Authors: Brian Haig
“Miss Parrish?”
She had no choice but to answer truthfully. “Yes.”
“Please ask her why the need for such a team?” MP asked, uncertain how Alex learned this little tidbit, but pushing the point
for all it was worth.
“It wasn’t my decision. I don’t know,” she replied, trying to get off the hook.
“Not your decision?” His Honor asked incredulously.
She replied lamely, “It was a departmental decision.”
MP went for the kill. “Your Honor, please ask her the basis of this decision.”
His Honor was already kneading his temples. “Good idea. Why, Miss Parrish?”
“I have no idea.”
Once again, MP generously came to her aid. “If it pleases the court, I’d like to help my colleague clear up this mystery.”
“It might not please her. It would damn well please me, though,” the judge replied, shoving aside his decorum. He was sorely
tempted to cite her for contempt. He had caught her lying several times. Her credibility was in shambles. Now he questioned
her sanity.
Speaking with all the confidence he could muster, MP claimed, “It’s obvious her own service has doubts about the outlandish
claims made in the Russian press about my client. As for her faith in Russia’s attorney general, it’s obvious her superiors
feel otherwise. They asked the Russians to come over here to prove their case.”
“Is this true?” Judge Everston asked her with a look that nearly peeled the skin from her face.
She toyed with a thousand responses she could give him. Yes, it was true. And also deliberately taken out of context. No,
she better not say that, she promptly decided; Jones would demand to know the right context. The right context was the FBI
director and attorney general wanted this Russian couple expelled, no matter what.
She hated this case. It was rammed down her throat at the last minute, accompanied by dozens of vile threats if she flopped.
But her job was to represent the interests of the United States government as best she could.
“I have no idea,” she snapped spitefully, wondering what her superiors would say when they read the transcript.
“I am placing this case in abeyance,” the judge snapped. He looked long and hard at Kim Parrish. If stares had weight, she’d
be crushed under a hundred tons of barely controlled fury. “This might be the shoddiest case I’ve ever had the displeasure
to observe. I am not happy, Miss Parrish. You’ve asked me to pull the trigger for immediate deportation when the gun’s not
even loaded.”
She summoned the last tiny bit of her courage. “The government requests that Mr. Konevitch remain in custody until we ascertain
the full validity of Russia’s claim.”
The judge reeled back and pretended to be shocked. “Miss Parrish, do you recall the warning I issued two weeks ago?”
“I do, Your Honor.”
“And now you’re asking me to approve indefinite imprisonment while you sort out whether Mr. Konevitch is guilty of crimes
back in Russia?”
“I didn’t say indefinite. We’ll move this as fast as we can and notify the court the moment we’re prepared.”
“And when might that be?”
“A few months at worst. Possibly weeks.” She didn’t have a clue.
“Mr. Jones?”
Predictably, MP looked like a jackhammer was pulverizing his big toe. “It is grossly unfair for my client to remain in custody
because the government arrested him on such spurious grounds. It’s outrageous and—”
Parrish cut him off. “The alternative is that we release a possible criminal to escape his crimes, and possibly sin again.
He has the resources, and he has fled before. As the huge volume of news accounts attest, Mr. Konevitch is an infamous fugitive
in Russia. A celebrity thief. His case is being monitored closely by Russia’s highest leaders and by his own people. Russia
has made clear that the handling of this case will merit a strong reciprocal response. Thousands of American citizens are
in Russia. They’re at risk. We recognize and apologize for any inconvenience this causes Mr. Konevitch. But we emphasize the
needs of the state over his personal comfort.”
The slew of news stories in the boxes two feet from the judge’s long nose suddenly weighed ten legal tons. The judge stared
at the boxes that attested very clearly to Konevitch’s infamy in Russia. For once, she had a good point.
His Honor removed his glasses and leaned forward. “With considerable reluctance, I’ll approve this request, until this thing
gets sorted out.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
“Oh, don’t thank me, Miss Parrish. But do listen closely. I want Mr. Konevitch transferred to a federal facility. Get him
out of that nasty holding cell.”
“I understand.”
“Find him a nice, comfortable place. I want him not overly taxed by our obvious inefficiency. Is this clear?”
“You have my word.”
He bent far forward. “One of those country clubs with tennis courts, big-screen TVs hooked to satellites, and all the good
food he can stand. A nice, white-collar environment without walls or barbed wire, where the worst lowlife in there is a tax
cheat.”
“I understand.”
“The next time I see Mr. Konevitch I want him fat and tanned. He better be bored with gardening, and listening to all those
fatcat Wall Street lizards brag about their schemes.”
“You have my word.”
“I protest,” MP said.
“Of course you do,” His Honor said quickly, as he lunged out of his seat and fled from his own court.
T
he thrashing was horrible. Nothing less than deeply humiliating. It was the first time Kim Parrish had met the attorney general
and FBI director. Oh, let it be the last, she prayed as they verbally tore into her. She gritted her teeth and mentally cursed
both of them. Neither was in her chain of command, but they were enormously powerful people, and it stung.
Her own director chose to stand off to the side, eyeing the line of fire and avoiding it at all costs.
She had turned fifty years old only two weeks before. Same age as the attorney general. Twelve years older than Tromble. Yet
they lashed into her like a little schoolgirl who had failed to finish her homework.
“It’s not all lost,” Parrish protested weakly, almost vainly, avoiding their damning eyes. “He’s still in custody. We’ll have
our day in court again.”
“His ass should already be on a plane back to Russia,” Tromble yelled, slapping a hand on a table. “You blew it. A knockdown
case, and you just blew it.”
“It wasn’t my decision to bring in the Russian prosecutors. I had them on the ropes until Jones used that ace.”
“How did Jones learn about it?” the attorney general asked, plainly puzzled.
Kim Parrish shrugged. “You tell me.”
Tromble stared down at his shoes. The profligate product of the wiretaps on Jones’s office had been quietly reviewed that
afternoon by a team of ten agents. No mention of it. Not in Jones’s phone calls. Not even in private conversations inside
his office. Not a hint, not a word.
He glowered at the INS director. “Your operation leaks like a sieve. Wasn’t this Jones guy once one of your lawyers? Obviously
one of your people tipped him.”
“Maybe it was one of your people,” Parrish’s boss punched back, just as nasty now that the thrashing shifted toward him. “Myself
and Miss Parrish were the only ones who knew. I sure as hell didn’t let him know.”
“When do these Russians arrive?” Laura Tingleman asked, cutting off the discourse. She hated confrontation.
“Could be months,” Tromble replied, and with that, he suddenly had a new idea.
“Then another month or two for them to pass off their knowledge to one of your attorneys,” Tingleman calculated to the director
of the INS, choosing her language carefully, deliberately avoiding Parrish’s eyes. That pointed “one of your attorneys” line
was a clear shot—this girl either kicks it up a notch or find a replacement.
“Sounds about right,” Parrish’s boss replied, notably not going to Parrish’s defense.
“So this might take six months?” Tingleman asked.
Tromble smiled and nodded. “Maybe longer. A year is a possibility. You’ll have to call this judge,” he advised her. “Tell
him to be patient. Emphasize the importance of this thing.”
She nodded.
Parrish’s boss said, “I’ll assign two more attorneys to Parrish’s team. That’ll speed things up.”
Tromble looked at him like he was an idiot. “No you won’t.”
“I won’t?”
“As long as Konevitch is in custody, what’s the rush?”
“Hey, I’ve been your whipping boy every day to get this thing done. Why the sudden change of heart?”
The question did not faze him in the least. “Miss Parrish has been under unbearable pressure. Look at her, she’s obviously
exhausted. But the timing’s no longer in the defense attorney’s hands, is it? She needs to take her time, get this thing done
right.”
The sudden shift to kindness was unnerving. Tromble walked across the room and slapped Kim Parrish on the back. “Good luck,
Counselor. Knock a home run next time, or else.”
The meeting was suddenly over, to everybody’s surprise and Kim Parrish’s complete delight. She nearly left a smoke trail she
moved out so fast.
Then it was just Tromble and the attorney general. Alone. The two of them, together, all by themselves in the big office filled
with overwhelming burdens and responsibilities.
Tromble turned to her and observed, “The judge released Konevitch to your custody. The second you give the word, he’s going
into a federal prison.”
“Well, there’s that very nice one in Pennsylvania. The one where all the Wall Street fat cats go. Out in the countryside.
I hear it’s lovely in a pastoral sort of way.”
Tromble said, not very pleasantly, “You’re not really going to let some pissant immigration hack boss you around, are you?
Just roll over and bark for that guy?”
That stung. Tromble was right, though; he was a lowly immigration judge in a backwater court. And she was, after all, the
attorney general. Her eyes were glued to his face. “What do you have in mind, John?”
“You understand how important this case is?”
“Remind me.”
“The Russian mobs are climbing all over our coastal cities. They’re the newest thing, and it’s not pretty. They earn a ten
on the viciousness scale. And now they’re battling us, the Italian Mafia, and the black gangs, and the Colombians and Mexicans
to get a foothold. The Russians are very good, and very, very violent. They learned how to thrive in the most totalitarian
country on earth. Don’t forget that. Imagine what they can accomplish in our wide-open liberal democracy. We’re frighteningly
vulnerable. Let them get traction, let them have an inch, they’ll become another rooted criminal institution inside this country.
Another cancer that’s impossible to dislodge.”
“And Konevitch is the key to this?” she asked, leaning on her plump elbows and watching him carefully.
“Yes, the Russians are quite clear on this. He’s a very guilty man, Laura. The man stole hundreds of millions. They get Konevitch,
and in turn we get twenty agents in Moscow, with full access to their intelligence about the Mafiya. They’ll assign liaisons
to us, and we’ll trade information back and forth. It’s a gold mine. We’ll break the back of these Russian goons.”
“I see.”
“Understand this, too. This guy Konevitch is sticking his finger in our eye, Laura. It’s a disgrace. The press is watching.
A damned foreigner exploiting our own legal system to make you and me look like eunuchs. It’s very dangerous for us.”
She sank about two more inches into her seat. Her forehead added about ten wrinkles. Left unsaid was that Tromble himself
had issued the boneheaded directive to cream the Konevitches on the front pages, and attracted all the public scrutiny. He
regretted it now—it had been a terrible mistake—but the die was cast. If Konevitch wanted to make this a pissing contest,
a waterfall was about to land on his head.
Tromble placed a hand on her shoulder. “You decide what damned prison he’s going to. If he wants to play games with you, stick
it to him.”
“You’re right,” she said, feeling a sudden burst of something called determination.
“Pick the worst, festering pisshole in the federal system. Put him in with the worst scum in our society. Someplace hot as
Hades, with crap for food, and unrelenting violence. Let him rot and suffer until he begs us to throw him out of this country.”
“I suppose a little softening up might encourage him to see our side,” she agreed.
* * *
Mikhail had managed at last to hide listening devices inside the big black limo. For months he had looked for a chance. There
just had been no openings. And it had to be unquestionably fail-safe; getting caught would blow everything apart. But the
driver had dodged into a coffee shop one cold afternoon, leaving the engine running and doors unlocked. Mikhail gently eased
over, ducked down, and quietly opened a rear side door. He jammed one bug into the deep crevice between the rear cushions.
For insurance, he attached another tightly to the undercarriage of the front seat.
The range was only half a mile, and that was on a clear day. It gave him two important edges, though. He could hear what they
were saying and record every word. And he no longer had to keep the limo in sight during the weekly meetings on the Moskva.
They were oblivious to his presence, so far. But Mikhail intended to die peacefully in his bed at a ripe old age.
The limo was parked there, right now, a few meters to the right of its regular spot overlooking the river. Mikhail was parked
three blocks away, the receiver/recorder in his lap, volume turned up full blast. He was sipping carefully from a large thermos
of coffee and listening intently. Golitsin, then Tatyana, then Nicky sat in the rear, in their usual order, performing their
usual ritual, nursing drinks, arguing back and forth, plotting their next big heist.
Nicky, in his distinctively caustic tone: “I thought you said it was going to be easy. Kid’s play.”
Golitsin: “All right, I lied. So what?”
“So what? Nine of my guys dead. Two of my chophouses blown to pieces, that’s what. Somebody’s screwin’ with my dope business,
too. I had half a million stolen from a pusher last week. Every time I hit Khodorin’s company, I get hit back, twice as hard.”