He had guarded against just that, always assuming that the actual dollar or euro amounts from his arms deals were well enough hidden that investing them in obscure stocks would be next to impossible to detect. He’d been wrong. And now Stockholm as a safe haven was ruined for him.
“Leave while you still can,” he said, and he got up.
“We have another job for you in North Dakota.”
“If you try to follow me I will kill you.”
“The money will be enough for you to leave Stockholm and go to ground.”
“No.”
“Your wife’s name is Ilke Sorensen, and if something untoward should happen to me, she would never reach Erick’s.”
Makarov was rocked. He wanted to kill the bastard this instant. He wanted to convince himself that having a wife and living an apparently normal life was just cover. Ilke was expendable. It was one of the reasons they’d decided not to have children.
“We want you to assassinate a man, nothing more than that.”
Makarov’s heart was aching. He promised that he would never get close to anyone, but Ilke’s life hung in the balance now because he’d not been able to keep his word to himself. But he would kill Dabir, just as he would kill Colonel Delgado, before he and Ilke retired.
He sat down.
“His name is Nathan Osborne.”
“Who is he?”
Dabir took a manila envelope out of his coat pocket and handed it across. “He’s a county sheriff who’s become far too involved in our business.”
Makarov took out a brief bio, and after the first paragraph which described the man’s war experience in Afghanistan, he suddenly knew who the bastard was and he looked up. “Why this one?”
30
“WHAT IS IT, Nate?” Ashley called from the open bedroom door.
Osborne, dressed only in sweatpants, stood at the living room window looking out toward the horse barn and beyond it to the north pasture, all of it bathed in silver moonlight. It was four in the morning and, unable to sleep, he’d gotten up, trying not to disturb her. “Just thinking.”
“About the Russian?”
“Everyone believes I’m crazy.”
Ashley came to him. She wore one of his old tee shirts. “I don’t,” she said.
“You’re prejudiced.”
“Yup.”
She had made them planked trout from summer-caught fish in the freezer along with a big salad, and afterward they had listened to some Brazilian guitar music as they made love in front of the fireplace.
Having her with him was a good thing; it felt natural, as if she’d been in his life for a long time. For her part she continued to file stories for the Bismarck Tribune, going out on assignments during the day while he was busy at work, unless she was covering the most recent trouble involving the Initiative, in which case she was by his side. Like this moment.
“The Bureau doesn’t want to believe that he could get back here,” she said. “Nobody does. It’d mean that the TSA was doing a lousy job, and we’re just as vulnerable as we were before nine-eleven.”
“If he left the country. Could be he’s still in Denver, waiting.”
“For what?”
“That’s the million dollar question.”
Ashley put a hand on his cheek and turned his head to her. “Talk to me, Nate, ’cause you’re starting to get spooky. Makarov is coming back—or he never left—but coming back to where? Here?”
Osborne had done nothing but think about what a professional contractor like Makarov would do next. The Bureau and airport cops had just missed him at the Denver airport. He would have been perfectly aware of the hubbub, which would have told him that someone in Dickinson was on his tail. It would be unacceptable to him, thinking that he’d left a loose end.
Double back the moment you realize that you are being followed. Take care of the situation before it takes care of you. Leave yourself options, none of which should include incoming rounds from your one-eighty.
“That’s what I’d do,” Osborne said. “Especially if he figures someone is coming after him, or is at least sniffing down his trail.”
“If he does come back, it’ll be because of you,” she said. “You think you knew him from Afghanistan. Will he remember you?”
“If someone tells him my name, he will.”
“You’re going to use yourself as bait.”
“Something like that,” Osborne said.
Ashley shivered. “Christ, when will it ever end?”
“For now I’m just working on what’s next,” Osborne said.
* * *
BOB FORESTER was an early riser but he was surprised when he got the call from Nate Osborne a few minutes after six just as he was pouring his first cup of coffee, the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the latest edition of Jane’s Defense Weekly stacked neatly on the kitchen counter.
“Good morning.”
“Sorry for calling so early, General, but I need to ask you something,” Osborne said.
“Okay, what’re you thinking?”
“Assuming that the murder of the lineman was more than just an isolated incident, what have you heard?”
“You mean who’s behind it?”
“That and why.”
“So far as we can determine, it was not an isolated incident. Our national electrical grid has come under a series of probes over the past month, and that’s classified information.”
“The Venezuelans again?”
“With help, we think from Iranian intel, who may have gotten a copy of the virus from a Russian contact and passed it along to a hacker or hackers—unknown—who may or may not be living in Amsterdam.”
“Do we have any proof?”
“Not directly, except for the latest development,” Forester said. “And I’m serious, Nate, what I’m about to share with you, will stay with you. Not so much as a hint to my daughter.”
“I’m listening.”
“I want your word.”
“You have it for the moment,” Osborne said.
Forester heard the brief hesitation. “The president got an ultimatum from Chavez, through the Swiss embassy yesterday afternoon. I wasn’t briefed until last night. They want the president to apologize on the floor of the General Assembly for Balboa and then appear before the International Court in The Hague for a reparations trial. Gave us forty-eight hours.”
“Or else what?”
“Didn’t say.”
“The attack on the grid was just the start.”
“It would appear so,” Forester said. “Just as it would appear that there isn’t much we can do about it.”
“I might be able to help,” Osborne said. “I know who the shooter out here was. He’s a Russian, former Spetsnaz captain who I met in Afghanistan.”
Forester was startled. No matter how high an opinion he and a lot of other people in Washington had of Osborne, he was beginning to realize how much they’d underestimated the man. “Does he have a name?”
“Yuri Makarov.”
“You need to get out here this morning to brief the Bureau and the CIA. I’ll send a plane for you.”
“Sorry, but no, General. I have to do this on my own. He has to suspect that somebody knows who he is, otherwise we wouldn’t have tried to catch him when he showed up at the Denver airport. I know his name, and I’m hoping that if he does his homework he’ll know mine and realize that I could be his Achilles’ heel.”
Forester understood where Osborne was coming from but he asked anyway. “Why put yourself on the line for something that’s Washington’s problem?”
“Because this is my little part of the world, and Kas was a friend.”
“Keep my daughter out of it as much as possible.”
“Sorry, General, but I need her help.”
Something cold clutched at Forester’s heart. “Take care of her.”
“You can count on it.”
31
RACHEL PACKWOOD, THE stern-faced radio dis
patcher for the Billings County Sheriff’s department was already seated behind her desk when Osborne and Ashley walked in. It was Sunday and the office was closed on weekends over the winter. There wasn’t enough money in the tiny county’s budget, but like a lot of older widowed women, Rachel didn’t mind doing extra duty for little or no pay, because she was a snoop.
“Getting a little busy around here, wouldn’t you say?” she asked.
“It’s heating up,” Osborne said. “You don’t mind pulling a few extra hours?”
“You couldn’t keep me away,” Rachel said. She and Ashley exchanged a hug. “Do you need David or anyone else?” David Grafton was one of the three deputies.
“Not yet. First I want you to reach Deb Rausch over in Minneapolis. She’s probably at home.”
Osborne had transferred the photograph he’d gotten from General Welsh to Ashley’s laptop and she set up at one of the deputy’s desks and got online with an advanced Photoshop program at her newspaper.
“My dad told you to keep me out of it, didn’t he?” she said over her shoulder as she brought up the Afghanistan photo.
“Something like that but I told him I needed your help, and he just told me to take care of you.”
She looked up and grinned. “Thank God for all the men in my life who’re willing to take care of poor little ole me.”
“He’s your father.”
“It’s Ms. Rausch,” Rachel said.
Osborne went into his office and picked up the phone as he was sitting down. “Sorry to bother you at home on a Sunday.”
“Good morning, Nate. Actually I’m at the office. Got a call about your contractor and we’re trying to find out if we have him in our database somewhere.”
“Anything?”
“Not yet, but I was just about to call you. I was told that you might have a photograph of this guy.”
“Name’s Yuri Makarov,” Osborne said, and he explained about the Spetsnaz presence in Afghanistan and about the snapshot in which his image in the background had been inadvertently captured. “He probably didn’t know his picture was being taken.”
“Send it to me, and I’ll have my people enhance it.”
“We’re already working on it and soon as it’s ready I’ll e-mail it to your office.”
The Minneapolis Bureau SAC objected. “This is a federal matter.”
“You’re right. The problem is I’m in that picture with him, and I’m going to need your help finding him.”
“Like I said, it’s the Bureau’s job.”
“I don’t want to argue with you. But if you guys start a full-court press, he’ll go to ground so deeply you’ll never dig him out.”
“I don’t know, we’re pretty good. Even Osama bin Laden couldn’t hide forever.”
“This guy is better, because until now he’s apparently been on no one’s radar. His name doesn’t show up anywhere except on one Marine FORECON mission report, and the only photograph we’ve managed to come up with so far is the one from Afghanistan. I have a friend in Washington who’s doing some checking for me.”
“Yeah, General Welsh.”
Osborne was sorry that Bill’s name had surfaced, but it was too late now to change anything. “He’s come up with nothing from Russian records. We know Makarov was Spetsnaz, but his service file was apparently erased some time ago.”
“Okay, so if this guy is as good as you think he is how do you plan on finding him?”
“He’s going to find me, and you’re going to help him do it.”
Deb Rausch was silent for a beat. “Silly me, but I thought you might say something like that.”
“Can I count on your help?”
“I really do like you, Nate. I think that you’re a hell of a good cop, so far as it goes.”
“Western North Dakota.”
“Something like that. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Doesn’t matter, I’ve been ordered to do what I can for you,” Rausch said. “So where do we start?”
“Makarov comes out here—I’m guessing from somewhere in Europe—downs the power line, waits until the lineman shows up, and somehow manages to get the electricity turned back on. He had the means to at least listen to the power company’s dispatch frequencies and access to a program or a hacker who could control that section of the grid.”
“I understand all of that, but why did he take the risk to come back to the scene?”
“If the line had still been energized when the repairman showed up he would have used the special equipment that he carried on his truck that would have allowed him to work on it hot. Makarov had to make sure that the electricity wasn’t turned back on until the poor man was in direct physical contact.”
“It wasn’t just about the power outage,” Rausch said. “The bastard was making a statement.”
“Kas and the couple in the pickup truck were nothing more than happenstance.”
“He was ready for them. So again, Nate, what’s next?”
“He went to Denver where he disappeared. West. Means it’s likely he came here from the east. My guess would be that he landed in Minneapolis, where a rental car was waiting for him, and where his equipment had been stashed somewhere nearby.”
“Wait a minute,” Deb Rausch stopped him. “We’re sure he flew to Denver where he disappeared. But why does that make you think he started here?”
“It’s the way I’d do it.”
“Come on, Nate. If you want me to help out, at least give me the courtesy of letting me know what’s on your mind.”
“I wouldn’t take the same path out as I took in. Could have left bread crumbs. Witnesses. Maybe he ran into someone who got in his way. Maybe he got a traffic ticket. Maybe he hired a whore for the night somewhere between Minneapolis and here. Be my guess he headed west on ninety-four where he probably stayed the night at a motel. If I was doing it, my support team would have picked up whatever rental car I’d gotten in Minneapolis and switched it for the pickup truck we found in the mall in Dickinson.”
“Did you find out who it was registered to?”
“No such VIN. Whoever was backstopping him were pros.”
“Any idea who—assuming you’re guessing right?”
“Russian Mafia, probably out of New York someplace.”
“Brighton Beach. Might as well be on the dark side of the moon. Our people are having a hard time penetrating the organization. But most of those guys grew up with the KGB. Hell, a lot of them are ex-KGB officers.”
Osborne had much the same thought. “I’ll ask him when we meet.”
“The last attack on the Initiative—assuming that this latest was another attack on the project—was backed by Venezuelan intelligence.”
“Who backed the Posse Comitatus. This time it was a lone contractor.”
“But why, can you explain it to me? He caused a power outage, killed four people, and walked away. The effect on the Initiative was nothing.”
“It’s something else I’m going to ask him,” Osborne said. He wanted to tell her about the ultimatum the Chavez government had delivered to the president, but even if he hadn’t been sworn to secrecy he didn’t think it would help her understand the situation any better than he did.
“Soon as I get the photograph I’ll get my people canvassing every motel, gas station, and restaurant between Dickinson and Minneapolis. But unless we get real lucky it’s going to take some time.”
Osborne had thought about that problem as well. “Let’s say Makarov flew from Europe to New York or Washington. Check the times of arrivals to Minneapolis from those cities, and work the clock west. He showed up in Dickinson no later than an hour before dawn. He had to stop to get his gear—I think it would have been too risky to stash a weapon like a sniper rifle in the trunk of a rental car.”
“If you’re suggesting that we check every rental storage business in the area you’re talking weeks not days.”
“Let’s say somewhere near the airport.”<
br />
“Dozens of places—probably a lot more.”
“It’ll only matter if he ran into some sort of trouble. Someone saw his face and he had to do something about it. Find out if any storage rental places have reported trouble—any kind of trouble—during the last two days. Anything out of the ordinary.”
“I understand where you’re coming from. But what good will it do us even if we find out how he got his weapons and how he got to Dickinson? He’s gone.”
“Mention my name to everyone your people talk to,” Osborne said.
“What?”
“He’s looking over his shoulder, and he’s looking real hard. If my name is mentioned often down his back trail, the word will get back to him.”
“And he’ll come after you?”
“I hope so,” Osborne said.
“I have the photograph ready,” Ashley called from the squad room.
“Send it to the FBI in Minneapolis,” Osborne told her.
“That who I think it is?” Rausch asked.
“Yes,” Osborne said. “We’re going to start in Dickinson and head east this morning. If you come up with something let me know.”
“You’re nuts, do you know that? Both of you.”
32
IT WAS NEARLY eight by the time Osborne and Ashley showed up at the Tiger Discount truck stop on the Dickinson Business Loop just off the interstate, and the place was busy mostly with truckers and ranchers. They showed the photograph to the manager who shook his head, but he called a couple of the waitresses over.
“You two were on duty yesterday morning,” he told the women. “Either of you see this guy?”
One of them shook her head but the other one, Debbie, studied it for a long moment, before she nodded. “I think I served him. Bad picture, different hair, but I think it’s him. Same eyes.” She nodded toward one of the window booths. “Spent his time watching Good Morning America on his iPad.”
“Say anything to you?” Osborne asked. He was wearing his uniform.
“This about the shooting yesterday?”
“He might have been involved. Did you talk to him?”
“Not much. He just ordered ham and eggs, whole wheat toast and tea, which is a little odd for around here. The tea, I mean. But I could tell that he was foreign.”
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