Another long pause followed, but this time PP spoke up: “Yes.” Then he hung up.
Oleg figured PP was trying to preserve his dignity by not providing the number. Old men don’t have dignity; he also knew that to be true. They have only memory, and memory is a slippery whore like Galina. He had ample proof of that. He drove into Sochi at sunset, the town that had been cursed by the Olympics. It used to be packed with tourists enjoying the sunshine in a country mostly cloaked by clouds. But since the Olympics, even the Russians had stopped coming. Right now, that was good, though: so few people would make it easier for him to flush Galina and cancer kid from whatever hive they’d found.
He drove to the local police headquarters and met with the superintendent. Oleg dropped names and made promises of promotion. Then he provided photographs of Galina, all of them taken secretly as she enjoyed the pleasures of his body.
“You can see she’s not just a killer, she’s a dangerous whore,” he said.
“The most devious traitors are like that. Killers, too,” the superintendent said.
After raising a smile on the man’s face — and likely another part of his anatomy as well — Oleg knew he had the complete cooperation of the department.
“I should also tell you that she is not above trying to trade her body for freedom when she’s caught. You might want to know that. She’s very, very good.”
The superintendent assured him the search for Galina Bortnik would be thorough, indeed.
In less than a half hour, a motorcycle officer learned that a woman in a fancy silver SUV had bought takeout latkes.
“But she is not staying in Sochi,” the superintendent told him twenty minutes later. “Every hotel and inn has been checked. I took the liberty of providing the most identifying photos — of her, of course.”
He and Oleg shared a smile.
“Where would you go, if you were her?” Oleg asked.
“To bed,” the superintendent said, “with me.”
They laughed. Oleg considered him a fool, but listened closely when the man turned serious and said, “Not south. She’d run right into passport control in Abkhazia.”
Both men shook their heads at the brutal prospect of spending any time in a country so ruined by strife.
“But up north, you know what the criminals say?” the superintendent asked him.
“No, what do they say?” Oleg dutifully played the straight man.
“That both the trees and boats are thick but only the boats can save you. And I can see,” the superintendent stared at a particularly graphic photo of Galina, “that losing her would be a crime.”
“Thank you. You are a smart man. I will commend you to the Minister for Internal Affairs.”
Oleg left him smiling. But the hours of the day were not so kind to him: he would accomplish very little at night in the municipalities that lay before him. So he took a room in Sochi and checked the financial news online.
The ruble was reigning supreme among the world’s currencies. He had bought many millions of them weeks ago. In the United States they would have called that insider trading, and they might have prosecuted you for it — depending on your station in life. In Russia they would have called it the same thing, but if you were Oleg or others like him, they would only congratulate you for your sharp business acumen.
With that profitable business aside, he contacted Numero Uno, who started whining again.
“Just tell me,” Oleg interrupted, “how is Grisha Lisko?”
“Grisha is very good. Grisha is busy. Grisha is ready. The question is, are you?”
“Not yet, but you must be ready at any moment.”
To die, Oleg thought, for having the audacity to question him.
Under the cover of darkest night, Galina received an urgent message from Lana Elkins. They met on the IRC in seconds.
“I’ve been tracking Dernov’s data. He’s in Sochi. Is that close to you?”
Galina’s groin tightened. “You tell me,” she replied, wanting to shut off all her electronic devices immediately. Though surrounded by trees, she’d found another satellite dish in the small fishing village. But if she could do that, Oleg might be able to track her.
“I will tell you that we’re coming to get you,” Lana said.
“I think,” Galina typed slowly, feeling the night air close in around her, “that you are not the only one.”
CHAPTER 21
Lana had barely gotten over the shock of seeing Don’s persuasive smile — and settling across from him knowing they’d been impressed into service together on the high seas under high stress — when she’d been yanked from the secure conference room by an urgent message from Jeff Jensen.
In the seclusion of her office, he’d shown her Dernov’s metadata stream, which placed him in Sochi. She’d contacted Galina in the next few seconds. The woman’s reaction had left little doubt that she was not far from the Olympic city, either — and the monster who stalked her.
Lana now rushed back to the SCIF, knowing it was time to compartmentalize — and quickly — by putting Oleg aside to deal with Doper Don.
On her second go-round with Doper Don she refused to be taken in by his grin. Instead, she bored right into his recent past: “You worked for the DEA?”
“Do we have time for this?” he replied.
“Yes, you do,” Holmes asserted as he entered the conference room on Lana’s heels. “I want you two sorting out whatever needs sorting out right here, right now. If you need a couples counselor—”
“We’re not a couple,” they both exclaimed in unison, Lana furious at what Holmes — or Don, for that matter — might perceive as the cute synchrony of their response.
“Be that as it may,” Holmes went on, “we have a mediator on hand to make sure whatever issues plague you two get put aside.”
“I don’t think we’ll need anyone,” Lana said.
“As long as you both leave here knowing there’s no room for personal animosity. And you’ll do it in the next fifteen minutes because there’s a flight waiting for you. Have I made myself clear?” Holmes stared at Don, which Lana took as a pledge of good faith in her own professionalism.
“What else is up?” she asked Holmes. She didn’t believe for a moment he’d come into a highly secure room to urge them to get along. She was right:
“We’re having difficulty communicating with our contact on the Black Sea coast.” His gaze was back on Don. “Do you have a charter you could pull out of a hat there?”
“Maybe,” Don replied.
“Come with me,” Holmes said.
When Don returned ten minutes later with Holmes, the deputy director said their flight could be delayed “a bit.” Then with a smile, he added, “Go to it.”
As he left the SCIF, Lana had only to raise her eyebrows to finally get Don’s answer about the DEA.
“Yes, I worked for them. I didn’t have much choice. Do you know how much they caught me with?”
She did, but wasn’t about to let on to him that she’d been interested enough in his criminal proceedings to read the court record, so she gave him her most censorious look and asked, “Are you going to brag?”
“No, of course not. But it was more than four thousand pounds. A lot of bud. I had to make a deal.”
“Four thousand pounds? Wasn’t that a bit much for a forty-two-foot sloop?” recognizing, as she referred to the B. Marley, that she might just have given away her close examination of his case.