Destiny's Pawn

by D. A. Keeley

She relayed the message to Jackman.

  “Whatever it is,” she said, “they’re selling it for thirty. That was the figure. They were arguing about who got twenty.”

  “Thirty grand?” Jackman said.

  “I doubt Ted Donovan would throw his TV broadcasting career away for thirty grand.”

  Jackman paused. “You think they’re talking about millions?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Whatever it is, Ted found the buyer and sent Dariya to negotiate the deal.”

  “I’ll keep tugging at my end,” Jackman said. “If I find anything new, I’ll call. And I might swing by your place tonight. I got Tommy a new David Ortiz T-shirt.”

  “That’s sweet, Grandpa,” Peyton said and hung up.

  Stone was checking his iPhone. When she hung up, he slipped his phone in his pocket. He took her hand, and they started walking.

  “Maine DEA doesn’t believe pot use is on the rise in this area,” he said, “but usage statistics don’t mean much when you’ve got a built-in irrigation system. You can grow it and transport it.”

  “True,” she said. “You’re talking about the river?”

  “This place has always been made-to-order for growing pot,” he said. “Has been since I was a kid.”

  “But Dariya and Donovan sure as hell aren’t bringing pot back to the Ukraine.”

  They passed the bowling alley.

  “Does Dariya Vann have ties to organized crime in the Ukraine or Russia?” Stone asked. “You can’t take the dope back, but you could send money back.”

  “You’re thinking they set everything up with dirty foreign money,” she said. “Launder it here and send that back.”

  “Turn it into US currency and either wire it somewhere or take it home.”

  “A thirty-million-dollar pot industry run by Ted Donovan?” she asked.

  Stone was staring straight ahead, thinking. “I know. I know. Not likely.”

  “Virtually impossible,” she said. “He works forty hours a week for his brother. And all we have behind this entire theory is six pot plants. DEA doesn’t even think that’s worth looking into.”

  They continued to walk, no longer holding hands; now, they were working, both thinking aloud.

  “You’ve got to admit,” Stone said, “it’s a good theory. Someone in the Ukraine funds a US-based pot-growing operation in a rural area with little law enforcement and a river. You sell the product for US funds, and the dirty money is changed to US currency. Then you send the profits back to the Ukraine.”

  “And do it all over again,” Peyton said. “It’s too elaborate, Stone.”

  “Probably,” he agreed.

  “Dariya was talking about ships overturning. Said he nearly died and lost his half of the product.”

  “What’s that about?” Stone asked.

  “Not sure. What we do know is that Dariya and Ted were in Boston in 1990 together. And that Dariya planted his son here to get back into the US. I’m pretty sure Ted brought Aleksei here.”

  “Ted?”

  “Yeah, Dariya was pissed at him for his treatment of Aleksei.”

  “What is Aleksei’s connection to all of this?”

  “He gets Dariya into the US.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Good question,” she said. “Maybe he really does want Aleksei here to improve his life, and whatever is going on with Ted is secondary.”

  “Too many questions,” Stone said. “Hillsdale must’ve loved hearing that Aleksei is a plant.”

  “I haven’t discussed it with him,” she said.

  “You haven’t discussed it with him yet?”

  “I can’t have Hillsdale throw Dariya out yet. I need him here.”

  “You feds,” Stone said. “Always conspiring.”

  “That’s not conspiring. It’s playing it safe.”

  “I’d call that conspiring,” Stone said. “Want to walk to Tim Hortons?”

  “That’s a long walk,” she said.

  “Yeah, but it’s not against regs for a high-paid federal conspirator like you to buy a lowly state cop a coffee.” He grinned.

  “You’ve got a nice smile, you know that?”

  “And I’ll pay you back with a back rub,” he said.

  “I told you, I’ve had your back rubs.” She smiled. “They’re nothing special.”

  “I’ll try harder,” he said.

  “Then the coffee is on me.”

  9:30 a.m., Paradise Court, Garrett

  “I’m so glad you called,” Pyotr said, his Russian, she thought, barely better than his English. “So glad we’re back together.”

  Her head lay on his chest, her eyes steady on the wall. But a slight smile played on her lips. She hated him but was glad he hadn’t lost his touch in bed—that would make the downtime during the next few days better.

  “Thank you for coming here early,” she said, “and finding us a place to stay. A hotel room wouldn’t have worked.”

  The house was a two-bedroom ranch, its interior dated: 1970s paneling, yellow laminate countertop, and shag carpeting. But Pyotr paid a month’s rent in cash, said he was a college professor come to the US to research Canada Lynx, a rare animal confirmed to live in only a handful of US states. The whole exchange had taken all of twenty minutes, according to Pyotr. Probably because the house had been for sale for years, and the rental market wasn’t good. So the owner, glad for the month’s rent, asked no questions.

  She hadn’t seen him in months. His leaving had been hard on Rodia, who cried for weeks. Anna, at three, occasionally muttered “?” But then it passed. It had been hardest on her father, who’d brought Pyotr in twenty years ago as a skinny teenager.

  “I understand why,” he said. “You’re welcome.” He ran the back of his hand over her bare nipple. “I missed this. And I missed you.”

  His hand felt like ice against her skin, an odd reaction to his touch, Marfa knew, especially since she’d initiated the sex.

  “It’s why I called,” she lied. “I couldn’t be without you.”

  He moved his hand up, his index finger moving slowly on her jawline. “You sounded worried that I wouldn’t take you back,” he said.

  “I was.” She fought to hold back the grin. “I couldn’t live without you. I know that now.”

  “I thought of you every day,” he said.

  “Every day?” she said.

  “Every day.”

  “Even two days after you left?”

  That gave him pause. She knew he hadn’t expected her to know about that.

  “She didn’t mean anything to me,” he said. “I just needed someone to take my mind off you.”

  She nearly laughed at the cliche.

  “None of that matters now anyway. Now we’re together again.”

  “Forever,” she said.

  He didn’t see the smirk on her face.

  His breathing was slow, rhythmic. In five minutes, she thought, he’d be snoring softly. Some things never change: following sex, he always fell asleep immediately; she never did.

  “Does your father know you’re here?”

  He was thinking the situation through. She’d anticipated questions.

  “He thinks you and I are bringing it back,” she said.

  “But we’re not?”

  “No.”

  “Where exactly are we taking it?”

  Pyotr was smart. Her father had been right about that. But he wasn’t as smart as she was. That part her father had been wrong about.

  “I bought a house in the Alps,” she said. And with that lie the game was on. So was the act. She tilted her head, her warm smile looking genuine. “You know how I’ve always loved the Alps.”

  “It’s where we honeymooned. We’ll go back?”

  “And live,
yes. The children are on their way now. They’ve missed you.”

  “Who is bringing them?”

  “A nanny. I hired her.” That much was true.

  “Do you have your own buyer?”

  “I have something better.”

  “Better?”

  “Yes, why would I resell? I know its value. And”—she shrugged—“it’s the ultimate bargaining chip.”

  “For what?”

  “For whatever we need. Literally a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  “To be used when?”

  “When and if we’re arrested or if my father sends someone.”

  “Your father doesn’t negotiate.”

  “For this? Are you kidding me? Art has been his whole life. Every vacation we took when I was a child revolved around a museum—a different museum somewhere in the world.”

  “His life has been about money and power.”

  “And art,” she corrected.

  “How are you paying for it?”

  He would ask that. Always concerned about the money.

  “Father trusts me” was all she said.

  “You’re negotiating for your father? Using his money?”

  “He knows we only have a two-week window, so he gave me access to the accounts.” And with that financial admission, she knew she could no longer trust Pyotr. The final step of her plan had been decided. “He doesn’t think I’m strong enough to run his operations,” she continued, “but he knows I’m good with money.”

  “We have total control of his accounts?” he asked, blue eyes distant now. He no longer looked sleepy.

  “I have control of them, yes,” she said. “Go to sleep.” She stood and crossed to the bathroom.

  When she came out, he was snoring quietly. He lay in the middle of the bed now. Still slept with his mouth open, his snore still an endless hum.

  She slid into her robe, pulled it tight, and paused in the doorway, looking at him and thinking.

  His eyes blinked open. “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Just watching you.” He’s no Dimitri, she thought. “I’ve missed you.”

  The lie made him smile.

  She could’ve handled her brother being in control after her father died. Dimitri was older and respected her. And he’d saved Pyotr—three times, no less—from mistakes that would’ve cost millions. It was her father’s reaction to the errors that had offered her a glimpse into the future: each time he laughed it off, a deep, rich, boys-will-be-boys laugh. “Pyotr is learning,” her father had said.

  But so was she—learning that despite her MBA and her successful boutique, her father had little respect for her abilities. And less for her ambition and fortitude.

  Then one night last summer Dimitri left the restaurant in St. Petersburg and was shot once behind the left ear.

  One .22-caliber shot had changed everything.

  Strategically, it made perfect sense. Taking her father’s right-hand man isolated him, weakened his grip on his dominant market share, and left the old man with only Nicolay (also a gray beard), Pyotr, and herself in his inner circle. And to men like her father, she was seen as weak.

  “What are you thinking about?” Pyotr asked.

  “How mistaken men can be,” she said.

  “What did I say?”

  “Not you.” She moved closer, leaned, and kissed his lips, lingering over him a long time.

  Then she pulled away.

  “It hasn’t been easy being apart,” he said and held up his left hand. “I never took it off.” He showed her his wedding ring. “Where’s yours? You should put it back on. We’re together again. Forever.”

  She’d taken hers off ten minutes after he’d left the house for the US.

  She kissed him again. “I left mine at father’s. I’m so sorry.” She had no idea where the ring was.

  “What were you thinking in the doorway?” he asked. “You looked angry.”

  “I was just watching you sleep,” she said and pulled the robe tight again.

  But, as she descended the stairs, her true previous thought returned: How would it feel to kill him?

  3:30 p.m., Razdory, Russia

  Victor Tankov looked up from his book when Nicolay entered the room carrying a plate of sliced cucumbers and apples.

  “I brought a snack,” Nicolay said.

  “That’s not a snack. That’s what Rodia feeds the guinea pigs.”

  Victor hadn’t felt well enough to dress—he was still in his robe—but at least this day he sat near the window in his reading chair.

  Nicolay smiled. “Not guinea pig food.”

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “You’re my boss. How could I laugh at you?”

  “I’m not your boss. We stopped that relationship years ago.”

  “That’s true, but you’re still my boss.”

  Victor didn’t speak, turning to the window.

  “What is it?” Nicolay said.

  At his age, in his condition, Victor knew it was time. “I’ve never said it before, and that’s wrong,” he said, “but thank you.”

  “You thank me all the time,” Nicolay said.

  “No. That’s an expression of appreciation for a job well done. And, yes, I do often express gratitude for your excellent work. I’m not expressing gratitude for excellent work now.”

  “What are you saying?” Nicolay pulled a straight-backed chair bedside, sat, and retrieved a bottle of Ensure from the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. “If you can’t eat the vegetables or fruit, promise me you’ll drink this.”

  “That’s what I want to thank you for,” Victor said. “You’ve been a true friend for years. When I can count on no one else, I can count on you.”

  “Yes, you can. You gave me a family when I had none. I have no education, and you’ve paid me like a doctor.”

  “I’ve paid you a fair wage for what you do and what you’ve been willing to do. And, of course, there is more money to come. You’re in my will.”

  Victor set the biography of Rembrandt Harmensvoon van Rijn down and absently glanced at the empty space on the wall. He put his hand on Nicolay’s thick forearm.

  “I know, and thank you.”

  “No need. But you’re welcome.”

  The two men—men who had survived many years doing things few were willing or able to do—held each other’s gaze through a long silence.

  “Men like us don’t often get emotional.” Nicolay looked at Victor, saw the pale skin, heard the rasping breath.

  “No, not often.”

  “I have much to thank you for, Victor. You took me in when I had lost my father and had nothing. Helped me support my mother. I can never repay you.”

  Victor smoothed the flannel fabric on his thighs. His eyes were focused on the floor, but he said, “When Maria died, you were there. Not the children. No one else. You.”

  Nicolay only nodded, and both men sat looking out the window at the sun-splashed day.

  A dry smile creased Victor’s mouth. “I’m tired of rabbit food. You know how long it’s been since I tasted real food?”

  “Months?”

  “Seems longer. Sometimes I like to think of the past. About what I did. Where I went. What I ate and saw. I pick one day and relive it in my mind. Is that crazy?”

  Nicolay was staring straight ahead. His head shook back and forth. This was the closest his friend had come to admitting his death was imminent.

  “I think about a summer day,” Victor continued, “when Maria was still alive and Marfa was young. We were in Paris. The sun was shining. We were at the Louvre looking at Carcass of Beef. That was a special day. Marfa was eight. She looked at that painting—not in disgust like other children her age. They looked and turned away. She didn’t. And I knew then she was like me. S
he appreciated his work. Saw it for what it was.”

  “That’s why she’s getting it for you.”

  “She wants to be like me. I don’t want that.”

  “This is a hard life,” Nicolay said, “for a woman.”

  “Impossible for a mother. Maria made it possible for me to do the work. I could leave when I needed to, when things got too bad. And I did.”

  “I remember. One summer you and I went to Milan.”

  “Yes. A mother, especially a single mother, cannot do that. She has other, higher, responsibilities. And I believe she has different instincts too. But for that I have no proof.”

  “Mother’s intuition?”

  “Yes. And that instinct makes a woman put her children before all else. You can’t do this work and think about that too.”

  “She can’t slip off to Milan for a summer when things get hot?”

  “No, she can’t. She provides the children with emotional support. She can’t do that and run this from Milan.”

  Nicolay nodded.

  Outside, snow melted and water dripped from the roofline. “How are the children?” he said.

  “They’re fine. Downstairs. Playing with the nanny.”

  “Not fine. Children are never fine without their mothers.”

  “I turned out alright,” Nicolay said.

  Victor made no reply.

  “Something’s bothering you.” The cherry arms of Nicolay’s chair looked like twigs beneath his palms.

  “Instinct,” the old man said, “has served me well for many years.”

  “And now?”

  Victor looked straight at him. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  Nicolay’s bushy gray brows furrowed. “You think Marfa’s in trouble?”

  “No. And that’s what bothers me.”

  “If she’s not in trouble,” Nicolay said, “what could be wrong?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are you worrying about?”

  “Me,” Victor said. “I’m worried for me.” He looked at the space on the wall again. “I have a bad feeling.”

  10:30 a.m., Donovan Ford

  “Can I talk to you?” Ted Donovan asked his brother.

  Steven—in mid stride approaching a man and woman in their sixties who stood alone near a new Ford Escape—stopped and came back to Ted.