The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [82]
He reached for the vodka bottle then thought the better of it. ‘I can’t speak to Irina about this. I don’t think she would understand—or could bear to have the conversation.’
Stevie kept her voice low, not wanting to be overheard, but she had to ask. ‘What are you going to do, Valery, if the kidnappers ask you to compromise your ideals?’
Anya’s father stubbed out his cigarette, screwing the butt viciously into the ashtray. ‘Everything I have fought for for Russia’s future—Russia’s future itself perhaps—is at stake. To give in is almost unthinkable.’ He gave a bitter smile. ‘The incorruptible Kozkov crumbling, yet another betrayal of Russia’s chances.’
He looked up at Stevie. The fire leaving his face abruptly. ‘And yet there is a little space, Stevie, between unthinkable and possible, and in that little space lies for me all the world.’ His voice was almost a whisper. ‘Does that answer your question?’
They joined the others by the fire in the next room. Stevie sat on the floor in front of it, warming her toes. Saskia lay at Irina’s feet, her own delicate paws stretched towards the flames.
‘Can I ask you,’ Stevie turned to Anya’s father, ‘does the name Felix Dragoman mean anything to you?’
Kozkov drew his eyebrows together. ‘The name is familiar . . .’
It was Vadim, flushed, who spoke. ‘I know the name—he runs smuggling rings all over the continent, Japan, the UK, Siberia, Turkey, and everywhere else. We all knew about him in the army.’ He glanced across at his father. ‘Some officers were making a fortune on the side, selling stuff on the black market. They would be assigned to guard a defunct nuclear facility or a pharmaceutical plant and they would sell uranium or plutonium or drugs or whatever out the back door to Dragoman and his men.’
‘How high up did this go?’ Stevie hugged her knees to her chest.
‘I would guess all the way to the top.’ Vadim shrugged. ‘There was too much money changing hands for it have remained of no interest to the higher-ups.’ Stevie nodded, hugging her knees tighter and staring at the flickering flames in front of her. ‘The trade in fake or expired pharmaceuticals is a huge business. And I can think of at least three rogue governments who would pay fortunes for nuclear materials or even weapons, not to mention any number of terrorist organisations, provided they could afford it.’
‘Surely it’s not that easy . . .’ Kozkov looked horrified and Stevie was surprised he didn’t seem to be aware of it.
‘The beauty of this black market,’ she explained, ‘lies in its deniability: the army report, say, a nuclear warhead as stolen and then launder the proceeds through Niue or Nauru or Tuvalu or some other Pacific Island micro-state, for example. Even if the warhead is found and traced, no one can be held officially responsible for the “stolen” goods, and there is no money trail to follow.’
‘And that’s where the banks come in,’ Kozkov said, the pieces coming together in his mind.
‘And therefore you.’
He sat forward, his eyes too drawn by the flames. ‘Trouble is, there are so many banks, so many under investigation, so many I have already closed down. It just doesn’t narrow it down enough.’
‘Maxim Krutchik was certain that Dragoman has binding ties to the siloviki, that they’re taking cuts of his profits in exchange for favourable legislation, or for turning a blind eye,’ Stevie informed Kozkov, her voice quiet. ‘He thinks a man like Dragoman might be interested in influencing you.’
Kozkov frowned in concentration. ‘If this Dragoman is tied to the siloviki in that way, then they would both have an interest in making sure a system of laundering profits through the banks was in place. It widens the circle of suspicion even further.’
‘So, is Maraschenko working for Dragoman?’ Vadim’s eyes were glowing in the firelight.
Kozkov replied, his voice hollow now. ‘We don