The Fifth Man

by James Lepore

  “These things happen, Chris,” he said. “He’s twenty-two.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m the only one they trust in Warsaw,” Max said. “You said we only had a few days.”

  “You had to leave.”

  “Yes.” But I don’t blame Matt for staying behind, for disobeying his father. I might have too. For Ms. Cavanagh. That eye! It makes her more beautiful.

  “What did you do in Warsaw?”

  “Waterboard. It only took an hour.”

  “They were in sync?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they related?”

  “Brother and sister.”

  “What did they have to say?”

  “They believed they were working for the Odessa Mafya.”

  “Don Marchenko,” Chris said. “Odessa Bratva.”

  “Yes. They were to do everything they could to sell the diamonds to Matt. When they found out about the two million, they killed the locksmith and went after the cash.”

  “Skip the diamonds. It makes sense.”

  “The thing is, they were acting on their own when they went after the cash. They got the storage unit number from a local locksmith and then killed him.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No. They were told if they couldn’t make the deal with Matt, they were to come home. They never told their contact about the cash or the locksmith.”

  “The locksmith wasn’t in on it?”

  “No.”

  “Did he have a family?”

  “Two kids.”

  “How did they know they were working for Odessa Bratva?”

  “Their contact told them.”

  “Who was that?”

  “The captain of the Scorpion.”

  “Stavros.”

  “Yes.”

  “So they had to sell these particular diamonds and it had to be to Matt.”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Did he talk about his so-called girlfriend, Irina Tabak?”

  “He was paid to kill her.”

  “By whom?”

  “A man he met in a bar in Odessa.”

  “Eliminated by now, I’m sure.”

  “I agree. What now? You haven’t told me about Tess.”

  “A Russian named Marko Dravic got her out to his yacht on the bay.”

  “How?”

  “He used a handsome drifter, a waiter in town. He said he knew the chef—that Dravic was away. They were supposed to have a drink. All in the open.”

  Max shook his head. He had never met Tess Massi, but had fallen in love with her picture, a phenomenon in his life that he knew was a problem that would one day have to be confronted. He fell in love with pictures, not real women. “Is she still here?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What did Dravic want?”

  “He wants me to carry a message to SIS in Prague. GRU has come upon a plot to set off bombs in Wenceslas Square on September eleven.”

  “By whom?”

  “The Chechans. Supposedly.”

  “Everything is supposedly until it happens in this business.”

  Chris nodded.

  “Why you?”

  “That’s the big question,” Chris replied. “He said the Czechs won’t believe the Kremlin, too much bad blood.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it might be about me.”

  “You? How?”

  “An old grudge. A score to settle.”

  “They picked a pretty elaborate way to do it.”

  “I agree.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Costa is checking out Dravic. You do the same. Go to Prague. Talk to our people there. Ask them if they hear anything about an attack in Wenceslas Square on 9/11.”

  “Should I let Mr. White know what’s going on?” Max asked.

  “Yes. I may need his help. My children are involved.”

  “Should I tell him that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of help? In case he asks.”

  “Reconnaissance. Maybe a drone.”

  “A drone? Chris…”

  “You know the deal we made, Max.”

  “Okay,” Max said, thinking, that’s the problem when you have kids, people you love. Then, out loud, he said, “Chris, about Matt…”

  “He’s on his own, Max. It was always going to come down to that. I’m responsible.”

  Max, who had gotten away with a murder of his own, when he was eighteen, and who was a keen if unorthodox observer of human nature, now knew that the reason he was having trouble seeing the changes Chris Massi had undergone was because they had been natural, a matter of evolution, that the judgment Mr. White had made in 2004 had been accurate. More than accurate—prescient. He was about to push out of his comfortable chair to take his leave when he was interrupted by Chris.

  “Before you go, Max.”

  “Yes.”

  “How are you?”

  Max brought himself to the edge of his chair and answered without thinking, “I’m fine.” Then he thought, he means it.

  “Do you know what we have in common, Max?” Chris asked.

  “What?”

  “An unconscious operating principal.”

  “What is it?”

  “If I knew, it wouldn’t be unconscious anymore.”

  “When you figure it out, let me know.”

  “I will,” Chris replied, smiling. “Then we can both retire.”

  22.

  Moscow, August 28, 2012, 7:00 a.m.

  “So, Marko, what happened to your young man and his sister?”

  “I don’t know. I assume they are dead or being held somewhere very secure.”

  “No trace?”

  “No.”

  “You have people looking, searching, inside and out?”

  “Yes.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Mr. Massi, Senior, may have intervened.”

  “Yes. I assume the son reported the offer to the father, which is what we wanted.” What you wanted, Marko Dravic said to himself.

  “You deliberately hired amateurs.”

  “Yes, with nothing to talk about if they got caught.”

  “Except the ship’s captain, whom I assume you have taken care of.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Perhaps your young man talked about Ms. Tabak and her diamonds.”

  “That contact has also been eliminated.”

  “No man, no problem.”

  “Yes. Stalinesque.”

  “Oh, that’s been going on for centuries. Look at Julius Caesar, Saddam Hussein. It’s a boring list.”

  “They didn’t die well.”

  “As I say, quite boring. And futile, really.”

  “I agree.” What else would I do, but agree with you?

  “We will save the diamonds for another day.”

  Marko Dravic, nee Marko Dravnova—and with many other aliases in between—sat across from the man known in a very small circle as the Wolf, the secret head of possibly the most secret espionage unit in the world. “How do you wish me to proceed?” he asked.

  “Massi will go to Prague.”

  “Why, because his children have been put into play?”

  “Yes, it is the typical response. You can always count on American sentimentalism.”

  Dravic, who had been wondering if he would be the Wolf’s next meal—the operation in America had been a complete failure—did not agree. Massi had no country. He had a kingdom, a moveable kingdom. “And once in Prague?” he asked.

  “He must meet with one of the Iranian madmen. Someone directly l
inked to Fallen Heroes. You will arrange that. Get a photograph if you can.”

  “They will want to know why, the Iranians and their Syrian friends.”

  “What shall we tell them?”

  Dravic was in no hurry to respond. He had been buried deep in the Odessa underworld for many years, running a vast credit card theft operation, which included thief-to-thief escrow accounts and the manufacture and sale of ATM skimmers, with profits in the hundreds of millions, most of it going to the Wolf’s numerous personal accounts and operational slush funds. He had killed several men personally in that time and ordered the deaths of a dozen others. Other than the money it raised for Mother Russia, he did not know nor did he care why the Wolf had put him in that job. The same went for his current assignment.

  “That Massi is an American spy who we are trying to destroy?”

  “No, they would want no part of that.”

  “Then what?”

  “That Massi is our man, that there will be no deal for oil products, no cover at the UN, unless he is involved, unless we use his ships.”

  “Is he our man?”

  “No.”

  “Is he an American spy?”

  “I think he is.”

  There must be easier ways than this to eliminate him, Dravic thought. Then, out loud, he said, “So I am a fellow businessman, who can vouch for him and who has your imprimatur?”

  “Excellent.”

  “And why should they produce someone from Fallen Heroes?”

  “Because we insist, because Assad will fall without our oil products. Remind them how much tank fuel we are ready to supply. And because we can stop the Iranian nuclear program whenever we want.”

  “Shall I be that blunt?”

  “If they resist, yes.”

  The two men, both 1975 graduates of the Soviet Union’s 401st KGB school in Ochta, Leningrad, both sixty years-old, sat in a small but beautifully appointed office situated in the rotunda of the southeast corner tower of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on the Moscow River. To the east they could see the towers of the Kremlin rising above the Alexander Gardens, and below them the traffic speeding along the Kremlin Embankment. The late-summer day promised to be warm and sunny, but the night had been cool, bracing in fact, presaging Russia’s great historical guardian and true savior, winter. Old hands, Marko and his boss could smell winter in the air, along with danger—and opportunity.

  “Do you find that chair comfortable?” the Wolf asked.

  Dravic shifted his weight in the heavy-framed velvet-covered chair. “Yes,” he answered.

  “They were gifts, these chairs, from the bishop here, Father Josef.”

  “When you built this secret office.”

  “Yes. You don’t know Father Josef, do you, Marko?”

  “No, I don’t think I do.”

  “He was a year behind us at Octha. They called him the Matador.”

  “The Matador?”

  “He raised red flags wherever he went.”

  “And now he is now a bishop.”

  “Yes, he was useless as a spy but he came from an important family, so Andropov made a deal with him. ‘Enter the priesthood, we will guide you to the top, you will work for us as needed. If you refuse, you die or go to an asylum.’ He was thinking ahead, Yuri, even then, you see.”

  “He was wrong about the space creatures.”

  Both men smiled. The head of the KGB for fifteen years before becoming General Secretary, Yuri Andropov had a keen interest in UFOs, certain that space aliens would one day become Russia’s natural allies in the cold war. The thousands of monitoring stations he had had built across three continents and manned around the clock had all been abandoned when the Soviet empire broke up in 1990.

  “Yes,” the Wolf said, “but he foresaw the changes we now see in place, what the West calls the new world order. And he hedged our mother’s bets.”

  “Our dear Mother Russia.”

  “Which brings us back to your present mission.”

  “I am listening.”

  “You will need help outside the normal channels.”

  “I agree.”

  “The Christians in Syria have not joined the uprising. You are aware of this?”

  “Yes. Assad has left them alone.”

  “And his father before him.”

  “It seems we are their protectors.”

  “Quite right. And so for this and for many other things, the church is in our debt.”

  “So I have gathered. You are leading up to something.”

  Here the Wolf smiled broadly, showing a full set of good strong teeth, the canines just slightly larger than the rest on top. At Octha, he was the wolf with a lower case w. Now, having survived the breakup of the Soviet Union, the dismantling of the KGB and risen high in the GRU, the w, in Dravic’s mind at least, was writ large.

  “Do you watch television, Marko?”

  “Rarely.”

  “Do you know the handsome young priest, Father Nicolei Petrov?”

  “No.”

  “He is a star in the church and the media.”

  “The media?”

  “Yes, he is often on television. He takes the traditional side in all the debates, the church’s side.”

  “As I said, I do not watch television.”

  “He is the darling of the religious right, not only here in Russia, but throughout Central Europe.”

  “Is he one of ours? Is that it?”

  “His sister, Valentina,” the Wolf replied, “is his secretary and manager. She books him on talk shows, parliamentary hearings, she travels with him for his appearances in foreign capitals.”

  “Is she one of ours?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “The best answer.”

  “You are staying at the National, as usual,” the Wolf asked.

  “As usual.”

  “Valentina and Father Nicolei will be having dinner there tonight with friends. Be at the bar at ten p.m. She will walk through to the ladies room. She is thirty-five, five-seven in height, long dark hair, dark eyes. Very beautiful. She’ll be wearing a black dress with a diamond necklace. She will leave instructions there for you in the soap dispenser, the name of your contact at the Iranian embassy in Prague and your contact code.”

  “The ladies room is lockable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cameras?”

  “Operated with the light switch. Do not turn it on.”

  “Simple.”

  The Wolf smiled his toothy smile, the canines fully on display. “As we were taught,” he said.

  Yes, Marko Dravic thought, but we were also taught not to be obsessive, not to let it get personal. Sentiment kills Americans, not us. So why are you obsessed with Mr. Chris Massi when this operation would be so simple without him? Indeed, would there even be an Operation Fallen Heroes if you could not get Mr. Massi involved?

  23.

  Skopelos, August 28, 2012, 6:00 p.m.

  Chris Massi’s private beach was strung along the south side of a small, crescent-shaped cove that could hardly be noticed on a map as distinct from the larger expanse of the bay. Its sand was a strange sparkling lava-gray and its waters a pale, translucent green, a dreamy pastel canvas that did not darken until the ocean floor fell away a hundred yards out toward the horizon. Here Chris swam every afternoon when he was in Skopelos, swam and occasionally read, before showering and then checking the layout of his world, the moving and non-moving parts, the pieces he could control and those he could only watch. Today, turning toward shore, he saw his son and daughter on the beach, sitting on the wooden chairs Christina kept between two boulders at the foot of the cliff, at the summit of which stood his hundred-year-old rambling whitewashed house. He had caught a quick glimpse of them descending the stone steps that led down the
steep cliff from the house as he was turning into his last lap. There would be no reading today. Today there would be questions.

  Tess greeted him at the surf’s edge with a thick oversized towel. As he dried off he watched Matt—who had landed in Athens last night and on Skopelos that morning—pour white wine from a bottle that was on ice in a silver bucket on the sand. At breakfast, they had not pressed him for information and he had been pleased. Think, he had said to them as they were growing up, apropos of matters large and small. An argument with a coach? A teenage betrayal? An injustice to be confronted? Think before you speak or act. Slow down. Do not be over-eager. Do not show your hand before it is absolutely necessary. But he could read their faces. Training in Arizona? Max French? Dead bodies in the New Jersey Meadowlands? McGuire Air Force Base? Warsaw? They wanted to know about his world, of which he had told them nothing since the day he entered it eight years ago. He was not surprised to see them waiting for him.

  “We thought we’d surprise you,” Matt said, handing the wine glasses around.

  “Yassas,” Chris said, smiling, raising his glass.

  “Yassas,” echoed Tess and Matt.

  Tess and Matt sat, and Chris, the setting sun to his back, sat facing them in the chair they had placed there for him. In a canvas bag on the sand was a black cotton sweater, which Chris pulled out and slipped on. The first sip of wine was tangy as it mixed with the residue of sea salt on his lips. The second was clean and bright and resiny, the bottle, he knew, coming from Christina’s homemade store in the cellars beneath the house.

  “Dad,” Matt said, “Tess told me she’s going to Arizona.”

  “And then Italy,” Chris said.

  “Italy?” Tess said.

  “For the second part of your training.”

  “I think I should go too,” said Matt.

  “Not now,” Chris answered.

  “What’s going on, Dad?” Matt asked.

  “Let’s back up,” Chris said. “Tell me about Uncle Frank.”

  “Uncle Frank,” Matt replied, his face grim. “Did you talk to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”