In front of him, a curving staircase topped with mahogany and a wall-mounted chair lift track for an invalid. Voices murmured above.
Hearing footsteps crossing the second level, Wolf moved into a sitting room, where matching white silk love seats faced each other across a glass coffee table piled with oversized picture books. Two towering bookcases flanked a marble fireplace. Beyond the sitting room, a living room with a second fireplace. Filled with couches and wing-backed chairs, the room was four walls covered in oil paintings framed in gilded wood—dour New Englanders, small children on a seashore, packet ships, and garish floral arrangements side by side. Two mirrored end tables flanked the couch. Each table held an exquisite slender multi-colored glass lamp with delicate cobweb designs.
Tiffany’s handiwork. Probably the real thing, mused Wolf.
Yet another room, a formal dining room, with polished dark wood table and eight chairs beneath a crystal chandelier, looked out at a formal garden at the rear of the house. Clipped hedges, the work of a gardener, surrounded wicker patio furniture on flagstones. Treading softly, Wolf wandered into a kitchen off the dining room. A single sweating Manhattan sat on a granite island in a sea of white oak cabinets. Nells had obviously made himself a drink before relieving the Hispanic helper. Footsteps, and then Nells was there in the kitchen door.
“What the hell…What are you doing here?”
Enjoying the surprise, Wolf said, “I’m pleased to see you again, too.”
Stunned, Nells was at a loss for words.
“Consuelo and I were chatting just before her ride came. Nice lady.”
Fumbling for words, an agitated Nells sputtered, “I could have you arrested for breaking and entering.”
“Really? Seems to me I was invited in by your help.”
“How dare you violate my household!”
“Can the dramatics, Robert. You don’t mind me calling you Robert, do you?” Wolf moved, keeping the granite island between Nells and him. “And you’ve got a lot of nerve talking about violating a household.”
“What do you want, Wolf?”
“Let’s talk about violating a household. What do you call sending an assassin after someone? I’d call that downright inhospitable. I’d call that contracting for murder, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Wolf slammed a fist on the granite. “Bullshit! You had two of your goons tag my car in a New York cemetery in order to track my friends and me. Then, you sent a hit man to kill us.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You are a piece of work, Robert.”
“What do you want, Wolf?”
“I want you to call off your dogs, for starters.”
Hearing a sound upstairs, Nells looked away. “My wife…”
“Wonder if she knows what you’ve been up to.”
“She’s not part of this. She’s ill.”
Wolf didn’t soften. Ordering him into the living room, he said, “Sit down. We’ve got some things to talk about.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You won’t. You’re not the type.”
Nells reached for his drink. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all. You might need it.”
Wolf followed Nells to the living room with the paintings. He stood apart, his eyes fixed on the sulking diplomat on the couch. Wolf picked up one of the beautiful lamps and held it aloft against the ceiling light.
Nells wavered. “Please don’t handle them.”
Wolf ignored him. “Tiffany pieces, aren’t they? Turn of the century.”
“1901, to be exact. There are only seven of these lamps known to exist.”
“They ought to be in a museum.”
“My wife is fond of beautiful things, Mr. Wolf.”
Lamp in hand, Wolf said, “Does she know about your dark side?”
“I don’t follow.”
“Mark Twain said, ‘Every man is like the moon. He has a dark side.’”
Nells hissed, “People in your profession would certainly know about man’s dark side.”
Waving the lamp, Wolf said, “I’m curious. What are these worth?”
“They’re priceless,” said Nells. “Gifts from my wife’s parents.”
Shifting gears, Wolf set down the lamp. “Why did you send this shooter after us? Was it your idea, or somebody higher in the food chain?”
Nells finished his drink without answering.
Wolf produced a cell phone, said, “All I have to do is call my friends waiting outside. They’d love to give you a taste of your own medicine.”
Someone coughed upstairs. Wolf pointed to the ceiling with his cellphone. “Maybe they’d like to pay a visit to your wife.”
Eyes blazing, Nells stared at Wolf. “You’re not capable of doing something like that. I know that much.”
“You’re right,” said Wolf. “That’s not my thing. But my friends aren’t bound by the same code. They like to hurt people, Robert. It’s strange, but they seem to enjoy it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Really? Did you know I’ve got an arrangement going with some people I met in Little Odessa? Brutal guys. Normally, I don’t mix with this scum. But what do you know, it turns out they have a score to settle with you as well.” Nells put down his glass, his eyes following Wolf. “Seems your department had something to do with missing money they say belongs to them.”
Sensing he was making headway, Wolf continued. “They killed people in California to make their point. I know you heard about it. And I know you’re aware of what happened in Brooklyn. Your guy didn’t succeed in killing us.”
“He’s not my guy,” said Nells. “I didn’t send him after you. You’ve got to believe me. I had nothing to do with that.”
“Ah, but you know who did send him. One call and these animals are going to come in here and go upstairs.” Wolf raised the phone.
“Wait a minute! It wasn’t my idea. I tried to talk to you. You wouldn’t listen. At the airport—”
“What was that all about?”
His eyes pleading, Nells was visibly weakening. “I appealed to your patriotism. I wanted you to help us. You wouldn’t listen.”
Wolf towered over him, raising his voice. “Blame the victim, huh? You were trying to fuck me over, Robert. I take that personally.”
“Not me! Not me!”
Waving the phone, Wolf shouted, “Who then? If not you, who?”
Head in hands, Nells said, “Someone else made the call.”
“A name, Robert! Give me a name!”
“Preston Jacobs!”
“Is this guy at State?”
Nells shook his head. “No, he’s with the Agency.”
“CIA?”
A nod, a shaking of the head. A mumbled, “Yes.”
“Why?”
Wringing his hands, Nells blurted, “You were going to blow the cover on the operation we had going in Ukraine.”
“You mean that half-assed idea about funding a proxy war against pro-Russian militias in the eastern part of Ukraine?”
Another nodding, another mumbled, “Yes.”
“For that you were willing to kill my friends and me?”
A resigned shrug.
“How high does this go?”
“Don’t know. I only know what Jacobs told me. That’s all I know, really.”
Wolf nodded at the ceiling. “If you’re lying to me, she won’t stand a chance with those Russian scum.”
“I give you my word.”
Wolf laughed. “As if that’s worth anything at this point.”
“But it’s the truth.”
Wolf picked up the slender Tiffany lamp, drawing Nells’s eyes.
Eyes wide, Nells held his breath. “No.”
Wolf hurled the heirloom against the hearth. Sobbing, Nells fell to his knees at the foot of the couch, the carpet covered in thousands of tiny colored glass shards. Trembling, he shrieked, “Do you know what you’
ve done?”
Leaning close to Nells’s ear, Wolf bellowed, “That’s your wife if what you’ve told me turns out not to be true.”
He lifted the second lamp from the other end table, turned it in his hands. “Shame to lose this one as well.”
Panic in his voice, Nells begged, “Please, no. It can’t be replaced. I’ve told you what I know.”
“It’s just a material thing, Robert.”
Nells raised himself on one knee, arm outstretched. “Don’t.”
“You’d be next once the Russians were through with her.”
Nells folded, sobbing, “I won’t…please…let me have it. Please.”
Wolf returned the decorative lamp to its place. “It’s up to you, Robert.”
Then Wolf was gone.
Chapter 105
Levich set a table for smugglers, arms dealers, counterfeiters, pimps, and drug dealers. They flocked to his house along with their women, tawdry tarts in revealing dress. Making a dramatic entrance after lesser peers had gathered, Uri Koronsky worked the room, two muscled pets in tow. He and Levich, both alpha males, faced off using rapier wits as weapons.
Koronsky, built like a wrestler whose tanned scarred face had kissed the canvas once too often, wore the requisite open-collared shirt, revealing a hairy chest draped in a gold chain from which dangled a mezuzah. Tel Aviv’s reigning crime prince made an elaborate speech welcoming Levich. With a stunning blonde on his arm, Koronsky toasted the new arrival and future competitor.
“Though he comes to us late in life, the Brotherhood greets Boris Levich and wishes him well. We who prosper in Israel extend a hand. Watch and learn, my American friend.” Though he meant not one word of it, the raucous crowd cheered both men.
Beaming, Levich raised a glass in Koronsky’s direction. “Ah, yes. My heart is warmed by the welcome extended to me, brothers. May all prosper.”
Interrupting each other with repeated toasts of “L’Chaim, L’Chaim,” hangers-on lower in the pecking order curried favor with the big dogs in the room while cleaning Levich’s platters. Warned that undercover police had arrived to monitor the gathering, Koronsky slipped out the rear garden gate, his brief attendance purely for show. Nothing had been settled between Levich and him. Still, Viktor was impressed a major player like Koronsky had shown, Levich less so.
“May the police lose their way when they search for your door,” chimed in a voice from the back of the crowded room. Laughter swept the room.
“L’Chaim,” rang out again. After four hours of eating, drinking, toasting, and verbal jousting, the group thinned, and then dwindled to a handful that Viktor eventually shooed out the door. Even the cops had grown bored, save for two patrol cars with uniformed officers left behind.
While Viktor supervised the cook and her helpers cleaning and restoring order to the mansion, Levich took to the roof garden with a chilled bottle of Stolichnaya vodka. The night air revived him. Reflecting off the underside of low-hanging clouds, Tel Aviv’s skyline glowed in the distance. Levich peered over the low parapet to the street below. The police had gone. Levich headed for an open-sided tent shelter erected in the middle of the roof and settled against a small mountain of silk pillows piled on a couch. He poured a tumbler of Stoli and toasted himself.
“L’Chaim.”
So that was Uri Koronsky, the big man, eh? The proverbial big fish among a school of little ones. Tiny fish kissing the big fish’s behind. A Sabra without the blood of the Gulag in his veins. Dangerous and arrogant, a bad combination. He bears watching.
Footsteps. Viktor wandered up the stairs to the roof, a bottle in his hand. The old soldier was a marvel in how much liquor he could hold. He stood in the shadows, the bottle to his lips.
“Good party,” he said between swallows. “A good beginning, Boss.”
He had begun calling Levich that shortly after being hired. Verlov had done that, Ivanov as well. Even Lydia in a lifetime ago. Now Viktor.
Yes, I am the boss, thought Levich, smiling. I’ve earned the title. Maybe I have come to the table late in the game as Koronsky says. But I have faced more formidable odds and triumphed. I will brush aside this irritating upstart. The town is not big enough to hold us both. It will take time. He will never see it coming.
“How did Koronsky appear to you, Viktor? Was he genuine?”
“You cannot trust the man, Boss. He would as soon cut your throat as look at you.” Sinking at a corner of the couch, the Spetsnaz veteran took a long pull on his bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You surprise me, Viktor. I thought you an admirer of the man.”
A snort. “Koronsky? No! I wanted you to know him face to face. When you held off meeting him I confess I thought it foolish. But it seems you have the upper hand. Yes, it goes to you—this first round in a long bout.”
Nodding, Levich said, “I like this boxing image.”
“Have you ever entered the ring, Boss? Ever faced another man with no place to go? A crowd chanting for blood, yours or his? I have done this.”
Pouring another shot, Levich said, “I have never experienced this. Though I witnessed such sights in the Gulag. The guards loved to see us fight among ourselves. It amused them. They put men up to it and waged bets.”
“Exactly. That would be Koronsky’s way. Mark my words, Boss. He will throw punches at you from behind another man. He’s good at it.”
“You give me good advice, Viktor.”
An alcoholic growl agreeing from the shadows. “Mark my…words.”
Levich leaned forward, his glass full, held high in a toast. Viktor tapped the neck of his half-filled bottle against the shot glass.
“L’Chaim,” they said in unison.
Chapter 106
Alexandria, Virginia
Wolf slept with a Beretta under his pillow. He would have preferred a Sig-Sauer or Glock, but his source had been cleaned out two days before and had offered only the Beretta for sale. It would have to do.
The Sunday after sweating Nells for information, Wolf woke to Gunny Lindgren’s ragged voice in his ear. He plucked the cellphone from a nightstand, then tried to slow Lindgren’s machine-gun delivery. “At ease, Gunny. You’re running over your own words. Slow down. Try again.”
“Have you seen the Sunday New York Times?”
“I don’t subscribe but I can guess what you’re calling about.”
“Your boy’s story is on the cover,” roared Lindgren.
Still groggy, Wolf sat up. “This was the weekend it was scheduled. Have you read it?”
“Just finished it. Big play. The yogurt is gonna hit the fan before this is over. Man, you have to read it, Wolfman. All of Washington is gonna scream bloody murder about this.”
“Good. That’s what Colter wanted.”
“Well, bless his dearly departed soul. He got his wish.”
Wolf put his feet on the floor. “Thanks for the wake-up, Gunny.”
“I’m going to make some calls,” crowed Lindgren. “You can believe the White House folks are going to need a quick change of underwear before this is done. Man, I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the Situation Room.”
“I’m up. Gonna get dressed and get to the nearest drugstore for a copy.”
“Okay, keep me posted on what happens next. You’re full of surprises.”
Lindgren rang off. Wolf showered, shaved and dressed. He drove to the nearest mini-mall and bought two copies of the Sunday Times. Nash was still at the cabin and would want one. “I’ll call him,” he said aloud. Back in ten minutes, Wolf made tea and breakfast, read part of the piece while he ate, then sat on the couch, newsprint scattered across the carpet. The magazine cover was a gripping graphic: one-hundred dollars bills stacked in a suitcase floating in a sea of blood, silhouettes of the Kremlin and the U.S. Capitol dome in the background. Nash’s original draft, rewritten by a two-person team, pulled no punches.
No way to hide from these revelations, thought Wolf. Heads will roll.
“This doesn’t look good for the White House, Wolfman. And if I were those douchebags at State I’d be polishing up my resumé about now.”
“I think the story has legs, Gunny.”
“Damn right. This is gonna shake up the Agency as well. I’ve got my ear to the rail but so far, haven’t heard a thing.”
“Still think I should find that hole for myself?”
“You won’t be able to find one deep enough. But it’s not a bad idea. The Russkis are not known to convene congressional oversight committees to investigate screw-ups like this. They are known to just start shooting. Yeah, I’d go to ground if I was you.”
“That’s what you said before. I took that advice and hightailed it to San Diego. Look what happened to me out there.”
“You’re a big boy, sir. You can handle it.”
“I’ve got to call Sam McFadden. Talk to you later, Gunny.”
Wolf waited two hours and finally put in a call to San Diego.
“Have you seen the Sunday Times, Sam?”
A prolonged sigh. “Yeah. I have to hand it to you, Wolfman. You and Nash actually pulled this off. I had my doubts.”
“I know. I forgive you, my son.”
“Wish Kurskov had lived to see this.”
“Bummer,” said Wolf. “There’s some comfort knowing a few of the guys who had a hand in his murder ended up dead. Doesn’t make it any easier, I know, but what can I say?”
“What’s next?”
Wolf got off the sofa and walked laps around his living room. “I have no idea. Nash is out of range right now. I might drive up to the cabin to check on him. He may not have gotten the byline but at least he got the story.”
“He’s put the spotlight back where it belongs,” said McFadden.
“For the time being. You know our fellow citizens. They have a short attention span.”
“So does Congress,” said McFadden. “At least they have the power to subpoena people and keep this issue active with hearings.”
“Won’t help the next mid-terms,” said McFadden. “Stand by for damage control from the White House. I can’t believe they didn’t have a hand in it.”
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