“I’m not gloating.”
“You’re gloating.”
Tobie allowed her smile to spread a little wider. “Okay. Maybe just a little.” She dropped her voice and threw a quick look around. “You didn’t tell me you killed someone in Berlin on your way to Kaliningrad. Who was it?”
“Some jerk with a big nose and a gun he intended to use on me.”
“You think he’s connected to our friends on the Kawasakis?”
“Probably.”
“But…how did they know you were going to be in Berlin?”
“That’s the troublesome part. I was only in Berlin because my Aeroflot connection was canceled. And the Company made my hotel reservations.”
Tobie was silent a moment, considering this. “You think that CIA woman had something to do with it? Is that why you were kinda funny with her?”
“Petra? Nah. She’s just a pain in the ass.”
They found a couple of seats squeezed in between a wall and a green-eyed woman, dressed in dark slacks, a tunic, and a headscarf, who was nursing a toddler on her lap. Jax opened Petra’s envelope and pulled out the report from Matt.
Tobie peered over his shoulder. “What’s all that?”
He thumbed through the pages. “Matt checked with Interpol. Oh, look. Surprise, surprise: Baklanov Salvage seems to have been involved in low-level smuggling.”
“Let me guess. Cigarettes and vodka?”
“You got it. But that’s not all. There’s also strong suspicion that our friend Jasha was into gunrunning.”
“To Lebanon?”
“Right again.”
“See. I keep telling you we should be going to Lebanon.”
“Did the guy on the Kawasaki look Lebanese to you?”
“No. But he didn’t look Turkish, either.”
Jax flipped to another printout, this one with columns of phone numbers. Some of the numbers had names associated with them, but most were only identified by location-if that.
“Those are Jasha’s cell phone records?” she said, eying them.
He nodded. “The last three months’ worth. Looks like this guy was in contact with people in Beirut, Spain, Florida, Finland…a real international businessman.” He ran his finger down the list. “Here’s our friend Kemal Erkan. He lives in some place named Aliaga, wherever that is. In the last two days, he’s called Jasha six times.”
“Aliaga is just north of Izmir.”
He looked up at her. “How did you know that?”
She glanced away, to where a steady stream of passengers was unloading through a nearby gate. “My dad was stationed at Izmir when I was a kid.”
“So you speak Turkish?”
“Yes. Do you?”
When he said nothing, she leaned in close to say, “I guess it’s a good thing you’re going to have me along after all, isn’t it? So I can do all the talking.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” He flipped to the transcript of Erkan’s voice-mail messages. “Ah. It’s all coming together. This guy Kemal Erkan owns a shipbreakers yard.”
“A what?”
“A shipbreakers yard. They tear old ships apart for scrap. It can be done right, with good environmental controls and safety procedures for the workers. But doing it right is expensive, so most companies sell their aging ships to countries like India or China. They cut the ships apart right on the beach and just burn or dump whatever they can’t sell.”
Tobie rubbed the bridge of her nose between one thumb and forefinger. “I’m confused.”
The toddler next to them began to cry, its face screwed up in a wail of exhaustion. The mother stood, jiggling him up and down as she walked him back and forth.
Jax said softly, “I have a hunch our mysterious friends heard Baklanov Salvage had experience raising old World War II-era submarines, and hired Jasha to raise U-114. Only, Jasha got greedy. He decided he could make more money selling the sub to Turkey for the steel and hawking its cargo on the black market…and on eBay, of course.”
“So they killed him?”
“And took whatever it was they wanted from the sub.”
“Which may or may not have been gold.”
“Which probably was not gold.” Jax thumbed back through Baklanov’s cell records and sucked in a hissing breath.
“What is it?” she said.
He pointed to the last two entries on the list. “Look at this. Someone accessed Baklanov’s voice mail on Sunday morning, then again this afternoon.”
“I don’t get it. Baklanov was killed early Saturday morning. How is that possible?”
“Easy. You kill a man. You take his cell phone. And then you check his cell records to see who he’s been calling.”
“And who is calling him.” Tobie watched the woman in the headscarf swing her son up to her shoulder and pat him softly on the back. “I think Mr. Kemal Erkan might be in trouble,” she said.
“No shit.”
30
Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia: Tuesday 27 October
7:30 A.M. local time
Early the next morning, Stefan was crouched down on his hands and knees, digging for carrots in an overgrown field near the half-collapsed barn where he’d spent the night, when the dog came to him.
Black and tan, with floppy ears and a waggy tail, it looked like some kind of a shepherd mix, half grown and skinny. Panting hopefully, it leaned against Stefan’s legs and looked up at him with softly pleading brown eyes.
“Go away,” said Stefan, throwing a frightened glance about. “Go home.”
But all the villages and farms around here were deserted, inhabited only by storks and ghosts. The dog whined, its head dipping.
Stefan reached out a tentative hand to scratch behind the pup’s ears. It flopped down beside him, its tongue flicking out to lick his wrist.
He ran his hands down the dog’s bony sides and flanks. “What’s the matter, boy? Hmm? You lost? Or don’t you have a home at all?”
The dog whined again.
Stefan stared down at his small pile of hard-won carrots. He hesitated, then broke one into quarters and held it out in the palm of his hand. “You hungry?”
After Sunday night’s disaster near Ayvazovskaya, Stefan had vowed once again to avoid all villages and towns. But the dog didn’t seem to care for carrots, and it kept whining. After two hours of walking, the pup was lagging, its head drooping. Drawing up at the top of a low rise, Stefan hunkered down to loop an arm over the pup’s shoulder as he eyed the town below.
It was a cheerless place, its ugly concrete houses dating back to the Soviet era. Built on the edge of a stretch of marshland, the town’s only reason for existence seemed to be the railroad tracks that ran on an elevated embankment along the edge of town. Stefan could see a freight train coming in the distance, the dirty brown smear from its diesel engine stretching out across the marsh.
He brought his gaze back to the town center, where a line of shops fronted a small rubbish-strewn square with the inevitable statue of Lenin at its center. He wasn’t going to try stealing again-he’d learned his lesson. But surely ten rubles would be enough to buy the dog some scraps from a butcher?
Trying desperately not to attract anyone’s attention, Stefan walked down the hill to the town’s desolate windblown main street, one hand clutching his lucky amber horse head, the dog limping at his heels. They had almost reached the looming statue of Lenin when he glanced up and saw a big black Durango parked at the edge of the dusty square.
Stefan’s mother had a saying: Honest men drive Russian cars. In Kaliningrad, only New Russians, thieves, and whores drove Durangos and Mercedes.
Dropping his hand to the dog’s neck, Stefan swerved sideways into a narrow rutted lane choked with weeds and broken clumps of concrete. Flattening himself behind an old garage, he listened to the buzzing of insects in the grass, smelled the drift of cooking onions from a nearby house, and tried to stop trembling. Beside him, the dog whined. Stefan whispered, “Shhh!”