“Yakovlev,” Kubert corrected him.
“-took his swan dive.”
“Did they hear a fight?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Just a small thud, maybe the vase hitting the floor, then the screams from the street.”
“So what are they doing with the dog?” Kubert asked.
“Nothing. She’s back to normal. They’ve had her for years, never bit anyone before.”
Kubert’s face took on that familiar, pensive expression, like he was about to reveal another great secret of the universe to us. “Dogs sense things, you know. They have these powers… what we know about how their minds work doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.”
And before Kubert segued into another fascinating episode of his Twilight Zone take on the animal kingdom, I decided to take my leave.
The lab had some work to do on our little YouTube clip, and I had a date with a large man and a whole lot of maple syrup.
ABOUT A HUNDRED BLOCKS uptown from Federal Plaza, Larisa Tchoumitcheva stepped out of her boss’s office on the third floor of the Russian consulate and pondered the crisis that had been thrust upon her unexpectedly.
It was a crisis, but it was also an opportunity. A chance for her to make a difference, which is why she had taken that job in the first place. But this situation had been sprung on her without warning. She hadn’t had a chance to prepare, to think things through. Which meant she was vulnerable to something going wrong. In her line of work, that carried some serious health implications.
Further complicating matters was that her boss at the consulate, Oleg Vrabinek-officially the vice consul, unofficially the city’s senior SVR operative-wasn’t sharing. She’d been frozen out of what he and the now-deceased Yakovlev had been up to. All she’d been told before heading off to Sokolov’s apartment was to deny, to deflect, and to report back. After what she’d seen, she’d decided this had to be her first priority: to get inside Vrabinek’s circle of trust. She needed to know what was going on if she was going to have any chance at making that difference-to say nothing of staying alive.
One thing she did know, however, was that Sokolov was important. To her people, and to the Americans. They were both desperate to get hold of him. And Vrabinek had been less than forthcoming about Sokolov when Larisa had asked who he was.
“That’s not relevant here,” was all Vrabinek had said.
When she’d prodded him-gently, deferentially, as was expected-he’d added, “You’ll get more information if and when it becomes necessary. Right now, it isn’t.”
Which gave Larisa her next priority: to find out who Sokolov was and why he was so important. She needed to get access to his file, but she had to do it without Vrabinek or anyone else at the consulate finding out.
Easier said than done. And not great on the health-implications front.
Then there was the FBI agent, Sean Reilly. She’d been told he’d be like a Rottweiler in tracking down Sokolov, and in that sense he’d be very useful. She’d been ordered to get close to him and report back about his progress on everything he was working on. She’d also been warned about his intuitiveness. In the flesh, though, she found that he was different from the adversary they’d made him out to be. She sensed something else in him. An honesty, a decency that surprised her. Which was dangerous.
She had her orders. Her superiors knew what they were doing, and they had their reasons for setting her those tasks, regardless of what she saw in him. She needed to stay on target and see things through.
Vrabinek hadn’t been any more forthcoming in the meeting she’d just had with him. She hadn’t learned any more information about Sokolov. He had, however, generously bestowed one new piece of information on her, but it wasn’t in any way reassuring.
He told her they were sending someone over. A special operative, flown in to deal with the situation.
That didn’t sound good.
It sounded a lot worse when he told her it would be Koschey.
She’d never met him. Very few had. And though the little information she had about him was sketchy, one thing was certain: his involvement was seriously bad news on the health-implications front.
For her, and for everyone else involved.
11
An hour after leaving Federal Plaza, I was in Newark, New Jersey, seated in a booth at a bright and cheerful IHOP, facing a leviathan of a man, still amazed that he’d managed to lever himself onto the double-seat bench.
He hadn’t been too happy to see me when I’d showed up at his place-well, his mom’s place, technically-and told him I needed a powwow. An invitation to join me for a bite-I use the word purely figuratively here-helped lower his defenses. Cheap trick, I know, but hey, I’m a firm believer in taking the path of least resistance whenever you can. And who doesn’t love IHOP?
The triple-XL Weyland Enterprises T-shirt stretched against the folds of his wobbling flesh as he grabbed the menu and started eating the entire thing with his eyes. I’d said it was my treat and he was obviously going to take me at my word as he waved the waitress over and started to order. About halfway through his list I realized I could probably eat too, though I normally went out of my way to avoid the cholesterol-and-sugar slamdown of a pancake-fest. I interjected a garden omelet and let him go back to what was fast appearing to be some kind of record attempt.
Kurt Jaegers was thirty-two, weighed at least three-hundred-and-fifty pounds, and lived with his mother, a divorced psychotherapist who worked from home and specialized in addiction. That was cute enough. But Kurt was also number seven on the FBI’s cybercrime watch list. Kurt fascinated me. In his dreams, he probably had a string of glamorous girlfriends and a large yacht, Kim Dotcom-style. The reality was probably online porn and his mother’s beat-up Volvo whenever he could heist the keys. But for some reason, I liked him. He had an inner honesty that I found weirdly admirable. And right at the moment, I didn’t really care what his domestic arrangements or louche hobbies were. I just needed his help, which is why I decided to play nice.
“I said whatever you like and I meant it, but I may need to leave you after the first couple of rounds.”
“No worries, dude.” He’d finally finished ordering and sent the waitress on her way. “You must try the stuffed French toast. It’s incredible. But you’ll need to order some of your own. I only got two.”
“I’m good, Kurt. But thanks anyway.”
His expression turned quizzical. “So… you’re going to give me a get-out-of-jail-free card? Is that for real?”
“Something like that. Unless you’re really naughty-NSA or NCIS or even NASA for that matter, anything with an ‘N’ or an ‘S’ in it and you’re on your own.”
He chuckled. “Hey, no sweat. JWICS is tight as a cat’s butthole since Bradley Manning downloaded the whole enchilada. Even Anonymous have mostly packed up and gone home when it comes to SIPRNet. There’s no more fun to be had with those guys. I spend most of my time playing WoW nowadays.”
Clearly, my face telegraphed what I was missing.
“World of Warcraft, dude. You don’t know that?”
I shrugged. “I’m a Neanderthal, what can I tell you.”
He waved it off. “I’m really into my female Pandaren at the moment. She’s called Chiaroscuro. Cause she’s black-and-white, you know? Lately, though… I think I want to do her. I know it’s wrong, I mean she’s a fucking panda, right? That’s like zoophilia or something.”
“It’s something all right, I’m just not sure I want to think about it.” My head was already spinning, and the plates hadn’t even landed yet. “At least, it’s good to hear you’re playing safe these days.”