by Steven Gore
“How much?”
“For the missiles? His profit is going to be about two hundred and seventy million. And Stuart is supposed to get twenty million. Same as Gravilov.”
“Who’s buying them?”
“Stuart doesn’t know exactly. He heard Gravilov refer to his Middle Eastern friends, but that may just mean the intermediary, like the Jordanian in the sale of the Kolchuga radar to Iraq. But I know this: Whoever the buyer is will be at a demonstration at the Black Sea the day after the installation is completed. If he’s satisfied, they’ll be shipped out right afterwards. A boat is already waiting.”
“Isn’t Matson afraid of these people?”
“Yes, but he doesn’t quite get it. Violence to him is an abstract concept.”
“And I take it he doesn’t understand what protection means over here, either.”
Alla shook her head. “He doesn’t have the slightest idea.”
The driver pulled into the shadowed alley behind the restaurant.
“Where do I tell Stuart I was?” Alla asked.
Ninchenko told her the story his man had used.
“You have a cell phone?” Gage asked.
“From London.”
Gage pulled out his own. “Keep this on you. You never know when you’ll have a chance to sneak a call.” He deleted the numbers in the memory except for Ninchenko’s, then looked at the battery meter. “It has about four days of power left. There’s just one number programmed in, Mr. Ninchenko’s.” He thought for a moment. “If anybody finds the phone, tell them it’s a local one you use for convenience.”
“Whose number do I say is in memory?” Alla asked.
“Your cousin, Ivan Ivanovich. Say you’ve been planning a surprise party for Matson when you get back from Dnepropetrovsk.”
“There’ll be a fucking surprise all right.”
CHAPTER 67
Ninchenko and Gage drove back toward the apartment, leaving Ninchenko’s men to watch Alla and Matson’s return to the Lesya Palace Hotel.
“I sure didn’t see that coming,” Gage said as they wound their way back toward central Kiev.
He stared for a moment at the dimly lit street, then shook his head slowly. “Makes me wonder what else I missed.”
“Why not blow up the plant?” Ninchenko asked when he, Gage, and Slava met for a drink at the apartment. They sat at the dining table, bottled water in front of Gage and Ninchenko, vodka in front of Slava.
“I want it,” Slava said. “If Gravilov fall or opposition win, I get it. And blow up not solve problem anyway.”
“No, it won’t,” Gage said. “Rubble in Eastern Ukraine isn’t evidence.”
“Bullet in head solve everybody problem,” Slava said.
Gage gave Slava a sour look. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Just little joke.” Slava poured a shot of vodka into his glass and tossed it down. “Not easy to bury body in forest when ground frozen.”
“With Alla on the inside”—Gage glanced at Slava—“and Matson still alive…”
Ninchenko nodded. “Maybe she can gather enough evidence so she can testify about what Matson was really doing over here.”
Gage shook his head. “And then spend the rest of her life on the run? Gravilov, Hadeon Alexandervich, and all of Ukrainian security will be tracking her like wolves on the hunt.”
“What about your Witness Protection Program?” Ninchenko asked.
“That’s only if she’s willing and if the U.S. Attorney buys her story—which he has no incentive to do. How will it sound? Daughter of gangster Petrov Tarasov, traveling under Panamanian passport, fights with her boyfriend, then gets even by running to the government with a made-up story?”
Gage stared at the water bottle on the table before him, overcome by a sense of foreboding, worried that he was leading Alla, like Granger before her, into a Gravilov trap—and feeling straitjacketed by conflicting, if not contradictory, goals: making sure the devices never got installed in missile guidance systems while obtaining hard enough evidence to crush the conspiracy of words upon which Peterson was resting his indictment of Burch.
Then a thought.
He looked at Ninchenko. “How many people would it take to break in and destroy the devices? I’ll just need to preserve a few for evidence.”
“That depends on the security at the plant,” Ninchenko said.
“How soon can we get out there?”
“You take my plane at Zhulyany Airport,” Slava said, after tossing down another shot of vodka. “Ready in thirty minutes. Two-hour flight to Dnepropetrovsk. Car waiting when you arrive.”
“Good. Now let’s hope that Alla doesn’t snitch us off.”
CHAPTER 68
Midnight shadows dominated the wide boulevard sweeping through the heart of Dnepropetrovsk. Sepia-toned sidewalks emerged from a grassy blackness under the light cast by halfhearted yellow bulbs. The only souls Gage observed on the street were heavily coated swing-shift workers and a few vodka-inebriated wanderers, seemingly impervious to the chilly wind off the Dnepr River flowing down from Kiev.
“This is called Karl Marx Avenue,” Ninchenko said. “We haven’t entirely shaken off the past.”
Gage found no opposition protestors camped out in the main square, no opposition banners strung from building to building across the boulevards as in Kiev. Gage pointed at a dozen headstones draped in yellow as they passed a Russian Orthodox cemetery.
“They’ll be gone by morning,” Ninchenko said. “The president owns Eastern Ukraine. The graveyard is the only place out here where the opposition gathers. He orders the murder of opposition journalists and politicians who show their faces in his hometown.”
Gage thought back on the demonstrators in Independence Square encircled by police and soldiers. “Courageous people.”
“They don’t see that they have a choice but to take the risk if they’re going to change the country. The opposition knows it can’t win the election without carrying at least thirty percent of the vote out here, so they keep coming.”
As they drove past the cemetery, Ninchenko ceased speaking in a moment of respect for those who’d fallen in the cause, then pointed ahead. “We’re almost at the hotel.”
Gage made out the four-story, redbrick Astoria in the distance. The entrance was dark and the sign in front wasn’t illuminated. Clearly, walkins weren’t welcome.
“Has Slava decided whether to meet us out here?” Gage asked.
“His presence in Dnepropetrovsk could be viewed as a provocation.”
“I thought he had investments in the area.”
Ninchenko shrugged. “They don’t threaten anyone. They’re not viewed as a toehold, just a place to put money. A personal visit is another thing altogether. Especially with the country on the verge of chaos.”
Ninchenko swung around behind the hotel, stopping at a guarded gate that slowly opened, allowing him to drive into a parking area formed by the L-shape of the building. A beefy man in a ushanka and a knee-length leather jacket opened Gage’s door and handed him a room key anchored to a brass plate. He passed another one to Ninchenko, then removed their luggage from the trunk and followed them through the back door and into an elevator to their rooms.
He set Gage’s on a rack in the bedroom and left without waiting for a tip. Moments later Ninchenko appeared at Gage’s door.
“I didn’t need all of this,” Gage said, gesturing toward the heavy leather couch and chairs and satellite television in the living area. “Just a place to lay my head.”
“Slava said you should be comfortable.”
“Can we take a look at the plant tonight?”
“One of my local people is bringing over a surveillance van. Let’s get something to eat while we wait.”
Gage turned the face of his watch toward Ninchenko: 2 A.M.
“Hotel staff in Ukraine work twenty-four-hour shifts.” Ninchenko grinned. “They say it gives the guests more continuity but it’s really just a holdover fro
m Soviet days. People slept on the job anyway, so the leaders found a better way to schedule their naps.”
Ninchenko and Gage walked down to the second floor restaurant, passed through it, then entered a private dining room. One of the four tables was already covered with plates of smoked fish, cheese, pickles, olives, tomatoes, and bread. Ninchenko walked over to the bar and switched on a radio to cover their conversation.
Gage reached his fork toward the smoked sturgeon, then drew it back. “Is this from the Dnepr River?”
“Only the poor eat fish from the Dnepr. It’ll be a million years before the Chernobyl radioactivity washes out. This is Siberian.”
Gage stabbed a piece and shook it onto his plate.
A bleary-eyed waiter in a wrinkled white shirt appeared with bottles of mineral water, filling both of their glasses, then slinked away.
“When will your helpers from Kiev arrive?” Gage asked.
Ninchenko glanced at his watch. “A few more hours. They’ll be staying on the other side of town. No reason for all of us to be seen together.”
Gage and Ninchenko ate in silence. The waiter reappeared with a customary bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. They waved him off simultaneously. He walked away bearing a mixed expression of disappointment and violated expectation.
“For the Ukrainian male, a meal without vodka is like Chinese food without rice,” Ninchenko said.
“A cultural impossibility?”
“Very close.”
Ninchenko’s phone rang. He looked at Gage after answering, forming the word “Alla” with his mouth. He listened for thirty seconds, spoke quickly and quietly, then hung up.
“Matson and Alla are confirmed on a commercial flight tomorrow morning.”
“She sound okay?”
“Nervous,” Ninchenko said, smiling. “She’s lost the fire she displayed when she was kicking at you.”
“Did she say where they’re staying?”
“The Grand Domus Hotel. I know it. Hadeon Alexandervich pried it out of the hands of the former owner through tax inspections. The Ukrainian Tax Authority is like your IRS except it’s a political and economic tool of the president. The government seized the hotel and auctioned it to the single qualified bidder.”
“And that would be?”
“Hadeon Alexandervich’s ninety-year-old great-aunt.”
“I take it she’s a spry old lady who possesses special skills in hotel management.”
“She possesses special skills at keeping her mouth shut and in staying alive. She’s already outlived the average Ukrainian by thirty years.”
“What’s the layout? We’ll need a plan to get Alla out of there. I don’t want her paying for Matson’s crime with her life.”
“It won’t be easy. The perimeter is composed of high brick walls and wrought-iron fences. She’s in good shape, but I doubt that she could climb over either, especially with them iced over.”
The waiter reappeared and whispered in Ninchenko’s ear.
“The van has arrived,” Ninchenko said, pushing his plate away.
Ninchenko led Gage down a staircase and out to the parking lot where a gray, long-haul delivery van was waiting. It bore red lettering and drawings of fruit and vegetables.
Ninchenko introduced Gage to their driver, Kolya, a slight, middle-aged man with deep-set eyes and the earnest expression typical of uncomplaining men devoted to executing the orders of others.
Ninchenko and Kolya engaged in a short conversation in Russian.
Kolya handed Gage a cell phone and charger and gave a thumbs-up. He then walked around to the back of the van and opened the swinging doors, inviting Gage and Ninchenko to climb in. Once inside Gage found a metal table and two chairs bolted to the floor, along with a small refrigerator, a metal cabinet containing a monitor and recorder, and a case of mineral water.
Ninchenko turned on the video and picked up a joystick. The image on the screen scanned a full 360 degrees.
“Impressive,” Gage said.
“If we’re going to battle State Security, we need to match their tools.”
“What conceals the camera?”
“An air vent on the roof.”
Ninchenko knocked on the blackened divider and the van began to move. Gage sat down while Ninchenko pointed the camera toward the front of the van, giving them a wide-angled view of the road ahead, illuminated by the van’s headlights.
Gage watched the monitor as the van drove down Karl Marx toward the river, following it north past Lenin Street, across a bridge over the Dnepr, then southeast. Bordering the river on each side were aging factories that made the city the heart of the Ukrainian defense industry, starting in Soviet times.
The van slowed after traveling ten blocks. Ninchenko directed the camera toward a concrete two-story building half the size of a football field, then activated the zoom, first focusing on the plant sign, “Electro-Dnepr Joint Stock Company.” Razor wire glinted in the perimeter lights. Towers stood at the corners and a guardhouse protected the main gate.
Ninchenko zoomed in, then swept the walls of the building until slowing to track two uniformed guards and their German shepherd. He then focused on each tower and the guardhouse at the main gate, hesitating at each until he confirmed that it was occupied.
“There’s no way we’re getting in there,” Ninchenko said.
Gage thought for a moment, then punched a string of numbers into his new cell phone.
“Professor Blanchard, this is—”
“Mr. Green, I presume?”
“I’m back to Mr. Gage.”
“What going on?”
“The video amplifiers are about to be installed in Hellfire-type missiles.”
Blanchard’s breath caught. “No…”
“I need you to be close to your phone for the next forty-eight hours.”
“For what?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe just advice. There are too many parts in motion and I’m not yet sure where to aim.”
CHAPTER 69
Low clouds hanging over Dnepropetrovsk muted the daylight that met Gage and Ninchenko as they walked from the hotel to the van where Kolya was waiting. Smoke from industrial stacks towering above the auto, steel, and missile plants in the distance rose until it encountered the denser atmosphere above, then curled downward, filling the air with a leadish haze and a sour and acidic odor.
Ten minutes later, Kolya pulled to a curb southeast of the city along the route from the airport. Matson and Alla would have to pass them whether they drove first to their hotel or to the Electro-Dnepr Company. Ninchenko stationed one surveillance team a half mile from the plant and another a half mile from the hotel.
At 10:25 Ninchenko’s phone rang. He answered it, listened, then covered the receiver.
“It’s Alla. She’s calling from the Dnepropetrovsk Airport bathroom.”
“Let me talk to her.”
Ninchenko handed the phone to Gage.
“Are you okay?”
“A little nervous,” Alla whispered, her voice brittle and edgy. “I’ve had too much time to think—hold on…It’s okay. Just someone passing by outside.”
“I need to know the car you’ll be in.”
“Gravilov’s driver brought the G55 from Kiev overnight. Gravilov will meet us at the hotel, then we’ll go to the plant. What about you?”
“We’ll be close by, but it’s better if you don’t know the vehicle we’re in.” Gage didn’t want her inadvertently drawing attention to them. “Any talk about price?”
“That’s close to being settled.” Alla’s tone firmed, as if strengthened by her accomplishment in finding out. “Stuart is still telling them that he has to fly back to London to get the code—and they’re not happy. I’m pretty sure he’ll break down and tell them he’s got it with him, just to get this over with. But he’s afraid they’ll try to force him to return the money after they get it. The result is that he’s starting to flail around.”
“Just tell him you k
now how Ukrainians think and you’ll guide him through it.”
“I will?” She laughed softly. “I don’t remember a class in arms trafficking at my college.”
“It was an elective.” Gage gave Ninchenko a thumbs-up, as if to say that Alla had recovered the confidence they’d originally seen. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what to do when the time comes.” He glanced at Ninchenko. “What’s the area around the hotel like?”
“It’s on a large lot, facing a wide street,” Ninchenko said. “The back borders a large park. Lots of trees and benches. There are always people out there, lovers and drunks, even in winter.”
Gage spoke into the phone. “Ask for a lower floor room facing the park. That’ll be the easiest route if we need to get you out of there.”
He confirmed that his new number was saved in her phone’s memory, then disconnected.
“Matson is getting a little spooked,” Gage told Ninchenko.
“So you’ll need to tell him how to commit the crime?”
“Looks like it.”
Ninchenko raised his eyebrows, a little grin on his face. “You know any Yiddish?”
“A few words.”
“You know shmegegi?”
“No.”
“It’s like putz.”
Gage laughed. “You use that one over here, too?”
“We’re a lot closer to the source than Brooklyn.”
Twenty minutes later, Ninchenko and Gage were parked in the van a half block away from the Grand Domus with a view of the driveway and entrance. The white building, set back about fifteen yards from the street on a half-acre lot, looked more like a small townhouse complex than a hotel. Tall brown-brick apartment buildings flanked it.
Kolya joined them in the back. He curled up in the corner and fell asleep.
A few minutes later, a blue four-door Opel sped past, then pulled to the curb between them and the hotel, but neither of the two men inside got out. They slid down in their seats. Gage watched their heads swiveling, attentive to their surroundings. There were no other vehicles near them on the street.