“What the fuck now?” muttered Tolevi. He opened the drawer below the security monitor and reached behind the back to get the gun hidden above the panel. He slid the gun into the back of his belt and covered it with his shirt before going down to the door.
“What do you want?” he demanded from behind the locked door.
“Gabor! Is that a way to greet an old friend?”
“I heard rumors you wanted to kill me,” said Tolevi.
“Kill you? Never!”
“You’re lying.”
Tolevi put his eye to the security peephole. Medved was still alone. His arms were wide, palms up.
What the hell was he up to?
“You hurt me more than you know, Gabor.”
Tolevi cracked open the door. Medved smiled.
“Come in,” said Tolevi, stepping back.
Medved spread his arms out to grab him in a bear hug. Tolevi put up his hand.
“My daughter is here,” he said.
“And that is perfect, because I have a gift for her.”
Medved reached into the pocket of his sport coat. Tolevi stepped back and pulled his pistol.
“What? A gun on your friend? What is this?” sputtered Medved.
“You tried to get me killed.”
“No. Never.”
“Don’t lie.”
“It was not me, and you know it. You had trouble with the Russian service, big trouble.” Medved shook his head dramatically. “But many people do, and it passes. You have no trouble now! Of course not! You worked that out. Now, I–I had nothing to do with that. Ask anyone.”
Medved seemed genuinely offended, even hurt.
“So what do you want?” asked Tolevi.
“Want? Me? Nothing. I am honored to call you a friend.”
This, clearly, is going to cost me something huge, thought Tolevi.
“Can I come in?” asked Medved.
“My daughter is here, as I said.”
“And as I said, excellent, because I have a present for her. A new iPad.” Medved held out a slim rectangle wrapped in plain brown paper. “They call it a mini.”
“She has one.”
“And now two. This one is better. I understand she is very good at computers, yes?” Medved took a step inside. Tolevi, puzzled by what Medved might be up to, let him go.
Not much was sacrosanct with the Russian mafya, but attacking families, especially children, was generally considered out of bounds. And this sort of attention was meant to convey the opposite, to make up for past wrongs.
Or curry favor.
“Borya! Borya!” said Medved, tromping up the stairs to the kitchen. “A present for you.”
Borya, bewildered, emerged from the living room. If she remembered Medved, her expression betrayed no hint of it.
“How much you have grown! I brought you a present.”
“Thank you,” said Borya hesitantly. She glanced at her father. He shrugged.
“How is school?” asked Medved.
“Do I know you?” asked Borya.
Medved laughed genially. “I work with your dad. You and I met at the Christmas party two years ago. I knew your mother,” he added gravely.
The last was a lie, but Tolevi didn’t correct it.
“Open the present,” urged Medved. “Go on.”
Borya ripped off the paper gingerly, revealing an iPad mini. It wasn’t boxed and didn’t include a plug.
“Uh, thank you,” she said, turning it over. “You know, usually these have, like, a wire for charging.”
Medved’s face fell. “Oh.”
“I’m sure I have a spare,” she said quickly. “Thank you.” Borya winked at her father. “I have homework.”
“You better get it done,” Tolevi told her, winking back.
“So, what favor is it you want?” Tolevi asked when she left.
“Favor? No favor. In fact, I have a present for you,” declared Medved.
He reached into his jacket and took out a thick envelope. “It is a way of saying thank you.”
“Thank you for what? What did I do for you?”
“Not for me,” said Medved. “Someone more important than me.”
That would include 99 percent of the world, thought Tolevi. “Can you give me a hint?”
“You helped a babushka, on the day of the attacks,” said Medved.
Tolevi shrugged. The old grandma in the deli. He’d forgotten the incident entirely.
“Let’s just say she is the mother of someone very important. He will not forget this. Ever. Anything you need — anything — come to me. Bingo.”
“Bingo?”
“Yes, yes. Well, have a good night with your daughter. Family is very important. The most important.”
Tolevi showed him to the door. It was only when he had gone that he opened the envelope.
There were a hundred one-hundred-dollar bills.
Borya came into the kitchen as he finished counting. “What was that all about?”
“Looks like I did a good deed,” said Tolevi.
“I checked it for a virus,” she said, holding up the iPad. “It’s clean. Newest specs. Is it stolen?”
“That’s anyone’s guess,” admitted Tolevi.
“Do you think there’s a bomb inside?” she asked.
“Not one with explosives.”
21
Massina’s vague sense of unease after the American assaults in Libya only grew in their immediate aftermath. The waves of cruise missiles and standoff munitions launched by American ships, submarines, and aircraft were followed by ground operations conducted by Libyan troops. These were reported to be a great success.
Still, despite claims that they had been launched in retaliation for the Boston attacks, nothing Massina heard or read indicated that the Boston plotters had been brought to justice, or even captured. The Pentagon wouldn’t even comment on whether they’d been targeted.
Having given the issue some thought following the attacks, Massina realized that Muslim extremists were a nihilistic pathogen that poisoned countries directly and indirectly. No amount of reason or goodwill could convince them to alter their path toward conflagration. Eventually they, or people they influenced, would get ahold of a nuclear weapon. Maybe this would happen in Pakistan, maybe Russia, maybe even, God forbid, the U.S. Millions would die or be poisoned. The only way to prevent that was to stamp them out, and keep stamping.
Given that logic, the attacks in Libya made sense. And yet they were inadequate at best. And since they didn’t directly target the perpetrators in Boston — or if they did, clearly they had missed — they were beside the point. If you didn’t punish the people responsible for the attacks, there would surely be more attacks.
The evening of the attack, Massina had met with a friend of his at the FBI and offered to help in any way possible. It was a sincere offer, but he could tell from the reaction that his friend thought it was pro forma, the sort of thing people said in times of crisis.
Which only frustrated him more. Still, Massina was taken off guard when he got a text on his private phone a week and change after the attacks:
Can we meet? — YJoh
Massina almost dismissed it as spam, then realized who “YJoh” was. He replied:
Come to my office
The answer came quickly.
Can’t. Café near Fenway?
Now it was Massina’s turn to pass.
Can’t leave office.
Tonight?
He thought for a moment.
I am going to a cocktail party at Hilton Downtown at 7 p.m. Meet me there.
Johansen didn’t respond.