Finally, you set aside your drink and say to the candidate that you appreciate everything he's done for you. He's been very helpful, you say, to such an extent that you'd be interested in expanding upon your business relationship.
He indicates his interest, his curiosity. He asks you to please continue.
I'm a consultant, you tell him, in the risk business. I've clients all around the world, and most of them are very, very sensitive about their privacy, about having their identities known. For that reason, even I need to be able to distance myself from the people who hire me.
The candidate looks at you, listening closely. His expression tells you that he is trying to determine just what, exactly, the "risk business" is.
Go on, he says.
Look, you say, I realize this sounds very cloak-and-dagger, but in my profession, absolute privacy of the client is the paramount concern. I'm certain you understand the need for that kind of discretion.
Absolutely.
You nod, as if to confirm that his words and your thought are entirely as one. You lean forward, making eye contact, and then continue. I need someone who has proven himself to be both responsible and resourceful to act as my intermediary, you say. Someone who can retrieve business propositions for me from a variety of sources, and then forward them to me in a timely and secure manner. This is something that, at least in terms of contacting me, may only occur a handful of times a year, not including the one or two meetings we would have face-to-face.
You sit back, giving him a moment to consider what you have said.
If you are interested in helping me out like this, you then say, I can tell you the following. My annual income is projected to be in the tens of millions of dollars. Now, I understand that what I'm asking you to undertake for me will require a significant amount of your time and resources. Acting as my agent, so to speak, you'd of course be entitled to a generous portion of my earnings.
Do you think this would be something that might interest you?
There is a silence while the candidate considers. He is trying to determine what he knows, trying to balance that against the prospect of a generous portion of millions of dollars a year. Certainly, he has concluded that what you are doing for a living is illegal, though precisely how illegal, he is unsure. He is considering the risk to himself, not because he has reason to fear you-although, if he is the man you want, he will have realized by this juncture that you are certainly dangerous-but because money is of no worth to him if he cannot spend it.
Yes, he says, before the pause stretches too long. Yes, I am interested.
You smile, making your pleasure with his decision apparent. Wonderful, you tell him, I'm very pleased. I think we're going to work very well together, and I think you're going to find our association to be a lucrative one.
It certainly sounds that way, he agrees.
I do have a project I am working on now, you tell him, as a matter of fact. What I need is a driver's license for the U.K. with my picture on it, but in another name.
The pause this time is very brief. Perhaps he hesitates because he has realized the first thing you are asking of him, now that you have made your relationship formal, is to break the law. Or perhaps he is merely wondering how best to accomplish the goal.
I can arrange that, he tells you with a smile of his own. Yes, I can arrange that. The name of Alena's lawyer was Nicolas Sargenti.
CHAPTER
"I don't know what you want me to tell you, Elizavet," Nicolas Sargenti said. "Even if you had done work for Gorman-North, there would be no way to prove it. The entire nature of the transaction, from its beginning to its end, is perfect in its anonymity. That is how you have always desired it, for both of our sakes, I must add."
Alena growled from the back of her throat, and spun away from where the attorney sat in the reading chair by the window of our hotel room. "It would have been American, an American job."
"A job on American soil?" Sargenti asked. When he spoke, his accent was more Italian than French. "Or a job bought by an American?"
"The latter, it would be the latter."
"The same problem. Impossible to say." Nicolas Sargenti released a pained sigh, looking to where I was lying on the bed, back against the headboard. "Michael, what is this about, please?"
"We're having some trouble," I told him, and indicated the bruises that covered my torso. They were glorious in their color, and while Alena had massaged most of the swelling down, their array of green, yellow, red, and blue remained spectacular, and covered me in strips and splashes from my shoulders on down, disappearing beneath the waistband of my pants.
The damage could have been much worse, and as it was, it was relatively minor. I was stiff and I was sore, but the frostbite hadn't taken, and my fingers and toes had feeling and motion. Given another day or three of rest, I'd be back to fighting speed, so to speak.
Nicolas Sargenti managed a courtesy chuckle. "Dare I ask what has placed you in such an ignoble position?"
"I fell," I told him. "In the snow."
Alena filled a glass with orange juice from the glass pitcher on the room service cart, left over from our yogurt-and-muesli breakfast. The cart also held a pot of tea and some rapidly fading fresh fruit.
"All right," she said to Sargenti, handing me the glass and a handful of ibuprofen. "You are still checking inquiries?"
"Not as frequently as I once did." Sargenti adjusted his glasses and refocused his attention on her, his voice as mild and soft as ever. "But I do check them, yes. I add that you did tell me that you were retired, Elizavet, so if this has been a shortcoming on my part, I think you will understand. For the last several years I have not thought it necessary to stay atop them as I once did." An almost hopeful gleam came to his eye. "Though I still field requests for your services. Would you be reconsidering your decision?"
"No, I am not. I am retired. I intend to stay that way."
Sargenti nodded slightly, letting his eyes go about the room again, taking it in. He didn't speak, but he didn't need to. If she wanted to maintain that she was retired, that was fine with him. She still required his services, as I now did, and he still took a hefty annual stipend to provide what we needed.
This was the third time I'd met Nicolas Sargenti in person. The first time had come some two and half years earlier, in Warsaw, at the Radisson Hotel off Grzybowska Street and Jana Pawla II Avenue, near the business center of the city. It had served as both Alena's annual meeting with her attorney, as well as my introduction to him. At that point, Alena had explained that I was now her partner, and she was hopeful Sargenti would be willing to provide for me the same services he provided for her, for an increased percentage, of course. He had been willing; his only question had been whether or not she was still retired, and if so, did that mean that I would be taking on the clients she now declined. He had seemed entirely ambivalent when I'd explained that, no, I was not, at the present, looking for work.
The second meeting had been almost thirteen months prior to today's, in Moscow, at the Rossiya Hotel, near the Kremlin. The Rossiya had closed its doors the following month, though I doubted our business there had played any part in that. Sargenti had supplied Alena and me with a new battery of identities, and then gone over the books with her. He had noted that her expenses were outstripping her earnings, but had then assured her that her investments were still performing quite well, and that there was more than enough money left in the account. Her investments, I learned, were primarily in real estate owned around the world. At the Moscow meeting, she had directed him to sell two of her properties, one of them in Hong Kong, the other in California. Together, the two sales had netted over thirty million dollars.