Sailors and Sirens

by Charles Dougherty

  I had passed the information along to Aaron Sanchez, hoping he could learn more about the mysterious Russian. That was when Aaron discovered the two DoJ investigations.

  Aaron also learned that the DoJ suspected there might be several Russians involved, not just one. There were indications that the Russians were agents of their government as opposed to being gangsters, although it could be hard to tell the difference. Vasily Zaytsev might as well have introduced himself as the Russian mystery man in the voicemail he left Mary.

  At the airport, I pulled into the waiting area close to Concourse D arrivals. Almost an hour had passed since Mary left the hotel. Minutes after I set the parking brake, Mary called.

  "I'll be out at the curb in a couple of minutes," she said.

  "See you then." I pulled out of the waiting area.

  I pulled to the curb in the arrivals area, and an unfamiliar woman in a business suit approached the car. She opened the back door and tossed in a duffle bag. Closing the door, she got into the front passenger seat. The auburn wig and the suit made a big difference in Mary's appearance.

  "You look like the woman who killed Brandon," I said, as she fastened her seatbelt.

  "My choices were limited," she said. "I thought a change of appearance was in order, though."

  "Where did you get the disguise?"

  "My backpack. I still had the clothes and the wig from the other night. But you're the only one who saw me dressed this way."

  "Where's the backpack?" I asked, pulling out into traffic.

  "In the duffle bag, and the duffle bag was rolled up in the backpack before I changed. A girl never knows when she might need to dress up."

  "Good for you. If they're watching me or the car, this should throw them off."

  "You think they're watching you?"

  "I haven't spotted anybody, but you never know. I thought we could get on the road and switch cars along the way."

  "Okay," she said. "While I was killing time in the gate area, I went online and searched for Vasily Zaytsev."

  "And what did you learn?"

  "He was a famous Russian sniper in World War II, a Hero of the Soviet Union. Literally hundreds of kills to his credit. He died in 1991."

  "Interesting. I wonder why our mystery man sent you looking for him. Think he's sending you a message of some kind?"

  She shrugged. "If he is, it's lost on me. Should we call Aaron?"

  "Sure. Get him on the horn."

  She took her Phorcys-provided phone from her purse and placed the call.

  "Mary?"

  "Hi, Aaron. You're on the speaker," she said. "We're both here."

  "Okay. What's new with you two?"

  "We're on the Interstate headed north," I said. "We'll need a little logistics help, but first, Mary has a new admirer."

  "Oh? Who's that?" Aaron asked.

  Mary told him about the voicemail and about her internet research. "When we hang up," she said, "I'll email a recording of the voicemail to you."

  "Have you responded to him?" Aaron asked.

  "No. We figure he was having me watched; we wanted to lose the tail first. Plus, we haven't come up with a plan for responding."

  "You don't think they're following you now?" he asked.

  I told Aaron about Mary's false trail. "Mary's probably clean now, but it's possible they're following me. I haven't spotted a tail yet, but who knows? That brings us to the logistics help I mentioned."

  "Okay," Aaron said. "What do you need?"

  "Fresh identities and a rental car to match. We'll pick them up at the Orlando airport this evening."

  "Not a problem. Here's what I recommend. Turn in your car there and take the shuttle to the terminal. Split up. Get tickets to anywhere with your current IDs, and go through security. Then head for the shuttles and go to the hotel in the airport complex. The concierge desk will have a package for Jerome Finnegan. That will have your new identities. There will be a car reserved in Finn's new name. Or Mary's. Your choice — just pick one now. Details will be in the package."

  "Use Finn," Mary said. "They found me at the hotel where I was using the Maloney name. They may not have a name for Finn, if they even connected us."

  "Good enough. Should I book a room there in your new name, while I'm at it?"

  "No, thanks," I said. "We'll stop somewhere else around there for the night, but we should get clear of the airport as quickly as we can, just in case."

  "Okay. Anything else I can do for you now?"

  "I think that's it," I said.

  "Drive safely. I'll be in touch as soon as I find out anything on the Russian."

  "Thanks, Aaron," Mary said.

  "You're welcome. Talk with you later."

  Mary disconnected the call and put the phone away.

  "Any ideas on how I should respond to my pal Vasily?"

  "Some, but we should wait until we get to the airport in Orlando, for sure. We can get throwaway phones to use. They'll try to track down the phone you use to send the text."

  "Yeah, no doubt. I was thinking a step or two beyond that, though. Think we can turn this around on him?"

  "Maybe," I said. "But we might want to string him along for a while, depending on whether Aaron's able to learn anything."

  "Seems to me there's not much hope of that," Mary said. "You know that phone number he left will be a burner."

  "Probably. But there's a chance he didn't call from that number."

  "How would Aaron know that? There was no caller ID on the room phone."

  "Aaron's got somebody who can hack into the hotel's phone system. They might get a real phone number for Vasily. Depends on how careful he was. How are you thinking we could turn this around on him, anyway?"

  "My first thought is to snatch the two guys he sends to pick me up. No telling what we might learn from them. The other option's for me to go through with the meeting and see what happens."

  "I don't like that one," I said.

  "You could follow us when his guys pick me up."

  "That plan didn't work so well for the last person who tried it."

  "Yeah, but we know that. We can learn from his mistake. Once I'm face to face with Vasily, I could take him down."

  "That's risky, Mary. I know you're good, but this guy's no amateur, and he'll have backup. At least the two men who pick you up. Probably more troops, too."

  "They won't be scared of me. I'm just another woman, as far as they're concerned. That's my edge, Finn. It works every time."

  "Except that he's already seen you at work. Or at least, he's seen the results. You can't bank on him underestimating you. I know what you're saying — no matter how much they know, when they see you, they still think you're a helpless female. But Vasily's not your average badass."

  "You think I'm too cocky?"

  "I don't think anything. I just want overwhelming odds in our favor. We won't get those by playing his game, or even a variation of it. Let it rest for a while. You'll come up with something. Time is on our side but as soon as you respond, the clock starts running. We need as much information as we can get before that happens."

  "I see what you mean. I'm just worried that if I don't respond, he'll escalate things, maybe come after me."

  "That's actually the option I was considering," I said. "That might give us the advantage. Think about it."

  "I will. How long before we get to Orlando? Three hours?"

  "Give or take, yeah. Why?"

  "I'm thinking about a nap," she said.

  "Go for it."

  "Promise to wake me in an hour and a half?" Mary asked. "Then I'll drive and you can get a little rest."

  "You've got a deal."

  15

  "You feel up to calling Aaron?" I asked. "Let's see if he's got anything new on the Russian."

  Mary and I were settled for the night in an inexpensive motel. We checked in under our new identities, thanks to Aaron and his support people.

  "Sure," Mary said. "Call him."

&
nbsp; I took my encrypted phone from my pocket and placed the call.

  "Good evening, Finn. Did everything come out okay in Orlando?"

  "Yes, thanks. We're in good shape. We've stopped for the night; I'm not sure exactly where we are — some exit off I-95 north of Titusville. Any news on the Russian?"

  "Yeah, as a matter of fact. I was about to call you, but we weren't quite ready yet."

  "We?" Mary asked.

  "Hi, Mary," Aaron said. "Yeah. Mike wanted to talk with you. He and Bob have been kicking things around since I passed along that recording you sent."

  "Oh," I said. "What's on their minds?"

  "I'm not sure, but we're about to find out. Mike's on the other line. Hang on."

  We were on hold for 15 seconds, then Aaron came back on the line.

  "Mary? Finn?"

  "Yes," Mary said. "We're here."

  "Good evening," Mike Killington said.

  "Evening, Mike," Mary said.

  "Hi, Mike. What's up?" I asked.

  "Several of us have been discussing Mary's voicemail. Aaron's been busy with his hackers, too, trying to correlate other intel with that call. He can fill you in on that in a minute. First, though, we've revised our plans. This Russian thing looks like an opportunity we shouldn't pass up. We've put the actions in Savannah and Charleston on hold, for now. I don't think you've gotten past the point of no return on those, have you?"

  Aaron said, "Sir, if I may..."

  "Yes, Aaron?"

  "Bob called me with the target information for Savannah, but when I told him about the voicemail, he said I should hold off calling Finn and Mary."

  "Ah," Mike said. "Okay, then. Good. We'll get back to that, but we want to go after this Russian character first. Everybody on board with that? Any problems you see with it?"

  Mary looked at me and raised her eyebrows, motioning for me to talk. "No problem with the shift in priorities," I said. "Does this mean you want him terminated?"

  "Well, that's why I wanted to talk with the three of you. Aaron's told you that the DoJ was investigating this character, I believe?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "And there was a connection between the Russian and this political consultant, Rayburn. Right?"

  "Right. He told us Rayburn was working as an informant for the DoJ's investigation into the Russian, but that's as far as we got."

  "That's all there is, except the DoJ's in a tizzy about Rayburn and his undercover protective detail. They aren't buying the story the police have come up with. Aaron's team has picked up confusing signals related to the DoJ's investigation, too. He can tell you about those later, but we suspect they weren't trying to build a case against O'Hanlon or the Russian."

  "Then why the investigation?" Mary asked.

  "We can only guess, but we suspect it was a smokescreen. They could keep anybody else from poking their nose into the situation by claiming they were already there. Anybody else might jeopardize their investigation."

  "Mary and I were wondering if the DoJ was part of a coverup," I said, "given how deeply the corruption seems to go."

  "That's a good possibility, which brings us to the Russian. I know this is a little different for you, Finn, but we'd prefer to infiltrate the Russian's operation instead of executing him. There's a whole layer of corruption that's not reflected in the files we got from O'Hanlon. That's where Rayburn fit in. What's your reaction?"

  "To spying on the Russian?" I asked.

  "Yes. He's opened that possibility with Mary."

  "Unless he just wants to kill her," I said.

  "Why go to all that trouble?" Mary asked. "He knew where I was staying. He left the voicemail on my room phone, so he could have sent his troops after me if he wanted me dead."

  "Unless he wants something else from you," I said.

  "Like what?" she asked. "The files are already in the open, so to speak."

  "Yes," Mike said. "But you raise a good point, between the two of you. We have the files, and the Russian is watching as we pick off the people listed in them. But he's trying to take over O'Hanlon's operation. Having his own copy of the files would make it a lot easier for him."

  "I thought he was working with O'Hanlon," Mary said. "So wouldn't he already have the information?"

  "Maybe," Mike said. "Or maybe not. O'Hanlon was a cagey man; those files were the keys to his kingdom. Giving the Russian access to selected people would have been a lot different from giving him the whole roster."

  "Why would he do that, though? O'Hanlon, I mean?"

  "We don't know, but it's clear that the Russian is working his way through O'Hanlon's lieutenants one step at a time. Maybe every time he recruits a new person, he gets a list of who they know. There's a reason he's moving so slowly. That could be why."

  "We could feed him an edited list," Finn said.

  "Yes, maybe so. But first we have to contact him. How do you feel about that, Mary? Are you willing to meet with him?"

  Mary motioned for me to be quiet. "Yes, but I think I need to play hard to get. Finn and I were talking about why Vasily wants me to agree to the meeting before he sends his people to pick me up."

  "You know his name's not really Vasily Zaytsev," Aaron said. "Vasily Zaytsev was — "

  "A Russian sniper in World War II," Mary interrupted. "It's just easier to call him Vasily than 'the Russian.'"

  "What do you make of his approach, Mary?" Mike said.

  "I'm taking it at face value. As Finn said, Vasily's seen me at work. He knows if his men try to pick me up against my will, somebody might die. It could be me, or it could be them. Either way, unless he's planning to kill me, that result wouldn't be attractive to him. So I don't think he wants to kill me, at least not yet."

  "That makes sense. So do you think you should meet with him?"

  "I think I should respond, but with caution. I'm thinking in terms of a counter offer."

  "What kind of counter offer?"

  "A meeting on neutral ground, somewhere public, where neither of us would have a particular advantage. He said he didn't mean me harm, so it's reasonable for me to make him prove it. If both sides knew in advance where the meeting was going to be, we could each have protection in place, at a distance. I would even propose that to him."

  "What type of protection?" Mike asked.

  "My pick would be Finn with a sniper rifle on a rooftop. I would tell Vasily that I was protected and if I gave the signal, he would be shot dead on the spot. I would encourage him to arrange the same for me. Like the old Cold War strategy of mutually assured destruction. We both walk away, or neither of us walks away."

  "There's a big problem with that," I said.

  "What's that?" Mary asked, frowning at me.

  "We don't know what he looks like. He could send somebody else. But we believe he does know what you look like."

  "That's not the point, Finn. It's a credible counteroffer, that's all. We don't have to go through with it. I don't want to start out by accepting his terms."

  "As long as you don't go through with it, maybe. But if you don't follow through on the meeting, you're inviting him to blow you away."

  "But we already established that if he wanted to do that, he wouldn't go about it by setting up a meeting," Mary said. "He wants something, like the files. He might try to kill me after he gets them. Or he may want to recruit me as his enforcer; that's the way I read the voicemail. Either way, I figure he will want me to walk away from that first meeting. Then we can argue about the next step. Mike? Aaron? Any thoughts?"

  "All those ideas are worth thinking about," Mike said. "Let them rest for a few minutes, and Aaron can tell us what his people have learned since you sent us that recording earlier. Okay?"

  "Sure," Mary said.

  "Okay with me," I said.

  "Aaron?" Mike asked.

  "All right. First, the number he gave you in the voicemail is a prepaid cellphone. We haven't been able to figure out where it was purchased, but it has been on the network off and
on in the Miami area since about midnight last night. That would be a little before the voicemail was left on your room phone, Mary. Is that right?"

  "Yes. The time on the message was 1:30 a.m."

  "Right," Aaron said. "That prepaid phone placed a call to a local number in Miami at about 12:30 a.m., and a few minutes later, it got a call-back from the same number. Following me?"

  "Yes," Mary said. "Did you get the local number?"

  "We did. I'll get to that. We also hacked the phone system at your hotel. The voicemail came from a third number, but the caller ID was spoofed, to cover their tracks. We managed to backtrack it, though. It was the same local number in Miami. It's a phone in a hotel business service lounge. That's also where the prepaid cellphone was when those two calls were made. They were probably just testing it, maybe testing their spoofing, too."

  "Dead end, then?" I asked.

  "Probably, but we don't know. We have the hotel's security videos; we're checking them as we speak, but they aren't the best quality. We'll see. We also have taps on the personal and office phones of the people at the DoJ who were working Rayburn. We just got those in place earlier today. There's a lot of traffic to get through; the only real intelligence we got is that they've lost contact with the Russian. They used Rayburn and one of the marshals to communicate with him. So they're working madly to set up a new channel to Vasily, but it's not going smoothly so far. And that's about all I have for now."

  "It's going on 20 hours since he left me that voicemail," Mary said. "What do you think about responding? I'm worried that if I don't respond at all, he'll escalate."

  "He might try," Mike said. "But you've laid a pretty good false trail. Aaron told me about your evasion. Unless they followed you through both airports, they won't know where you are. But you do have a valid point. Do you have any particular response in mind?"

  "Something brief and not informative," Mary said. "How about, 'Interested in meeting you. Traveling now. Back in Miami in a few days. Contact you then.'"