Professor Andrei Bogomolov leads me through his house toward his back patio. But I stop in the den and watch the television, which of course is covering nothing but the events I just witnessed firsthand. An aerial view of the scene shows a black crater where the Russians’ SUV once rested. Rescue vehicles are everywhere, and bodies are being lifted on gurneys. Too early for a casualty estimate. The fact that this event took place about eight blocks from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, after a 911 call from an anonymous cell phone warned of an attack on the White House, seems to be occupying the thoughts of the reporters and commentators more than anything else.
“Come,” Andrei urges me. “That story isn’t going anywhere. Let us sit outside.”
We pass the kitchen, where bottles of pills are lined up on the counter, where an IV drip rests in the corner. Cancer would be my guess, but it’s Andrei’s decision whether to tell me. I need to know a lot of things from Andrei right now, but that isn’t one of them.
“I should assume that what I was watching on television involves you in some manner?” he says to me, as he carefully settles into a cheap lawn chair on the brick patio. He has a small yard back here—it seemed huge when I was a kid—and a garden of flowers and plants that are precisely arranged in rows and columns.
“Why don’t we stop talking about assumptions and predictions,” I say. “And why don’t we start talking about what you know.”
Andrei looks up at me, then blinks away the eye contact and looks over his garden.
“Tell me that story again,” I say. “The one about how you were a psychiatrist on a Soviet ship, you jumped in the water off the Ivory Coast, and swam ashore. Then the Peace Corps volunteers hid you from the KGB and smuggled you to the American embassy in Ghana. Tell me that one again, Andrei. Because when I was a kid, I thought it was the most inspirational story a man could tell.”
His expression softens. “And you now doubt this story?”
“Cut the shit, Andrei. Okay? You’ve done a remarkably accurate job of predicting what the Russians are up to. ‘Expect a terrorist act soon’? ‘The Russians are rebuilding the Soviet bloc’? You nailed it. All of it. So let’s stop pretending it was just a lucky guess.”
He doesn’t answer. Not verbally, at least. But his eyes dance as he considers what I’ve said.
“You’re CIA,” I say to him. “You’re a spy.”
A soft smile plays on his lips.
I’ve taught you well, Grasshopper
.
“I’m a patriot,” he answers. “I was a patriot to this country before I even lived here.”
Considering it fresh as an adult, it all makes perfect sense. An officer and psychiatrist in the Soviet military probably learned a lot of dirt. A lot of secrets. Andrei was working for us. He was passing secrets to the CIA. And then something must have happened. Maybe the Soviets were growing suspicious. Or maybe Andrei had served out the terms of his agreement with us and wanted the prize—freedom. So the CIA set it up so he could defect. Maybe he really did jump off the ship off the Ivory Coast, but I’ll bet the rest of the story is bullshit. It was coordinated. The CIA had someone waiting to whisk him away to the United States.
“Listen, good for you, Professor. But fast-forward to the present, and it sounds like you still have your ear to the ground. You still hear things. You know a lot more about what’s going on than you’re letting on. And it’s time you told me.”
Andrei always has been, and in whatever time he has left always will be, a man of discretion. He will reveal only a fraction of what he’s feeling and thinking. But I think he expected this visit from me. I think he wanted this visit.
“Sit, Benjamin,” he says, motioning to the lawn chair next to him.
I pick it up and hurl it into the yard. Then I stand directly in front of my old friend.
“What’s on the video, Andrei?” I ask.
Professor Bogomolov looks up at me with tired eyes.
“I honestly don’t know what is contained on that video,” he says. “It is a carefully guarded piece of information to which I am not privy. You could probably count on one hand the number of people in our government who know what is on that video.”
“But there
is
a video.”
He nods. “Yes, there is a video.”
“And the Russians have it.”
“Yes.”
“And they’re blackmailing our president.”
He sighs. “So it appears.”
“But it’s not a sex tape of the president with Diana?”
Andrei shakes his head. “I am told it is not. I am told that it is worse than that. I am told that it contains highly sensitive content.”
Worse?
Worse
than a sex tape of the president and his girlfriend?
“Why did you ‘predict’ all this stuff about the Russians, Andrei? Why did you tell me about their plans?”
Again, Andrei cranes his head upward, with some difficulty. He seems surprised that I don’t know the answer, as if it’s obvious. “I told you because I’m a patriot, Benjamin. I’m a patriot with every fiber of my being. A patriot does what is best for his country, not what is best for its leader.”
True enough. Spoken like someone who grew up in a totalitarian regime.
“So you think this is personal to the president. Not classified information, like nuclear codes or photos of undercover spies, but something personal.”
Andrei lifts his bony shoulders. “That is my suspicion,” he says. “And if I knew that to be true—if I knew what it was, and it was just something embarrassing to the president, I would tell you. In fact, if I knew that, I would tell every newspaper in the world. I would do whatever I could to make that information public, to release the United States from this blackmail scheme. Even if it landed me in prison.
“But I
don’t
know, Benjamin. So if I went to the newspapers, I could not speak with any specificity. I would be easily discredited. You can imagine the government’s response—‘A sick old man who is hallucinating, senile,’ this sort of nonsense.”
He’s right about that. Our government is good at plausible deniability. And at smearing anyone who gets in its way.
“The best I could do, Benjamin, was to arm you with some information and hope that you would be able to learn more than I could.”
“Me? Why me?”
With a frail hand, Andrei reaches out and grabs my wrist. “You are far more talented than you’ve ever given yourself credit for, Benjamin. You’ve had to overcome challenges that would have broken most people. You are resourceful and determined and, in my judgment, brilliant. You’ve found some way to bury the demons of your childhood and find some measure of—I don’t know if it’s happiness. But some equilibrium. You’ve managed to avoid the Russians’ attempts to kill you, figure out the existence of the video, and strike fear into the heart of the Oval Office.”
I squat down so that I’m facing Andrei face-to-face.
“Why did they kill Jonathan Liu?” I ask.
Andrei playfully slaps my cheek. “My friend, surely you do not need me to solve that riddle.”
I think about it for a second. “The Chinese,” I say. “The Chinese. They don’t want the Russians to rebuild the Soviet empire. If the Russians take over the former satellites, especially Kazakhstan, they’ll be a threat to China.” I look at Andrei. “The Chinese know what the Russians are up to, don’t they?”
“I suspect they do,” he says.
“Sure. Of course. They want a copy of the video, too. But not to blackmail the United States. They want to make it
public
. They want to stop the Russians from blackmailing us, so we’ll stand up to Russia’s aggression on behalf of NATO.”
And
that
explains why the Russians killed Jonathan Liu. They can’t let the Chinese get that video. Their extortion doesn’t work if the video becomes public.
“And why
me
?” I ask. “Why have they been trying to kill
me
ever since Diana disappeared? Why do they think I, of all people, would have a copy of the video?”
Andrei breaks eye contact, lost in thought. He seems troubled. He seems not to know the answer. But trying to read Andrei is like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube.
Yesterday, I told Alexander Kutuzov I had a copy of the video. But they’d been trying to kill me for a week before that. They’ve thought that all along. I only told them something they already believed.
“Either the Russians think you have the tape,” Andrei says, “or they think you’re trying to get hold of it.”
That makes sense. Either way, I’m a threat to the Russians.
Which means there’s only one way I can end this.
“I have to figure out what’s on that video and make it public,” I say. “It’s the only way to stop the Russians.”
“And the only way to save yourself,” he adds.
That would be nice, too.
I get out of my crouch and sit down flat on the porch. The sun is falling, and with it the temperature. In a few weeks the colors will change, and the air will turn brisk.
“So what’s worse than a sex tape of the president?” I ask.
I leave Andrei’s house tied up in knots. I’ve now confirmed that there’s a video, which is crucial. But I’ve also confirmed that it’s not a sex tape of the president and his mistress, which is just as significant. And that means I screwed up this morning, when I tried to bluff Craig Carney. And it’s going to cost me.
Carney’s smart, very smart. When I told him I had a copy of the video, he challenged me. He asked me what was on the video. And I gave the wrong answer. So now he knows I’m bluffing.
The video, I now see, has been my chit all along. Carney’s been pressuring me in every way imaginable—threats of prosecution, threats against Anne, shutting down my website, and freezing my assets—but he hasn’t gone all the way and let the local cops arrest me yet. Of course not. Because he was afraid I had a copy of the video and I’d make it public. He was never sure if I had that video.
But now he knows I don’t.
I’ve been playing checkers while the CIA has been playing chess. And now we’re at checkmate. Craig Carney has no fear of me now.
I call my lawyer, Eddie Volker. I assume he’s been trying to reach me but doesn’t know how.
“Ben, I’ve been trying to reach you,” he says when he answers. “I’ve got some bad news.”
I take a long breath and look to the sky. “The Metropolitan Police Department has issued a warrant for my arrest,” I say.
“Yeah, that’s right. How did you know?”
“Let me guess,” I say. “It was issued about, oh, ten thirty or so this morning.”
“That’s right. How did you know that?”
Because I got off the phone with Carney about ten fifteen this morning. He wasted no time, I see. As soon as he realized I didn’t have the video, he pulled the trigger. He took the leash off of Detective Liz Larkin.
“You have to turn yourself in,” says Eddie. “Every cop in this town is hunting for you. You’re a cop killer to them, Ben. You don’t stand a chance.”
Having missed my planned meeting with Sean Patrick Riley, I call him to reschedule. We agree to meet at a bar and grill on Rhode Island Avenue. This better be good, because I’m living on borrowed time now. It’s one thing to hide from a handful of Russians who are positioned around the capital hoping to spot me. It’s another to be on the radar of every MPD cop who patrols the capital on foot or by car.
Riley’s already sitting in the dining area munching on some chicken wings when I arrive. (God, that looks great—eating pub food and having a few beers, as though you don’t have a care in the world.) Like most restaurants, this one seems to be full of people in a relatively festive mood, albeit tempered somewhat by the events of this afternoon. The networks have been covering the explosion on 22nd Street nonstop since it happened, and most people are calling it an aborted terrorist attack on the White House.
“Think it was the Muslims?” Sean asks me when I join him in the booth. That’s the big question everyone’s asking—who were these guys in the SUV? The knee-jerk reaction is that they were Islamic terrorists from Asia or Africa, but eyewitness accounts make them for Caucasian, which cuts against the idea of Islamic radicals, though it doesn’t exclude the possibility.
No one will ever know the answer to that question, because with the amount of explosives they detonated, the Russians’ bodies are in hundreds of pieces.
“Let’s do this, Sean,” I say.
Riley brandishes a piece of paper. (I’m not in the mood for a debate. I say you can brandish paper.) “An e-mail that Nina Jacobs received. Dated August fourth. This is the week before Nina had her mail and newspaper stopped.”
I look at the paper Riley hands me:
From: “Diana M. Hotchkiss”
To: “Nina Jacobs”
Just checking in!
Hey, Kiddo…just touching base. All set for next week? It’s a really big favor and IOU big! Please feel free to eat whatever in the fridge, use the landline, wear ANY of my shoes, and of course don’t forget to feed Cinnamon!
xxoo
Di (p.s. I know this all seems kind of weird but will explain later!)
“Bizarre,” says Riley. “I mean, Diana Hotchkiss is the suicide, the one who jumped off her balcony. From this, it sure looks like Nina was house-sitting for her.”
Yeah, it sure does. I figured that some way, somehow, somebody got Nina into Diana’s apartment and got her to dress in Diana’s clothes. What I didn’t know was who. Who set up Nina? Who talked her into doing this, suspecting—or maybe even
knowing
—that it would get Nina killed?
And now I know. It was Diana. Diana set up her friend Nina.
So I guess I didn’t know Diana at all. All that time I spent with her, and it turns out she was a fraud, a complete mystery to me.
“I have a theory,” says Riley. “Want to hear it?”
I try to maintain an even keel, keep my composure, as it dawns on me what I have now learned about Diana. It’s almost incomprehensible that she’d set up her friend Nina like that.
Maybe she didn’t. Maybe someone else sent this e-mail from her account. I don’t know. But this can’t be. I couldn’t have been
that
wrong about Diana—
“So do you want to hear my theory or not?” asks Sean Patrick Riley.
I left Diana’s apartment just before ten, as she had requested of me over the phone earlier that day. But I just barely made that deadline, having been a bit distracted by Diana’s lingerie and sex toys. Nina Jacobs must have gotten off the elevator and walked into the apartment only minutes, if not seconds, after I scooted out the fire escape.
And someone—our government, the Russians, the Chinese, take your pick—pushed Nina off the balcony only minutes later.
“Sean,” I say.
“It’s a crazy theory,” Sean says.
“No, I—”
“Maybe it wasn’t Diana Hotchkiss who fell from that balcony. Maybe it was
Nina
. Maybe Diana Hotchkiss set up Nina to be there so—”
“Sean, listen to me. Listen to me carefully. Go home.”
He draws back. “Come again?”
“Go back to Chicago. You’ve done your part. This is enormously helpful. This proves what I’ve thought all along.”
“What have you thought all along?” he demands. “What the fuck is this about?”
I sigh. “This is about an SUV detonating today. This is about a conspiracy and cover-up all the way to the Oval Office.”
Sean Patrick Riley watches me for a long time before he speaks. “The fuck it is.”
“No foolin’, Sean. Diana was in the middle of something big. SUVs-exploding-in-the-capital big. Poor Nina was an unknowing pawn in a high-stakes game. I think Nina is lying in a morgue with a tag on her toe that says ‘Diana Hotchkiss.’ And as much as I don’t want to believe it, the evidence you just gave me doesn’t lie. She was wearing Diana’s clothes and staying in her house. She was pretending to be Diana, Sean. She was set up. And you’ve just helped me prove it.”
It takes him a while, but even a skeptical ex-cop like him can’t deny the e-mails he himself found. E-mails that were carefully deleted, that couldn’t even be discovered in the e-mail program’s trash. E-mails that were deleted by a pro, and that could only be discovered by a fellow expert that Sean hired to conduct a forensic examination of Nina’s computer.
“So that’s why you wanted me to do the forensic review of her computer,” he mumbles. “You figured there might be something like this on here.”
Right. Hooray for me. “People will kill you for knowing this,” I say. “So go back to Chicago. In a couple of days, this will all be over, one way or the other. If I don’t survive this, then run with what you know. You can wait that long, can’t you? Nina’s not going to get any deader.”
He argues the point. I don’t know if I’ve convinced him or not. But I do know that I have to get out of here, separate myself from him, and keep on the move.