Assassin

by David Hagberg

  “I don’t follow you,” McGarvey said dully. He hung his head and coughed deeply as if he were having trouble catching his breath.

  “Certainly the Tarantula would pay a fair sum of money if he knew that you were no longer capable of gunning for him. Contacting him, and convincing him of what and who you are, might be tricky but not impossible.”

  “There are methods,” the accountant put in.

  “The Militia and FSK are looking for you with a great deal of passion, though not for the reasons you stated,” Ostrovsky said with amusement. “President Kabatov means to arrest the Tarantula and place him on trial for murder and treason. But in order to do that you mustn’t be allowed to carry out your nefarious plans.” Ostrovsky shook his head in amazement and glanced over at his accountant.

  “It doesn’t make any sense to me either, Yakov,” the ferret face said, the hint of a smile at the corners of the thin mouth.

  McGarvey coughed again, and had to prop himself up with his hands on his knees.

  “Then there’s your own government, Mr. McGarvey, which has already spent hundreds of million of dollars trying to make sure that we Russians don’t slip back into our old ways. They certainly might be willing to pay a great deal of money to have you delivered alive and safe at the U.S. Embassy. It would save them from international censure if it were to come out that the CIA had plotted to assassinate a legitimate Russian presidential candidate.”

  McGarvey stubbed out the cigarette and looked up at Ostrovsky. “What do you want me to say?” he asked groggily.

  “I’m sure that given the choice you would much rather go home. Who in Washington would be willing to make a deal?”

  “Howard Ryan,” McGarvey said after a moment. “He’s Deputy Director of Operations for the CIA.”

  “What about the director himself?”

  “You’ll have to start with Ryan, he’s the one looking for me. He’d have the most to gain.”

  Ostrovsky tossed a cell phone over. “Call him.”

  McGarvey looked at the phone and shook his head. “I need a shower first, I feel like shit.”

  “You can have a shower later.”

  “Now, goddammit. You’ve got me, so cut me a little slack before I puke all over your fancy carpet,” McGarvey said, letting a pleading note creep into his voice. He’d been listening for sounds from elsewhere in the club, but there was nothing. Either no one was around at this hour, or this room was located in an isolated area.

  “Go with him,” Ostrovsky told the two bodyguards.

  They came over as McGarvey started to rise. At the last moment he stumbled as if he had lost his balance, and one of the guards caught him. It was all the opening he needed. He snatched the Glock-17 out of the man’s shoulder holster and shouldered the man out of the way. The other guard reached for his gun when McGarvey shot him twice in the chest, knocking him backward off his feet. The first guard caught his balance and reached for McGarvey who switched aim and shot the man in the face at point blank range.

  Ostrovsky was coming out of his chair, and the accountant was starting for the door. McGarvey shot the ferret in the side of the head, sending him crashing over the low coffee table, at the same moment a panicked Ostrovsky was dragging a pistol out of his pocket.

  McGarvey pointed his gun at the Mafia boss. “Nyet!” he shouted.

  Ostrovsky ignored the warning, as he got out the pistol, which McGarvey recognized as his own Walther, and raised it.

  McGarvey dispassionately shot the man twice in the chest, knocking him off his feet, where he landed in a heap in front of the couch.

  At the door McGarvey listened but there were no sounds in the corridor. No one had heard the shots, and no alarm had been raised.

  He went into the bathroom where he showered off the blood that had splattered on him, then found his clothes in a heap on the floor. After he got dressed, he repacked the rifle components and the bolt cutter in the leather satchel, then retrieved his own gun, spare magazine and silencer from Ostrovsky’s body.

  It was 6:45 when he finished, and still there were no sounds from the corridor, but by now the club would be busy with early arrivals. No one would expect trouble. In fact it was likely that no one else knew about Ostrovsky’s guest.

  Hefting the satchel in his left hand, McGarvey let himself out, and hurried noiselessly to the end of the corridor, which turned left through a pair of doors that led to the front of the club. Now he could hear music, and the sounds of laughter, and voices.

  Without undue haste, he walked to the front of the club, through the entry foyer, past the front desk staff and doormen who paid him no attention, and outside as a valet was getting out of a BMW sedan. Several armed guards stood around, but they ignored him.

  He walked around to the driver’s side, nodded pleasantly to the young parking attendant, tossed his bag inside, got behind the wheel and took off before anyone realized what was happening. McGarvey watched in the rearview mirror as the valet sprinted inside, but then he was turning down the driveway and toward the highway that led back into Moscow.

  Lefortovo

  Jacqueline Belleau’s Russian driver that the French Embassy had provided her passed through the prison gates a few minutes before 7:00 P.M., and she had to clutch her purse between her knees to keep them from knocking. As the SDECE’s Paris Chief of Station Claude Navicet had told her this afternoon when the meeting with Bykov had been set up: “These people mean business, so watch yourself.” Which she thought was the same as saying be careful when you stick you head into the lion’s mouth. The request had been taken directly to General Yuryn, the director of the FSK. Jacqueline had listened in on the conversation, and although she spoke no Russian she detected a reluctance in his voice. Since the Russians had asked the French for help, however, he could not refuse.

  A guard came out of the gatehouse, and Jacqueline powered down her window, and passed out her papers. “I have an appointment to meet with Colonel Bykov,” she said in French.

  Her driver opened his window and translated.

  The guard took her papers back into the gatehouse, and a couple of minutes later returned with another guard. He handed Jacqueline’s papers back to her, and said something in Russian.

  “This man will escort us to Colonel Bykov’s office,” her driver translated.

  The second guard climbed in the front, and they drove to the rear of the compound where they parked in front of a low yellow brick building whose barred windows had been painted black.

  Chernov was alone in his office. Although he seemed impatient, he smiled pleasantly and shook her hand. “I’m Yuri Bykov,” he said in French.

  “I’m Jacqueline Belleau, and my service has sent me from Paris to help out.” Chernov was tall, well built and in Jacqueline’s opinion, handsome. But his smile was fake.

  “Frankly I don’t know what you can do that your government hasn’t already done,” Chernov said. “But I’ll take any help that I can get, because we’re clutching at straws. McGarvey is here in Moscow, we know that much. But this is a very big city, and we simply can’t find him.”

  “Have you spoken with the CIA yet?”

  “Not directly,” Chernov said. “But I don’t think they’d care to send one of their officers over here from the embassy.” He smiled again. “I know we certainly wouldn’t send one of our people from our embassy in Washington over to FBI headquarters if the situation were reversed.”

  “Well it’s a good thing I came to see you tonight, because there’s something that you cannot be aware of,” Jacqueline said, conscious that she was taking a very large risk. But she didn’t know what else to do. “Like you, we and the Americans want to see Kirk McGarvey pulled back from the brink of this madness. Nobody condones assassination, and in the past McGarvey has been a friend to France. In fact he makes his home in Paris.”

  “I know.”

  “What you don’t know is that his daughter Elizabeth also works for the CIA. She was sent to work with me in Pa
ris to find her father.”

  “Extraordinary,” Chernov said. “I had no idea. Is she here with you?”

  The bastard was lying. Jacqueline could see it in his cold eyes.

  “I don’t know where she is, Colonel.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She and I traced her father to an apartment in Riga, but that’s as far as we got. She disappeared into thin air, and the Riga police swear that they know nothing about it.”

  “What exactly do you mean, disappeared?” Chernov asked quietly.

  “Just that,” Jacqueline said. “We staked out his apartment that night, but when it was evident he was gone, I went over to my embassy to call for instructions. Elizabeth remained behind to continue watching the apartment. When I came back a couple hours later she was gone. The landlady knew nothing, nor, as I said, did the police. There was no sign of a struggle. She was just gone.”

  “What do you think happened to her?”

  “She followed her father here to Moscow, I have no doubt about it. Neither does the CIA,” Jacqueline said. She brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. “I hated to bring this news to you, Colonel, because I know how it will affect your investigation. But the Americans are very keen on getting Elizabeth home safe. After all she was sent over to help stop her father, at your government’s request. And in the past few weeks working with the girl—she’s only twenty-three—I became very fond of her. So it’s become personal with me.”

  “Amazing,” Chernov said. “In any event we can all agree that Kirk McGarvey has come here to assassinate one of our presidential candidates.”

  “That’s still a matter of speculation, actually,” Jacqueline said. “Elizabeth is traveling on her own passport. The name McGarvey is not very common, so I’m wondering if any of your people have heard anything. I assume that you’re watching the border crossings, trains, planes, buses, car rental agencies, hotels, things like that.”

  “To my knowledge her name has not shown up on any of our surveillance reports. But if I hear anything I’ll contact you at your embassy, Mademoiselle Belleau,” he said. “I would ask that you let me know in turn if she shows up at her own embassy or yours.”

  “I’ll inform the Americans, I’m sure they’ll be happy to help out.”

  Ten minutes later Captain Petrovsky telephoned Chernov from Militia Headquarters in the old City Soviet Building.

  “We may have something, Colonel.”

  “What is it?” said Chernov, his mind still on the French woman. Her coming here had disturbed him. It was something outside his control, something unexpected. He didn’t like that.

  “A Mafia boss, his money man and two of his bodyguards were gunned down about a half hour ago. The only reason we got it so fast was that one of General Mazayev’s people happened to be out there and called me direct.”

  “Where did this happen?” Chernov demanded with his full attention now.

  “That’s the thing, we should have known. At the Grand Dinamo. It’s inside the stadium, not two thousand meters from the flea market.”

  “That’s it. Did anybody see anything?”

  “Not the murders, but about the same time a man came out of the club, jumped into a blue BMW and took off. But it wasn’t his car. The general description the valet provided more or less fits McGarvey.”

  “All right, put out an all-points bulletin for that car.”

  “I sent the bulletin before I called you. If that car is still in Moscow we’ll find it.”

  “Don’t screw it up this time, Illen,” Chernov warned quietly.

  “No.”

  Downtown Moscow

  McGarvey parked near a metro station around the corner from the Bolshoi Theater at 7:20. Taking the satchel with him he found a public phone inside the station and despite the risk that the phone was being monitored for international calls, he used his Allain credit card to reach Otto Rencke. He figured that the staff at the Grand Dinamo would have been confused for the first few minutes by the theft of the car out from under their noses, and when they had gone looking for their boss, but instead found his body and those of his accountant and bodyguards, they might have panicked. It would take them time to get organized and even more time to decide what to do. The loss of a member’s car was nothing in comparison to the murders. But sooner or later they would realize that the two events were connected and they would do something. They’d either call the Militia, who might put two and two together in due time, or they’d put the word out on the street, which would be a lot faster.

  “Hiya,” Rencke answered cautiously on the first ring.

  “Have you heard from my daughter?” McGarvey asked.

  “Oh boy, Mac, am I ever glad you called, because you’ve gotta get out of there right now. Whatever it takes, just run to the embassy and everything can be worked out.”

  If the line was clear and Rencke could talk, he was supposed to respond that he’d heard from Elizabeth and everything was fine. But he hadn’t, and he sounded all strung out.

  “I’ll come for you when I can.”

  “Noo, Mac,” Otto cried. “You don’t understand. The line is clear, I’m okay, but it’s Elizabeth. Something’s happened. Something terrible.”

  A cold fist clutched at McGarvey’s heart. “What’s happened?”

  “Elizabeth is there in Moscow. Chernov picked her up in Riga, which means Tarankov’s probably got her, and is going to use her for bait.”

  McGarvey closed his eyes. “Christ, Christ,” he said softly, as he tried to get ahold of himself. He opened his eyes. “I can’t talk very long, but from the beginning, Otto, what the hell is going on?”

  “Call me from the embassy, please. Just get out of there.”

  “Goddammit, Otto!”

  “Oh shit, oh shit. The field officer Ryan sent over to look for you was Elizabeth. She’s working for the CIA now. She was with the DI, but Ryan recruited her to help find you. So she came to Paris but the SDECE picked her up, and she and Jacqueline Belleau were assigned to stake out your apartment.”

  This wasn’t believable, and yet McGarvey knew goddamned well it was true. Ryan was capable of all of it. McGarvey held the phone so tightly his knuckles turned white, but if anyone passing in the busy station noticed anything they gave no sign of it.

  “Mac, are you still there?” Otto asked fearfully.

  “I’m here.”

  “It took Elizabeth a couple of weeks, but she started surfing the net and she found me. She just put it together, Mac. I swear I was hammered right to my knees when she showed up.”

  “How did she find out about Riga?”

  “I told her,” Otto wailed. “I don’t know why, but you were walking into a trap by calling Yemlin. Chernov had his phone bugged and when you made the call it was traced. I had to stay here, so Elizabeth and Jacqueline took off for Riga. They were just supposed to warn you that Chernov was on his way. But Elizabeth got caught, and Jacqueline saw it all.”

  “You shouldn’t have told her about Riga,” McGarvey said softly.

  “I know that now, but there was no other way, Mac. Believe me, if I could rip my heart out I would.” Otto was practically in tears. “Just go to the embassy, Mac. Please, God, just do that for me. Once I know that you’re clear I’ll call Murphy and he can tell the President. Between the political pressure from Washington, and Jacqueline slowing Chernov down there’s a chance this’ll all turn out okay. But you’ve got to get out of there, Mac. Right now.”

  “Now what are you talking about?” McGarvey demanded.

  “Jacqueline convinced her people to send her to Moscow to work with the police commission—”

  “Does she know who Bykov really is?”

  “Yes. And so does the CIA, I think, but nobody’s going to do a thing until you get out of the way. Once you’re safely in the embassy Tarankov will have no reason to hold Elizabeth, and he’ll let her go.”

  McGarvey’s head was spinning. “I don’t think so.”

&nbs
p; “Yes, Mac. At this stage in the revolution the man would be a fool to alienate the West over a simple kidnapping.”

  “He doesn’t give a damn about us. In less than two days he’s going to be running this country. It’ll be his finger on the nuclear triggers and all the Ryans of the world won’t give a damn. They’ll sacrifice my daughter’s life without batting an eye.”

  “Dammit, Mac—”

  “Get out of there right now, Otto. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.”

  “I’m sorry, Mac. I’m sorry—”

  “It’s not your fault. Just get out of there while you can.”

  McGarvey broke the connection, and for several minutes he was unable to do anything but sit there conscious of his beating heart, conscious of a tightness in his gut. He could see Elizabeth two Thanksgivings ago. He could feel her body, smell her scent as they hugged goodbye when she was leaving to go back to her job in New York, and his jaw tightened.

  Tarankov would not harm her until after the May Day parade because he needed her until then. He was using her for bait, Otto said.

  Well if you bait a hook, you should be prepared for what you catch.

  He picked up the phone again.

  Courbevoie

  Rencke caught Roland Murphy at his desk in Langley just as the CIA director was about to leave for lunch.

  “General, this is Otto Rencke. I think you know who I am, because I’m helping Kirk McGarvey and you and the French are looking for us.”

  There was a silence on the line for several seconds.

  “We don’t have time to screw around, Mr. Director. If you’re trying to trace this call, don’t bother, because you can’t do it.”

  “Where are you calling from?” Murphy asked, his voice measured.

  “I’m in Paris. But that’s not important. Kirk McGarvey has reached Moscow, but so has his daughter, Elizabeth. Your DDO, Howard Ryan, sent her over a couple of weeks ago to help the French find her father. They traced him to Riga, where Colonel Bykov, who heads the Russian police commission looking for him, picked her up. The thing is, Bykov is an alias. His real name is Leonid Chernov and he works as Tarankov’s chief of staff. That means Elizabeth is probably being held prisoner by Tarankov. Do you understand what I’m telling you, General?”