Rasputin's Shadow (30 page)

I
landed at Reagan and was in a cab less than ten minutes later.

Since wheels-up, Ivan, or Koschey or whoever he really was, had receded out of my system, and my thoughts had zeroed in on Corrigan. I didn’t know how this thing with Kirby would play out. Either way, there were still several burning hoops to jump through, but the hairs on the back of my neck told me that I was about to be closer to him than I had been at any point since Corliss blew his own brains out.

I pulled out my phone and started reviewing what Kurt had sent me, and as the Washington Monument drifted into view, the leviathan himself called.

“
Konnichiwa
. Thursday night is poker night.”

Not exactly what I needed to know. “Well, good luck then.”

“No, not my poker night, man. His poker night. You seriously think I play poker? Even the online version is for losers. Why flush virtual money on blackjack when you can spend it on proficiency points for your Blood Knight?”

I had to stay calm and remind myself he was coming through for me. “So that’s Kirby’s alibi?”

“That’s what I reckon. On three of the last fifteen Thursdays, he’s charged cigars to the shared credit card. On five, he’s charged a crate of beer.”

“They take turns.”

“Exactly. Just four dudes drinking the undrinkable and smoking the unsmokable.”

I glanced at my watch. We were good. “What about his companion? Anything on her?”

“She’s a mystery. Hotel doesn’t have enough cameras to track guests to and from each room, and they only keep CCTV footage for a week at a time. Kirby arrived on his own last week. Same with leaving. They’re very careful.”

I chewed on his info for a moment. “All right. Stay put. I’m going to try and borrow her purse or her cell phone, like we discussed.”

“Sure thing, dude. I’m not going anywhere. Not in Newark, anyway.” He laughed like a high school kid. “Oh, and by the way. The guy has taste. She’s a 36E with medium-sized thongs. The dream combo, assuming there’s no silicone in there.”

I had to get him and Aparo together. They’d have a blast. Then again, I’m not sure the women of New York would ever forgive me.

My phone buzzed. I had another call coming in.

From Federal Plaza.

At least it wasn’t from Aparo’s cell, but it still sent a jolt of alarm through me.

“Consider me overinformed and underbriefed,” I told him. “I’ll let you get back to your lovely Pandaren. Sayonara till later.”

I swapped calls, and breathed out. It was Wrightson, from the computer analysis and response team, and he didn’t sound urgent.

“I’ve looked at your pictures,” he told me, referring to the shots I sent him of the electrical junk pile we found at Sokolov’s garage. “It’s nothing weapons-grade, if that’s what you’re worried about. It actually looks like your guy’s into some high-end microwave technology. He’s got strip line, cavity and dielectric resonators in there, transistors, low-power diodes.”

None of that meant anything to me. “What’s it all used for?”

“I’d say he’s been tinkering with some kind of microwave transmission device. Some of these circuits you’d find in any cell-phone tower, but others are more specialized.”

This wasn’t in line with what I’d been thinking. “I thought cell-phone towers were huge?”

“Not at all. They’re tall, but that’s to get the best transmission. The components themselves aren’t that big.”

I don’t know where the question came from, but I asked, “Small enough to fit in the back of a van?”

“Sure. Everything in microwave tech is small because the wavelengths themselves are so short, and that includes everything from consumer Wi-Fi to satellite comms. Microwave tech doesn’t use your standard electronic circuitry—what electrical engineers call ‘lumped-element’ circuitry. It uses distributed circuits that are generally pretty minute.”

I focused on the part where he said it could fit in a van. I still didn’t see why Sokolov would do that. “Anything else you can think of?”

“I couldn’t say for sure,” he said, “but it looks like he was trying to increase the range and penetration of his signal through multiple resonator clusters.”

“What sort of range are we talking about?”

“Depends on the power supply and how the resonators were laid out. Anything from ten to a thousand yards would be my guess.”

I’d been hoping for something else. This was all sending me on a tangent that didn’t make sense.

“Sorry I can’t be any more help,” Wrightson concluded. “Let me know if you find the kit. I’d love to see what he’s been up to.”

I was angling for the same thing.

***

T
HE TRAFFIC WAS RUNNING
smoothly and it wasn’t long before we were crossing over the Potomac and hitting Georgetown.

You’d never know from the view that you were leaving Virginia and entering the nation’s capital. The parkland along both sides of the river and the low skyline always looked more to me like a Midwestern town than the part of the city that housed the seat of government. I asked the driver to drop me off at the corner of M and Thomas Jefferson so I could cover the last couple hundred yards on foot. I needed to know who Kirby was seeing before I confronted him, and that meant being there when she arrived. It also meant attracting as little attention as possible. Since I wasn’t carrying an iPad or a Kindle, I had no choice but to fall back on doing this old-style and use a newspaper, the classic cover for discreet surveillance. I bought a copy of the
Washington Times
from a vending machine, then I walked the single block to the hotel.

At around twenty minutes to eight, I entered the hotel and took a quick look around. The lobby had a tony, classic elegance. Plush velvet sofas. Richly veined woods and chrome. Several hundred dollars’ worth of fresh flowers. And darkness. A lot of darkness. The whole place screamed “Not for Kids,” which was just as well, seeing as what Kirby and his companion used the place for.

There was a small niche by the entrance for the concierge. A couple of guests were clearly putting his local knowledge to the test. At the other end of the lobby were two separate desks and armchairs in lieu of the traditional reception counter. Much more personal. The desk on the right was empty. A overly primped receptionist sat behind the other one, typing away at his computer’s keyboard.

I sat in a leather armchair with a perfect view of the hotel’s entrance and hoped that nothing had made Kirby alter his weekly routine tonight. I opened the newspaper and affected the casual air of someone waiting to meet a hotel guest.

About ten minutes later, Kirby walked in.

He went straight past me and across to reception. He was carrying a small gift bag from Biagio. The lady was clearly more than partial to chocolate.

He checked in with the minimum amount of fuss and was already on the way to the elevator before I had finished folding my newspaper.

The second the elevator doors had closed I walked over to the reception desk. There were no other guests there. Some situations called for an FBI badge, but others called for dead presidents. Given why I was here, this was definitely one of the latter. I pulled out a hundred and slid it across the desk.

“Stan Kirby. Just checked in. What room is he in?”

The clerk glanced at the bill somewhat haughtily, then looked up at me. “Sir, I can’t—”

“Sure you can,” I interjected while peeling off another hundred. I held both bills cupped discreetly against the desk.

He gave me an uneasy squint. “You a private detective?”

“Something like that.”

He considered it for a moment, then adjusted his immaculately trimmed eyebrow with a finely manicured finger and said, “The guy pays me fifty every week to ensure discretion. That adds up over time. You’ll need to go considerably higher.”

I leaned in. “I’ll let you in on something. That streak—it’s over. So you might as well take this and hang on to it until your next gravy train pulls in.”

The clerk thought about this. Maybe this was Kirby’s last Thursday. I clearly knew about the affair. Why else would I be there?

He reached over and, grudgingly, took the cash.

“Four fourteen,” he mumbled.

I gave him a smile. “Good call.”

He looked bummed, and proceeded to shuffle papers aimlessly across his desk.

“One more question,” I said.

He raised a stiff hand. “The woman?”

I smiled again.

He glanced down at his now-open palm, pointedly.

I pulled out another hundred and gave it to him.

“Long black hair. Spectacular body. You can’t miss her.”

I nodded. “Appreciate it.”

I was heading back to my chair when a noticeably attractive woman with long dark hair, a short dress, and four-inch pumps came in and went straight for the elevators.

To the untrained eye she could have been a high-class escort, but everything was a bit too perfect and considered. This was a woman who genuinely cared about the impression she gave, rather than giving an impression because she was paid to.

I already knew she wasn’t Kirby’s wife, since some of the pictures Kurt had taken off Facebook and sent me had Mrs. Kirby in them. To be doubly sure, I pulled them up on my phone. It wasn’t her. Then something clicked in the periphery of my memory, and I scrolled through the other shots. Our mystery woman was in one of them, standing next to Kirby’s wife, the two of them all hair and heels with big smiles all around. They were friends.

I called Kurt.

I
t didn’t take Kurt long to call me back. He sounded out of breath.

“You’re going to fucking freak, dude.”

“Go on.”

He said, “She’s his sister-in-law. Inès Alcalde. His wife is Sofia Kirby, née Alcalde. Inès is three years younger, single, a Realtor with a very healthy business. No kids; I don’t think she can have any. It’s like a movie of the week, dude. I hate those.”

“You hacked her medical records?”

“Nope. Facebook again. Seriously, Zuckerberg’s gonna put us all out of business.”

This was good. Really good. “All right, thanks. I’ll take it from here. Consider your free pass well and truly earned. Just don’t use it anytime soon.”

“Sayonara.”

I now felt armed with more than enough to bring Kirby around to my way of thinking. But that didn’t mean that he’d agree to my terms.

I took the elevator up to the fourth floor, found 414, and knocked on the door.

It took a few seconds to get a muffled “Yes?” from Kirby, who was standing by the still-closed door.

“Mr. Kirby? Hotel security, sir.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then he cracked the door open. He was in a dressing gown.

“What is it?” He was seriously annoyed.

I decided the direct approach was best. “Do you think your wife would have a problem with the fact that you’re screwing her sister?”

His face exsanguinated faster than in any vampire movie I’d seen.

I nodded comfortingly. “It’s okay, Stan. It’s going to be fine. She doesn’t need to know. But I’m gonna need a few minutes of your time. So why don’t you throw some clothes on, tell Inès you won’t be long, and come down to the bar with me. Given your line of work, I’m sure she’ll understand. Hell, play it right and she might even get a kick out of it.” I added a conspiratorial wink for good measure.

Kirby was having difficulty processing what I was telling him. In fact, for someone who had been caught committing a catastrophic error, it was apt that his brain appeared to be shutting down altogether.

I moved closer to him. Lowered my voice. “Take a breath, Stan. I’m giving you a way out, and it doesn’t involve money or pain or betraying your country. You can even keep seeing the lovely Inès if you want to, though I’m not sure I can heartily recommend it.”

It took a while for this to sink in, but when it had, he seemed to regain control.

“Give me a second,” he said.

***

W
E TOOK A BOOTH
in the even-darker bar.

I ordered a Coke. Kirby asked for a double whiskey, which I thought was entirely justified.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, nervously spinning his iPhone around on the table.

“Not really relevant right now. You just need to focus on keeping me happy and this will all blow over real quick.”

The drinks arrived. He let go of his phone and knocked back both shots within a second of his glass hitting the table. “What do you want?”

“I want you to find someone for me.”

“Find someone?” He studied me, then asked, “What are you, a fed?”

I ignored his question. “Again, not relevant. I just need to put a real name to an alias. A Company one.”

He got my drift immediately, and his eyes went wide. “This is someone at the Company?”

“Yes.” I looked straight at him.

“I thought you said this wouldn’t involve anything like that?”

“It doesn’t. This is personal. And if you do it carefully enough, no one needs to know it ever happened.”

“This is fucking blackmail. I could report you and have your ass thrown in jail.”

I felt a lurching in my gut at the word, like I’d just hit the lowest point on a roller coaster less than a second after being at the highest. But I couldn’t pull out now. “Sure. Go ahead. Tell them everything. But you go down that road and you’re quickly gonna find yourself in one hell of a custody battle and looking down the barrel at ten years of crippling alimony while trying to find women in singles’ bars who won’t mind going back to your dump of a one-bedroom apartment without the promise of chocolates or flowers ’cause you’re still paying for your son’s braces and your daughter’s riding lessons and you can’t even afford a new shirt, let alone gifts for your lover. How does that sound to you?”

I waited for all that to sink in. It didn’t take long.

“You’re an asshole,” he muttered.

“Extreme measures, pal. Not by choice. But don’t doubt my commitment for a second.”

He glared at me, trying to find some measure of hope in my expression. I stared back like a sphinx. Then after a painful few seconds, he broke.

“So who is it?”

This was the point of no return. Once Kirby had the name, the risk that he would go back to Langley and flag it became very real, with unknowable consequences for me and my family. But I couldn’t let go of it. Not when I might be one small step from dragging Corrigan out of the shadows and into the light of day.

“Corrigan. Reed Corrigan. It’s a cover. That’s all I can tell you about him. There are other things, but knowing them may prejudice you, so all you get is the name.”

He studied me for a beat, then asked, “What did he do?”

“When I said it’s personal, I meant it. But one thing I can tell you. He’s a piece of shit. Makes you look like a saint. Keeping the bastard’s real identity a secret is not worth you losing everything you’ve spent twenty years building, and you should be able to get me what I need without anyone finding out. And that would be the end of it. You have my word. Get me the name—his
real
name—and you’ll never hear from me again.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Then all bets are off. So your best course of action is to find a way because I
really
want to find him. And the sooner you do it, the sooner I’m out of your life.”

“When do you need it by?”

“It can wait till morning.”

Kirby grimaced painfully, then he shook his head and nodded.

“Is that one ‘r’ or two?”

***

K
OSCHEY INTERRUPTED
S
OKOLOV’S WORK
again, secured him in the small office, and stepped away to make another call.

The Lebanese car dealer answered after the first ring.

“Have your people made a decision?” he asked in Arabic.

The man said, “They’re interested, but they’re nervous. They fear the potential retributions.”

Typical
, Koschey thought in silence.
All bluster, no guts
. Still, he knew they were close to biting. He just needed to press some more and be more convincing.

“Tell them the retributions are coming at them anyway, whether they do anything or not,” Koschey told him. “You know the Americans and the Israelis are gunning for them as well as I do. It’s only a matter of time. They’re not going to let them keep their reactors and their centrifuges. They’re never going to let them into their exclusive club. But if we do this,” Koschey said, using the “we” to include himself in the circle of interested plotters, “we’d be hitting them first. And we’ll have something to threaten them with that’ll make them think twice about retaliating. Attacking them like this is the best defense. And after Stuxnet and Flame,” he continued, referring to the sophisticated U.S./Israeli cyberattacks that had been wreaking havoc on Iran’s computer networks and crippling its uranium-enrichment programs, “the irony of our method won’t be lost on them. Even if they won’t be able to prove it.”

“Since when has that stopped them from doing anything?” the man grumbled.

“We have a small window in which to do this. I’ll need an answer by morning.”

“I’ll let them know,” the man said. “I’ll have an answer for you by then.”

Koschey ended the call and stared at his phone in silence. He knew they’d find his offer hard to resist. He was giving them a chance to strike at the Great Satan in a way they would have never imagined possible. And even that wasn’t the whole truth.

Koschey hadn’t told them who his real target was. They would have never agreed to that. They would have been too scared. But if they did accept his proposal, as he expected, his conversations with them would be enough to frame them for what he really had in mind, and they were hardly in a position to plead their innocence while acknowledging that they’d agreed to bankroll a different terrorist strike on U.S. soil.

Everything was in place. Koschey’s central concern was now time. He needed to do it quickly. Pressure would be mounting and the noose around him would be tightening with every hour now that the Americans realized what he had. Which would make his disappearing act all the more difficult the longer he waited.

He nodded to himself, then turned to retrieve Sokolov and finish what they’d started.

The second hundred million dollars, a new face, and a new beginning were only hours away.