“Will do.”
“And a rental car,” Sam added. “Something fast and sexy.”
“I like your style,” Remi said with a sly smile.
CHAPTER 13
NASSAU, BAHAMAS
Selma had donned her travel-agent hat with characteristic proficiency, reserving them a pair of first-class seats on the last red-eye out of San Diego heading east. Seven hours and one layover later they touched down at Nassau International Airport shortly after noon. They had less luck with their rental car, however, ending up with a bright red Volkswagen Beetle convertible, which Selma swore was the sexiest and fastest car in all of the Bahamas. Sam suspected Remi had bribed their research chief, but said nothing until they were pulling out of the parking lot and were passed by a Corvette bearing an Avis sticker.
“Did you see that?” Sam said, glancing over his shoulder.
“It’s for your own good, Sam,” Remi said, patting him on the knee. “Trust me.” She put her hand atop her white sun hat to keep it from whipping away and leaned her head back, basking in the tropical sun.
Sam grumbled something in reply.
“What was that?” Remi asked.
“Nothing.”
Waiting for them at the Four Seasons Resort reception desk was a message:
Have information. Call landline ASAP.
—R
“Rube?” Remi asked.
Sam nodded. “Why don’t you go to the villa? I’ll see what he has to say, then join you.”
“Okay.”
Sam found a quiet corner in the lobby’s seating area and hit speed dial on his satellite phone. Rubin Haywood picked up on the first ring.
“It’s me, Rube.”
“Hang on, Sam.” There was a click, followed by a hissing squelch as Rube engaged what Sam assumed was some kind of encryption device. “How are you?”
“Great. Thanks for this. I owe you one.”
“No, you don’t.”
Haywood and Sam went back twelve years, since Sam’s early days at DARPA, having met at the CIA’s Camp Perry training facility in the wilds of the Virginia countryside near Williamsburg. Haywood, a case officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, was going through covert operative training. Sam was there for the same purpose, but as part of an experimental program designed to put DARPA’s best and brightest through the kind of real-world scenarios CIA officers experience in the field. The idea was simple: The better DARPA’s engineers could understand what field work was really like—hands on and up close—the better they would be at creating gadgets and tools that met real-world challenges.
Sam and Rube had instantly bonded, their friendship cemented over the six long weeks of training, and they’d stayed in touch ever since, meeting once a year in the fall for a three-day hiking trip through the Sierra Nevada.
“Everything I’m going to tell you is unclassified—at least officially.”
Sam read between the lines. After receiving his call, Rube had in turn made his own calls, tapping contacts and sources outside the government. “Okay. Your message said ASAP.”
“Yeah. The name of the guy you call Scarface used a pretty heavily backstopped credit card attached to dummy accounts to rent the boat in Snow Hill, so it took a little digging. His name is Grigoriy Arkhipov. Ex-Russian special forces, spent time in both Afghanistan and Chechnya. He and his right-hand man, a guy named Kholkov, left the army in ’94 and went freelance. Arkhipov you’re familiar with, but I’ll e-mail you a picture of Kholkov. If you haven’t seen him around yet, you will. As far as we can tell they’ve worked for just one man since ’05, a real nasty piece of work named Hadeon Bondaruk.”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“I’d be surprised if you hadn’t,” Rube replied. “He’s the kingpin of the Ukrainian mafia and the toast of Sevastopol high society. He throws parties and hunt weekends at his estate several times a year and restricts his guest list to the überwealthy—politicians, celebrities, European royalty. . . . He’s never been charged with a crime, but is suspected of dozens of murders—mostly other crime bosses and enforcers who for whatever reason made him mad. Other than rumors there’s not much out there about his past.”
“I love gossip,” Sam said. “Let’s hear it.”
“Rumor is he commanded a cell of guerrilla fighters in Turkmenistan during that whole Russian-Iranian border mess. Moved around the mountains like a ghost, ambushing patrols and convoys, never leaving anyone alive.”
“A real Samaritan.”
“Yeah. So, what’s your interest in him?”
“I think he’s after the same thing we are.”
“Which is?”
“Better you not know, Rube. You’ve stuck your neck out far enough already.”
“Sam, come on—”
“Just leave it, Rube. Please.”
Haywood paused, then sighed. “Okay, you’re the boss. But listen: You’ve been lucky so far, but your luck could run out in a big hurry.”
“I know.”
“Will you at least let me help you? I know a guy down there you should see. You got a pen?” Sam grabbed a pad from the end table and took down the name and address Rube recited. “I trust him. Go see him.”
“Will do.”
“And for God’s sake, take care of yourselves, you hear me?”
“I hear you. We’ve been through some tough scrapes together, Remi and I. We’ll handle this one.”
“How exactly?”
“Easy. We’re going stay one step ahead of them.”
Three hours later Sam pulled the Beetle off the coast road into a small gravel parking lot and eased to a stop beside a rusted Quonset hut topped by a windsock and bearing a faded hand-painted sign: AIR SAMPSON. Fifty yards to the right was another Quonset hut, this one larger, and through the sliding double doors they could see the nose of an airplane. On the other side of the hangar was a landing strip composed of crushed seashells.
“This is it?” Remi asked, eyes narrowed.
Sam checked the map. “Yep, this is it. Selma swears it’s the best charter place on the island.”
“If she says so.”
“Are you really going to bring that thing?” she asked, nodding to the towel-draped object lying on the floor between Sam’s feet.
After hanging up with Rube, Sam had gone to the villa and recounted the conversation to Remi, who listened carefully and asked no questions.
“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” she said finally, taking his hands in hers.
“And I don’t want to see you get hurt. It’d be the end of my world.”
“Then let’s not get hurt. Like you said, we’ll just stay one step ahead of them. And if things get too rough—”
“We’ll call in the good guys and go home.”
“Sure we will,” she replied.
Before coming to the airstrip, after leaving the hotel they’d first followed Rube’s address to a shoe-repair shop in downtown Nassau, where they found that the owner and Rube’s contact, Guido, was expecting them.
“Rubin wasn’t sure you would come,” Guido said in slightly Italian-accented English. “He said you were both very stubborn.”
“Did he now?”
“Yes, oh, yes.”
Guido walked to the front door, flipped over the Out to Lunch sign, then led them into the back room and down a set of stone steps into the basement, which was lit by a single hanging lightbulb. Lying on a bench amid shoes in various states of disrepair was a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver.
“You both have handled guns, yes?”
“Yes,” Sam replied, answering for both of them.
In fact, Remi was a damned good marksman and had no fear of handling guns, but tried to avoid them if at all possible.