Private Moscow

by James Patterson

  CHAPTER 43

  THE PLACE STANK of alcohol, but it was only now that Ernie Fisher registered the full extent of the stench. He was turning over his own apartment, desperately searching for the key that would keep him alive.

  You’ve become sloppy, he told himself. All your training, all your discipline lost at the bottom of a bottle.

  He’d become a drunk. A functioning one, but a drunk nonetheless. He’d hidden it from the ambassador, but his day job wasn’t that demanding. Not compared to his real work, the task he’d spent decades preparing for.

  He needed the key. The key he’d hidden years ago when he’d first come to Moscow and taken the grand tenth-floor apartment overlooking the river. It was the key he’d told himself he’d never need.

  Ernie pulled books from his shelves. He’d amassed a collection of political history and theory, but had hardly read any of them. But books helped sell the image, and made people think he was a savvy political operator, a high-flying Ann Arbor alumnus who had his finger on the pulse. He tossed the heavy books on the Persian rug he’d bought in the Novopodrezkovo Market, and for the very first time, he saw it with a stranger’s eyes. It was covered in stains, tiny droplets spilled during his many vodka-infused rants against how unfair life was. The dark reckonings he held with himself in the early hours, when no one but the witches and wolves were around to hear.

  You’re losing your mind, he told himself. Lost. Past tense, he thought.

  He turned from the shelves to an armoire he’d picked up in an antique store on Year 1905 Street. He pulled out the drawers and emptied the contents everywhere. He’d already wasted so much time and was getting desperate. He’d made a cursory search of the apartment and had given up, telling himself he could break into the safe without the key. But when he’d gone to his little bolthole, he’d found the safe impossible to crack and it had chewed up his drill. He’d returned to his apartment, convinced he’d be walking into the jaws of death, but he’d found nothing out of the ordinary, and had resumed his desperate search for the key.

  He got on his hands and knees and rummaged through the contents of the drawers, but there was no sign of the key. Frantic, Ernie sat up, ran his fingers through his hair, and dragged them down his face.

  “I wasn’t expecting to find you so easily,” a voice said in English.

  The words were like nails on a chalkboard and sent a shiver down Ernie’s spine. He turned to face the speaker, and that’s when he caught sight of it. A flash of brass, the key taped to the underside of one of the compartments that housed the drawers. His heart leaped. That’s where he’d put it all those years ago. He could escape. If he could just get past death’s messenger, he could flee.

  The man standing in the doorway wore the dark green urban combat uniform of Russian Special Forces. It was common to see such soldiers around Federation House, but what was uncommon was the ski mask covering his face and the tactical vest protecting his torso. Ernie was surprised not to see a gun in the man’s hand. Instead, he caught the glint of piano wire looped at either end around the man’s gloved hands.

  Ernie slowly got to his feet. This man was a trained killer, but so was he.

  Older, out of shape, and carrying the weight of drunkenness, he thought.

  He was dead either way, but if he fought, at least he’d have a chance, and it was better to die with hope.

  “I thought you would have run,” the masked man said. “But then, according to our intelligence reports, you have become ineffective. Careless.”

  Ernie felt the embers of pride flare. He was many things, but he wasn’t careless.

  You missed your chance to escape because you forgot where you hid the key, he told himself. You’re a drunk. That’s as careless as it gets.

  He flushed with embarrassment.

  “Will the Ninety-nine claim credit for me?” he asked.

  The masked man shook his head. “You are no billionaire, Mr…. What shall we call you?”

  “Fisher,” Ernie said.

  “Fisher,” the masked man sneered. “You will just be another statistic. A miserable drunk who took his own life. No credit will be claimed.”

  The embers of pride rose into a fire of indignation. He would not die here in his own apartment at the hands of this arrogant man.

  Ernie rushed at the masked man and launched a side kick at his ribs, but his leg was too slow, and his opponent stepped in and wrapped the piano wire around Ernie’s neck. He tried to get a hand between the coils, but he wasn’t fast enough, and the metal snapped tight and bit into his Adam’s apple. The pain was excruciating, and Ernie fought it with everything he had. His arms and legs flailed wildly, but they found no purchase and slowly the pain gave way to numb realization.

  There was a noise in the distance. Raised voices and a crash, but the sounds must have been from the memory of a dream, because nothing in Ernie’s reality changed, and a moment later his world turned completely dark.

  CHAPTER 44

  DINARA HAD PICKED the locks on the main entrance to get us into the building, but Ernie Fisher’s apartment on the ninth floor was more challenging.

  “I can get it. I just need a few minutes,” she said as she crouched over a mortise lock that was designed to be impossible to pick.

  I could hear the sound of sirens getting closer, and guessed it was the police responding to Leonid’s call.

  Dinara was making fine adjustments with her lock-picking tools. “If I can just …” There was a faint snapping sound. “Damn!”

  She pulled out a broken single hump Bogota pick, and looked at West and me with pure frustration.

  “Stand back,” I said, and when Dinara stepped out of the way, I aimed my heel at the lock and kicked hard.

  The lock popped, but a full-length security bar prevented the door from opening.

  I was convinced I heard movement inside the apartment. “Come on,” I said, and West and I put our shoulders to the door and barged with our full combined force. The security bar made a terrible noise as it tore away from the screws embedded deep in the frame.

  We burst into the grand apartment and I immediately saw the place had been turned over, and on the far side of the apartment Fisher was hanging by a window that overlooked the Moscow River. A length of piano wire was attached to a curtain rail and the other end was lost in the folds of his neck.

  Dinara and West rushed over and started trying to get Fisher down. I was about to join them when a noise caught my attention. I ran into a large kitchen and saw an open door on the other side of the room. I crossed the white tiled floor and approached the door, which led to a metal fire escape. I could hear footsteps echoing off the walls and pulled the door wide. When I stepped through and glanced down, I saw the fire escape was built into a well that cut through the heart of the old building. Tiny balconies joined every apartment to the stairs that ran all the way down to the ground. Many of the balconies were cluttered by washing lines, toys, garden furniture and junk, which would have made escape a nightmare if there ever were a fire. I could see no sign of the source of the noise, so I looked up.

  There, frozen almost directly above me, standing next to the balustrade that marked the edge of the roof, was a masked man in special forces gear. We stared at each other and I recognized his eyes. It was the man who’d murdered Karl Parker and Elizabeth Connor in New York.

  He drew a pistol and opened fire, forcing me back into Ernie Fisher’s kitchen. Bullets flashed off the metal fire escape like tiny bolts of lightning and the thunder crack of the shots echoed around the well. A moment later, the shooting stopped.

  “What the hell is happening?” West yelled from the living room, but I didn’t hang around to answer.

  I ran outside and bounded up the fire escape, racing to the roof. When I reached the top of the stairs, instead of being confronted by the formidable assassin, I found nothing but footsteps in the deep snow. I followed them to the rear of the building and, concealed in a thick drift, I discovered an ancho
r and tactical rope that vanished over the low concrete barrier that marked the edge of the roof.

  I glanced over and saw the assassin completing his rappel down the side of the building. He landed on an unmarked gray van and, in one fluid move, rolled off the roof and slid through the open passenger door onto the front seat. He slammed the door, and the van drove away. I considered the rope and wondered whether there was anything to be gained by following him down using a makeshift abseiling loop. Could I make it down before the van reached the end of the alleyway?

  The decision was taken out of my hands.

  “Stoy!” a voice yelled, and I turned to see three Moscow police officers moving toward me, their guns trained in my direction as they crossed the roof.

  I glanced down and burned with frustration as I saw the gray van leave the alleyway and turn right onto the road that ran alongside the vast riverside government complex that was officially known as Federation House.

  Once again, the killer had escaped.

  CHAPTER 45

  I’D HAD THE royal treatment for almost twenty-four hours. The police had cuffed me, and when Dinara had come up to the roof to see what was happening, they’d arrested her too. The cops had tried to take Master Sergeant West, but he’d flashed his diplomatic credentials, which were respected no matter what the state of relations were between Moscow and Washington. No beat cop would risk a diplomatic incident.

  Dinara had told me we were being arrested on a murder charge before we were put in separate vehicles and taken away. She’d been pushed into a patrol car, while I’d had a disorientating ride in the back of a windowless van. I don’t know if she was taken to the same place as me, but I saw no sign of her when I was booked, stripped of my belongings and left to stew in a cell for the best part of a day and a night.

  Finally, late Tuesday morning, the door to my cell opened and a uniformed police officer barked a command in Russian and gestured at me to get off the fold-down metal bunk. If I never saw the rusting toilet, or tasted the overly boiled food ever again, it would be too soon.

  I followed the officer through the cell block. He unlocked a clanging metal gate and took me into a long corridor with rooms either side. The cop stopped at the first door and knocked. A voice inside replied in Russian and the cop opened the door and waved me in.

  I walked into a windowless interview room and found two women sitting at a metal table that had been scored with graffiti.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Morgan,” the younger of the two women said. “My name is Anna Bolshova and I am an officer with the Criminal Investigations Department currently assigned to the Interior Ministry.”

  I had no idea what that meant. Was she a cop? Or a spy? She wore a severe dark blue, almost black jacket, and a pencil skirt. Her companion was an older woman who was in a skirt and blazer that looked as though they could have been beamed from the 1980s. The navy blue jacket had huge shoulder pads, brass buttons and gold brocade, and beneath it was a busy floral blouse.

  “This is Zoya Popova, our official translator,” Anna said. “My English is good, but just in case.”

  Zoya looked decidedly unhappy; perhaps she was annoyed at being made redundant.

  “Please sit.”

  Anna gestured at a chair opposite the two of them, and I took a seat.

  “No lawyer?” I asked.

  “Do you need one?” Anna responded. “It’s early days. We should get to know each other first.”

  I smiled. Her short black hair was styled with a parting that made her look tomboyish, but her features were soft and her makeup accentuated her femininity.

  “I didn’t realize we were here to make friends,” I said. “I thought I’d been arrested for murder.”

  “Even so,” Anna replied. “This is an opportunity for you to tell your story without a lawyer confusing fact and fiction.”

  “Is that what they do?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Is this standard Moscow police procedure?” I asked.

  The translator shifted in her seat.

  “Nothing about this investigation is standard, Mr. Morgan,” Anna replied. “You worry about your rules and I will worry about mine. Shall we begin?” She reached into her jacket pocket and took out a digital dictaphone. She put it on the table and pressed record. After a preamble in Russian, she said, “State your name.”

  I stayed silent.

  “Your name, please,” she tried.

  I said nothing.

  “I’m with Mr. Jack Morgan, the owner of Private,” Anna spoke into the recorder. “Mr. Morgan, why don’t you tell us in your own words what happened in the apartment of Mr. Ernest Fisher, chief of staff to the American ambassador here in Moscow?”

  “I have no comment,” I replied. “I would like to see a representative of the US embassy or a lawyer.”

  Anna smiled, but I could tell she wasn’t happy. She ignored my response and reached beneath the table. After a short time spent ferreting in a large satchel, she produced a sheaf of print-outs which she pushed toward me.

  “This is the translation of an article that was published today on the Otkrov blog, stating that Private is working with a group called the Ninety-nine to target members of America’s elite,” Anna said.

  I glanced at the printout of the original piece before turning to the translated article and reading it with growing dismay. A mix of conjecture and wild allegation, it suggested that after years investigating and covering up the excesses of the very wealthy, I’d had enough and had secretly conspired with the Ninety-nine to assassinate members of the 1 percent. The article pointed out that I’d been caught at the scene of both murders that the Ninety-Nine had claimed responsibility for and said that members of the Private team were colluding to help me in my objective.

  “As you can see, the article says you murdered Mr. Fisher because he had evidence linking you to the conspiracy,” Anna said, fixing me with a triumphant stare. “Now, Mr. Morgan, perhaps you would like to comment?”

  CHAPTER 46

  I STUDIED ANNA, wondering whether she was in on the lies or if she was simply being manipulated.

  “Well, Mr. Morgan?” she pressed.

  Dinara and Leonid had told me the woman behind the Otkrov blog had been murdered, so I found myself asking whether the blog had been written by more than one person, or if it had been hacked and compromised for disinformation purposes. Dinara had spoken highly of the blog’s record for accuracy, and I was leaning toward the latter theory because I knew what was being alleged was completely untrue. No one interested in telling the truth could have published that article. With Yana Petrova, the supposed true author of the blog out of the way, the Otkrov platform had become a powerful and vacant tool for someone wishing to spread propaganda.

  “When your officers arrested me on the roof, I was in pursuit of a suspect,” I said.

  “We found no evidence of anyone else,” Anna replied. “Just a rope that you’d set up for your escape.”

  “If your people hadn’t contaminated the scene, they would have found another set of footprints in the snow,” I pointed out. “This story is a complete fabrication. I attended the property with two witnesses.”

  “Yes,” Anna agreed. “Dinara Orlova, one of your employees, and Marlon West, an American Marine who may or may not be an intelligence operative. I’m not sure how you can expect us to consider these people impartial witnesses.”

  “Then why are you interested in anything I’ve got to say?” I asked. “I’m not impartial either.”

  Ernie Fisher’s death troubled me for more than the obvious reasons. He wasn’t wealthy and could scarcely be classed as part of the 20 percent, let alone the 1 percent. He simply didn’t fit the profile of the other victims, which confirmed my suspicion that the idea of a radical group targeting America’s wealthiest people was merely a cover story. I guessed that was part of the motivation behind the false flag article supposedly written by Otkrov. The killer had obviously staged the murder to look like
a suicide, so wasn’t planning to credit it to the Ninety-nine. When I discovered him on the scene, he realized the suicide set-up wasn’t going to fly, so he needed a story that maintained the Ninety-nine cover, while throwing people off his trail. Blaming me for the anomalous kill would achieve both aims perfectly.

  “This is an opportunity for you to explain,” Anna said.

  “Lawyer,” I replied. “Or US embassy.”

  “Mr. Morgan, be reasonable, please. If you won’t talk, then I will be forced to hold you while we complete our own inquiries. That could be weeks.”

  “Lawyer,” I repeated.

  Anna shrugged and said something in Russian to the translator. Zoya responded with a mocking laugh.

  “I give you one last chance, Mr. Morgan,” Anna said.

  “Lawyer,” I replied.

  “OK,” Anna responded, getting to her feet. “Then you must go back to your cell.”

  She stopped the recorder and knocked on the interview-room door. The cop who’d escorted me stepped inside, and Anna said something to him in Russian.

  “Come,” he said, taking my arm and hauling me to my feet.

  We were on our way out of the room when a police officer entered. My escort snapped to attention, as did Anna. Even the translator got to her feet. The newcomer was a gray-haired man with a line of ribbons across his chest. It was clear he was a senior officer. He gave me a cursory glance before barking something at Anna.

  The moment he’d given the command, he turned on his heel and left the room. Like a sudden violent storm, the officer had changed everything. Anna’s demeanor shifted from confident and controlling to one of dejection.

  “It seems you are to be released, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “And I am to apologize for any inconvenience,” she added grudgingly.

  She said something to my escort and he let go of my arm.