“A wealthy individual buyer or the Beijing government?” she asked immediately, turning toward Peter.
“For now, let’s say both,” Mark said. “In China today, these things usually overlap.”
“Understood. Betrayed how?” she pressed.
“They paid,” Peter said, “and the bird, the pietà, was not delivered.”
“Hence, Peter’s presence in Europe,” McKinnon said. “He works much the way you do, Alex. Assessing problems, inventing solutions to them. Sometimes painfully difficult solutions.”
“I’m flattered by the comparison,” Alex said.
“As am I,” said Peter, interjecting politely.
“But here’s where we get into the hardball,” Mark McKinnon said. “We feel the larger part of the operation, if there is one, might be against the United States in some way. America has a huge number of targets in Spain, as you know. One can only protect so much for so long. And a high-profile US inquiry into the motives behind the theft might accelerate whatever plans are out there against us.”
“But,” she said, picking up his line of thought, “if we were able to work through another agency, with Chinese help for example…”
“Exactly. There would be no tip-off to the opposition. It would look as if we’re just trying to get a chunk of granite back for the dumb Spaniards who were careless enough to let it get stolen in the first place. So let’s look at the big picture here,” McKinnon said, turning back and focusing on Alex. “You’re now involved here in the blackbird investigation. What attributes do you bring to the table? Well, there are all the obvious ones: brains, looks, ability to penetrate certain circles and blend in, a knowledge of several languages, some of which might not seem to apply to this case but might in a broader sense. But often it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
She shook her head. “Still not with you,” she said.
McKinnon and Peter exchanged a glance.
“I understand you speak Russian,” McKinnon said. “And Ukrainian.”
“So do several million other people.”
“Forgive my subtlety,” McKinnon said. Then he ambushed her. “You had a previous relationship with a Ukrainian mobster named Yuri Federov, didn’t you?”
The question jolted her. It took her a second to answer, to sense where he was leading.
“I wouldn’t call it ‘a relationship,’” she finally answered, putting aside any possible innuendo. “I worked a case earlier this year in which he was a principal. Again, you know that because you worked the same case.”
“Of course. Your last report suggested that Federov had withdrawn to Switzerland, possibly into a semi- or complete retirement. He has also dropped off the Agency radar screen, which would indicate that he has withdrawn from the business. That, or he’s dead. Have you seen him recently?”
“No. Not since I saw him in a hospital room in Paris,” she said.
He held her gaze.
“You’re sure?” he asked, seeming more sober than he had all day. The question was a direct challenge. “Good will is flowing through my veins by the quart today, LaDuca, so if you have seen him-”
“Right!” she said, cutting him off. “I’d forgotten! We had a late dinner together a week ago at Taillevant in Paris. Then we crossed the channel and spent a wonderful weekend in Brighton, knocking back lager and fish and chips. Just a good Episcopalian girl recovering from the death of a fiancé by bedding her six-cylinder Russian hood.” For good measure, she followed all this with an uncharacteristic but colorful reflection on Mark’s ancestry.
Unwavering, McKinnon didn’t miss a beat. “Come, come, LaDuca. But you do know how to find him. Your final report on that Kiev case suggested that you might.”
“I might. It depends on whether the information he gave me is good or not. So I don’t know if I do or don’t have a way to contact him, because I’ve never tried.”
“So then you have an address filed somewhere?” McKinnon pressed.
“Not so much an address, but a procedure.”
“Would you mind sharing it with us?”
“Seriously, I would. I have the procedure memorized, but right now, I can’t quite recall it.”
McKinnon sighed and took a long sip of whiskey. Peter Chang’s eyes were like a terrier’s, fascinated, sharp as tacks, working McKinnon and Alex back and forth.
“Should I remind you that you’re talking to a superior?” McKinnon said.
“Should I remind you that you’re not acting like one,” she said. “Should I also remind you that as a member of the CIA you also have no hierarchical superiority over someone working for Treasury or the FBI? You’re in your world, I’m in mine, and I don’t have to do squat for you.”
“True, true. However, somewhere in this mess about the new black bird, we need some interagency cooperation and some access to Comrade Federov. We need access if for no other reason than to pick his disgusting mind. And the best girl to pimp that access for us would be a girl named Alex LaDuca. So consider this a cross-agency request already cleared by your ‘jefe’ Mike Gamburian in Washington.”
“You think Federov had something to do with the disappearance?” ignoring McKinnon’s metaphors.
“Not necessarily do I think that,” McKinnon said, “but look at the big picture. Federov has dealt in stolen munitions and war material in the past, and he has been involved in art thefts. He once brokered a deal for a submarine to Colombia drug runners. Whether he’s retired from crime or not, and assuming he’s alive, we could bet that he has the phone number of someone who has the phone number of someone in whom we may have an interest.”
“Sure,” she said. “But you haven’t told me how this connects with The Pietà of Malta.”
McKinnon raised an eyebrow and looked at Chang. “Peter?” he said.
“Alex,” Chang said, “if you don’t mind, Yuri Federov’s name came up when I did some business in Switzerland. The business was with a gentleman who most likely brokered the sale of the bird. A Colonel Tissot. And I use the term ‘gentleman’ very loosely.”
“And what was said?” she asked. “Between you and Tissot?”
“There was nothing specific,” Chang said. “Nothing damning, no particular bit of business,” Peter answered. “But from what I learned from Monsieur Tissot, it was as if Federov was someone that needed to be worked around. Maybe he was not involved in the case itself, but the case was in his orbit, his underworld hegemony.”
“Can you show me the reference?” Alex asked.
McKinnon picked it up from there. “Who needs a reference? Whether Federov is alive or not, his corporations out of Odessa still have financial interests in shipping all over the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. That’s enough right there to question a hood like that. You know what shipping is like in those stretches of water: you show me a boat, I’ll show you smugglers.”
“Not to mention the fact that ships of that nature would be excellent conduits for any sort of contraband,” Chang added. “From weapons to stolen art objects.”
“So,” McKinnon continued, “Federov, your Ukrainian bottom pincher, might be able to tell us something.” McKinnon held a long pause. “If only we had someone who can find him.”
“He’s Russian, by the way,” she said.
“Okay, your Russian bottom pincher.”
“Now you want me to find Federov,” she said, turning back to McKinnon. “And then grill him?”
“Not exactly,” McKinnon answered. “We want him to find you. Then you grill him. Did you ever see Jurassic Park, where they put the little nanny goat out as bait to lure the dinosaur? In this case, you’re the nanny goat.”