The Paradise Prophecy (22 page)

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Authors: Robert Browne

BOOK: The Paradise Prophecy
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“Section had to know about this,” Callahan murmured. “So why didn’t they tell me?”
“Section?”
“Never mind,” she said. “But you’ve gotta know I’m clinging to the lifeboat right now—one with the letters WTF stamped on the side.”
“Like I said, I don’t blame you. And you may think I’m certifiable, but I know what I saw. Put a goddamn straitjacket on me, lock me up in Chabert Memorial, and my story won’t change.”
He considered ordering another drink, but decided against it. For the first time in recent memory, he didn’t want one. As if finally telling his story had somehow purged him of the need.
He watched Callahan drain her own glass and could see that she was struggling with all of this. Should she take that leap and believe him? Or simply fall back on what she knew, like the cops in Ithaca had?
But Batty wasn’t done yet. “With Gabriela, we’ve got a whole new wrinkle in the fabric. She was
Custodes Sacri
, and if this angel came after her, he’s bound to go after the other guardians, too, hoping to get whatever secret they hold. So they’re all in danger.”
“How many are there?”
“I’m not sure. I only know of one.”
“Who?”
“An antiquities dealer named Koray Ozan. But until today, I thought his involvement was just a rumor.”
“What changed your mind?”
“I get his quarterly catalogues and I recognized some of the pieces from his collection in Gabriela’s apartment. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. As far as I’m concerned, it pretty much confirms he’s
Custodes Sacri
. Which means he’s a marked man.”
“So where do we find this guy?”
“Istanbul.”
Her eyes widened slightly and she nodded. “There was a box from the Garanti Auction House in Istanbul in Gabriela’s bedroom yesterday. The figurine I asked you about was inside—Michael fighting the dragon.”
“That figurine might have been a warning to her. That trouble was coming.”
“These people don’t have e-mail?”
Batty shrugged. “I’m not sure how they communicate. Or even if they do. The important thing is, we need to get a message to him before it’s too—”
Callahan’s cell phone cut him off. She reached for her backpack and fished it out, putting it to her ear. “Callahan.”
She turned away from Batty and listened a moment, then murmured something into the mouthpiece before clicking off. When she turned to face him again, the color had drained from her cheeks.
“That was Section. I’ve been ordered to cut my losses here and pull up stakes immediately.”
“Why?”
“They’re sending me to Istanbul.” She looked at him now as if she was finally starting to think that maybe, just maybe, there was some truth to everything Batty had told her. “Koray Ozan is dead.”
BOOK V
 
The Sun Also Shines on the Wicked
 
So spake the false Arch-Angel, and infus’d
Bad influence into th’ unwarie brest
Of his Associate
—
Paradise Lost
, 1667 ed., V:694–96
 
 
21
 
AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
 
D
imitri Kovalenko did not like Amsterdam.
 
The city was always crowded, people pushing their way from here to there, always in a hurry, but never in
enough
of a hurry to suit Dimitri.
The worst of it was the Rosse Buurt. The red light district. By day, the area was quite beautiful, with its cobbled streets and its centuries-old architecture. By night, however, those streets were so packed with human debris, looking for a private strip show or a cheap fuck, that Dimitri was quick to lose all patience with the place.
But Dimitri worked in the service industry. And sometimes that service required him to travel to cities he detested—which, when he thought about it, was probably any city but his own. He had been born and raised and still lived in Balta, a twenty-thousand strong, Russian Orthodox paradise in the Odessa province of southwestern Ukraine.
He had a wife and two children who missed him terribly when he went away on these business trips, which was far more often than he liked.
As he had packed for this latest excursion, Yalena had asked him, with some irritation in her voice, how much longer he would be doing this. Their son, Olek, was beginning to act up both in school and at home, and Yalena didn’t feel she could handle him on her own anymore.
“He needs his father,” she’d said. “He needs to know you still love him.”
The words had surprised Dimitri. How could Olek not know that his father loved him? Was he not out here, working hard to provide for him? Did the boy think he
enjoyed
all of this travel?
“This is the last time,” he’d told Yalena. “I will make enough money on this trip to keep us fat and happy for the rest of our lives.”
“You’ve said that before, Dimitri. And every time you do, it scares me, because I know what kind of people you associate with.”
Kovalenko had said nothing then. He did not speak about business with her, but Yalena was not a stupid woman. And she had seen enough of those associates to justify her fear.
But he hadn’t been lying to her. If things went well tonight, they would have more money than he’d ever thought possible. And all of it would be theirs. Because the people he worked for did not know about this particular transaction. They did not even know that he had left the country.
Before coming to the Rosse Buurt, Dimitri had rented a hotel room nearby and left the suitcase under the bed. He was not foolish enough to bring it with him. He had no idea if the German could be trusted, and until he saw the money, until he was holding it in his hands, he would not turn over the merchandise.
And should things go wrong and he wound up dead, they would never know where to find that suitcase. An outcome the German would, undoubtedly, consider unacceptable.
Dimitri made his way down Damstraat, weaving through the crowd of degenerates, keeping his gaze ahead, not wanting to look into the red-trimmed windows that lined the street. The half-naked women on display would be a temptation for him, and he had only succumbed to that temptation twice before. Although Yalena was a pedestrian lover, whose skills were limited, she was a good mother and a fine wife, and he had no desire to betray her again.
It didn’t help that the meeting place was a brothel. He found it with little trouble, near the middle of the block, and took a flight of bright red stairs up to an equally bright red door.
He knocked. Waited. And a moment later it opened a crack and a tall, bored-looking brunette peeked out, a Black Devil cigarette dangling between her lips.
She blew smoke out of the side of her mouth and said something in Dutch that he didn’t understand.
“I’m here to see Vogler,” he said in Russian, gesturing for her to open up.
Nodding, the woman swung the door wide to reveal that she wore only a tiny pair of pink panties, and Dimitri couldn’t keep himself from staring. She gestured him past her, and he stepped into a darkened room that could only be described as a bar or, more accurately, a social club. It was the same as any social club in Balta, men huddled at tables, nursing vodka or scotch. But in this place, each of those men had a half-naked woman hanging on to him.
Kovalenko forced himself to think of Yalena, which may or may not have been a wise thing to do. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, he followed his hostess to another set of steps at the back of the room, where she gestured him upstairs.
“
Bedankt
,” he said, the only Dutch word he knew, thinking he’d like very much to thank her more properly.
She blew smoke at him, as bored as ever, then turned and walked away.
Dimitri moved up the steps and found himself in a long hallway full of doors. These, he knew, were the courtesy rooms, and because none of them had been soundproofed, it was readily apparent what those courtesies were. He remembered a place very similar to this one, when he himself had occupied one of these rooms. To his amazement, he had discovered that the moans and groans around him had only heightened his pleasure.
But Dimitri drove such thoughts from his mind. He had business to attend to. At the end of the hall, there was yet another small set of steps leading to yet another door, and he made his way to it and knocked.
A moment later, the door was opened by a large, blond mercenary type wearing a shoulder harness, the grip of a nine millimeter protruding from its holster. Dimitri recognized him as one of the German’s men.
The mercenary gave him the once-over, then gestured him inside. And the moment Dimitri crossed the threshold, a sense of unease washed over him and he wondered if he had been foolish in coming here.
Wouldn’t it have been wiser to pick a more public meeting place?
The room was dimly lit, dominated by a large wooden desk. Behind that desk sat a dark silhouette that, for a brief moment, did not seem quite human to Dimitri. He felt his gut tighten at the sight of it and had the sudden urge to flee.
Then a lamp went on and he breathed a sigh of relief as Meinhard Vogler looked up at him and smiled. “Please, Mr. Kovalenko, have a seat.”
Dimitri did as he was told, pulling his backpack into his lap. He had met Vogler only once before and could not help being intimidated by him.
A former member of East Germany’s Office for National Security, Vogler had left service just months before the wall came down, only to reemerge several years later as the head of L4, a massive, worldwide private security firm that had its fingerprints on nearly every military skirmish within recent memory.
Only a few years ago, L4 had been one of the big three private firms working for the U.S. government to help quell unrest in central Asia. But bad publicity and a new president now limited their involvement to the periphery, and Dimitri—through his contacts in the Russian mafia—knew that they were looking for ways to recoup their losses. And because they no longer had any allegiance to a particular nation, they didn’t seem to care how they accomplished this. Assuming they ever had.
It had occurred to Dimitri that what he was offering them might one day fall into the hands of someone quite dangerous (as if these people weren’t dangerous enough), but he banished such thoughts to the part of his brain where the naked woman and the chorus of moans and groans now resided.
The less he thought about such things, the better off he’d be, and he had no desire to jeopardize this transaction with a sudden attack of conscience.
“So,” Vogler said to him in Russian, “you’ve brought us the sample?”
It was only then that Dimitri realized that someone was standing in the shadows behind the German. A tall man in an impeccably pressed suit whose face was obscured by darkness.
A shudder ran through Dimitri. Why hadn’t he noticed him before?
His surprise must have shown in his eyes, because Vogler smiled. “I must apologize. I neglected to inform you that there would be someone joining us tonight.”
“Why do I think that wasn’t a mistake?”
Vogler’s smile faded. “Believe what you must. In any case, I’d like you to meet my associate, Mr. Radek. He’ll be attending to the financial end of our arrangement.”
The man in the shadows stepped forward then, and Dimitri’s surprise deepened.
He had seen Radek before. Not in the flesh, but on CNN International, which he and Yalena watched with some regularity.
Raymond Radek was an American investment banker and former chairman of NASDAQ, who had only recently been cleared of all charges of investor fraud that had been leveled against him by the U.S. Department of Justice. A relatively young man, he was nevertheless a Wall Street icon who rose to power quickly and, some said, ruthlessly. The U.S. Attorney’s failure to bring him to trial—thanks to the recanting of testimony by several witnesses—had been a triumph for Radek. One that was trumpeted worldwide. And though his stature in the halls of finance had been diminished by these accusations and the severe downturn in the world economy of late, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

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