The Hunted, page 14
“We… that is, we, as executives of Konevitch Associates, we don’t, well… we don’t exactly have the legal authority to demand an arrest. Interpol wants to see a legitimate warrant before it will act.”
The man reached under the table and with both hands gripped his knees together to keep them from shaking. His face was red. A jackhammer was going off in his chest. With pleading eyes he looked around the table for help, a meager sign of support, anything; a tepid nod of pity would be fine. Nine sets of eyes looked elsewhere. At the table, the ceiling, the white walls.
“Did you offer your contacts money?” Golitsin asked.
“Money, women, cars, drugs. Yes, anything their hearts desire.”
Complete silence.
“And they swore at me and hung up.”
“Then you didn’t offer enough, idiot.”
Nervous snickers around the table. They had all, every last man, heard the pistol shot reverberate through Golitsin’s phone in that fatal final conversation with Vladimir. What a moment. Just the sound of Golitsin’s throaty voice and that hardass Vladimir pumped a bullet into his own head. One for the record books, definitely.
More to the point, they had collectively witnessed the old man’s response. He did not flinch or cringe or curse. Bang—not even a wrinkle of surprise. Actually, he smiled.
It looked, in fact, remarkably like the unpleasant little smirk he was offering Mr. Interpol at that moment. Wouldn’t it be special if that smile ignited a heart attack?
Golitsin cracked a knuckle, then in a hectoring tone said, “Listen to me, idiot. All you idiots listen up. Konevitch doesn’t have a game plan. He’s improvising. If, somehow, they make it over the Hungarian border, they could jump on a late-night train or plane and end up anywhere in Europe. Only Interpol can issue orders broad enough to cover the entire continent. Only Interpol has instant access to charge card information. Only Interpol can forward warrants to police and border officials across Europe. Are you getting this?”
The man was scribbling notes furiously in a small notebook. Not a word had been said that he did not already know. If he shrank any deeper into his chair, he would disappear.
Golitsin stood up and walked in his direction. He bent over, got less than six inches from the man’s ear, and muttered, “Get back on the phone and offer more money, moron.”
Golitsin headed for the door, kicked it open, and slammed it loudly after he left. The room nearly collapsed in relief; everybody except Nicky. Watching these boys squirm and sweat was more fun than he could remember.
They all grabbed their phones and began making more calls, frantic now to find Alex Konevitch.
Golitsin took the stairs one at a time, down one flight, then bounced along a short hallway that ended in a small, well-lit conference room. A young lady, shapely and wonderfully attractive in red business attire, tight jacket, and a provocatively short skirt was seated patiently at the end of the long table.
A stout bodyguard stood in the corner and kept his mouth shut.
She looked up as Golitsin entered and acknowledged his presence with a cold smile. “How’s it going, Sergei?”
Not many people dared call him Sergei. General Golitsin was fine; plain General better yet. His own wife and children called him General to his face and The General behind his back; he liked that most of all, the singularity of it. That had been his rank, after all—a lifetime title, one that reeked of power, prestige, and authority. He particularly enjoyed the look in their eyes when people learned it was not army, but KGB rank.
The informality of Sergei, though, was reserved for his equals; in his mind, there weren’t many. Tatyana Lukin certainly wasn’t his equal; she was the special assistant to Yeltsin’s chief of staff, the youngest one, his right hand and chief counsel.
Nothing about that impressed Golitsin.
The Kremlin had more special assistants than mice, clawing around and trying to look and act more important than the replaceable coatholders they definitely were. But Tatyana came with another qualification, a priceless one. She happened also to be the chief of staff’s mistress, the person who planted the first whisper in his ear in the morning, with final say at night. The chief was a lazy bureaucrat, a man who adored the many perks of his position and detested the maddening grind of daily work. His major qualification for his lofty title was that he was a more than willing drinking buddy for this sorry lush of a president. The whole Kremlin staff knew it. Anything of importance was therefore passed through Tatyana, who more than compensated for her boss’s steady indifference.
She held a law degree from Moscow University, where she had graduated top of her class. A background check performed by his people revealed that those professors she couldn’t awe with her mastery of law she conquered with her body. That got her to number two. Number one was a young genius who ignored sleep and consumed libraries, with an elephantine memory and a talent for oratory that would make a southern preacher blanch with envy. Two weeks before graduation, the KGB received a late-night tip—a female caller, the records revealed, who naturally insisted on anonymity—to ransack his room. The contraband was discovered under the bed, a stack of kiddie-porn magazines and nauseating videos, all with American trademarks, making them doubly illegal—all of which he naturally protested he’d never laid eyes on in his life. The next day, he was forced to goose-step across a stage to a chorus of boos and hisses from the entire student body, then hauled straight to jail.
His fourth day in prison, he was beaten to death by a fellow prisoner with two young daughters and a hard-fisted aversion to perverts.
After that, three years as a state prosecutor. Tatyana never lost a case, not one. From the best his people could tell, she seduced at least two judges to acquire convictions of men who were flagrantly innocent. The rumors about her in Moscow’s legal circles were rich and rife. She blackmailed and framed witnesses. She burned evidence contrary to her case, concocted false evidence, persuaded the police to force confessions, and so on. Golitsin believed every word of it. She was a scheming, conniving whore whose only scruple was to get ahead, whatever the cost. The old man admired her greatly.
Tatyana had the looks, the brains, the ambitions, and, more importantly, the chief of staff’s balls in her hand. She could call him Sergei, or idiot, or toad for all he cared. He looked upon her as the daughter he wished he’d had, rather than the ugly cow he ended up with.
“Get lost,” Golitsin barked at the guard, who shot out the door.
“Everything’s on track,” he informed Tatyana with a confident scowl. He moved around the room and collapsed into the chair at the other end of the table. “Just one unexpected glitch.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“Konevitch and his pretty little wife, they got away.”
“Okay.” Cool as ice, no shock, no histrionics. “Please explain that.”
Golitsin launched into a brief recap. He left out a few embarrassing details, such as his own miserable role in dispatching Konevitch to the hotel. Nor did he feel it at all necessary to bring up the extra three hundred million that nearly fell in his lap, which he fully intended to keep for himself. When the doctored tale was done, he concluded, “We’ve initiated a manhunt. We’re turning over all the usual rocks. I’m sure he’ll turn up.”
She had gorgeously thick black hair and was playing with a long strand next to her left ear. “And if he doesn’t?” she asked, revealing no shock or surprise at this turn.
“Well, then he doesn’t.”
“But he signed the letters?”
“After a little persuasion, yes.”
“And you now have the originals?”
“Signed, sealed, and delivered to my office an hour ago.”
“And properly notarized by an attorney, I’m sure.”
“Good assumption.”
The lawyer in her seemed satisfied. “Does he know you’re behind it yet?”
“Not yet, no. The name of his successor was left blank.”
“Whose idea was that?”
“Who do you think?”
She raised an admiring eyebrow at that touch. As long as Konevitch didn’t know who put this together, he wouldn’t know who or what he was fighting. Time counted for everything. Hours were worth half a fortune. A full day was worth everything Konevitch owned.
It was brilliant, really. Keep him guessing and punching in the dark until they chose to expose themselves.
“Where do you think he’ll go next?”
“If he’s stupid, here. Moscow.”
“But he’s not stupid, is he?” she asked. A rhetorical question, really. The man was brilliant and full of surprises. Why else were they in this room, at this hour, rehashing his escape?
Golitsin grinned. “He was stupid enough to hire me.”
“Good point.” She laughed.
“Right now,” Golitsin hypothesized in his usual way, as if it were a fact, “he’s probably gone to ground. I think he’s hiding someplace in Hungary. Trying to wait us out.”
“Interesting. What makes you think that?”
“Deductive logic. We took their wallets, and we have his and his wife’s passports. He can’t get out. I limited the kidnap team to only ten people, and to the best of our knowledge, that’s all he’s seen. He has no idea how many more people are involved. But we won’t underestimate him again. The torture was administered by one of Nicky’s people, so Konevitch might reasonably guess the Mafiya is behind this. That alone will scare the crap out of him. He’ll try to keep his head down, perhaps by driving around all night, or checking into a cheap fleabag long enough to lick his wounds. As long as he stays in Hungary, we’re fine. In another ten hours it won’t matter where he turns up.”
She seemed to consider this. “Have you traveled overseas lately?”
“No.”
“But Konevitch has, right?”
“You know he has. Between Yeltsin’s trips and his own business, he’s on the road more than he’s here.”
“Then it’s safe to presume he has more passports.”
“How do you know this?”
“Trust me. You know, I also usually accompany Yeltsin. I have seven passports with open visas myself.”
A bored shrug. “So what? It really doesn’t matter if he has a thousand. If he makes it to Austria or Czechoslovakia, we’ll find him. Like I said, the key is keeping him away from here.”
Tatyana stood up and moved around the table. She lit a cigarette as she walked, and a long trail of smoke curdled behind her. She came to a stop less than two feet from Golitsin. A small hop and she was on the table, seated, legs swaying loosely from side to side. Long, lovely legs. She crossed one knee over the other and leaned in toward the old man.
He could smell her perfume, something wicked and musky—probably French, definitely expensive, a gift from one of her well-heeled lovers, he guessed. She had left the top three buttons of her jacket undone, he noticed, offering a quick peek at the chief of staff’s playthings.
He spent a long moment taking it all in, the aroma, the pose, the alluring flare of her nostrils. She was just so perfect—a perfect blend of Asiatic and Caucasian, perfect teeth, perfect black, uninhibited eyes, perfect body. She leaned a little lower. “Who do you think he’ll call first? What’s your hunch?”
“I know who he’ll call. Sonja.”
“And who’s she? The mistress?”
“No, the secretary. Been with him since the beginning. He relies on her for everything, an old lady he trusts completely. Treats her like the mother he barely knew.” He pushed his chair back and stretched his short arms over his head. He was too old, too tired, and too callous to be seduced. He definitely admired the effort, though.
The message was received, and she produced an elegant little shrug; even the shrug was a turn-on. She took another pull off her cigarette. “So where’s this Sonja? At home?”
“She was, yes, before we dragged her back here. She’s seated at her desk at this moment, with a garrote dangling loosely around her neck. If he calls, she’ll ask for his location or the new necklace will become unbearably uncomfortable.”
“You don’t miss much, do you?”
“No, I don’t. But in the event we don’t catch him tonight, tomorrow will be your turn.”
She bounced off the table and with one hand began nimbly rebuttoning her jacket. “Relax, Sergei. Yeltsin’s in China trying to mend a thousand years of bad relations. He’ll be kissing Chinese ass for the next three days, bouncing around landmarks and ceremonies, drinking himself into a stupor at every opportunity. He’ll be impossible to reach.” She headed toward the door. “Everything on my end is taken care of.”
Malcolm Street Associates was an opulent firm with an operations room fashioned to impress. Only the rare visitor was ever allowed inside, but to a man, they walked out whistling and shaking their head. Large flashing screens overloaded the walls, lights blinked, faxes whirred, computers hummed, phones always jangling with agents reporting in. Day or night, it was a beehive of dizzying activity.
The Vault, as it was called by its stressed-out inhabitants, occupied the entire top floor of the London headquarters, a five-story, stone-faced building located two blocks off Trafalgar Square. According to the brass plaque beside the front entry it had been established in 1830.
The tradition of maintaining eternally expanding profits fell on Lord Eldridge Pettlebone, an intimidating former police superintendent, number eight in the short line of managing partners, and at that moment a man who was annoyed almost to the point of bother. Twenty minutes before, a courier had fought his way past the doorman of his club and dragged him here.
A dead agent, and a missing client. One or the other, maybe. A twofer was unheard of, and the entire firm was reeling with distress. He paced around the long table where the firm’s best and brightest were gathered, trying to catch up on a fiasco that had a long head start and took off at a gallop. He stifled a yawn, squared his shoulders, and tried to appear steady for the troops.
He had handled serious crises before, plenty of them. Nearly all came late at night. Each arrived with its own unique twists and turns. The first reports were always wrong, the second and third reports only more so.
“Who exactly confirmed Bernie Lutcher’s death?” he asked, staring directly at one of the bloodshot-eyed assistants crowded around the table. This particular man, as a sad result of his previous time at a backwater desk in MI6, had the rare misfortune to be nearly fluent in Hungarian. That peculiar distinction earned him a turn on the hotseat, but he had worked himself into a lather and felt eager and ready for whatever Number Eight threw at him.
The young man straightened his tie, gathered his wits, and sat up. “The coroner of the Budapest police. The body was called in by airport security at one-fifteen, Budapest time. The police arrived a few minutes later. Bernie’s corpse was transported to the city morgue, then placed in cold storage until six, when the night shift came on. The preliminary workup was done by a Dr. Laszlo”—he conferred with his notes—“Massouri.”
Lord Pettlebone nodded, not at anything the man had said but a gesture to speed this up.
“We requested a full and immediate autopsy, of course. They begged off until tomorrow. That’s our Hungarian friends for you. Even a ghastly murder in their capital airport doesn’t put a hop in their step. But the preliminary cause of death,” the man continued, browsing through his notes, “was a small knife puncture in the back.”
He reached over and with a brash forefinger pointed like a dagger scraped an X slightly below the left shoulder blade of the man beside him. He plowed ahead. “A slight tearing around the incision suggests a twisting of the blade. The weapon was a stiletto, twelve or perhaps fifteen inches in length, only a few centimeters in width. Not a garden-variety weapon, I should say, more a specialist’s tool, and it went directly for poor Bernie’s heart.” He waited a beat before he revealed this next revelation. “But his pupils were widely dilated, and his face also had a purplish discoloration, the visual by-products of oxygen deprivation. But no scarring or lesions from ligatures or bruises on his neck. As you know, this could be suggestive of poisoning.”
“Assume both. He was poked with a coated blade,” Pettlebone concluded swiftly, before the assistant could voice that rather evident opinion himself. “Let’s further assume, hypothetically, the assassin was professional.”
“Sorry, sir. Did I mention the dark bruise slightly below Bernie’s breastbone?”
“Right you are. A pair of assassins.” He examined the other faces. Knowing nods all around. “Witnesses?”
“Yes, and here’s where it gets interesting,” the man said with a relieved grin: this tidbit had fallen in his lap only ten minutes before. “The Budapest police were contacted about two hours ago by a Russian lady and man claiming to be her boyfriend. She swore she observed Konevitch stab his bodyguard in the back, then flee outside and jump into a cab.”
“The client? The client stabbed his own security escort and fled?” Pettlebone sniffed and scowled. This firm did not hire out bodyguards, it provided security escorts.
“Quite right, sir. Alex Konevitch. Claimed she recognized him clear as a bell from the newsie magazines back in Russia. Seems he’s quite the celebrity back home, being filthy rich and all.”
Pettlebone removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “But it took her ten hours to recall who he was?”
“So she says.”
“I don’t suppose the lady has a name?”
Back to the notes. A few pages were flipped. “Ah, here—according to her passport, Alisa Petrova. It might be a phony, though. I had a nice chat with the detective who received her statement. Not much of a lady, in his words. A rough piece of work.”
“So she saw Konevitch stab our man. Did she also see who punched him in the gut?”
“She didn’t mention it, no. Though it might be prudent to consider the possibility that her angle of observation precluded it.”
“Is that your considered opinion?”
“Well, if her view was from the rear, Konevitch is quite tall, and Bernie very wide. Fat, actually.”
