“No, it’s a card in a game called Monopoly.”
“A monopoly I’ve heard of.” Ninchenko grinned. “That’s what we were told the great Soviet struggle was against.”
“Now you have your own,” Gage said.
Ninchenko made a call to check the plate while his driver sped from the courtyard onto Pushkinskaya, and then right onto Shevchenko, following 0087 from a block behind. The low clouds that had released a steady flow of mist overnight turned Kiev’s streets into black ice. The van’s defroster struggled against the condensation on the windshield while the wipers swept away light raindrops. The other windows were scummed with dirty water that the driver had splashed on to provide cover for Ninchenko and Gage in the rear seat.
“We’ll find out who it is in an hour,” Ninchenko said, after disconnecting. “My guess is that it is a representative of the State Property Fund. They handle privatizations of government-owned assets.”
“You’d think somebody like him would be more discreet. Wouldn’t anyone who saw him with a foreigner like Matson assume that he’ll be getting an offshore kickback for setting up a deal?”
“Discretion isn’t much of an issue because there are no secrets in Ukraine. Everything gets found out in the end. The president knows everyone’s schemes.”
“And he doesn’t stop them?”
Ninchenko signaled their driver to drop back and allow the blue Lada to take over close surveillance. They then followed it onto Oleny Telihy, heading toward the northern part of Kiev.
“You need to ask yourself how the president keeps power,” Ninchenko said. “But don’t think like a Westerner. He’s violent. He’s corrupt. He’s universally hated. He was elected through fraud.”
“He stays in power the way other corrupt leaders do,” Gage said. “Through fear.”
Ninchenko looked over. “Fear of what?”
“Illegal arrest, imprisonment, execution. The same things people in dictatorial regimes all over the world are afraid of.”
“This isn’t everywhere else. This is Ukraine. It is a new kind of political order. Ukrainians are afraid of everything all of the time, so they don’t suffer particular fears. There’s almost nothing they do that isn’t in violation of some law. You want to license a car, pay a bribe. You want to get your child into school, bribe the principal. You want a passing grade, bribe the teacher. You need over sixty separate permits to open a business in Kiev. You think there’s a single business in Kiev that has them all? No. They couldn’t afford all the bribes. Sure, officials occasionally get arrested for corruption. And while those arrests might seem random from the outside looking in, they’re strategic from the inside looking out.”
Gage shook his head. “That’s no different than any other corrupt government in the world.”
“It’s fundamentally different-and it’s invisible unless you’ve been here awhile. The president of Ukraine rules not by fear, but by blackmail.”
Ninchenko let his words sink in as they gazed out at the storefront pharmacies and markets and cafes along the four-lane street. Rising above them were apartments privatized after independence and, in the distance, an office tower under construction. Each an opportunity for graft.
Gage’s mind marched along behind Ninchenko’s logic, until he reached what seemed to be an impossible conclusion. He looked at Ninchenko. “You mean that the president actually encourages corruption?”
“Exactly. Because it creates leverage. That’s the real function of State Security and the Intelligence Directorate. Leverage. It’s information gathering for the sake of blackmail.”
“And the opposition?”
“Opposition politicians gather their own intelligence to try to control the president and his entourage. I provide it to them. So does Slava.”
Gage felt slightly off balance, as on his first day in Bulgaria ten years earlier, where people nodded when saying no, and shook their heads when saying yes.
Ninchenko smiled, watching his words impact Gage, then pushed on. “And Slava gives the opposition more than just intelligence. I suspect he put the equivalent of ten or fifteen million dollars into the opposition presidential campaign.”
“Ten or fifteen million?”
“Like he said yesterday. Politics is business. It’s an investment. He’ll get it back twenty-fold.”
“But only if the opposition wins.”
“Of course.”
In the silence that followed, Gage found himself viewing Ninchenko as larger than the role Slava had put him in.
“Pardon my saying so,” Gage said, “but you don’t seem like the kind of guy who works for a man like Slava.”
“And you don’t seem like a guy who works with a man like Slava.”
“Touche. But you know what I mean.”
Ninchenko looked over at Gage, appraising him. “You and I aren’t that different. We grew up reading Mark Twain and Jack London and Tennessee Williams. You studied philosophy in college. Me, Marxist theory. We both went into law enforcement. You left to attend graduate school and didn’t go back. I left to attend law school, and did go back. We both work in the gray area. You, light gray. Me, dark gray.”
“I see you’ve done a little research.”
“Just made a call. You’ve been in Ukraine three times before. Once in a money laundering case, once to locate a Russian fugitive from the States, and once as part of a delegation from the International Association of Fraud Investigators. State Security has a file.”
“You know why I’m here this time, but you haven’t answered why you’re with me.”
Ninchenko wiped away condensation from his window.
“You know what that is?” He pointed with his thumb toward the northeast as they turned left onto a broad boulevard crosshatched by trolley lines.
Gage looked over at the desolate expanse of dead grass, leafless trees, and a stark television tower piercing the gray sky.
“That’s Babiy Yar,” Ninchenko said. “Grandmother’s Ravine. We’re still in Kiev. Thirty-three thousand Jews were murdered here by the Nazis in two days. A million people heard the shots and the screams of victims being buried alive. There was no secret, but Ukraine denied it to the world for fifty years. Why? Because they wanted them dead. And some still do.”
“Like who?”
“The OUN, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. It’s a terrorist group that wants to drive everyone out of the country who doesn’t meet their criteria of Ukrainians. Russians, Poles, Jews.”
“You say that like you’re Jewish.”
“Literally, I’m not. Figuratively, all Ukrainians are Jews, they just don’t recognize it. Stalin intentionally starved to death six million Ukrainians during the Great Famine in the thirties. But now forty percent of Ukrainians believe life was better back then. They still don’t understand that Ukrainians were the Jews of the Soviet Union. And those forty percent are most of the people who support the president.”
Ninchenko’s window clouded over as he spoke.
“So why Slava?” Gage asked.
“Why Slava?” Ninchenko paused as if preparing to explain something that he’d thought through. “Because he provides a real service. He doesn’t deceive himself about who he is. He’s a man of his word. He has a sense of fairness.”
Ninchenko glanced at Gage. “Why is he helping you? He’s pretty sure you can get Gravilov indicted in the States without him. He probably could simply wait, then make his move. But he did you wrong by not trusting you in the natural gas deal, so he owes you.”
Gage had seen Slava’s rage and had looked up the barrel of his 9mm. Both had impaired his view of Slava as a dispassionate public servant.
“He’s not what anyone would call a saint,” Gage said.
“Of course not. Has he killed? Who knows how many times.”
Gage didn’t ask the question that came to his mind: What about you?
“Slava lives in the same kind of a parallel universe you’ve seen all over the world,” Ninchenko continued. “The
