Her Russian Bears

by Sinclair, Ava

  “Define ‘doozy,’” her partner said.

  Jordan scowled as she looked at the text. “Enough of a doozy that he wants to talk to me alone.” She glanced at her partner. “Sorry.”

  He waved her off. “Don’t be. You’re becoming his favorite attack dog.”

  Jordan grinned. Coming from anyone else, the statement might have felt like an insult. But there was a distinct admiration in Cliff Barnes’ voice. And it made her feel good, being the go-to agent for an old timer like Bowman.

  “We’ll see,” she said drily. “The last time he used the word ‘doozy’ I ended up chasing a spider monkey around the cockpit of a Boeing 767 for two hours.”

  Her colleague burst out laughing. “I remember that. Wasn’t that the one that escaped from the lady’s carryon?”

  “Yep. That was the one,” Jordan remembered. “She had it stuffed inside the body of a hollowed-out stuffed animal. She may have gotten away with it if whatever sedation she gave it hadn’t worn off.” She furrowed her brow. “Have I mentioned today how much I hate people?”

  “Twice,” Barnes said. “Which puts you off your by-noon average. Usually you’ve told me about half a dozen times by now.”

  “Well, I’m sure I’ll make up for it after lunch,” she laughed. “Bowman’s doozy will see to that.”

  * * *

  It had been an anonymous tip at seven a.m. that sent Jordan Rowe to Washington-Dulles International Airport that morning. Now, hours later, the car park was already crowded and she couldn’t remember where she’d parked her vehicle. Scanning the lot from underneath the brim of her hat with USFW emblazoned above the bill, she looked from row to row until she spotted the nondescript government sedan with the orange license plate. She pulled her jacket tight around her as she looked up at the sky. Heavy gray clouds loomed overhead, promising snow even though it was early spring.

  Even the threat of ice or snow seemed to inspire people to drive like idiots, and Jordan silently prayed that traffic would be light on her drive to C-Street, but as luck would have it, a fender bender had caused a bottleneck of cars on U.S. 50.

  She switched on the radio as she stared in the side mirror at the oncoming line of vehicles streaming past her and waited her chance to break from the stalled queue of drivers impatiently honking their horns. On the station she’d tuned into, Billy Idol was declaring it a nice day for a white wedding.

  “You’re wrong, buddy,” she said as fat flakes of snow began to drift down. “It’s more like a nice day to quit by noon and hit the tequila.”

  There was a shrill blast as she hit the accelerator and claimed a space in front of a fast-approaching convertible. She caught a glimpse of the driver, a fat-faced middle-aged man in aviator glasses, shaking his meaty fist.

  “Fuck you and your midlife crisis, pal,” she said as she headed toward 18th Street.

  By the time Jordan arrived almost thirty minutes later than she’d anticipated, she was in no mood for small talk with Bowman’s receptionist, Gina Patterson. But as always, it was unavoidable. Even when her supervisor called her for an important meeting, she ended up waiting.

  “Well, hello, hon!” Gina chirped from over the top of a book. This one was Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Soul. “How are you today?”

  Jordan didn’t say ‘fine.’ That would have been a lie. “Just here to see Bowman,” she answered. “Can you let him know I’m waiting?”

  “He’s expecting you,” Gina said, and Jordan allowed herself to experience a dash of hope that was instantly crushed when the receptionist told her that an unexpected visitor had beaten her to the punch.

  “You were just a teensy weensy bit too slow,” Gina said, holding her finger and thumb close together as if Jordan needed a visual reminder of just how close she’d been to being ushered in for an appointment she didn’t even want.

  “Yeah. Fine. I’ll wait.” She walked over to a chair by an aging ficus tree, hoping the leaves would shield her enough that Gina would forget she was there. No such luck.

  “Have you ever read this book, Agent Rowe?” The receptionist was leaning her upper body forward across her desk, straining to look at Jordan where she was trying to hide behind the pathetic excuse for a tree. Gina was holding the paperback aloft in her plump hand.

  “Um… no,” she replied.

  “It’s got the sweetest stories,” the receptionist chirped. “There’s this one where this lady’s dog gets sick and dies and she ends up marrying the veterinarian who puts it to sleep.”

  “Jesus,” Jordan muttered under her breath. That didn’t sound sweet at all.

  “Do you have a dog?” Gina had put the book down and was peering at Jordan over the top of her horn-rimmed glasses.

  Jordan picked up a magazine and began leafing through it in an obvious manner.

  “No,” she said.

  “Cat?”

  “No.”

  “Fish?”

  “I don’t have any pets.”

  “Awww. That’s sad.” And now Gina was poking her bottom lip out. “I’d think somebody like you who spends her time protecting animals would at least have a fish or a hamster or a lizard.”

  Jordan sighed audibly. “If I did, then I’d have to hire somebody to come in to take care of it when I’m out of town,” she said. And that would require talking to people outside of work. She mentally added the last part.

  “I have a dog…” Gina began.

  Oh, please don’t . Jordan leaned back in her chair.

  “It’s one of those designer dogs, a Maltipoo. That’s a Maltese crossed to a poodle.” The receptionist began to giggle. “You know what that little booger did last night…?”

  The office door opening interrupted her and Jordan felt a flood of relief as the man meeting with Bowman walked out. She didn’t wait for Gina to give her permission; she’d been saved. She rose and walked straight into her boss’ office, denying the receptionist the pleasure of announcing her.

  Bowman was behind his desk dipping snuff, a habit that never ceased to amaze or repel Jordan, who considered all tobacco products gross.

  “You’re going to get face cancer,” she said.

  “We’ve all got to die of something,” Bowman grunted, putting the Skoal tin back in his desk. “And we aren’t allowed to smoke thanks to the liberals.”

  Most of Gina’s supervisors in the department were progressive environmentalists who were militant about enforcing wildlife protection laws. Chet Bowman was different. He was a holdover from the Reagan administration, and among the last of the old guard who’d worked his way up through the department. He would tell anyone sharing an after-work beer that he thought the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would be better served going after real criminals instead of busting tourists who unwittingly picked up an eagle feather without knowing that possessing a feather was almost as illegal as stuffing a whole bird in their Samsonite. But at the end of the day, Bowman didn’t let his own feelings interfere with his work. He was three months away from retirement, and dispassionately funneled every case that crossed his desk toward the inevitable prosecution or plea arrangement.

  “Congratulations on that Murchison bust,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to get my hands on that sum-bitch for the last two years.” He picked up a Styrofoam cup off his desk and ejected a brown glob of spittle before eyeing Jordan. “Now that man,” he said emphatically, jabbing a finger in her direction, “is the kind of ass we want nailed to our wall.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Jordan said. “Any idea of who called the tip in?”

  “Fuck if I know.” Bowman chuckled. “Rich antique dealer with all those shady clients? Hell, I bet you he’s got more enemies than you can shake a stick at. Whoever it was used encryption software to scramble his number. It was an international call.”

  “Agent Barnes has gone to get the paperwork started on the search warrant,” she said. “Now that we have cause with this shipment, we can check his two warehouses.”

  “Goo
d. But that’s not why you’re here.” Bowman pushed back from his desk and opened the drawer until the edge of it bumped his paunchy belly. Jordan sat patiently as he pawed through his desk. He reached out, offering her a stack of photos. “What the hell do you make of this?”

  She accepted the pictures almost hesitantly before taking a seat in the chair in front of her boss’ desk. The photos were clear, but slightly off center. It was obvious they’d been shot from a cell phone angled by someone trying to surreptitiously get the shots from outside a door. But the subject of the picture left her momentarily speechless.

  “What the…” Jordan squinted as she looked at the photo. It was a bear. A large one. She glanced up at Bowman.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Taxidermy. But it’s not a mount. Look at the next photo.”

  Jordan moved the first photo to the bottom of the stack and stared at the second with more disbelief. This shot was wider and the bear was now standing. There were two men seated in front of it, and she could tell by their postures and expressions that they were clearly afraid.

  She moved to the third photo. Much of this was a blur. One of the seated men had fled his chair, pushing it over in the process. The bear was leaning forward, his face inches from the other man who’d closed his eyes and turned his head away from the animal.

  “Where were these taken?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer her question right away. “First things first, Rowe. What kind of bear is that?”

  Jordan studied the photo, gauging the size of the huge animal against the size of the men, the furniture, the shelves behind them. It was at least ten feet tall, maybe taller.

  She swallowed and shook her head. “We don’t have anything like this in the contiguous U.S.,” she said. “Even the grizzlies in Alaska aren’t this big. This looks like a Russian brown bear.” She looked down at the pictures and then back up, grinning. “Bowman,” she said. “Is this some kind of prank?”

  “Do you see me laughing, Agent Rowe?” He picked up the cup and spat in it again. “I thought the same thing you did when this was sent to us. But I had an expert look at these pictures. They weren’t doctored. That’s a goddamned bear.”

  “So are you going to tell me where this was taken or not?” She looked up at him.

  “At the home of Russian diplomat Yuri Adanov,” he said.

  “Okay.” She put up her hands. “So… you’re telling me that a Russian diplomat has… a brown bear in his house?”

  “Not just any brown bear.” He slid his chair back with some considerable effort and pulled open the drawer of his desk. Jordan watched as he pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to her. “The worker who shot the photos had the foresight to pick up a piece of hair he found on the floor. We had it analyzed.”

  Jordan took the paper and read the analysis, shaking her head as she did.

  “Of all my agents, you have the most complete knowledge of bears,” Bowman said. “So tell me what we’re looking at.”

  Jordan dragged her eyes away from the paper. “If this analysis is accurate…” She looked back at the paper. “It explains the size of the bear. It’s a match for the subspecies inhabiting the Kamchatka region.” She looked back at Bowman. “They’re notorious man-eaters.”

  Jordan looked back at the photos. Something about the last one unnerved her. The bear had his huge head just inches from the man in the chair. The man’s face was scrunched up in terror, as if unwilling to face what he felt sure were his final moments.

  “What do you want me to do about this?” she asked.

  Now Bowman leaned back and rubbed his forehead. “Listen. I won’t lie to you. Anything to do with the Russians at this moment is… sensitive. But the way I look at it, the law is the law. And if someone’s smuggled in this kind of predator for shits and giggles, or for any other reason, we need to come down on them hard. For obvious reasons, we can’t have people bringing animals like this into the country. If this thing had gotten out…” He paused for effect. “Do I need to go on?”

  “No,” she said. “Do we know anything else about the situation?”

  “Just that a disgruntled member of the household staff sent us the photos and the hair. I had a friend over at the State Department do a little snooping on the down low. They showed Adanov and his assistant—that’s the other man in the picture—the photos. They brushed them off as pranks. Got real pissy about it, in fact.” Bowman paused. “But our top photo guy says they’re real.”

  “So what do we know about Adanov?” Jordan asked, intrigued but struggling with the feasibility of what she was being told.

  “Adanov is clean aside from the usual Russian shenanigans. When we realized he wasn’t going to help us, we decided to work another angle. We put the house under surveillance. There’s no sign of any animal on the grounds, and a bear isn’t something you could hide inside a brownstone, so the assumption is that whoever brought it in took it out. My guy at State dug a little deeper and all we can come up with that might explain things is a visit from this man…” Bowman began punching at the keys of his computer and then pivoted the screen toward Jordan.

  Jordan leaned forward and stared at the image on the screen. The man seemed to be staring back at her, his dark eyes hard and serious. He was wearing a suit, but from the cut of it, she could tell he was large and broad-shouldered.

  “This is Mikhail Barinov. He’s part owner of a mine in the Kamchatka region. He flew in from Siberia with two companions a few days before we got these pictures. The purpose of the visit, apparently, was to meet with Adanov.

  “He has his own private jet,” Bowman continued. “But get this. Somehow, he was able to deviate from the original flight plan to land at Dulles and instead ended up getting clearance to land in a private airport outside of DC.”

  “How?” Jordan found herself more intrigued. “International flights are required to land at an airport with customs.”

  “Don’t know,” he said. “But if anybody was going to smuggle a bear into the country, that would be the way.”

  “Wait. Wait.” Jordan shook her head. “So this guy flies into a private airport and… what? Puts a fifteen-hundred-pound bear in the back of his rental car and hits the beltway?”

  “I didn’t say I had all the answers,” her boss snapped. “But this is as close to a lead as I have.” He tapped the photos she’d laid back on the desk.

  “So why am I here?” she asked.

  “Because enough people have seen these pictures to warrant an investigation,” Bowman said. “The best we can figure, Barinov’s people smuggled this bear in to threaten Adanov.” Bowman shook his head.

  Jordan furrowed her brow. “Doesn’t that seem a little extreme? And why would Barinov threaten a diplomat?”

  “That’s what makes it even more confusing,” Bowman said. “Do you remember the Kamchatka region attacks?”

  Jordan nodded. “In 2008. Two miners were killed.”

  “Right. And those big ass bears were stalking villagers, scaring the hell out of them.” He picked up the cup, spat in it, leaned back. “It’s happening again. But it’s worse this time. Some American outfitters have cozied up to Adanov. They’re seizing on this latest round of attacks to increase the number of import permits. They want to kill the bears.”

  “So… what?” Jordan asked. “The mine owner came here to scare Adanov into complying?”

  “That’s the weird thing. From what I understand, Barinov is opposed to the hunt. But none of that matters. What matters is whether some Red slipped a bear into DC under our noses. That gets out, we’ll all look like fools.”

  “We don’t call them Reds anymore,” Jordan said.

  She didn’t want to say what was on her mind, that this sounded like a fool’s errand. She could tell by Bowman’s expression that he felt the same way. But Jordan had a background in science and believed that there was an explanation for everything, even things that didn’t seem possible.

  “Look,”
he said. “Whatever happened here, it can’t happen again. Our department is leaning on the Russians, and so is the State Department. They’re working the back diplomatic channels to make sure the Russians know that our wildlife laws apply to them.”

  “What are the Russians saying?” she asked.

  “Same thing as Adanov.” He barked a laugh. “Fake photos. Fake news. But we know better, and despite the Russian denials, so do they.” He paused. “The Russians have agreed to a joint investigation, just so we can close the books out on this if nothing else. You’re my top bear expert, so I’m sending you to Kamchatka to coordinate with some bear expert there and talk to this Mikhail Barinov.”

  “So who’s this expert?”

  “Some guy named Kolov,” he replied.

  “Dr. Ivan Kolov?”

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah,” Jordan said. “Well, not personally, but by his reputation. He’s written several papers on the erratic behavior of the Kamchatka bears. He’s also been one of the strongest opponents of the Russian government’s increased push to allow American trophy hunters to take bears on the peninsula.”

  “Well, if anything gets a wealthy stockbroker’s dick hard, it’s shooting a half-ton bear half a mile away with a high-powered rifle.”

  Now it was Jordan’s turn to grin.

  “We’re looking for a quiet solution here,” Bowman went on. “If this guy smuggled a bear into the country, we need to find out how he did it, and why.”

  “Well, if he did, I’d like to see this guy prosecuted,” Jordan said. She glanced at the screen again. The man stared out at her, and for the first time she noticed the shadow of a smirk on his handsome face. We’ll see about that , the expression said. She looked back at Bowman. “Nobody is above the law.”

  “I agree,” Bowman said. “But first we have to get you on the ground in Russia. You up for this?”

  Jordan thought back to the airport, to the tiger skin sewn onto the rug. She glanced down at the photos of the bear. She was sick of the way humans used animals for their own ends.