He gave her a small smile. "Yeah. Well. Still, it kinda felt like Larry and Curly catch a killer," Michaels said.
She looked blank.
"Two of the Three Stooges," he said. "Hey, Larry! Hey, Moe! Woowoowoowoo!"
"Oh, yeah. My brothers used to watch those old vids. They must be a male thing. I never thought they were funny. Too violent." She smiled at the irony.
"I'm really sorry about your friend, the FBI trainee."
"Yeah."
There was a long pause. Then: "You believe her?" he said. "About Steve Day?"
Toni shrugged. "I don't know. She confessed to Genaloni and ‘some others.' Why would she lie about Day?"
"Maybe to screw with our heads," Michaels said.
"We have to consider that. Did you believe her?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I did. I didn't think Day's murder was her style before, and this confirmed it for me."
"At least she won't be coming after you again."
"No. But what that means is, somebody else is responsible for Day."
"Somebody who apparently wanted us to think the mob did it," Toni said.
He nodded. "Remember that business about Genaloni's lieutenant up and disappearing? That they thought the FBI had taken him?"
"Yes."
"I bet whoever swiped his enforcer did it to piss Genaloni off. And whoever it was knew to point the finger at us when he did it."
"Looks like it worked," she said. "If Genaloni thought Net Force was gunning for him, he might have hired somebody to hit back. In his world, any problem can be solved with money or violence."
He shifted his weight slightly. His leg was beginning to throb pretty good. He considered taking one of the pain pills, then decided against it. He needed his mind to be clear more than he needed to be doped up and pain-free.
"So, we're back to square one on Day's killing," she added.
"No. I know who did it."
She looked at him. "Who?"
"The Russian. Plekhanov."
She thought about it for a second. "How did you come to that?"
He said, "It was part of his plan all along, to give Net Force something else to look at while he pulled off his power grab. The attacks on Day, our listening posts, all the rascals he threw in our paths all over the world. He wanted us busy, so we wouldn't notice what he was doing. It all makes a kind of warped sense."
"I don't know, Alex. It's possible, but—"
"It's him. I know it. He was willing to crash systems that caused deaths. It's not that big a leap to hiring a shooter. We were looking in the wrong direction — right where Plekhanov wanted us to look. He's smart."
Toni looked at him. "Assume you're right. How do we prove it? If his computer skills are as good as Jay says they are, we can't get into his files. Without some record, all we have is some very circumstantial evidence, and not much of that."
"Plekhanov could open the files for us. He has the key."
"He has no reason to do that — even if we had him, which we don't."
"We'll have to figure out the right way to ask. After we collect him."
She shook her head again. "Uplevels won't go for it, Alex. Walt Carver is too much a political animal to risk it. And even if he wanted to, he couldn't convince the Foreign Covert Operations Committee or the CIA to go along. FCOC has been burned too many times with this kind of thing. They haven't greenlighted anything military in two years that doesn't have the locals willing to go along, or at least look the other way — like the operation in Ukraine."
"This man had Steve Day murdered. And is responsible for the deaths of others. He's about to rig an election that will make him legally untouchable. And we can't get him because of some bureaucratic crap?"
"I know how you feel, but we'll be wasting our time to even ask," she said.
"Fine. So we won't ask," he said.
She stared at him. "Alex…"
"There is a difference between the law and justice. The only way this guy skates is over my dead body. We never had this conversation, Toni. You don't know anything about this."
She shook her head. "Oh, no, you don't. You don't get rid of me that easy. You want to do something stupid, I'm going to make sure you do it right. I'm in."
"You don't have to do this."
"Steve Day was my boss, too. I want his killer to pay for it."
Neither of them spoke for what seemed like a long time. Then Michaels said, "We'd better get John Howard in here."
"You think he'll go along?"
"We won't tell him, either. He works for me. If anything happens, it's my head that will roll. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
"You think that's fair?"
"It protects him. He gets what he thinks is a legitimate order, he's covered."
"Your decision."
"Yes. About time I made a couple of decisions that do something."
"All right, Sergeant Know-It-All, let's hear it."
Howard knew the plan — he had devised it — but it never hurt to burn it into long-term memory. Another pass to spot any errors.
Julio Fernandez grinned and affected his recruit-to-drillmaster voice: "Sir, Colonel Howard, sir!" More quietly, he said, "Chechnya is landlocked, bounded by Ingushetia on the west, Russia on the north, Dagestan on the east and Georgia on the south. The western border of the country is about three hundred kilometers east of the Black Sea, give or take. The capital and largest city is Grozny, of which the colonel will see detailed CIA maps of the surface streets in his flatscreen file, when and if he cares to look.
"The population is largely Chechen or Russian, that is to say—"
"Skip the geopolitical history, Sergeant. Let's get to strategy and tactics, please."
"As the colonel wishes." He grinned, relaxed. "Our two vintage UH-1H Hueys are scheduled to be off-loaded at 1900 hours from jet transport at Vladikavkaz, in North Os-setia, a favor for which the locals hope to obtain certain reciprocal courtesies from the U.S. Since we want friends in that area, such courtesies will no doubt eventually be extended.
"Once on the ground and operational, we will have to violate about fifteen kilometers of Ingushetian airspace to reach Chechnya. Our command post will be outside Urus-Martan, which is another twenty-five klicks inside Chechnya. All in all, we're talking about flying over forty kilometers of unfriendly territory.
"Of course, both countries have radar and something of an air force; however, at treetop level in the dark, it is unlikely that anybody but a few goats will even notice our choppers' overflight. It should be a milk run, if a bit crowded.
"We have a truck waiting in Grozny, which our four-trooper collection-team squad will reach from Urus-Martan upon the two Russian motor scooters we'll bring with us on the black copters. Vespa knockoffs, I believe. They aren't very fast, but it's only a dozen kilometers from Urus-Martan to Grozny, and they'll be coming back in a truck. Pretty good trade, actually, leaving the two scooters for one murdering Russian. The locals come out way ahead."
Howard made the keep-it-rolling sign.
"We arrive, all things going well, at about 2200 hours, set up our tactical base in an old dairy farm owned by our friends the spooks. The spooks don't know we'll be using the place, as per our DTNS-policy on this mission."
Howard frowned. A new acronym. "DTNS?"
"Don't tell nobody squat," Fernandez said. "Especially the CIA." He grinned widely.
"You just made that up, didn't you?"
"I am hurt that the colonel believes I would do such a thing."
"Sergeant Fernandez, I believe you would give a polar bear a poodle cut and call him Fifi."
Fernandez laughed. "Sir. This farm — there's no neighbors within shouting range. Everything going as planned, our CT squad putt-putts into town, collects their ride, grabs the Russky, comes back, and a few minutes after midnight, we're all airborne and on the way back to this here comfortable 747, which is by then all gassed up and waiting for us at the Vladikavkaz Airport. As a gesture of goodwill, we leave the transport copters for our new friends the North Ossetians, climb on our ride and fly away home. Everything by the numbers."