Pushing Brilliance

by Tim Tigner

  “Yes, sir. We only have eight Brillyanc guys left, but there are three airports and nine train stations.”

  “Prioritize. Improvise. Get your own butt out in the field. I don’t want to call in help. It increases my exposure and makes me look weak.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Pyotr?”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re only understaffed because you’re down four to Achilles. If he makes it five, I’m going to make it six. Are we clear?”

  A few more blinks. “Yes, sir.”

  His celebratory mood ruined by the incompetence of others, Grigori grabbed a special cell phone and headed for the terrace door. He had an important call to make.

  Chapter 34

  Pets

  GRIGORI’S OFFICE SUITE had three points of egress. All biometrically controlled. All locking down at night — leaving him safe as an eaglet in a nest. The first was the private elevator that had just swooshed closed behind Pyotr. The second was the entrance to his residence — a sliding slab of granite resembling a square of sandy beach still wet from a wave. The third exit led to the roof, or more accurately, a circumferential terrace.

  Surrounding the pyramid to a depth of three meters, the limestone terrace provided a hundred-meter circuit for walking off frustrations, as well as access to his helipad, which topped the south tower. It was Grigori’s refuge, retreat, and secret weapon.

  Grigori pressed his palm against a plate embedded in one of the big glass triangles. A powerful electric motor engaged with a whir and a whoosh and lifted the heavy window up and out along its hinge, creating a doorway that measured two meters on each of its three sides. Cool April air blasted in and blew ash from Grigori’s cigar back onto the granite tile behind his feet, where it disappeared into a mélange of earth tones. Ignoring it, he stepped through, bringing the phone to his ear. “Call Kazan.”

  With his left hand, he side-pitched his spent cigar out and over the edge like he was skipping a stone. He followed it, all the way to the edge so he could watch the cigar’s thirty-story plummet.

  There was no rail, no ridge, no barrier of any kind between him and five seconds of free fall. A single solid gust would send him to Splatsville. But life on a tightrope had made Grigori immune to heights. The metaphorical had translated into the physical via nervous system fatigue. He’d run out of fear. A discovery he routinely used to his advantage during negotiations and power plays. Nothing like a casual walk inches from the edge to establish an alpha position.

  Grigori had come to enjoy life on the edge. Aided by toys and girls, of course. Fantastic toys, like the new Ansat helicopter parked a few steps to his left. And breathtaking girls, like those downtown at Angels on Fire.

  His call connected before the cigar landed. “This is Doctor Galkin.”

  “Mikhail, it’s Grigori. I’m looking for good news.”

  “Afternoon, Grigori. I’ve got good news. Very good news. Two vectors have proven viable. They’ll be available with time to spare.”

  The cigar crashed onto a mature bloom, scattering red tulip petals across green grass like drops of blood. “Redundancy and time to spare. That’s impressive. I’ve got a role for you running my security if biotechnology ever begins to bore you.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Never mind. Long story. I greatly appreciate your competence. A ten-million-ruble bonus will be headed your way.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much, Grigori.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, when can I expect my new pets?”

  Chapter 35

  Behind the Curtain

  WE TOOK THE METRO back to central Moscow, and then walked to our stolen van. As I keyed the ignition, Katya pointed to the storage container bolted to the floor behind us. “Aren’t we going to see what’s in the big metal box first?”

  I hit the gas. “I wish we could. It’s basically a safe. I know the brand, and unfortunately we’re not going to be able to get in without either the combination or special equipment.”

  “Couldn’t you shoot it open?”

  “No. The steel is much too thick for that, and the lock incorporates multiple deadbolts.”

  “Power tools?”

  “I like your attitude, but it would take a lot of time, make a lot of noise, and require some serious equipment.”

  “What do you think’s in there?”

  “The guys that attacked us didn’t have wallets with them, and only one was armed, so at a minimum I figure we’ll find ID and key cards and another weapon.”

  She percolated on that for a second. “Where are we going?”

  I didn’t want to worry her, but she had a right to know. “If the car is LoJacked, they’ll pounce once we start moving. I want to go just far enough to either draw them out, or be sure they’re never coming. We’ll stash the van someplace similar, a couple of kilometers from here. I’ll show you something interesting while we watch for them from safety.”

  “Why not forget the van? We can take taxis.”

  “Investigations are about stirring things up. Plus the van is a ticket into the complex, if we ever get our hands on those IDs.”

  As we pulled off the embankment road onto side streets, Katya returned to the discussion of motives. “Did you figure out what an energy company has to do with a pharmaceutical company? I can’t think of a single connection.”

  “Yes and no. Both are high-risk, high-reward. Pharmaceutical development is often compared to energy exploration. Both require massive upfront investment with no guarantee of any return at all. Both also rely heavily on lobbyists to maintain favorable tax and legislative environments. But I don’t see how any of those similarities could play into our situation.”

  “What are you thinking then?”

  “I’m thinking that it’s an indirect connection, as per last night’s big-picture discussion. And I’m thinking that if the connection isn’t at the industry level, it’s at the individual level.”

  I could almost hear Katya’s brain working that idea as we drove the next few blocks. Police cars were all over the place, but no other GasEx vans were in sight. We crossed Komsomolskiy and drove toward the famous New Maiden Convent and Cemetery. After a quick lap to check for tails, I parked within sight of both the convent and the hotel Randevu. An interesting choice of name, given its pious neighbor.

  I paid cash for a room that overlooked the van while Katya talked the manager into letting us rent his laser printer for an hour. Then I went to work on my iPhone while Katya maintained lookout.

  By this point, I was ready to trust Katya with my life. But my next move involved a different kind of trust. The CIA had given me access to some very sensitive tools. I needed to make use of those tools now, and there was no way to do so without making Katya aware of their existence. She was too smart to attempt to fool, and there was no mundane explanation for the magic I was about to work.

  I whirled the desk chair around to face the bed. Katya had kicked off her shoes and shed her sweater and was lying chest down in skinny jeans and a caramel-colored cotton shirt. She’d propped her chest up on a pillow and had her bare feet crossed in the air. All she was doing was watching the van through the open balcony blinds, but she looked as sexy as anything I’d ever seen in my life. She glanced over, studied my face, and then grew an inquisitive half-smile. “What?”

  I dove right into the deep end of business. “When I worked for that other government agency, they didn’t give us special computers. Those would have marked and encumbered us. Instead, they gave us protocols for accessing hidden websites from any connected device.”

  Katya pulled herself up into a cross-legged position that made it easy for her to rotate her head back and forth between me and the street. “What kind of websites?” she asked, her intonation reminding me of the excitement I’d felt when Granger pulled back the curtain for me.

  “Some are portals to access databases we can query. Others are operation-specific repositories. The operation-specific ones a
re deleted as soon as the mission wraps up, but the portals are permanent. I’m logged into one of them now.”

  I wasn’t going to tell her that this particular portal queried both Interpol and the equivalent of the FBI for most of the industrialized world, including Russia’s FSB. I’d never actually been told that was what it did, but I figured that was the only way it could work its magic. “And here she is: Tatiana Tarasova, MD, born in Moscow on October 10, 1980, residing at ... married to ... graduating from ... home phone ... work phone ... cell phone. There we go! Now, I’ll take Tarasova’s phone numbers to another portal, identify the one she used to call my brother’s cell, and then get us a printout of the other numbers she called from that phone.”

  Two minutes later, I’d identified Tarasova’s cell phone as the one she’d used to call Colin, and we were in business. Five minutes after that, the printer was spitting out records of Dr. Tarasova’s cell phone calls for the past twelve months.

  “What are you going to do with that information?”

  “We’ll use it to identify other Vitalis patients. Then we’ll pick a few to interview.”

  I set to work turning numbers into names, and names into profiles. Katya went to work analyzing the results, looking for patterns and attempting to identify individuals whose backgrounds indicated that they’d be knowledgeable about pharmacology. A few dozen candidates into it, she yelled, “Bingo!”

  Chapter 36

  Clinical Connection

  “BINGO?” I repeated back to Katya, wondering what could have elicited so much excitement.

  “Saba Mamaladze is on the list. We’re classmates. He’s still in the doctoral program at MSU. Brilliant mathematician, and a good guy.”

  “You sure it’s the same Saba Mamaladze?” I couldn’t keep a straight face while repeating the melodic name. “What kind of a name is that?”

  “It’s Georgian. And yes, Achilles, I’m sure.”

  “You know him socially?”

  “Sure do. I’ve been to his dorm room many times. He lived in the same building, the next entrance over. Should I give him a call, tell him we’ll be stopping by?”

  “No. That would be poor operational security.”

  “You told me you were going to work on the cryptic thing.”

  “It’s best that we don’t let anyone know that we’re coming. We don’t know who may be listening. We called Tarasova in advance, and she ended up dead before we could speak to her. There may or may not be causality there, but let’s not take that chance with your friend.” Not wanting her to dwell on that topic, I hastened to add, “I want to go back to the Clinical Connection on the way. We might as well come clean with Perova and see what we can get out of her.”

  “You think she’ll be receptive?”

  “I’m not sure about receptive, but I think we can get her talking if we give her a bit of information.”

  “What are you planning to tell her?”

  “The truth.”

  No one had paid any attention to the van while we were at the Hotel Randevu, so I was comfortable that it wasn’t being tracked. Still, we parked a few blocks from the medical school to be safe, and approached cautiously on foot.

  I rang the bell in the empty reception room. “We’re back.”

  We got the sound of high heels in response. They were moving slower than before. Perova’s face, already visibly shaken by the morning’s events, turned even paler at the sight of us.

  “We know what happened,” I said, saving her the pain of breaking the news. “And I have a confession to make. We’re not patients, we’re investigators. My brother was Dr. Tarasova’s contact at Vitalis Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Colin Achilles.”

  Perova pursed her freshly painted lips, not sure what to make of all that. Finally, she composed herself. “I don’t know your brother. I wasn’t involved with the trial. Vitalis was all Dr. Tarasova.”

  “We were coming to talk to Dr. Tarasova this morning because my brother was murdered. We think it was related to his work. Katya was his fiancée,” I added, inclining my head in Katya’s direction. “Now Tarasova is dead too.”

  Perova’s red eyes grew wide. “Oh my God! Am I in danger?”

  “We’re not certain what to think at this point.”

  “But the police said there was no evidence of foul play.” Perova’s tempo was quick and her voice high. “I told them I didn’t think Dr. Tarasova was suicidal, but they said it was often completely unexpected. Do you think she was killed by the same person who killed your brother?”

  “That’s our theory. What can you tell us about the Vitalis trial? We thought Vitalis had ceased operations months ago around the time of my brother’s death, so we were surprised this morning when you said the clinical trial had concluded last week.”

  “It did wrap up last week.” Perova took a seat behind the counter. “The last patients were in Friday.”

  Katya and I exchanged glances.

  “What can you tell us about the product?” Katya asked.

  “The only thing I know is that the codename was Brilliance — spelled with y-a-n-c to be cute or something.” She rolled her eyes.

  “All our clients are secretive, but Vitalis was over the top. Dr. Tarasova was the only person who knew anything. She had to do everything herself, from briefing the patients, to running their labs, to hooking up their IVs.”

  “IVs?” Katya asked.

  “Yes, Brillyanc is a parenteral delivered once every three months during a six-hour infusion. We’ve never had anything else like it. Dr. Tarasova had a good setup for it though, with comfortable chairs and snacks and personal televisions. And the patients were all upscale, well dressed, and educated. Usually we get the opposite here. That’s why I immediately associated you with the Vitalis trial this morning.”

  “What about records?” I asked.

  “Everything was managed electronically. Dr. Tarasova had a laptop for her own use and a tablet for patient input. The police were looking for both of them this morning, but neither is here.”

  “Isn’t that strange?” Katya asked. “Surely she’d have brought her laptop to work today.”

  “Ordinarily, yes. But she didn’t have a project to work on, so maybe she didn’t bother. The metro is so crowded these days, the less baggage you have the better. Today she was supposed to be helping me out, preparing for the move.”

  “Who else has been asking questions today?” I asked.

  “The police were here most of the morning, followed by a couple of investigators. They left just before you got here.”

  “Did they ask the same questions?” Katya asked.

  “More or less. They wanted to know who Tanya discussed her work with, and what I knew about it. Like I told you, the answers were nobody and not much.”

  “Did you see identification?” I asked. “For the investigators.”

  “No, but it was obvious who they were. Very police-like.”

  “Big guys?”

  “Yes, with square jaws, bright eyes, short haircuts, and black suits.”

  Chapter 37

  Connecting the Dots

  SABA MAMALADZE had thick, curly black hair, lively eyes, and a nose that belonged on an eagle. He wore faded jeans, a yellow polo shirt, and a smile that wouldn’t quit — at least around Katya. He hugged her for a good five seconds while saying, “It’s so good to see you, so good.” Releasing her, he stepped back like a tailor admiring a suit. “Once you left for Palo Alto, I figured I wouldn’t see you again unless I managed to score a post-doc at Stanford for myself. Speaking of which, I’m still counting on your help with that, you know.”

  “Stanford would be lucky to get you, Saba. When the time comes, let me know and I’ll be sure the right people pay attention to your application.”

  Saba put his hands on his hips. “Well, aren’t you a peach. So what does bring you back? Get a craving for Max’s dumplings?”

  Katya turned to me. “Max is Saba’s roommate. He’s also Georgian, and his f
amily owns the best restaurant in Tbilisi. Every once in a while, when he’s overly stressed out, he’ll spend a day making dumplings. Hundreds of them. The best you ever tasted. So Saba and I do our best to keep him stressed.”

  “The secret is the meat.” A convivial voice spoke from the hallway. “I use three kinds, but I’m not going to tell you which.”

  We all turned to see another beaming Georgian face. “How are you, Katya?”

  Max had a slim, academic build similar to Saba’s. He also wore faded jeans and a big grin shaded beneath a prominent nose, but his polo was royal blue, to match his intelligent eyes.

  “I’m okay. You’re looking great, Max. So are you, Saba. Have you guys adopted a new exercise routine or something? I want your secret.”

  The Georgians exchanged knowing glances.

  “Who’s your friend?” Max asked Katya.

  “Guys, this is Achilles. He’s Colin's younger brother.”

  The jovial Georgian faces turned solemn at the mention of Colin's name. Obviously they’d heard the news. We took turns shaking hands.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” Max asked. “Assuming it’s not my dumplings.”

  “We had a few questions for Saba. And we brought a little something to loosen his tongue.” Katya turned toward me.

  I held up the bottle of Georgian wine we’d picked up on the way over. After Perova’s mention of black suits, I figured a good bottle would satisfy both etiquette and Katya’s nerves.

  “Khvanchkara!” Saba accepted the precious bottle of semisweet red with smiling eyes. “Ooh la la. I’ll get four glasses.”

  While Saba Mamaladze was obviously naturally exuberant — how could he not be with a name like that — he was clearly very fond of Katya. Watching the trio’s interaction I had the feeling Max was even more fond of her. Max rolled two desk chairs over by their old Ikea couch and then grabbed a stool from the kitchenette for us to use as a drink table.