Judgment

by Joseph Finder

  “We don’t have a lot of time. Mr. McNamer’s plane leaves at nine on the dot.”

  “McNamer, huh? We’re talking Giles McNamer?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s a friend of the Treasury Secretary’s, and he happens to be going to Nantucket this morning and is very kindly letting us hitch a ride. But he’s apparently trying to make a ten A.M. tee time. So he wants us there no later than nine at his FBO at Logan.”

  Giles McNamer was the co-founder of a huge private equity firm and had been a special adviser on economic policy to President Obama. You couldn’t find anyone more Establishment. He sat on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; he graduated from the Dalton School in Manhattan, and Harvard, and Harvard Business School; was a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group; and he went to Davos every year.

  “We’re flying on his private jet?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s a Gulfstream G650.” He said it like that meant something.

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am, I’m good. I can’t have coffee when I fly. It gives me a nervous stomach.”

  “How are we getting downtown? You’re driving?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll be back down in a couple of minutes.” She went upstairs and changed into the burgundy Armani suit she’d found at Nordstrom Rack, her go-to outfit, the one that always drew raves. It gave her confidence. She needed it. She put on makeup. Because of her exhaustion, everything looked pasty on her. Her lipstick looked too strong against her tired, whitish face.

  A car pulled up in front of the house. Duncan’s Lyft. It would take him to the Back Bay train station. Duncan was taking the Acela, the express train, to New York.

  She put her arms around him and kissed him. Then he said, into her hair, “Please be careful, Jules.”

  “You know I will.”

  “I know. But still.” And he hugged her, hard.

  * * *

  —

  Venkovsky drove the Escalade into Boston.

  “So, Alex Venkovsky,” she said.

  “Yeah, yeah, it’s a Russian name.”

  “You’re Russian?”

  “I lived in Moscow until my parents emigrated when I was six. That a problem for you? Are you one of those Russophobes? Think we’re all in cahoots with the Kremlin?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Sorry to be touchy. The circles I move in—I sometimes wonder. German-Americans got the hairy eyeball during the First World War. Japanese-Americans got rounded up in the Second. Now, with all these news stories about Russian mischief, I meet people who think I must keep a nerve agent next to the allspice in my kitchen.”

  “You ever have reason to use it?”

  “The nerve agent?”

  “The allspice. Because I’m pretty sure I never have.”

  Venkovsky let out a laugh. “Okay, apologies. I’m a little hypersensitive on the subject. Moving on.”

  Half an hour later, they pulled up outside a large, ugly government building on Causeway Street. Venkovsky put a blank parking ticket on his windshield and put on the emergency flashers.

  He escorted her into the building, took her up the elevator to the sixth floor. It opened on a bleak expanse of cubicles. He signed her in, took her to a conference room, and introduced her to a man named Glenn Hawkins, a chunky redheaded man in his twenties, wearing jeans and a green polo shirt. In the middle of the conference table was a big box of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and a couple of cartons of doughnuts.

  Venkovsky poured them both coffee, and he took a doughnut. “Glenn’s going to wire you up,” he said.

  The redheaded guy lifted a ridged aluminum briefcase and opened it on the table near the doughnuts. It was lined with black foam and held various electronic-looking components. Then he put down a canvas tote bag.

  “I understand you’ve arranged to get into his estate?” Hawkins said.

  “That’s right.” Juliana thought briefly of Nazarov and the favor she’d called in.

  “Well, that’s the hard part. I’m not going to ask you how you did that.” He smiled. “Protasov’s spread on Nantucket is more than sixty acres, and it’s protected. Fenced in. We can’t possibly get close enough to use wireless bugs.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “That leaves us with covert recording devices, which is what we got here. This belt?” He reached into the canvas tote bag and pulled out a skinny black leather belt with a simple silver buckle.

  “The recorder’s in the buckle. Good quality too. Do you have a Tesla?”

  “No.”

  Hawkins smiled. “Well, now you do.” He handed her a small black-and-silver key fob with the Tesla logo on it. He was making a joke, sort of. “This records. Or there’s a pen. Which does write. And records.” He held up a ceremonial-looking pen with a black lacquer body.

  “Do I choose one of these devices, or—”

  “How about you take a few of them? As backups.”

  “Why not?”

  “Of course, they might not let you keep your purse with you.”

  “Who, Protasov’s security people?”

  “Right. His guys take precautions.”

  “Okay, and what if they take away my purse?”

  “Ma’am, you’re a size nine, right? Shoe?”

  She nodded.

  The door to the conference room burst open and a portly middle-aged man in a white shirt and tie, no suit jacket, barged in, red-faced with anger. He had a bristly mustache and thick glasses and was waving a piece of paper.

  “I just read the op report!” he shouted. “This is not happening!”

  “Yeah, it is,” Venkovsky said quietly.

  “You realize this is insane, right? It’s totally irresponsible. You’re throwing a duckling into a raccoon den!”

  “It’s what she wants,” Alex Venkovsky cut in. “And Brennan said it’s happening. So.”

  The guy in the white shirt kept going. “The idea of sending a civilian on an op with stakes this high, wiring her up—and no backup? Are you out of your freakin’ mind? Confidential informants get killed that way! I want you to mark it down in the log that I objected to this op. I want it on the record.” Red-faced, he said to Juliana, “Do you know about this dude? Do you know what he does to his enemies?”

  “I have no choice,” Juliana said. She swallowed hard. She didn’t want to hear it.

  “You think he’s just, like, this guy who gives libraries and hospital wings? Yeah, that’s the public image. But you wanna know the truth? People who cross him tend to die.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I’m aware.”

  “If his people suspect you’re working for US law enforcement—or God forbid they find out you actually kinda-sorta are!—they’re not going to hesitate. Anyone can arrange a murder, but it takes a professional to arrange a suicide. Ever hear of a polonium cocktail?”

  Alex Venkovsky quietly asked the man in the white shirt to step outside for a minute. She could see, through the window in the door, Venkovsky talking to the guy, gesticulating wildly. Then he pulled out a phone and made a call. After about five minutes, he returned, alone, looking chastened, holding a folder of papers.

  Hawkins threw him a look, and Venkovsky returned it by wordlessly shaking his head. She didn’t know what they were communicating.

  “We’re fine,” Venkovsky said.

  “What does that mean?” Juliana said. “Who was that?”

  “No change in plans,” Venkovsky said. “The operation proceeds.”

  “Good.” She was glad Duncan wasn’t with her. He wouldn’t have liked what he heard.

  Hawkins reached into the canvas tote bag and took out a couple of shoeboxes. “I’m hoping one of these fits you,” he said.
/>   He slid the first shoebox toward her. It was Coach, she noticed. Nothing too high fashion. A sensible shoe.

  He said, chuckling nervously, “One’s brown, one’s black. Both size nine. There’s a recording device built into the soles of each shoe. We have an Israeli guy who makes these for us, and he’s awesome.”

  She took out the shoe, a simple brown wedge heel. Then she took off her right pump and slipped on the doctored shoe. It fit perfectly. He saw and said, “Excellent.

  “Now, they can detect recording devices with something called a nonlinear junction detector, I have to warn you. They might use one of those. But they’re not likely to run it over the bottoms of your shoes. So even if they take away your purse and scan you with a detector, you’re probably not going to get caught.”

  Probably, she thought. “And what if I do?”

  He looked at her. “Ma’am, just one thing.”

  “Yes?”

  Venkovsky opened the folder and slid several pieces of paper across the conference table.

  She looked at them.

  “These are indemnity forms,” he said.

  “Understood.” They wanted to ensure the US Government wasn’t legally responsible for whatever might happen to her.

  They were bureaucrats, and they were scared.

  “We need you to sign these. Holding the US Treasury Department and the US Government blameless in the event of—”

  “I know,” she said. “I know what they are.”

  77

  Alex Venkovsky drove the Escalade to a terminal at Logan Airport she’d never seen before, a private-aviation terminal. Instead of parking, he drove right across the tarmac and up to the aircraft, a white, swoopy-looking airplane with elliptical portholes.

  As they got out they were greeted by a pretty young brown-haired woman who introduced herself as Alison and already knew their names. She was the flight attendant and the “concierge,” she called herself. Clearly she worked in some logistical capacity for the plane’s owner, Giles McNamer.

  Juliana climbed the plane’s stairs and staggered inside. The cabin was flooded with sunlight. She was momentarily blinded. She smelled expensive leather and great coffee. Then, once her eyes had adjusted, she took in a beautiful interior. It radiated luxury. There were several big, comfortable-looking white leather chairs next to glass pull-down tables. On the walls, mahogany trim. Cool jazz played on a surprisingly good sound system, given the acoustics of the space.

  Alison asked her if she wanted a cappuccino and introduced her to Giles McNamer, a tall, rangy, athletic-looking man in his sixties with graying brown hair and an unironic mustache. His hair was parted like a barkeep in a Western. He was wearing faded Madras shorts and a crisp white Oxford cloth button-down shirt, untucked and rolled up to the elbows. He had the permanent air of someone who’d just changed out of his tennis whites. In one hand he clutched a section of the Wall Street Journal.

  “All I know is, you’re doing something,” McNamer said, “and it’s government business, and Jordan asked me to give you folks a lift. And I like to oblige my old friends at Treasury.” Jordan Kavanaugh was the Secretary of the Treasury.

  McNamer parked himself in a chair at the back of the plane, by a TV screen. A girl who looked to be in her late teens, with glossy black hair almost down to her butt, was scrunched up in one of the chairs, wearing short-short cutoffs and a midriff-baring tiny white ACK T-shirt. ACK, Juliana knew, was the airport code for Nantucket. She had earbuds in and was in her own world, her arms wrapped around her legs.

  Juliana took the chair next to Venkovsky’s. The leather was butter-soft. The chair swiveled.

  Venkovsky put his battered leather briefcase on the table and took out some papers, which he handed to her.

  She wondered if these were more legal forms to sign. Then she saw the name Yuri Vladimirovich Protasov at the top of the first page, along with a photograph.

  “We have just enough time for a quick backgrounder on Protasov,” Venkovsky said.

  She nodded, skimmed the page. She put on her sunglasses to cut down on the glare.

  Alison arrived with her cappuccino. She thanked her and took a sip. She could barely taste it.

  Venkovsky was busy sorting through a pile of photographs, eight-by-ten glossies. He slid one across the glass table in front of her. A photograph of an attractive woman—no, more like a handsome woman—of around forty, but a hard forty. Blond, cut in an efficient bob, and careful makeup. High cheekbones. A very poised, controlled woman. She looked like a tough broad. Like nobody messed with her.

  “Who’s she? Protasov’s wife?”

  Venkovsky chuckled. “Oh, no. She’s Protasov’s minder. She’s FSB.”

  “Name?”

  “Olga Ivanovna Kuznetsova. She’s a colonel in the FSB. Lethal woman. Part of Protasov’s entourage.”

  “Security?”

  “Partly, sure. But she’s also there to make sure Protasov comes when he’s called. They own the guy. She’s sorta like his nanny. Watch out for her.”

  “Will do. Olga. But I don’t get why the Russian intelligence service has assigned an officer to a private citizen. That seems crazy.”

  “A private citizen? You don’t get it. Yuri Protasov is a multi-billion-dollar Russian-controlled entity. You better believe they’re keeping tabs. And no, an SVR officer doesn’t tool around with a vanity license plate saying SPY. They’ve all got covers, bland official jobs, same as our guys. You know there are more KGB agents in Russia today than there were in Soviet days? They just call it by a different name, but same deal.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You know Putin’s ex-KGB, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “The KGB basically took over Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed.”

  She nodded. “I don’t actually care, you know. I’m sorry.” She felt a strange sort of calm inside. An anger that focused her mind. “I don’t care what Russia might be up to, or the KGB or the SVR or the FSB. I care about what happens to my family. My son, my daughter. My husband. That’s what I worry about.”

  “I understand,” Venkovsky said. “And I think what you’re doing is really brave.”

  “Brave?” she said. “Or reckless?”

  Venkovsky shook his head but didn’t reply. She noticed he didn’t meet her eyes.

  78

  The car they gave her to drive was a gleaming black Tesla Model S. As requested. She was surprised they’d agreed. Government bureaucracies were notoriously tight-fisted. She had no idea whether it was borrowed or rented, but it was sleek and beautiful, and it looked and smelled brand-new. Maybe it belonged to Giles McNamer. It had an all-glass panoramic roof.

  She familiarized herself with the Tesla for about five minutes and then put it into drive. She was headed toward the part of the island called Siasconset, from time to time consulting the large screen on the dashboard, following the spoken directions.

  The entrance to Protasov’s property was marked only with a street number. There was a security liftgate across the road. She stopped, and the gate came up and out of the way, and she drove along a narrow unpaved sandy road.

  As she drove, she rehearsed what she was going to say. She didn’t know how this whole thing was going to play out. She was improvising. She just knew she had to get him aside and have a talk.

  Now she was beginning to get nervous, even scared. Her mouth was dry, and her heart raced. This wasn’t helpful, she knew. Then she reminded herself about what had happened to her in Chicago and ever since, and it was like tapping into a deep reservoir of anger, and she found it calmed her nerves.

  The road twisted one way and then another and then she came to a wooden gatehouse, a small shingled structure with a steep roof. Another liftgate blocked the road. A uniformed guard greeted her unsmilingly.

  “Good morning,” he sa
id. “A license or some form of picture ID?”

  She handed him her driver’s license.

  He looked at the license, then at a list on a clipboard he was holding. He looked at her, then at the license again.

  “Welcome, Ms. Brody,” he said, and he waved her through.

  The road here was paved with crushed seashells, which crunched under the wheels as she drove. After a while the road widened out into a large, circular drive in front of a sprawling three-story shingle-style house that could have been a hotel. It was certainly large enough to be. In front of the house was a lagoon, glistening in the sunlight. She could see a glimpse of sparkling blue ocean through a breezeway. Blue hydrangeas clustered in front of the house.

  A valet took the car, and she got out and stepped into the house, where she was met by a pretty young Asian woman in a pale green linen dress.

  “Judge Juliana Brody,” Juliana said.

  “Welcome. The board members are gathering in the sitting room for some coffee before the meeting.”

  “Thank you.” The young woman assumed Juliana was here for the board meeting, a legal adviser or something. But how long could she keep up the imposture?

  She was standing in a broad entry hall with floors of mellow antique pine and a skylight above. She could see that a small crowd, maybe thirty people, was gathering in the next room. She walked into the sitting room. She smelled someone’s citrus floral perfume.

  She recognized some of the faces. One, shaggy-haired and round bellied, was a former British prime minister. Another was a black woman with lively darting eyes who had once served as Secretary of State. A flame-haired and fiery former United Nations ambassador for the United States. A few people turned and smiled at Juliana, as if they were supposed to know her.

  So far no one had called her out, no one had asked her to repeat her name, no one had checked a list to find she wasn’t there. Everyone assumed she was there because she was supposed to be there. Look like you belong and you’ll fit right in, Rosalind Brody used to say.