The Wolves

by Alex Berenson

  But he didn’t know how fast the FSB would come or how many men would show. He couldn’t waste an hour, much less half the night, hanging out on the landing. And the alarm would cost him his greatest advantage, the fact that the Russians didn’t know he’d found this place and was closing in. Best to go. He reached for the door—

  And heard the chime of the elevator as its doors opened. Then footsteps. Two sets. But no voices. Men who wanted to be quiet. Could they have seen him here? Of course, if they’d checked the cameras. In fact, if the cameras were Internet-enabled, whoever was in the hallway could be looking at Wells right now, and know exactly where he stood. Even if they hadn’t checked the cameras, and this visit was a simple coincidence, they would know something was wrong as soon as they reached the door, because it was unlocked. Wells had left it that way after he’d turned off the alarm, he’d seen no reason to lock himself in. Now he couldn’t, the sound of the deadbolts would be obvious.

  The footsteps edged closer. Now the room was a trap. They could toss in a CS grenade to smoke him out or even a frag if they wanted to play nasty—

  One move. Wells raised the pistol with his right hand, went to the door, pulled it open with his left. He stepped into the doorway, his finger pressuring the trigger, ready to shoot as soon as he had an angle.

  He found himself looking not at Buvchenko or any Russian but at two Chinese men walking hand-in-hand down the hall. He put the pistol on first one and then the other. The men only shook their heads. They both wore T-shirts and jeans, tight, no room to hide a pistol. Coming home quietly for reasons of their own, and Wells had almost killed them. He put a finger to his lips and nodded. They glanced sidelong at each other, nodded back. Wells lowered the pistol, pulled the apartment door shut, backed away to the fire stairs, and ran for the street.

  Life was full of surprises.

  24

  Duberman paged through his closet, looking for the right suit, the suit that would settle the night. He had a hundred and thirty, all made-to-measure in Milan, none quite the same, subtle gradations of blue and gray and black, tiny variations in piping, stitching, buttons, and fit.

  Tonight he wanted something stylish. Raffish, even. A throwback to the Sizzlin’ Saloon. He found it at the end of the rack. Gray, wide lapels, broad white stripes, big shoulders, narrow waist. Practically a zoot. He paired it with a gray silk shirt, a white tie, patent black shoes. For a watch, instead of his usual Patek Philippe, a platinum Rolex with diamonds and sapphires.

  He checked himself out in his three-way full-length mirror. A speakeasy vibe. Cheung wouldn’t understand. But Duberman wasn’t dressing for that slavering Chinese pedophile.

  The pièce de résistance, the Kahr Arms P380 in his closet safe. The Kahr weighed barely a half pound unloaded and was not even five inches long, four inches high. Smaller than some smartphones, small enough to fit easily in the suit’s breast pocket.

  Duberman had bought his first pistol, a Smith & Wesson, after that dinner with Jimmy the Roller at the Mirage. He’d taken shooting seriously back then, seriously enough to sit through a safety course and fill out the paperwork for a Nevada concealed-carry license. Over the years, he had added a dozen different pistols to his collection, ranging from the Kahr to an old-school .44 Magnum. Still, he had stopped carrying any of them long ago.

  Why bother, with Gideon to protect him?

  He pushed aside a shoe rack to reveal a wall safe. He spun the dial, pulled it open. Besides the pistol, it held fifty thousand dollars in hundreds and twenties, and a handful of sex toys that he’d used with girlfriends before Orli. He’d never had the guts to ask her to try them. The thought turned his lips, a grim smile. That ship had sailed.

  And this morning’s additions to the safe, Orli’s iPhone and the boys’ passports. They stared at him, silently accusing him. Though he knew he’d done nothing wrong. Duberman had never been much of a reader. But at the University of Georgia, four decades ago, he’d found time for one English class, Introduction to Southern Literature. Inevitably the reading list included All the King’s Men, the Robert Penn Warren classic. The other novels bored him. Faulkner tried too hard. Everybody else was stuck on slavery and race. But Warren’s novel captivated him from first page to last. Power and ambition, secrets and lies. Not just the lies men told one another, but the ones they told themselves.

  He flipped through the twins’ passports. So many stamps. His sons had traveled more in their first two years than most people did in their entire lives. He’d given them so much already, and he wanted to give them so much more. Unbidden and unwanted, the climax of All the King’s Men came to Duberman then, Willie Stark in his hospital bed. The governor. The boss. Shot and dying, his friend and errand boy and finally nemesis Jack Burden at his side. The boss insisting to Burden, It might have been all different, Jack. You got to believe that.

  Jack, he’d pretended to agree. But he hadn’t believed anything of the sort, had he?

  Duberman felt an unexpected wetness against his cheeks. No. Men didn’t cry. He didn’t cry, that was certain. He dropped the passports back in the safe like they’d burned his fingers. He scooped the pistol, checked the magazine and the safety, which wasn’t on the frame but an internal trigger block. He popped in the mag, slipped the Kahr into his inside breast pocket. Say hello to my little friend. That fast, his fear vanished. He examined himself in the mirror. Perfect. The Kahr left only a tiny bulge, and the suit was gaudy enough to distract even a close observer.

  —

  PAST NINE P.M. NOW, sun gone, thick tropical clouds like a cap on the sky, reflecting a million colors from the skyscrapers. Hong Kong was at its most otherworldly in this weather, a sci-fi colony that happened to be on earth. Duberman had brought engineers and metallurgists to the mansion on a night like this, told them, I want the new casino to have walls like these clouds. Impossible. Only it wasn’t; they’d made his vision real.

  Down the hall, the twins slept. Rafael’s little fists were curled up. Boaz was muttering anxiously. Children shouldn’t see their parents fight. Duberman kissed them on their foreheads, and they seemed to relax. At least they weren’t worried about Orli, not yet. She’d left them before for photo shoots. Duberman didn’t know what he’d tell them tomorrow, the next day, the next. He’d think of something. They were adorable children. Everyone around them loved them. They’d be fine.

  He found Gideon in the kitchen, quiet, sitting on a barstool and sipping mineral water.

  “Boys okay?”

  The question pleased Duberman. Gideon was leaving his misplaced anger behind. “For now. Anything from Wells?”

  Gideon shook his head. “His phone’s off now.”

  “So, to Macao.” Duberman kept his tone light, like he was suggesting they go out for pizza.

  “Shouldn’t I stay? He still might bite.”

  “I want to get there early. In case Cheung’s planning something. Or even Buvchenko.”

  “Have you heard anything more from either of them?”

  Duberman shook his head. He had texted the Russian to tell him the meeting was set, got the single word Da in response. He still didn’t know whether Buvchenko or the other Russians planned to come to the meeting, or what they would tell him and Cheung if they did.

  “Maybe you should call Buvchenko. See what he wants before you go over.”

  Duberman didn’t know why Gideon was pushing the point. “After. When we have good news.”

  —

  QUESTION ANYTHING about Aaron Duberman, but not his taste. He had a closetful of ten-thousand-dollar bespoke suits he could have worn tonight. So Gideon understood that Duberman had made himself look ridiculous intentionally. What he didn’t understand was why. He wondered whether the suit was a cloak, a way for Duberman to tell himself, This is not who I am.

  “All dressed up,” Gideon said.

  “You didn’t know me when I had just
the one place in Reno. I’d come in like a cowboy one night, a rocker the next.”

  This would have been the early eighties, Gideon figured. While Duberman worked his casino floor in a ten-gallon hat and a cap pistol, Gideon was in Lebanon killing anyone foolish enough to step into his crosshairs. Soldiers? Maybe. The men he’d shot had rifles. But most of them hadn’t worn uniforms. The IDF’s rules of engagement were clear: Any males of fighting age carrying weapons may be considered enemy soldiers and targeted without warning. Fighting age was not defined. Some of Gideon’s kills hadn’t been old enough to shave.

  “Never thought of you as the nostalgic type, Aaron.”

  Duberman pulled on his lapels, straightened out his suit. “Good or bad, amazing how fast it goes. Like it never even happened.”

  Saying good-bye. He knows. Even if he doesn’t, he does. Gideon felt an unexpected rip in his heart for Duberman, a wish to protect him even now. For Tal, if no one else. Kill for you. Or die for you. Whatever Duberman thought, Gideon hadn’t forgotten his promise. Maybe together they could find some way to finesse Duberman out of the grave that he had dug himself.

  Besides, Gideon had heard nothing from Wells since sending over the license plates hours before. Enough waiting. “Ready when you are.”

  “Great.” Duberman’s tone was suddenly brisk, businesslike, and Gideon wondered if he’d been fooling himself. Was the man truly scared? Or did he take whatever pose he needed to bend the people around him? After so many years working for Duberman, Gideon ought to know. But he didn’t.

  Maybe that uncertainty was all the answer he needed.

  The uncertainty, and the fact that Duberman hadn’t mentioned Orli once.

  “She’ll be back.” Like he was reading Gideon’s mind. “We’ll work things out.”

  Gideon felt his phone buzz. A text from Wells, auto-translated from English into Hebrew. Ready to meet. Star Ferry HK term ASAP.

  “What’s up?” Duberman said.

  “Wells.” Gideon turned the screen for Duberman to see. Wells had been smart enough to keep the text vague, make it seem as if this meeting would be their first of the day, making up for the one he supposedly had missed before.

  “Go. Take care of him. There’ll be a helicopter waiting for you when you’re done.”

  So Duberman’s hate for Wells trumped everything, even his fears of a trap.

  “You still want me to kill him? If I can?” Gideon deliberately substituted you for Buvchenko, wondering if Duberman would slip, admit he and not the Russian was the one who wanted Wells dead.

  “Nothing’s changed.”

  Gideon slipped off his barstool, stepped close to Duberman.

  “You think anyone ever believes they’re going to die, Aaron? Really believes it?”

  “You’re the sniper.”

  “Good luck, boss.”

  Duberman grinned, like the word itself was a joke. He reached out, squeezed Gideon’s arm. “Do what you have to do. I’ll see you at the top of the Sky.”

  25

  Gideon had left the fancy iron up the hill. The SUV that sped toward the Star Ferry taxi stand where Wells and Ben the translator waited was a midsize Toyota four-door with tinted windows. Wells tossed his suitcase in back, slipped in beside Gideon. As they pulled the doors shut, Gideon sped off, downshifted into a hard left turn, the Toyota’s tires squealing on the wet pavement.

  —

  “YOU DON’T WANT to get pulled over,” Wells said through Ben. “Not with what’s in back.” The suitcase held a pair of Heckler & Koch 416s, the preferred automatic weapon for the agency’s special operations group. As a rule, Wells preferred pistols over automatic weapons, which were hard to silence and impossible to hide. If he needed an H&K’s firepower, the operation had probably already gone south. Nonetheless, when Wright opened the station’s safe, Wells took them, along with CS grenades, a Taser, a stack of flex-cuffs, and other goodies.

  Gideon slammed the brakes, jamming Wells against the seat belt. “You found her.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You bring me here for maybe? I was going to Macao with Aaron.”

  The words implied that Gideon was still protecting Duberman. Wells decided not to push the issue. Orli, then Duberman.

  “First things first. He’s not staying.” Wells nodded at Ben. “He’s here so I can tell you what I know, you decide if you’re in, we drop him off.”

  “Then what? You and me and the FSB? Yelling at each other in two languages while we spray and pray.”

  “Up to you, Chai.”

  “Why me? Why not one of yours?”

  “Station chief won’t risk it with the FSB. Not when we don’t even know what happened to her.”

  “I told you, she never goes with them on her own.”

  Hope you’re right, or we’ll both feel dumb. “When we find her, we can ask.”

  An hour before, Wells had ditched the motorcycle a half block from the consulate and run to the front security gate, backpack jangling from his shoulders. No time for subtlety. The Marine guards were expecting him and waved him through the metal detectors that the Makarovs in the backpack set off. Two minutes later, Wells unlocked the biometrically controlled entrance to the station and stepped into the conference room where Shafer waited. He dumped out the pack. The pistols bounced across the conference table and nearly slid off.

  “Seriously, John?”

  Wells grabbed the Makarovs and the steroid vials, stuffed them back in the pack.

  “Where’d you find it all?”

  “Mostly, a locked file cabinet in the bedroom.”

  “Place was live?”

  “I think Buvchenko’s sleeping there.” Wells decided not to tell Shafer about the code for the alarm. The man’s ego was out of control already.

  Shafer pushed aside property records and corporate documents, focused on bank records.

  “I’ll get someone who reads Mandarin,” Wells said.

  “Sure, but it won’t matter. This looks like a prospectus from a Chinese developer. An apartment complex someplace like Shenzhen.” Shenzhen was a Chinese city on Hong Kong’s northern border. In 1980, it had barely existed. Now it had ten million people. The ultimate Chinese economic miracle.

  “Why would the FSB buy property in China?”

  “Maybe they have money stuck there. Anyway, it’s a dead lead. No way would they try to sneak her across the border. She’s here or on a boat. Let me look at the bank stuff, you check the phone.”

  Wells wanted to be annoyed, but the division of labor made sense. He tried to turn on the burner. It stayed dark behind its broken screen. He plugged in its charger. Still nothing.

  “Tech support—” Shafer said, without looking up.

  “Thank you, Ellis.”

  The station’s tech officer was a twenty-something named Regina. Wells had met her earlier in the day. She had an intuitive millennial familiarity with electronic gadgets—and a bachelor’s in computer science from Carnegie Mellon. Her office was windowless, its floor bare concrete, three safes against its back wall. Not exactly cozy, but necessary. Regina had access to more classified information than anyone in the station except Wright. Maybe anyone including Wright.

  “Mr. Wells—”

  “Hoping you can help me with this.” Wells held up the phone and charger.

  “If it’s not completely fried.” She reached for it. “Give me five minutes.”

  “If only bringing everything back from the dead were so easy.”

  She didn’t smile.

  “I’ll be in Wright’s conference room.” Wells eased out, found a case officer who could read Chinese, and asked her to look over the property documents. She agreed immediately. Wright had told his officers to do whatever Wells and Shafer asked. No one was complaining about working late.

  Wright had put the stat
ion’s street operatives out, too, posting one to watch the safe house that Wells had just hit, two to monitor the Russian consulate, and the fourth to Hong Kong International in case the Russians tried to bring Orli through the main terminal there. But those moves were long shots. Shafer was right. The Russians must have had Orli in a safe house that they hadn’t found yet. Their inability to generate leads gnawed at Wells. Why hadn’t Gideon delivered Buvchenko’s number?

  On the other hand, what if he and Shafer were wrong about the ticking clock? What if the FSB didn’t plan to roll up the operation for days, even weeks? In that case, Wells should have left the safe house untouched. They should be waiting rather than chasing.

  Guess upon guess. They wouldn’t have answers until they found Orli and asked her.

  —

  WHILE SHAFER sorted through the bank records, Wells checked the business cards from the drawer, looking for a pattern, not finding it. A travel agent in Moscow, a partner at an accounting firm in Macao, two real estate brokers in Guangzhou, the managing director of a British private security company in Kowloon. Wells pushed the last to Shafer. “Worth a visit?”

  Shafer picked up the card. “James Neill, Special Situations and Services PLC. If we can’t come up with anything better.”

  “Just because you didn’t find it—”

  “Important business cards don’t get stuffed in drawers. They stay in your wallet. Or if they’re really vital, you put the info in your phone so you can’t lose it, then throw them away.”

  Something about what Shafer had said itched at Wells. A clue they’d missed.

  Regina knocked, stepped inside, a legal pad in her hands. “Good news or bad news first?”

  “Get to it,” Shafer said.

  “I don’t know what happened to that phone but it’s dead, pretty much. Those cheap burners store texts, call records, whatever junk photos they take in their own flash memory. That’s all fried. Only Langley has any hope of bringing it back.”

  “So it’s gone—”

  Regina raised a hand: Let me finish. “One nice thing about burners, they run on portable SIMs. Which don’t store much, but they do have the core directory, meaning any phone numbers anyone’s bothered to save. I guess the logic is that you want those even if you ditch everything else on the old phone. Anyway, I swapped the SIM into another burner shell, turned it on. Came up with four numbers, all Hong Kong country code.”