Moscow Gold (SOKOLOV Book 5)

by Ian Kharitonov

  The audacious kidnapping dealt a serious blow to Hilton’s plan and left him high and dry. Because it happened on U.S. soil, there was no one he could turn to for support. Officially, Sokolov and Pavlova shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

  Getting the FBI involved was out of the question. Given the long-running feud between the Bureau and the CIA, the hostage rescue operation would escalate into a pissing contest before it got off the ground. The whole thing threatened to explode, with the Harry Richardson Foundation getting flak from all sides. And Hilton would take the fall personally.

  Saving Pavlova was a lost cause. Hilton had to write her off. But he had to salvage something from the mess. And cover his ass.

  While Constantine was out to fetch his brother, Hilton used his absence to make an important phone call.

  He contacted Jeff Monteith, informing him about the Pavlova incident.

  As Hilton delivered the news, Monteith listened without interrupting.

  “We must stick to our guns, with or without her,” Hilton concluded. “We can’t abandon our cause.”

  “Under the circumstances,” Monteith said, “it would benefit everyone if we pretended that she never existed.”

  Hilton agreed. “Only the flash drive is important. The identity of the person who provided it doesn’t matter.”

  “Can you still make progress with the leaked documents and track the dark money?”

  “Despite the setback, I strongly believe that I can get something useful from the files. It’ll just take more time.”

  “You must convince Sokolov to amend his story. He should testify that he received the flash drive from Klimov directly. A simplified version of the truth, leaving Pavlova out of the picture. This way, the link between their meeting and Klimov’s death will be more obvious and we can use the assassination video to our advantage.”

  “Sokolov should be on his way here. I’ll work with him.”

  Hilton ended the call and gulped some more coffee.

  He was about to place the device on the desk when the phone vibrated his hand. Hilton glanced at the Caller ID.

  Constantine.

  He swiped to answer.

  “Hey. How’s it going? Is Gene with you?”

  “Stephen, get out of there as fast as you can.”

  “What the hell?”

  “The killers likely know about the HRF. They’ll go after you. You need to run before it’s too late.”

  “Dammit!”

  “As soon as you get to a safe house nobody knows about, text me the location.”

  “Okay.”

  A wave of anxiety washed over Hilton. He took the warning seriously. Even if Constantine was overreacting after the attack, Hilton wasn’t about to risk his own life.

  The impending threat galvanized him.

  He shut down his laptop and undocked it from the dual monitors. In the event of a brute force attack, all data would be destroyed from the encrypted hard drive. He swept a stack of papers from his desk and stuffed them together with the laptop into his commuter backpack which he slung over his shoulder.

  Turning to the file cabinet, he pried open a secret compartment which contained a built-in safe box. He punched in the combination on the keypad and opened it. He retrieved the emergency items stored there just for this kind of contingency.

  Real and fake passports of various nationalities.

  A bundle of cash in hundred-dollar bills.

  Canadian Maple Leaf gold coins.

  The spare key to his Miata.

  Paulina’s flash drive.

  He stashed the valuables in the backpack’s outer zip pocket.

  Finally, he grabbed his Glock 19.

  He always kept the G19 loaded and locked, even if he hoped he never got to use it in action. He was an analyst, not a field agent, though he was a pretty good shot. There was only one security guard down in the lobby, so the gun gave Hilton extra confidence. If any hostiles showed up, he knew he could take out at least one or two bastards.

  He tucked the gun in his waistband and closed the empty safe box.

  Just then, he heard a squeal of tires outside.

  The Harry Richardson Foundation rented space on the third floor of the seven-floor office building in the Ballston-Virginia Square neighborhood.

  Hilton approached the window to peer at Vermont Street below. He was expecting to see Constantine returning in the Chevy.

  Instead, making the noisy arrival was a silver Lexus RX which stopped in the middle of the quiet street. There was no other traffic in sight.

  A beefy guy who spent too much time in the gym jumped out from behind the wheel. He hurried to the back of the SUV and swung the rear hatch open, unloading a long tube-shaped object from the boot.

  As the man mounted it on his shoulder, Hilton recognized the piece of hardware as an RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Although as ubiquitous as the AK-47, popular with every militant terrorist group from the IRA and Taliban to the Somali Pirates and ISIS, it was not something Hilton had anticipated to encounter in the U.S.

  Now he found himself staring at the wrong end of its cylindrical warhead.

  Dropping to one knee and aiming with the optical sight, the man pointed the weapon exactly at the spot where Hilton was standing.

  No other office window apart from HRF was lit, giving the shooter an unmissable target.

  “Oh f—”

  Hilton pivoted sharply and bolted to the exit.

  The RPG operator fired his off his weapon. Roaring and spewing flame from the rear nozzle, the tube shot out a grenade, and the rocket booster propelled the warhead along its deadly trajectory at almost 300 meters per second.

  Hilton wasn’t such a fast runner.

  Leaving a plume of white smoke in its trail, the grenade came crashing through the glass, the piezoelectric fuse detonating it on impact.

  The 105mm warhead was thermobaric, producing a high-temperature, high-pressure blast that sucked oxygen from the air by dispersing a cloud of fuel aerosol before it exploded.

  The effect made it more destructive than an artillery shell.

  As the thermobaric mixture ignited, the resulting fireball burned at 3,000 degrees Celsius. Caught within the lethal 10-meter radius, Hilton was hit by the intense blaze, but it wasn’t the thermal injuries from the incendiary fuel-air mixture that killed him.

  The created overpressure struck him against a wall, and the ensuing vacuum pressure pulled him back, throwing him around the confined space like a rag doll, while the shock wave from the blast damaged his internal organs, rupturing his lungs and causing immediate death.

  21

  Black soot covered the wall above the broken third-floor window of the office building. The firemen had extinguished the flames, and now the area at the corner Fairfax Drive and Vermont Street was cordoned off with police tape as investigators got down to work.

  A small crowd of gawkers surrounded the site, aiming phone cameras, posting photos and video clips to social media, snapping selfies against the backdrop of cop cars with flashing emergency lights. The crews of local TV stations would arrive soon.

  Details were scarce, but scrolling through the news feed, Sokolov found confirmation that one man was dead as a result of the fire.

  From a distance, he and Constantine observed as the body remains were removed from the scene inside a zipped bag and taken to the medical examiner’s office.

  “What a gruesome way to die,” Constantine said. “How? How could it happen?”

  “My best guess is that they used a thermobaric round. It combines heat and pressure for maximum damage in enclosed spaces, equivalent to five kilos of TNT. Perfect for urban warfare. The fuel it contains is also highly toxic, making it a kind of chemical weapon against anyone who survives the blast wave and the fire. Hilton had no chance,” Sokolov said soberly.

  He was raging inside. The blackened façade evoked memories of Beslan and the shelling of the Russian parliament. A pang of guilt tugged a
t him for doubting Hilton, for being late but he reined in his emotions, knowing that there was no way he could have saved Stephen Hilton III from his horrible death.

  He channeled his rage at the killers and their chosen method of murder.

  It was a message from hell, sent to him. Signed, sealed, and delivered.

  A reminder of the bomb which had blasted the Vympel team.

  If Sokolov could blame himself for anything, it was underestimating the enemy. He’d believed he had outsmarted them, fighting terror with terror. Today, he’d received a painful lesson from the real masters of the craft.

  “Bringing death and destruction is the only thing that Russia is any good at,” Constantine noted.

  “No one is beyond the reach of Mother Russia. And now she’s holding Paulina in a crushing embrace.”

  “Stephen and Daniil are dead. Paulina’s gone. So are the documents, consumed by the fire. Where do we go from here? It’s all finished.”

  “The hell it is.”

  From his pocket, Sokolov produced a flash drive.

  “What’s this?” Constantine asked.

  “A copy of Paulina’s files. Netto backed up her flash drive for me.”

  “Brilliant. What are we going to do with it, though?”

  Sokolov held it between his fingers. “It’s the key. Whoever ordered the hit was desperate to destroy it. Someone who feared exposure. I’m sure that these files uncover the traitor’s identity. A high-placed U.S. asset bought by the Kremlin. Out of a handful of people who knew about the safe house and the HRF, there can’t be many who hold positions of power.”

  “Only two men fit the profile. Jeff Monteith of the CIA and Senator William Brathwaite.”

  “One of them directed the killers.”

  “Or both.”

  Sokolov nodded. “We can’t rule it out.”

  “And yet, we don’t have a starting point. Deciphering the files could take weeks or months. By the time we get to the bottom of it, Paulina will be dead.”

  “We start with Monteith.”

  “How? We can’t let him find out about the backup drive.”

  “No, but we can learn what he knows.”

  “You want to interrogate him?” Constantine joked mirthlessly.

  “First, I want to find him.”

  Sokolov concealed the flash drive in a clenched fist and slipped it back into his pocket.

  “Didn’t take long for your plan to come together.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Looks like he’s found us.” Constantine pointed at the traffic down the road. “See that blue Camry?”

  “Is that him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good spot. Let’s play it by ear and see how he reacts.”

  “Don’t poke the bear.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  The Toyota pulled up at the curb right next to them.

  “Hop in,” the man behind the wheel said through the rolled-down window.

  As he got in the back, Sokolov asked, “Are you my Uber?”

  “No, but I’ll haul your ass to the airport if I hear another wisecrack from you, smart guy.”

  “Nice seeing you, Jeff,” Constantine said climbing in.

  “Is that your brother?” Jeff asked gruffly as he maneuvered the car back into traffic.

  “Friends call me Gene.”

  “Friends? Well, you ain’t got too many of those. And I’ve just lost one because of you. What the hell are you two doing here?”

  Jeff seemed thoroughly pissed by Hilton’s death, but he could be putting up an act. He was an old hand at the spy game. The man’s hair had already gone gray back in the days of the Cold War, Sokolov reckoned. In the rearview window, Jeff’s eyes bored into him from under bushy brows.

  “And what the hell are we supposed to be doing now?” Sokolov countered.

  “Lying low.”

  “Shouldn’t we help with the investigation?”

  “Your help is more trouble than it’s worth, chum. You’re way out of your depth. This is the big league. Just stay out of this mess. The operation’s blown. The HRF is done. You’re free to chase the American dream on your own now.”

  “In other words, we’re no longer needed?” Constantine asked. “I don’t think it’s fair. You must keep the promises you made. You can’t just cut us loose.”

  “Tough luck. I don’t care what you think. A word of warning, though. If you run around shooting your mouths off to the FBI or the stinkin’ media about any of this, you’ll quickly turn from assets to liabilities. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen. And I’m not talking about deporting you back to Russia.”

  “It would be easier to forget about the whole thing,” Sokolov said, “if I didn’t have Russian mobsters on my back.”

  “Don’t worry about that. The guy who attacked you, you remember what he looked like?”

  “Big guy, black beard, tattoo sleeves on his arms.”

  “A knife tattoo on his neck?”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s been found.”

  “Great. What did he say?”

  “Nothing. He’s dead. The cops found his body.”

  “Hemorrhaging?”

  “No, he didn’t bleed out, if that’s what you’re fretting about. You’re not the one who killed him. Someone put a bullet between his eyes. His Mafia buddies probably didn’t want him to slow them down. So they cut a loose end and dished out punishment for the botched job at the same time.”

  “But will they come back?”

  “I doubt it. Why would they? Apparently, the guy was a known member of Gosha’s Brigade. They’re a Russian gang based in Brooklyn, New York City. They have no presence here. Their turf extends only as far as Philly. The hit was a one-off job and their real target was the HRF. No reason to run the risk of coming back to the D.C. area for either of you. You’re just a small fry.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “What about Paulina?” Constantine asked.

  Jeff shrugged. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.” The Camry stopped at a traffic light. “Now get out and get lost.”

  22

  They headed toward the Blazer, parked three blocks away.

  “Jeff never told us anything about giving the car back,” Sokolov said. “So I guess we can keep it.”

  “We didn’t learn much from him, anyway. Sure, he wants to brush this whole thing under the carpet but we didn’t get any closer to understanding why. Is he a traitor or a coward?”

  “We did learn something valuable from him. Now we know for certain who was behind the attack. I can’t imagine that the mobsters acted on their own and not as Kremlin proxies.”

  “Without a doubt,” Constantine confirmed. “Tracing back to its origins, the Russian Mafia in the U.S. was closely associated with the KGB. Since the 1970s, the KGB kept a tight grip on immigrants leaving the Soviet Union, so they used them as a means to infiltrate the U.S. and get a foothold with criminal activities. From perestroika onward, the bratva established a strong U.S. presence and helped the KGB hide away enormous amounts of money as Communism fell, funneling as much as $600 billion from Russia.”

  “It’s not just a link,” Sokolov said. “It’s a symbiosis.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” Constantine asked. “Leak the documents to Magda?”

  Sokolov shook his head. “Too dangerous. The Kremlin wouldn’t think twice about killing off a Polish journalist. People are dying because of this Moscow Gold, dammit, and I can’t let it claim Magda’s life as well. Or Paulina’s.”

  “You think she’s still alive?”

  “There’s always hope. If she is, we can’t waste time digging through the files. I owe it to Klimov to find her.”

  “Our next course of action?”

  “Take the game back to the mobsters. Strike back where and when they least expect it. On their turf. Right now.”

  “A road trip to New York City to go after the Russian Maf
ia? Count me in.”

  As they got inside the Chevy, Constantine plotted the route and followed the navigation system’s instructions, driving to I-95.

  “How do we find the bratva who kidnapped Paulina and murdered Stephen?” Constantine asked. “The Russian Mafia is a 300,000-strong force. Some self-proclaimed Russia experts believe it’s a fluid network without any real structure but in fact, the bratva operates with military-like precision and discipline, being an arm of the new Russian statehood. What’s your plan to penetrate it?”

  “No idea. I’m not the Mafia expert who’s friends with a bona fide crime boss.”

  “Uncle Ari? Just because I met him once doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

  “Not you. But we both know someone who is.”

  “Goldstein.”

  “Let’s ask him for a lead.”

  Sokolov dialed Mark Goldstein and put him on speakerphone. It was late afternoon in Moscow, seven hours ahead, and the lawyer was quick to pick up the phone.

  “Hi, Mark. I need another favor.”

  “I’ll do anything you ask. For a fee, of course.”

  “Do you have any contacts in Brighton Beach?”

  “New York?”

  “That’s right. Little Odessa in Brooklyn.”

  “What kind of contacts are you looking for?”

  “A local guide. Someone who knows his way around. I’m not interested in the touristy stuff, if you get my drift.”

  After a pause, Goldstein replied.

  “Hmmm. Yeah, I know the right guy to show you all the shady places. But before we proceed, I have to warn you about the danger and deny knowledge of any wrongdoing you might be plan—”

  “The name, Mark.”

  “Okay, okay. The fella’s known as Benny the Bull.”

  “Thanks. One more question. Do you know anything about an outfit called Gosha’s Brigade?”

  “No, but I’m sure Benny will. He’s a fixer.”

  A minute later, Goldstein sent Sokolov the contact details, as well as his consultation fee. Sokolov transferred the equivalent amount in Bloodcoin to Goldstein’s crypto wallet.