The Lion in Russia (13 page)

“Thank you for not gloating,” he said without
turning around.

“Nothing to gloat about,” she said in a
cautious voice. She was really not sure how to respond.

“You were right. Putilin wants me dead.
You’ve saved my life twice. Thank you.”

“As you pointed out, it’s what I get paid to
do.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to be gracious
here,” he said through gritted teeth.

“And doing such a great job of it too,” she
snapped back. He looked at her over his shoulder, then laughed,
presumably at the irritation in her tone before turning away
again.

She continued,” Besides there is no need to
be gracious, even if a miracle occurred and you somehow managed
it.” He exhaled heavily, obviously frustrated, but didn’t say
anything else. “What did you say to those people back at the
church?”

“I told them the guy had fallen dead at our
feet. I don’t think they believed me, but with no evidence to
contrary...” he paused then turned again with an inquiring
brow.

“They won’t find the ricin unless they’re
looking for it.”

He nodded. “As I thought.”

They stood in silence again.

“The funny thing is, I think I knew all
along,” he said.

“Of course you did. That’s why you were such
a stubborn jackass about it.”

Ignoring her insult he continued. “It’s a
hard thing to swallow. Knowing that the president of your country
not only wants you dead, but is willing to actually send assassins
after you.”

“I’ve gone up against plenty of bad guys, but
I can’t say I know how that feels,” she said with an involuntary
shiver.

He looked down at her. “Are you cold?”

“For God’s sake Leo, it’s twenty-three
degrees out here. Of course I’m cold!”

“Sorry, lets go inside and have some
tea.”

Safely ensconced in his study drinking sweet
Russian tea, Vries sat on a large over-stuffed sofa near a roaring
fire while Leo occupied a large wingchair set at a right angle to
her. It was still early afternoon but the fire was quite welcome,
as they’d removed their heavy outerwear upon returning downstairs.
Vries looked around the room, appreciating the contrasts. When
they’d first arrived at the house, she’d been surprised at the
colors used in this room. It was a bright robin’s egg blue. And
while the furniture was heavy and masculine with lots of oxblood
leather, it wasn’t nearly as ornate as the furniture in the rest of
the house or his home in Milan, for that matter. He’d recently had
the study re-done and she suspected the rest of the house reflected
his taste when he first acquired wealth. This room was who he was
now.

He held his tea in his hand, but wasn’t
drinking it. He seemed to be in a contemplative mood. Given the
events of the day, she wasn’t surprised.

“I’ve done some bad things,” he said in a
totally flat tone.

“Well I’m hardly one to criticize you for
that,” she said with a sardonic twist of her lips.

“I grew up poor. Wretchedly poor. My father
was every Russian stereotype a boorish alcoholic, boorish and
abusive. One day he simply didn’t come home. I can’t say we missed
him. My mother eventually died of tuberculosis.”

Vries frowned. “Tuberculosis?”

“Yes. Sounds like something out of
Les
Miserables
, doesn’t it?” She nodded.

“I’m not making excuses, I was a full-grown
man and fully complicit in all my actions. For a long time I was an
ardent Communist. Despite our poverty I believed our Revolution had
been hijacked by the Cold War with America and our dreadful
circumstances were caused by that, not the fact that our government
was poorly structured from the onset of the Revolution.”

“I don’t think the Cold War was good for
either country.”

He kept talking as thought she hadn’t spoken,
and she realized he wanted to get all this out in the open. He went
on as though compelled to do so. She took his hand to comfort him
as he’d done at the church, loving its size and rough, masculine
texture. He squeezed her hand lightly and raised it to place a
brief kiss on her fingers.

“Our government fell apart shortly after my
mother died. I was desperate to make money to save her then I
became obsessed with making money. I had been a fanatical
Communist, now I was a fanatical capitalist. I guess I thought if I
could make enough money I could still save her somehow.” His
laughter echoed in the room, the lack of humor in the sound echoed
her own demons and made her heart ache.

“It’s so hard to lose a parent. I did some
crazy stuff after my folks died too,” she said.

His brief smile acknowledged her words and he
continued. “I was smart and managed to come up with some early
software designs. Nothing earth shattering, but in my country at
that time, there was nothing. I had good friends in the government
and was allowed to make a lot of money.”

Vries nodded, she’d heard this part of his
story before. At least the computer software part.

“You have to understand, my government had no
money. Decades of trying to keep up with the U.S. and then the war
in Afghanistan had left us penniless. Industry was decades behind
and in dire need of updating. Infrastructure was almost
nonexistent. We’d put everything we had into the military. Diseases
were running rampant, but our people were too poor to pay much in
taxes. Besides the tax collection system was corrupt and broken
down. Almost twenty years ago there were suddenly some very wealthy
men in my country. They called us the oligarchs.”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard.”

“It’s not meant to be flattering. We came up
with a scheme whereas we would lend the government money. As
collateral, it would put up blocks of stock in state-owned
companies. Everyone knew, including the government that they would
default, leaving us owning the companies. The president at the
time, Beltsin was a drunken boor and an incompetent idiot. Your
country loved him,” he said wryly.

“Yes, I remember,” she said.

“He spent most of his administration fighting
off coup attempts. He was too weak to fight against us, and we
raided our country’s mineral wealth like Vikings plundering a
monastery. I got some oil and natural gas wells, a couple of
factories and a platinum mine. Finally I had the kind of fabulous
wealth I’d always dreamed of.” He sighed, staring off into space.
“And now it’s time to pay the piper, as they say. Take what you
want said God. Take it, and pay for it,” he recited the old proverb
as though he’d said it often.

Vries stared at the fire crackling in the
huge limestone fireplace. She curled up on the sofa and rested her
chin on her upraised knees. Leo leaned forward toward the coffee
table to pour more tea, which she declined. “But was any of this
illegal? Why did you think they were going to put you in jail?”

“Because that’s what they did to nearly every
other man involved in our scheme. There were twelve of us. Four
escaped, the rest are in prison, and then there’s me. You have to
understand, we were still under the Soviet-style rules at the time.
Everything about us was illegal. Capitalism was illegal. No one has
enforced those laws for years and now Putilin will.”

Vries shook her head at the Machiavellian
schemes. Of course, she’d already known some of the story, but
hearing it directly from him...

“When I got the companies they were in
deplorable condition. The workers were literally starving. I went
in and updated all the companies, mines and wells. I poured every
dime I had into them. Soon they were operating at a profit and then
I became a very wealthy man. Now they are making a profit and the
president wants them. Over time I came to realize that was the main
problem with our country. It is run like a small village, a fiefdom
really. Inefficient, bloated and unprofitable. We rely too heavily
on mineral resources and not enough on intellectual
development.”

“So what did you do?”

“I went to the president with a Power Point
presentation.”

Vries stared at him, amazed at both his
audacity and naïveté. “Oh. My. God.”

He continued as though she had not spoken. “I
pointed out that our economy loses thirty billion dollars a year
due to corruption and bribes. Our young people prefer to become
civil servants rather than engineers despite the comparable low
pay. Obviously they expect to make up the difference in bribes.
Corruption is costing us a very valuable asset. We rank very high
on the corruption and bribery indexes.”

“There’s a corruption and bribery index?” she
said, staring at him.

“Of course there is. Businessmen need to know
the cost of doing business in a country before they invest there. I
told the president that we must modernize our economy and develop a
knowledge and expertise base as opposed to just raw material.”

“Oh my God,” she said again. “You really do
have a death wish. Didn’t anyone try to talk you out of this?”

“Of course. Everyone tried to talk me out of
it, but you must understand, I know Vlad. We grew up together in
Pitr.”

“What? That’s not in your file.” Lelia would
be fit to be tied.

“I have a file? With whom?”

Vries shook her head, no way was she telling
him about Lelia’s dossier. “So you thought your connection meant he
wouldn’t kill you?”

“No. No. Putilin was always quite ruthless
even when we were young. I thought the fact that we were boys
together meant he would listen to me. That he would understand that
I had his, and the country’s best interests in mind.”

“But don’t you think you were being a bit
hypocritical? After all, you’d schemed to rob the state as
well.”

He nodded. “Looking back now I can see my
hypocrisy. At the time I was so excited about the prospect of
transforming my country I didn’t realize how it would look to
others. Of course, I explained that I was willing to work with
others to implement these ideas and repatriate the money to the
state.”

“That’s generous, especially if the companies
weren’t profitable when you took them over, but somehow I doubt any
of this went over well.”

“That is an understatement. I am not an
idiot. I understand that there is corruption. There is the Mafia.
But I thought if I could show the president a way to make things
more efficient and profitable, he’d understand there would be even
more money available to him. He, unfortunately, didn’t see it that
way.”

Vries pushed her hair back as she thought
about what he’d said. Static electricity from wearing the hat had
left it in wild disarray. “He saw you as a threat. He thinks you
want to be president.”

His face twisted in distaste. “I can’t
imagine anything I would want to do less, and I thought Putilin
understood that.”

“Apparently not. Honestly if he wasn’t so
paranoid, he probably would realize you have no interest in being
president, or even in being a politician.”

“I should say not. People who are dishonest
tend to assume everyone is dishonest as well. I always say what I
mean. Vlad, I’m sorry to say, seldom does.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“Do you know him?” he asked with a frown.

“No, but I’ve seen him around enough to get a
pretty good bead on his character, and I’ve certainly known plenty
of men like him. Anyway, once he told you where you could go, why
didn’t you just leave it alone?”

He took a long sip of tea his hands with
their long elegant fingers wrapped around the ornate tea glass.
With any other man the contrast would have been incongruous, but
somehow his looked just right. She shivered, remembering just how
talented those fingers were at seeking out and satisfying her
erotic needs. As though reading her mind he gestured for her to
take a seat on the low ottoman in front of him. Vries complied,
leaning back between his outstretched legs.

He placed his tea on a side table and began
slowly massaging her scalp. For a moment Vries thought she was
going to have an orgasm just from his touch alone.

“Your hair has been driving me crazy. I love
it all wild like this.”

“You really need to talk to somebody about
your obsession with my hair. It’s not crazy about Russian winter.”
She sighed as he hit a particularly sensitive spot. Apparently her
head was an erogenous zone.
Who knew?
Considering that over
the course of her career she’d had dozens of attractive men do her
hair she suspected it was only a turn on when Leo touched her.

He leaned down to kiss the side of her neck
and Vries lay back against him, savoring his touch.

She struggled to focus. “You were
saying...”

“I was?” he said threading her hair through
his fingers.

“You were telling me why you were...oh God,
if you do that again I’m going to yank you out of that chair. Come
on Leo why didn’t you leave him alone? You had to know how
dangerous he is.”

“Because I know what is right for my country.
I started doing speaking engagements,” he said.

“For God’s sake, why didn’t you just shoot
yourself in the head?” she said turning to look at him in
consternation.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m not
suicidal. I know I’m right. Why should I give up when I am trying
to do a good thing?”

Vries rolled her eyes, but refused to state
the obvious: He should give up before he got his fool self killed.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t told him that a dozen times already.

“But Putilin saw you as campaigning for
president.”

“He started having people arrested. My
business partner was one of the first. That’s when I sent Pasha to
Milan. I didn’t want her available to be used against me. I
liquidated a lot of assets and sent the money out of the country
too. Then I waited, but they never came for me.”

“Why do you think that is?” she said with a
frown.