by Thomas Swan
Galina slept for an hour. When she wakened she went to the lavatory to freshen up. She returned and Deryabin watched her settle into her seat.
He said, “Trivimi will take us to the hotel. Then he will return to the airport to meet Oxby’s plane. I want you to go with him. It will take two of you to follow Oxby. If it’s necessary to have another car, then rent it. Do what’s necessary, but I want to know where Oxby is staying. No less than that.”
“The Estonian doesn’t have any training.” Galina frowned. “It’s not like working with Viktor. Trivimi will be a handicap.”
“Your orders are to work with Trivimi,” Deryabin said firmly. “He’s had more experience than you realize. I expect that Oxby will be met by one of his detective friends, and if they suspect they’re being watched, they’ll lose you faster than you can blink. It’s their city, not yours.”
Galina stared past Deryabin, to the empty sky beyond the window. She said, “Why is it so important to know where Oxby’s staying? You said he was following you, that he would call you.”
“Don’t you want to know where to find him? Or do you expect he’ll show up when you snap your fingers?”
“I will find him,” she said with complete conviction. “It doesn’t matter how big the city is, or if he tries to hide from us. I will find him.”
“Good,” Deryabin said, and put his hand on top of hers.
“How can you be sure that someone will meet Oxby?”
“For some reason he wants us to know. When he discovered the phone in the apartment was tapped, he began using the phones in the Europe Hotel. When Trivimi told him I was going to New York, he made his own plans. But that same night he called from the apartment and gave his flight information.”
She pulled her hand away from his. “You wait until now to tell me all this?”
“What would you have done if I had told you before? It doesn’t change matters, it’s still your job to work with Trivimi.” He tried a smile, but showed only insincerity and a mouthful of yellowed teeth. “And you must work with him.”
The steward stopped to say he was taking last-call orders from the bar. They passed.
Oxby looked again at his watch: 7:30. Eleven hours since departure from St. Petersburg. He had slept, but in snatches, and was wakened by a brilliant sun that was low in the western sky and sent a blaze of goldcolored light through the windows. His seat was on the aisle, the seat next to him unoccupied. In the seat next to the window was a teenager curled into half a circle. Her face, sweet and innocent, lay against a pillow, in profile. A blanket had slipped from around her shoulders and Oxby put it back, then he leaned across her and lowered the shade. The Air France flight had made a stop in Paris and the layover extended a half hour because of the heavy summertime traffic. But headwinds were light and they had made up the lost time and ten minutes more. They would arrive in New York at 8:55. He looked at his watch. It was now eighty-two minutes until touchdown.
On the empty seat beside Oxby was his travel bag. In it a couple of magazines, several guidebooks, a 35mm Pentax camera, a paperback of LeCarré’s The Russia House, and his notebook. During the morning flight to Paris, he had written:20 June. Saturday.
Yakov does well with his new leg. I shall worry about him, but he is a wise man and promised me he would leave his apartment and stay in a friend’s dacha near the Finnish border.
We found a replacement car, one very similar to Yakov’s late and lamented Lada. It was remarkably cheap, undoubtedly stolen off the street five hundred miles from Petersburg. It all but extinguished my funds.
Poolya is recovering rapidly and will leave the hospital as soon as he can recruit some trustworthy friends to get him away safely. I fear trustworthiness among Poolya’s acquaintances is rare. I wish him good fortune.
Telephoned Alex Tobias from the apartment. Difficult to detect if the tap was still on, though I suspect it was, and rather hoped so! I am curious to see who may be lurking in the shadows.
I look forward to seeing Alex, and staying in his home. Helen is delightful company, besides being a first-rate cook.
The pitch of the engines dropped and the plane began its descent. Oxby felt a twinge of anxiety, a minute surge of adrenaline. If fatigue was about to overtake him, it went away.
He took his pen from his shirt pocket, and as he did, the little piece of paper with the numbers on it tumbled onto his lap. He hadn’t yet elevated the significance of the three numbers to the level of a mystery, though it continued to frustrate him. He spoke the numbers aloud in the unlikely event that Divine Intervention would strike and their meaning—if there was one—would be revealed.
“It’s all bloody stupid,” he said softly, then repeated the numbers. “Two, eleven, nine.”
He stuffed the paper back into his shirt pocket, and took up his pen:It is 8 P.M., eastern daylight time. We land in an hour. I shall not bore myself by recounting an uneventful twelve hours of travel in this age of speed. Suffice it to say, it remains a miracle that I rose in the morning from my bed in Russia and on the night of that same day I shall go to sleep in a bed in America.
As I write these notes, it is three o’clock in the morning in St. Petersburg, Sunday, June 21. It is the day of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the first official day of the White Nights.
Sadly, I shall miss it.
Chapter 40
Oxby’s young seatmate uncurled herself and looked anxiously down to her first glimpse of America. Their flight heading was south over Boston and Providence, then over water and a turn west for a direct line into Kennedy.
“Below is Long Island,” Oxby said in his flawless French. “We will be on the ground in fifteen minutes.”
The sun was setting, a fire-red ball descending below a broad band of purple and magenta clouds stretched across the horizon. The land directly below was in shadow, dotted by a million lights for as far as the eye could see.
“C’est beau!” she said in a loud whisper that was brimful of great wonderment and expectation.
There was nothing for Oxby to add to her little statement. He sat back and watched the delight spread over the youngster’s bright face.
Ed Parente became a New York City cop after graduation from City College, intending to earn a law degree at night and let it become his ticket into big business and big money. But he got married, had his first son, and joined the New York–New Jersey Port Authority police. After twenty-one years he had the same wife, two more kids, and had risen to the rank of detective lieutenant, which meant he was head of more than half of the Port Authority’s team of one-hundred-plus detectives. There were few veterans in the fourteen-hundred-man police department who could match Parente’s familiarity with Kennedy airport, and perhaps none who had his extensive contacts among airline and ground support personnel and the nearly dozen other police and security organizations. It was rumored that Parente knew what was behind every door in the vast airport complex, and more important, knew how to get on the other side of each one whether it was locked or not.
Ed Parente and Alex Tobias met the year Parente was a rookie cop and Tobias made lieutenant. Though separated in age by a half generation, they had become close friends. Years earlier they had worked a number of cases together, but with time they’d gone their separate ways. Now they were a team again. They met in a small office inside the arrival building. Alex had described the circumstances surrounding Oxby’s visit.
“Jack told me that two men and a woman came in from St. Petersburg during the last two days. He said that when we catch up with them that I’ll recognize one of them. The guy’s Estonian, not Russian, as if that mattered. But if he’s in the terminal tonight it’s because he wants to follow Jack to wherever he’s staying. I’m not too keen on that because Jack’s staying with Helen and me.”
Outside the terminal, in a rented car close to the taxi line, was Galina. She had given in to Deryabin’s orders to team with the Estonian, happy she had relented because while the airpor
t was familiar territory, she had not imagined the vastness of it, nor the impossibility of freely moving about whether by private car or taxi. Without Trivimi’s help, she could not possibly trail Oxby from the customs hall to the street, retrieve her own car, and follow him. While Trivimi Laar was stiff and unpleasant, he was wily and resourceful. And though she had gained a level of confidence during her recent experience in New York, the circumstances were now vastly changed.
She pulled off the dark wig and ran her fingers through her blond hair. The wig was hot and she rolled it up and jammed it into her purse. Trivimi would be angry, but that would be his problem. She inspected herself in the rearview mirror. She wiped off the gray eye shadow and applied the red lipstick she loved. Nothing more was needed. Her hand reached inside her purse and found the Semmerling pistol. She rubbed the stub barrel, then gripped it, her finger against the trigger. Her eyes closed, and she smiled.
Trivimi Laar leaned against the side of an advertising kiosk, trying to shrink his tall body, but at the same time be able to see over the heads of a milling congregation waiting to greet a friend or relative. As passengers from Air France flight 8 began appearing, Trivimi retreated a step and all but disappeared behind a brazen advertisement extolling the joys of a weekend at the Trump Casino in Atlantic City.
“Meet Ed Parente, Jack. He waves magic wands around here and genies pop out of the luggage carousels.”
“I’ve heard about you,” Oxby said, “courtesy of Alex.” He put out his hand. “Thanks for the help.”
“Happy to do it,” Parente said. He put himself between Oxby and Tobias and took each by the arm. “Got any other bags?”
“Just this.” Oxby hoisted up a carryall.
“Good. We’ll take a shortcut.”
Oxby tugged on Tobias’s arm. “Did you tell Ed there might be a small welcoming committee looking for me?”
“We’re all set for you,” Parente said. “I’ve got a man at customs and another waiting in a car out front. Right now we’re going to see a miracle worker who will waive all the red tape. Let me have your passport.”
They went through a door that had a number on it, down a narrow passageway to a second door, and into a small office where two men sat at a table staring at a wall covered with rows of closed-circuit television monitors. Parente opened yet another door and led Oxby to a uniformed woman seated behind a desk and in the act of completing a phone call.
She looked crisp and efficient, then on seeing Parente gave a warm greeting. “Hi Ed. What brings you here?”
“One of Scotland Yard’s finest.” He handed over the passport. “Meet Detective Chief Inspector Jack Oxby.”
The woman stood and offered her hand. “I’m Kathy Harris. Welcome to the land of the crazy. You know you’re in fast company?”
“I know,” Oxby grinned. “I rather like it.”
Agent Harris was black, efficient, and could read a stranger like an old, familiar book. She flipped through Oxby’s passport, pausing on the page with stamps from St. Petersburg and Paris. She said, her eyebrows arched, “Didn’t I read where everyone’s going to St. Petersburg this time of year and here you are coming away from there?”
Oxby said, “My business suddenly became urgent. I mean no offense to New York, but at this time of year, I’d far prefer to be in St. Petersburg.”
“You don’t offend me,” she said, putting a stamp in the passport and handing it back to Oxby. “If you think there’s anything I can help you with, give me a call.”
Oxby smiled appreciatively. “I collect cards from anyone who offers to help. Do you have one?”
She took one from a card wallet. “You got it.”
“Thanks, Kathy,” Parente said. “Okay if Inspector Oxby takes a look at the television monitors? He’s expecting someone.”
They returned to the room with the wall of television screens. Parente asked for the pictures coming from the cameras positioned outside the customs hall. One of the agents hit a few buttons and pointed at monitors 7 and 9. Oxby stared at one screen, then the other. The cameras were in a fixed position and were trained on what had become a large crowd of family, friends, and limo drivers holding up homemade signs with names written on them. One camera was aimed at the passengers exiting customs, the other caught them as they proceeded into the terminal. It was the picture coming from the second camera that interested Oxby.
The images were in black and white, the foreground pale and overexposed, the figures in the rear of the picture in shadow. “Look, there, Alex, next to the advertising sign. Who do you see?”
“Trivimi Laar.”
“You guys agree?” Parente said.
Oxby nodded
Parente moved close to the screen. He opened his cell phone and dialed the detective sergeant posted in the area outside customs. He was out of camera range, but Parente described the figure near the kiosk. Then Parente nodded. “Let’s go,” he said.
An elderly woman shuffled alongside a porter and the Estonian feared she was the last straggler from the Air France flight. New faces came to meet new arriving passengers, the old ones gone with whoever had come to meet them. Had Oxby slipped past him? He edged slowly away from his shelter, a frown of disappointment on his face. Then he spied Oxby, alone and walking briskly, his folded carryall slung over his shoulder like a golf bag. Trivimi fell in behind and trailed him through the terminal and out to the taxis. As Oxby waited, Trivimi searched for Galina, then found her moving ahead slowly in a line of cars picking up new arrivals. He ran to the car and got into it.
“Did you lose him?” Galina said accusingly.
Trivimi pointed. “He’s there, waiting for a taxi.”
She pulled out of line, then slowly advanced until they saw Oxby get into a cab. She continued, holding her distance. At the first exit sign the taxi turned. Galina followed.
“This is good,” Trivimi said. “Not so many cars that we lose him, but enough to hide us.”
“Don’t crow so soon. It is a long drive to the city.”
A half mile before they would leave the airport road, red and blue flashing lights appeared beside them. Then a siren and a signal to pull to the side of the road.
“What is this?” Galina said. The intimidating lights, bright and relentless, flooded into the car, reflecting off glass and chrome and Galina’s hands that tightly gripped the steering wheel. She had no choice except to turn off the road and stop. The cruiser came in behind her, its lights continuing to flash. Both she and the Estonian looked ahead to watch Oxby’s taxi sail smoothly away from them.
Oxby watched the flashing lights through the rear window, and when he could no longer see them, he instructed the driver to pull off the road and stop. The man at the wheel was not a homegrown product, as was suggested by the maroon fez on his head and the chains around his neck. His working knowledge of English was apparently limited to ordering gasoline and asking for his fare. He hunched his shoulders and held both hands up in the gesture that said he didn’t understand Oxby’s request. He continued on.
Oxby abbreviated his request: “Turn! Stop! There!” he bellowed, pointing for emphasis.
The driver hesitated, then followed instructions. As he was getting from the cab, Oxby dropped several bills on the seat next to the driver. He closed the door and stepped back. The taxi lurched forward and was immediately replaced by a gray Accord.
“Want a lift?” Tobias said.
Oxby tossed his carryall in the back and climbed in. “Everything come off as planned?”
“Without a hitch.”
“I’m confused by one detail,” Oxby said. “Trivimi Laar was waiting for me in the terminal and it’s not possible that he could have followed me alone. Am I right?”
Tobias had pulled back onto the road. “You are. There were two of them. A woman was driving.”
“Did you see her?”
“A glimpse. I can’t describe her. Parente will have all that.”
“I saw them get pulled over.”
>
Tobias smiled. “Ed will work them over pretty good. He knows just how far he can go. He’ll get them out of the car, then one of his guys in the cruiser will get a dozen shots on high-speed film. Be nice if they got some video but don’t count on it.”
“I want to see photos of the woman,” Oxby said. “I suspect she’s Viktor’s wife.”
“Viktor?”
There was a pause before Oxby answered. “You’ll think I am making this up, but it is as true as we are driving to . . . where in bloody hell are we driving to?”
“We’re on the Belt Highway on our way to Bay Ridge. You could say Bay Ridge is to Brooklyn what Paddington is to London.”
“About Viktor. I met him in Tashkent, though pity for him, we didn’t get to know each other. He ran into a knife I was holding. Blade went through his eye. Killed him.”
“Come off it, Jack. That’s Hollywood crap.”
“I couldn’t invent a story like that. That’s exactly what happened. Viktor had a wife. I haven’t seen her, but she’s been described as blond and very beautiful. Would that describe the woman you saw in the car this evening?”
Tobias frowned. “I didn’t get a good look at her. Blond hair, I think. Her face was—sorry, Jack. I don’t have a good ID.”
Both were silent for a moment. Oxby yawned. “Sorry. I got a few hours’ sleep on the plane, but I’m on Russian time.” He watched the thick traffic that was moving in both directions. “Where are we?”
“Those are the Rockaways over there, and Coney Island after that. You’ve heard of Brighton Beach? Just ahead.”
Oxby repeated the name. “That’s the name I couldn’t remember. The Russian community.”
