Nuclear weapons!
He ran a shaking hand through his hair and glanced around the deserted coffee shop, at the traffic rushing past on the street. This changed everything. With every passing moment he felt himself being dragged deeper into a bottomless pit. Deeper and deeper. Bretti tried to wet his lips, but his mouth was dry, cottony. The coffee made his mouth taste sour.
He needed another cigarette, but his hands shook so badly he could barely use his lighter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Thursday, 2:21 p.m.
Aurora, Illinois
Standing at a pay phone outside a gas station near the hospital, Craig flipped open his notebook and found a telephone number he never thought he’d have occasion to use.
His stomach knotted. He couldn’t believe he was about to make this call. He kept telling himself it was a bad idea, that he was going against numerous regulations about contacting foreign nationals without prior approval.
But it also might give him answers no one else wanted to talk about.
Thinking of how Goldfarb had been left for dead, how a would-be assassin had come right into the hospital to kill the already-dying Dumenco, and how the Ukrainian continued to avoid answering his questions, Craig decided to make the call-and damn the consequences.
He’d report the contact to the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Oakland security office as soon as he was done. But this was his case now, and he had to pursue it in the manner he deemed best. Besides, it wasn’t as if this was the first time he’d done anything June Atwood could scold him for.
He opened the dangling phone book, flipping pages until he found the International Access Code for the Russian Republic.
He had a federal credit card for official calls, but decided in this case it would be better if he paid for it out of his own pocket. Despite the inconvenience, he had bought a handful of prepaid phone cards inside the gas station. He had been on many criminal cases, but this was the deepest Counter Intelligence stuff he had ever tried.
Using the phone cards, Craig punched in the access code and dialed the international number he had written down. He didn’t bother to calculate the time difference, because he had to call now. Several lives depended on the information he needed.
If General Gregori Ursov was there, he was there.
When the phone rang and was answered by someone in garrulous Russian, Craig spoke clearly and patiently. “English please.”
The person on the line said something and ran off. Craig wasn’t sure if the person had hung up. The Russian Strategic Rocket Forces probably didn’t get many calls from non-Russians.
Finally another voice came on the line, heavily accented. “I speak English. Who is this?”
“I must talk to General Ursov,” he said slowly and clearly.
The voice sounded surprised. “Ursov?” He spoke a burst in Russian, yelling at someone behind him, then came back. “No General Ursov here. No Ursov.”
Craig knew he had dialed the right number, knew this was a dodging tactic. “Tell General Ursov this is his friend from the United States. This is Special Agent Kreident.”
“No Ursov here,” the voice said again.
“Tell him it’s Craig Kreident,” he insisted. “I have an important matter to discuss with him. He owes me his life-he can at least talk to me on the phone.”
Another mutter, then the line went silent again except for occasional clicks like gnawing rodents on the wires. He was confident the conversation would be recorded, especially now. He hoped the eavesdroppers enjoyed the change in the pattern of their day.
In the service station next to the pay phone, mechanics used a power wrench to lock on hubcap bolts with such force that no stranded motorist would ever be able to get them free. A dropped wrench clanged on the cement garage floor, while another mechanic drove a blatting car without a muffler around back.
Craig looked at his stack of phone cards, ready to use another one as soon as his time ran out. After all this, he couldn’t risk being cut off by a telephone operator.
Finally the Russian general’s gruff voice came on the line, blustering loudly. “Agent Kreident! This is most unexpected.”
“Hello, General. Thank you for the official citation your government sent me. That was most kind of you, sir. And our mutual friend again says hello. It turns out we’re working on another case together, one similar to yours… only much worse. A lethal radiation exposure this time.”
Ursov suddenly sounded cagey. “I am sorry to hear that, my friend. An accident? And… where did this radiation come from?”
“It happened at a high-energy accelerator. Perhaps an accident, or perhaps not,” Craig said. “I need some information from you, General.”
“Me?” Ursov said, genuinely surprised. “How can I assist you? I am on the other side of the world.”
“The victim is an emigre Ukrainian scientist. He defected during the breakup of the USSR -”
“A defector?”
“Encouraged by us. He came to work at Fermilab, our largest particle accelerator, near Chicago.”
“I am familiar with CERN in Geneva. It is similar, yes?”
“Yes. From what I can tell, the victim worked for the Soviet Union on some projects-but he has kept extremely quiet about it. However, I believe some of his previous work may have endangered him here. And others. My own partner Ben Goldfarb has been shot. You might remember him.”
“I see why you have such incentive to solve this case. But a defector-”
“The victim has only about two days to live, General. A distinct part of the trail leads back to the physics he performed in the former Soviet Union. I want to know what it was, and why it might have marked him for death.”
Ursov was silent for a moment. “Agent Kreident, I have no knowledge of such matters. You must realize this.”
“But certainly, General Ursov, a man in your position has ways of finding out?” He pursed his lips, but Ursov didn’t rise to the bait. “The scientist’s name is Georg Dumenco. He was a highly esteemed physicist. I believe his work must have been ground-breaking, judging from the terms my country offered him when he defected. He’s under consideration for this year’s Nobel Prize in physics.”
Ursov interrupted him sourly. “Yes, we remember Dr. Dumenco. It is too bad he fled to your country. We would have been proud to have him accept his prize in Stockholm in the name of my country instead of yours.”
“Well he’s not going to be accepting it for either country,” Craig said. “Dumenco is in a hospital bed dying from radiation exposure. I need to know about him, General. Tell me what you can about his work.”
Ursov paused again, as if pondering the implications of answering. “If he conducted his research for Soviet military, those records are classified and sealed. I now merely work for Russian Strategic Rocket Forces.”
“Yes, General,” Craig said with total skepticism, “and I’m merely an accountant for the FBI.”
Ursov chuckled. More static came on the line.
Craig glanced at his watch. He didn’t have a clue how much money was left on his card, but he made ready to slip in another one before the line went dead. “Look, General, I don’t need to know the exact nature of what he was doing-I probably wouldn’t understand it anyway. But give me a lead, something that’ll help me solve this murder.”
Ursov sighed. “It will take some time, my friend, and do not expect too many details. I know I owe you my life, but sometimes a life is not worth all that much. At least not to people over here.”