“Mrs. Hogan, I know you’re upset but—”
“Upset? Oh, aye, I’m upset all right. And know this, Mr. Thomas Dugan, it’ll be a cold day in Hell before you set your feet under my table again.”
The line went dead, and Dugan sat holding the receiver a moment, then slowly returned it to its cradle. Feelings were obviously running high all around, and after everyone started coming down from the euphoria of Cassie and Karina’s survival, he was quite sure the realization that he’d kept the news from them all wasn’t going to endear him to anyone, regardless of the justification. The clear implication was that none of them were to be trusted with the secret.
Perhaps things might go better in his absence, but how would he explain that? He hesitated a moment and picked up the phone again, dialing Gillian’s mobile phone and hoping she wasn’t with Mrs. Hogan when she answered.
“Hello,” Gillian said.
“Gillian, this is Tom. Ahh… I just had a call from Mrs. Hogan and—”
“And it didn’t go well, I presume? That would account for all the muttered curses and slamming cabinet doors I hear coming from the kitchen.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m calling about. I really didn’t mean to upset anyone when I called Father O’Malley—”
“No, actually you were right to do that. To be honest, I was already thinking along those lines. I wouldn’t have agreed to cancel the gathering otherwise.”
“About that. I assumed that even though the larger gathering was canceled that we could come over to the house after the service, but maybe that’s not such a good idea.”
“Don’t be silly, Tom. Of course, you and Anna must come, and Ilya and young Nigel as well. I just assumed that would be the case. Don’t even think about not coming. And by the way, since we’re forgoing the post-service gathering, I’ve moved the service to late morning. It will be at ten thirty.”
Try as he might, Dugan couldn’t think of a way to refuse gracefully.
“Okay. We’ll be there.”
St. Petersburg
Russian Federation
Borgdanov was once again sitting in Starbucks, consistency being part and parcel of his cover identity. While a man on the run might skulk in the shadows, Ukrainian textile buyer Vasily Gagarin was conspicuous by his mundane daily routine. In truth, there was little to hide, as he was having less than stellar success with his recruitment mission. He’d already lowered his expectations and begun to consider how best to use his limited resources.
He caught movement from the corner of his eye and glanced casually to the right. It was the man he’d seen come in a bit earlier, expensively dressed and carrying a leather briefcase, but it was his face rather than his clothing that caught the eye. He was horribly disfigured, thick ropes of burn scar extending up out of his collar and across the right side of his face. His body was twisted, one shoulder and hip higher than the other, and his ruined face bore the lines of constant pain as he shuffled toward the exit, dragging his right leg. Poor bastard. Borgdanov looked away, fighting the urge to stare.
As the man passed Borgdanov’s table, he stumbled and grabbed the back of an empty chair and the edge of the table for support, dropping his briefcase in the process.
“Oh! Excuse me,” the man said as he regained his balance.
“No problem.” Borgdanov stood and reached down to retrieve the briefcase. “Here, let me help.”
“Most kind of you.” The man took the case from Borgdanov and gave him a twisted smile. “Most kind of you, indeed. Thank you very much.”
Borgdanov nodded. There was something familiar about the man. The voice perhaps.
“You’re welcome,” he said to the man’s back as the stranger shuffled for the door, faster now, with an obvious sense of urgency.
Very strange. Borgdanov sat back down and picked up his newspaper. Something fluttered out of it to the floor, and he glanced down to see a folded square of white paper. On the front of it in block letters was printed BORGDANOV.
He stared down at the paper a long moment, willing his heart rate back to normal, then reached down casually, picked it up, and unfolded it.
YOU ARE NOT AS INVISIBLE AS YOU THINK. MEET ME AT 2AM. WHERE YOU FIRST TRIUMPHED. COME ALONE. A FRIEND.
1 AM
Kairouz Residence
London, UK
Fedosov crouched in the shrubbery watching the house, a suitcase on either side of him, eager to get to the task at hand. He’d been nervous when he’d monitored the bugs throughout the day, unsure how the cancellation of the gathering impacted his plan. The last call from the American confirming the presence of all three targets had come as a great relief. The entire thing was working out well, actually much better than he could ever have hoped. He’d been a bit nervous about targeting a gathering where he was unsure about the guest list — it would be just his luck to blow up a Member of Parliament or some other important personage — and identifying the potential victims specifically and reducing the collateral damage was an unexpected boon. The only question now was when the occupants of the house would go to bed.
Finally the lights on the ground floor began to wink out until only the study window showed a light. He heard raised voices muffled by the closed window and saw shadows on the glass indicating movement within, but finally that light was extinguished as well. Twenty minutes later, the lights on the second story went dark, and Fedosov let out a relieved sigh. He waited an additional half hour to allow the occupants time to fall asleep and then crept through the darkness to the small basement window, a suitcase in each hand.
Vavilovich Street
St. Petersburg
Russian Federation
Borgdanov stood well back in the shadows of a narrow alley, watching the front of the abandoned school building across the street. He’d arrived two hours earlier, casually strolling down the near deserted streets surrounding the old school, walking at least two blocks in every direction. Satisfied, he’d come back to wait in the shadows of the alley, shifting his weight from foot to foot and reliving all of his actions since he’d arrived in the country, racking his brain for what he’d done wrong.
He heard a faint noise and moved cautiously to the entrance to the alley to peer around the corner of the building. Far up the empty street at the edge of one of the few working streetlights, a figure approached, dragging his right foot. Borgdanov reached into his coat pocket and wrapped his hand around the grip of his pistol, then faded back into the alley to wait.
Long minutes later, his quarry limped into view, stopping at the gate in a tall chain-link fence beside the school building. Borgdanov saw the man reach into his pocket and extract something, then heard the metallic rattle of a chain on metal — he had a key and was unlocking the gate.
The man disappeared into the darkened schoolyard, leaving the gate standing open — an invitation. Borgdanov stared at the open gate a long moment, then hurried across the street and into the school yard, his hand still gripping the gun in his pocket. He moved through the darkness of the narrow side yard from memory, sensing rather than seeing when it opened onto the spacious school yard behind the building. He yearned to use the small flashlight in his other pocket, but feared making himself an even better target than he already was. He jumped at a sound to his right and spun in that direction, gun in hand.
“Good evening, Dyusha,” said a voice from the darkness. “Thank you for coming. I can’t see well, but I assume you are pointing a gun in my direction. If so, please put it away. You have nothing to fear from me, and I doubt you could hit me in the dark anyway.”
“Ar-Arkady … Arkady Baikov?”
“Very good, Dyusha, but I am surprised you recognized me. I’ve changed a bit since last we saw each other as schoolboys.”
“It was your voice and the fact that you wanted to meet here. Though I wasn’t really sure until you spoke again just now. But wh-what happened to you? Was it an accident?”
The man laughed, but there was no humor in it. “An ac
cident? Hardly. As you may recall, most people here are not so accepting of those of us who are different. Those that view us as anything more than freakish curiosities seem to feel somehow threatened by us. One evening after a drinking session, some of our more intellectually challenged countrymen decided it would be good fun to set a freak on fire. They caught me coming out of a restaurant, dragged me into a nearby alley, then tied me up. Then they poured petrol all over me and lit it. I still remember their drunken laughter before I lost consciousness.”
“My God! How could you survive?”
“My screams attracted a crowd, who chased the bastards away and doused me with rain water that had collected in a bunch of discarded buckets in the alley.” He paused. “Apparently they didn’t know I was a freak.”
“But how did the bastards even know about… you know?”
“How does anyone know anything? They observe, they suspect, they guess. How long can one avoid sports and locker room showers with medical excuses? Doctors’ offices have nurses, and secretaries, and file clerks, and my condition is just too interesting not to discuss. People always find out somehow. How did you find out about me when we were schoolmates?”
Borgdanov didn’t answer right away. “I overheard my aunt tell my mother and warn her not to let me associate with you.”
Borgdanov heard the pain in Arkady’s laugh. “You never were very obedient, but you see my point, da? Gossip is a most efficient means of communication. But I’ve always been curious. Even after you knew, you were the only one who didn’t shun me. Who would have thought, Andrei Nikolaevich Borgdanov, the most popular fellow in school, captain of the wrestling team and city champion, would maintain a friendship with the hermaphrodite freak, the ‘he-she.’ Why, Dyusha?”
“As you said, Arkady, we were friends. One does not abandon a friend because he has a medical condition beyond his control. I… I was sorry when we lost touch with each other after you moved and changed schools.”
“Sorry, Dyusha? Or relieved? I tried to contact you several times, but you never returned my phone calls or answered my letters.”
Borgdanov said nothing, and after a long silence Arkady sighed in the darkness.
“It’s all right, Dyusha. I know it was difficult to stand by me, and you stood firmly when I most needed you. I cannot fault you if you tired of being my sole support. To be honest, I was a bit tired of myself, and I’m sure my being out of sight made it quite easy for me to be out of mind as well,” Arkady said. “But enough of that, I didn’t meet you to discuss old times. You are in great danger.”
Borgdanov stiffened. “What? How can you know—”
“What you’re doing? Quite easily, my old friend. I am the chief of data analysis for the Federal Security Service for St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, and you’ve apparently made enemies in very high places. I was tasked with finding out everything about you and your friend Sergeant Denosovitch. I have been following your activities for the last two days.”
Borgdanov tightened his grip on the gun. “So you intend to denounce me?”
Arkady chuckled. “Hardly. If that was my intent, I would not meet with a fellow your size in a deserted school yard, now would I? No, I came to warn you — and to help you.”
Borgdanov weighed the gun in his hand but said nothing. He hadn’t seen Arkady in over twenty years. Could he be trusted?
“Some days ago,” Arkady continued, “I got a call from Vladimir Glazkov, the Chief of the FSB here in St. Petersburg. He gave me Denosovitch’s name, which meant nothing to me, and then added yours as Denosovitch’s former commander and known associate. I was to provide him background information on you both — which I did, of course — and also to attempt to track your movements. Of course, I recognized your name, and rather than assign the task to one of my subordinates, I kept it for myself.”
“How did you find me? I thought I was being quite careful.”
“Remarkably so. I couldn’t really watch you out of the country, and since I wasn’t sure when, or even if you’d return, I initiated surveillance on all your old comrades. When a rather slovenly Ukrainian textile buyer visited three or four of your ex-Spetsnaz comrades in a forty-eight-hour period, that was a bit suspicious. And as clever as your disguise is, it could not fool the facial recognition software.”
“Who else knows?”
“No one, Dyusha. Kill me now and your secret is safe. I know that’s what you’re thinking, old times notwithstanding. But I think you should hear me out first.”
Borgdanov considered the alternatives. Nothing pointed to treachery on Arkady’s part. He had so far done nothing illegal in Russia, so the FSB had no grounds to pick him up, and if Arkady was supplying intelligence to the Bratstvo, the mob would have surely attacked him by now. Whatever the threat, it wasn’t Arkady. He slipped the gun into his pocket.
“Go on, then.”
“I don’t know exactly what you’re doing, but my research showed that Denosovitch’s niece disappeared some months ago. Also Glazkov directed me to look into a British couple named Kairouz and an American named Dugan, all in London. That led me to news reports of the recent police activities against the Russian mob in the UK.” Arkady paused. “My conclusion is that the Bratstvo is heavily involved, and that you are somehow attempting to mount some sort of action against them. How am I doing so far?”
Borgdanov said nothing, then flinched as ten feet away, Arkady struck a match, bathing them both momentarily in a circle of light as the flame flared. The flare died to a small flame, illuminating Arkady’s twisted face as he held the match between cupped hands to light a cigarette. Borgdanov studied the face, not worried about staring now. Beneath the scars, the face looked drawn and jaundiced.
Arkady shook out the match and took a long drag on the cigarette, causing the tip to burn brightly, and Borgdanov heard him exhale audibly into the night air and smelled the cigarette smoke.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Dyusha,” Arkady said. “You probably know the Bratstvo has powerful connections to the police and the FSB, but what you may fail to understand is that, here in St. Petersburg at least, the Bratstvo IS the FSB. You’ve no chance against them without my help.”
“Forgive me, Arkady, but how can you help me?”
“I already have, because you’re not being beaten in some squalid dungeon, nor do you have a bullet in your head. But I can do much more. Hold out your hand.”
Borgdanov did as requested, and he saw Arkady dimly, as the man approached out of the deeper shadows. He felt something hit his palm.
“That is a flash drive,” Arkady said. “On it you will find complete information on the leadership of the FSB and their complementary ranks in the Bratstvo. There are also other things — very powerful things. With this information, who knows, you may even survive.”
Borgdanov felt the hair rising on the back of his neck. Things that seemed too good to be true usually were.
“How did you get this information?”
“Is it not obvious? In addition to my FSB duties, I am a member of the Bratstvo. They do not like ‘freaks’ any better than anyone else, but my skills as a data analyst are unsurpassed, and because of this, they tolerate me.”
“Arkady, how could you join these murderous pigs? Do you know what they have done? What they continue to do to innocent people?”
“I suppose that’s a rhetorical question, Dyusha, since it is obvious I know what they do. As far as how I could join, everyone has their price, and the Bratstvo met mine. The four bastards that set me on fire died horrible deaths, and this time I got to light the match.”
Borgdanov said nothing for a long time, trying to process what he’d just heard.
“So why give this to me? And why now?”
“I’m giving it to you because you will obviously need it, and other than my parents you are the only human being on the face of the earth who has ever treated me decently. And I’m giving it to you now because it no longer makes any difference to me.�
��
“What do you mean? If I use this information against the Bratstvo, it may harm you as well. Or worse, they will suspect you gave it to me. I cannot imagine what they will do to you.”
Arkady’s laughter seemed genuine this time. “I am afraid God, if he exists, has beaten them to it, old friend. Six months ago I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The doctors give me six weeks to live. But don’t worry. The pain is already quite exquisite, and I suspect it will feel like much, much longer.” He laughed again. “In any event, I don’t intend to wait around and find out. In a few days, I will enjoy a fine meal, drink a toast to my one and only true friend Andrei Nikolaevich Borgdanov, and eat the barrel of my pistol for dessert.”
“I… I have some contacts in the West. They have advanced treatments for—”
Borgdanov heard another chuckle, then watched the bright tip of the cigarette fall to the ground and disappear as Arkady crushed it underfoot. He sensed his old friend moving even closer and flinched in surprise as he felt hands on his shoulders, and smoker’s breath washed over him.
“Dyusha, do not worry so. I have no place in this world. I never have. My parents are dead, and I have no other family. My life has been nothing but pain with promises of more to come. I joined the Bratstvo for revenge, and for a while took some perverse satisfaction in inflicting pain on others. But there was no real solace there — I know that now. I’ve done much harm, and my soul is as twisted and tortured as this body. But if life was once unfair, it is no longer, for now I have earned this fate.” Borgdanov saw him smile in the dim light. “Besides, we are Russian! Tragedy is in our genes, is it not? And you always were one to hog the spotlight. Let me be center stage for once, old friend. Take this gift I give you, and let me die the flawed and tragic hero/villain.” Arkady laughed again.
Borgdanov nodded, unable to speak, and Arkady pulled the big man into his embrace and then stood on tiptoe to kiss both his cheeks. Then he pushed Borgdanov away.
“We don’t have much time, and I want to make sure you fully appreciate the power of this gift. The Bratstvo is a huge organization, and like all such entities, now runs on computers. I was instrumental in managing the development of the systems they use and included on the flash drive is a file with the source code for many of their most critical applications. Buried in the code are multiple ‘back doors’ to allow undetected access to the systems. There are my notes there as well. This will likely all be gibberish to you, my friend, but I assure you that in skilled hands there is no end to the damage this can do. Wield the weapon sparingly and well. Do you understand?”
Deadly Crossing (Tom Dugan 2) Page 26