted.

“Be right there.”

Gavallan kissed his wife on the cheek. “Seven o’clock,” he said. “It’s a date.” Then he brought her close and whispered, “Hey, we did it.”

Cate didn’t answer. He saw a memory dance in her eyes, a tear well up, then die.