The Red Syndrome by Haggai Carmon Read Free Book Online Page B

to mention a supportive boss.
    Now I was being presented with a job that required me to work with
others. And even if I were to protest, David wouldn't be responsive.
    But why was this matter so complex that it required a task force? I
could think of only three reasons, although I was sure there were more.
First, the sums involved aroused suspicions of an unusual international
spread of criminal activity. Second, the risk to the stability of an
American bank was great. Finally - and most strikingly - there was the
identity of the front-runner suspect, Boris Zhukov.
    The names of Boris, Misha, and Yuri were highlighted on the legal pad
resting on my lap while I rode the Amtrak Metroliner back to New York.
I knew these guys only too well. We'd never met, at least not yet, but I'd
already made close acquaintance with their FBI files. I closed my eyes,
shutting myself off from the squeaking of the train on the rails. What I
had read about Zhukov's life story began to roll through my mind.
    Boris Zhukov felt he'd made it - and with some justification. He'd
climbed from a childhood in a penniless family in poverty-stricken
Belarus to become a major player in international crime. Belarus, just
west of Russia, has always been Russia's poor relative. There Zhukov
became a heavyweight. Not in boxing, or maybe that too. Now, resettled
in the United States, he was controlling assets exceeding three hundred million dollars. Zhukov didn't like to flash his money, but he still couldn't
avoid some of the absolutely necessary trappings: a blond wife flaunting
too much gold jewelry, a few diamond necklaces and rings, sables, a black
Mercedes S6oo with a uniformed chauffer, a penthouse on Central Park
West, a 15o-foot yacht, a winter retreat in the Florida Keys, and of course
a double chin. But Zhukov didn't consider this too lavish. Grisha
Grigorev, his former-partner-turned-rival, had a private island in the
Caribbean, two mistresses, a triple chin, and an additional thirty pounds
of avoirdupois, not counting the gold chain and the diamond ring on his
pinkie. Zhukov didn't mind. Ever since he and Grisha had come to terms
on how to divide the huge territorial cake they were controlling, things
had been calm. Grisha went into prostitution, fuel smuggling, and extortion, while Zhukov liked to be regarded as a banker, money launderer, and
facilitator for legitimate American businesses that needed a guided tour
into the new world of old Russia. Why worry?

    In fact Zhukov had good reason to worry, but he wouldn't realize this
until faced with the results of my investigation.
    The following morning I went to 26 Federal Plaza in downtown
Manhattan, just opposite the federal and New York courts, for my first
day on the task force. Some forty people were gathered in a windowless
conference room. "All efforts should be made to obtain sufficient evidence to indict Zhukov," said Robert E. Hodson - head of the FBI's
New York field office and assistant director in charge - as he addressed
the task force members for the first time. Hodson was a tall and heavyset
man in his late fifties. He had a full head of white hair, a pinkish face, and
an authoritative demeanor. People listened to him.
    As I glanced around the room, some of the faces I saw were familiar
and some were new. One unfamiliar but intriguing face, as I was later to
find out, belonged to Laura Higgins, a green-eyed, red-haired Homeland
Security agent who called to mind a jungle feline. There was something
tantalizing in the way she walked, the way she moved, even the way she
slowly raised her long lashes. This woman is out hunting, I thought, but I
had no idea what or whom she saw as prey. Bored as usual in the crowded, good-for-nothing meeting, I ogled her as she meticulously wrote down
everything that was said. She must be new on the job, new in town, or
both.

    Bob Hodson raised his voice. "Boris Zhukov dips his hands into anything profitable,