Radiant Angel (5 page)

W
e 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.

T
he 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.

Tess and I tried to make ourselves useful, but neither of us knew our way around a kitchen and the fat lady yelled at me a few times. The Latina ladies, however, were kind and helpful. Nevertheless, Tess
and I sort of stuck out, and I was afraid that our cover was going to be blown. In fact, the two Russian security guys kept eyeing us.

Dean saw that we were clueless, so he made Tess and me his personal assistants, and showed us how to put garnish on the trays. Tess used the opportunity to pop a hard-boiled egg in her mouth. We exchanged glances and she smiled, though I could see she was still anxious about this unplanned undercover assignment.

Within twenty minutes there were enough trays loaded so we could begin serving, and I whispered to Dean, “We’ll help serve.”

He nodded and gave me a conspiratorial wink. Dean was probably CIA—Culinary Institute of America. And he was a patriot. Two good citizen awards for Dean Hampton.

Tess and I and four catering ladies, carrying trays, followed the fat lady into a service corridor that led out to a sprawling rear deck overlooking the ocean.

The party had already started, and everyone had a glass of champagne in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I looked around for Petrov, but I was distracted by about two dozen young women in bikinis and skimpy cover-ups. The ladies were mingling with paunchy middle-aged men who were dressed mostly in shorts and Hawaiian shirts. There seemed to be no wives present, though it was nice to see that the men had all brought their daughters or nieces. I noticed, too, that everyone was speaking Russian. We’re not in New York anymore.

I counted about thirty men, and I also spotted three men in black who were not drinking. Tamorov had lots of security, which meant that he needed it.

There was a tiki bar set up on the deck, and two bartenders who looked Russian were pouring champagne. In the middle of the hundred-foot-long deck was a swimming pool where a few of the ladies were dangling their toes. At the far end of the deck was a hot tub, but no one was in it yet.

I didn’t see Petrov or Fradkov, or Dmitry the driver, or Igor the unidentified guy with them, and this gave me a little worry.

Also, I didn’t see Georgi Tamorov, whom I would recognize from surveillance photos.

All the servers put their trays on a table, and the Russian men converged like we’d thrown blood into shark-infested waters. We got out of there before we were eaten and returned to the kitchen.

On the way, Tess whispered, “I don’t see Petrov or the others.”

“Right.”

We got more trays, brought them outside, and removed the now empty trays. After about four trips, the food was coming out faster than the porkers could eat it. The women, however, only nibbled.

Meanwhile, Petrov, Fradkov, Tamorov, and Igor still hadn’t shown up, but I saw Dmitry, which was a good sign that his boss was still here. Dmitry was now dressed in shorts and sandals, and he was catching up on the champagne, so I assumed he wouldn’t be driving for a while.

We were now doing passed hors d’oeuvres, and a few of the Russian guys were flirting with Tess in English, and I heard one guy ask her if she was an hors d’oeuvre or the main course, which was maybe a great line in Moscow.

I, being the only male server, made it my responsibility to see that the young ladies were attended to. And being the only guy there who was taller than he was wide, I became popular with the female guests, who seemed interested in my zakuski. One of them put her champagne glass to my lips and insisted I drink. This didn’t happen much in the Mideast section of the Anti-Terrorist Task Force. In fact, never.

On my fifth or sixth trip from the kitchen to the deck I finally saw Petrov. He was sitting at a cocktail table with Fradkov and Igor, and Georgi Tamorov. They were all dressed in shorts and tropical shirts, but only Tamorov was drinking champagne. Petrov, Fradkov, and Igor were drinking what looked like water, though it could have been vodka. Or not. Always watch the guys who are not drinking. If they’re not Muslims or AA guys, they have a reason. I looked at Igor, who was staring off into space with his dark, deep-set eyes. He looked like a killer.

I passed around some more zakuski, then went to the bar and said to the bartender, who spoke some English, “More vodka for those gentlemen.”

He informed me, “No wood-ka.
Voda
,” and poured three glasses of Russian mineral water from a bottle.

I didn’t want to get that close to Petrov, so I asked a server to deliver the drinks.

Well, you can’t make too much of men at a party who don’t drink alcohol. Sometimes the guy just wants to be standing at the end of the night without worrying about getting Willie to rise to the occasion and do his duty.

Back in the kitchen, Dean handed me another tray and asked, “How’s it going?”

“Great.” I asked, “How long are you on?”

“About midnight.” He informed me, “When the sun goes down, the party starts to get a little wild. Skinny-dipping and stuff.”

“Do we all get naked?”

Dean forced a smile, probably wondering what government agency I was with. I’d have shown my creds again, but I came in here clean. Regarding that, Tess and I had been here about two hours, and I knew I had to contact Matt and Steve or they’d be busting through the gates with the local police.

The two kitchen security guys were sitting at a table, eating pickles and watching a Russian-language soccer match on a flat-screen TV.

I asked Dean, “Can I use the phone?”

“No.”

“Can
you
use the phone? Like, what if you needed more pickled herring or something?”

“I guess…”

“I’ll give you a number to call. You’ll talk to Matt. Tell him about the cell phones and that J&T are okay, and we’ll keep Vaseline under the eye until the caterers leave.”

Dean glanced at the security guys.

“You understand that this is a matter of national security?”

He nodded.

I gave him Matt’s cell phone number and he repeated it.

I took my tray out to the deck, where Tess was now the cocktail waitress, going around with a tray of champagne glasses.

I informed her, “Dean says everyone gets naked later.”

“What the hell did you get me into?”

“You volunteered,” I reminded her.

She moved off with her tray of bubbly.

Indeed, this was a day of things not being what they seemed. Tess Faraday was not a serving girl, and maybe she wasn’t working with me because she liked me. And it was obvious that her frequent trips to the ladies’ room while on surveillance were also occasions to make a phone call—probably to her husband, but maybe to someone else. And Vasily Petrov was not a Human Rights delegate to the U.N., and maybe he wasn’t here for the party.

At the end of every masquerade, the masks come off and you know who’s who. And when you know who’s who, you know what’s what.