She sank about two more inches into her seat. Her forehead added about ten wrinkles. Left unsaid was that Tromble himself had issued the boneheaded directive to cream the Konevitches on the front pages, and attracted all the public scrutiny. He regretted it now-it had been a terrible mistake-but the die was cast. If Konevitch wanted to make this a pissing contest, a waterfall was about to land on his head.
Tromble placed a hand on her shoulder. "You decide what damned prison he's going to. If he wants to play games with you, stick it to him."
"You're right," she said, feeling a sudden burst of something called determination.
"Pick the worst, festering pisshole in the federal system. Put him in with the worst scum in our society. Someplace hot as Hades, with crap for food, and unrelenting violence. Let him rot and suffer until he begs us to throw him out of this country."
"I suppose a little softening up might encourage him to see our side," she agreed.
Mikhail had managed at last to hide listening devices inside the big black limo. For months he had looked for a chance. There just had been no openings. And it had to be unquestionably fail-safe; getting caught would blow everything apart. But the driver had dodged into a coffee shop one cold afternoon, leaving the engine running and doors unlocked. Mikhail gently eased over, ducked down, and quietly opened a rear side door. He jammed one bug into the deep crevice between the rear cushions. For insurance, he attached another tightly to the undercarriage of the front seat.
The range was only half a mile, and that was on a clear day. It gave him two important edges, though. He could hear what they were saying and record every word. And he no longer had to keep the limo in sight during the weekly meetings on the Moskva. They were oblivious to his presence, so far. But Mikhail intended to die peacefully in his bed at a ripe old age.
The limo was parked there, right now, a few meters to the right of its regular spot overlooking the river. Mikhail was parked three blocks away, the receiver/recorder in his lap, volume turned up full blast. He was sipping carefully from a large thermos of coffee and listening intently. Golitsin, then Tatyana, then Nicky sat in the rear, in their usual order, performing their usual ritual, nursing drinks, arguing back and forth, plotting their next big heist.
Nicky, in his distinctively caustic tone: "I thought you said it was going to be easy. Kid's play."
Golitsin: "All right, I lied. So what?"
"So what? Nine of my guys dead. Two of my chophouses blown to pieces, that's what. Somebody's screwin' with my dope business, too. I had half a million stolen from a pusher last week. Every time I hit Khodorin's company, I get hit back, twice as hard."
Tatyana, in a soothing tone obviously intended to unruffle the feathers: "What makes you think Khodorin's behind it, Nicky? He's just a businessman."
"'Cause we keep finding notes pinned on the corpses. 'Lay off Central Enterprises, or we'll kick your ass.'" A brief pause. "Hey, you know what? They are kicking my ass."
Golitsin, in an annoyed, slightly absent tone: "He never called."
Tatyana: "Who never called who, Sergei?"
"Yuri Khodorin. He never called my man to handle his company's security."
Nicky: "Yeah, well, sure as hell he called somebody. Somebody connected. I'll tell ya who he called. A real vicious prick."
Tatyana: "Well, we can't let him off the hook. Not now. The man is worth billions, Nicky."
"You know, you keep sayin' that. But I don't see your ass out on the street, takin' the lumps this guy's dishing out. I'm tellin' ya, this guy's smart."
Golitsin: "How smart?"
"Last week, a few of my guys went to lay a little dynamite in that warehouse. Same one we talked about last week. It was a massacre."
Mikhail laughed so hard he nearly choked on his coffee. He had overheard their plan the week before, and quietly passed it along to his old friend from police days who was now handling security for Khodorin-with brutal effectiveness, based upon what he was hearing.
Tatyana: "Is it possible another syndicate is going to war with you? That sometimes happens, doesn't it?"
"Oh, yeah, good point, I hadn't thought of that." A brief pause. "Stick with what you know. No syndicate leaves messages warning me to lay off this Khodorin guy."
Tatyana: "Come on, Nicky. We've invested months in this. Central Enterprises is perfect, just perfect. Five hundred million in cash reserves. Cash, Nicky, cash. We'd be idiots to walk away at this point."
Nicky: "It's his fault"-presumably pointing a finger at Golitsin-"wasn't he supposed to get one of his snoops inside? Whatever happened to that, huh?"
Yes, whatever did happen to that, Mikhail wanted to yell in their faces.
But for a few long moments there was silence. Mikhail chuckled. He'd almost do this job for free. He couldn't wait to share this tape with Captain Yurshenko, the recently appointed head of security at Central Enterprises. They would crack a bottle of vodka, sit back, and bust a nut over the poisonous frustration on the other side.
Eventually, Golitsin, turning the tables: "All right, I'll find a way to get some people inside. Now what's the story with Konevitch?"
Nicky, speaking to Tatyana in an accusatory sneer: "Yeah, thought you said he was taken care of."
Tatyana: "It's under control. Tromble called this morning. Konevitch is in a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Tromble swore he placed our friend in the nastiest hole in the universe."
Nicky, who presumably knew something about this subject: "I hear they got some places over there that are just unbelievable."
Tatyana: "We're cooking up the case to be presented to their courts right now."
Golitsin: "I have experts with decades of experience in this. Why don't I help you?"
Tatyana: "I don't think that's a good idea. The team that manufactures this evidence has to go over and present it to their lawyers. If you build your own lies, you should know your own lies, don't you think?"
Loud chuckles all around. Three days languishing at the federal transit center in Atlanta-while Justice hotly debated which of its many prisons was the most awful at that particular moment-proved to be a godsend. Despite frequent requests, nobody would tell Alex his eventual destination.
Two days after his appearance in court, he had been hustled out of the Alexandria jail by a pair of federal marshals whose only words to Alex were, "Say good-bye to the good life." A quick flight on a Bureau of Prisons 737 to a private hangar in Atlanta International was followed by a fast trip in a shiny black van to the sprawling prison facility in Atlanta. The moment he entered the transient center for what he was warned would be a brief stay, Alex knew he wasn't headed for the pleasurable resort the judge had ordered.
He was locked in a small cell with a repeat sex offender named Ernie, who favored small boys but settled for little girls, depending on his mood at the moment. Ernie was a leper, a small, oddly ebullient man despised and avoided by everybody. Even Alex could not bring himself to speak with the twisted pervert.
The transient prisoners moving through this portal to hell were a mixture of hardened two- and three-timers, seasoned vets, and others like Alex, wide-eyed newbies about to be thrown into a frightening new world.
The old-timers adored the chance to show off their experience, and they acted like garrulous college kids returning from spring break. They hollered back and forth, spitting out stories, exchanging names of acquaintances in this prison or that. The only verboten topic was any mention of their newest crimes. Alex listened carefully to every word, every boast. He studied how they moved, their mannerisms, how they wore their prison garb. He took careful mental notes and absorbed every nuance. Head down, always, but stay alert. Avoid eye contact at all costs-a wrong glance in this milieu was an invitation to rape, or worse. Among enemies, among guards, among friends, it didn't matter-act indifferent, no matter what. Better yet, be indifferent, and trust no one. And the golden rule: never, ever, under any circumstances, snitch.