“Hotel surveillance footage corroborates your story,” Tana said. “And this video has sent the media into a tailspin. Fringe groups like the League of Radical Communists are saying this is the beginning of a second American revolution.”
“It’s bullshit,” I replied. “It’s a smokescreen. The assassin is methodical and highly trained, and the getaway driver was an expert in martial arts. This Ninety-nine cover is designed to confuse and divide.”
“Well, it’s working,” Tana remarked. “Talk radio is full of people calling in saying these guys have a point. How come so many people have so much?”
“My buddy worked his whole life for everything he had,” I snapped. “Just like me. Just like you.”
I took a breath and tried to let go of my anger at the divisive politics.
“We’re working on identifying the getaway driver, the motorcyclist who died outside the Stock Exchange, and the three killed in the helicopter crash, but so far we’ve come up blank,” Tana said.
“Did the getaway driver say anything to you before he died?” Tana asked.
The Russian had passed away en route to the hospital.
“No,” I said, inwardly cursing myself for not having done more to prevent the guy jumping.
Tana sighed. “Since your story checks out, there’s no reason for me to hold you.”
“I told you that three hours ago,” I countered, but some of my pent-up tension ebbed away. Tana wasn’t a bad cop; he was just doing his job.
“If you keep showing up at murder scenes, we’ll keep bringing you in,” Tana said.
“I like our little talks, but maybe try to catch the killer next time?” I said, getting to my feet.
Tana walked me through the building to central booking, where Justine waited with Jessie Fleming and Mo-bot.
“Are you OK, Jack?” Justine asked. She looked far more composed than when I’d last seen her.
I nodded.
“Stay in touch, Mr. Morgan,” Tana said, before walking away.
“The Ninety-nine claimed responsibility again,” Jessie said.
“I think that’s a smokescreen. The guy I fought was trained in martial arts, and he spoke with a Russian accent,” I responded. “It feels like a foreign intelligence operation.”
“This little doohickey you found would back up that theory,” Mo-bot said, producing the small black device the getaway driver had dropped. “It’s a satellite communicator, encrypted and daisy-chained to a network of other devices.”
“English,” I said a little too tersely.
Mo-bot feigned hurt. “It’s like a pager,” she replied. “But instead of a phone number, it sends a set of coordinates. My guess is your man was planning to destroy it before he jumped. Someone tried a remote wipe, but I was able to recover the data from the drive. Four sets of coordinates. Robert Carlyle’s headquarters in DC, Karl Parker’s in New York, and Elizabeth Connor’s office on Sixth Avenue.”
“A list of targets,” Justine remarked.
Mo-bot nodded. “My guess is they get a new set of coordinates when they make a kill.”
“A hit squad,” I suggested. “But how do they know who their target is?”
“The identity must come separately. Or maybe they already know who they need to kill, they just don’t know where the target is located,” Mo-bot replied.
“You said there were four sets of coordinates,” I remarked.
“The data packet time stamp shows the latest set was sent just after news of Elizabeth Connor’s death broke,” Mo-bot revealed. “The next target is based at the American embassy in Moscow.”
CHAPTER 36
GROM BOXING, THE home of Spartak Zima. The huge sign didn’t offer even the slightest concession to subtlety. Spartak’s head and sweaty torso must have been at least thirty feet high, and next to the flashy red text was the huge image of his jewel-encrusted Russian title belt. The gigantic billboard was fixed to the side of a converted Soviet-era redbrick warehouse that loomed over Leonid’s car.
Dinara and Leonid had spent the day trawling the files on Yana Petrova’s computer. There seemed little doubt the dead customer-service agent was Otkrov. The admin folder contained log-in details for Otkrov’s servers and information on the notorious blogger’s secure communications tools. The only open case had been the investigation into match-fixing, and Yana’s notes had identified Makar Koslov, Spartak’s trainer, as a person of interest. When they’d got up to speed on the background of the investigation—the alleged throwing of a world title bout with heavyweight champion Larry Kenler—they’d driven across Moscow to Tagansky, a working-class neighborhood southeast of the city.
Dinara pulled her coat collar tight as she stepped into the bitter night. Moscow seemed to grow colder with each passing winter. Or perhaps age was eroding her resilience?
You’re only thirty-three, she told herself, stowing her dark thoughts as she hurried across the busy parking lot. Leonid was a couple of paces behind.
They stepped through a large metal door into a lobby that was decorated in an industrial style that majored on exposed brickwork, ducts and copper piping. There was no one at the front desk, so Dinara went through a set of double doors and entered the gym.
There were more than thirty boxers training on maize balls, heavy bags and ropes, and sparring in the ring. They all had closely shaved heads and the same hunger in their eyes. A few of those nearest turned as Dinara walked into the room, and they stared at her with undisguised hostility.
Spartak Zima wasn’t in the gym, but Dinara recognized his trainer, Makar Koslov, from the photos on Yana’s computer. The former middleweight champion was leaning over the ropes, shouting instructions to the duo sparring in the ring. Koslov was a long way from his fighting prime. A large gut strained the seams of his Grom Boxing T-shirt, and his black sweatpants clung to a couple of tree-trunk legs. Narrow eyes, a broken nose and permanent fat lip did little to enhance the looks of a man whose broken face had taken far too many beatings. He wiped a hand over his bald head and, when one of his fighters gestured toward Leonid and Dinara, he glanced over.
Koslov stepped down from the ring. “Yes?” he said.
“We’re investigating a murder,” Leonid replied. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
Koslov sneered, but Dinara’s eyes shifted beyond him. The young boxer who’d pointed them out hurried into the far corner of the room where another trainer sat with a gray-haired man who wore a black jacket and a matching black T-shirt that had the number “100” outlined against the dark background. It was subtle, but those who understood its significance would know the man was a member of the Black Hundreds, an old ultra-nationalist group that had recently been revived by a group of self-proclaimed patriots. Dinara had received briefings on the Black Hundreds while at the FSB. They had a lot of former priests, politicians and soldiers in their ranks, and commonly used boxing gyms and football and martial arts clubs as recruiting grounds.
“Who are you? Either you’re a cop who’s here without authority,” Koslov remarked, closing on Leonid, “or you’re someone who shouldn’t be here at all.”
“I’m interested in joining. I think I’ve got what it takes to become a champion,” Leonid replied, toeing the line with the former middleweight champion of Russia. “So far I’m not impressed with how you welcome prospective members.”
Koslov glowered, and Dinara stepped between the two men.
“Makar, I’ll attend to this. Get back to your training.”
Dinara glanced over the large man’s shoulder and saw the silver-haired member of the Black Hundreds approach. He had the upright posture of a military man, and the cold eyes of someone who couldn’t care less about the feelings of those around him.
Koslov backed away, eying Leonid until he reached the ring.
“Keep working,” he yelled at the two sparring fighters, who’d paused to watch.
The men resumed trading blows.
“This is a members’ only gy
m,” the silver-haired man said.
“And we’re not accepting new applications.”
“And you are?” Dinara asked.
“If you don’t already know, it means you’re not meant to,” the man replied.
“Is that some kind of parable?” Dinara countered.
“It’s a truth,” he replied. “We welcome friends here.” He looked them up and down. “And I don’t think you’re friends.”
“We’re investigating a murder,” Dinara said.
“A terrible sin,” the man replied. “I was a priest before I found a better way to reach my flock. I know all about sin.”
“I’m sure you do,” Leonid said.
“But I know nothing about murder,” the man remarked without missing a beat. It was as though Leonid hadn’t spoken. “So if there’s nothing else, I must insist you leave.”
“You haven’t even asked us who was killed,” Dinara observed.
“Because I don’t know about any murder,” the man said.
He stepped closer to Dinara and tried to jostle her back. She could feel Leonid bristle, and sensed a shift in the atmosphere. She glanced past the silver-haired man to see every fighter in the place watching them.
“Come on,” Dinara told Leonid. “Let’s go.”
She tried to move her partner, but he held firm and glared at the Black Hundreds member. Finally, Leonid gave ground and allowed himself to be ushered to the door. Dinara felt the boxers’ hostile eyes on her as they left the room.
“You should have let me—” Leonid began.
“No need,” Dinara cut him off. She flashed the wallet she’d lifted from the man’s pocket. “Erik Utkin,” she said, reading from the identity card she found inside. “Let’s do our research before we do our fighting.”
She used her phone to take pictures of the man’s ID, bank card and old Army personnel pass, before tossing everything in the snow.
“At least now we know who we’re dealing with,” Dinara said.
Leonid smiled. “We might make an investigator of you yet,” he said, and Dinara punched him playfully as they headed for his car.
CHAPTER 37
DINARA COULD SEE flecks of congealed white fat in every mouthful. She didn’t understand how Leonid could face cold solyanka soup, but he often finished their lunchtime leftovers whenever they worked late. He was leaning back in his chair and had his feet on his desk as he dug into the remnants of Elena’s bowl. The office administrator was long gone, but she knew better than to throw away her leftovers if Leonid was working a case.
Dinara’s phone rang and she answered the call from Anatoli Titov, an old FSB contact.
“Anatoli,” she said, forcing herself to sound pleased to hear from him. “What have you got?”
Anatoli had had a thing for her when they’d both worked counterterrorism, and he’d since married and had a child, but the way he’d responded to her flirtatious request for a favor suggested the flame of desire hadn’t quite been extinguished.
“I have got something,” he replied. “Erik Utkin is a former army captain who was pensioned out with an injury he picked up in Chechnya. He retrained as a priest, but quit the church three years ago to join the Black Hundreds as a recruiter. We think he’s connected to some small-time criminals.”
“Anything else?”
“Always greedy. How about we get together for a drink?”
“Now who’s greedy?” Dinara asked. “Aren’t you married?”
“So?” Anatoli said. “You wouldn’t ask a man to eat dinner at the same restaurant for the rest of his life.”
“You’re lucky you’re not starving,” Dinara replied.
Anatoli scoffed and was about to speak, but she cut him off.
“Thank you, Anatoli. I owe you a professional favor.”
She ignored his grumbling and hung up.
“Well?” Leonid asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Former army captain, former priest, maybe a minor criminal,” Dinara replied.
“Minor, as far as they know,” Leonid observed.
Dinara nodded. The FSB was thorough, but it wasn’t omniscient. There was a thin line between minor and major crime, and the murder of a blogger would definitely buy someone passage across it.
“What now?” Leonid said.
“Asking for guidance? It’s almost as if you finally recognize me as your superior.”
“I was talking to the soup,” he replied, gesturing with his spoon.
“We run surveillance on Erik Utkin and see what he’s really hiding,” she replied, but before she could go any further, her phone rang, and the words “Private New York” flashed on screen.
“Hello,” she said in English.
“Dinara? It’s Jessie Fleming of the New York office.”
Dinara hadn’t had much contact with the head of the New York branch but she recognized the name.
“Sorry to call on a Sunday, but it’s an emergency.”
“No problem. I’m in the office too,” Dinara replied. Her FSB training had made her fluent in four languages, and, next to Russian, English was her favorite. “What’s going on?”
“Check your email,” Jessie said. “Call me if there are any problems.”
“Will do,” Dinara said, before hanging up.
“What was that? Leonid asked.
Dinara woke her laptop and logged into the company’s encrypted email server. “We weren’t on a secure line, so she couldn’t tell me what it was about.” After entering her personal decryption key, she read the message Jessie had sent her, and leaned back in her chair. “He’s coming to Moscow,” she said.
“Who?” Leonid asked.
“Jack Morgan.”
CHAPTER 38
THE WOMAN ACROSS the aisle was dreaming. Her eyelids flickered and she muttered something in her sleep. Her face was in shadow, which gave her a ghostly appearance, and her body was tucked beneath one of the blankets I’d refused. I was too busy reviewing the case file Sci had prepared to even consider resting. I was also waiting for a call on the satellite phone Mo-bot had given me.
We were investigating three deaths. Robert Carlyle, a Washington fixer and financier who’d been killed in a car crash, Karl Parker, shot in the New York Stock Exchange, and Elizabeth Connor, who it seemed had been poisoned by a man posing as a hotel waiter. There was no apparent link between the three victims, other than their wealth, which made the Ninety-nine’s claims of responsibility plausible. Except they hadn’t taken credit for Robert Carlyle, and the only thing connecting him to Karl Parker and Elizabeth Connor were the clues left on Karl’s secret laptop. As far as we could tell, they’d never met, nor had they ever done business together.
Sci was going to Washington, D.C., to review the evidence from the scene of Carlyle’s crash. Justine had driven me to the airport to catch that day’s last commercial flight to Moscow. For a moment my attention drifted from the investigation to the memory of her reaction at the hotel. Her relief, the tenderness of her embrace and the tears in her eyes all told me she still felt something beyond friendship. She’d wanted to come to Moscow, but I needed her in New York, working with Jessie and Mo-bot to identify the dead getaway driver and chase down links between the three dead victims.
My satellite phone vibrated and I answered the call. At altitude, the signal was clear and didn’t suffer with the interference issues often caused by trees and buildings.
“Mr. Morgan, this is Master Gunnery Sergeant Marlon West. I got a message to call you.”
West was the commander of the Marine Corps security detachment at the US embassy in Moscow. I’d reached out to him via Lieutenant Colonel Edward Frost, an old buddy, who was now stationed in Frankfurt and ran the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group for Eastern Europe.
“Master Sergeant West, I’m calling to make sure you got the intelligence regarding a possible attempt on the ambassador’s life,” I said quietly.
When Mo-bot had revealed the location o
f the next target, I’d called Detective Tana and shared the information on the understanding he alerted the State Department. We were working on the assumption the next target was Ambassador Thomas Dussler, the President’s high-profile billionaire appointment to Moscow.
The woman opposite me shifted in her sleep, but none of the other passengers in the first-class cabin gave any sign the call was disturbing them.
“We received a flash alert, yes,” West replied. “And we’re taking steps.”
“Good,” I replied, relieved the message had got through. Tana seemed honest, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Is that everything, Mr. Morgan?” West asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “Sorry to have troubled you.”
“No problem,” West said. “Lieutenant Colonel Frost speaks very highly of you, and I appreciate the vigilance.”
He hung up and I returned to the case file Sci had prepared. As I studied the notes, I prayed the ambassador would be alive when I reached Moscow. Right now, he was my only link to the man who’d killed my friend.
CHAPTER 39
WHEN DINARA LEFT her apartment building, she found Leonid using the EMF detector to sweep his car for bugs. A steady flow of morning traffic rolled though the gray snow and swerved round Leonid’s Lada, which had two wheels propped on the pavement.
“Anything?” Dinara asked as she approached.
Leonid shook his head. “And no eyes on us either,” he said, glancing round the frozen square in front of Dinara’s building.
“At least none you can see,” Dinara remarked playfully as she climbed in the passenger seat.
Leonid put the EMF detector in the boot and got behind the wheel.
“Any word on what brings Jack Morgan to Moscow?” he asked as he started the engine.
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