by J. B. Turner
The minutes went by. The more he watched, the more Reznick wondered if they were just wasting their time. But his instincts were always to persevere. And he knew from working with Meyerstein that she would be the same. She would never give up—she would dig in. What seemed like a lost cause might, just might, generate a lead. A sliver of information.
He’d lost count of the number of covert surveillance operations on supposed jihadis in Europe that he’d been tasked with monitoring that hadn’t resulted in the intel they’d expected. But the longer a person was observed, the more of their character was revealed. Or links to other potential recruiters were established. And sometimes the surveillance even revealed a full cell structure, allowing all the members to be targeted.
On-screen, Chapman beat his opponent easily. They shook hands, patted each other on the back. Then the lawyer returned to the locker room, where he changed into some swim shorts. He swam twenty lengths of the Yale Club pool. When the footage recommenced, it showed the lawyer back in the locker room, combing his hair, examining a small shaving cut on his neck as he stared into the mirror.
Reznick yawned as Chapman walked back over to the lockers, but then stared at the footage as the lawyer opened a backpack and pulled out a book.
“What the fuck?”
He watched closely as Chapman placed the book in the end locker, farthest away from the door, then locked it, putting the key in his pocket.
“What the hell?” Thomas said, freezing the footage. “Motherfucker.”
“This just got a helluva lot more interesting,” Reznick said. He called Stamper over and Thomas replayed the footage of the book being left in the locker. “What do you reckon?”
Stamper watched intently. “That is interesting. But I’d like to see the footage once he’s left the premises.”
Thomas nodded. “Absolutely.” He picked up a phone from the table and keyed in a number. “Becky, pull up any footage from 19:17 onwards. Got it?” He ended the call, turned to Stamper, and smiled. “I think we’re on to something.”
Stamper nodded.
Half an hour later, the rest of the footage was emailed through. It showed a figure entering the locker room wearing a hoodie. The angle made the person difficult to discern. Reznick looked at Stamper. “The way they walk, Roy, looks like a female, am I right?”
Stamper nodded. “Most certainly.”
The woman went over to the locker where the book had been left. She opened it and then pulled out the book.
Thomas freeze-framed the image. “OK, that’s something. That looks very much like a dead drop.”
“I agree,” Reznick said.
“You’re convinced this is related to Merkov?” Stamper asked.
Thomas nodded. “Yes, I am, sir.”
“What I can’t understand is what’s in it for Merkov to be kidnapping an FBI assistant director. This is not his usual playbook.”
Reznick stared at the screen. “That’s why we need to find out who this woman is and take it from there. I swear to God, Roy, Merkov senior is pulling the strings on this.”
Fourteen
The morning sun streamed in through the windows as Vladimir Merkov was leafing through the obituary section of the New York Times in his twenty-second-floor suite in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, overlooking Central Park.
The names of New York movers and shakers. Businessmen. A famous chef at a Madison Avenue hotel. A Swiss fashion designer. A writer. He thought of the contributions they’d made to the city and country. He reflected on his own contribution to American life. He felt a sadness well up within him as he began to ponder his own mortality. He gave a hacking cough before he lit up another cigarette. It was strictly against doctor’s orders.
Merkov knew it was too late to start worrying about his health. He had perhaps a year to live, maximum. The chain-smoking and hard drinking had taken their toll. His doctors, the best in America, had diagnosed terminal lung cancer. It was eating away at him. He felt it nip at him now and again. But the whisky and the morphine injections were keeping things in check.
He got up from his seat and stared out the window at the golden-brown foliage of Central Park in the fall. Red and yellow leaves drifting in the wind. Despite the billions laundered through hundreds of businesses across the world, tucked away in numerous Swiss and Cayman Island accounts under fake names, he hadn’t been able to buy immortality.
He dragged hard on the cigarette as gray-blue smoke filled the room. It seemed like yesterday that his beloved only son was walking with him in Central Park. He closed his eyes as he remembered the night they’d fled Russia.
He’d made his money during the fall of the Soviet Union, gobbling up oil and gas fields. It was like the Wild West back then. Everyone for themselves. But after a few years, he could see the way things were going.
The oligarchs were being rounded up. Or jailed. Or assassinated. He’d lost count of old friends who’d gone that way.
So he’d gotten out while he still could. He’d sprayed some money around at corrupt Russian officials. Had dozens of American passports made up. Then he’d simply caught a Gulfstream from a private airfield and flown to Germany. They’d refueled, and headed across the ocean to New York incognito. No one knew he’d arrived in America. He was under a false name. He disappeared.
He realized now how lucky he was. To have lived so long and to be dying a free man. But Dimitri, his wayward son, his only son—Dimitri’s imprisonment weighed heavily on his heart.
Merkov turned and stared at the gold-framed photo on top of the TV. It showed his son on a football field at an exclusive New England prep school, throwing a bucket of ice over the coach as everyone laughed. It was hard not to look at the picture and smile. But it always pained him, too.
His son should have had a career, should have done better than his old man. But instead of knuckling down and getting good grades and heading to an Ivy League school, Dimitri had decided he wanted to join the family business. Money laundering, racketeering, offshore tax havens, violence, and murder. Merkov had tried to change his son’s mind. But, oh, Dimitri was headstrong.
Merkov had regretted the decision ever since. He should have put his foot down and said no, that he wasn’t joining his business or being introduced to his associates on the East Coast. He should have foreseen the outcome of his son’s psychopathic tendencies. Dimitri seemed to like hurting people. Merkov always left that side of the business, by and large, to other people.
Merkov stubbed out his cigarette in a glass ashtray and stared out once more over the endless greenery of Central Park. This place was so far removed from his hellish upbringing in what was then Stalingrad. He remembered life among the ruins as a boy while the SS drew ever closer. They’d hidden. They’d lived off rats. They’d eaten human flesh to survive. And then they’d won the war. They had endured the unendurable.
Now look at how he lived. Five-star hotels. Homes in Aspen, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, London. He traveled on his own private jet. He was protected by a handpicked security team of former KGB officers, ex-Spetsnaz, and numerous ex-military bodyguards. He paid top dollar. And he expected—and got—the best.
No one fucked with him.
His only weak spot was his son. He’d given him everything. But because Dimitri wanted for nothing, he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t understand sacrifice. Discipline. Respect. Devotion.
His son knew only fast women, fast cars, and wanton, sadistic violence. Violence for violence’s sake. Merkov wondered if his son, as a boy, had observed and absorbed the cold, detached persona of his father.
Merkov had realized he needed to rein Dimitri in. But by then it was too late. His son’s torture chambers had been discovered in a Queens warehouse by the authorities.
It seemed unbelievable that a young man who could have taken over his father’s empire without getting his hands dirty had allowed himself to be devoured by his demons. Let himself be destroyed. Incarcerated.
But that was in the past. Th
e bonds of blood could be stretched but never broken. Merkov had plans for his son on the outside.
His cell phone rang and he fished it out of his shirt pocket.
“We have an update for you, sir.” The voice was that of one of his closest associates.
“Go on.”
“I think it might be prudent to move her.”
“Already?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
“How is she coping?”
“She’s hanging in there. She’s tough. So, when do we let the Feds know we have her?”
“All in good time.”
Fifteen
The investigation seemed to Reznick to have been kicked up a notch. He was sitting at a conference table with half a dozen members of the FBI’s New York task force. Stamper was standing with his back to a large screen. He seemed to have accepted Reznick’s presence on his team.
He picked up a remote control and switched on the screen. An image appeared of a woman wearing a hoodie, which partially concealed her face.
Stamper cleared his throat as he looked at the stern faces around the table. “This image was taken at the Yale Club in Midtown. It shows a woman, approximately in her thirties. She opened a locker in the men’s changing room and took out a book.” He pressed a button on the remote control again and the screen split in two. “Here we have her on the left. And this guy on the right is Adam Chapman, who placed the book there.”
Some of the agents scribbled down notes.
“We’ve been running this image through facial recognition software.” Stamper pointed at a fresh-faced young agent at the far end of the table. “Agent Moodie, you want to elaborate?”
The kid flushed. “Yes sir. We’ve managed to find a perfect match. It took some time. But we got it via Interpol.”
“Interpol?” Reznick said.
“Her face was in their files. She is in fact a British citizen. Her name is Catherine Jacobs. Apparently she began her career in real estate, became a millionaire, and eventually married Simon Jacobs, a London financier. Marriage collapsed and she moved to the States. Works for a bank. But get this. She moved, and remember she is a wealthy woman, to a rather small apartment in Brighton Beach . . .”
Stamper pinched the bridge of his nose. “OK, we need to get into this woman’s life. We need to find out more about Catherine Jacobs.”
Reznick said, “She’s clearly either the cutout, or one of several cutouts they use to pass on messages and information. And I’ve got to say, this is very elaborate.” A few nods around the table. “The problem is, while this might edge us closer to understanding how they communicate, it doesn’t lead us at this stage to Meyerstein.”
Stamper sighed. “This is going to take time, I’m afraid.”
A female agent piped up. “The Russian mafia has connections to the Italian mafia, Irish mob, Jewish mob, and any other ethnic crime gang you can think of. It might be that another criminal organization is hiding Meyerstein.”
Stamper tilted his head left, then right. “Possibly. But an operation this brazen could be compromised if another criminal entity, possibly with FBI informers within its midst, got wind of it. No, I think, on balance, this would be kept strictly in-house by the Russians.” He turned and looked at Reznick. “What are your thoughts on where we are?”
“I’m concerned about the time that’s elapsed. I’m concerned that the kidnappers haven’t contacted anyone with demands. This is very worrying.”
Stamper nodded. “Indeed. We’re going to refocus our efforts on this woman. That’s where we’re going to catch a break.”
Sixteen
Reznick popped a Dexedrine and washed it down with the dregs of his cold coffee. He was sat in the back of a surveillance van on 92nd Street, in the affluent Carnegie Hill neighborhood on the Upper East Side.
He zoomed in with the long-lens camera pointed at the entrance to an office building farther down the block. “Not a goddamn thing.”
The surveillance operative monitoring the target’s cell phone on a MacBook sighed. “She texted her mother seven minutes ago.”
Reznick finished his coffee, feeling the residue of the Dexedrine dissolve in his throat.
“You got a sore head, Jon?”
“Not quite.”
“You on medication?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
The operative gave a wry smile.
“What?” Reznick said.
“Roy Stamper told me all about you. Said you’re a bit of a character.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah . . . Said you brought down an Iranian crew in California a while back.”
“You want to focus, son. There’s an assistant director missing. Do you understand what that means? This is not the time for fucking around like some goofball.”
“Yeah . . . I just thought . . .”
“How long have you been with the Feds?”
“Two and a half years since I graduated Penn State.”
“Focus. And learn to observe. You got that?”
The rookie flushed crimson and nodded. “Got it.”
Reznick was not a great fan of college boys and their good-natured ways. Pains in the ass. He’d much rather have someone on his team who had experience. He’d much rather have a hardened plain-clothes cop. Someone who knew when to speak and when to shut up.
He trained the binoculars on the sidewalk outside the bank as pedestrians strolled by. A few moments later, a thirty-something woman with a sallow complexion and wearing shades stepped out of the building. “Target on the move.”
A second surveillance operative on the street said, “Yeah, copy that.”
“Face recognition?” Reznick asked.
The rookie in the van said, “One hundred percent pass. You’re up.”
Reznick pressed his earpiece tight into his right ear. The surveillance van edged farther down the street and pulled up at a crosswalk. He jumped out of the van and caught sight of the target—Catherine Jacobs, a headscarf now wrapped around her head—heading west. When she reached Fifth Avenue, she did some window shopping before turning onto East 96th Street.
“GPS shows you’re about ninety yards from her, Jon. Can you see her?”
“Yeah, copy that. Got a visual clear as day. Wrapped her hair up in some silk scarf thing.”
“Very important that we not only know where she goes, but what she does when she gets there. So we need you inside the destination, unless she’s just going for a stroll around the block.”
Reznick pressed on through the bustle of the sidewalks, the blaring cab horns, and the hum of traffic. The smell of hotdogs from a vendor’s cart made him realize he hadn’t eaten in hours. He crossed the street as a cyclist braked hard.
“Hey, buddy, what the fuck!” the Lycra-clad cyclist shouted.
Reznick raised his hand to acknowledge him as he ran across the street. Up ahead, he spotted Catherine Jacobs heading into a building. He saw the engraving. “Oh cute,” he said.
“What?”
“New York Public Library.”
“What?”
“I’m telling you, these guys are good.”
Reznick waited a while before he headed inside. He picked up a couple of books and pretended to look at the spines. Out of the corner of his eye, he observed Jacobs sitting at a table leafing through a coffee-table book. He noticed her bag was on the floor beside her. She sat for several minutes before she picked up the book and placed it back on a shelf. Then she headed down one of the stacks, partially hidden from sight.
Reznick moved closer and saw that Jacobs had bent down and gotten the book out of her bag. He saw the title in big black writing—The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. Russian author. How very clever. She slid it onto the bottom shelf on the left. Then she got up and pretended to browse the shelves again. Reznick turned and faced the nearby shelves so his back was toward her.
The woman behind the circulation desk smiled at Jacobs. “Can I help you, m
iss?”
“Just browsing. See you later,” Jacobs said, and she headed out of the library.
Reznick flicked through the pages of a random title, heart pounding. He waited until she’d disappeared from sight. Then he put the book back.
A minute later he emerged onto the street.
A crackle in his earpiece. “Jon, we see you. Anything?”
“Where’s she going?”
“We’re assuming back to the office.”
“She just did a dead drop. Book. Brothers Karamazov, bottom shelf, left side of the classics section.”
“Copy that.”
“We need to get an operative inside and see what happens to the book. Until then, we draw back.”
Seventeen
In the minutes that followed, a fresh two-man surveillance team took the lead and tracked Jacobs back to her office. A young female agent headed into the library. Reznick went into a sandwich bar with a line of sight to the library, and wolfed down a pastrami sandwich and a Coke.
Twenty minutes later, there was a voice in his earpiece. “Approaching from the east, big guy, carrying a plastic bag. You see him, Jon?”
He spotted the man across the street, heading into the library. “Copy that.”
“We’re running face recognition on this guy as we speak. Stand by.”
Reznick wiped his mouth and hands with a napkin, feeling refreshed. He popped another Dexedrine. He was ready.
“Stand by . . . I repeat, stand by.”
Reznick shifted in his seat.
A short while later, he heard a new voice in the earpiece. “We got something,” whispered the female operative inside the library. “Male target has taken the book and put it in his bag. As cool as you like.”
The minutes dragged and dragged as they waited for the man to emerge.
Reznick checked his watch. “Four minutes and no visual on the target.” He got up from his seat. “We got the front entrance covered?”