Downfall

by Jeff Abbott

  Or did he? What if he had…something more? Maybe he had just a friend, also ex-CIA, who had decided to have his back? The thought frightened and thrilled Belias. Two Sam Capras would be even better than one. And maybe the anonymous person who wanted Sam recruited would want Sam’s friend. Possibly. He would have to get past the anger over Roger’s death.

  He slammed a hand against the wheel.

  So who was Sam Capra’s rescuer? And where would Diana go now?

  He called Holly on his cell phone. “Holly?”

  “What?”

  “I just had Diana and the bartender as prisoners and now I don’t. Because someone interfered and killed Roger, and you and I are going to end up dead or in prison if we don’t figure this out.”

  He could hear her swallow. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. The Tiburon police are here…we’ve had some weird vandalism at my house. I’ll have to call you later.”

  “You sell that story hard,” he said, and turned off the phone.

  Next step. He’d killed Viktor Rostov to protect Sam and Sam knew it now. Now he needed to prove to Sam he could get the police off of him, as he’d asked.

  And if that didn’t work, well, there was this infant son of Sam’s. He didn’t care for threatening children (and it was always done subtly; to be crude about it made people want to bolt to the police) but he knew from experience that people could easily be bent when their children’s happiness was at stake.

  And then Sam Capra would be far more likely to listen to a necessary offer.

  36

  Friday, November 5, afternoon

  ANITRA DESOTO USUALLY SKIPPED LUNCH, but her doctor had chided that her poor eating habits were wrecking her blood sugar. She tucked into a bowl of flavorless microwave noodles and wished for butter and garlic for seasoning. She read her e-mails, deleting the ones she didn’t want to bother with and flagging the ones she’d finish later. She supposed it was progress, but she hated e-mail, a dislike she felt she could never air, as her colleagues would think her crazy. The computer made everything easier, didn’t it? She wasn’t so sure. She’d wanted this job because she didn’t want to ride a desk and she liked being out and about and she loved the city and she didn’t love windowless rooms. But she spent far more time on the computer than people would suspect, dealing with the digital equivalent of paperwork, e-mailing people to get information, contacting other jurisdictions, running background checks and online research. Cops used to have flat feet; she thought she’d have flat fingers by the time she retired.

  Her boss sent her an e-mail, MY OFFICE NOW as the subject line, no message in the mail itself. She got up from her desk and he closed the office door behind her.

  “This man who killed at The Select bar in self-defense,” he said. “Sam Capra.”

  “I’m not sure it was self-defense. The victim’s brother died that same night. That can’t be coincidence.”

  It was as if she hadn’t spoken. “The victim pulled a knife on Capra, yes?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “And several witness statements corroborated that account of self-defense?”

  “Yes. They also corroborated that Capra spoke Russian to the man.”

  “But you’ve not tied him to the other Rostov case.”

  “We haven’t finished processing the scene. There are dozens of prints there; apparently the Rostovs were partyers.”

  He let ten seconds pass. “Sam Capra works for the government. I can’t tell you more than that because if I do I will violate federal law. It was self-defense, Anitra. Do not pursue further.”

  “He’s FBI? Undercover?”

  “I am saying that I have been assured by someone in Washington, who knows more than you or I do, that Sam Capra does not have a connection to Russian mobsters, but we cannot know more about him. We cannot bring attention to him.”

  A bar owner, who was absentee, comes to town, trouble erupts. Undercover. It could make sense. “You have to be kidding me. Why isn’t he telling us he’s undercover? I was alone with him in an interview room.”

  “With a videotape recording his every word.”

  She went silent.

  “I cannot say more. Finish the paperwork. I expect everything in your report will support a finding of self-defense. The district attorney’s office won’t be pursuing charges against him.”

  “The Russian’s brother turned up dead. Are we supposed to stop investigating his death? You can’t say they’re not connected.”

  “I am assuming if there is information about Capra or the Rostovs that is salient to our investigations and the feds have it, we’ll hear about it eventually.” Her boss sat down. “I know this is not a perfect solution…”

  “Even if Capra’s undercover and comes to the attention of the Russians, are we thinking Grigori Rostov decided to kill him in the middle of a crowded bar? That’s not typical. They’d grab Capra, haul him out to the sticks, kill him there, let the fish feast on him in the bay. He’d just vanish. A fight in a bar? It’s too public for these guys.”

  “These guys, as you put it, are often idiots ruled by emotion. Grigori Rostov was a screwup in New York City, he came here. Not a genius. We’re done discussing this. What part of this is not our business do you not get?”

  “We’re a nation of laws…”

  “Yes, we are. And if we inadvertently expose someone working against the bad guys, then we’re breaking those laws ourselves. Finish the paperwork, Anitra, then walk away. I don’t want you even going to Sam Capra’s bar for a drink. Give him distance.”

  She bit her lip.

  “Anitra? Are we clear?”

  “Yes, sir, very clear. I’ll complete the report.”

  “Thank you. And obviously you know what to say to the press. Which is nothing except this was self-defense.”

  “I do. I’ll try to be more convinced than I feel.”

  “The reporters will probably leave you alone now. Just heard a man was found shot in a condo over in the Marina District. Headlines never stick for long.”

  He nodded and she got up and walked out of the office. She went to the soda machine and fed a dollar bill into the slot and picked up the cold can of Coke that popped down the slide. She went back to her desk.

  Her mind raced. If Sam Capra was an undercover agent working against the Russian mob, he should have been pulled back to safety by now. And maybe he had been. But her conversation with Mila made it sound like he’d be back at his bar at any minute. It did not quite add up. Perhaps Mila was unaware that Sam was a federal agent of some sort.

  Anitra glanced around at her colleagues. Several of them, in her place, would just shrug and finish the paperwork and be done with it. Move on to the next case. Maybe all of them. They were honorable men and women, and they had a hard job to do—why waste time on a lost cause? She should, too. The Rostovs were known bad guys, and there was nothing to say that Sam Capra was a bad man.

  She’d thought she was about to embark on a case that would make her name and now it was dust. Nothing. And the cutbacks and the layoffs kept coming and this had been her chance to shine. To break a case that was much more than it seemed, and how often did such cases come around?

  She went back to the search engine, searched for Sam Capra FBI, then, just because the Rostovs were Russian, Sam Capra CIA. And this was what troubled her: Sam Capra wasn’t an identity forged for undercover work; she’d seen his video interview on YouTube. He existed. So if he wasn’t undercover, what was he? An informant?

  It didn’t matter. She had her orders, like them or not, and so she wouldn’t push further. She would have to find another way to investigate the Rostov deaths without implicating Sam Capra.

  Her cell rang. “DeSoto,” she answered.

  The voice was masked by a scrambler and sounded like it came from the lower pits. “What part of let it go did you not understand?”

  “What?” She was so startled she nearly dropped the phone. Her voice was a harsh whisper.


  “One minute ago, you’re searching for him on the Internet, DeSoto. After you’ve been told to let it go, that it’s not your concern. Do you want to get federal agents killed?”

  She said, “No.”

  “Then do as you’re told.” The phone went dead.

  She slowly set the phone back on her desk. She fought the urge to push away from her computer.

  They knew what she typed. They knew what she searched for on the Internet.

  A cold fire crept along her spine.

  She closed the search engine. She shoved her uneaten, tasteless noodles into the trash. Maybe today was a good day to go out for lunch. Yes, get some fresh air. Get away from here. Get away from the desk.

  37

  Friday, November 5, afternoon

  MILA HURRIED ME and Felix into the upstairs above the bar. I felt a sense of relief that Detective DeSoto hadn’t camped out on my doorstep to ask more pointless questions.

  But Mila, mad, is a worse nightmare than the police.

  “You both look dreadful.” She grabbed me, not to embrace me—she is not a hugger, our Mila—but to inspect the bandage on my neck, the bruises on my face. “A gun wound. A beating. Shall I break a leg for you to save time?”

  “Never mind me, I need to check Felix.” I sat Felix down on the couch, checked his pulse, the dilation of his pupils.

  “They didn’t hurt Felix.” She seemed surprised that Felix was the medical priority. Because she didn’t know he was ill.

  “I’m fine, Sam, really.” Felix’s voice sounded steady. But he was a sick man on medications. I got him a damp washcloth and a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator and then went and washed my face in the bathroom sink. I should just stay at the bar some days. Bars are safe.

  “You have behaved without restraint.” Mila stood in the bathroom door.

  “Says the woman who roared in, gun blazing.”

  “Ingratitude is ugly on you, Sam, like a bad color. You were told to discover these people,” she said. Pipple, and when Mila’s accent begins to thicken, it’s like a storm cloud going dense with thunder. “I was in LA when you called and I took a plane up here immediately. This morning we agreed you to find out who these pipple are, nothing more. Now you have had three dangerous encounters with this man in a twenty-four period.” She held up three accusing fingers.

  I gently took her hand and folded down one finger into her fist. “Two’s the number we worry about now. Two choices—take him down or join him.”

  “Sam.”

  “What?”

  She yanked her hand away from mine. “You said you didn’t want trouble yet here we are. You are trying to go inside this man’s criminal ring or network. Stop.”

  “I didn’t look for this trouble, it came here. It will come back if we don’t stop him.”

  “Trouble came here.” Her tone mocked. “You had a choice. You could have stayed away from Rostov’s apartment. You could have not gone to the Marchbankses’ house this morning. You could anonymously phone police and say where this Diana person was hiding and not involve us deeper. Now we have war between us and this Belias man. You have, how do the Americans say? Stepped in it. Up to your chin. Which, unlike rest of you, has not taken beating.”

  I didn’t need a lecture. “Are Leonie and Daniel all right?” It seemed like forever since I spoke to them. “Belias has seen my CIA file. He knows about Daniel.” I kept my voice under tight control.

  She gave the briefest of reactions: her lips thinning, standing a bit straighter at the mention of my son. I think Mila might take a bullet for Daniel. But she lowered the tone of her voice. “We cannot have that. Since they know your face and your name, you go to your nice baby boy and you take care of him and you let me handle this mess you have made. Belias does not know me.”

  “He might have seen your face.”

  She shrugged. “Might. Room was dark, and there was his friend between us he was focusing on killing.”

  “And I’m the only one who can get inside and bring him down. I’m the one he wants. Jimmy can protect Leonie and Daniel. Belias can’t find them.”

  She chose to ignore my impeccable logic. “Why did you overreach?” The tone of voice she took reminded me she’d once been a schoolteacher, a lifetime ago.

  “I told you, I had to be sure this threat wasn’t Nine Suns or…”

  “Flimsy excuse,” she said. “This man is not what you and I have fought before. We know that now. He is his own network. Not smugglers, not slavers, not dope dealers. His circle are highly placed people, that is the theory?”

  “Yes. We know of at least two high-powered, influential executives he has working for him. Both are currently missing. And one of them was at Dalton Monroe’s dinner, when he was poisoned. You did want me to investigate that, remember?”

  “Janice used me to get close to Dalton Monroe,” Felix said softly. He told her what we’d found in Janice’s home, in her office—both the file there, and the clipping about Dalton Monroe in the DOWNFALL file. I sat down heavily in the chair and explained the confrontation at the Marchbankses’ house.

  Felix said, “Or Dalton is somehow in Belias’s way. We could get Jimmy to talk to Dalton, to find out if there’s any possible connection. And Dalton needs to be under our protection.”

  “He’s already being guarded.” At the mention of Jimmy, Mila slid her gaze back to me. “And Belias knows where to find you. Here at the bar.”

  “Well, you’re here now to save me,” I told her. “Get a gun and pick a window, and we’ll make our stand when Belias and his ninja soccer mom and his high-placed gang charge the front door.”

  “Mila…” Felix said.

  “Don’t you have glasses to clean?” Mila snapped.

  He stared at her. “I’m sure I do.” Felix turned and went back downstairs. A few moments later the phone rang and we heard him speaking softly, probably fending off another reporter. I wanted to tell her about Felix’s cancer—but I’d promised to keep my mouth shut.

  Mila sighed, put her thumb and forefinger up to the bridge of her nose. “Now you have made me be rude to poor Felix. That is like kicking a puppy.”

  “Kick me, not him,” I said. “Look, Belias isn’t going to let it go. He offered me my CIA career back and he acted like he could deliver it on a silver tray. He accessed Lucy’s life support and could have killed her. He claims he’s killed a man for me and he can get the cops off my back here. Marchbanks and Janice Keene went from nobodies to being enormous successes.” I leaned toward her. “They. Want. Power. If they see me as a threat, if they find out about you, the Round Table, do you think they’ll stop? Or just back off?”

  She was silent for a moment as she considered.

  “You and I both know, most guys who are running a network, you tread on them, they try to scare you off or pay you off or kill you. This guy tried to recruit me.”

  “I will happily inform him what a mistake it is to offer you a job,” Mila said.

  “Mila, this is not some simple criminal gang. This is a…cabal. A secret club. Both he and Holly led me to believe it’s far more than Glenn and Janice. They froze Diana’s bank accounts and credit cards. They’ve accessed my CIA file. Do you know how hard it is to do either of those things? His reach is insanely deep.” I let my words roll around in her head. “Think of a gang. They seek territory, revenue, power. But first, revenue. What would you do if you had wealthy people in your pocket?”

  “One like Glenn Marchbanks? I would invest in his golden companies.”

  “And he never backed a loser for the past ten years. Never. That’s impossible. And he masqueraded it as genius.”

  “Very good at his job?”

  Felix stood in the doorway. Pointedly drying a glass. Mila rolled her eyes and gestured him back into the room, which was her version of an apology.

  “But what made him good? Instinct? He stumbled badly in his early career. Or better information? Did he have facts that no other investor could have had?” I
crossed my arms. “How did he get it? That is what makes me think this is huge or far ranging. What if Marchbanks wasn’t just sharing critical information with Belias? What if other information was being shared with Marchbanks inside this group so that he never made a misstep? A constant ongoing exchange of information and favors. And the members of the network are the only ones who gain. They benefit each other. Like a private marketplace of the powerful.”

  I could see her rolling the idea around in her head. “How could this work?”

  “Belias is like you.”

  “What?”

  “He’s the hub. I’m guessing they don’t know each other’s names, at least not all of them. Just like I don’t know who are the leaders in the Round Table but you do. That’s his power, his protection and theirs. Without him it will fall apart. They can’t betray each other.”

  I was speaking her language—she could understand secret networks. So time for the pitch on what I wanted to do now. “The file I took from Janice Keene’s office. It’s got people in it who were successful and then took a long painful downfall.”

  “Belias burned them,” Mila said.

  “I remember the names, don’t you, Felix?”

  “Yes. We can probably find all the same articles online. And even more info about them.”

  I turned back to Mila. “Look what Felix asked when we looked at the misfortunes of these people. Cui bono? Who benefits? Maybe these people paid the price for the network’s success. We find out who benefited from their downfall. That could give us candidates who might be Belias’s people. Janice Keene’s terminally ill; she’s trying to protect her daughter in more than one way. The video to explain the network because maybe she wanted her daughter to be part of it after she was gone and gain all the benefits.”

  “And the video because she was too ashamed to face her daughter,” Mila said. “Confessions are always easier from the grave.”