The Metronome (The Counterpoint Trilogy Book 1) Read online

“I think both.”

  “Very good!” Nemzhov continues, “As I said, very few people had any specific knowledge of the money. During his time in the Kremlin, Boris Sosnovsky found out a few things. Just enough to give someone a start. It’s like a ball of yarn, you don’t want people pulling at the end. Natalya Streltsova was a popular anchor working for Sosnovsky’s TV station in Moscow; unfortunately he gave her the information, and she started pulling. That’s when we took notice.”

  “And then you figured out that someone was acting out The Count of Monte Cristo game of revenge?” I point at Voronezhsky.

  All three of them laugh as if this is some kind of a big joke. Nemzhov shakes his head. “I wish I could take the credit, but no. We are getting close to the point where we will be continuously gathering mountains of data, running them through computers, identifying correlations…We are not there yet. We knew about the trading scheme that Brockton and the Crossman brothers concocted in the 1990s. After his father killed himself, Grisha came to me in 1998 looking to protect his family. The money that his father lost in the Brockton’s scheme was owed to some nasty characters. We wanted Grisha on our team, so we stepped in and kept those characters at bay. But I did not know about Grisha’s extracurricular activities after that.”

  Nemzhov drinks some water and goes on.

  “To Grisha’s credit, he came to us on this. Brockton was the last piece left on his board, so to speak. Grisha was a bit obsessed with completing his revenge. Streltsova was living with Brockton then, and Grisha knew enough about the Sosnovsky connection to alert me. We gave him a hard time over the whole vigilante avenger stuff, then we started working together because we had common interests at stake.”

  “But something went wrong?”

  “Yes. Just serves to prove that no matter how much you prepare, random chance plays a role. We worked on this operation for months. Managed to entice Brockton to install the Hardrock security system that had a ‘backdoor’ we controlled. Figured out a time when the bodyguard would be gone. Found the password to Streltsova’s computer by observing her in a local coffee shop. You see, the plan was to remove sensitive information and to install the data we wanted. Everything was going according to the plan, and then this Jeff Kron person shows up! The operation was timed by seconds, and he threw it off. A couple of minutes had been lost, there was not enough time to finish before the bodyguard returned. Our people had to leave with Streltsova’s computer, did not have a chance to clean up properly. Before Kron appeared, they grabbed some jewelry to make it look like a robbery, forgot to put it back.”

  “And they set Jeff Kron up as the killer?”

  “What other option was there? We’ve decided to leave things as they were, until your father appeared on the scene, another entirely unplanned and unexpected event. We heard that Streltsova’s brother was suspicious of the verdict against Kron and looking for a private investigator. We spread the word in the Moscow investigators’ community to stay away and did not give it much thought. Imagine our shock when an old Russian detective shows up in Santa Barbara asking questions! How did Bezginovich find him? Anyway, after we assessed the situation, we saw not one but two opportunities.”

  Nemzhov is looking at me, so I indulge him. “I figure one was the possibility to try the disinformation that you originally planned. What is the second opportunity?”

  Nemzhov points at me. “You, Pavel. There were lots of changes since you left; many people from Russia moved to the West, we lost track of who was where. And the vast majority were of no interest to us whatsoever. But you, Pavel, you are another story. We decided that we want to re-connect with you.”

  “Well, you expressed your interest in a strange manner.”

  Voronezhsky takes over. “You did not expect us to approach you out of the blue? We worked indirectly, through Martin Shoffman.”

  “Have you worked with him before?”

  “No. We tried to follow you and the people in your circle, found out that Martin had some points we could pressure…”

  “Like sleeping with my wife?”

  “Oh, you know?” Voronezhsky seems surprised. “Yes, that was one. Plus, he was greedy and ambitious.”

  “So you concocted the New Treasure Island ELP to fund the Grand Castle Rock hedge fund…”

  “Yes. It was done in a hurry.”

  “And you put in that little provision that gave you control, figuring that I’d trust Martin’s assurances that the agreement went through a legal review?”

  “Yes. Remember, we were handing you, a novice hedge fund manager, quite a bit of money. For that and other reasons we wanted control.”

  “So why did you pull the plug? You knew that our positions would pay off!”

  Voronezhsky shrugs guiltily. “I am sorry, I had orders.”

  Nemzhov raises his hand to take over the conversation.

  “Please allow me to interject. Pavel, remember that your father was conducting his investigation at that time. I won’t lie; a part of the reason for helping you was to gain some influence over him. We gave it a bit of time, then carefully directed him to the disinformation package.”

  “Was that the story with the key and safe deposit box in Moscow?”

  “Exactly. We waited and waited for your father to release the information, but he would not. He smelled that something was not quite right. To make things worse, he continued to work on the case. We put pressure on Bezginovich to stop the investigation, but your father persisted on his own. Then, early this year, your father traveled to Paris to meet with Sosnovsky. I truly admire your father’s persistence and investigative abilities, but the situation was getting out of hand.”

  “So you killed Sosnovsky?”

  “The official version is that Boris Sosnovsky hung himself. I’ll leave it at that.”

  “And then you pressured my father by showing him that you could destroy me?”

  Nemzhov shakes his head. “If there is any excuse, during that critical time I was in a hospital for kidney stones surgery and this bad decision was made without me. Grisha also did not have a choice, he had his orders. An attempt was made to ‘convince’ your father by destroying your fund. Foolish, foolish move, I deeply apologize for it.”

  “How did my father die?”

  “For the last month your father was under constant observation, his mail, e-mails, phone calls – everything was monitored. Frankly, he would have been killed if the powers-to-be were not afraid that he set something up to be released upon his death. One day he managed to elude his tail; that’s probably when he sent a package for you to be picked up in Moscow. I arranged to come see him very early on June 7th; at that point I was trying to work with him personally. When Petr and I got there, the door was open. We walked in. Your father was sitting at his desk facing us, with a gun in his hand. He shot himself as we were looking at him. It was devastating to me personally. I am sorry.”

  We all are silent for a minute, looking down. Then I go back to my first question. “What was in the envelope you took?”

  “To be honest, it was not as much as we were afraid of. Your father pieced together a lot of information, and it’s definitely not something that we would have wanted to become public. But we were concerned about a ‘guide to the money,’ and it was not there. It probably means that Sosnovsky did not have much. But we did not know it at the time.”

  Voronezhsky gets up, walks towards the window, comes back, takes over the conversation.

  “Pavel, this has been a complicated case. We have decided to tell you as much as we could because we hope to mend things between us. We’d like to make you a proposal.”

  Voronezhsky looks at me expectantly, but I remain silent.

  “I know it’s difficult after what happened with your father, but we did not wish it. Come work with us,” he continues. “We can set you up with a new fund or you can join the Eastern Cottonwood, whatever you prefer. We realize that you and your wife have separated, at least partly as a result of our acti
ons. Once your position is restored, we are sure you can rebuild your family situation.”

  “Why do you want me? I am just a quant, a financial analyst.”

  “Pavel, you are much more than that. Your ideas on how to capitalize on the coming crash of the U.S. real estate market are brilliant, we are already copying them. And you are Russian, you are on our side.”

  I sit quietly for a minute, then say, “I have a couple of questions I would like to ask Colonel Nemzhov.” As everyone is staring at me expectantly, I look straight at Nemzhov and add, “Privately.”

  Nemzhov nods. “Grisha, Petr, please give us a few minutes.”

  Voronezhsky shoots me a murderous look but obediently leaves with Saratov.

  After they are gone, I ask Nemzhov, “This all has been about Sam Baker, has it not?”

  Nemzhov hesitates, bites his lip while looking at a window, then turns to me. “Yes, this was and is about Sam Baker,” he admits almost cheerfully, “I thought you’d figure it out]. Your father-in-law is poised to become one of the five most powerful people in this country. We would like to get closer to him. That’s why I was so upset when these idiots shut down your fund. They were looking to influence your father when the bar had been set so much higher!”

  “That’s your method of operation, get to someone through the people they love? That’s why Voronezhsky spoke about ‘repairing my family situation,' right?”

  “Pavel, that’s how it was throughout centuries. I doubt Sam Baker cares about you much, but he does love his daughter. We are not asking you to do anything distasteful, Karen is an attractive woman who you loved for many years and who probably still loves you. Nor are we setting up to blackmail Mr. Baker. When you are viewed as an accomplished finance person, a ‘major player’ so to speak, he will likely seek your advice on financial issues. Or perhaps you will hear about the internal legislative discussions. We are just looking for ability to influence the events a little bit. What do you think the thousands of high-priced lobbyists are doing in Washington every day? Soft power of influence runs the world.”

  Yes, that’s how they get you to do things, I think. Use the loved ones. My father knew that.

  “Colonel, do you really think you can defeat America? I am not talking militarily…Your trillion dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to the wealth of this country.”

  Nemzhov sighs wearily. “Call me Nikolai. Not any time soon and not by ourselves. During World War II, we wasted innumerous lives and resources by throwing our people into bloody frontal attacks against the Germans. And then we employed a similar strategy during the Cold War, substituting raw power for thinking. We won’t defeat America this way. We have to let America defeat itself. Let them destroy their society through financialization and rising inequality. Let them push other countries into our corner by imperial arrogance and hubris. Let them upset their allies by spying on them. Let them damage their reserve currency status through debt and money printing. Like in any complex system, small changes will keep adding up until they turn into big dislocations.” He pauses to take a breath. “As for ‘only a trillion dollars’…It’s not only about the money, it’s about embedding ourselves into the system. The chessboard is larger than Mr. Brzezinski imagined. What he did not foresee is us taking the fight to the U.S. Not openly, of course, but clandestinely, by acquiring influence and helping the U.S. exhaust itself. Arrogance, hubris, soft corruption, influence of money – these are our allies and weapons. The more ‘financialised’ America becomes, the more it will be built on leverage. And greater leverage means greater vulnerability. All the great generals knew that it’s a matter of applying maximum force in weakest spots. The only thing I am afraid of is that we won’t have the patience to wait for the right time. We do our projections based on the growth of debt and retirement of the “baby boom” generation, I figure it’s another fifteen to twenty years before the American situation becomes unsustainable. What do you think, Pavel? Be honest.”

  “Frankly, Nikolai, I think America won the Cold War because they were a more dynamic society, while the Soviet Union has always been a monstrous bureaucratic state run by a small political elite. And I think that America is still the more dynamic society. So, I am not sure you can defeat them.”

  “Pavel, I actually agree with you about the past, but you are looking into a rearview mirror. America, by now, has evolved a privileged political and financial elite similar to ours. We have our oligarchs, they have theirs. A hundred years ago America broke up their oligarchies and that made the 20th century the American one. But now, they allowed the oligarchs, especially the financial ones, to take over. Do you know that the heads of the 25 largest hedge funds made more money than the management of the 500 largest companies of the S&P 500 index altogether? And these in turn make obscene amounts of money compared to their workers. Money talks, and money drives politics. There will be more market blow-ups, more financial crises, more debt leveraging until they reach the point of no return. Imperial hubris never ends well. History is not linear, it always repeats itself. Pavel, don’t bet on the wrong horse.”

  But I’d rather bet on them. Because there is still hope for them but there is none for you.

  I take a deep breath and ask the one question that I could not figure out:

  “Why didn’t you just arrest me after I picked up the package that my father sent? You could have told me everything then. Why make me figure things out on my own?”

  “No, we couldn’t,” replies Nemzhov. “We were puzzling over your father’s suicide and not sure whether he told you anything. I had to find out without torturing you.” He says this casually, to torture-or-not being a simple business decision. “More importantly, we had to learn about you, Pavel. We used your weaknesses against you. We wanted to learn your strengths before we could trust you with this conversation.”

  I change the subject. “Nikolai, what about Jeff Kron?”

  Nemzhov squints in puzzled incomprehension:

  “What about him?”

  “An innocent man is in jail for many years.”

  “He put himself into this situation. He was going there with a gun, intending to kill John Brockton.”

  “But he did not kill anyone.”

  “OK, Pavel, why are you asking this?”

  “I want him released.”

  “Not a good idea,” Nemzhov shakes his head. “That case has been closed; who knows where reopening it would lead?”

  “I’ve met him, he is on my conscience now. That’s my price. It’s not negotiable.”

  He who saves one life saves the world.

  Nemzhov rubs his chin. “I don’t like it, but if it’s important to you…we can arrange for some killer-for-hire to admit to murdering Brockton and Streltsova. We have plenty of those in our jails, should be able to find one that fits the profile. People will bring up the old story of Streltsova reporting on the 1999 bombings in Moscow being the work of the FSB and the GRU.”

  “Was it?”

  “No, but if some people want to think that, that’s fine. Keeps them chasing the wrong scent. OK, I can’t promise tomorrow, but before the week is over there will be a story that should free Jeff Kron. So, Pavel, any other requests?”

  “No, that’s the only one.”

  “Then I have one question. The same one I asked earlier: Why did your father kill himself? I am sorry, but this haunts me.”

  Because you did not see the whole diary, you don’t know how much he hated people like you. He’d been forced to play your game his whole life, but no longer. I simply reply, “I think he did not want you to be able to pressure me through him.”

  Nemzhov nods, unconvinced.

  Sarah has an interview in Boston on Thursday. She’s going to leave tomorrow and come back Thursday evening, spend a day with her sister who lives there.

  “It’ll be good for me to go, clear my head a bit,” she says sadly. “I’ll try to survive a day without seeing you.”

  I show her my father’s d
iary and read the first few pages. I don’t think I am doing a good job translating.

  We make love as if this is the last time we’ll see each other.

  Wednesday, June 28

  I take care of business in the morning. First, go to the notary to complete my will. Then, to the local Kinko’s to make copies. Lastly, back to my apartment, prepare e-mails and two packages to the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. There is not much else to do but wait.

  My phone wakes me up at half past one in the morning. The caller ID says it’s from somewhere in Russia. A heavily accented voice tells me to check the news. I go to my computer and here it is: A man serving a life sentence in a Moscow jail confesses to killing John Brockton and Natalya Streltsova in Santa Barbara. The police confirmed that the man was in California during that time. The reason is given as contract killing, revenge for a business gone wrong between Brockton and one of the Russian mafia chiefs, since killed in another dispute.

  I call Sal Rozen. “Sal, this is Pavel.”

  “Do you look at your watch before you call?”

  “Go to your computer, search the news for Brockton.”

  I hear some swearing and footsteps as Rozen carries the phone with him, clicking of keys, then, “Holy shit! What did you do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t BS me, if this is not your work, I am the Pope!”

  “Sal, is this enough to get Jeff Kron out?”

  He thinks, then I almost hear him nod. “Yeah, this should work. I’ll start tomorrow. You know Melissa Kron will turn heaven and earth with this.”

  “Thank you, Sal.”

  “No, thank you. But you still did not tell me what you had to do.”

  “Sorry, Sal, I can’t.”

  Thursday, June 29

  I wake up to a beautiful sunny morning. I’ve lived here for twenty years, and I never liked the East Coast summers. Give me the heat of California or the rain of Canada, but please spare me New York’s humidity. But sometimes we get these wonderful June mornings when the air is clear and crisp and the sun is bright and not too hot and the city feels like it just arose from the ocean like Botticelli’s Venus, and you feel like you might just get that second chance at life.