Enigma

by Catherine Coulter

  58

  SERGEI PETROV’S HOUSE

  SOUTH OF ALEXANDRIA

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  A half-moon shone on the Potomac, and wind-whipped waves slapped against the wooden dock, rocking the yacht gently at its moorings. It was a pity about the half-moon and the bright clear sky with its stunning display of stars, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  Jack and Cam huddled down near the water with five of the FBI SWAT team out of the Washington Field Office, at the edge of the woods looking at Petrov’s house. Ruth and Ollie were already with the other half of the team in the trees at the back of the house. The SWAT team’s standard-issue earpieces and the microphones in their shoulder pouches were dialed into the CAU comms units at their wrists. They saw bright lights shining from the living room and the master bedroom, and Ruth had reported lights in the first-floor back bedroom.

  They all wore black from head to toe, their faces blackened. Cam and Jack wore black caps pulled low, Kevlar beneath their FBI jackets, the SWAT team wore their military-issue bulletproof vests, camouflage helmets, and night-vision goggles. They all carried H&K MP5s that could be set to full automatic for thirty-three rapid rounds, and extra ammunition on their belts. Cam and Jack carried their FBI-issue Glocks as well, and the SWAT team their preferred Springfield .45s. Several of the SWAT team carried crowbars and lightweight battering rams to breach the front door.

  As they moved quietly into position, Cam whispered to Jack, “I feel seriously underdressed next to these guys.”

  He whispered back, “They’ve got to be ready for battle, an ambush, anything. We can move faster if need be.”

  SWAT team leader Luke Palmer set up a parabolic mic facing the house and they listened for voices, hoping to count and place everyone inside. They heard only the sound of a single man’s footsteps in the living room.

  Jack looked down at his watch, said low into his comm, “Ruth, is everyone in place?”

  “Yes, we’re ready.”

  At Luke’s nod, Jack raised the SWAT team bullhorn. “This is the FBI. Sergei Petrov, come out now with your hands over your head. The house is surrounded, there’s no way out.”

  They heard a shout, and someone running, then another man’s loud voice, but they couldn’t understand his words. He was speaking Russian.

  “I make two men,” Luke whispered. “They’re running, getting weapons together.” He said into his microphone, “Launch tear gas grenades.” The launchers fired in unison from both the front and back of the house. They heard the sounds of breaking glass as the grenades crashed through the windows. The lights went out, they heard more shouting, and then the obscenely loud crack of weapons on full automatic aimed at their positions. They heard more automatic fire from the back of the house, loud and clean on their comms.

  Luke said, “Open fire,” into his comms, and the SWAT team, most of them flat on their bellies, opened up a deafening barrage of fire louder than anything Jack had heard since Afghanistan. It smashed the glass doors and windows, peppering the walls with flying dust and bullet holes. There was a brief lull while most of the team shoved in new magazines. Jack said, “Luke, keep laying down fire, I’ll take two of your men to the north side of the house where the house plans show only one window, see if we can’t end this.” He said into his comms, “Ruth, give us sixty seconds to get their attention away from you, then see if you can close in on the house from your position.”

  “Sixty seconds.”

  Jack and two SWAT members loped through the trees to the north and sprinted across the open clearing at the side of the house. Jack realized all the heavy gunfire was coming from the front of the house after the SWAT team’s first barrage. “Ruth,” he whispered into his comms, “both men are in front firing at us, but be careful entering the house, there could be booby traps.”

  “Approaching the kitchen, moving forward.”

  Jack went down to his knees, crawled to the big shattered picture window, felt the hit of tear gas floating out from the living room. He rose and emptied his H&K through the smoke.

  He heard Ruth’s voice come through his comms, “We’re in through the kitchen.”

  Bullets flew at Jack through the smoke. He flattened himself against the foundation, reared up, and threw a flash bang through the living room window, shielding himself as best he could from the deafening noise and the blinding flash of light. He heard yelling, someone running. He shouted into his comms, “They’re moving toward the back of the house.” He waved the SWAT team forward. They kicked in the bullet-ridden front door and broke through into the entrance hall. The living room was filled with smoke from the flash bang and the tear gas. They all froze in place, listening, heard only the breathing of the agents beside them. Then they heard Ruth and the SWAT agents moving toward them from the rear of the house. Jack talked to them through the comms until Ruth, Ollie, and their team came bursting through the closed door at the back of the entrance hall.

  “They’re gone,” Jack said. “But where?”

  Suddenly there was gunfire. They heard a yell from the other side of the house. Someone was hit.

  They ran out of the front door, saw Petrov burst into the woods at the side of the house, running all out toward the yacht. Was there an escape route not on the house plans?

  Jack heard a SWAT team member on the comm. “Target number two is down. He was carrying a machine gun. We’re clear here.”

  Jack took off after Petrov, only vaguely aware of shouting and running footsteps behind him. He saw Petrov again on the wooden dock, unlooping a mooring line from its iron cleat and jumping up onto the deck. Petrov heard Jack running toward him, jerked around and fired off a half-dozen rounds from a handgun. Jack dove to the ground, felt the shock of a bullet slap high into his right arm. He fired back, saw Petrov flinch when a bullet hit his thigh, but he didn’t slow. He limped into the pilot house and the big engine roared to life. The yacht began to pull away from the dock.

  Jack ran onto the dock, heard footsteps behind him, but didn’t turn. He dropped his H&K, took a flying leap, and grabbed the deck railing. His arm screamed with pain, and he tried to pull himself up, but he couldn’t, he could hardly hold on. He saw Petrov in the pilot house, steering out, and then he heard Cam yelling, saw her leap up to the yacht railing near the bow.

  “Hold on, Jack.” She pulled herself onboard, then braced her feet against a cleat and pulled him up. He fell on his belly on deck. She jerked around, saw Petrov standing in the pilot house doorway, aiming his Beretta at them as he clumsily tried to tie a towel tightly around his bleeding leg.

  He stared at her. “You’re as ferocious as Elena.”

  “Elena? You mean Elena Orlov? Your bodyguard? Your lover?”

  He looked startled.

  “You really do look like a vampire in the moonlight,” Cam said. “I could suggest using a tanning bed occasionally, might help keep people from trying to stake you.”

  “Shut up. From this distance I could kill you both before either of you could aim your weapons. I won’t if you don’t give me any more trouble. I will set you both off on one of the small islands down the river. But first, drop your Glocks. Now.”

  Jack came up onto his knees, pulled his Glock off its waist clip and dropped it on the wooden deck in front of him. Cam followed suit, dropped her Glock beside his.

  Petrov said to Jack, “You’re bleeding on my yacht. Wrap up your arm.”

  Cam shrugged out of her FBI jacket, pulled the black T-shirt covering her Kevlar vest off over her head, and shrugged back into her jacket. She went down on her knees and tied the shirt tight around Jack’s arm. She whispered against his ear, “It’ll be okay, Jack.”

  “Shut up and move away from him.” Petrov waved the Beretta. He looked back to see the SWAT team standing on the boat dock staring after them. He smiled.

  59

  “We killed your man,” Jack said. “He was too loyal for his own good, staying back to let you escape.”

  �
�Abram was with me since I was a boy and he a young man of twenty.” He pointed his Beretta at Cam’s chest. “I told you to move away from him.”

  Cam took two steps back to lean against the railing. From the lights moving along on the shoreline, she could tell they were picking up speed, heading south. She said, “It was one of our agents who spoke to Abram on the burner phone you provided your assassin at Ginger Lake. Keeping him alive helped us find you.” As she spoke, she flicked her comms unit to transmit. Now Ruth and Ollie and the SWAT team would hear everything. She waved her hand toward the pilot house. “You put it on autopilot, heading south.”

  “Of course, there’s no need to adjust the course this time of night.”

  Jack said, “Did you put the boat under Elena Orlov’s name, that is, Cortina Alvarez’s name?”

  Petrov said nothing, grimaced as he tightened the towel around his leg.

  Jack’s arm pulsed with pain, but he ignored it. “Listen to me, Petrov. You’re a banker, not a trained KGB agent. You’ve got no more assassins waiting in the wings for your orders. You’ve got to realize there’s no way you’re going to get out of here. The Coast Guard will be along soon.”

  “It’s not the KGB, you fool. The KGB no longer exists.”

  “Oh yeah, new name, same thugs.”

  Petrov moved his Beretta back and forth between Jack and Cam. “You will now tell me how you found me. How you know about Elena and Cortina.”

  Cam gave him a wide smile. “We’re special agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We’ve got really good brains, plus you’re on our turf.”

  Petrov actually sneered. “You idiot woman, you’re nothing compared to Putin’s GRU and FSB.”

  Jack laughed. “I’ve got to admit you did a fine job of freeing Manta Ray on Monday. But look here, Petrov”—he snapped his fingers—“it’s only Wednesday night and we found you already.”

  Petrov winced at the pain in his leg, knew it hadn’t stopped bleeding. He touched his hand to the towel, pressed it in. He saw Cam move and immediately straightened. “Don’t you take another step! If you move again, I will kill you. Now, I won’t ask either of you again. How did you find me and Elena?”

  But Cam hadn’t moved, scarcely breathed, she’d only leaned a bit toward Jack, away from him. She didn’t want him to hear the low-level feedback coming from her comms. She said, “Come now, Sergei, it wasn’t that difficult. Elena flew to Washington with you on Aeroflot 104 from Moscow, she wasn’t hard to find at all. She’s listed as your employee, your bodyguard. It made sense you would use her to rent a safe-deposit box as Cortina Alvarez. You sure weren’t about to use your own name. And why waste that near-perfect legend you had created for her?”

  His forehead furrowed, not in pain, but something he remembered he didn’t like. Then he shook his head. He looked back south over the water.

  Cam said, “Elena wasn’t at your house, only Abram. Where is she, Sergei? Was she with your pilot when you blew up the helicopter?”

  “I won’t tell you again, shut up.”

  Jack said, “I’ll bet she was in the helicopter. She became one last loose thread to you, didn’t she, Sergei? You killed not only your pilot, you killed your lover. Anyone else in the helicopter?”

  Cam said, “I don’t suppose Manta Ray was in that copter with them?”

  “Shut up, both of you. You haven’t explained anything. How did you find me?”

  Cam said, “A young man named Saxon Hainny. Under hypnosis, Saxon saw you clearly standing with Mia Prevost as he lay in a stupor on the bed, before you murdered her.”

  “That’s impossible! He was unconscious, I checked him myself.”

  “Sorry, Sergei,” Jack said. “He wasn’t unconscious, and as Agent Wittier told you, he remembered everything under hypnosis. He saw you, described you. That hair you have, that widow’s peak, it’s very distinctive. And that white, white skin of yours, like a vampire. By the way, the towel around your leg is getting soaked with blood, the pressure isn’t working. That isn’t going to turn out well for you.”

  Still, Petrov kept looking south. Cam knew he wasn’t looking for any islands, he was planning to kill them and dump them overboard, as soon as he was out far enough. She looked at the wave caps shining and sparkling in the moonlight and felt a punch of fear. She clamped it down.

  “Jack’s right, Sergei. You’re going to bleed out before you can find medical help.”

  He didn’t answer, looked back between her and Jack at the frothing water churned up by the yacht’s engine.

  She said, “Want to tell us why you murdered Mia Prevost?”

  Petrov shook his head. “She was a tool, nothing more. I’m tired of talking. Shut up.”

  Cam said, “Sergei, face it, you’ve failed. It’s all over. You, your daddy, and Transvolga are all beyond help. You’ll never get out of American waters.”

  He trained the Beretta on her. Both Jack and Cam knew it was crunch time. “Help him up. You can both go over the rail now or I will shoot you and throw you over myself.”

  “What’s this?” Jack said. “And here I thought you were going to set us down on a nice deserted island.”

  “Do it!”

  Cam dropped to her knees beside Jack, leaned in close to help him rise, whispered, “Distract him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him he had to stand.”

  Jack got slowly to his feet, his right hand clutching his left arm. He groaned and stumbled back against the yacht railing. Cam leaned toward him to grab him, whipped out her ankle piece and fired, center mass.

  The bullet struck Petrov high in the chest. The force of the bullet sent him back into the pilot house. Still he managed to fire two more rounds at them as they dove behind a teak storage box on the deck. One of the bullets slammed into the box, but it was sturdy enough to stop the bullet from going through.

  “Give it up, Sergei!” Jack yelled.

  He came out of the pilot house, blood streaming down his leg, blood staining his chest, heaving with pain, with the loss of everything he saw as his by right. He didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. He fired at them, but the Beretta was empty. He pulled another magazine out of his pants pocket, shoved it in with bloody fingers.

  Cam shouted. “Drop the gun or I’ll put a bullet through your throat.”

  He yelled something in Russian, raised the Beretta.

  Cam shot him in the throat.

  60

  ERIC HAINNY’S HOUSE

  CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND

  AFTER MIDNIGHT

  Savich parked his Porsche in the circular driveway in front of Eric Hainny’s home on Kentfield Lane. The white, two-story colonial was set back from the road like most of the other houses in a quiet cul-de-sac, bordered by a thick copse of maple and oak trees. The half-moon still shone down on the neatly mowed grass, bordered by banks of petunias, impatiens, and flowers Savich didn’t recognize.

  Savich rang the doorbell, waited, and rang again. He finally heard footsteps, a man’s mumbling voice. He looked into the camera above his head, knew he was being studied. He called out, “Mr. Hainny, it’s Agent Dillon Savich. Please open the door.”

  He heard Hainny disarm the security system, unlock the dead bolt, and slowly pull open the heavy front door. Hainny looked like a different man without his Ralph Lauren suit and Italian loafers. He wore an ancient red flannel robe, belted at his ample waist, and old black slippers worn down at the heels. His graying hair was messed, and gray whiskers sprouted on his cheeks. He looked ten years older than he had yesterday at Rock Creek Park. He got in Savich’s face, snarled, “It’s after midnight. Why are you here? It isn’t about Saxon, is it? He’s all right?”

  “Yes, Saxon is fine. I’m here to end it, Mr. Hainny.”

  “End what?” Hainny looked at him blankly, took a step forward to block him. “I don’t know what this is all about but I do know you are overstepping your bounds again, Agent Savich. You shouldn’t be here in the dead of night,
you shouldn’t ever be at my home without my invitation. You will not come in unless you tell me right now what you’re doing here, and it better be good.”

  “Sergei Petrov is dead.”

  Hainny froze, blinked rapidly, then said carefully, “And why is that important? I don’t know a Sergei Petrov. Why would I care if he’s dead? I can’t imagine what you think his death has to do with me.” He straightened his shoulders, getting himself in control again, the chief of staff to the president once more. “I think you should leave now, Agent Savich. I’ll be speaking to the director in the morning and I will tell him of your inexplicable, highly inappropriate behavior.” Hainny stepped back to shut the door.

  Savich held out a metal box. “I was going to give this to Saxon, but I realized it would be better if you had it.”

  Hainny stared at the box, licked his lips. He stuck out his right hand, then drew it back, shrugged. “A metal box? What is that?”

  “It’s exactly what you’re praying it is—the manufactured proof that Saxon murdered Mia Prevost. Agents found it in Petrov’s desk. Of course, you already know all about the contents, Mr. Hainny. I’m sure Petrov called you today, probably gloated since once again, thanks to Manta Ray, he had the box back in his hands.”

  Hainny grew very still. He said very slowly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Agent Savich.” He held out his hand. “Give it to me and I will look at the contents in my own time. Now I want you to get off my property.”

  “Mr. Hainny, you are a good liar, you have to be, given your position, but you know as well as I that the contents of this box were being used to blackmail you. The Russians call it kompromat—compromising material they use on each other and, of course, on foreigners, to control them. With you, Petrov succeeded, and he would have continued to, if he still had control of the box. And if he were still alive, of course.

  “I’m here at your home, Mr. Hainny, out of courtesy to you. I did not want to have to march into the White House to arrest you. It’s time to end this, sir. It is time for you to speak to me honestly, either here or at the Hoover Building.”