My thanks to HDK for his review and commentary on the initial draft of this story.
CHAPTER 6
Lana continues her story.
One day, a large, bald, goateed man came to me and spoke in Russian to me. I tried to pretend that I did not understand, but he simply smiled cruelly.
"Oh, but you speak Russian very fluently, do you not--Svetlana Alexeevna Savina?"
I was shocked that he knew in such detail who I was. I was confused as to how he could know so much. Then he began to speak with a voice of authority, and I knew then that I was in the presence of one of the most horrible men on the face of the earth, Vasily Radkevich himself.
Suddenly, I was very angry; furious, in fact, at the man who was behind so much horror, pain, and suffering for so many people--the man who had stolen the child that I had conceived and borne from love with my husband before falling prey to these animals. I stood straight, as if I were a free person, and not a slave to this barbarian in the Armani suit. I adopted an expression that I hoped appeared to be a sneer, and said to him, "Da, Vasiliy Il'ich Radkevich; v samom dele, ya govoryu po-russki ochen' khorosho (Yes, Vasily Illich Radkevich; in fact, I speak Russian very well)."
He gave me no warning as he simply grinned evilly and backhanded me to the face, knocking me back.
"Impudent slut; where is my money?" he demanded of me.
I looked startled at Vasily and said, "What do you mean; what money?"
He simply laughed and grabbed me by the throat with his huge left hand and began slapping me with his right, as he spoke to me between slaps, "Where ... is ... my ... money ... Slut?"
I cried out as much as I could with my throat being constricted and being rhythmically slapped. "I ... do not ... know about ... your money."
After a few more minutes, Vasily simply let go of my throat and I dropped to the floor, sobbing and massaging my throat where he had held me. He nudged me with the toe of one of his mirror-finish handmade shoes.
"You will remain with my enterprise for the rest of your life, then, and work off what you owe me. For, you see; I know all about your accounting talents and how that greedy fool, Van Horn, used you to locate and loot my resources. When I learned of this, I had your efforts monitored. I know how you allowed Van Horn to get his greedy hands on my money, supposedly routing it to so-called official FBI accounts.
"Then, one day, my smart business and networking people, who are monitoring your efforts out of Vadim's offices, notice another thing. Not all the money that is supposedly being ..." finger quotes in the air, "... officially confiscated ... by this greedy man, Van Horn, is going to the accounts that he had directed you to use as part of his so-called investigation--now they are going elsewhere. He is having you ship MY money to Van Horn's own private retirement account."
Vasily calmly lit a very aromatic cigar; and he paused before continuing. "My people discovered several more accounts all over the world through which a goodly amount of the profits from my enterprises were moving ... and not simply to accounts belonging to this Van Horn."
Vasily scowled at me, at this point. "They were being used as waypoints in a vast scheme to shuffle money, supposedly at random times and in varying quantities, away from my own accounts--eventually winding up vanishing into the black hole of the Cayman Islands banking system. This was money that was going to someone other than that greedy and arrogant fool, Van Horn.
"Now," Vasily leaned toward me as he puffed on his cigar--which actually smelled very aromatic and almost sweet, differing considerably from what I had expected. "Since you were the one discovering the locations of my resources via your accounting skills; and you were also the one moving my money to Van Horn at his behest; it only stands to reason that you are the one who took the rest of my money and knows exactly where it went when it disappeared."
Vasily blew smoke in my face as he said, "You owe me three-point-six million dollars, My Dear; and I want it back."
I could not help myself as I smiled at Vasily. I replied, rasping through my bruised larynx, "You can demand all that you want, Vasily Illich, but I cannot give you what I do not have; nor what I have no way of knowing about." I rose to my feet slowly as he watched me.
"I do not even know how long I have been here, and I do not know exactly how long or where I was before this. Your people have had me drugged and ..." here I smirked a bit, "... busy fucking any and all who come into my cell or room." Here, I scowled with fury at the man behind my circumstances. "And I have delivered a son ... whom you have stolen from me."