The Hunted

More shuffling of papers, more sipped tea, more tightening of ties. A recorder in the attic was silently capturing every word. The lads around the table had sat through Pettlebone's inquisitions before and to a man weren't taken in by his Socratic bullshit. The first fool who guessed wrong, on the record and imprinted forever on the device in the attic, would end up first on the chopping block when this crisis ended, one way or the other, and they shifted into the usual blamestorm.

Bertie, the retired partner, with nothing to lose, took a stab. "I don't suppose we'd hear anything if it's an inside job. These Russki millionaires are all surrounded by nasty chaps. Sleep with the wolves, one shouldn't wonder when one wakes up main course on a dinner plate. If it's insider work, the culprits aren't likely to bring in outside help, are they? What do you think?"

"Have we contacted his company?" Pettlebone asked, deliberately sidestepping Bertie's theory. The recorder in the attic was his own clever idea; he had no intention of leaving a magnetic trace that might not withstand scrutiny later.

Another of the bright lads in the middle of the table said, "I've spoken with his head of corporate security. Three or four times, in fact. Sergei Golitsin, a former KGB general. Not a nice sort. The conversations weren't all that pleasant. Kept insisting that Alex's security outside Russia was our concern, not his."

"Had he heard anything from the kidnappers? A demand for ransom, a threat, that sort of thing?"

"Well… I did ask, sir."

"And?"

"He laughed, then cursed me and hung up." "We're not going back to Russia," Alex announced with a very firm frown. After ten minutes of staring intently out the window, interrupted by occasional searches through the stack of passports on his lap, tossing ideas back and forth, he had finally made up his mind. "Too obvious," he announced.

"What's that mean?" Eugene asked.

"They're expecting it. In fact, they're hoping we'll try. We got lucky. I don't want to depend on luck again."

"Who's they?" Elena asked. Good question but one Alex didn't have the answer to.

"Certainly more than just Katya and Vladimir and the other goons we saw," Alex answered grimly.

"Did you see more of them?" Eugene asked. After all, his ass was on the line as well; naturally he wanted to know what he was up against.

"No, but they were too ignorant to put this together. They're working for somebody. And there may be… no, there definitely are more where they came from." But who knew how many more were in on this? They could be Mafiya, or they could be independents partnered with the mob. For such a big score, there could be hundreds of them, possibly thousands.

And for sure, an employee, or a number of employees of Konevitch Associates, were in on it up to their larcenous necks. Somebody who knew Alex's travel plans. Somebody who knew the instant Eugene called his secretary to query about his whereabouts.

Alex knew exactly what this meant: somebody very high up in the corporate food chain was feeding the goons precious inside information and trying to put a noose around his neck.

He searched his mind, but quickly lost count of potential suspects. He now had several hundred former KGB people, more or less, on the payroll. Some were good people, smart, honest, and deeply relieved to be able to look themselves in a mirror without, for a change, wrinkling in self-disgust. Too many others were cutthroats in fancy suits. Nearly all were in security positions. Nearly all might have found a way to learn his travel plans. The security department was always notified in advance of his trips with a detailed agenda, a regrettable routine but one that was unequivocally necessary. Only a small handful, though, could've learned about Eugene's call to Sonja.

Where had it all gone wrong? Alex had once prided himself on personally hiring his chief lieutenants and a sizable number of his other employees as well. But the explosion of business happened so fast, Alex kept chasing more and more opportunities, and the need for more and more people became crushing. From one thousand to twenty thousand employees in less than two years. It was an old-fashioned gold rush: the lion's share went to the one who stampeded in with the most diggers and sifters. Supposedly qualified executives were being hired off their resumes, sans interviews, sans background checks, or even cursory calls to their former employers. Money beckoned. Each new opportunity begat others. Caution had long since been thrown out the window.

Greed. Money. He was printing it almost faster than they grew trees. They all wanted a piece of the action and too many were hustlers on the make. He swore to himself he would conduct a fierce purge when he got back and this was behind him. He could count on two hands the number of executives he fully trusted.

"Checkpoint's straight ahead," Elena announced, breaking into his deepening thoughts about who to sack.