Nimec read those lines twice before continuing, his eyes riveted to the screen, a low, thoughtful sound issuing from his throat. It seemed to contain the answers to a lot of questions—and that was what bothered him. He mistrusted the obvious.
He sipped the lukewarm coffee on his desk and scanned the rest of the document.
Bashkir was appointed minister of the interior by President Boris Yeltsin 1999, retains post to present. Friendship with Vladimir Starinov said to have begun while Starinov was commanding general of elite Air Assault Force (VDV) division stationed in Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka region. While still professing personal and political loyalty to Starinov, he has been a vehement critic of his accelerated economic decontrols and Western-style democratic reforms ...
Ten minutes later Nimec reached the end of the dossier. He printed it out, closed the file, and opened the next one on his download queue, a detailed rundown of the Lian Group’s various international holdings.
It was midnight before he’d finished looking over Nordstrum’s reports, and the feeling he had after having skimmed the last of the three was a more intense version of how he’d felt midway into the Bashkir file—a sense that things were just too damn easy. Somehow, he was reminded of a trip he’d taken to the Great Adventure Theme Park in New Jersey many years before. You drove along automobile paths that led through simulated wildlife habitats, but the truly dangerous animals were restrained behind not very well camouflaged fences. The idea being for visitors to have the illusion of traveling down a safari trail while in fact remaining on a safe, contrived, and carefully overseen route.
Rubbing his eyes, Nimec again made hard copies of the reports, then abandoned the program, switched off his computer, and closed its cover. He pushed back his chair, stood, and stretched, rotating his neck and shoulders to work the kinks out of his muscles. He was simultaneously exhausted and wired, and knew himself well enough to realize he would be unable to sleep. There was something else here, something he wasn’t getting, a layer of understanding that seemed just out of reach.
Nimec shook his head. He needed desperately to unwind.
Leaving the office, he went across the wide, unpartitioned space of his living room, dining room, and kitchen to his private elevator. He thumbed the Call button, and when the car arrived rode it to the upper level of his triplex condominium apartment.
The elevator opened into a rec/training complex that spanned the entire floor and was divided into four large areas, all enclosed by a circular indoor jogging track: the dojo where he conducted his daily martial arts exercises, a fully equipped boxing gym, a soundproof target range, and the room he was headed into now, a faithful recreation of the dingy Philadelphia pool hall he’d haunted as a teenager, learning the game from some of the best players, not to mention the most seriously degenerate gamblers, ever to work magic with a cue stick ... his own father unrivaled among them.
He pushed through the door and went inside. The room held two rows of antique championship tables with scarred frames and green baize playing surfaces that had been restored to their original appearance and leveled for optimum performance. There was a Coca-Cola soda bar with a Formica snack counter and rotating vinyl stools. There was a Wurlitzer jukebox that was wrapped in neon tubing and stocked with vintage rock and roll 45s. There were cheap plastic light fixtures from which a bilious glow seeped through conscientiously preserved layers of grime. The wall-to-wall memorabilia Nimec had scavenged from innumerable secondhand shops and flea markets included outdated nude pinup calendars, as well as signs stipulating ancient game rates and prohibitions against betting by minors.
The only thing missing was the pervasive bouquet of sweat, brilliantine, and cigarette smoke, and while Nimec supposed he was better off without that final touch of authenticity, he often had a perverse longing for it all the same.
Flicking on the lights, he pulled one of his custom twenty-ounce cues down off the wall and went to a table. He took six of the balls out of the built-in storage shelf at its foot and arranged them in a semicircle around a side pocket, having decided to work on his drills instead of racking up for continuous shooting. It had been over a week since he’d gotten in any practice.
Nimec chalked his stick, bent over the table rail, then laid the cue tip in the bridge he formed with his fingers and methodically sawed it back and forth.
Out of habit, he had placed the eight ball in the lead spot, his way of discharging any bad luck at the onset. He always took luck very seriously into consideration, had since his days in the Army Rangers, when he’d developed a host of elaborate—some had called them superstitious—rituals for courting good fortune in battle. Though his propitiations to Fate had assumed different outward forms in civilian life, the general practice had stuck.
Now, as he visualized the intended path of the cue ball, his gray eyes showed the quiet, steady focus of a sharp-shooter. The trick here was to pocket the balls in sequence from right to left, using draw English to gain position each time for the following shot.
Keeping his wrist loose and his arm close to his side, he brought the stick straight back and then came through with a fluid, precise stroke, striking the cue ball below center to apply reverse spin. It sank the eight ball and came rolling back toward him, stopping right behind the next ball in line.
Exactly where he wanted it.
He pocketed three more balls in rapid succession, but on his fifth shot inadvertently tightened his hand around the butt of the cue stick, causing it to jerk upward at the last instant. To his annoyance, the cue ball went clattering down along with his fifth object ball.
A scowl creased Nimec’s angular face. He had scratched like a rank amateur.
He took a deep breath. A lot more than just his game was off tonight. A whole damn lot. Nordstrum’s reports seemed to indicate that the FBI was, as the press had been claiming for days, in possession of an intact explosive package; he doubted the Lian-Zavtra connection would have been made so quickly without a scientific check of taggants or traceable components within the instrument of destruction. Of course the chemical residue of tagged, detonated charges also would have yielded that information, but the bottom line remained the same either way. Bashkir’s handprints were everywhere. There was good reason to suspect he was at the innermost level of the bombing conspiracy, if not its principal architect. But what would his motive have been? To fire up isolationist sentiments in the U.S., provoke a reassessment of the food relief effort that was drawing Russia closer to the West? That was the only explanation that made the slightest bit of sense, and there were too many problems with it. Bashkir was a military man. Someone who had held one of the highest posts in the Russian Navy, commanding the world’s second largest fleet of ballistic-missile subs. He was also a dealmaker, used to carefully weighing his decisions. Would he really be able to justify the wholesale murder of civilians for such indirect and uncertain gains? Moreover, he recently had been involved in negotiating major arms transactions between his country and China, and perhaps even had a financial interest in a Russian firm that listed weapons distribution among its diverse shipping enterprises. He would know how easy it would be to follow the trail of the explosive from manufacturer to purchaser, and that the search would eventually lead to questions about his role in the bombing. Where was the sense in the thing?
Frowning, Nimec crouched down, reached into the pool table’s innards again, and set the balls up at one end of the table for a point-of-aim drill. The more he thought about Bashkir’s possible complicity, the greater his misgivings. It wasn’t just that the puzzle was incomplete; he felt as if he’d been given pieces that didn’t fit at all, and had been slipped into the box to confound him.
He supposed there was nothing to do except take it one step at a time ... and the logical way to proceed was to follow the explosives from their point of origin to the final point of sale.
He put some more chalk on the tip of his stick, leaned over the table, and began firing balls into the corner pocke
t opposite him. First thing in the morning he would give Gordian a call. As an exporter of American technology, Roger had constant dealings with people in Customs, and one or two of them might be good for a tip. If Lian was the producer of the explosives, and Zavtra had acted as the middleman outfit, who had received them in the United States? And how exactly had they been moved?
Somebody had completed the transfer, and Nimec intended to find out who it was.
TWENTY-FIVE
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 8, 2000
THE MOMENT HE GOT OFF THE HORN WITH NIMEC, Gordian rang up Lenny Reisenberg, who headed his regional shipping office in New York.
“To what do I owe a call from the gantse knahker?” Lenny said, taking the call from his secretary.
“I thought I was the groyss makher.”
“There’s a subtle difference,” Lenny said. “The first means ‘big shot.’ The second’s somebody who makes things happen. Generally speaking, though, the terms are interchangeable, since most makhers are also knahkers, and vice versa.” He paused. “Now, on the other hand, if I were to call you an ahlte kakhker, you’d have reason to be peeved.”
Gordian smiled tolerantly, shaking his head. He had no idea why, but Lenny seemed convinced it was vital that he learn Yiddish, and had been giving him these lessons in regular installments for over a decade. Were the best employees always so full of idiosyncrasies, or was it just that he knew how to pick them?
“Len, I need a favor,” he said.
“And because it’s only nine in the morning in your neck of the woods, and you’re still on your first cup of coffee, I’m assuming it’s urgent.”
“Very,” Gordian said. “There’s a Russian exporter, the Zavtra Group—”
“Hold it a sec, let me jot this down.” Gordian heard Lenny shuffling things around on his desk. “Okay, that’s spelled Z-A-V-T-R-A?”
“Right.”
“Don’t think we’ve ever done business with them. Off the top of my head, of course.”
“That’s not important, Len. What I want are chronological records of everything Zavtra’s shipped into the New York area over the past, say, six to eight months. We may eventually have to go back further, but let’s start with that. I’ll need to know the ultimate purchaser, too.”
“May I ask why I’m getting hold of this information?”
“On this one, it’s better you don’t.”
Reisenberg huffed out a breath. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. There’s a guy I know in the customs office over at the World Trade Center. If we end this conversation in the next ten seconds I might be able to get hold of him, take him out for a bite. I’ve got just the thing to make him feel kindly toward us, come to think of it.”
“Whatever it takes, as long as you don’t get yourself in hot water.”
“Right, right. I’ll call you back soon as I find out anything.”
“Thanks, Len.”
“No problem. This is why I’m known far and wide as a stud among prizewinning thoroughbreds.”
“And a genuine mensch,” Gordian said.
“Sorry, don’t speak French,” Reisenberg said.
And hung up the phone.
“You ask me, it’s a crying shame those antismoking Nazis made it against the law to light up anywhere in the city, including your own fucking toilet.” This out of Steve Bailey, the customs supervisor Lenny Reisenberg had mentioned to Gordian. He was sitting across from Lenny in a leather booth at Quentin’s, a British-style pub across the street from the twin towers, with a lot of dark wood wall paneling, an enormous horseshoe bar, and middle-aged waiters who had been working there long enough to recite the menu backward and forward by heart.
Lenny gave him a noncommittal shrug.
“There are pros and cons,” he said.
“You going to tell me something’s wrong with restaurants having smoking sections? The way they used to before the world got taken over by prudes and sissies?”
“Truth is,” Lenny said, “I feel sorry for the poor waiter who’s put at risk of lung cancer because of the secondary smoke he’s got to inhale on the job.”
“Spoken like the reformed three-pack-a-day man that you are.” Bailey snorted. “I mean, the owner feels compunctions about his staff, he can go ahead and hire smokers to serve the smoking sections.”
“Even so, Steve,” Lenny said, “what they’d do in the old days was calculate the size of the sections according to seating capacity, which made it kind of hard for the Board of Health to enforce the regulations. The inspectors would have to come in and count heads to make sure there were no violations, you know what I’m saying.” He shrugged again. “Meanwhile, the people that ran the places would cram the tables so close together, the guy at the next table practically would be sitting on your lap ...”
“Or gal at the next table, to look at the positive side...”
“Whatever.” Lenny snorted. “The point is—”
“That I just finished eating a delicious lamb stew, and have a fresh Macanudo tucked away in my pocket, and want to smoke it to round out my dining experience,” Bailey said, brushing a hand through his frazzle of white hair. “At fifty years old, with a prostate that’s bigger than a basketball, I don’t have many ways left of having fun. A guy deserves some slack, Lenny.”
Lenny looked at him. He figured that was about as perfect an opening as he could have asked for in a million years.
“That reminds me.” He reached into a pocket of his sport coat, pulled out a slim envelope with the Madison Square Garden logo on it, and slid it across the table.
Bailey stared down at it, keeping his hands under the table.
“Jesus,” he said. “What the hell’s that?”
“A little gift, Steve. From the New York Knickerbockers to me, and me to you.”
“The Knicks?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Jesus.” Bailey swallowed, one hand appearing and reaching for the envelope. He picked it up gingerly, almost as if it were hot to the touch, then lifted the flap with his fingertip and peeked inside.
His eyes widened.
“Jesus,” he repeated for the third time, his head wagging from side to side. “This is a goddamned season pass.”
“Well, partial season, technically, being as it’s already January,” Lenny said. He glanced at Bailey. “Why’re you shaking your head?”
“I’m not shaking my head.”
“You are,” Lenny said. “If you don’t like my gift ...”
“Of course I like it, you know I do, how the fuck could I not? But being that Christmas is over, and you don’t know my birthday, there’s got to be some other reason you’re giving this to me, and I’m not sure I want to know what it is.”
“You wound me, Steve.” Lenny used his fork to slice off a wedge of the blueberry cheesecake he was having for dessert. “The pass is yours free and easy, just because we’re friends.” He grinned. “Of course, now that you mention it, there is something you ...”
“I didn’t know I’d done that.”
“Done what?”
“Mentioned it.” Bailey stared ruminatively at the envelope, seeming to weigh it in his open palm. A few seconds later he grunted and stuffed it into his pocket. “But now that you’ve gone and raised the subject of how I can reciprocate, please feel free to give your suggestions. Bearing in mind I try to be a law-abiding fellow. Whenever possible, that is.”
Lenny nodded, ate the slice of cheesecake, and wiped his lips with his napkin. Then he leaned forward and told Bailey what he wanted.
“I’ll take anything you can get me,” he concluded in a hushed voice. “Cargo manifests, bills of lading, authorization documents—you name it. The more, the better.”
Bailey looked at him. “This Zavtra outfit in Russia ... is it an air or sea carrier?”
“Could be both for all I know. Does it matter?”
“Only insofar as it’d make my life easier. I mean, ninety percent of import and expor
t transactions are filed electronically these days, which makes the info I pull out of my computer practically up-to-the-minute. But there are different systems depending on the method of transport.”
“Don’t they interface?”
“Sure they do. Like I said, it’s no big problem to run a global search. I’m just trying to cut down on the time involved.” Bailey scratched behind his ear. “How soon you need this stuff, by the way?”
“Five minutes ago,” Lenny said. “And that was pushing things to the wire.”
Bailey ballooned his cheeks, slowly let the air whistle out.
“Do you always lay this kind of fucking bullshit on your wife and kids when you give them presents?”
Lenny shook his head.
“The love I’ve got for my family is unconditional,” he said. “I only associate with foul-mouthed sports fans like you out of necessity.”
Bailey grinned.
“Hurry up and ask for the check, asshole,” he said.
“Michael Caine!”
“No, it’s Tom Jones.”
“Tom Jones is a singer. The question was what British actor worked in a coal mine before he was famous.”
“I seen him act in that movie about the Martians attacking, Boch—”
“That was what they call a cameo, which ain’t the same thing. And besides, Tom Jones was a fucking grave digger—”
“No, no, I’m telling you Rod Stewart was a grave digger, Tom Jones ...”
“Look, stunade, I don’t wanna hear no more about Tom Jones, okay? If it wasn’t Michael Caine it’s gotta be Richard Harris ...”
“Who the hell’s Richard Harris?”
“Jesus Christ, what planet you from, anyway? He’s the guy who—”
“Hey, Boch, how you doing?” Lenny Reisenberg interrupted from the entrance to the Quonset.
Politika (1997) Page 15