Radiant Angel

by Nelson DeMille

  On the right side of Gin Lane, the ocean side, lay huge waterfront mansions behind hedges and high walls. On the left were equally impressive mansions that became beachfront property when a hurricane blew in.

  I’d followed Petrov here once, back in June, so I knew that Tamorov’s place was at the east end of Gin Lane. I knew, too, that Tamorov threw some wild parties. Petrov and his pals had overnight bags, so I could conclude that I’d be sleeping in the minivan tonight. I hoped Ms. Faraday didn’t snore.

  I called Matt and Steve. “Target will turn into an oceanfront estate called The Tides. We will not.”

  “Copy.”

  I said to Tess, “Bumper lock this guy and when he turns, stop.”

  She nodded and sat on the Mercedes’ tail.

  The big double gates of Tamorov’s estate were coming up, marked by a brass sign saying THE TIDES. The Mercedes slowed, then without signaling it turned into the gates, which were already opening electronically, meaning the Russians had called ahead to announce their arrival and let the security guys know they were being followed.

  Tess stopped opposite the entrance, and I saw two big guys behind the gates, dressed in black like Batman, and they tried to eye us through our tinted windows. They didn’t have visible weapons, but I was certain they were carrying.

  The Mercedes stopped just inside the gates, and an arm extended from the right rear window where Petrov was sitting. He flipped us the bird.

  Tess said, “That was rude.”

  I lowered my tinted window just enough to get my arm out and returned the salute, adding, “Yob vas!” meaning, Fuck you.

  “What did you say?”

  “I wished them a nice day.” I instructed, “Continue fifty yards and make a U-turn.”

  We continued past the estate, then Tess did a U-turn on the narrow sandy lane and stopped, facing the Tamorov estate down the road.

  Matt and Steve did the same, and we all got out of our vehicles for a stretch.

  A nice breeze came off the ocean and the sky was light blue, spotted with small puffy clouds. Gulls circled over the water looking for lunch, and the sun was slightly west of high noon. My stomach growled.

  Matt Conlon, also a former NYPD homicide detective, said, “I can’t believe that scumbag gave us the finger.”

  Steve Lansky, formerly with the NYPD Counterintelligence Unit, said, “They’re pissing me off.”

  I looked down the road and saw that Tamorov’s two security guys had walked into the road and were looking at us.

  Steve retrieved his Nikon with the zoom lens and focused on them. “They look Russian.” He explained, “One looks like my old man.” He shot a few pictures of the security guys.

  “All right,” I said, “my guess is that Petrov is here for the day, maybe the night.”

  Tess seemed resigned to the possibility that we’d be on surveillance until dawn, though she did ask, “Can we call for a relief team?”

  “I need the overtime.” I also informed her, “These guys sometimes play a shell game, so if another vehicle exits the estate then we need to get the locals to pull it over and see if Petrov is in it.” I reminded her, “Petrov is the target. Not the Mercedes and not the driver.”

  “How about Igor and Fradkov?” asked Ms. Faraday. “What if they leave without Petrov?”

  “Then you can take the minivan and follow them if you’d like.”

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “I thought you had a game to see and a husband to meet.”

  “This is getting interesting.”

  I reminded everyone, “The Russians are a major power, and they’re not our official enemy, so we need to avoid causing an incident.” Meaning, no punching anyone in the balls. But a “Fuck you” is okay.

  Tess suggested, “Why don’t you call a supervisor for instructions?”

  “I make the decisions in the field based on my estimation of the situation.”

  “Okay. Have you decided who goes for lunch?”

  “No one. I’m going to shoot a few seagulls. You want one?”

  She seemed tired of my wit and informed us, “I know a few delis in town that deliver.”

  Best news I’ve had all day.

  So we gave Tess our lunch orders and she got on her cell phone and found a deli in Southampton that would deliver to two vehicles parked on Gin Lane. She hung up and informed us, “Half an hour.”

  I hoped lunch arrived before the Mercedes reappeared.

  This job gave you a lot of agita, but also a lot of freedom, like a traveling salesman. If your numbers were good, no one in the home office asked what you did all day.

  But if you screwed up, as a contract agent, you went right into free fall and there was no one there to catch you. No union, no civil service job-for-life. And that was okay with me.

  Meanwhile, my target was behind closed gates, which doesn’t mean I lost him—but I couldn’t see him. This was a bit worrisome, but it happens, and eventually the guy has to reappear. All I need to do is see him reappear. If, however, the target slips out the back door, we’ve got a problem. And Petrov had about ten miles of beach to disappear on and a whole ocean for his back door.

  I thought about requesting aviation or one of our watercraft that we use for this kind of surveillance. But that could be overkill. Petrov was a person of prime interest, but, unlike some of our Muslim targets, he didn’t warrant the whole nine yards. At least that was the thinking at 26 Fed and beyond.

  And in this case, things were probably just as they appeared, meaning Colonel Petrov was a houseguest of Georgi Tamorov, and maybe they were having a party and Petrov was looking forward to seeing boobies in the hot tub and having a few vodkas. No big deal.

  All we had to do was make sure we didn’t miss him when he left. Eventually, he’d head back to the city. Another day in the life of Vasily Petrov and John Corey.

  Unless today was different.

  CHAPTER SIX

  We stood on the quiet road, our backs to the minivan, drinking bottled water and getting some rays. Most of the summer mansions were empty after Labor Day, but the caretakers or occupants are understandably paranoid, and if anyone saw us they might call the cops. Or we might call the cops. We’d worked with the local and State Police on a few occasions relating to the Tamorov house and other matters of national security, and in fact a few of these local and State Police personnel had been trained by the Anti-Terrorist Task Force and were our local PD contacts.

  The world had changed and shrunk, and no place was beyond the reach of the bad guys, and bad things could happen anywhere. Even here, among the hedgerows and the mansions of the rich and powerful.

  Steve, who like me is not cut out for passive surveillance, decided he wanted to go piss off the Russian security guys. I don’t encourage confrontation, but I do like it. “If you shoot anyone, you do the paperwork.”

  Steve walked down the road, and the security guys retreated behind the gates and closed them.

  I texted the case agent: Target vehicle entered Tamorov house Southampton. Any units available for relief?

  It takes awhile to get a response when the case agent or anyone at 26 Fed has to answer a question or make a decision, especially on weekends and holidays, so I pocketed my cell phone.

  Steve was at the gates now and he was being provocative by snapping photos through the iron bars.

  Probably the security guys were yelling at him, though I couldn’t see or hear them at this distance, but I could hear dogs barking.

  As I said, this is a non-discreet surveillance, so some interaction is inevitable—or necessary—like the time I double-parked next to a Russian dip car and wouldn’t let him out until my backup arrived. But Steve was pushing the protocol a bit.

  Discreet surveillance and undercover work, on the other hand, requires a lot more skill and stealth, but it can produce interesting results. One of the reasons the DSG switches targets is so our faces aren’t known to the same guys, so we can go discreet or
undercover if the target hasn’t seen us before. In the case of Colonel Petrov, I’ve followed him before, but I’m fairly certain he’s never seen me up close. On the other hand, the SVR may have taken a picture of me with a zoom lens. So maybe we all had pictures of each other taking pictures of each other. There must be a better way of making a living.

  Steve was finished annoying the dogs and the Russians, and he walked back to the vehicles and said, “There are about a dozen cars parked inside.” He deduced, “It’s party time.”

  Matt informed us, “I used the house next door in July for a surveillance. Nice people. Don’t care for their Russian neighbors.” He let us know, “The Russkies partied all night. Lots of babes. Topless.”

  Steve got interested. “You never showed me those photos.”

  Matt smiled. “They’re classified.”

  Tess was rolling her eyes and probably hoping that FBI agents were more refined than ex-cops. Unfortunately, they are. She’ll miss us.

  Well, this was going to be a long day. One of the first things you learn with surveillance work is piss when you can. There was a tall clump of bulrushes on the side of the road and the boys watered them. Tess was okay for now.

  There was no sign of our deli delivery, but a few more cars turned into the Tamorov estate and Steve took pictures. Then a box van turned onto Gin Lane from Old Town Road and came toward us. Behind the van were two more vans. I could see the word CATERING on the side of one van, and I asked Tess, “How many sandwiches did you order?”

  She didn’t acknowledge my quick wit.

  I stepped into the road and held up my hand. The vans stopped, and on the side of the lead van I saw HAMPTON CATERING.

  I went to the driver’s door and held up my creds. The window lowered and I asked the guy behind the wheel, “Where you going?”

  He pointed. “The Tides.”

  God was either smiling on me, or He was setting me up for a monumental disaster, which He sometimes does. With my help.

  I asked the guy, “You need a bartender?”

  “No…”

  “Sure you do. What’s your name?”

  “Dean. Dean Hampton. Same as the town.”

  “That’s interesting. Okay, Dean—”

  Tess approached and asked me, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to work for Dean.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  I already answered that question during my FBI interview. I asked Dean, who was wearing a white smock, “You got an extra shirt or something?”

  “Uh… yeah. A few in the last truck. But—”

  Matt and Steve joined us, and I said to them and to Tess, “You talk to this gentleman and get him squared away.” I unhooked my pancake holster, knowing the Russian security guys checked for guns, and I gave my gun and extra magazines to Steve. I also gave Matt my creds and my wallet in case the security guys asked me for ID.

  Matt and Steve didn’t seem to think that me helping Dean cater Tamorov’s party was a good idea, but I explained, “I don’t want to lose the target.”

  Matt pointed out, “We know where he is, John. This is as far as we need to go until he goes mobile again.”

  “He could be going mobile out the back door.”

  Steve volunteered, “I’ll go in with you.”

  “They just saw you up close,” I reminded him.

  Tess reminded me, “They saw you flipping them off.”

  “They’d only recognize my middle finger.”

  Tess suggested, “You need to clear this with the case agent.”

  “To ask permission is to invite rejection.” I added, “Objections noted. Debate closed.”

  Matt also volunteered to go in with me, but I said to my team, “You’re the posse. I’ll text or call in, say, an hour. But if you don’t hear from me in two hours, come get me.”

  Matt and Steve exchanged glances, and Matt asked me, “Should we call the local PD for backup?”

  “Only if you feel you can’t handle it. Okay, let’s not make the caterers late.” I headed toward the last van, and Tess came up beside me.

  “I’m going in with you.”

  “That’s not what I just told you to do.”

  She held my arm and said, “This could be dangerous. They could recognize you. But they don’t know me, and they don’t know we’re together. You need someone to watch your back.”

  I replied patiently, “This is not dangerous. If I’m recognized, they will just ask me to leave and Petrov will file a complaint with the State Department. They will not shoot me and feed me to the sharks.”

  “But if they do, I’d like to see that.”

  Funny. But also annoying. On the other hand, as I said, there was more to Tess Faraday than a DSG trainee and FBI wannabe. And maybe the best way to find out why she wanted to work with me and where she got the balls to go in undercover was to take it to the next level. “Okay. Get rid of your creds.”

  She went back to Steve and gave him her creds, then reached behind her back and pulled out a pancake holster, which she handed to him.

  She caught up to me and I inquired, “Where the hell did you get that?”

  “I told you I had a gun permit.”

  That’s not exactly what she said.

  Tess and I walked toward the last of the three catering vans and I asked her, “Who are you working for?”

  “Hampton Catering.”

  I let that go and opened the double doors of the last box van. Sitting on the floor among piles of catering equipment were eight ladies, all wearing white smocks. “Buenos días,” I said as Tess and I climbed in and closed the doors.

  There was a pile of linens in the corner and Tess found two uniform shirts, which we put on over our polo shirts.

  The van started to move and we sat on the floor with the possibly undocumented aliens who, if they knew English, would probably have nothing to say to the Russian security guys about the two roadside pickups. I asked Tess, “You got a green card?”

  The van turned left and we bumped over the cobblestone entrance to Tamorov’s driveway, then I heard the crunch of gravel. The van stopped and the doors opened.

  One of the Russian security guards motioned everyone out, and we all piled out onto the gravel drive. The other two vans were stopped ahead of us, and the catering staff was standing in the long driveway while two security guards wanded them down.

  Tess said softly, “They’re taking cell phones.”

  And sure enough, the security goons were taking everyone’s cell phones. Maybe I should have anticipated that. But would that have changed my decision to go undercover? No. But I wouldn’t have let my trainee go in with me.

  I counted eight security guys, including the two we’d seen at the gate, plus two black Dobermans.

  I took my Nextel out of my pocket and code-locked it so no one could access my texts or directory. Tess did the same, and I moved away from her so it wouldn’t appear we were together. Though, to be realistic, not too many of the other fifteen or so catering staff looked quite as tall and pink as we did.

  The guys with the wands reached the last van and ran the wands over everyone, finding coins, keys, religious medals, and one pocketknife, but no Glock 9mm automatics.

  We all put our cell phones in a basket, and a Russian guy assured us, “You get when you leave.”

  One of the security goons who was at the gate earlier was eyeballing me, then he looked at Tess as though she were a gumdrop in a bowl of chili.

  The guy came over to me and said, “Wallet.”

  “No wallet.”

  Without even asking, he patted me down. Asshole.

  He looked at Tess again, then at me, as though he’d seen me—or my middle finger—before.

  Dean, who’d been briefed by Steve and Matt, saw what was happening and came over to us. He said to the Russian, “We have to get moving.” He tapped his watch. “We’re late.”

  The Russian hesitated, then motioned us back in the van.

 
; I made a mental note to put Dean in for the good citizen award.

  As everyone was getting back into the vans, I looked at the Tamorov mansion at the end of the long landscaped driveway. It was a three-story contemporary, stark white with huge tinted windows for privacy. Georgi Tamorov did all right for himself. I mean, we’re talking about forty or fifty million bucks for oceanfront on Gin Lane in Southampton, and maybe a million bucks a year in property taxes, which the town loved without loving the source. Money may not buy you respectability, but it will buy you respect.

  Tess and I got back into the van, the doors closed, and we started moving.

  I glanced at Tess, who seemed a bit anxious.

  Well, we’d have a good laugh about this when we got out of here. Even Kate, who likes to follow the rules, would give me credit for good initiative. Maybe. More importantly, the job and the day were getting interesting. I can make any job interesting. Or stressful.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The three catering vans backed into a five-car garage that held a Jaguar and Bentley. The garage was connected to the service entrance, and everyone got out and started unloading food and equipment. I hefted a crate of tomatoes on my shoulder and walked through a pantry storage room into an industrial-sized kitchen.

  There were a few household staff in the kitchen, mostly Hispanic but also a few Russians, including two security guys from the driveway who were watching everyone.

  Tess, carrying a load of table linens, didn’t look like she did this often, but she’d probably seen the family caterers arrive enough times so she didn’t seem too out of place.

  After everything was unloaded, we all got to work, slicing and dicing, firing up the stoves, and all that. Tess was in charge of cucumbers and I washed lettuce. I never knew it had to be washed.

  A big Russian lady, who seemed to be the household cook, supervised the making of zakuski—Russian hors d’oeuvres, which unfortunately didn’t include pigs-in-a-blanket. What kind of party is this? I was starving, so when the fat lady wasn’t looking I scooped up about two hundred dollars’ worth of beluga caviar with my fingers and shoved it in my mouth.