by David Duffy
CHAPTER 7
I watched all five Kübler-Ross stages pass through his eyes—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—in the time it took him to slump back into his chair. Then anger returned.
“Goddammit!” He banged the desk with both fists. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t know until I saw her this morning. First time since 1989.”
Bernie and I have done business together for nearly a decade. I have always been straight with him, not least because he’s the one who gets me hired, but also because when he was with the CIA, he had the rep as the most astute analyst the Americans had. I’m not sure I could put one over on him if I tried. Since we were on opposite sides for two decades, I assume there’s some little lingering doubt in his mind about where I’m coming from at moments like these. He also doesn’t like surprises. He was taking his time before deciding how to proceed.
“Straight up?” he said.
“Straight up. Our split was anything but amicable, on both sides. That’s what I told her, when I spoke Russian, this morning. If I’d known she was married to Mulholland, I never would have set foot in that apartment.”
He thought about that a few minutes more, and anger was replaced by acceptance. It looked as though I’d come through clean, at least for the time being.
“I need this like another ulcer,” he said.
“What did she tell you, if it’s okay to ask?”
His look said it wasn’t okay.
“Let me guess, then. Something like, she knew me years ago, back before the beginning of recorded time, when she was just an innocent child, ignorant of the ways of the world, and I pulled dark, evil wool over those innocent eyes until the day she found out, to her total shock and horror, that I’m a lying, deceitful, no-good son of a bitch. She probably worked in dead babies’ blood dripping from my teeth for good measure.”
He chuckled, a little. “That’s close. Her description was more robust.”
“So how come I’m still here?”
He sighed. “Too many problems. This was one I could hand off, or so I thought. I figured Rory had hired you, it was his call to fire you. But now…” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes again. I could see the red from across the desk. “I don’t know, Turbo, to tell you the truth. This complicates everything, and I don’t have time to deal with more complications. I guess I could send one of our associates with the money…”
I hadn’t come through so clean after all. He was really reaching. I said, “And explain to his/her wife/husband, girlfriend/boyfriend, mother/father what happened when things go bad. You don’t need that. This whole thing smells bad. You know that as well as I do. Even money Eva’s in on the scam, but I’m not sure that explains it. That’s why I told you what I told you. I’ll handle it, but I may have to improvise if things go wrong.”
He replaced his glasses. “You think Barsukov’s tied up in this?”
“That’s the question I’ve been asking myself all day. Truth is, I don’t know. He hates me, and it’s clear Polina—I mean Felix—is hiding from something or someone, and I’d have to guess that’s him. I haven’t spoken to him in years, and I have no idea if he knows who she’s become.”
“Jesus. It gets better and better. You got any good news?”
I decided not to tell him about Foos’s offer to help the government with its case against Mulholland.
“It could be this isn’t about Felix,” I said, “at least not in the way you think.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“This wouldn’t be the first time she and Lachko Barsukov teamed up against me.”
The eyebrow stayed up. “There were a lot of rumors running around Langley back in the eighties about how you and Barsukov got cross-wired. Details were hard to come by. KGB put the lid on. She was part of that?”
“Tangentially. Collateral damage morphed into collateral assault.”
The glasses came off again. “Tell me straight—your willingness to help, this has nothing to do on your part with getting even or anything like that?”
“It was all over long ago.”
“For real?”
“Cheka honor.”
“Cheka honor.” He shook his head. “That’s supposed to make me believe you?”
I shrugged. “We didn’t have Boy Scouts.”
He put his glasses on, stood, and went to the window and looked out, most likely without seeing anything. He was trying to make up his mind about something. I let him take his time.
“I don’t think this has anything to do with you,” he said when he turned back to face me.
“Because?”
“What do you know about whaling?”
“Phishing for big fish. Send bogus e-mail, try to get the recipient to open an attachment that installs a keyboarding bug, phisher can see everything on your computer. It’s one of Lachko’s businesses, but he’s got plenty of competition. Did Mulholland…”
He nodded. “About three months ago. We’ve had other clients get scammed, too. Bait in his instance was a fake letter from the U.S. attorney, Southern District. Most people know better than to open unsolicited attachments, but since this looked exactly like the real deal, he didn’t think twice.”
“He get keyboarded?”
He nodded. “Didn’t tell us until ten days ago. Whoever it was copied a lot of computer activity. Of course, we informed Victoria right away, since it was her fake paper. Could be one reason she felt she had to move on Rory before anything else happened.”
“You think there’s a connection?”
“Don’t know. That’s why I bring it up. Could’ve been Barsukov.”
“Could’ve been, but we don’t know enough.” I looked at my watch. “Still want me to make the drop?”
He nodded. “I don’t have a lot of options, as you point out. But I want to be clear on priorities—girl, money, kidnappers, in that order.”
“What about explanation?”
“Girl, money, kidnappers, in that order.”
“You don’t want to know what’s going on?”
“I want to know your efforts are focused where they should be—especially, as you say, if you have to improvise.”
He wasn’t in a mood to argue, and his priorities were the ones I’d focus on first in any event—then I’d find out what was going on.
“Okay,” I said, “but here’s one more piece of information you may want to factor in. Mulholland’s been buying FTB stock with every dime he can raise for the last two months.”
He’d started for the door, but his head whipped around. “Buying? You sure?”
“Uh-huh. Basilisk told me.”
“That monster ought to be illegal. I didn’t know. Thanks. I don’t know what it means, other than Rory’s a man of his convictions. He believes in himself and his bank.”
“Knowing that changes everything I thought about him,” I said with a grin.
“Keep your opinions to yourself. He’s your client.”
“I know. I’m looking forward to collecting that six sixty-six. Plus—”
“I know. Plus the goddamned expenses. Sometimes I wonder how we won the Cold War. I spent the better part of three decades analyzing Russians, and I still have no idea what makes you tick.”
“You didn’t win.” He’d heard this speech before, too. Maybe it was national pride, but I never tired of making the point, especially to Americans. “We lost.”
CHAPTER 8
Girl, money, kidnappers.
Bernie’s priorities were fine as far as they went, but they didn’t go far enough. I had a plan for the money. The same plan would lead me to the kidnappers, if there were any kidnappers, and I’d figure out what to do with them once I saw them in the flesh. Neither worried me much. The girl was a different issue. Priority one, of course, as she should be. Only problem was, she wouldn’t be anywhere near the drop site tonight, no matter what the supposed kidnappers said. Th
at much I was reasonably certain of, and that moved explanation up on the priority list. No point in pushing the point now. Bernie’s hands were tied, as were mine, by the same client—or the same client’s wife.
Bernie led me down the hall to a small conference room. A red backpack sat on a table surrounded by leather chairs. A clean-cut young man in a suit stood as we came in.
Bernie said, “This is Malcolm Watkins. You spoke on the phone.”
I shook hands with the kid and pointed to the backpack. “That the money?”
“Yes, sir. They specified a red backpack.”
“What did they sound like?”
“What do you mean?”
“The voice on the phone—man, woman, American, foreign, young, old?”
“Oh, sorry. I have no idea—Mrs. Mulholland talked to them.”
I looked at Bernie. “Mulholland said—”
“I know. No way around telling her. I’ll deal with Rory.”
I didn’t point out she almost certainly already knew. I’d caused enough trouble. Instead, I asked, “What’s the drill?”
Franklin looked down at a yellow legal pad. “Bring the money to the Sheraton at Newark Airport tonight at ten. Alone. She said they repeated that. Go to the front door with the backpack, wait. You’ll be searched. No guns. Then you go to the room they tell you. The door will be ajar. Put the backpack on the bed and leave. The girl will be in the lobby. They said if anything goes wrong, they’ll kill her first, then you.”
He said the last part awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable. This wasn’t what he’d been trained for. I nodded and smiled.
“Don’t worry. These guys probably learned that watching TV. Let’s see what we have.” I picked up the backpack. It was full of bills, tens and twenties, banded into packs of a thousand dollars each. I looked up at Watkins. “All here, right?”
“Yes, sir. Counted it twice.”
I took the box of small electronic devices from my messenger bag and selected one about the size and shape of a Wheat Thins cracker. Then I reached around in the backpack until I felt an inside pocket, and used some Super Glue to stick the RFID tag to the nylon. Bernie and Watkins watched while I rezipped the pocket, the latter with some suspicion.
“Radio frequency identification transponder,” I said. “RFID. Everybody’s using them. Casinos, Walmart, car rental companies—it’s the big new thing. Sends a signal to my laptop. GPS software communicates with the satellite, tells me where the backpack is.”
Watkins looked at Bernie, then back at me. “She said they said no tricks. They said—”
I cut him off. Whatever they said wasn’t important. “These guys have any brains at all, they’ll expect us to try something. Hundred grand’s too much money to just piss away—that’s how they’ll look at it. This is an older radio tag. I want them to find it. So they won’t look for this one.” I held up a piece of plastic about the size of a grain of rice. “New generation, just out. Japanese, of course.”
I removed a pack of bills from the bag and slid a twenty from the middle. A tiny drop of glue stuck the transponder to the currency, which I reinserted into the pack. “If they take the money and leave the bag, we’ll still know where they are.”
Bernie said, “What will you do when you find them?”
“Don’t know. Depends in part on who they are. I’ll think of something.” I picked up the red backpack along with my bag. “Better get going. Might be traffic in the tunnel. Where do you want me to call?”
“We’ll be here,” Bernie said. “Good luck.”
* * *
I walked north through the all but empty, muggy streets. I keep the Potemkin in a garage on Pearl Street. I keep the Vlost and Found company car—a black 2003 Ford Crown Victoria, Police Interceptor model—in an open lot on Water Street. I call it the Valdez, after the ill-fated tanker, not the Madison Avenue coffee character. It has seventy-five thousand miles on the odometer, dents in the front fender and back door, and cost $9,800. It’s essentially a Crown Vic with a bunch of extra features and equipment and drives like its namesake, but it’ll move when you ask it to, and I couldn’t care less if it gets nicked, dinged, or totaled. A perfect New York City car.
I tossed the bags in back and headed for the Holland Tunnel, where it was still rush hour. I wanted to arrive early, get the lay of the land. The dashboard clock read 8:33 when I left. At 9:02, I pulled into the Sheraton’s parking lot. I found a space near the entrance and sat in the dusk. It felt a little like the old days, when I’d been stationed here before—meeting an agent when exposure for either of us had dire consequences. This time, though, I hadn’t chosen the venue, and the dire consequences would all fall on me.
I watched the parking lot in the failing light. If I were doing this, I’d have a man in the lot, two in the lobby, and two upstairs, in the room next door or, better, across the hall, all connected with earphone radios. Their first concern would be the money, their second, me. No reason for them to do anything so long as I followed instructions. Which I fully intended to do. Up to a point.
At 9:42, a car drove in, its headlights sweeping across the Valdez and the front of the hotel. It parked on the other side of the entrance. A man in a rumpled sports coat got out and unloaded a wheeler suitcase from the trunk. It was red. Shit. Nothing I could do. I held my breath as he pulled it to the front door. He stopped in the lighted entranceway to search his pockets. It took forever before he found what he was looking for—his cell phone. I almost got out and yelled at him to keep moving, but nobody attacked him. Nobody came out to greet him. From what I could see, there was nobody to pay him any attention whatsoever. He finally continued inside. The parking lot returned to emptiness. I waited several more minutes before exhaling slowly. They knew who they were waiting for.
At 9:55, I slid a SIG Pro 9 mm handgun, a compact, double-action autoloader with a polymer frame and a ten-round magazine, into the backpack with the bills, working it down almost to the bottom. I don’t like guns. The result of having them pointed at me in my youth. I don’t carry one as a rule, but I wasn’t sure what I was in for tonight, so better safe than sorry. I figured the guy at the door, if there was a guy at the door, would search me and make sure the backpack contained the money, but he was unlikely to dump it out in the parking lot. Or so I hoped.
I locked the car, hoisted the backpack, and walked toward the entrance. The bright lights of the covered doorway cast everything around it in shadow. No doorman, no bellhop, no other guests, just a big, empty, well-lighted space. To walk into that, like the guy with the suitcase, was to present a target a blind man couldn’t miss from a quarter mile away. I stopped fifteen feet short, still in the shadows. Growing up in a Marxist bureaucracy teaches many things, and one of them is patience. I could stand there all night if need be. I was disobeying instructions, but if they meant me harm, I might get a half second of warning. I waited, stock-still, one eye on the door, peripheral vision searching the parking lot for any sign of movement among the cars.
Newark is known as a tough town, but it’s not Moscow. Nobody shot me from the shadows. After two long minutes, a man in a dark-colored shirt pushed his way out the door and straight in my direction.
“Back to car,” he said without breaking stride.
He followed me to the Valdez. When we got there, he had a gun in his hand.
“Bag on car. Hands on car.” Ukrainian accent.
I put the backpack on the hood and my hands on the roof. He ran his free hand over my arms, legs, and torso. He opened the backpack, looked inside, shook it once, pulled out a pack of bills, fanned it, and replaced it. The one flaw in my plan was that he’d try to accompany me upstairs, but he put the backpack on the car, walked around to the other side, and said, “Go. Three twelve.”
I took the money and walked to the hotel without looking back.
The lobby was empty, but the cocktail lounge, on an open, raised floor to one side, was a third full. Could be another one there. I didn’t look but walked
straight to the elevators, the backpack over my shoulder for all to see, and punched 3. I transferred the SIG to my waistband during the ride.
The door opened in a small waiting area. Empty corridors ran in both directions. Room 312 was to the right. Door ajar, as promised. I pushed it open and stopped. No movement. No sound, other than the hum of hotel machinery and a TV somewhere down the hall.
Inside the door, a narrow hall extended past a closet and bathroom on the left into the room itself, which was filled with a king-sized bed, a desk, and a chair. Standard hotel design.
I had just put the backpack on the bed when I heard a noise. I started to turn, but a blow landed on the back of my head. Something hard, knocking me forward, onto the bed. I held myself up, which was a mistake because it got me another crack on the skull. I fell to the floor, woozy but conscious and alert enough to pretend I was out cold. A foot poked my side a couple of times. I refused to move and tried to keep my breathing slow and steady.
A male voice, speaking Ukrainian, said, “Watch him while I get the money.”
I heard the sounds of the backpack being emptied. The same voice spoke again.
“Jerk-fuck thinks he smart. Look at this.”
The other man said, “Shit. You think that’s—”
“Not now, fool! Search him. Get his keys—and anything else.”
The other man bent over me. Vodka on his breath. I felt his hands in my jacket pocket. When he tried to push me over, I pulled the SIG from my back and stuck it in his face.
“Back off.”
The man pulled away fast, afraid. The other man said, “Shit!” and bolted for the door, carrying a blue backpack.
“Looks like it’s you and me, pal.” I made a show of raising the gun.
“No … I … Please…”
He backed slowly away, as if any sudden movement would cause me to fire.
“Get out,” I hissed.
He was gone in an instant, leaving a Raven MP-25, a true junk gun, on the bed.
I hefted the pistol and ejected the clip. Full, but the safety was on. He’d probably hit me with the butt. I felt the back of my head. Some swelling near the base of the skull, a little blood, not too much. These guys were amateurs, and incompetent ones at that, but the fact that they were Ukrainians was one more coincidence I didn’t like.