Politika pp-1

by Tom Clancy

  From beginning to end, it was a textbook example of how careful and diligent analysis of evidence throughout the entire chain of custody could yield phenomenally successful results.

  It was also the first step down the garden path for the entire American intelligence community.

  TWENTY-ONE

  NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 3, 200 °CALVARY CEMETERY, QUEENS

  Snow fell gently on the trees and monuments that surrounded him. Under any other circumstance, he’d have thought the scene was beautiful. Rosetta would have liked it, too, if she could have seen it from inside a room with a good heating system. She got cold too easily to appreciate winter landscapes under any other conditions. He’d had them put blankets with her, in her coffin. He hated the thought that she would never be warm again. But then, he hated everything about this.

  Police Commissioner Bill Harrison stood on the edge of an open grave. He knew he wasn’t alone. This scene would be enacted hundreds of times as New York buried her dead. But that was no comfort. It just made it worse somehow.

  How was he supposed to go on, without Rosetta? She was his heart, his center, his reason for existence. When the job got to be too much for him, when the things he saw every day overwhelmed him, he would go home to this woman and she would make it all right again. She couldn’t change what he saw. But every moment he was with her, he knew what he was fighting to protect. She represented all that was good in the world.

  And now he was putting her in a hole in the ground. They’d be bringing the coffin here any minute.

  The pain was devastating.

  For the millionth time, he asked himself why he’d let her go with him to Times Square. He could have said no, claimed that there weren’t enough seats to spare for real working people after the politicians took their cut. He’d had that option, in his infinite wisdom but he had decided Rosie’s certain pleasure outweighed the risks.

  It was something he found hard to forgive.

  His daughter stood next to him. Her tears were acid in his wounds. She could have died, too, all because he hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t stopped it before it started. As it was, her nightmares were as haunted by that moment as his were. She’d been scarred, this child he cherished — on his watch, at his side, when he should have been able to prevent it.

  Why hadn’t he?

  It was no good blaming it on the mayor. The man was dead. He’d paid the ultimate price, if his relentless politicking had made the target too good to pass up.

  It was no good blaming his men. The vender’s cart had looked fine to him in the split second he’d seen it. How could they have found anything? The earliest reports from the blast site indicated that this was a slick, professional job, invisible to even the most careful inspection.

  The pallbearers, most of them police officers in full dress uniform, brought the coffin, slowly placed it onto the straps that would lower Rosie into the ground, gone from him until the next life claimed him, too.

  His heart nearly burst from the pain of it.

  He reached out and took his daughter’s hand, squeezed it.

  The news cameras hummed and clicked.

  Even their grief was a public matter.

  The coffin was slowly lowered. When it reached its final resting place, the thud of the wood hitting the dirt was the loneliest, most final sound he had ever heard in his life.

  Like the noise of the blast, it would haunt him, too.

  The preacher intoned words of comfort. The sounds washed over him, useless now, but perhaps later, alone, as he sifted through his memories of this day, he would find a small measure of the peace they were intended to impart.

  Now he dropped the bouquet of roses he’d brought with him onto the casket. Bright splashes of scarlet against the polished wood surface, they were slowly, slowly covered by the white flecks of snow, still falling gently. Like his heart, the blossoms were soon sheathed in ice.

  Tasheya’s forget-me-nots joined his offering. As the service wound to a close, he watched them, too, fade under the onslaught from heaven.

  He had lost his Rosie. The emptiness inside him was so vast he wasn’t sure how his body could contain it. But he had something to do that kept the grief that threatened to swamp him at bay.

  He was the police commissioner of the city of New York. It was his job to find out who had done this. The day he brought those people to justice, his healing could begin.

  TWENTY-TWO

  MOSCOW JANUARY 6, 2000

  The bathhouse on ulitsa Petrovka was a favorite recreational spot for gangsters, government officials, and those for whom the distinction was negligible, and Yuri Vostov came there two and often three times a week to relax in the hot tub or sauna, always at noon on the dot, and never without at least two women on his arms.

  Vostov considered his visits to be therapeutic as well as sources of profound physical pleasure — and pleasure was something he would not let himself take for granted. This was because of a scare he’d had some years back, when he was approaching his fiftieth birthday. Right around that time, he had found his sexual vigor to be on the wane, and even begun to fear he was becoming impotent after several horrid and ignoble embarrassments between the sheets. Though he had a large roster of young, beautiful women available as bedroom partners, and though each was talented and imaginative in her own way, nothing they did seemed to stimulate him. His encounters with these lovers continued in a rather lackluster, almost perfunctory fashion until one night, under advice from a friend in government, he engaged in a menage à trois — something he’d inexplicably never done before — with a pair of sisters known for their willingness to perform as a team, and gained salvation between their sweating bodies.

  He supposed the secret had been in admitting that he was a man who valued quantity above quality. As with food, drink, and possessions, the key to his greatest fulfillment turned out to be getting what he liked all at once.

  Today his companions in the sauna were Nadia and Svieta, not the sisters who had originally shown him the path to middle-aged carnal enlightenment — not relatives at all, to his knowledge — but a willing and enthusiastic pair in their own right. An auburn brunette, Nadia was wearing a pair of gold hoop earrings and nothing else. Svieta, a cinnamon redhead, had chosen to accent her nudity with a gold anklet. Both were on their knees in front of Vostov, who had also shed his towel, and was seated on a wooden bench watching their heads bob up and down below his ample stomach, their breasts swimming freely in a pearlescent haze of steam.

  That was when a rap on the door suddenly tore Vostov and his companions from their rapture. Nadia’s gold hoop stopped banging against his inner thigh, Svieta’s spread of red hair rose off his lap, and both looked up at him with somewhat baffled expressions on their faces, as if unsure how to proceed.

  He frowned, thinking foul thoughts about whoever had ruined the moment.

  “What is it?” he barked.

  “Prasteeyeh, Mr. Vostov,” the attendant said from the hallway. “There’s a call on your cellular phone—”

  “A call? I told you we weren’t to be disturbed!”

  “I know, sir, but it’s been beeping constantly and—”

  “Shit! Enough!” Vostov stood up, snapped his towel off its hook, and wrapped it around his waist. Then he opened the door a crack and reached an arm out, steam curling around his fleshy elbows. “Hand it to me, will you?”

  The attendant passed the phone to him and backed away. Pushing the door shut, Vostov fingered a button on the keypad to accept an incoming call.

  “Yes?” he said, lifting the phone to his ear.

  “Ah, Yuri. I sincerely hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  Vostov recognized Teng Chou’s voice and frowned again.

  “You are,” he said.

  “Forgive me, then. But I had been trying to reach you at your office for some time.”

  Vostov glanced over at Nadia and Svieta, who had taken places on the bench and were speaking to each other in whisper
s punctuated by low giggles. Was there something funny here that he was missing?

  “Never mind,” he said, growing more sharply annoyed. “What is it?”

  “I’ve had trouble getting calls through to a certain party of our mutual acquaintance. Indeed, I’m sure that I transferred some of my impatience with him onto you.”

  “I told you to forget it,” Vostov said. “Why get me involved, anyway?”

  “My friend,” Teng said in a mild tone, enunciating his words carefully in Russian, “you are already quite deeply involved.”

  Vostov blanched.

  “You know what I mean. I’m not some permanent go-between between the two of you.”

  “Of course not. But you did broker the deal.” Teng paused. “Probably the deficient line of communication, shall we say, means nothing. These are hectic days for us all. Still, my backers need some reassurance that they will receive full satisfaction. That matters will proceed as had been discussed.”

  Vostov turned away from the two women and dropped his voice a notch.

  “Look, I don’t give a damn about them,” he said. “Regardless of what you’re trying to imply, my part in this is done. You want me to call our friend, see what’s going on with him, I’ll do it. But as a favor, not an obligation, you understand?”

  Teng paused.

  “Yes,” he said finally, his tone still soft. “Although you should remember the search for truth can be steered back on course as easily as it was diverted.”

  Vostov’s gut pulled in. These Asians made him edgy with their elliptical ways. “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “You need to reexamine your interests, my friend. It would be unfortunate if they suddenly came into collision with my own. The backers you so casually dismiss have a long reach, and an even longer memory for holding grudges.”

  Vostov felt his stomach tighten a little more. There was a sharp burning sensation in the center of it. Damn, he thought. His ulcers hadn’t acted up like this for ages.

  He tossed a glance over his shoulder at Svieta and Nadia. They were still whispering and tittering and seemed to be paying him no attention.

  Desire was a precarious and fickle sort of thing, he reflected. It could pull a man from the filthiest gutter to the top of the world, then push him right over into the abyss.

  “I’ll call our friend right now,” he said, and pushed the Disconnect button on the phone.

  Nadia moved closer to him then, hoping to distract him from the business of business, and refocus his attention on the business of pleasure. “Soon,” he said as he pushed her roughly away. “As soon as I finish dealing with this lamentable mess.” Then he turned his attention back to the phone. It rang — on the minister’s private line, so no secretary would remember the call. Five rings, and then he heard an irritated greeting. He responded in kind.

  “Hello, Mr. Minister,” he said.

  “Vostov? Are you insane, calling me at my office?”

  “I’ll make it brief.”

  “That isn’t the point. This connection isn’t secure—”

  “Listen to me, Minister. I don’t like politics, and I’m beginning to regret having gotten tangled up in this business. But men have to live with their choices.”

  “Would you quit sounding philosophical, and come to the point? And remember, we’re possibly not alone here.”

  “Fine, then. I’m going to give you some advice,” Vostov said. “Do whatever you want with it, but I suggest you at least pay attention.”

  “All right, all right. What is it?”

  “Our associate abroad feels he’s being neglected at your end. He says—”

  “The man is no associate of mine. Merely a mover of goods, who is in turn moved by others.”

  “Whatever. You’ve been dodging his calls, or so he claims. And I think it’s important that you talk to him.”

  “Vostov, can’t you see I’m trying to lay some groundwork here? I don’t have to jump at his whim. If he thinks he can have carte blanche with my time now, I can only imagine his future impositions. And those of his shadow masters.”

  “Talk to him, Minister. Pacify him. I don’t want the man on my back.”

  “And I don’t like the idea of him playing us against each other. He’ll wait until I’m ready to speak to him, and he can fuck himself in the meantime.”

  “Look, you must understand that he’s capable of turning this whole damn thing on its head—”

  “We have enough to occupy our minds without being concerned with him. 1 have intelligence about that American operation in Kaliningrad. Something may be going on there that could spell trouble, although I don’t know precisely what it is. We must be prepared to take quick action should the need arise. I think, under these circumstances, it’s time for you to make yourself useful.”

  “That’s not my business. I’ve already done—”

  “You’ll do more. I’ll require supplies. Equipment. Perhaps even manpower. Don’t make the error of thinking you can wash your hands of this now.”

  “Fucking politics. As I said before, I never should have let myself become involved in it.”

  “One can’t help but be, Vostov. Life is politics. From the time we’re children competing with our siblings for our parents’ attention, trying to outgrab one another for what we desire. I’m convinced that’s when the betrayals begin. The family is a Judas circle, the brother we love is our enemy, eh?”

  “I don’t know. You’re losing me.”

  “Am I? Well, just don’t forget you were on that boat in Khabarovsk.”

  “Is that everything?” Vostov inquired with some sarcasm.

  “No. 1 need you to utilize your many contacts, as much as I may despise them. It seems that it’s time to cloud the landscape a bit. There are factions out there that might very well share our common goal. I think it would be wise to turn the bright light of public scrutiny on them.”

  “What do you mean?” Vostov asked.

  “The nationalists, the separatists, the Communists, and the reformers all have an interest in blocking foreign aid. I believe it’s time that someone pointed this out to them, hmm? And the military and the KGB, unfairly squeezed out from distributing the largesse of our enemies — and so prevented from raking off their percentage from the top. Don’t you think someone should ask them how they feel about this and what they plan to do about it? Even the church and organized crime have something at stake here. My dear Vostov, the more pressure Starinov and the West are under, the sooner we’ll achieve our ultimate goals. Your tentacles reach everywhere. I think that you should use them.”

  “What you’re asking—” Vostov spluttered, “it’s hardly the work of a few moments.”

  “Then I’d suggest you get started immediately. Remember, Vostov, a man who won’t make himself useful is a man who is expendable. Now is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”

  “You haven’t given me an answer on the matter I called you about. The mover of goods, as you called him—”

  “I said he can go fuck himself! From here on in, I will deal only with his superiors, and only when it suits me. And if you don’t come through for me, Vostov, the same will apply to you. If you’re around at all. Now good-bye, Vostov. See that you’re ready when I need you.”

  “Wait, don’t hang up. Hello? Are you still there? Goddamn it, are you still there? Hello, hello, hello…?” A dial tone emerged clearly from the phone in his hand. He threw it across the room.

  “Damn.”

  A slight sound drew his attention back to the women, now huddled in the corner and looking slightly fearful.

  “Well, what are you two staring at? Get over here and make yourselves useful.” That was the phrase the man on the phone had used. Useful! He sat down and waited. As they approached him hesitantly, he shut his eyes. Politics. It was a dirty business. There were other activities he much preferred.

  TWENTY-THREE

  WASHINGTON, D.C. JANUARY 6, 2000

  Wearing a gr
ay sweatsuit, a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap, and Nikes, Alex Nordstrum jogged west through the Mall, a look of quiet concentration on his features as his long legs carried him over the path with unbroken rhythm. He was past the midway point of his run and his blood felt pumped with oxygen and the muscles of his thighs and calves were pleasantly loose.

  Arms moving in smooth coordination with his feet, he ran on toward Constitution Gardens and the conspicuous marble shaft of the Washington Monument, where he would ordinarily swing back east to complete his regular two-mile circuit. Today he might have to wait around a bit, depending on whether Blake was on time… which Nordstrum doubted would be his good fortune, considering the assistant secretary of state, Foreign Affairs Bureau, was someone whose internal clock had seemed to have its workings irreparably gummed up even when he was Alex’s top poli-sci student at Georgetown.

  Nordstrum trotted along at an easy pace, seeing no reason to hurry. North of the park, the massive cluster of Federal Triangle buildings extended continuously to Fifteenth Street, their red rooftops visible through the winter-bare treetops. To the south, Nordstrum could see the white colonnades and porticoes of the Department of Agriculture Building. Vapor puffed from his mouth with each measured breath but his metabolism was up and he was hardly aware of the cold Potomac gusts snapping moisture off his cheeks and forehead. The back of his sweatshirt was dark with perspiration between his shoulder blades, a good, healthy sweat, the kind that always seemed to wash the tension from his pores.

  To his right, well-dressed men and women swept past in expensive cars, most turning north or south on Seventeenth Street for the downtown museums and government buildings, a smaller percentage of the traffic continuing past the Reflecting Pool to where Constitution Avenue became Route 66 and spooled on out across the bridge to Arlington. Maybe a mile behind Nordstrum, morning sunlight fanned over the Capitol dome in golden spokes that had already begun to glance off the red brick turrets of Smithsonian Castle. In the broad stretch of landscaping he’d covered on his way down the Hill, walkers and joggers were strung out along the paths at various stages of their exercise routines, squirrels and pigeons were squabbling over sparse winter pickings, and vacationing college kids dressed in goose-down jackets and long elf-like knit caps were strolling toward the small round skating rink next to the Museum of Natural History, carrying their ice skates over their shoulders by the laces. The kids seemed about as traumatized as the squirrels and birds by what had happened in Times Square just one week before, which was not at all.