Rizzo briefed them all. He asked them to not mention the linkage of these cases to anyone else in the department. In Rizzo’s experience, if he felt that he had an advantage in an investigation, if he knew something that was not yet known by the public, he was one step ahead of the people he was looking for. He never wanted to tip his hand.
He showed the computer mockups of the bullet fragments and presented all of the photographs taken at the two crime scenes. He asked if any of the people at the table had any initial notions as to where this might lead, how these slayings might be linked.
No one volunteered anything.
“Allora, bene,” he continued. “The Mafia guys like their small caliber.22s. They like to use a silencer from close range. Two behind the ear, am I not right? The South American drug scum, Colombians for example, like machine pistols and they blow away the victims with a hundred shots.”
His eyes roved the room. Not one of his detectives was willing to make contact.
“Our colonial friends the Ethiopians have no subtlety at all,” he continued. “They drag you to a warehouse, put a tire around you while you scream for mercy, ignite you with gasoline, then stand there and gape. But what was this all about? Who is doing this? What type of criminals are we looking for? Could I see some life, per favore, some reaction from this table, or should I find four better detectives?”
The two interlocking questions were barely out of Rizzo’s mouth when he realized that there would be no answer coming this morning. Business like this drove him crazy. Why had he even come in to work this morning? Sophie was off work today and they could have been spending the day together. Instead, he was chasing down the scum that brought crime to Italy while having to light a fire under those who should have been best equipped to help him.
“All right then,” he said in conclusion. “Foolish me, who thought that we might have some angle on these cases this morning from the four of you. I will be in this office working sixteen-hour days on these cases. I will also be monitoring the four of you closely.” Without consulting anyone’s files, he added, “It is not by coincidence, that I’ve assembled the four of you. I notice that each of you has recently put in for a major promotion. I will be watching your progress very closely. Be assured that the cases I’ve put before you this morning will directly impact both promotions and demotions. We will have success or failure here, I don’t know which. But as for your careers, I can promise you repercussions!”
He eyed them. “I want thorough reports from all of you by Friday of next week,” he said. “I want potential leads and connections for these two cases. I don’t care if you’re up all night every night and have to work all weekend to get this done. I want progress.”
Rizzo turned on his heel, left the conference room for the hallway outside, glowering in his usual bad humor.
Where were all the kids this morning, he wondered.
The interns. Maybe one of those bright kids would have something. They’d make great spies one day, those little imps, he thought.
But none did. Not today.
THIRTY-FIVE
Alex walked into a conference room at the embassy, followed by the two attachés who had been assigned to her. The first was Ellen Higgins, a dowdy middle-aged woman with thick glasses in a brown suit. The second was Phillip Ralston, whom Alex had met the previous day.
Ellen was the keener intellect of the two. She was a University of Chicago graduate and a skilled interpreter in Russian and Ukrainian. Ellen was also the official note taker. At every embassy meeting there was a note taker to draft the report on meetings, except in the case of the very rare “under four eyes” meetings that the bureaucracy dreaded. Recording devices were almost never allowed, since principals wanted to be able to deny any misspeaking.
Ralston was a wealthy man in his thirties who played at being a diplomat and had already spent much of his time talking about his home in New Canaan, Connecticut, as if anyone else was interested. Half an hour earlier, he had been laughing and showing pictures of the house back in the United States. Now, going into the meeting with Federov, he looked taut enough to explode.
They arrived in the conference room at the same time as the opposition.
The Ukrainians wore overcoats on top of suits. They seemed to have been carved from the same block of solid Russian stone. They smelled of tobacco and cologne.
Federov was the tall one in the middle, a thick jaw, very short hair, stubble across the chin much the same length. He was handsome the way a retired boxer is handsome, the wear and toughness suggesting survival and the survival suggesting a certain intense masculinity. His nose looked as if it had been broken once and bent out of shape, then broken a second time and pushed back in the right direction, probably without anesthetic either time.
Federov was six four. Imposing. Powerfully built. In American terms, the body of a tight end. He was a head taller than Alex was, with huge hands and a weightlifter’s body, definitely more of a presence in person than he had been in the photographs. His teeth-the teeth that had bitten the ear off a Brooklyn cop-were yellowed but straight.
The stories came back to her: him abusing women in his night clubs, two wives “disappearing,” and having people murdered almost for sport.
He was physically intimidating to her, but there was no way she was going to tip him off to that fact. He moved close to Alex, offering a hand, his dark eyes midway between a glare and a smile. She got the idea that he was mentally undressing her as he eyed her and she stifled a cringe-she tried to tell herself that she had dealt with more vile human beings than this and survived, but on second thought, she wasn’t sure that she had.
Alex accepted his hand. It was firm, strong, and dry.
“I’m Yuri Federov,” he said in Russian.
“I’m Anna Tavares. US Department of Commerce,” she said, also in Russian.
He switched into Ukrainian, testing her already. “Aren’t you going to say you’re pleased to meet me?” he asked. “That would be the polite thing, Anna Tavares.”
“It would also be a lie,” she said in Ukrainian. “Let’s be seated. We have a lot of business to discuss, so I appreciate your coming in.”
Silently, she said a big thank-you-velykyy diakuyu tobi- to Olga. She had kept pace in Ukrainian, but was anxious to get out of it before betraying any weakness.
A smile crept across Federov’s face with the slowness and deliberateness of sun breaking through the clouds on a mostly cloudy day. He introduced his two backups, Kaspar and Anatoli, no last names given. They looked like bookends or, more appropriately, the twin doors on the rear of a truck. They were husky and stocky. Alex assumed they were bodyguards of some sort. She further assumed that the metal detectors around the embassy’s entrance had done their jobs and any artillery hauled over by Kaspar and Anatoli had been left outside.
Back to Russian. “Charmed,” Federov said.
“Let’s get to work,” she said.
“I don’t know what this meeting is about,” he said.
“Well, as soon as it starts, I’ll tell you,” she said, gaining some traction.
He switched to English. “Then let’s begin. I can express myself well in English, so we will speak your language.”
“I speak Russian,” she said in Russian, “and some Ukrainian. Mrs. Brown here is able to interpret and take notes. So any of the three languages are fine.”
“I still prefer English,” he said.
“That’s fine,” she said, relieved. The meeting began.
Alex guessed that Kaspar and Anatoli wouldn’t have much to say in any language, particularly with the boss present. It turned out she was right.