by Noel Hynd
“Let’s not waste time, either,” he answered. “I’m so very pleased to hear from you and would be delighted to see you.” He paused. “Even though I know you phone for business probably, not pleasure or romance, right?”
“Right,” she said.
“Then the vodka and seduction can come later,” he said. “Maybe the next day. What do you think of that?”
“I’d say it’s evidence that you’re still a dreamer,” she said.
“Hey,” he said with a laugh. “Listen, Alex LaDucova. I’m already having dinner with a friend tomorrow. We’re going down to the New York Italian Mafia neighborhood in Manhattan. What does he call it?”
“Little Italy?” she asked.
“That’s it. You come here to the Waldorf, we have a few drinks, and then you would be welcome to come along.”
“Who’s your friend? A woman or a gangster or both?”
“Neither,” he said. “Business contact in New York. He’d like to meet you, I’m sure. Very good that you called.”
She was fiddling with a pen at her desk. “All right,” she said. “How about this? Six thirty at the bar in the hotel lobby. Peacock Alley.”
“Wear something sexy,” he said. “I want to show you off.”
“And you wear a suit,” she said. “I don’t go out with men who don’t know how to dress.”
“Ouch,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, half amused, half revolted, fully intrigued. She clicked off, sighed, and wondered where life was leading her this time.
Ninety minutes later, she was at the Y, playing point guard in a pickup basketball game. Her friend Ben centered for her side. They played two twelve-minute halves and prevailed 37-32.
After a light workout with weights, she drove home. She noticed two people sitting in a battered Taurus in front of her building but thought little of it. Things like that were part of the urban landscape. No point to let paranoia get the best of her.
She parked her car beneath her building and then, wanting a little more night air, took the long way to her apartment by coming up out of the garage on the side street and walking toward her building’s front entrance.
NINE
They sat quietly in the old Taurus, Nagib on the passenger side and his Saudi handler, Rashaad, behind the steering wheel. Under the newspaper on Nagib’s lap, there was the Chinese pistol with a silencer on its barrel. They were like a team of military snipers. The Saudi was the spotter, the one who would identify the target. Nagib was the guy who would get paid to go in and make the hit. Rashaad was also armed, however.
The serial number had been filed cleanly from Nagib’s weapon, and the weapon had never been used before. Nagib was waiting for his shot, and it thrilled him. He had previously executed successful hits in Egypt, Jordan, and Germany, twice against Israeli informants and once against an American businessman. He wasn’t the smartest guy in the world, but he was effective. He had been smuggled into the country for this job and this job alone.
To Nagib’s twisted mind, there was nothing quite like this-waiting in ambush for a woman. It thrilled him beyond reason. He felt so primal. He was a simple thuggish man who took great delight in life’s simple pleasures and victories, eating and drinking, smoking and fighting, sex, assault, and murder. So he didn’t seek to understand, especially when he was paid to do a job he enjoyed. He sought only to get the job done.
Ten o’clock came. Then ten thirty. Then ten forty-five. On his car radio, a talk radio show chattered softly, though there was nothing soft about the political content. But Nagib’s mind was on the street and sidewalk beyond his car. He scanned up and down, attentively waiting. So did Rashaad.
From where he had parked his car, he could easily see the entrance of the Calvert Arms. He watched people come and go and didn’t like any of them. He didn’t even like the building. This was the type of residence that housed quietly genteel and educated people such as Alex LaDuca and her neighbor, the cranky, jowly old diplomat, Mr. Thomas. They lived in this building along with the usual widows, retirees, and seemingly carefree college students, mostly female.
The college students. He sighed when he thought of them. He might have been on the prowl for them-the young women around twenty to twenty-two years of age-if he hadn’t been on assignment. He gave these girls an extra leer as he sat and waited. He would watch them from the time they emerged from the Calvert to the time they disappeared down the block toward 21^st Street.
After all, they looked good. They also looked like his intended victim.
Nagib munched on an apple as he waited. He picked at a small box of raisins. Rashaad had explained that it was his potential victim’s habit to come by this location during the hours from 9:00 p.m. to midnight, scurrying along at a quick pace to the Calvert Arms like the desirable young female that she was. Well, he told himself as he watched with narrowed eyes, the first time he had his opportunity, he would be on her like a big cat.
He would put his gun to her head and force her to come with them. Or he would stick a needle into her if he couldn’t get his hand across her mouth fast enough, and he would drag her into the car. He had a syringe in his pocket. He savored the notion of tying her up and throwing her in the trunk. He fantasized about that part. His assignment was to bring her in alive to his employers if he could, but he had also been warned that there would be no second chances. If he muffed her abduction she would be on high alert in the future, and no one would be able to snatch her off the street. So if he had to kill her right there on Calvert Avenue, that would be acceptable too. But in the end he hoped to take her alive. His employers could talk to her, torture some truth out of her, find out everything she knew, and then turn her over to him for disposal.
Abruptly, Rashaad nudged him. They saw a female figure turn the corner of the side street down the block. Nagib picked up a small pair of binoculars. He steadied them, and fixed his gaze upon a nicely shaped woman approaching with a gym bag. She wore snug jeans and a light blue windbreaker. She was very pretty. Her hair was dark and wet. She looked as if she had just showered in a nearby gym and was on her way home.
Sure enough. Nagib started to breathe a little more heavily. There was no thrill like stalking a female. His hand went to his lap where it settled restlessly upon his pistol.
She was about fifteen meters from the awning that led to her building.
“Is that her?” Nagib asked in Arabic.
“I’m not sure,” said Rashaad.
“Why aren’t you sure? How many opportunities will we have?”
“Be patient,” Rashaad said.
Nagib reached to the handle of his door. Time to get out and get a better look. Then, as he opened the door, he saw something else. There were headlights coming up behind him, a sturdy American car that had turned the corner and was proceeding slowly down the block. Nagib had a sixth sense about cars that moved at that speed.
Then Rashaad confirmed it. “Police!” he said.
Nagib closed his door again and felt his heart pound. He watched the car through his side mirror. Sure enough, there was a rack of lights on top of the car.
District of Columbia Police.
He stashed the gun under his coat.
He leaned back. So did Rashaad.
The police car came to a halt next to him on the passenger side of their car. Nagib turned and looked into the gaze of two district cops, one African American male who rode shotgun and one white female who drove. They stared at him. Slowly, his hand moved to his pistol. And yet the police car was positioned so that his own car couldn’t exit if he wanted it to.
Nagib gave the police a wide smile and moved away from the pistol. He held up his empty hands and gave an engaging shrug. Then he produced the half-eaten apple and showed it to them.
“Lunch time,” he said.
“Yeah,” the male cop said, his window down. “Right.”
“What are you fellows doing?” the female cop shouted from farther across the front seat.
Rashaad
handled it. “My nephew works in that building down there,” he said, pointing. “We drive him home at midnight.”
“Never seen you here before,” the male cop said.
Nagib’s damp hand went back to the pistol and clicked off the safety catch. This was going the wrong way.
“My nephew’s car broke down,” Rashaad said. “What can he do? We must wait.”
No smiles in return from the cops. They glared at the two Arabs. Nagib’s hand broke into a heavier sweat and tightened on the pistol.
The male cop gave a little nod to his partner. Then there was movement. The police car lurched forward and eased away. The lame excuse had worked.
Nagib let an extra second go by, heaved a long sigh of relief, then looked back to the Calvert Arms. The street before the building was empty now, and the woman was gone.
A wave of relaxation spread over the car’s passenger. Several minutes passed.
“Thank you,” Nagib said.
“We are cousins now,” Rashaad said.
“We need to get access to the building,” Nagib said.
Rashaad nodded. “Maybe tomorrow. Now, we leave. We don’t want to be here if the police come back.”
Nagib agreed. The car pulled away from its watch a few minutes later.
TEN
The next morning Alex had a right-hand window seat on the train for her three-hour trip to New York. She had booked the seating intentionally; she wore her Baby Glock on her right side, so it would be better concealed and guarded. As the train raced northward, Alex watched the East Coast of the United States roll past her: Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, and Newark. Old cities that seemed almost antique and quaint-old for North America anyway.
She thought of Venezuela. Earlier that year, she had gone there to investigate a problem for philanthropist Joseph Collins, who was financing a group of missionaries in a remote town called Barranco Lajoya. Their work was being sabotaged by outsiders. Alex had stayed in the village for several weeks until an unnamed armed militia attacked, slaughtering many of the residents, destroying the village, and driving survivors to other locations. The reason for the attack remained unknown and still haunted her.
Forcibly, she shifted her thoughts away from Barranco Lajoya and pondered the potential move to New York, a more pleasant development. She had already decided that, all things being equal, it would be a good move for her, both professionally and personally.
A new venue, a new chapter. New people, new challenges.
To some degree, a new life.
The train arrived punctually at 11:30 a.m. She carried only a small overnight bag, a duffel that she slung over her shoulder. She had worn good walking shoes. New York, Paris, and London were her favorite cities for walking and picking up the feel of the metropolis. So she walked easily from Penn Station up to the Gotham. She checked in and unpacked.
By 2:00 p.m. she had ventured out again on foot. Although the weather was brisk, she didn’t mind the exercise and wore the proper footwear for a two-mile walk directly uptown, taking a path through Central Park, where the trees were already bare. She noticed in passing that a few of the stores were done up for Thanksgiving but most were already well into Christmas. The holidays hit a bittersweet chord within her; the absence of a family, the loss of a fiance. Best to keep going, keep the chin up, and not dwell upon it.
After forty-five minutes, she had arrived at the home of Joseph Collins, or, at least, his luxury apartment building at Fifth Avenue and 95^th Street. There he made do with a duplex worth twenty million dollars-by the jaded estimates of Manhattan real estate.
The building had once housed several Rockefellers and a Kennedy or two. William Randolph Hearst had once bought a floor there for a mistress, and Winston Churchill had stayed there for two months with friends after being voted out of office in the late 1940s. It still housed numerous heavy hitters of the New York financial and industrial community.
The building was the work of the famous New York architect Rosario Candela, a prolific designer of impeccable apartment buildings in Manhattan between World Wars I and II. With its polished granite entrance, flanked by three doormen in subdued dark green uniforms, this was among the most luxurious apartment houses in Manhattan. The facade was sheathed entirely in limestone, and the entrance details were pure Art Deco. The front doorway told all anyone needed to know. Carved through a granite slab, topped by finials, were the letters that announced the address: 1240 PARK AVENUE.
Inside, the lobby was as Alex remembered it from previous visits: dark, lush, and wide, with comfortable sitting areas and plush carpets on marble floors. Even the elevator that brought Alex to Joseph Collins’s floor bespoke old money. The elevator man wore white gloves. Alex wasn’t sure whether she had walked into a time warp or a bank vault.
By 3:00 Alex was comfortably seated in a leather chair before Collins’s desk. Though showing slow signs of aging, Collins still had his easy grace and charm. At seventy-six, he was a man at peace with himself and the world. He sat behind his desk in a tie and suit and spoke fondly of his son, Christopher, who was now involved in missionary work in Argentina.
“The news from Venezuela is not all bad,” he said at length. “The land where the village of Barranco Lajoya stood is unpopulated now. All of the survivors moved to a different settlement. It’s down the mountain a little way and near the valley. I’ve seen pictures. I’m told it’s a beautiful area.”
“What are the plans for permanent resettlement?” she asked.
“I’m not sure there will be a resettlement,” he said. “The people of the village, I think there are about four hundred of them, have adapted somewhat to their new location. I’ve financed new housing for them. It’s nothing elaborate, but it’s functional. Oddly enough, the government offered no resistance when we put new buildings there, even though that dreadful demagogue Chavez is still in power. I know, I know, they criticize us as Yankee imperialists in one breath and accept our charity with the next. But the army can better keep an eye on the people of Barranco Lajoya in their new location.”
“The settlement has the same name?” she asked.
“Well, the people are the spirit of the village, so why not?” he asked. He paused. “I’m thinking, assuming you can get free of your other work, maybe you could make a trip down there in the early spring. Or even February before it gets too hot.”
“I might be able to do that,” she said. “All else being equal.”
“God willing,” he said.
She agreed.
“I should mention,” she said, “one reason I’m in New York is to interview for a job here.”
“You’re leaving Treasury?” he asked with surprise.
“No, not at all,” Alex said. “FinCEN is initiating a new operation that will work out of New York. They offered me a potential promotion that would include a transfer here. I interview tomorrow.”
“I’m sure they’ll invite you to work with them here,” he said.
“And I’m sure they have fifty qualified candidates for every job that might be open,” Alex answered.
Collins snorted slightly. “Of course. You and the forty-nine runners up.”
“You’re too kind,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said, “and now I’ll be too kind again. My son asked me to continue to administer his apartment while he’s out of the country,” he said. “Chris will be gone for another four months, barring unseen circumstances. So if you’d be comfortable there in his apartment on 21^st Street or need a place on short notice, the key is yours. Just say the word, even if it’s on an hour’s notice. Lady Dora will let you in and give you the key. Hotels are so darned impersonal, aren’t they? I believe you were comfortable down on 21^st Street.”
“Very much so and thank you,” Alex said. “And I was right, you are much too kind.”
ELEVEN
That evening Alex seated herself in Peacock Alley in the WaldorfAstoria. She selected a table for two that gave her a good
view of the elegant lobby in front of her as well as the plush bar and restaurant that was to her back.
She glanced to the entrance, looking for Federov. Behind her, the bar was busy with wealthy New Yorkers and tourists, largely foreign, meeting for a drink after business, as a prelude to the theater or dinner. A waiter called on her immediately, but she declined to order until the arrival of the gentleman-she used the term loosely-who was to join her. The waiter smiled, disappeared, and returned with a small dish of nuts and pretzels. Alex scanned the lobby again. No Federov. She brought out her cell phone and riffled through the day’s calls. She returned two, finished them, glanced at her watch, and saw that it was 6:32. She looked to the lobby again.
She spotted Yuri Federov before he spotted her.
Her first impression was that something had happened to him. His face looked haggard. He seemed years older than when she had seen him last. He walked without the same self-assurance that she had previously seen in Ukraine, Switzerland, Italy, and France. As he crossed the lobby, she saw that he still had a thuggish wise-guy charm about him, if there was such a thing. But he did look, she decided, worn and troubled.
Then he spotted her. His expression changed and somewhere within him the sun seemed to emerge from clouds.
He walked directly to her, smiling broadly. “Ah,” he said. “The most beautiful woman in the world.” He extended a hand and took hers. They exchanged a clasp.
“Hello, Yuri,” she said.
He drew her close to him and wrapped her in a quick hug, then released. She went with it.
“What a pleasure this is,” he said affably, sliding his massive frame into the seat next to hers. For some reason, the image flashed before her of them together the previous February at the nightclub in Kiev, Yuri on his home turf in all his overly macho glory, she in a micro-mini dress prying him for information and getting increasingly soused as the evening went along. Well, all in an evening’s work.
Federov turned and signaled to the waiter.
