Authors: James Patterson,Andrew Gross
“I don’t know. It may not be that easy. The Israelis will have to be contacted. It involves governments. Procedures. This sort of evidence is highly speculative. Photos can always be doctored. You never know what will happen.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? This man killed federal marshals, and he helped Cavello escape. He blew up the loaded juror bus, Nick. He killed my little boy.”
“I know. But it’s complicated, Andie. Remlikov is a foreign citizen. There may be other governments involved. Other law enforcement agencies. Then the Israelis have to agree to give him up.”
“What are you saying, Nick?” Alarm rose up in her eyes. “They can go get this guy. You know where he is. These are your people, Nick. What does the Bureau think?”
I shook my head. Waited a second. Then I spoke again. “I didn’t take it to the Bureau, Andie.”
She blinked like a fighter trying to clear his head after a stunning punch. She kept looking at me, trying to read my face. “What are you saying, Nick?”
“I’m saying a man like this would disappear the second he knew people were onto him. And the instant Cavello finds out we’re onto them, he takes off, too.” I looked at her, eyes clear. “We’ve lost Cavello twice. We’re not losing him again.”
I think, at that moment, she knew what I was proposing. The angry flush on her face was swept away, and it was replaced by a look of clarity. When she looked at me again, I think she understood what kind of man I was.
“I told you I was going to get him, Andie.”
She nodded. “I’m not even going to ask, Nick. I just want you to know, whatever it takes, I’m with you. Do you hear me? Do you understand?”
“Not on this,” I said. “This is something I have to do alone. You don’t want to be involved.”
“No.” Andie smiled thinly. “That’s where you’re wrong. I know exactly what you have to do, Nick. And I’m already involved.”
“Not like this.” What I had to do was in another country—and was way, way outside the law.
“Yes,
like this,
Nick. Like everything.” She picked up Remlikov’s photo. “I lost my son. I want Cavello, too.”
“You know what’s going to happen over there? You know what we’re talking about, Andie?”
She nodded. “Yes.” She leaned her head against my chest. “I know what’s going to happen, Nick. I’m praying that it does.”
“We’re leaving in two days,” I said.
THE REEDY MAN in tortoiseshell glasses leaned back against the park bench and looked at me. “These prints you sent me—where did you get them from?”
Charlie Harpering and I were old friends. We were sitting in a tiny park across from the courthouse: the historical Five Points in
Gangs of New York.
Charlie had spent many years at the FBI. Now he worked for Homeland Security. It was he who had procured all the files for me.
“Never mind how I got them. What I need to know is if there was a match.”
Harpering studied me long and hard. What I was asking him to do—to go around all normal channels and procedures, to give me information that he might not pass on to his boss—was a lot to ask, even of a friend.
“You know, I could screw up a well-earned pension over this.”
“Trust me.” I gave him a big smile. “Retirement’s way overrated. This is important, Charlie. Was there a match?”
The Homeland Security man let out a breath. Then he opened his briefcase and set a file on his lap. He nodded. “Yeah. There was a match.”
He opened a plain manila file. Facing me was a blowup of the fingerprints Yuri Plakhov had faxed me.
“They belong to an Estonian,” Harpering said. “Stephan Kollich. He came in through JFK on a commercial visa, April twelfth.”
April 12. Cavello was sprung from the courthouse six days later.
A wave of validation surged up inside me. Remlikov had been here.
“You’ll see he left seven days later.” Harpering pointed farther down.
A day after the escape!
“Back to London. Out of DC.”
“And on to anywhere else?” I asked.
“All she wrote, I’m afraid.” The Homeland Security man shrugged. “At least, under that name.”
“Thank you, Charles,” I said, tapping him on the chest. “Here.” I slid over a shopping bag containing the bound Homeland Security files. “I won’t be needing these anymore.”
He tucked the bag between his legs. “What the hell are you up to, Nick? You know I did this out of friendship. Anyone else, we’d be in a federal office right now. Who is this guy?”
“Let’s call it a career move. We’ll try and figure out later if it’s up or down.”
Harpering sniffed, agreeing. “I see what you mean about retirement. Then I might as well take you the distance, Nick—whichever the hell way it goes.”
“What do you mean?”
He took two additional sheets out of his case and slid them into the file. “Kollich’s visa application. For old times. And just for the record, it didn’t come via Tallinn, Nick. Estonia. It came from Tel Aviv.”
I blinked. “Jesus.”
“Gets even better.” Harpering dropped the file on my lap. “Assuming you’re trying to find him, of course. Good luck, Nick.” Harpering stood up. “Give the sonovabitch a shot in the balls for me.”
I looked down at the new file. There was an address on the visa application:
225 Yehudi
Road.
Haifa.
RICHARD NORDESHENKO WAS contemplating a chess move with his son on the terrace when the doorbell rang.
“Get that for me, Pavel.” Mira was out shopping. The boy went to answer the front door.
Nordeshenko was enjoying his new life. He had tossed his cell phone into the sea and let the one or two contacts he still trusted know he was out of business.
For good.
Every day he went swimming in the Mediterranean. He picked up his son after school and drove him to chess. At night he took Mira to the fancy shops and cafés in Carmel Center. He tried to put to the back of his mind that just a few weeks before he had gotten away with a crime covering the front page of every newspaper.
“Father! There’s a man.”
Nordeshenko pushed himself slowly out of his chair and went into the living room. It might as well have been a squadron of Mossad he saw standing there.
“Hello, Remi.”
“What are you doing
here?
” Nordeshenko gasped. Reichardt. His face went slack and ashen.
“Just a little traveling, Remi. Some sightseeing. Throwing myself on the hospitality of old friends.”
He turned to Pavel. “Go and look at the board, son. I moved.”
The boy hesitated.
“Go and look at the board, I said.” His voice was much harsher.
Pavel swallowed. “Yes, Father.”
The boy left, and Nordeshenko turned back to the man at the door, feeling his every nerve grow tight. “Are you insane? Come in, quickly,” he said. He looked past Reichardt and up the street. “Are you certain there was no tail?”
“Relax, Remi,” the South African said. “I’ve come through three countries. I’ve been doing this as long as you. You’ve got a nice-looking boy.”
“It’s not
Remi
here.” Nordeshenko looked at him sharply. “It’s Richard.”
Reichardt stepped in and whistled admiringly at the broad, spectacular view. “Business must be good, Richard.”
“Business is over,” Nordeshenko said. “And you better understand one thing clearly—my wife and son . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Reichardt said, “I won’t be a burden. You said this was the quietest place in the world. It’ll only be for a few days. Until the world cools down.”
Nordeshenko didn’t like this. It violated all the rules of the arrangements. But what choice did he have? There was no way to tie them to the States. No way to tie them together at all.
“All right,” he said. “Just a few days.”
“Thanks,” the South African said. “But, Remi, you are mistaken on one thing.”
“And what’s that?” Nordeshenko asked, picking up one of Reichardt’s bags.
“Our business.”
The blond killer sighed. “It is never over.”
THE LOUDSPEAKER CRACKLED. “Delta Flight 8976 to Tel Aviv is ready for boarding.”
I stood there waiting at gate 77, gazing down the terminal. My heart was racing pretty fast. I glanced at my watch. The plane was boarding. I had to get on it, with or without her.
Where was she?
Maybe she had second thoughts. That would be okay, I told myself. She’d be smart to stay out of this. She’d be smart to let me do what had to be done.
“All rows, Delta Flight 8976 to Tel Aviv.”
I didn’t have a precise plan. I had no idea how I was going to handle it when I got there. How could I? All I knew was that I was going to find Kolya Remlikov and somehow make him tell me where Cavello was. No professional courtesy here—no Geneva convention. I’d put the muzzle of my gun down his throat and cock the hammer. I’d blow off a kneecap if I had to. He would talk. The question was,
then what?
A Hasidic family in black rushed past me onto the boarding platform, with loud shouts of relief. They looked to be the last ones on. I scanned the terminal. No sign. I put my travel case over my shoulder and went to board.
It was better this way, right?
Then I saw her. Hurrying toward me. Still a good ways down the corridor.
I felt a warm, glycerin wave of relief surge through me. Who are you kidding, Nick? You wanted her here very much.
Andie was wearing a red leather jacket, her hair tucked under a Knicks cap,
Jarrod’s cap,
a travel bag slung loosely over her shoulder. She looked incredibly beautiful to me. And brave. I knew then I probably couldn’t have done this thing alone. I wanted her with me. Andie made me believe it was right.
She stopped about two feet away.
“Let’s get something straight.” I tried to make a joke of it. “If this was the altar, we’d be looking for a refund on the reception right now.”
“I’m sorry, Nick. I had to say good-bye. To Jarrod.”
That certainly shut me up.
She shook her head contritely. “Actually, I’ve been sitting in the terminal next to the Burger King for the last hour.”
“Second thoughts?”
“I don’t know, maybe. Probably. But not about this. I love you, Nick.”
I stood there looking at her, her eyes glistening. I nodded, gently placing my hand against her cheek. “That’s what I was thinking here. That I love you, too. That I might not be able to board that plane without you.”
“I knew that’s what you were bumbling around trying to say the other night.”
The PA interrupted us—the final boarding call. We stood there another second. The ticket agents were getting ready to close the doors.
“So what are we doing?” I shrugged, shifting, unsure on my feet.
Andie stepped up to me, her eyes moist and strong. She locked her fingers in mine.
“Boarding. We’re taking a trip together, Nick. Isn’t it exciting?”
HAIFA
IF I DIDN’T KNOW for sure that I was in love with Andie DeGrasse, the flight to Israel removed all doubt. For much of it we just sat there, our hands locked. I felt something steady and unwavering running from her to me. Andie slept, her head leaning against my shoulder. She bolstered me. She gave me the courage to do what I felt was right.
Our first night in Tel Aviv was spent eating dinner in a quiet café on Shenkin Street, and fighting jet lag. Back in the room we made love, trying to forget—for a night, anyway—why we were here. In the morning we would drive up the coast to Haifa.
It only took about an hour and a half. We passed beach towns on the way up the coastal highway. The city’s physical beauty surprised me. Haifa rose dramatically on steep mountain terraces above the gem-blue sea. Lowest was the port and the Old Town, with its ancient stone walls built by crusaders. Farther up was the busy downtown, the scents of bakeries, bazaars, modern businesses. Then higher still, the bustling heights of Mount Carmel, overlooking the Mediterranean.
Up here there were modern hotels, residential streets jutting out over the sea with posh homes and incredible vistas, boulevards of trendy restaurants and stores.
Kolya Remlikov was up here, too.
I was certain that Remlikov wasn’t his name here. The name he went by now didn’t matter. We dropped off our bags at the Dan Panaroma Hotel. Our twenty-fifth-floor room had a stunning view of the sea.
“It’s beautiful,” Andie said, gazing out the window.
“It is.” I nodded. I placed my hands on her shoulders. “Just remember why we’re here.”
“It doesn’t mean we can’t find time to take a swim in the Mediterranean.”
“Go ahead.” I picked a few things out of my travel case: a set of binoculars, a map, my gun, which was licensed. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Nick”—Andie turned, a worried look on her face—“don’t do anything without me. Promise?”
“Relax.” I smiled. “I’m just going sightseeing. I promise.”
I had our rented Ford parked in front of the hotel. I got behind the wheel, then folded back the map. I had marked out this route many times in advance. I almost felt as if I actually knew the way.
Yehudi Street. 225.
I drove higher up the mountain, on Yefe Nof, a little way past the hotel. Up here was Carmel Center—parks, museums, trendy cafés. Farther up, the road began to loop in ever-narrowing switchbacks overlooking the sea. I turned onto Hayem, then Vashar. Up here, there were expensive homes with dramatic views. I kept on climbing higher. The road clung to the clifflike sides of Mount Carmel. The brilliant blue Mediterranean was a thousand feet below.
Finally I found Yehudi. It was a quiet, residential street with a spectacular view. Number 225 was a few houses down. It was a white, flat-roofed contemporary, down a short stone drive. As I passed it, I felt my blood run cold a little. I drove on to the next switchback, then stopped at a point where I didn’t think I could be detected. I got out of the car with the binoculars and looked back down at the house.