Minotaur

CONTENTS

MINOTAUR

A Jim Chapel Story

DAVID WELLINGTON

1.

T
he mansion on the South Fork of Long Island wasn’t the biggest Jim Chapel had ever seen—­only three stories high, maybe twenty-­five rooms total. On the other hand nobody had tried to make it discreet or tasteful: it boasted an Olympic-­size swimming pool, two tennis courts and its own private helipad. It could be seen for miles from the main road, especially since floodlights on the lawn lit up the front side all night long. It was not the kind of house he expected a notorious Soviet double agent to live in.

Chapel pulled up at the front gate, suddenly very aware of the late-­model Ford he was driving (government issue) and just how little he’d paid for the gray wool suit he was wearing. But the uniformed guard who came out to open the gate for him just waved Chapel through and went back to his gatehouse.

Heading up the drive to the main building, Chapel sighed under his breath.

“Anything the matter, sugar?”

The voice on the hands-­free device in his ear belonged to a woman he’d never met, though she’d saved his life many times. He didn’t even know her name—­he just called her his guardian angel. He relaxed instantly. Every time she spoke to him it felt like someone was pouring honey in his ear—­if she’d worked for a phone chat line, she would have been running the place in a month.

He chuckled to himself as he watched a servant come running out of the main house, a valet come to take his car away so nobody would see it out front. “I’m just still wondering how the hell I got this job. There are other ­people more qualified.” This wasn’t some covert ops mission where he was expected to infiltrate a heavily armed facility or rescue hostages or take out an arms cache. Those kinds of operations he could handle. “There have to be a hundred guys more qualified than me. A diplomat, maybe—­or a CIA flack trained in evaluating defectors.”

“You were picked for two reasons I can think of,” Angel said. “One, the man who owns this pile, Ygor Favorov, used to be in the GRU—­Soviet military intelligence—­so he’s more likely to trust a man in the same line of business.”

“Twenty-­five years ago he and I would have spent every day trying to find new and creative ways to kill each other,” Chapel pointed out.

“True, but a quarter century changes a lot of things. Then there’s the second reason: Director Hollingshead trusts you. And not a lot of other ­people,” Angel told him.

Rupert Hollingshead was probably the most important man in American military intelligence that nobody had ever heard of. He was in charge of cleaning up all the old messes left behind by the Cold War. He’d turned Jim Chapel into his personal field agent. The trust ran both ways, and Chapel was sure that Hollingshead had a good reason to want him on this assignment. Still . . .

“Remind me which one is the salad fork,” Chapel said. He really didn’t want to embarrass himself tonight.

“Just start with the one on the outside, and work your way in,” Angel cooed.

The servant reached for the door handle of Chapel’s car. Chapel forced himself to remember he wasn’t being carjacked, that this was how rich ­people visited each other. He put a smile on his face and climbed out onto the gravel driveway.

A tour of duty in Afghanistan, ten years in field ser­vice in intelligence, and this was the mission that scared him the most: having dinner with a wealthy family.

2.

T
he front door was opened for him by a servant who didn’t even make eye contact. Chapel stepped inside to a grand foyer dominated by a massive crystal chandelier. His cheap shoes squeaked on the marble floor. Before him a wide staircase led up to the second floor.

He caught a glimpse of motion out of the corner of his eye and his combat reflexes kicked in—­he swiveled around to look up at the source of the motion, one hand already reaching for the gun in his jacket. Except he wasn’t carrying it today. He’d assumed he would be frisked at the door, so he’d just left it at home.

“I know she’s hot, but stay frosty there, cowboy,” Angel said in his ear.

Chapel forced himself to calm down. The woman coming down the stairs wasn’t an enemy combatant. She was Fiona Favorov, the former British supermodel who had married Favorov back in 2003. She was, in fact, quite attractive—­a vision in a lemon yellow dress with waves of dark hair cascading around her shoulders. She was perhaps thirty-­five years old but her skin was still flawless except for some tasteful crow’s-­feet around her eyes that crinkled endearingly when she smiled, as she did when she came close enough to hold out her hands and welcome Chapel to her house.

“Is it Captain, or Mister Chapel?” she asked.

Chapel’s brain froze as he tried to understand what she was asking. Her face didn’t change at all as she waited for him to puzzle it out.

“Just—­Jim,” he said. “Just call me Jim.” He lifted his hands to take hers.

That did get a reaction out of her, though not the one he’d expected. As she felt how cold his left hand was she didn’t recoil or even blink in surprise. Instead she took his left hand in both of hers and turned it over, studying the artificial skin that covered his robotic fingers.

Chapel opened his mouth to explain but she shook her head to forestall him.

“You should know that in this house we support the troops,” she said. Her smile transformed into a look of resolute patriotism.

Chapel felt like he was about three steps behind in the conversation, and not sure how to catch up.

In his ear Angel told him, “Careful. This one’s not just a pretty face. She’s doing a job right now, and one she’s very competent at. She’s been trained and she’ll know how to handle you. Either to put you at your ease or throw you off your guard.”

Or both at once, Chapel thought.

In Afghanistan he had lost his left arm. When he came home the Army was good enough to give him a new one, but it wasn’t perfect. The silicone skin on top of the bionic arm was airbrushed to match his own skin tone and it even had convincing hair on the knuckles, but it wouldn’t fool anyone who touched it—­it didn’t share his body temperature, and they could feel the metal bones underneath. He was used to ­people being unnerved by it, even freaked out. Fiona Favorov seemed to have figured all of that out in the time it took to shake his hand. She wanted him to know she wasn’t put off by the arm.

But more than that. By saying she supported the troops, she implied they were her troops, and her husband Favorov’s. Both of them were naturalized American citizens, Chapel knew—­and their children were American by birth. It would be easy to peg Fiona and Favorov as foreign nationals and therefore a security risk, but here she had insisted she was every bit as American as Chapel, in a way he couldn’t think of contradicting. This woman was very, very sharp, he decided, and Angel was right—­he did need to be careful. She was playing him. Maybe that was just standard practice for her—­maybe she played this game with every visitor to her house. Or maybe she’d been given instructions to do this, maybe it was part of a bigger plan.

“We’re going to have dinner in just a little bit, in the small dining room,” Fiona said. “It’s through there. But first Ygor would like to sit and have a drink so he can unwind from the day’s business. We’d love to have you join us.”

“Sure,” Chapel said, feeling almost exactly as he had on his first date, back when he was sixteen. Like he was a heavy object that could barely move, much less form a coherent thought.

“Tell her she has a lovely home,” Angel said.

“You have a lovely home,” Chapel said.

Fiona gave him a smile so bright it would have made flowers turn to meet it.

3.

F
iona led Chapel out onto a wide deck behind the house, where he had a good view of the swimming pool and beyond it the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. It looked more like the veranda of a luxury resort in the Caribbean than the recreation area of a single family on the Long Island coast, with dozens of deck chairs and patio tables set up as if a massive party was likely to break out at any moment. Only one of the chairs was occupied. Ygor Favorov was watching the sun set while he waited for his dinner. He did not get up as Chapel approached, but he did hold out a hand for Chapel to shake.

“You’ve met my wife, I see. My prize possession,” Favorov said. The man’s voice had a little of Russia left in it, but otherwise he looked like any other East Coast American millionaire. His hair had thinned out on top but was still dark. Expensively simple sunglasses perched on his beak-­like nose. He had an even rich tan and his white open-­necked shirt was made of slightly rumpled linen.

“I’ve had that pleasure,” Chapel replied.

Favorov nodded as if Chapel had confirmed something he already believed. “This house is mostly her work. She keeps it pleasant for me, and she raises my children.”

“You make me sound like a housewife,” Fiona protested, with a smile.

“Oh, not just that. Outside this house, she’s active in many charity causes, of course. You know about this, Chapel? You know that rich women spend their days trying to help the poor? It’s so they don’t feel quite so useless.”

Chapel saw Fiona stiffen, just a little, from the corner of his eye. Her perfect façade never cracked, but she didn’t laugh off the barb, either. Favorov was trying to sound him out, that much was clear, but he was also giving himself away a little—­Chapel could tell Favorov’s marriage wasn’t perfect.

“From what I’ve seen,” Chapel said, “she could get a job anywhere as an interior decorator.” He had no idea if that was the right thing to say or not, but it got Fiona looking at him with something like respect. That was good. He could use all the allies he could get, here.

“You’re not the usual fellow,” Favorov said. “Not CIA.”

“No, sir. I’m from the Pentagon,” Chapel said, which was strictly true. Rupert Hollingshead, his director, had an office in the Pentagon—­or rather, underneath it, in a secret fallout shelter that didn’t appear on the official tour.

Favorov grunted in confusion. “Every year, someone comes to dinner. To see if I still have any secrets left to sell. I’ll tell you what I tell the CIA. I’m out of stock.”

Chapel tried to smile. What he knew about Favorov made it difficult. The Russian had been in the GRU, once, Soviet military intelligence. He had been one of the USSR’s leading men in Afghanistan and had overseen part of the war there that had brought the Soviet empire to its knees. His hands had gotten pretty dirty in the process. If the dossier Chapel had seen was accurate, then Favorov had been responsible for the destruction of at least three Afghan villages—­with the civilians still cowering inside their houses when the bombers came.

His position had given Favorov a front-­row seat for the end of Russia’s world-­conquering ambitions. He must have seen what the future held and realized that the Politburo couldn’t afford to keep fighting such wars, especially when they couldn’t be won. So in 1987, at a particularly scary point in the Cold War, he had defected to the USA. The CIA had paid him at least a million dollars (as usual, they refused to divulge an actual figure) for a list of names of Soviet spies working in the United States, many of them in extremely high profile defense positions. Information that must have seemed invaluable at the time—­if it had ever come to a war between the superpowers, the spies on Favorov’s list could have tipped the scales toward a Russian victory.

Instead, the Iron Curtain had come down and Russian-­style communism had vanished from the earth, to be replaced by . . . well, whatever Putin was doing now. The spies on the list had become useless, with no one left in Moscow to report to. Less than five years after it was sold, Favorov’s intelligence had become worthless.

To everyone except the man himself, of course.

A servant came up and put a drink in Chapel’s hand—­whiskey and soda, strong but not too strong. The ice in the glass clinked happily as he sipped at it. Fiona took a glass of white wine while the three of them watched the waves crash out on the beach. “I’m not here for information on Soviet assets,” Chapel said. “This isn’t a debriefing about old wars. I’m more interested in what you’ve done since you became an American citizen.”

“I imagine you do not like to see this, Chapel,” Favorov said, lifting one hand wearily and gesturing at the house and grounds around him. “You must be biting back your anger, to see a former enemy living in such luxury.”

“Ygor, Jim is a guest here,” Fiona chided, though there was enough of a laugh in her voice to make sure no one felt she was honestly reprimanding her husband.

“On the contrary,” Chapel said, responding to Favorov’s words. “You’ve built this with your bare hands. I certainly respect that.”

Favorov leaned forward to stare at him through the sunglasses. Maybe he was trying to decide if Chapel was being honest. “I took the money your CIA gave to me, and I invested it most carefully. Bought my way into the free market. Started up any number of businesses—­real estate, then construction, and shipping so I could move the steel and lumber I needed to build where I chose. I worked hard and put that money back into my new country, out of gratitude.”

Chapel nodded. In his ear Angel confirmed what Favorov had said. All of the Russian’s money had stayed in the US—­he had never invested in foreign companies or building projects. “It’s interesting, though. You could read his life’s story one way, that he’s a patriot—­or you can look deeper. He’s had plenty of chances to invest overseas but he turns them down because they would make too much money. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I’ve been going over his tax forms. Some years he shows huge profits, and then the next year he’ll make a decision that looks foolish and he’ll lose a bundle. The richest he ever got was in 1999, when through a series of very, very shrewd investments he brought his net worth up to nine hundred million; the next year he invested in a pharmaceutical company that was being investigated by the FDA and he lost nearly a third of his entire fortune. Anybody could have seen that coming. And it’s not just one bad decision. The pattern repeats often enough that it has to be deliberate. It’s like he’s been very careful never to become an actual billionaire. I have no idea why.”

Chapel did. Billionaires made the news. They had sycophantic reporters following them everywhere, begging for their business secrets. Favorov had been careful to become rich but not so rich that he became a celebrity. As an intelligence man himself, Chapel understood that perfectly. As long as Favorov stayed out of the limelight nobody would ask too many questions.

“Sometimes a leopard can change his spots.” Favorov smiled. It was a cold smile, the smile of a man who has seen reality at its ugliest and refused to flinch. “I’m a new man. Your government should be thanking me for what I do. I help keep this economy afloat. But still, all the time, they send men like you to pester me. Is that fair? I ask you.”

Chapel fought the urge to shrug. “I have a few questions for you, that’s all. If you’d like, we can start right now so I don’t waste any more of your time.”

“Well, I don’t like it at all,” Fiona said, stepping forward. “We promised you dinner, and I refuse to let you think I’m a bad hostess, even if my husband is in a gruff mood. Please tell me all of this official business can wait until after dessert.”

Chapel smiled. “Of course,” he said. “Where are my manners?”

Fiona reached out and squeezed his bicep. His right one, the one that was still real. “You have Ygor beat, that’s the important thing.”

The Russian snorted in derision, but then he slowly rose to his feet. “If we’re going to eat, let’s eat. I’m hungry now.” He stomped off toward the house, leaving them to follow.