by Todd Moss
“So let me dig around. Maybe I’ll find something you won’t.”
“Don’t waste your time, Jess. I’m going to spend a few days on it, probably go nowhere, and then kick it over to the embassy so I can get back to the South China Sea. I can’t just keep sitting around, waiting for Landon Parker’s next whim. I was onto something.”
“Good idea,” she said. “You’ve got to make it happen.”
“What are you working on, Jess?”
“Not the South China Sea. And not Nigeria.”
“That’s all I get? ‘Not Nigeria’?”
“It’s enough to be sure we aren’t crossing wires. Avoid is enough.”
“You can’t tell me anything?” he asked. He set the beer down and gave her a soft kiss behind her ear.
“Judd, don’t do this.”
“China?” He kissed her neck.
“Stop.”
“Iran?” Another kiss. “Mexico?” Kiss. “Luxembourg?” Kiss. “Russia?” Kiss. Judd cocked his head to one side. “That’s it,” he said, stepping back.
“What’re you talking about?”
“You tensed up when I said ‘Russia.’ You’re working on . . . Russia.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It wasn’t much, but I could feel it. You flinched. When I said ‘Russia.’” Judd grinned from ear to ear.
“I don’t flinch,” Jessica insisted.
“Well, I felt it, Jess.” His face brightened. “How about that?”
“Judd, don’t be ridiculous. You think your lips are a polygraph?”
“Maybe. Are you denying that I’m right?”
“It’s not funny. Let’s talk about something else. Who’s pitching for the Sox tonight?”
“Russia is dangerous, Jess.”
“Change the subject. I want to talk about baseball.”
“That’s a first. You working on Russian oil?” he asked.
“Stop it. I’m not going to say any more, Judd.”
“Arms trafficking? The military? The Kremlin? Organized crime?” Judd paused. “I saw that,” he whispered.
“What?” she snapped.
“You twitched when I said ‘organized crime.’ You just gave away that you’re working on . . . the Russian mafia.”
“Fuck,” she hissed.
“It’s fine.” Judd took her hand. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I can’t have a tell.”
“It’s just me, sweets.”
“I. Can’t. Have. A. Tell,” she repeated.
“It doesn’t matter, Jess,” he said, suddenly feeling badly. “I was messing around. I shouldn’t have even asked you. It’s me. Your husband. I know you better than anyone. I’m sure no one else could do that. I’m sorry. I won’t ask you any more about the Russian mob. Or anything about work.”
She scowled at him.
“But,” Judd hesitated. “Maybe there’s an upside?”
“An upside? A tell can get you killed, Judd.”
“Not in a marriage.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve accepted that you have another life. We’ve got our rules of engagement. We’ve both made our peace with it. All of it,” Judd squeezed her hand. “But a little part of me always wonders what I don’t know about you.”
“I’ve told you about my family,” she said impatiently. “About being adopted from Ethiopia. I’ve told you what I can about my life. You know all that. I just can’t tell you everything.”
“I can live with that,” Judd said. “But it still feels good knowing that I can figure you out once in a while. That I can put one more piece in my Jessica puzzle.”
Jessica squeezed his hand back.
“And,” he continued, “it’s even better if I’m the only one that can read your mind.”
“I want to share more about me,” she said. “I really do.”
“I want to know more, Jess. Whatever you can tell me.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“You said a tell could get you killed. Have you ever, I don’t know . . . almost . . . died?”
Jessica shrugged.
“How many times?”
“I’m a professional, Judd. I know what I’m doing.” She looked away. “I don’t take unnecessary risks.”
“How close?” Judd asked.
“I know how to protect myself in a dangerous world.”
“What’s that mean?”
“If someone’s coming to kill me. Or my team. Or hurt my family,” she raised her eyebrows. “I’m trained to react. I know what to do. I won’t hesitate. I won’t have any regrets.”
“No regrets? What are you trying to say, Jess?”
“What are you asking, Judd? Are you asking me if I’ve ever killed anyone?”
“You’re the mother of my children. You just read them a bedtime story. I probably don’t want to know the answer to that question.”
“You just said you want to know more about me. That seems like a pretty big thing,” she said.
“I don’t need to know that.”
“Have you ever killed anyone, Judd?”
“Of course not. I’ve never even fired a gun.”
“So don’t you want to know my answer? Whether I’ve ever killed anyone?
“No, I don’t want to know,” he said. “I choose not to know.”
“Don’t be naïve, Judd. People get killed every day.”
“What does that mean, Jess? Are you saying that you have no qualms killing people for your country?”
“Are you asking what bad things your wife may have done, Judd? Or do you want to debate the morality of U.S. national security policy? The world is messy and dangerous. More dangerous than you know. More dangerous than I hope our children will ever know. That doesn’t change, whether I’m in Washington or Moscow or Kandahar.”
“Of course it does, Jess.”
“Is it really so different to press a button that sends a missile into a truck ten thousand miles away or if you twist the knife into a man as you look into his eyes as he sucks in his final breath?”
Judd swallowed hard.
“I don’t think so,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Well, I couldn’t do it,” Judd said.
“What about for your family?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered.
“Back in Cuba, don’t you think I would have slit Oswaldo Guerrero’s throat right there if I needed to save your life?”
“I guess so.”
“Of course I would have. With no second thoughts. No regrets. Same goes for how things went down in Mali. And in Zimbabwe. Don’t you know that I would have done whatever it takes to keep those I love safe?”
“Of course I do. I just don’t know”—he cleared his throat—“if I could kill someone face-to-face.”
“We never know our inner bravery until we need to,” she said. “You’ll know when you have to. And when your moment comes, you won’t hesitate. And you won’t have regrets.”
“I just hope I never have to kill someone to save your life, Jess.”
“So do I,” she said. “But the world—”
“I know, Jess. The world is messy and dangerous.”
DAY TWO
TUESDAY
9
ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
TUESDAY, 1:56 A.M. MOSCOW STANDARD TIME (MONDAY, 6:56 P.M. EST)
Dead,” said the Bear, stroking his bushy beard.
Despite the dark hour, the burly man wore his usual wraparound sunglasses as he stood in front of a large picture window. The view was of twinkling lights along the black Neva River that ran through the center of St. Petersburg. Vibrations from the nightclub two floors down pulsated through the room like a beating heart on speed. �
�Zhang-tao is supposed to be . . . dead.”
“Aye, boss,” replied a muscular bald man in a tight black suit standing at attention. “Should I bring in Yuri?” he asked, with an accent that could come from nowhere except the streets of London’s East End.
“You see the Neva, Mikey?” the Bear said, ignoring the question and gently tapping a long finger on the window. “The water of the Neva comes from Lake Ladoga, where my grandmother was born.”
Mikey nodded enthusiastically, even though he had heard this speech many times before.
“The Neva pours from there through our glorious city out to the sea. The Neva flows to Finland, to Sweden, to Denmark. It surrounds Great Britain. My family’s water floods the Atlantic. It goes wherever the ocean currents take it, to Africa, to Asia, to America. From my small village at Tuloksa, the Neva touches the entire world.”
“That’s right, boss.”
“Everyone is drinking the water of Mother Russia.”
“’At’s it, boss.”
“It’s invisible. No one sees it. No one knows. But the water flows from me.” He smacked his hand on the window. “To everywhere.”
“You’s everywhere.”
“From nothing. From nowhere. We are everywhere. We have built an empire.” The Bear spun to face Mikey. “And how did we do this?”
“Crackin’ skulls.”
“No!” the Bear growled. “Any man can just kill another man. That is nothing. Violence alone cannot build an empire. That is a recipe for savagery. To build an empire, you need savages, yes.”
“You have me, boss,” Mikey offered.
“But more than brute strength, we must create fear and respect. That’s how our business works. That’s how the world works.”
“’At’s it.”
“When we see something we want, a snake that is feeding, how do we make that snake our own? We can cut off the head. But for the body to live, for the body to thrive, for the snake to truly become ours, we need fear and respect, Mikey.”
“Fear and respect, boss.”
“That’s how we profit from every kilo of opium from Afghanistan, every Kalashnikov on the streets of Mexico City, every whore in Romania. And that’s how we will profit from every barrel of oil.”
“Truth.”
“How are we supposed to create fear and respect if Zhang-tao defies me? If he’s allowed to live?”
“It’s bang out of order.”
The Bear pulled a compact comb from his pocket and slowly groomed his beard. “Bring the boy here.”
The bald man opened the door and led in a younger man with a brush cut and wide shoulders. The new arrival saluted the Bear.
“We aren’t in the army anymore, Yuri,” the Bear said. The man raised his hands in apology as Mikey placed a hand on his shoulder and forced him down into a chair.
“What were your orders, little Yuri?” the Bear demanded.
“Get to Zhang-tao,” Yuri said.
“And?” Mikey demanded, looming over the younger man.
“I put our very best on it,” Yuri said nervously, looking back and forth between the two bigger men.
“So how did Evgeny see Zhang-tao drinking champagne in Manila yesterday?”
“I don’t know, boss. Queen Sheba has never failed us before. Maybe Evgeny is mistaken?”
“Is he dead or not?”
“I don’t know, boss.”
“Show me your hands,” said the Bear. The young man hesitated, then extended his arms and rested his palms on the coffee table. “The world is a rough and filthy place. Men have to be this way to survive. Are your hands rough and filthy, Yuri?”
“Yes, boss,” the man said.
“The world is a terrible place, full of monsters. Strong men have to be terrible and sometimes inhuman. Can you be inhuman when I require it?” the Bear asked.
“Of course,” Yuri said, a quiver sneaking into his voice. “I follow orders. You know that. I always follow orders.”
“Do you know how our organization works?”
“Fear,” the younger man said. “You told me yourself.”
“Correct,” said the Bear. “How do we maintain our empire?”
“Respect.”
“Correct again,” said the Bear, sinking his hands into the deep pockets of his overcoat. “But, Yuri, do you know what separates us from the beasts?”
“I . . .” the man looked to Mikey who offered no assistance. “I don’t understand.”
“I said: Do you know what separates men from animals?” the Bear repeated. As the man shook his head, Mikey lunged forward and pinned Yuri’s left arm. In that instant, the Bear swung a meat cleaver high over his head and whacked it down on the table like a guillotine, severing Yuri’s left thumb. Bright red blood spurted across the room. Yuri screamed in pain and clutched his hand.
The Bear calmly wiggled the cleaver to remove it from the table, wiped it off with a white handkerchief, and replaced it in his coat pocket.
“Thumbs,” said the Bear. “Now bring Queen Sheba to me.”
10
U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
TUESDAY, 9:08 A.M. EST
The sun was shining and the band was playing Louis Armstrong’s cheery version of “What a Wonderful World.” The crowd chatted excitedly in the State Department’s south courtyard while they sipped orange juice and tall flutes of champagne.
“I see trees of green, red roses too . . .” the music blared.
The courtyard featured a bronze-and-glass sculpture of a superhuman ten-foot giant riding atop a spinning planet. Marshall Fredericks’s The Man and the Expanding Universe was a fitting image to celebrate Tunde Babatunde, the seven-foot-two-inch star center for the Brooklyn Nets basketball team.
“The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky . . .”
Judd Ryker snagged a glass of bubbly off a tray and stood toward the back, watching the gray-suited Americans mingle with the Nigerians in multicolored robes and wraps. Several of the women were adorned with geles, elaborate traditional cloth head wraps that added at least a foot to their height. He scanned the crowd for a face that matched the photo Serena had showed him a few minutes earlier. The ambassador’s not here yet.
Judd checked his watch just as the song came to an end.
“Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world . . .”
“It’s indeed a wonderful world,” announced a beaming Secretary of State. “On this beautiful day, we are so honored to have Tunde Babatunde with us to celebrate his achievements, his generosity, and his enduring commitment to an even more wonderful future. Like many of us here today, Tunde came from humble roots. But he worked hard, he believed in himself, and he succeeded. And now Tunde is giving back. To make the world a better place. To build bridges between the country of his birth and his adopted homeland. To bring Africa and America one step closer together.”
The Secretary paused to allow the crowd to clap and cheer. “Tunde is a model for all of us. And the work he is doing with the Tunde Babatunde Foundation, in collaboration with the U.S. embassy in Nigeria, is a model for the public-private partnerships that the State Department is building to leverage the unique capabilities of philanthropy and diplomacy.” She paused again for another round of polite applause. “I’m so very pleased to introduce our special guest today, a great symbol of the pursuit of excellence and our common humanity, Tunde Babatunde!”
Judd moved toward a gap in the crowd to get a better view just as a gigantic man dressed in an elegant pin-striped suit stepped into the courtyard. He flashed a wide smile at the cameras, bent down to embrace the Secretary, and then accepted the microphone.
“Thank you, Madam Secretary of State,” he said in a deep, froggy voice. “Thank you, Ambassador Katsina, proud representative of our great and beautiful country.” Babatunde nodd
ed deferentially toward an older woman standing in a black dress and head scarf, with a large oval diplomatic pin on her collar. “I will be brief. As a small boy on the streets of Lagos, I was the tallest of all my friends. I always dreamed of playing basketball in America. I idolized Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing. I sold oranges with my friends on the street to earn one naira so I could pay to watch American basketball games on a black-and-white television running on a car battery.”
Judd edged closer toward the front.
“As a boy, my true hero was Hakeem Olajuwon, who had made the unimaginable journey from Nigeria to Texas. Olajuwon was Nigeria’s biggest star who moved to the biggest state in the biggest country.”
“Big is good!” someone shouted from the back of the crowd.
“Yes, yes, in Nigeria, big is good,” Babatunde replied. “Back in Lagos, we all wanted to be like Hakeem Olajuwon. We all wanted to play basketball in America. The trouble was that my school had no books, no desks, no basketballs, and no basketball court. We had nothing but our dreams.”
Babatunde continued, “One day I was messing around outside the American consulate with some friends. I won’t tell you what trouble we were really up to.”
He smiled cheekily, eliciting a round of forced laughter from the crowd.
“But one of the Marine guards called me over. ‘Come here, little man,’ he said. I was scared and thought he was calling me for a beating. But I obeyed his order. Instead of a beating, the Marine handed me a basketball. He said I was so tall that I should learn the game and one day come to play in America. He made me promise that if I did make it, that I would become a Seminole.” The crowd hooted and whistled.
“I didn’t know what a Seminole was, but I wanted that basketball, so I agreed! I played with that ball every day in the street on a hoop and backboard that my friends and I rigged up from scrap wire and asbestos sheeting. I slept with that ball in my bed. Eventually I got better, and one day I met a visiting high school coach who told a college recruiter about me. I kept my word to the Marine, insisting that I was a Seminole. Eventually word got back to Tallahassee and Florida State University offered me a scholarship. After taking the Seminoles to the Final Four”—cheers and whistles from the back again—“I was so blessed to be drafted in the first round by the Brooklyn Nets. I had always known that Texas was the biggest state, but I was going to New York, the biggest city.”