Private Moscow

by James Patterson

  “You’re free to go,” Anna told me, gesturing at the open door. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know she wasn’t enjoying the crow her superior had forced her to eat. “My colleague will show you out.”

  CHAPTER 47

  I WAS TAKEN out of the cell block to a booking hall where I was processed and got my things back, including my satellite phone. Feeling grubby and disheveled, I left what I’d thought was a police station—I’d only seen the rear entrance when I’d been pushed out of the police van—but when I finally stepped outside I discovered I’d been inside a huge government building. A courtyard lay between three six-story wings, each of which featured grand columns and high, arched windows. I walked along a path that bisected the snow-covered courtyard, toward a concrete gatehouse, where two uniformed guards kept watch. I passed through the high gate without incident and found myself on an unfamiliar street. There was a grand building and parkland behind a high wall on the other side of the busy road, and as I looked to my left and right, I saw no landmarks I recognized. There hadn’t been any fresh snow while I’d been inside, and everywhere was covered in icy, graying slush that made the city feel just as drab and shabby as me.

  I was about to call Justine when I noticed exhaust fumes coming from the tail pipe of a small SUV parked in a bay on the opposite side of the street. I got the sense the occupants were watching me, but couldn’t see them clearly because the windows were steamed up. A hand wiped some of the moisture from the windshield and a moment later the passenger and driver doors opened. I was about to start running when I recognized the two figures that emerged as Leonid Boykov and Dinara Orlova.

  “Jack,” Dinara yelled over the passing vehicles.

  Relieved, I picked my way through the traffic, and joined them by the vehicle, a Lada Niva, a Soviet-era SUV that must have been at least thirty years old. As I approached, I could hear the engine ticking over unevenly, revving high and then running low, almost to faltering point.

  “Yes, it sounds like a dying bull,” Leonid said. “But it moves. It’s my uncle’s car.”

  They got in the front and I climbed in the back. The interior wasn’t much warmer than the street.

  “The heater’s broken,” Leonid explained, wiping the windshield again.

  “How did you get out?” I asked Dinara.

  She nodded at Leonid. “It pays to have powerful friends.” “I’m sorry it took so long for you,” Leonid said to me. “It’s one thing getting a former FSB agent out of a police station, quite another thing securing the release of a foreigner from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.” I looked at the grand building. “You got me out of there?”

  “Of course.” He nodded. “There are still some members of the Moscow establishment who whisper the name Leonid Boykov with pride.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’d better check in with New York.”

  I dialed Justine’s number, but it went straight to voicemail. It was just gone eleven in Moscow, which meant it was a little after 4 a.m. in New York. I left a message, letting her know I was OK and asking her to call. I also tried the New York office in case Mo-bot or anyone else was working through the night. I got the company message service and left one for Jessie.

  “I spoke to Miss Fleming yesterday,” Dinara said after I’d hung up. “I let her know what happened. She was worried about you, but I was able to put her mind at rest.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Any leads from yesterday? I saw the killer get into a van which went down the alley toward Federation House. It turned right onto the street that runs to the river.”

  Leonid shook his head. “Federation House is even more secure than the Pentagon. They have surveillance everywhere. There are two government cameras in the alleyway behind Fisher’s building, but when I made a request, they said they have no footage of the incident.”

  “Without evidence, it’s going to be difficult to prove what you saw,” Dinara said.

  “And it’s clear there are people who don’t want you on the street,” Leonid remarked.

  “The Otkrov article?” I guessed.

  Leonid nodded.

  “What’s your read on that?” I asked. “Has there always been another writer? Or was the blog hacked?”

  “Hacked would be my assessment,” Dinara replied. “The writing style is different to any of Otkrov’s previous posts. Whoever did it must know Otkrov is dead and won’t take down the post or interfere with the fake news.”

  “Which means our investigations might be connected,” I observed.

  “Possibly,” Dinara conceded.

  “Feels like FSB,” Leonid said. “Dirty sneaks with some big plot, trying to control what people think.” He glanced at Dinara. “No offence.”

  “Of course,” she replied generously. “I’m no longer FSB, and even if I was, do you think the opinion of an unimaginative beat cop would have mattered to me?”

  “Beat cop?” Leonid scoffed.

  “Whoever is behind these murders, it’s clear you’ve made powerful enemies, Jack, so we’re going to take steps to keep you safe,” Dinara said.

  “How?” I asked.

  Leonid glanced in the rear-view mirror and gave me a wry smile. “We’re taking you somewhere even the FSB wouldn’t dare go.”

  CHAPTER 48

  WE DROVE FOR an hour, passing through the city center and out east to a place called the Kuzminki District. We’d driven through areas of wealth and plenty where high modern apartment blocks mixed with classical villas, but Kuzminki was a blue-collar neighborhood with dormitory blocks inhabited by working Russians. We turned off a six-lane overpass and drove under the busy highway. A group of teenagers were racing mini-bikes in the space beneath the overpass. We crossed a major slip road and went up a tree-lined street, past a large red church with a golden dome, which dazzled in the crisp January sunlight.

  “This is Kuzminki,” Dinara explained. “It was where the Soviet government housed people it considered undesirable. If the Central Committee didn’t like you, this is where you lived.”

  “Here or the gulag,” Leonid added.

  We drove past huge estates of high-rise apartment blocks, some dating from the Soviet era, others more recent, and no more than ten minutes from the highway we turned north onto a service street that ran between two sprawling estates. A group of young men stood in a clearing in the snow, huddled around an oil-drum fire. They eyed us as we drove by. Up ahead, beyond the gardens that lay behind the tower blocks, the road was cut short by a gate, and next to it was a small hut. A grim-faced man in a heavy black coat emerged as the old SUV rattled to a halt. When Leonid wound down the window, the guy smiled warmly.

  “Leonid Boykov!” he exclaimed.

  The rest of what he said was lost on me as he and Leonid conversed in Russian. The tone was light-hearted and friendly and I got the impression these men knew each other well.

  “Welcome, welcome,” the man said to me as he raised the gate.

  “That was Evgeniy Ertel. He used to be a captain in the riot police,” Leonid said as he drove on. “Tough as army boot leather,” he added as we turned into a large parking lot full of vehicles.

  Beyond it stood a huge two-story concrete building that dominated the heart of a ten-acre lot. It looked like an old school or hospital. A handful of men and women gathered outside the main entrance, smoking cigarettes.

  “This is your new home,” Leonid said. “Well, our new home.”

  Dinara replied in Russian.

  “Of course,” he said. “We can’t go home any more than he can. Not until we know what we’re up against.”

  “What is this place?” I asked as Leonid pulled into a parking space.

  “We call it the Residence. It’s where my brothers and sisters live,” he replied cryptically. “It’s like a retirement home for cops. A hospital too. If you don’t have family or money, this is where you come.”

  “Like a veterans’ home?” I asked, getting out of the SUV.

  “Maybe,”
Leonid said. “It was a school, but the government doesn’t have so much money for schools, so they rented it to the people who run this place.”

  I quickly realized this place was nothing like a veterans’ home as we approached the smokers. A dozen men and women: they must all have been under the age of fifty, and had the hard, incisive eyes of competent police officers. Inside, there were a couple of young men in wheelchairs, reading in the lobby, and I could see two recreation rooms off the large space, where former police officers between the ages of thirty-five and sixty played games, watched TV, drank, talked or sat with their heads in books or magazines. This was part convalescence home, part hospital, part social housing, part private members’ club, and I’d never seen anything like it.

  “Boykov!” a booming voice yelled.

  I turned toward a huge bear of a man with bushy brown hair and a matching beard. He hurried over to us, wearing jeans, open-toed sandals over thick black socks and a bright blue painter’s smock that was covered in splotches of color.

  “Feodor Arapov!” Leonid replied, and the pair embraced.

  ‘Feo, this is Jack Morgan and Dinara Orlova, my colleagues.’

  I offered Feo my hand, but he brushed it aside and gave me a hug that hinted at his strength.

  ‘Welcome, American,’ he said. ‘Boykov says you’re OK.’ He released me, and shook Dinara’s hand. ‘Never cuddle a lady without invitation,’ he said.

  ‘Very wise,’ Dinara observed.

  ‘I have arranged rooms for each of you in the west building,’ Feo said. ‘Come. Come.’

  He headed into the large building, and Leonid, Dinara and I followed him into our new, unconventional home.

  CHAPTER 49

  “WHO PAYS FOR this?” I asked, gesturing at the huge dining hall.

  Leonid, Dinara and I had settled into our rooms. I’d found my holdall on my bed. Leonid had retrieved it from the office where I’d left it when we’d stopped off en route to the US embassy from the airport.

  My little room reminded me of a priest’s cell. There was a single bed, a battered old closet, a window that overlooked the snow-covered grounds, an ancient radiator that was scalding hot, and a small sink. The bathroom was shared with eight other residents. I’d taken the opportunity to shower and change immediately, and had emerged feeling much more myself. Dressing in a black sweater and jeans, I’d joined Leonid and Dinara for lunch in the vast dining hall.

  “Each according to his means,” Leonid replied. “Everyone gives what they can, and we get money from charity and families, and the government gives a little and the police pension some more. Piece by piece a community is built. Some of the men and women here have jobs, and they pay more.”

  He looked at his former colleagues. There must have been over one hundred of them tucking into a rich beef stew with dumplings and potatoes.

  “Everyone wants this place to stay open, so we all pay what we can,” Leonid remarked.

  “We?” Dinara asked.

  “A small contribution buys a lot of goodwill,” he replied.

  “I never thought you were sentimental,” Dinara said.

  “Not sentimental. Just good old-fashioned self-interest,” he objected, but I could tell he was lying.

  His admiration and love for the place was palpable, and with good reason. There was a sense of camaraderie and community that was one of the things most often missed by former cops or service personnel. As I looked at the people seated at the long tables that were spread across the hall, I noticed that no one was being left out. Every single resident was talking to someone and there was no one who didn’t seem to belong.

  “Otkrov’s story has found some admirers,” Dinara said, showing me her phone.

  She swiped through a number of Russian news sources and a couple of small American ones that had run variations of Otkrov’s sensational allegations that Private was engaged in assassination. “Murder Detectives on the Rampage,” said Citizen’s Bulletin, an alternative news site, and I felt my anger rise as I scrolled through the tawdry article. I’d spent years building Private into the world’s number one detective agency, and all my efforts were being jeopardized by a single, unfounded allegation. If the mainstream media picked up the story, Private could be in real trouble.

  My satellite phone buzzed and I pulled it from my pocket and answered.

  “Jack, it’s me,” Justine said. “We heard what happened. Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine,” I assured her. “You seen the stories about Private?”

  “Yes,” she said. “People are just waking up here, so …”

  “It’s going to travel further,” I finished her hanging sentence.

  “Probably,” she replied. “Our client list makes us newsworthy, and even if the allegations aren’t true, they’re sensational, which is what counts nowadays.”

  I couldn’t let anonymous lies threaten everything I’d built.

  “Talk to Rafael. See what he can do to shut this story down,” I suggested. The First Amendment protected free speech, but there might be something Private New York’s attorney could do to stop the spread of fake news. “And ask Mo-bot to check the server logs of Otkrov’s blog. See if she can find out who published the article.”

  “Will do,” Justine said. “We got a hit on the driver who threw himself off the roof of the Beekman Hotel. His name was Major Ivan Shulgin. He’s a former officer with the First Guards Tank Army. I’ve emailed you his details. His service record fits the profile of an SVR asset.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, grateful for our first solid lead.

  “Are you sure you’re OK, Jack?” Justine asked. “These are serious people.”

  “I’m safe,” I assured her. “I’m with Leonid and Dinara.”

  “Dinara?” she asked.

  Was that jealousy in her voice?

  “Yeah,” I replied. “We’re with friends.”

  “Make sure you come home in one piece, Jack,” Justine said. “I’ll do my best,” I replied. “I’ll be in touch,” I added, before hanging up.

  “Everything OK?” Dinara asked.

  “Looks like the guy from the hotel was SVR,” I replied.

  I considered the revelation in light of everything that had happened. If our information was correct, I’d fought and chased a highly trained Russian intelligence operative.

  “I think we need to know why we were hired to investigate the death of a customer-service supervisor,” I said. “My guess is our client knew Yana Petrova was Otkrov. I want to find out how he came by that information and what he knows about her killer. I want to meet Maxim Yenen.”

  CHAPTER 50

  “LET’S ARRANGE THE meeting from the car,” Leonid said, getting to his feet. “We also have some other business we need to attend to.”

  Dinara was bemused until he added, “Murder. Abduction.”

  She rose hurriedly. “Of course.”

  In the turmoil of their arrest and securing Jack Morgan’s release from police custody, Dinara realized they’d done nothing more about the previous morning’s shooting and attempted kidnapping, other than giving statements to the police, explaining how Leonid’s car came to be riddled with bullets and stuck on a highway.

  “I would like to pay our friends at Grom Boxing a visit,” Leonid said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Jack said.

  Leonid hesitated. “These men don’t take well to outsiders.”

  “Doesn’t sound like they took too well to you either,” Jack shot back.

  Dinara’s limited dealings with the owner of Private simply hadn’t prepared her for the sheer presence of the man. He wasn’t particularly tall or broad, but there was a quiet assuredness about him, as though he could handle anything the world threw at him. There was no sense of him being a stranger in a foreign land. He was taking everything in his stride and behaving with the confidence of a local investigator. Dinara wondered just what it took to shake Jack Morgan.

  “I’m not sitting this out when t
wo of my team have been attacked,” he said.

  Leonid shrugged. “As stubborn as a Russian,” he joked.

  “And then some,” Jack responded.

  They went back to their rooms to get their coats and gear. Leonid was at the end of the corridor, in what Dinara mockingly called the suite, because it had two windows. Dinara and Jack had rooms opposite each other, and there were another five on the wing, all of which were occupied.

  “Do you need a gun?” Leonid asked Jack.

  “What’s the law say?” he replied.

  “As a visitor, if you get caught …” Leonid did a swift intake of breath and held his hands out as though he was being cuffed. “Long jail time.”

  “Pistols are prohibited in Russia, unless by special decree, or an award from a military or federal authority,” Dinara said as she grabbed her coat and a Makarov pistol from her overnight bag. After the incident on their way to the airport, there was no way she was going back to the gym unarmed. “My license is signed by the Prime Minister himself.”

  “I only have one from the Minister of Internal Affairs,” Leonid responded as he left his room.

  “Then I’d better let you carry the hardware,” Jack said, pulling on his coat as he joined them in the corridor.

  Wrapped up for the freezing weather, they left the Residence and took the old SUV across the city to Grom Boxing. It was a little after 4 p.m. when they arrived and there were a handful of vehicles in the parking lot. Leonid reversed into a space near the door.

  “For a quick escape,” he explained as he got out. He leaned down and placed the keys on top of the front tire. “In case something happens to any of us. The others can still get away.”

  “I thought I was paranoid,” Dinara said.

  “Preparation prevents desperation,” Leonid responded flatly. “Come on.”

  He led Dinara and Jack inside. Once again, the lobby area was deserted, but Dinara heard the sounds of men training in the gym beyond. She looked at Jack and Leonid, and both men nodded, so she pulled open the door and went inside.