Authors: James Patterson,Andrew Gross
But what really stopped me wasn’t just his résumé. Which had promise. Or even those brooding, dark eyes.
It was that he’d been wounded—in Chechnya. His right leg had been struck by shrapnel from an exploding grenade. He was thought to still walk with a slight limp.
I was thinking about those shoes.
I put the small file photo close to the screen, side by side against a frame from the courthouse tape.
Holy shit! It was a long shot, but it just could be.
I glanced at the clock. It was already after five. Nothing was going to happen here, but that meant it was lunchtime halfway around the world.
I opened my desk and leafed through packets of business cards I had held together with rubber bands. I had a number, somewhere, for the antiterror desk at the Russian Security Service in Moscow. I’d used it when we wanted to extradite a contract killer who had worked for the Russian mob and had fled back home. I frantically searched through my files and found it. Lt. Yuri Plakhov. Federal Security Service. FSS. I dialed the thirteen-digit European number. I was praying to find him at his desk. It was a prayer answered when I heard his voice.
“Plakhov,
vot.
”
“Yuri, hello. You may remember me.” I reintroduced myself, reminding the Russian official who I was. It was a bonus to be able to keep this call this far away from the Bureau.
“Sure I recall you, Inspector.” Yuri Plakhov’s English was well practiced and colloquial. “We tracked down that mafioso of yours. Federev, right?”
“Good memory, Yuri,” I congratulated him. “Now I need you to run someone else through your files.” I read him off the name.
“
Rem-li-kov?
” He stretched it out. “Rings a bell.” I gave him a moment while he punched it in. “A little early back there, is it not, Inspector?”
“Yes,” I answered quickly, not into small talk. “It is.”
“Here it is, Inspector.
Remlikov, Kolya.
Wanted in questioning with several murders throughout Russia and Europe. Quite a dossier. Among his credits, he’s suspected of taking part in bringing down an entire apartment building in Volgodonsk, in which a government official resided. Twenty-four people were killed.”
My adrenaline was pumping. “How do I find this man, Yuri?”
“I’m afraid I’m unable to give you his mobile number, Inspector.” Plakhov chuckled. “It’s clear here he’s used several aliases and passports. Estonian, Bulgarian. Names of Kristich. Danilov. Mastarch. We think he was in Paris last year, when that Venezuelan oil minister was killed. The trail is very gray. I doubt he is in Russia. It says he is known here, Inspector, as the
eh-oop,
the Eel. Very slippery, yes? I can send a facsimile of his fingerprints, if you like.”
“Please,” I answered. The Eel. A slimy fucking eel. Things were starting to add up. “Where would I start to look, Yuri?”
The Russian paused, scrolling farther down the file. “Perhaps with your own State Department, Inspector. Judging from what I see, they may be better help than us.”
The State Department, our State Department. “Why is that?”
“Remlikov’s last-known whereabouts. He is thought to be in Israel, Inspector.”
FINALLY I WAS ONTO something. The bearded face now had a name, and a history. Remlikov’s prints came in over the fax a short time later, but my eyes had started to close.
I dozed off until nine. Then I shaved and showered, and called a colleague I had worked with at the FBI. I asked if I could meet him around ten.
Senil Chumra was a plump, likable Indian whose office wasn’t in the Bureau’s official place downtown. He was in a nondescript warehouse building up on Eighteenth and Tenth, overlooking the river. Chumra headed up a specialized area of the department we called CAF.
Computer Assisted Forensics.
These were the guys who could trace e-mails, hack into computers, worm their way through coded passwords, track the complicated movements of cash overseas. I had last worked with him tracking the flow of Cavello’s union paybacks to the Cayman Islands. Senil’s other talent was manipulating digital images.
“Hello, Nick.” The techie lit up as I walked through the door of his lab. The technical guys always liked it when one of the so-called glamour boys showed up. “Haven’t seen you in a while. What have you been up to?”
“I’m good, Chummie,” I lied. “Busy.” These technical whizzes worked in their own little specialized cocoon up here. No reason he’d know what I was up to—or in this case,
wasn’t.
“You got that e-mail I sent over?”
“I got it.” The Indian wheeled over to a Mac screen down the line, maybe a little disappointed. “Got it uploaded right here.”
Senil touched a mouse, and the image of Cavello’s bearded accomplice jumped onto the screen. “Okay, Nick, tell me—what is it you want me to do?”
“I want to change around the image, Chummie. See if it matches someone I know.”
He nodded, hunching over the screen and cracking his knuckles. He clicked the mouse again. A grid appeared over the image. “Shoot.”
“First, I want to lose the beard.”
“Easy.” Senil typed in a few coordinates, and the image immediately narrowed in to just a square of the suspect’s face. Then, using a cursor, he outlined the area of the beard. Gently, he moved his cursor back and forth, as if he was airbrushing.
“What are you onto these days?” he asked while he worked, his fingers guiding the cursor like a surgeon’s. “Things have to be pretty hot up there for you C-10 boys, what with Cavello and all. What’re you thinking, he changed his face on you?”
“Sort of,” I said, not picking up on his inquisitiveness. “Just a hunch.”
“A hunch.” He sighed, dropping the conversation. “This process is called grafting and displacement,” he said, continuing to carve away the facial hair, tracing it around the chin. “Essentially, we eliminate a field: skin tone, a scar, in this case, a beard.” In a moment the facial area was blank, and Senil retrieved a section of skin from another part of the image and filled in the space. “Then we just graft onto it.” He smoothed out the facial lines. “Cut and paste.”
“That’s good,” I said, leaning over his shoulder. “Now what do you say we try and alter the hair. Make it short and close to the skull. A little darker.”
“You mean like this?” He pressed an icon, and a file of various hairstyles came up. Then he chose one fitting my description and basically transplanted it over the newly configured face.
“Now set the hairline back a bit. Around the sides.”
Chummie started playing around with the cursor again.
“Yes, like that. Now, can we ditch the eyeglasses?”
“Faster than Lasik.” He grinned. “Cheaper, too.” It took about a minute of more grafting and displacement.
The man’s dark glasses disappeared.
“
Fucking A!
” I exclaimed. The image on the screen almost knocked me on the floor.
“Anything else, Nick? If you’re not satisfied, give me the word. I’ll make him look like anyone you like.”
“No, Chummie.” I patted his shoulder. “I think we’re done.”
I pulled out the file of Kolya Remlikov that Yuri Plakhov had faxed me. I put Remlikov’s face side by side against the altered image of Cavello’s accomplice.
“Bingo,” Senil Chumra said.
We were staring at the same man.
THIRTEEN YEARS OF working my way up through one of the most bureaucratic law enforcement agencies in the world told me to go straight to the Javits Building and drop what I had right on ADIC Cioffi’s desk.
There wasn’t much doubt that Kolya Remlikov was the man who had sprung Cavello.
I got as far as hailing a cab on the corner. Then something made me hold back. I wasn’t sure exactly what.
Maybe it was the thought of handing Remlikov over to the very people who had let him escape. Or the sudden realization of just how difficult this could prove to be—getting through channels, interrogating him. Which agencies would be involved? Would I be involved? One leak and Remlikov could disappear. And with him, Cavello. Then where would we be?
I’d spent so many years doing the right thing. Suddenly the right thing didn’t seem so right anymore.
I waved the taxi on.
I just went back and leaned against the building for a while, holding the photos, trying to decide what the right thing was. When it hit me, I told myself,
For a professor of criminal ethics, Nick, you’re about to do one very stupid thing.
I looked up a number in my BlackBerry and placed a call. I asked Steve Bushnagel if he had plans for lunch. Steve was a partner in a private law firm now, but he used to advise the FBI. He was an expert on matters of extradition and international law.
“Lunch? Where?” Bushnagel asked.
“Cheap and fast,” I said. “I’m buying.”
“How fast?” the lawyer asked.
“Hop into the elevator. I’ll be right outside.”
When he stepped out of the lobby of the big glass tower on Sixth Avenue, I was leaning on a parked car, holding out a couple of hot dogs. “Ketchup or mustard?”
“Not to be particularly lawyerly about it—but how ’bout
both.
”
We sat on a ledge on the busy corner, the lunch-hour crowds streaming by. “Steve, I’ve got someone I want to get to who’s fled to Israel.”
“Get to?”
“I need to get him back.”
Bushnagel took a bite. “Are we talking fugitive or citizen, here?”
“Citizen, I suspect. He’s been there awhile.”
“And what you want him for, these are crimes committed in the United States, not Israel, right?”
“We’re just talking, right, Steve?”
He waved his dog at me. “I assure you, you’re not paying me enough for anything more specific.”
I grinned. “Okay. Then we might be talking some other things in Russia and France as well.”
“
Hmmph.
” Bushnagel grunted. “The Israelis are cooperative—to a degree. You remember Jonathan Pollard? We arrested him for espionage in 1985—in the Israelis’ eyes, unjustly. They’ve been trying to get him back unsuccessfully for twenty years. And that electronics guy who fled there? ‘Crazy Eddie’ Antar? Look at how long it took to get him back. Of course, it all depends on what we’re
really
talking here.”
“Talking?”
“In the post-9/11 world.” The lawyer shrugged. “Do the Israelis want something from us? Are the other governments involved? Look, Nick, I didn’t become a complete dummy when I left the government. I know we’re not chasing tax cheats here.
“If the evidence is solid, you could definitely get the guy held for questioning. But what kind of access you’d have, and how long that would take, that’s all up for grabs. How time sensitive is this?”
“The highest.” I shrugged glumly. “Off the charts.”
“Always is. Well, factor into this the matters of state, too. Does this have any rhythm for the Israelis? Do they want to make a deal with us? Do they want to make a deal with the Russians or the French before they turn him over? It’s
delicate,
Nick—and I don’t think that’s a word that sits particularly well with you.”
I nodded.
“Look, you’d get him held. You get a lot of people involved. But what happens next is anybody’s guess. Then there’s always the chance they drag their feet, the guy slips away, and you never hear from him again.”
“I can’t take that risk,” I said, shaking my head.
“I understand.” Bushnagel nodded. “Problem is, though, it’s still the only game in town.”
“In the real world, yes.” I nodded. I balled up my wrapper.
I knew Steve was wondering why I had come to him. He had left the government long ago. There were plenty of lawyers on staff who could handle this kind of matter. “Just for the record, Nick”—he looked closely at me—“is there any other?”
I TRACED THE EDGE of my fingernail along the slope of Andie’s back.
“Don’t.” She stirred, snuggling up to me.
I’d been thinking all night. Since I left Steve Bushnagel. In the real world, I knew, I would have Remlikov arrested. I would lead the interrogation. He would give up Cavello, and I would go get him. That was my job. It was just that the “real world” had gotten a lot more complicated lately.
I ran my fingers along Andie’s spine again. This time she turned and faced me, resting on her arm. She saw something was serious. “What is it?”
“I may have a line,” I said, “on the man who blew up the bus.”
Andie sat up, the sleep already gone from her eyes. “What are you talking about, Nick?”
“I’ll show you.”
I reached over and opened a manila envelope I had on the night table. In a long row on the bed I spread several black-and-white glossies: Homeland Security photos of Kolya Remlikov and the ones Yuri Plakhov had sent me.
“His name is Remlikov,” I said. “He’s Russian. He’s a killer for hire. And a particularly good one. He’s got a very bloody résumé. I think Cavello may have gotten him through the Russian mob. I think he’s in Israel.”
Andie’s eyes widened at the photos. I put down the one Chummie had doctored in his lab, showing the man in the elevator without his disguise. They stretched wider. She picked it up and stared at the angular, dark-featured face a long time.
“Why do you think he was the one who blew up the bus?”
“This.”
I removed two final photographs. The first was one I had given Senil. This photo I had found myself, from hours and hours of plugging through the courthouse security cameras. Not from the day of the escape. But from earlier.
From Cavello’s
first
trial.
“Take away the sideburns and the dark glasses.” I put a cleaned-up image next to it.
“Oh my God!” She picked it up, jaw tightening, gazing at the face with a hurt, stunned expression. Then her eyes filled with tears.
“Why did you keep this from me?” she asked, her back to me.
“I didn’t. I only got these photos today.”
“So what happens now? You give this to your people?” she said excitedly. “They go and get him? Tell me that’s the way it goes.”