Yulana sat in her seat with earbuds plugged in as she watched an out-of-date film the airline was so generous to provide. He reached over and pulled her earbud plug out of the jack. She flashed him a look of irritation and tried to pull the cord free from his grasp. But instead, he yanked hard and the earbuds flew out of her ears.
She welled with anger, her flashing eyes tore into him, but she didn’t speak, didn’t make a sound. Her gaze leavened into one of annoyance, as if Kit were insignificant.
“You’re not deaf and dumb. You ordered the drink. And now that we’ve cleared Russian airspace, it’s time we had a chat,” he said in Russian.
“And what could I possibly want to say to you, soldier boy?” she asked, irritated, in perfect English.
“Tell me about your real relationship to Viktor Popov.”
“No.”
“But you’re not his niece.”
“Did he say I am?”
“Yes.”
“Then I am his niece.”
“You know, sorry, my mistake, he didn’t say niece. He said cousin. He said you were a kissing cousin.” Yulana wasn’t the only one who looked irritated, and Bennings was baiting her.
“You think I’m coming to America to be Popov’s lover, or to be a prostitute?”
“Your words, not mine.”
“Why is it that so many men, when they feel threatened by a woman, have to make themselves feel superior by reducing the woman to the status of ‘whore’?”
“I don’t feel superior to anyone, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a threat. I don’t know what your role is in this, other than to spy on me, but it would be better for you to just tell me.”
“I’m spying on you?”
“This cold-shoulder business, the silent treatment, is a bad act to make you appear disinterested.”
“Believe me, not being interested in you is no act.”
A little exasperated, Kit said, “I didn’t mean romantically interested. This isn’t a game we’re playing, lady. This is life and death, and most people show some interest in that.”
He bore his eyes into her and got nothing in return; he could have been staring into a dry well.
“Tell me what you know. Why did Popov target me for the fake marriage?”
She’d make a good poker player and betrayed no reaction as she said, “I’ll tell you nothing.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said, with more than a little bit of threat to his tone.
A hint, the briefest hint of fear, flashed in her eyes.
“So let me give you something to put in your first report,” said Kit. “Very soon I intend to dance on Viktor Popov’s grave. And I will kill all of his people who were connected to what happened to my family. Viktor will understand this, because it’s what he himself has done to the men who murdered his daughters.”
Yulana’s eyes widened just a bit.
“So if I learn you were involved, believe me, I’ll have no problem blowing your brains out. Right into your peach juice and vodka.”
Yulana looked at him for a long time. Her mask of intractability softened. There was slightly less judgment in her gaze now. “What happened to your family?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” He tossed the earbuds into her lap and looked away. “I liked you better when you didn’t talk.”
CHAPTER 13
Until recently, the international terminal at Los Angeles International Airport had long been one of America’s greatest embarrassments. Buzz Van Wyke remembered all too clearly how the departure and arrival gates and corridors and concourses for hundreds of thousands of visitors either setting foot on or leaving American soil created one big dingy, shabby, uninspiring, hard-to-fathom letdown. The subtext for arriving passengers had been: Hey, we let you into our country, so don’t complain. What did you expect, luscious colors, convenience, modern amenities, clean toilets not marred with gang graffiti? Yes, we’re purely functional, out-of-date, and tawdry, but the sunshine and palm trees and movies stars are outside, so keep walking, please. Similarly, the underlying message to departing passengers had been Good-bye, and we don’t really care if you come back.
Even today, with improvements in place, a country as small as South Korea has an international airport that puts LAX to shame. Yes, L.A.’s departure area is now a fabulously chic and artful juxtaposition of metal and glass—graceful curves meeting sharp angles, all designed to optimize the gorgeous light of Southern California. Towers of LED screens called “Portals” interactively display continuous shapes and forms; a quasi-retro design theme informs some common area café chairs and tables; faux wrought-iron rails and light fixtures add nice arty touches. The ubiquitous designer shops hawk their overpriced wares and branches of local high-end trendy cafés tempt the traveler with everything from caviar and champagne to gourmet tacos.
But the departure terminal is actually quite small for a major international airport, the concourses narrow, and there simply aren’t enough seats. Departing passengers waiting to board super-jumbos must line up in the concourse walk space, blocking the path of any other travelers. After tens of millions of dollars, things are much better, but LAX just can’t seem to get it right.
Despite renovations elsewhere in the international terminal, the seediness of the old arrivals hall remained, and that suited Buzz Van Wyke just fine. He liked the feeling of Third World bus depots, so he felt right at home in the cramped mess.
Buzz had just bought a lousy cup of overpriced coffee, which he nursed when he wasn’t chewing on the stem of the Savinelli “413” smoking pipe given to him by his late wife. Dressed in chinos, a T-shirt, and a light khaki jacket, Buzz casually counted the surveillance cameras and airport police officers present as he leaned on an aluminum luggage cart he’d paid five bucks to rent. The airport police had been absorbed by the LAPD years ago, but the officer sitting behind a high desk at the top of the ramp where arriving passengers trudged up to meet family and friends seemed more interested in the smartphone he was trying to keep from view than he was in scanning the crowd for potential threats.
None of the airport coppers Buzz watched looked even vaguely concerned about their situational awareness. They were phoning it in, perhaps letting the unseen crew watching the security cameras do the heavy lifting.
Buzz casually glanced about fifty yards across the hall, where Angel Perez scanned a brochure at a kiosk, as he twirled his lucky green-handled screwdriver in one hand like a drum major twirling a baton. The screwdriver was “lucky,” because he had once used it to successfully diffuse a dirty bomb that was rigged to explode. A twenty-eight-year-old, barrel-chested Puerto Rican American with longish, unruly black hair, who was as intense as Buzz was laid-back, Angel was a brilliant gadget geek and backyard mechanical engineer/inventor. He was also one of the smartest close-quarters combat fighters on the planet. There was something kinetic about him, as if he were always in motion, even when standing still. He tended to speak his mind bluntly without editing himself, and that was one of the reasons both Buzz and Kit liked working with him: they could count on getting Angel’s unvarnished opinions, every time. Kit and Angel had first gotten to know each other when they were Rangers together in Afghanistan.
Angel and Buzz communicated with encrypted two-way radios that looked like cell phones, because speaking into your sleeve or having an earpiece was just too obvious in such a crowded space.
“Buzz, there’s an Asian girl over here that I’d have to rate as a nine point six,” said Angel, in his usual rapid-fire delivery.