Private Moscow

by James Patterson

  It was the same confidence exhibited by so many clients, but I’d seen too many people break down when shown detailed evidence of treachery at the hands of a spouse, friend, family or business partner. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss.

  “If I look into this myself, without taking you on as a client—” I began.

  “Then you don’t have to share anything unpleasant with me,” Victoria finished my thought. “But then you also aren’t under any obligation to take my instructions or to report back to me the things I need to know.”

  She hesitated, and her eyes glistened as she fought for composure.

  “I don’t want to be protected, Jack. I want to know the truth about why Karl was killed.” She choked back a sob.

  I nodded. “OK. I’m sorry. I just had to be sure you know what you’re getting into.”

  She wiped her eyes. “I appreciate it.”

  “Karl seemed to have something on his mind. Something he wanted to tell me. You have any idea what it might have been?”

  Victoria shook her head. “He’s been … I mean, he had been really distracted these past few weeks, caught up in his own head. But that wasn’t new. Whenever he had a busy time at work, he’d go into what Kevin and I called ‘the Zone’. Karl would be around, but his mind would be elsewhere, crunching through whatever problems he was facing.”

  “He ever talk about any of those problems?” I asked.

  “No. Not recently, at least. And I’m smart enough to give him the space he needs—” She caught herself again. “I’m sorry, needed, the space he needed. I just can’t get used to …” She tailed off.

  “It’s OK,” I told her. “Nothing prepares you for a shock like this.”

  “Not even war?” she asked, wiping away fresh tears.

  “Not even war,” I replied honestly. The experience of having watched friends and comrades die in combat didn’t make the death of a loved one any easier.

  I gave her a moment before I asked my next question.

  “I’m going to apologize for this one before I even ask it,” I said, and a dark smile immediately crossed Victoria’s face.

  “I think I know where we’re going,” she responded.

  “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to rule out the mundane, and you said you didn’t want to be protected,” I reminded her. “Did you ever catch Karl out?”

  “No, I never caught him out. Not so much as a wandering eye. And frankly, with his schedule I’d have been impressed if he’d found the time to cheat on me.”

  I nodded, stood and walked to the door, opening it to find Letitia and Rafael chatting nearby. Jessie was leaning against her assistant’s desk, scrolling through her phone.

  “Sorry for kicking you out of your own office,” I said.

  “No problem, boss,” Jessie replied.

  “You can come back in,” I told the three of them. “Thanks.”

  They joined Victoria and me in the seating area.

  “Mrs. Parker has engaged Private to identify her husband’s murderer,” I said. “Jessie, I’d like you to handle day-to-day contact with Mrs. Parker.”

  “I’ll be your point of contact,” Letitia interrupted.

  “No problem,” I went on. “I’ll be leading the investigation personally.”

  Jessie frowned instantly and Rafael wasn’t long behind her.

  “Problem?” I asked.

  “Your personal connection to the case—” Jessie began.

  “Karl trusted Jack Morgan,” Victoria cut her off, “and so do I.”

  Jessie nodded, but she and Rafael exchanged a skeptical glance.

  “Jessie, can you issue an engagement letter setting out our terms?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Whatever you need, you’ve got it. You can do things the police can’t, Mr. Morgan. You get results when others fail, and Karl deserves the best,” Victoria said, choking back a sob. “Our family’s resources are at your disposal. I want my husband’s killer brought to justice. Whatever the cost.”

  CHAPTER 13

  A CLOUD OF steam rose from the stovetop percolator, filling the tiny kitchen with the scent of freshly brewed coffee. Dinara Orlova waited until the brew bubbled and spat before turning off the gas. She split the thick black liquid between two travel cups, stirred in brown sugar and heavy cream, and screwed the lids on. She grabbed her down coat from one of the retro American-diner-style chairs that surrounded her red-topped kitchen table, and pulled on her rabbit-fur trapper hat.

  “Good morning,” her neighbor, Mrs. Minsky, said as Dinara left her apartment.

  Mrs. Minsky had developed a strange habit of spending most of her days sitting in the corridor outside her apartment, reading a book and watching the comings and goings of her neighbors. She had a folding garden chair, matching table and had even put a couple of potted plants in the corridor, treating the tiny space outside her front door as though it was a garden.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Minsky,” Dinara said as she edged past the old woman.

  “Off to find a husband?” Mrs. Minsky asked.

  Dinara couldn’t tell if the hunched old woman was joking, but she suspected not. “Off to work,” she replied.

  “Well, don’t let me keep you.”

  Russia had a long history of trying to promote gender equality. It had been one of the central tenets of communism, but Dinara often wondered how much of it had been lip service, because she’d been on the receiving end of far too many critical comments about her age and the need for her to get married. Whenever she felt the social pressure of ingrained sexism, she asked herself whether a 33-year-old man would regularly be quizzed about his marital status.

  Dinara admired herself in the smoked-glass mirror of the tiny elevator as it took her on a slow and steady four-story ride to the first floor. She wasn’t a woman who needed the reassurances of a man’s compliments. She knew she’d been blessed with great hair, beautiful features and an athletic physique, and was confident that when she set her mind to it, the right man would be found. But who had the time? Her early thirties were when she would make her mark on the world.

  Dinara stepped out of the elevator and nodded a greeting at Vikto, the doorman, who spent his day in the functional but warm lobby. She hurried outside, and the moment she stepped through the front door of her apartment building, the steam rising from the tiny holes in the coffee cups thickened as it met the freezing air. Her eight-story block stood on the corner of Malaya Bronnaya Street and Yermolayevskiy Lane, opposite a small park. The children’s play equipment was buried beneath huge snowdrifts, and the little lake was frozen solid. Dinara shivered as she jogged along the sidewalk.

  Leonid Boykov had mounted the curb a short distance from her building, and was waving motorists past him. Dinara cradled both coffee cups with one arm, opened the passenger door, and slid onto the front seat.

  “Good morning, boss,” Leonid said.

  His humor was dry, and rich in sarcasm. He’d greeted her as “boss” every morning for the past three months, but somehow managed to say the word so it sounded like “kid.”

  Leonid was fifteen years her senior and the toll of every one of his forty-eight birthdays showed on his craggy face. He’d been a Moscow police detective for twenty years, working serious crime and murder, and he had a reputation for being honest and ruthless. Dinara had yet to see his darker side, but he had the lean features and sharp eyes of a predator, and she had no doubt his reputation was well deserved. She’d hired him to be her number two at Private Moscow, but she suspected he thought he should be running the show.

  “Good morning, Leonid Boykov,” she replied. “I made you coffee.” She handed him one of the cups.

  “You’re the boss. I should be making you coffee.” He took a sip. “But I’m not sure I could make it this well.”

  Was that an insult? Was he being sarcastic? Dinara couldn’t tell. “Drive,” she said.

  Leonid put the car in gear, waved his arm out of the window to signal his r
ight of way, drove off the curb and headed along Malaya Bronnaya Street. Dinara loved her tree-lined neighborhood, which mixed classical architecture with elegant modern apartment buildings. It was also conveniently located, and within moments they were on the Garden Ring, an eight-lane highway that encircled the city center. After a couple of minutes, the traffic started to build, but this was more than the rush-hour grind, it looked as though there had been an accident ahead.

  “Business has been slow, huh?” Leonid remarked, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.

  The man rarely spoke without purpose and Dinara knew him well enough to suspect he had an agenda. The traffic ahead of them came to a standstill. A short distance along the street, a bus had collided with a truck and the police were filtering three lanes down to one.

  “It will get better,” Dinara responded. “The mood toward businesses such as ours isn’t favorable at the moment.”

  She didn’t need to elaborate. She and Leonid had discussed the drawbacks of Private’s foreign ownership many times. With relations between Russia and America at a low point, there weren’t many establishment figures who’d engage a US-owned firm. In fact, there were none. Private Moscow’s last case had been closed three weeks ago—a missing person they’d located and recovered—and they had nothing new on the books. Jack Morgan was a patient man, but if things didn’t pick up soon, Dinara was certain the Moscow office would have to be shut down.

  “Maybe today is the day,” Leonid said, and Dinara noticed a mischievous glint in his eye. Something else caught her attention. Two men in a car four vehicles behind them. She watched the pair in the wing mirror, and noted their eyes never left Leonid’s Lada Vesta. She felt a rush of adrenalin, but told herself it could be nothing. She wasn’t in the espionage game anymore.

  “What do you know?” she asked Leonid.

  “Are you ordering me to tell you? As my boss?” He smiled.

  “Stop with the boss stuff,” she replied. “We both know you’ve got me beat on age and experience.”

  Leonid glanced at her with somber concern. “I’m sorry if I upset you. I was only joking …” He hesitated. “Boss,” he added with a broad smile.

  Dinara punched him playfully. “You want to play that game? OK then, as your boss I command you to tell me what you know.”

  “I had a call from an old police contact. He wants us to meet his client first thing this morning.”

  “Who’s his client?” Dinara asked.

  “You’re not playing the game,” Leonid remarked dryly.

  Dinara rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised none of your old partners killed you. How many of them did you drive mad with this kind of nonsense?”

  “Six,” Leonid replied seriously. “You’d make it seven, but of course we’re not partners.”

  “Who are we going to see, Leonid?” Dinara asked testily.

  “Maxim Yenen,” he replied.

  Dinara whistled. “You’re kidding me,” she said as they drove past the accident.

  Maxim Yenen was one of the most powerful men in Moscow. An oligarch with a wide range of business interests, and high-ranking friends at the Kremlin.

  “Do I look like the kind of man who jokes about such things?” Leonid asked as the car picked up speed again. “A commission from a Kremlin insider would suggest our standing with the authorities has changed.”

  “Perhaps,” Dinara replied, looking in the wing mirror. “That might explain why we have two FSB agents on our tail.”

  Leonid glanced in the rear-view.

  “Three cars back. I recognize the technique from my own training,” Dinara said.

  “Well,” Leonid replied, shifting gears, “let’s see if this tired old Moscow policeman can give our highly trained intelligence agents a run for their money.”

  CHAPTER 14

  LEONID STEPPED ON the accelerator and the Lada shot forward. Ostensibly a sensible family car, the former cop had opted for the top-of-the-range model, which he’d had modified at a police garage. The improved performance didn’t turn it into a Porsche, but it did give the car sufficient muscle to push Dinara into her seat as it accelerated. Leonid threaded his way past slower-moving vehicles, and when she checked the wing mirror, Dinara saw their tail was trying to keep up. Not very subtle, she thought.

  They were heading clockwise around the Garden Ring and were near the Kalashnikov Monument.

  “What’s your plan, detective?” Dinara asked.

  “I’m no planner,” Leonid replied. “I prefer living in the moment.” He swung the wheel as he passed a truck, and the Lada jerked left and veered in front of the larger vehicle. The truck driver gave a prolonged blast of his horn and his brakes screeched as he stepped on them hard. The Lada SUV shot forward, narrowly missing a car in the other lane, and crossed the median, which was nothing more than a pair of painted white lines. Leonid pulled the wheel left again, and the car lurched onto the counterclockwise side of the busy highway. He swerved to avoid the westbound traffic, and earned more horn blasts and tire screeches from startled drivers. As they passed the Kalashnikov Monument and the sprawling gothic skyscraper that loomed behind it, suddenly all was calm. The Lada’s rear end gave a final little waggle as Leonid settled into the middle lane, and when Dinara looked back, she saw the pursuing vehicle had pulled into the median and stopped. The two men got out and looked in her direction. Both seemed frustrated and one was talking on a phone.

  “Nicely done,” Dinara said.

  “Thanks,” Leonid replied, without taking his eyes off the road.

  “You nearly gave me a heart attack, of course.”

  “Well, you can’t have everything,” he said flatly. “I used to do mini-moto when I was younger.”

  Dinara gave him a blank look.

  “Racing with small motorbikes. Before I got too old and fat.”

  “You’re not fat,” Dinara told him truthfully. He was a lean, muscular man who kept himself fighting fit.

  “But I am old,” he said. “Divorced, old and washed up.”

  “I wish you’d told me all this in your job interview,” Dinara joked. “Where are we going?”

  “Kolomenskoye Park,” Leonid replied.

  “Take the long way. Go west.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I want to search the car for bugs. It’s unlikely given how desperate they were to keep up, but it pays to be cautious,” Dinara said.

  If the men following them had managed to plant a bug on Leonid’s car, they wouldn’t have needed to break cover, which suggested the surveillance was a new and recent thing, probably last minute and possibly connected to their meeting with Maxim Yenen.

  CHAPTER 15

  DINARA AND LEONID pulled off the main road near the Zhivopisniy Bridge onto a dirt track that took them into a deserted forest. The Lada left a solitary trail in the virgin snow, and when they were confident they couldn’t be seen from the road, Leonid pulled over and used the EMF detection kit he kept in the boot to sweep the car for bugs. He found nothing, and Dinara’s physical search didn’t reveal anything either. Satisfied they weren’t being monitored, they left the silent forest, returned to the Marshala Zhukova highway and headed east.

  When they reached Luzhniki, they parked the Lada and took the Metro to Dubrovka. From there they took a taxi to Kolomenskoye Park, arriving fifteen minutes ahead of their scheduled 10:30 a.m. meeting with Yenen. The cab driver clearly thought they were crazy when they asked him to drop them off in the empty parking lot. The brutal cold and thick snow had turned Kolomenskoye into a hostile frozen wasteland, and there was no one else around. When the cab had headed back to the city, Leonid and Dinara found indentations in the snow that marked the edges of the curving path that led to the Church of Our Lady of Kazan. The grand white building with its blue-domed towers was one of the few imperial churches to have survived the revolution unscathed. It had become a draw for tourists and Muscovites, and Dinara recalled spending a day here with Nofel Popov, a man she’d d
ated six years ago. As she and Leonid traveled the same path she’d walked with her former sweetheart, Dinara wondered what Nofel might be doing now. Had he found the love and stability he’d so desperately been seeking? He’d demanded far more from Dinara than an ambitious young FSB agent could possibly have given him. She smiled at the thought of him doing pull-ups on the branch of a tree in an attempt to impress her. She searched for the spot where he’d tried to win her over with feats of strength, but the landscape had been remodeled by snow and looked very different from her summer visit all those years ago.

  “Something wrong?” Leonid asked.

  “Just remembering my last time here,” Dinara replied.

  “Stay in the moment, please,” Leonid upbraided her.

  Dinara frowned at him, and the two of them walked on through the snow. The path had been cleared at some point, but fresh powder had covered it, concealing any evidence that humans had ever been here. There were a few animal tracks in the deep snow either side of the path. The tracks vanished into woodland that covered much of the former imperial estate.

  The courtyard that lay in front of the church had been cleared to reveal the gray stone slabs. The flowerbeds were lost to deep powder and the gray portico roof and blue domes were capped with thick crusted ice that shone in the sunlight. The sounds of Dinara and Leonid trying to stay warm, shifting from side to side, patting themselves, were deadened by the surrounding snow.

  Twenty minutes later, Dinara saw flashes of black through the trees and a convoy pulled into the parking lot. A Bentley SUV positioned itself between two Range Rovers and the occupants got out. A man in a padded silver jacket was surrounded by six men in long woolen trench coats. There was no mistaking who the bodyguards’ principal was. The guards’ heads turned in every direction, sweeping for threats as they followed Dinara and Leonid’s footsteps into the park. As they drew nearer, Dinara recognized Maxim Yenen from his newspaper photos. The deep snow made it hard to gauge his height, but Dinara guessed he was approximately 180 centimeters. He was slightly overweight, had black hair that poked from beneath a woolen hat, and watched the world with narrow, greedy eyes. He had always struck Dinara as a calculating man for whom all the riches of Russia wouldn’t be enough.