Mesmerized

by Gayle Lynds

  He rested his hands on his hips and shook his head as if to clear it. "I'll get the Ferrari." He trotted away.

  The unconscious man carried no identification, and they had seen no other cars parked alongside the country road. So who was he, and how did he get to the farm? Working quickly while Beth kept watch, Jeff tied his ankles, tied his hands, and stuffed him into what passed for the Ferrari's backseat.

  Beth took the wheel, while Jeff sat at an angle in the passenger seat, his Beretta easy in his hand, waiting for the man to come to.

  "Patience isn't my strong suit," Jeff muttered.

  "Oh? I never would've guessed." She smiled, feeling for a moment a sense of triumph because they had survived. Then everything came rushing back over her, and suddenly the future looked bleak.

  Jeff watched as she drove the car back the way they had come to avoid passing the farm. The worst thing about her was that he liked her. After you have just escaped death with someone, and they have held up their end through it all, your opinion can do some radical shifts. No, that was not it. Too simple an explanation. Some inner battle was raging on the terrain of his heart.

  The injured man in back moaned.

  Jerked back to the present, Jeff watched the stranger's eyes flicker as he moaned again. Abruptly the man bit off what could have been a curse, and his eyes snapped open. He tried to sit erect, but his head smashed into the ceiling above the small backseat. He fell back, staring at the ropes that tied his wrists. Finally he raised his gaze to Jeff, and in those eyes for just a moment Jeff saw rage and cunning. And then it was erased. The man's eyes—his entire face—turned neutral.

  "Here's the score," Jeff told him in an impersonal tone. "I've got your weapons. It's obvious you're a pro, but you're going nowhere, because I know what I'm doing, too. Right now, you're hurting. You're wondering who in the hell I am and whether you can outwit or bullshit me. But because I'm a nice guy, I'm going to give you a break. I'm going to tell you the truth. Without us, the cops would have you. Since you busted into the farm dressed like a second-story man, I've got to think you'd prefer our company to theirs. Since you also took down my friend here last night—"

  Jeff watched the man's pale blue gaze shift to the back of Beth's head. There was something about the move. . . . The man was interested in Beth. Sexually interested. Attracted to her.

  She turned and gave a little wave of her fingertips. "Good to see you under these improved circumstances."

  Jeffs chest contracted. But he showed nothing on his face. "She holds no grudge. I, however, do. But we'll discuss that later. As I was saying . . . since you also took down my friend, we're aware you searched Alexei Berianov's house and . . . fortunately for you . . . that you let my friend go unharmed. We appreciate that. In fact, it leads us to guess that perhaps we might have a few things in common."

  Jeff studied him—the triangular face, the deep-set, almost colorless blue eyes. The man's uninvolved expression had remained unchanged except when he had briefly acknowledged Beth. It gave Jeff an idea.

  He said, "Perhaps you'd like to know what we found that you didn't."

  He waited. The man was a rock. He remembered Beth saying he had not uttered a single word the entire time he searched Berianov's house. The one advantage Jeff had was he had nothing to lose. So he leaned back against the door, kept his Beretta ready and in plain sight so the prisoner would not forget which one of them was armed, and he whistled "The Internationale," the song that had emerged after the Paris Commune and had become the Communist anthem.

  That apparently did it. The voice was soft, very Russian-sounding: "Okay. Tell me who you are. Maybe we talk."

  Beth laughed. "Come on, no one believes that accent."

  The man's face clouded. His eyes narrowed. He seemed to come to a decision. "Very well. You're obviously Jeff Hammond and Beth Convey. You can credit the thoroughness of the American press for plastering your photos everywhere. I'd appreciate your telling me what you found that I didn't." He raised his bound hands. "No. Don't say it, Hammond. I can see it in your face. In return, I'll reveal what I've learned. We can, as you say in this country, make a deal."

  38

  Beth and Jeff exchanged a long look. She glanced over her shoulder, saw something in the man's face that told her he was hurt worse than he wanted them to know. Despite that, she also saw a cool intelligence analyzing them in return. She would never forget the image of the black-clad, menacing intruder who had come upon her in Berianov's office and how easily he had overpowered her.

  She fell back upon her profession. This was a simple negotiation, she told herself. Sometimes the cleverest tactic was to throw a bone onto the table. All her senses told her that was where they were now. Which meant it was time to gamble.

  Her gaze focused on the dark road as she drove the Ferrari onward. Off to the side, trees whipped in a rising night wind. Cars passed occasionally in the other lane. In the distance, lights shone from houses set back from the rural highway.

  She threw out: "Did you know Caleb Bates and Alexei Berianov are the same man?"

  There was shocked silence in the backseat. Then a slow exhalation of breath, and he swore in Russian. "That explains a lot. I knew they were linked, but . . . I should've guessed."

  Jeff asked, "Had you heard Berianov died recently in Moscow?"

  "No. You were told that?"

  Jeff nodded. "He must've planted it for our benefit, not yours. Which means he may not realize you're investigating him."

  "That's good. Since you've given me that, I'll return the favor. Berianov, Anatoli Yurimengri, and Mikhail Ogust stole a significant amount of money when they left the Soviet Union. And recently they stole even more from old KGB funds here."

  "That's what I'd figured, too. That's how they bankrolled their businesses, and the slush funds financed expansions and maybe something else." Jeff cast a shrewd look at the man in the backseat. "Since you know all that, you must be MVD." He looked at Beth and explained, "The MVD is the Russian national police. They've been sending their people here on the trail of vanished rubles."

  Again there was silence in the back. Instead of admitting it, the man said, "When President Yeltsin was in office, he hired Kroll Associates to track state property that had been vanishing from our treasuries since the early nineteen-eighties." Kroll Associates was an international corporate investigation firm. "From nineteen eighty-nine to ninety-one alone, our Communist officials used secret Central Committee decrees to steal eight metric tons of platinum, sixty metric tons of gold, stores of diamonds, and—in your dollars—between fifteen and fifty billion in cash. All transferred into unknown hands."

  Beth was astonished. "That's more than most countries' annual budgets."

  The voice behind her agreed. "It's a national outrage and shame. And it wasn't just the Communists. Our new government officials and businessmen have been raiding the country since, even though we're desperate for money to finance our recovery. Everything was in chaos back in ninety-one when Berianov and his friends took advantage during the coup against Gorbachev. They skimmed fifty million dollars the KGB was laundering through Swiss banks for our people—"

  Jeff interrupted, "No doubt to agents, provocateurs, and front organizations."

  "Ah, yes. You understand how it works. Your CIA uses similar channels. We uncovered Berianov's thefts only last year. Kroll tracked the money to a private Swiss bank, which had invested it on Wall Street. We all know what happened to anyone who invested wisely in the nineties, and the Swiss are particularly savvy at it. From what Kroll discovered, Berianov, Yurimengri, and Ogust withdrew money off and on to finance their enterprises. Then three years ago they took out all of it." He paused. "It'd grown to nearly a billion of your dollars."

  Beth inhaled, surprised. "That's a tremendous amount for any nation to lose."

  The MVD man nodded. "Two weeks ago, Kroll hit a dead end. They could track the money no farther, so my superiors sent me." He paused. "You're still with the FBI, aren't
you, Hammond? But undercover now."

  Jeff's expression remained unchanged. "I left the Bureau a long time ago."

  The younger man gave a chuckle. "I have my sources. Do you know a man named Evans Olsen?"

  Beth said promptly, "He's a White House aide. I've met him at some embassy parties, although I haven't seen him for a while."

  Jeff turned to her. "I've never heard of him," he admitted.

  "Caleb Bates has been calling him on his cell phone," the MVD man continued. "The calls were encrypted, so we couldn't understand what they were saying, but we could track the signal. The very fact they were talking at all is curious."

  Jeff saw the connection: "You're the one who leaked the information to the Bureau that an underground group was planning a terrorist act. You meant Caleb Bates's people. You've got to be 'Perez.' "

  The MVD man was motionless. He did not acknowledge he was Perez, but he did not deny it either. "They call themselves the Keepers of the Truth," he continued. "Or simply the Keepers. That's everything I know that's useful. Now I have work to do, and I must make a report. I'd appreciate your driving me back. I hid my motorcycle two kilometers from the farm. The police shouldn't notice us."

  Beth shook her head. "You're hurt. I've been watching you in the rearview mirror. Every time you move, you wince."

  "Just cracked ribs." He smiled into the mirror.

  Jeff saw the smile. With effort he pushed down a wave of jealousy.

  Beth advised, "You need to see a doctor. You can't take care of your ribs by yourself."

  "Sure I can. Done it before. Now it's your turn. I've given you good information. Drive me back, and tell me what you know."

  Beth slowed the Ferrari, circled into a driveway, and reversed course. For a moment she thought she saw a car behind them delay and drop back, but the headlights disappeared off onto a side road.

  Together she and Jeff related highlights from the last three days—Meteor Express, Stone Point, the killer who had tracked Beth, and the suicides by cyanide of the two Keepers outside Bates's farm. They explained about Michelle Philmalee and the HanTech list, then about the old caretaker, whom they had last seen climbing into the van that had run down Perez.

  Perez had been looking relaxed, almost convivial. Now his blue eyes hardened. "So that's who was in the van. I recognized only the driver—Ivan Vok."

  "Ivan Vok!" Jeff shook his head. "I don't like the sound of any of this." He described the mockup of the Oval Office buried deep under the hillside.

  Perez's eyebrows rose in astonishment. "The Oval Office. Then they're planning to assassinate President Stevens, just as I suspected. And it must be soon, since you say all the Keepers are gone from the farm now."

  "That's what we think, too," Beth said. "Your president arrived in Washington today. Maybe that has something to do with the timing. What do you think Bates—or Berianov—expects to gain by assassinating our president?"

  "Nothing from our viewpoint," Perez said. "From his perspective, perhaps a lot. My sources say Berianov, Yurimengri, and Ogust never gave up hoping the Communists would return to power and reunite the old Soviet Union."

  "They're not the only ones," Jeff muttered.

  Perez nodded. "Nine years ago, that would've been impossible. In fact, our parliament talked about outlawing the Party altogether. But it's still a power in the Duma, and it's still the only political movement with a nationwide network capable of calling out hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets. The Party's been a big critic of the new free-market approach—shock therapy—which it blames for our economy's shrinking to the size of the Netherlands, and of the almost total disintegration of our military. And, of course, since then the ruble collapsed, the stock market dropped into a black hole, and we defaulted on our big international loans. Everything's fucked up. The Kursk submarine disaster. The Ostankino TV tower fire. Terrorists in Moscow. And, of course, there's always the pain of Chechnya."

  Beth said, "The Communists wouldn't have a hope of regaining control in a stable Russia. They certainly know that."

  Perez agreed. "This may be their last chance. Many Russians still remember Communist rule with pride for its defeat of fascism. The international loans we defaulted on were no more than the value of one of your new Internet companies. Still, foreign governments and the IMF condemned my country as if we were the irresponsible bad boy of the world, and that strengthened the Communists' position. Their platform's simple and appealing: We're still the second-biggest nuclear power, our land crosses three continents, our natural resources are rich and vast, and we have a veto on the UN Security Council."

  "You're implying Berianov may figure by assassinating President Stevens he can destabilize Russia enough for the Communists to takeover," Jeff decided. "If that's true, he'd have laid the groundwork over there already."

  For the first time Perez looked nervous. "We know they were forming alliances and buying into Russian utilities, factories, and politicians. Besides the die-hard Communists, they could've connected with the disaffected military commanders, the ultra-nationalists, and the old-guard apparatchiks. I'll tell my superiors. They'll check your HanTech list and uncover their penetration."

  "But why kill President Stevens now?" Beth wondered.

  "In my experience, nothing happens in a vacuum," Jeff said. "Back in the early nineteen-seventies when Henry Kissinger was secretary of state, he dropped out of sight for a few days while he was overseas. Reporters wanted to know what was going on. His spokesman said he was sick. Had the flu, as I recall. So the media picked it up and reported Kissinger had fallen ill while traveling on official business. Only later did we learn he'd really been in hiding, setting up a secret agreement with what was called Red China in those days, to open it to the West for the first time in twenty years. Maybe that's what this assassination is all about. President Stevens and President Putin could be meeting for a much bigger reason than the usual state ceremonies . . . maybe to announce some accord that will finally stabilize Russia, block the Communists, and anchor the country firmly in democracy. If that's the case, Berianov might figure that if he murders our president, the deal collapses."

  Beth said, "Or at least he buys himself enough time to finish whatever he's set in motion in Russia."

  Tense silence filled the sports car as it continued on through the starry night. At last Perez directed Beth to stop. They were back near Gettysburg, but on a lightly traveled stretch of road. There were no lights from houses anywhere in sight. One lone pickup sped past and disappeared as Beth pulled the Ferrari onto the shoulder.

  She turned off the motor, and Jeff untied Perez and helped him out of the car.

  His arms clutching his chest, Perez indicated thick ironwood bushes. Jeff found a path, disappeared inside, and returned, rolling a big BMW motorcycle. On the other side of the narrow, two-lane road, woods rustled with night sounds. Overhead, dusty clouds had appeared, a filter against the moon.

  Perez limped to the big bike and, with pain, swung his leg over the seat. "My weapons, please." As Jeff handed them over, Perez said, "I'll give you one more piece of information that could be useful." He described the politics of Caleb Bates's right-wing zealots. "Now that I know Berianov is Bates, a lot of what I learned about Bates and the Keepers makes sense. It looks to me as if Berianov has set everything up in such a way that the Keepers will go down for the assassination, while he walks away free and clear."

  "What makes you think that?" Beth demanded.

  "I followed one of Bates's top staff people. He ordered a lot of belt buckles with tracking chips, enough for the whole group. Most probably the Keepers have no idea there's anything different about the belts. For the ones who need to know, Bates could've explained them easily as a way to keep track of everyone during the operation. And now that we know Berianov is in disguise again, this time as an old man, it makes me think he's not planning to be part of it. He's getting ready to disappear."

  Beth understood. "After the assassination, he'
ll make an anonymous phone tip to the Secret Service about the Keepers and tell them about the belts. All they have to do is capture or kill one Keeper, and they'll be able to track all of them. If Berianov doesn't wear a belt, and we all know he won't, he's free."

  "That's how I see it," Perez agreed.

  "We can check that out." Beth exchanged a look with Jeff, remembering the two men who had committed suicide. They—and their belts—should still be in the trees. To Perez she said, "Where will you go next?"

  Perez smiled at Beth, and in that instant he looked youthful and carefree. "No, I think we don't tell each other that. But we should stay in touch. How do I contact you?"

  "You don't," Jeff said curtly. "Unless you have a number you want to give us."

  Perez smiled, shook his head. Moonlight emerged from between the clouds to bathe the three in cool light. Perez put on his motorcycle helmet. His voice was muffled as he spoke directly to Beth, "I saw your medicine at Berianov's house. You've been very ill, but now you're strong. If this one doesn't work out"—he nodded at Jeff—"I'll know, and I'll find you. Then we'll see whether we enjoy the same music and . . . other entertainment." He touched his fingers to his helmet's black glass in a salute to Beth. "Until we meet again."

  A curious thrill raced along Beth's spine. She remembered her pill bottles when she had located them in Berianov's office behind her chair—they had been lined up like soldiers, as if someone had examined them. He knew all about her, and he was still interested.

  Perez stomped the starter. The engine thundered awake, and he peeled off onto the highway, speeding south through silver moonlight toward Washington. Jeff and Beth watched his taillight grow smaller.

  "It's funny how time can change everything," she said. "Perez is simply trying to protect his country's interests, but in the old days, we would've been enemies."

  "Yes. The Free World versus the Evil Empire."

  "He seemed courageous. Determined to help his people. Russia needs more like him. What do you think?"

  Jeff frowned. "I suppose you're right—" And then stopped. In the distance, the headlights of a car appeared, heading south, too, in the same direction as Perez. Driving fast. As Perez disappeared from sight, the new vehicle's headlights grew larger and more menacing.