Dinara stepped out of the elevator and nodded a greeting at Vikto, the doorman, who spent his day in the functional but warm lobby. She hurried outside, and the moment she stepped through the front door of her apartment building, the steam rising from the tiny holes in the coffee cups thickened as it met the freezing air. Her eight-story block stood on the corner of Malaya Bronnaya Street and Yermolayevskiy Lane, opposite a small park. The children’s play equipment was buried beneath huge snowdrifts, and the little lake was frozen solid. Dinara shivered as she jogged along the sidewalk.
Leonid Boykov had mounted the curb a short distance from her building, and was waving motorists past him. Dinara cradled both coffee cups with one arm, opened the passenger door, and slid onto the front seat.
“Good morning, boss,” Leonid said.
His humor was dry, and rich in sarcasm. He’d greeted her as “boss” every morning for the past three months, but somehow managed to say the word so it sounded like “kid.”
Leonid was fifteen years her senior and the toll of every one of his forty-eight birthdays showed on his craggy face. He’d been a Moscow police detective for twenty years, working serious crime and murder, and he had a reputation for being honest and ruthless. Dinara had yet to see his darker side, but he had the lean features and sharp eyes of a predator, and she had no doubt his reputation was well deserved. She’d hired him to be her number two at Private Moscow, but she suspected he thought he should be running the show.
“Good morning, Leonid Boykov,” she replied. “I made you coffee.” She handed him one of the cups.
“You’re the boss. I should be making you coffee.” He took a sip. “But I’m not sure I could make it this well.”
Was that an insult? Was he being sarcastic? Dinara couldn’t tell. “Drive,” she said.
Leonid put the car in gear, waved his arm out of the window to signal his right of way, drove off the curb and headed along Malaya Bronnaya Street. Dinara loved her tree-lined neighborhood, which mixed classical architecture with elegant modern apartment buildings. It was also conveniently located, and within moments they were on the Garden Ring, an eight-lane highway that encircled the city center. After a couple of minutes, the traffic started to build, but this was more than the rush-hour grind, it looked as though there had been an accident ahead.
“Business has been slow, huh?” Leonid remarked, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.
The man rarely spoke without purpose and Dinara knew him well enough to suspect he had an agenda. The traffic ahead of them came to a standstill. A short distance along the street, a bus had collided with a truck and the police were filtering three lanes down to one.
“It will get better,” Dinara responded. “The mood toward businesses such as ours isn’t favorable at the moment.”
She didn’t need to elaborate. She and Leonid had discussed the drawbacks of Private’s foreign ownership many times. With relations between Russia and America at a low point, there weren’t many establishment figures who’d engage a US-owned firm. In fact, there were none. Private Moscow’s last case had been closed three weeks ago — a missing person they’d located and recovered — and they had nothing new on the books. Jack Morgan was a patient man, but if things didn’t pick up soon, Dinara was certain the Moscow office would have to be shut down.
“Maybe today is the day,” Leonid said, and Dinara noticed a mischievous glint in his eye. Something else caught her attention. Two men in a car four vehicles behind them. She watched the pair in the wing mirror, and noted their eyes never left Leonid’s Lada Vesta. She felt a rush of adrenalin, but told herself it could be nothing. She wasn’t in the espionage game anymore.
“What do you know?” she asked Leonid.
“Are you ordering me to tell you? As my boss?” He smiled.
“Stop with the boss stuff,” she replied. “We both know you’ve got me beat on age and experience.”
Leonid glanced at her with somber concern. “I’m sorry if I upset you. I was only joking...” He hesitated. “Boss,” he added with a broad smile.
Dinara punched him playfully. “You want to play that game? OK then, as your boss I command you to tell me what you know.”
“I had a call from an old police contact. He wants us to meet his client first thing this morning.”
“Who’s his client?” Dinara asked.
“You’re not playing the game,” Leonid remarked dryly.
Dinara rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised none of your old partners killed you. How many of them did you drive mad with this kind of nonsense?”
“Six,” Leonid replied seriously. “You’d make it seven, but of course we’re not partners.”
“Who are we going to see, Leonid?” Dinara asked testily.
“Maxim Yenen,” he replied.
Dinara whistled. “You’re kidding me,” she said as they drove past the accident.
Maxim Yenen was one of the most powerful men in Moscow. An oligarch with a wide range of business interests, and high-ranking friends at the Kremlin.
“Do I look like the kind of man who jokes about such things?” Leonid asked as the car picked up speed again. “A commission from a Kremlin insider would suggest our standing with the authorities has changed.”
“Perhaps,” Dinara replied, looking in the wing mirror. “That might explain why we have two FSB agents on our tail.”
Leonid glanced in the rear-view.
“Three cars back. I recognize the technique from my own training,” Dinara said.
“Well,” Leonid replied, shifting gears, “let’s see if this tired old Moscow policeman can give our highly trained intelligence agents a run for their money.”
Chapter 14
Leonid stepped on the accelerator and the Lada shot forward. Ostensibly a sensible family car, the former cop had opted for the top-of-the-range model, which he’d had modified at a police garage. The improved performance didn’t turn it into a Porsche, but it did give the car sufficient muscle to push Dinara into her seat as it accelerated. Leonid threaded his way past slower-moving vehicles, and when she checked the wing mirror, Dinara saw their tail was trying to keep up. Not very subtle, she thought.
They were heading clockwise around the Garden Ring and were near the Kalashnikov Monument.
“What’s your plan, detective?” Dinara asked.
“I’m no planner,” Leonid replied. “I prefer living in the moment.” He swung the wheel as he passed a truck, and the Lada jerked left and veered in front of the larger vehicle. The truck driver gave a prolonged blast of his horn and his brakes screeched as he stepped on them hard. The Lada SUV shot forward, narrowly missing a car in the other lane, and crossed the median, which was nothing more than a pair of painted white lines. Leonid pulled the wheel left again, and the car lurched onto the counterclockwise side of the busy highway. He swerved to avoid the westbound traffic, and earned more horn blasts and tire screeches from startled drivers. As they passed the Kalashnikov Monument and the sprawling gothic skyscraper that loomed behind it, suddenly all was calm. The Lada’s rear end gave a final little waggle as Leonid settled into the middle lane, and when Dinara looked back, she saw the pursuing vehicle had pulled into the median and stopped. The two men got out and looked in her direction. Both seemed frustrated and one was talking on a phone.