“Is that everything?” Vostov inquired with some sarcasm.
“No. 1 need you to utilize your many contacts, as much as I may despise them. It seems that it’s time to cloud the landscape a bit. There are factions out there that might very well share our common goal. I think it would be wise to turn the bright light of public scrutiny on them.”
“What do you mean?” Vostov asked.
“The nationalists, the separatists, the Communists, and the reformers all have an interest in blocking foreign aid. I believe it’s time that someone pointed this out to them, hmm? And the military and the KGB, unfairly squeezed out from distributing the largesse of our enemies — and so prevented from raking off their percentage from the top. Don’t you think someone should ask them how they feel about this and what they plan to do about it? Even the church and organized crime have something at stake here. My dear Vostov, the more pressure Starinov and the West are under, the sooner we’ll achieve our ultimate goals. Your tentacles reach everywhere. I think that you should use them.”
“What you’re asking—” Vostov spluttered, “it’s hardly the work of a few moments.”
“Then I’d suggest you get started immediately. Remember, Vostov, a man who won’t make himself useful is a man who is expendable. Now is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”
“You haven’t given me an answer on the matter I called you about. The mover of goods, as you called him—”
“I said he can go fuck himself! From here on in, I will deal only with his superiors, and only when it suits me. And if you don’t come through for me, Vostov, the same will apply to you. If you’re around at all. Now good-bye, Vostov. See that you’re ready when I need you.”
“Wait, don’t hang up. Hello? Are you still there? Goddamn it, are you still there? Hello, hello, hello…?” A dial tone emerged clearly from the phone in his hand. He threw it across the room.
“Damn.”
A slight sound drew his attention back to the women, now huddled in the corner and looking slightly fearful.
“Well, what are you two staring at? Get over here and make yourselves useful.” That was the phrase the man on the phone had used. Useful! He sat down and waited. As they approached him hesitantly, he shut his eyes. Politics. It was a dirty business. There were other activities he much preferred.
TWENTY-THREE
Wearing a gray sweatsuit, a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap, and Nikes, Alex Nordstrum jogged west through the Mall, a look of quiet concentration on his features as his long legs carried him over the path with unbroken rhythm. He was past the midway point of his run and his blood felt pumped with oxygen and the muscles of his thighs and calves were pleasantly loose.
Arms moving in smooth coordination with his feet, he ran on toward Constitution Gardens and the conspicuous marble shaft of the Washington Monument, where he would ordinarily swing back east to complete his regular two-mile circuit. Today he might have to wait around a bit, depending on whether Blake was on time… which Nordstrum doubted would be his good fortune, considering the assistant secretary of state, Foreign Affairs Bureau, was someone whose internal clock had seemed to have its workings irreparably gummed up even when he was Alex’s top poli-sci student at Georgetown.
Nordstrum trotted along at an easy pace, seeing no reason to hurry. North of the park, the massive cluster of Federal Triangle buildings extended continuously to Fifteenth Street, their red rooftops visible through the winter-bare treetops. To the south, Nordstrum could see the white colonnades and porticoes of the Department of Agriculture Building. Vapor puffed from his mouth with each measured breath but his metabolism was up and he was hardly aware of the cold Potomac gusts snapping moisture off his cheeks and forehead. The back of his sweatshirt was dark with perspiration between his shoulder blades, a good, healthy sweat, the kind that always seemed to wash the tension from his pores.
To his right, well-dressed men and women swept past in expensive cars, most turning north or south on Seventeenth Street for the downtown museums and government buildings, a smaller percentage of the traffic continuing past the Reflecting Pool to where Constitution Avenue became Route 66 and spooled on out across the bridge to Arlington. Maybe a mile behind Nordstrum, morning sunlight fanned over the Capitol dome in golden spokes that had already begun to glance off the red brick turrets of Smithsonian Castle. In the broad stretch of landscaping he’d covered on his way down the Hill, walkers and joggers were strung out along the paths at various stages of their exercise routines, squirrels and pigeons were squabbling over sparse winter pickings, and vacationing college kids dressed in goose-down jackets and long elf-like knit caps were strolling toward the small round skating rink next to the Museum of Natural History, carrying their ice skates over their shoulders by the laces. The kids seemed about as traumatized as the squirrels and birds by what had happened in Times Square just one week before, which was not at all.
The resilience of youth? Nordstrum wondered. Or perhaps the inurement of a generation that had been born in an era when terrorism was an ever-present threat, something on a par with environmental calamities like earthquakes and hurricanes? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, and could only hope it was the former. For him, anyway, the grandeur of the Capitol was always enough to fill his head with refrains of “Stars and Stripes” and rouse a tremendous sense of obligation to his adopted country.
He reached Fourteenth Street, jogged in place while waiting for a break in the flow of traffic, then crossed out of the Mall proper onto the monument grounds, where the lawn began its gentle rise to the base of the towering obelisk.
He had started up the knoll when he heard the slapping of feet against the pavement behind him, and looked back to see Neil Blake following only a few yards downhill. An athletic man of thirty-five with handsome features and longish — for Washington — brown hair, he was wearing a black Speedo running suit with an electric blue stripe down the side, looking exactly like what he was, a member of the smart and spirited power elite.
“Neil,” Nordstrom said, slowing a little, “how long have you been stalking me?”
Blake nodded his head back toward Fourteenth Street. “I came in from over by the Ellipse, saw you crossing the road,” he said. “I’d’ve caught up to you sooner, but there was a nice young lady on the path who needed directions, and I sort of had to stop. Besides, I thought I’d let you get in a few extra minutes of peaceful exercise.”
“Such a considerate fellow,” Nordstrum said. “Did you take her phone number? In case she needs more help getting around.”
Blake patted his pocket.
“It’s already tucked away in a safe place,” he said.
Nordstrum smiled. They ran side by side awhile in silence, cresting the knoll and then heading down toward the Reflecting Pool. The water sparkled in the morning light.
“I’ve got something for you,” Blake said. “It wasn’t easy. Anyone finds out I leaked it, I can open up that bagel joint my cousin Steve in Chicago always wanted me to go in on.”
Nordstrum nodded but said nothing.
“You know the Lian Group?” Blake said.
“Of course.”
“They made the goods,” Blake said.
Nordstrum nodded again. His face was serious and thoughtful.
“What about the end purchaser?” he asked.
“The trail leads to a Russian distributor. After that, it’s an open question.”
There was a long pause.
“Crap,” Nordstrum said finally, shaking his head.
“I didn’t figure you’d like my news much,” Blake said.