The Hunted

Yeltsin chuckled. "You'll be old and senile before anything works in this land. I'll be dead and buried, with throngs of people lining up to pee on my grave for causing all this chaos. I'm giving you a house, Alex."

"I have a house already. Didn't we just go over that?"

Yeltsin ignored him. "Not quite as garish as yours. But big, and believe me, you'll love this place. It's out here, in the country, inside the presidential compound. A mere two-minute walk from my quarters-one minute if you sprint, which I expect you to do if I call. A gym and indoor pool. Six servants, a chef, and-hey, you'll love this part-they have separate quarters outside the house."

The president paused to let his sales pitch sink in, then threw out a little more ammunition. "Here's the kicker, Alex. My presidential security detail guards the entire compound. Even with your money, you couldn't touch the kind of security these goons provide."

Alex chuckled. "Is that a challenge?" He could not say it, but he abhorred the idea of living in walking, or even sprinting, distance of Boris. The man drank and partied until four every morning, frothy bacchanalias that consumed enormous amounts of liquor. He was notoriously social by nature and regarded it as sinful to get tanked alone. The idea of being dragged into those late-night orgies was appalling.

Yeltsin chuckled as well, then a loud belly laugh. What was he saying? With all that wealth, Alex could probably buy half the Russian army; maybe all of it. After a moment the laughing stopped. "I'm serious, Alex. My economic advisors are all boring idiots. Even that bunch of Harvard professors who've camped out here to tell me how to build a capitalist paradise-just stuffier idiots."

"All right, replace them."

"You're not listening. I'm trying to."

But Alex was listening, very closely. A week before he and Elena had attended a dull state dinner to honor the visiting potentate of some country where, apparently, everybody was short and squat, with bad teeth, horrible breath, and nauseating table manners. After the usual tedious speeches about eternal brotherhood and blah, blah, blah-along with a seriously overcooked meal-the party shifted to the ballroom, where Yeltsin promptly invited Elena to dance.

Boris had an eye for the ladies and Elena in a baggy sweatsuit could snap necks. But attired as she was, in a gold-embossed scarlet gown, she nearly sucked the male air out of the ballroom. And of course, three-quarters of a lifetime of ballet training had made her a splendid dancer who knew how to make her partner look graceful and better than he was. Yeltsin and Elena laughed and chatted and whirled gaily around the floor. All eyes were on them-Fred and Ginger, cutting the rug. One dance turned into two, then three.

Alex was sure he was listening to the echo of that third dance. Clearly Elena had whispered into Yeltsin's ear her growing concerns about Alex's safety. If her husband wouldn't heed her warnings, she would take matters over his head. He admired the effort and adored her for trying. He had absolutely no intention of humoring her.

He would just litter a few more guards around the property and hope it settled her nerves.

"Oh, one other thing," Yeltsin added, an afterthought, an insignificant little note to round out the pitch. "It happens to be Gorbachev's old house. The official quarters of the general secretary himself. I had him booted out the day after I took over. Didn't even give him time to clear the clothes from the closets. Ha, ha, ha. Had those shipped to him, later, with a nice personal note. 'I got the country, you keep the rags.'"

Alex suddenly went speechless. Had he heard that right? Yes! Gorbachev's home! Sure, his own mansion was grand, perhaps larger and more loaded with extravagances than the general secretary's residence-money, after all, was the great leveler. But some things money can't buy. Yeltsin was offering him the most storied home in Russia.

The thought of living in that home-How may bedrooms did Yeltsin mention? Who cared?-the thought of him and Elena basking in the general secretary's hot tub, making love in that bedroom, taking long, leisurely strolls around a property where legions of presidents and world leaders had stepped and stumbled, was simply exhilarating. Flushing the toilets would be a thrill.

It wouldn't hurt business, either. Alex could picture the amazed expressions of the Western investors he invited over for a light business dinner. Please don't chip the general secretary's china, he would tell them and watch their faces.

And so what if it was forty-five minutes from the office? The big Mercedes 600 was equipped with an office in the rear, a pull-down desk made of mahogany, a satellite carphone, enough gadgets that not one of the forty-five minutes would be idle or wasted. It might even be better, he thought: forty-five minutes of solitude, each way. Organize his thoughts on the way in; unwind from the daily turmoil on the way out.