“And then? All of us have our part to play to insure Mercury’s future. We expect you to take any and all measures to silence this man. Nothing can stand in the way of Mercury Broadband’s going public. Nothing.”
“And nothing will. I’ll see to it the Private Eye-PO’s mouth is shut—permanently, if I have my way. In the meantime, these receipts refute his accusations nicely. I’d say we’re back on track.”
“Good,” said Kirov. “It’s time to put an end to this tomfoolery. There’s already been enough snooping.”
The recording ended, and DiGenovese turned the machine off.
It was eleven-thirty in Washington, D.C., and outside the temperature registered a sweltering ninety-two degrees. From his office on the second floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Howell Dodson, chairman of the Joint Russo-American Task Force on Organized Crime, could see the early lunch crowd making their way to the mall in hopes of staking out shaded benches or dipping their big toes in the Reflecting Pool. It wasn’t much of a view. The prime offices were on the opposite side of the building, facing south and offering a panoramic vista of the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and Mr. Thomas Jefferson, fellow Son of Virginia. One day he hoped to gaze out at the Lord of Monticello, but good views required good politicking, and good politicking required a cunning he did not possess.
“What do you say, Roy?” Dodson asked in a slow Williamsburg drawl, his voice the texture of cured tobacco. “Mr. Gavallan talking prudent business practice or did we just hear collusion among conspirators?”
“That depends on Mercury, sir. If the business is legit, I’d say we listened to a bunch of execs who want to stop someone from bad-mouthing their stock. If not, we just tuned in to a group of criminals discussing murder. Me, I opt for the latter. I think we caught some crooks red-handed.”
“So the Private Eye-PO is correct? Mercury’s nothing but ‘a scam dog with mucho fleas’? That what you’re saying, Roy?”
“We’re getting the same information from our informant in Moscow. Why shouldn’t we believe it?”
Dodson couldn’t help but chuckle. Three years in the Bureau and Mr. DiGenovese still considered an informant’s cant the holy scripture. The boy was a greenhorn. Yes sir. Nothing but a big-city hick. Dodson himself wasn’t so much interested in whether what the Private Eye-PO said was correct as in how he came to be in possession of the information. And for that matter, just who in the hell he was. “What’s the latest on finding this boy? Mr. Chupik have any luck?”
Lyle Chupik was the Bureau’s in-house webhead and the man who’d been charged with tracking down the Private Eye-PO.
“Nothing yet, sir,” said DiGenovese. “Says he’s close to nabbing him, though.”
“Close?” Dodson lifted a thumb beneath his suspenders and let them slap on his chest. “Close don’t count but for horseshoes and hand grenades. Isn’t that right, Mr. DiGenovese? Mr. Gavallan seems to think he’ll have him located today. That leaves us one step behind. And I don’t like stomping through another horse’s droppings,” he whispered, with just a smattering of menace. “Follow?”
“Likewise, sir.”
“Good boy. It’s time we considered using an outside source. Find me the name of that odd fella does some consulting for us. If I’m not mistaken, he doesn’t live too far away. Get him in here this afternoon and put him to work. Here’s a dollar. Go buy Mr. Chupik a couple of those chocolate Yoo-Hoos he’s so fond of, and tell him better luck next time.”
Howell Ames Dodson IV was a Son of the South and ever proud of it. He was tall and lanky, with a shock of brown hair that fell boyishly into devilish blue eyes that teased the world from behind a scholar’s half-moon glasses. He favored poplin suits in the summer, worsted gabardine in the fall, and the finest manners all year round. He liked smartly striped shirts, exuberant ties, snazzy cuff links, and pocket squares. He was foppish and a bit of a dandy, and if anyone cared to say a word about it, he’d point them to his unmatched arrest-to-conviction ratio, the commendations he’d received from the President of the United States, and a certain article in the Washington Post he kept tucked away in his desk for just such occasions.
The article described the shooting of four Georgian mafiosi by an unnamed FBI agent in a sting gone sour in the city of Tbilisi late last summer. The article was sketchy in parts. It failed to mention that the agent had shot the men after escaping from their custody or that he’d pulled off the feat fifteen minutes after having two fingers on his left hand severed with a carpet knife.
Sliding the digital recorder toward himself, Dodson listened to the pirated conversation again. “So, Roy,” he said when the recording ended. “Think our boy isn’t content with a little innocent fraud? That why you asked for this crash meeting? According to you, Mr. Gavallan’s joining the big leagues. Premeditated murder is moving up the ladder p.d.q., wouldn’t you say?”
“Sir, the Mercury offering is for two billion dollars,” answered DiGenovese, leaning across the desk. “Leagues don’t get much bigger than that.”
“No, son, they do not,” said Dodson, rocking in his chair, tapping a pencil on his weathered shipwright’s desk, a nineteenth-century antique on loan from the Dodson Family Collection. “Just wish that damned recording didn’t make them all sound like robots. Hard to tell if Gavallan’s joking or if he’s serious.”
“Sir, with all due respect, when an associate of a known criminal talks about permanently getting rid of someone, I think that qualifies as serious. Our job is to take a man at his word, not to guess his intentions.”
Such fire, mused Dodson, looking at the lean, vital young man seated across the desk. Such drive. His hair was ruffled, his suit wrinkled and in need of a press, but his black eyes were awake and dancing with a mean-spirited ambition. DiGenovese was the kind of agent who wanted to arrest the whole damned world to keep it safe for the police.
“Come now, Roy, we both know that conversation doesn’t amount to a hill of beans,” he said kindly. “It wouldn’t hold a drop in any court in the land. Between you and me, I doubt it would even garner an indictment from so docile a beast as a sitting grand jury. I will grant you one thing, though: It does appear that Mr. Gavallan and Mr. Kirov are closer friends than any of us thought.”
Dodson could have added that contrary to DiGenovese’s opinion, Kirov was hardly a known criminal, but he didn’t want to dampen the boy’s enthusiasm. DiGenovese’s killer instinct was about all the task force had going for it these days. Truth was, Kirov hadn’t ever been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. Not that Dodson didn’t think Kirov was dirty. It was just that these days you could label any businessman worth his salt in Russia a suspected criminal. What with all the bribery, extortion, and strong-arming that went on to make the wheels of everyday commerce go round, if you looked closely enough just about anybody was guilty of one infraction or another.
“Now do tell, Roy, what did your team find in Mr. Gavallan’s private chambers? Love notes between him and Mr. Kirov? Written promises about how they’re going to split the booty? Plans to overthrow the President?”
“No sir,” DiGenovese answered without a hint of regret, going on to explain that they hadn’t found any documents of an incriminating nature, not with regard to Mercury, Novastar Airlines, or anything else. The bugs were clean too. Only thing they learned was that Gavallan liked to listen to country music. Before going to the ball last night, he’d sat in the bath for half an hour singing along to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.
“Bob Wills, eh?” asked Dodson, cleaning his bifocals with a hankie. “At least Mr. Gavallan has himself some taste. Still, it is a shame. Going to all that trouble for nothing. A damned shame indeed.” And though his voice displayed no irritation, he was, in fact, hopping mad. Howell Dodson wanted Kirov more than the headstrong Mr. DiGenovese or Mr. Baranov combined. It wasn’t ambition but realism that told him the trajectory of his career depended on it.