The First Order

by Jeff Abbott

  Next, to the infirmary. In the salon he saw the ship’s doctor, who seemed to do very little on the Svetlana, playing cards with one of the crew while Yuri sat companionably with them, reading on a tablet computer. Sam hurried to the small infirmary. The door was open. The pharmacy cabinet was locked but he picked the lock quickly. He found a sedative, loaded a syringe. He was in and out in three minutes. He passed two security guards on his way back up and nodded at them and one gave him a crooked smile. Did they know about him and Irina? Or suspect? Surely not.

  Now for a weapon. The security team wore their sidearms—he’d seen Glocks and Russian-made GSh-18, a 9-millimeter semiautomatic with an 18-round capacity. There was an armory on this ship. But he had no way in, and there might well be a guard stationed there. It was likely on the tank deck, where the crew slept, and a passenger had no business down there.

  Katya had a gun, though. She had that spare one in her safe, the unexplained one with the attached suppressor. He also had no way into her room, unless he could access Irina’s room. That could be done—but Irina had told him to keep his distance on the Svetlana.

  Instead he took the path of least resistance. He went up to the bar on the main deck and let his experienced eye go across the bottles. He asked for a Pavlova Supreme—crème de cassis and vodka. The crewman tending bar had to go down to the galley to retrieve the required liqueur.

  So while he was gone, Sam stole the very sharp knife the man used to slice limes. He slid it up his long-sleeved shirt, and when the crewman brought the crème de cassis and made his drink, Sam smiled and sipped it, the weight of the steel cool against his forearm.

  It would have to be enough. Now he had to wait for night.

  Dinner was a quiet affair. Several of the investor execs worked through dinner, having the meal delivered to their conference rooms so they could continue to refine their presentations. Yuri found this work ethic uncivil and told Katya, Irina, and Sam he found American workaholism a sign of cultural decay.

  Sam agreed and poured Yuri more ice-cold vodka. “No more,” Katya said. “Too much is bad for you, Papa, especially now.”

  “I have insomnia,” Yuri said. “I have many worries. If I don’t have a little vodka I’m awake half the night, fretting about business.”

  “No, Papa, please,” Katya said and Yuri, with a grunt, pushed the glass away. Irina and Sam said nothing. Sam waited for Yuri to say something about Rolan and the cash run to Miami, but he said nothing, and also said nothing about Sam’s investment.

  After dinner Sam excused himself to his room to work on his proposal. Irina gave him a contemplative look but nothing more. No one, he thought, could guess of their special hour in Miami. She was too discreet.

  He slept for a couple of hours, the stolen knife under his pillow. He awoke and lay in the darkness. He listened to the ship growing quiet. But then—there was a swaying. The Svetlana was turning. Away from Florida. He went to the window and got his bearings with the stars. The ship was making a wide, lazy circle, moving away from the Florida coastline.

  Back toward the Bahamas. Something was wrong.

  He went up on deck. No sign of Irina or Yuri or Katya. Everything seemed quiet. He could go to the bridge and ask the captain what was going on, but he didn’t wish to draw attention to himself.

  He’d watched last night and the security team patrol was minimal at night; being boarded in the ocean did not seem a major concern. He’d seen two guards last night patrolling the yacht, walking the upper and lower decks. Two guards he could deal with, quietly.

  He returned to his room and lay down, very still and quiet.

  Then he got up when it was past midnight and got the knife. He taped the knife’s handle to the small of his back, and stuck the roll of duct tape and the satellite phone in the back of his pants. He hid the capped syringe in his sock. He put the Sunny Isles penthouse key in his pocket. He got the complimentary bottle of vodka left in his room and figured he would offer Yuri a drink, say he couldn’t sleep.

  He went out into the hallway. He knocked gently on Yuri’s door.

  Then he felt the weight of the gun, the barrel of the suppressor, against the back of his head.

  “Don’t move. Don’t speak.” It was Katya.

  She pulled up the back of his shirt. Removed the roll of tape and the satellite phone, stripped the knife from his skin.

  “Drop the bottle and step back from the door,” Katya said. “Slowly. Don’t speak.”

  He obeyed.

  “Back to your room,” she said.

  She had the gun perfectly placed against his skull. He did as she told him, moving steadily and slowly. She could have screamed for security. She hadn’t.

  Inside his room she shut the door. “Lie down on the floor. Hands behind you, in the small of your back.”

  He obeyed.

  “Do you have another weapon?”

  “No,” he lied. “What are you doing, Katya?”

  “Why are you coming to my father’s room?” she asked.

  “I wanted to talk to him.”

  “With weapons and tape, in the middle of the night? Who sent you?”

  “No one sent me.”

  “You tried to access my spare phone. The one in my safe. Why?”

  How did she know? “I…”

  “Don’t bother denying it. You’re an American who speaks Russian but you’re not of Russian descent. Are you CIA?”

  “No,” he said.

  Her voice was a bare whisper. “Did Seaforth send you?”

  Seaforth. “Are you really going to shoot me or can we talk plainly?”

  “You were sent here to spy on me. By Seaforth. What does he want with my father?”

  She was Seaforth’s spy: He saw it. He remembered what Seaforth’s team said in the conversation he’d eavesdropped on via the phone bug: Speaking of the Russians…what says our source there?

  Katya made total sense as a recruit. She was the most high-profile Russian constantly in the West, but had her ear close to the Russian leadership. She met with many people, and it never raised suspicion. Seaforth and his so-called misfits had made a brilliant stroke. But now something had gone wrong between her and Seaforth. Trust was gone.

  “I didn’t shoot him,” she said. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “Who?”

  “Seaforth. He was shot in Nassau. Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

  “Shot?” He remembered the police tape across the alley, down the street from his hotel.

  “He sent you.”

  “No…I came on my own.”

  “I’m supposed to believe that.”

  “Believe what you want.” He risked turning his head so he could see her. Eye contact was important. “Your father is financing an assassination against Morozov during the summit. Irina and I picked up the money from his house in Sunny Isles.”

  Her mouth trembled.

  “I have…leverage with the assassin. If I can talk to him I can stop it. I want your father to tell me how to get in touch with the assassin.”

  She stared at him. “Why would Papa kill Morozov?”

  “Anyone close to him whose standing is always at risk to the president’s whims must have his reasons. Your father, the Varros, any corporate leader in Russia.”

  “Who is this assassin?”

  “He’s not here. He will have to get close to Morozov, and your father is helping him.” Sam cleared his throat. “You alone could stop it, Katya. Get your father to call off the hit. You could persuade him.”

  “And how do I tell him that I know of this? Tell him I…have been working for the Americans? He’ll kill me. Or worse, disown me.” She gave a sick, feeble laugh.

  “If he’s found out, they’ll kill him. They’ll kill you if they know you’ve reported to the CIA. You’ll both be dead.”

  “Do you think anyone—Irina, the tabloids, the people like Stefan who have known me my whole life—would believe that I spy for the Americans?” She shook h
er head. “They do not take me seriously. I am…what do they say, the party girl. It has always been that way for me. Seaforth saw I had a brain. That I had a contribution to make. I’m not giving my father to you. I will”—and he spun out under her, his legs catching hers, and she fell heavily.

  He put a hand over her mouth, dug in his sock for the syringe, thumbed off the cap, injected the sedative into her. Her eyes widened and she went limp.

  “I’m sorry, Katya.” Change in plan. He could not leave her to explain how she stumbled across Sam’s plan, and he could not take Yuri captive while carrying an unconscious Katya. So Katya would have to be the bargaining chip. Take her off the Svetlana, call Yuri on the satellite phone, force him to call Danny and call off the hit. Or what? He’d threaten Katya? Would Yuri Kirov believe him? Sam would have to make Yuri believe him.

  He picked her up, settling her over his shoulder. He went out into the hallway. Darkened, silent. He risked the elevator. He rode it all the way up to the top deck. The doors slid open. The salon was dimly lit. He exited the elevator and along the dim lights of the Svetlana he could see a lone guard walking the deck below.

  He watched the man move along the deck. Away from the Zodiac. In the sea breeze, Katya stirred, and groaned in her sleep.

  “Hush, Katya,” he said, gently patting her back. She stilled. He moved out onto the deck. The guard, patrolling, had gone inside. It was boring out on a boat at night, nothing but darkness all around them. A sheet of stars above, watched by the bright eye of the moon. He hurried toward the Zodiac. He set Katya down on the deck; she groaned again. To lower it with the crane and cables would be too noisy. He thought he could pull the inflatable over the side, then jump in with Katya. No other choice.

  He lifted the Zodiac, shifting to push it over the railing. As he moved to push the aft end he saw Irina, and a guard behind her, each with a pistol leveled at him.

  “I can explain,” he started to say and Irina fired. He tried to go over the railing as she did; he spun, in agony, and he fell. The stars retreating, then the cold water closing over him.

  Darkness. He kicked up toward the surface, even as he thought, They could shoot you when you come up. He stopped short of the surface but in the dark he couldn’t guess how far down he was. Couldn’t be far. But he’d hardly had a chance to gulp in air. He stayed down, his lungs aching, his shoulder blazing.

  Finally his lungs rebelled and he surfaced. The Svetlana had kept going, past him, its lights now aglow.

  Sailing on. Leaving him behind.

  He shuddered. Alone, in the vastness of the ocean. The waves picked him up and lowered him; he rode the swells, watching the yacht continue.

  Survive. He tried to conserve energy, floating on his back. He realized with a jolt that if he was bleeding he might draw sharks. Or was that a myth? His brain felt a jumble. It can’t end like this. Danny. Daniel. Mila. Leonie. Mom and Dad. It can’t end like this.

  Plan, he told himself. He had no plan. He tried to focus on the stars, find the constellations, determine which way was west. Land—Florida—would be somewhere to the west, yes? How far? They’d been twenty miles offshore but then the boat had turned, heading back toward the Bahamas. Freeport was fifty miles from the Florida coast, was that right? And he was between that, or was he farther north? Could he swim it? He almost laughed and the salt water hit his mouth and he choked. He coughed and went back on his back, floating.

  You aren’t going to make it. This is it. His mind refused to accept it, his son’s face crowding out every thought of fear.

  Then he saw it. The Zodiac, cutting toward him, a searchlight gleaming on and raking the waves. Looking for him.

  He dived into the darkness, a cold black emptiness. He heard the boat buzz above him, saw the track of the light. He risked rising to take a breath, and heard a man yell in English, “We’re trying to help you.”

  Right. They didn’t need him alive, except for questioning, and he thought of Ahmad Anwari carving up his back. He breathed in a lungful of air, dived back down, felt the water part close to his feet. Firing at him.

  The boat kept circling. He swam hard, to its left, but after thirty feet his lungs begged. He burst into the air again and turned, and he could see the boat closing hard on him, the searchlight’s glow showing Irina in the prow, a shotgun with a bright orange stock to her shoulder. She fired.

  He felt the blow on his neck and head before he could submerge, and then the adrenaline drifted out of him, and he sank under the black waves.

  47

  The Varro Estate, Nebo, Russia

  DANNY HAD SPENT Monday checking out the security details and avoiding Mila, whom he had not seen again since their arrival. She had clearly said nothing about the assassination plot; but that could be Sam’s influence. Sam would try to find him and stop him if he knew, but without telling the authorities. That was pure Sam, and Mila must be sticking to his play. For the moment. But he could not risk her keeping silent.

  Now it was Tuesday morning, and he awaited Morozov’s arrival at the Varro house.

  You could learn a lot about a man you needed to kill by watching him walk where he felt safe. Like the two young Germans of Marianne’s on Long Island.

  He’d noted yesterday that Morozov and other officials were closely guarded by government agents; the Belinsky Global teams, guarding the wealthy families, were smaller. There were teams assigned to each family and their guests. Stefan had arranged for Danny to have free rein to wander in Nebo, but he’d noticed other guests with color-coded badges that only gave them access to certain areas. He assumed Mila, being a relatively unimportant contact of Stefan’s, was similarly limited. Yesterday he had walked the runways, the estates, the exits from the compound. He did not go near the Morozov estate, but he walked the path from it to the plane that stood ready to take the president and the chosen few to America tonight. And he studied the schedule of pre-summit events slipped under his door, which had Morozov’s schedule for the day.

  The plan he’d formed began to refine itself in his mind. He hated smoking, but Russians did it in large numbers still, and he’d offered cigarettes to the security guards posted near the plane. Chatted with them, told them he was supposed to be on the flight tomorrow. He shared cigarettes; they shared gossip.

  Now, from his bedroom window, Danny watched President Morozov and his security team get out of their cars in front of the Varro estate. He watched the man walk, talk, move, laugh, and knew that he controlled that man’s fate. Here, at Nebo, Morozov was overconfident. He got out of the car at the same time his guards did, something he would not do in Moscow or New York.

  Danny had put on his best suit, and he waited for Stefan to come fetch him to come downstairs when it was time.

  Thirty minutes later, Danny stood before his target. Usually when this happened the target was dead seconds later. He didn’t have the polonium with him, but it didn’t matter. Right now this was about staying in the circle, to plan for the right moment.

  The president of Russia was smaller than he looked on television. But then, Danny thought, most actors were. Morozov had a full head of ginger hair starting to gray, and eyes the clear blue of a cloudless winter sky. His suit was dark gray, bespoke, and he wore no tie. Security guards were posted at the door, but not in the vast den where he and a man Danny recognized as Boris Varro stood, holding a glass of orange juice. Morozov held a tall tea mug, with a presidential-looking double-eagle emblem on the side. He was a man of careful and controlled habits, and he preferred tea—Russian-style, with jam stirred into it—instead of vodka.

  The double-eagle mug was an important detail Danny filed away. Dmitri has a favorite mug, Sergei had told him once. Like a king with his golden goblet.

  The FSB agent shut the door behind them. The two men over on the other side of the room glanced over toward the two arrivals, with no interest.

  Danny glanced over at Boris Varro. Half-Cuban, half-Russian. He had black hair, shot through with early gray, and wi
de shoulders. Dark brown eyes, a half-smile that Danny thought, from his photos, might be his default expression. He wore a dark suit as well, but wore a tie of dark blood-red. His mouth twitched, slightly, Danny noticed.

  I killed your son, Danny thought. I killed Anton. It surprised him when I did it.

  “Son,” Boris Varro said, nodding toward Stefan. “I was telling the president about the unpleasantness in the Bahamas.”

  “A minor protest. Hello, Uncle.”

  President Morozov did not respond at first. His glance at Danny turned into a measured gaze, and for a moment Danny could see him as the old KGB functionary, the security man taught too well never to trust anyone. “Hello, Stefan, good to see you. Who’s your friend?”

  You never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to, Danny thought. “Hello, sir, I’m Philip Judge. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He said this in his best Russian.

  Morozov set down his large tea mug and offered and shook his hand. “An American investments advisor, I hear.”

  “Yes, sir. And a prop for Stefan.”

  A silence that Danny didn’t expect fell on the room. He looked at these men and he thought of that long-ago night in Afghanistan, being afraid, being forced to fight Anton Varro for his life. He didn’t like the silence. “But I’m happy to be a prop. If it helps Russia and America to a better relationship.”

  “Ah. So you can tell the world to invest in Russian industries?” Morozov asked.

  “Of course, sir. They’re sound investments. I’m preparing a report on it for American brokerage houses.” Danny paused. “Would you or your staff—naturally, you are too busy, sir—be interested in seeing it when it’s done?”

  “Yes, I would. And we should have a marketing campaign for this,” Morozov said. “Do we? To encourage American investors to buy into Russian companies, should all go well at the summit?”

  “I’m not aware of one…” Boris Varro said with a small laugh.

  “Then spend several million in the American newspapers or websites. Invest in Russia. Varro, see to that. Philip, Stefan Borisovich, include that data in your report to me.”