When he goes back to Gretkov, he gives him a couple stacks from the bag, which probably has dozens of them.
Why is he keeping the money? He's freaking rich! If I were Kirill, I would have kept it.
That's just a terrible deal arrangement he has going on for someone as talented as him.
I suspect Gretkov just has so much power that its safer and wiser for Kirill just to do as he says, rather than try fool him.
Given Kirill is basically Gretkov own personal agent, to use as he wants, Kirill is probably getting good money off him already, so just keeps him on side rather than risk losing a good deal he has.
It's possible they left out something in the story, like maybe he has money trouble or something.
I found it funny that later, they mentioned that he and Conklin both got rich after stealing that money in a wire transfer and using it to buy oil leases. So it seems like maybe the money was part of another plan Gretkov had.
Do they actually mention Conklin getting rich?
My feeling has always been that Abbot basically played everyone on this one..... as Danny Zorn said, "Conklin was a nut, but not a traitor".... way Treadstone worked was Abbot would bring the missions and Conklin would arrange them (as shown in Identity, Conklin gets very defensive when Abbot asks a direct question on Wombosi, which he never did before) as that was the way Treadstone worked, just Abbot simply dropping a name....no paper trail to anyone.
I suspect that Gretkov and Abbot were in Partnership together..... Abbot gave the mission to Conklin, who sent Bourne.... probably over time Conklin grew suspicious over this, but Abbot was throwing money at him to (unofficially) look the other way (which Conklin just put out the way) as who could Conklin go to? "I know who killed Netski, but it was us"...... so Abbot was probably truthful in that sense that he was throwing money at Conklin for his budget.
Shoot, I'm an idiot, I messed up. It was Abbot that I was talking about. However, I got the impression that Conklin was involved too, judging from his comments. But who knows.
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