by Rick Acker
“I did not think of this,” admitted a crestfallen Dr. Ivanovsky. “I am sorry. Can we use it now?”
“Maybe. The judge will be angry, and he may well bar us from using it, as a sanction for intentionally withholding it during discovery.” Ben glanced at his client’s morose face and slumped shoulders and decided not to push the matter further. “Get it to me as soon as you can and we’ll talk more after I’ve had a chance to look at it. But I interrupted you—what happened next?”
“Mostly you know already. I found this box at the American Union Bank, which Alexei Zinoviev had rented under one of the false names and paid much advance rent, maybe because he worried he might go to jail. There were many papers to sign, because Alexei was dead and Nicki was the only one left from his family and the box key was lost. Nicki said to me to take care of all these things and he will give the box to me, but I must pay him $5,000 right away. So I paid him $5,000 and I took care of these papers so he can get in the box, but then he says we have no deal. I think it is because he looked in the box and showed it to his gangster friends who will give him the $100,000 he said in the court, or maybe even more.”
“And if they get it, who knows what’ll happen?” Ben sat in silence for several seconds, considering the possibilities. Sergei Spassky had reported that the Brothers ran a lucrative smuggling operation under the cover of their import/export business. Who would they ship this particular item to? North Korea? Al-Qaeda? Some new enemy that hadn’t yet entered America’s nightmares? “We need to tell the FBI.”
“No!” Dr. Ivanovsky almost shouted. “Did you not hear what I said? The American state killed all those persons in the facility and the delivery man! The American state brought Variant D here and put it in this box! Then they lost it in some way before they could study it or make a weapon with it. I thank God very, very much that this happened. I will not now give it to them!”
“You would rather give it to the Brothers?” asked Ben incredulously. “You’d give it to them, but not your friend at Fort Detrick?”
“The man at Fort Detrick I would maybe trust with this, but he is ordered by generals that I do not trust. Nuclear bombs were discovered by scientists but taken by generals to kill many persons. Scientists are tools of generals, Ben, and generals always want new ways to kill persons.”
Ben couldn’t believe his ears. “I’d trust generals before I’d trust the Brothers. Imagine what would happen if they decided to use Variant D for extortion or sold it to terrorists.”
“I already imagined this,” said Dr. Ivanovsky with a drawn face. “I imagine it now. This is why I gave money to Nicki Zinoviev—so I could destroy what is in this box. And this is why I gave so much money to you to win this case.” Ben squirmed inwardly as that shot went home. “Thousands, maybe millions, of persons would die if terrorists use Variant D, but with generals it would be much worse. Generals have never in all history had weapons they do not use sometime. Remember, Ben, American generals used nuclear bombs against cities. They are the only ones to ever do this. I will not give Variant D to them.”
“But that was during a war,” protested Ben, “and they’ve never used bioweapons.”
“You think there will be no more wars?” retorted Dr. Ivanovsky. “And it is not correct that Americans never used bioweapons. One big example of these weapons was when Americans gave blankets with smallpox to Red Indians during a war. Very, very many of them died.”
Ben studied Dr. Ivanovsky’s resolute, almost defiant face and knew there was no way he was going to change the old man’s mind. Ben also needed time to think more before making his next move. He was playing a game whose rules he did not know and which he must not lose. “Okay. Well, I don’t think there’s much more for us to talk about right now. I need to get to work on this motion for reconsideration, and you need to send me that document—and anything else I haven’t seen that is at all connected with this case.”
Dr. Ivanovsky nodded sharply. “I will do this right away. I will call to you tonight to ask how this motion is progressing.”
Ben walked back to his office and stood in front of the window, staring down the street. The gray early-November clouds were dumping snow on the city. Not the fluffy, soft, snow-globe kind, but the hard, granular kind that stings when carried on a sharp wind like the one blowing now. The snow made a sizzling hiss as it drove against the window before swirling away.
“So what do I do now?” he asked himself.
His immediate impulse was to call the FBI. If Dr. Ivanovsky was telling the truth—and Ben strongly suspected he was—then this was obviously no longer something he could handle on his own. In fact, it was something he had neither the ability nor the desire to handle at all. The entire situation should be handed off to law enforcement as soon as possible.
An ugly thought occurred to him: Would calling the Bureau cost him his law license? The attorney-client privilege ordinarily prohibits attorneys from revealing communications from their clients, but maybe there was an exception for this kind of situation.
He pulled his ethics treatise out of the bookshelf and found his answer. To his relief, Illinois—unlike some other states—contained a specific exception to the privilege that allowed a lawyer to tell authorities if his client intended to commit a crime. And Ben was pretty sure that Dr. Ivanovsky would be committing lots of crimes just by getting possession of Variant D, regardless of what he did with it.
But the more he thought about calling the FBI, the less it seemed like a good idea. Although Ben didn’t know much about criminal law, he thought that the Bureau could probably get into the box if they wanted to. But would they want to?
The local FBI office had been the target of harsh public criticism in the past couple of months for obtaining terrorism-related warrants based on secondhand and, in retrospect, faulty intelligence. There had been high-profile raids and arrests, followed by awkward questions in the newspapers, followed in turn by an internal investigation that had led an embarrassed and furious local US attorney to drop all charges. Two agents had been fired and others transferred, and several of the arrestees had already filed lawsuits against the government.
So even if the Bureau could technically get a warrant, they might well insist on interviewing Dr. Ivanovsky first. He would probably vigorously deny Ben’s story. Would a gun-shy FBI then be willing to stick its neck out by asking for a warrant? Ben doubted it.
Talking to the FBI also risked destroying Ben’s relationship with Dr. Ivanovsky. The man had told Ben his story in confidence and would likely view Ben’s breach of that confidence as a betrayal. That confidence was qualified, of course—as Ben had warned his client. Still, Ben strongly suspected that Dr. Ivanovsky would fire him if he found out that Ben had leaked information to the government.
Another option would be to fire Dr. Ivanovsky as a client. He had lied to Ben and was using him to commit a crime, either of which gave Ben firm ethical grounds—and possibly a duty—to withdraw. It would be a clean, simple solution. He could walk away from this suddenly disturbing case and back into a life where the most important thing he had to think about was how much money he could wring out of the defendants in Circuit Dynamics.
Then what happens? he asked himself bitterly. Dr. Ivanovsky might try to hire another lawyer, but he likely wouldn’t have enough money to do so, based on the bank statements he had shown Ben. Besides, he might not be a great fan of the legal profession after Ben pulled out at a crucial juncture. So Dr. Ivanovsky would probably wind up representing himself against Anthony Simeon. Ben had no doubt how that contest would play out. And then there would be nothing to do but scan the papers for reports of people bleeding through their eyes.
He shivered and watched the monochrome sky slowly darken into a long, cold night. If he kept litigating the case as he had, he would probably lose and the Brothers would get Variant D. If he talked to the FBI, the most likely outcome was that they wouldn’t
search the box but would talk to Dr. Ivanovsky—and Ben would be lucky to stay on the case, let alone win. If he withdrew, Dr. Ivanovsky would probably wind up fighting and losing the case alone. There were no good options, and Ben could not tell which was the least bad.
He closed his eyes and prayed silently, asking for guidance and pleading that the horror in the box would never escape. When he opened his eyes, the sky was completely black. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “So what do I do now?” he asked again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT
Ben called Sergei at eight o’clock the next morning. Last night, while retelling Dr. Ivanovsky’s story to Noelle, it had occurred to him that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a PI try to verify at least some of the details before making any decisions. Noelle had agreed. She had also pointed out that Sergei was ex-FBI and would have a much better feel for how the Bureau would react. And Sergei was covered by the attorney-client privilege, meaning that Ben could talk to him without violating any duty of confidentiality that he owed Dr. Ivanovsky.
When Sergei didn’t answer his office phone, Ben called his cell. “Hello. Sergei Spassky.”
“Sergei, it’s Ben. I need your help on a follow-up project to the Zinoviev investigation. It’s urgent.”
“What is it?”
Ben hesitated. “It’s pretty sensitive. I’d rather not discuss it over the phone.”
Sergei paused. “That serious, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll be right over.”
Ben suddenly realized that there was no reason why his phone would be bugged and his office wouldn’t. “I’ll meet you on the street,” he said quickly.
Twenty minutes later, Ben spotted the detective coming out of a nearby parking garage and walked over to meet him. “So what’s going on?” Sergei asked.
Ben kept an eye on the other pedestrians as he and Sergei walked along the street. He recounted his conversation with Dr. Ivanovsky. “So I need to know two things,” he said after finishing his story. “First, is he telling the truth? Second, what would the FBI do if I told them?”
“And third, has someone bugged your phone or your office?”
“That too.”
“I’ll come by this afternoon and check your office and phones. I don’t have the right equipment in my car. What would the Bureau do if you told them?” He paused thoughtfully. “Well, for starters they’d probably go get a warrant and search the box.”
“They would do that? Even after the al-Fawaz mess?”
“Yeah. Getting a search warrant is pretty easy these days, particularly if there’s a legitimate national-security concern—and this sounds a lot more legitimate than what went on in that al-Fawaz case. Dr. Ivanovsky’s background and allegations ought to be enough, even if we don’t give them his name.”
“And whether we give his name or not, they won’t have any trouble guessing it’s him, will they?” asked Ben.
“Nope. They’ll pull him in for questioning no matter what’s in the box. He tells a pretty scary story.”
The moment that happened, Dr. Ivanovsky would fire him. If the box held the Variant D sample and the notes—and if there were no more surprises—then it would be worth destroying his relationship with his client. But this case had produced a lot of surprises so far, and Ben didn’t want to burn any bridges if there was even the smallest chance that he would need them later. Besides, there was no immediate risk that anyone would get into the box.
Ben frowned. “He won’t take that well. Can you think of a way to check out his story without having the FBI interview him?”
“That could be a problem,” Sergei conceded. He walked in silence for several seconds, staring at the sidewalk. Then he stopped and looked up with a smile on his face. “Nicki’s brother. If he really was running some kind of op for the CIA, there’ll be a file on it somewhere.”
“You think we can get it?”
“No, but I think just raising the subject will be enough. If there’s something there, they’ll be calling me to talk, and I can simply point them to the box without ever raising Dr. Ivanovsky’s name.”
Ben smiled with relief. “I like it.”
“And if there’s not something there, you probably don’t want to be calling the Bureau in the first place.”
Sergei was busy with an industrial-espionage investigation all morning and part of the afternoon, but he couldn’t help thinking about Dr. Ivanovsky’s story. Was it true? Ben seemed to think so, but he hadn’t spent nearly as much time with secretive Russians as Sergei had. Sergei knew that a lot of strange and worrying things had gone on in the Soviet Union, and he had no doubt that Dr. Ivanovsky had been involved in some of them. But that didn’t necessarily mean that he was telling the truth about this alleged Ebolapox virus or Alexei Zinoviev. Sergei had dealt with people like this before, and in his experience they were not particularly reliable. The Soviet system had encouraged habitual lying and concealment, especially among those who worked in its secret programs.
He grabbed a late lunch and called a friend from the Bureau as he ate. “Hi, James, it’s Sergei. I’m trying to run down information on a possible CIA project from 1985.”
“So why are you calling the FBI?”
“Because the Agency shares its database with you but not with me.”
“You know I can’t give you classified information.”
“Of course not, but not everything in there is classified. I’d call Langley, but you know how those guys are. If you ask them what time it is, they’ll tell you it’s classified, particularly if you’re FBI. I’d rather not spend a month doing FOIA paperwork just to find out there’s nothing there.”
“I hear you. Okay, if you’re not looking for classified stuff, it shouldn’t be a problem. What do you want?”
“I’m looking for a guy named Alexei Zinoviev, Z-I-N-O-V-I-E-V. Was he involved in a CIA op in 1985?”
Sergei heard the sound of typing, then several seconds of silence. “Man, this thing is slow,” commented James. “You’d almost think they don’t want us searching their files.”
Sergei chuckled. “By the way, how do you like working with those guys?” James and a few other FBI agents had been posted to the CIA to facilitate information flow between the two organizations.
“I just got my security clearance, so they’ll actually let me touch their computers now. I used to have to write down the search request on a form and have one of their people do it. They’re good guys by and large, just a totally different mind-set.”
The rules requiring information sharing among the various intelligence agencies were particularly galling to the CIA. The Agency viewed the FBI as a bunch of glorified cops. In their view, FBI agents were—at best—excess baggage, and at worst, simpleminded police detectives who would screw up delicate intelligence-gathering operations.
Part of the problem was the different missions of the two organizations: the CIA’s principal goal was to collect and analyze information; the FBI’s was to enforce the law. If the Agency discovered an international crime ring, for instance, it would want to learn everything it could about the players, their methods, their connections to foreign governments, and so forth. The FBI would want to start arresting people. And once the arrests started, the intelligence sources generally vanished.
“Here we go,” said James at last. “The only stuff we’ve got on Zinoviev comes out of our own files. Nothing from the Agency. If they have anything, it should be in here, but I’ll ask them to do a file search anyway.”
“Thanks.”
“By the way, this guy looks like a real winner. According to our unclassified stuff, he was a smuggler who got himself shot to death by someone with an East European piece—probably a Makarov. No witnesses or arrests. Typical.”
“I know,” said Sergei. “It’s amazing how bad
people’s vision and hearing get during Russian-on-Russian crimes.” Russian immigrants were generally distrustful of authority, particularly law enforcement, an attitude many of them had learned the hard way in the Soviet Union.
“No kidding. By the way, he has a brother you might want to talk to.”
“Had,” Sergei corrected.
Sergei finished his lunch and headed back to his office at a brisk walk. He would bring his debugging equipment to Ben’s offices, do a sweep, and hopefully be back behind his desk by two thirty, which would give him time to get through a stack of files before going out for dinner and the Bulls game with some friends that evening.
About halfway back to the office, Sergei suddenly realized he had left his briefcase—which held his cell phone and several sensitive files—in the restaurant where he had eaten lunch. He spun around and started jogging back. As he did so, he noticed a man about a half block behind, staring at him. The man froze for a split second, then turned quickly and looked into a display window full of women’s shoes.
“Amateur,” Sergei muttered as he ran. He was irritated that he was being tailed, but even more annoyed that he hadn’t realized it sooner.
On impulse, Sergei stopped as he passed the man and said, “Never freeze. Never stare.”
The man mumbled something inaudible, and Sergei patted him on the back and ran on.
By the time he reached the restaurant, Sergei regretted having spoken to the man. It was a stupid, impetuous move that had made him feel good, but it was almost certainly counterproductive. Now the tail would be more careful, and he would have a special motivation for beating the detective who had humiliated him.