The First Billion

A hunched, dark man in a houndstooth jacket sat in a chair in the far corner, mumbling angrily into a cellular phone. Kirov ignored him. Picking up the phone, he dialed an internal number. "Boris," he said when a male voice answered. "Bring round the cars. We've a meeting with the prosecutor general himself in half an hour, and a little bird whispered in my ear that it would be wise to be punctual."

Hanging up the phone, he collected a sheaf of papers and shoved them into his briefcase. The papers were unimportant, just something to give the case a little heft.

"So?" asked the swarthy guest. He had mournful black eyes and a swirling salt-and-pepper mustache.

"Nothing more than a 'chat,' " said Kirov, not looking up from his briefcase. "Still, one never knows these days." It was an understatement. Political winds were swirling in violent, unfamiliar patterns; the government a clumsy Hydra, with each head acting independently of the other. One day the boys in the Kremlin were doing their best to promote the affairs of the country's more prominent businessmen, the next they were accusing them of every violation in the penal code, littering included.

"Be careful," ordered the man.

Kirov did his best to smile. "As always."

13

Water, Konstantin Romanovich? You look a bit flushed. Something to eat?"

"A sherry would be nice. Perhaps some foie gras."

"I can offer water and a cracker," said Yuri Baranov.

"Thank you, but no." Folding his hands in his lap, Kirov adjusted his immaculate posture and the smile of infinite goodwill that went with it.

For two hours, he had been seated in the same chair listening to Yuri Baranov, the nation's prosecutor general, rant about the sum of one hundred twenty million dollars missing from the coffers of Novastar Airlines. Theft of government property. Illegal exportation of hard currency. Grand larceny. Fraud. Even treason. The accusations went on and on and Kirov was quickly growing tired of them. How many times could a man say he was sorry, but he had no idea what had happened to the money?

"Let us proceed on a new tack," declared Baranov grimly, selecting a document from one of the bottomless stacks that littered his desk. "May I ask if the name Futura Holding conjures any memories?"

"Futura Holding, you say? I'm sorry, but it is not a name to me."

"So I may take it that if you were listed as a director of the company, it would come as a surprise?"

"I am a businessman. I sit on the board of a great many companies. It's difficult to keep track."

Baranov leaned forward in his seat and offered him the document. He was seventy if a day, a gray, stiff man in an ill-fitting suit with yellowing teeth and a well-worn expression of permanent outrage. A poster boy for the old regime, thought Kirov, hating and fearing him in equal measure.

Baranov was known to every Russian over the age of fifty as the man who had tried the arch-spy Oleg Penkovsky, the GRU colonel and war hero who had fed his nation's secrets to JFK and the Americans over an eighteen-month period in 1961 and 1962. Kirov could still remember the fuzzy black-and-white images of Baranov standing on the steps of the Lubyanka calling for Penkovsky to confess his crimes, name his co-conspirators, and publicly apologize to his countrymen if he wished to receive the Rodina's mercy.

Confess! Collaborate! Apologize! Only then will the Motherland shower her mercy upon you.

"Do you wish then to deny that you are a director of Futura Holding S.A., domiciled in Lausanne, Switzerland?" Baranov asked.

Kirov shook off the memory and concentrated on the document in his hand. He recognized it immediately. The articles of incorporation for said Futura Holding S.A. The paper was dated March 13th of last year. Kirov was listed as 51 percent shareholder in the company; the purpose of the holding noted as "investments in foreign corporations." "So I am a director of Futura. So what?"

"On March 15th, shares in Novastar were auctioned to the private sector. As the winning bidder, you were permitted to purchase forty-nine percent of the company. A month later, the shares were transferred to Futura in Lausanne, Switzerland."

"That's hardly news. Everybody in the country knows I purchased Novastar. About time someone decided to run one of our national airlines properly. Besides, forty-nine percent is hardly a controlling stake. If I recall, the government owns fifty-one percent."

"A formality. Managerial control of the airline was ceded to the private sector as a precondition to the auction. Therefore Futura is responsible for Novastar's day-to-day operations. The government is a silent partner."

"Apparently no longer."