by Duffy, Sue
In seconds, Ava was beside him, training her own gun on the captain. “Where’s Hans Kluen?” she demanded.
The man only sneered at her. Evgeny picked up the knife from the floor. Without delay, he leaned over and sliced through the pants where hot grease had saturated, knowing the skin on the thigh below was already painful. Another shriek from the captain.
“Now we will make the question harder,” Evgeny said calmly. “Where is Hans Kluen and the man you work for?” He lowered the blade toward the man’s other thigh.
“Wait!” The captain raised a trembling hand. “I didn’t sign on for this.” He paused to gather what Evgeny hoped was the truth. “We took them all across the river and dropped them off.”
“Who?”
The captain cursed Evgeny, who raised the knife over the now bleeding leg. “Don’t!” the man cried. “I’ll tell you. My Russian boss and that big woman … and that Wall Street guy they hauled out of here all trussed up like a pig. Then we went back to move his car.”
“Where did you take them, and where were they going?” Ava demanded.
“A dock in Brooklyn. I don’t know where he goes when I drop him off. There’s always a car waiting.” Evgeny made a move toward him. “I swear it!” the man yelled. “He’s got a house somewhere over there, a big place like a museum or something, his driver told me. Lots of art.”
Something flared in Evgeny’s memory. He leaned close to the man. “What kind of art?”
“Don’t know. Just art. The driver says he’s crazy about it.”
“Antiques, too?” Evgeny pumped, drawing an inquisitive stare from Ava.
“I don’t know about no antiques, buddy. All I know is he likes art. Period.” The man dabbed at his bloody pants. “Hey, you gonna do something about this bleeding?”
“You ever pick this guy up around the South Street Seaport?” Evgeny asked, ignoring the man’s question.
“Yeah, a few times. He’s got a place down there, too. He’s got ’em all over the world, I hear. Must be some big mobster. Don’t know.”
“What kind of car meets the boat?” Ava jumped in, still eyeing Evgeny curiously.
“Big black Beemer. But sometimes it’s a black Range Rover. The guy’s got money.”
Evgeny wasn’t listening anymore. He remembered the night Pavel Andreyev had summoned him to an apartment near the South Street Seaport. Evgeny had heard it belonged to an arts-and-antiques dealer who used to work at the Kremlin.
“And now the bigger question,” Ava continued. “What does he look like?”
The captain thought. “Not too tall. Kind of skinny. Not a lot of hair. Nice dresser.”
Evgeny sorted through a mental file of former Kremlin types. No matches surfaced right away. But now he had landed on a more promising lead. The Seaport apartment. The FBI had already searched the UN apartment Jordan Winslow had directed them to, finding no shred of evidence.
“Get your boys in here to take care of this guy and the others,” Evgeny told Ava. “You and I have someplace else to go.”
Ava raised a questioning brow.
“I’ll explain later. Better make your call.”
It didn’t take long for the agents on the river to swoop in and take charge of the captain and his vessel. Evgeny knew they would wait for the beer runner to return, then hunt down the third member of the crew. As for the black vehicles belonging to the Architect …
“Do you know how many black BMWs and Range Rovers there are in this metro area?” Ava asked as they left the boat. “And records don’t show which ones belong to Russian expats.” That had quelled Evgeny’s urgings to track the cars. He had a more urgent pursuit anyway.
Back in the van, Evgeny told Ava about the Seaport apartment and his brief connection to it. “That’s where I went to report to Pavel Andreyev the night I failed to capture Liesl.” He wouldn’t look at Ava. “I knew he was just a guest there, that the owner traveled a lot—just some vague being I never gave thought to.” He fumed. “It has to be him!”
“Can you find this place again?”
“Hang on.”
As Evgeny swung the van onto a southerly route to Lower Manhattan, Ava called Cass at the number attached to the phone Evgeny had provided. That piece of logistical planning had impressed Ava, who still hoped to bring Evgeny in and convince him, in whatever way it took, to apply his considerable spy craft to U.S. interests.
It was nearly eleven, and the flight from Charleston earlier that morning seemed days ago. Ava tried to ignore the creeping fatigue in her body, preferring to picture herself asleep against Ian’s shoulder through most of the flight. Ian. Almost sixteen years older than she, he’d captured her heart without meaning to. No one knew how much she loved him, including him.
“Yes, ma’am?” Cass answered in a sleepy voice.
“Okay, Cass. You’re on. Tell the agents to take you to the beach house right away and get started on those files. You’ll have to let them oversee the search.”
“Can Jordan and my mom come, too?”
Ava grimaced. Jordan would be a help, but she wasn’t sure about the mother.
“I can’t leave her here by herself, even with bodyguards,” Cass insisted.
“Okay, but hurry. And Cass, we have reason to believe Hans is being held captive by these people. It’s critical that you stay close to your security detail. At this moment, the people who took Hans are probably looking for you.”
Chapter 34
The black BMW pulled up to the two-story Brooklyn house. Two men hauled a still-bound Hans from the back seat as Ivan and Sonya followed them inside. Ivan was angry that Sonya had left the front drapes open, inviting anyone with a flashlight to look inside. Though the former estate was walled with gated entrances that were usually locked, Ivan had been surprised before by curious neighborhood kids. More than once, they had scaled the brick wall and set off to explore the abandoned buildings of this long-closed arts college. He was sure they’d been drawn by that ridiculous cow outside the front gate. “An already warped sense of art gone utterly haywire,” Ivan had complained to Sonya.
“Take him to the basement,” Ivan ordered the men, two of his most trusted aides, neither of whom spoke more than a smattering of English.
“Are you so sure we were not followed, Ivan?” Sonya asked before heading to her upstairs bedroom.
“Go to sleep, Sonya,” he responded impatiently, dismissing her fears. When she left, he retreated to the small study from which his friend Boris had once managed the affairs of the college. “A euphemism, for sure,” Boris had once admitted. “No accreditation. No diplomas. Just a small colony of artists joyfully engaged. And filthy rich!”
Ivan remembered the times he’d come to America with fabricated papers and headed for this isolationist compound in the midst of teeming Brooklyn. He and Boris Reznik had fled Russia soon after the collapse of the Soviet empire. Boris, a Russian Jew with wealthy American friends, had reveled in the artistic and financial freedom that America, and his generous students, had afforded him. He had repeatedly chided Ivan for clinging to dreams of a Russian resurgence. “Your new world order is foolishness,” Boris had scoffed. “Noble but foolish. Come and luxuriate here with us. We want nothing more than to live as we choose and savor each decadent morsel of American life.” Then he’d bellowed with laughter and handed Ivan another glass of ice-cold vodka.
The old oak floor squeaked beneath the antique rugs as Ivan crossed the study to the fireplace. He added a handful of kindling, two fat logs, then struck the match—much like the orderly progression of sabotage. And revenge. Such a satisfying word, he thought, tumbling the two syllables about in his mouth.
As the dry tinder caught, he poured cognac from a nearby decanter and lifted it to the flames, watching the fiery liquid dance inside the crystal snifter. “Wrong, Boris,” Ivan said to the flames. “I do luxuriate in ways you couldn’t know.”
Now an invalid living in Manhattan with his daughter, Boris had never asked how
Ivan had acquired his wealth. The truth was, the Kremlin insider, before abandoning the sinking Soviet ship, had helped himself to government funds he believed he was entitled to. In the chaotic aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, certain accountants were too busy treading water to notice the grievous imbalance of their books. Ivan wondered if they ever noted the disparities but dared not insinuate blame. He’d invested the confiscated capital wisely and multiplied it many times over.
Besides his strategically located residences around the world, his private plane and helicopter, his boats, his Savile Row suits, and his well-paid troupe of strong-armed attendants, the luxury Ivan enjoyed most was his front-row seat at the rise and fall of an American president. It was coming soon.
As he swirled the cognac in the sparkling glass, he remembered the cracked pottery on which his mother had served him food as a child, with never enough to satisfy his hunger. She’d scrubbed the homes of the Kremlin elite and tended their thankless broods, then returned to care for her young son in the hovel they shared with another family. Then Ivan simply turned off the offending memories and let them drain away, like the foul-smelling sulfurous water that trickled from the faucets of his childhood. There was work to do.
He lifted his phone and summoned the photographic signal that would launch the next stage of attacks on this gluttonous country. With his fingertip, he traced the image of the bandaged ear, the haunted eyes of the artist who’d indulged the thrashings of his own mind, of his own knife-wielding hand. Ivan wondered what had drawn him so to Vincent van Gogh’s fatalistic self-portrait. Even though supposition held that the artist’s self-mutilation had sprung not from the toxicity of his genius but from the unintentional ingestion of lead paint.
Still, Ivan preferred to look upon the image as the glory of an injured warrior, even though the battle raged within himself. That, Ivan could relate to. And so he’d chosen the famous painting as the final signal to his loyal troupe of saboteur-spies spread across this land. When they received the text and opened the image, they would know exactly what to do. The death rattle of American dominance and Travis Noland’s reign would begin.
Ivan looked at his watch. Captain Cyrus Neale would launch the massive, coast-to-coast strike with one shocking opener, a horrific teaser of what was to come. He and Sonya would watch the spectacle from shore. Seconds later, his chopper would whisk them away and deliver them to a safe haven. Ivan had many from which to choose.
The door to the basement opened, and one of his men advised him that the captive below was demanding a word with him. Why not? Ivan considered. The man hasn’t long. “Tell him I will be there in a moment.” Ivan first needed to confirm the coming afternoon’s pick-up time by the boat crew who’d just deposited him, Sonya, and Hans in Brooklyn.
When the aide left, Ivan dialed the captain’s phone but got no answer. He dialed again, then again. He had demanded they be available at all times for his call. Now he was angry. He dialed another of the crew. Still no answer. His instincts released a sudden charge. He revisited Sonya’s question. Are you so sure we weren’t followed?
Ivan sprang from his chair and hurried to the basement. He charged at Hans. “What have you done?”
Hans turned bleary, red-tinged eyes on him. “Evidently something else I’m not aware of,” he moaned sarcastically.
“Did someone follow you to the dock?”
Hans sighed. “I don’t know,” he droned. “I seem to have a deplorable lack of knowledge, wouldn’t you say?”
“Straighten up,” Ivan commanded.
But Hans was tied to a chair. “Why don’t you straighten up, Ivan!” he cried, the sound of one resigned to his fate and no longer fearful. “You’ve had your fun. Now why don’t you take your fat friend upstairs and get out of here. You make me sick.”
The blow across his cheek came swiftly from Ivan’s own hand.
Hans absorbed it but kept charging. “That’s the coward’s way. Hit the man who can’t defend himself. Shoot at the innocent piano player and go after a man’s child because she dared to interfere with your noble plans.” Hans looked fiercely at Ivan. “What drives you, Ivan? Are you really such a Mother Russia patriot? Or just a lunatic?”
Ivan raised his hand again.
“How about the other cheek this time?” Hans jeered, turning his head the opposite direction.
Lowering his hand, Ivan eyed him savagely. “Where is your stepdaughter?”
“Make that daughter.” Hans preened with a mixture of triumph and pain. “And didn’t you hear yourself tell me she was in South Carolina? If anyone followed me, it wasn’t my child.”
Sonya’s agitated voice sounded at the top of the basement steps. “Ivan, come quickly!”
With the door to the basement left open. Hans could hear the conversation Sonya began with Ivan.
“Cyrus Neale just phoned. His house is being watched. He is sure of it.”
“Rubin took Hafner to that house today, did he not?”
“He did, sir.”
There was a long silence. “Get Rubin on the phone.”
“That contact information is on my flash drive with everyone else’s. Give me a minute.”
“Where do you keep that?”
Hans strained to hear. “In a cigarette case inside my purse.”
“That is no place to keep such critical information.”
“We have moved around too much to keep it in the safe at my apartment. But don’t worry. I will secure it once we reach the boat, where I also have a duplicate.”
Ivan returned to the basement. “When was the last time you spoke to Cyrus Neale?” he asked Hans.
Hans decided it was best to cooperate. He needed time and opportunity. “He called me this afternoon.”
“What did he say about Jeremy Rubin’s visit?”
“That he didn’t trust him or his friend.”
“Why have you not told me this?”
Hans looked down at the straps around him. “Something about being slammed into a chair and tied up put a real damper on conversation.”
Ivan ignored his sarcasm. “Why did Cyrus not trust them?”
Before Hans could answer, Sonya called for Ivan.
“Get up and come with me,” Ivan told Hans, then turned to the man guarding him. “Untie him and bring him upstairs.”
When the man released Hans from the chair, a sharp pain radiated through his right shoulder and he winced. Ivan watched him carefully but ignored the show of discomfort. “You might be of use to me yet. Cyrus has never spoken to anyone but you and Sonya. I don’t think he likes her. Imagine that.” Hans knew the ruthless woman was feared, even hated, by many within Ivan’s network, though she remained fiercely loyal to the cause. “You will speak to him now.”
Upstairs, Hans was directed to a chair at the kitchen table and shoved into it by the man still holding a gun on him. Instantly, Hans’s full attention was drawn to the open handbag across the table from him. Taking his seat, he leaned forward as far as possible for a better look inside, then shifted his eyes quickly away before the guard took notice.
Sonya inserted a flash drive into a laptop on the kitchen counter and pulled up the necessary contact information.
“Get Cyrus on the phone first,” Ivan told her, and turned to Hans. “You are his overseer. He will speak more freely with you.”
Sonya closed the laptop. Hans saw the flash drive still protruding from the side. She punched in the number and hit speaker, then handed the phone to Hans.
The man picked up immediately. “Cyrus here.”
“This is Hans. Tell me why you think someone’s watching you.” He looked up at Ivan and Sonya hovering over him.
“I’ve seen the same car in different spots on my street,” Cyrus said. “Then it leaves and another arrives. It’s been going on all afternoon.”
Ivan mouthed the word Rubin.
“Tell me about your visitors today.”
“Didn’t like either one of them, especiall
y the guy with the hood on his head. He didn’t even speak. I know he’s some kind of big-deal spy of yours and couldn’t let me see him. But it gave me the creeps.”
“What about Jeremy Rubin?”
“Okay, I guess. Kind of nervous.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kept watching the other guy and fidgeting, you know.” He paused. “Hey, are you ready to do this thing or not? Tell that big boss of yours I’ve got the explosives all loaded up and ready to fire. Good thing I decided to dock my tug someplace else. Whoever’s watching the house probably doesn’t know where it is now. But I tell you what, I’m plenty tired of waiting for the action. Fish or cut bait!”
Ivan mouthed a word that made Hans’s pulse quicken. Tomorrow.
Hans relayed Ivan’s message and reminded Cyrus to keep his phone on him at all times and watch for the signal. The call ended, and Sonya retrieved the phone.
Ivan abruptly walked into a study off the kitchen and closed the door. Sonya looked after him, her face clouded. Hans didn’t take his eyes off her as she retrieved the flash drive and returned to the table. Feigning disinterest while cutting his eyes toward the purse, he watched her open a flat, silver cigarette case, drop the small drive inside, then shove the case back into her purse. She was about to snap it shut when Ivan flung open the door and announced, “Call Rubin now! Tell him I want to meet with him and it is imperative he bring Ben Hafner. Make certain he understands that. Then give him very clear directions to the warehouse. Tell him to be there promptly at noon tomorrow.”
A highly agitated Ivan motioned the guard to come into the study as if any further threat from Hans had been suspended. Now, only he and Sonya remained in the kitchen. Hans couldn’t believe such an opportunity had been handed to him. He would have to act quickly. Any minute, Ivan might regain his better judgment and order Hans retied.
His eye on the purse, he asked, “Sonya, may I have a glass of water, please?” Then he slowly stood as if to retrieve it himself, all the while listening to the conversation inside the study. He heard only sentence fragments from Ivan. “On the roof … first sign of backup … call immediately.”