by Cap Daniels
Gwynn pored through her memory for the exact wording of the law. “No, I don’t think so, because there was a drunk driving case a few years ago in which an FBI agent was killed, and the driver of the other vehicle was charged with a federal crime.”
Anya tilted her head. “Did this person get death penalty for killing FBI policeman?”
“No, he pled down the charge as I remember, but I can’t recall exactly how the case ended.”
Anya pressed the mute button again, opening the line. “I will go back inside business of Volkov and Sascha, but I will have federal badge when I do. You are powerful man, and this is simple thing for you to do. He will try to have me killed as soon as he finds someone else who can do what I can do. You would call this his business model.”
“That’s not something that I can make happen overnight, and I don’t think you’re in any position to start making demands.”
“I am not making demands. I am giving to you a federal crime Volkov will commit. I will give back to you badge and credentials when you release me from my imprisonment with DOJ. Also, I am being patient. You do not have to do this thing overnight. I will wait as long as it takes. Goodbye, Agent White.”
He blurted out the start of an argument, but Anya hung up before he could finish. “He will do this for me, yes?”
Gwynn smiled. “Yeah, he’ll do it, but I have to tell you something. You’re the first person I’ve ever seen who can manipulate Agent White. I’ve never seen anybody push him around like you do.”
“I am trained to do this,” she said. “But even if I was not, I am important piece of investigation. Without me, this would be much more difficult. Agent White is intelligent man, but I am maybe a little smarter. I am learning exactly how far I can push him and still have what I want. I think this time I may have pushed one meter too far.”
Gwynn laughed. “No, I don’t think you pushed it too far. You’ll have your badge and credentials, but I think you should give it a little time before you push for anything else.”
“This, I think, is good advice.”
Gwynn motioned toward the empty glass beside Anya’s hand. “I thought you didn’t drink vodka.”
The Russian tilted the glass toward herself and peered inside. “I did not say I do not drink it. I said I do not like it. I had excellent reason for drinking it tonight.”
“Yeah, I’d say you did. Watching a woman get thrown out of an airplane is enough to drive anyone to drinking.”
Anya shook her head. “No, this is not why I had vodka tonight. I have seen many people killed in terrible ways. Veronica was unconscious, so it was, for her, peaceful death.”
“Then what’s the good reason for drinking vodka tonight?”
Anya took Gwynn’s hand and led her to the window. “All of this, and also you, are reasons.”
“I don’t get it,” she said. “What are you talking about?”
“With you inside beautiful city like this one, it is easy for me to forget what I am and begin believing I am American girl. This will never be. I needed vodka to make my brain remember I am Russian killer.”
“But, Anya, you are an American now.”
“No, this is only true because of passport. You know how I became what I am. You know how I was trained and how I was treated. I was nothing except machine for them. This is what I am told for first twenty years of my life. I am only machine for Mother Russia. I am still this machine. Only flag under which I live has changed.”
28
PODDERZHKA I ZASHCHITA
(SUPPORT AND DEFEND)
Gwynn’s phone chirped and yanked her from perfect sleep. “Yeah, hello.”
“Davis, it’s Agent White. Get up, and get your little girlfriend down to the Treasury Department at the corner of Broadway and Reade Street. Do you know where that is?”
Gwynn wiped the sleep from her eyes and yawned. “Yes, that’s Federal Plaza at Foley Square, right?”
“That’s right. Get her down there, and make it quick. Badge the security guy, and tell him who you are. He’ll know what to do.”
“Okay, fine. But why the rush?”
“Because Anya’s ride to work always arrives at eight thirty, and today is not the best day for her to be late.”
“Okay, I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
She threw her legs over the edge of the bed and knocked on Anya’s door. “Hey, wake up. Agent White says I have to take you to the Treasury Building before your ride gets here.”
“Come in.”
Gwynn opened the door to find Anya sitting on the floor and doing stretching exercises. She blinked several times and checked her watch. “It’s four o’clock in the morning, and you’re doing stretches?”
“Yes, my sleeping is finished. Why are we going to Treasury Building? Are we getting paid?”
“I don’t know,” Gwynn said. “But put on something other than yoga pants, and let’s go.”
The cab ride put Gwynn back to sleep, but Anya watched the city flash by the windows like a silent movie reel.
“That’ll be thirty-two fifty.”
The shrill voice of the cabbie yanked Gwynn awake for the second time. She slid two twenties through the glass and stepped from the taxi.
Just as she’d been instructed, Gwynn showed her credential pack to the uniformed security guard beside the metal detector. “Supervisory Special Agent Ray White told me to—”
“Yeah, I got it,” the guard said. “Follow me.”
He stood from his stool and pointed toward his machine. “Hey, Wilson, watch this for me, will you? I’ll be right back.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever, but don’t leave me stranded down here.”
The guard led them to a bank of elevators and up to the seventh floor. He pushed his way through a heavy oak door and into a conference room where three people sat near the end of an enormous table.
No one rose, but Gwynn produced her cred-pack. “I’m Special Agent Gwynn Davis, and . . .”
A white-haired man in a cheap suit and loosened necktie waved her off. “We don’t care about you, Agent Davis. We’re here for her. That is, if her name is Ana Fulton.”
Anya and Gwynn exchanged looks. “Yes, I am Ana Fulton.”
Gwynn was surprised how much of the accent was missing.
“Ms. Fulton, I’m Judge Carpenter. Come down here to this end of the room, raise your right hand, and repeat after me.”
She moved to within a few feet of the judge, raised her right hand, and waited for him to speak.
He gave her the once-over. “Repeat after me. I, Ana Fulton, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me, God.”
She repeated every word of the Federal Government oath with only the slightest hint of an accent.
The woman to the judge’s left stood and presented Anya with a black leather credential pack with the seal of the Treasury Department embossed on the outside. She opened the leather wallet to reveal a gold shield bearing the words “Department of the Treasury Special Agent” with the badge number stamped into the bottom. Adjacent the badge sat an official identification card with her photograph exactly where it should be.
The judge said, “I don’t know kind of leash you are on, Ms. Fulton, but it just got tighter and a lot shorter. Whoever and whatever you are, that shield changes everything. Just ask Special Agent Davis, here.”
Anya pocketed the credentials. “Thank you, sir.”
“It’s your honor,” the judge said.
Anya turned back. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Ms. Fulton, you are to address me as your honor, not as sir.”
She drew her cred-pack from her hip pocket and flipped it open in front of the judge.
“And you will address me as Special Agent, not Miss.”
Back at the apartment, Gwynn confiscated Anya’s badge. “I’m putting this in my safe. If Volkov catches you with it, the whole world will come crashing down around you.”
“Agent White was wrong. Apparently, he can get this done overnight.”
“Yeah, he may have been wrong about that, but I was right when I told you that you shouldn’t push him again anytime soon. By the way, what happened to your accent in there this morning?”
Anya shrugged. “When I concentrate on every word, I can hide accent sometimes. I think it was good to do so in front of his honor, the judge.”
“You really are an actress, aren’t you?”
* * *
Anya’s car arrived exactly on time, but instead of heading for Volkov’s office, the driver stopped at the corner of Forty-Seventh Street and Sixth Avenue.
“What are we doing here?”
Instead of turning around, the driver looked up into the rearview mirror, making eye contact with her. “Mr. Volkov said drop you here and pick you up again right here in a couple of hours.”
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.
“How should I know? I’m just a driver. There’s an envelope back there. Maybe you should open it.”
Anya tore open the plain white envelope to reveal a single square of paper. She read the short note:
Find, examine, and memorize four stones from four different dealers. 2.5 +/- .05 carat, round cut, D-E color, F-IF clarity.
She stepped from the car and leaned down to the driver’s window.
He cracked the window an inch.
“I would like cigarette. You have one, yes?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said as he rolled the window fully down and held up the pack.
She shook one from the pack and slid it between her lips. “You have also lighter, yes?”
“Geez, lady. You want me to smoke it for you, too?”
She took the lighter, lit the cigarette, and without letting the flame go out, she touched the corner of the note. The thin paper caught quickly, and she let it fall to the pavement. The driver motioned for his lighter. She slid it into his hand, pulled the cigarette from her lips, and crushed it out deep inside his left ear. The man howled like a dying animal, so Anya shoved his own hand into his mouth. “Stop yelling, and be nice to me. I am Viktor Volkov’s angel.”
He shoved her away from the car. “Yeah, maybe this week, bitch, but you’ll be gone in no time, just like the others.”
Careful to avoid Levi’s shop, Anya strolled down Forty-Seventh Street, ignoring the hawkers as she went. Still fascinated by the Jewish men in their hats and dangling curls, she watched as they scampered about the street, ducking in and out of shops as they went about their day, seemingly oblivious to everyone else on the street.
The first shop she entered was crowded with shoppers, mostly young couples in the market for an engagement ring but unwilling or unable to pay shopping mall prices back in Arkansas or a thousand other places that weren’t New York City’s Diamond District.
The diamonds she wanted to see would be in quite a different atmosphere. She found that atmosphere three doors down. There were no Midwestern lovebirds milling about, only serious players in the high-end diamond game . . . “How you doing?” . . . “What can I show you?”
Anya smiled and stepped toward the forty-something, balding man who believed the three-days’ growth on his chin made him irresistible.
“Hello, I am Tatiana. And you are?”
“I’m Armond. Nice to meet you, Tatiana. What’s on your mind today?”
“I like big diamonds, and my husband, who is never home, likes to buy for me things I like so I will not leave him for younger man like you. Do you have anything big enough to make me smile, Armond?”
“Just how big are we talking, Tatiana? Three carats, maybe?”
She stared through the glass of the cases holding millions of dollars in beautiful diamonds. “I think maybe this is too big. Maybe two and a half carats is better, and I like round diamonds.”
Armond unfolded a felt-covered pad and pulled a tray of stones from the glass case. He selected a stone, clamped it into his tweezers, and pressed the loupe to his cheek. “This one is beautiful. It’s two-point-five five carats, D, IF. Here, have a look.”
Anya took the loupe and tweezers and examined the stone from every angle, committing every facet to memory. “It is breathtaking, Armond, but I think price would also take away my breath, no?”
The man looked around as if being overheard would be a mortal sin. “It’s marked at just under seventy-five, but if you love it, I think I can get if for you for . . .” He paused and rattled the buttons of an old calculator, then he spun the machine toward her, revealing the price of sixty-six thousand eight hundred dollars. “What do you think?”
“I think I should make sure I am getting best deal. My husband works hard for his money. If I spend it frivolously, he will maybe not let me keep spending so much.”
“Hold on for just a minute,” Armond said. “Let me see what I can do. I’ll be right back.” He took the stone, replaced it in the tray, and returned the tray inside the case.
When he returned, the beautiful Russian with her husband’s credit card had vanished.
Slightly modified versions of Armond greeted her at five more shops over the remaining ninety minutes, and she left each of the shops empty-handed but with six spectacular diamonds firmly ensconced in her mind. They ranged in price from sixty-five thousand to nearly one hundred, and Anya knew every detail of each of the six stones.
When the driver pulled to the curb at Sixth Avenue, Anya was surprised to see a man behind the wheel she didn’t recognize. He leapt from the car and held the rear door for her. “You must be Ms. Burinkova.”
The demeanor of the new driver gave her a chuckle. “What happened to other driver?”
“He had an earache, and Mr. Volkov isn’t tolerant of people who look for an excuse to get out of work.”
She smiled and slid onto the opulent rear seat. They pulled through the automatic door in the nondescript warehouse and stopped at the door to the offices.
Anya stepped from the car, and the driver held the door attentively. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to tell Mr. Volkov how kind you are.”
Without a word, the man bowed slightly and closed the door.
The office door emitted an audible click as she approached, and she pulled it open and strolled through.
“Ah, my angel has returned. Come inside and tell me about your shopping trip.”
Anya was amazed by the man’s ability to sit idly by and order the death of an employee one day while appearing to be the kindest, most sincere man alive on the next.
He poured tea, and they sat together on the sofa in his office. “You found four diamonds like I asked, correct?”
She shook her head. “No.”
His demeanor fell. “What do you mean, no? You read my instructions, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I read them. What happened to first driver?”
“What difference does that make?” he growled. “Why didn’t you follow my instructions?”
“The driver,” Anya said. “What happened to him?”
Volkov narrowed his gaze. “He complained that you were demanding and claimed you put out a cigarette in his ear. Did you do that?”
“I was not demanding. I have grown accustomed to being pampered by your staff, and I enjoy this. He did not open door for me, and he spoke harshly to me. I asked him to be kind, but he refused, so, yes, I put burning cigarette inside his ear instead of inside eye.”
Volkov tried to mask the amused smile. “Indeed, but the question remains. Why did you not find four diamonds as I instructed?”
She took a long sip of her tea. “I found six instead of only four. If we are doing what I hope, it will be much easier to pair four diamonds if I have six to begin.”
He took her face in his hands and k
issed each cheek twice. “Where have you been all my life, and how is it possible for your mind to hold so much information?”
“I have been waiting for you to come for me, and now, you are here. I must tell you of the stones.” She widened her eyes and played the role of her life. With exaggerated excitement, she poured out every detail of the six stones, growing more animated with every word. By the time she’d finished, her face was flush, and her breath was coming in short bursts.
Volkov beamed. “You are perfect for this job. I remember when I first studied gems. I was just as excited as you every time I held a brilliant, rare stone I’d never seen before.”
“It is all so exciting,” she said. “I can find matching diamonds from inside vault for the ones I found this morning, yes?”
He patted her thigh. “I love your excitement, but the stones you’ll be matching haven’t arrived yet.”
Sensing the opening she—and Agent White—needed, she took Volkov’s hand. “When will they come? Sascha is bringing these diamonds, yes? My friend, Gwynn, talks of him always. She would love to see him again. Is this possible?”
He paused, seeming to consider her question. “Gwynn . . . She is the contract attorney in Connecticut, correct?”
Anya caught the attempt to tear at their cover story. “No, New Jersey, but I know you are too busy to remember details of other women. You’ve not forgotten me, have you?”
He traced the back of his hand lightly against her cheek. “I could never forget every detail of my angel.”
She feigned embarrassment and looked away. “Perhaps you could tell Sascha my friend would like to see him again when he brings diamonds.”
“Actually, he doesn’t come into the city very often. You know how those scientific types are. He loves to be near his work.”
“That is too bad for Gwynn, but I still have you.”
She pulled at his leg, encouraging him to come closer, but he lifted her hand from his thigh. “I told you that I never mix business with pleasure. Nothing good can come of it, so, as much as I enjoy your attention, we must keep that outside of the office. Inside these walls, I am a businessman and nothing more.”