He had missed his chance to stop it, Haskel thought, realizing in one bleak moment what a fool he had been. The Altmann woman had sent in her request for a search warrant hours before she had violated procedure and gone in on her own authority.
There had to be a way to get ahead of this, to recover from the damage this threatened to do to him. If only his conversation with Cahill had been on the record.
“Get it done,” he whispered, leaning close to the speaker. “Pull surveillance footage, traffic cameras, everything. I don’t care what you have to do. Just find them.”
“There’s something wrong with your story,” Harry announced at last, rising from his seat in front of Andropov. “You speak with certainty that Hancock was your client — did he take no precautions to conceal his identity? A man of his stature risks much by a venture of this sort…”
“He was cautious, at first,” the oligarch replied, looking him straight in the eye. “And I would have none of it. A contract this dangerous…I needed to be sure that he could provide the umbrella that he was promising.”
Harry shook his head, reaching for the prepaid phone once again. “I don’t believe you. Shall we see what Sergei has to say about this whole sordid affair?”
Andropov swore in frustration. “I have proof.”
Harry and Vasiliev traded glances. The phone went back on the desk. “Let’s hear it, Valentin.”
“We met in a hangar at Dulles, a campaign donor meeting with the man he helped put in office. Nothing overtly conspiratorial, I’m afraid. At least his detail didn’t think so.”
“And this proof of yours?”
Andropov inclined his head toward the bookshelf. “Take out the vellum-bound copy of the Rubaiyat on the third shelf. You’ll find the files on a thumb drive concealed within its pages.”
It’s just a matter of deciding which set of consequences you can live with. He was right, Carol thought, standing in the door of the mansion’s master bathroom, her eyes resting on the bound and blindfolded form of Pyotr Andropov. That’s all it was.
And what could you live with?
She took a step into the room, their hostage backlit by the Coleman lantern on the edge of the sunken tub. He was shivering uncontrollably, though the room itself was warm.
He recoiled at her hand on his shoulder, his body tensing. “Here, drink this,” she whispered, pressing her water bottle against his parched lips.
Water spilled from the corner of his mouth as he tried to drink, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as the liquid gurgled down his throat. “Please…just let me go. Whatever those men are paying you — I can double it. My father is very wealthy.”
“I know who your father is,” Carol replied, emotions warring within her. His cheeks were stained with the salt of long-dried tears, the blindfold damp from sobbing.
A part of her wanted to release him right then and there — before Harry and Vasiliev returned. Before any more destruction could be wrought.
He won’t be harmed. I swear before God…
At least not any more than he already had been. She closed her eyes, willing herself to continue down the road she had chosen. No matter where it led.
Her fingers trailed over his shoulder as she turned to leave. “Everything’s going to be okay, Pyotr. It won’t be much longer now.”
It was true. All of it, as surreal as it was. Andropov’s men were good, judging by the photos they had succeeded in taking of the POTUS.
Or had been, Harry reflected, staring at the broken bodies laying only scant yards away.
“Satisfied?” Andropov demanded, glancing down at the restraints that still bound his hands and feet.
“No. That might have been good enough an hour ago, Valentin,” Harry replied, pulling himself together — forcing himself to focus on the task at hand. “But now you’re bargaining against the certainty of a painful death — and you can do better than this. I want to know what Tarik Abdul Muhammad is planning.”
“You must understand — I am a facilitator, nothing more.” The oligarch met his eyes with an unwavering gaze. “I was paid to bring the Pakistanis across the border, paid to provide them with weapons. Nothing more.”
“How many men did you smuggle into the United States?”
“Five.”
“What’s their target?”
Andropov shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Something there in his eyes, the shadow of a falsehood. He was lying. And Americans were going to die because of his deceit.
Harry’s eyes flashed with anger. “I gave you a warning,” he whispered, opening the phone and beginning to type in the number. “I told you what would happen if you lied to me.”
“Wait.”
“Why should I?” Harry demanded, turning his head to spit on the carpet. “Give me a reason, Valentin. One good reason, because I’m running out of patience and you’re running out of time.”
“They’re going to strike Las Vegas,” Andropov replied desperately. “They paid me to supply them with intelligence on the operational capabilities of the LVMPD. On Christmas Day.”
“Vegas is a big place. What was their target? What was the means of their attack?”
“I don’t have that information. I truly don’t. You have to believe me.”
Harry laughed. “No, Valentin. I don’t. You see, that’s the problem with lying to someone. Once you’ve been caught, they never trust you again. That leaves you with a choice: never lie…or never get caught. Unfortunately, that choice is now in your rear-view mirror. What weapons did you supply to the Pakistanis?”
The Russian’s face was soaked with sweat, fear filling his eyes. “Body armor, fully-automatic Kalashnikovs, fifty pounds of C-4. And that is all I know, I swear it.”
Was it the truth? Hard to say — and only one way left to find out. Harry punched SEND, raising the phone to his ear…
Traffic was heavy on the I-5 as the pair of Suburbans rolled south, with Korsakov in the lead vehicle. His decision had been made — alea iacta est, as Caesar would have put it.
The face of Pavel Nevaschin rose before his eyes, a reminder of the friends this contract had cost him. And he would see it through to the end, no matter what he found at Andropov’s estate. For they had been played, of that he was sure.
The phone in his pocket vibrated suddenly, startling him from his thoughts. Andropov?!
“Yes?” he answered cautiously. “I’ve been trying to reach you for several hours.”
“Then you’re going to have to wait a while longer,” an unfamiliar voice replied. “Valentin asked me to give you a message — he’s terminating your contract. Shutting the operation down. Time to go home, Sergei.”
“Who is this?” Korsakov demanded, his face hardening at the audacity of the man’s words.
“You know my name.”
And he did. The assassin closed his eyes, struggling to control his voice. “Then know this, Mr. Nichols. You killed a friend of mine in Virginia, a man who saved my life in Chechnya.”