Andrei led them to his car, opened the trunk, and handed Boris a green training bag. Inside was a map of Delray Beach, with instructions on how to find Mr. Raymond Luca and a layout of the building where he worked. He was a “day trader,” Boris had explained with some envy, a man who made his living trading the stocks of important companies. Tucked in the bottom of the bag were two 9mm pistols and several boxes of ammunition.
Back in the car, Tatiana took a nail file from her purse and carved an x into the nose of each bullet to make it flatten on impact. Then she fed the bullets into the clip. She enjoyed the crisp click each emitted upon entry. Finished, she used her palm to drive the clip into the pistol.
“I’m sorry, my little bird,” Kirov had said, “but on one point we must be clear. There can be no survivors. No witnesses. It is for the best. For your safety and mine.”
With the help of Andrei’s map and the rental car’s onboard navigation system, they found the offices of Cornerstone Trading. Parking the car a block away, Boris told Tatiana to wait while he entered the building and checked if Raymond Luca was in. She watched him cross the street, thinking he did not look so bad dressed like an American in blue jeans, a white button-down shirt, and high-top tennis shoes. It was nice to see him in something other than a black suit.
She was dressed in nearly the same attire, except that her shirt was a blue and white chalk stripe and her tennis shoes were white and dainty.
Boris returned five minutes later.
“He is there. Fourth cubicle to the right.”
“What is a ‘cubicle’?” Tatiana asked.
“Like a little jail cell. Four walls that rise to your chest and a chair inside. He is seated working at his computer. He wears a baseball cap. Yankees of New York, I think.” Though his face was grave, his eyes were bright, overexcited. “You are ready, little sister?”
Tatiana nodded her head. Somewhere back up the road, her tourist’s fascination had faded, replaced by a professional’s icy detachment. She did not wish to speak. The pistol tucked into her pants, she simply nodded.
“I will be in the alley in back of the building,” Boris continued. “Once you enter, you have one hundred twenty seconds. Eight men downstairs. Two upstairs—the managers. Shoot, then move. Shoot, then move. Do you understand?”
Again, Tatiana nodded. Shifting in her seat, she adjusted the bandages that flattened her breasts, then pulled the baseball cap lower on her head. Boris took her hand and kissed it. “Go now.”
Tatiana opened the door without a backward glance.
Eight downstairs. Two upstairs. Shoot, then move. Shoot, then move.
One hundred twenty seconds.
Go.
27
Yesterday was the zone. Today was multitasking.
Ray Luca backhanded a glob of ketchup from his mouth and planted his double chili cheeseburger on the only available sliver of free desk. Chewing contentedly, he flicked his eyes from monitor to monitor and screen to screen, from the market being made for Intel to the closed-circuit feed of Thoroughbreds taking their morning run at Hialeah, to the “Money Honey” on CNBC reporting live from the floor of the Exchange and back again. At the same time, he sipped at his coffee, tapped out a series of buy orders, and managed to hum a little ditty.
Let the good times roll. Yeah baby, let the good times roll.
The market was up strongly. The sky was as blue as a Tiffany gift box, and on his lap was a completed copy of the Private Eye-PO’s latest editorial concerning the Mercury Broadband offering. He particularly liked the title. “Mercury in Mayhem.”
Another bite of the double chili cheese, a gulp of coffee, then a moment’s glance to reread and edit.
Private sources report an explosive confrontation Thursday afternoon outside Mercury Broadband’s Moscow offices on Kropotkin Ploshad between OMON militia troops led by Russian prosecutor general Yuri Baranov and members of the FIS (read KGB) loyal to Konstantin Kirov. Armed with a search warrant, Baranov had hoped to seize financial records incriminating Kirov in the theft of $125 million from the coffers of Novastar Airlines. Kirov, law-abiding citizen that he is, denied the OMON troops entry, preferring to let his legion of house-trained espiocrats do his talking for him. No doubt he’ll call Baranov’s visit just another case of political harassment motivated by his advocacy of free speech and a free press.
The question Luca had yet to answer was what members of the state security apparatus were doing at Kirov’s offices and why they had stood to his defense. It was akin to the CIA’s defending Ted Turner on American soil.
Whatever Kirov may say, the Private Eye-PO continued, there can be little doubt, dear hearts, that not only he, but Mercury Broadband as well, is skating on very thin ice. Do tell… if he didn’t steal the $125 million, who did? Maybe we should ask Jett Gavallan for the answer? After all, if he’s Kirov’s banker, who better to point us to the missing loot?
Stay tuned, campers, for more news from the Russian Kleptocracy.
Luca put down the pages, pleased but tired. It had all started just after eleven last night, when Jack Andrew, a correspondent for the Financial Times in Moscow, had called him in a furor to demand how he had known beforehand about the raid on Kirov’s offices. Luca dodged the question, instead pounding Andrew for every detail imaginable about the encounter. Afterward, like any solid journalist, he double-checked his source. He phoned his contacts at the Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Moscow Times. All of them said they’d heard whispers about the raid, but as yet could get neither Kirov nor the prosecutor general to confirm or deny.
Adding a few comments here and there, Luca folded up the article and put it back into his briefcase. He’d meant to get it onto his server and uploaded to his web page this morning, but he’d overslept, and his cardinal rule was never to miss an opening. Good thing, too. The market was riding an updraft the likes of which he hadn’t seen in a year. Fifteen minutes after the opening the Nasdaq was up 80 points and the Dow up 100.
In a parallel universe, Mazursky and his crew were yelling loud enough to rouse the Miracle Mets. Let ’em, thought Luca. With the news about Kirov, he’d be out of there inside a month. The newsletter would do better than he’d ever imagined. Forget three thousand subscribers. Why not four thousand? Five thousand? Ten, even? Luca would buy a little house and a Boston Whaler he’d had his eye on. He’d arrange a weeklong trip to Disney World for the girls. Maybe, just maybe, he could convince his wife to come back to him.
Enraptured by this rosy vision of the future, he found it difficult to breathe. It could happen, he told himself. It really could. The family back together again. Ray and his four girls. It was all he had ever really wanted.
Minutes passed and the market continued higher, headed straight for the stratosphere. Volume. Tick. S &P futures. All were rocketing up, up, up. One after another he put on a buy, not bothering even to take profits on his earlier positions. At ten o’clock, the Nasdaq was up 150 and the Dow the same. A quick tally showed him ahead twenty-five grand.
Once in a while Luca looked down at the briefcase. Part of him said to close his positions, take his profits, and get home to post his newest article—the sooner the better. But Luca ignored the voice. He wasn’t leaving today. Today he was a trader. He could be the Private Eye-PO tomorrow, and for the rest of his life.
Hello, Ray.”
Luca jolted in his chair as if he’d seen a ghost. “Jett Gavallan. What a surprise. What brings you round these parts?”