Alikhan Zakayev sat on a bench near the fountain, which had been turned off at the onset of cold weather. Bundled up in his cashmere topcoat, he looked like a successful businessman who had sought a haven from the bustle of the city. On the bench next to him was a soft black leather zipper portfolio like those favored by Westerners. Instead of paperwork and a cell phone, the bag held a Heckler & Koch 9mm P7 pistol and a Czechoslovakian fragmentation grenade.
Zakayev admired the girl’s performance as he watched her clip-clop over the stones, sable coat and all, long black hair parted down the middle spilling over her shoulders like wings.
He had found her when she was fourteen, living on the streets in Grozny and suffering from starvation and dysentery. She had been raped and sodomized by Russian soldiers and left for dead. Her family had simply disappeared. One night the Spetsnaz showed up at her house and took them away. She had hid in the barn, and after her family had been forced at gunpoint aboard a truck, she watched Russian boys shoot the livestock and loot what little food was left before tossing phosphorus grenades into the house and barn. She escaped with only the clothes she had on and her parents’ wedding album wrapped in oilcloth.
The girl had bound her life to Zakayev’s, even considered herself his “wife,” which he didn’t discourage. But Zakayev’s devotion to his cause didn’t allow attachments. Enemies could use them to destroy you. A woman made you vulnerable. Love made you weak, and a man devoted to the cause had to be strong. He had early on learned to purge himself of sentiment. To Zakayev the girl was simply a beautiful object that gave him pleasure. But there were moments when he saw what might have been if the world he knew had not been destroyed.
The girl came up to Zakayev. He watched her casually finger-comb her hair, fascinated how she had transformed that ritual into a viscerally erotic act. “You saw him?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s on his way. And he’s alone.”
“He never travels alone.” His hand brushed the leather portfolio, then patted the bench. “Sit. It will distract him while we talk.”
The girl sat, crossed her legs, and began swinging a pointy-toed boot in the direction of a heavyset man walking slowly toward them from the direction of the river. He had a slight limp from an encounter with a Russian antipersonnel mine in Grozny. The shattered leg had not been set properly but he never complained. There were more important things to worry about. The meeting with Zakayev, for one.
Ivan Serov. The unassuming manner, workaday clothes, and halting walk belied the fact that Serov led one of the most ruthless Russian mafiya gangs in all of Russia. His network had not only penetrated the Russian economy, it trafficked in everything from drugs and weapons to human organs. Zakayev knew that Serov also fronted for many high-level Russian bureaucrats involved in bank and credit card fraud, loan-sharking, and smuggling. For Serov, maintaining control of his billion-dollar empire was worth fighting and dying for.
“I almost didn’t recognize you without your beard, Alikhan Andreyevich,” said Serov. “And that dapper mustache.” His eyes roamed Zakayev’s face, his clothes, the bulging portfolio. “You are suddenly prosperous, no?” He gave the girl a slight head bob; his gaze lingered on her for a moment.
“How is the leg, Ivan Ivanovich?” Zakayev looked into a pair of dark eyes under bushy eyebrows. The battered face was pale and doughy, raw from the cold. Serov wore a bulky down-filled coat, and Zakayev wondered if under it he had on body armor.
The leg? Serov shrugged. It was nothing. He gazed around the square, perhaps judging distances, assessing escape routes. He sat down beside the girl. She made a move but Serov put a hand on her thigh and said, “Please, stay.”
At length Serov said, “It’s a long trip from Moscow to St. Petersburg. I haven’t been in the city of the czars for a while. I almost don’t recognize it, it’s changed so much. All the construction. The Winter Palace is beautiful. I hope the American president will appreciate it. They say he’s not interested in culture, just money.”
“They say his wife is devoted to the arts,” Zakayev snorted.
“She’s a former actress. Married to a black politician who once marched with that — what was his name? King. And became president. Only in America. That’s why he’s coming to Russia. He wants to talk about business. No harm in that. If business between the U.S. and Russia is good, we all benefit.
Even you, Ali.”
“He also wants to assure the Kremlin that in return for privileged oil deals and continuing support for America’s war on the Middle East, the U.S. will not object to the massacre of Chechen civilians and the destruction of our country.”
Serov frowned. “We all have our business interests, Ali. Some of us have even been willing to compromise to get the deals we want. Perhaps you should consider it. The Americans are not indifferent to your concerns but are caught in the middle. They think they can bring the Kremlin around to accepting that independence for Chechnya is inevitable. But it will take time.”
“We don’t have time. Our people are being murdered. The Russians torture children and old women, destroy cities and homes…But you know all that.”
“You’re too impatient.”
“Am I? The war has gone on for over ten years. It won’t end until the Russians are defeated, until their people and cities are destroyed too.”
“You tried that and it didn’t work. The bombing of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall was a disaster. Killing a thousand Russian civilians — women and children too — only hardened their resolve.”
Zakayev turned flaring eyes on Serov. “And now they know our resolve is unbreakable. Now they will fear the worst.”
“What, killing a million Russians instead of a thousand?”
“Those are only numbers.”
“This time, if you kill even a hundred Russians, the Kremlin will declare martial law.”
“Which will be bad for business. Ivan Serov’s business.”
“Yes.”
An elderly woman walking a schnauzer on a lead said, “Dobry den’!”
Zakayev nodded good day.
Serov leaned against the girl sitting between them and thrust his big head toward Zakayev. He smelled of tobacco and garlic. “I asked for this meeting, Ali, to discuss mutual concerns, not to listen to one of your speeches.”
“And I told you there was nothing to discuss. Anyway, I’m done giving speeches. It’s too late for that.”
“In business, my friend, it is never too late to discuss a mutually beneficial deal.” Serov got to his feet.
“Come, the three of us, we’ll take a stroll. My leg hurts when I sit too long.”
Serov linked his arm through Zakayev’s and turned him toward one of the narrow spoke streets that led back to the river. With a sudden deft move that surprised Zakayev, he took the heavy, bulky leather portfolio from Zakayev and gave it to the girl. “She can carry it for you, eh? Your cell phone may go off. I don’t want any distractions while we talk.”
Serov steered Zakayev toward the Anichkov Most, one of the city’s most beautiful bridges. “I have a message for you from the Brotherhood.” He was referring to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic organization based in the Middle East that supplied Zakayev and his men with money for weapons through one of Serov’s many front organizations, for which Serov extracted an exorbitant fee. “They promise that they will supply you with whatever you need to continue the fight against Russian control inside Chechnya’s borders. But they won’t support any plan you have to launch another attack on Russia itself. In other words, they won’t support another operation on the scale of the concert hall massacre.”