by Greg Rucka
“I have to go to Tbilisi tomorrow morning,” she said, tossing Bakhar's Russian passport back onto the pile, and picking up the address book.
“Why?”
“Nicholas is meeting me at the Marriott.” She leafed through the little book in her hands, flipping the pages slowly.
“We saw him in March,” I said, surprised. Nicholas Sargenti, to grossly oversimplify things, was our banker.
“Yes. I want him to free up some more funds, just in case we need them quickly.” She looked up from the book to read my expression, and then added, as if it needed further explanation, “In case we have to run.”
I tucked in my shirt, thinking. In the world Alena and I had made for ourselves, Nicholas Sargenti was the hidden facilitator. When Alena had been working, it was he who had arranged contact protocols, had retrieved job offers, passing them along to her through varied and elaborate cutouts and dead-drops. He had been her hidden necessity, able to provide papers and identities on short notice, and all of them entirely legitimate. From his office in Monaco, he had moved the substantial amounts of money required for her to do her job around the world quietly and quickly, deftly funding each cover. While we rarely availed ourselves of his other services these days, Nicholas still handled the majority of our finances.
Alena had never admitted to him what it was she got paid tens of millions of dollars to do, and he had never asked, but he was smart enough to do everything else, which meant he was smart enough to have figured it out. Which meant he was a risk to us, albeit a very calculated, necessary one. For that reason, face-to-face meetings with him were always planned with great care, their number limited. That Alena had arranged to meet him only three months after last seeing him concerned me, but not nearly as much as the fact that she was meeting him in-country, in the capital. It was sloppy, and that was utterly unlike her.
“I'll come with you,” I said.
“Better if you don't. If Iashvili comes back with more questions and we're both gone, it will look worse than it already does.”
“It doesn't look bad right now. You heard him, he's calling it a murder-suicide and putting it all on Bakhar.”
“Even so.” She indicated the spilled contents of the go-bag on the bed with her free hand. “Did you find anything else?”
“Bakhar kept a pistol in his tackle box,” I said, aware she was changing the subject. “Piece-of-crap little Czech thing.”
“That is not so unusual, that he would bring a weapon for self-defense.”
“Maybe. Wouldn't do him much good at the bottom of a tackle box.”
“That implies a level of tradecraft that isn't evident here.”
“He had a go-bag.”
“A very bad go-bag. Too many clothes. Not enough cash. No credit cards. And this.” She held up the address book. “If this is a list of contacts in whatever his business was, this is very unprofessional.”
I held up a hand, began counting on my fingers. “Drugs, guns—”
“It doesn't matter,” Alena interrupted, dropping the address book on the bed. “Whatever it was he was into, his sins caught up with him. Come, dinner's ready.”
She walked out of the bedroom. I stared at the scattered clothes, the two passports, the address book, the gun. I thought about my own go-bag, waiting on the top shelf in the front closet, resting beside Alena's.
Wondering how much longer I had before my sins caught up with me.
CHAPTER
Four
Alena took the car, leaving before dawn. If things went well, she could do the drive to Tbilisi in four hours. If things went the way they normally did, it would take her closer to eight, accounting for the appropriate checkpoints and shakedowns. I didn't fear for her well-being. Anyone who tried to take something from her she wasn't willing to give would draw back a bloody stump, and that was only if she allowed them to keep their life.
For my part, I knew Alena left before dawn because I was awake when she did it, and that was because I hadn't been able to sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about Tiasa. Whoever Bakhar Lagidze had been before he'd come to Kobuleti—and clearly he had been someone he was trying to escape, to put in the past—I could imagine Tiasa no more culpable in it than Koba was.
There were a handful of reasons to have taken her alive.
Not a single one of them was pleasant.
Georgians, in the main, are not early risers, and Mgelika Iashvili was no exception. I had been waiting at his office for forty minutes already when he arrived just before eleven. Only a handful of officers were present prior, and many of them I knew by name. I spent the wait with small talk, mostly about how much the tourists were a necessary evil this time of year and how much we all hated the fucking Russians.
A couple years back, the police in the Adjara Autonomous Province, of which Kobuleti was a part, received new patrol cars and new uniforms from the Interior Ministry, as part of President Saakashvili's efforts to stamp out corruption and rebuild the public trust in the nation's police. The money came as trickle-down American largesse, brought about in turn through Georgia's cooperation in the Global War on Terror. In addition to spiffy new duds and shiny new cars, the money also went to training, improving border security, and to aid stamping out corruption in the ranks.
The new uniforms were baby-boy-nursery blue, and less totalitarian looking than the Soviet-era-influenced ones that had preceded them. The cars were white with a navy stripe on the hood. The corruption remained.
Five minutes after Iashvili arrived, he invited me into his office, where a junior officer brought us the ubiquitous hospitality of a cup of tea, leaving us alone behind the closed door after we'd been served. I sipped—drinking tea fast in front of your host is considered an insult, almost, but not quite, as bad as toasting someone with beer rather than wine—and Iashvili and I made more small talk for a bit. By the time he finally asked me why I'd stopped by, I could feel the caffeine crawling in my veins.
“Bakhar didn't kill his family,” I told him. “He didn't kill himself.”
Until then, Iashvili had been smiling, friendly. Not so much now. “We're saying he did, David.”
“And I'm saying that I know he didn't.”
“And how would you know that?”
“It doesn't matter how I know. What matters is that you understand three things. I know he didn't do it. I know Tiasa—his daughter—wasn't killed, at least not at the house. And, most important, that I'm not asking you to prove otherwise.”
The hostility that had been growing on his face froze, then shifted to confusion. “You're not?”
“No, I'm not. I understand your position, Chief, I really do. I'm not asking you to make trouble.”
“You're looking to make trouble yourself.”
“Maybe. But that's my business.”
He considered that. “You and Yeva, you've lived here four years now?”
“About that.”
“Never any problems from you two. Everyone likes you, everyone likes Yeva. Everyone even likes your damn dog.”
“We like it here.”
“What I don't like is trouble, David. You remember that thing with the kids, couple years back? You remember?”
“I remember.”
“You know I shot them?”
“So I heard.”
He turned his chair, took another sip of his tea. On the wall he was facing was a photograph of six men, all wearing red leotards, in a line. Each held a barbell above his head with what looked to be a couple hundred pounds in weight plates on each end. Neck muscles strained, and even in the faded color, I could see the flush of exertion in each face. The second one from the left bore a striking resemblance to the man sitting opposite me.
“That was stupid of me,” the chief said. “That could have been very bad for me.”
I sipped my tea, waited.
He swiveled back to look at me. “I could have lost everything, you understand? I could have lost it all.”
“I want to find
the girl.” I shifted in my chair, pulled the bundle of euros I'd taken from Bakhar's go-bag. I set them on his desk, between us. “I just want to find the girl.”
The chief stared at me for several seconds, then looked at the bills on his desk, green, yellow, and purple.
“My business,” I said. “No one will ever hear me mention your name.”
He looked at me again, no doubt wondering if he could trust me. Then he picked up the bills, tucking them into the breast pocket of his baby-boy-blue shirt.
“You should go down to Batumi,” the chief said. “The port, maybe on the northern end. Ask for Zviadi.”
I nodded, got to my feet.
“If you have friends, David, you might want to take one or two with you.”
“Just me,” I said.
“You don't even know who he was. You don't know who Bakhar Lagidze was.”
I stopped at the door. “I want to find the girl. I don't care about the father.”
“The father and the girl, they're part of the same thing,” Mgelika Iashvili told me.
CHAPTER
Five
I found him having dinner in a restaurant on the Batumi waterfront, maybe half a klick from the working part of the port, at a place called Sanapiro. Dinner appeared to consist of khinkali—high-density meatballs—and several bottles of beer. Khinkali is something of a national dish, and I knew from experience that one or two were enough to fill the stomach like fresh-poured concrete. If I was reading his table right, he'd already gone through half a dozen already, and showed no signs of slowing down.
“I'm looking for a girl,” I told him.
He didn't look up from his meal, giving me an excellent view of the top of his head. His hair was thinning, stringy, black, and long, and the fat at the back of his neck swelled and spilled where his collar failed to contain it.
“Later,” Zviadi said. “I'm eating.”
I resisted an urge to sigh, took in the restaurant around us instead. It was busy and loud, as almost every Georgian restaurant is wont to be, and nobody was paying us any attention at all. Floor-to-ceiling windows formed the wall along the front of the establishment, and the sunset ricocheting off the Black Sea bathed everything and everyone within in golds and reds. When I looked back to Zviadi, he'd taken up his bottle of beer, gulping from it as he studied the pedestrians and the traffic, resolutely ignoring my presence.
“You're Zviadi?” I asked, though there was no doubt that I had the right guy.
He brought the bottle back down to the table, empty, then renewed his assault on his plate, all without looking at me. His hands were stubby and broad, but surprised me by being clean.
“I'm. Eating.”
I dropped a fifty-euro bill onto his plate. It stopped his fork short, and his other hand darted forward, snatching the bill up. He put it to his mouth, sucking the oil and sauce that had begun to collect on it, and as he did so he finally turned his attention to me. Then he nodded, folding the bill one-handed and shoving it into a pants pocket, before gesturing for me to take the chair opposite him. He never let go of the fork in his other hand.
After I'd taken a seat, he resumed eating, asking around a mouthful, “For how long?”
“Depends on if it's the right girl. I'm looking for a specific one.”
“I don't remember you. I've never seen you before.”
“I don't think she's one of yours.” Actually, I was praying she wasn't one of his. “You were pointed out to me as someone who could help me find her.”
His chewing slowed, and the fork came down and a napkin came up, and he cleaned his mouth and his chin, again watching me. He was rightly suspicious, but curious, too, though I suspect he was mostly wondering how many more of those euros I was carrying, and what the most efficient means of parting me from them might be.
I answered without his asking. “I've got money. I'll pay for the help.”
A slight nod, followed by a pull from a fresh bottle of beer. “Who gave you my name?”
“I asked around.”
“Asked around. Where did you ask around?”
I used my head to indicate the harbor, out the window.
“People talk too fucking much,” he muttered. “Tell me about this girl.”
In my pocket, I was carrying a printout, a picture of Tiasa that I'd pulled from old security video at the house, and for a moment I thought about showing it to him. But already I wasn't liking where things were heading, what I'd stepped into the moment I'd arrived in Batumi, begun searching for Zviadi around the port. It hadn't taken long to learn that the man was a pimp, and the women who'd pointed me to him had done so only with great reluctance, and only after I'd crossed their palms, their apprehension visible. The girl who had finally told me to check Sanapiro was maybe—maybe—sixteen.
“Young,” I told him. “Black hair, blue eyes. Tall and slim. Local girl. Pretty.”
“How young?”
“Fourteen.” I was careful to not betray any revulsion when I said it.
“Sounds like you know her pretty well. You've been with her before?”
“Can you help me find her or not?”
“I got a girl, almost as young. Blonde. Ukrainian.”
“I told you, local. If you can't help me find her, then I'll take my money somewhere else.”
He waggled his fingers at me, telling me to calm down, grinning. Bits of dinner were visible between his teeth. “Just checking. I tell you what, I'll make a couple of calls, you give me an hour or two, then meet me at Lagoon. You know Lagoon, just down the street, at the corner of Portis Shesakhevi?”
“I can find it.”
“One hour, two hours most, okay?” He finished his beer, wiped his hands and face again with his napkin. “Two hundred euros. In advance.”
“You've got fifty,” I said, not because I wasn't willing to pay that much, but because if I did, he'd have known I was a fool. “You get another fifty if you've got information for me when I see you again.”
“Maybe I can't find you this girl,” he said, shrugging.
“Then you've already been paid for doing nothing.”
Zviadi used a fingernail to clean his teeth, then got out of his chair. His lower body was a surprise, compared with his upper, his legs so relatively slender I wondered how they managed to support him. He trundled out of the restaurant without another word, leaving me to pay for his meal.
The Dnepr wasn't in any condition to drive, so I'd had to take a bus down from Kobuleti, a modified minivan the locals referred to as a marshrutka. By the time I'd left Iashvili in his office, gone home, gotten my things together, printed off the best picture of Tiasa I could find, squared Miata away, and actually come back into town to arrange the ride, it had already been late afternoon. It was just before six when I reached Batumi.
I'd taken enough time before leaving home to check Bakhar's address book for anyone named Zviadi, but of course, nothing was going to be that easy, and there'd been no one by his name, let alone an entry with a Batumi number. Ultimately, though, the search for Zviadi hadn't taken long at all.
I'd headed north up Zubelashvilis Kucha from where the battered minivan had dropped me outside the old train station, and made for the port. It was a twenty-minute walk, and I'd actually passed Lagoon along the way. Once I'd reached the harbor, I'd started asking around.
The trick hadn't been in finding someone who actually knew Zviadi. The trick had been in convincing one of his girls that it was safe for her to take my money and to then tell me where I could find him.
Tonight would mark the third night since Tiasa had been taken, and the thought of her having had to spend any of it in the company of men like Zviadi wound my spine tight. That the man would sit in a restaurant—could sit in a restaurant—and so casually discuss his business in full view of the world made it all the more grotesque, and it made me feel as if I was the only one who actually gave a damn about his business at all.
I'd wasted time, and Tiasa Lagidze was suf
fering for it, and I kept telling myself that if I could find her, I could make my inaction up to her. I could free her from the nightmare that had started three days ago in Kobuleti.
If I could just find her in time.
Zviadi surprised me. He was actually at Lagoon when I arrived before ten, and, just as he'd been at Sanapiro, he was easy to spot. The restaurant had a naval theme going, old Russian submarine clocks and ship wheels on the wall, and I thought it was surprisingly busy for a Thursday night. I waited just inside until I was sure he'd seen me, then stepped back out onto the street. The humidity had died down with the sunset, and the air was pleasantly cool. After half a minute, he emerged and began walking toward the water, motioning me to accompany him.
“You're not from here,” Zviadi said, checking the traffic as we crossed the road to the waterfront. “Your Georgian is very good, but you're not from here.”
“Does it matter?”
“Maybe, maybe not. You an American?”
I shook my head. “I have money. Do you have the girl I want?”
“I think maybe I found her, yeah. Maybe not her, maybe one like her.”
“I'll need to see her.”
“You need to pay me.”
I peeled off another fifty-euro bill and handed it over to his waiting palm. He didn't look at it, just stared at me.
“I told you two hundred,” he said. “Two hundred, I take you to the girl.”
“You get the rest when I see her. Maybe it's not the right girl.”
“But maybe it is the right girl,” Zviadi said.
I handed over another fifty. When he saw I wasn't giving him any more, he grunted and crammed both bills into the front pocket of his tightly stretched pants, where he'd stowed the other fifty I'd paid him earlier. Then he pulled out a mobile phone and brought up a number, turning away from me as he dialed it.
“We're coming,” he told whoever answered. He listened to the response, grunted, then hung up and replaced the phone on his hip.
