Firebird (18 page)

“I haven’t been able to help anyone in a long time,” he said softly.  “That ship has sailed.   Leave it to the professionals, Alexandra.”

Again she glimpsed the hardness buried behind the dark eyes.

“The
professionals
closed Eve’s case after two days and moved on to a triple drug murder.”  Her fingers pushed through the coppery spikes of hair.  “Doing nothing is not an option for me.”  

“And your options now are…?”

“Only one.  Find Eve’s killer.  She deserves the truth, and so does her daughter.  I owe them that.  And I’d much rather
know
than be haunted by the
not
knowing, can you understand that?”

A shadow flickered deep in his eyes.  “Only too well.  But what if the knowing is worse than the not-knowing, Red?  Your sister will still be dead.  Revenge won’t bring her back.  Nothing will.  No matter what.”

She lifted her eyes to his.  “I need to know.  No matter what.”

“And if the truth is that your sister took her life?  What do you say to her daughter?”

She was silent for a long time.  “That I kept my promise.”

“This is bad on so many levels,” he murmured.  “Esta bien.  Why do you think Eve was murdered?  A jury will expect more than suspicions and an empty briefcase, Red.  You need motive.  Love, or passion.  Money, revenge.  The cover up of a crime...”

“My sister warned me of danger.  She found out something, she gave me three names and hid the recording because she believed it was important.  And now she’s dead.”

Fragments of images tumbled into her head.  
Blue eyes reflected in a window, a face disappearing into the shadows.  Lingerie scattered on the floor, roses the color of blood, a taunting voice in her ear
.

“Someone with eyes like blue ice cubes has been watching me.  Someone broke into my apartment, searched my office at the art gallery, sent me a rose after my sister’s funeral, attacked me in my own kitchen in Maine!  He
called
me, Garcia, he –”

She saw his face harden, saw the dark eyes go cold.  “He called you?”

She took a breath and rushed on. “My instincts are shouting at me that this is all connected somehow.  Are we adding up to a preponderance of evidence yet?”

“This is beginning to sound like a Hitchcock movie,” he murmured.

“But it’s
real
.  Scary things are happening to me, I’m caught up in something I don’t understand.  My sister is dead.  I want justice for her and her daughter.  Then maybe I can find a way to go on with my life.”

With a muttered oath he punched a number into his cell phone.  “Send a taxi to Maine Street Marina.  Dock 5, the
Vaya con Dios
.”  He returned her stare with maddening indifference.  “I’m not the man for you.   People who get close to me get hurt.  That’s a fact.”

Her grip tightened painfully on the boat railing, but she stood her ground.  “I won’t be intimidated, damn you.  And for the record, I have no intention of getting any closer to you than I am right now.  But Eve sent me to you.  Do it for her.”

Again she watched the flash of pain – and something more - in those deep, serious eyes.  Her sister had been right.  He
was
dark, and complicated.  And probably dangerous.   She could almost see the pent-up violence in the taut, muscled shoulders.  And yet - a dog he’d rescued sat peacefully at his feet.

As if he’d read her thoughts, he said, “I’m no rescuer, Chica.”

She looked pointedly at the Lab, then waited.  Hoover raised his head, his one good eye glinting as if in appreciation of the irony.  “You’re the one,” she insisted.  “Eve sent me to
you
.”

“Do you ever take no for an answer?” asked Garcia, ignoring the dog.

“No.”

His eyes narrowed.  “Why do I know I’m going to regret this?  Esta bien.  Did Eve tell you why she wanted to talk with me?”

“She thought there might be a connection to some hush-hush ‘Russian investigation’ of yours.  What did she mean?”

His jaw tensed.  “No secrets in this city.  I’ve been involved with several on-going investigations at Justice over the last year.”

She moved closer, spoke the name quietly.  “Charles Fraser.”

She saw the flash of recognition and shock before he could hide it and she felt her stomach clench.

“Another of the names on Eve’s recording, I take it.”

“Yes.  Interesting company you’re in, Garcia.  Tell me what’s going on.”

“There’s very little I can tell you.”

“Because you don’t know, or because you can’t say?”

For a long moment, the night was filled only with the sounds of the storm. “Esta bien,” he said finally.  “I can tell you this much without compromising anything.  You’ve read about the Russian listening device planted in the State Department?  There’s an investigation underway in my division at Justice.”

“I just heard about a spy network on the news…”  She thought about what he wasn’t saying.  “Russia?  But aren’t you in the Criminal Division?”

A heartbeat.  Then, “Criminal has an International Organized Crime unit.  The IOC.”  He gave the faintest smile and shrugged.  “We don’t even get to have a secret knock.  It’s listed on the DOJ website.”

She tried not to smile.  “So you are involved with Russian Organized Crime.”

“Let’s just say that the Kremlin knows how to use its Mafia bosses.  It’s no secret that dozens of banks around the world are involved in what could be questionable money transfers through New York and D.C.”

“Money laundering.  For arms?”

His eyes stayed on hers, neither confirming or denying.  “Your silence tells me what I need to know,” she told him.  “And my guess is that an investigation exposing any international problem right now could have a major impact on the Presidential election.”

She saw the spark leap deep in his eyes.  “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you,” he said with a flash of irritation.  “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“But I’m right.”

“The next administration,” he said slowly, “will determine U.S. international policy at a time when Russia has reached a critical crossroads in technology, economy, leadership.  Organized crime, the military, the new KGB.  Add in splinter groups, Stalinists, oil barons, the oligarchs, the current contingent - every group is jockeying for a piece of a pie that includes billions of U.S. dollars and an enormous stockpile of weapons.”

He looked into the distance.  “We’re in a shadow war, Alexandra.  Iran, Yemin, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, and now Syria…  Russia considers itself a major player in these countries, and it’s a huge source of tension in our relations.  An international incident could jeopardize everything we’ve built.”

“And everything we hope to build.”  She looked up at him.  “What do you think is going to happen?”

He shook his head.  “It’s just a feeling, nothing more.  Too many years in Washington surrounded by conspiracies, maybe.  But Fraser – an expert on Russian intelligence – is suddenly dead.  An active network of Russian spies has been uncovered, we have an upcoming Nuclear Summit in St. Petersburg.  Cryptic cables have been intercepted.  Something big is going to go down.  I just don’t know what.  Or when.  Or where.  My money’s on D.C. or New York, but I can’t rule out any public place right now.”

“And you have to know what’s going to happen so you can stop it.”  Her eyes widened.  “You’re going to help me because you think Eve may have discovered something connected to your investigation.”

He regarded her with an expression she couldn’t read.  “Someone is planning something – and it’s possible your sister forced his hand.”  Then, “I can tell you this.  My investigation involves a man from St. Petersburg - and Charles Fraser.”  Garcia looked out across the black water.  “There are some powerful people involved.  And Eve played in the big leagues.  She knew them all very well.”

“A man from St. Petersburg?  One of your players is a Russian?”

She watched him turn back to her, his eyes questioning.  “Now I know this is an offer you can’t refuse, Garcia,” she said slowly.  “Because the third name Eve revealed in her recording was ‘Ivan’.”

CHAPTER 19

“I only ask to be free.”

Charles Dickens

BRIGHTON BEACH, NEW YORK

The man who called himself Ivan sat on the sagging bed, his worn duffel bag by his side, staring out the dingy, half-open window at the lights on the almost deserted boardwalk.  Only hookers and drunks out at this hour, he thought.  Although it was too dark to see, he could hear the faint sigh of violins from the nightclub on the corner, and the distant crash of the waves against the sand.

The scent of stuffed cabbage drifted on the cold night air, and he breathed it in with a long sigh.  Almost home, he told himself.

Over the years he’d come to love New York City but always tried to avoid the midtown area.  He knew too well the dangers of predictability and recognition.

But here, in the old Russian-Jewish enclave of Brighten Beach, he felt like a different person.  He could pull a dark cap low over his forehead, shuffle the shadowed streets in his shapeless jacket, eat alone in the Russian restaurants in the old neighborhood called Little Odessa, bake in the 10th Street Bath Club and think about nothing.

Whenever he could, he disappeared from Washington.  He donned thick glasses and dressed in his old Yankees sweatshirt, rode the B or Q-train to Brooklyn, strolled the miles of boardwalk, stopped in Nathan’s or ate a “best knish in the world” from his friend Albert.  The first Russian emigres who’d settled Brighton Beach decades earlier had lined the old boardwalk with their restaurants, cafes and clubs.

Whenever possible he would listen to the Russian music in one of the countless nightclubs, and spend the night here, in this seedy boarding house walk-up he rented just off the boardwalk.

He smiled with dark humor as he looked around the small attic room with its bust of Lenin’s head and the black and white framed photograph of Rasputin, his wild eyes burning.

For a few hours each month, he had no urgent meetings, no demands, no beepers.  He had no roof, or ‘
krysha’
, as a Russian would say.  Here, he was totally on his own.  It had suited him, all these years, to be forgotten.  He took a deep breath, enjoying the heady sense of freedom.

Freedom
...

Until now.

Now someone knew who he was
.

He stood up and paced the small room restlessly.

Just days earlier, the Washington Post had reported that a Justice Department team was investigating a major Russian intelligence operation.  Ten of his fellow countrymen and women already had been arrested for allegedly stealing U.S. arms reduction information in advance of the upcoming summit in St. Petersburg. 

And after decades, a new, younger Control had tracked him down in the mountains of Vermont.  His
safe
place!  He felt, suddenly, trapped - as if both sides were closing in on him. 

But not here.  No one knew who he was in Brighton Beach.  Just another old Russian, shuffling along the windy boardwalk.

Tomorrow, he would meet with Panov.  Tomorrow, he would demand answers.

But tonight…  tonight belonged to him. 

He moved back to the open window and stood, inhaling the scents of sharp air, sea and sand.

Tonight, he was still free.

CHAPTER 20

“For I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Robert Frost

THE POTOMAC RIVER

In a back booth by a window at the all-night diner at the end of the pier, his coffee cold and forgotten, the man called Panov kept watch on the
Vaya con Dios
.  Now that the rain had lessened, he could make out two figures moving across the misted deck.

Nothing was going according to the plan. 

The woman was full of surprises.   She’d fought him off in Maine, survived the fall on the cliffs.  He’d expected her to return to New York after leaving the island.  Yet here she was, back in Washington too soon, talking with a Justice agent.  About what?   What had her sister told her?  Given her?  Damn the bitch!  After all the years of planning, all the work, she could ruin everything they’d worked for…

He couldn’t let that happen.

He slipped his cell phone from his pocket and searched for the two small photographs he’d taken earlier in the week.  There.  A tiny girl with red curls, on a swing near Washington Square.  And a skinny kid with spiked hair and big eyes, standing by a Jeep in Maine.

He smiled, nodded, and looked once more at his watch.

He had to get back to New York.  It was time to give Prince Ivan his instructions. 

He lit a cigarette and dialed his cell phone as he watched the shadowy figures part and come together against the flickering sky.

* * * *

The Vaya con Dios rocked in the river’s current.

“Ivan…” repeated Garcia.  “Your sister overheard Charles Fraser speak to a Russian visitor late one night about a threat from someone named Ivan?  That’s it?” 

The skepticism in his voice infuriated her.  “There’s more,” said Alexandra.  “My brother-in-law has photographs of Eve in St. Petersburg, giving an envelope to a Russian official.”

His head came up.  “You’ve seen these photos?”

“Yes.  It looks bad, Garcia, as if - ”

“As if she’s passing secrets?  That’s ridiculous!  Any first year law student could have such photographs dismissed before breakfast.  Christ, Eve could have been sharing a damned recipe.  She
never
would have betrayed her country.”

“Of course not.  But if you could identify the Russian Eve met in St. Petersburg, we could prove her innocence!  Or he could be  –”

“Your mysterious Ivan?  I’ll have to see those photographs, Red.”

Alexandra looked away.  “It gets worse,” she said quietly.  “There are sexually explicit photographs as well.  Of Eve with Charles Fraser.”