by Rick Acker
Dr. Ivanovsky was careful not to disturb Ben with questions or suggestions. Indeed, he did not even feel tempted. It reassured him to see Ben at work. He looked like a scientist.
Sergei’s tail was gone. Or, more likely, his old tail had been replaced. Sergei wasn’t particularly surprised—it wasn’t unusual for surveillance operatives to be rotated, particularly when they were observing a cautious subject. Still, it was unnerving. Sergei thought about using the Petrograd trick again, but he didn’t have time to do that and find Josef. All he could do was try some countersurveillance techniques and try to ignore the feeling that someone was watching him.
Sergei decided that his best bet was to maintain a constant vigil of Josef’s apartment and his car, which was parked directly below the apartment. If Josef was still in the area, he would probably come home—or at least come for his car—at some point. But by midnight, he still had not shown himself, and Sergei was beginning to doubt that he would.
It was time to take a risk. Sergei slipped across the street and into the parking lot. He approached Josef’s car, staying out of the glow cast by the streetlights as much as possible. Fortunately, the car was in a dark corner of the lot. Sergei pulled out a small flashlight and played its beam over the interior of the car. A briefcase lay on the front passenger seat.
That was strange. Why would he leave his briefcase in his car?
He tried the door. It was unlocked. He got in and quickly searched through the briefcase. It contained a three-day-old newspaper, Sergei’s business card, some documents related to what appeared to be a deal to import beluga caviar, a travel itinerary for a flight to Russia leaving two days ago and returning tomorrow, and Josef’s passport. It took Sergei a few seconds to realize what that probably meant. He searched the rest of the car at a more leisurely pace, but found nothing relevant to the Ivanovsky case.
When he got back to his office, he dug out Ben Corbin’s home number and called him, despite the fact that it was nearly one o’clock in the morning. After five rings, a groggy voice said, “Hello?”
“Hi, Ben, it’s Sergei. Sorry to call you so late, but I just found out something you should know about. I don’t think Josef Fedorov will be testifying at trial.”
“Why not?”
“It looks like someone got to him before we did. My guess is that he’s dead.”
Promptly at nine o’clock, Ben stepped up to the podium, arranged his notes, and surveyed the courtroom. Directly in front of him, Judge Harris sat in a tall black chair behind his massive wooden bench, flanked by his clerk and bailiff. A court reporter sat on a small chair just in front of the bench, typing silently on her stenographic machine. Anthony Simeon and Janet Anderson were at the counsel table to Ben’s right, and three of the Brothers (Dmitry, Anton, and Pavel) sat immediately behind them in the first row of seats. Noelle sat at the counsel table to the left of the podium, surrounded by boxes of neatly organized exhibits. Dr. Ivanovsky fidgeted nervously in the first row, and an elderly woman in a long Slavic-looking dress and practical shoes sat next to him. He had introduced her to the Corbins as his wife, a fact they had already guessed. Her name was Irina, and she had a friendly smile and very limited English.
Ben looked the judge in the eye and smiled with a confidence he did not feel. “Good morning, Your Honor. As the Court knows, opening statement is my opportunity to tell you what the facts will show. I am here this morning to present evidence, not argument.”
“Which is all that the law or I will permit you to do in opening statement,” Judge Harris interjected dryly.
“Yes, Your Honor, but the facts themselves argue more eloquently than I ever could. This is a case about a broken contract. You will hear Dr. Mikhail Ivanovsky”—he gestured to his client with his left hand—“testify that on October seven, he and Nikolai Zinoviev negotiated for the sale of the contents of safe-deposit box 4613 at the LaSalle Street branch of American Union Bank. He will further testify that he gathered $5,000 on two hours’ notice and delivered that money to Mr. Zinoviev—testimony that will be corroborated by Mr. Zinoviev’s bank records and his testimony in this room at the TRO hearing last month. The Court’s earlier rulings will not allow my client to testify as to what happened next, but he doesn’t need to. The only inference that can reasonably be drawn from these undisputed facts is that—”
“Objection, argument,” interrupted Simeon.
“Sustained.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Ben said. Judge Harris was apparently going to keep him on a short leash despite the absence of a jury. Ben made a mental note to omit the potentially argumentative portions of his opening. “Furthermore,” he continued, moving to his next point, “evidence from Mr. Zinoviev’s own colleagues”—he pointed to the Brothers—“will independently prove the existence of this contract. They met with Mr. Zinoviev on October nine of this year to discuss a business proposal. And it so happens that they took minutes at that meeting.” Ben took out an enlarged copy of the minutes and put it on an easel. “In the very first paragraph it says—”
“Objection,” said Janet Anderson. “This document is a forgery, Your Honor. We—” Simeon put his hand on her arm, and she stopped.
“That may be a valid objection if and when Mr. Corbin moves for the admission of this exhibit into evidence,” said the judge. “He hasn’t done that yet. If you disagree with his version of the facts, tell me your own version in your opening. Don’t interrupt his. Objection overruled.”
Ben smiled inwardly as his adversary sat in red-faced silence. “Thank you, Your Honor. The first paragraph of these minutes states that the purpose of this meeting was to discuss the purchase of the contents of the very same safe-deposit box that Mr. Zinoviev had already sold to Dr. Ivanovsky.
“The second paragraph says that they agreed on a purchase price of $100,000, ‘conditioned on a representative of the Company inspecting the contents of the box and deeming them satisfactory.’ We know from Mr. Zinoviev’s earlier testimony that he did in fact show the Brothers the contents of the box and that they agreed to pay him $100,000. We also have the contract that they signed with him.
“But what’s not in the contract is the last paragraph of these minutes, which I’ve highlighted in yellow here: ‘Mr. Zinoviev disclosed to the Members of the Company that he had entered into a prior agreement to sell the contents of the box to a third party. He agreed that he would be solely responsible for obtaining the release of any obligations under that agreement. He further agreed that payment of the purchase price was conditioned on his delivering full and clear title to the contents of the box.’” Ben paused. “Mr. Zinoviev never received that purchase price. Why not? Because he could not deliver ‘full and clear title to the contents of the box.’ And why couldn’t he deliver that title? Because he had already sold it to Dr. Ivanovsky.
“Mr. Zinoviev no doubt developed a severe case of seller’s remorse when he realized that he had sold for $5,000 what he could have sold for $100,000. That gave him a powerful motive to trample on Dr. Ivanovsky’s rights, but not the legal ability to do so. We ask the Court to vindicate those rights. Thank you, Your Honor.”
Sergei shifted uncomfortably in the metal-and-plastic chair in front of Elena Kamenev’s well-used steel desk. Elena sat across from him, mostly hidden by a bulky old computer monitor and several piles of paper. If she hadn’t been tall—about five foot nine—she probably wouldn’t have been visible at all. As it was, all Sergei could see was the top of her blonde head, her concentration-wrinkled forehead, and her brown eyes focused intently on the screen in front of her.
The FBI was investigating the attack on Sergei because of the possibility that it was connected to organized crime. Several of his current investigations were at least indirectly related to the Organizatsiya. The fact that the victim was a well-regarded former FBI agent didn’t hurt either. They had established him as a “source,” which made it possible for him to participat
e in the investigation to a certain degree.
As one of the few Russian speakers in the Bureau’s Chicago office, Elena had been assigned to investigate. Unfortunately, she wasn’t having much luck. She looked up from the computer. “We’ve run both the fingerprint and the DNA profile through our database and all the police databases. No hits.”
“Have you tried Interpol?”
“Of course. We’re also working with our legats in Moscow, though that’s taking longer.”
Sergei wasn’t surprised. The Russian police records weren’t as thoroughly computerized as the FBI’s. Many of them needed to be checked by hand, which could take a long time. Also, the agents working in the legal attaché’s office—known as legats—needed to work through local officials, which would take even more time. Understanding the reason for the delay didn’t make it any less nerve racking, though. Somewhere out there was a man who had wanted to kill him before he had blown off one of the man’s fingers. Now that assassin was even more motivated and was probably somewhere planning his revenge even as Sergei sat talking to Elena.
Sergei felt extremely vulnerable and jittery—the perspective of a crime victim was new to him. Elena’s eyes flickered down to his lap for an instant, and he realized that he was fidgeting with his pen. He put it down and reflexively covered his fear by making a small joke. “Russians,” he said derisively, shaking his head with a mischievous smile.
Elena smiled back. “I know. My life would be so much easier if they could shoot as well in the dark in their apartments as they can at a shooting range.”
Sergei laughed. “Mine too.” He remembered the wickedly long knife he had found lying on his bedroom floor. “Say, have you asked the Russians to check their military records for this guy?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You think he might be a vet?”
Sergei nodded. “That knife I shot out of his hand looked custom made, but it was the same pattern as the knives the Spetsnaz commandos use. Maybe he bought it without knowing what it was, but maybe he was trained with that kind of knife and bought it because he knew how to fight with it.”
“Could be,” she acknowledged. As she typed, a new wave of unease roiled Sergei’s stomach. The possible involvement of criminals with Spetsnaz training added a higher level of seriousness to the investigation. They were elite commandos equally skilled in combat and infiltrating enemy—meaning American—society. This would make them excellent hit men, couriers, enforcers, and so on. They would be a most unwelcome addition to Chicago’s underworld.
At the end of his opening statement, Ben left the blowup of the minutes on the easel. This was a standard lawyer’s ploy that gave Anthony Simeon two choices: he could either take the exhibit down—which would make him look like he was afraid of it—or he could leave it up to distract the judge during his opening. Either way, Ben would gain a small tactical advantage.
“Good morning, Your Honor,” Simeon said, setting his notes on the podium before he stepped in front of it. “I have a prepared opening statement, of course, but before I give it I would like to take just a few minutes to respond to Mr. Corbin’s remarks.” He gestured to the minutes. “This document on which Mr. Corbin lays such great weight perfectly summarizes the central flaw in his case: he has theories, but no evidence to support them. Lawsuits can only be won with evidence, not allegations—and this document is not evidence. According to Mr. Corbin’s own admission, he received it one day in the mail, in a blank envelope. He does not know who sent it to him, where the original is, or whether it is genuine or a forgery. We heard him speculate as to the answers he would like to each of these questions, and indeed we can each speculate to our own tastes. But the law does not value speculations—only facts.
“What do the facts show here? They show that Mikhail Ivanovsky gave $5,000 to Nikolai Zinoviev, nothing more. Was it a loan? Was it a gift? Was it the purchase price for some thing or service? It could have been any of those or none of them. We do not know.
“What we do know is that the evidence will establish no link between that money and the contents of the safe-deposit box that Mr. Zinoviev inherited from his brother. Tragically, Mr. Zinoviev is not here to tell us his side of the story on this point. As a result, Dr. Ivanovsky is barred from telling his side, a point Mr. Corbin ignored in his opening.”
“Objection, argument,” said Ben.
“Sustained.”
“Thank you,” said Simeon in his rich, mellifluous voice. “Once we strip away the plaintiff’s inadmissible story”—he gestured to Dr. Ivanovsky—“his attorney’s skillful speculations”—he gestured to Ben—“and this foundationless document”—he gestured to the minutes on the easel—“what are we left with?” He walked over to the easel, turned the blowup around, and set it back in its place with the blank reverse side exposed. He pointed to it again. “Nothing.”
Elk Grove Village is home to a large collection of light-industrial parks. Low one- and two-story buildings cluster together along small streets in the same way that houses line the roads of residential subdivisions. Much of the town lies under the flight paths of O’Hare Airport, which depresses rents and property values, particularly close to the airport.
At the end of one cul-de-sac less than two miles west of O’Hare, a dilapidated building stood between two vacant structures that were slowly being shaken into ruins by the continual roar of jets taking off and landing. The building had a freshly painted black-and-white sign in front that said “Illinois Industries,” though no Illinoisans worked there and what went on inside could hardly be considered industry.
In the back of the building, a row of cots lined a quiet room that served as a combination barracks and hospital. Only one of the cots was now occupied. On it lay General Elbek Shishani, the man who had been tailing Sergei Spassky and who was now recuperating from surgery to repair the damage done to his left arm by Sergei’s bullets. One shot had removed a finger from his right hand. Another had torn his triceps nearly in half, three inches above the elbow, and his arm would have been crippled permanently without a prompt operation to sew the muscle back together. Fortunately, they had recruited a skilled medic for this mission, one who had extensive experience treating bullet wounds caused by Russians.
The surgery had gone well and Elbek was expected to recover fully, though he would need to learn to hold a handgun with only four fingers. But that would have to wait. He would be bedridden for the next several days with little to do but think. And remember.
The road that had led him to Elk Grove Village had started almost thirty years ago on the other side of the world. Elbek had been a promising young officer in the Spetsnaz, one of the few non-Russians groomed for advancement. In the early 1980s, advancement for a commando had meant a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
He had heard enough stories from returning veterans not to believe the version of the war told by Pravda and the TV news. But nothing had prepared him for the reality he’d found. The Red Army and their Afghan allies controlled the cities and most of the larger towns. The privileged few welcomed them as protectors, but the wretchedly poor masses watched them with dark, stony eyes wherever they went. The main roads were safe during daylight hours, as long as they traveled in well-armed convoys, checked continually for mines, and avoided narrow gorges and other obvious ambush locations.
After nightfall, the countryside belonged to the dukhs, or “spirits,” Soviet slang for the Afghan resistance fighters. Cloaked in darkness, they could creep close enough to Soviet and government strongholds to hammer them with hit-and-run mortar attacks. If the Soviets sent out retaliatory strikes, they found nothing but freshly laid mines and—if they strayed too far from their camps—snipers and deadly ambushes.
In the early years of the war, the Soviets had responded to dukh raids with massive artillery barrages and bombing raids of suspected rebel positions, but the dukhs had generally vanished by the time the bombers or lumbering howitzers c
ould pound their positions. All this tactic had accomplished was the expenditure of hundreds of tons of ordnance and the annihilation of any Afghan civilians in the target area.
So what to do? The Soviet answer was to send in men like Elbek: highly trained soldiers who could operate alone or in small bands and take the fight to the guerrillas in their caves and mountain camps.
It was a brutal war. Elbek had quickly learned not to show mercy to prisoners, and to expect none if he was captured. He’d also learned that there was no such thing as an “innocent civilian.” The old arthritic man sitting outside his hut might well be hiding dukhs inside. The frightened young mother and children cowering by the road would likely be out in the fields after an ambush, looking for wounded Soviets to torture and kill.
Afghanistan made Elbek very businesslike about the administration of pain and death. If placing burning coals in the wounds of an injured fighter would make him reveal the location of a secret camp or the identities of the peasants who had helped him, then Elbek had no qualms about doing it. If calling in air or artillery strikes to destroy a village would make it harder for the dukhs to operate in an area, then it would be foolish not to do so.
But if the war desensitized Elbek in some ways, it had sensitized him in others. The more he killed, the more of his comrades he saw killed, the more he suffered through grueling missions, the more he wondered what the point of it all was. Not just the point of the war, but the point of him. Surely there was a greater purpose to his life than killing people in a dusty, bone-poor scrap of land in the middle of nowhere.