This morning, with Buvchenko on his way up the Peak, Duberman had sent Gideon with a letter instructing Two Typhoon to draw the line for Reddie Super and wire all forty million to an account in the Cayman Islands, a payment for “services rendered.” Through a series of prearranged commodities trades, three-quarters of the money would make its way to a Panamanian front company that Duberman controlled. Thirty million dollars. Enough money to disappear. Yes, fleeing would be the ultimate act of desperation, what he’d promised himself he’d never do. But he needed to keep his options open.
In any case, the letter provided the excuse he needed to make sure Gideon wasn’t around when the Russians came.
Gideon walked into the kitchen. He wore his usual suit, and to a casual observer would have looked like a middle-aged lawyer. Only the way his eyes roved the kitchen betrayed his agitation. Like he was on enemy territory. “Eric”—the head gate guard—“said Orli—”
“Did you do as I asked?”
“They gave me this.” Gideon pulled an envelope from his suit.
Inside, a confirmation of the transfer. “Orli’s gone. Buvchenko came and she went with him. I tried to stop her, but she kicked me—” Duberman held up the ice bag—“and ran.”
“Why?”
“He threatened to kill the kids if she didn’t go.” Duberman would rather have lied, but he couldn’t come up with anything plausible.
“You sent me away because you knew he was coming.”
“I worried you wouldn’t control yourself around him, yes. After that show in the garage.”
“You wanted them to take her.”
“You’re the one who didn’t tell the truth, Gideon, not me. She told me what happened in Tokyo, how you saw Wells.”
Gideon sagged slightly, and yet his lips tightened. Shame and defiance.
“You were in the same room with him and you didn’t do anything, after all he’s done to us—”
“It was impossible, Aaron. He had men there, too. Anyway, I was more concerned with Orli.”
“You want to know about this morning? She insisted on meeting the Russians, hear for herself about what I was doing with them. When Buvchenko came, she got mad. He threatened the kids and she panicked. I told her to trust me, but she wouldn’t—” Duberman found himself believing his own words. The story was hardly a lie, merely a revision of the truth.
“I can’t imagine why.”
Forget Orli. She’s gone. Wells, Wells is the problem we have to solve. But Gideon wouldn’t agree, and Gideon was no longer accepting his orders without question. The ingrate.
Suddenly the lie, no, the solution, jumped to Duberman’s mind.
“I haven’t told you the rest. Buvchenko just called me. He promises he’ll give Orli back. But he has errands for both of us first. He’s ordered me to meet Cheung in Macao tonight. One a.m.”
“And what does he want from me?”
“I’m not sure if what he’s asking is FSB business or personal. I suspect the latter.”
“What, Aaron?”
Duberman paused, letting Gideon’s curiosity build. Even now he understood how to work an audience. “Did Wells give you a way to reach him?”
Gideon nodded.
“Buvchenko wants you to set a meeting. And kill him.”
Gideon clasped his hands, sank into himself. Duberman wasn’t sure how to read the pose.
“Mikhail Buvchenko asked for this. In return for Orli.”
“This and Cheung, yes. I thought you’d want this.”
Gideon stepped so close that they were almost touching. “What’s the endgame, Aaron?” His voice was a whisper, yet every syllable of Hebrew was clear. Duberman could see him, thirty years ago, more, a young sniper in South Lebanon, whispering to the soldiers around him as he lined up his next kill.
“I don’t know.” The right answer. Gideon would think him either a liar or a fool if he promised anything more. “But I’ll bet they don’t want to keep her, either. They’re holding her for leverage. Let’s give it to them. Then maybe I disappear, leave her and the kids.” He forced out the words, though he knew that after this morning, he would never, ever leave his children for her to raise alone. He wouldn’t let her win that way.
“I still don’t see—”
“Tell you what. Consider this your chance to repay whatever it is you owe me. When it’s done, we’ll go our own ways. What the Russians do to me won’t be your problem.”
Gideon reached into his suit, his eyes unreadable. Almost sleepy. For a half second, Duberman wondered if he might be pulling his pistol. But, no, his phone. “If you say so.”
—
WELLS FELT HIS PHONE BUZZ just as he followed Shafer and Wright into the one-room apartment in Mong Kok, Wright’s safe house.
“Hello?” The word carried a thick Hebrew accent. Gideon, he mouthed to Shafer.
“This is John.”
“Are you in Hong Kong?”
“Yes.”
Wells listened. “When? All right. I’ll be there.”
He ended the call. “That was Gideon. He says Orli wants to meet at noon at the International Commerce Centre.” Another of the landmarks that Wells had memorized before coming to Hong Kong, the territory’s tallest skyscraper, more than fifteen hundred feet high. It was on the Kowloon side of the harbor, not the island.
“So Orli wants to meet?” Shafer said. “He mention her field trip with the Russians?”
“He did not. Maybe he didn’t think I’d come unless he dangled her.”
“Or maybe he’ll shoot you in the head as soon as he sees you.”
“What’s the point? They have bigger problems.”
“Doesn’t have to be a point, John. He knows they’re all circling the drain. Maybe he just wants to take you down, too.”
Shafer might be right. Gideon had been on a hair trigger in Tokyo, and he was almost certainly lying about Orli. The Russians had taken her only a couple of hours before. Why would they have given her back already?
Still, Wells had to go.
“You just supposed to go floor by floor until you find her?” Wright said.
“He said there’s an ice rink.”
“Yeah, there’s a mall next to the tower and it has a rink. I’ve never been, but it was a big deal when it opened.” Wright glanced at his watch. “Forty-five minutes. Not much time to get a team together.”
“He said no teams. Just me and him and Orli.”
“Did he?” Shafer said. “I’m shocked.”
20
Shafer and Wright insisted on backstopping Wells. He didn’t argue. If Gideon only wanted to talk, he’d understand why Wells had protected himself. And if not . . .
A check online revealed that the mall next to the rink was called Elements and had a vaguely naturalistic theme, a way to distinguish it from every other luxury shopping center in Hong Kong. “Guessing you don’t spend much time there,” Wells said to Wright.
“Sadly, no. Though I have been to the bar on top of the ICC. Crazy views.”
The rink had its own entrance at the southeastern end of the mall, the opposite side from the International Commerce Centre’s lobby. Wells, Shafer, and Wright quickly sketched a plan. Wright would enter on the rink side, see if Gideon had a team in place. Wells would come in from the skyscraper end, make his own surveillance-detection run. The mall was relatively long and narrow and had multiple levels, an unusual footprint that had probably come from the need to build around the massive infrastructure supporting the skyscraper, MTR line, and highways around it. The setup had dozens of good places to hide, ideal for watchers, tough for countersurveillance. Still, Wells had to try. Shafer would give Wells a five-minute head start before following from the skyscraper side.
Wright didn’t have tac radios at the safe house. They were stuck with their phones. Th
ey decided Wright would text 555 if he saw Orli or Gideon, 000 if he didn’t spot anyone, 911 and then the number of guys if he made a surveillance team. Wells wouldn’t text unless he decided to abort, in which case he’d go with 999.
“Call Duto?” Wright asked, when they’d finished the plan.
“No.”
“Good luck, then. See you there.” Wright adjusted his holster and left.
“He’s not bad,” Shafer said, once Wright’s footsteps were gone. The guy going in first was usually at the greatest risk, but Wright had taken the job without complaint.
“Yeah.” Not bad summed Wright up nicely. Wells still didn’t understand the Muslim John joke from a month earlier. Maybe he never would. That hiccup aside, he couldn’t complain. He gave Wright three minutes, headed out, hailed a cab. He felt calm, ready for action. This journey, so much longer and stranger than he had expected, would soon be over.
—
THE TAXI DROPPED HIM at the skyscraper’s entrance at ten minutes to noon, and he trotted down the escalator to Elements, passing from Water to Metal on his way to the Fire zone, which weirdly enough was home to the rink. Each zone carried its own perfunctory decorations to invoke the theme. Otherwise, the mall was simply another marble-floored tribute to the Western luxury brands that the Chinese loved, and mostly empty on a weekday morning.
Wells ducked into stores at random and stopped in an oddly sweet-smelling bathroom for about ninety seconds. He wasn’t trying to lose any watchers. They knew where he was going in any case. But if he could surprise or frustrate even one into showing himself, he’d be ahead.
No one jumped out, but as Wells passed the Prada store, a man drew his attention, a trim curly-haired guy in a suit. The guy was either one of Gideon’s team or an investment banker on a coffee break. Wells pretended to be interested in a three-thousand-dollar jacket as the guy picked up a bag that could be described only as a male purse. He poked at the seams, ignored the price tag. An operative would have checked. So, banker.
Probably.
Wells moved back down the hallway, felt his phone buzz. He pulled it, found a message from Wright: 000. He tucked the phone away, looked up—and saw Gideon staring at him. The Israeli had materialized a hundred feet away, four stores down, at the Y-junction of three corridors. His right hand was tucked beneath the left flap of his suit coat. The Sig Sauer P238 that he favored was small enough to hide there without attracting attention.
The problem with using phones instead of radios. By accident or design, Gideon had stepped into the hall in the seconds when Wells dropped his eyes to check the text. Now Wells was in a tough spot. He couldn’t look over his shoulder to see if he’d been wrong about the Prada banker, or if anyone else was coming. If he reached for his pistol, Gideon would get off a half-dozen shots before Wells fired one. Gideon was probably a better shot than Wells, anyway. At a hundred feet, Wells had barely a one in four chance of putting a round center mass.
Gideon nodded to Wells, Come on, come on. Instead Wells raised a hand, crooked his fingers, No, you. Then ran like the ball-hogging linebacker he’d been at Dartmouth, not away from Gideon but toward him. His only play, a way for Wells to change the angles without turning his back. A safe move, if Gideon was enough of a pro to understand it. Wells couldn’t reach behind his back for his pistol while he was sprinting. In motion, he was no threat to Gideon. Of course, if Gideon did mean to shoot him, then Wells was making his life easier by shrinking the distance. But even then, Wells had an out. If Gideon pulled his right hand, Wells would dive for the nearest store entrance, out of the line of fire.
Wells ate the floor with long strides, just conscious of the shops on either side, mannequins promising three-hundred-dollar T-shirts as a path to happiness. Gideon kept his hands steady under his suit. After two seconds, fifty feet, Wells stopped himself, trying not to slide on the slippery polished marble. All along, he kept his eyes on Gideon’s right arm and readied himself to jump if it started to move. His heart thumped, fast and steady, ready for action. Wells had believed Gideon would see they were on the same side now. But if he was wrong—
A second passed. Another. Instead of pulling his pistol, Gideon made an oddly precise quarter turn to his left, so he was no longer facing Wells. Accepting the ceasefire without a word before either man had even shown his weapon.
Gideon looked across his body at Wells. “All right?”
“All right.” Wells brought his palms together prayerfully in front of his chest. Another de-escalation. The sequence would no doubt have seemed bizarre to any sales clerks who might have happened to be watching it, the language open and secret at once. Like lovers exchanging pleasantries at a dinner party, their spouses beside them. What have you been up to? Oh, keeping busy.
“You have men?” Gideon called.
Wells held up two fingers.
“None for me.” Gideon reached up with his right hand inside his suit and holstered the pistol under his left armpit.
“We walking now?”
Gideon turned and they came toward each other, slow, almost ceremonial steps.
“All right,” Gideon said again, when they were face-to-face.
“This’ll go quicker once the translator shows.” They’d brought the guy they’d used in Tokyo. Young, mid-twenties, a CIA contract employee named Ben. He spoke English, Spanish, Arabic, and Hebrew flawlessly.
Five minutes later, Wells, Gideon, and Ben sat in the food court. Shafer and Wright were at the other end of the room.
“Where’s Orli?” The crucial question. If Gideon lied, Wells couldn’t trust anything else he said.
“She’s not coming.”
“You said—”
“The Russians have her. I didn’t know if you’d come to meet only me.”
The right answer. The truth. “But she only came home this morning.”
“Seven a.m., Aaron sent me to a bank in Mong Kok. When I got back, Orli was gone. Our guards said Buvchenko came in a van, she and Aaron talked with him, not for long, she kicked Aaron and they left.”
Exactly what the video had shown. “What were you doing at the bank?”
“Aaron gave me a letter for them. I think he’s moving money. Maybe going to run.”
“He can’t think—”
“I don’t know what he thinks anymore.”
“You’ve worked for him a long time.”
Gideon explained how Duberman had saved his son, news to Wells, a story the agency hadn’t cracked. “After it happened I pledged my life to him. And still I would. But something’s come loose in him.”
“He tell you why Orli went with Buvchenko?”
“He says because the Russians threatened the kids. But there must have been something else, too, Aaron did something and she decided she couldn’t trust him anymore. When I saw him he told me Buvchenko gave him two conditions to give back Orli, one that I kill you. I didn’t argue, but why would the Russians care about you? Aaron’s the one who wants you dead, he’s obsessed, blames you for everything. Like if he kills you, it’ll all go back to the way it was.”
“Magical thinking.” The same reason gamblers came to Duberman’s palaces.
“But in a way, he’s right. You’re responsible for Orli at least. She didn’t know the risks.”
“You heard us last night. We tried to explain. We told her we’d protect her.”
“You knew she wouldn’t believe you. Or maybe you didn’t, but he did.” Gideon slid his eyes to Shafer. “If you cared, you would have pulled her and the kids out, found some pretext, held them until this was done. Even if she didn’t want to go.”
How could Wells argue? Wright had pulled the drone off Orli this morning. Daddy’s the one we want. He and Shafer were playing a different game than he was.
“Men like you and me, we’re not even the guns,” Gideon said. “We’re the bullets.”
/> “What was Buvchenko’s other condition?”
“He told Aaron to meet Cheung again in Macao. Tonight. Tomorrow morning, really. One a.m.”
Barely thirteen hours away. And why? Because the Russians know they’re out of time. The FSB’s ultimate play almost didn’t matter at this point. They were rolling the op.
“You need to help me find her,” Gideon said.
Wells understood. Buvchenko wouldn’t have much use for Orli after he squeezed what he could from Duberman. The FSB would have no problem murdering them both in a semi-plausible accident. A plane crash, maybe, or, even more plausibly, a helicopter. Even billionaires’ helicopters weren’t immune from the weather. Casino magnate Aaron Duberman and his wife Orli died today when their helicopter slammed into the South China Sea in heavy rain on what is normally a routine fifteen-minute flight from Hong Kong to Macao . . .
“We’ll find her. If you haven’t noticed, she’s hard to miss. And Hong Kong’s not that big.” Though Wells knew firsthand that if the Russians managed to put her on a ship, the task would be far tougher.
“Nor that small. Do your people know where to find Buvchenko?”
“No. If we can get his phone—”
“I couldn’t find a way to ask Aaron the number this morning.”
Wells considered. “Give me Aaron’s number. Maybe we can trace it from there.”
Maybe. Buvchenko no doubt knew the risk that the NSA could back-trace him and was using single-use burners and Internet telephony to call Duberman. Still, he couldn’t avoid having one semi-permanent number, a way for Duberman to reach him on short notice. That incoming phone would be their best chance.
Gideon gave Wells Duberman’s number. “Now what?”
“Go back to the mansion, tell Duberman I didn’t show, I got nervous. He’ll like that. First priority is Buvchenko’s number.”
Gideon pushed back from the table. Wells raised a hand.
“Also. Your front gate must have cameras. Can you get the video, the make and model and plate of the van?”
The Wolves Page 28
