The First Order

by Jeff Abbott

He checked the phone. It was the first cell phone from any of the Russian circle he’d gotten his hands on, and phones were often treasure troves of data. Locked. He attempted to guess the code: her birthdate, the birthdate of family members—numbers he had memorized when he’d studied the circle. Her phone was a different type than Seaforth’s, and he didn’t have a software pry bar of sorts to force his way in. No luck. Someone like Katya probably had multiple mobile phones. He put the phone back inside the safe and shut it.

  Shallow-acting Katya was a surprise. Why did the party queen need her own suppressor-capped gun, surrounded by security? And what did the stationery mean?

  He heard police sirens going on the dock. He assumed the Royal Bahamas Police Force was arriving swiftly to arrest the protesters. He heard splashing and looked out the small window. Protesters escaping the boat and the pier by jumping into the water. In the water he saw some of them clambering into waiting boats that turned and sped away.

  Sam slipped back out into the hallway. He saw another suite, the door slightly ajar. He pushed open the door and, too late, heard the soft buzz of a television. This was a larger stateroom. He ventured into the entryway. He saw feet, in expensive shoes, resting at the edge of a bed. He almost turned back. But he decided to risk walking forward into the room.

  “Hello?” he called in Russian, turning the corner into the bedroom proper.

  The man on the bed aimed a gun straight at his head. “Get out, protester.”

  “I’m not a protester,” Sam began, and the gun fired.

  36

  Nassau

  THE CHAOS OF the protesters had been a good cover for Judge’s departure. He’d finished his errand on the lower deck and returned to Stefan’s room, where Stefan paced and fretted. They were riding the elevator up when he heard what sounded like gunfire. He’d made Stefan hang back until he’d realized they were fireworks and a protest, not an attack on the yacht. Then he’d pushed his way past protesters and security alike, hurrying from the marina. The press photographers and curiosity seekers, chasing the protesters, rushed past him and then he was in the Nassau night, the crowds behind him. He got away as the Royal Police sirens began to sound, reinforcements arriving to quell the disorder.

  It was done. Now he just had to wait for his ride to Russia. He had to play out his role on the stage of history, and then retire. The tension of the past few hours seeped out of him and he nearly felt dizzy with relief. The plan was going well. Despite the setbacks, despite the dangers. He picked up a newspaper and started walking back to his hotel room for dinner and a shower and much-needed sleep.

  He glanced up, by chance, and saw a face that tickled the back of his memory. A man, sitting alone at a café, sipping a beer. A face he knew.

  He did not slow. He did not turn back. The man had not seen him, he thought. He’d been glancing at his phone.

  Sergei had files. Dozens of dossiers on people: potential enemies, foreign agents who could pose problems for the Morozov brothers, operatives of other governments. Sergei had been given the mandate by former KGB officers to act like a private KGB on their behalf and that included intelligence, taken or funneled from the Russian agencies to the president and then passed on to Sergei. That man…that man was a chief in CIA Special Projects, in Eastern Europe, based in Warsaw. Robert Seaforth was his name.

  Special Projects. No. No. It couldn’t be.

  But he was sure it was the man. He had studied Sergei’s files, both before and after Sergei died. Especially those relating to the most secret and hidden back corner of the agency. There he had a special interest.

  Maybe they were here for the Russians. Watching the Kirovs, Stefan Varro. Yes. That must be it.

  Are you willing to take that chance? What if they’re here for you?

  He could vanish. But he couldn’t disappear yet into the Robert Clayton identity; those papers had been sent to London, awaiting his arrival.

  He’d been cleverer than he needed to be.

  Panic, for the first time in a long while, kindled and burned in his chest. He had to stay calm. He could try to call Mrs. Claybourne…and then he realized that, in his haste to leave the yacht, he’d left his wallet and phone behind on the Svetlana. He wouldn’t go back there tonight. No, not with the chaos of the protests. Too much risk.

  But he had his gun. He took it from the hotel room’s safe and loaded it. From his balcony he watched Bob Seaforth sit at the café, watching, waiting, wondering, a tremble in his chest. Deciding, weighing the risks and the benefits, trying not to let fear win.

  37

  The Svetlana, Nassau

  THE TWO SHOTS went wide of Sam, peppering the wall.

  “Bozhe moi!” the man yelled in surprise. He dropped the gun and the bottle he was holding in his other hand. “The safety was off!” he said in Russian, shocked.

  Sam jumped onto the man’s legs to keep from fighting him and seized the gun. He recognized it as a PB—Pistolet Besshumnyj, “Silent Pistol,” an old KGB favorite, a Makarov design with an integral suppressor that made the barrel look long. The gun looked old, in need of care. Sam unloaded the gun, thumbing the magazine release at the base of the grip, then ejecting the bullet from the chamber. He set the weapon and the ammo down on a table.

  “Don’t do that,” Sam said in Russian. He kept his voice calm. Old KGB. A common feature in the inner circle’s job history.

  “The safety was on. I thought…” The man pointed at the two holes he’d made in the wall. “That paneling came from rare woods in Brazil. Costs a fortune.”

  The man was around fifty, soft-looking, balding, and very drunk. Sam picked up the now nearly empty vodka bottle as it softly gushed onto the carpet. The man—Sam recognized him as Yuri Kirov, Katya’s father—wore a suit as though he had dressed for the party.

  “All that gunfire. They’re coming for me. Where is Katya?” He must have decided Sam was no threat. Or was an employee of Irina’s.

  “They were fireworks and no one is coming for you. Katya is fine.”

  “There are strangers climbing on the boat. I saw them out the window.”

  “They are harmless. You don’t need a gun.”

  “Do I look all right?” Yuri asked, straightening his suit.

  “Fantastic,” Sam said. Owning bars had given him more patience with drunks.

  Yuri curled into a ball, gestured at the bullet holes. “Will you dig those bullets out before Katya sees? She’ll be mad at me.”

  Russia’s most powerful oil baron, drunk as a lord, on his gigantic yacht with a hundred VIPs on the decks. “I probably shouldn’t have a gun,” Yuri said in Russian, slurring his words. “I might kill the wrong person.”

  Is there a right person you want to kill? Are you Firebird? Sam wondered. Then Yuri Kirov said, “So protesters are on my boat. I take it you are not a protester, because where is your sign?” At this he laughed, a broken sound.

  “I’m a friend of Katya’s. Do you want me to get her for you?”

  Yuri Kirov focused, with great effort, on Sam’s face. He stood up from the bed and very formally offered his hand to Sam to shake. “Most of Katya’s friends don’t speak Russian. You have an American accent but you speak well.”

  “I own a bar in Moscow. So I decided to learn.”

  “A bar. Wonderful news. I could use a drink.”

  “Do you want me to bring you coffee? A glass of water?”

  Yuri wagged a finger. “I am not drunk,” he insisted, and then he nearly fell, and Sam steadied him back onto the bed. “I’ll just rest a moment,” Yuri announced. He peered hard at Sam’s face. “Have I seen you before?”

  Sam thought, Have you perhaps seen my brother’s picture?

  He blinked again. “Eh, they showed me pictures of everyone who was coming tonight. Irina always does. I am supposed to care.”

  Yuri attempted to retreat into dignity. He straightened his tie. “An American who speaks decent Russian. A rare thing.”

  “Your daughter is intere
sted in investing in my bars. Bringing Russian-themed nightclubs to the United States.”

  “I want to go see these protesters now. Help me up, please.” Sam got Yuri to his feet, straightening his suit again. Sam slipped the gun and the ammo into his own jacket pocket.

  Yuri Kirov moved out of the room, slowly, staggering, leaning on Sam.

  The police sirens outside were still loud. He pressed the elevator button but it didn’t respond and Yuri Kirov huffed with impatience. So Sam helped the older man up the spiral staircase.

  They had reached the large dining room that faced out onto the main deck. The security forces and the Bahamian police had the situation under control. The protesters who had attached themselves to the railing were gone, now sitting handcuffed on the dock itself. Irina Belinskaya’s security team was in command, back on perimeter, the guests milling about, watching, chatting. A Bahamian police captain appeared to be in conversation with Irina Belinskaya. A table of food had been knocked over and the yacht’s workers were clearing it up.

  Irina and Stefan Varro were farther out on the deck, supervising the return of order from the chaos, Stefan trying to keep the guests from leaving, reassuring them that all was fine.

  Katya saw her father standing in the doorway, Sam behind him. Kirov handed Sam his phone, as if he was a functionary, and as much as Sam wanted to steal it for five minutes he saw Katya watching, so he slipped it back into Kirov’s jacket pocket. Kirov didn’t seem to notice.

  Sam caught Katya’s eye, shook his head, pointed at Yuri, and frowned.

  Katya hurried over to him, a forced smile on her face. Mila followed her. “Papa, go back downstairs. It’s nothing.”

  “Who are these losers?” Kirov asked, gesturing at the handcuffed protesters on the dock.

  “Troublemakers,” she said. “Ignore them.”

  “Shoot them,” Kirov said to no one, gesturing down the line.

  “We can’t do that, Papa, honestly.” Katya looked at him with real concern.

  “I suspect,” Mila said, “that you’ll see a lot of this at the summit. They’re just the opening act.”

  Her theory was greeted with uncomfortable silence. Katya glanced at Sam. The alluring glance she assumed for the photographers was gone, replaced by a steely suspicion. “What are you doing with my father?”

  Yuri laughed. “He took my gun away. Give it back to me; I’ll solve this problem.” He made his fingers into a gun and aimed it at the line of protesters, and Katya slapped his hand down, glancing back at the busy photographers.

  “He fired a gun at me downstairs,” Sam said mildly. “I have his gun and ammo in my jacket pocket.”

  “Papa!” Katya went pale. “Are you crazy? You’re not supposed to have a gun.”

  Yuri wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You don’t make the rules. Is it your boat? No.”

  “It’s all right,” Sam said. “He didn’t come close to hitting me and I took it from him.”

  Katya’s face flushed and she touched his arm in apology. “I am…I do not know what to say, Sam. I am so sorry. Please, don’t tell anyone.”

  Yuri moved away from Sam and Katya and stared out at the protesters being escorted out of the marina by the police, who had descended on the scene in force.

  Katya said, “Papa, go back downstairs. You must not be photographed…looking this way.” Now she shot Sam a pleading glance. Sam, who also preferred not to be photographed, gently steered Yuri Kirov back inside. He didn’t resist very much, but his mouth twisted in a petulant frown.

  “You see, it’s OK now,” he said to Yuri.

  “Yes,” Yuri said and then turned away. He walked to the elevator, instead of the staircase. Sam went in and saw Yuri hadn’t pressed the deck button; he was just staring at his feet, waiting. As though he were so used to others doing things for him that he needn’t bother.

  Sam pressed the button for a lower deck instead of the button for Yuri’s deck. Yuri, eyes closed, didn’t notice. It would give Sam an excuse to see what was on another deck.

  “No one is going to take away what I have,” Yuri said. “That’s what they want to do. The Americans. Morozov. Varro. That little creep Stefan. Take what’s mine. Take it all, and I won’t let them.”

  “That would be wrong,” Sam agreed.

  “Are you dating Katerina Yureyevna?” Using the formal name for his daughter. “Are you one of them?”

  “Them. What them?”

  He started to speak but then shook his head, as if sad. “I don’t want her dating Stefan. That boy…he is not a good person. Not a good man to women.”

  “I thought your families were old friends.”

  “Friends, no longer.” His thought seemed to trail off. “That man was here. That man. I saw him. He didn’t see me.”

  That man? “What man?”

  Yuri shook his head. The elevator pinged and Yuri Kirov lurched out, heading for what he thought was his door. It was marked, in Russian: SERVER ROOM. KEEP DOOR SHUT. The yacht had its own communications hub, using secured satellite Internet. The e-mail servers would be inside. Sam hurried down the deck, as if confused, saw that the other rooms were marked, such as CONFERENCE ROOM 1 and so forth. This deck included offices, to conduct business of Zvezda Oil when needed, converted from the suites. The server door, like many others, had a lock that required an electronic card key to open. He saw one door marked SECURITY CHIEF. Irina’s office.

  “This is the wrong deck,” Yuri called. “My boat is so big it is confusing you.”

  “Sorry, my mistake.” Sam guided the man back onto the elevator and went to the correct deck. He led Kirov into his room. The man tumbled onto his bed. Sam undressed him down to his undershirt and boxers. He made him drink two glasses of water and take some aspirin, like a sick child. Sitting there, small and sad, he did not look like a former KGB chief or an oil tycoon. He just looked like a scared man who had had too much vodka.

  “Thank you for your kindness,” Yuri said after the second glass of water. “I’m sorry about nearly killing you. I’m glad I didn’t kill you, I mean. What was your name again?”

  “Sam. Samuil.” He gave it the Russian pronunciation.

  “And your father’s name?”

  “Alexander.”

  “Samuil Alexandrovich, then. We will pretend you are a Russian with such a fine name. You own bars, so you know how to pour vodka, yes? Pour me one more.”

  Sam did, just to keep Kirov placated. “Who are you afraid of, Yuri Ivanovich?” He handed him the tiny amount of vodka he’d poured him.

  “Loneliness and death. All men fear that. Go back to the party. You are too young to worry about either one.” Kirov gestured with the glass of vodka, sipped, and then curled up onto the bed, looking like a drunken ruin.

  Sam considered the map of the Svetlana he’d built in his mind. He realized directly below Yuri’s room was where the server room would be. The scrambled e-mail that had gone from Avril Claybourne to confirm the kill to Firebird had landed back here.

  He needed to get into that room, and uninterrupted time to get into its systems.

  He needed to become a guest on this yacht.

  Sam glanced back at Yuri Kirov. Yuri Kirov was asleep. He was tempted to pick up the man’s phone and look at it. But he had pressed his luck tonight, and if the man awoke with Sam pulling his phone out of his pocket all would be undone.

  What was the man afraid of?

  That man. Maybe someone who frightened Yuri Kirov. Or someone he hated.

  Sam went out the door, shutting it behind him.

  38

  Nassau

  MIDNIGHT. SEAFORTH—the Special Projects man—got up from the café table, still alone, carrying a book he tucked under his right shoulder.

  That could be a sign. A tradecraft sign, meaning he might expect someone watching him to get the signal.

  Or he could just be walking with a book. What if he was simply here on vacation?

  You know that’s not true. He
’s here. Maybe looking for you.

  Judge hurried down to the street. He followed Seaforth, a half-block behind. Judge thought Seaforth was going to turn into another hotel, but he walked past it. Judge closed the distance.

  Seaforth pulled out a phone and began to talk quietly into it. He turned into an alleyway, a small cut-through between two restaurants that led to another street and another block of hotels.

  He was halfway down the alley when Judge shot him, the suppressor on the gun making a hard tweet.

  He’d turned just as Judge fired, a sense warning him perhaps, the sudden sharp scream of experience. The shot caught him hard, and he fell, blood on the front of the linen jacket; and at the other end of the cut-through came four women, laughing, talking loudly about grabbing a cab to Cable Beach and going to the casino. Judge turned and hurried away, head down. He was already out of the cut-through when he heard one of the women scream as she spotted Seaforth sprawled on the ground.

  He’s dead, he’s dead. He never saw you.

  He wiped the gun, jerked off his blazer with no tags to identify its origin, dumped it in a trash can, then turned and hurried into a hotel lobby. Cheesy island music blaring from the bar. He worked his way into the crowd, ordered something touristy, waited, sipped at the overly sweet concoction.

  Seaforth was probably here to watch the Russians. Nothing else. But now he couldn’t be a risk to Judge.

  Thirty minutes later when he walked back out to go to his own hotel, the police had cordoned off the area.

  “What’s going on?” he asked one of the hotel doormen, swaying slightly.

  The doorman didn’t want to say a shooting; it was a forbidden word to say to a tourist. “Not sure, sir. Perhaps someone ill—ambulance came, roared off.”

  In a hurry meant Seaforth was still alive. Not good. He should have taken more time with his shot. But there was nothing to be done now.

  He went back to the hotel. He tried to call Stefan, to bring him his wallet and his phone.