Politika pp-1

by Tom Clancy

  In general, he hated musicals. Just didn’t get them. And the one he was watching right now had to be the most confusing one he’d ever sat through. The worst maritime disaster in history, maybe fifteen hundred people drowned, eaten by sea creatures, God only knew, and somebody’d gotten the idea to turn it into a Broadway spectacle. He really didn’t see the entertainment value in such horrendous human tragedy. What was everybody singing and kicking up their heels about? They were all going down with the ship!

  He glanced over at his wife, who was in the seat beside him gazing intently at the stage. She seemed to be enjoying herself. No, not seemed to be. Was. He could tell from the tilt of her chin, the faint dimples at the corners of her mouth. When two people were married as long as they’d been, it got so you could read each other at a glance. Later, over coffee and cake, she would speak appreciatively of the sets, the score, the choreography, the staging. And he would study her with something akin to the love-struck awe he’d felt thirty years ago on their first high school date, admiring her lively, intelligent features, her smooth coffee-brown skin, the way she put together her clothes, and the graceful movements of her hands as she commented on the various aspects of the show, marveling at everything about her for that matter, and wondering what he had ever done to deserve the constant support she had given him throughout their marriage, a faith and perseverance that helped lift him from the tough streets of Harlem to the highest post in the New York Police Department.

  But later was later, and now was still Act One of a maddeningly incomprehensible songfest about a magnificent wreck whose passengers had suffered a cold, airless death. Harrison glanced at his watch, wondering how much longer his own torment would last. Nine P.M. An hour to go. Maybe more. Didn’t some plays run until ten-thirty or eleven?

  Harrison felt a sudden twinge of embarrassment. That was something the city’s top cop really should know, wasn’t it? He damn well hoped he wasn’t losing touch. You could dress Times Square up all you wanted, you could even push the sex shops off the strip to make room for the wonderful world of Disney, but the hands under those bright white Mickey Mouse gloves would always have grimy fingernails, and it would always be a place where vice and violence could reach out of the shadows and drag you down like those dancing fools onstage. So much fuss had been made about the neighborhood’s renaissance in recent years, one could sometimes forget that a decrease in crime did not necessarily mean the criminals had packed their bags and gone south. In fact, it was only an intensified and very visible police presence in the area that held the bump-and-run muggers, junkies, hookers and other lowlife at bay. There were still pockets of darkness amid the lights of the Great White Way, and people needed to be aware of them. Especially the PC.

  Harrison tried to concentrate on the show, wanting to keep track of the storyline so he would have something to say about it to Rosetta. Who was the character with the beard? The captain? A mad scientist? Jesus, it was no good, he was lost. A lushly melodramatic chord swelled from the orchestra pit, and one of the actors broke into song. The lyrics mentioned something about a ship of dreams. Harrison listened for a minute, but then faded back into his reverie, as if he were a radio moving beyond the broadcast range of a particular station.

  His eyes staring at the stage without seeing anything on it, he thought again of the plan he wanted to look over before going to bed. He’d been calling it Operation 2000, which had the sort of nice, official-sounding ring that would inspire confidence in City Hall.

  Over the past month, he had been conferring on an almost daily basis with his chief deputies, as well as commanders from the Transit Police, the Emergency Services Unit, and the NYPD-FBI Counter-Terrorism Task Force, about the problems they would face trying to safeguard the multitude of celebrants who would be crowding Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Even in an ordinary year, the job was a major pain in the ass — and this year was far from ordinary. This time around they were looking at December 31, 1999. The turn of the century. A once-in-a-lifetime Event, capital E, ladies and germs.

  And while Harrison and his team of planners had been laboring to draw out a sound logistical blueprint for a situation that unquestionably defied logistics, what had the mayor been doing? Why, hitting the media in pursuit of visitor dollars, of course! He had been on every local news program frothing about the city’s plans for the big countdown. He had been plugging away on Letterman and Conan O’Brien. He had even been on radio shows like Imus in the Morning and Howard Stern, billing the triangle formed by the intersection of Seventh Avenue, Broadway, and Forty-second Street as the “center of the world,” all but popping open a champagne bottle over the airwaves as he invited listeners to join the millennial bash.

  Harrison’s mind filled with an odd blend of worry and resignation. From every indication, people were responding to the mayor’s pitch in droves. Based on the massive volume of tourist inquiries, polling data, and the record number of hotel and restaurant reservations in the midtown area, it had been estimated that two million revelers would be thronging Times Square to watch the ball drop. Add to that three or four million more spectators scattered throughout Battery Park, the South Street Seaport, and the entire Brooklyn shoreline to watch the fireworks over New York Harbor, and the police force would be stretched far beyond its capacity to maintain anything close to an adequate presence. And for what? There were some who believed an age of miracles was approaching, and others who were expecting the end of existence. Harrison just kind of figured that, come January 1, the world would be the same orbiting lunatic asylum it had always been — minus a somewhat higher than usual number of holiday fatalities.

  He sighed without being aware of it. In his more nervous moments, he had fantasized about giving up, taking a hike, escaping the whole damn chocolate mess so it could fall where it belonged, which was right on the mayor’s lap. Maybe he’d get a job working security in Stonehenge, or Mount Fuji, where the crowds of millennialists were bound to be thinner. Or how about Egypt? He’d heard that ten grand would buy admission to a gala some tour organizer was throwing at the Great Pyramid of Giza. Surely a seasoned big city police commissioner could be of help keeping things orderly over there. If Hizzoner wanted to be an impresario, ringmaster of the greatest show on earth, fine, more power to him. But what right did he have to drive anybody else crazy with it?

  Harrison heard a crash of applause and studied the stage. The curtain had gone down. The houselights slowly brightened. What was going on? A glance at his watch revealed that it was only nine-thirty, too early for the show to have ended. Besides, he hadn’t seen the Titanic sink yet.

  Intermission, then. It had to be intermission.

  Rosetta was nudging him with her elbow.

  “So, what do you think of the show?” she asked. Sounding, well, buoyant.

  It’s hackneyed and tiresome and I can’t wait to go home, he thought.

  “Love it,” he said. “Especially that song about the ship of dreams.”

  Rosetta nodded in agreement and smiled. “Can’t wait to see how things work out for Ida and Isidor. Should we go to the bar and have a drink?”

  He took hold of her hand.

  As they rose, brushed past the couple sitting at the end of their row, and began moving up the aisle toward the lobby, Harrison mused that Ida and Isidor, whoever they were, really didn’t have too many options. Either they’d squeeze into one of the lifeboats and be rescued by the Carpathia, or they’d sink with captain and crew. But he didn’t comment on that to Rosetta.

  Whatever lay ahead, he sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to spoil things for her.

  TWELVE

  NEW YORK CITY DECEMBER 28, 1999

  Minutes before his death, Julius Agosten was rolling his vender’s stand out of the parking lot on Twenty-third Street and trying to imagine what he would do if he hit the lottery.

  The first thing on his list, he thought, would be to turn his stand over to his brother-in-law, vender’s license, garage space, and a
ll. Stefan was still young enough to tolerate the long hours out on the street, leaving the house at four o’clock in the morning, getting home after eight at night, sometimes after midnight on weekends, summer and winter, rain or shine. What with Rene and Stefan having had the baby recently, the stand would give them a chance to make some decent money, maybe even put away a few dollars for the little girl’s future.

  There were only a limited number of vender licenses available in the city, and even fewer locations as busy as the one Julius had staked out for himself, Forty-second Street and Broadway, the heart of midtown. During the week you had the professional people, men with briefcases, women in stylish outfits, thousands of them jamming the sidewalks, pouring from the subways, rushing this way and that out there on Times Square, stopping for coffee and something to eat — a Danish, roll, whatever — as they hurried to their jobs. And then you had the cabbies, the cops, the shop clerks — everybody, really. Who had time for breakfast at home nowadays?

  Julius pushed the stand down the block toward his waiting van, its metal casters rattling on the pavement, the noise very loud in the predawn hush. In three hours the city would awaken, but now the insurance gates were still drawn over the storefronts, and no one was pushing through the revolving doors of the office buildings, and the only traffic was an occasional newspaper truck or taxi swishing by under the dim throw of the street lamps. Thankfully. Because if the street got crowded, the traffic cops would come out in force, and he’d be fined for illegally parking the van while he got his stand out of the lot. But what else was he supposed to do? Wheel it all the way uptown on foot, twenty blocks, which was a long walk even in decent weather, and seemed a lot longer in December?

  Forty million bucks, he thought, remembering the Lotto ticket in his pocket again. If he won, he would retire and head someplace warm. Buy a big house, a mansion, one with acres of lawn and a curving gravel driveway behind high iron gates. Maybe it would have an ocean view on one side — Gerty, God rest her soul, had always loved the ocean. There would be no more leaving the wagon overnight in the parking garage, no more paying two hundred a month for the privilege of keeping it safe from vandals and thieves. No more dragging himself out of bed at three A.M. so he could drive to the wholesaler in Queens for his rolls and pastries, then get the wagon out of the lot, and be set up on his corner by the start of the rush hour.

  This had been his routine for over a decade, week after week, year after year. And while Julius wasn’t a man to forget his blessings, he couldn’t deny that it had taken a toll on him. Waking up early was getting more difficult every day. His work hours left him with no time to spend with his grandchildren. The circulation in his right leg had been giving him trouble, and his left shoulder very often ached.

  Most of all, though, he was getting sick and tired of the brutal winters.

  Today he was wearing a quilted parka and had the hood drawn up over his head, but the sharp wind coming off the Hudson stung his exposed cheeks, and his bones felt brittle from the glacial cold. These days, Julius was always adding layers of insulation to his clothing, but somehow there were never enough to keep him comfortable.

  It was, he supposed, all part of becoming middle-aged… but why hadn’t he noticed his youth slipping away until it was too late to prepare for it?

  Reaching the van now, he pulled the stand around back and knelt to connect it to the trailer hitch. Forty million, forty million, forty million. Given the size of the jackpot, maybe he should have bought more than a single ticket this week, he thought. He’d heard it made no difference in the odds if you had one or a hundred, going strictly by the math. But still…

  Julius had nearly finished hitching up the stand when he heard hurried footsteps behind him. He jerked his head around, startled. They seemed to be coming from around the corner, on Fifth Avenue.

  A moment later the woman turned onto the block.

  At first Julius thought she was probably a hooker. What respectable woman would be out on the street at this hour, let alone on such a frigid morning? Anyway, despite the citywide cleanup campaign, there was still a thriving skin trade in the neighborhood — like the drive-through line, as it was called, right over on Twenty-eighth and Lex, where you’d see the cars double- and-triple parked on busy Friday nights, heads bobbing under the dashboards.

  As she came walking in his direction, though, Julius found himself thinking that she really didn’t look like a streetwalker, at least not like any of the girls he’d seen in this part of town, most of whom plastered on their makeup an inch thick and dressed to advertise their goods even if it meant freezing their behinds off. In fact, she seemed more like one of the businesswomen who’d be stopping to buy a croissant from him in a few hours.

  Wearing a tweed overcoat, dark slacks, and a beret that was pulled down almost to her ears, she was a striking beauty, with an exotic, high-cheekboned face, and a wedge of straight black hair blowing back over her shoulders in the wind.

  She walked right up to him now, stepping quickly through the darkness, vapor puffing from her mouth.

  “Help me,” she said, sounding very upset. “Please.”

  Julius stared at her in confusion.

  “What?” he said awkwardly. “What — what’s the matter?”

  She stopped maybe an inch away from him, her large black eyes meeting his own.

  “I need a ride,” she said.

  He frowned. “I don’t understand…”

  “Here, let me show you,” she said, and fumbled in her shoulder bag.

  Julius watched her with growing confusion. Why would she walk up to a perfect stranger and ask…?

  Before he could complete the thought, he heard a rustling sound behind him, then suddenly felt something hard and cold push against the back of his head.

  The woman nodded slightly.

  Not to him, he realized, but to whoever had stolen up on him from the shadows.

  His heart knocked in his chest. He’d been tricked, distracted —

  Julius never heard the silenced Glock go off, never felt anything except the jolt of the muzzle against his head as the trigger was pulled and the bullet went ripping through his skull, blowing out his right eye and a large chunk of his forehead.

  As his body dropped faceup to the ground, its remaining eye still wide with shock, the pistol angled downward, spitting three more muffled rounds into his face.

  Gilea looked both ways, saw that the street was empty, and then crouched over the body, avoiding the puddle of blood that was already spreading over the sidewalk around it. She unpinned the vender’s license from the front of the parka and slipped it into her purse. She hastily searched through the coat and pants pockets, found a wallet and key ring, then glanced up at the bearded man with the gun.

  “Let’s get out of here, Akhad,” she said, tossing him the keys.

  He slipped the Glock under his jacket, opened the side of the van, then returned to the corpse and dragged it in behind the front seat.

  Out on the street, Gilea finished hitching the vender’s stand to the back of the van, went around the side nearest the curb, and leaned her head in through the panel door. She noticed a blanket on the floor of the rear compartment and tossed it over the body. Then she climbed into the passenger seat.

  Sitting beside her, the bearded man found the ignition key amid the cluster in his hand and started up the engine.

  They pulled away from the curb, driving west along Twenty-eighth Street, the vender’s stand bumping along in tow.

  * * *

  The van rolled into the auto repair lot at Eleventh Avenue and Fifty-second Street at ten minutes past five. Although the shop would not open for business until 8:30, the garage door was elevated and Akhad drove right in. Three men in gray mechanics’ coveralls were waiting inside near the door to the office.

  Gilea pushed out of her door and jumped down off the running board.

  “Where’s Nick?” she asked.

  “On his way,” one of the men said in
Russian.

  She gave him a look of displeasure. “He should have been here.”

  The man didn’t answer. Gilea let the silence expand.

  “The body’s in the van,” she said finally. “You’ll have to dispose of it.”

  “Right.”

  She reached into her purse for the laminated vender’s license, and handed it to him.

  “That should be altered immediately,” she said. “And I want the stand ready by tonight.”

  “It’ll be done.”

  “It had better,” she said. “We have less than three days.”

  “Don’t worry, there won’t be any problems.”

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

  “It’s miserably cold in here,” she said. “How can you take it?”

  He nodded toward the van and grinned.

  “It helps to keep busy,” he said.

  THIRTEEN

  VARIOUS LOCALES DECEMBER 31, 1999

  With just moments to go until airtime, Arkady Pedachenko was having trouble deciding how to begin his weekly television program. Of course this had nothing to do with any format change or lack of preparation. Each broadcast invariably opened with a ten-to-fifteen-minute spot in which he sat alone on camera and editorialized about a variety of issues. This was followed by a phone-in segment that gave Pedachenko a chance to address his viewers in a conversational, interactive mode, supposedly taking their calls at random — although the questions and comments were, in fact, mostly scripted, and fed to him by plants in the network audience. The second half hour of the show featured interviews or panel discussions with politicians and other public figures.

  No, his problem wasn’t the format. Pedachenko valued structure above all else and was averse to deviations from the tried and true. Nor was the show’s content in doubt, since his opening remarks were already cued-up on the teleprompter, and his guest, General Pavel Illych Broden of the Russian Air Force, had arrived at the studio on schedule and was presently in the “green room,” as the producers called it, getting ready for his appearance.