by Rick Acker
“Yes, there is,” Ben said. “I still need someone to authenticate this document in court. All I can tell the judge right now is that some nameless person sent this to me in the mail. I need someone who can testify that this is a real document reflecting a real meeting where Nicki really said those things. I’ll need the informant to do that. Otherwise, there’s no way I’ll be able to get this into evidence.”
Sergei could hear paper rustling in the background as Ben talked. “Ben, are you holding that document right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t. I’ll need to check it for fingerprints.”
“Oh. Good point.” Another rustle. “Okay, I put it down and I won’t touch it again till you’ve had a chance to look at it.”
“Thanks. I’m on my way over.”
Sergei wasn’t surprised to find that the only fingerprints on the paper were Ben’s. The informant had used voice-altering equipment on the phone to avoid being identified. He presumably would also be careful enough to use gloves in handling these pieces of paper. The envelope had lots of fingerprints on it, of course, but Sergei doubted that any of them belonged to the informant. Still, he carefully lifted each usable print he found.
Sergei then examined the minutes and envelope for any possible clues. The postmark showed that it had been mailed from downtown Chicago. The envelope was a generic business-size white one, and it contained no hair or other potential identifiers. The paper on which the minutes had been copied was twenty-pound generic copier paper. The stamp was a peel-off sticker, eliminating the possibility of DNA testing of dried saliva on the back. In short, the informant’s package was as clean and anonymous as possible.
“Whoever sent this was very careful,” Sergei told Ben when he finished his examination.
“Any idea who it was?” asked Ben.
Sergei briefly described his research and his tentative conclusion that Josef was the informant. “I was just going to watch and wait for him to contact you again, but I suppose it’s a little late for that now,” he concluded.
“Yeah,” agreed Ben. “He may call me again, but he may not.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, he probably won’t. He’ll think that by sending me this document, he’s given me everything I need.”
“So, where do you want to go from here?” asked Sergei.
“I’m going to call Josef and see if I can talk him into testifying.”
“Actually, it might be best if I talk to him,” said Sergei. “He’s obviously afraid of someone, probably the other Brothers. I can talk to him about realistic ways we can give him security. I also speak Russian and have more experience dealing with people like Josef, so I may be able to get a better result. No offense.”
“None taken. I appreciate your volunteering. Okay, talk to him, but it has to happen today or tomorrow.”
Sergei sat at a small table in a shadowy corner of a food court. Across the street was the old brownstone that held the Brothers’ offices. He looked out through the wall of plate glass, waiting for Josef Fedorov to appear. He glanced at his watch. It was 5:25 and the streets were full of commuters heading home. The Brothers didn’t keep regular business hours, but frequently they did go out for dinner at around 5:30.
Sergei took his eyes off the street for a few seconds to scan the food court. Three of the tables were occupied and about half a dozen people stood at the counters of various fast-food outlets, but Sergei noted with satisfaction that his tail was not among them. Ditching him had been simple—Sergei had merely gone back to his office after meeting with Ben, dropped off his briefcase, and left. He had taken the elevator down to the basement, where his building opened into one of the pedestrian tunnels that honeycombed the ground under the Loop. He had then taken the tunnel to the nearest El station and caught the train to the Brothers’ neighborhood. The tail was probably still sitting outside his building, waiting for him to emerge.
There he was. Josef Fedorov trotted down the steps and disappeared into the stream of pedestrians. Sergei rose from his seat and headed out at a brisk walk, his eyes scanning the crowd for Josef. Losing a target was always a danger in heavily traveled areas.
Sergei caught a glimpse of a black leather jacket like Josef’s thirty yards ahead of him and hurried to catch up. Running might attract attention, so he speed-walked with the determined haste of a commuter who was late for his train. He got a better view of the black jacket half a minute later and realized with a start that it wasn’t on Josef. He slowed down and angled toward the edge of the sidewalk, glancing up and down the street as if he was looking for a cab.
Nothing. Josef had vanished. Embarrassed, Sergei turned and headed back for the L station, making plans for catching Josef at his apartment building. He glanced in the window of a little hole-in-the-wall bar and grill that he hadn’t noticed before and saw a black leather jacket hanging on a chair. Bingo.
Sergei walked in and stood by the door for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the smoky gloom after the bright early-evening sun. When he could see clearly again, he noticed that Josef was already staring at him.
Sergei gave him a friendly smile and walked over to his table. “Dobry dyen, Josef,” he said as he sat down.
“Who are you?” Josef asked in English. His face was white and his voice shook.
“Sergei Spassky,” the detective said amicably, “but you already know that. And I’ll bet you also know why I’m here, so I’ll make this short. We appreciate the information you’ve provided about the contract between Nikolai Zinoviev and Mikhail Ivanovsky, but we need you to testify at trial.”
Josef started to sweat. “Get out of here! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Yes, you do,” Sergei said calmly. “Listen, I understand why you’re frightened. We can help with that. We can make security arrangements for you and take care of you.”
Josef leaned forward and hissed in Russian, “If you do not leave now, dog, I will kill you.”
Sergei’s friendly tone didn’t waver as he slipped into Russian. “I doubt that. By the way, testifying isn’t nearly as dangerous as not testifying. Either way, we’ll tell the judge that we think you made that call to Ben Corbin and sent him those documents. If you help us, we’ll protect you. If not, we won’t. It’s your decision. Call me or Mr. Corbin.” He pulled out a business card. “Here’s my number. You’ve already got Mr. Corbin’s.”
Sergei got up and walked out, leaving Josef sitting frozen, staring at the card. As Sergei left, he debated whether Josef really was the informant. The man’s fear, shock, and outrage had all seemed genuine, but that could mean either that he wasn’t the informant or that he hadn’t expected Sergei to be able to identify him. Not that it mattered much. Josef would be in almost as much danger if Ben identified him as the probable informant as he would be if he actually testified. Either way, he would need protection, and that meant he would have to cooperate—whether or not he had intended to when Sergei had walked into the restaurant. The detective chuckled as he reflected that even if he hadn’t found an informant, he had probably created one.
He was in an excellent mood as he went back to his office to wait for Josef’s call. In fact, he was so busy congratulating himself for outmaneuvering the Brothers that he forgot to reenter his building through the basement. Instead, he got off at his usual El station and walked in through the front door.
Across the street from the grill, Anton watched with growing rage as Josef—that treacherous little suka—sat talking to the scientist’s detective. They seemed like old friends. He couldn’t see Josef’s face, but the detective was smiling and gesturing as he talked. Now Josef was leaning forward to tell the man some secret, which made him smile again. They chatted for a minute more and the detective put a small card on the table for Josef, then got up and left.
The detective walked out of the restaurant with a satisfied smile on his boyish face. Anton clenched hi
s large fists and visualized how good it would feel to smash that smile away permanently. But of course he couldn’t. He had business to attend to.
Josef picked the card up from the table, looked at it for a few seconds, and put it in his pocket as a waitress arrived with his meal. He ate slowly, paid his bill, and left.
Anton followed him, making sure to stay in the shadows.
Josef started walking back to the office, but he took a wrong turn and walked half a block to a bus station.
Anton waited for half a minute, then followed him in. Josef was standing at a bank of pay phones with his back to Anton, talking quietly. A business card lay on the little stainless-steel counter next to him.
Anton reached into his jacket and fingered his gun. It would be easy to take Josef here. The station was nearly empty, and he could probably get out before anybody could see him. But Dmitry had said that Josef should have an accident, and that was probably right. Anton removed his hand from his coat and slipped out of the station.
He jogged back to the office so he would have time to talk to Dmitry before Josef arrived. After he gave his report, the other man nodded. “You did the right thing. Killing him in public would have caused problems.”
Josef walked in just then. “Evening, Dima, Anton. What’s up?”
“Not much,” Dmitry said. “A little problem came up with that Chechen deal, but we’ve almost taken care of it.”
“Good. Let me know what happens, okay?”
As Josef shut his office door behind him, Dmitry said, “Of course.” He turned to Anton and said softly, “Make him disappear.”
At 1:35 a.m., the living room of the apartment was dark and silent. The remains of a Chinese takeout dinner sat on the coffee table between the leather sofa and the large TV, sharing space with several sports and news magazines. A Russian novel was propped open on one arm of the sofa, and the previous day’s newspaper lay strewn on the cushions of the matching love seat.
A scratching noise outside the window broke the late-night stillness. A dark shape crouched on the landing of the fire escape, bent over a small metal tool similar to the slim-jim device that tow-truck operators use to unlock car doors. The thin strip of metal appeared on the inside of the window just under the latch. It slowly moved up, pushing the latch open. The intruder removed the jimmy and eased the window open an inch. It creaked softly but audibly, so he took out a small aerosol can of oil and sprayed the hinges of the old-fashioned window. After a moment the window started to open again, this time soundlessly.
The shadowy figure popped out the screen, slipped through the open window, and dropped lightly to the floor. He was dressed all in black and wore a black ski mask. At his waist, he wore a belt lined with small pouches. A compact holster with a small pistol was strapped to his right thigh and a sheathed knife was on the left.
Drawing his gun, the man started across the room, hugging the wall as he cautiously made his way out of the living room and down the short hallway. A door stood half-open at the end of the hall, and the dark figure watched it closely as he edged forward. He stood outside the door for several seconds, listening. The stillness was disturbed only by a soft snoring and the faint sounds of the street outside. He looked inside and saw a man lying on his back in a large bed in the middle of the room, his sleeping face lit by the faint moonlight coming in through the window.
The intruder smiled in the darkness and put away his gun. The target had been positively identified, and he was alone and fast asleep. This would be quieter—and more satisfying—with the knife. As he pulled out the long, sharp blade and stepped toward the bed, a floorboard squeaked loudly under his foot.
The target lifted his head off the pillow and caught sight of the intruder in his bedroom. For an instant, both men froze. Then the intruder launched himself toward the bed, his knife aimed at the other man’s throat. The man in the bed gave a wordless shout as he rolled onto the floor, his hand feeling for a gun on the bedside table. In his haste and groggy clumsiness, he knocked it off and it fell to the floor with a loud thunk.
The intruder scrambled across the bed and slashed wildly at the figure on the floor. The other man grabbed the intruder’s knife arm and pulled him down, slamming his hand into the bed frame. The knife fell to the floor, and the two men grunted and cursed as they struggled in the narrow space between the bed and the wall.
The intruder landed a solid blow to the other man’s head and broke free. He reached for his gun, but the holster was empty. The pistol must have fallen out during the struggle. He looked around wildly and saw the knife on the floor behind him. He grabbed it and lunged at his enemy.
A flash and a loud bang broke the dark stillness of the night. A burst of sparks flew from the knife and the intruder cried out as pain shot up his right arm. He staggered back, then turned and ran. A second shot just missed him as he sprinted out of the bedroom. He raced across the living room and dove out the window. He heard a third shot reverberate above him as he slid down the fire escape. Simultaneously, a searing pain blossomed in his left arm as the bullet tore through his triceps. He fell as he reached the ground, and rolled under the edge of the second-floor balcony. Staggering to his feet, he ran to his waiting car to nurse his wounds and fight again another day.
Back in the apartment, Sergei Spassky sat shaking on the floor. He had been fine until he got off the phone with the police. There had been things he needed to do, people he needed to talk to. But now he could only sit and wait and reflect on what had just happened—and what could have happened. He fingered the deep scratch that stretched from his sternum to his left shoulder and did his best not to imagine what it would have felt like to wake up to a knife plunging into his chest. He glanced at the windows and swallowed hard, though he was virtually certain the assassin was long gone.
He decided to do some informal crime-scene investigation to take his mind off of gruesome could-have-beens. Beretta in hand, he got up and walked down the hall, making sure not to disturb anything for the professionals who would arrive in a few minutes. He noticed with grim satisfaction that there were drops of blood on the floor.
He got down on his hands and knees to look at the gun and knife that lay on his bedroom floor. The gun was a Glock 23—a small, reliable, high-powered pistol. Sergei looked at it for only a few seconds; it told him nothing except that his attacker knew handguns.
The knife was more interesting. It was a long fighting knife with a dagger point and a keen edge that ran the length of the blade and partway along the top. It looked like a Spetsnaz commando knife, but it wasn’t. Sergei was pretty sure that the Soviet military had never used handcrafted leather grips, and the blade appeared to be a custom high-carbon steel alloy. It was a beautiful knife; the only flaw was a large black dent in the grip and finger guard. Using a pencil, Sergei turned the knife over to get a better look. The dent appeared to be fresh. Sergei smiled coldly as he realized that it must have been caused by one of his shots. “I’ll bet that hurt,” he murmured.
He glanced around the room to see if his attacker had left anything else behind. A small black object in the corner caught his eye. After half a second, his mind identified it as the finger of a black glove. He crouched down for a closer look. The assassin’s finger was still inside. Sergei flinched back, then stood staring down at the severed digit. His smile returned as the shock faded and he started thinking like a detective again. You were careful not to leave any fingerprints, but you couldn’t help leaving a finger—and it’ll point straight back to you.
CHAPTER NINE
OPENING STATEMENTS
“Any luck?” Ben asked.
“Not yet,” Sergei admitted. “I can’t find him anywhere. He’s not returning calls, his apartment seems to be empty, and I haven’t seen him around the Brothers’ building.”
Ben leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “I thought you said he was going to testify. What happened?”
“I don’t know. I talked to him in the restaurant. Then he called me half an hour later and said he thought we could do business. He said he’d make me an offer, but he never did. These mafiya types disappear all the time for all sorts of reasons.”
“Well, is there anything you can do to find him?” Ben asked, frustration creeping into his voice. “Trial starts tomorrow, and I need him to testify—and I need you to make finding this guy your highest priority.”
Sergei looked down at his notes. Candidly, he knew he should have followed up on this sooner than he had. He had viewed the matter as basically closed once Josef had called him, and he had allowed other matters (particularly the intruder who had nearly killed him) to occupy his attention for most of the past two days. It wasn’t until yesterday evening—more than forty-eight hours after Josef’s phone call—that he’d begun trying to find the man. “I’ll keep on it. I know you need him by tomorrow morning at nine.”
“Don’t stop looking if you haven’t found him by then. That’s when our trial technically starts, but there’ll probably be some motion practice and procedural arguing for most of the morning. I can also put on other witnesses for a while to delay things, if need be. But I will need him, and the sooner the better. Without Josef Fedorov, we’re dead.”
By three o’clock that afternoon, Ben’s conference-room table was completely covered with paper. Noelle had spent most of the afternoon in the file room making copies of potential exhibits. Dr. Ivanovsky had dropped by after lunch, and for once Ben was glad to see him—the doctor was now checking the copies for missing pages and organizing them into neat stacks at one end of the table.
Ben sat at the other end, working on his opening statement. He murmured to himself in the middle of an untidy ring of court filings, deposition transcripts, scribbled notes, and accordion files of document productions, all liberally sprinkled with hundreds of annotated Post-its. He bent over a notepad bearing the latest outline of his statement, muttering and gesturing to an imaginary courtroom. Occasionally, he would fall silent and scribble on his pad or dig through a pile of papers for a document that had suddenly become important to his thinking.