Requiem For a Glass Heart (34 page)

W
HEN
C
ATE OPENED THE DOOR TO
S
TEPANOV’S SUITE, THE LATE
afternoon sun was falling obliquely over the garden wall and throwing sharp shadows across one side of the living room. As she turned to close the door, she saw the two men behind it, too late to react before one of them spun her around, pinned one arm to her side, and wrenched the other hard up between her shoulder blades. The second man clamped one hand over her mouth and pressed the barrel of a handgun to her forehead.

Cate and the gunman stared at each other for a moment as he raised his eyebrows in query. She nodded. The gunman then produced a foam ball, which he roughly crammed into her mouth. Both men were wearing surgical gloves. Handcuffs clamped her wrists together behind her, and the man behind her threw her onto the sofa.

The gunman laid down his gun on the coffee table and produced a notepad and felt-tip pen. “The room is bugged,” he wrote.

She stared at him. He was Anglo, about her age, wearing jeans, sneakers, a polo shirt, and a navy blue sport coat. His partner was about the same age and wore dress slacks with a navy silk shirt and a linen sport coat.

The gunman turned the notepad to a clean sheet and wrote, “We want Izvarin’s list.”

She frowned at him.

He gave an exasperated look, reached into his coat pocket, took out a square of sandpaper. He wrapped the paper around his fist and hit her. The blow so astonished her that she didn’t even feel any pain with it, except the searing scrape left by the sandpaper.

He raised his eyebrows again and jutted his face forward.

She frowned, shook her head, trying as best she could to portray her consternation.

He picked up the pad and wrote the word “Names!”

She shook her head.

He hit her again, on the side of the head, scraping a swatch of skin just to the right of her left eyebrow. He hit her a third time, scraping her chin. Again she was stunned, not by the blows, which really weren’t hurting all that much, but by the fact that this was actually happening to her. He hit her again on the cheek. Her eyes were watering profusely.

He picked up the notepad again and wrote, “We know about Volkov. We know what you are doing. We know you had the list.”

She was shaking her head now, her eyes streaming, the raw scrapes from the sandpaper beginning to sting sharply. She shook her head again and looked at the other man. Through her tears she saw that he was wearing tiny headphones, and occasionally he would put his fingers to the earphones as if to hear more clearly.

Suddenly he reached out and slapped his partner on the shoulder and quickly tapped on one side of the earphones.

The hitter grimaced and his mouth formed the word “Shit” without making a sound. He reached into his pocket, took out the key to the handcuffs, tossed it on the coffee table, and the two of them opened the door to the suite and stepped outside, closing the door behind them. It was over.

Cate immediately fell onto the floor and rolled over on her stomach. She got on her knees, put her mouth to the corner of the sofa, and began using the piping on the edge of the upholstery to rake at the foam gag. Working her jaws as she dragged her mouth back and forth over the piping, she began to loosen the ball, and in a few seconds it popped out onto the floor. She walked on her knees to the coffee table,
turned around backward, felt around with her fingers until she got the key, and struggled to her feet. Then, staggering into the bedroom, she slammed the door closed with her foot.

“Goddamnit, Ann,” she muttered, coughing and working frantically to get the key into the handcuffs. “A couple of guys were waiting for me in here at Stepanov’s when I got in just now. They cuffed my hands behind me and slapped me around.” She made one wrench of the key and one of the cuffs sprang open. “I’m pissed,” she said, “really pissed. If you know something about this, I want to hear from you right now.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and held a cold, damp washcloth to her head. She was furious, a little shaken, maybe even a little embarrassed at her frantic call. She was holding the telephone receiver to her ear with her other hand, and everyone at the off-site was on the line.

“This doesn’t make much goddamn sense,” Ann was saying.

“They were
American?”
Erika asked.

“I guess. Well, I don’t know that. They were white,” Cate said. She was looking at herself in a mirror she was balancing on her lap. There were a lot of scrapes. The punches hadn’t been hard enough to cause any bruises, but the sandpaper had produced a sensational effect, making her injuries look far more substantial than they were. She was going to have little scabby places all over her face. Shit.

Ann Loder had already been through a gush of apologies for having allowed this to happen, and Cate had quickly regained her composure and said she was sorry she had overreacted. She really was shamefaced about having panicked, and was regretting it, hoping it hadn’t made her look too bad in their eyes. It wasn’t anything they could have helped, under the circumstances. As soon as all of them realized she really wasn’t seriously hurt, they began putting the attack into perspective, or at least trying to figure it out.

“So someone was watching the hallway for them?” Ann asked.

“Watching—I don’t know where they were watching,” Cate said. “Just a lookout, I guess.”

“And they never said a word,” Erika mused. “So you
don’t know if they really were Americans or just dressed like Americans.”

“That’s right,” Cate said. “But they sure as hell looked like Americans.”

“The list?” Ann said, the confusion apparent in her voice. “Shit, what a goofy deal. This doesn’t fit in anywhere. I guess the sons of bitches have criminal records, didn’t want to leave any fingerprints. So maybe they are American.”

“And they thought
Cate
had the list?” Erika said. “No one knows about Cate. And what damn list?”

“Okay.” Ann took a deep breath. “So where does this put us?”

“Somebody has some screwed-up information,” Cate said, wiping her forehead, leaning over the mirror more closely to see if the cut on her lip was going to cause it to swell. She dabbed the spot with the washcloth. “They said that they knew I had the list, that they knew what I was doing.”

“Maybe they thought they were working on Irina,” Erika volunteered. “They said, ‘We know what you are doing.’ They just got the wrong woman.”

“That’s the best I can figure it, too,” Ann said. “But that’s a pretty big screw-up. I mean, how could they have done that?”

“So where is Valentin?” Cate asked.

They told her the situation with Volkov. Cate sighed hugely, still feeling her muscles loosening.

“Then where does this put us?” she asked.

“Excuse me, Catherine,” Ometov said. At the beginning of this conversation, when they had called in response to her news, both Ometov and Hain had offered their commiseration immediately, as was appropriate. But now that the three women had had their discussion, it seemed the men were ready to press on to new matters.

“I have a proposal for you,” he continued, his voice steady, calming. “Everyone is pushing hard to find out what this is all about, of course, as you might imagine, but I think— and this is my idea, I have talked it over with Curtis—I think this unfortunate incident can work to our advantage.”

“To our advantage,” Cate said.

“Yes, yes indeed. Let me explain. As we already have told you, we think you have done a remarkable job in befriending
Irina. You practically read my mind when you told her you had a child nearly the same age as her little daughter. This was a brilliant decision. If in fact Krupatin is holding Irina’s child as a hostage, as a means of coercing her to do certain things— and we believe that you were right about that—then we need to know what those things are. We need for you to remain as close to her as you can, to get even closer to her, if possible. These bruises, these scratches you have received, could be used …” He stumbled only a little but was clearly hesitant, tentative. “I think Irina is somewhat taken with you. Perhaps she sees in you the friend she has not had for a long time … If she can sympathize with you, see in you some of the pain she feels within herself, if she can more closely identify with you, I think it will increase your bond to her.”

“The point being …” Ann urged.

“I think you should tell Irina that Stepanov has abused you, Catherine,” Ometov concluded. “That he has threatened your child if you do not agree to help him in some way to set up a new operation he wants to establish here in Houston. Irina must know about Stepanov’s operations here. Perhaps he wants you to sleep with certain people to help him gain some kind of advantage. Irina is all too aware of the coercive tactics I have already told you about.” He paused. “If we are right about what is happening to her, this could be a crucial time for her. She seems to us to be highly stressed, under a lot of pressure. And we think we see a crack in her emotional armor. Perhaps you, Catherine, can open that crack a little wider, maybe wide enough for us to break her.”

There was a moment of silence. Cate knew in an instant that the proposal was a good one. She also knew that this was going to be an emotional stretch for her. The personal stakes would increase dramatically.

“What do you think, Cate?” Ann asked.

It was a moment before Cate said, “It sounds right, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. I have to say it does. This sounds good.”

“But what about Irina?” Cate asked. “What if she knows about these men? She’s going to know I’m lying, that Stepanov didn’t do it.”

“No,” Ometov said. “She can’t have known about the beating. I cannot imagine how she could have known.”

Erika spoke up. “Cate, it does sound right. But—and I want Leo to note this—”

“Yes, go ahead,” Ometov said.

“If Cate goes on with this,” Erika continued, “everyone needs to be aware that we are playing with the emotions of a woman who not only is under a great deal of stress but probably has been for a very long time. Irina may be at a breaking point, yes, but when she breaks she may do so in a radical way, very crazy, irrational. Cate might well be in the middle of that. This one is going to be difficult, even dangerous, to stop once it gets going.”

There was another pause. Erika had brought out in the open what everyone else was allowing to remain implied. Cate was grateful to her for that.

“Yes, okay, Erika is right.” Ometov had little choice but to acknowledge this now. “Yes, that is very true. If we are right about Irina’s situation, about her state of mind, she might be unpredictable. We do not know what she is doing. If we knew, it would help us assess the situation. But we don’t. What Erika says is very true.”

“And what about the two guys who just left here?” Cate tossed the washcloth on the floor. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

“Okay,” Hain said. “I’m going to get on that. Just be satisfied that we’re on it.” He paused. “Just a minute, Cate. Strey’s patching through. Everybody stay on. Ennis, go ahead.”

“Cate?”

“Yeah, I hear you, Ennis.”

“Listen, kid, this thing is getting a little crazier than I had expected. This is dicey, no doubt about it. You’re not obligated to this level of play. I want you to know that flat out.”

“Your confidence slipping, Ennis?” Cate asked.

“Not even a scintilla,” he said. “But I’m a by-the-book man, Cate, and the book says an undercover agent has to go in with her eyes wide open, of her own free will. I know you know that. I’m just reminding you. When the game changes this much, it’s a whole new game.”

That bit of advice, Cate knew, took some professional courage. Hain was Strey’s superior, and it took some fortitude to warn an agent about an operation initiated by a superior, an operation that clearly meant as much to that superior as
this one meant to Hain. But Hain said nothing on his end of the line. He wouldn’t. Recordings of these conversations were going down in the great, vast storehouse of FBI operations records. When this operation was over and people were assessing the results—whatever they might be—they were going to judge everyone by everything they said here, even by the tone of voice they used when they said it. Cate could imagine Hain and Ometov grimacing and holding their breath.

“Ennis, I appreciate that,” Cate said. “More than I can tell you.” She paused. “But I’m committed to this. It’s not even an issue. I want to finish it.”

“I know you can do it,” Strey said. “If we’d known all this up front, from the beginning, I still would’ve picked you. You’ve got my confidence, kid.”

“Then I guess we’d better decide where to go from here,” Cate said.

“One last thing, Cate,” Ann added, glancing at Hain. “We’ve contacted you twice now, and you’ve called us once. It wasn’t our original intention to do it this way, to be talking to you this often. Irina’s arrival called for some fine-tuning, and of course this was a blindside. But listen, we’re going to pull back now. If we keep up with this kind of communication, we’re going to get caught. So all of this has got to stop. You won’t be hearing from us again unless there’s something critical or we’re wrapping this up. You’re going to have to fend for yourself, make your own decisions when the unexpected happens. You’re on your own now.”