L
t. Gian Antonio Rizzo stood in his office in Rome the next morning, the ninth of February. Around him at a rectangular table, he had grouped four of the best homicide detectives in his bureau. Rizzo was now attacking the two linked double-murder cases with a vengeance, while at the same time trying to keep a lid on the inquiries from his superiors, official and unofficial.
One of the four men around him had been recalled from a climbing vacation in Switzerland. A second detective, a woman, came back two weeks early from her maternity leave. Another man was taken off a juicy assignment involving a local radio personality whose drunken semiclad wife had recently “fallen off” a yacht—or was it
jumped
or
pushed
?—that belonged to a Marxist member of the Italian parliament. And the fourth had been on a winning streak at a high-rolling
chemin de fer
table at Monte Carlo when the call had come from Rome to report back to Bureau headquarters immediately.
Rizzo briefed them all. He asked them to not mention the linkage of these cases to anyone else in the department. In Rizzo’s experience, if he felt that he had an advantage in an investigation, if he knew something that was not yet known by the public, he was one step ahead of the people he was looking for. He never wanted to tip his hand.
He showed the computer mockups of the bullet fragments and presented all of the photographs taken at the two crime scenes. He asked if any of the people at the table had any initial notions as to where this might lead, how these slayings might be linked.
No one volunteered anything.
“
Allora
,
bene
,” he continued. “The Mafia guys like their small caliber .22s. They like to use a silencer from close range. Two behind the ear, am I not right? The South American drug scum, Colombians for example, like machine pistols and they blow away the victims with a hundred shots.”
His eyes roved the room. Not one of his detectives was willing to make contact.
“Our colonial friends the Ethiopians have no subtlety at all,” he continued. “They drag you to a warehouse, put a tire around you while you scream for mercy, ignite you with gasoline, then stand there and gape. But what was
this
all about?
Who
is doing this? What type of criminals are we looking for? Could I see some life,
per favore
, some reaction from this table, or should I find four better detectives?”
The two interlocking questions were barely out of Rizzo’s mouth when he realized that there would be no answer coming this morning. Business like this drove him crazy. Why had he even come in to work this morning? Sophie was off work today and they could have been spending the day together. Instead, he was chasing down the scum that brought crime to Italy while having to light a fire under those who should have been best equipped to help him.
“All right then,” he said in conclusion. “Foolish me, who thought that we might have some angle on these cases this morning from the four of you. I will be in this office working sixteen-hour days on these cases. I will also be monitoring the four of you closely.” Without consulting anyone’s files, he added, “It is not by coincidence, that I’ve assembled the four of you. I notice that each of you has recently put in for a major promotion. I will be watching your progress very closely. Be assured that the cases I’ve put before you this morning will directly impact both promotions and demotions. We will have success or failure here, I don’t know which. But as for your careers, I can promise you
repercussions
!”
He eyed them. “I want thorough reports from all of you by Friday of next week,” he said. “I want potential leads and connections for these two cases. I don’t care if you’re up all night every night and have to work all weekend to get this done. I want progress.”
Rizzo turned on his heel, left the conference room for the hallway outside, glowering in his usual bad humor.
Where were all the kids this morning, he wondered.
The interns. Maybe one of those bright kids would have something. They’d make great spies one day, those little imps, he thought.
But none did. Not today.
A
lex walked into a conference room at the embassy, followed by the two attachés who had been assigned to her. The first was Ellen Higgins, a dowdy middle-aged woman with thick glasses in a brown suit. The second was Phillip Ralston, whom Alex had met the previous day.
Ellen was the keener intellect of the two. She was a University of Chicago graduate and a skilled interpreter in Russian and Ukrainian. Ellen was also the official note taker. At every embassy meeting there was a note taker to draft the report on meetings, except in the case of the very rare “under four eyes” meetings that the bureaucracy dreaded. Recording devices were almost never allowed, since principals wanted to be able to deny any misspeaking.
Ralston was a wealthy man in his thirties who played at being a diplomat and had already spent much of his time talking about his home in New Canaan, Connecticut, as if anyone else was interested. Half an hour earlier, he had been laughing and showing pictures of the house back in the United States. Now, going into the meeting with Federov, he looked taut enough to explode.
They arrived in the conference room at the same time as the opposition.
The Ukrainians wore overcoats on top of suits. They seemed to have been carved from the same block of solid Russian stone. They smelled of tobacco and cologne.
Federov was the tall one in the middle, a thick jaw, very short hair, stubble across the chin much the same length. He was handsome the way a retired boxer is handsome, the wear and toughness suggesting survival and the survival suggesting a certain intense masculinity. His nose looked as if it had been broken once and bent out of shape, then broken a second time and pushed back in the right direction, probably without anesthetic either time.
Federov was six four. Imposing. Powerfully built. In American terms, the body of a tight end. He was a head taller than Alex was, with huge hands and a weightlifter’s body, definitely more of a presence in person than he had been in the photographs. His teeth—the teeth that had bitten the ear off a Brooklyn cop—were yellowed but straight.
The stories came back to her: him abusing women in his night clubs, two wives “disappearing,” and having people murdered almost for sport.
He was physically intimidating to her, but there was no way she was going to tip him off to that fact. He moved close to Alex, offering a hand, his dark eyes midway between a glare and a smile. She got the idea that he was mentally undressing her as he eyed her and she stifled a cringe—she tried to tell herself that she had dealt with more vile human beings than this and survived, but on second thought, she wasn’t sure that she had.
Alex accepted his hand. It was firm, strong, and dry.
“I’m Yuri Federov,” he said in Russian.
“I’m Anna Tavares. US Department of Commerce,” she said, also in Russian.
He switched into Ukrainian, testing her already. “Aren’t you going to say you’re pleased to meet me?” he asked. “That would be the polite thing, Anna Tavares.”
“It would also be a lie,” she said in Ukrainian. “Let’s be seated. We have a lot of business to discuss, so I appreciate your coming in.”
Silently, she said a big thank-you—
velykyy diakuyu tobi—
to Olga. She had kept pace in Ukrainian, but was anxious to get out of it before betraying any weakness.
A smile crept across Federov’s face with the slowness and deliberateness of sun breaking through the clouds on a mostly cloudy day. He introduced his two backups, Kaspar and Anatoli, no last names given. They looked like bookends or, more appropriately, the twin doors on the rear of a truck. They were husky and stocky. Alex assumed they were bodyguards of some sort. She further assumed that the metal detectors around the embassy’s entrance had done their jobs and any artillery hauled over by Kaspar and Anatoli had been left outside.
Back to Russian. “Charmed,” Federov said.
“Let’s get to work,” she said.
“I don’t know what this meeting is about,” he said.
“Well, as soon as it starts, I’ll tell you,” she said, gaining some traction.
He switched to English. “Then let’s begin. I can express myself well in English, so we will speak your language.”
“I speak Russian,” she said in Russian, “and some Ukrainian. Mrs. Brown here is able to interpret and take notes. So any of the three languages are fine.”
“I still prefer English,” he said.
“That’s fine,” she said, relieved. The meeting began.
Alex guessed that Kaspar and Anatoli wouldn’t have much to say in any language, particularly with the boss present. It turned out she was right.
They couldn’t smile, and for all Alex knew, they couldn’t read either, because when files were placed before everyone in the room to present the topics of the meeting, unlike their boss, they ignored them. Instead, they sat there beside their boss, their four hands folded on the table, staring at her as if someone were holding a gun on them.
“Why is there a note taker if we are anyway being recorded?”Federov asked.
“Who says we’re being recorded?” Alex asked.
“Why
wouldn’t
we be recorded?” he asked.
“I want to talk about The Caspian Group,” she said.
He looked first to Kaspar and then to Anatoli. “What is The Caspian Group?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of it.” His two peers understood enough to smile on cue.
“Mr. Federov,” she said. “You’re not a mystery to the United States government. You do millions of dollars of business that are subject to US taxation. You’ll either pay your proper share or we will make certain that you no longer can do business in the US, even through one of your puppet companies. Am I being clear enough?”
He went through the same charade. He laughed slightly. He took out a pack of cigarettes and pulled one into his lips. She intentionally watched him until he had lit it and inhaled deeply. There were tattoos on the backs of his fingers, common with Russian hoods. The rest of his body, not that she wished to see it, would tell an even larger story, she knew.
“There’s no smoking in this room,” she said.
“I’m smoking,” he said.
“And you’re about to stop,” she said.
He looked at his bodyguards and exchanged a shrug. They chortled.
“Something funny?” Alex asked.
“A lot is funny,” he said.
“Put the cigarette out.”
The look in his eyes mocked her. So did the contempt in his voice. “Yes, ma’am,” he finally said.
He turned the cigarette around and tamped it down on his tongue without flinching. She was ready for the move and didn’t bat an eyelash. He flicked the remains of the butt across the room.
“Very good,” she said next. “Now. I want to talk about The Caspian Group.”
“What is The Caspian Group?” he asked again.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll do it the hard way.”
She held him in her gaze and flipped open the file in front of her.
She began to read aloud.
T
he destination of Mark McKinnon, an American with an important job in Rome, was a basement bar in Trastevere, a neighborhood of Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City, which felt more like a small Italian town than part of the capital city. Trastevere was a community of small streets lined with restaurants and café bars spilling out onto the narrow sidewalks. There were not so many tourists here, which was always nice for McKinnon. He didn’t like to run into anyone he knew, other than the individual he might be looking for.
Normally four o’clock in the afternoon would be considered early to meet a contact for a drink and some chat. But McKinnon easily found one of his regular haunts for just such afternoon meetings. It was a small basement bar called San Christoforo, around the corner and down a few side streets from the Piazza di Santa Maria. McKin-non walked down four brick steps and pushed open a wooden door to a dark place, dimly lit with candles.
As he entered, a dozen spooky figures turned to eye him from the bar. For a few seconds, McKinnon allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim light.
Then, from a corner table shielded by shadows, rose a shy voice.
“Mark?” it asked.
McKinnon turned.
In the corner sat a fit middle-aged Italian man behind a large glass of red wine, a small tray of bread sticks, and a votive candle.
“Please have a seat, my friend,” the Italian said in softly accented but impeccable English.
The men shook hands. McKinnon seated himself. The bartender sauntered over and without speaking, set up a second glass and poured a bold young Chianti from a jug.
The Italian lifted his glass. “
Salud
,” he said, with mock formality.
McKinnon grinned and reciprocated with a similar toast. There was a moment or two of small talk. These men knew each other well but only met when they absolutely had to—maybe once or twice a year at most, and almost always in this place. Two of the figures at the bar worked for the Italian man and were armed accordingly.
“Well,” McKinnon finally said, “we seem to have a problem. A couple of our people have been murdered.”
“So it appears,” the Italian said.
“Can you help us?”
The Italian sipped more wine. “So it appears,” he said again.
McKinnon started to laugh, exuding a sigh of relief at the same time. “I knew I could count on you,” he said.
“So it appears,” the Italian said a third time.
I
t took until Monday afternoon, February 12, before Federov would concede that he had an interest in a conglomerate called The Caspian Group, the bookkeeping of which existed only in his head. It took another two days for Alex to get him to concede that he might be liable for US taxes.
Alex’s spirit’s got another boost that day. Despite how busy Robert was with his own trip preparation, he had managed to send her a Valentine by courier.
Then on that same afternoon, the fourteenth, she started to wear Federov down as she documented everything she and the United States Department of Commerce knew on TCG. He finally allowed that his corporation might be inclined to file records with the US government and actually pay some taxes.
This he would do, he stressed, on one condition.
“What condition is that?” she asked.
“You accompany me to my favorite club in Kiev this evening, Miss Anna,” he said. “You come alone and you are my guest. You do this for me, and I file corporate tax returns.”Ellen Higgins rolled her eyes. Phil Ralston looked away.
“That’s a highly unusual bargain,” Alex said.
“You’re a highly unusual negotiator. Deal?”
An unsolicited offer that would make her trip a stunning success if Federov followed through. And her assignment was to stay with him as much as possible. In a distant part of her mind, she recalled Cerny’s warning: Federov had a penchant for smart, beautiful, educated women.
“Well?” he asked. “I am tired of these discussions. You have convinced me. I will obey your tax laws. I will put our agreement in writing if we have one. Yes or no?”
All eyes were on her. “An agreement in writing would be excellent,” she said.
“Then we will do it.”
“Let’s make a few things very clear,” she answered, “The president of the United States arrives tomorrow and will be here for one overnight. My fiancé, who works in the White House, will be here too. My fiancé and I are going to be married in July.”
“
Pozdoróvlennia
,” Federov said. Congratulations.
“The day
after
tomorrow,
I
will also be leaving with the president.”
“Yes. So? Then we should go out and celebrate the visit and your engagement,” he said. “We will go to my favorite club and drink to your fiancé’s safe arrival.”
Federov’s assistants’ eyes were on her like those of a pair of terriers.
She thought about it further. “We draft a deal memo on receiving your corporate records and on proposed taxation. We do that this afternoon,” she said. She glanced at her watch. It was 3:45 p.m.
“If it’s complete by 6:00 p.m.,” she said, “I’ll go to your club with you.”
“Excellent!” he said.
“I expect to be back at my hotel by midnight.”
“Midnight is very early in Kiev. How about 3:00 a.m.?”
“This is completely inappropriate.”
“All right. Midnight. But you wear the sexiest garment you have with you.”
“I only brought normal clothes,” she said.
“Pity,” he said. His two guards laughed. She was getting angry.
“Will we get a deal memo drafted this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“You have your deal,” she said.
“And you should have some new clothes,” he said.
“But I don’t,” she parried. “If I had something worthy of a Kiev nightclub, I’d wear it, I promise you. But I don’t, so, end of discussion.”
He opened his hands and looked helpless to his bodyguards, who smirked.
“One of us has outwitted the other,” he said with a tinge of regret.
“At no small effort.”
The American staff called in two stenographers who successfully took a draft agreement from Federov. It was complete by 5:30.
“Great,” Alex muttered to Richard Friedman when she reported to him at the end of the business day. “I’ve been here a week and I’m dating the worst gangster in town.”
“He’s only the worst temporarily,” Friedman answered. “Putin is scheduled to visit after the president leaves.”
“That makes me feel so much better about everything,” Alex said.
She put the memo on file and sent it by secure fax back to Washington.
Then she returned to the hotel to change for an involuntary evening out.
Federov, meanwhile, was one step ahead of her.
When she arrived back in her hotel room, she discovered that Federov had sent over a change of clothing that she had unwittingly agreed to wear.
A new dress, a deep burgundy silk, from one of the top Italian designers, a low cut with a high hem, material that was as light as a feather. The type of thing that cost three thousand dollars in Rome, Paris, or New York. She tried it on and walked to the mirror and stopped short. The neckline was lower that anything she had ever worn in her life. The hem was at least ten inches above the knee. For several seconds she stared at herself, hardly believing what she saw. At first she thought, no way. She didn’t dare wear it and wouldn’t do it. She would pretend that she hadn’t received it.
Then a change of mind came over her.
All right. She would live a little on the edge. If this was what it took to get a deal out of Comrade Federov, full speed ahead. Then she’d save the dress, wear it for Robert and let him go crazy over it. He could have his fun removing it from her. That also reminded her. She found the bracelet Robert had given her just before she had departed. She put it on her wrist. Part of Robert would be with her.
Meanwhile, if this was what Federov wanted, she’d let him have it.