Jet (5 page)

“Anything exciting planned for today?” he asked Jet.

“No. Just some errands,” Jet replied, watching Hannah make a mess of her breakfast. “You?”

“Nothing special. I’ve got a couple of new customers who are supposed to drop off a server and a notebook, and I’ve got the bookkeeper in the afternoon. You know how much I enjoy his visits.”

“Sounds like an eventful afternoon,” she said with a small grin.

“Yeah. Guy could get used to this.”

The Kosovo winter had almost driven them from the region, but Jet and Matt had stuck it out, and when spring had melted the snow and the surrounding hills had bloomed with wildflowers, she’d declared that she could tolerate the cold in exchange for the peaceful surroundings and undemanding pace. For the first time since their brief sojourn in Argentina, they’d been able to live without looking over their shoulders, although some habits never died, and never would.

Jet had remarked numerous times at how naturally Matt had taken to his role as head of the household and father, and lately they’d been discussing the possibility of another child. Not as an immediate or urgent possibility but rather as an inevitability, sooner than later. With Jet’s stash of diamonds secreted away in Uruguay and her three million dollars’ worth of stones locked in a safe deposit box at the local bank, money wasn’t an issue, and with each passing month it had become more obvious that their life on the run was over.

A horn from outside the window jarred her from her thoughts, and she hurried to where Hannah was crawling off the seat, fumbling with her napkin. Jet knelt beside her and wiped away the oatmeal that always managed to make its way onto her cheeks and chin while Hannah made a face that clearly conveyed that she wasn’t a baby and didn’t appreciate being treated like one. Once Jet finished, she gave Hannah a final look and then handed her a pink backpack emblazoned with a stylized Disney princess.

“Here’s your stuff. Have a good day at school,” she said. Hannah took the bag and tilted her head. Jet kissed her cheek and they walked together to the front door.

A brown Fiat sedan waited at the curb. A woman Jet’s age smiled from the driver’s seat. Behind her sat a little girl strapped into a car seat, with an empty space beside her awaiting Hannah’s arrival. Hannah ran down the steps to the car, and the woman stepped from the vehicle and held the rear door open. Hannah dutifully placed her backpack on the floor and the woman lifted her into the seat and buckled her in, and then turned to Jet and waved. Jet returned the gesture and watched as the car drove off before closing the door softly behind her.

Matt tromped down the hall and gave her a long kiss. “Got to get going,” he said.

“You sure you don’t want to take advantage of an empty house?” she asked, one eyebrow cocked.

“I should know better than to turn that offer down, but I have those new customers this morning…”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. The offer was made.”

“Rain check?”

She shook her head. “Clear skies, so if you’re not going to strike while the iron’s hot…”

He looked at his watch and frowned. “Maybe I’ll come home early.”

“Maybe I’ll be here.”

Matt made his way to where an old motor scooter was chained to a light post and unlocked the padlock. He wound the chain into a heap, dropped it and the lock into the compartment beneath the seat, and kick-started the motor with a puff of blue smoke.

Across the street, sixty meters away, two men sat in an unmarked van and watched as Matt warmed up the motorbike. One trained a video camera with a zoom lens on him while the other peered through binoculars. Matt revved away from the curb, and the driver murmured into a handheld radio before resuming his vigil.

Several minutes later, the woman who’d appeared in the doorway emerged from the front door and walked down to the mailbox. The watcher with the camera focused on her face, and as if sensing his scrutiny, she glanced up and scanned the street. There were enough vehicles parked between them and they were far enough away to be confident they’d remain undetected, but the man with the video camera shivered involuntarily as the target’s zoomed-in emerald eyes seemed to stare through him before continuing to roam along the lane.

After a pause, she retraced her steps to the entrance and entered the house. The door slammed behind her, leaving the watchers sitting on the empty street, considering what, if anything, had just occurred.

The driver exchanged a glance with the cameraman. “That was odd.”

“Damned right it was. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she made us.”

“Impossible at this distance.”

“I know. But still.”

“Upload the footage of them both and send it off. They wanted to know as soon as we had a sighting.”

The cameraman nodded and leaned over to where a wireless laptop rested on the center console. “It’ll take a while. Lot of bandwidth at this file size.”

“Whatever. Sooner you start, the sooner this will be over. I’ve got to use the bathroom. Too much coffee.”

Moscow, Russia

Rudolf checked his bank balance with his cell phone as his car sped to Domodedovo airport, where a jet was sitting on the runway, waiting to fly him to Kosovo. Another jet awaited his go-ahead at the smaller Vnukovo airport, where a half dozen field agents were scheduled for takeoff within the hour.

Leo had transferred the money first thing that morning. Rudolf checked the screen of his tablet and grinned in the rear of the car – even after paying off everyone he’d needed to co-opt in order to run an off-the-books private operation on company time, his net worth had increased considerably.

He’d figured that the amount wouldn’t be a problem. Leo might have been tight-fisted, but Rudolf knew he was involved in numerous other lines of business besides the legal profession, the most notable of which was as an arms intermediary between the Russian mob and various groups too unsavory for even that outfit to publicly deal with, and also as a facilitator for foreign intelligence services, which was how he’d wound up on Rudolf’s radar in the first place.

Leo was working both ends against the middle, in the time-honored tradition of weasels the world over, and was being paid handsomely for his trouble. Because of his late brother’s deal making, he’d met a Who’s Who of tyrants, dictators, and warlords, and had developed a powerful network for arranging trade that was banned by the U.N. as well as the world’s superpowers. Of course, all that did was increase the price – like water working against the hard surface of a stone, money always found a way.

Rudolf’s cell buzzed in his hand and he stared at it with annoyance before answering.

“Yes?”

“I’m patching a call through.” It was his secretary.

“Who is it?”

“An Inspector Marlberg. From Kosovo.”

“Ah. Yes, put him through,” Rudolf said.

The line hissed and clicked, and then a male voice spoke. “Is this Karl?”

Karl was Rudolf’s operational name, taken in homage to the author of the
Communist Manifesto
, Karl Marx – a private joke for Rudolf’s amusement. “Yes.”

“We forwarded footage of the female target just now. She’s in the house, but it’s unclear for how long. The man and a child have already left, and our officers on site said that they may have been spotted by her.”

“What! I told you that you weren’t to engage or do anything that risked detection,” Rudolf fumed.

“Yes, well, it is what it is. We’re afraid she’s going to bolt, so I’m calling to see if you want us to perform an extraction. We can arrest her and hold her on any number of charges.”

“God, no! I told you. Do. Not. Engage. Was I not clear?”

“Look, Karl. If she’s got another way out, you’re screwed.”

“I’ll be on the ground in three hours max.”

“That’s fine, but I’m telling you that you may not have three hours. We passed the information on the male target to your colleagues, so he’s in play. If something sets her off, you may wind up empty-handed.” The inspector’s voice softened. “It’s ultimately your call, but I thought I’d give you the option. We can take her without any drama, and you can deal with her at your leisure. Or you can risk losing her.”

Rudolf did a quick calculation. Arresting the woman wasn’t actually a bad option. The inspector had a good reputation, and there was really no compelling reason other than a fear of incompetence for Rudolf to fly in his own team. He breathed deeply and reminded himself that there was nothing to be gained by being purposelessly territorial. His objective was to capture the woman and have her held until Leo could question her, with his assistance – which would no doubt involve gruesome levels of torture for which he’d pay another small fortune. Or perhaps Leo would leverage his relationship with the Russian mafia and have them take her off Rudolf’s hands. Either way, his final payday wouldn’t happen if the woman gave them the slip.

“You’re confident you can do so without a problem?” Rudolf asked softly.

“I wouldn’t be calling if I wasn’t.” The inspector hesitated, and Rudolf could guess the next topic he’d advance. “Of course, I’d expect you would be grateful for our doing all the heavy lifting.”

The implicit threat was clear enough: if Rudolf ordered him to stand down, it was always possible that the woman would vanish, which would be blamed on Rudolf’s delaying a move. Someone could tip her off – a someone who was disgruntled at not receiving yet more money for his trouble. It was a fluid situation, and anything could happen. If Rudolf paid the fare for the inspector to take her in, he avoided that regrettable eventuality; he was buying a guarantee.

“Of course. How grateful do you think would be appropriate?”

The first number was ludicrous, and Rudolf said so. Three minutes later they’d reached an agreement. “But only if you take her unharmed. I need her alive and coherent.”

“Then I shall make it so. Consider it done.”

Rudolf disconnected and slid the phone back into his windbreaker pocket. The car rolled to a stop at a traffic light, and one of Moscow’s legions of homeless neared, carrying a filthy rag and a squeegee. The driver waggled his finger at the unfortunate, who gave him a gap-toothed snarl before moving to the next vehicle. Rudolf watched the man shamble past his window and shook his head in distaste at the sight of his soiled clothes and grimy skin. Every day more were forced onto the street by poverty and desperate circumstances. The Western sanctions had caused massive suffering in the Russian population, especially in the cities, but the West had badly misjudged the nation’s tolerance for pain. Russians were born into misery and expected nothing less until they died. This was a picnic compared to what they’d routinely endured at the hands of their rulers.

Rudolf sat back in his seat and thought about the deal he’d made for the woman’s delivery on a platter. The price he was paying was laughably low, and it would save him a small fortune on the second jet and paying off the members of the team. Even if he took a few of them with him to handle the woman, he was saving a king’s ransom, with the trickiest part handled by the inspector. On balance, it was a hell of a deal and would make his life considerably easier.

And Rudolf had been in the game long enough to have learned to never pass up a bargain.

Madrid, Spain

Alonso Real stood with the rest of the passengers, waiting for the Jetway door to open. The plane had the distinctive aroma of a long-haul flight, a mixture of perspiration, a smell like wet wool, and metabolized ethanol seeping from tired pores. The flight from Mexico City had been turbulent, and even free cocktails all night had been inadequate to quiet his jangling nerves.

This was the second leg of his trek, which had originated in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He’d done the trip four times now in as many months, but he still hated the experience, even though the money was insane for a retail clerk who’d hit the wall on luck.

The pilot’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker, welcoming everyone to Spain, the volume too high for the enclosed space. Alonso fought to keep from growling at the short older woman who kept bumping him with the sharp corner of her carry-on bag, oblivious to the damage it was inflicting on his tired thigh, and watched the backs of the business-class travelers’ heads begin to move like obedient cattle on a slaughterhouse ramp.

And then he was pushing forward with the rest of the fatigued travelers, eager to get out of the aluminum tube onto terra firma. His feet felt swollen and sore in his loafers, thirteen hours of forced immobilization having taken its toll. He hobbled through the door and up the Jetway, which was adorned with photographs of smiling, attractive people engaged in hospitable endeavors: offering a tray with fresh seafood, a colorful beverage with the sparkling blue of the Mediterranean in the background, strolling past Madrid’s breathtaking architecture with welcoming expressions.

The contempt he felt was the same as the last three times, and the voice in his head sounded identical, insisting that it was all a lie, a sham to trick the unwary, that reality was nothing like these pictures, these hired actors with their engaging symmetrical faces and promising come-hither looks, these ad agency-created stylized greeting committees with racially neutral complexions and only moderately prosperous wardrobes.

He didn’t know why he hated them so vehemently, but that he did was undeniable, which he wrote off to sleeplessness, as he had the times before. Some part of him understood that his reaction was abnormal, but he was uninterested in pursuing whatever part of his damaged psyche so objected to the images. He just wanted to collect his two suitcases, amble through customs and immigration, and be on his way, ten thousand dollars richer before his head hit the pillow a few hours later.

The air-conditioning was in fine working order as he stood by the baggage carousel, watching the conveyer cycle, nervously tapping his foot to some inner beat only he could hear. His first suitcase appeared and he barely made it in time to snag it from the belt, his progress impeded by two overweight geriatrics who seemed so mesmerized by the sight of orbiting luggage they were unaware of anyone but themselves. A minute later his second bag arrived, and he was fitting the first atop the second when two soldiers accompanied by a beagle materialized from a doorway and moved toward the carousel.