The man hesitated briefly, then bowed his head and withdrew. The heavy door made a soft whump as it closed.
Vassily gave a wintry smile. “This business will be over soon. Come, let us retire to the living room where we have tea waiting for us. And when this is over, there is someone I must introduce to you. You will be astonished, my friend.”
Outside Worontzoff’s mansion
Those were the last words they heard before Alexei pulled the plug. Nick knew Alexei had to—if you looked carefully, you could see the laser beam as a faint line in the gathering darkness—but he had to stop himself from banging a fist against the wall in frustration.
He and Di Stefano were hunkered down behind a bush, to one side of the study windows, unable to see into the room. Essentially blind and now that Alexei had cut them off, deaf, too.
They were clad head to toe in a special uniform and balaclava made of Nomex that repelled thermal imaging.
Worontzoff’s security was shot to shit tonight, all his guards milling about, offloading the truck that had driven in a quarter of an hour before. He and Di Stefano had been careful and they were good. They’d had zero trouble infiltrating.
Nick knew that the SWAT team was deployed, ready. They’d spent the past hour getting into position. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there. The comms system clicked steadily every quarter of an hour, ticking off men in position.
He’d been expecting a knock-down drag-out fight from Di Stefano about being down here where the action was and not up in the van, watching Alexei pace in frustration. But Di Stefano clearly realized Nick wouldn’t let anything get in the way between him and Charity while she was in Worontzoff’s house. Di Stefano had simply told Nick to suit up and that was that.
Di Stefano pulled out a small LCD monitor, holding it so that no one could detect its faint glow. It was a little miracle of technology, programmed for thermal imaging and able to tune into the frequency of Charity’s microcamera.
He studied it carefully and signaled to Nick that everyone had left the room. To Nick’s surprise, he drew out a tiny drill and proceeded to drill a hole through the wall, at the level of the baseboard inside the house. It was high speed and utterly silent. As soon as the drill perforated the inside wall, Di Stefano threaded a combo microphone–fish-eye lens snake into the hole.
Di Stefano fiddled with the tiny handheld computer, and suddenly Nick had sound and could see inside the room. It was at foot level, but the camera had a good range. He knew it was a little miracle of optics.
Great, now they had eyes and ears in the room and could see and hear what Charity was seeing and hearing. Better than he’d hoped.
There was no one in the study, but there was music in the background. One of those sad Russian songs that had driven him crazy when he was on listening duty.
The comm system was piping sound to everyone on the loop, including Alexei. If Russian was spoken, Alexei would give a simultaneous interpretation.
Everything was good to go. Now all they could do was wait.
Nick was usually good at waiting. Stillness and darkness were his friends. Right now, though, his insides were racing at a thousand miles an hour. He gripped his MP5 tightly, glad for the gloves because his hands were sweating.
Two clicks from the SWAT team members. Nothing happening.
Iceman hunkered down to wait. There was nothing else to do.
Nick had carefully picked her clothes. The black cardigan was loose and didn’t show the tiny mike taped between her breasts or the battery pack taped to the small of her back. Even she had difficulty in seeing the microcamera, it was so well camouflaged. He’d also picked slate gray lightweight wool pants and comfortable boots. He hadn’t said it, but clearly he’d chosen her clothes not only to hide the camera and mike, but also for comfort if she had to move fast.
Nick had filled her head with instructions, but she hadn’t absorbed much beyond not turning her back, not letting material rub against the mike and not scratching herself.
She jolted at the sound of the front doorbell. Vassily’s driver, come to pick her up.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She was about to betray Vassily, something that she would have thought herself incapable of. She thought of the fake medicine, the counterfeit bolts, and what Nick had told her about the human trafficking Vassily’s organization engaged in.
And then she thought of Nick.
Two men. She’d loved both of them, in her way, and she never really knew either of them.
The doorbell rang again and she picked up her coat. Taking a deep breath, she walked to the door.
Showtime.
Al-Banna was late. But Vassily had learned patience at a hard school. The hardest. He wasn’t worried. Al-Banna would come. He was too invested not to. Vassily had something al-Banna wanted very, very badly, with more on the way.
In the meantime, Vassily chatted amiably with his old friend, Arkady, over tea and vodka. They didn’t reminisce about days gone by, as old friends usually did. The past was much too painful. No, music and books wove their usual magic.
Finally, Ilya stood in the doorway. “He’s coming, Vor,” he said quietly. “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“Did you tell him to come alone?” Vassily asked sharply.
“Yes. He wasn’t happy about it, but he’s coming alone. Only the driver and him.”
Vassily didn’t care whether he was happy or not. All he cared about was that a new and safe route had been found and that al-Banna would be bringing ten million dollars.
And that afterward, he would be celebrating with Katya. Together. At long, long last.
Five clicks. The prearranged signal that someone was coming. A sentry was posted two miles up the road, well camouflaged, with powerful binoculars.
“Al-Banna,” Di Stefano mouthed. Nick nodded.
Word must have been given to Worontzoff, too. On the screen, Nick could see him and the Russian who’d brought the container and who was called Arkady enter the study.
They were speaking softly, calmly.
“They’re talking about books,” Alexei’s voice sounded clear as a bell in his ears. “Nothing important. Worontzoff just made a joke about Arabs being late. Used a term for Arab that is very politically incorrect.”
It was almost completely dark, which helped their concealment. The floodlights were on a timer, which hadn’t been changed since summer. They would be turned on in an hour. In an hour and a half, Charity would be safely out of the way and everyone in the mansion would be in restraints. Or dead. Nick didn’t much care either way, as long as Charity was safe.
Nick and Di Stefano held their position, barely breathing. Every once in a while Alexei would give them the gist of the conversation going on in the study.
With a loud clanking sound, the big front gates started opening, exactly in time for a black Mercedes with tinted windows to pass through them and drive up to the front steps without slowing down. An act of pure arrogance.
Two men got out, the driver and a passenger. Nick stared hard at the man who emerged from the passenger side. He’d studied the fucker’s file until it was burned into his brain.
He looked older than the pictures in the file, thinner. There’d been some plastic surgery done. The nose was narrower, cheekbones higher. His hair was pewter gray instead of midnight black.
But Nick would recognize him anywhere.
Hassad al-Banna, the man who’d masterminded the attack against the USS Cole, once Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, now setting up a terror franchise all his own.
Di Stefano clicked once on his lip mike. Nick could almost feel the tension of the invisible team.
He watched al-Banna climb the big granite stairs, the driver right behind him, carrying a large suitcase. Big, beefy guy. Clearly a bodyguard doubling as driver.
A few minutes later, they were walking into the study and Nick and Di Stefano bent over the small screen, watching as if lives depended on it. Which th
ey did.
Vassily got up to greet the Arab. Luckily, there would be no niceties, no pretending at social politeness. This was a business transaction between two men and two organizations that wanted nothing to do with each other, besides exchanging money for a commodity.
This suited him. The quicker this was over with, the faster he could be with Katya. He felt her presence very strongly, even if she hadn’t arrived yet.
There was power in this room, great power. In the hidden history of the world, what happened tonight in this small town in northern Vermont would change the course of human affairs. Vassily felt that fate had deemed that he should live, though he should have died a thousand times over in Kolyma. A powerful force had led him to this point, and to his reclaiming of his lost love.
From this day forward, there would be no more pretense. He and Katya would be reunited and rich and powerful. No one would ever—could ever—harm them, ever again.
Nick and Di Stefano watched it all on the small screen. Worontzoff limping across the study to greet al-Banna, whose bodyguard was wheeling in a large suitcase. Worontzoff stopped right in front of him and gave a brief nod.
Nobody offered to shake hands.
Al-Banna was followed by his bodyguard. The man was carrying. The bulge under his left armpit was clear. Nick could only imagine that Worontzoff’s bodyguard, Ilya, was also carrying. It was entirely possible that if Worontzoff had tried to have al-Banna disarmed, a firefight would break out. Both Ilya and the bodyguard looked tough and proficient.
Mutual assured destruction. It worked. For fifty years it kept the United States and the Soviet Union from bombing each other into oblivion.
There were five men in the room. Worontzoff, al-Banna, his bodyguard, Arkady, and Ilya.
“I don’t think we need to waste time,” Worontzoff said and Hammad nodded. “You go first.”
Hammad looked at his bodyguard. The big man lifted the huge suitcase onto Worontzoff’s desk and opened it. It was filled with bricks of dollars. Everyone in the room froze.
Hell, even Nick and Di Stefano froze.
The camera was at floor level, but the suitcase was so packed with money, it overflowed. The big bodyguard picked up one banded brick and rifled through it. Nick could clearly see Benjamin Franklin’s likeness. One-hundred-dollar-bill denominations. Nick tried to think how much money could possibly be contained in that big suitcase. Millions and millions.
“Ten million dollars,” al-Banna said, his voice tinny in Nick’s earbud. Well, that answered that question. “What does it buy me?”
Worontzoff nodded and the man called Arkady walked over to a large container. It had a complicated closure system, but finally he opened it and lifted the lid.
He stepped back and gestured with his arm at the contents. “A canister with one hundred kilos of cesium 137. Given the temperature, it is currently in a liquid state. There is enough cesium in this canister for one large dirty bomb or several smaller ones. You can irradiate central Manhattan, say the Wall Street district, or several military bases, as you please. We have more than one hundred other canisters, ready for shipment.”
A wintry smile creased al-Banna lips. “Excellent.”
Nick and Di Stefano exchanged grim, startled looks. This was way worse than Nick’s worst imaginings. Thank God they were here and were going to stop the transaction. The mere idea that one hundred canisters of cesium 137 were back in Russia, waiting for shipment to terrorists, was terrifying.
They weren’t going to take down a transaction, they were taking down a network. Ordinarily, this would have filled Nick with satisfaction, but his whole head was taken up with worry about Charity. There wasn’t room for satisfaction, only room for terror that she’d be hurt.
The gate clanged open again and one of Worontzoff’s cars, a Mercedes, drove through. Nick whipped around, watching the car as it drove in. He could barely make out a small, pale figure in the back.
Jesus. Charity.
He broke out in goose bumps, angry that they’d had this half-assed idea of wiring her up and sending her into the lion’s den, scared shitless that something bad would go down.
The big black car disappeared from sight, but he could envision her getting out and walking up the big stone stairs.
A few minutes later, Nick heard a soft knock on the study door. They watched on the monitor as a servant spoke softly to Worontzoff, who said something back.
Nick’s blood ran cold when he heard Alexei’s translation in his headset.
“Bring her in here.”
It was strange walking into Vassily’s home, now that she understood who he really was. She’d been here often, mainly to his soirées, when the big beautiful mansion was filled with people. A few times for tea, with just the two of them, but what seemed like an army of servants hovering in the background.
Now, the big building seemed dark and deserted, a place of danger, not delight.
All winter, she’d loved visiting Vassily. Each time she entered the mansion, it was with a little frisson of excitement, not the shudder of fear and horror pervading her body right now.
Now she knew what he was and what he saw in her. All those long, soulful conversations, the heartfelt talks about books and music—it had all been false. Vassily hadn’t been conversing with her, Charity, but with his long-lost love.
And now that she understood where the money came from, the sumptuousness of Vassily’s home made her queasy. Perhaps it was because she was so depleted, had been through such wringing emotions over the past couple of days, but it seemed to her that Vassily’s home gave off evil vibrations.
She’d never come alone after dark before, without it being a social event. The other times, the mansion and the grounds had been lit up like a Christmas tree, with servants everywhere. Now the mansion was dark, the only outside lights over the porch, leaving the big lawn and the grounds in darkness.
The big black car slid to a stop at the big stairs leading up to the porch. The driver got out and opened the back door. He hadn’t said a word coming here and he didn’t say a word now. He simply held the door open, staring into the far distance.
With each step up the big staircase, the sense of dread increased. She could feel her heartbeat, slow, thudding. It took an effort to move her feet, which felt as heavy as lead. The very air felt dead.
The temptation to look around, to see whether Nick and John Di Stefano were around, was almost irresistible. It would make her feel so much better walking into the dark, forbidding mansion to know that two federal agents were close by, one of them Nick. Whatever would happen to them once this was over, Charity didn’t doubt for a second that Nick would defend her with everything he had.
She also knew that there was a SWAT team somewhere out there, in hiding.
They were good at their job, because she had no sense of protectors being out there at all. She felt alone and small and defenseless, climbing those stairs, palms slick with sweat.
Before she could even ring the chime, the big front door opened. There was almost total darkness beyond, unlike all the other times she’d walked through this door, lit to daylight brightness by the huge chandelier in the foyer.
It wasn’t on now. The only light came from a few lamps on in the big living room at the other end of the foyer, where she and Vassily had spent hours chatting. Her heart squeezed in pain at the thought.
She automatically headed for the living room, when the servant who’d opened the door touched her arm briefly.
“This way, ma’am,” he said, and indicated the study door.
Charity frowned. She’d never been in Vassily’s study. Why did he want her in there now? She approached the study door slowly, heart pounding. The microphone felt like a hundred pound weight between her breasts and she was certain the microcamera was as visible as a red flare.
The servant opened the door and Charity walked in slowly, feeling as if she were going to the guillotine. She wished she’d worn her black turtleneck sweater beca
use she was absolutely certain her trip-hammering heartbeat was visible in her neck.
There was utter silence in the room, five male faces turned to her. Her boot heels sounded loud in the hush of the room.
Vassily’s study was much larger than she’d imagined, almost the size of a ballroom. This being Vassily, it was lined with books, floor to ceiling and, being Vassily, he’d probably read them all. As usual, a fire burned in a hearth even larger than the one in the living room. The huge room was luxurious beyond anything she’d ever seen, with priceless Persian rugs on the flagstone floor, an enormous mahogany desk polished to a high sheen, large pieces of antique furniture barely visible in the gloom. Crystal and brass and silk.
All the light was concentrated around the desk. And on that desk was an open suitcase. It took her a second to recognize what was in the suitcase, it seemed so outlandish.
Money. Money was in the suitcase, brick after brick, tightly packed, overflowing. It must have been millions of dollars. More money than she would ever imagine could be in one place at one time.
Startled, Charity’s gaze flew to Vassily’s. He was watching her carefully, that burning light in his eyes. Charity had no idea how to react. Clearly, Vassily wanted her to see all this money, but why?
It was dangerous, to him and to her.
If she’d harbored the slightest little doubt that Vassily was a criminal, this suitcase shattered that doubt. No one but a criminal could possibly need to handle so much cash.
Vassily was watching her feverishly, expectantly. He knew she’d seen the money. What was she supposed to say? Charity felt the danger in the room, so acutely she felt faint.
She looked around at the other four men. Vassily might look at her with affection—at least until he finally realized that she wasn’t Katya—but the other male faces were watching her with hostility.
Particularly one man, dark with silver-gray hair and harsh-set features. When she met his gaze, her heart jolted at the black, fathomless hatred she read there. It came off him in sickening, dark waves.
The Dangerous Boxed Set Page 28
