The Insider (26 page)

He was in the middle of a real-life reenactment of that familiar scenario as he sat on the muddy ground in his hiding place. But the terror was not as wild and untrammeled as in the nightmare. He found himself absorbed primarily in pragmatic thoughts of his physical discomfort and routes of escape. Observing his steady hands, smeared with mud, Will thought of Enzo the Baker.

Will checked his watch again—three thirty A.M. Nikolai and Yuri had probably given up their hunt for him by now. Will dislodged himself from the muck and began making his way through the park, skirting the edges of the woods so that he wouldn't stand out.

Will eventually found a cabbie who was willing to pick him up despite his dirty and disheveled appearance. When he arrived at the Holiday Inn on Van Ness, he noticed that the street was festooned with rainbow banners in anticipation of the Gay Pride Parade. By the time Will checked in, he already had the beginnings of a plan for making the exchange.

The next morning, Will didn't dare return to his condo to get clean clothes, so he purchased a new and too-youthful outfit at the Gap: a vivid green-and-blue-striped shirt and a pair of jeans that seemed a little too tight no matter which size he tried. Will no longer looked like something that had crawled from the swamp. In fact, he looked ready for his senior year of high school.

Will returned to his room, showered, and called the Russians.

Will already knew the first question that he wanted to ask. “How did you find us last night?”

“That is none of your fucking business.”

“You want the memory stick, right?”

No response.

“Then you'd better tell me because that's the only way you're going to stop me from going straight into the FBI witness protection program.”

“Ah, I see. You are having doubts about Claire. You think she may have betrayed you? Relationships must be based on trust, my friend.”

Will remained silent, waiting for an answer.

Finally, Yuri spoke. “You shouldn't have used your credit card when you bought the room, fuckhead.”

“No offense, but I'm surprised that you two have the connections to run a trace on a credit card.”

“Not us. The people we work for.
Mafiya
has people inside at the credit card companies. Identity theft is big business for them.” Will shuddered as he realized that it was sheer dumb luck that he had paid for his current room with cash he had gotten from an ATM on Van Ness. If he had used his credit card again, then the Russians would probably already have him. “Any more questions?”

“Yes. Is Claire all right?”

“Sure. That was our deal, right?”

“Put her on the phone.”

A few seconds passed, and then he heard Claire's voice. “Will? Is that you?” She sounded tremulous and distant, but he couldn't tell how much of that was attributable to the weak connection.

“It's me, Claire. Are you okay?”

She seemed not to have heard his question. “Don't try to—they're going to kill you.” There was a scrabbling sound on the line as the phone was taken from her hand.

“There. You see? She's okay. Now can we get on with this? What—”

“If you hurt her, I'm going to make sure that Homeland Security and every anti-terrorism agency in the country knows about that memory stick. If you think the government doesn't like organized crime, wait till you see how they treat terrorists.”

“Where are you? We'll bring her to you.”

“I'll meet you at the corner of Market and Battery. In the middle of the Gay Pride Parade.”

Will heard muffled conversation in Russian as Nikolai discussed the proposal with Yuri. “Okay. We'll meet at noon.”

According to the bedside alarm clock, it was already eleven thirty. “I can't make it there that fast. I'm too far away.”

“Just be there.” The connection went dead.

Will dressed frantically and quickly hailed a cab. As the taxi stalled in traffic, he realized that reaching Market and Battery in a half hour was going to be even more difficult because many streets were blocked for the parade. Festive crowds were migrating toward the parade route on Market Street, adorned in feather boas, leather, and sparkle makeup.

Will finally abandoned the taxi at eleven fifty-five A.M., still three blocks north of Market. He pushed his way through the parade crowd, which ranged from curious straights in jeans and polo shirts to drag queens who had thrown their scant sartorial caution to the wind. As Will approached Market Street, he saw that the parade was underway and was being led by a convertible bearing the parade's grand marshal, the seemingly hungover Sir Ian McKellen, who grimaced in the bright sunshine and waved feebly to the crowd.

He recalled hearing that Reynolds Fincher was organizing a float for the parade, but he had been told that no attorneys would be participating, only gay staff members, of which there were many. In most other cities, an old-guard law firm would probably not have participated so prominently in the parade, but given the political and economic clout of the gay community in San Francisco, Reynolds had decided that it was good business to sponsor a float. Paradoxically, many of the firm's gay and lesbian partners and associates did not seem to feel that it was good business for them to participate personally in the parade, or to be openly gay, for that matter.

Will scanned the throng for a glimpse of Nikolai, Yuri, or Claire, to no avail. The next float to pass had a Wild West theme, with sagebrush and cacti, bearing the slogan LEATHER PRIDE. The float, sponsored by the Leather Community, featured men wearing chaps, cowboy hats, and little else. A few of the leather men brandished bullwhips.

Ordinarily, Will would have enjoyed this uniquely San Franciscan spectacle, as the Gay Pacific Islander and Gay Saudi Arabian delegations filed past, followed by the Dykes on Bikes, several of whom were topless, with buzz cuts and nipple rings. On this day, it barely registered as he tried to locate the Russians.

In order to gain a better view of both sides of the street, Will pushed forward to the iron barricade. He wished that he had specified which side of Market they were to meet on. As he examined the faces, his view was blocked by a shirtless young man bearing a placard that read GAY VEGANS TASTE BETTER. The young man caught Will's grim expression and returned a beaming smile. “Happy Pride!” he said.

“Happy Pride,” Will muttered.

Then Will saw Yuri on the opposite side of the street. Yuri had already spotted him and was baring his tight-lipped, angry smile, waiting for Will to notice him. When their eyes met, Yuri gave him a finger-waggling, homosexual-mocking wave that drew disapproving glares from several people standing nearby. Yuri motioned for him to cross the street.

Will did not see Claire or Nikolai but assumed they must be nearby. He slowly wedged himself through a gap in the barricade and waited as the Bank of America float chugged past.

A cop on horseback about twenty yards away saw Will standing on the wrong side of the barricade and admonished him with a pointed finger.

“Look, a horsey cop,” said a young man standing behind Will.

“This is San Francisco,” his partner corrected him. “The term is
mounted policeman
.”

As he crossed Market Street, Will saw a float bearing down upon him with a dozen men in six-foot-tall wigs, one of which contained a replica of the Transamerica Building. They were belting out a musical number—it was the cast of
Beach Blanket Babylon
.

He was startled when he glimpsed a cop approaching through the crowd. When he turned, however, he saw that it was only a leather man wearing a leather version of a policeman's peaked cap. Refocusing his attention on the south side of Market, he found that he had lost track of Yuri.

Then Will spotted him, standing about ten yards away with Nikolai and Claire under a black fiberglass sculpture. The crowd was less dense there, so he could see them clearly. Claire looked grim and tired, but she did not seem to have been harmed.

Nikolai and Yuri waited for him to approach. Will did not walk over to them immediately, taking a moment to assess the situation. Nikolai noted Will's hesitancy and grabbed Claire by the arm, squeezing it hard enough to make her wince. Will took a step toward them, then another, his eyes darting from Yuri to Nikolai and back again.

Yuri was watching Will while Nikolai scanned the crowd. When Will was still ten yards away, Nikolai froze. He had spotted something or someone. He made a sharp remark to Yuri. After hearing their exchange, Claire started to shout something at Will.

An instant later, Yuri's hand was reaching inside his leather jacket. Will stopped abruptly, as if he had come to the end of a tether.

Yuri drew a pistol from his jacket. In a moment of excruciating clarity, Will saw the glint of afternoon sun on the barrel of the gun, the concentration on Yuri's face as he aimed.

An instant later, Will was shoving his way through the parade crowd, throwing elbows like Shaquille O'Neal. He heard no gunshots. Will managed to make it to Market Street and, drawing several shouts of resistance, clambered over the barricade into the street. He heard the cries multiplying behind him and knew that Nikolai and Yuri were plunging through the throng after him.

As he staggered onto Market Street, he found himself surrounded by a group of men dressed like nuns who had been outfitted at Frederick's of Hollywood. It was the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a troupe of drag queen performance artists. The Sisters took his intrusion in stride—one blessed him, and another attempted to spank him on the ass with a ruler. Standing in the middle of Market Street, with Nikolai and Yuri at the barricades and once more able to take aim at him, he felt more exposed than the burly Sister standing next to him wearing fishnets over a thong.

The Sisters did not have a float that Will could hide behind, so he tried to stay close to the performers while moving against the tide of the parade. When he looked back to spot Yuri and Nikolai, he saw them climbing over the barrier. Will wondered if they were actually brazen enough to shoot him in the midst of a televised parade.

Looking for cover, he was relieved to see a float rumbling toward him. It was a large, rolling lump of papiermâché covered with plastic flowers and bearing the slogan MORE THAN A LAW FIRM and, in smaller letters, CELEBRATE DIVERSITY! REYNOLDS, FINCHER & MCCOMB HONORS SAN FRANCISCO'S LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER COMMUNITIES. The float was manned by about a dozen people who were standing at a low railing along the side throwing Mardi Gras beads to the crowd.

Will scanned the railing for familiar faces. There was Jeannie Cruz, a secretary. Martin Reznik, a librarian.

A string of beads hit him in the chest. When he looked up, he saw that they had been thrown by Craig Logan, a paralegal he had worked with on the Jupiter deal.

“Didn't expect to see you back so soon! Happy Pride!”

Will walked backward to face Craig and keep up with the float. “Can I join you up there?”

“This isn't your coming-out party, is it, Will?” Craig reached down and extended a hand. Will climbed the steps built into the side of the float and joined Craig at the railing.

Craig put his arm around Will's shoulder and looked out at the crowd. “How about a big smile for Don Rubinowski? I'm sure he's watching this at home. He'll be so pleased to see that you've returned to the fold.”

“Craig, I need your help. Is there a place around here where I could hide?”

“Once that closet door is open, Will, there's no more hiding.”

“I'm serious, Craig. I need to get out of sight. Right now.”

“Well, there's a cabin in the back where the driver sits. . . .”

Will inched past a line of bead throwers on the narrow walkway. He reached the rear of the float and opened a hatch to reveal a Teamster sitting behind a steering wheel in a cramped cabin, peering through a narrow window in the float's façade.

Before ducking inside the cabin, Will glanced around for Nikolai and Yuri. It was then that he saw Nikolai beside the float, staring straight at him.

Will leaped over the opposite railing, hitting the pavement with an impact that launched him forward onto his hands and knees. He rose to his feet quickly and, without looking back, sprinted down Market Street in the direction of the parade.

A series of loud pops, each one accompanied by a flat, metallic echo like the sound of an aluminum bat hitting a ball. Gunshots.

There were screams and he heard the parade crowd pressing on itself in panic, the sound of people desperate to run but unable to move.

Will continued to run. He didn't feel as if he had been wounded, but he fully expected his legs to fail him at any moment. Perhaps his life was already leaking out of him, and only adrenaline, that reality suppressant, kept him from recognizing the fact.

He staggered to a halt as he approached a woman who was standing in the center of Market Street, pointing a gun at his chest with legs braced and both hands on the weapon in a perfect Weaver stance. She looked like anyone else in the crowd in her jeans, running shoes, and short-sleeve blouse. She was in her early forties and had a hard face, made harder by dark aviator sunglasses.

“Department of Justice,” she said. “Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your back.”

Will examined the front of his shirt for traces of blood. “Have I been shot?”

“Not yet,” she answered. “And if you don't want to be, you better get down.”

Will placed his palms down on the hot, gasoline-smelling pavement. He was pulled up to his knees, and the agent twisted his hands behind his back. The handcuffs pinched his wrists as they clicked shut. Market Street was no longer rumbling with the vibrations of parade vehicles. The procession had come to a halt, and those who hadn't run for cover at the sound of the gunshots were staring at the scene—the crowds of onlookers on both sides of Market, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Reynolds Fincher staff on the float, and, presumably, the television audience at home.