For a lot of years, the Cold War was all the evidence anyone needed that Russia and the U.S. of A were not BFFs. Then the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union became an interesting historical oddity that was not even much of a part of my life growing up. There was trade, cultural exchanges, and even some reasonable reductions in nuclear and bioweapons development. There was also an explosion of crime and corruption — the Russian Mafiya was largely composed of former military people who brought their battlefield coldness along with dangerous skill sets.
And then along came Vladimir Putin, who, I’m reasonably certain, has a Joseph Stalin plushy toy that he sleeps with. With Putin came a kind of neo-Soviet state, complete with reinvigorated secret police, assassinations, suppression of the media, and all the fun stuff. With Putin, we also got a new kind of weapon of mass destruction in the form of cyber hacking. The last American and French elections pretty much proved that there was a new kind of warfare and, for a while, Putin’s geek squad had the biggest bombs.
Now we have this Novyy Sovetskiy thing, which I’d been na ïve enough to think was a splinter group that lacked the support or resources to do more than raise hopes among those old duffers nostalgic for the good old days of the Party.
That was before Valen Oruraka and Ari Kostas wrecked Washington, D.C., and killed thirteen hundred people. I had a brand-new take on the New Soviet now. They were real, they were dangerous, and I was going to dismantle them in very ugly ways.
Which explains why I was sitting in the office of a Russian shipping mogul, dressed all in black, armed to the teeth, and kind of pissed off. On the upside, they had a coffee maker in the office and some really superb Turkish blend. I was on my third cup, and it had so much caffeine that my eyes were twitching and I was starting to hear colors. Ghost had spent some time licking his balls, then when they were clean and shiny he went to sleep. I sat for a while behind a big oak desk and looked at a bunch of framed photos of the manager’s wife and kids. Nice-looking wife; adorable kids.
When the door opened and a man came in, I said, “Well, it’s about goddamn time.”
I said it in Russian.
The man stopped dead in his tracks, one hand on the knob, the other clutching the key he’d just taken from the lock. His heavy topcoat was damp with melting snow. He stared at me. Gaped, really. After all, I was in his locked office, which means I’d gotten through three levels of pretty sophisticated security without alerting the team of guards downstairs. And I was dressed all in black.
He said, “Tchyo za ga `lima—?”
Basically, What the fuck.
I pointed a pistol at him and held a finger to my lips. “Shhhh.”
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
The Russian guy shushed. As one would, all things considered.
Actually, he pretty much turned to a statue. Eyes bugged, mouth open in a silent O, skin becoming a lovely shade of gray-green. The barrel of my gun was pointing at his crotch, so there’s that. I prefer to be eloquent and articulate whenever possible. Or, maybe he turned that color because a big white shepherd rose from behind a guest chair, his body covered in Kevlar and lamplight gleaming off his six titanium teeth, as he stood snarling in ghastly silence at him. That’ll do it, too.
Ghost is a nice dog, some of the time. When he’s home. When he’s catching Frisbees on the beach. When Junie and I are in bed on a Sunday morning reading the paper and watching TV. The rest of the time, like when we’re on foreign soil and bad things are very likely on the dance card… eh, not so much. The metal teeth were replacements for the six he’d lost fighting genetically enhanced killers in Iran. Ghost likes showing those teeth almost as much as he likes using them.
“Yuri Rolgavitch,” I said quietly, and he flinched at my use of his name. Continuing to speak in Russian, I said, “Step into the room. Drop the key right there. Go on, you won’t need it.”
Rolgavitch did. I could actually see beads of sweat burst from his pores and run down his cheeks.
“Place your hands on your head, lace your fingers. Good. Turn around and don’t move. If you do anything stupid I’m going to let my dog play with you. He’ll enjoy it a lot more than you will.”
Rolgavitch did as he was told, though he kept cutting glances at my gun, trying to figure out what it was. Good luck. I carried a snubby little Snellig A-220 gas dart pistol. The company that manufactured it no longer exists because we shut them down and stole all their toys. They were making weapons for bad people and now all of those people are dead and we have the toys. The A-220 fires little gelatin darts filled with an amped-up version of the veterinary drug ketamine, along with a powerful hallucinatory compound. We call it “horsey.” One shot and you drop like a rock and dream of purple jitterbugging penguins. When you wake up you’ll have only a vague recollection that something untoward happened but will remember only two things about the last hour or so: jack and shit. You’ll also be prone to explosive diarrhea for the rest of the day, but I’m pretty sure that was designed into it for pure entertainment purposes. We have some deeply troubled people working for the D of MS.
“Ghost,” I said, “watch.”
He watched very closely.
I pressed the barrel of the pistol against the base of Rolgavitch’s spine and held it there while I patted him down with my free hand. Took a sweet little MP-443 Grach automatic from a belt clip and an equally spiffy Samozaryadny Malogabaritny compact pistol from an ankle holster. I tossed both onto the guest chair. I pocketed his cell phone and looked at his wallet to confirm that this was indeed Yuri Rolgavitch. Imagine my embarrassment if he hadn’t been.
“Now, tovarisch,” I said, “let’s have us a chat. If I get the answers I want, then I’ll zip-cuff your wrists and ankles and won’t hurt a hair on your head. Your people will find you sitting at your desk, there will be evidence of a common burglary that will corroborate any story you want to tell. You’ll never see me again. If I don’t get what I want, and if you make me do anything to aggravate my achy back muscles, then it’s going to get weird around here. I don’t mean frat party weird, either. More like psycho beach party weird.”
Rolgavitch was late thirties but fat and unfit, with a thick mustache and the largest nose I’ve ever seen on a human face. Made him look like a frightened puffin. He was not going to try anything. We both knew that. Ghost knew it, too, and I could read the disappointment in his brown doggy eyes.
“Who… who are you?” he stammered.
“C’mon, Yuri,” I said agreeably, “you know that’s not the conversation we’re going to have. What’s important here is that I know who you are.”
Sweat glistened on his cheeks. His lips and eyes were wet, too. “Wh-why are you here?”
“I’m here,” I said, “because you are doing something very sneaky and very dangerous, but you’re not as slick about it as you seem to think.”
“I’m not—” Rolgavitch began, but I cut him off by raising the barrel to point at his nose. Impossible target to miss.
“Do not under any circumstances waste my time by saying that you aren’t a bad guy. I know you are. This is not up for discussion.”
Rolgavitch said nothing. He couldn’t know what or how much I knew, or that I was largely bluffing. I mean, sure, Nikki had found the earthquake references and that Yuri was a pen pal of Valen Oruraka, but that’s all we really had. No actual details. Quite frankly I didn’t know how deep he was into Valen’s activities.