Wenzel looked up at Boone and wiped his bloodshot eyes. “Absolutely. Why?”
“Well I don’t know what kind of experience you’ve had with the FBI. But despite what Hollywood seems to think, the FBI doesn’t just pop into a house in the middle of Arkansas farmland, arrest someone out of the blue, and try to take them to federal prison. I’m no Columbo, but I can tell you this: Those boys were as serious as I’ve ever seen the FBI. Those badges were real. But they sure as heck didn’t follow standard FBI operating procedure.”
“What are you saying, exactly?”
“I’d have to say that someone pretty darn powerful wants to stop your people from building that mine.”
“They knew my name.”
Boone looked at Wenzel quizzically. “What’s that?”
“They knew my name, they called me ’Mr. Wenzel’. I’d never met them before.”
Boone nodded. “So I’m right. It was you they were after. Not Theodore’s killer.”
“You think ... you think this whole thing was a—”
“A frame.”
18 APARTMENT
Moscow
9:07 A.M.
Normally, investigations involving missing Muscovites were handled by the overworked and underpaid Moscow Militia. The Pyashinev matter was far different. The director of Komdragmet’s disappearance merited high-level scrutiny.
Orlov initially considered turning over the Pyashinev investigation to the Interior Ministry and its troops, the MVD. But doing so would have left out the GRU. True, the GRU had been reduced in stature and strength since its failed coup a few years ago, but it was better to rehabilitate the wounded organization and earn its gratitude than to leave its leadership and ranks to suffer and incur its still-dangerous ire. Also, the MVD was responsible for internal matters, and Pyashinev’s case had far too many international implications. Based on these political considerations, which for Orlov were far more instinctive than analytical, the responsibility for the investigation fell on GRU Colonel Kovanetz.
Kovanetz had not actively supported the GRU’s attempted coup. He was thus spared from Orlov’s purge of the GRU and the SVR/FSB, the former KGB. But Kovanetz was not satisfied merely with survival. He craved more power than the wounded GRU could grant him legally, so he had allied himself with a force he believed would soon be able to provide what he sought: Russkost.
Other than Pyashinev’s offshore bank account, the helicopter crash in Mexico, and the cryptic handwritten note, there were few clues. Whereas this lack of clues might have closed the dossiers of more mundane investigations, the Pyashinev investigation was a matter of national security. It could not stop.
The entrance to Leonid Pyashinev’s apartment was cordoned off with police tape. Since the disappearance of its resident one week earlier, only the GRU team had been permitted entry into the luxurious premises. It searched the apartment three times. Once upon Pyashinev’s initial disappearance, to secure any documents of state importance. A second time upon the discovery of Pyashinev’s flight from Russia in a military jet. A third time when it was discovered Pyashinev had been in the employ of Waterboer, most recently to the tune of $5,000,000 and, hence, was not merely corrupt but a traitor.
All three searches of the apartment failed as dismally as those of the man’s office and the GRU’s interrogations of family, friends, and servants. But now Kovanetz had a new reason to search the apartment. He had received new orders. Not from Orlov. This time, the orders had come from his other boss. From Molotok. Molotok had received information that Pyashinev knew of a KGB diamond stockpile whose existence he had not disclosed to the Russian government and whose location he had not revealed to Waterboer. Molotok wanted it. Now that Pyashinev was dead, who better to find it than Kovanetz, who was heading up the investigation into Pyashinev’s death? And Molotok paid well. If you succeeded, he let you live.
Kovanetz repeated the words on the note over and over in his head. Rossiya, trieti sloi. Nie dopustit im wziat eto. Russia, third layer. Must not let them get it.
Everyone leaves clues, Kovanetz knew. As one scholar had remarked, absence of evidence does not signify evidence of absence. So if there were no clues to the note in the reports, they had to be in the apartment. Somewhere in the posh apartment were facts that would allow him to decipher the cryptic phrase and lead him to the diamond stockpile.
Kovanetz returned the crisp salute of the young private who stood guard at the doorway. The vacant apartment was as cold as the snowy streets below its ornate windows. A cloud of frozen breath trailed behind him as he walked through the foyer into the living room. It did not take GRU training to deduce Pyashinev had enjoyed a source of income beyond his salary as a civil servant. Paneled in blue silk and carpeted with eighteenth-century rugs, the apartment was more reminiscent of a tsarist palace than a bureaucrat’s residence. Polished rococo antiques of carved wood and gold leaf crowded even the smallest space. Crystal chandeliers hung from intricately moulded ceilings like immobile ice flakes. Photographs proudly displayed the former resident with members of the Russian and international elite, not the least of which was Waterboer’s Piet Slythe. A glass case enclosed a superbly executed scale model of the Potemkin, the tsarist warship that witnessed the famous mutiny of imperial troops in 1905, later immortalized for Communist propaganda in Eisenstein’s 1925 film.
Paintings of other warships, in placid waters or engaged in naval battle, lined nearly every wall between filigreed candelabras.
Careful to observe every detail, Kovanetz made his way to Pyashinev’s office. He smiled at the subtle efficiency with which his team had sifted through the apartment. Except for the documents that had been removed from the wall safe, not a single sheet of paper was out of place, not a molecule of dust disturbed. He doubted that even Pyashinev would have realized a team of investigators had scrutinized each of his personal effects.
Pyashinev’s home office was a formal affair. An imposing Louis XVI sculpted desk laden with paperwork sat in the center of the room under the watchful gaze of photographs of modern Russian warships between frozen palms that stood guard in each corner of the room. A large emerald-cut diamond scintillated under a glass dome on an ornate coffee table. Kovanetz did not disturb any of the late director’s effects. It was not necessary to soil his gloved hands. His team had already read, analyzed, and cataloged each and every scrap of information in the apartment. Kovanetz knew the answer to the hauntingly simple riddle would not be scrawled on a scrap of paper. He searched for something far more visible and, at the same time, more subtle. So he scanned each room with his slow gaze and repeated the words of Pyashinev’s note in his mind.
Rossiya, trieti sloi. Nie dopustit im wziat eto. In the library, shelves of books seemed to hold up the frescoed ceiling like pillars. On a shimmering wood table, books on diamonds, publications on naval history and design. Nothing here. Only books. His team had cataloged Pyashinev’s literary collection with a precision that would have put the most scrupulous librarian to shame.
Kovanetz proceeded through the bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the gymnasium, the media room. Nothing. Ornate, but not unusual. Nothing on the premises seemed out of the ordinary. After nearly an hour of silent observation, Kovanetz accepted that the apartment was not speaking to him.
Kovanetz saluted the private and made his way back to GRU headquarters in his chauffeured Lada. He would make two reports. In writing for President Orlov. By phone to Molotok. The line between the two bosses was more than a political tightrope. Walking it, Kovanetz risked far more than political disgrace. Failure was not an option.
His problem was that, in his post as a military intelligence officer, Kovanetz was a man of action, not an analyst. He was accustomed to obtaining information, not interpreting it. Unlike a trained detective, Kovanetz was too focused, was looking too hard. He was unable to take a step back to see the obvious fact that a Moscow Militia detective would have spotted immediately.
19 AIDE
Main Ju
stice Building
Washington, D.C.
8:07 A.M.
Carlton sipped java from his white DOJ mug and watched the weak winter sun through his office window. He yawned. For the second night in a row, he had not slept. Cold from lack of sleep, he let the strong black coffee course through his system. He rubbed his eyes, mentally waded through the facts for the nth time.
The devil may be in the details, he knew, but the truth was in the facts. Although his case and MacLean’s difficulties seemed to be intertwined, at present the only common denominator was the law firm of Fox, Carlyle. Fox, Carlyle represented Murfreesboro Mining Corporation. Fox, Carlyle was trying to buy MacLean’s land in Arkansas for an undisclosed client. Fox, Carlyle had formed the nonprofit environmental group threatening MacLean not to mine. And according to Pink, Fox, Carlyle represented Waterboer’s interests in the U.S.
Waterboer had a vested interest in diamond mining. That explained its interest in any diamonds in Arkansas. Waterboer could not operate legally inside the United States. That explained why it would hire an unscrupulous, high-powered law firm such as Fox, Carlyle to do its bidding. And it might explain Fox, Carlyle’s formation of a bogus environmental group to put pressure on MacLean. But it didn’t explain why the government was involved. Not just one agency, but two. Perhaps three, if Carlton counted Pink at CIA, of whom he remained suspicious. Something more was lurking in the shadows.
The telephone interrupted his mental meanderings.
“Pat Carlton.”
“Pat.” The voice was rushed, grave. “It’s Dan Wenzel.”
Carlton looked at his watch. 8:10 A.M. “It’s five in the morning for you, Dan. What the he—”
“Osage’s been murdered. The farmer who sold MacLean the land.”
“Murdered?”
“Shot point blank in the heart through the back. Last night. Two FBI agents tried to arrest me after I discovered the body. The local sheriff refused to let the FBI assert jurisdiction, thank God. The autopsy proved that Osage was shot at the time I was making a speech.”
“Why would the FBI be involved in this?”
“I don’t know. I—”
Carlton sat up. “Hold on. I’ve got to check on something. I’ll get back to you.” Not just the National Trust and the Bureau of Land Management and maybe CIA. Now the FBI was involved. He found the number in his address book and dialed. Mazursky picked up on the third ring.
“David. It’s Pat Carlton.”
“Oh yes. From DOJ. How are you?” The Senate aide was clearly busy but made a distinct effort at cordiality.
“I’m glad you’re in early. I have something urgent to go over with you. Can we meet? I don’t really want to discuss it over the phone.” Carlton heard his own paranoia, wrinkled his nose. “Just a few minutes, I promise.”
Mazursky sat back into his chair, stared at the DOJ confirmation on his screen. Flakes from all over Arkansas, even other states, called Mazursky and the other LAs in the senator’s office, droned on and on about government and other conspiracies involving the Trilateral Commission, the New World Order, Freemasonry, Scientology, the Vatican, and the Zionist Occupational Government. Those he regularly sent packing. But Mazursky, a keen legislative staffer, hoarded business cards the way others collected matchbooks or stamps. He had checked on Carlton. The guy had gone to UCLA undergrad, George Washington law. Merchants of Pain on K Street. Lieutenant in the Navy Reserves. Justice Department. Carlton was no flake. So although the call sounded like it could be a complete waste of time, Mazursky decided to take Carlton’s paranoia at face value. “I can meet you, but on such short notice only for about ten minutes. Will that work?”
“That’s all I need.”
“I have a meeting in the Capitol in forty-five minutes. Can you swing by the office? In about thirty? We can talk while we walk.”
Carlton raced down the hallway, a storm in cowboy boots. He spotted Erika at the end of the corridor, half-walking, half-jogging toward him.
When they met, she turned and ran alongside him. “I’ve got to talk to you.”
He felt her observe his wrinkled shirt, disheveled hair.
“What happened to you? You look like hell.”
“Good morning to you too. I can’t talk now. I’ve got to get to the Hill.”
Erika didn’t let him off that easily. “It can’t wait. I’ll go with you.” Carlton stopped, placed his hands on her shoulders. “It was a mistake involving you in this. I should never have—”
“But you didn’t. I involved my—”
“Erika.” He looked at her in silence for a moment. She was fresh, radiant in a beige suit and white blouse. He stared at her lively green eyes, smelled her perfume. “It doesn’t matter who involved whom. Trust me. You want to get as uninvolved with this thing as you can. It started out as interesting. Now it’s dangerous. Whoever’s behind this murdered one person, tried to frame another.”
Erika stared at him hard, her friendly eyes and soft pout replaced with a tight-lipped scowl. “Are you done with the male chauvinist bullshit?”
“Erika, plea—”
“I found something, Pat.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s got to—” He paused. “Arkansas?”
She nodded.
He sighed. “Okay. Come on.” He started jogging down the marble staircase. “You’re going to regret this.”
“I already do.”
Carlton’s muddy Cadillac tore up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol. Erika gripped the door handle and prayed for her life as Carlton weaved through traffic and described the incidents in Macon Grove.
Within five minutes, the Shark’s tires squealed to a stop in front of the Hart Senate Office Building, a bulky white marble cube of an office building between Union Station and the Senate side of the Capitol.
Two uniformed security guards continued their Redskins prognostications as they casually verified the pair’s DOJ identification tags. Carlton and Erika walked through a metal detector into the imposing atrium, where a jagged black steel sculpture rose five stories to meet the black steel plates of a Calder mobile suspended from the ceiling.
David Mazursky greeted them as they pushed their way past the round seal of the State of Arkansas on the plate glass doors of Senator Bigham’s office. “I’m glad you made it. I was about to leave. Sorry we can’t meet longer.”
“Thanks for seeing me. This is Erika Wassenaar. Also at Justice.”
“Nice to meet you. Let’s walk.”
The three took an elevator to the basement and walked to the Senate subway station through another set of guards, another metal detector, another ID check. Few people knew about the subway that linked the United States Senate with the Russell, Dirksen, and Hart Senate office buildings. Its design was a bizarre mix of Disneyland, ancient Rome, and Cold War styles. The underground subway ferried legislators, staffers, and ID-toting lobbyists on a series of small open-air trams along a single track through granite-reinforced tunnels.
Carlton brought Mazursky up to date on events since the settlement, leaving nothing out, including Erika’s disturbing information about Waterboer and its closure of the Arkansas mine in the 1920s. He finished as the tram stopped at the Capitol station. The three squeezed through the smallish door, past the guard, and walked to an escalator bank leading to the main floor of the Capitol.
Mazursky turned to Carlton. “I realize that this is more than you told me over the phone the other day, but it doesn’t change what I told you. The Arkansas diamond story is one of the tallest folk tales in the state. People have been going on and on about it for years. Decades. But it’s never been proven, Pat. Just a few months ago, three different geological surveys were performed in three areas near Murfreesboro.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“But what about the farmers in my case?” Carlton asked. “They were mining diamonds. Rather profitably, according to the figures I read.”
“Of course there are some
diamonds in Arkansas. There are simply no deposits sufficiently large that a company as enormous and at such risk in the U.S. as Waterboer would give a second glance to. The mine in your case was probably a fluke. It probably would have soon petered out. Your 1920s survey? Who knows if it’s even real? Trust me. I’ve seen the most recent reports with my own eyes. There’s not much down there.”
Carlton said nothing. Erika nodded silently.
“I’m sorry I can’t lend more legitimacy to your Waterboer theory. I know they’re racist, monopolist bastards. I’d love to kick their butts. But this Arkansas diamond business is just another folk tale.”
“The guy was murdered, David. Shot in the heart at close range. Fox, Carlyle represents the defendant in my case, the party who’s trying to buy MacLean’s land, the environmental group that threatened him, and Waterboer. You don’t find that just a little suspicious?”
“Yes, I do. Everything you’re saying is suspicious. No doubt about it. But you have no evidence that the murder and the attempted arrest were connected to the mining in any way. And just because Fox, Carlyle represents a party involved in your case and in MacLean’s doesn’t mean much either. Fox is a huge firm. They may represent Waterboer, but they also represent hospitals, charities, and companies that make apple pie. And after all, the cases do involve parcels that are practically right next to each other. The firm probably represents a client with interests in the general area.” He glanced at his watch, looked at Carlton, obviously frustrated. “I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to go.”
Carlton relented. “Okay, okay. Thanks for your time.”
“Not at all. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Call me if anything else turns up.”
“We will.”
“Nice to meet you, Erika.”
Carlton and Erika shook hands with Mazursky before he stepped onto the escalator.
Patrick Carlton 01 - The Diamond Conspiracy Page 13