The First Order

by Jeff Abbott

  “My God.” Stefan Varro ran a hand over his face. It was the detail only someone present at her death would know.

  “Do you accept my credentials?”

  “Yes, OK, what do you want?” Stefan Varro spoke with impatience. Judge had noticed that people with money were often impatient, as if they had less time than the rest of the world. When he had his twenty million he would be kinder than that.

  “I need you to bring me into the inner circle before the summit. I need to be at the launch party when Morozov and you all leave for America.”

  “Why?”

  “There is someone close to the circle who is a danger. Who might expose every crime Sergei committed for you all.” The lie felt fine in his mouth.

  “No one in Russia will care. It will be seen as foreign propaganda.”

  “I think the press who is so eager to take your photo with Katya and proclaim you the ‘new kind of Russian’ would be interested in the fact that Sergei killed your mistress.”

  “It would be seen as a lie.”

  “Stefan. Sergei was the Morozovs’ hired gun. He knowingly murdered a CIA officer in Afghanistan,” Judge said.

  “What?” Stefan visibly jerked in reaction.

  Judge kept his voice cool. “Did you not know that? I think your father does. What would be the American reaction to that news? You think you have seen sanctions now? You want your president and your father and the men who run Russia to be seen by the world as common thugs? Someone knows about this and is going to tell the Americans. I need to be inside in the summit.”

  “Who is this traitor?”

  “It’s obviously not you or your father. Or I wouldn’t be talking to you.”

  “Who, then? Kirov? That drunken bastard…”

  Judge held up a placating hand. “It could be any number of people. Sergei did much work, and he could have been spied upon. And now, at a moment in history, someone could seek to ruin that. I know this because of an informant I have in the US government. One who worked with Sergei. But we can stop it before proof is produced.”

  Stefan shuddered, his face turning red with rage.

  Judge put a calming hand on his arm. “You do nothing except help me get inside. We strike at the wrong person, then we alert the traitor.”

  He could see that Stefan did not do well with being told no. Judge said, “You let me handle the problems, as Sergei did. That is the only way the system works.”

  “I have to think. Where have you been since Sergei died?”

  “I stay quiet. In the shadows. I act when needed. I don’t act unless there is a threat. For me to come talk to you shows the seriousness of this problem.”

  “All right.”

  “You’ll know me as Philip Judge. An American investments counselor. Someone you have hired to diversify your portfolio in the stock market. We’ll say that you’ve known me for five years; we met in New York.”

  “If you worked for Sergei, why not just go to his wife if you need a cover?”

  “Sergei’s widow never knew about me. No one did. He preferred it that way. Will you help me?”

  “Yes,” Stefan said after a moment. “I’ll pretend to be your friend so you can find this traitor.”

  “Thank you. You’ll be a hero to Morozov after this.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Is Katya Kirova hosting one of her parties on the yacht this week?”

  “Yes, tonight.”

  “Add me to the guest list. I want to suss out all these people who have contact with the Kirovs and the American investors. I need a key to open every door on that yacht.”

  “The doors are all electronic; they use a card key. I’m not sure I can…”

  “Stefan. You are smart and resourceful. You can. I’m staying at the Hotel Sebastian. And are you returning to Moscow before the summit?”

  Stefan nodded.

  “You will give me a ride on the private jet if I need it.” And he would.

  Stefan said, “Fine. Philip Judge. All right.”

  Judge handed him a slip of paper. “That is our history together, if you are asked. Where we met, how long we’ve known each other, how much money I handle for you out of my New York office. The account number is real; it’s in your name, should anyone check. Memorize it, and then burn it.”

  Stefan finally nodded.

  “Go along and this will all go well, and you’ll be a hero. I know the Kirovs and some of the other oligarchs have sneered at you, Stefan. That you and your father are not Russian enough. No one will be able to criticize you if you help me.”

  Stefan tried again. “Tell me again who you suspect.”

  “Stefan. Don’t be curious. Be patriotic. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Judge got up and left and walked back to his hotel.

  32

  Nassau

  FROM HIS HOTEL room Sam watched, with binoculars. The Svetlana was the largest yacht Sam had ever seen—he guessed its length was over 250 feet. It was docked at Nassau’s most exclusive marina. There was little traffic off and on the ship; a catering service truck arrived, and men loaded a shipment of what looked like liquor and fresh produce. A young couple—or at least a man and woman that he thought might be Katya Kirova and Stefan Varro—lounged briefly by the yacht’s pool. Another woman stood at the stern and shot skeet over the water.

  Sam suspected shooting wasn’t allowed in the marina, but no one came to the boat to complain. She had red hair, tied back with a stylish scarf, and he realized it was Irina Belinskaya. She did not miss a single skeet. When she was finished she handed the rifle to a crew member and went below deck.

  He called Jack Ming in Paris. “Were you able to get Katya Kirova’s credit charges?”

  “Well, yes, but it’s not even in her name. Katya is too rich to bother signing credit slips. Usually one of her bodyguards signs for everything, using a card in her father’s name. I had to look at them all to find hers, and her father has two dozen different credit accounts. Her most frequent charges in Nassau have been at a nightclub called Bright, a bar called Jean-Claude, and a clothing boutique called XK.” He gave Sam the addresses for all of them. “She spent six thousand at the boutique the first day, another two thousand the next. Her charges at the bars go into the hundreds. Highest-end stuff.”

  “She’s an adult; she doesn’t have her own card?”

  “I think Papa Kirov keeps his daughter under close watch. She used to, though. So maybe he feels he has a reason to keep his eye on her.”

  Sam thanked Jack, hung up, and watched the yacht.

  A couple of hours later two women, both in brightly colored dresses, one in orange, one in emerald, walked down the gangplank from the yacht. A heavyset man in a summer suit walked behind them at a respectful distance. He could guess from the red hair that the woman in the green dress was Irina Belinskaya, and the dark-haired one was Katya Kirova.

  “We have an expedition,” Mila said. “Girls’ afternoon out?”

  Bodyguard, Sam thought. He watched them walk in the direction of the Jean-Claude bar, where Katya Kirova had been photographed a couple of nights ago. But they went past the bar, to the higher-end shopping district.

  “Put on your best linen suit,” Mila said. He did as she asked. When he was done changing in his room, she emerged from the adjoining room dressed in a fetching pale yellow dress.

  “Go to the Jean-Claude bar and wait for me. If it goes well,” Mila said, “I’ll bring them to you.”

  Sam sat in the Jean-Claude bar. It wasn’t very busy yet; it tended, Sam guessed, to attract a more late-night crowd. But the cocktail Sam ordered, a rum punch, was properly mixed, the bar was spotless, and the servers professional. A small-built man in a good suit spoke quietly to the bartender and nodded at Sam, and Sam said, “Nice place. You ever think of selling, Jean-Claude?”

  “Is it so obvious I’m the owner?”

  “I’m a bar owner myself. I’d like to think we can spot each other.”

  “Ah. No, sir, I am no
t thinking of selling. Even though owning a bar in the Bahamas is not quite as glamorous as it sounds.”

  “It never is,” Sam said. “I own several bars.” He took a sip of the rum punch he’d ordered. “New York, Miami, LA, Moscow, London…so my question was serious.”

  “I get asked to sell every few weeks,” Jean-Claude said. “But by tourists who have too much to drink, not an actual businessperson.”

  Sam slid him a business card. “If you ever change your mind,” he said.

  Jean-Claude pocketed it with a wry smile.

  Forty minutes later he turned toward the door, hearing the flood of Russian being spoken at high speed. Mila walked in, laughing, with Irina and Katya. My God, she’s the best, Sam thought.

  Mila waved at him as they commandeered a table and gestured him to join them. Jean-Claude rushed over to make sure they were comfortable and to take their orders. They were carrying shopping bags and Mila held a birdcage…with a canary in it. The canary seemed annoyed, chirping and fluttering.

  Katya Kirova was laughing, and chirping at the bird. She was prettier than her pictures, dark-eyed, brown-haired, curvy. The bodyguard, following at a distance, seemed bemused. He stood off in the corner. Until Sam walked toward them, and the bodyguard—six foot six, and built of muscle—interposed himself between Sam and their table.

  “It’s OK. That’s Sam, my American business partner,” Mila said, in Russian.

  The bodyguard said, “I have to frisk you; sorry,” in polite English. The bodyguard quickly and professionally checked Sam.

  “We’re worried about recording devices,” Katya said, in English. The bodyguard, done, stepped aside and Mila gestured at the chair across from her, between Irina and Katya. “There are news sites that will pay for recordings, just for the clicks.”

  “He speaks a little Russian, not much,” Mila said as an aside to the others. She switched to English. “Sam. I have acquired two new friends. And a bird.”

  “That’s my bird,” Katya said, laughing.

  “Sam, this is Katya Kirova. And this is her security chief, Irina Belinskaya. Sam, Katya is famous so she needs protection. Ladies, this is Sam Capra, my business partner.”

  “Partner only?” Irina asked. She was polite but not as friendly as Katya.

  “All business,” Mila said. “I am married. Sam is not, though.”

  He shook hands with them both and sat down with his rum punch. “Lovely to meet you both. Does the bird have a name?”

  “Sadly, no. Mila stole him,” Katya said, with unalloyed delight, “from a horrible woman. Heart darker than a coal mine.”

  “We are thinking of freeing him,” Mila said. “I do not know enough about whether he could survive here, though. Are there hawks? Will he be eaten?”

  “The dress shop where we met had this songbird in it, and he was chirping, and the horrible woman complained that the bird would not be quiet,” Irina said. Sam guessed that she was in her mid-thirties. She gave him a sly smile. “So she wanted quiet, we gave her quiet.”

  “She might want her bird back,” Sam said.

  “Petr!” Katya called to the bodyguard. He came forward. “Go back to that horrible woman and give her a hundred dollars for her bird. If she complains, you can go up to two hundred. And ask that nice man for our regular bubbly.” She winked at Sam. “We spent two thousand there; she will not complain.”

  “They did,” Mila said to Sam’s raised eyebrow. “Not me.”

  Katya laughed. Her smile was bored. Sam’s new friend, the owner, arrived with a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon and a glass of club soda for Irina. “Would you mind if we practiced our English with you?” Katya said.

  “Yes, please,” Irina said. Her English was nearly unaccented. She gave Sam a steady stare and he smiled back, then she glanced over at Katya. “Katya wants to expand her vocabulary beyond designers, cocktails, and rap lyrics.”

  Katya laughed. “In the changing rooms we heard Mila speak Russian to us when I told Irina we needed to rescue that poor songbird. She suggested we form a criminal gang to commit bird-sleeping.”

  “Bird-napping. Like kidnapping,” Mila corrected her with a smile.

  “English, ugh,” Katya said. “It makes you think too much.”

  Irina took a sip of her club soda. Sam noticed she kept a steady watch over who came and went from the uncrowded bar. “Yes, fortunately Katya did pay for the clothes, if not the bird.”

  “Irina even let me buy her something,” Katya said. “That cannot be worn with a gray suit, which is her normal look.” She made a mocking, grim face. “Irina takes her job very seriously.”

  “I would have rather gone to the bookstore,” Irina said. “I’ve read every book on that yacht.”

  “Mila said you are looking for nightclub properties here. I suppose you have to check them out when they are busiest, at night,” Katya said.

  “True,” Sam said. “I asked Jean-Claude, but he doesn’t want to sell.”

  “Don’t you dare buy this one. I adore Jean-Claude.” Katya wiggled fingers in a wave at the older man. He blushed and waved back.

  “Mila said you own many bars, including the Tsar Lounge in Moscow,” Irina said.

  “Over off Tverskaya! I know it,” Katya said, clapping her hands in delight. Tverskaya was a prominent shopping and dining street, not far from Red Square. Sam felt the doorway to the circle begin to open even wider.

  “Hip,” Irina said, “but not hipster.”

  He wasn’t sure what he had expected from Irina but this warm, attractive woman wasn’t quite it. He had expected cold calculation, fierce professionalism. She had a big and difficult job but she seemed at ease. She was a surprise to him.

  “You should open a cool bar like that here,” Katya said.

  “We have to think about what would work for the patrons here. Each town has its own requirements. Although,” he said, worrying that he was playing a card too early, “I wouldn’t mind taking the Tsar Lounge concept global. I think it could work in different cities. A Russian-themed bar in the West. Maybe here in Nassau—I’m not sure yet, but more likely New York or London. I have to run numbers, see what draws.”

  “There is a whole science to running a bar,” Mila said. “Costs per drink, per plate, earnings per seat.”

  “Where I sit earns the most,” Katya announced.

  “Undeniably so,” Irina said.

  “It’s true. People pay me and my friends to come to their bar openings,” Katya said. “I turn around and give the money to charity.”

  “You’re famous?” Sam asked.

  Katya laughed, then stopped when she realized he was serious.

  “Do you not know who I am?” Katya smiled. “How refreshing.”

  “I will teach you a new English word, Katya. Mortified. It means deeply embarrassed, which is what Sam has made me,” Mila said.

  “I don’t know anything,” Sam said. “Except to ask when I don’t know something.”

  “Sam, like me, is someone busy with his work, Katya,” Irina said. She refilled Mila’s and Katya’s champagne glasses and waved off Jean-Claude when he tried to bring her an empty glass.

  “What do you do?” Sam asked. “Forgive me for not knowing.”

  “I am friends with famous people. It’s very demanding work,” Katya said. Her smile was genuine, though, indicating that she wasn’t offended. “I don’t really do anything. If I could find a job, Irina, what should I do?”

  “Personal shopper,” Irina said. “Except you would bankrupt the clients.”

  “And what about you, Irina?” Sam asked. “You said security. Are you a bodyguard of sorts?”

  “Yes, I keep Katya out of trouble,” she said quietly. She didn’t elaborate.

  “It’s a full-time job!” Katya agreed.

  Irina’s phone buzzed with a text. She pulled it from her purse. “Duty, in fact, calls.” She downed her club soda. “Our time away from the mother ship is expired, Katya. Your father wants us back.”
r />   There was no argument, no protestation, although Katya was a grown woman.

  “It was nice to meet you both,” Mila said. “Thank you for the champagne.”

  “I am having a party tonight on the yacht,” Katya said. “I hope you will both come. I’ll have your names added to the invite list.”

  Sam saw a momentary look of consternation cross Irina Belinskaya’s face. There but gone. “That’s very kind of you…I did need to go check out the bars I was interested in buying, though.”

  “Oh, do that tomorrow night. Even that as work is dull. There will be leading Bahamians there…They can probably help you in deciding which bar to buy.”

  Sam snapped his fingers. “Hey, you could just leave your yacht docked here always and I could turn it into a bar.”

  “Then I will have a job,” Katya said. “Captain Katya. It was fun to meet you, Mila and Sam; we will see you both at the party, yes?”

  Mila and Sam shook their hands and watched them leave, the canary in its cage under Irina’s arm. Petr, the bodyguard, nodded at them and followed Irina and Katya out.

  Sam and Mila stayed in their roles, finishing their drinks, the owner teasing Sam a bit that the price on the bar had gone up since he had such rich friends. Sam and Mila laughed and made their way back to the hotel.

  “Petr took our photographs with his camera phone,” she said. “We’ll be checked.”

  “I assumed we would as we got close to their orbit.”

  “I think Irina was interested in you.”

  Sam glanced up. “Why?”

  “A hunch. She’d been rather talkative with me at first—my English is better than Katya’s. The moment she saw you her attention shifted.”

  “She’s assessing threats, constantly. It’s her job. You’re imagining things.”

  “Sam.” Mila waited until Sam glanced at her. “I know Lucy made you feel like women see you as radioactive. They don’t.”

  For ten seconds Sam had no idea what to say. “I’ll be nice to her at the party, then.”