The Expediter (37 page)

Turov was finishing his simple rice and fish dinner on the teak deck at the edge of the garden when his Nokia 110 encrypted cell phone burred softly. Only four people had the ability to communicate with him over the state-of-the-art phone that used an advanced 10.2 kilobit RAS key encryption with a 2.6 kilobit random key, and then only if the message was of extreme importance.

Clearing his mind of all his preconceived notions about what would likely happen next so that he could never be surprised, he answered the call. “Yes.”

“This is Daniel. He arrived two hours ago with the woman.”

“Were you able to find out where they went?”

“It’s a CIA safe house on some acreage a few miles outside the city, near Cabin John just above the river. Are you thinking about going after them?”

“We don’t have much choice,” Turov said. “She has to be eliminated for obvious reasons, and he knows who I am. The bastard actually showed up outside my door and demanded to have a meeting.”

“Did you—meet him?” Daniel asked.

“At a railroad café.”

“And he didn’t kill you?”

Turov cut off a sharp reply, but he was getting tired of hearing how good McGarvey supposedly was. If for no other reason than that, plus the man’s supreme arrogance, the ex-CIA director was going to die. “We were in a public place. It would have been impossible for either of us to make a move.”

“What did he want, for heaven’s sake?”

“He thinks that he has what he needs to prove I was behind the assassination. All he’s looking for is the source of my money, and we know where that leads.”

“You don’t know this man,” Daniel said softly.

“You needn’t worry, he will be taken care of. You can leave that part up to me.”

“Are you coming here yourself?”

“Of course not,” Turov replied impatiently. “But I’ve sent someone who is quite capable.”

“He’d better have help,” Daniel warned.

“Tell me about this Cabin John house. Are there security measures in place, and does he have anyone with him other than the woman?”

“I don’t know the details offhand, but I expect he and the woman are alone. He certainly doesn’t have anyone from here. Will you need me?”

“That’s not necessary,” Turov said. “We’ll manage. There’s no need for you to expose yourself.” It was exactly what he wanted Daniel to do.

“I can help.”

“How?”

“I’ve got to check out a couple of things first, and then I’ll call you. Just have your people hold up until you get word from me. But no matter what happens the woman has to be eliminated.”

“She could make trouble, but she couldn’t prove anything,” Turov said. “McGarvey is using her as bait, as I knew he would. He wants me to come to him, and I will, but not quite in the way he expects.”

“This could go south in a New York minute,” Daniel said.

“Not if your fail-safes are intact.”

Daniel was suddenly guarded. “What do you know about my tradecraft?”

“Nothing, nor am I interested,” Turov said. “We’re both protected that way.” It had been Daniel who’d approached him eighteen months ago, and although he knew the man’s real background, he wasn’t sure about the source of the money, though he had a few guesses. “McGarvey and the woman will be eliminated very soon, and what comes afterward will be up to you, and your . . . interests.”

“There will be some serious fallout over McGarvey’s death.”

“Against the backdrop of a nuclear war, no one will notice.”

“Don’t count on it,” Daniel said. “Don’t count on anything.”

“I don’t,” Turov replied, but the conversation had gone as he had expected it would. “Now tell me exactly where this Cabin John house is located.”

Minoru was in his room at the Hay-Adams Hotel when Turov’s call came through.

“He’s brought the woman to Washington, as I thought he would.”

“But there was no sign of her in Seoul.”

“That’s the surprising part,” Turov said. “Apparently Mr. McGarvey isn’t the only one who’s inventive. A U.S. Navy aircraft met them in Beijing after they’d flown in from Pyongyang aboard the Chinese ambassador’s plane. Evidently the woman crossed the border and was picked up by the police.”

“She was trying to rescue her husband?” Minoru asked in wonder. “But that makes no sense, Colonel. What could she have hoped to accomplish? Break him out of jail or something?”

“I think she went up there with a bargaining chip.”

“What could she have offered them?”

“Maybe she was trying to put the blame on McGarvey. It’s the Americans who want this war.”

Minoru started to reply but he caught his breath. “You knew that he would be coming back here to lure you in. He’s using the woman for bait, but that means he somehow convinced the North Koreans to let him take one of the assassins with him. What did he have to offer them?”

“Me, of course,” Turov said. But at the back of his head he knew that he was missing something, something very important, and it was maddeningly close, but just outside his ken.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Kill them both as quickly as possible,” Turov said. He gave Minoru directions to the CIA’s Cabin John safe house, and the name and contact information of an ex-KGB enforcer living in Alexandria and working openly as a Russian affairs adviser mostly to entrepreneurs wanting to do business in Moscow.

“It might be easier if I went in alone,” Minoru said. “Bound to be a surveillance and security setup out there. One man on foot makes less of a fuss than two.”

“There’ll be more than two of you. McGarvey will be expecting someone to come after him. He’s an assassin and so is the woman, so neither of them will hesitate to pull the trigger, and both of them are experts.”

“How many shall I take with me?”

“At least two.”

“How about afterward?” Minoru asked.

“My jet is standing by for you at Dulles. Get back here as quickly as possible.”

“What about your KGB friend and his people?”

“Those that survive will be expendable,” Turov said. “I’ll expect you will see to it.”

“It could get messy.”

“I expect it might, but you’ll probably have some help from inside.”

“Could you explain that?” Minoru asked.

“Later, when I find out for sure. But when it’s over that person would have to be eliminated as well.”

The McLean office of Valeri Lavrov was housed in a two-story brick-and-wood building set back in a heavily wooded business complex one block off Dominion Drive. Minoru, driving a rental car, found the place and parked on the street in plain sight. It was after the morning rush hour and traffic was light, the day very pleasant. Some children were in a playground, and he watched them for a minute or two thinking ruefully about his unhappy childhood, but then he telephoned the office, and a receptionist answered on the first ring.

“All Russian Consulting, how may we be of service?”

“I’m an old friend of Mr. Lavrov’s, from Tokyo,” Minoru said. “I would like to have a word with him.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but he has someone in his office at the moment. Would you care to leave a name and number where he could reach you?”

“Tell him that Alexandar is interested in doing business. He’ll want to know that straightaway.”

“The moment he’s free I’ll give him your message.”

“He’ll want to know now, please,” Minoru insisted politely. “I’ll hold.”

The woman hesitated.

“This involves a great deal of money.”

“Please hold,” the receptionist said, and she was gone.

Lavrov came on the line within seconds. “Where are you?”

“I’m parked on the street in front of your office in a dark blue Dodge Charger,” Minoru said.

“Who the hell is this?”

“I work for Alexandar, and he’s sent me here to hire you and a few friends for a bit of contract work. Shouldn’t take long, and the money’s good.”

“How good?”

“You know how generous our friend can be. Probably at least one million for you personally, and expense money for the others.”

“How soon would the contract have to be settled?”

“Very soon,” Minoru said. “Certainly no longer than twenty-four hours.”

“Okay, if you came off the Beltway you passed a strip mall a few blocks back just after the 123 overpass. A McDonald’s is on the corner across the street. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”

“You’ll be out for the rest of today and probably tomorrow,” Minoru said, and he broke the connection and drove off.

The only customers in the McDonald’s were two women at a corner table having coffee when Turov’s friend walked in, ordered a cup of coffee, and came over to where Minoru was waiting.

He was a short, heavyset man who looked more like an amateur boxer than a former spy. He had been the number two KGB officer in Chechnya working as an operational planner directly with Turov. The story Minoru had been told was that Lavrov had gotten cornered by a force of eight or ten rebels in a war-torn section of the city, and would have been captured and tortured except for Turov’s intervention.

The man owed his life to Turov.

“Must be a big deal if he’s offering that much,” Lavrov said, sitting down. “Last I heard he was bunkering in Tokyo. Not such a healthy place right now.”

“This contract has something to do with the issue,” Minoru said.

Lavrov grinned. “That has his signature written all over it. So who’d he send you over to knock off?”

“Two people and possibly one other. One of them is a South Korean, a woman.”

“One of the shooters from Pyongyang?” Lavrov asked, his smile fading away. Whatever he looked like, he was not some mostly brain-dead punch-drunk.

“Yes,” Minoru said.

“Does the CIA have her?”

“Not officially, but she’s been taken to one of their safe houses.”

“Who’s her babysitter?”

“Kirk McGarvey.”

Lavrov was shaken. “
Eb tvoiu mat.”
It was the universal Russian expression for something very bad, literally translated as fuck your mother.

“You know of this man?” Minoru asked.

“Yes, and it’s going to take more than the two of us.”

“We might have some help from inside.”

“I don’t care. I still want to take more muscle.”

“How many operators can you come up with?”

“Four. And I’m going to need more than a million dollars, because if we actually take McGarvey down the fallout will be intense. Every intelligence officer and federal cop will be on our case.”

“Only if there are any witnesses.”

Lavrov started to object, but then he realized that Minoru meant to eliminate everyone.

“And if it actually comes to a shooting war between China and North Korea, which at this point seems likely, the U.S. intelligence apparatus will have its hands full. You can return to your office and you’ll never be a suspect. This war will not be about Russians.”

Lavrov shook his head in amazement. “The four guys I want are up in New York. I can get them down here by this afternoon, or early evening.”

“Are they reliable?”

“To the highest bidder, which at the moment is me. Two of them were in Chechnya with me and the colonel, and we got out together. The other two were tough guy Moscow mafia. Militia was on their asses when the colonel asked if I could use them for the occasional op over here. I said sure, and he pulled a couple of strings and they showed up in New York.”

“Get them here as soon as possible,” Minoru said. “In the meantime I want to drive up to the safe house and take a look at the situation.”

“We’ll fly first to take a look at the setup. I have a friend who runs a small charter aviation service down at Manassas, about twenty miles from here.”

“Does he know how to keep his mouth shut?” Minoru asked.

“That’s the only kind of friends I have.”

At the airport, Sergei Sulitsky, another of Lavrov’s friends from the old days, agreed without hesitation to take them on a quick sight-seeing flight, no introductions necessary. He walked off to ready the single engine Cessna Skyhawk TD tied down on the ramp and Lavrov explained the situation to Minoru. Solitsky had been a young KGB pilot when the Soviet Union disintegrated. But he was a Jew and he and his wife and son were stuck in Moscow, penniless and friendless without any prospects. Lavrov pulled a few strings and got the man and his family out and set him up with this business, because from time to time it was handy to have a pilot willing to fly somewhere no questions asked.