by Jeff Abbott
There was no answer.
The tattered remains of the Svetlana party wound down earlier than expected. The protest had drained the party of its life. The celebrities, most of them, retreated to a posh nightclub at a nearby major resort. The crew began to clean the yacht. Irina and one of the bodyguards—Petr, the one with Katya when they’d met her—offered to walk Sam and Mila back to their hotel.
“Just in case,” Irina said, “you are accosted by any of the protesters. I doubt they’ve faded into the night.” But Sam wondered why they rated such treatment.
Their walk was unmarred by anyone with a sign or a grievance against Russia. There was a police tape up past an alley as they walked toward their hotel, officers milling about, the danger—whatever it was—long past. Mila prudently dropped back and chatted with the guard, leaving Irina walking with Sam.
“Mr. Kirov is not what I expected,” Sam said.
“I presume you expected him sober,” Irina said. “Katya told me about the gun. Thank you. We would all appreciate your discretion, Sam. To have it known he was firing a gun at an American guest while drunk…before he has meetings with American oil executives—it would be a disaster.”
Ah, hence the special treatment. It was good to have a little power and to use it wisely. “I gave his gun and ammunition to one of your team once I had him back in the room. I have no desire to embarrass him or Katya. Or you.”
“Thank you.”
“He seems a bit afraid, to be frank.”
“He is. Russia is changing. He is not ready to change with it.”
“Sure,” Sam said.
Irina seemed to study him, measure him. “Yuri Ivanovich has been kind to me. When Sergei died—we lost so much business. The security consultant who is murdered with a bomb? It gave an impression that he was not competent. These people pay great sums for confidence they will be safe. So when I relaunched the company…when I was ready…Yuri Ivanovich was the first to hire me again.”
Sam thought, Maybe they didn’t hire you because you were supposedly hunting and slaughtering everyone you blamed for your husband’s death.
Irina went on: “So…I want you to understand, he’s a danger to no one. He’s functional, most of the time. You could look at him and think he has more money than he’ll ever be able to spend in ten lifetimes, so why drink so much? But Russian presidents have thrown oligarchs in prison before and stripped them of all their billions, taken over their businesses, run their families out of the country. I think, despite all his advantages, he feels very unsafe. Being wealthy in Russia now sometimes feels like being an aristocrat back before the 1917 revolution. Except it’s not the Bolsheviks who will murder you, but the other aristocrats. It’s not a healthy way for anyone to live their life.” Her voice was almost bitter. “Did you know half of Russian men die before they’re fifty? Can you imagine that in America or Britain? I…” and then she fell silent.
“Irina, meeting you today has been the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in a long while. And not only because I hope Katya will invest in my bars. Just because it is.”
Now she smiled and brushed a lock of lovely red hair back from her face. He wondered, unprofessionally, what it would be like to kiss her. The thought almost jarred him.
He changed the subject. “How did the Kirovs make their money before oil? I mean, they had to have some initial capital to invest in oil.”
“Ha, well, our Yuri’s ex-KGB. He doesn’t have an MBA.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. Irina shrugged. “It’s not a secret. The KGB had millions secreted around the world for their operations against the West—untold millions. Stashed in bank accounts, in safe deposit boxes, in vaults, in basements—and it was the bureaucrats and agents like Yuri who could access those funds who could use them to buy up assets like oil operations.”
First they were spies dedicated to tearing down the West; then they were robber barons.
“Stefan kept talking to Mila during the party,” Irina said. “You’re sure you’re not a romantic couple?”
Sam wondered if she was asking out of more than curiosity. Even as busy as she had been, he had felt her gaze on him. “We’re not.”
They reached the hotel. “The Svetlana sails tomorrow morning,” Irina said. “But first, could you and Mila come early for breakfast? Katya asked me to invite you both. You could tell her father and Stefan your ideas about the bars—they are looking for investments. Say at eight?”
“Thank you,” Sam said. “We’d love to.”
Irina gave Sam a handshake—her fingers lingered longer than Sam thought they would—and then said good night to Mila.
He and Mila rode up to their room in silence. He was going to ace that presentation tomorrow, and be on that yacht when it sailed, and access that server room. Firebird was close—he had to be. And when he had Firebird, he could send his brother a message that appeared to be from Firebird:
Job delayed. Do not act. Will still pay. Meet me here.
No assassination, and then he’d have Danny exactly where he wanted him.
Inside the hotel, Sam and Mila did not speak to each other except to say “that was fun,” and for Sam to relay the breakfast invitation.
“Was Stefan flirting with you?” he asked.
“A bit.” She shrugged. “Harmless, though.”
Sam was pointing at his jacket pocket, where his phone lay, and at her purse, where her phone was. She nodded. They had to assume, now, that their cell phones had been interfered with in the way Sam had interfered with Seaforth’s. They had been invited back, which only meant closer scrutiny.
Now, Sam thought, they were not Capra and Court on a job. They were two actors staying in character.
They said their good nights in the hallway and went inside their respective rooms.
He checked his room. He was sure it had been searched; a hair he’d left across the closed zipper of his bag was gone. So Irina’s people had been here and they were good but not good enough. He showered. Then he turned on the TV and lay on the bed. Irina had brushed his arm twice while they walked and maybe that was accidental or maybe not. He could not let himself be fooled by her, the Black Widow. She was a dangerous woman.
He had to make sure that when the Svetlana departed tomorrow, he was aboard.
39
The Svetlana, Nassau
IRINA HEARD MUSIC playing softly in Katya’s room. She stuck her head in through their shared door and saw Katya lying on the bed in her party dress.
She curled up on the bed next to Katya and touched her hair. “What’s wrong?” Sometimes it was hard to think of Katya as a client; she had become like a little sister.
Normally a party energized Katya. Now she seemed tired, sad. “Papa. He fired a weapon tonight at another person, Irina. What if he’s losing his mind?”
“It was just the vodka. We need to watch him more closely. He just needs you.”
Katya coughed. “The protesters upset Papa. He thinks the next protest could turn dangerous. He doesn’t want me to come to the summit. In America. Where I am the famous one. He is too silly. He wants me to fly back with Stefan tomorrow to Russia.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Katya shrugged. “No. I’m staying here with Papa. You stay here with us; don’t go back with Stefan. You can have fun with our brave Sam. I saw how you looked at him.”
“I did not!” Irina sat up. “Now you are the silly one.”
“Not you. Never you.” Katya managed a smile.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Irina said. “You’ll go back to Russia before the summit?”
“Yes. But I want Papa to get right before we go back to Russia. He can’t be like this back there, and then go to the summit. You’ll stay here on the yacht and sail up to Washington?”
“Unless you need me to come back with you. I can help you…”
“No.” Katya turned onto her back. “I’m fine now. Thanks for cuddling up with me. I’m going to sleep.”
/> Irina went back to her own room, shutting the door. Katya was lonely, despite all the attention the world gave her. Irina understood.
She lay down and thought about the long nightmare of the evening. The protesters should never have gotten so close. The clients would be upset. Yuri Kirov might fire her. But she needed more people, and this wasn’t Russia, where factors could be more easily controlled. She would have to draft new plans for the rest of this trip, meet with her security teams, have strong words with the marina management.
Before she fell asleep, she thought again of Sam. And for the first time, Sergei’s ghost didn’t intrude into her thoughts.
Katya held the old gun that had been taken from her father and opened up her room safe. She put it in there, next to the other gun she’d taken from him a few days ago. She hadn’t realized he had this keepsake from his KGB days on the yacht. She would need to search his room.
You have a problem. He is losing his grip. And maybe it’s your fault.
Then she noticed…the spare phone wasn’t where she’d left it. She was careful about always putting it flush against the back right corner. Always. Her heart thrummed in her chest. She inspected the spare phone. She tapped an app marked with a smiley face.
The smiley face app wasn’t for cheery notes or a game. It silently and secretly took a time-stamped picture of whoever entered in a wrong access code on the phone. She checked.
It was a picture of Sam, peering at the phone, during the time of the protest.
He had been in her room, trying to access her phone.
Was that when he heard her father being a drunken fool? She hadn’t thought to ask why he was entering her father’s room.
Katya Kirova felt a sharp shock, then anger. He was nothing but a dirty little spy. Acting nice to her drunken father, pretending to be interested in Irina, acting like he wanted to be her friend.
You know why he’s here, she thought.
After a moment she put the phone back in the safe and locked it. Sam was her specific problem now, and she would have to find a way to deal with him. She could run back to Russia. Or she could deal with him tomorrow. Give him a warning. And if that did not work…she had Papa’s guns. Accidents sometimes happened with old guns.
40
The Svetlana, Nassau
THE FIRST WORDS Yuri Kirov said to Sam at breakfast were “Don’t think you have sway over me because you saw me at my worst last night.” He didn’t look good, but he was up, showered, dressed, and drinking a very large cup of hot tea.
“Papa,” Katya said, sounding mortified, “Sam helped you.”
Sam smiled and offered his hand, which Yuri shook. “I’ll hope that today is your best, Yuri Ivanovich. We’ll cover the whole spectrum in our first two days of knowing each other.”
Five seconds ticked by in absolute silence. “Sit down, Samuil Alexandrovich,” Yuri Kirov said, but there was less heat in his voice. Katya and Stefan laughed at the Russian-style patronymic given to Sam. The tension lifted. Fine, Yuri was embarrassed. Sam could help him with that.
So, through breakfast, they negotiated their way to a place where Yuri Kirov was no longer embarrassed. After his initial bluntness, Sam was respectful and Kirov asked smart questions about his bar business. Katya did as well until her father silenced her with a wave of his hand.
You ought to listen to your daughter, Sam thought. She knows this business better than you do.
“Oil and liquor,” Yuri said. “I suppose we deal in the two basic liquids that make people happy.”
“Yes,” Sam said, and the tension truly eased. Kirov and Stefan and Katya looked carefully at Sam’s spreadsheets, at his projections for expenses and growth with the first three Tsar Lounge franchises in Seattle, New York, and Las Vegas. He planned an exit strategy should the franchise have a shelf life of hipness—as many bar concepts did. He also outlined how he would keep the Russian theme fresh and new, introducing Westerners to Russian cuisine in Western-palatable, high-end bar style. He had math on how much each drink would profit them, how much each seat in the bar would generate in a night, a day, a week, a month, a year. He commandeered the bar by the pool, raided the yacht’s kitchen, and made them samples of signature cocktails he’d feature, with bold new takes on vodka and kvas and Russian staples like beet or salted cucumber.
He made one cocktail he called the Katya, which he handed to her with a flourish. Her smile was thin and he wondered why she might be cool to him this morning. Yuri applauded and took a small taste of the drink.
Sam wanted them to see the potential Tsar Lounges as a highly profitable business to be plundered. Because plunder was the name of their game. He knew Yuri’s company, Zvezda, produced as much energy as Norwegian and British oil companies, but at a decidedly lower profit margin because the Kirovs and the other oligarchs with fingers in the oil pie took their share long before any stockholders saw money. But on that point, he stayed silent.
“These are interesting numbers. Small, as far as my investments go, but I would like to bring this to America,” Yuri said.
“Sam,” Irina said, “I wonder, I know that Stefan is flying back to Russia today, but could you and Mila stay on the Svetlana and you two and Yuri could hash out more of the details?”
Sam kept his expression neutral. “Aren’t you sailing for the States in an hour or so?”
“Yes.”
Stefan said, “I know you came here shopping for a bar to buy here, but this is a bigger opportunity. If all comes to agreement, it could be one of the many investments President Morozov announces as part of the summit.” He gave Sam a thin smile.
“Just hang out on the boat and refine the proposal? Mila, OK with you?”
“Of course. If we have time to go back and get our bags. I don’t want to get shipwrecked wearing just what I’ve got,” Mila said. Everyone laughed politely.
“Unless…,” Stefan said. “One of you wants to come back to Russia with me, and the other stay here. There might be other investors back in Nebo”—Sam knew Nebo was the name of the inner circle’s private compound outside Moscow—“who would like to invest as well.” He gave Mila a sudden smile.
“What a thoughtful invitation,” Mila said. “But I think it would be better if we could both work on the proposal here.”
“But you could take Stefan to the Tsar Lounge in Moscow,” Sam said, just as sharply. “Give him and his father a tour, show them what we’re envisioning. I can work on refining the numbers here.” He thought Mila could be valuable around the rest of the circle. Perhaps she could find out who was Firebird there, if he couldn’t find it here on the boat. And if he found where Danny was, it would be better to approach him alone.
Mila didn’t argue. “Yes, Sam, of course.”
Stefan said, “I’d like to see the numbers with a more aggressive expansion. There is about to be goodwill toward Russia again in the West. We should think of openings in Montreal, London, Los Angeles, Miami, as well. I think…what is the term? Strike while the iron is hot.”
“Yes, Miami,” Katya said. “It is the nightclub capital of the world, Sam. We should open there first.”
He had thought of that but he’d thought it smarter to let them suggest it and be invested in the idea. “That’s a great idea, Katya. I’ll work up those numbers first.”
He was in. But Mila’s smile, he knew, was forced.
“What’s the problem?” he asked on the walk back to the hotel. Both of them had turned off their phones so they couldn’t be overheard if hacked. “Is it Stefan? Are you afraid of him?”
“I can handle a blowhard like Stefan Varro,” she said. “But I don’t think we should split up. Finding your brother…he’s dangerous, Sam, yes? He could be dangerous even to you.”
“If I can talk to him, I can stop him.”
“He has twenty million reasons not to talk to you.”
“He has one to talk to me. I’m his brother.”
“Sam…”
“It will be fine
.”
She hugged him, there on the street. Her breath hot against his neck. This wasn’t like her. Normally she was steely; he was the one to bend in the storm of emotion. She trembled in his embrace.
“What’s the matter?” he whispered.
Because if I find him, you never will, Mila thought. The enormity of what she was going to do overwhelmed her for a moment. But she had to.
“This gives me a little more time to find out who Firebird is,” Sam said. “In that server room is the answer, I think. And if I find out who it is, and he’s in Russia, then you’re there. We’re a team. We can do this.”
“Even if we find Danny…he may not listen to you.”
“I know my brother,” he said.
Yes, Mila thought, and you probably think you know me, too.
Mila packed. She walked down to the hotel desk and retrieved a bag that she had checked into the hotel safe, away from her own room. Inside of it was a prepaid phone. She sent a text to Charity.
Heading for Moscow on private jet departing Nassau. Strong likelihood target is currently in Moscow. Need team on ground to extract target at my call in next few days. Plan to have team to meet me at Tsar Lounge, near Red Square, posing as customers. I will have to brief them on target grab and they must handle extraction details. TARGET IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. I am watched constantly. Do not respond; I am destroying this phone.
At least if she found Danny Capra in Russia, she was prepared to make him vanish. And perhaps it would be better this way, with Sam here and unable to interfere. She tore out the SIM card once the message had gone, crushed it, walked down the hallway to where one of the housekeeping carts stood, and stuffed the remains of the phone into the garbage bag hanging on its side.
A limo picked her up ten minutes later, taking Mila to the airport. Stefan wasn’t in it and she felt a sense of relief. She’d be stuck with him long enough on the flight.
