The First Order

by Jeff Abbott

  “These Russians live with constant security around them. Irina has an entire security team that travels with them, all ex–Russian intelligence or army. We’ll be watched. It wouldn’t surprise me that tonight our room will be searched while we’re at the party.”

  “Someone in that circle is Firebird.”

  “Katya doesn’t seem likely.”

  “She’s in the circle; she can pay his fee and not blink. We need to figure out which one benefits the most.”

  “Are you going to tell me what you think your brother is here doing?” Mila asked. “Are you ready to trust me with the whole story?”

  He sat her down and began, from when he’d found his brother’s apartment.

  33

  The Svetlana, Nassau

  KATYA KIROVA, WHO loved meeting new people, and Stefan Varro, who did not, had been told by their fathers and mothers: Widen your circles. Befriend Americans. Find some nice, easily understood investment opportunities. We need pretty, shiny Americans standing next to us, endorsing us, showing we are not so different from Americans. We all love money. We all want to make money. We are like you, America.

  So, a parade of new faces, and it was Irina Belinskaya’s job to check them out. Today there were forty-seven. The first batch of names on the list included a friend of Stefan Varro’s, Sam Capra and Mila Cebotari, and seven American potential business contacts flying in from the States who were invited by Stefan or Yuri Kirov. The rest were musicians, film actors, writers, the semifamous, flying in for the party. Poor Katya never had business contacts. Except this bar owner, who’d so casually mentioned he’d want to take his Russian bar as a franchise. He was fishing for investors. He was likely to be disappointed. But if Katya wanted to throw money at something—well, a nightclub chain was a likely match.

  He was a handsome one, though. There was a leanness about him, like a knife. Katya would wrap him around her little finger, no doubt, although she wasn’t quite so sure about Mila’s assertion that they were just business partners…There was something between those two, Irina thought, that transcended business.

  Shame, she thought. Sergei had been gone for so long…yet she did not permit herself a man in her life, not beyond a single night. It was a liability. Her reputation did not attract the kind of men she wished. It was not fair but simply was what it was. But Sam, with his nice smile and his lovely eyes…he is too young for you, she thought; he was at least five years younger than her. That shouldn’t matter at all, these days. One could look, though.

  She thought of Sergei. She had loved him so much that his death had been a cancer that lingered and grew and ate away at her for the first year he was gone. Then it had subsided to a dull throb. Unrelenting. And when she saw a handsome man, a man like Sam Capra that she might have enjoyed having dinner with, or talking books with…the ghost of Sergei rose in her heart and she pushed desire away.

  She turned her attention back to her computer, to check on this bar owner and his partner. She was thorough. Belinsky Global Security employed some of the best hackers in Russia, and they had written programs to let her access financial, travel, and banking records. She found nothing suspicious in their digital lives. He really did own many bars.

  She moved down her list to the next name, a friend of Stefan Varro’s whom he had done business with in America for several years. Philip Judge. She checked the man’s credentials, credit history, and more. He seemed clear, and Stefan personally vouched for him. She moved on to the next: a software CEO flying into Nassau for the party. She had several more names to check, and she would not give this job to an assistant. She liked to be thorough herself.

  Because if she found a problem among these people, a liar, a false face, it was best she deal with it quietly and directly.

  34

  The Svetlana, Nassau

  PHILIP JUDGE ARRIVED early for Katya’s party. He was disturbed to see that there were paparazzi outside the private marina, but they ignored him as he arrived. He was not famous. He was cleared through the gate, was cleared through the security stations. A security man confiscated his phone, his wallet, everything. He expected this: He knew the inner-circle paranoia. He came aboard the yacht, where the crew and servers were finishing loading tables with food and drink. Every inch of the deck was in use: the pool had been covered by a durable retractable floor, the helicopter was gone from the yacht’s helipad—in its place an apparently famous progressive-house DJ was setting up for a concert later.

  Stefan nodded at Judge, came forward, and greeted him heartily in English. “Philip! How good of you to come.” Playing the part to the hilt. Judge was relieved.

  He and Stefan grabbed the first pair of champagne flutes off a tray.

  “You’re early,” Stefan said.

  “I can’t stay long.” He noticed a red-haired woman approaching them. Irina Belinskaya. He thought: If you only knew.

  “Irina, this is my old friend Philip Judge.”

  Judge shook her hand. She was attractive, fit like a well-honed athlete, a redhead with piercing blue eyes. Her gaze was shrewd. “Irina Belinskaya.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Sergei was right about his wife. She was smart, poised, beautiful. Irina is my weakness, Sergei had once said, in Brazil. My only weakness.

  Will I ever meet her? Judge had asked.

  No. Never.

  “I heard you say you can’t stay long?” Irina said. “A pity. For an investment counselor, the decks will be thick with potential clients here.”

  “I come more in friendship for Stefan than in commerce.”

  “Then you’re a better friend than most here,” Irina said.

  Stefan laughed. “You’ll see Philip again—I am giving him a ride to Russia.”

  Other guests began to stream past the marina entrance; they saw the flash of paparazzi lights. “Excuse me. Other guests are arriving.” She nodded at Philip Judge and stepped away.

  “Let’s go to your suite and talk privately,” Judge said. He followed Stefan down into the yacht’s depths.

  In the cool of the evening, Sam and Mila walked down to the Svetlana. It was massive. Security men stood ranged along the dock. He recognized some of the people in line: a film actor, a journalist, a pair of sisters who had a reality TV show and who were, like Katya, greatly skilled at getting the paparazzi’s attention. At the boarding ramp stood a portable metal detector and a man with a checklist. And, on the boat’s highest deck, looking down, was Irina Belinskaya, surveying the operation with a careful and practiced eye.

  “Sam…,” Mila said. She saw her, too.

  “Yeah,” he said in answer.

  The couple in front of them were Americans, a little drunk already, claiming that Katya had most certainly invited them. Their names were not on the list. The guard was unrelenting and sent them on their way, not kindly.

  Sam and Mila stepped forward. “Hello, darling,” Mila said to the guard. “Mila Cebotari and Sam Capra.”

  The Russian scanned the list, written in Cyrillic. “Ah. Yes. Thank you and welcome aboard.” He gestured and another man, dressed as a ship’s steward, stepped forward.

  “I’ll take you the next stage of security, Mr. Capra, Ms. Cebotari.” His English was excellent.

  The next stage? “Thank you.”

  They walked through the metal detector and then across a small, festively decorated gangplank and were led to a second staging area, inside the yacht itself.

  “Sir, please empty your pockets again,” the young steward said.

  “Pardon me?” Sam asked, in Russian.

  “The Kirovs are very protective of their privacy. They do not allow…the selfies during the party.” The young guard smiled and produced a velvet-lined steel box. “Your phone, your belongings will be returned to you when you leave the yacht.”

  “I don’t mind giving you my phone, but my wallet?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

  “It will be under lock and key, sir, entirely safe.”

  Sam empti
ed his pockets and Mila removed her small phone and wallet from her purse. “You can’t mean for me to surrender my makeup.” She kept her clutch close.

  “Of course not.”

  The steward smiled politely, closed the steel box, and took it out of sight.

  “Don’t we get a claim ticket?” Sam asked.

  “Not necessary, Mr. Capra. It’s my personal responsibility. Ms. Kirova asked me to let her know when you arrived…This way, please.”

  Five minutes later Irina Belinskaya was searching through the steel box with Sam and Mila’s belongings. She and her team would search every guest’s pocket clutter, looking for listening devices, hidden cameras, weapons, anything that indicated a threat to her clients. There was always a chance that foreign agents—she particularly worried about the US, the UK, Germany, and Israel—would try to infiltrate one of Katya’s parties. Kirov, and the entire circle around Morozov, had many enemies. Or an independent operative, backed by Chechen rebels or Ukrainians or disloyal Russians. Kirov was very close to the president, so he was a target.

  She picked up the phone. Two minutes later one of her operatives left the yacht, heading toward the hotel where Sam Capra and Mila Cebotari had their rooms.

  “What do you want to talk about?” Stefan asked. He set down his vodka on the bedroom table. Judge took a small, polite sip of his beer.

  “Did you get me what I needed?”

  Stefan handed him an electronic card key. “It has master access. I took it from the housekeeping office. It should open any door. So you’re thinking it’s Kirov, or a crew member?”

  “I am saying nothing, Stefan, and please make no assumptions. I want you to stay here for ten minutes. I’ll be back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be back in a few.” Judge slipped out the door.

  Stefan waited. Should he say anything to his father? He dug out his phone, torn with indecision.

  I need the perfect hiding place, Judge thought. He wished he’d had more time to scope out the yacht, but one had to improvise at times. Soon as he was done he’d leave the party behind. From the upper decks he could hear the sound of music, of revelry, of laughter.

  He went down to the lower deck. Smaller cabins for the crew and conference rooms. A server room. Irina Belinskaya’s office.

  He studied the doors. Choose wisely, he thought.

  The party was building toward full voltage—chattering celebrities, pre-concert music from the DJ played low enough that the famous could hear what they were saying, gourmet Russian, American, and Bahamian cuisine being eaten, champagne gulped—when Irina’s operative returned later. He found Irina near the stern of the yacht, conferring with the security detail. She wanted the alchohol consumption monitored; right before the summit, this didn’t need to turn into a vodka-fueled disaster. She also kept a careful eye on the reporters who were here, writing for American magazines. And the crowd beyond the marina, who was excited to hear the famous progressive-house DJ.

  The only problem was Yuri Kirov, who hated his daughter’s parties and was absent. The reporters had already asked where Yuri was. She and Katya both smiled and put them off. He had meetings before the summit; he had not been feeling well…The Kirovs needed a good face to put forward, so where the hell was Yuri? She would have to send someone down to his stateroom to bring him up.

  “I searched the hotel rooms of Capra and Cebotari,” he said to Irina, leaning in close to her. “Nothing of interest. Those two appear to be exactly what they say they are.”

  Then the sound of gunfire exploded across the deck.

  35

  The Svetlana, Nassau

  GUNFIRE.

  Katya had made her way over to Sam and Mila, working the crowd, telling Sam he needed to meet every celebrity so he could invite them to his various bars. She had also announced that he should invent a drink in her honor, the Katya, when the ripple of explosive sounds tore across the yacht. Sam spun toward the noise and Mila pushed him and Katya into the doorway of a large room off the main deck.

  Fireworks. Sparkling across the deck, people fleeing and running away from the brightness. A stampede starting at one end of the boat as the security lines were rushed by a sudden mob heading down from the marina entrance. Protesters, suddenly unfurling banners and raising peace signs.

  “Not gunfire,” Sam said.

  The roar of the party suddenly grew, and Sam turned to see six of the uniformed servers tying thick plastic cuffs and fastening themselves to the boat’s railing at the front of the bow. Sam saw the security people sprinting toward them. A banner was quickly hung along the side of the yacht.

  “No partnership with Russia! Freedom now! Freedom for Ukraine and Georgia! Protect Estonia! Freedom for the Russian people! Down with the oligarchy!” This was yelled together and in precision, as practiced as a choir. Some of the crowd that had gathered to gawk at the party along the pier rushed toward the boat, some waving flags they’d pulled from under shirts; others here for the music snapping photos with cameras and phones. Recording the reaction of the security team toward the people attaching themselves to the yacht. The partygoers themselves seemed to be caught between panic and amusement.

  Irina held up hands and spoke into the microphone that connected her to her team. “This has to be a staged provocation. The world will be watching. Stop them, but do not be violent. Nonlethal weapons only—use beanbag rounds. No bad publicity.” The security team’s guns were useless—the protesters had judged, accurately, that they would not be employed. However, the team had both Tasers and beanbag guns—which fired soft projectiles that stung and stunned but did not hurt. Half the Belinsky Global team began to deploy around the VIPs, the other half ushering off the intruders.

  “I hate these people!” Katya screamed. “Look at that sign!” One on the deck proclaimed useful hashtags for social media: #KATYAGOHOME #NO2RUSSIA. Sam saw the #NO2RUSSIA sign on banners heading toward the yacht.

  “I give to American cancer charities! I don’t do bad things!” Katya yelled. “Who are these assholes?”

  Protesters began shimmying up the ropes tying the superyacht to the pier, waving at those filming them, calling out that the videos were being uploaded to social media. The security team members scrambled, trying to stop the protesters from attaching themselves to the Svetlana. One bodyguard returned on deck, armed with a beanbag-round shotgun, and began firing warning shots at the protesters dangling on the side of the boat. They began dropping into the water, angry but unhurt.

  Katya, outraged, stormed out onto the deck, pleading with the protesters, Irina sticking close to her, two other guards rushing to her side, trying to get her belowdecks. She waved them off like an outraged czarina. She stopped a protester and began talking to him, gesturing wildly.

  Sam whispered to Mila, “Stick with them. I’m going down below to see what I can find.” She nodded and followed, hurrying toward Katya’s side.

  Sam went down a spiral staircase to the next deck. A wide hall led each way to heavy doors. He tried the first one. Locked. He tried the next. The door was ajar, caught open by having fallen against the open deadbolt.

  It was a beautiful stateroom, appointed with rare hardwoods and fine linens. He stepped inside and turned on the lights. A Russian passport on the table, next to keys and change and a charging tablet computer.

  He picked up the passport. This was Stefan Varro’s room. There was a glass of vodka and a half-finished beer on the table, still cold to the touch; Stefan had had company, perhaps just moments ago, drawn out of this room by the noise up on the main deck.

  He searched it, not even sure of what he might find. On the table were a number of printouts, proposals for investment from American companies. Nothing else of interest.

  He heard another boom of firecrackers, and screams and chants up on the decks. The music ominously went quiet. He swept through the room, heard voices out in the hall. The security team, coming up from below, or employees. A yacht this vast mus
t have a sizable retinue of cooks, cleaners, and support staff.

  He noticed there was a door, leading to the next stateroom. He tried it. Locked. He pulled a lock pick from the stitching on his jacket hem, one designed to pass a security search. The lock was simple and he was through the door in thirty seconds.

  This was a woman’s room, clothes tossed carelessly on the back of a silken chair. English newspapers on the table, a stack of paperback novels in Russian and English. I’ve read every book on that yacht. Irina’s room, he guessed.

  He checked the closets. There was a small safe there, the kind you would find in a hotel, and those were not a challenge for Sam.

  The safe door opened.

  Inside was Irina’s Russian passport. Also oddly inside here was Katya Kirova’s passport. Perhaps Irina kept it for her. Nothing else.

  He put the passports back and closed the safe.

  There was an adjoining room, the door already ajar. Carefully he pushed it open. He guessed immediately this was Katya’s room. Her rescued canary fluttered in its cage. Some of the brightly colored dresses she favored were laid out on the bed, as though she’d debated over which to wear. On the desk was a box of stationery, some neatly written cards addressed in Russian and English. The box said Cartier on the side.

  The same stationery used by Anton in writing his letter about Sergei in Afghanistan.

  In the small closet there was also a safe, and he opened it to find…a Glock 9-millimeter gun inside, capped with a silencer.

  He expected this in Irina’s room. Not Katya’s.

  He didn’t touch the gun. He saw an ammo clip next to it. There were also some pieces of jewelry, and a spare phone pushed back in the corner.