Rules of Vengeance

by Christopher Reich

  Four hours had passed since Ransom had given them the slip. In that time, no fewer than sixty police officers had canvassed the sixteen-square-block area surrounding the address where the ambulance had picked up Emma Ransom. The Italian police were tenacious to a fault. To her eye, they had not missed a single store, hotel, bar, or café. She couldn’t have hoped for more diligent police work in London. She wondered if Ransom had met with the same lack of success.

  Reaching the top of the hill, she continued through the ever-narrower cobblestone streets, enjoying the shadows cast by the buildings lining her route. Many were old apartments, worn and unloved. She tried the doors but found them locked. A search of this area would require days, not hours. There were many bars, seedy establishments without names. So early in the day they, too, were locked. Kate stopped inside a small market and showed a picture of Jonathan Ransom, then a grainy photo of Emma taken in London. Time and again she was met with a stony glare.

  Kate leaned against a wall and pulled off one of her shoes to massage an aching foot. She sighed. There was little more she could do herself. She would task out the search to the Italian police and wait. She was not optimistic. Memory disintegrated quickly, the sight of an unfamiliar face quickest of all. Replacing her shoe, she began the walk back to the shoreline. But as she did she caught a sign out of the corner of her eye. It hung from a doorway, maybe 30 meters down the alley. Hotel De La Ville.

  She shook her head and kept walking. As suddenly she stopped, ashamed of her pessimism. With renewed purpose, she retraced her steps and pushed open the door to the hotel.

  At the front desk, she showed the manager the pictures of Jonathan and Emma Ransom and asked if he had seen either of them. The man did not answer immediately, but Kate observed a good deal of activity taking place behind his coffee-brown eyes. “Do you speak English?” she asked.

  “Certo,” he answered in Italian, as if insulted. “Of course.”

  “You’ve seen them, yes?” she suggested.

  The manager began shaking his head slowly back and forth. His hand cupped his chin as his mouth curled into an expression of disapproval.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Do you know this man?”

  “Not sure.”

  Kate grasped his wrist. “Tell me the truth or I’ll have the carabinieri in here in ten seconds checking the working papers of your staff!”

  “He was here this morning.”

  Kate’s heart skipped a beat. She nodded, urging him to continue. “Yes …”

  The manager slapped the picture down onto the desk. “He is her husband,” he said emphatically, as if correcting her from a misunderstanding. “He is not from France!”

  The Aérospatiale Écureuil helicopter took off sixty minutes later from a police base in the hills above Civitavecchia. Kate adjusted the headphones and strapped herself tightly into the passenger seat. She gave the carabinieri a wave as the helicopter lifted into the air. Its nose dipped, the chopper banked over hard to the left, and in seconds they were skipping over the sea.

  She looked at the pilot. “How long?”

  “We’ll fly a straight course,” he explained. “The distance is six hundred kilometers. I think we can make it in three hours. If the wind is with us, maybe a little less.”

  Kate patched herself into the French National Police and requested that discreet surveillance be put on the address in Èze where she was certain that Ransom was headed. She needed their best men. She didn’t want Ransom spooked if he got there ahead of her.

  “And if we spot him and afterward he leaves?”

  “Then take him down,” said Kate. “But don’t count on it. There’s no way he can get there ahead of me.”

  Finished, she raised Graves on her cell phone. “Charles,” she said, with much too much optimism, “we’ve got him.”

  59

  Charles Graves stopped his car at the gate and reached his hand out the window to ring the buzzer. The gate was massive and imposing, with scrolled black iron bars and an ornate crest at its center. It had all the charm of a medieval portcullis. Something fashioned with great care and expertise to keep the Hun out. The gate shuddered and slid open, and he knew that somewhere hidden in the great banks of ivy covering the stone walls was a camera and that he had been identified and duly approved.

  Graves accelerated down a well-tended lane surrounded on both sides by blazing flowerbeds and expansive lawns. He rounded a curve and the house came into view. He studied the hulking Palladian structure. “House” was the wrong word. “Palace” was more like it. And indeed, he remembered that the home had once been a summer residence for Queen Victoria. The papers had raised a stink when it was sold to the Russian billionaire three years back. Something about a czar stealing a queen’s property.

  Parked in a gravel forecourt was the Rolls-Royce Phantom Graves had glimpsed on the security tapes. And already descending the steps, hand raised in greeting, the trademark thatch of white-blond hair as gloriously unkempt as usual, was the man himself, Peter Chagall.

  “Be careful,” the boys on the Russian desk had warned him. “He smiles as wide as a shark and his teeth are every bit as sharp.”

  But Graves didn’t need the Russian desk to give him a bio of Chagall. He knew it verbatim and had done ever since the day that Chagall had purchased Arsenal Football Club, the North London side Graves had pledged to every Saturday afternoon between September and May since the age of five.

  Born in Siberia fifty-five years earlier, Piotr Chagalinsky was orphaned young and raised by his grandmother. A brilliant student, he obtained a scholarship to Moscow State University and subsequently graduated at the top of his class. After the obligatory stint in military service, he took a job with one of the USSR’s largest oil producers. By twenty-seven he had risen to vice chairman, a rise all the more unbelievable because of his refusal to join the Communist Party. When the Berlin Wall came down and Russia’s ossified government crumbled with it, Chagalinsky—by now rechristened Chagall—was in a perfect position to take advantage of it. He moved to modernize the oil company, boosting production while gobbling up smaller rivals and ensuring that a majority of the newly privatized company’s shares ended up in his pocket. It was this propensity to swallow up his rivals, along with his shock of blond hair, that lent him his nickname. The Great White.

  And then, five years ago, Chagall had up and sold the company back to the Russian government for 10 billion pounds. The move was without warning and left many scratching their heads at the real reason for his departure. The next day he was on a plane to Britain. “I am finished with Russia and Russia is finished with me,” he’d announced famously. But like so much else about Chagall, it was a falsehood. Chagall was Russian to the core. He would never be done with the Rodina, and his involvement with Robert Russell proved as much.

  “Welcome!” called Chagall in his thick Russian accent, opening the car door before Graves could cut the engine. “Captain Graves. It is a great pleasure.”

  “Good of you to see me.” Graves let the intentional demotion go without mention. Already he had his first clue that Chagall was in hot water. Billionaires did not curtsey to the police, not in Russia or in Britain.

  “How could I turn down a request from the Security Service? I am a citizen now. A subject of the queen.”

  “Congratulations.” Graves wondered how much a UK passport had cost him. The house had gone for 30 million pounds, his football team for 200 million. Whatever it was, Chagall could afford it.

  “You’re here about my friend Robert,” said the Russian mournfully. “This I know. To tell you the truth, I had been expecting your call.”

  “Does that mean you have something to tell us?” Graves had no legal means of making Chagall cooperate. It was hardly against the law to meet with a man two hours before he was killed. If Graves wanted something out of Chagall, he’d have to trade for it.

  “Perhaps,” said Chagall. “But I was hoping that you had something to tell me.”

/>   “I might know a thing or two.”

  Chagall gripped his arm and led him around the side of the home. “How did they get to him?”

  “Through the basement,” said Graves.

  “But he lived on the fifth floor. He had so much security—the alarms, the doormen.”

  “They used the building’s old laundry chutes to move around without being detected.”

  “Who? This I must know.”

  “I can’t share that information with you. The investigation is ongoing.”

  “Really?” Chagall shot him an inquiring look that might as well have telegraphed a bribe. How much did Graves want? Ten thousand pounds? Fifty thousand? One hundred?

  “You’ll know as soon as we make an arrest,” said Graves.

  “So it is soon?”

  “We hope so.”

  Chagall led the way through immaculately trimmed topiary, the hedges cut in the shapes of circus animals: an elephant, a lion, a dancing bear. Here and there along the perimeter of the tall brick walls that surrounded the property, armed guards lurked in the shadows, cradling submachine guns as they made their rounds. In the space of five minutes, Graves counted three teams of two and six television cameras. The palace wasn’t a home so much as a fortress. He said, “Tell me, Mr. Chagall, had you been friends with Lord Russell a long time?”

  “Long enough. He was helpful.”

  “How so?”

  “He did not believe. He was not fooled like all of you others.”

  “Fooled by what?”

  “Look around you. You see the guns. My little army. What do you think? He was not fooled by them.”

  They emerged from the topiary. A large farmhouse stood up ahead, with great green doors. The sound of an engine revving came from somewhere inside it.

  “We have pictures of your car in front of Lord Russell’s club the night he was murdered. After the two of you met, Russell drove to Victoria Street, the site where the car bomb attack against Interior Minister Ivanov took place. Do you have any idea why he might have felt compelled to go there so late at night?”

  “Devils,” said Chagall, with venom. “Evil men. You have no idea. They wear nice suits. They speak English perfectly so you think they are all right. Men you can deal with—like Mrs. Thatcher said about Gorbachev twenty years ago. But you are naive. Not these men. You cannot deal with them. Russia was born out of a swamp. For ten centuries we have struggled. Always the poor man of Europe. Ignorant. Superstitious. And now a miracle has come to save us. Do you know what that miracle is?”

  “Oil?” ventured Graves.

  “Oil,” said Chagall. “Russia holds the second largest deposits in the world. Two hundred billion barrels. We used to pump over nine million barrels a day. But no longer. The men who control the oil companies would rather keep all the profit for themselves than split it with others. Instead of modernizing our drilling platforms with partners from the West, they allow the rigs to grow rusty. Instead of exploring for new deposits, they guard the old ones like jealous hens. The problem is that the men who have taken control of our country’s natural resources are not businessmen. They are spies, and spies are paranoid and stupid. They look constantly over their shoulders, but never straight ahead. They say that they are patriots who bleed for Mother Russia. I have decided, Captain Graves, that there is nothing scarier than a patriot.”

  They had reached the farmhouse. The sound of the engine was louder now. Someone pumped the accelerator as voices called out instructions in Russian. Chagall opened a side door and entered. The farmhouse had been converted into a garage. Graves counted at least twenty automobiles parked under a canopy of heavy-duty floodlights. There was a Ferrari Scaglietti and a Lamborghini Miura. A Maserati Quattroporte and a Mercedes McLaren SLR. A Porsche 911 GT and a Bentley Mulsanne Turbo.

  Chagall stopped in front of a sleek gray two-door sports car. “The Bugatti Veyron. The most expensive car in the world. Do you know how much it costs?”

  Graves smiled politely. “A bit more than my salary, I’d wager.”

  “Two million U.S. I will tell you something. If you tell me who killed Robert Russell, it is yours. No questions asked. My gift to you. What do you say?”

  “Tempting.”

  “It is yours, then!” declared Chagall.

  “I can’t accept.” Graves shook his head politely as if awed by such a show of largesse.

  “Hah!” shouted Chagall. “Another patriot.”

  Graves grew serious. “Why did Russell drive to One Victoria Street immediately after meeting with you? What do you know about the attack that took place there?”

  Chagall busied himself with a chamois cloth, polishing the hood of a vintage black Ferrari Daytona. “Like yours, our investigation, too, is still ongoing,” he said without looking up. “Perhaps we shall inform Her Majesty’s government when we have accumulated more reliable information.”

  Graves stepped to his shoulder. “The attack on Interior Minister Ivanov was a decoy to force a mandatory evacuation of the government buildings in the vicinity so that someone could get inside and steal classified information.”

  “What kind of classified information?”

  “Very classified,” said Graves.

  Skepticism clouded Chagall’s features. “You mean they didn’t wish to kill Ivanov? Nonsense. Everyone wants Ivanov dead.”

  “I’m only telling you what our evidence suggests.”

  “So what is this classified information that was so precious to them?” asked Chagall.

  “You mean you don’t know either?”

  “Why would I drag my good friend Lord Robbie out so late at night if I already knew? We knew something was planned. We had word of the location, but we did not know what. Russell uses us and we use him. He often has better contacts in my country than I do. We were certain that he would know. All I can tell you, Captain, is that they are behind it all. The evil ones.”

  Graves knew who they were without having to ask. The FSB.

  “Listen, Captain,” Chagall continued. “I shall put you in touch with my source. He is one of them, too. But a good man. A face-to-face meeting. He will tell you what he knows. You will not be disappointed. In return, you must supply him with evidence of who killed Robert Russell.”

  “Is he here in London?”

  “He is.” Chagall threaded his way to the rear of the garage, where a car was being unloaded from a van. Graves took up position on one side of the ramp as a metallic blue 1964 Ford Shelby Cobra slid onto the floor. “My latest acquisition,” said Chagall. “The car that beat Enzo Ferrari at Le Mans in 1964. It is my first American purchase. What do you think?”

  Graves wanted to say that he’d give his right arm to drive it, but instead he settled for “It’s very nice.”

  “And so?” Chagall asked as he climbed into the Cobra’s driving seat. “May I tell him that you will give him the name?”

  Graves smelled the leather, the new rubber. It was, he decided, the smell of power. “Deal.”

  Chagall’s anxiety melted in an instant. Gone was his earnest, near-fawning demeanor. He was back to his arrogant self. “It is better that you hear it from the source. Otherwise, I do not think you will believe it. I will make the call immediately. You are free this evening?”

  “I’ll clear my calendar.”

  “Excellent.” Chagall gazed up. “I have one last question, Captain. You said that Russell’s killer entered his house through the basement. But the basement is also secure. I know. I nearly purchased a residence there. Tell me, please, how did they get in?”

  Graves walked around the Shelby Cobra, tapping his fingers on the door. “They hid in the trunk of his car.”

  Peter Chagall’s eyes opened wide.

  60

  “Frontière Française—2 km.”

  Jonathan slowed the motorcycle as he approached the French border. The highway split in two, the westbound lanes climbing a slight grade cut into the hillside, the opposing lanes hugging the strip
of flat terrain adjacent to the coast. The early evening traffic was heavy and after another kilometer he ground to a complete halt. Bracing the bike on his left leg, he gazed out at the sea. It had been his companion these seven hours, a beckoning blue expanse that led to his destination. Above his shoulder, the slope rose steeply. There were terraced houses and gardens, and clotheslines strung between olive trees. A breeze lifted off the sea, and he tasted salt and exhaust and the rich scent of warm pine.

  The line of traffic shunted forward. He rounded a bend and spotted the broad shell-shaped building that housed the customs and immigration offices. Officers in pale blue tunics and legionnaire’s caps sauntered up and down the line of vehicles, conducting a cursory check of passports and identity cards, waving the cars past. Jonathan had crossed borders inside the EU hundreds of times. To his worried eye, everything appeared calm, unrushed. Business as usual. He watched as a plain white van was guided into an auxiliary lane for inspection. The border officer signaled for the van to halt. The next moment a team of plainclothes men and women materialized as if from nowhere and swarmed all over it.

  So much for business as usual.

  Hurriedly he checked for an exit from the highway. There were none. The last was a kilometer back. He glanced over his shoulder, and only then did he notice a police car hidden behind the exit sign. He gave the bike a little gas and advanced another 20 meters. There was no way out.

  Less than a minute later, he slid beneath the shade of the portico. He had his identity card ready. The card belonged to Dr. Luca Lazio. The photograph had been taken seven years earlier and was scratched and faded. An officer approached, checking Jonathan up and down. He raised a finger and motioned for him to drive nearer. “You,” he said. “Stop.”

  Jonathan extended the card and the officer grabbed it from his fingers.