The Silent Oligarch: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

everything was fine. Then when the deal’s done, the licenses aren’t there. They’ve been transferred to another company. Incorporated in Cayman two months before. It had some made-up option on them.”
    “How much did you pay?”
    “Fifty million. Bucks. That was my money, too.”
    Webster nodded. “And you want the licenses back.”
    “No. I’ve had it with Russia. Should have known better. I want my money back. But that’s not why you’re here. I have lawyers for that.”
    Webster waited. Tourna looked him in the eye.
    “What I want from you,” he went on, “is the downfall of Konstantin Malin. The man is a crook. He’s meant to be the great strategist. The grand vizier, the man who made Russia powerful again. But all he cares about is his empire, and his money. He’s a fat crook, and he doesn’t deserve any of it. I want him gone.”
    Webster said nothing for a moment. He could feel excitement rising in him, in his shoulders and his chest. A chance to take on Malin. This was worth coming here for. This was even worth the waiting.
    “What do you mean by gone?”
    “Out of the ministry. Humiliated. Under investigation in a dozen countries. I want him strung up from a lamppost.”
    “I see. And how would we do that? He’s a powerful man.”
    “I was hoping to hear your ideas.”
    “You must have pictured it.”
    “Look, everything he does is bent. But he smells of roses. There must be so much dirt on this guy somewhere. We find it and we use it.” When Tourna talked, his lips, an unexpected pink against the tan, pushed out slightly. They, thought Webster, rather than the eyes, are what tell you not to trust him.
    He nodded again. He took a notebook and a pencil from his jacket pocket.
    “You mind?”
    “No, get it all down. Just don’t lose it.”
    For an hour Webster questioned Tourna about the story and all the people in it. When had all this happened? How had the deal come about? Had he met Malin? Who else had he dealt with?
    By the time he had finished it was ten o’clock and he could feel the sun hot on his shoulders. There was a flight at three. He wanted to leave this place and think about what he had just heard.
    “I think that’s everything. Thank you.” He looked at his watch. “I should go.”
    “You’re not staying? Stay as long as you want. I could drop you in Bodrum tomorrow.”
    “Thank you, no.”
    Tourna stretched and put his hands behind his head.
    “So do I pass?”
    Webster smiled. “I don’t know. I’ll speak to my boss.”
    “You think you can help?” said Tourna, looking up at Webster and shielding his eyes.
    Webster thought for a moment.
    “You’re asking a lot. If we take it on we’ll do the same.” It occurred to him as he said it that he would take this on for no money at all. This was the sort of case he had signed up for: the sort that makes a difference.
    Tourna laughed. Webster went to collect his things and start the long journey back to London, thinking hard, imagining how this might work.
    Malin. Quite a prize.
    T OURNA HAD GIVEN Webster a thick file before he left. He read it on the plane—a breach of protocol, but the child asleep next to him was hardly likely to be interested.
    In it were all manner of documents, carefully organized: news articles, company reports, transcripts of radio programs, photocopied excerpts from books. Throughout, passages had been marked in fluorescent ink and annotated with exclamation marks and energetic underlinings. Tourna had explained that this was his personal file: he had compiled much of it himself. The most substantial item was a report for a bank that was thinking of lending money to a Viennese company called Langland Resources. It had been written three years earlier by a competitor of Ikertu, but how Tourna had got hold of it wasn’t clear.
    Webster began with the appendices; they were always more interesting. To his surprise he found two spravki there, one on Malin, one on a lawyer called Richard Lock