Collision (10 page)

Assuming that the town car was registered in New York City and would be of interest to the NYPD Intelligence Division, he sent an urgent e-mail request for a search for the registered owner of a black Mercedes with plates ending in 4 and 8. Because any information about the Sullivan & Ford shootings was to be copied to Assistant Chief Louise Mosley, she saw the request e-mail within minutes. She immediately called Mike Simon, a former CIA officer who was deputy director of the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, with whom she had worked closely on several clandestine intelligence cases.

The task force, a domestic intelligence organization formed by the New York Police Department in 1980, ran a network of undercover officers and informants to track suspected terrorists. It was frequently criticized for its profiling of Muslims and for its often unfriendly relationship with the FBI. But its relationship with the Washington police was quiet and friendly.

“Your guys just got an urgent request from us,” she told Simon. “I'm calling you to tell you what's behind it. We believe the car contains one of the shooters who killed four people here. They may be heading to New York.”

“I'm on it personally, Lou,” Simon assured her.

Half an hour later he called her back to say, “This is a great lead, Lou. Thanks much.”

“What have you got?”

“I can't tell you everything on the phone. But we traced the Mercedes with those last numbers. It's registered to a town-car company with Russian mob connections and maybe some deals that we're looking at. The task force has been keeping an eye on those guys. The guy who runs this is into some bad stuff. We've got an all-points out on the car, emphasis on East Coast, big emphasis on Washington–New York corridor. And, lest I forget, the FBI.”

“Keep me posted, Mike. These are bad guys.”

“Don't worry, Lou. We'll find that car and the bastards in it.”

 

20

When Yazov turned the
town car onto Pennsylvania Avenue, a red, two-tier Washington tour bus was in front of him. Ordinarily he would have swung around the bus. But the hulking concrete J. Edgar Hoover Building, headquarters of the FBI at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, was coming into view on his left, and he decided to remain as inconspicuous as possible. On the GPS, the blinking red light showed the laptop was two blocks farther up, at 701 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Yazov was still behind the red bus when he pulled up to the curb opposite the Navy Memorial's granite sea.

“Any ideas what we do?” Yazov asked.

“Too much traffic,” Kurpanov said. “We gotta get movin'. There's a cop car in the next block.”

“Where's laptop?” Yazov said, pointing to the GPS. Kurpanov leaned forward and squinted at the image.

“Looks like seven hundred one,” Kurpanov said. He opened the window, stuck his head out, and craned for a look at the tall semicircular buildings encircling the Navy Memorial. “It could be anywhere in these goddamned buildings.”

“You are right. And now?”

“Somebody must've found it.”

“Yes, Ahmed,” Yazov said, laughing. “That is a true idea.”

Yazov pulled away from the curb. His eyes shifting back and forth from the windshield to the moving arrow on the GPS, he turned left at the signal light onto Seventh Street. He made his way through knots of traffic to New York Avenue and turned in to the entrance of the Horizon Motel, which had an underground garage.

They did not speak to each other as they climbed the stairway to their second-story room. Yazov did not like talking on a job. And he did not like elevators, where you might meet a potential witness.

He was not used to taking charge. All he usually did was drive and wait, then drive again after the job. Now, Viktor Yazov decided, he had to take charge.

He slid the keycard into the lock and entered. He threw the keycard and car keys on the top of the cabinet containing the minibar. He opened the door and took out a miniature bottle of vodka and a Diet Coke. Sitting on the edge of one of the twin beds, he handed the Coke to Kurpanov, opened and drained the vodka, then motioned for Kurpanov to sit opposite him on the other bed.

Speaking in Russian, he said, “When we were at the parking lot at the airport, that guy—”

“Cole Perenchio,” Kurpanov interrupted.

“Yes. That guy. When we were at the parking lot, the tracker was on, the tracker on the laptop.”

“Correct,” Kurpanov said, also speaking in Russian, which made talking to Viktor much easier than when he spoke in halting, “fucking”-laden English.

“We followed his taxi to the hotel, correct?”

“Correct.”

“So we know where he is. Tonight we go there and we kill him.”

“Viktor, we have no instructions to kill him.”

“Correct. But we cannot go back to Basayev saying we lost Dukka. Lost the laptop! Kill Perenchio and we can tell Basayev we have done something.”

“My gun—”

“Your gun,” Yazov said, frowning. “Your fuckin' gun. Yes. And you also lost that. So we use my gun. We find him and maybe we find the laptop. Maybe he has it now.”

“It is worth trying, Viktor. I agree.”

“All right. Here is my plan. We lay low today, tonight. We eat in that Chinese place down the street. Hang out, watch TV. Tomorrow we wait for darkness. We drive to Perenchio's hotel, check in. You do your hit, like that one Dukka and you did in that hotel in Newark. We will do it like that. You call Perenchio's room, tell him he's got a pizza delivery. He knows he did not order it and gets frightened. He leaves the hotel to go to some safe place—maybe to that friend he met at the airport place—and you follow him and you kill him. Then I pick you up and we come back to this place and next day we pay our bill and—”

“And Dukka's room. He's…” Kurpanov said, his voice trailing off.

“Yes. We muss the bed and make it look like it should.”

“Maybe he—”

Yazov, feeling like an uncle again, patted Kurpanov on the knee and said, “My father told me the proverb ‘Maybe and somehow never make anything happen.' No maybe, no somehow. We have a good plan. We will make it happen.”

 

21

Paul Sprague had always
prided himself on his ability to remain completely calm, his emotions under iron control, however dire the circumstances. But self-doubts now fluttered about in his mind like trapped bats as he approached the police barricade at the Sullivan & Ford Building. Asked for photo identification, he showed his driver's license. An officer checked his name against a list, and he was admitted. An officer in the lobby advised that the elevators had been “cleared,” meaning probably that the body was gone. He slipped his S&F entry card into the express elevator slot and ascended.

Questions roiled through his mind:
What have you gotten yourself into? How could you have let your ambitions go unchecked?
His answers were hazy. He first tried to rationalize that it was his wife, Sarah. The Middleburg estate. The home in Palm Beach. It was her desire to play among the elite, to be the glamorous hostess who entertained the rich and famous. But that was a lie.
He
wanted the prestige, the associations, the reputation to be the man to see, to be the first name on the Rolodex of the corporate giants who were intent upon gobbling up their competitors.

And the Ritz condo in Georgetown? That was his idea. He could have rented a unit in the building that housed the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue for a fraction of what he paid at the Ritz. But he wanted the strange kind of notoriety that came from owning one of the most expensive apartments in Washington. His success—or perceived success—could only embellish the image of Sullivan & Ford as being the indispensable law firm in Washington. At least, that was why he had seen to it that the firm picked up some of the condo expenses.

His mind kept drifting back to that first day of law school at Yale. Dean Suskind issued a warning: “Just remember, don't ever sell your integrity to a client no matter how much he offers to pay you because you'll never become rich enough to buy it back.” Well, he was certainly rich, but … Suskind's words haunted him as he reached his corner office.

Ursula appeared, and he told her, “I need to make a few calls. Please make sure that I'm not interrupted.”

“Yes, sir. Can I get you coffee in the meantime?”

Stroking his temples, Sprague said, “That would be great. I have a bit of a headache. The coffee will help.”

Ursula dutifully retreated to a small room that contained a large soft-drink machine and a metallic marvel that brewed espresso, cappuccino, and drip coffee from a selection of the finest brands of coffee beans from Kenya, Colombia, and Jamaica. Ursula selected a dark French roast that was strong, her boss's favorite. She set a paper cup under the brewing nozzle rather than one of the law firm's branded ceramic ones. She had read somewhere that these paper cups and their plastic linings posed a long-term hazard to one's health. But the coffee stayed hot longer in them, and Sprague preferred heat more than health.

After setting the coffee on Sprague's desk, she asked, “Can I bring you anything else?”

“Thank you, Ursula. No. Nothing more. Just remember, no interruptions until I finish my calls.”

“Shall I place them for you, sir?”

“No, I'll make them.”

Unusual,
Ursula thought. Sprague had almost always asked her to place his calls. Her soft voice, with just the right tone of Southern gentility and Germanic efficiency, broke through the barriers of the most unreachable CEOs.
Well, he probably wants to convey his deepest grief to the bereaved relatives and that would be signified by a call dialed by him personally
.

As soon as Ursula departed, Sprague unlocked the middle drawer of his desk and took out what looked like an ordinary landline phone and dialed a number. After a moment of silence, a series of beeps danced in his ear. And then an annoying buzz signaled that he was connecting to his designated recipient.

On the third ring, a man answered in a voice that was high-pitched and abrupt: “Yes? What is it?” The telephone's security-system electronics produced the high pitch; the hasty words conveyed the intended perception that the caller had interrupted important business.

“‘
Yes
?
What is it?
' That's all you have to say?” Sprague asked, the words tumbling out with rage and without thought. He had been instructed to never use the client's name on the phone and to call the client only on this security system, which had been installed in Sprague's office by a silent young man who did not give a name, merely identifying himself as Hamilton's personal communications-security supervisor.

“Excuse me?” the voice asked.

“What in hell have you done?” Sprague shouted, momentarily losing control of his storied calmness.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Turn on GNN, for Christ's sake! There's been a shooting, a goddamn massacre.”

“I'm truly sorry to hear that,” Hamilton said. “But I still don't understand why you're calling me.”

“Stop bullshitting me! We spoke two nights ago. I told you—”

“Yes, and I said I would handle everything.”

“Well, I guess somebody else decided they were going to handle it.…”

“Paul,” Hamilton said, adding a calming tone. “Seriously, I have nothing to do with whatever happened today. So why don't—”

“Because I have something that may belong to you. And—”

“You have it?”

“Yes, and I'm about to turn it over to certain authorities.”

“But it's my property, Paul.”

“That may be so, Robert. But it's potential evidence in a crime investigation.”

“But, please do me a favor and be discreet. First of all, have you tried to open it?”

“Yes. But I couldn't. All I got was a warning that I had no right to open it.”

“Paul, listen carefully.” The man's voice suddenly turned solicitous—
insincerely solicitous
, Sprague easily sensed. “Turn the computer on.… Incidentally, did you type anything on the keyboard when you attempted to open it?”

“A couple of keystrokes. I didn't know whether it belonged to my partner, and I tried to enter the law firm's code numbers. Others may have tried. I don't know—”

“Okay, it's important to get this right. Type in—”

“Is this going to be complicated?” Sprague asked, suddenly sounding nervous.

“Well, it's just a series of strokes. Nothing complicated.”

Sprague hesitated, saying, “Hold on. I need to get it and put it on my desk.”

He put the phone down, opened the door, and gestured for Ursula. “I think I'm going to need some help,” he said softly. “But don't speak.”

Ursula nodded. This had happened before. It began when a client on the telephone or a client wanting an immediate e-mail response assumed that Sprague could at least operate a computer. Then she had to be a stand-in because her boss was computer-illiterate. She entered his office, saw the laptop, and signaled to Sprague to speak into the phone.

“Okay. I'm ready,” Sprague said, moving to allow Ursula to sit before the laptop.

Following a routine she had for this situation, she pushed the speaker button on the phone as the unknown caller said, “First, type the word ‘oracle,' followed, without space, by a dash and then the numeral two. That should lift the initial barrier.”

Ursula followed the directions and looked at Sprague, who said, “Right. It did.”

“Now enter the following numbers: zero, eight, two, eight, four, zero, one, two, two, two, two, four, one.”

Ursula nodded and Sprague spoke, sounding convincingly surprised: “Okay. Got it.… There's a blank screen.”