Commander-In-Chief Read online

  Jack rolled out of bed. His body was sore from last night’s workout. “That’s great. I’d be interested in anyone he has been in contact with, either by phone, e-mail, or instant messaging in the last six months.”

  “Done. It’s a lot of people. You ready for the number?”

  “Hit me.”

  “Twelve hundred eighty-eight.”

  Jack rubbed his eyes. “You’re joking!”

  “This guy gets around.”

  Ryan said, “How about people with Slavic names. Can you sort those out?”

  “Done.”

  “How many?”

  “One hundred fourteen.”

  “Damn.” Ryan sighed. “Well, that’s better, anyway. Can you send everything to me? I can run pattern analysis, see if anything jumps out.”

  “It’s already waiting for you in your inbox. Going to take some days to get deeper into Frieden’s network.”

  Jack said, “Honestly, his contact list is the most important piece of this puzzle. The files themselves will be a maze of shells, offshores, and other ways to obfuscate his clients and their relationships between each other. I am certain that decrypting the files will just lead us to another layer to break through. I’ll get started on his contacts, and I’ll take whatever else you get, whenever you get it.”

  “Okay. Enjoy your beauty sleep.” Gavin hung up.

  Ryan rolled out of bed and into the shower, knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep. Twenty minutes later he was sitting at his desk in his apartment, hot coffee in his hand, scrolling up and down a list of the 1,288 names. After a quick check, he looked at Gavin’s tab on the spreadsheet of the Slavic names. He recognized some of them, they were the usual suspects—Kremlin-affiliated cashiers, investment bankers, economists, and the like—but eighty percent of the names meant nothing to him.

  He poured them all into a computer program that ran data and link analysis, checking them for relationships to one another, as well as against other sources The Campus kept in a database for Russian money laundering.

  From the results of the analysis it looked like Guy Frieden was a busy guy, well connected to a lot of the players in the known realm of offshore banking, but almost instantly Ryan felt a sense of disappointment. It was clear by his associations that he had only mid-level access. There wasn’t a single big fish in his contact list, not even the secretary or the attorney of a CFO or the assistant to a CFO at any one of Russia’s state-owned companies. No. Frieden’s Russian contacts were secondary moneymen—worker bees.

  And certainly not Kremlin big shots.

  Frustrated, Jack began to scan down through Slavic names he did not recognize in the hopes there would be someone who, somehow, had been missed by the link analysis. He checked through the graphs that showed the relationships among the different names, and when he did this, he immediately noticed something curious. Almost every single person had at least four or five affiliations to someone else in the group, but one name stood to the side of the others. No lines went to it or emanated from it.

  The name Andrei Limonov looked like a little island off to the side of the graph.

  Ryan knew nothing about Limonov, and that was curious. Clearly, whoever he was, he’d managed to keep his name out of any list of Russia’s most notorious offshore finance experts, and Jack wondered if that in itself was notable.

  Ryan looked him up on SPARK by Interfax, a database of information on tens of thousands of Russian companies, hundreds of thousands of businessmen. There were quite a few hits on Andrei Limonov, but it wasn’t a particularly uncommon name in Russia, so he had to keep digging. After a while, he decided the man who showed up in Guy Frieden’s appointment book was the same Andrei Limonov who directed Blackmore Capital Partners, a Moscow-based private equity enterprise with a decidedly British name, no doubt to give it an air of panache.

  Ryan dug around in a database of Russian newspapers and magazines for more information on Limonov, using automatic translation software that, although nowhere near as good as a real translator, at least would tell him basic information if any existed.

  But he found nothing. The man did not exist in Russian social or media circles.

  Another database Ryan had access to proved more helpful. It held information of attendees of business schools around the world. From here he saw Limonov graduated with honors from Lomonosov Moscow State University Business School, and then he received a degree from Saint Petersburg University Graduate School of Management. The dates on the degrees told Ryan the man was probably still in his mid-thirties, and from SPARK he saw that Blackmore Capital Partners had come into existence ten years prior.

  Impressive, thought Jack. It looked like this guy walked out of business school and into the world of international finance as the head of a private equity firm.

  And there was one more matter of note regarding Limonov. According to Frieden’s appointment calendar, the man was here in Luxembourg, right this very moment. He had held a meeting at four p.m. yesterday afternoon with Frieden, and he was due to lunch with him today at two p.m. at a place called La Lorraine, in the Place Guillaume II.

  Jack realized he must have photographed Limonov entering the office the day before. He’d taken dozens of pictures during the day, but unless this guy had missed his meeting and Frieden’s secretary had failed to strike it through on her blotter, he should have an image of the man.

  Jack went back through his notes. Yes, at four p.m. exactly the day before, Frieden had entered his conference room for a meeting.

  He’d found not a single photograph of the Russian online, so he had no idea who he was looking for. Nevertheless, he began to scan the men who entered the bank building between three-thirty and four p.m. There were nearly five dozen images to go through, and he did this one at a time, ruling out any men or groups of men where at least one of the men was not in his thirties, possibly Slavic, and male. A few men had entered in blue-collar work clothes, and one duo had paint cans and a ladder, and all these men were omitted as well.

  When he was finished going through the images a second time, he had it narrowed down to only four pairs of men. These he sent to Gavin for processing through a Department of Justice classified database of known faces, culled from Interpol and individual “Five Eyes” national crime information, as well as open-source media files.

  It was a couple hours too early to reach Gavin at the office in Virginia, and Jack did not want to just sit around and wait in his office, so he decided to head out to La Lorraine to see if he could get eyes on Frieden’s mystery man, Andrei Limonov. Normally he would need to clear an operational move like this with John Clark, but Jack justified his lapse of OPSEC; he knew there was a McDonald’s on the Place Guillaume II, and he hadn’t had a greasy American hamburger for months. There was no Campus protocol that said Ryan had to call in to HQ to request permission to go to lunch.

  • • •

  At five minutes till one Jack sat outside the McDonald’s on the other side of the Place Guillaume II, Luxembourg’s central square, eating a Big Mac and drinking a Diet Coke. It was a frigid afternoon, but he wasn’t alone. A dozen or more locals and tourists sat around the McDonald’s, and this gave Jack the comfort that his surveillance position would remain undetected.

  At just after one in the afternoon, Guy Frieden entered the restaurant alone, looking dapper in a gray suit and carrying a briefcase. Jack glanced up and down the square on the offhand chance there was some countersurveillance around the meeting location, but he saw nothing.

  Ten minutes later a black Jaguar XF sedan pulled to the curb next to the restaurant. Two men climbed out and headed directly to the door of La Lorraine. They both wore dark suits; the shorter one had thinning blond hair and appeared to be younger than the other, who was tall and broad and had spiked gray hair. The Jaguar turned right, leaving the square, and Jack was unable to get a look at the
driver.

  He lifted his burger and took a bite, but his eyes remained up on the men until they disappeared into the restaurant. He gazed again around the area before pretending to check his phone for messages, making a show of being just one more working stiff on his lunch break.

  Just as he put his phone back into his coat it started buzzing. He pulled it out and saw it was John Clark calling. “Hey, John.”

  “Actually, it’s John and Gerry. We’ve got you on speaker in the conference room.”

  “Oh . . . okay. Good morning, Gerry. Hey, this isn’t about that Bugatti I put on the company card, is it? I can explain that.”

  Gerry Hendley ignored Ryan’s joke. “What are you up to over there, kid?”

  Jack walked away from the others sitting outside the McDonald’s and found a quiet bench on the Place Guillaume II, fifty feet from anyone else. “I thought you knew. I’ve got eyes on an attorney here in Luxembourg City who is part of the Grankin money-laundering ladder.”

  “Tell me about the photos you sent Gavin.”

  “I sent Gavin some faces to push through the DOJ facial-recog system. That’s it. You can ask him.”

  Clark said, “Don’t have to. Gavin brought them to us a few minutes ago.”

  “Is something wrong?” Jack asked, confused by the interrogation.

  Gerry said, “You are looking for a private equity guy named Andrei Limonov. No known criminal ties.”

  “Right.”

  “One of the pictures was interesting. One guy came up with nothing, but that might be Limonov, because there are no other images of him anywhere.”

  “Okay. What about the other guy? Any idea who he is?”

  Clark responded to this. “We know exactly who he is. He’s Vladimir Kozlov.”

  The name didn’t mean anything to Jack. He was a little embarrassed by this, because he was supposed to know names in the Russian banking and investment world, and he’d drawn a blank on both men. He said, “He’s some kind of a banker or something?”

  “Nope,” Clark said. “He’s a spook. He’s Kremlin now, but he’s ex-FSB. Active-measures operations.”

  Suddenly, Ryan knew he was on the trail of something big, he was certain of it. He looked out across the square at the restaurant, his heart rate increasing. “Well, hot damn!”

  “No, Ryan,” Gerry said, “this isn’t good. Look, I’m glad you seem to be on the right track over there, but in every conversation we’ve had about the analytical work you’d be doing in the field in Europe, you’ve gone out of your way to stress that there were no indications of physical involvement by organized crime or FSB in your investigation.”

  Jack said, “That was true, up until now. Look, guys, this man Limonov had nothing to do with the work I was doing in Rome.”

  “But he’s tied to the same lawyer who set up the company who purchased the artwork.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But I think it’s just a coincidence. I know the players in Rome—they were Russians, sure, but I didn’t get one ping down there on this guy Limonov. I am somewhere between highly confident and absolutely positive that Limonov is a guy who just happens to be meeting with the same lawyer as the Russians operating in Rome. I have no idea what he’s doing here, but I sure am curious because he’s so opaque.”

  Clark said, “Well, I’m curious, too, but Kozlov is no one to mess with. He’s trouble, pure and simple. He was originally identified as Russian intelligence about three years ago on an operation here in D.C. Then he showed up in Kiev last year. According to our links into CIA SIPRNet there are suspicions he was the brains behind that assassination on the bridge in front of the Kremlin a few months ago.”

  Jack slowly scanned the square again. For an urban area, this space couldn’t possibly have been any more tranquil. There was nothing to worry about here, he felt sure. “Well, that’s interesting,” Jack said. “Wonder what he’s doing with Limonov. Moving Kremlin money?”

  Clark said, “I have no idea.”

  Jack thought about it. “He wasn’t mentioned on Frieden’s appointment book, only Limonov was. Looks like he’s traveling as Limonov’s hanger-on. I wonder if Limonov could be moving money, and this ex-FSB thug is here protecting Limonov.”

  Gerry said, “I’m liking your involvement in this less and less.”

  “Look, we are a small team. Smaller now since Sam died. But this is important, and I’m being careful.” Jack thought of the incident in Rome with the photographer Salvatore. He’d never gotten around to mentioning it to Clark, and now sure as hell didn’t seem to be the time to bring it up.

  Jack said, “If there is a chance we can get at some of Volodin’s money, then we can—”

  Gerry said, “Wait. Volodin’s money? You’re taking a hell of a leap. What makes you think Limonov is working for Valeri Volodin?”

  Jack demurred, chastised that he’d gone too far in justifying his operation. “I don’t know that he is. But whoever he is working for, apparently it is some Kremlin fat cat, somebody who can send this Vladimir Kozlov to babysit him.”

  Gerry said nothing.

  “Think about it. It’s someone high at the Kremlin. We’ve dug up a lot of bit players involved in Kremlin finances, but not this guy. He has to be working with someone whose assets we haven’t uncovered yet. Someone like Volodin.”

  “Someone like any one of fifty other guys with Kremlin ties.”

  “Fair enough, but I’ve got a strong feeling about this one. Limonov only shows up in business-related searches. He doesn’t have any criminal background, and he obviously isn’t any sort of a politician, or we’d know him. If he is what my analysis says he is, and if I was the kleptocrat leading a nation who needed someone to control my money, he’s exactly the guy I’d want doing it. Some finance manager who isn’t looking to make a name for himself. Who keeps out of trouble and out of the news, and who quietly makes a lot of money.”

  Clark said, “If he’s such a big-shot manager, how come we don’t know about him?”

  “I asked myself the same question. But then I thought about it. You don’t get famous by getting rich. You get famous by getting rich and using your riches to acquire power. The wealthy guys who’ve parlayed their wealth into a seat at the table in the Kremlin are the guys on our radar.”

  “Very true.”

  “And this Limonov just sits at his desk and sets up shell companies, moves money out of Russia and into offshore vehicles.”

  Gerry said, “Okay, with Clark’s permission, we’ll let you keep soft surveillance on Frieden for a little while longer. You can dig into Limonov all you want via analysis, but I don’t want you walking the streets behind him, tailing him in your car, or anything idiotic like that.”

  Jack was poised on the bench, watching the restaurant, and ready to do just that. Instead, he stood up, tossed the rest of his lunch in a garbage can, and started back to his office. “I wouldn’t even consider it, Gerry.” He said it behind a sly grin.

  26

  The prince sat in his Mercedes limousine, idly looking out the window at the tourists and the shoppers strolling by on Rodeo Drive, many of whom were staring back at his vehicle and the smoked-glass windows. He imagined they were wondering if some sort of a movie star was sitting inside, and this made him chuckle.

  He was no actor, but there wasn’t an actor on this planet with a portfolio a tenth the size of his. The prince was Saudi Arabia’s deputy minister of petroleum and mineral resources, which meant he was second in line to one of the highest positions in the nation. He was also from the House of Saud, the royal family, which meant his personal wealth was all but incalculable.

  The prince enjoyed his visits to the West, but not quite so much as his wife did. She loved to shop and he loved to make her happy, or at least he understood the benefit to him if she remained happy, so he placated her with a little time in which to shop, a
nd a lot of money to spend while she did it.

  Every time they left the kingdom he gave her at least a full day of roaming the stores, and she had become an expert at taking advantage of these days. In Milan, in Paris, in Monaco, in Singapore, luxury boutiques had been raided by the prince’s wife, and usually the prince felt like the getaway driver, because he preferred to wait outside in the car.

  His security detail preferred it as well.

  He’d met his wife at a Formula One race in Abu Dhabi eight years ago; she was a Czech national and a model. Since the day they met she’d done her best to spend his money. He didn’t care, she treated him well in the process, and she couldn’t possibly put a dent in his riches, no matter how many bags, necklaces, shoes, and designer pedigree dogs she purchased.

  And as much as she loved to shop, she loved to get out of the kingdom even more. This trip to California had a business component to it, of course. The prince was being courted by the American government. It was known to all that the current minister of petroleum and mineral resources, the prince’s uncle, was suffering from inoperable bowel cancer. He did not have long, and the Americans hoped relations on the energy-trading front would remain the same or even improve when the younger man took over. To that end, they brought him over as often as they could and did their best to show him and his wife that America was a friend to the Saudis—especially the Saudi oil industry.

  But the prince wasn’t thinking about work now, he was thinking about his wife. He sat in the backseat of a Mercedes-Benz S-Guard, one of the most expensive armored cars on earth, and he looked out the window onto Rodeo Drive. His wife was in the Bulgari store with one of their bodyguards, and he was outside with two more, plus his driver and a personal assistant.

  He considered asking his PA to text her and demand she hurry it up—it was nearly lunchtime, after all. But just as he turned to give the command, his phone chirped and he answered it.