Murder in Foggy Bottom (12 page)

“Oh, that’s right. You’re off to New York tonight.”

“I’m really excited about seeing those pieces Mr. Relais has up for sale.”

“I’m sure you are. What shuttle are you taking?”

“The seven-thirty.”

He drove her to the airport in time for her flight to New York and dropped her off in front of the busy terminal. They embraced. “I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “If all goes well, I should be able to catch a flight around three.”

“I’ll be teaching.”

“I know. A taxi will do just fine.”

“Provided you find a driver who knows how to get to the city from the airport.”

Annabel didn’t respond. She couldn’t help but reflect on Mac’s comment about DC’s cab drivers. Most of them were foreign-born; their reputation for not speaking good English or knowing their way around Washington was as established in the minds of visitors and residents as was the confusion of the city’s system of traffic circles and one-way streets, thanks to Pierre L’Enfant, who designed it in 1791 “like a chessboard overlaid with a wagon wheel.”

Stereotypes.

Cab drivers wearing turbans.

A store owner with dark skin.

Anyone different.

Someone to look down on, feel superior to.

She’d ridden the Metro that day and realized she was especially wary of foreigners carrying packages. Not Americans. Just foreigners. She felt slightly ashamed. And justified.

What was the world coming to?

Homicide detective Pete Languth, too, was pondering the fate of the world as he sipped his Black Velvet at the bar in the Carlton Hotel waiting for Joe Potamos to arrive. He’d come from a particularly grisly double murder, a domestic dispute that got out of hand, and as inured as he was to violence and its predictable after-math, this one got to him.

“You’re late,” Languth said to Potamos when he walked in at six-fifteen. Nathan, the bartender, delivered a Rob Roy without being asked.

“Right, I’m late,” Potamos said. “You know any editors?”

“Editors? No. Why should I know editors?”

“There aren’t any good ones anymore. I work for an idiot. Name’s Gardello. I just left him.”

“You hit him, Joe?” the big detective asked, chuckling at the question.

“No, I didn’t hit him,” Potamos said, laughing, too. “You come up with anything on the Canadian, Wilcox? Gardello told me to get off the story, stick with human-interest stuff on the grieving widows from the plane crash.”

“So why do you want this?” Languth asked, sliding a thin file folder along the bar. Potamos opened it and glanced at its contents.

“This all you have, Pete?”

“Hey, how about showing a little gratitude? That’s the case file. They wouldn’t be happy I copied it for you.”

“Yeah, sorry. Thanks. Anything you know that’s not in this?”

“You
are
buying, right?”

Potamos slapped his American Express card on the bar.

Languth waved for another drink, turned to Potamos, and said, “The deceased, one Jeremy Wilcox, was working on some sorta treaty on fishing rights.”

“You already told me that.”

“Don’t interrupt. Because you’re so interested—why? I don’t know and don’t care—and despite the fact you’re a hardheaded Greek with no common sense, I called a friend who knows another friend who knows somebody who knew the deceased. He was supposedly a trade type at the embassy, but maybe he wasn’t.”

“Meaning? Nathan, one more, please, a little sweeter this time.”

“Meaning he might have really been a spy type.”

“ ‘Spy type.’ What the hell does that mean?”

“You know, making like he’s here in the States to negotiate fishing treaties, but maybe working for some Canadian intelligence agency.”

“No kidding? Who is this person who knows that?”

“I wrote it down inside. I didn’t know they had one. An intelligence agency. The Canadians.”

“Everybody’s got an intelligence agency.”

“Yeah, but I can’t figure why the Canadians would want to spy on us. We’re friends, right?”

“Everybody spies on us, Pete, and we spy on everybody. Remember Israel?”

“What about it?”

“They got caught spying on us, and we’re friends. Do you think Wilcox got it because he was a ‘spy type’?”

Languth shrugged his massive shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said, “but it’s not being considered a street crime. Maybe having something to do with politics, or a rub-out. Drugs, maybe, some sorta criminal thing he got himself involved with.”

“Hmmm,” Potamos said as he tasted his second drink, gave Nathan a thumbs-up.

They talked about other things until a half hour later, when Languth announced he had to leave.

“Thanks for the drinks, Joe.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks for this stuff,” Potamos said, tapping the file folder.

“Why don’t you drop it, Joe?” Languth said, standing. “Follow orders. Your editor says drop it, you drop it, save yourself another headache.”

“You might have a point. I’ll think about it. We’ll catch up.”
Career advice from a cop?

Potamos read what was in the folder as he finished his drink, paid, left the hotel, and went to Roseann’s apartment. She was gone when he arrived, but Jumper gave him a wet greeting. After walking her, Potamos wrote a series of notes on the computer. Although there wasn’t much useful information in what Languth had given him, there was enough to spur his interest. Besides, Gil Gardello’s order not to follow up was motive enough to keep going.

14

A Week Later
Moscow
The American Embassy

“Well, well, well,” Bill Lerner said as Pauling knocked and paused outside his office door in the American embassy, a nine-story yellow-and-white building on Novinskiy Bulvar. “He returns to the scene of the crime.”

Max Pauling grinned and stepped inside. He’d arrived that morning at Sheremetevo II Airport on a British Airways flight from London, after flying there from Washington. He had declined the airline’s food so when he checked into the Metropol Hotel, a long block from the former KGB headquarters and across the street from the Bolshoi, he ordered
blinchiki varenem—
small pancakes with jam—and coffee from room service, then showered, changed his shirt, and went to the Kremlin, a five-minute stroll and one of his favorite sights in the world, before hailing a taxi to the embassy. He was happy to be back.

Lerner came around the desk and enthusiastically shook Pauling’s hand. Although he was a section head in ECO/COM, the embassy’s economic and commercial office, like Pauling he, too, answered to a different and distant superior, in Langley, Virginia.

Lerner was tall, six feet four, a loosely jointed man with unruly reddish-brown hair and a face comprised of folds, sags, pouches, and putty-colored half-moons beneath his eyes. He was no fashion plate; he wore cheap suits and shirts that hung haphazardly from his angular frame, and drab wide ties of no known color.

“What crime did I leave behind?” Pauling asked.

“The names escape me, Max, but I do remember they were attractive. Coffee?”

“Speaking of crimes . . . no, thanks.”

“You’re at the Metropol?”

“Yeah. Living well is the best revenge. Who said that?”

“The Duchess of Windsor.”

“I guess she knew. What’s new here? I miss anything in the past year?”

“Of course you did,” Lerner said, returning to his swivel, high-back office chair and laying one long leg over the other, displaying short black socks and an expanse of white leg. “What was a confused situation when you left has become more confused. Your Russian friends—”

“What Russian friends?”

“The ones with the funny noses. Your unsavory contacts in Russia’s leading industry, the underworld, are thriving.”

“Including arms sales?”

“Oh, yes, especially arms sales. Since you’ve rudely turned down my offer of coffee, would vodka be more to your taste?”

Pauling glanced at his watch. “Noon. A little early for me, even if this is Russia.”

Lerner unfolded himself from the chair and went to the window. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“Are we going for lunch?”

“Yes.”

They left the building, stopping on their way for Pauling to exchange greetings with others with whom he’d worked, and walked up the busy boulevard in the direction of Moscow’s zoo. Pauling knew from years of having worked for Bill Lerner that leaving the embassy had more to do with security than hunger. Lerner defined paranoia when it came to discussing sensitive matters within the building, and for good reason: The Soviets had attempted to install bugs in it during its construction; such Cold War mentality died hard.

They entered a small park that divided the boulevard and went to a
shashlik
, a kiosk offering barbecued meats and fish, freshly baked bread, and a small selection of vegetables.

“Hello, hello, Mr. Lerner,” the elderly man in the kiosk said. His wife looked up from her food preparation and smiled sweetly.

“Privet,”
Lerner said, returning the greeting.

“A new favorite restaurant?” Pauling asked.

“Yes. Zagat hasn’t discovered it yet. They’re friends, occasionally helpful ones.”

Pauling smiled and peered into the kiosk at the food cooking on the grill. “Smells good.”

“Might I recommend the
pirozhki
and
khatchapuri
? He has a touch with them.”

Pauling laughed. Lerner spoke excellent Russian and took considerable pride in it. Pauling had become almost fluent during his seven years in Russia, although he was not, and would never be, up to Lerner’s standard.

Lerner placed the order and led Pauling to a bench a few feet from the kiosk. The park was busy with lunchtime workers from nearby office buildings. Two uniformed city police leaned against a utility pole on the opposite side. It had warmed considerably since Pauling arrived in Moscow that morning. He removed his tan sport jacket and loosened his tie.

“What did you learn before leaving Washington?” Lerner asked as though not caring what the answer was.

“Nothing, except that they were Soviet-made missiles.”

“We know more than that now,” Lerner said, “but you’ve been traveling, wouldn’t be up to date.”

“Tell me.”

“According to what we’ve been told, they—I’m speaking of the missiles, of course—they were SA-7, shoulderfired, infrared homing after optical sighting, range—I don’t have all the specs with me. They’re back in the office, complete with batch and serial numbers.”

“Narrows it down to a hundred thousand or so,” Pauling said as the kiosk chef’s wife appeared carrying two paper plates with ravioli-like stuffed grape leaves and slabs of hot cheese bread overflowing their edges.

“Pivo, pazhalsta,”
Lerner said to her.

“Da, pivo,”
Pauling said, also in the mood for a beer.

“It won’t be quite as daunting as you think, Max. The batch number was intact on one of the missile fragments. Should help compress the process some. We’re having dinner tonight with Elena. She’s looking forward to seeing you again.”

“I meant to ask about her. You’re still with her?”

“In a manner of speaking. Different apartments, getting together when the need arises, which is less often as I get older. Our
friendship
is still between us, of course.”

“Of course. She still work for the Central Bank?”

“Yes. But you can catch up on us tonight. I have a lead for you, Max.”

“Good. Who?”

“Well, speaking of banks, a banker. A crooked one, successful because he
is
crooked. Very well connected in the district committees, the Central Committee, Council of Ministers—the usual criminal chain of command. Answers to the mafia, but that’s nothing new in Russia, is it? You’ll have to get to him through one of the names in your little black book.”

“That could take a while.”

“I believe I can narrow it for you, perhaps as early as tonight, after dinner. Check in with me at the end of the day. Until then, nothing has changed at the embassy. It’s still a sieve. Our Russian nationals at the embassy profess loyalty to us, or at least wave off any thought that they might tell tales out of school. Don’t believe them. I don’t. Enjoying the
pirozhki
?”

“I like the bread better,” Pauling said, taking a swig of beer from the bottle as he admired a stylishly dressed woman who sauntered past, her eyes playing with his.

“You’re officially assigned to me and ECO/COM, as usual. Everything comes through me—as usual. You’re to have no contact with Langley, none with Barton at State. You’ll keep me informed of every move, Max, and I’ll pass along what information you develop to the appropriate people back home. And, Max, as a personal favor to me, try to control your impetuous impulses for as long as you’re here.”

“Sometimes those impulses paid off.”

“Yes, and sent me in search of antacid.”

“Tom Hoctor told me the same thing.”

“To curb your impulses?”

“Yeah. I had a pleasant couple of days with him at Langley.”

“So I understand. We’ve been in daily touch.”

“Good. I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know, but it’s always nice to see Tom. I wish the Company would fix the air-conditioning, though. Sometimes you wonder about who’s running things. When they built the building, the air-conditioning contractor said he needed to know how many people would be working in it to come up with the right amount of AC. They wouldn’t tell him. National security. So he puts in a puny unit and everybody sweats. Brilliant.”

Lerner smiled. He knew the story. He also knew that Pauling enjoyed telling it as an example of inept leadership to anyone who’d listen.

“You’ll have my complete support, Max, money, resources, whatever you need to find out how those missiles left here and ended up in whoever’s hands. I suggest you stay in the hotel for a few weeks. The regular routine, seeking a suitable place for our new staff member to live. Hopefully, you won’t be here long enough to have to find more permanent quarters.”

Pauling grinned. “Should I be offended that you want me out of here so fast?”

“No. The seriousness of the mission dictates that.”

“What if I can’t trace the missiles to who ultimately used them against the planes?” Pauling asked.

“Then at least identify who here in Russia sold them. Hopefully, it will be a private party, organized crime, a morally bankrupt businessman—anyone but the Russian government.”

“And if it
was
the Russian government?”

“I prefer not to think about that. We should get back. Your old office is vacant, although I don’t suppose you’ll be spending much time there.”

Pauling stood and returned the smile of another young woman wearing a miniskirt and a tank top that exposed her bare midriff. The prostitutes were dressing better these days, he thought. So much had changed in Moscow since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and this new Russia’s commitment, as painful as it was, to democracy, capitalism, crime, and prostitution. Western fashion had captured the women, cell phones and sport cars the men. The problem, he knew only too well, was that behind this flashy facade of economic prosperity in the city, there was a vastly wider country on the verge of economic collapse. And where the money flowed in the cities, you could count on organized crime to control the spigots. Pauling and Lerner retraced their steps to the embassy, but instead of accompanying Lerner inside, Pauling hesitated at the entrance gate manned by an armed, uniformed Marine.

“Not coming?” Lerner asked.

“No. I want to get my bearings again, Bill, maybe make a few contacts. What time is dinner?”

“Eight. The Anchor in the Palace Hotel.”

“I know it.”

“I’ll be there at eight. Elena will join us a little later, a chance meeting.” A wan smile.

Pauling understood.

Lerner’s four-year affair with Elena Alekseyevna was conducted quietly and with pragmatic discretion. Sleeping with a Russian woman was not encouraged for embassy male employees, especially those in sensitive positions like Bill Lerner. In fact, more than one libidinous male had been sent packing for succumbing to a Russian woman’s wiles.

Lerner’s superior in ECO/COM knew of the affair and, while not condoning it, chose to ignore it beyond cautioning Lerner on occasion to keep it low-key. Other supervisors might not have been quite so sanguine. But Lerner’s boss and his wife had been extremely close to Lerner and his wife, Jackie, and with him went through the agony of her long, painful battle with breast cancer, which eventually took her life.

Lerner knew that he would one day have to face a decision about Elena, should his boss be transferred and a new one assigned. Until then, he reveled in the closeness he and Elena had forged, and viewed each day with her as a gift.

Pauling watched his old friend disappear beyond the guard station, then slowly walked away. As tiring as the long trip from Washington had been, at that moment he felt no fatigue. The past year in Washington had been like retirement, the days predictable and tedious, the lack of action and challenge wearying.

It was different in Moscow, and he welcomed the difference. Here, there was the element of tension, indeed of danger, puzzles to be solved, individuals to outfox, a need to be quick on your feet when someone you turned on decided to turn on you. He’d drunk vodka with Russian killers, and frolicked among the hookers and influence buyers with crooked Russian businessmen, whose approach to doing business, and to life, was not much different than that of Russia’s organized-crime managers.

As he continued to walk, he thought of his most recent conversation with Doris about who he really was. He was glad he no longer felt the need to deny to his ex-wife that facing the challenges and dangers of his job was more satisfying than the challenges and, yes, dangers of a different sort, of being a husband and father. No more guilt, no more wondering whether something was wrong with him for not responding to family the way “normal” men were supposed to. Like Bill Lerner and his precarious need for Elena, Max Pauling needed something most “normal” men didn’t.

So be it!

He paused to peruse a display of cell phones in a store window. As he did, he saw a reflection in the window of two young men in suits, smoking, observing him from across the street. Or were they observing him? Like most people in his business, he’d developed an instinctive sense of when someone was paying him too much attention. Was he being followed so soon? Good to be back in business.

He drew a deep breath, stepped away from the window, and picked up his pace. Might as well get some exercise, he thought—for himself and whoever might be tagging along.