The Russian Bride

by Ed Kovacs

  She smiled as tears streamed down her cheeks. “No.”

  “Okay. So then think about where we might be two days from now. Think about what we might achieve. It’s up to us to keep dreaming, to not give up. You will have Kala happy and laughing in your arms again. That’s my dream for you.”

  She wiped away tears and nodded. “It’s a good dream. I like it.”

  He hugged her with true tenderness, then gently led her to the quad. Kit climbed on and revved it to life. She took a last look at Ganz, then got on behind him. He drove through the opening in the fence and onto Nellis Air Force Base.

  Now that he was on more-familiar turf, it only took nine minutes until they stopped on Blytheville Drive, where a bunch of vans sat parked outside a storage building.

  In a matter of minutes, Kit had a blue panel van hot-wired, and they drove off base toward the lights of the Strip, shining brightly once again.

  CHAPTER 45

  Chan and Franklin convinced Metro PD to place Staci Bennings under “Jane Doe” at Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center. They were protecting her from a possible Russian Mafia reprisal, but they also didn’t want the FBI or CID aware of her rescue. At least not yet. Not until they could ask some questions.

  They planned to drive her back to San Bernardino in the morning, but tonight they dozed in chairs in her room. Both detectives had sustained lucky gunshot wounds; Franklin had been grazed in the shoulder and Chan had a through-and-through bullet wound in the flabby left side of his considerable waist. They were both very fortunate.

  Staci awoke and saw her guardians fast asleep. Her broken wrist was in a cast, her knee wrapped and in a brace, her nose bandaged. She didn’t like drugs, but the pain meds helped a lot. She manipulated the electric bed to put herself in a sitting position and then swung her legs over the side and onto the floor. With some agonized effort she stood and pulled a sheet from her bed.

  She softly whispered, “Thank you, God. Thank you, God,” as she draped the sheet over Bobby Chan. She found a blanket and limped over to the other side of the bed, where she draped it onto Ron Franklin.

  “Thank you, God.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she whimpered softly as she stood at the foot of her bed.

  Chan woke up, disoriented for a second. He noticed the sheet covering him, then saw Staci Bennings standing a few feet away, crying.

  The big man silently stood and crossed to her, then gently embraced her. She grabbed him tightly, buried her head into his chest, and cried.

  * * *

  Margarite Padilla sat at her kitchen table scanning news Web sites—The Huffington Post, Drudge Report, the Hill, Politico—on her tablet computer as she swigged coffee from a red St. Louis Cardinals mug.

  A cell phone rang from within her purse, but her look said it wasn’t a cell phone she wanted to answer.

  “This better be good,” she said into the phone.

  “The EMP bomb from Sandia is in a white Dodge pickup on the second level of the parking structure at Hooters Casino in Las Vegas,” said Kit as he drove the blue van toward downtown.

  “I just got a call from the DCI who told me the weapon you stole detonated over Las Vegas earlier tonight.”

  “Negative. A Russian device detonated. I warned you about it.”

  “The DCI insists the Sandia bomb was used.”

  “It’s at Hooters. Send a team to pick it up. It’s … not exactly in the same condition as when I borrowed it, but maybe you could use it to embarrass the DCI.”

  Padilla almost allowed herself a smile. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said in a while. So Popov used his bomb for a diamond heist?”

  Bennings quickly explained how Popov had parachuted from the Palazzo and how he was caught holding the stolen goods.

  “All of this for diamonds?”

  “Negative again. But the clueless political hacks in top management of the CIA might believe that.”

  “If you think the robbery was a diversion, then what’s the real target?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You’re in custody at Nellis!”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I was there, but opportunity knocked.”

  “Bennings, they were going to give you amnesty.”

  “My job isn’t finished yet, Madam Secretary.”

  “Yes, it’s finished. This has gone far enough,” she said with cold authority. “The DCI keeps talking about ‘your man Bennings.’ That was true in Moscow, but not anymore. You are off the reservation, soldier. I am ordering you to turn yourself in. Don’t call me again until you do.”

  “Why? Because it’s inconvenient for you? Because you might have to assume some responsibility you’d rather not by having ‘your man Bennings’ in play? I risk my life, but we mustn’t interrupt your high tea at the Mayflower, is that it?”

  “You are out of line!”

  “No, you are out of line!” yelled Bennings as he pulled the van over to the side of the highway. “I volunteered, as a soldier, to give my life for my country. I did not volunteer my family to give their lives. This is not finished!

  “People like me work long hours for lousy pay in places that could get us tortured and killed. We don’t get public acknowledgment, we have to spend months or years away from our loved ones, but we do it out of service to our country.

  “Whether we succeed or whether we fail, we don’t expect any support from all of the spineless, inside-the-Beltway, power-hungry political appointees, bureaucrats, and hatchet men and women that make up so much of Washington. We all know better than to expect much support from the D.C. sewer system. It would be nice, however, if you all would sometimes put politics and your own self-promotion aside and do what’s good for the country. In this instance that means stopping Viktor Popov, a man the CIA still loves because of all the free intelligence he’s given them and continues to give them, a man whom the FBI couldn’t locate if he was using their toilet on Pennsylvania Avenue!

  “Here’s a CRITIC, a critical intelligence message, for you, Padilla. I’m the guy who is going to stop Popov! Do I have to tattoo a reminder on your ass that my mother was murdered because you sent me on a job I didn’t ask for or want? I spent nine months of my life to find two moles the agency couldn’t locate, and you will reap the hosannas in the power circles, won’t you!? And all it cost me was my mom and sister!”

  “I have taken a lot of heat trying to provide you with political cover,” Padilla said defensively.

  “You have taken heat trying to give me cover? I got news for you: when you have secret operatives in the field, you don’t try to give them cover, you do it! You have tacitly approved everything I’ve done. Own it!

  “Oh, and by the way, seven CIA contract killers masquerading as army MPs tried to wipe me and Petkova at Nellis about thirty minutes ago. Stout tried to take out ‘your man Bennings.’ And how was your day?”

  Kit angrily threw the cell phone out the window onto Interstate 15.

  He sat there for two minutes, regulating his breathing and settling down.

  “There’s a small army looking for Staci. You and I helping wouldn’t make much difference, so our next stop is Moscow,” he said. “We have unfinished business.”

  CHAPTER 46

  Since there wasn’t enough room for a piece of paper between the Russian neoclassical buildings crowded onto Nikolskaya Street, in Moscow’s city center, the best way to tell one solid old structure from the next was to examine the subtle changes in paint schemes and the slight differences in architectural details.

  Even though the neighborhood had been run-down when the Soviet Union collapsed, Popov had wisely bought the building on the assumption a renaissance would eventually take place. He was correct. The GUM Department Store was just down the street. In the bad old days of communism, the lines were long for jars of borscht and loaves of bread sold from mostly empty shelves. Now GUM is a jewel of a shopping cent
er purveying Armani and Yves Saint Laurent and the best designer goods from around the world. So Popov’s investment had paid off, but instead of selling the three-story Nikolskaya building for a tidy profit, he undertook massive internal renovations to make it his Moscow headquarters.

  Over the last ten years, fortified with heavy-duty electrical wiring, fiber-optic cabling, a high-end HVAC system, and other improvements, the solid, sturdy building had evolved into a Tier 4 data center exclusively for Popov’s Russian black hat hackers. The servers were kept in an environmentally controlled room, while the hackers worked in shifts in a third-floor room. The entire third floor of the modestly sized building was devoted to the hackers and their needs: dining room/kitchen with a cook available 24/7, game room with pool table and arcade games, chill lounge, showers, and small individual bedrooms. The well-paid hackers had never before been confined to the premises, but they were now confined for the duration of the deception, so Popov had made it as comfortable for them as he could.

  The second floor contained Popov’s luxurious personal bachelor quarters (his family lived in a huge dacha outside of town) and his offices. His personal staff of four stayed busy taking care of myriad business concerns.

  Security goons inhabited the ground floor. A minimum of sixteen men stood duty at all times, working twelve-hour shifts: one in the back parking lot, one at the iron driveway gate to the street, two on the roof in a disguised guard shack, two on duty in the CCTV room / security center, two at the rear entrance—the only entrance—to the building, and one man each on the second and third floors. The rest functioned as rovers and relief for the other posts. The men rotated posts every hour to help break up the boredom.

  Popov’s corner office had views out onto Nikolskaya through two-inch-thick ballistic glass, coated with a special film to prevent laser eavesdropping. Likewise, ballistic ceramic sheets had been placed between layers of the floor, ceiling, and walls of Popov’s second-floor quarters when the building was retrofitted.

  Viktor Popov felt safely ensconced back in his Moscow office, surround by an impressive collection of Imperial Russian porcelains, Fabergé silver and gold pieces, Imperial porcelain Easter eggs, silver and cloisonné bowls and cups, gold Russian Imperial military plates, and a gorgeous “Virgin and Child” enameled religious icon. He felt so good, he decided to have a cigar, which he rarely did unless there was cause to celebrate.

  “Mikhail, we pulled off a half-billion-dollar heist. Not quite as impressive as what Wall Street does to the American taxpayer, or what Mr. Putin has done to our fellow Russians, but still, we did it, and with flair,” he said, relishing the first few puffs.

  Travkin, wearing a trendy Hugo Boss suit, sipped some cranberry juice. He wasn’t feeling as ebullient, since they didn’t have the diamonds, and he was smarting from the ongoing debacle that had befallen their operations in America via a series of FBI and IRS raids on most of their U.S.-based business operations.

  “I’m glad you are here and safe, Uncle, but I’m not sure it’s time to celebrate yet. We’ve been badly damaged—especially in the eyes of our fellow thieves-in-law, who now perceive us to be weak and in chaos.”

  “Sometimes it’s good to be underestimated. The money flowing to us, Mikhail, will turn everything around. Now, what have you heard?”

  “Bennings and Petkova were taken into custody by Las Vegas police on the rooftop where you crash-landed. They were then turned over to military police. Some of our friends in Washington heard rumors that they escaped from custody. And now other friends are telling us there is a massive manhunt for both of them in southern Arizona and northern Mexico.”

  “And the diamonds?”

  “Recovered by Las Vegas police.”

  “Meaning half of them have disappeared by now.”

  “I’m not sure the police will steal any, considering who they belong to. And that could become a problem for us, as we have discussed many times.”

  “The Italians won’t come after me in Moscow. We’ll plead ignorance. After I’ve made some money, I’ll make a substantial peace offering to smooth things over.”

  Travkin nodded, then slowly took another sip. “Will he come for you?”

  “Bennings? If he really escaped to Mexico, he might try. But the Americans will do everything they can to locate him. And they can do a lot. Still, if the U.S. authorities can’t find him, maybe the Russian authorities can. He and Petkova will be traveling under false identities, so get their photos to every port of entry, every unit, department, bureau, division, detachment, and office that might be appropriate. Make the reward for apprehension three million rubles.”

  “And Petkova’s child on the second floor?”

  One guest suite housed three-year-old Kala Petkova and a nanny who stayed with her twenty-four hours a day.

  “She’ll be on a train to Siberia very soon, maybe tomorrow,” said Popov dispassionately.

  Travkin couldn’t tell if he meant that in a literal way or as code that the little girl would be terminated. If Popov ordered him to have her killed, he’d pass it on to a man he knew who would have no problem with the task. But he hoped the child was really going to Siberia.

  A knock sounded at the heavy mahogany door, and a female voice inquired, “Viktor?”

  “Come in, Sasha.”

  Sasha was a tall redhead with a narrow face, bright blue eyes, and other pleasing attributes; she worked as Viktor’s executive assistant. “One of the strands we have intercepted carries data for a small bank in Chicago. The hackers say we can take it right now for fifty million dollars.”

  “That’s exactly ten percent of five hundred million. Which is the peace-offering figure I had in mind for the Italian,” said Travkin.

  “The man will get his diamonds back from the police, but … why not?” said Popov, pouring a shot of vodka into an emerald-encrusted, solid-gold shot glass. “Transfer the fifty million into one of the Panamanian accounts. Be prepared to send it on soon.” Popov gestured for her to leave.

  “Yes, Viktor.” She turned away and quietly left.

  “So, we haven’t hit any of the big targets yet?” asked Popov.

  “Not as of twenty minutes ago,” said Mikhail. “But there is already over seven billion dollars confirmed, waiting to be transferred to us, just for the data from a few of the target strands we will acquire.”

  “That’s a nice number,” said Viktor, seemingly lost in thought. He put down his cigar. “Go call the Italian and get his bank account information. We’ll make peace. To peace and enormous riches, Nephew. We’re turning a new page.”

  As Popov reached for his glass, Travkin pretended not to notice and walked out of the room. Viktor Popov lifted his glass and drank alone.

  CHAPTER 47

  Herb Sinclair got out of a taxi two blocks from his flat in Moscow’s Nagorny District. It was just after midnight and he felt a little tipsy, but very satisfied with the sex from the young woman he’d had tonight; her perfume lingered in his nostrils, and that made him smile.

  He casually looked about for a tail, then performed good countersurveillance as he took twenty minutes to walk home. He knew that nothing about him stood out, and that he looked like any other middle-class, middle-age Russian man heading home after having a few drinks and some fun.

  He avoided a couple of broken vodka bottles in the poorly lit, narrow concrete stairway of his apartment building. Russian pigs, he thought. Four doors greeted him on the small second-floor landing; his was the first one on the right. Unlike the others, his door and locks were strong. He unlocked all three locks, twisted the doorknob, and took a step inside.

  Something sticky from the doorknob was now on his hand, and he wiped it on his pants. Damn kids! No wonder they all grow up to be drunks. But then a jolt of fear stabbed Sinclair, and he froze before fully entering the dark room; something was very wrong. He reached inside his jacket for his gun.

  “Herb, it’s me, Kit Bennings. Close that door, quick.”

 
But Sinclair was still going for a gun.

  “Pull a gun and I’ll shoot you where you stand. Slowly bring your hand out from your jacket.”

  Sinclair carefully brought his hand into the open.

  “Now close the damn door.”

  * * *

  A light came on in Herb Sinclair’s apartment.

  Kit Bennings sat in an easy chair with a suppressed automatic pointed at Sinclair. Yulana Petkova sat in a straight-backed chair across the room, also holding a suppressed pistol. A body covered by a blanket lay on the floor near her.

  “What in the hell have you done?! Are you insane?”

  “Relax, Herb,” said Bennings, almost casually.

  “Relax?! What are you doing here? Who’s she? Who’s the stiff? Five years of deep-cover penetration and you’ve just blown everything!”

  “You’ve been blown for some time now,” said Bennings, as if Sinclair were insignificant.

  “Bennings. The word is out. You’ve gone rogue. You are in such deep trouble. And coming here, like this?” He shook his head. “Whatever your problem is, I won’t help. Take it outside right now. You walk out that door and I’ll give you three hours before I call it in. And I’ll do that only because you saved my life once.”

  “Sit down, do it slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them.” The tone in Kit’s voice had sharpened. He flashed Sinclair a look that indicated he wasn’t joking.

  Sinclair took a big step forward. “Sit down, my ass! You—”

  Kit fired a round into an armoire behind Sinclair, shattering wood. Sinclair stopped in his tracks.

  “The next one goes into your shin or your knee. Now sit down, slowly, hands where I can see them.”

  Sinclair sat down. Bennings took a long pull on a bottle of Dos Equis that he’d liberated from the fridge in the kitchen. He stared for a long time, knowing it made Sinclair even more unnerved.

  “Where can I find Viktor Popov?”