The Russian's Greed

by Cap Daniels

Anya tilted her head, glanced at Volkov, then back to Sascha. “If this is true, then you were last person inside vault since missing stones were seen, no?”

  Sascha threw a finger into Anya’s face. “Are you saying I stole two diamonds from myself?”

  “No, of course not,” she said. “I am saying your statement about my friend and me being last ones inside vault is an intentional lie because you knew truth.”

  Sascha’s pupils narrowed, and he ground his teeth together. With no external indications, Anya smiled inside her head. The Russian scientist with soft hands and obvious anger issues was about to take a swing at her, and when he did, she would be justified in removing his head.

  Volkov had stood in silence as long as he could bear and stepped between the two, placing his palm in the center of Sascha’s chest. “Perhaps it is simply an error in counting. Let’s have a look, shall we?”

  He opened the vault door and motioned for Sascha and Anya to follow him inside. The two velvet bags rested on the spotless table, and Volkov poured the contents of the first bag onto a black padded surface and withdrew a long pair of jeweler’s locking tweezers from a drawer. Anya leaned in, eyeing the pile of stones closely and pretending to count.

  She stood erect. “Sascha is correct. There are only forty-nine stones in that pile.”

  Volkov turned to her. “How could you possibly count fifty stones so quickly?”

  “I did not count fifty stones,” she said. “I only counted forty-nine.”

  Sascha growled, “Viktor, I warned you. She’s playing us.”

  Volkov held up a hand and slid the stones aside. He poured the contents of the remaining bag onto a separate surface and motioned toward the hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of flawless carbon.

  Anya leaned in, ran her index finger through a small pile of stones and skillfully allowed the palmed diamonds to slide from her hand. When she’d spread the stones adequately, she frowned and pretended to count again. When she finished, she turned to face her accuser. “It appears Viktor is correct this time, Sascha. There are fifty-one stones in this pile.”

  Sascha shoved her aside, ripped the tweezers from Volkov, and quickly counted the stones twice. When he finished, he turned, his face blood red, and he shook a finger toward Anya.

  She smiled. “You may be brilliant scientist, Sascha, but you are not so good at counting.”

  Volkov stifled a laugh, pulled a loupe from his pocket, and tossed it to Sascha. “Find it,” he ordered.

  The scientist, adequately scolded, went to work inspecting every stone in the pile of fifty-one.

  “Come with me,” Volkov said softly, and Anya followed him from the vault. He led her through a barely visible door and into an office even more lavishly furnished than the sitting room outside the vault. “This is your office. You will work here. If you do not like the light, the chair, or anything else, you have only to tell me or Sascha and we will remedy the problem immediately.”

  Anya took in the room, memorizing every detail, and then cast a glance back through the door. “Thank you, Viktor. The office is beautiful, and I will be perfectly comfortable here, but I fear Sascha feels I should not be here at all.”

  Volkov smiled. “Do not worry, my darling. Sascha works for me, and I will see that he understands what is important is what I want, and I want you here.”

  She stepped toward him and extended her arms, but he held up a palm. “Not here. Here we are in business, and only business. I’m sure you understand.”

  Anya offered a small bow. “Of course.”

  Viktor turned for the door. “Make yourself comfortable. Sascha will be in with two bags of stones for you. Make as many matches as possible, but always keep the stones from each bag separate from the others. They are not to be mixed. Simply identify matches and place the pairs aside, keeping the two bags separate. Do you understand?”

  She gave a quick, wordless nod, and he left her alone in her first office with her first diamond still gleaming on her finger.

  Moments later, a soft tap came on her door.

  “Please come inside,” Anya said.

  The door opened, and Sascha pushed through with a pair of bags in his hand. He set them on Anya’s worktable and slid the blue bag well to the left of the black one. “Viktor explained the importance of keeping the bags separate until a match is made, correct?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  Sascha took a step back. “Look, I’m sorry about this morning. This is my life’s work, and I take it very personally as well as seriously. I was wrong, and I shouldn’t have blamed you. It won’t happen again.”

  She rose from the table and stepped to within inches of the man. She leaned in and kissed his cheek innocently just in front of his ear. “Do not worry, Sascha. I am not threat to you. I am only simple actress with very good memory.”

  He let out the breath he’d been holding and stepped away. Anya was left almost alone in her new office. The six cameras she’d already detected left her believing there were at least six more, and her claim to be an actress was being put to the test. Her performance for the cameras would have to be flawless.

  She pulled the sweatshirt over her head, providing camera number-one a perfect view of her toned stomach and delicate lace of her bra as her T-shirt rose with the hoodie. After straightening her clothing, she sat at the worktable and adjusted the articulating arm of the light.

  An hour later, she’d made six matches and devised a system of four columns on the edge of her table. The two left columns were reserved exclusively for stones from the blue bag. If a pair was made and both diamonds came from the blue bag, they would rest side by side in columns one and two. Columns three and four were exclusively for black bag diamonds. If a pair was made with one diamond from each bag, column two held the blue bag stone, and the black bag stone rested in column three. Just like columns one and two were reserved for the blue bag, columns three and four were exclusively for black baggers.

  The system proved efficient and effective until the ninety-minute mark when every stone began to look like every other one. She stood from her seat, stretched, and turned for the tea service she’d noticed after only seconds in her office. The break and tea kept the coming headache at bay, and she returned to her table.

  A solid rasp at the door startled her, and she almost knocked the stones from their columns. Without an invitation, Volkov came through the door and leaned against the corner of her table. “How are you doing on your first day in the diamond mine?”

  Anya rubbed her temples. “It is harder than I thought, but I am making progress. I have so far only six matches. I fear this is terrible, but I am trying.”

  “Six? You’ve made six matches in two hours?”

  She sighed. “Yes, I am sorry, but this is all I could do so far. I will get better and faster in time. I am still making process.” She pointed toward the paired diamonds and explained the column system she devised.

  Volkov laid his hand on her shoulder. “It takes seasoned gemologists hours to make a single match, and you’ve made six already. You’re a gift from God.”

  Anya feigned embarrassment. “I am not gift from God. Only lucky find for you this time.” She motioned toward the columns of paired stones. “I would like for you to look closely at diamonds and tell me if you agree they are matching. You will do this for me, yes?”

  He pulled a loupe from his pocket. “I’ll take a look, but I’m sure they’re perfect.”

  He clamped the first two stones in a pair of tweezers and alternately inspected each stone, switching several times. After carefully placing the stones back in the appropriate columns, he repeated the procedure with two more pairs and replaced each to their previous positions. “Stay here, and don’t touch anything. I’ll be right back.”

  She did as he instructed and sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap, just as the cameras would expect. Moments later, Volkov returned with Sascha in tow. “Look what she has done. In less than two hours, she claims to ha
ve made six pairs. See for yourself.”

  Sascha leaned down, lifted a pair to his loupe, and thoroughly examined the stones. Without a word, he returned the stones to the table and lifted a second pair. After meticulous inspection, he stood up straight. “Remarkable.”

  Anya moved the stones Sascha had misplaced and aligned them with her column system.

  Volkov said, “Explain the columns to Sascha.”

  Anya did, and he was adequately impressed.

  “Six matches in less than two hours is unbelievable. The computer can’t match them so quickly.”

  Anya looked up. “You have computer to do this job?”

  “We do.”

  “If this is true, why do you need me? I can only work ninety minutes before I must have time to relax, but you could have computer working constantly and never needing tea.”

  “This is true,” Sascha said. “But with one hundred stones, the computer matches one pair every six hours and has only sixty percent accuracy, so that means, mathematically, considering the erroneous matches, it would take the computer sixty hours to make the six matches you made in ninety minutes. That’s why Viktor is right . . . again. You are a gift from God straight to us.”

  Anya shot a thumb toward the door. “Go away. There are at least two more matches, and you are interrupting my work.”

  Viktor and Sascha went the way of the thumb and pulled the door closed behind them.

  When they were well out of earshot, Viktor turned to the scientist. “How many matches are in those bags?”

  Sascha held up his palms. “I found only five in two weeks of searching.”

  20

  DRUG DRUGA

  (FRIEND OF A FRIEND)

  When Anya stepped through the apartment door, she discovered Special Agent Gwynn Davis with a cell phone pressed to her ear and a finger pressed to her lips. Anya obeyed the instruction to remain silent but sat on the overstuffed chair and stared at her partner. The look on Gwynn’s face said she was shoulder-deep in official business.

  “Yes, sir, that’s correct . . . Supervisory Special Agent Ray White . . . Thank you. I would greatly appreciate a callback today after you speak with my supervisor . . . Yes, sir, I realize that, but this is an active Justice Department investigation with agents in the field.” Gwynn pulled the phone from her ear and stared into the dark screen. “That S-O-B hung up on me.”

  “Who?” Anya asked.

  “A guy over at the State Department. I’m working on background for Volkov’s brother. I learned that his name is—or was—Konstantin Dmitrievich Volkov, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

  Anya slowly shook her head. “Have you not read Anna Karenina?”

  “No, why?”

  “Someone is playing games with you. Who told you Volkov’s brother was Konstantin Dmitrievich?”

  “A guy Johnny-Mac knows at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.”

  “This person is lying to you. Konstantin Dmitrievich is a character from Leo Tolstoy’s greatest novel, Anna Karenina. Why have you never read this book?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve heard of it, but . . .”

  “I will buy for you this book, and you will read it each night before falling asleep.”

  Gwynn sank into the cushion of the sofa. “Why do people have to make everything so hard?”

  Anya moved from the chair to the sofa. “There is one thing the government is great at, and this is screwing everything up. It is different, but sometimes same in Russia and America. When the government is involved, everything takes too long and is too complicated. It is same at grocery store. In Russia, we have two kinds of crackers, but here in America, the shelves are full of crackers—hundreds of them. It is too much and too hard to choose.”

  Gwynn raised an eyebrow. “How does that have anything to do with some low-level diplomat in Moscow playing games with me?”

  “It is simple. This person in Moscow is probably nothing more than clerk or maybe errand boy, and he does not know anything about Volkov’s family. Maybe other option is this. Maybe he is higher-level diplomat and knows everything about Volkov, but he is not willing to tell secrets. If this is true, you have started avalanche inside embassy, and everything you want to know is now buried beneath a pile of large rocks, and you will never get truth from them.”

  Gwynn sighed. “Then what am I supposed to do? If I can’t get the answers I need, we’ll never be able to prove Volkov’s connection to his brother’s murder. If we can’t make the connection, we’ll never be able to get little Anya and her mother to the States.”

  Anya cast her eyes to the ceiling, and the wheels began to spin. After what felt like an eternity to Gwynn, her partner said, “There are two ways to find information we need from inside Russia.”

  Gwynn leaned forward. “Come on, don’t make me wait. Let’s hear them.”

  “First way is to go to Moscow and find the information ourselves.”

  “That’s not going to happen. First of all, there’s no way the Justice Department would approve the cost. Second, you’re still persona non grata over there. Even if we got in the country undetected, you’d be back in prison the second we approached an official with any information we need. So, that’s out. What’s the other option?”

  “Skipper.”

  Gwynn cocked her head. “What’s Skipper?”

  “Skipper is excellent analyst who can find almost anyone with only her computers.”

  A ray of hope shone in Gwynn’s eyes. “So, all we have to do is have Agent White call up the CIA and get this analyst you know assigned to our operation.”

  Anya frowned. “No, Skipper does not work for CIA.”

  “Who, then? DIA? NSA? It doesn’t really matter because we can get him temporarily assigned no matter who he works for.”

  “No, this is not possible. Skipper is a woman, not a man, and she does not work for government.”

  Gwynn scratched her head. “A female analyst who doesn’t work for the government?”

  “Yes, she works exclusively for Chase’s team.”

  Gwynn sank back against the sofa. “Him again, really?”

  “No, not him. Her.”

  “So how do we find her?”

  Anya held up her phone. “We call her.”

  “I can’t authorize that call, and you know that.”

  Anya smiled. “Yes, but you do not have to know.”

  “Don’t do it, Anya. Agent White will have both our heads on pikes if you make that call without his approval.”

  “What do I have to lose?”

  “Your freedom, for one thing. If you screw this up, you know Agent White will keep his word and send you to prison.”

  Anya pressed her lips into a thin horizontal line. “Agent White has not forbidden you from calling Skipper.”

  “No! I’ve screwed up enough on this operation already. I’m not going to push it any further. What I will do, though, is talk with Agent White about it. Maybe he’ll approve you calling her. If not, maybe—and this is much more likely—he’ll approve me to make the call.”

  Gwynn spent the next half hour briefing and begging her boss. She laid out what she’d found on her own, as well as the roadblock she’d encountered with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Saving the best—or perhaps the scariest—for last, the final five minutes of the conversation was spent explaining Skipper and hoping for his blessing to make that call.

  When she hung up, Gwynn turned to Anya and shrugged.

  “What did he say?”

  “He’s thinking about it, and that’s weird. I’ve never known him to not be able to make a decision on the spot.”

  “This is big decision,” Anya said. “One of the major concerns he has is my contact with my friends. He doesn’t call them friends, though. He calls them people from my previous life. I do not like this name for them.”

  “I know this is going to sound cold, but I don’t think Agent White cares what we like. He’s going to do what he thinks is best in every situation,
regardless of what anybody else has to say about it.”

  “When will he be finished thinking?”

  “How should I know? Why don’t you tell me about your day while we’re waiting for a callback?”

  “It was not a pleasant start. Sascha counted the diamonds in bags and found two missing.”

  “Oh, my god. He caught you?”

  “No, he did not catch me. I made him look like fool by slipping the diamonds I ‘borrowed’ back into second bag, and Viktor made him apologize to me.”

  “Made him apologize? Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I am. I think even he believed he’d miscounted. It was fun for me.”

  Gwynn shook her head. “That’s amazing. So, what else happened?”

  I found nine pairs of matching stones in the two bags, and I learned there is computer to do same job as me.”

  “Articles, Anya. You’ve got to learn to use English articles. You’re killing me.”

  “I am sorry. I will try harder, but is difficult for me.”

  Before Gwynn could continue English class, her phone chimed, and she held it up. “It’s Agent White. That was fast.”

  Anya motioned toward the phone. “Answer!”

  Gwynn chuckled and stuck the phone to her ear. “Davis.”

  “Davis, it’s White. Give me her phone number.”

  Gwynn recoiled. “What?”

  White scolded. “Give me a phone number for this Skipper character. I’ll make the call.”

  “Hang on a second.” Gwynn covered the mouthpiece with her palm and turned to Anya. “Agent White wants Skipper’s number so he can call her.”

  Anya let the long list of what could go wrong run through her head before reciting the number. Gwynn relayed the ten digits to her boss, and he hung up without another word. Gwynn was left, once again, staring at her silent phone.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Gwynn looked up. “Everybody’s hanging up on me today.”

  Anya ignored the complaint. “I am concerned about what will happen when Agent White calls Skipper.”

  “Why?”

  “The people on the team are very close. They are more than friends and what you would call coworkers. They are like a family. Skipper will tell everyone on the team about the conversation with your boss, and they will try to find me.”