The Insider (31 page)

While being studiously disregarded by the man behind the desk, Will examined his surroundings. The office was surprisingly well appointed, considering it was located in the back room of a dive restaurant. The walls were decorated with framed Kandinsky lithographs. On a corner of the mahogany desk sat a large amber paperweight with a spindly primordial insect imprisoned inside.

After a few protracted moments, the man looked up and trained his deep-set, pale gray eyes on Will.

“Will Connelly.” He had a heavy Russian accent and a voice that glided from one note to another like an oboe.

“Yes.”

“My name's Boris. My friends call me Boka. Do you know who I am?”

“The boss?” Will ventured.

This drew an approximation of a smile. “Yes. Exactly so.” The smile hung frozen on his face like a theatrical scrim, concealing as much as it displayed.

“You've got balls showing up here like this,” Boka said. “But it is not good for either of us. It reflects poor judgment. Makes me wonder who the fuck I am dealing with.”

“I got tired of waiting for something to happen.”

“He wants something to happen,” Boka said to the tracksuits, amused. Then, to Will, “You pull shit like this, something is going to happen, but I don't think you are going to like it very much.” One of them snorted appreciatively.

“But you are clearly an impatient man,” Boka said, “so I will get to the point. You have cost me a lot of fucking money. The only reason you're not dead right now is because it was not your idea.”

“I never told them to put money in Jupiter stock.”

“Yes,” Boka said. “I believe that's what I just said.” He paused, then resumed in a calmer, didactic tone. “Do you know how many imbeciles I deal with in the course of a day?”

Will decided that the question was rhetorical.

“Fear makes people stupid. And when someone is sitting where you are sitting right now, they are usually afraid. I try to reassure them, calm them down, but it is no use. So all day long I find myself dealing with idiots, people who are so focused on their own fears, their own needs, that they have lost the ability to listen.” He gently tapped his forehead once with the flat of his palm. “Their eyes never stop moving. They are unable to concentrate, unable to help themselves. It can be quite frustrating. I'm sure you encounter this in your profession.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I am going to try to forget about the many foolish things that you have done and assume that you are a person of intelligence. I will speak to you directly, with respect. And I will expect the same in return.”

Will nodded.

“Okay. You have spoken to the federal agents. What have you told them about us?”

“Nothing. I've said nothing to them about any of you.” Will decided that this answer, in addition to being true, was probably the least dangerous.

“But surely you must have said something to them about Nikolai or Yuri?”

“No.”

“What about Valter . . . and Katya?”

“No.”

“So you have not explained to them how you got involved in that ugly scene at the parade? It is only natural to want to explain yourself.”

“I just listened to what they had to say, then I asked for my lawyer.”

“You cannot make
this
stop by asking for a lawyer, though, can you?”

Boka picked up a stick of rock sugar from a saucer and swirled it in a cup of tea that sat on his desk. He sipped the tea and, unsatisfied, stuck the rock sugar in his mouth like a lollipop. In the silence of the room, Will could hear the crystals click against his teeth.

“You know that we could be taking a more . . .
rigorous
. . . approach.” Boka uttered the word with the clinical but freighted intonation of a doctor describing a radical therapy.

“Yes.”

“Methods that would make that blade that Nikolai and Yuri used on you seem gentle by comparison.”

“Yes, I appreciate that.”

Boka gave a small, dry laugh that sounded more like a clearing of the throat. “Now when you say
that
, I believe it.” He waved his hand. “Please, keep talking. Tell me more about your conversation with the agents.”

“If I told them what I know about Nikolai and Yuri and the rest, then they would know that I was guilty of securities fraud. It was in my own best interest to keep quiet and let my lawyer handle things. If I incriminate myself, I'll never practice law again.”

“Is it that important to you? Practicing law?”

“It's what I do.”

“I see. But how do we know that your lawyer is not simply getting you the best deal in exchange for what you know about us? Maybe they are telling you that you can still salvage your career if you testify.”

“Because we don't think they have a case against me that will stand up.”

Boka started to nod. “And why is that?”

“With Nikolai and Yuri dead, there is nothing to directly link me to the trading in Jupiter stock. It's not enough for a criminal prosecution.”

“No smoking gun, as you say.”

“Right. So there's no need for me to make a deal.”

“I hope you aren't tempted to give them information just because you think we are bad men who belong in jail.”

“I really don't know anything about you.”

“I hope you know enough to be scared. You should also know that we have this.” Boka reached into his desk drawer and held up a cell phone. “This is Ben Fisher's phone, with the video implicating you in his murder. I think Detective Kovach would find this very interesting. And then, of course, there's your mother—and the girl, Claire.”

“Clearly, you've got me. So what do you want from me?”

“I want two things. The first is your silence. But I don't want you to just say it. I must know that it is true. You know, in many ways, it would be simpler just to kill you. But the Department of Justice is already watching us, and they know that we may be connected to this matter. If we killed a potential witness, they would be swarming around here like gnats for the next year. That kind of attention adds to the cost of doing business. For now, they are focused on Yuri and Nikolai, who were outsiders, for all their ambitions. And that's how it will stay.”

“You can trust me to remain silent.” Will's eyes wandered to a plaque on the wall behind Boka's desk. Inlaid in lacquered oak and brass was a photo of a girls' soccer team. The players looked to be about eleven years old. Standing in the center of the picture and beaming with pride was Boka. He was wearing a soccer jersey and a chrome-plated whistle hung from his neck.

Boka noticed Will looking at the picture. He picked up the amber paperweight and rolled it from one hand to the other. “We are not afraid of Justice or the FBI. They've been trying to make a case against us for years. But if they can't put you in jail, then they think they have to at least harass you to justify their miserable fucking existences. You see, if we kill you, then I'm going to have to explain to my daughter Natalya why there are men sitting in the stands at her soccer match taking pictures of me, making their rude and unfunny jokes. And I would rather not have to do that. Besides, my girls are going to be defending their league championship this season. They need to focus.”

“If you let me walk out of here, I swear you will never hear from me again.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but if I have you shot and buried in a construction site, I won't hear from you again, either.”

“What do you want me to say? I won't talk. I don't really know anything, anyway.”

Boka studied him for a bit. “Then I'm going to ask you another question,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I want to know if you have the encryption keys for what they call the Clipper Chip. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?”

“Yes, but I don't have them.”

“You should answer me truthfully, Will.”

“Yuri and Nikolai wanted me to get them, but I didn't know how. Jupiter uses every high-tech security measure imaginable to protect those encryption keys.”

“I was wondering why Nikolai and Yuri would chase you like that at the parade.”

“I really don't know—I thought they just wanted to kill me. They didn't have a chance to say anything to me before they died.”

Once more, Boka studied him. Will was certain that his face revealed just how addled by fear he was.

“I'm glad that you came here,” Boka said. “It gives me a chance to see if you seem clever enough to know what is best for you. Some decisions must be based on personal observation.”

Finally, Will asked the question that he knew could be his last: “So, what have you decided?”

“I think I will let you live—let you carry on with your fucked-up life. Aren't you going to say
thank you
?”

“Thanks.”

“You know, Will, we don't like civilian casualties. We've already had one in this matter. Besides, you did not seek us out. We came to you. If you were some fool who had borrowed money from us, or came to us with his fucked-up business, that would be another story. Then I would have to kill you—as a matter of principle. Also, you are lucky that Nikolai and Yuri were freelancers. If you had been responsible for the deaths of men who really worked for me then, again, I would have had to kill you.”

“I'm grateful. But can I ask you a question?”

“Okay.”

“I believe that you were working with someone at the law firm. Someone other than Ben Fisher. I would like to know who that is. In exchange for my silence.”

“I am letting you live in exchange for your silence. Isn't that enough?” Boka paused. “Did Katya say something to you?”

“No, it just seems logical.”

“You are pressing your luck, Will Connelly.”

“You think I've been lucky?”

“You are the luckiest son of a bitch alive on the planet,” Boka said, casting a meaningful look at the two men in tracksuits.

Will recognized with a queasy shock that Boka's look was meant to convey irony. He was making a joke that he thought Will was too stupid and distracted to appreciate. Will was anything but lucky, because Boka did intend to have him killed after all. He just wasn't going to do it in the restaurant, which was his base of operations. The FBI and DOJ probably had the place under surveillance. Boka was simply taking advantage of the opportunity that Will had provided to question him about his conversations with the federal agents and try to determine whether Will had the encryption keys. Because Will had apparently convinced Boka that he'd been unable to obtain the keys, Boka saw no further reason to let him live.

Boka waved his hand with an air of exasperation. “We're done here. Go. Go now.”

Will rose from the chair slowly and walked somewhat unsteadily to the door, still uncertain whether he would feel the impact of a bullet before he could turn the knob. He felt an overpowering sense of relief as he opened the door and entered the hallway leading back to the restaurant.

Katya was gone. A cadre of elderly Russians played cards at a corner table. Will hurried out of the smoky restaurant, and his head immediately felt clearer in the fresh air. He walked quickly down Geary for several blocks, looking behind him repeatedly for a glimpse of a tracksuit or a slow-moving sedan.

He cast a suspicious glance into a Russian grocery, momentarily struck by the paranoid notion that the man behind the butcher's counter with the bloodstained apron was watching him. Staring at the butcher through the plate glass window covered with Cyrillic lettering, the scene looked like a frame from an incomprehensibly subtitled foreign film.

As he put more blocks between himself and the restaurant, he grew more confident that he was not being followed. He walked on past the alternating Russian and Korean establishments until he stopped before an onion-domed Russian Orthodox church, which was incongruously adjacent to a Shell station.

Passing through this patchwork neighborhood, he did not get the sense of a transplanted culture with its roots sunk deep, as he did in New York's Little Italy or San Francisco's own Chinatown. Instead, the various Russian, Korean, and Thai merchants looked like they were fighting a losing battle to preserve their tenuous beachheads on Geary Street against the encroachments of 7-Elevens, Taco Bells, and Jiffy Lubes.

He entered a Russian deli and wandered the aisles, examining the foreign labels with their cartoonish depictions of black bears and Cossacks in fur hats. The Russian émigrés who were the store's customers took their time at the counter to speak in Russian with the proprietor behind the register, which seemed to be as much a part of the transaction as the purchases of smoked salmon and pickled herring. Will watched the dark-haired, high-cheekboned people file in and out of the store. He found it difficult to imagine that someone he knew formed the link between himself, this insular community, and the thieves' world that existed beneath it.

Will compiled a mental list of the Reynolds attorneys who had played roles in the deal. There was Dave Gleason, the securities specialist. Judy Carlson, the fifth-year associate who had drafted several sections of the merger agreement. Richard Grogan and Sam Bowen, the heads of the corporate department, who had ensured that the deal was appropriately staffed with associates and provided veteran advice on managing board communications. And, of course, Claire had led the due diligence team. Although he still had no proof, he felt certain that Richard Grogan was the attorney who was working with the Russians. It explained why Richard had been so determined to have Claire fired right after she uncovered the connection between Jupiter and the NSA.