by Steven Gore
Gage tensed, expecting her to kick at him again, or push off against the tailgate in a final attempt to flee. Instead she asked, “What about Stuart?”
“He’s next. I’ve already got him, he just doesn’t know it. He has something other people want and I need to stop him from turning it over.”
Alla laughed with frustration and disgust. “You’re about six months too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I get?”
“What do you want?”
“The whole truth and to see that son of a bitch hung by his heels in Shevchenko Park.”
Gage glanced over at Ninchenko to see whether his picture of Alla had also turned inside out.
Ninchenko raised an eyebrow in response, then asked Alla in English, “What was your fight about the other day?”
Alla’s eyes widened. “It was…” She hesitated and looked back and forth between Gage and Ninchenko. “Why should I trust you two?”
Gage pointed back toward the street. “You notice anybody out there that wants to stop him besides us?”
“How do I know you don’t want to steal it?”
“Because I could’ve done that in California.”
“The fight?” Ninchenko asked again.
“It was…” Alla looked back and forth between them. “It was about what he’s really doing here. Before we came, he said he wanted to make an investment. But that’s not the truth, or at least not the whole truth. The investment had already been made.”
“Is that what the meetings in London with Gravilov were about?”
She drew back, then smiled as if Gage had walked in on her in the shower. “Have you been living in my flat and I somehow missed it?”
“No, just close by.”
“I wish I knew you were there.” Her smile faded. “This would all be over by now.”
“Unfortunately, your background suggested that you were carrying on the family business, or at least working for Gravilov.”
“He tried to recruit me to spy on Stuart. One Ukrainian to another. I didn’t want his money…that fucking gangster.”
“Does Gravilov know who your father is?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t want to get caught in a crossfire between him and my father’s people so I used my ex-husband’s last name when he came by.” Alla looked down and sighed. “How did I get into this mess? All this time I thought Stuart was different, but he turned into the same kind of predator I was trying to escape from.”
“People fall in love with the same person over and over again,” Gage said. “It’s just the names that change.”
Alla looked up at Gage. “You must know my ex-husband.”
Gage shrugged. “Just a guess.” He circled back to the fight. “What investment?”
“Stuart, Gravilov, and Hadeon Alexandervich built a plant in Dnepropetrovsk, to manufacture missile guidance systems.”
Gage caught his breath. He felt as if life had been fast-forwarded and he’d blinked at all the wrong times. Rage mushroomed inside him, at Matson for his treason and at himself for failing to recognizing what Matson had been up to.
“Stuart got caught sending over military-grade video amplifiers, so Gravilov suggested that he manufacture them over here.” She emitted a bitter laugh. “Stuart liked to brag that SatTek can drop a missile into a coffee cup, but he never seemed to grasp that it’s people, not coffee cups, who get blown up.”
“How far have they gotten?” Gage said, keeping his voice steady, concealing his anger.
“They’ve already built fifteen hundred.” She glanced over at Ninchenko. “Stuart ordered the parts, mostly through intermediaries in Taiwan and Singapore, and shipped them over. Gravilov and Stuart fronted the money.” She glanced over her shoulder. “A FedEx box from Germany arrived at the hotel.”
Gage tensed as he said the words, “MMIC controller chips.”
Alla nodded. “The last five hundred. They were repackaged in Munich to disguise them as computer components. Gravilov’s bodyguard snatched them right out of Stuart’s hands and headed for the plant. All that’s left is to embed the software.”
“How do you know-”
“I studied engineering in college. I understand the process better than Stuart does.” She shook her head. “Putting weapons in the hands of these people is lunacy…sheer lunacy.”
Alla glanced in the direction of the restaurant. “Now what?”
Gage looked at his watch and asked Ninchenko, “What’s Matson doing?”
Ninchenko passed on the question, listened for a moment, then answered. “He’s still at the bar.”
“How’d you get Matson to tell you all of this?” Gage asked her.
“I told you what I’d do to a toad,” she said, unsmiling, “so use your imagination. And it didn’t hurt that Stuart has painted himself into a corner. Gravilov gave him a down payment of five million dollars for the software and Stuart’s afraid that if he hands it over, he’ll never get the rest of the money and they might even force him to give the five million back. He knows he’s already lost his investment in the plant.”
“Where’s the software?” Gage asked.
“Stuart told them it’s with his lawyer in London, but it’s really on his laptop. The idea is that he stays in Ukraine until the payment is wired into his account. Then he gives them the software and they’re supposed to let him leave.”
“Supposed to?”
“That’s what’s got him worried most of all.”
Gage looked at Ninchenko, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say, Use your best judgment. Then back at Alla. “Would you go back to him if I asked you to?”
She shook her head. “If they don’t let Stuart leave, there’s no way they’ll let me. Why not just kidnap him and the laptop?” She jutted her chin toward the restaurant. “I’ll make sure he cooperates.”
“Things have gone too far. We need to disable the devices so no one can ever use them.”
Ninchenko held up a finger and again listened to his phone. “Matson has looked at his watch a couple of times.”
Alla peered up at Gage. “You seemed to be good at following people. How good are you at rescuing them?”
Gage glanced at Ninchenko and smiled. “Even better. There’ll always be people just minutes away.”
“And if I say I want out?”
“We’ll get you out.”
She turned sideways and rolled her shoulder. “You’ll need to untie me.”
“You going to run?”
“No.” She flashed a smile. “I think I’d like a ride back.”
Gage nodded, then Ninchenko released her. Gage then pointed at the front passenger door and said to Alla, “You ride in front.”
She slipped down from the tailgate, rubbing her wrists, then walked around and climbed in. Gage and Ninchenko got into the back.
Alla turned toward them as the driver pulled out into the street. She locked her eyes on Ninchenko, and then tilted her head toward Gage. “I know how he fits in. What about you?”
“I work for an enemy of Gravilov-”
“I should have guessed.” She glared at Ninchenko. “The enemy of my enemy. It’s the Ukrainian way.”
“Except,” Ninchenko continued, “this enemy agrees with you and Mr. Gage. The devices have to be disabled. They mustn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“They better be disabled, and fast.” Alla looked back at Gage. “You know what Stuart’s leverage for more money is?”
Gage shook his head.
“The video amplifiers are supposed to be installed in Ukrainian air-to-ground missiles next week. Like your Hellfires. Orders were placed. Part of the money has already changed hands. And they’re in a hurry to get it done. Hadeon Alexandervich is afraid the opposition will win the new election. Within weeks there’ll be a new prime minister and a new chief prosecutor. Hadeon Alexandervich knows he’s target number one. He wants the rest of his money. Now.”
“How much?”<
br />
“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, walk-ins 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 from Soviet days. People slept on the job any
way, 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.”