Tsar

by Ted Bell

“Any leads?”

  “A cell phone left on one of the victims. Had a message in Arabic to vacate the town by six A.M. yesterday. We traced the call to a cell tower in Tehran. Group called Arm of God claiming responsibility.”

  “Verified?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Any idea why the Iranians would want to provoke us? I mean, they’re already walking a fine line, building nukes and threatening Israel with extinction. The ayatollahs giving us a perfect excuse to take them out doesn’t make a whole lot of sense right now.”

  “No, sir, it does not. We’re hoping you can shed some light on this. Harry Brock told my boss you might have a whole different angle on this Salina situation.”

  Stoke nodded but didn’t reply. He wanted to see and hear what the FBI knew before he told them about the baker. He was thinking about the last time he’d seen Happy, when he was delivering his surprise birthday cake. The explosion had been huge. And Harry Brock had said the baker was a Russian-American assassin. Maybe KGB. What the hell was the KGB up to in Salina, Kansas?

  SALINA AND HIROSHIMA had a lot in common. Stoke and Agent Flood drove silently through streets full of downed and blackened trees, block after block of houses and buildings burned to the foundations, piles of burned debris that filled entire intersections. The smell was unbelievable. A raw, choking cloud of smoke and rot hanging over everything. He saw charred corpses of dogs and other animals that had been left behind, now stacked in piles on what used to be street corners. A storm had moved through the night before, and the streets had a patina of grey mud and matted black dirt.

  The day was cold and bright. When the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, there was an odd glittery quality to the surfaces of the black and desolate acres, as if it had rained glass an hour ago, or some giant had flung great handfuls of tiny silver coins over the town after it had been destroyed.

  John Henry’s face was somber, and the conversation was minimal. He was staring straight ahead; he’d obviously seen enough of this wasted town to last a lifetime. Flocks of birds circled overhead, and it occurred to Stoke that they simply had no place to land.

  “Where’s the first stop?” he finally asked John Henry.

  “We’ve got a temporary HQ set up. A trailer up top of that hill over there. A state park called Hickory Hill. It’s a heavily wooded area, but it escaped the fire because of its height above the town. Also the Motel 6 where I’ve booked you a room. Not great, but it’s the only thing still standing.”

  Stoke was gazing out his window, having a hard time dealing with such complete destruction. A fine old American town, with a lot of history he didn’t know and now never would. Gone.

  “You know this is the heart of America, John Henry?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this town is, was, exactly halfway between the East Coast and the West Coast. And halfway between the northern and southern borders. Smack dab in the middle of the country when you open up a map. Right in the crease.”

  “You think that’s intentional?”

  “Yeah, I do. They wanted this to hurt.”

  “Well, they sure as hell succeeded.”

  “You had kin here?”

  “I grew up in a big yellow house with green shutters, used to stand right on that corner.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  They drove up a narrow winding road that led to the hilltop overlooking the town. Near the edge of the cliff was the big silver Winnebago doubling as FBI headquarters. Stoke grabbed his door handle and smiled at Agent Flood.

  “John Henry, I want you to cheer up,” Stoke said. “We’re going to catch this slimeball and nail his balls to the wall, okay? Don’t you worry about it.”

  “How are we going to do that, sir?”

  “Well, for starters, I know exactly who he is.”

  “That’ll help,” John Henry said, smiling for the first time since they’d landed at Salina.

  47

  “Mr. Jones, welcome, I’m Agent in Charge Hilary Spurling,” the attractive blonde FBI lady said as Stoke and John Henry entered the trailer. It was cold as hell outside, and it felt nice and warm inside. Spurling was in her thirties, all business, but still a babe. She introduced him to the rest of the group. It included Bruce Barnett, the Salina PD’s medical examiner, a guy from the FBI’s Explosive Unit Bomb Data Center in Washington named Peter Robb, and the two uniformed officers Stoke had seen on CNN.

  “How’s everybody doing?” Stoke said with a smile. “This the team?”

  “This is the team,” the ME said.

  Spurling said, “Mr. Jones, let’s cut right to the chase. I understand from my director, Mike Reiter, and our colleagues at both Langley and Homeland, that you and Agent Brock may have some information that would help us in this investigation. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it is. But if you don’t mind, before I share that information, it would be helpful to hear what you’ve got so far. Is that all right with you?”

  “Certainly. Won’t take long, because we haven’t got much. Why don’t we start with you, Bruce? Dr. Barnett here is the state ME assigned to the multiple homicide by Salina PD.”

  The medical examiner pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “Yes, well, there were no casualties from the explosion, as you know, Mr. Jones. So, I’ve spent the last twelve hours with the four murder victims at 1223 Roswell Road. The home of Mayor Bailey and her family.”

  “Who found the bodies?” Stoke asked.

  “The housekeeper when she arrived at work that morning,” Bruce Barnett said.

  “Is she available? I might want to talk to her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about the crime scene.”

  “No forced entry. The killer was freely admitted into the home. So, he was known to the deceased or used some ruse to gain entry. Two of the victims, children, female, ages four and nine, were found in their beds. The husband died of a gunshot wound to the head. Mayor Bailey died the same way her children did. Poison gas.”

  “Jesus,” Stoke said. “He gassed them?”

  “Yeah,” Spurling said. “It gets worse. He had some fun with the mayor before he killed her.”

  “Tell me,” Stoke said.

  “Raped and sodomized.”

  Stoke looked away for a second. “You guys anywhere near identifying the gas?”

  “Some kind of incapacitating narcotic, administered at a lethal dosage level. Best early guess is a formula based on the drug fentanyl. We sent lung-tissue samples from the victims to the Bureau’s lab in D.C., see if we get any database matches with known material. So far, all I can tell you is it’s of foreign origin, nothing of ours. We’re waiting to hear.”

  Stoke looked at the bomb-squad guy. “What the hell kind of nonnuclear explosives could cause the kind of destruction I just saw?”

  Peter Robb said, “First of all, it wasn’t one bomb. It was hundreds.”

  “Hundreds?” Stoke said.

  “Maybe a thousand. Maybe more. EU-BDC’s primary responsibility is forensically examining bombing evidence to identify bomb components. Looking for a signature. So far, all we’ve got is this.” He handed Stoke a small, jagged piece of very thin metal. Silvery, glassy, almost like mirror. He tried to bend it and couldn’t.

  “What is this stuff? I saw it everywhere.”

  “Checking on that now. But it was found at every single scene.

  The whole town is littered with it. My men are now doing materials analysis on it, looking for explosives residue, and performing accelerant examinations. So far, we’re coming up empty. It’s the craziest crime scene I’ve ever seen, Mr. Jones, and I’ve been doing this a long, long time. Whatever this bomber used, it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

  “What do you mean by that, Mr. Robb?” Stoke asked.

  “Multiple bombs strung like firecrackers. All connected by one fuse and all going off simultaneously. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the only way I ca
n explain it.”

  “Thank you,” Stoke said, turning his attention to the two uniforms. “And you two men were the officers who located the straggler? The guy delivering doughnuts, right? You spoke with him. You were with him when the bomb went off.”

  “Yessir,” Andy Sisko said. “Patrolmen Sisko and Southey.”

  “And you got his name?”

  “Happy,” Officer Gene Southey said. “Happy the Baker. Had it stitched on his shirt. Said he’d been in town a few days. Sleeping off a migraine and never left his motel.”

  “What did he say when the town blew up? What was his reaction?”

  The two cops looked at each other. “What did he say, Andy? You remember?”

  “I don’t think he said a damn thing,” Sisko replied. “I think he just got in his truck and drove away.”

  Stoke looked at him. “Big white truck? ‘Happy the Baker’ on the side?”

  “Yessir, that’s it, all right.”

  “And he just drove away. Leaving two witnesses behind.”

  “Witnesses to what?” Southey asked.

  “His crime. Happy the Baker blew up your town, officer. I don’t know how or with what, but he’s your guy.”

  “Holy shit, I mean, damn! We were sitting right there with the guy!”

  Agent Spurling said, “Mr. Jones, please tell us what-”

  “Hold on a sec,” Stoke said whipping out his cell phone. He speed-dialed Sharkey’s number at his new Coconut Grove office in Miami. The phone rang four, five times. Stoke could see his office, the little pink stucco bungalow hidden by the banana trees, all the windows open, the bamboo chaise where he’d take a nap when things were slow. He could even see Luis there now, snoozing on those soft green and white cushions.

  “Tactics,” Shark finally said, too cheery, trying to sound awake.

  “You napping on the job, son?”

  “No, sir, I was in back, you know, a pro’lem with the air conditioner and-”

  “Time to jump and scatter, Shark. We’ve got something out here.”

  “Tell me, and it’s done.”

  “Luis, listen carefully. That tape we shot a week ago in the Grove. That night from the boat? Not all of it. But pull every scene that includes Paddy Strelnikov, a.k.a. Happy the Baker. It’s at the very end of the tape, coming out of the house with the cake. Edit. Burn a disc. I want you to email that footage to, hold on, what’s your e-mail address, Agent Spurling?”

  She told him, and Stoke gave it to Sharkey. “We need this stuff now, okay? Keep the disc as backup. FBI’s got to get this guy’s face on the national wire right now. Call Barry Pick at Miami-Dade. Tell him cake boy did Salina. Tell him to watch the airport, Happy could be coming home or even there already. You cool?”

  “Cool runnin’, mon.”

  “Later, Shark.”

  Spurling was looking at him.

  “You’ve actually got tape on this guy?”

  “Lots of it. We were surveilling Chechen Russian mob guys on another matter and picked him up accidentally. He’s involved with a guy we’re looking at for something else. Yurin.”

  “Urine?” Agent Spurling said, a puzzled frown creasing her brow.

  “I know, I know. It’s confusing, isn’t it? But it’s Yurin with a Y. All Beef Paddy, that’s Happy’s moniker, was delivering a bomb in the form of a birthday cake. This was at a party where this guy Yurin was running security. Did you put out an APB on the white truck?”

  “Happening as we speak, Mr. Jones,” Spurling said, snapping her phone shut.

  “You have to figure he dumped it nearby. Way too easy to spot. He hides the truck somewhere, steals an abandoned car, heads to an airport. I’d get everybody available working that truck. Five-mile radius.”

  “Yeah. Sorry. We didn’t even begin to make this guy as a suspect. Just a nutjob. Who the hell is he?”

  “His real name is Paddy Strelnikov. American-born Russian. Mafiya type from Brooklyn. We think he’s KGB. A sleeper assassin, possibly working directly for someone in the Kremlin. The last time I saw Paddy, he was in Miami. He killed a Chechen terrorist responsible for attacks against the Russian population and the threats against the Kremlin.”

  “Holy shit,” Officer Southey said. “Russians in Salina?”

  “Yeah, you two are lucky to be standing here. John Henry, I want to talk to the manager of the motel where Paddy was staying. See his room.”

  “That’s easy. You’re staying there. Motel 6.”

  “Let’s go.”

  JOHN HENRY HAD parked the FBI car at the same overlook where Paddy and the two cops had watched the town blow up.

  “This is where the three of them, the suspect and the two officers, observed the explosion. The bakery truck was parked right where you’re standing.”

  Stoke walked to the edge of the cliff, looked down at the smoking, glittering remains of Salina. Then he turned around and stared at the dense woods behind him. He saw a couple of dirt roads, almost overgrown, leading into the park’s interior.

  “Where’s the motel? Up here on the cliff somewhere, I’d guess?”

  “Yessir. It’s just on the other side of those woods. Right on the state highway. Maybe a mile, mile and a half. Nothing up here on the bluff was touched. Only reason the motel and the park survived.”

  “Can you drive a car through that stuff? Or do we have to drive around to get to the highway?”

  “I don’t know that you could get a car through there, sir. Those are nature trails. Pretty thick.”

  “Let’s take a walk, John Henry. I love nature.”

  Five minutes later, glancing up as he walked, Stoke said, “Lots of broken branches back in here. Both sides of the trail. High up, too.”

  “Yessir, I noticed that.”

  “Looks almost like a damn truck came through here recently, doesn’t it, John Henry?”

  “There it is. Down in that ravine.”

  Stoke looked to his left. At the bottom of a very steep ravine, he could see the white bakery truck. It was on its side, the cab partially submerged in a swiftly running creek.

  “Let’s go,” Stoke said, and ten minutes later, they’d managed to work their way down to the truck. It was banged up pretty bad, glass gone from the windshield, water running right through a portion of the cab. One of the two rear doors was hanging ajar.

  “Accident?” John Henry asked.

  “I think he ditched it. Long gone, I think, probably hiked through the woods to the motel, changed clothes in his room, and then stole one of the abandoned cars in the lot and boogied. But go through the cab, okay? Best you can. Check the glove compartment, and check under the seats. Might find something helpful, though I doubt it, many times as this bad boy’s been around the block. I’ll look in the back.”

  He lifted the rear door and looked inside. Doughnut boxes, a lot of them, as if they’d been through a cement mixer. Most of them still sealed, but a lot had popped open, and there were hundreds of gooey cream, chocolate, glazed, and jelly doughnuts stuck to the ceiling, the walls, lying around. Stoke resigned himself to going through every last one of the damn boxes. After all, it was Happy’s MO, wasn’t it? The last time he had delivered a bomb, it had been inside a bakery box.

  “John Henry,” he called out ten minutes later.

  “Yessir,” came the reply from the cab.

  “Come back here and take a look at this, will you?”

  “Nothing in the cab, sir,” John Henry said a minute later, peering into the gloom inside the truck. He could see Stokely sitting in the midst of hundreds of opened doughnut boxes. Gooey stuff all over him.

  “Gimme a hand in here, John Henry,” he said. “Help me get out of all this crap. Can’t even stand up, the floor’s so bad.”

  “Disgusting.”

  “That’s one point of view. Elvis would’ve thought he’d died and gone to heaven in here.”

  Agent Flood took Stoke’s hand and helped the big black man scramble out of the upended truck. Stokely stoo
d with one foot in the icy creek, his entire body covered in creamy caramel icing and sprinkles from head to toe.

  “Check this out,” Stoke said, wiping icing from his eyes with his one free hand.

  He held up a small, silvery object, like a desktop sculpture of a human brain, stem and all. But the thing about it that caught John Henry’s eye was that it was as shiny as a brand-new mirror. Like the little piece of metal he’d seen back at the trailer. And the stuff sprinkled all over his dead town.

  “What the heck is it?” Flood asked.

  “It’s a Zeta computer. Called the Wizard. Sell ’em all over the world for about fifty bucks apiece. Even cheaper in Third World countries.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen those.”

  “Damn right you have. Millions of them have been sold in the last few years. We’ve got to get back to the trailer and show this thing to that bomb-squad guy. What’s his name?”

  “Robb. Peter Robb.”

  “Yeah, Robb. Show it to him.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because, John Henry, I think this computer’s got a bomb inside it. Hell, more I think about it, maybe this isn’t the only one.”

  “Bombs in computers.”

  “That’d be my guess, yeah. I could be wrong.”

  John Henry was turning the thing over in his hands, staring at it in disbelief. “My kid’s fifth-grade computer class uses these.”

  “Scary thought, ain’t it?” Stoke said. “We’ve got to talk to Robb. Get the whole damn FBI on this. Find out how many of these damn computer bombs might be out there.”

  Stoke’s cell hummed in his pocket. He whipped it out and flipped it open.

  “You’re talking to him,” he said.

  “Stoke, it’s Luis.”

  “Shark. What’s up?”

  “Miami Dade PD just called two minutes ago. Friend of mine there picked up on some info he thought we should know about. They tracked our baker boy, All Beef Paddy Strelnikov. He’s back in Miami, all right. One of the local officers who had seen the APB photo made him at the Miami Herald building. Dressed as an exterminator. Carrying two large canisters on his back, like oxygen tanks or something.”