by Mark Greaney
But Miss Venezuela was different. She was the only woman in the country that he had eyes for. He’d met her on the Internet, which was de rigueur for the forty-four-year-old Russian husband and father. For the past eighteen months he’d made at least one flight a month to Caracas, ferrying missiles or warship parts or seemingly every major item from the Russian military catalog with the exception of the Kalashnikov rifle, as the Russian government had licensed a plant in Maracay, Venezuela, to produce AK-103s domestically. And virtually every time he came to Caracas, twenty-nine-year-old Tanya del Cid was waiting for him in a junior suite at the Gran Meliá Caracas, arguably the most opulent five-star hotel in all of Venezuela. Tanya was a cashier at a Lexus dealership, and she had a girlfriend who worked as a concierge at the Gran Meliá, and both women traded secret overnight loans of the goods and services of their employers. While Tanya enjoyed her dashing Russian pilot in a junior suite, Maria cruised Avenida Principal de las Mercedes in an SC10 convertible “borrowed” off the lot.
Two weeks to the day after his flight to Al Fashir, Gennady Orloff and his crew said good-bye at Ground Transportation of Simón Bolívar Airport, with plans to see one another the next afternoon for the return flight. The four other Russians ran through a late afternoon downpour to jump into a shuttle bus to ferry them to a nearby airport inn, while Gennady climbed in a cab with instructions to rush him to the Gran Meliá.
Thirty-five minutes later, the rain-soaked shoes of Gennady Orloff squished down a beautiful hall on the seventh floor of the hotel, his weathered canvas flight case and nylon overnight bag rolling behind them. Gennady’s tension, both nervous and sexual, made him feel like he was back in school. He arrived at room 709 and found the door cracked. Curious but not worried, he pushed the door open slightly.
Rose petals lay in a wide path through the sitting area, disappearing down the candlelit hallway to the bedroom. Soft Latin music, a somber serenade by María Teresa Chacín, played on the stereo.
Gennady smiled. Ah, this again.
Inside he left his cases at the door as he shut and locked it. He kicked off his wet shoes and yanked off his soaked socks, quickly pulled a long-stemmed white rose from an arrangement on the coffee table, and walked down the hallway. He paused at the door to savor the moment, the smell of lavender wax from the candles, the feel of the moist petals between his toes, the perfume of Tanya, which wafted gently in the air.
Gennady opened the door, his eyes following the petals all the way to the bed.
Tanya sat on the bed, fully clothed. Her arms were tied behind her back at the elbows, she’d been gagged with panty hose, and her eyes were wide from fright and red and puffy and dripping tears.
Gennady heard the hammer of a pistol cocking behind his head.
He dropped the rose.
English words: “Hands high. Walk backwards down the hall. Slowly.”
Gennady Orloff did as he was told. His frightened eyes locked with Tanya’s. She tried to say something, but only a series of high notes and a quarter cup of spit came out of her mouth through the panty hose.
Once back in the living room, the music was turned down. He waited several seconds for instructions, but when none came, he put as much masculinity into his voice as he could muster and said, “I am turning around slowly.”
A man in a suit sat in a leather chair, his back to the far wall, a raincoat folded beside him. Both hands were empty now; they rested on his knees. To the man’s left the thunderstorm raged in the window, the light on his face coming from outside and, through the water streaming down the glass, made it seem as if his face was melting before Orloff’s eyes.
The face. Gennady knew that face.
It was the American assassin he’d flown into Sudan, the one who’d caused him so much trouble. The Russian tried to not let his nervousness show. “Chto Novava?” What’s new?
“Nichivo.” Nothing much.
“Shto ty hochesh?” What do you want?
“For starters, I want to speak English. Sit down.”
Gennady sat on the sofa across from the American. He moved slowly, warily, but the bearded man in the leather chair gave no indication of threat. He seemed thinner somehow than in the Sudan. His face appeared drawn and gaunt, though again, his face was somewhat obscured by the rain-diffused lighting.
The Russian pilot switched to English. “All right. What do you want?”
“I want to have a conversation with you.”
“You caused me a lot of problems after Al Fashir.”
The American shrugged. “Apparently everything is okay now. You are still flying weapons for Rosoboronexport.”
“A kak je? Why wouldn’t I be? I did nothing wrong.”
“Other than violating sanctions, you mean.”
Gennady relaxed a little. He waved his arm like shooing a fly from his face. “Politics. I don’t have anything to do with those decisions. I am just a pilot.”
The American shrugged. “We all have our expertise.”
Gennady swallowed, stopped himself from asking about the American’s expertise. He knew he was a killer, and did not want to bring that up.
“Did you . . . do anything to Tanya?”
“Depends on your definition of ‘anything.’ I put a gun in her face. I tied her up. I scared the piss out of her, quite literally, as a matter of fact. Yeah, I did ‘something’ to her.” The man seemed distant for a moment. But his eyes retrained on Gennady in a second. “She’s a spook, by the way.” He said it nonchalantly.
“What?”
“Yeah. She’s GIO.”
Gennady just stared back. He did not understand.
“General Intelligence Office.”
Still no comprehension of what he was being told.
The American sighed, frustrated. “A Venezuelan spy. I pulled a wire from her.” He dangled a tiny listening device with an antenna no wider than a strand of wet spaghetti out in front of him, then swung it across the coffee table to Orloff.
Gennady caught it and looked it over. He laid it down on the table. “You lie.”
“No . . . I kill. I do not lie.”
Orloff believed. For several seconds he all but forgot about the American in front of him. He wanted to stand and return to the bedroom to beat the shit out of the little lying Latin whore, make good use out of those restraints holding her arms back.
But the American? What was his angle?
“You work for Gregor Sidorenko. The FSB told me this when they questioned me about your disappearance. Are you here to protect me from Venezuelan intelligence?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Does your wife know about the affair?”
Gennady’s eyes narrowed. “Not this one, no. But she would understand. She knows I am a man who is loved by many women.”
“Especially those paid to sleep with you.”
The Russian sighed. Shrugged. “I love my wife.”
“Do I look like I give a flying fuck about your marriage?”
“Then what is this about?”
“I don’t know what the Venezuelans plan to do with the intelligence they’ve gotten from you, but you have to ask yourself if you have ever said one thing in bed with the beautiful Tanya del Cid that you don’t want the FSB to know about. Nothing negative about home? About your work? Nothing significant that could hurt you if Russian state security heard it?”
Gennady shrugged. “I am just a pilot. And a proud Russian. I have said nothing that worries me.”
“You are certain?”
The Russian nodded slowly, perhaps not so sure but unwilling to reveal anything to this American.
The American seemed unfazed. “I need you to do something for me. I am prepared to pay you a lot of money.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Something that you already do well. Talk.”
“Talk about?”
“Talk about flying into Darfur. Talk about ferrying in an assassin from the Russian mafi
a to do a job for Russian state security. Talk about the types and quantities of weapons you brought into the country, weapons that won’t show up on any invoices. Show the West Russia’s crimes, and show the Sudanese that the Russians killed their leader.”
“What will that prove?”
“What many people already assume. But it will put pressure on Russia, get them kicked out of the country. Damage their influence. It just might prevent a war.”
“Why the hell would I do something so crazy as this? The FSB would kill me if I did.”
“Not if they could not get to you.”
Gennady shook his head. This discussion was madness, completely out of the question. “I have a family. They could get to them. My wife and three children—”
“Five children, actually.” The American said, his voice menacing. “Must be hard to keep up, isn’t it? Three with your wife, Marina, in central Moscow, plus a six-year-old girl with Mina, a Thai factory worker, and a twelve-year-old boy with Elmeera, a Tunisian flight attendant.”
“Yes,” said Gennady slowly, frightened now that the dangerous man knew so much about him. “But my family in Moscow, even if the FSB couldn’t get me. If I talk about Sudan, Sidorenko or the FSB will kill them.”
“A team from the International Criminal Court is in Moscow now. You call your wife and tell her, and I will call the team, and your family will be taken from Russia, to safety, within the hour.”
Gennady shook his head without reservation. “No way. Just leave now, American, and I will not report this. But do not—”
“Your family will be safe if you say yes to my offer. And you will be a wealthy man. Relocated in the West with a new life. A good life. But if you say no . . .” The American leaned forward. His face moved away from the rainwater’s reflection but darkened to black as it lost the light from outside. “You will have no life at all.”
“You are threatening to kill me?”
The American shook his head. “I wish it were that easy. But we need you. You are important. You know important things. We need you to stop the war.”
“Then, what are you—”
“You talk to the ICC, or I will take from you what you hold most precious.”
Gennady Orloff’s face went slack. He felt a weakening in his gut that threatened to cause him to lose control of his bowels. The man in front of him was a cold-blooded, heartless killer. “My children?”
No words were exchanged for a half minute in the living room. Finally the American sat back up, lightened a bit, and said, “But I don’t see it coming to that.”
“I will kill you!”
The assassin shook his head slowly. “No, you won’t.”
Gennady’s fury was absolute. But his fear of the man in front of him was equally powerful. He did not dare attack him. He was a pilot, not a killer. Instead, he thought of his children, about his predicament, and he slowly broke down. He cried softly for a long time on the sofa of the dark room. Only his sobs and the rain outside broke the stillness. The American assassin sat quietly in the chair.
Twenty minutes later Court stood in a phone booth on the avenida el Recero, a block away from the hotel Gran Meliá. The rain fell in torrents, and his raincoat was soaked, fogging up the glass inside the tight space. Outside passersby with umbrellas jammed the sidewalk, heading to cafés and concerts and hotels and bars. They moved like the water rushing along the gutter in front of Gentry.
His eyes focused on the water and followed bits of trash floating by the phone booth, traveling downstream. He knew he should be scanning the crowd around him for threats—he was operational, after all—but the narcotics in his bloodstream sent his brain off on little errands that served no purpose. He tracked a crushed can of juice that shot by and watched it swirl down a metal grate in a deluge. He looked for another bit to follow on its path to—
“This is Ellen Walsh.”
Court forgot momentarily that he was holding the phone to his ear. Quickly he refocused and said, “He agreed. I moved him to my room: 422. I didn’t want to leave him there with the girl.”
“I’ll have his family picked up immediately. We will debrief him here at the hotel tonight.”
“You are here? In Caracas?”
“I just arrived an hour ago.”
Court watched the tiny river of runoff flow down the street while he carefully chose his next words. “Are you here for Gennady Orloff, or are you here for me?”
There was a long pause. “I am here for Orloff. I have decided to leave the events on the road to Dirra, back on the road to Dirra. You will not be indicted for what happened.”
“Thanks.”
“Six, I am worried about you. I don’t know what you said to Orloff to get him to agree to provide evidence to the ICC, but I assume it was not something I would approve of.”
“It was not something I approve of. But the ends justify the means.”
“For your sake, I hope you believe that. I told you I was worried that you might become that which you most hate.”
“I’m okay,” he said, but his tone convinced neither Ellen nor himself.
“Listen. Why don’t we meet right now? In the lobby. Orloff can sit and stew by himself with my team. We’ll have a quick drink, you’ll see that I’m not here to put you in shackles, and I’ll take a look at you, just to make sure those cracks I was worried about haven’t gotten any bigger.”
Court smiled a little. He was not happy, but it was a moment of contentment.
“Please?” she pressed.
“Ten minutes. I need to make a call first.”
“Great. You probably won’t recognize me with a shower and clean clothes.”
Court smiled again. “I look pretty much the same, I’m afraid.”
She giggled. “See you in ten,” and she hung up. Court knew how to read voices. Ellen was happy, excited.
One drink wouldn’t hurt a thing.
He put more money in the phone and dialed a number written on a small scrap of paper taken from his pocket. When the line was answered, he put the scrap in his mouth and swallowed.
“Hey, Don. It’s done.”
Sir Donald Fitzroy said, “Did he believe the story about the woman being an intelligence agent?”
“He did.”
“That was a brilliant idea, lad. Put the fear of the FSB in him, did it?”
“No. He didn’t bat an eyelash. Nothing to hide, I guess.”
A pause. “I see. Then you used some other means to secure his help.”
“I did.”
Fitzroy’s voice was strong, more serious than usual. “You don’t sound happy.”
“I don’t feel happy. I told him I’d go after his kids.”
Another long pause. Gentry felt like the man on the other end of the line was judging him. But then, “You helped prevent a shooting war, Court.”
Gentry said nothing.
“No one wants to see the sausage made, but everyone loves the sausage. It is a dirty business, threatening one’s family. I should know. But it is damn effective. And it needed to be done.”
“Yeah,” Court said, again unconvincingly.
He leaned his forehead on the glass of the phone booth and watched the water some more, flowing faster by the minute as the rain picked up.
He just wanted to hang up the phone and go see Ellen. He was already thinking about two drinks now. Maybe they could even get in a cab, get away from the hotel, find a small place for dinner, some quiet local cantina without work for her or worry for him. He’d like that. He needed that.
“I need a vacation,” he said into the phone but mostly to himself.
“You need more than a vacation, lad. Listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you. All over the world, they are after you.”
“Who?” Court lifted his head from the glass.
“Everyone. The Russian government, the American government, Sid Sidorenko’s Nazis. It’s not like before; this is full-time. The CIA is putting out feelers all over
the earth. They’ll work with anyone, pay any price to find you. Please take my advice. Wherever you are right now, whatever you are doing . . . run. Get up and go and go and keep going. Don’t tell me where, for God’s sake. They will get to me to get to you. Don’t tell a soul. They are close, and they will find you if you do not run straightaway.”
“What about the ICC?”
“The ICC? I haven’t seen anything about the ICC hunting you. I would bloody well know it, too. International organizations are an intelligence sieve. No, that particular organization may be the only group not pursuing you at the moment.”
Court looked up at the lights of the Gran Meliá up the street through the rain on the Plexiglas. He said, “I understand.”
Fitzroy continued talking, fast and nervous. He sounded as if he were the prey instead of Gentry. “And forget every stash you have; don’t access your bank accounts; ignore all the cash you’ve made that’s not in your pocket right now. They are putting their foot down on the Swiss, desperate for information on your finances. The Swiss will balk for a time, because that is what they do, but the Swiss will fold up soon enough, because that is also what they do. Do what you must for money, but stay off the grid. Run, keep going. Absolute paranoia is your only chance for survival.”
“Yeah.” The Gray Man’s head moved on a swivel now, up and down the street. The drugs in his brain seemed to evaporate with the infusion of adrenaline.
“Six months, nine months, whenever you have to, you don’t call me, but you contact someone who knows me, find some way to get in touch, and I’ll get back with you. If you want work, I will give you work. If you just need money, I’ll find a way to get something to you to help out.”
“Thanks, Don.”
“I’ve done nothing, Court. My debt to you is not paid by this. Run now, go, and don’t look back.”
“I’m serious, I really appreciate—”
“Run, boy! Hang up the phone and go!”
“I’m gone,” Court said, and he hung up the phone. He stepped out of the booth and looked up to the bright lights of the hotel for a moment, but only a moment, then he looked away.
Towards the darkness.
He melted into the foot traffic and disappeared in the evening crowd flow, like warm rainwater down the drain.
