The Beechcraft leveled off at 400 feet. The pilot slowed the aircraft’s speed to 250 knots. From this height and at this speed, the soldiers of Team 7 would jump. It was a standard LALO jump: low altitude, low opening. Once outside the aircraft, they would fall fifty feet before the static line deployed their chutes. Five seconds later they would impact the ground at three times the usual landing velocity.
The forest vanished with a silent white clap. The tundra ran before them, a pale wilderness advancing to the edge of the world.
And then he saw it. Pump Station 2. A necklace of orange lights glimmering far on the horizon. A wisp of smoke rose from the power plant. No homing signal could have been better. Despite his training, Team Leader Abel’s throat swelled and grew tight.
He raised three fingers.
Passing through the doors at 18 Broad Street, Gavallan received his visitor’s badge, walked through the metal detector, then slid through the turnstiles that governed admittance to the Exchange. He’d been on the floor a dozen times over the years, yet he never entered the building without getting a certain buzz in the hollow of his stomach. It was no different this morning, except that coiled among his normal feelings of awe and respect was the unmistakable frisson of danger.
Dodson followed him closely, showing his badge, and Roy DiGenovese entered next. Mr. Chupik had stayed in the car. He’d needed only three minutes to open Pillonel’s files. Scrolling page by page, transfer by transfer, deposit, by deposit, through Novastar’s banking history, Dodson had looked on with a reverent gaze, saying the same words over and over again: “Well, ain’t that sweet.”
“Miss Magnus doesn’t care to join us?” Dodson asked once the three men had assembled in the small foyer just inside the entryway.
“I think she’d prefer to wait outside. She’s seen enough.” Gavallan didn’t add that Kirov was her father, or that she had plenty to do on her own outside the building. Some things the FBI didn’t need to know.
“A rough few days, Mr. Gavallan?”
“You can say that.”
“I know you had wished to speak with Mr. Kirov alone. Fine by us. Still, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know we’ve taken some steps to see that Mr. Kirov does not flee the premises. If you’ll just follow me for a moment.”
Dodson led the way down a short corridor, stopping at an unmarked door and knocking once. An African-American agent wearing a navy windbreaker with the yellow letters FBI stenciled on its breast poked his head out the door and said, “Kirov’s here. We got him on the closed circuit. He’s just leaving the specialist’s booth. Did you get what you wanted?”
Dodson grinned while patting the man’s shoulder. “You have no idea, Agent Haynes.” The grin disappeared, and Dodson found his no-nonsense self. “Our operation is a go. Alert building security that we will be making an arrest. It might be wise to trade your windbreakers for some trading jackets. And bring along a few of your men. Calm, brisk, and orderly, Agent Haynes. Am I clear? We keep our weapons concealed at all times.”
As the agents conferred, Gavallan peeked into the waiting room. Eight men and women dressed in the same navy windbreakers stood around drinking coffee, shooting the shit, and checking the pumps on their street-sweeper shotguns. It was the FBI’s Tuesday morning coffee klatch.
“They’re going to stay in here, right?” he asked.
“Strictly backup. I’m sure we won’t have the slightest need for them.”
“All right then,” said Gavallan. “Let’s go.”
67
Cate waited in front of the visitors’ entrance to the Exchange, pacing back and forth, craving a cigarette, though she’d never smoked in her life. The morning air was cool and invigorating, the sidewalk bathed in the shadow of the surrounding skyscrapers. Still, she was sweating. Every minute or so, she checked her watch. Where was he?
She searched the parade of faces, men and women walking purposefully up and down the street. Businessmen in three-piece suits, tourists in shorts and T-shirts, artists carrying sketchbooks and easels. At the corner of Wall Street and Broad, street vendors were selling black-and-white photos of Manhattan, magazines, financial texts. The pavement pulsated with the vibrant human cargo. Hugging her arms around herself, Cate wondered if she was doing the right thing. She knew very well the consequences of her actions. Once taken, there would be no going back.
“He’ll serve two or three years, tops. And there’s no guarantee of that,” Pillonel had scoffed in the archives of Silber, Goldi, and Grimm’s headquarters. “Besides, it’s not the government he should be afraid of, it’s his partner.”
She thought of the nasty little dacha north of Moscow, the crude torture chamber with its floor stained black by blood. She remembered Alexei and Ray Luca. She forced herself to imagine the countless others who had suffered or died at Kirov’s hands, and the countless more who would surely follow. The blood ties to her father, frayed and fragile, unraveled yet further and finally broke, taking with them her doubt. Someone had to stop her father. At last, she had a way.
A tented canopy had been erected on the sidewalk. Beneath it, two long tables were stacked high with caps and T-shirts bearing the Mercury logo. Handsome young men and women were giving the merchandise to passersby, along with brochures describing the company. Cate looked on, disgusted. It was a fraud, a farce, a fairy tale with a very unhappy ending.
She stopped her pacing long enough to check her watch and compare the time against that of the clock on Federal Hall. Both read 9:20. Her heart raced. Where was he?
“Ekaterina Kirova?”
“Da?” Cate spun. A wiry, dark-haired man attired in a neat houndstooth jacket stood in front of her. She’d never met him before, but she knew him intimately: the soulless eyes, the distrustful smile, the shadow of a beard pushing up an hour after shaving. “Dangerous,” Pillonel had said of her father’s partner. His krysha. “From the bandit country.”
“You have something for me?” he asked.
Retrieving the compact from her purse, she removed the last disc and told him what he would find. “Hurry,” she said.
But in contrast to her anxious demeanor, the Chechen was all too relaxed. He held the disc between his fingers, examining it this way and that as if deciding whether or not to purchase an expensive piece of jewelry. “No need. Everything is already taken care of.”
“What will you do?”
The man from the bandit country met her gaze, and she felt a chill pass through her. Saying nothing, he slipped the disc into his pocket, bowed ever so slightly, and walked off.
The party of three had grown to six. Dodson and Gavallan led the way. DiGenovese, Haynes, and the muscle came behind. Haynes and his two agents had donned the shapeless jackets favored by specialists on the floor. Strung out along the corridor that ran parallel to the floor, weaving in and out of the milling throngs of traders, brokers, and specialists, the group managed to avoid looking like the war party it was.
Dodson pulled up at one of the double doors leading onto the floor. “All right, Mr. Gavallan. Here we are. You heard Agent Haynes. Kirov just left the specialist’s booth and is on his way up to the podium. Lead on. And remember—calm, brisk, and orderly. We find Kirov and we take him into custody.”