Red Russia Read online

  Traveling time each way: ten hours.

  If you booked ahead and got it for a deal, it’s only two thousand dollars per hour, or a steal at forty thousand.

  There’s not a trailer-trash child alive who doesn’t know that’s a double wide.

  That could be home.

  But for the elite, it’s a place to sit for ten hours.

  For M&H Enterprise, it’s considered a necessary expense. In this business, presentation is all important. And while you might think no one would know, or even care to know, the specifics of our travel arrangements, in this case you’d be as wrong as I originally was. The Russian consultant hired by M&H to prepare us for this trip went to some lengths to explain that every part of our arrival, our stay, and our departure will be known to the executives of Konstantin Imperiya, because Konstantin Imperiya’s executives are siloviki.

  There’s no English equivalent for silovik. It doesn’t translate succinctly because to create something as Machiavellian as a silovik requires both the KGB and the GRU, and then a shift from communism to capitalism followed by a gear-grinding reverse into despotism.

  Konstantin himself isn’t silovik; he’s Bratva. Bratva is easy. Bratva means brother, specifically brothers in crime, also known incorrectly as the Russian Mafia. Calling something as wholly unique as the Bratva by the name Russian Mafia is like writing off the siloviki as corporate spies.

  M&H Enterprise has corporate spies, but Konstantin Imperiya has siloviki. Siloviki are members of the secret security forces. They’re officers of the former KGB, GRU, FSB, and SVR, which are essentially all acronyms for spies, spooks, shadows, and assassins.

  For the siloviki, business and Russia are the same corporate state for which they remain spies, spooks, shadows, and assassins.

  The hired consultant taught us another word too: kompromat.

  Now this one is fun. To a room full of M&H executives, the consultant said, “As soon as you opened dialogue with Konstantin Imperiya, they would have started compiling dossiers on each of you. That they’ve agreed to talk means they have enough compromising material to blackmail. At this point, if you fail to give them what they want, they will release this kompromat to the media. If you want to keep your secrets, I’d advise you to stay home.”

  And Hugo, of Morris & Hugo Enterprise, had laughed. “That’s why we’re sending the kid,” he said. “Peter’s too young to have done anything serious.”

  I’m not really worried because sleeping pills and hippy parents are too insignificant to register on the mental radar of a scheming silovik or a murdering Bratva, and Peter is a four-sided Prince of Coins, too stable to have ever done anything exciting enough to be worthy of a kompromat.

  In the first-class cabin of British Airways, Peter’s only concern is the daisy chain of electronic devices he’s recharging through both our power outlets and the delay associated with satellite Wi-Fi over the Atlantic.

  Because Peter doesn’t want to be called a lagging feeder, he can’t PvP, so he’s left with few other options than talking with me.

  Compiling dossiers on potential business partners is not something exclusive to Konstantin Imperiya, or the siloviki. The Competitive Intelligence Department of M&H provided Peter with every known detail they could find, steal, or buy on the executives and founder of Konstantin Imperiya. Peter could repeat it verbatim two weeks ago, but he reads it again to me.

  “Maksim Volikov, Deputy Chief of Konstantin Imperiya and second largest shareholder. Born November ninth, nineteen sixty-six. Graduate of law from Saint Petersburg’s Leningrad University.”

  I glean from this a lot more than Peter. The totals are present in my mind without effort or attempt. First is numerology: Volikov is a six. Next is astrology, which marks Volikov as a Scorpio, and then the Chinese Zodiac calls him a Snake. Accepted western symbolism would suggest he’s poison, but making him significantly more dangerous are the double 6 and double 9 clearly visible in his date of birth; they signify he’s a master of duplicity. Don’t bother wondering if he’s Yin or Yang, black or white, good or evil, because try all you like to trip up a double 6 and 9 and they will merely stand on their head and insist they were the other all along. I could devolve even further into the occult and really make Volikov out to be a monster, but in that way lies madness, and so, as not to appear insane, I share none of this with Peter.

  Instead, Peter shares his psychosis with me. “In the organogram, Maksim so saksim makes Saks look SIM.”

  I won’t argue any part of that because I barely recognize half the words as English. Never mind though, Peter is pressing on me a tablet still attached to the charger. “Cognisize this.” He leans into my lap to tap open a page in the intelligence report.

  It reads: During the 1994 takeover of Steellyov, Maksim Volikov was believed to have used his FSB position to coerce shareholders to accept less than market value for stocks. Several board members were arrested for tax evasion during the acquisition, and though it was ruled a suicide, the CEO of Steellyov was found asphyxiated in his car. The takeover was financed with high yield bonds sold to the public through a Moscow bank in which Volikov’s relatives were partners. Shortly after the company was acquired, it was dissolved for assets and the bank closed as bankrupt.

  “Good lord.”

  As though I had laughed, Peter says, “That’s not the funny part,” and leans in again to scroll down the screen.

  The last sentence reads: Fear of reprisals from Volikov and his supporters in the FSB ensured no investigation followed.

  Peter smiles and winks. “That’s an anecgloat if I’ve ever heard one.”

  “Anecgloat?”

  “You know, like an anecdote for the ego.” He shakes his head in dismay and says, “Man, you are acluistic.” I’ll never know exactly what it is that I am because next Peter says, “This whole business with the FSB, like woo~ooo~ooo.” He throws his hands up in mock fear and makes ghost sounds. “The scary FSB, it’s just a cover image. But it’s prime target for some serious impression management.”

  Impression management? I can’t ask again, so I just look confused.

  Peter explains, “Window licking.” But as that doesn’t change my expression, he further clarifies, “Big up. Cater out. Soft soap. No? Flattery, Sibyl. Simple flattery. Is that so hard to understand?”

  Well, not when you use consumer-ready words. But I don’t say this.

  And anyway, he’s moved on. Reading once more from the dossier, he says, “Isaak Madulin, third largest shareholder in Konstantin Imperiya and Chief Financial Officer. Mayor of Bereznik and former director of the Bereznik sawmill. Born March thirteen, nineteen sixty-two, he’s a graduate of law from Saint Petersburg State University.”

  He’s a nervous Pisces with a Chinese Tiger fishing his waters. The symbolism infers he may be inclined to suicide or other forms of self-harm, but more significant, being ruled by the number seven indicates, rather specifically, that this worried Pisces spends his earnings on either very debauched women or opiates.

  I ask, “Is he married?”

  “Going on twenty years. Also has two daughters and a son.”

  “Mistress?”

  “Are you kidding? Look at the guy.” Peter taps open an image of a man with thinning hair, heavy-lidded eyes, and a joyless expression that matches his business gray suit. Peter’s diagnosis: “Dead inside.”

  “He’s four years younger than Volikov but looks as old as Konstanin.”

  “If that crypt walker is getting flesh and I’m gettin…” Then Peter remembers it’s me, not one of the junior execs, and stops himself. To get distance from the awkwardness, he looks to the widescreen over the liquor cabinet and watches the animation of the plane flying north along the Atlantic coast. He complains, “It hasn’t moved in an hour.”

  I have to smile because we’ve only been in the air forty minutes and the first he saw the animation was ten minutes ago.

  To help him focus, I say, “Tell me about Konstantin.”

&nb
sp; “The kingpin: Konstantin Zomanov, born July twenty-three, nineteen fifty.”

  Even the most casual fortune-teller will recognize Volikov is interesting, but Konstantin is downright astounding.

  Numerology has Konstantin as a nine. Astrology says he’s a Leo and the Chinese Zodiac names him a Tiger. Accepted Western symbolism would infer he’s a cat with nine lives, but making him fabulously portentous is again the date of birth: July 23. Whole books have been dedicated to the number twenty-three, and July 23 in particular.

  Peter says, “Kawinkydink: that’s the date you set for our wedding.”

  Not a kawinkydink. And also, probably not a wise date to start a marriage. Well, at least, not if you’re the sort to believe in such things.

  If you’ve not read any of the books dedicated to the topic, here’s the TL;DR: July 23 is the day the universe took acid, tripped balls, and birthed Eris, the Goddess of Discordia. Her birthday, as is Konstantin’s, is the day of chaos. It’s the anniversary of everything surreal.

  For all it might imply about me and what I hope from our marriage, the significance of this date is also not the sort of thing I’m inclined to share with Peter.

  Instead, I let him continue reading. “Konstantin was first arrested at ten, left school later the same year, and then, five arrests later at the age of fifteen, he’s sentenced to forced labor at Dalstroy Gulag.” Peter turns in his seat to look at me with confusion. “How does a guy that spent over two decades in prison come out and rule a kingdom the size of Texas?”

  If we were talking about an American tycoon, the answer would be family money, but as Peter says, “The little bastard came from Latvian peasant stock. He was raised in an orphanage, for Christ’s sake. The man racked up twenty-three years going in and out of the gulag, and now he’s a logging magnate? Explain that.”

  I could expound upon July 23, or the 23 Enigma, or say two plus three equals five and it’s the Law of Fives, but that’s all far too esoteric, and besides, the intelligence dossier has explained it better, so I simply lean into Peter’s seat and run my finger over the tablet so it highlights the three words: thief in law.

  “Thief in law,” Peter scoffs. “Prison thieves don’t control a billion dollars in raw resource.”

  But I know better because the moment I heard the phrase thief in law, I went slightly dotty with infatuation. While Peter was memorizing the chief executives’ biographies, I was absorbing every detail Google could find about this uniquely Russian prison phenomenon.

  If you’ve ever amused yourself in a role-playing fantasy game with a faction of thieves and a Thieves Guild, you’ve essentially seen the thieves in law as they operate from Russia’s prisons. They’re a criminal fraternity with a strict code of ethics, rituals, and expectations. Break the rules and an honest-to-god council of thieves will decide your fate, and a devote hierarchy will enforce it.

  While it is crime organized, it is not organized crime, though the two intersect.

  There are some codes of conduct that set a thief in law apart from the Bratva. A thief in law cannot have a legitimate job or make money honestly, and they are bound to help their criminal kin over blood relatives. Falling out of favor but still held sacred by many, a thief in law cannot marry or have children, and they cannot own property or consider any place home other than prison.

  Russian organized crime draws many of its members from the thieves in law, and for that, Russian organized crime is far more loyal than the Mafia ever dreamed of being, partly because the Bratva are recruited in prison and have already proven they can and will go to jail, and the thief in law doesn’t get crowned a vor, thief, until he’s been jailed repeatedly and demonstrated he won’t cooperate with the authorities.

  The Bratva want thieves in law within their ranks because it gives them credibility. And the thieves in law join the Bratva because they get due respect.

  That Konstantin is both the Pakhan—the boss, the godfather, the don—of the Zomanov Bratva and also a thief in law pretty much makes him a king of thieves and that the siloviki obey his command makes him terrifyingly powerful.

  He sits at the head of a table that feeds not only spies, spooks, and assassins from the government, but also burglars, swindlers, and hit men from the prisons, and dining beside them are police, civil servants, and judges from the public services, and finally there’s a whole host of politicians toasting his health with wine stolen from the church and anointed holy by the priest at his side.

  Konstantin is an exemplary, though not entirely unique, Russian oligarch. Sure, he controls a vast forest, but another Bratva just like him controls most of the steel, and another has a monopoly on gas. There are Bratva in gold, oil, and diamonds, and most of them own a bank or two. And they are all, each and every one of them, a thief in law.

  I try to explain this to Peter, but he stops me by enunciating loudly, “T. B. I.” After affirming the traumatic brain injury I’ve caused him, he declares, “I didn’t ask to drink from the fire hose.”

  Hand to his head, Peter squeezes his temples.

  I ask, “Have you got a headache as well?”

  And he grumbles an agreement.

  I don’t have a headache, but with nine hours remaining in this flight, I think it’s time to drown our minds for real.

  Because zopiclone and methaqualone aren’t prescribed in the US, I keep one in an aspirin bottle and the other mixed up in a bottle of Tylenol. They look similar, but the desperate eye of an addict can tell them apart. Ambien is perfectly legal, but Peter has read the stories of people wandering around after midnight whacked out of their minds, roasting marshmallows over Zippos and burning down the house, or driving to The Met in their underwear, and, of course, there was our neighbor who decorated his front lawn with Christmas lights in June. All very embarrassing. To Peter, Ambien is nothing short of evil and he won’t allow it in the house, so the Ambien is with the methaqualone pretending to be Tylenol as well. Promethazine is the magic pill that will prevent these mad nocturnal walkabouts, but as I don’t have a prescription for that either, it’s in a Benadryl bottle.

  Because half of what I need to get me through the night isn’t exactly legal, I just go ahead and get everything online. When it comes to pop culture and most things current, I’m truly passé, but I know all about Tor, Valhalla, Silk Road and the Dread Pirate Roberts, god bless every one of his incarnations.

  Peter’s wallet is Brioni and mine is BitCoin. That’s another secret I’ll have to dispose of after Russia and the wedding, and dropping back to one pill, closing my P.O. Box, and pulling my parents out of hiding. I might need to make a list.

  Just thinking about it is more than I can really cope with.

  I give Peter half a tablet from the aspirin bottle and I take two from the Tylenol.

  He asks, “Why are you taking two of that and I’m only taking half of this if we both have a headache?”

  “Mine’s worse,” I explain. And then smiling, “Trust me. I always take care of you.” I kiss his cheek and assure him, “If you’re not better in thirty minutes, I’ll give you two of these.”

  But that will never happen. I’ve spent years building up a resistance to every hypnotic on the market. I can mix methaqualone with Ambien and still make more sense than Peter on a conference call. The half zopiclone I give Peter will either put him to sleep or make it so he doesn’t care if the little plane moves across the map.

  And, as expected, twenty minutes later he’s dead to the extravagances of first class, and he won’t appreciate anything again until we land in Moscow.

  The Sun

  By the time we clear Immigration, it’s 5:00 a.m. and the summer sun is already shining bright through the vast expanse of glass that fronts Moscow’s Domodedovo terminal.

  Peter looks at the sun, then at his watch, and back to the sun again. “What the fuck?” He curses the airline, “Goddamn military time. Why couldn’t the captain just give the time in normal hours?”

  I want to explain that
zero-five-hundred really is 5:00 a.m. and that Russia is simply in the long days of the White Nights when the sun is only below the horizon for a few short hours, but the terminal is loud with people and I’d have to shout to be heard. And anyway, Peter doesn’t think he has time for an explanation. He’s got morning meetings, and by all appearances, it’s 9:00 a.m.

  Nearer the exit, he finds the line of drivers holding whiteboards, and on one of them, his name is scrawled. Striding purposefully forward, his face still showing fury the airline provided the incorrect time, Peter points with aggressive urgency at the man and then gestures to himself and next jabs his finger toward the doors leading out, indicating he will lead and the driver should follow, as though he knows where the car is.

  Cultural mistake #1: Don’t point at a Russian. Actually, don’t point at anyone, but especially don’t point at a Russian. Where the Japanese will silently register the offense and then make you pay for it later in negotiations, a Russian will throw down the placard with your name, raise his fist to shove his thumb between the middle and index finger, and shout, “Kurite moju trubku, pedik!”

  Because Peter is forcing his way through the early morning crowd, he doesn’t see or hear the insults.

  I do, though.

  And I know the hand gesture means fuck you, and “kurite moju trubku” means suck my cock, while “pedik” is a very specific prison term for a man that’s been made the blockhouse bitch.

  As the average Russian businessman has no need to unnecessarily humble his closest employee, and the Bratva would never belittle a brother, the driver is not dressed in a demeaning black tux and cap but is instead in a skin tight T-shirt that reveals not only his hard physique but also the horns of a bull tattooed below his neck.

  Entering the stream of departing passengers, the driver shouts, “Idi syuda, blyad,” or, in English, Come here, motherfucker, and pushes after Peter.

  We’ve been on Russian soil for approximately thirty minutes and Peter is about to have his first fight.

  Never mind that Peter has never before been in a fight, what’s following is such a dangerous beast he’s been marked with ink as a warning, so there’s absolutely no chance Peter might win.