A Matter of Honor Read online

  Romanov reached the steps of Neglinnaya 12 at three-thirty because he knew he needed more than the fifteen minutes he had been allocated if he was to get all his questions answered. He only hoped Poskonov would agree to see him immediately.

  After announcing himself at the reception desk he was accompanied by a uniformed guard up the wide marble staircase to the first floor, where Poskonov’s secretary was waiting to greet him. Romanov was led to an anteroom. “I will inform the chairman of the bank that you have arrived, Comrade Romanov,” the secretary said and then disappeared back into his own office. Romanov paced up and down the small anteroom impatiently, but the secretary did not return until the hands on the clock were in a straight line. At three-fifty, Romanov was ushered into the chairman’s room.

  The young major was momentarily taken aback by the sheer opulence of the room. The long red velvet curtains, the marble floor, and the delicate French furniture wouldn’t, he imagined, have been out of place in the governo’s rooms at the Bank of England. Romanov was reminded not for the first time that money still remained the most important commodity in the world—even in the Communist world. He stared at the old stooped man with the thinning gray hair and bushy walrus mustache who controlled the nation’s money. The man of whom it was said that he knew of one skeleton in everyone’s closet. Everyone’s except mine, thought Romanov. The old man’s checked suit might have been made before the Revolution and would once again be considered “with it” on London’s King’s Road.

  “What can I do for you, Comrade Romanov?” inquired the banker with a sigh, as if addressing a tiresome customer who was seeking a small loan.

  “I require one hundred million American dollars in gold bullion immediately,” he announced evenly.

  The chairman’s bored expression suddenly changed. He went scarlet and fell into his chair. He took several short, sharp breaths before pulling open a drawer, taking out a square box, and extracting a large white pill from it. It took fully a minute before he seemed calm again.

  “Have you gone out of your mind, Comrade?” the old man inquired. “You ask for an appointment without giving a reason, you then charge into my office and demand that I hand over one hundred million American dollars in gold without any explanation. For what reason do you make such a preposterous suggestion?”

  “That is the business of the State,” said Romanov. “But since you have inquired, I intend to deposit equal amounts in a series of numbered accounts across Switzerland.”

  “And on whose authority do you make such a request?” the banker asked in a level tone.

  “The General Secretary of the Party.”

  “Strange,” said Poskonov. “I see Leonid Ilyich at least once a week, and he has not mentioned this to me,” the chairman looked down at the pad in the middle of his desk, “that a Major Romanov, a middle-ranking”—he stressed the words—“officer from the KGB would be making such an exorbitant demand.”

  Romanov stepped forward, picked up the phone by Poskonov’s side, and held it out to him. “Why don’t you ask Leonid Ilyich yourself and save us all a lot of time?” He pushed the phone defiantly toward the banker. Poskonov stared back at him, took the phone, and placed it to his ear. Romanov sensed the sort of tension he only felt in the field.

  A voice came on the line. “You called, Comrade Chairman?”

  “Yes,” replied the old man. “Cancel my four o’clock appointment and see that I am not disturbed until Major Romanov leaves.”

  “Yes, Comrade Chairman.”

  Poskonov replaced the phone and without another word rose from behind his desk and walked around to Romanov’s side. He ushered the young man into a comfortable chair on the far side of the room below a bay window and took the seat opposite him.

  “I knew your grandfather,” he said in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. “I was a junior commodity clerk when I first met him. I had just left school, and he was very kind to me, but he was just as impatient as you are. Which was why he was the best fur trader in Russia and thought to be the worst poker player.”

  Romanov laughed. He had never known his grandfather, and the few books that referred to him had long ago been destroyed. His father talked openly of his wealth and position, which had only given the authorities ammunition to destroy him.

  “You’ll forgive my curiosity, Major, but if I am to hand over one hundred million dollars in gold I should like to know what it is to be spent on. I thought only the CIA put in receipts for those sort of expenses without explanation.”

  Romanov laughed again and explained to the chairman how they had discovered that the Czar’s icon was a fake and he had been set the task of recovering the original. When he had completed his story he handed over the names of the fourteen banks. The banker studied the list closely while Romanov outlined the course of action he proposed to take, showing how the money would be returned intact as soon as he had located the missing icon.

  “But how can one small icon possibly be that important to the State?” Poskonov asked out loud, almost as if Romanov were no longer in the room.

  “I have no idea,” replied Romanov truthfully and then briefed him on the results of his research.

  There was an exasperated grunt from the other chair when Romanov had finished. “May I be permitted to suggest an alternative to your plan?”

  “Please do,” said Romanov, relieved to be gaining the older man’s cooperation.

  “Do you smoke?” asked the banker, taking a pack of Dunhill cigarettes from his coat pocket.

  “No,” said Romanov, his eyebrows lifting slightly at the sight of the red box.

  The old man paused as he lit a cigarette. “That suit was not tailored in Moscow either, Major,” the banker said, pointing at Romanov with his cigarette. “Now, to business—and do not hesitate to correct me if I have misunderstood any of your requirements. You suspect that lodged in one of these fourteen Swiss banks”—the chairman tapped the list with his index finger—“is the original Czar’s icon. You therefore want me to deposit large amounts of gold with each bank in the hope that it will give you immediate access to the head of the family, or chairman. You will then offer the chairmen the chance to control the entire hundred million if they promise to cooperate with you?”

  “Yes,” said Romanov. “Bribery is surely something the West has always understood.”

  “I would have said ‘naive’ if I hadn’t known your grandfather; it was he who ended up making millions of rubles, not me. Nevertheless, how much do you imagine is a lot of money to a major Swiss bank?”

  Romanov considered the question. “Ten million, twenty million?”

  “To the Moscow Narodny Bank perhaps,” said Poskonov. “But every one of the banks you hope to deal with will have several customers with deposits of over a hundred million each.”

  Romanov was unable to hide his disbelief.

  “I confess,” continued the chairman, “that our revered General Secretary showed no less incredulity when I informed him of these facts some years ago.”

  “Then I will need a billion?” asked Romanov.

  “No, no, no. We must approach the problem from a different standpoint. You do not catch a poacher by offering him a rabbit.”

  “But if the Swiss are not moved by the offer of vast amounts of money, what will move them?”

  “The simple suggestion that their bank has been used for criminal activity,” said the chairman.

  “But how …” began Romanov.

  “Let me explain. You say that the Czar’s icon hanging in the Winter Palace is not the original but a copy. A good copy, painted by a twentieth-century court painter, but nevertheless a copy. Therefore why not explain to each of the fourteen banks privately that, after extensive research, we have reason to believe that one of the nation’s most valuable treasures has been substituted with a copy and the original is thought to have been deposited in their bank? And rather than cause a diplomatic incident—the one thing every Swiss banker wishes to avoid at any cost�