After lunch, they topped off the tank and traded places again. Uncharacteristically quiet, Reggie got them back in line on the freeway. Aiming north, she picked up Route 101, the Ventura Freeway. Near Encino they finally dropped to the coast and flanked Oxnard by hugging the coast. Only thirty-five miles from their destination, the constant traffic, not the hours or the distance, caught up with Reggie and she surrendered the wheel to Wolf.
A day of travel had worked on Wolf as well. Gazing out the windshield at the drab landscape unsettled him. Studying the Santa Monica Mountains, he saw undulating parched brown hills thirsting for water. Teasing clouds drifted, offering no relief. To his left, the view was more to his liking: a vast blue Pacific with rows of swells marching toward the coast. He imagined paddling into those long lines, dropping into a sweeping turn, feet planted firmly on his board.
Not to be, he thought. Not this trip. You’re on a mission. Focus. The waves will wait. Think of Colter. . . and Yana.
Chapter 45
Santa Barbara
The next morning, Wolf slouched behind the wheel of Reggie’s car, keeping an eye on those coming and going from a small café. Sean Nash had agreed to meet him at seven. Forty minutes early, Wolf had parked in the corner of the lot along with empty cars belonging to early risers and restaurant staff. One of the habits left over from his old life, Wolf’s early-bird tactic was a safeguard against being surprised.
Eight minutes later, and much to Wolf’s surprise, a dark-haired, stocky bespectacled figure in denim exited an aged Mercedes sedan parked directly behind. Strolling past, the writer tapped the car’s hood and indicated with a toss of his head that Wolf should follow him to the café. Chagrined, Wolf got out of his car, locked it, and followed. Nash led the way to a corner booth and sat with his back against the wall. Wolf flopped down opposite.
Armed with menus and a pot of steaming coffee, a thirty-something brunette with tattooed arms and pierced eyebrows, approached. “Coffee for starters?” Wolf nodded, as did Nash. “Who’s your friend, Sean?” she said. Filling their mugs without looking, the woman fixed dark eyes on Wolf.
The writer smiled, took his mug and dumped in sugar. “Some drifter.”
The waitress flashed a crooked grin. “Well, hello, Drifter. See anything you like or do you need a menu?” Without waiting for an answer she pushed one across the table. Turning to Nash, she said, “The usual?”
“What’s the usual?” said Wolf.
She said, “Two cakes, side of sausage, OJ and hash browns.”
“I’ll have the usual. Skip the hash browns.”
“They’re to die for,” she cooed. “Fresh as a newly coined insult.”
Wolf was speechless, the effect she wanted. He found his voice. “So be it. Hash browns.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” she said in parting. “By the way, I’m Edie.”
The two stared after her exaggerated saunter to the kitchen pass-through and heard her rattle off the order in flawless Spanish. Another pair of morning people came in the door and she turned her attention there.
Nash squinted across the booth, thick eyebrows forming a shallow V over rimless glasses. “Edie’s a trip. An out-of-work actor. Legend has it she slept with all seven dwarfs…and Snow White. So you’re Wolf.”
“And you’re Nash.”
“Guilty. I got here early,” said the writer. “Curious to see if you would.”
“Could have fooled me,” said Wolf. “Thought I’d catch you coming in. Didn’t see you back there.”
“I was low in the seat. Show early to take your measure of me?”
“Something like that. I take it you’re a cautious man, Mr. Nash.”
He laughed. “Call me Sean. And yes, I’m a cautious man. Have to be these days. Wasn’t always this way. Learned the hard way, Mr. Wolf.”
“As did I. Call me Tom.”
“Okay. Tom. Sam McFadden says you’re a Navy SEAL.”
“Retired. I’m just your average civilian these days.”
“Bullshit. I can tell by looking that you’re no average white dude. Were you a lifer?”
Wolf sipped his coffee. “Twenty years.”
“That’s a lifer in anyone’s book. What you doing now?”
Shrugging, Wolf said, “Travel. Some consulting, you know.”
“Defense work?”
“Consulting, you might say.”
About to challenge Wolf’s comment, Nash paused as their food arrived. “Anything else…I can get you,” purred their server.
“Edie, please don’t frighten my guest,” scolded Nash.
The waitress folded her arms, her eyes fastened on Wolf. “You’re not in the least bit frightened are you?”
“Flattered,” said Wolf, “not frightened.”
“You should be.”
“Flattered or frightened?”
“Both. I get off at two.”
“That makes for a long day,” he said.
“I go to bed early…and often.”
“Edie the actress,” said Nash, rolling his eyes. “Does wonders for an old man’s ego, though. Thank you, sweetheart. You may go now.”
She giggled in leaving.
Turning to the business at hand, Wolf wasted no more time. “Sam McFadden thinks you might be able to help me.”
“Maybe. Don’t know about you, Tom, but I can talk and eat at the same time.” He shoveled in a wedge of pancake and sausage. “Give me an idea of what you’re looking for—why a guy like you might need my help.”
“Fair enough. I’ll start with a trip I recently took to Kazakhstan to see a man about a launch.”
In between bites of breakfast, Wolf outlined his dilemma. By the time both cleaned their plates and were on their second cup of coffee, he had earned an invitation to Nash’s beachside condo two miles away. Insisting on paying for breakfast, he included a generous tip for Edie and followed Nash to his gated community just up the coast.
Chapter 46
Dimitri Ivanov issued terse last-minute instructions to his crew. At La Guardia’s ticketing level he delivered an impassioned curbside warning about Verlov’s perfidy.
“He’ll come at you the moment I’m gone. Count on it.”
To a man, his soldiers voiced their loathing for the Ukrainian usurper. Despite their bravado, Ivanov saw through their declaration of solidarity. “Stick together,” he cautioned. “He’ll try to split you up any way he can. Don’t cozy up to him when he comes around. Don’t travel alone. Don’t go to clubs while I’m gone. Never go anywhere with him. Vary your routines like I was doing. Don’t be predictable.”
“Maybe we take him down while you’re gone,” boasted Sergov.
“Don’t try it alone, Ivor. Wait.”
On the sidewalk outside the terminal, Ivanov repeated his warning. “Do not underestimate Verlov. He will eat you alive, one by one. Do not trust him. Do not tell him what you’re doing or where you’re going. Do not initiate contact with him. Stay away from him. Stick together. I will return within a week.”
“How do you know this will only take a week?” said Helinski.
“Because that’s all I’m planning to spend on this wild goose chase. This whole thing may have been Verlov’s idea in the first place for all I know.”
“But Levich is sending you, Dimitri.”
“Yeah, the boss may be sending me, but Verlov put him up to it.”
The light went on in Sergov’s eyes. “That’s why he wants you out of town, huh? He’s separating you from us. The sonofabitch.”
“Were you listening, Ivor?” He threw an arm around Helinski. “Keep an eye on Sergov for me. He’s a bit slow on understanding what’s happening here.”
Chapter 47
Los Angeles
Ivanov found a bullet-headed, uniformed limo driver waiting for him beyond the checkpoint in the airport’s domestic terminal.
In a low voice, the big man asked, “Dimitri Yegor Ivanov?”
“Possibly.”
“Yo
u are Dimitri Ivanov?”
“Yes. And you are?”
“Alexi.”
“Who sent you?”
“Shurkov.”
The name matched the one Ivanov had been given by Levich. Reaching for Ivanov’s carry-on, the stocky man said, “This is all? You have more luggage, yes?”
“This is it. I had to travel on short notice.”
“I understand. My car is outside. You follow, okay?”
Forty-five minutes later, Ivanov was pacing a shabby two-room motel suite on Sepulveda Boulevard in Van Nuys with no idea where he was. Unarmed and alone in a room with peeling wallpaper, sixty-watt bulbs, leaky toilet, and the kitchenette’s dripping faucet, Ivanov felt disoriented.
A lesson in humility? Verlov’s hand at work here as well? He glanced at the cellphone he’d been given by the taciturn driver.
Though told to stay put until called, Ivanov went downstairs to the postage stamp-sized lobby. The counter was manned by a pasty, overweight matron with mousy brown hair and facial moles the size of quarters. The cow knew little English. She flashed a “deer in the headlights” look when Ivanov switched to Russian. Asking for a restaurant where he could get pizza, he pantomimed eating. She waddled from behind the counter and shooed him outside. Using sign language she directed him down the trash-strewn street, pointing to a stuccoed shed-like structure.
Ten minutes later, Ivanov peered into a narrow carryout window. He ordered a small pizza. A pair of cement tables crowned with tilting aluminum umbrellas sat next to an asphalt parking lot. Hopping about, small nervous birds picked at scraps. Ivanov bought a soda and gobbled half of the cardboard pizza. He tossed the remnants. Disconsolate, he returned to his monk’s cell on the motel’s second level and locked the door.
Yes, this was Verlov’s doing. Boris Levich will hear of this.
At 8:10, Ivanov vomited his supper. At 8:15, Shurkov called on the cellphone the chauffeur had left behind.
Chapter 48
At Nash’s condo, the journalist interrupted a tour to take a phone call. Wolf wandered out to a sheltered deck overlooking a curving stretch of sand hemmed with rocks on both ends. Leaning on the railing, he studied a couple walking a dog, a jogger, and a small knot of surfers waiting for a set two hundred yards offshore. Pocketing his phone, Nash came outside. He stood beside Wolf, looked at the bobbing shapes.
“That was Sam McFadden, making sure we had been able to meet.”
“He’s keeping tabs on me. I drove up here with his wife and dropped her at her mother’s in Santa Barbara.”
“Sam says you’re originally from California.”
“Born and raised in Santa Cruz.”
Nodding at the figures in the sea, Nash said, “Do any surfing as a kid?”
“Only came out of the water to sleep.”
“Never tried it myself,” said Nash. “I’m really just a transplanted midwesterner. And the water’s too cold. Like Lake Michigan.”
“Maybe colder,” said Wolf. “So, whereabouts in the Midwest?”
“Illinois. Little town. I doubt you’ve heard of it.”
“Try me.”
Nash smiled at some memory. “Watseka.”
Wolf faced the writer. “South of Chicago, close to the Indiana border.”
“Damn. You’re the first person I’ve met out here who actually knows where the hell Watseka is. Consider me duly impressed.”
“Classic small-town Americana. Too land-locked for me, of course.”
Nash shrugged. “Me as well. My dad had a successful car dealership. His plan was for me to take over the business but I was antsy. Small-town living has its charms, but it’s hard to keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen New York.”
“Or Chicago.”
“Yeah, or Chicago…and its lake.”
“Or Los Angeles.”
Nash snorted. “Different animal entirely. Home to nomads, myself included. Smog and quakes, Hollywood and Vine. Charlie Manson and Watts. Been there, done that.”
“Feeling jaded after all these years?”
“Maybe.” Rubbing his hands together, Nash said, “I guess your pinpointing Watseka is a sign I’m obligated to help you.”
“Karma, huh?”
“How very California of you, Mr. Wolf. On that note, perhaps we should go inside and take a look at your very considerable problem.”
Nash settled behind a computer and Wolf handed him the duplicate CD Kurskov had given him. Nash copied the contents to his hard drive. “Help yourself to more coffee or make some tea,” said Nash. “This might take a while.”
“I’ll check out your artwork and bookcases while I’m waiting.”
“Suit yourself.”
Soon engrossed in Nash’s collection of history books, travel volumes, and heavy coffee table books of Russian art, Wolf easily filled an hour without a word exchanged between the two. Nash’s occasional “Ah, interesting” or “What the…?” broke the silence. Finally, a profanity followed by, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” drew Wolf’s attention.
He looked up from the couch where he sat, glossy art book in his lap. “Find something interesting?”
Nash didn’t bite. Instead, he continued staring at the computer screen filled with Kurskov’s paired pages from the suspect ledger. Wolf went into the kitchen to make tea. The hissing teapot got Nash’s attention. He joined Wolf in the kitchen, accepted a hot mug, and confessed his amazement at what he was seeing on the screen.
“This is heavy stuff. Very scary. If you thought you were in trouble before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“It cost a friend of mine his life.”
“That would be Colter, right?”
Nodding, Wolf tested his tea. “Dan Colter. He seemed to know what he got his hands on. Said it was toxic. Governments could fall, people could die.”
Mug in hand, Nash went back to work, saying over his shoulder, “He was right. This is the tip of a very big, very ugly iceberg.” Gesturing at the images, he said, “And this is just one slice of what’s been going on. Think of it as one man’s take on what he was seeing.”
Wolf stirred his tea and watched the journalist work.
“Your earlier guess about the author being dead is probably correct.” Ejecting the disc, Nash handed it back to Wolf. “Tell me again what you want to do with this. What do you hope to accomplish?”
Wolf sipped his tea. “Colter wanted this to see the light of day; thought we should get it to a journalist…someone like yourself.”
Nash said to Wolf, “There are stories here that would knock a lot of people on their collective asses. Hell, look at this, for example.” Gesturing to a notebook filled in his hurried cursive hand, he flipped the pages. “I’ve been making notes. You’ve got drug trafficking, arms dealing, money laundering, and what looks like skimming of government and mafiya bank accounts.”
“Lot of wheeling and dealing going on, huh? Colter thought so.”
His back to Wolf, Nash tapped away. “Somebody’s got a lot of ’splaining to do about some very nasty people named in these notes.”
Wolf peered over Nash’s shoulder. “Dangerous people who are probably not used to being screwed over.”
“Exactly. If there’s any screwing to be done, they want to be the ones doing it. Then we have this Ukrainian angle. This is a treasure trove, friend.”
“So, Sean…you interested in running with this information?”
“It’s not that I’m ungrateful to have this dropped in my lap. It’s the stuff a journalist’s wet dream is made of.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming.”
Nash swiveled in his chair to face Wolf, who had dropped back on the couch. “The last time I opened a Pandora’s box like this it didn’t turn out so well for me.”
“I’m listening.”
Glancing at his half-empty mug, Nash turned reflective. “The telling of this particular tale requires something stronger than tea.”
Chapter 49
Nash roote
d in the cupboard and returned from the kitchen with an opened bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey. He topped off his mug and filled Wolf’s. Hoisting his mug, he said, “As we Irish like to say, ‘Here’s a toast to your enemies’ enemies.’”
“I’ll drink to that,” answered Wolf.
“Not saying I’m your man, but I’m tempted. Knowledge is power and this information is powerful stuff.”
“Hell, I know that. McFadden and I differ about what’s on that disc, but we agree on honoring Dan Colter’s request.”
Nash poured another round, his nose reddening but his thoughts clear. “You do know that I’ve done my share of stories about the Russian mob, right?”
“Sam said you were the one to ask. That’s why I’m here on your doorstep. That and your availability, right?”
“Maybe. I’m between assignments right now.” Nash stared into his mug, musing. “I’ve followed this particular trail since the beginning. I was a stringer back East in the early eighties. Just a kid out of journalism school when I first stumbled across these lowlifes.”
“Sam says you were the first reporter to write about the Russian immigrants flooding Brighton Beach. How did that happen?”
“I wasn’t actually the first to write about the influx of Russians. I was working for the Daily News in 1982, just doing my wide-eyed, newly minted reporter thing. I was sent to cover my first homicide in a nightclub there. Two Russian Jews shot execution style while sitting in a booth with girlfriends.”
“Were they mobbed up?”
“Just like the Sicilians. Made men, but from Ukraine—Vory. Local cops thought they were seeing the old Murder Incorporated at work again. I wrote it that way, but it took me a year of nosing around in Little Odessa to find out these guys were soldiers in the Russian Mafiya. Nobody was taking it seriously back then.”
“What about the FBI? They must have been tracking these guys.”
Nash snorted. “You kidding? They were behind the curve from the beginning. They’re better at it now but they’re still playing catch-up.”
“What happened to your stories about the immigrants?”
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