Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) (16 page)

When Aisha returned with her coffee and a pathetic-looking croissant, she passed Vanessa without a word and immediately took the window seat one row up from her old seat.

Vanessa kept her poker face, focusing on the various articles she was scanning on her laptop, but that kind of grade-school behavior bothered her. It was juvenile and it also seemed illogical. Her partner seemed halfway around the bend.

Midway into the trip their train passed through the station in Brussels and a misguided man in his early twenties slouched into the seat next to Aisha and tried briefly to strike up a conversation with her, first in German, then in French, finally in broken English. She rebuffed him mercilessly in each language.

Vanessa cringed because even from a distance the blanket rejection was painful to watch. She turned to gaze out the window at the shimmering winter vistas the train was now passing at speeds of up to 250 kilometers per hour.

A bit later, when she glanced over again, Aisha appeared to be sleeping. If she was feigning sleep, she was faking it well.

—

FINALLY, THEY WERE
through the flat landscape of the Randstad, slowing as they approached Amsterdam, tracks running in endless parallel seams bounded by graffiti-covered metal walls beneath a ceiling of wires and power cells.

Vanessa took a deep breath as the Thalys finally rolled into the huge arrival bays of Amsterdam Centraal.

Aisha was stretching, gathering her things, and Vanessa snapped her laptop shut and slid it into her shoulder bag next to the cover ID that Hays had given her. She stood, donning her Burberry—tightening the replacement belt that one of the members of Team Viper had left in the safe house. (She guessed it had been Jack.) She pulled the straps tight on the compact bag where it crossed her body. Restless and ready to exit the train, she went ahead of Aisha down the aisle to the rear.

Outside the car, passengers streamed past and Aisha was following about ten paces behind her—and yes, Vanessa verified with a quick glance back, she was scowling. But at least she had taken off her huge sunglasses.

So Vanessa took lead heading toward the western pedestrian tunnels that would take them from the upper-level intercity and international arrivals/departures to the stairs, escalators, and elevators to the ground floor.

According to the last intel, Bogdan was on a night train on a slightly convoluted route that offered cheaper fares and more stops. As far as they knew he hadn’t gotten off the train anywhere in between, so he should arrive in about five hours.

More than enough time to check in with Dutch security—they were expecting them
and
they spoke English—and set up the best place to greet Bogdan as he exited his train. No fuss, no muss.

Vanessa was intent on getting something,
anything
, from Bogdan Kovalenko. They needed a firm link to the person who made the
dirty bomb, and if there was a connection between True Jihad and Bhoot, Vanessa sure as hell would find it. She only hoped Aisha wasn’t having some sort of mental collapse.

By the time they passed with the stream of other passengers through the tunnel to the escalators, Aisha had almost caught up with Vanessa, although she made a point of staying a few paces behind.

Vanessa stepped onto the escalator, packed in among a large woman carrying three bulky bags crammed with who knows what, a somber businessman, and a cluster of students. She could smell sweat and soap and someone’s brutally strong cologne.

She turned to see if Aisha was still behind her. It took a moment to pick her out in the crush of people filling the escalator. And when she did, Vanessa froze at the look on Aisha’s face: mouth open and pulled into a rigid sneer, brows creased sharply over eyes narrowed to slits—eyes now trained on a target on the ground floor below.

Even as Aisha began to push her way past protesting pedestrians, Vanessa quickly followed her trajectory. At first all she saw was the crowd—people flowing in and out of the entrance of the Centraal, the coffee stands located nearby, the machines to refill OV chip cards for city transport.

Vanessa lurched forward as Aisha pushed past her, cursing beneath her breath,
“Merde!”

The escalator had almost reached the ground, and Aisha was poised to launch herself over the rails. That’s when Vanessa spotted the wiry man with the jet-black pompadour who was standing in front of a chip card machine, digging into his pockets for change.

Shit, stay cool,
Vanessa thought,
don’t spook him, we can nail him right now.
Just as she turned to catch Aisha’s eye to figure out the next steps, she was horrified to see Aisha take off after Bogdan.

The previously unsuspecting Bogdan Kovalenko sensed the shift in energy about fifty meters away from him. He pivoted, glomming on to the vision of Aisha running his way, and then he bolted.

Hissing apologies in French, Vanessa pushed past other pedestrians and hit the ground floor at a run. She could just see Bogdan, his head bobbing, as he dashed between stands and around people, with Aisha keeping pace forty or fifty meters behind him. He was heading toward the front doors of the station. He ducked, almost skidding on both knees, to pass between two women carrying a large suitcase between them.

Aisha, sliding, managed to cut around them.

Vanessa dashed around to the other side of the women, hoping to cut Bogdan off before he was out the doors. But she cleared another group of passengers just in time to spot his thick, dark head of hair beneath the illuminated
CENTRUM
sign that marked the entrance. He stumbled and then picked up speed through one of the inner doors of four main exits.

Aisha slammed through an outer door and Vanessa, only a few seconds behind, almost knocked down an elderly man and a child as she followed in Bogdan’s steps. Outside the main entrance of the
station, the overcast light felt unnaturally blinding as it reflected off the water and the metal surfaces of surrounding buildings and the three-story parking structure directly ahead.

Vanessa swore under her breath, spinning in multiple directions before she caught sight of Aisha roughly ten meters behind Bogdan. They were both running fast, staying parallel with the ornate brick front of the train station, the frontage road, and the harbor.

Vanessa cut sharply to avoid a statue, and then she corrected her direction so she was pursuing them. She gauged the distance between Aisha and herself at less than twenty meters. Aisha was fast, but so was she; she’d run track in high school and was happy to put her speed to good use.

Bogdan knocked into the few tables fronting a sidewalk café, faltered, and then picked up the pace again, this time favoring his right leg.

Aisha avoided the tables, and Vanessa managed to do the same. She didn’t bother calling out apologies anymore. It was too much work to breathe, avoid myriad obstacles, and keep her pace fast. And to top it off, her over-the-shoulder bag kept bouncing off her hip.

Aisha yelled out something as Bogdan cut across the street between buses to the narrow dock, where small tourist boats and private sail crafts were moored.

Does he intend to jump aboard a boat?

But no, he was heading toward the entrance ramp to the large parking structure. He dodged a group of cyclists, and that’s when Vanessa realized the entire structure was devoted to bicycles, not automobiles.
Only in Amsterdam.

Vanessa darted between the cyclists, working to keep Aisha in sight because Bogdan had disappeared inside.

She guessed she’d gained another five meters on Aisha because of a traffic tie-up between bikes. Now they were all racing between rows
filled with parked bikes. The clearance allowed only a few meters between the wheel of one bike and the wheel of its partner in the opposite row.

Vanessa scraped her thigh and the back of her hand against fenders, and both stung from the impact. She pushed forward just as Aisha turned a corner in pursuit of Bogdan. The sound of running feet echoed, but Vanessa had lost sight of both Aisha and Bogdan. She pushed for a burst of speed, her lungs burning. She replayed her toughest coaches’ motivational insults in her head. Her calves screamed in protest from the uphill run as she rounded the corner to the second level. Still no sign of Aisha and Bogdan, but she did hear sounds of alarm and indecipherable words yelled out in a universal tone of surprise and agitation. A smattering of alarmed bikers and pedestrians jumped out of her way.

One more turn and she reached the third level of the structure. She didn’t see either of her fellow runners, and she flagged, slowing. Until she heard a cry and the sound of harshly labored breathing. She followed the noise through yet another aisle filled with bikes. And then she saw Aisha down on her knees and crouching over something. It had to be Bogdan.

Vanessa raced the last fifteen meters until she had almost reached the row’s end. She sucked in breath, horrified at the sight in front of her. Aisha had Bogdan down and she was straddling him, one knee in the small of his back and one arm around his neck in a choke hold. From what Vanessa could see and take in, Bogdan was offering no resistance, but Aisha was choking him anyway.

“Ease off!” Vanessa yelled. She was close enough now to see Aisha’s death grip. Aisha was flexing her right arm around his neck while her knees pushed into his back. Vanessa cringed, expecting to hear the snap of vertebrae at any instant.

“Back off or you’ll kill him,” she snarled.

Aisha did not move and made no sign she’d heard anything Vanessa said. She seemed to be inhabiting another, very violent world.

Vanessa lunged closer so she was able to clearly see the look on Aisha’s face—mouth open and pulled wide in a grimace, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed to slits—an expression of pure fury.

Is she trying to bring Bogdan into custody or kill him? We need him alive so he can talk.

Bogdan’s eyes bulged, and his body jerked spasmodically.

Moving with speed, Vanessa stepped behind Aisha, wrapping her arms around the other woman while bracing against her back to lock into a hold. She dislodged Aisha, who twisted around to grab Vanessa’s throat while yelling harshly in Arabic. Vanessa snapped her arms upward, using all her force to break Aisha’s grip. Aisha fell sideways onto Vanessa.

Vanessa pushed her off. Aisha rolled. And Vanessa curled around and onto her knees. She moved toward Bogdan, praying he was alive. And when she saw he was breathing and his eyes were open, she shifted her priority. Quickly, before he ran again, she gripped him by one shirtsleeve and his belt and heaved him onto his side. She dug into her bag for the plastic restraints she, like Aisha, was carrying. As she cuffed Bogdan, she addressed him in a hoarse, winded, too-loud voice: “Bogdan Kovalenko”—Jesus, she sounded like an actor in a TV police procedural—“you are under arrest.”

As they led a limping, bruised, and whining Bogdan back to the main train station, they met up with a uniformed Dutch security officer. Vanessa took a moment to corner Aisha. “What the hell happened back there? Were you trying to kill him?”

“He’ll live.” Aisha scowled, wiping sweat from her face with the sleeve of her jacket.

Vanessa stared intently through one-way mirrored glass at Bogdan.

Cuffed and seated in a plastic chair at a table, he seemed to be returning her stare—although, in truth, he was studying his own reflection. His pompadour was listing right, and reddening lumps swelled beneath his left eye and his chin.

The image of Aisha pounding on Bogdan flashed through Vanessa’s mind.
If he’s smart, he’ll claim police brutality,
Vanessa thought, quickly followed by,
Good thing he isn’t.

Vanessa had never interrogated anyone during her time with the Agency, in part because she had been a full-fledged ops officer for only three years, but more to the point, interrogation was outside the normal purview of her covert work. To the best of her knowledge, they did not teach those skills at the Farm, at least not to junior officers.

There was plenty of controversy over the Agency’s use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques at black sites, and Vanessa abhorred torture; she also knew that many of those interrogators
had been called in from other agencies, the military, and even other countries.

Vanessa pulled her thoughts back to Bogdan just as Aisha growled, “Little shit.”

Aisha had been pacing around the small observation room, where both women waited for Bogdan to begin to understand the world of hurt he’d gotten himself into.

One of the station’s security officers silently kept Bogdan company. Otherwise, he was theirs—at least until AIVD, Dutch intelligence, showed up. They were recording the interview and it would be shared among agencies and across borders. But it was time to make their move.

Aisha turned abruptly. “He’s had enough time.”

“My turn.” Vanessa stepped quickly to the door, cutting off Aisha’s access and said, “Neither of us speaks Russian or Ukrainian, but his English is good enough and you scare the crap out of him.”

Hand on the doorknob, Vanessa took a deep breath and silently ordered herself to step up before pushing it open.

“Pryvit.”
Vanessa gave a small nod to the Dutch security officer, but her attention was on Bogdan, who unleashed a whining, sputtering string of what sounded like Ukrainian profanity intercut with a litany of complaints.

“Why don’t you try that again in English?” Vanessa said, walking to the table opposite him. She set her laptop down and pulled the empty chair back, but she didn’t sit. With a pointed look, she said, “Make sure you stay put.”

“Hi, pretty lady,” Bogdan said, his eyes widening appreciatively at the sight of Vanessa. He craned his neck toward the door, clearly anxious. “Where is other pretty lady who breaks my neck?”

“You don’t have to worry about her,” Vanessa said, her voice soothing and her expression mildly sympathetic. “You’re dealing with me now.” She let her gaze move slowly and intentionally to the security
officer and then to the mirrored glass. She hoped she looked calm and in command because she was actually thinking,
How the hell will I get him to talk?

“Tak!”
He winked, letting his gaze rove over her body.

Oh, you’ve got the wrong idea, pinhead.
Her smile disappeared and she eyed him sharply. “You are in very bad trouble, Bogdan. You help me and I’ll see what I can do for you. Understand?”

He furrowed his brow. “
Tak.
Yes.” He shifted on the seat to show off his cuffs. “Please?
Proshu!
”

“That depends . . . can you be helpful?” Vanessa knew the basics from his file: He was a bottom-feeder among his fellow thieves. He was a pathological liar, completely amoral, and a garden-variety sociopath with a constant need to prove his male prowess, judging from his bevy of mistresses in various countries. He was also a shopaholic and was completely obsessed with things. He’d already mentioned to the Dutch security officer how his Belarusian mistress, Natasha, was begging for new appliances.

He shook his head rapidly. “But how can I help? I know nothing. You got the wrong guy. I’m not some bad boy, I’m Bogdan,
legit!
I am salesman.”

Vanessa gazed down at him, arms crossed, eyebrows arched skeptically. “We know what you sell, Bogdan. You work for guys who sell highly enriched uranium on the black market, the HEU to make the fissile material so nukes go boom!” She slapped the table and he jumped. “That’s a life sentence anywhere in the world.”

“No, no! I sell medical machines, you know, like X-ray, to help people.”

“You sell radioactive poison!” Vanessa leaned toward him aggressively. “You sell radioactive waste that makes people sick and kills their children!”

He pulled up, apparently fully righteous in his own mind. “It’s not my fault what people do when I sell X-rays to help.”

At that moment, Vanessa felt aligned with Aisha; she could easily see the benefits of choking the bastard to make the world a better place.

She clucked her tongue. “We know you did a deal on the side—about a month ago you sold some medical-grade cesium pellets to someone who wanted to make a dirty bomb.”

As Vanessa straightened, Bogdan collapsed a bit, an almost comic reaction. She opened her laptop and turned it around so he could see the image clearly. Courtesy of the French service, it was a close-up of the RDD left in the Tuileries.

“Don’t lie, because we know about the deal, Bogdan.” Vanessa wagged a finger at him. “Your pals in Luch won’t like that when they find out.”

His eyes widened and his chin pushed down in defiance, but she had his full attention.

“Someone wanted cesium to make this dirty bomb, and then they left it in a public park in Paris. French authorities are very angry, and they will do almost anything to get their hands on the men responsible for this. If you are the man they get, they will put you away for the rest of your life and you will never see your sweet little Natasha again.”

She clicked the laptop and a new photo appeared. This time it was Bogdan in cuffs taken thirty minutes earlier. “And even if the French let you go, think what your friends will do to you when they see you are talking with Dutch police. They will know you are a rat.”

His lips quivered. “No, don’t tell.”

“Then help me now,” Vanessa said sharply. “Who contacted you about buying pellets?”

He shook his head.

“Help us, Bogdan, or else . . .”

Still he hesitated, seemingly torn, his tongue worrying a cut.

A crash as the door swung open and Aisha strode into the room.
“Hey, asshole!” The door slammed shut behind her. Bogdan flinched and stiffened, and he uttered a quick stream of words in Ukrainian. It all sounded urgent. They hadn’t planned this good cop/bad cop routine, but after Aisha’s takedown of Bogdan, they didn’t need to. Vanessa went with it, stretching out one arm to bar Aisha. “Wait,” she said, emphatically. “Give me one more minute before you take over. Please
.
”

Aisha seemed to tear her gaze from Bogdan. After exchanging a meaningful look with Vanessa, she nodded, very grudgingly. “One more minute, but that’s all,” she snarled, almost baring her teeth. Even Vanessa found her menacing.

Vanessa clicked the laptop a third time to display an image of a gleaming stainless-steel refrigerator—not a luxury brand like Sub-Zero, but expensive and impossible to get in Ukraine. Bogdan stared at it, his gaze going glassy.

“Bogdan, if you help us, your trouble might go away. And look . . . Natasha might get her refrigerator after all. This is the model that only important people can afford.”

Vanessa let him stare at the image of the refrigerator for several more seconds before she leaned in again. The Dutch security leaned forward, too. Vanessa kept her voice low, her tone edging toward seductive. “Who came to you?”

Bogdan hesitated, but his eyes darted toward Aisha, who had taken a wide stance with her arms crossed tightly across her ribs. She never stopped glaring at Bogdan.

“If I tell you, it is only hypo-thea-kill.”

Vanessa shrugged; she could almost swear she heard another low rumble from Aisha.

“A man,” Bogdan whispered.

“Was he a regular buyer?” she asked. “Had he bought from you before?”

Bogdan shook his head, pulling up proudly. “But everyone know go-to-guy Bogie can get them what they need for right price.”

Vanessa could barely keep from rolling her eyes. “Describe him,” she said. “Tall, short, old, young?”

“Not too tall, but very strong, very fit,” Bogdan said, contracting his right arm, apparently to make a muscle, although it wasn’t very visible. “Like a soldier.”

“Was he a soldier?”

Bogdan shrugged. “How could I know?”

Vanessa sucked in her impatience. “What made you think so?”

“He stand very straight all time.”

“Age?”

“A little bit younger than me, maybe twenty-eight or thirty?”

“A little bit younger than me” might be stretching it. Bogdan was thirty-eight. “Did he have scars, tattoos, jewelry? Anything that stood out?”

Bogdan’s eyes widened and he nodded emphatically. “Scars, on his face, like the little pox, you know?” He tapped the fingers of one hand along his jaw.

“Smallpox?”

“Yes, the little pox.”

“What about jewelry?”

“Maybe. But he wore many clothes, coat, so I don’t know.”

“Was he European?”

Bogdan frowned, his eyes almost crossing, and he waved his head—not yes, not no. “He looked like Arab. Scarface Arab.”

“How did he communicate with you?” Vanessa pressed.

“He spoke some Russian,” Bogdan said. “But not good like I speak English. Bad Russian.”

“It’s really important that you think carefully, remember back, before you answer this next question, Bogdan.” Vanessa’s pulse had quickened. “Was he one of Dieter Schoeman’s couriers?”

“Listen, pretty lady, if I did sell something, I sell not to the usual respects,” he said, mashing the phrase. He made a coy face that turned
Vanessa’s stomach. But her pulse quickened. “Not the usual suspects” meant it wasn’t someone in Bhoot’s network, not Dieter’s couriers or any known terrorist group.

Aisha pivoted abruptly, slapping her hand on the table so hard that Bogdan jumped in his chair. “Was he a jihadi? Bogdan? Was he a militant?”

Bogdan shook his head rapidly. “No, no, I told you. Scarface was more like a soldier. Very sharp.”

“A soldier from which country?”

“Not the Russian soldiers who snuck into Ukraine.” Bogdan shrugged and then he looked sly. “Maybe he is part of some American conspiracy like in the movies?” He glanced between the women. After a beat, he added, “Can the refrigerator be the silver kind?”

The women left him with Dutch intelligence—the two men and one woman who had arrived less than a minute after Bogdan specified silver as his color of choice. One of the men was a forensic sketch artist. If all went well, Team Viper would have a sketch of Bogdan’s hypo-thea-kill buyer by the end of the day.

Twenty minutes later, Vanessa and Aisha were returning to Paris on another red train.

“As soon as we get back,” Aisha said, when they were settled, “I need to take a shower, get his slime off me.”