by Tim Tigner
My focus shifted to Katya, who was breezing up the stairs as though she did a thousand a day. It occurred to me that I had no idea what she did to keep so fit. I’d have to ask. After 126 stairs, the Clinical Connection’s office door opened to reveal a typical medical practice.
Except that nobody was there.
Chapter 30
Sirens
I SLIPPED THE GLOCK back into my pocket as we entered the Clinical Connection. The small reception area was outfitted with soft chairs, a rack of well-thumbed magazines about pop stars and fast cars, and a reception counter beside the door that led to all the action. There were no patients, and no receptionist. It was quiet as midnight.
“Hello,” I called. Once. Twice.
Footsteps broke the silence, high heels double-clicking across hard floors. A moment later, a matronly woman appeared wearing gray wool slacks and a white lab coat. Her nameplate read Perova. “Yeah?” she asked, as though picking up a call from a telemarketer.
“We’re here to see Dr. Tarasova.”
“She’s not here. If she was, you’d be talking to her, and I’d still be working.”
“We had an appointment,” Katya pressed.
Perova frowned. “Really? She wrapped everything up last week.”
“Last week?”
“The Vitalis trial. That’s why you’re here to see Dr. Tarasova, right? I don’t see you on the calendar. What are your names?”
I leaned forward on an elbow and spoke softly. “When do you expect her?”
Perova gave me an appraising glance. “I don’t know. She was here earlier. She’s supposed to be here now. We have a lot of cleanup to do.”
“Would you please double-check?” Katya asked. “Maybe she’s on the phone.”
Perova practically rolled her eyes, but whirled and clattered off.
Katya and I exchanged surprised glances the moment Perova turned. “Last week? The company folded eight months ago.”
I thought about it. “Maybe there’s some Ministry of Health regulation requiring follow-up visits, regardless.”
Katya shrugged.
The office was quiet enough that we could hear Perova’s progression as she moved from room to room. I leaned over the counter and looked around. Nothing notable. In fact, not much at all. Looked like a bare-bones operation. “They’re not very busy. I wonder how many trials the Clinical Connection has going?”
“Don’t know, but the elevator situation can’t help.”
The footsteps signaled Perova’s return a few seconds before her head appeared. “I told you. She’s not here. What time was your appointment?”
“I left her a message requesting one first thing this morning, but didn’t hear back,” Katya said.
“Well, that’s hardly the same thing as having an appointment, is it? I need to get back to my work now. Apparently I’m the only one working today.”
Katya smiled sympathetically. “We’ll check back in a bit. I saw a Coffee Mania back by the metro. Can we bring you something? Cappuccino and a pastry, perhaps?”
Perova seemed shocked by the offer. “This is a clinic. No food or beverage allowed.”
I liked Katya’s idea. I was feeling the jet lag. Ready for that second cup. I gestured toward the elevator. “What’s the deal? Is it safe?”
“We’ve had patients get stuck. Don’t get me started.”
“That can’t be good for business.”
Perova snorted. “Especially if you’re running an incontinence trial. We’re moving. That’s why it’s so quiet around here. All the action is at the new office.”
“Is Vitalis there now too?” Katya asked.
“Didn’t I just tell you that they wrapped up last week?” Perova wheeled about without waiting for an answer.
“You did.”
We took Perova’s advice and used the stairs, which wrapped around the elevator shaft. “How did Colin explain Vitalis folding?” I asked.
“He didn’t want to talk about it. I remember him staring at some paperwork and shaking his head while repeating ‘game over’ as though he couldn’t believe it.”
“Yeah, I also got that impression and didn’t want to press, especially on the phone. Now I wish I had. Would you say Colin was surprised, or just disappointed?”
“He was more than surprised. He was shocked and devastated. One day he was on top of the world, certain he had the best thing since penicillin, the next he was unemployed.”
Noise echoed up the stairwell from below, disrupting our discussion and growing louder as we descended. The clamor of a crowd was being augmented by the two-tone wail of an approaching ambulance.
Emerging into the front lobby, we found it packed with people facing the street. I took Katya’s hand and guided us toward the exit and the epicenter of the excitement, brushing shoulders and making holes. A few steps revealed a couple of police cars parked in V-formation, their lights flashing red and blue. I went up on my toes, using my height to beat the crowd.
“What do you see?” Katya asked.
“Three uniformed officers, circled up and looking at the ground. A fourth studying the sky, shielding his eyes against the reflection of the rising sun.” I nudged us closer, glancing skyward like the fourth cop, then back at the ground.
“What?” Katya persisted.
I tightened my grip on her hand and started plowing us through the crowd toward the approaching siren and the main road, cataloguing cars and faces as we walked, my senses on high alert. “Someone fell from the roof. Brunette in her mid-thirties. Landed on her back. She was wearing a white lab coat. I couldn’t see her whole name tag, but it started with Tar.”
Chapter 31
The Rocket
CLEAR OF THE GAWKING CROWD, we continued walking briskly, digesting the latest turn of events in silence, not sure where to go. As we neared Komsomolskiy Prospect, Katya spoke, her voice showing strain. “Are you certain the dead woman was Tarasova?”
“You can do the math. What are the odds of having a last name starting with Tar?”
“Any chance it was a suicide? Maybe from guilt over complaisance in whatever killed Colin. Perhaps my call triggered it?”
I wanted to ease Katya’s mind, but noise from the approaching ambulance made conversation awkward. As the siren passed us racing toward the scene, and the Doppler effect changed the ah ah to oh oh, a white panel van rolled past in the other direction, a blue GasEx logo on its side.
Our matching van was still a kilometer away, so I released Katya’s hand and spun around to face the oncoming traffic. I stuck my arm out to flag any driver willing to work as a cab and began waving. To my great relief, a maroon Lada 5 pulled right over.
“Change of plans?” Katya asked as I ushered her inside. “Tired of walking?”
Speaking rapid Russian to the Lada’s young driver, I said, “We’re following the white van that just turned right on Komsomolskiy. I’ve got a hundred dollars US for you if you can stick behind it.”
“You got it!” he said, accelerating after his target. “Where’s it going?”
“That’s what I want to find out.” I extracted a Benjamin from my wallet so he could see that I meant business. “But I don’t want the van’s driver to know he’s being followed. Think you can manage that?”
“Depends where he goes.” The driver repositioned his rearview mirror to study Katya and me. “This car is about as anonymous as they come. We should be fine as long as it stays on busy streets. And they’re all busy at this hour.”
As we crossed the Moscow River on the same long bridge we’d driven the evening before, I turned to face Katya and spoke in English. “No chance at all.”
She took a second to pair the answer with her suicide question.
“How can you be sure?”
“First of all, a GasEx van just left the scene. Secondly, I saw the passenger and driver.”
Her expression ran a gamut of emotions before stopping on fear. “Black suits?”
“With
black t-shirts and sunglasses.”
“It looks like GasEx is where we’re heading,” the driver said in English, pointing to the distinctive skyscraper now visible on the horizon. GasEx’s Moscow headquarters looked like the Washington Monument, but made of blue glass and with auxiliary towers running up each of the four corners, giving it an X-shaped footprint. The glass pyramid at the top reminded me of the entrance to the Louvre Museum.
“They call it Barsukov’s Rocket,” the driver said.
“I get the rocket part. But who’s Barsukov?”
“The new chairman of GasEx,” Katya and the driver replied in unison.
“Why don’t I know that? The name’s not familiar.”
“He stays behind the scenes,” Katya said. “The CEO, Antipin, is the public face. He’s much more presentable. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”
“Arkady Antipin, sure. Looks like a cross between a sweet grandfather and an elder statesman. Trustworthy and competent. What makes Barsukov unpresentable?”
The driver hopped on my question. “He’s got dark, deep-set eyes and a face they say is allergic to smiling.”
Katya nodded. “I can confirm that. He spoke at MSU last year. Part of his victory lap after landing the chairmanship. He hosted a recruiting dinner afterwards for PhD candidates in STEM disciplines, and I was seated at his table. He’s incredibly smart and very smooth, but inherently creepy. When you look into his eyes you see a crocodile’s soul.”
I found my curiosity growing the closer we came to his monumental headquarters. “Seems an odd choice for a chairmanship appointment.”
“They say he’s an old KGB friend of President Korovin’s,” the driver said. “Do you want me to try to follow the van onto the GasEx complex if it turns in?”
A friend of the president’s. “Oh yes.”
Chapter 32
The Rocket
KATYA TURNED to me as we neared the GasEx gate. “Isn’t it risky, going in unprepared?”
“The way things are going, standing still is risky too. We won’t do anything rash, but at the very least, we’ll see which building they enter.”
She put on a brave smile.
I wondered if I should try to hide her away in some suburban hotel until this was over. I doubted she’d go for that, but resolved to ask her later.
The fence that surrounded the GasEx complex rolled by to our right, black iron spears, tightly spaced, with a deep lawn beyond. Modern high-security of the sort used by Bel-Air estates, and G7 embassies. Closer now, we could see a circle of smaller buildings and flagpoles surrounding The Rocket, again reminding me of the Washington Monument atop the National Mall.
A couple of cars ahead, the white van’s turn signal began to blink right. I watched it roll to a stop before a card reader in the employee lane. A black sleeve extended a blue card, and the iron gate swung open in response.
While we waited behind a black Mercedes S550 in the visitor’s lane, I rolled down my window. “I’ll do the talking.”
I felt Katya tense beside me as our turn came and we stopped before a beefy guard in a black suit. His appearance and demeanor were similar to that of our friends, but rather than sunglasses and a black t-shirt, he wore a black collar shirt with a blue tie the same hue as the GasEx logo.
My eyes moved to his left hand as he greeted us. It held something similar to a laser pointer. A metallic cylinder with an eye. He directed it at each of us for a second. I didn’t recognize it until the damage was done.
In English, I said, “Good morning. We’re tourists and stockholders and were just curious and attracted by your beautiful building. Do you have a museum or anything like that?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” he replied in perfect English. “You’re welcome to visit in June during the annual stockholders’ meeting, but otherwise the grounds are closed to visitors. However, I’m sure that if you reached out to investor relations, a tour could be arranged.” He produced a business card from his breast pocket. “Here’s their contact information.” He turned to the driver and gestured while saying, “You can exit to the left.”
“Where to?” the driver asked once we were facing the street again.
“The nearest metro. As fast as you can get us there.”
“Sixty seconds fast enough?”
“Why’d you give up so easily?” Katya asked, disappointment evident. “I thought you’d planned to finesse our way in.”
“That was before we were fucked.”
The driver turned to look at me as Katya said, “What are you talking about?”
“I was stupid. Should have anticipated.”
“What?”
“First thing the guard did was take our pictures. No doubt they went directly into a facial recognition program, probably the same one that processed the courtroom photos. They’ve got a bead on us now. And worse, they know we’ve got a bead on them. We need to disappear, fast.”
I turned to the driver. “You’ll be fine if you keep a low profile and stick to a slim version of the truth. If asked, tell them we flagged you down on Komsomolskiy Prospect and paid you a hundred rubles to drive us to GasEx. Then you dropped us at the metro when we couldn’t get in. That’s it. We didn’t say anything during the drive, and for God’s sake don’t mention following a van. Keep it boring and they’ll get bored with you. Sorry for the hassle. Here’s an extra hundred bucks.”
The driver sighed somber resignation and a couple of seconds later pulled to the curb near the entrance to Kaluzhskaya metro station.
We made for the escalator without another word.
Once we were underground, Katya asked, “What now?”
I grabbed her hand and increased our pace. “It’s time to deploy a secret weapon.”
Chapter 33
Dim
GRIGORI BARSUKOV had his feet on his office desk and a cigar in his mouth when he got the news. He was celebrating. It was thirty months to the hour since he’d walked the lonely Kremlin corridor and made his initial pitch to President Korovin.
He’d been a bundle of nerves walking into the meeting. He could admit that to himself now. The president’s hunting allegory had nearly pushed him over the edge. But he’d hung in there, steeled his will, and kept his eye on the prize.
They’d met three more times. The first had just been an update on the Brillyanc rollout, but the second and third had been much more. At the second meeting, Grigori revealed an unexpected twist. A tantalizing, delicious, unbelievable twist. At the third, they’d agreed on an audacious plan to exploit it.
Now Grigori was sitting on a chair made from the hide of the very crocodile Vladimir had referenced in their initial meeting. A gift from the big man himself. A daily reminder of who had given him his position, and who could pluck him from it. But Grigori chose to regard the chair as a symbol of his own strength and guile. Evidence of the type of tactics that prevailed in a predatory world.
The modern chime of his private elevator struck a chord dissonant with the Beethoven symphony playing in the background. Then the brushed-aluminum doors opened to reveal his head of security.
From the outside, Grigori’s office/apartment looked like the entrance to the Louvre Museum, except that it was perched thirty-stories up, atop GasEx’s Moscow headquarters, rather than in a Parisian palace courtyard. The pyramid forming the walls of Grigori’s office consisted of 576 panes of a special blue glass, the clarity or opacity of which Grigori could control electronically from a tablet. His power to block out the sun with the flick of a wrist was a little godlike, as of course was the Olympus-like view from atop his ‘rocket.’
Grigori had one of his technical people write a program that kept the window pattern arranged so that the sun spotlighted anyone exiting the elevator. This gave Grigori a physical and psychological advantage in the crucial first seconds of every meeting. This time, the spotlight told him Pyotr was about to ruin his day.
“Achilles just showed up at the front gate,” Pyotr said, removing his wraparoun
d shades now that he was clear of the sun. “He’s with Katya and a guy we have yet to identify. Probably a cabbie, but my guys are checking as we speak.”
“Excellent. Do you need my help disposing of the bodies?”
Pyotr’s big bald head reddened. “We don’t have them. They turned around at the gate, after their images were captured, but before the facial recognition program alerted us to the match.”
Grigori drummed his fingers audibly on the back of the tablet. “Not so excellent. In fact, that’s pretty much the opposite of excellent, wouldn’t you say? Now we need to worry about what brought them here. Coming to Moscow was one thing. That was a logical move given the data available to them. Any competent investigator would have done the same. But coming here, to my property specifically? Well, that presents an entirely different deck of cards. That indicates significant progress. Which indicates the existence of a trail. Which indicates a breach in security. Which indicates incompetence. Wouldn’t you say?”
Pyotr’s whole head flushed red again. “Yes, sir. We’re trying to identify the trail, even as we search for them. It’s not the Clinical Connection. We retrieved all the records and eliminated the doctor before they arrived.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Sir?”
“There aren’t a lot of trails to cover. Not here in Moscow anyway. If it’s not the clinical people, that leaves your guys. Doesn’t it?”
Pyotr just blinked.
“We assume they got your guys in California. We know they got your guys in the hotel. Maybe your guys talked?”
“They wouldn’t talk.”
“Then how do you explain Achilles showing up on my doorstep?”
“I can’t.”
“If you’re this stupid after Brillyanc, I don’t know how you survived before it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Put guys at the airports and train stations. Good guys. Brillyanc guys. Sooner or later, they’re bound to flee. I’m going to call in some outside help to try and make it sooner.”