The same would probably happen in the Zubarev case.
Unless it was strictly a local matter.
But Stiletto didn’t buy that for a second.
He took a deep breath and finished what remained of his now-cold tea. The kind of shenanigans perpetrated by Putin made him angry. Authoritarianism of any kind made him angry. The suppression of those who only wanted to speak out against the men in power wasn’t something he could abide, and fought it at every opportunity. They were the people he felt he was speaking for. The forgotten victims. The powerless. Those without a champion.
It was an endless fight. It was a thankless fight. But somebody had to do it.
Stiletto tossed his cup into the trash and left the galley.
Chapter Three
New York City
F.B.I. SPECIAL Agent Susan Larochelle wasn’t used to coming into the office at nine a.m. She was normally part of the noon-to-nine crew that worked out of the New York City office, but the boss had called an emergency so there she was, coffee in hand, and a tall coffee at that. She was giving up her morning gym visit for this, which annoyed her. She liked order and routine, and most of the time her job at the Bureau provided exactly that. The F.B.I. was an institution that excelled at order and routine and following such protocols had helped Susan not only rise in the ranks, but become a highly-decorated investigator too. Her cases had a 98% conviction rate.
The elevator doors opened and she stepped into the noisy bull pen, following the walkway around rows of desks that were perfectly aligned via Bureau guidelines, agents at those desks on the phone or face-down in paperwork. Up a short flight of steps to a glass-enclosed office, through a doorway, and she said hello to her boss, who sat behind a perfectly uncluttered desk. All the basics were there. Blotter (clean but scuffed at the corners), computer monitor, pen set, picture of the wife. The wide window behind the chief looked out at the gray building across the street.
Jim Brody was a text-book Bureau manager. Brooks Brothers suit, perfectly pressed; hair parted down the middle in a straight line; clean-shaven. He was completely useless as a field agent, but he was a good team leader, and, aside from the usual “always on your ass” complaints from the agents in the bull pen, liked very much.
Susan sat down without invitation. Brody looked up from his paperwork. “Good morning.”
“I’m not quite awake yet, chief.” She sipped her coffee.
The office door swung open again and Susan’s partner, Ray Elston, dropped into the chair beside her. Both agents waited for Brody while the noise from the bull pen filtered through the gaps in the glass wall. It was hardly the office for a private conversation. Susan sipped her coffee again, loudly this time. Brody gave her a look as he shuffled papers from one side to the other, dropped a folder in front of him, and raised the flap.
“Got a dead Russian politician and his wife.” Brody passed photos to Susan and Ray. “We need to know what happened.”
“Saw this on the news,” Ray said. “Somebody in another vehicle shot them.” He had darker hair than Brody and a Sears suit, but he had been a cop before joining the Bureau and Susan appreciated his experience.
“You know what I mean, Ray,” Brody said. “State Department wants a full report ready for when Moscow finally calls.”
“Why haven’t the Russians been in touch already?” Susan said. “At least the embassy—”
“No idea, Susan. Let’s have something ready for when they do. Here’s the folder. Zubarev was last seen with his wife at some sort of fundraiser. Start by interviewing the guests.”
Susan looked through the folder. “Their names aren’t here, chief.”
“I know that,” Brody said. “You two are investigators. Go investigate.”
Ray was out of his chair before Susan and held the door. Susan shot Brody a glare before departing.
“WHERE DO you want to start?” Ray said as he pulled their government-issue Ford out of the underground garage and into city traffic.
“The morgue still has the bodies and evidence from the car,” Susan said, reading notes in the folder. “Let’s see what they have.”
The morgue attendant had a bald head and a white beard that almost matched his white lab coat. He pulled open the cooler drawers containing the bodies of Ravil Zubarev and his wife, Valeriya. Susan shivered as the chill from the cooler drifted into the room.
The bodies were in bad shape, the front of their bodies resembling raw hamburger.
The couple’s skin tone had whitened under the chill of the cooler, ice crystals forming around their closed eyes, nostrils, lips. Looking at the bodies, more so than the photos, made the case tangible in Susan’s mind. She was solving a crime involving real people, not pictures which offered no emotional connection.
She glanced at Ray, who looked bored, but he was taking in the sight same as she.
Susan nodded and the attendant slid the cooler drawers closed. The chill went away.
“We have their belongings in the other room,” the attendant said, leading them through a doorway into a smaller room with a white-tiled floor and walls. A stainless-steel table sat near one of the walls, with two suitcases and a plastic bag of miscellaneous items on top. Susan and Ray started sorting through the suitcases. Clothes, toiletries, a novel, the kit one packs while traveling. Nothing interesting or untoward—
“What’s this?” Ray said. He lifted a metal lockbox from the suitcase of feminine clothes. He set the box on the table. Susan found a small gold-plated key in the bag of odds-and-ends and used it to open the lid. She whistled.
“The money from the fund raiser,” Ray said.
A stack of cash and a stack of checks, each held together by a rubber band.
“We’ll take the names from the checks,” Susan said.
“I’ll get the evidence bags from the car,” Ray said, and left Susan with the luggage.
Moscow
ANASTASIA DUBININA held her coffee cup under the table and poured in a splash of vodka from a silver flask.
She set the coffee back on the table, capped the flask, and dropped it into her purse.
“I saw that,” said Vlad Glinkov as he approached the table.
Anastasia sat with her back to the wall inside the busy McDonalds, the place full of diners which meant it was also full of noise loud enough to fool any electronic eavesdropping. She would have preferred a more comfortable chair, but no such thing was available. Everything was hard plastic and not designed for long-term sitting. The chair she sat on made her rear end sore.
Glinkov sat across from her, his back exposed, but showing no concern.
“Want coffee?” she said.
“No. What did you find out?”
“So far everybody is still on the street. No sign of police or military anywhere. It’s almost as if the murder was a message. Putin isn’t rounding us up wholesale just yet.”
Which, Anastasia knew, would be no easy task. Putin could kill Zubarev; he could have her and Glinkov and others arrested or killed, too. The coup plotters, however, were everywhere. Deep in the government. The military. Putin could cut off what he thought was the head of the snake, but there were many snakes. Some of in the Kremlin too.
Unless…
She leaned forward. “You need to get out of Moscow.”