by Tom Grace
Three minutes after Kelsey’s call, Nolan fired the ignition of his SUV and put it in gear.
‘I hope I’m just being paranoid about this,’ Nolan muttered, a cloud of dust in his wake as he sped down the driveway.
43
JULY 29
Moscow, Russia
The speakerphone on Orlov’s desk buzzed quietly.
‘Da, Irena,’ he answered.
‘I have Dmitri Leskov on line one. He says that it’s urgent.’
‘Put him through.’
Orlov heard the line click.
‘Dmitri, what do you have to report?’
‘The two people working with Sandstrom, Kilkenny and Newton, may have identified where Wolff hid the key to his notebooks.’
‘Do they have it?’
‘Not yet. We intercepted a telephone conversation between Newton and Kilkenny. Newton believes that Wolff had the key to his cipher engraved on a ring that was given to his fiancée. This woman is currently staying at Newton’s home in Ann Arbor. Newton has not spoken with the woman about it yet – it’s still quite early in the morning here.’
Orlov glanced at his watch and subtracted the eight-hour time difference. ‘What do you think of Newton’s theory?’
‘It makes sense. No one creates a cipher without putting the key for it someplace safe. What is Zoshchenko’s opinion of the notebooks? Are they important to the project?’
‘She believes so. She has a very high opinion of this physicist Wolff.’
‘Then I think we have an opportunity here, if we act quickly.’
‘What are you proposing, Dmitri?’
‘From our current position, I can deploy my team at Newton’s residence in fifteen minutes. I’ve already had Newton’s phone line disrupted.’
‘Do you know if the ring is actually there?’
‘No. If Wolff’s fiancée is sentimental, I suspect she would have the ring with her. If not, she knows where it is. In either case, we’ll deal with it.’
‘Very well, Dmitri. Proceed.’
44
JULY 29
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Elli woke up while Kelsey was in the shower, and she made herself at home in the kitchen. By the time Kelsey emerged from her bedroom in a pair of khaki shorts and a coral Polo shirt, Elli had split open a grapefruit and turned on the television.
‘Good morning,’ Kelsey said as she wrapped a towel around her long mane of wet blond hair. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘As well as I can with this hip of mine. Thank God for ibuprofen.’
Kelsey smiled. ‘Elli, there’s something I want to ask you.’
‘Go right ahead, dear.’
‘Do you still have the ring that Johann gave you?’
‘Oh my, yes. Of course I do. I keep it with me always.’
‘Did Johann have something inscribed on it?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘May I see it?’
‘Certainly. But why?’
‘Six notebooks were found with Johann’s body. They appear to be his research, but we don’t know for certain, because he wrote them in a very sophisticated code. I was rereading Johann’s last letter to Raphaele Paramo this morning and I noticed something. He wrote that he gave you the key to his mind, and I wondered if perhaps he meant it literally.’
With her right hand, Elli carefully slipped the plain gold band from her ring finger and offered it to Kelsey. The metal showed the signs of a lifetime of wear.
Kelsey held it in the palm of her hand. She then picked up the ring with her fingers and brought it close to her eyes, tilting it to see the curved plane of the interior. She saw the jeweler’s mark and a number indicating that the ring was fourteen-karat gold. She turned the ring slowly counterclockwise, rolling it with the tips of her fingers. Then she saw it. Delicately inscribed, in characters so small that at first she thought it was a decorative design, was the numerical key to Johann Wolff’s cipher.
‘It was our secret,’ Elli said when she knew that Kelsey had found the inscription. ‘Johann was a brilliant man – my father said he was the most gifted student he ever had. Johann knew that his work had value, that someday it would provide a comfortable life for us and our children. He wrote his work in code so he could keep it to himself until he was ready to publish. He was near to a breakthrough when he asked me to marry him, when he gave me the key to his mind and his heart.’
Kelsey looked up from the ring, knowing that she was the first person Elli had ever told this story to.
‘After he disappeared, this was all I had left to remember him by. I’ve owned other rings over the years, but I’ve always loved this ring most of all. Why don’t you try it on?’
‘I couldn’t,’ Kelsey stammered, surprised by the request.
‘Please, for me. I suspect that young man of yours will be giving you one quite soon. I hope it means as much to you as this one has to me.’
Kelsey relented and slipped the gold band around her finger.
‘There, now your hand doesn’t look quite so naked. It looks good. Kelsey, bitter experience has taught me to embrace every moment of life as if it were the last. I can see you and Nolan are very much in love, just as Johann and I were. Grab hold of this time and don’t let it escape you.’
Before Kelsey could find any words to respond, the front door of her condo burst open and four men rushed in. The first two moved straight for the kitchen with pistols drawn and aimed at her and Elli. The other two split off to search the rest of the condo. When they returned seconds later, one of them went to the front door and made a motion with his hand.
‘Good morning, Professor Newton,’ Leskov said as he walked into the condo, his voice hard and flat. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again.’
‘You know this man?’ Elli asked.
‘Yes,’ Kelsey replied, her eyes locked on the approaching Russian. ‘He’s a thief and a murderer.’
Leskov backhanded Kelsey across the cheek; the towel fell from her head. She fought off the stinging pain and turned back to face him, her eyes burning angrily.
‘Get the hell out of my house!’ Kelsey commanded through clenched teeth.
‘All in good time,’ Leskov replied, sneering.
Leskov pulled a chair away from the table, turned it around, and straddled it, resting his elbows on the back. On the table he saw the copy of Wolff’s final letter.
‘Ah, one we don’t have yet.’ Leskov folded the page and slid it into his shirt pocket. ‘Thank you. I have just one matter to discuss with your guest, then my men and I will leave.’
‘What do you want?’ Elli said defiantly.
Leskov turned his head slowly in her direction, a bit surprised by her lack of fear.
‘Madam, I would like the ring that was given to you by Johann Wolff.’
‘What a coincidence,’ Elli replied without a hint of humor in her voice, ‘Kelsey was asking me about that just as you and your men stormed through her front door. I no longer have the ring.’
Kelsey sat still, hoping her face wouldn’t give away the truth.
‘Where is the ring?’ Leskov demanded.
‘I am not going to tell you that.’
‘Madam, I had hoped that you would be more cooperative. If necessary, I can make this situation very unpleasant for you.’
Elli’s mocking laughter shocked everyone in the room.
‘You are going to make things unpleasant for me? I was beaten, degraded, raped repeatedly, starved, and left for dead by the Nazis. What do you think you can do to me that hasn’t already been done?’
‘Perhaps you’re right, there may be nothing I can do to you.’ Leskov reached out and grabbed Kelsey’s wrist. ‘But perhaps watching this young lady suffer might change your mind.’
‘If you harm Kelsey in any way, I swear I will kill myself at the first opportunity. I am not afraid of death and I am not afraid of suffering. This is a waste of your time and ours. Go back to wherever you came from and leave us alon
e.’
Leskov grudgingly admired the woman’s nerve. Their eyes locked, and he saw nothing but steel. She meant every word.
The stare down ended when Leskov’s earpiece crackled to life.
‘Kilkenny has turned into the cul-de-sac,’ the man reported. ‘Black Mercedes truck. He’s seen our vehicle.’
‘Everyone, we’re moving out,’ Leskov announced.
‘Good riddance,’ Elli said.
‘You misunderstand me; you two are going with us. We are not finished with this conversation. Kiril, Misha, bring the women.’
Two of Leskov’s men roughly grabbed Elli and Kelsey, pulling them out of their chairs and marching them out the front door.
45
JULY 29
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Kilkenny sped to the far end of the development where Kelsey’s condo overlooked a wooded ravine. As he approached her unit, he saw a full-sized dark green Ford van with smoked windows backed up in her driveway – the driver was the large black-haired man he’d seen at Sandstrom’s lab and the Grad Library.
‘Damn it!’ he shouted as he braked and turned hard to the left.
The screech of rubber dragging over asphalt echoed loudly off the walls and windows of the surrounding condos. Kilkenny brought the SUV to a stop in the center of the narrow drive, nearly perpendicular to the road. As he rolled out of the driver-side door onto the road, a fusillade erupted from Kelsey’s front door. Bullets tore into the exposed side of the SUV, puncturing metal and shattering the windows into pebble-sized chunks of glass. An explosion shook the vehicle as one of the bullets struck the compressed gas cylinder of the air bag in the passengerside door.
Kilkenny crouched behind the front tire with his weapon drawn, glass fragments raining down on him and bullets ricocheting off the road beneath the SUV. The ML 320 lurched away from him as the tires on the passenger side ruptured and the vehicle fell onto its rims.
‘Nolan!’ he heard Kelsey scream.
Glancing up over the hood, Kilkenny saw a pair of men firing submachine guns while two others forcefully moved Kelsey and Elli into the van. Orchestrating the attack and kidnapping was the tall blond Russian. As Nolan took quick aim at their leader and fired, a short burst riddled the hood. Kilkenny fell back, hot metal fragments biting into his face and arms.
Leskov felt a burning sensation across his forehead, followed by an intense rush of pain. Instinctively, he clasped his hands over the wound just as blood began to ooze from the groove dug in the skin by Kilkenny’s bullet.
‘Grigori, Evgenii, kill him!’ Leskov shouted as he staggered toward the van, his hands and face now soaked with blood.
Without a word, the two shooters began leapfrogging toward the bullet-riddled SUV – one firing while the other moved ten feet forward, then reversing roles until they covered the distance.
Hop and pop, Kilkenny thought as he listened to the regular, short bursts of approaching gunfire. Question is, Which side of my truck are you two gonna try and nail me from?
Crouching down, Kilkenny moved along the side of his truck until he was able to grab hold of the rear door handle, and opened the door.
Evgenii caught the opening of the rear door as Grigori ran past his position and reached the shredded rear wheel. Using hand signals, he informed his partner that Kilkenny had moved into the backseat. Grigori nodded, and shifted his crouch to better position himself to fire into the shattered rear window.
Evgenii then ran toward the front of the SUV, firing until he came to a stop, crouched against the front wheel. Beneath him, a widening puddle of sickly sweet smelling antifreeze spread slowly over the asphalt.
Both men nodded that they were ready. Evgenii held his fingers up and mouthed a three count.
Kilkenny waited for the pause in the gunfire. Staying low, he moved around the rear corner of the vehicle, then rose up with his pistol aimed through the shattered rear window.
The two Russians came into Kilkenny’s view simultaneously. Both were focused on the rear seat when he fired a two-shot burst into Evgenii’s forehead. He then swept right and drilled another pair through Grigori’s temple. Both men collapsed on the ground without firing a shot at him.
‘Fuck!’ Josef cursed.
The Ukrainian put the van in gear and punched the accelerator – the large V-8 roared loudly as he drove straight at Kilkenny.
‘What the fuck is happening?’ Leskov shouted, wiping the blood from his eyes.
‘Grigori and Evgenii are dead,’ Josef reported. ‘We have to get out of here now.’
Leskov saw two of his men lying in the street and Kilkenny turning to fire on the van.
‘Kiril, shoot him!’ Leskov shouted.
Leaning out the passenger window, Kiril aimed his submachine gun and opened fire, pinning Kilkenny down behind his damaged truck as Josef drove over the shallow curb and across the lawns of Kelsey’s neighbors.
‘Shit!’ Kilkenny cursed, unable to find a clear shot at anything.
As the van rounded the corner, he saw only the shadowy forms of the people inside through the vehicle’s smoked glass. Kilkenny didn’t dare shoot for fear of hitting Kelsey or Elli.
46
JULY 29
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Nolan winced as the EMT extracted another metal fragment from his bloodstained cheek.
‘Good thing none of these hit you in the eye,’ the EMT said.
‘Just get ’em out and patch me up,’ Nolan replied, sitting impatiently on the ambulance’s chrome bumper.
A second ambulance pulled away from the crime scene, this one ferrying the bodies of the two Russians he had slain. Outside the perimeter the police had established, Sean Kilkenny leaned against his Explorer, waiting for his son.
Once the bodies were removed and the forensic techs finished photographing Nolan’s ML 320 in situ, the driver of a flatbed wrecker ran a steel cable around the SUV’s undercarriage and slowly began pulling the damaged vehicle up the ramp. The winch howled under the load, and the shredded tires alternated between flopping and dragging across the wrecker’s diamond-plate steel bed. Once the SUV was secured, the driver handed Ptashnik a receipt and drove off. Nolan watched until his truck disappeared from view.
‘I’ll bet your insurance company is going to love this,’ Ptashnik said.
Nolan glowered back in stony silence.
‘You’re right. Bad joke. Here.’ Ptashnik handed him the receipt. ‘We’re impounding your truck so we can collect evidence. The yard will call when we’re done with it.’
‘Are you done with me yet?’
‘Pretty much. I’ll be in touch if we need anything else.’
‘Can I have my pistol back?’
‘No, we have to hang on to that until we run this mess past the DA. Don’t worry about it, though. This was clearly self-defense, and you were attempting to prevent a kidnapping. There’s no way she’s gonna press charges against you for killing those two guys. Once the paperwork clears, I’ll release your weapon.’
‘Thanks. I see you got somebody from the phone company checking Kelsey’s line for a tap. Anybody working on my phone?’
‘The sheriff is out there right now with a line crew. Your phone should be clear in about an hour.’
‘Good.’
‘I’m finished,’ the EMT announced as he taped a dressing over the gouge on Nolan’s right shoulder. ‘Keep your wounds clean and have a doc look at ’em in a couple of days.’
Nolan nodded, then stood up. ‘I’m outta here. Call me if you hear anything about Kelsey and Elli.’
‘I will,’ Ptashnik promised.
Nolan walked over to where his father had waited for nearly two hours.
‘You okay, son?’ Sean asked.
‘I’m fine, Dad. Did you call Kelsey’s folks?’
Sean nodded gravely. ‘I hate being the bearer of bad news. These Russians, do you think they’ll—’
‘Kill Kelsey or Elli? God, I hope not, but their pattern to date sug
gests otherwise. They’re after the engagement ring Wolff gave to Elli.’
‘Why?’
‘Kelsey believes Wolff had the key to his cipher engraved on it. She told me this morning, and that’s how these fuckers found out! They tapped our phones, Dad.’
‘Nolan, it’s not your fault.’
‘I should have had the lines checked. We knew we had a leak when they took the notebooks. These people have been one step ahead of us all the way. We’ve got to find out who’s running this op if we’re going to have any chance of stopping ’em.’ Nolan took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm himself. ‘Do you have your phone on you, Dad? I don’t trust mine right now.’
Sean reached into his Explorer and pulled a small digital phone from the center console.
‘Here you go.’
‘Thanks,’ Nolan replied as he began dialing a number.
‘Grin,’ the voice answered, as if it could be no one else.
‘Morning, Grin. It’s Nolan. Did you get that E-mail I sent you last night?’
‘Yeah, and I got two things for you. First, Ted Sandstrom called a little while ago sounding very excited. He said he replied to your E-mail, but he hadn’t heard back from you yet.’
‘What’s his message?’
‘He said the file you sent him was one of his.’
‘Good. What else you got for me?’
‘The ru in the sender’s E-mail address told me right off that the host server is in Russia. I tracked it back as far as a company in Moscow called VIO FinProm. I tried to tickle the sender’s name out of their E-mail server – to find out who a-v-v is – but the server was having none of it. I went in with a light touch, but they got pretty decent security. If you want, I can be a little less subtle.’
‘Let’s hold off on that for the moment,’ Nolan replied. ‘What I would like you to do is dig up whatever you can on this VIO FinProm.’