I smiled up at the guards. In fluent Russian, I said, “I’ll take care of it right away, Uncle Viktor, but I wouldn’t pay top dollar.”
CHAPTER 27
AFTER VIKTOR LUKOVSKY broke the phone connection with me, the leader of the two-man guard detail asked, “What instructions did your uncle give you?” He didn’t sound convinced that Viktor was my uncle, but whatever Viktor said to him, it had given his trigger finger pause. I decided to take Viktor’s advice and stick with the condo story.
“He might want to buy a condo here. What time does the sales office open?”
“Nine thirty.”
“Do I need an appointment?”
“I’ll make one for you. Now, go back to the condo you rented and get some sleep. I’ll post a guard outside your door to make sure you don’t go sleepwalking.”
“Thank you, but that’s not necessary. My friends and I are sound sleepers.”
“I insist. An open elevator shaft is a fatality waiting to happen. We would hate to lose you to an unnecessary accident.”
That was when Tony-D hit the guy with a pipe. I think it was a pipe because it gave off a hollow sound when it bounced off the guard’s skull. He fell like a sack of grain. The other guard tried to turn, but Tony-D hit him halfway through his pivot. He went down to the clatter of weapons and commo gear.
Tony-D radioed Sherri. “You seeing this?”
“Roger that. I’ve got it on tape.”
“Pack up now and wait for us on the elevator.”
I gave Tony-D a thumbs-up. While Sherri packed, Tony-D and I bound and gagged the guards with what they were carrying or wearing, and left them in the condo. We closed the elevator doors and slid down the cables. When we climbed through the elevator’s roof panel, Sherri was waiting with our luggage. Tony-D and I peeled out of our burglar’s gear and dropped it into a suitcase. The three of us were out of the Panama Walldrum Tower minutes after Tony-D dropped the guards.
It was 3:30 a.m. and I was in a hurry to leave town, but we owed David Sanchez an exclusive. I called the reporter as soon as we were in the car and had put distance between us and the Panama Walldrum Tower.
He came on the line groggy and grumpy. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes. It’s time for me to deliver that exclusive I promised you. I need to meet you now and you need to bring a computer with lots of memory free. I have body cam video for you to copy.”
“Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“This is tomorrow. We’re leaving the country. Do you want the exclusive or not?”
He cursed and promised to call me right back. He did, in half an hour, and told us to meet him at his newspaper office.
David Sanchez was accompanied by a pretty Panamanian woman named Daniella. She and David appeared to have a familiar relationship that went beyond professional. While she copied Tony-D’s body cam video, and Sherri napped on a couch, Sanchez viewed my cam video on his computer.
Mesmerized by what he saw, Sanchez turned to me when the video ended. “This is great footage, but I need proof that you were actually in the Walldrum Tower last night.”
“There are GPS and time tags on the tapes … and this.” I showed him a copy of our registration form.
“Can I make a copy of that?”
“No. Some hotel personnel may have been injured. If that’s the case, we don’t want this form to fall into the wrong hands.”
“Doesn’t the hotel have a copy?”
“Yes, but their copy can’t connect us to you. If you don’t have our registration form, how these videos came into your possession remains a mystery, right?”
Sanchez smiled and let it go.
Daniella returned Tony-D’s video chip. She made an impatient face when I insisted Tony-D check it. We needed to be sure that Tony-D had his undamaged original before I gave up mine. I follow the advice of writers, magicians, and casino owners: “Trust everybody, but cut the cards.”
Daniella was insulted, but Sanchez understood. He raised his chin and gave her a nod that my request was okay. Tony-D’s original was intact and I surrendered my chip to a sullen Daniella. While she made the copy, Sanchez questioned us about construction costs. Tony-D, our resident architectural expert, conducted the tutorial.
“A fully tricked-out condo floor in a place like Walldrum’s Tower costs about twelve million dollars. So, you need only ten floors like the ones we saw last night to shave a hundred million dollars or more from the construction budget.”
Sanchez got it. “So, Walldrum could be generating laundered money on both ends—construction and sales. He skims money from the construction loan from a Russian bank by not finishing several floors. Then, he sells unfinished condos to Russians for the finished price.”
Tony-D suggested the math. “Multiply the number of condos per floor by the number of floors that are nothing but bare walls and you have some serious cash flowing into and out of the Walldrum organization.”
While Tony-D schooled the reporter, I used Sanchez’s computer to make myself a backup copy of the Tula chip. I considered giving it a movie title: Dirty Pictures at the Ritz, starring President Ted Walldrum. I discarded that title. It would be too obvious for any prying eyes searching my computer.
Sanchez turned to me. “Are you going to follow the skimmed cash?”
“I’ll leave that to you. You want the Pulitzer Prize. I don’t.”
He didn’t like that. Even reporters don’t want to hear the truth sometimes.
Daniella returned with my chip. After I checked it, I announced, “That concludes our business. Thanks for your help.”
Sanchez grabbed my arm. He was agitated. “Wait a minute. You promised me an exclusive on the photographs you collected in Russia.”
“No. Sherri told you about the Russia photos. I promised you an exclusive, not a subject. Don’t get greedy, Sanchez. Your career will go ballistic when you put those body cam images online.”
* * *
We didn’t return to our old hotel right away. We were hungry and needed a fast exit out of Panama. Tony-D located an Internet café across from a restaurant. Sherri and I had breakfast while he went to the café to nail down our escape plan. Sherri was returning to Washington. Tony-D and I were going to pay a surprise visit to Jill Rucker in Mexico City.
As Sherri and I were enjoying our second cup of good coffee, I asked her, “Do you know a techie you can trust to analyze the camera chip and photos the Tula guy gave us?”
“Sure. One of the hackers we took to London could do that.”
“No. Don’t use anyone from the London team. The Russians tried to kidnap me in London. That means they knew what I was doing there and they might have identified our team members. If they did, they’ll go after our techies first.”
“You’re assuming the Russians know we have the chip and photographs.”
“Assume the worst and you don’t get nasty surprises. Who else can you trust?”
Sherri consulted her mental address book. “I have a friend who does computer forensics for a D.C. security firm.”
I gave Sherri the package with the camera chip and the photographs of Walldrum and the prostitutes.
“You make one copy of those for safekeeping. I don’t want the techie copying anything. Can you watch this guy the whole time he handles the package?”
“Yes, but it will cost you.”
“Offer whatever it takes to keep him honest and keep his mouth shut. Tell him that he’s the only one who knows about those photographs. If there’s a leak from any source, I’ll blame him. I’ll find him and cut his balls off.”
“Too late,” Sherri informed me, with a smile. “He’s a she.”
“I don’t care. I’m not kidding, Sherri. Tell her she’s playing with the bad boys.”
Before Sherri could comment, Tony-D joined us for breakfast and briefed us on transportation.
“Sherri, you’re on a commercial flight to D.C. in ninety minutes. No time for you to go back to
the hotel. I’ll check you out. Actually, it’s not smart for any of us to go back.” Tony-D looked at me. “Those Walldrum Tower guards will have been discovered by now and people will be looking for us.”
Between empanadas and gulps of coffee, Tony-D told me, “You and I leave for Mexico City on a charter flight at noon.”
I wanted to pay Jill Rucker a little surprise visit before I asked Bill Bowen for my ten million dollars.
CHAPTER 28
TONY-D AND I were staying in hotel bungalows. As Tony-D said, there was risk associated with going back to check out, but both of us had things we didn’t want to leave behind. We planned on a quick in-and-out: pack, check out, and gone.
It was after nine in the morning when I got to my bungalow. I walked in, dropped my suitcase full of burglar equipment, and looked into the barrel of Jill Rucker’s gun. She sat in an easy chair pointing her newly acquired .22 caliber pistol at me. The gun didn’t have much stopping power unless the bullet hit a vital organ. However, it used to be an Israeli favorite because it was quiet. You didn’t need a silencer, but you had to be a good shot. Jill Rucker was an excellent shot. She looked both deadly and sexy in a polo shirt, cargo pants, and hiking boots.
“Hello, Max. Did you miss me, or did I miss you in Mexico?”
“You should have had a little patience. I just chartered a plane to come join you.”
“Sure, you did.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Have you been to the Walldrum Tower yet?”
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “It was just a normal condo-hotel.”
“So, the Omega Group was wrong. There is no multimillion-dollar skim scheme.” Jill sounded cynical.
“I didn’t say that. I haven’t been here long enough to find out if there is a skimming operation.”
“And yet, you were leaving for Mexico City to see me. Why the rush?”
“I promised us R and R in Cancun.”
Jill sighed. “I guess you’re just going to lie until I shoot you. Where’s the kompromat you collected in Russia on Waldrum?”
“I sent it to Washington.”
“I don’t believe you, Max. With ten million dollars on the table and Bowen’s firm in Panama, I think you came here to collect. Where is it?”
I stooped to open the suitcase.
“No,” she said, quickly. “Don’t move. Just tell me where it is.”
“Some of it’s in this suitcase. I keep it with me for obvious reasons.”
In reality, the suitcase contained equipment and the two screens Sherri used to monitor what our body cams picked up as Tony-D and I moved through the empty condos in the Panama Walldrum Tower.
Slowly, I took the suitcase key from my pocket and held it up. “Do you want to open it?”
“You open it.” Jill got out of the chair, keeping her gun trained on me. She was about eight feet away.
I knelt and rotated the case so it was at a right angle to her line of fire. I got as much of me as I could behind the suitcase, planted my feet, and lunged, using the case as a shield.
Jill fired twice. I heard the rounds tear through the suitcase wall and smash a monitor. She was moving to my left and I knew her next shot would be at my legs. As I propelled myself toward her, I swung the suitcase in a roundhouse blow that knocked the gun from her hand. It hit the wall and slid across the floor away from us. I let go of the heavy suitcase, but momentum caused it to follow the gun across the room. It hit the wall, too, and crashed to the floor, spilling its contents.
Carried by the suitcase’s momentum, I was off balance, rotating to my left, with my right side exposed. Jill was rotating to her left and delivered a painful blow to my right kidney. I buckled and Jill kicked me in the same spot, sending me staggering across the room toward the suitcase.
Jill came at me kicking. I couldn’t let her connect with another blow from those boots. I grabbed the empty suitcase for a shield. She kicked. I blocked. She grabbed a floor lamp by its shaft and swung the base hard enough to knock the suitcase out of my hands. Jill followed up with a blow to my ribs. I went down. She dropped the lamp and dove for her gun. I slid a monitor across the floor and sent the gun spinning out of her reach. I was on my knees, trying to get up, when she kicked me in the ribs. Jill had a knack for delivering those blows to the same spot.
I rolled in the direction of the floor lamp, grabbed it, and knocked her legs from under her. She went down. I jumped to my feet and swung the floor lamp, hitting her in the head with the base. Jill was stunned and bloodied. I hit her once more. She lay on her back, motionless and moaning. The fight was over.
I grabbed Jill’s gun and sat on her chest, pinning her arms to the floor with my calves. I pressed the pistol against her temple with one hand and held her throat in a tight grip with the other.
Through the pain that was wracking my torso, I couldn’t help saying, “Looks like you failed the ass-kicking event of your internship.”
Her voice was labored and hoarse. “You … said you wouldn’t … fight fair.”
“I keep my promises and I promise you this. If you don’t tell me your real name and your part in this game we’ve been playing, I’ll kill you right now.”
Her head was bleeding. “As far as you’re concerned … my name is Jill Rucker. I’m working a counterintelligence investigation for the agency that fired you.”
“Bullshit! You’ve been spinning me since we met in London.” I cocked her pistol. “I’d better believe the next thing out of your lying mouth or you’re going to die.”
Jill moved under me.
“I’m feeling you tense up.” I forced the gun in her mouth. “Try any of that karate crap on me and it’s over. I mean it.”
Jill relaxed. Clearly, she was considering her next words carefully.
I said, “Let’s start with something easy. You told me you’d never been to Russia. What the hell were you doing at the tenth anniversary gala for Russian Television? You sat a couple of tables from Putin.”
Blood was running from the gash in her forehead and pooling on the carpet. “I swear, this is true. I was on an undercover counterintelligence investigation. There were several Americans at that gala. My mission was to get close to one or more of them and try to discover Putin’s plans to influence our presidential elections.”
“You had a specific target. Who was it?”
“I can’t tell you that. If I did, my career would be over. There were several U.S. presidential candidates and a former top U.S. spy at Putin’s table, and they weren’t the only Americans in the room. It was a target-rich environment for counterintelligence. If you had to pick one to investigate, who would it be?”
I’d pick the former top U.S. spy. Was he Jill’s target? Did it even matter now? Hell, no. The only thing that mattered was if I believed Jill Rucker was being truthful.
She kept talking. “You saw the newspapers and you must have read Agency intel on Putin’s efforts to subvert our election. We could have justified investigations on every American in that room.”
It sounded like the truth, but if Jill was lying to save her life, her story had to ring true. Still, it was a long road from a Moscow gala to a shady Panama law firm.
“How did you get from the RT gala to Bowen’s payroll?”
“When the pool of presidential candidates narrowed, so did the number of counterintelligence targets on my radar. I was reassigned. At the same time, there was growing Agency concern about Candidate Walldrum’s financial ties to Russians. A lot of indicators, including sources inside the Omega Group—yes, the Agency knows about them—they told us that targeting the Russian money laundering machine in Panama might be worthwhile.
“Under my cover, I had previously worked for Bowen. So, when Langley put my counterintelligence target on the back burner, the Agency sent me back here to penetrate the Talcott, Ilyich money laundering operation. My goal was to get procedures, the client list, and find any connections between Candidate
Walldrum and Russian money.”
I prodded her with the gun. “Bowen hired me to see if the Russians had kompromat on Walldrum. Whose side is Bowen on?”
“Bowen’s a bad guy. He works for Talcott, Ilyich. The lawyers at that firm have their hands into laundered money up to their Rolexes, and not just Russian money. Their services are available to anyone with enough wealth to make it worthwhile. Bowen is the traveling business recruiter. He finds crooks who require his firm’s skills.”
“How did you come to be my London contact?”
“While I worked for Bowen, I studied his operation. I convinced him that he was too visible and that, once he set up an operation, I could handle the logistics and be his cutout to clients and field staff. That would put me in position to know the clients, operators, and processes. That’s where the Agency wanted me.”
Jill continued, “The election happened, followed by a year of Washington turmoil, and you came along. I knew what Bowen wanted you to do, but I didn’t know why or who was offering ten million to verify Ironside’s dossier. Because of the sensitivity of what you were doing, I convinced Bowen to send me to London as his cutout, in case you screwed up or got caught.”
Jill grimaced and squirmed. “Now, will you please get off of me?”
I didn’t move. “Why did you want to come to London?”
“Your job was to find out if Russians had compromising information on Walldrum. If you accomplished that, it was way more important than exposing a Panamanian money laundering operation. It had national security tracks right into the White House. To be honest, being part of that would be a career-maker for me … and, I didn’t trust you or Bowen. Even if you found evidence that Walldrum had been compromised by the Russians, I had no idea what you, Bowen, or his client would do with it.”
She grimaced and squirmed again. “Now, either shoot me or get the hell off me. My arms are going numb.”
“I’m going to let you adjust your position, but if you make one threatening move, I’ll shoot off a kneecap. Copy that?”
She groaned. “Yes.”
I let her free her arms. “Roll over on your back and put your hands behind you.”
The President’s Dossier Page 23