GrayNet

by D S Kane

  “Gidye Misha, Tasha?” asked Kiril. Where is Misha?

  “Misha poititi,” replied Natasha. He’ll be there.

  Kiril faced Cassie and said, “I have surprise for you, kitten. Waiting with sushi.”

  * * *

  The limo was filled to capacity. As they stopped in front of the sushi bar—which wasn’t actually on Main Street, but two doors down at 696 Mill Street—the group slowly emerged and entered the restaurant. Ari appeared to be impressed by the look of it. “Looks like something in ancient Japan,” he said to Kiril.

  Just two steps in, there was a table set for eleven. The waitress pointed to Natasha and then to the table. The five bodyguards took up positions around the table, facing the kitchen, exits and windows. Ann, Cassie, Lee, Natasha, and Kiril sat down, leaving one seat vacant.

  Once more, Kiril turned to Natasha and asked, “Gidye Misha, Tasha?”

  A heavy-set, tall, and dark-skinned middle-aged man smiled, holding a tiny cup of green tea. “Here,” was all he said as he approached the table, his face looking a little like Kiril but more like Cassie’s. The two men embraced.

  Kiril smiled at him. “Kitten, let me introduce my brother Misha. You’ve seen photo of him. Now you meet him for first time. He’s aged since we served Soviet government decades ago. I did five-year plan forecasts under tutelage of Professor Leontief while Misha worked at KGB. When empire fell, we lose contact. Tasha and I flee to America. We escape, but Misha can’t leave. Being former KGB, they would hunt him down. Misha went out as independent, but lately sells arms that used to be property of Soviet Union. He’s contractor, working for just about everyone, but mostly Russian mafiya. Now he is free and can travel, so this is first time in years we see each other. He’s visiting from last Wednesday through tonight.”

  Seeing Cassie’s astonished expression, Kiril continued. “I think his biggest client is your former employer.” Kiril looked at Misha and said, “You call yourself Misha Kovich, da? Still not Misha Sashakovich?”

  All the heavyset man said was “Da. Kovich. Shorter is better.” He smiled at all the people around the table.

  Cassie hugged him. She wondered what her uncle could be selling from the Russian mafiya to American intel agencies. Then Misha shook everyone else’s hand and kissed Tasha’s cheek. As he sat down, Misha said, “Never had sushi before. What is it, some kind of uncooked fish?”

  Natasha replied, “Yes it is. But eat fast. I must be at City Council meeting across the street at 7:30 to cover important decision on agenda. We have choice of incorporating into Half Moon Bay or forming our own city, to be called Devil’s Slide. Misha, you might want to come, since for most of your life you could never own land.”

  Ann looked up and asked, “Are you going for some specific reason?”

  Natasha replied, “I’m one of the council members. Elected two years ago.”

  “May I come?” asked Ann, looking at Cassie first, then at Natasha.

  Cassie shrugged. “Okay as far as I’m concerned.”

  Natasha smiled. “Of course you can. Meetings are open to public and ours are always well attended, with vicious arguments between developers and open space preservationists. You might find it fun.”

  “I have a social studies report due when I get back to school. I can’t fail to have it ready. This might be a good topic.” Ann smiled back.

  JD looked at them and nodded. “I’ll go with her.”

  * * *

  Early the next morning, Cassie took Ann to the Surf Riders shop where she purchased a two-piece bathing suit for Ann. They each bought dry suits to protect them from the cold Pacific Ocean. She also purchased a surfboard for Ann. Cassie’s was waiting for her in her parents’ garage.

  Ann faced Cassie. “I barely know how to swim.”

  Cassie shrugged. “Time you learned.” She took Ann to Surfer’s Beach in El Granada with its tiny waves. They spent two hours in the surf there. Cassie patiently showed her what to do, and helped her get comfortable with the tiny waves. Soon, Ann was comfortable treading water and staying afloat.

  Then Cassie showed Ann how to balance on the board, shifting her weight with the tiny incoming waves. Ann learned fast, and by the end of the morning, she could stay standing on the board for over thirty seconds.

  Cassie smiled seeing the teenager’s progress. Her sense of pride swelled even more with the joy of being home at last.

  They broke for lunch at the Gin Wah restaurant. Ann was in an obvious state of bliss, her grin from ear to ear as she munched on an egg roll. Cassie looked up from her hot and sour soup; she had never seen anyone smile at her like her daughter. Ann said, “Thank you for this, Cassie. It’s wonderful.” But then she frowned. “Tell me what it was like for you. Growing up here. My life in Brooklyn was terrible.”

  Cassie shrugged. “Yeah, I know. Mine was good. This place is great for outdoor sports. I ran, I swam, I cycled. And the politics here are infectious. On the coastside, we had twice as high a percentage of voters casting ballots as the rest of the state. People constantly argued politics. So I became very aware of why things happen. But I yearned to see what the rest of the world is like.”

  Ann looked away, her mouth closed tightly. “I was lucky worse things didn’t happen to me.”

  Cassie touched her shoulder and smiled. “Well, I’ll work hard to give you the life I promised. Better than what I had, and I had a good life. My mom taught me how to cook. And dad helped me with math. I had everything you didn’t. Now, I want you to have all that.” She looked back to the mo shu pork on her plate. Not able to face Ann, she said, “What happened to you is way too common. But how you turned out in spite of it all is a miracle.”

  She raised her face back up and smiled. “Ann, after lunch I’d like to show you where the experts surf. I’ll take you to the Mavericks. It’s a little spit of land out past the cliffs.”

  She pointed out to the window of the restaurant toward the harbor. “We won’t try surfing there. It’s too dangerous for any but professionals. But that’s where they hold the world surfing championships. If we’re lucky, you can watch some experts try themselves against it.”

  Ann seemed doubtful. “Is it too dangerous for you?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s even killed surfers competing in the championships. Some of the waves can be fifty feet high.”

  “Fifty feet? No way!”

  After lunch they walked the long path toward the beachhead and finally reached the point from which surfers were visible. Ann could see the waves, but they were only about thirty feet high. She seemed impressed. “You must be a real good swimmer.”

  Cassie thought about her escapades traveling to Hong Kong and San Francisco. She remembered stowing away aboard an old freighter and then diving from the aft and starboard section. “Yeah. I’m good.” She remembered paddling on the tiny inflatable raft several miles to shore. And then repeating the process in the San Francisco Bay when she returned to the United States two weeks later. She sighed, happy. “We can go swimming every day and you’ll improve fast. When we get home I’ll have you enrolled in a swimming class and you’ll get even better.”

  For Cassie, the look on Ann’s face was a treat. And Cassie basked in the happiness she saw in her daughter’s face.

  * * *

  As they walked back from the bluff to the parking lot, Ann thought about her new life. Her face went rigid with focus as she came to a decision. She was going to stay with Cassie. The tunnels were behind her now. She needed to prove she was worthy of Cassie’s love and trust. But how could she do this? And what to make of Lee?

  * * *

  Saturday afternoon Cassie brought her group to La De Da, a coffee house in Half Moon Bay. While they ordered coffee, a small group called Blue Shades played songs from the 1920s through the 1940s, mostly Delta, Memphis, country blues, and jump blues. Her family listened to the band while drinking cups of coffee, cappuccino, latte, and espresso. Cassie admired the lead guitarist’s instrument, a steel-body Dobro-type
with a resonator that looked like a polished silver pie tin, with humbucker and lipstick pickups. She realized how much she missed playing guitar, and vowed to buy one as soon as she returned to Washington.

  Their music gave her chills. She remembered her first time listening to a blues guitarist playing at a coffee house on the coast side. She’d fallen in love with the blues, its simplicity and directness, traits she found admirable. She remembered her first guitar lesson, her tenth birthday present after she’d complained she wasn’t interested in learning piano. She watched the guitarist’s style, his finger placements as he ran through “Sunday Street,” a complex song by Dave Van Ronk about a drunk homeless person. She ached to play his instrument.

  During the intermission between sets, Cassie approached the group’s lead guitarist and asked, “May I see your axe?” He nodded and handed her the guitar. She touched its body, felt the smooth fine wood of the neck and the cold steel body. It was a Galveston 001 model, heavier than any guitar she’d ever handled. It was strung in normal tuning with super slinky 8 gauge strings.

  “May I?”

  After the guitarist nodded, Cassie sat and played a few chords from a song by Big Bill Broonzy, “Sportin’ Life Blues.” She’d learned it off a teaching video by Van Ronk. He’d died a few years ago. Dave had been based in New York City.

  * * *

  Ann watched Cassie’s face as she plucked the strings and sang. She had never had the desire to learn to play music until now, but she didn’t know Cassie could play guitar. Seeing the pain and pleasure reflected in Cassie’s face as she played guitar, she wanted to learn.

  For Ann, there was so much on her growing list of things she wanted, things she never even knew were possible two months ago.

  CHAPTER 14

  October 13, 11:24 a.m.

  1000 Design Way,

  Detroit, Michigan

  Louis Stepponi hurried down the city street, looking to any curious onlooker like a business executive holding an oversized pool cue case. He wore his most conservative burgundy tie. But inside the case was a disassembled Tango-51 sniper rifle equipped with an AN/PVS-10 night scope. It was one of several weapons he carried as he walked to the office building directly across from the American Motors headquarters in suburban Detroit.

  Stepponi hummed the old Frank Sinatra tune, “That’s Life,” as he strolled through the building lobby and smiled at the building security staff. No one moved to vet Louis, probably because they saw an impeccably dressed businessman. He navigated towards the staircase and headed up to the twentieth floor, taking the stairs at a near run, humming as he sprinted. Louis anticipated what he hoped would follow. He was eager to get to the roof.

  Once there, he began to whistle the same tune he’d hummed before, as he disabled the fire alarm and picked the lock, then assembled and set up the rifle. The breeze ruffled his hair. He adjusted the rifle’s scope to accommodate wind drift as he screwed a video cam recorder to the butt of the Tango-51, attached the cam to the back end of the gun’s scope and filled a clip with armor piercing shells. When he’d completed the assembly, he looked at the Forbes article with his target’s picture, took a set of binoculars and began running a visual search pattern for his objective, a middle-aged man named John Irving Cragmore. Stepponi had a clear line of sight across the street, through the office window into the man’s office. All he had to do now was wait.

  He had a reputation as a professional killer to maintain, and although his clients knew how to contact him, no one knew what he looked like or anything about his personal life. No one had ever identified him, although he’d done over fifteen hits, mostly for around three hundred thousand dollars each, all paid in cash. His last hits were over two years ago. . He’d found less demand since the mafiya now preferred laundering their money. The businesses of organized crime had become legitimate fronts and profit centers in a brave new world that had little use for him. He’d looked for other outlets for his talents, and recently stumbled over GrayNet.com. It had become his saving grace. He could once again afford two-thousand-dollar business suits, a new bright red Ferrari sports car, and vacations to the hippest parts of the planet. As a result, he even had a new girlfriend, Sharon Marconi. Stepponi was a happy man.

  Fifteen minutes passed before he sighted his quarry. “Bingo!” He placed the rifle against its brace and, in turn, he locked its bracket against the building’s exterior wall. He raised the rifle and sighted on Cragmore’s head. But before he could pull the trigger, another person moved in front of his target. Crap, he thought. The other man wore a waiter’s outfit. Stepponi looked at his watch. He’d waited until it was after noon. “Shit.” He watched in alarm as two other men, dressed in business suits, entered the suite and they all sat down at a conference room table well within the Tango’s range, leaving a clear shot for Stepponi. “Good.”

  Once again he took aim. But before he could complete squeezing the trigger, the waiter moved in front of Cragmore again. Stepponi assumed the waiter would serve them lunch and leave. He continued looking through the scope for his opportunity to get off a kill shot.

  Then, as he watched, the waiter deftly drew out a handgun and emptied the clip into Cragmore.

  Stepponi’s lips curled. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Fuck.” Men came pouring through the door and jumped on top of the waiter, as if they were a football team sacking a quarterback. Stepponi shook his head at the act of this amateur.

  He disassembled and repacked his rifle in quick precise moves. That fool, he thought. No escape plan. What an idiot. Then he thought about the implications of what he’d just witnessed. He would have competition—possibly lots of competition—much of it coming from amateurs. Crap. Leave it to someone with no sense of art to screw up an entire profession.

  He no longer hummed as he descended the stairs.

  How many of these bozos were out there?

  CHAPTER 15

  October 13, 1:58 p.m.

  66 Main Street,

  Columbus, Ohio

  Harry Aimes looked at the well-worn .45 caliber revolver and the ancient Remington rifle he’d bought. One small step, he thought. He was sure Margie had no idea what he planned. Newspapers reporting the murder of John Cragmore were the final piece driving him.

  The television news showed the confession of the murderer as police dragged him to a waiting patrol car. The man had been dressed in a waiter’s jacket, his white shirt polka-dotted with blood spray. Aimes had watched him say into the camera, “I did it. Larry McCarthy, from Cleveland. My brother Joseph will get the bounty. I have terminal lung cancer and he told me that he can’t afford his diabetes drugs. But now he can.”

  Aimes rose from the couch in front of the television, leaving Nancy glued to the screen. He walked to the den where he sat at the desktop computer and located the GrayNet website, and its “Contracts for Death” page. He searched through the page but found nothing easy enough for him to do. He wanted something where he’d have little chance of failure. He decided to check this and all the competing sites every day.

  After all, he was just a beginner.

  * * *

  In downtown San Francisco, April May O’Toole sat in front of the computer screen in the newsroom. She played the MP4 file again and again, wondering if there was a story here. In her gut she knew there was. But she was missing something. How could Yigdal Ben-Levy know that one of the American intelligence agencies was funding terrorism at the order of the President? She shifted in her seat and clicked the mouse, sending the scene onto her computer’s screen one more time.

  She watched the old story she’d recorded from cable news a month ago. A talking head said: “Early this morning, FBI special agents arrested a director of one of the US intelligence agencies in Washington, claiming he was responsible for the brutal deaths of two Saudi Arabian brothers in Riyadh. The attorney representing the agency director told this reporter that the director, Lee Ainsley, hasn’t been outside the United States this entire year. Further, the attorney
told us the following story…”

  The screen shifted to Ben-Levy. The Israeli Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs was labeled on-screen only as “Mr. Ainsley’s attorney.” He wore an expensive and very conservative charcoal pinstripe Hickey Freeman suit, a white button down collared shirt, and a red rep tie.

  She studied Ben-Levy as he approached the television microphones. “I find it odd the FBI would arrest someone for a crime committed so far outside the borders of this country when the person they’ve arrested simply hasn’t been outside the country. And, what would be his motive? It is true the murdered brothers were terrorists. Classified information I received from my own government indicates the terrorists’ funds appear to have come directly through bank accounts that are property of the United States government. I cannot understand what the government hoped to gain by bringing all this into the light of day, as this arrest will surely do.”

  The screen turned back to the commentator, who closed the report with the following comment: “The attorney also mentioned that he doubts the FBI has any legal power over crimes committed outside the United States. Representing Lee Ainsley is Israel’s Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yigdal Ben-Levy. Although an Israeli, he is a graduate of New York University’s School of Law and a member of the bar in more than ten states, including New York, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and California.”

  Where did Ben-Levy get the information? She’d tried to arrange an interview with him, but the Israeli Embassy had formally declined, stating they never gave interviews.

  O’Toole had received copies of all her information at about the same time Congressman Dillworthy had, including the FBI’s arrest record for Lee Ainsley, and the classified reports of his interrogation and torture. And Dillworthy must have seen the implications, because there was now a move to impeach the President. But she suspected there was an even bigger story here. What was she missing? After all, news stories in DC were like onions. Under one stinky layer was another one, much more offensive. “Damn.”