No Time for Heroes (48 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

They got to Leninskaya early, before eight o'clock, wanting to guarantee Raisa Serova would be there. The widow opened the door to them in a trousered lounging suit: she wasn't made-up – Danilov decided she hardly needed to be – but her hair was perfectly in place, although hanging loose. It was more of an instinctive than positive gesture, to try to close the door in their faces, and she didn't push against it when Danilov reached out, stopping her.

‘Don't be silly,' he said.

‘I shall complain …'

‘… Stop it!' interrupted Cowley. ‘It's over, Raisa. We know.'

For several moments she remained at the door, gazing at them, then stood back, unspeaking, for them to enter. She went to her usual couch, in front of the widow, and huddled into it, her legs tucked beneath her as if she was trying to make herself inconspicuous. They sat where they had before. Pavin got out his notebook, ready.

‘It was Italy, I suppose,' she said dully.

‘And America: it was in America, after Italy, that everything was pulled together,' said Cowley. They intended, in the beginning, to be intentionally obscure, to lure her into saying more than she otherwise might.

‘Would you believe me, if I told you I am relieved?' said Raisa.

It would have been easy to feel pity for her, but Danilov didn't. Instead of replying, he reached sideways for the damning evidence Pavin had waiting. One by one, on the table between them, he set the photographs from both Geneva and Washington, jabbing his finger on each print as he enumerated them.

‘This is a copy of the photograph I took from your apartment in Massachussets Avenue … a photograph you were extremely anxious to have returned. It shows your late husband with your father, Ilya Iosifovich Nishin, also now dead … Here is your father with Igor Rimyans, a known Ukrainian gangster living in the United States of America. It was removed from his house in the Queens district of New York …' Danilov hesitated at the photographs that had only become significant in the last forty-eight hours, since Rafferty and Johannsen had carried out the comparison Cowley had requested on his return to Moscow, then his finger jabbed again, three times, in separate identification.

‘In each of these Michel Paulac, a naturalised Swiss financier whose family came from the Ukraine, where their name was Panzhevsky, is shown at official Washington receptions …' The finger pointed very definitely. ‘And here … here … and here … you are shown at those same functions, although the invitations were in your husband's name and you never signed or gave your correct name in the registration records that are kept at these events …'

‘… I don't think this should continue!'

For several moments it would have been difficult for either Cowley or Danilov to continue. Oleg Yasev stood at the entrance to the bedroom corridor. He was unshaven, hair still disordered from sleep. He wore trousers and his shirt was undone at the neck, without a tie.

Determined against his previous arrogance, Danilov said: ‘
We
will decide what should or should not continue, like we will decide whether to believe your explanation of why you tried to withhold the name of Ilya Nishin from the documents you returned from the Foreign Ministry. Come in and sit down!'

Yasev did, with unexpected humility, on the edge of Raisa Serova's encompassing couch. Automatically she put her hand out to rest on his thigh. Just as automatically, he took it in his.

Cowley came into the questioning, as they'd arranged. Offering duplicates of the
anstalt
agreement, he said: ‘These are legal Swiss documents, translated into Russian for our benefit although I am sure you have a similar copy somewhere, of a secret financial corporation established by your late father with thirty million dollars of stolen Communist Party money, just prior to the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in August, 1991: an escape fund, if the coup failed. Which it did. But for which none of the main ringleaders – apart from your father and a few others – ever managed to evade responsibility. And which they were never properly able to utilise anyway …'

‘… Please, no more …!'

‘… And this,' persisted Danilov relentlessly, ‘… is another legal Swiss document, the passing over of the Founder's Certificate – the absolute control – of the secret Swiss holding. It legally passes that control to you, Raisa Ilyavich Serova.'

The room was icily silent.

Raisa stirred from her curled-up position. ‘If my father hadn't already been so ill, it might have been different! It could have all been reversed …' She reached up, for Yasev's hand. ‘At least we tried …'

Neither Danilov nor Cowley understood her response. Danilov pressed on: ‘Petr Aleksandrovich was never properly part of it, was he? He was the clerk, because he was brilliant at detail: but you were the person who always negotiated with Paulac … tried to retain control of the money …'

The woman interrupted, which was fortunate because Danilov was close to going ahead of himself. ‘Petr Aleksandrovich was happy to do what he was told: happy to stay forever in America, which was what he wanted.'

‘What did
you
want?' asked Cowley, looking between the woman and the man perched at her side.

She took the full meaning. ‘To get out of the mess I was in.'

It was becoming splintered, difficult to follow. ‘Your father was operating for the plotters, right?'

She nodded. ‘Some of them: the KGB chairman, certainly. I think there were others like my father, but I don't know any names. He didn't. He believed in the old system, you see. Quite sincerely. He couldn't imagine – couldn't believe – it was all coming to an end. He wasn't well, even then. Knew he couldn't be active, in the attempted overthrow …'

Cowley intruded, in an effort to get more coherence into the account. ‘Why the Ostankino? Why
any
Mafia group? Your father was in the government: the deputy chief in the Finance Ministry! It doesn't make sense.'

‘KGB,' said the woman shortly, barely helpful.

Something that slotted into the Rome interrogation, isolated Danilov. ‘Who?'

‘Vasili Dolya. Director of the First Chief Directorate. He was a university classmate of my father's. They remained friends, afterwards. At least, my father thought they were friends. Dolya was part of the coup, with the chairman, although he was never found out. And he knew how things operated outside the country: that was the expertise of his division, after all. He said there should be contingency arrangements, if it went wrong. It was Dolya who introduced my father to Paulac, in Switzerland. And the two of them who suggested the Ostankino cells in the United States be brought in: he said they would know how to make the money
work
in America.'

‘The Ostankino weren't necessary, were they?' took up Cowley, ahead of the Russian but equally aware of the value of what they were learning. ‘So Paulac was the first to cheat?'

Raisa nodded. ‘We didn't know. Not at first. Not for a long time.'

‘Was it Paulac's suggestion that Yuri Ryzhikev and Vladimir Piotrovsky should be
Svahbodniy
directors?' pressed the American.

There was another agreeing nod. ‘He told my father it was the proper, necessary business arrangement: Ryzhikev, from here, would direct his American partner.'

‘Igor Rimyans?' suggested Danilov.

The nod came again.

‘How long before the Ostankino started the pressure?' guessed Cowley, more experienced in Mafia take-overs.

‘It was Paulac, to begin with. He tried to persuade my father to move most of the money from Switzerland into America: said there was no point in holding it in Switzerland, just earning interest. That it had to be used to generate more money. But the coup had failed by then. Everyone who'd supported it but escaped arrest was waiting, terrified of the knock on the door. My father most of all, because he'd set up the escape fund that nobody – none of the plotters, that is – was going to be able to use. That's why Paulac began coming to Washington so often, to meet me: that was the route, you see? My father kept Petr Aleksandrovich in Washington so there was a channel of communication from Paulac to me to my father, back here in Moscow. Everything we wrote to each other went back and forth untouched and unread by anyone else, through the diplomatic mail …'

Danilov did not want to interrupt the flow, but it was imperative to establish the extent of official government involvement. ‘So Petr Aleksandrovich was almost incidental: a cipher kept in Washington for the diplomatic convenience through which you could handle things with your father?'

Raisa smiled, a sad expression. That's one of the most ironic parts. I told him not to do it, but he said it was a way to protect us. We didn't want to be involved, you see. We were both ciphers, for my father. Isn't that funny! Without the names you would never have found out, would you?'

Another reaction they hadn't anticipated, recognised Danilov. Before he could pursue the most intriguing remark, Cowley said: ‘Paulac was the man who began the pressure?'

‘Then it got frightening, from here,' took up the woman. ‘My father was ill by then: his fear at being implicated in the coup had a lot to do with it, I think. These men, gang people, began openly threatening him: said if he didn't transfer the money like they wanted, they'd make public what he'd done, have him arrested and put on trial, like the rest of the plotters …'

Knowing the original deposit in Switzerland was untouched, Danilov said: ‘But he didn't give in to the threats?'

She shrugged. ‘I pleaded with him to return it. End the whole stupid business.'

‘Why didn't he?' said Cowley.

‘He was very ill. He asked Dolya to do something. Frighten them off. Dolya told him the KGB was being broken up, into internal and external services: in chaos. It didn't control everything, like it once had: Dolya said the Ostankino were prepared to expose him, as well as my father. There was nothing he
could
do.'

‘Whose idea was it to go to another Family?'

‘Dolya's. Some of his former officers were involved with the Chechen, apparently: a lot of them are in crime now. The Chechen promised to protect us: said we had nothing to fear any more. But they wanted access to the Swiss holdings …'

‘… Which your father gave them?' said Danilov – a trick question, because he knew the documentation in Switzerland was still in the name of the Ostankino leaders.

‘No!' she said. ‘He went to hospital soon after: wasn't fit to do anything legal. That's another irony, isn't it? Having to do something legal with men who only break the law …'

He hadn't tricked her, Danilov accepted. ‘And then you inherited control, upon his death.'

Raisa looked down when she nodded, a moment of sadness. She came up again, breathing deeply, determined to explain. ‘It didn't take us long to realise we'd simply exchanged one pressure for another – one worse, in fact – by going to another gang. I'd always intended to return the money somehow, when I realised that one day I'd be in charge of it. I didn't
want
the damned money … It was stolen!'

‘You told them you were going to give it back?' asked Cowley.

She made an uncertain shoulder movement. ‘I told Paulac, the last time we met. Paulac got very frightened: he hadn't told the Ostankino about the Chechen being brought in for protection: that they were pressuring me to change the directorship. He said to change the names would get us killed. Like giving the money back would get us killed. I didn't believe him. I thought he was just trying to scare me …'

‘You came back to Moscow to return the money? The sickness of your mother was the excuse?' queried Danilov.

‘This time and a lot of times before. All I wanted to do was protect my father's name and get rid of the damned money. I told Paulac I wasn't scared. I said I'd tell the Ostankino man, Ryzhikev: made Paulac give me a telephone number, to reach him …' She halted, shuddering. ‘Then the murders happened, Paulac and Petr Aleksandrovich … and the first one here …'

‘So you didn't contact Ryzhikev?'

‘I was terrified: we both were …' She smiled up at Yasev again. ‘I knew Paulac hadn't been exaggerating …'

‘The day after Petr Aleksandrovich's funeral a man came to my flat,' said Yasev, surprising them with the intrusion. ‘He said he'd been with the KGB before the coup and knew what had been set up. He said Raisa had to sign over the Founder's Certificate to people he would take us to: that the Chechen were assuming full control. I knew by then they weren't exaggerating, either.'

‘You told her she had to?' Danilov asked him.

It was the woman who answered. ‘We didn't know what to do! It was another way of getting rid of the money and the pressure, wasn't it! Just give them what they wanted …!'

Why had the money still been intact in Switzerland, wondered Danilov. ‘When did you do it?'

‘Three or four days after all the stories in the papers about what happened in Italy.'

‘The same man who came to my flat arranged it,' volunteered Yasev. ‘We went to a big house in Kutbysevskij Prospekt …'

The address they'd got in Rome, recognised Danilov. ‘Who did you meet?'

‘There were a lot of men: we weren't told who they all were.'

‘You must have had a name to pass over the Founder's Certificate!'

‘Arkadi Pavlovich Gusovsky.'

Another Italian confirmation! He was aware of Cowley nodding beside him, in matching awareness. ‘Anyone else?'

‘Someone called Yerin …' she shivered. ‘He made me very nervous. He's blind, milky-eyed, but he looks at you as if he can see you.'

‘You signed,' encouraged Cowley. ‘What happened then?'