I sat at the gate with my back against the wall, looking at everyone.
I connected to GOTOMYPC.COM, looked in on Powder Springs.
The boys were in the den, watching television, while Catherine hurried around the house. She picked up picture frames, books, rushed from room to room inspecting anything she thought might have a camera inside. I backed up the footage. She was tearing the house apart. The time stamp told me she had started as soon as I had pulled away. She had raced inside her bedroom. I couldn’t see what she did in her bedroom, but when she came out, one hand was on her waist, the other pulling her hair, trying to figure out a puzzle. She was on a mission.
I sat down
in first class. Sat next to a clean-shaven Russian who had salt-and-pepper hair and a handsome face that looked like an older George Clooney from some angles and Cary Grant from other angles. A chisel-chinned man who fancied double-breasted suits. A man who had on white shoes. He put his ticket down on his armrest, the name Archibald Leach printed out across the slip of paper. He wasn’t Archibald Leach.
That chisel-chinned man’s birth name was Konstantin Pentkovski. He was one of the men who had trained me in this business. He was looking at a video on his iPhone. It looked like a ferocious John Woo movie. Explosions. Men being gunned down. Heads exploding.
But it wasn’t a movie.
It was footage from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
That bloodbath pulled my attention.
A big man boarded the plane. A man so large he had to bend over so his head didn’t bump the top of the cabin. Black suit, white shirt, red tie. Shoes polished to a spit shine. His calloused hands didn’t match his clothes. He had one piece of carry-on and an old winter coat with him. He sat in first class, across the aisle from Konstantin and his white shoes. The big man looked nervous, uncomfortable. My mind moved from Powder Springs toward South America. The doors to the plane closed. Then something happened. There were several audio dings. Alerts. The lead flight attendant went to the front. The doors to the plane were opened. Security stepped on the plane and handed the flight attendant a slip of paper. Security was always a bad sign. Three names were called. Archibald Alec Leach. That was Konstantin. They called James Sawyer. That was the big man in first class. Then they called John Michael Kane. That was me.
I knew that Konstantin and me could handle whatever happened.
The big guy was new to this business. The big guy was Alvin White.
Chapter 30
trapped
Airport security surrounded us
like prison guards.
Led by a silent team of guns and badges, we were taken to another part of the airport. Nobody said anything. A stack of dead bodies was on my mind, starting in North Carolina and ending with Hopkins. I’d only talk if they asked questions, and depending on the question, might not talk then. We were put in the backseats of three different security cars and driven across the tarmac with lights flashing. It was about a two-mile ride to an isolated section that had a fleet of private planes. There we were taken out of the cars and led by the officers. We weren’t in handcuffs. We grabbed our bags, and the officers walked in front of us until we made it to the roll-up stairs. We were escorted to a different plane. It was a Gulfstream G550. An ultra-long-range business jet that had four living areas, three temperature zones, and Rolls-Royce engines.
Four flight attendants greeted us. A slender Ethiopian with long wavy hair, beautiful skin, and keen features. A modelesque Russian. A gorgeous Arabian princess with an hourglass figure and a French accent that sounded like soft jazz on Sunday morning. And a Brazilian with heavenly curves that set a new standard for beauty. Professional women wrapped in class and dressed in red uniforms dabbed with soft perfumes.
Three hired guns and four attendants took up cabin space on a luxury plane big enough to hold eighteen, three times that if they were partying like they were at the Hard Rock. This plane had been arranged by Scamz. Konstantin told me that he had sent Scamz my request for a private plane to Buenos Aires. We’d been pulled out of a flying Motel 6 and put inside a flying Four Seasons.
Then I realized I had made a mistake. The plane wasn’t a G550.
We were inside a G650. A Gulfstream that wasn’t officially on the market yet. A plane that could fly at supersonic speeds and could cover 7,000 nautical miles on one tank of gas. I’d flown a Cessna. But this was like being snatched out of a Pinto and thrown inside a Lamborghini. Full kitchen. Bar. Satellite phones. Wireless Internet. Entertainment center. One hundred thousand pounds of plane that cost fifty-eight million. The kind of plane the super-rich had, the kind that could land at any airport, large or small. Which meant it could slip onto a small island or into a large country. A good way to avoid air traffic and land in Argentina undetected.
Konstantin stopped and went to the cockpit. Met the pilot. Looked the plane over.
I looked out the window.
We had our bags with us, but they were loading metal containers on the aircraft. High-speed private planes were used for the same reason high-speed boats were used in Miami. To move illegal cargo the shipper didn’t want in reach of the long arm of the law.
Konstantin came and looked out a window, saw what I saw.
I said, “This is one hell of an upgrade.”
Konstantin nodded. “I’m not impressed. And you shouldn’t be either. Our flight time has just been cut in half, more or less. They are rushing us there. Not a good sign.”
The Brazilian flight attendant asked if we needed anything right away. Said there was a catalog of movies and music. Then she told us we could spread out and have our own sections of the plane if we needed privacy.
We sat down in the section the farthest from the cockpit. The leather furniture felt like warm butter. I took to a massive recliner. Alvin White took to the largest sofa I’d seen in a while.
Konstantin stood near me. “
Ty skazal chto on ne umeet chitat?
”
You said he can’t read.
I responded in Russian, “
Net, no on horosh s pistoletom.
”
No, but he’s good with a gun.
Konstantin nodded. “
On ubijza?
”
He’s killed before?
I looked at Alvin, then back at Konstantin.
“Pomog mne. Prikonchil dvooh dlya menya.”
Helped me out. Took out two men on my behalf.
Konstantin took in Alvin before he spoke again. “
On zdorovyj myzhik. Oni ego pristrelyat v pervuyu ochered’ esli delo do etogo doidiot.
”
He’s a big guy. Would be the first thing they tried to shoot, if it came to that.
Again I nodded. “
Ny my ego pristroim
.”
We’ll find a way to use him.
Konstantin said, “
I esli ja s nim ne polazhy, ja ego sam prikonchyu.
”
And if I have a problem with him, I will put him down.
Russian gangsters were ruthless. No compassion. They would do a blackout, kill the whole family, women, children; would put a bullet in everyone and the dog.
That was the cloth Konstantin was cut from.
He took to another recliner and faced Alvin. Konstantin was finished with me. For now. I knew to stay out of the next conversation before it started. I picked up a newspaper they had on board.
La Nación
. Pretended to read an article. “
El rapero Lil Wayne hace música para tontos
.”
Konstantin looked at the big man. “So you’re the guy Gideon wants to take a chance on.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re as big as Nikolai Valuev.”
“Almost. He got me by a couple of inches on height. Not on reach, though.”
“What’s your name?”
“Alvin White.”
“Your other name.”
“Shotgun.”
“Alvin White is your real name?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Never use it. Don’t ever say it again. The one on your passport, that is who you are.”
“James Sawyer.”
“If that’s what it says on your papers, that’s who you are.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nothing in your pockets with your real name on it? No family pictures? No credit cards?”
“Nothing but the passport Gideon arranged for me to have. That and a few dollars.”
“You’re big enough to hurt more than a few people. But have you killed anybody?”
“Yes, sir. I have.”
“Would you hesitate to do it again?”
“No, sir. I wouldn’t.”
“Answer me this, Shotgun. Ever killed a woman?”
Shotgun paused. “No, sir.”
“Can you?”
He paused again. “Sir . . .”
“Because a woman will kill you. If you see a woman and can’t do the same thing you say you can do to a man, we’ll send you to an airport and get you back to Georgia the minute we land in South America. You go back home and pretend you never met me and you erase Gideon from your memory, because if you cause me a problem, that problem won’t last for long.”
“I understand.”
“I’ll tell you I’m not too happy having to meet you this way. Not under these circumstances. You haven’t been vetted. You think on that, big man. You think on that. I’m going to show you some footage. A woman is in this group. She’s the perfect example of what I mean. Ruthless and professional. She moves and kills just as good as the next man.”
“Okay, sir.”
“You’re nervous.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“First time on an airplane.”
There was a pause.
Konstantin asked, “How do you travel?”
“Car. Greyhound sometimes, if we have the money.”
Konstantin smiled, his grin thin.
Shotgun smiled a little too.
Then Shotgun said, “Mind if I sit by the window for a minute or two? Would like to look out and see what the world looks like from way up in the clouds.”
“It’s nighttime.”
“That don’t matter. I have to look at something to stop looking at those pretty women.”
“They are a distraction.”
“Yes, sir. A couple of them keep looking at me and smiling.”
“Go look out the window, Shotgun. I need to speak with my son, Gideon.”
“Anybody ever tell you that you sound like Al Pacino?”
Konstantin nodded. He’d heard that a thousand times before.
Shotgun moved to the end of the sofas and looked out at the world.
First time in a plane and Shotgun was in a Gulfstream 650, flying somewhere between Mach .85 and Mach .90. The monitors told us that we were flying at 700 miles per hour. The speed of sound was 770. We were covering one mile every five seconds. We were flying above fifty thousand feet. Above air traffic. Above bad weather. Right below satellites and a hint of God’s frigid breath. I had never flown this high or this fast and wanted to look out the window too, but I faced Konstantin. I faced the man who had been a father to me.
Konstantin said, “
On ne durak. Y nego umnoe lizco. Kogda v kostyume, ja-by podumal chto on bankir, eslib on nebyl takim muskulistym. Nado chto-by on byl bystree. On-to umnyj, no on dolzhen byt’ bystree
.”
He doesn’t look dim-witted. He has a smart face. In the suit, I’d think he was a banker, if he wasn’t so muscular. He needs to be quick. He looks smart, but he needs to be quick.
“
On bystryi
.”
He’s quick.
“
Pistolet ili ruzhjo?
”
Handgun or shotgun?
“
I to i drugoe. No pistolet emy bolshe podhodit
.”
Both. But the shotgun suits him better.
He said, “Thieves in law.”
I said, “
Vory v zakone
.”
We had our own rules. We had our own law.
Konstantin was battling prostate cancer. It didn’t show, not to the average eye, not to someone who had just met him. But I had known him for almost a decade. After I had made that trip to the End of the World and Beginning of Everything, I had been sent to Konstantin.
I said, “How’s the cancer? The chemo?”
He waved like it was nothing. “I’m still aboveground.”
“I didn’t want you in on this.”
“Well, I didn’t want you in on this.”
I left it at that.
He said, “Hawks called when I was at the airport. Said you hung up on her.”
“Keep her out of this.”
“Said she wants to help. I told her it wasn’t my call. She’s stubborn. You know that.”
Konstantin picked up a remote, aimed it at the big flat-screen. The television came on. CNN played in high-definition. Hopkins’ death and financial problems the lead story. A six-billion-dollar fraud. Hopkins was dead, and people were panicking. He had owned major shares in restaurants in the Lesser Antilles, gyms, had investments in banks, parking lots, high-rises, newspapers, had offices in Nashville, Dallas, London, Japan, and Buenos Aires. He had been accused of money laundering for notorious Mexican drug cartels, for triads, for a dozen underworld organizations. News showed photos of Hopkins shaking hands with politicians who had been bamboozled. Thieving politicians bamboozled by a con man. Irony and justice. There were many others on that list. Close to forty thousand clients in more than one hundred countries. Plenty of greedy bastards. The list of people who wanted him in the ground was as long as the miles being covered on this flight. The list of people who had died was just as long.
Hopkins was in the same league as Madoff and Stanford.
That had to be the money people were slaughtering each other to get their hands on. That was what Scamz and Arizona had been up to for the past year.
And that missing part of the package was the key. One of the keys.
The Russian and Ethiopian flight attendants brought us champagne. Then they brought us hot towels to clean our hands. The Arabian princess came close; her ethnic features and the complexion of her skin reminded me of the Lebanese girl from Starbucks in Florida, my other unsolved problem. A threat that could have Catherine and the boys in jeopardy. The Arabian princess saw my expression and looked nervous. She had come with a cart filled with food. Black lumpfish caviar on toast. Caviar from Petrossian Boutique in Paris. Russian cuisine and Fabergé eggs. Cups of borscht. Tea from London. Fresh luxury chocolates from Paris, small, rich chocolate squares flown in from the store named Christian Constant.