The Middleman_A Novel

by Olen Steinhauer

  She found Ingrid curled up on the couch, watching television with the volume low.

  “Clare asleep?”

  Ingrid nodded.

  Rachel smelled coffee, so she poured herself a cup, then sat with Ingrid. Bill and Gina had turned off the cable, so they were stuck with over-the-air stations. A local newscaster cut to demonstrators at a town hall protesting cuts in education funding. Angry mothers shouted at a red-faced councilman, leaping from chairs and shaking their fingers.

  “I should’ve been that kind of mom,” Ingrid said.

  “What?”

  “Grassroots. One issue at a time. Writing letters and knocking on doors. Instead, I jumped directly into taking on every injustice at once.” She pointed at the screen. “That’s how sisters get things done.”

  “Once this is over, you can do just that.”

  “Over? What does ‘over’ mean?”

  Rachel wasn’t sure. Whatever they were doing, they could only see to the next step. Right now, they were simply trying to understand the parameters of the situation. Making the world safe for Ingrid and her baby, or for Rachel, seemed very far away, a destination shrouded in fog. She had no idea what resolution looked like. “Getting back to a normal life,” she said.

  “I just want to be able to see the sun again.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind a normal life.”

  “When was the last time your life was normal?”

  Rachel thought about that. These last eight months? No. The time she spent investigating Massive? Further back. She said, “Probably the half year I spent in San Francisco on a research project, investigating fringe thinkers.”

  “Fringe thinkers, huh?”

  “I heard Martin speak for the first time. I had a drink with a man who might have been the one he met in Spain.”

  “That doesn’t sound normal.”

  It didn’t, but it had felt normal, living alone and taking short trips up and down the coast, pretending to be someone she wasn’t. It meant something, she supposed, that she was more comfortable being someone else.

  “Is that a phone?” Ingrid asked.

  Rachel heard it—the buzz-buzz of a vibrating phone. She went to the door, where her coat hung, and took out her burner. It was a number she didn’t recognize. A 212 Manhattan number. Her instinct was to not answer it. Johnson and Vale could be fishing, checking a number they’d triangulated to Bill and Gina’s. Or it might be something else entirely.

  She answered but said nothing. Hiss on the line, horns blaring in the background. Then David said, “It’s me. Your two friends just questioned me.”

  “And so you’re calling me?”

  “It’s okay. I’m at a pay phone.”

  She closed her eyes, thinking how she would have done it if she were them. Rile up a suspect, then watch everything he does. “You’re on the street?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  She didn’t want to explain it to him, but if she simply hung up he would panic, and even if she didn’t like David, even if he reminded her of her abusive ex-husband, he actually had skin in this game—an estranged wife and a child. So she spelled it out, telling him that even if he couldn’t see Johnson and Vale they could see him, and the moment he dialed her number they had traced it to Bill and Gina’s house.

  “But I don’t see them,” he insisted.

  “Because they’re on their way here.”

  “Oh, shit,” he said. “Where are you going now?”

  “That’s not something I’m going to tell you, David. Good-bye.”

  Ingrid saw the look on Rachel’s face and snapped awake. “What?”

  “We have to go. Get Clare, and I’ll pack.”

  Ingrid was on her feet, heading for the stairs. “How much time do we have?”

  “Half hour,” Rachel said. “If we’re lucky.”

  6

  IT WAS after 11:00 P.M. when Kevin landed at London’s Stansted Airport, and he took a black cab into town. His Jamaican driver pretended not to notice that Kevin had no bags with him, and instead quizzed him about life in America. “You got riots, I hear. Bad time to be American, innit?”

  “Not so bad,” Kevin told him.

  “Well, black American.”

  “That’s always bad.” He leaned forward, so he could look at the road ahead of them. “You know a place a guy can get a bed for the night without a lot of paperwork?”

  The driver looked at him in the rearview. “You got some problems, brother?”

  “Who doesn’t have problems?”

  He brought Kevin to a small street in Croydon, south of the city center, where he introduced him to Mattie, an old woman from the Turks and Caicos who ran an off-the-books bed-and-breakfast. She was round, with rough gray hair in a bun, and after looking Kevin up and down she said to the driver, “He’ll do, Elijah.”

  Kevin slept hard and woke after eight to the smell of baking. His room was a Spartan affair—a mattress and two boxes that served as dressers—but the window was covered in sheer fabric that diffused the light from the morning sun. Downstairs, Mattie served him a plate of coconut flour pancakes and watched him eat. “What you doing here?” she asked suddenly. “How come you not at the DoubleTree?”

  He took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “I’m here to see someone.”

  “You runnin’ away from a wife? That why you stay with Mattie?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing like that. I need to go to Blackfriars Road. Number 203.”

  “That’s Southwark. You take the Tube to London Bridge, walk over to Blackfriars.”

  “You got the whole city in your head?”

  She smiled, her eyes twinkling as she got up. “You’re a charmer, sir.”

  He bought a ticket, and after a half-hour subway ride he found himself right in the center of everything, the full congestion of the city. He smoked a cigarette as he walked westward, parallel to the Thames, all the way to Blackfriars Road. At number 203, he found a glass-fronted building that looked like it was from the fifties. Above the entry was a green logo, like a broken infinity symbol, for the ODI, Overseas Development Institute.

  Inside, a pretty desk clerk smiled up at him. He tried to look as if he’d been here before.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Hello. I’m looking for Alexandra Primakov. I’ve just gotten in from New York.”

  “Certainly,” she said, setting up her fingers over her keyboard. “Which office, please?”

  All Rachel had given him was a name—Alexandra Primakov—and the slimmest of bios: “lawyer, formerly with Berg & DeBurgh, she also came up as a former UNHCR adviser—don’t know her connection to refugees. Keeps a desk at the London office of the Overseas Development Institute, a policy think tank.”

  “I’m not sure exactly,” he told the clerk. “My assistant set up this meeting, and he…” Kevin rocked his head. “Let’s just say he’s new.”

  She smiled, then began to type. “Well, I should be able to…” She frowned at the screen, then nodded. “Yes. There we are.” She reached for her desk phone. “Who may I say is calling?”

  “Martin Bishop,” he said.

  Unfazed, the clerk called and explained who was here to see Ms. Primakov. She hesitated, glancing up at Kevin, then lowered her voice and talked more. He’d considered using his real name, but depending on how busy Alexandra Primakov was she might not come down. He didn’t want to sit waiting in that lobby all day.

  Finally, the clerk hung up and pointed to the corridor. “Elevator’s at the end. Third floor. She’s waiting for you.”

  The elevator was slow, and it gave him just enough time to put on his game face. Then the doors opened to reveal a striking white woman, forty maybe, in high heels. Her arms were crossed, and her dark, bruised eyes glared at him so forcefully that he considered staying in place until the doors closed again. Instead, he took two steps forward and held out his hand. “Ms. Primakov.”
>
  With just a hint of a Russian accent she said, “Kevin Moore,” and he felt the blood drain from him as she turned and walked off with long strides. Eventually, he followed.

  Her office reminded him of Mattie’s rooms—just the essentials. There was nothing personal here, no photos, no life-affirming mottos on the wall. Just a desk and a couple of chairs and a closed laptop that he guessed she packed with her to take home each evening. She took her chair behind the desk and nodded for him to sit, too.

  “How do you know my name?” he asked, since it was the question he was expected to ask.

  She opened her computer. “It doesn’t matter. The question that matters is: Why are you here?”

  She was wrong—his question did matter—but he wasn’t in a position to push the issue. “In 2009, you filed the paperwork for a company called Magellan Holdings LLC. That company proceeded to funnel money to Martin Bishop and the Massive Brigade. It’s likely that you did this for one or both of two people: James Sullivan and Sebastián Vivas.”

  Her computer was awake by then, and she typed a line, then looked up. “The Massive Brigade is history.”

  “Then I guess I’m a historian.”

  “And I never discuss the details of my clients’ business.”

  “But in this case, your clients funded a recognized terrorist organization. Look, you’re not in trouble, but—”

  “Oh, I know I’m not in trouble,” she cut in. “You, though.” She squinted at the screen. “The Americans and the Germans are seeking you for questioning. Did you know that?”

  He didn’t. Fay Levinson had obviously gotten through to Jakes, and he was lucky to have flown out of Berlin as early as he had. “Good thing I’m in England,” he said.

  “Brexit hasn’t happened yet,” Primakov told him. “The borders are open, and extradition treaties are still in force. I make one phone call, and there’ll be a lot of boys with guns waiting for you outside.”

  She could have been making all that up, but it didn’t matter: He was dead in the water. “I’m just trying to find out what happened,” he said. “I worked undercover for months against the Massive Brigade. It ended with a lot of unanswered questions.”

  She took a moment to look at him, and he thought he saw her features soften, but that might have been a mirage. She said, “Have you read the report the FBI released?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that doesn’t answer your questions?”

  “Did it answer all of your questions?” he asked.

  She leaned back, non committal.

  He looked around the barren room. “I’m a little confused. What does someone working in the Overseas Development Institute’s worst office space have to do with underground political movements in the United States? Is that what you call overseas development? Funding agitators and terrorists?”

  “I rent this space,” she told him quietly. “The ODI has nothing to do with me.”

  “Can’t you just help me out?” he asked, opening his hands. “Who do you work for?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “My client list is confidential, and unless you come with a warrant issued by the British government, then I can’t help you.”

  He closed his eyes, knowing that she wouldn’t budge. Then he stood to leave.

  “And you?” she asked. “Who do you work for?”

  He just looked at her.

  “Owen Jakes? Yes?”

  “No.”

  “How about Rachel Proulx?”

  He said nothing, but his expression said it all.

  “She disappeared a week ago. Is she all right?”

  “Who are you?”

  She stared a few seconds, as if she might answer, but instead lifted her cell phone. “Go on, Mr. Moore. I don’t want to have to make the call.”

  7

  “WHERE THE hell are we?” Ingrid asked as the midnight street lamps of suburbia passed them by. On the drive from Montclair, taking the long but less conspicuous route through Lancaster, they’d stopped at a gas station, where Ingrid fed and burped Clare, and by now the baby was dozing in her lap again, barely visible under folds of blanket.

  “Waldorf, Maryland,” Rachel said, driving slowly and watching for parked cars.

  “How can you tell?” Ingrid groaned.

  By now Rachel had grown to appreciate Ingrid’s cynicism, cultivated by months on the run. Bitterness had been given enough time to take root and grow so wild that it had turned on itself, morphing into ironic humor.

  “We should be able to stay here a few days,” Rachel said as they passed number 6301, the mud-colored bi-level with the pristine front yard lit up by in-ground lighting. But she didn’t stop. She kept driving and watched for cars parked on the street, or vans in driveways—any signs that the house was under surveillance. It was doubtful—the Bureau was quite familiar with the nasty details of her past, and knew how she avoided it—but you only had to be wrong once for everything to fall apart.

  She made a U-turn as Ingrid looked down at Clare and said, “Friends?”

  “Maybe.”

  They parked in front of a house three down from 6301, and Rachel told Ingrid to get into the driver’s seat and wait. On the off chance that she’d miscalculated, Ingrid would know pretty quickly—the sudden appearance of flashlights and men, or even gunfire. In that case, she should floor it and disappear into the country again. Possibly even make her way south to Florida, to Bill and Gina.

  Rachel walked along the sidewalk as sprinklers in neighboring yards misted the air. The place made her think of David Lynch movies. Immaculate shrubs, barbeque parties, children’s soccer and slumber parties all serving as cover for the perversions and brutality that bubble just beneath the surface.

  Or maybe she was just thinking of 6301.

  She reached the front door and hesitated. Looked back at Ingrid’s silhouette in the car. She pressed the doorbell and heard it ring faintly from inside, and then footsteps. A pause at the eyehole. Then the door opened and the ever-beautiful Mackenzie stood there, radiant and irreproachable in a plush white robe.

  “Rachel,” she said, surprised. Not pleased.

  “Hi, Mackenzie. Is Gregg in?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. “It’s pretty late, Rachel.”

  “Sorry. But it’s kind of important.”

  They’d spoken for long enough that Gregg had pried himself from his glass of wine, or whatever late-night sitcom they religiously watched in the suburbs these days, and he approached from behind his wife, placing his big, hard hands on her slender shoulders. He’d aged, but she could tell from the tendons behind his thumbs that age hadn’t weakened him. “Rachel. What’s up?”

  She tried not to show any of the weakness that had defined their relationship for so long. “A huge favor. From you both. I’ve got a woman with a baby who needs to stay somewhere safe for a few days.”

  “And you thought of us?” Gregg asked, perhaps irritated, perhaps surprised, perhaps gearing up for a fight.

  Mackenzie, though, softened at the mention of a baby. “Who is this woman?”

  “A mother who needs protection.”

  “From whom?” Gregg asked.

  Rachel had considered cover stories—the Mob, foreign agents, the press—but she wasn’t dealing with neophytes. Gregg’s lobbying work had brought him in contact with all levels of the federal government, and Mackenzie’s background was international business law, though she was taking some time off. “By not telling you,” she said, “I’m protecting you.”

  They both understood what that meant, and it visibly disturbed Gregg. He took a step back, deeper into the shadows. To Rachel, Mackenzie said, “She needs our help?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then,” she said, then turned back to Gregg. “Right?”

  Gregg shrugged. “Sure. Of course.”

  Rachel liked that, seeing the perfect wife putting Gregg Wills in his place. Maybe the brute she’d known had only needed the ri
ght kind of tamer.

  8

  KEVIN WAS almost at the London Bridge station, having fled the ODI headquarters, when he hesitated. Was he really giving up on Alexandra Primakov so quickly? Had she scared him off? Maybe. Not the warning that she would call the police—that, he now suspected, had been an empty threat, because she wouldn’t want them to ask her any questions either. What scared him was that she knew his name, knew about Rachel and Owen Jakes. Who the hell was she? A lawyer who had helped fund the Massive Brigade, who knew about the inner workings of the FBI with a precision that most inside the Bureau didn’t possess. Yes, that scared him. Anyone who knew that much was to be feared.

  He was in a strange city where he didn’t know the rules, dealing with a woman who was miles ahead of him, but to flee when others—Rachel, Ingrid, Clare—depended on him … what was that? Was it rational self-preservation, holding on to his freedom long enough to take the next step in his investigation? Or was he running away from something that would prove crucial to protecting these women? Ben’s last words came to him: “This is your fault.” Back then, his decisions had led to a house full of corpses. What would a mistake cost him now? What was the correct course of action?

  When he abruptly turned around on the sidewalk and headed west again, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do. Was he going to march back into her office and demand answers? Or was he going to lurk outside like a stalker? Would he accost her when she left the building? Or could he manage to track her across this unfamiliar city? San Fran or New Orleans—those were cities in which he could surveil without a problem. But the tangled, crowded streets of London?

  He was almost at the crossing for Blackfriars when he looked up and saw her on the other side of the street. Yes—Alexandra Primakov, phone to her ear, walking in the direction he had just come from. He turned on his heel again, bumped into a Pakistani couple, and hurried to keep up. He hung back when she went through the turnstile at London Bridge, then ran so that he wouldn’t lose her. On the steep escalator, he was twenty people behind, and when he leaped onto the car behind hers he wasn’t even sure which direction they were going. By then she’d pocketed her phone and had taken out a second one, on which she typed messages.