“Are you sure that you guys aren’t being followed?” Otto asked.
“They want to send us to Moscow,” Jacqueline said. “Until we agree to go—and they don’t think we will—they’re leaving us to our own devices.”
“Standby,” Rencke said.
Elizabeth had been holding everything in. She sat back and looked into Jacqueline’s eyes. “You weren’t lying to Otto … or to me, were you?”
“Non, ma cherie. In this you must believe me.”
“I do,” Elizabeth said. She could see how he was going to do it. Tarankov would be standing on the reviewing balcony on Lenin’s Tomb in Red Square, and her father would be somewhere within a hundred yards or so with a sniper rifle. At the right moment Tarankov would fall, and her father would melt away into the crowds in a very clever disguise. She’d read his file. She knew what he was capable of.
Rencke came back. “Can you be at Orly by five this morning?”
“Orly by five?” Elizabeth said. Jacqueline nodded. “Yes.”
“You’re both booked on RIAIR flight 57 to Riga, first class. It wasn’t cheap, but I figured that Ryan could afford it, so I put the tickets on his Mastercard.”
Elizabeth laughed despite herself. “He’ll hang you.”
“It’d be the biggest blunder of his life,” Rencke replied viciously. “By the time I got done with his computer track, he’d never again qualify for a driver’s license, he wouldn’t be able to afford to buy a stick of gum, and the IRS would probably want to put him away for life.” He calmed down. “You guys be careful out there.” He gave Elizabeth his telephone number. “Let me know what’s going on, will ya?”
“We will,” Elizabeth said.
“I’ll keep a two-way dialogue going between us on the net. If it’s being watched they’ll think you guys are still in the apartment.”
Elizabeth hung up and looked at Jacqueline.
“We’ll go out the back way,” the older woman said. “Just in case.”
Lefortovo
Chernov finally got the break he’d been waiting for a few minutes before three when Major Gresko called from FSK headquarters on Dzerzhinsky Square. He was sitting in the darkness sipping a glass of white wine wondering what else he could have done when the phone rang. Every cop in Russia was looking for McGarvey, as were the forces of the CIA and SDECE. But it was as if McGarvey had simply dropped off the face of the earth. He’d gone to ground, and there was nothing they could do until he surfaced again, or made a mistake.
The FSK team assigned to watch Yemlin had learned from their source inside the SVR that he’d received an encrypted call from somewhere outside Russia an hour earlier. Fifty-five minutes after that call, a pay phone in a kiosk near the Metro station a couple of blocks from Yemlin’s apartment rang. It was one of the telephones that the FSK monitored at Colonel Bykov’s request. Yemlin was nowhere in the vicinity, so after two rings an FSK operator answered.
“Da?”
“Viktor?” a man said.
So as not to make the caller suspicious the FSK operator told a half-truth. “Nyet. This is Nikolai, and there’s no one else around. The metro station across the street is empty.”
“Yeb vas,” the man said, and he hung up.
“If it was McGarvey he called from a simplex instrument in Riga,” Gresko said. “But I can’t imagine anyone else calling a phone booth so near to Yemlin’s apartment, and so soon after the call to his office.”
“I agree,” Chernov said.
“It’s a safe bet those bastards won’t cooperate with us. They’ll give us the runaround if we level with them. No love lost up there, in fact if they knew the whole truth they’d probably do everything they could to help McGarvey.”
Chernov thought for a moment.
“But we’re not chasing an assassin. The man we’re after is a mass murderer, whose specialty is little boys. Who knows, maybe it’s become too hot for him here in Russia, and he may take his grim pleasures somewhere else. Like Latvia.”
“That might work,” Gresko said.
“Do you have an address on the trace?”
“It’s an apartment building near the main railway station,” Gresko said. “Could be that he’s not living there. Maybe he just used the phone.”
“If he called from there once, maybe he’ll call from there again,” Chernov said. “Get the file over to the Militia, and have Petrovsky make contact with the Riga police. Have him send a copy of McGarvey’s photograph under the name Kisnelkov. In the meantime I’ll arrange for an airplane to take us up there. I want to catch him just before dawn when people, even men like him, tend to be the slowest and most fuddle-headed.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Riga
McGarvey awoke shortly after 5 A.M. in a cold sweat, his heart racing, his muscles bunched up. It was the same dream he often had in which he saw the light fading from the eyes of his victims. Only this time he’d been unable to focus on the face, except that whoever it was they were laughing at him. Mocking his life’s work, everything he’d fought for, everything he’d stood for.
He got up and went to the window. A delivery van passed below, and at the corner a truck rumbled through the intersection. The city was coming alive with the morning.
“Get out! Get out! Get out!”
A persistent voice at the back of head gave warning like the blare of a distant fire alarm, but he wasn’t at all sure it was for him. Sometimes in his dreams a part of his subconscious tried to warn his victims to get out, to get away before he came to kill them. A psychologist friend at Langley said the dreams were nothing more than his conscience.
“Proves you’re just as sane as the rest of us,” the company shrink said. “Only a true sociopath can kill without remorse.”
He’d debated calling Rencke last night after he’d failed to reach Yemlin. But Rencke would be unable to tell him anything he didn’t already know. Yemlin’s position had been discovered, and by now he was either dead or under arrest.
There was an outside chance that Chernov knew about the calls to the phone booth near Yemlin’s apartment, in which case McGarvey’s call had not been answered by a chance passerby, but had been picked up by an FSK technical unit. It was even possible that they’d traced the call to this apartment building.
But the Latvians actively hated Russians. All Russians. So not only wouldn’t they cooperate with a commission trying to stop the man who was planning to assassinate Tarankov, they’d probably throw up road blocks.
It was on this thought that McGarvey had finally gone to sleep last night. And it was this thought now that nagged at him. Someone was coming, with or without the cooperation of the Latvian authorities. If he got involved in some kind of a confrontation with Chernov, whatever the outcome, the Latvians would try to arrest them all, and someone would get hurt.
He turned away from the window and got dressed in a dark turtleneck sweater and slacks. The holstered gun went in the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back, and the silencer and spare magazine went in the pockets of his leather jacket. He left everything else, including his clothes, his shaving gear and other toiletries, and the overnight bag. If anyone came up here they might believe that he’d just stepped out and was planning on returning. It might give him a few extra hours.
Checking the street again to make sure no one had shown up, he took his laptop computer down to the Volkswagen, and drove over to the secured garage near the train station, where he switched cars for the Mercedes. Before the VW was reported missing by the rental agency, the operation would be long finished, and McGarvey would drop the keys and a note where the car could be found in a mailbox somewhere.
By 6:30 A.M., he was having breakfast on the outskirts of the city, with several hours to kill. He did not want to cross the border at Zilupe until late this afternoon, when the customs officers he’d dealt with before would be at the end of their shift, and therefore impatient to take his bribe and get home.
It was past 8:00 A.M.
when the Tupolev jet transport carrying Chernov, Petrovsky, Gresko and a couple of Militia detectives was finally cleared to taxi from the holding ramp over to a customs and immigration hangar. Latvian officials had held them for over an hour and Chernov was beside himself with rage.
Riga Police Lieutenant Andrejs Ulmanis, and his dour faced sergeant Jurin Zarins were waiting for them. Chernov forced himself to remain calm as they all shook hands, but the tension and animosity were very thick.
“We surrounded the building forty-five minutes ago, as you requested, but so far there’s been no sign of the man you are looking for,” Lieutenant Ulmanis said, leading them over to a police van for the ride into the city. He was a heavyset man with thinning sand-colored hair and a double chin.
“Considering the political conditions between our countries, we thank you for your help,” Chernov said, carefully.
Ulmanis eyed him distastefully. “Murder is a terrible crime, and we’re all police officers, j?”
“This one is very bad. He specializes in little boys.”
The Latvian policeman’s jaw tightened. “I wasn’t clear on his nationality. His name is Kisnelkov. Is he Russian or Ukrainian?”
“He’s a Russian,” Chernov said. “But he may be traveling on an American or a French passport under another name. The son of a bitch is good, he always manages to keep one step ahead of us.”
“What’s he doing in Latvia?”
“Trying to get away. Last week he raped and killed three young boys in Moscow. When he was finished he mutilated their bodies in ways that even you as a police officer would not believe.”
“How did you find out he was here?”
“He tried to make a telephone call to a friend last night and we traced it.”
“If he’s here, we’ll find him,” Ulmanis said.
“Don’t make a mistake about this one,” Chernov cautioned. “Six months ago we thought we had him cornered. When it was all over, he’d killed two policemen, wounded three others and got away clean.”
Ulmanis nodded.
“If you or your people come face-to-face with him, don’t hesitate to shoot him like a dog,” Chernov said.
“A Russian dog,” Sergeant Zarins muttered, and Ulmanis shot him a dirty look but did not reprimand him.
Twenty minutes later they pulled up at the end of the block from the apartment building. The intersections at both ends of the street had been barricaded. Police cars, blue lights flashing, completely surrounded the block. Officers in riot gear were stationed on the roof tops and in the doorways of every building within sight. Some of the cops were dispersing the crowds of curious onlookers, while other cops milled around apparently waiting for something to happen.
Chernov and the others got out of the van. He glanced at Petrovsky. “He’s gone.”
Lieutenant Ulmanis came over. “Not unless he was tipped off.”
“Nothing against your capable police procedures, Lieutenant, but when the first of your people showed up, he would have spotted them and slipped away before the area could be secured. He’s gone.”
“I don’t think so.”
Chernov took out his pistol, checked the load, then reholstered the gun. “Well, I’m going to walk over there and search the building. Would you care to come with me?”
“I’ll go with you, but we’ll take a few of my people with us just in case you’re wrong.
Chernov shrugged and marched down the street to the apartment building and went inside. The Latvian cops were hoping that they might get to see a Russian blown away this morning. Ambulances were standing by.
The landlady, a taciturn old woman, came out of her ground floor apartment, and Ulmanis asked her a number of questions about her tenants, and about her rent control permits, a subject on which she was vague.
Chernov walked over to the foot of the stairs and cocked an ear. The building was quiet.
“That’s him,” the old woman said.
Chernov turned back. Ulmanis had shown McGarvey’s photograph that had been faxed down here this morning.
“What is his name?” Chernov asked.
“Pierre something,” the old woman said resentfully. “He paid for a month in cash a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t care what his name was.”
Ulmanis came over. “I thought you said he killed some kids in Moscow last week?” he asked in a low voice.
“He must have returned here to hide out,” Chernov said.
He took out his gun and went up to the top floor, taking the stairs two at a time. Ulmanis and the other Latvian cops came up behind him, their weapons drawn.
At the top Chernov flattened himself against the wall next to the apartment door and listened for a full two minutes, but there were no sounds from within.
On signal, one of Ulmanis’s people kicked the door in, and they all rushed into the empty apartment.
“He’s gone,” Ulmanis said, unnecessarily. There was no place to hide in the tiny apartment.
The Latvian cops searched the apartment anyway.
“Maybe not for long, Lieutenant,” one of the cops called from the bathroom. He appeared in the doorway. “His toothbrush and razor are still here.”
One of the other cops opened the wardrobe. “His clothes are here, and a suitcase.”
“There’s food in the cupboards and the refrigerator,” the cop in the tiny kitchen reported.
“Maybe he’s coming back,” Ulmanis said.
“Not with all those policemen outside,” Chernov said. He took off his jacket and laid it over the back of the chair. “Place a couple of your men downstairs in the landlady’s apartment, and a couple of sharpshooters in an apartment across the street. But tell them to keep out of sight. Get rid of everybody else. In the meantime I’ll wait here for awhile.”
“What about your people?” Ulmanis asked.
“Send them back to the airport to wait for me.”
Ulmanis relayed the orders. “I’ll wait here with you.”
“As you wish,” Chernov said. “But if he shows up he’s mine.”
“Believe me, Colonel Bykov, the sooner you and he are off Latvian soil the happier we’ll be.”
RIAIR flight 57 from Paris touched down at Riga’s Lidosta International Airport at 9:00 A.M. Elizabeth and Jacqueline paid for one-time visas from passport control and had their single carryon bags checked through customs. They changed a couple of hundred francs into latis, purchased a visitors’ guide and Riga street map in English from a newsstand and forty-five minutes later were in a cab heading downtown to the central railway station, which was a few blocks from the address Rencke had given them.
They traveled on their legitimate passports because at this point they thought there was no longer any need to mask their movements. Galan and Lynch were no longer interested in them. Traffic at that hour of the morning in Paris had been thin so if someone had tried to follow them out to Orly Airport Jacqueline was sure she would have spotted them. But there’d been no one behind them.
“If we run into a problem in Riga we’ll be on our own,” Jacqueline had cautioned. “No one except Otto knows where we are, and he won’t tell anyone. At least not for twenty-four hours. Maybe longer.”
“A lot can happen in that time,” Elizabeth said, suddenly seeing the precariousness of their situation.
“We’ll split up, so that if something goes wrong at least one of us will have a chance of getting out,” Jacqueline said. “I’ll leave you at the train station, and I’ll walk the rest of the way over to the apartment.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “He’s my father, so if something should happen I’ll at least have an excuse for being there that might hold up.”
“It didn’t work in Paris.”
“It might here,” Elizabeth insisted.
Jacqueline smiled wryly. “You’re stubborn like your father.”
“Used to drive my mother nuts.”
Jacqueline’s smile was set. “Is that why there was the divorce?”
“My mother was afraid of losing him so she pushed him away before the hurt got too terrible for her to bear.”
Jacqueline looked out the window. “The trouble with what you say is that I understand your mother.” She turned back. “Do you, ma cherie?”
Elizabeth shook her head after a moment. “No,” she said. She’d never understood that convoluted logic. If you loved someone you did everything in your power to keep them near you.
Jacqueline squeezed her hand. “I think that you have been mad at your mother for a very long time. But there’s no reason for it, you know. They both still love you.”
It was Elizabeth’s turn to look away.
“The divorce wasn’t your fault, Elizabeth,” Jacqueline said gently. “Did you think it was?”
“I probably did as a kid.” Elizabeth looked at Jacqueline. “But not so much anymore.” She shrugged. “It’s just life. But I don’t want to lose him again.”
“Neither do I.”
Traffic around the train station was busy. The cabby dropped them off in front, immediately picked up another fare and was gone.
They had studied the Riga map on the way in from the airport. The address Rencke had given them was less than three blocks away. They agreed that Elizabeth would walk over to the apartment building, and if everything looked clear try to find out which apartment her father had rented. If anything seemed out of place, even slightly odd, she was to immediately come back to the railroad station where Jacqueline would be waiting in the coffee shop.
“Don’t fool around,” Jacqueline said unnecessarily because she was nervous. “If the Russians got here before us they won’t react kindly to you barging in.”
“If they ran into my father, there’ll be some dead people over there, and a lot of cops,” Elizabeth said. “It’ll be pretty obvious.”
“In which case I’ll blow the whistle,” Jacqueline said seriously. In the past couple of weeks she’d picked up a lot of American slang from Elizabeth.
“You and I both,” Elizabeth said.
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