They were there now, training, practicing, awaiting the green light. Team 7 from Department R of the First Directorate. Former Spetsnaz men trained to fight in all weathers. He imagined them clad in white, moving over the rough terrain—white anoraks, white snowsuits, white balaclavas.
Kirov thought of the audacious plan. Soon everything would be different. Seventy-two hours until Mercury went public in New York. Seventy-two hours until the FIS—oh, fuck it, he would call it what it was—until the KGB received a billion dollars into its private account. Seventy-two hours until the planes took off from Severnaya, heading east over the top of the world.
Imagining what was to come, Leonid Kirov shuddered. His brother was right: They would reserve a place for his bust in Red Square, next to Andropov and Iron Feliks. Nothing less would do for the next director of the KGB.
He reentered the dark room a few minutes later. The timer sounded, and he anxiously moved to the ropes of dangling film to check the negatives. Every frame was a blank, a pearly white slate, overexposed due to heat, low doses of radioactivity… there might be a hundred reasons why. Kirov chucked the worthless film into the trash bin and scowled. He’d had enough of rinsing mercury off his hands.
32
Gavallan woke in the backseat of a large car. His head was splitting, his mouth bone-dry. With a grunt, he tried to sit up. His back screamed as if gouged by a hundred razor blades. “Shit,” he grunted, and fell back.
“Jett, are you all right? Does your head hurt dreadfully? Let me look at you.”
Squinting at the bold sun, he made out Cate’s form seated behind the wheel. He’d do it, if only to show her. One hand found an armrest, the other the ridge of the rear seat. Teeth gritted, he hauled himself to an upright position.
They were driving north toward Palm Beach along A1A, a two-lane blacktop shaded by gnarled banyans, Norfolk pines, and giant clumps of frangipani. To the right, peeking between the ornate mansions that made up the communities of Gulfstream, Oceanridge, and Manalapan, lay the Atlantic Ocean. To the left were golf courses, more homes, and the intracoastal waterway.
“Jett, who did this to you?” Cate asked, reaching a hand back, laying it to his cheek. “Did you see them?”
Gavallan brushed away her fingers. “You mean you didn’t?” Despite her role as savior, she was the enemy. Someone to be distrusted, kept at arm’s length.
“I found you alone in the house, lying on the floor. The bedroom window was open. I suppose they left that way.”
“They? How did you know there was more than one person?”
“I didn’t. They… he… I was just…” She pulled up short, her features crunched into an offended grimace. “I don’t suppose thanks are in order.”
Gavallan eyed her suspiciously. As usual, she was dressed as if she’d been born to the place: khaki shorts, navy polo shirt, a pair of Ray-Bans hiding her eyes. Two nights ago she’d been the princess of Nob Hill. Today she was a soccer mom. He’d been quick to pick up on her chameleon’s gift of adaptability, her ability to look at home in places she’d never set foot in before, to make new acquaintances feel as though they were old friends. She could talk XML with the code pounders from Sun, deliver an address on the future of the Net to an auditorium of grade-schoolers, or bandy about internal rates of return with Meg and Tony, all with equal aplomb. It was her journalist’s secret weapon, and when they were dating, he’d often found himself amazed at her social dexterity. Today it made him nervous. He wasn’t certain who it was driving the car.
“Thanks.” He uttered the words without an ounce of gratitude.
The windows were open, and a stiff, cooling breeze swept through his hair and across his face. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply and was reinvigorated by the fresh, salty drafts. The throbbing of his head subsided. The rhythmic stabbing deep inside his belly eased. The pain became bearable. But the deception remained, and he decided it was far worse a companion.
“Stop the car,” he said.
“What?”
“I said, ‘Stop the car.’”
Cate signaled and guided the car onto the grassy shoulder. Gavallan pushed open the door and lowered himself gingerly to the ground. He had to move, to be free of their faux walnut and Naugahyde confinement. Cate came round and offered a hand, but again, he waved it away.
“Talk, damn it,” he said. “Don’t just stand there playing nursemaid. Talk to me. What are you doing here? You’re in this every bit as deeply as I am—even more, from the looks of things. Your fax number is all over Ray Luca’s correspondence. You’ve been feeding the Private Eye-PO his information. Why, Cate? I want to know what in the world is going on. And then I want to know why you didn’t tell me before.”
“I wanted to… I was worried… I don’t…” She started and stopped a dozen times, groping for a place to begin. Gavallan had never seen her so flustered. All part of the act, he decided.
“Just the truth, Cate. That’s all. It’s not so hard.”
Her features hardened as though she’d been slapped in the face. “If you saw the fax, then you know,” she said. “It’s about Kirov. He’s a criminal—not just a man who cuts a few corners, but a gangster. He’s as bad as Al Capone or John Gotti. He’s been under investigation by the police for six months now. The Russian prosecutor general and the FBI are all over him. The focus of their inquiries is Novastar Airlines. Kirov took over the company for half of what it was worth and is milking it of every cent, sending its foreign revenues to his private offshore accounts.”
“What about Mercury? Is the FBI looking at that too?”
“No one’s looking too closely yet, but with Kirov everything’s rotten. You’ve seen the proof. It’s hardly a model of propriety.”
“You mean the pictures of Mercury’s Moscow Operations Center? The Cisco receipts? If the cops aren’t concerned about Mercury, why are you trying to pull it down?”
“To get Kirov.”
“To get Kirov?” Gavallan smirked, drunk with disbelief. “What the hell does a reporter covering the mating habits of yetis in San Francisco have to do with a Russian billionaire ten thousand miles away? Sick of being a social gadfly? Is that it, Cate? Is this your bid for the big time? Looking for a promotion to hard news? Maybe a Pulitzer? Or is sinking Black Jet what you’re after. Dumping me wasn’t good enough.”
Cate’s eyes flared. “You bastard!” She took a step toward Gavallan, raising an opened palm, then stopped, her fury reined in. “You have no idea what you’re saying, how your words hurt.”
But Gavallan could match neither her emotional nor her physical control. Rushing forward, he pinned her to the car, squaring his face an inch from hers. “Kirov, eh? Bullshit! You don’t even know the man. What in the hell could he have done to get you on the warpath?”
“Stop it!”
Gavallan grabbed her by the arms and shook her. “Tell me.”
Cate raised a defiant chin, freezing him with her eyes. “He killed a friend.”
“Who?” Gavallan fired back with equal vitriol.
“Alexei,” she answered, the heat draining from her voice. “He killed Alexei.”
“Alexei who?”
“Alexei Kalugin. I loved him.”
“Tell me about it.” For the moment, he couldn’t believe anything she said. Cate the deceiver.
“It was so long ago. Another life.” She gathered herself for a moment, and when she saw that Gavallan was waiting for her to go on, she drew a deep breath. “His name was Alexei Kalugin. We met at business school. When we graduated, we both took jobs at the K Bank in Moscow. It was our big adventure; our chance to see the world. Alexei started on the trading floor. I worked in international credits, handling the American correspondent banks. After about a month it became clear to both of us that the K Bank wasn’t on the up-and-up. Kirov was insisting we grant loans to companies that had no collateral, no creditworthiness whatsoever. It was crazy.”