“We both know I don’t do oil.” Wells shivered. His adrenaline was wearing off. His feet felt numb, like he was turning to a statue from the ground up. He couldn’t remember where he’d read that legend. Another fairy tale? A Greek myth? Tolkien?
A snap of her fingers brought him back to the room.
“You are tired? You need my men to wake you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then answer my question. So much travel? Such nasty places. CIA says you don’t work for them? Maybe you are bounty hunter? Like the American one? Dog the Bounty Hunter?” She said something to the guards, and they laughed.
She wasn’t a great interrogator, Wells decided. Too eager to impress with her knowledge of American culture. The realization strengthened him. He could beat her. He twitched his legs, jogged his feet against the floor. Probably he looked like he was having a seizure, but he needed to keep active, not give in to this slow hypothermia clouding his mind. Get out of here without mentioning Duberman’s name. He couldn’t risk that. He couldn’t be sure how it would play.
“Not a bounty hunter. I was CIA, yes. I quit.”
“You admit this?”
“It’s not illegal.”
“Did you ever travel to Russia before?”
“No.” A lie, a dangerous one. Wells had no choice. Years before, he’d come to Moscow chasing a Russian hit squad. He’d killed a carful of men, while the one he wanted escaped. But he didn’t think the FSB could connect him to the case. He’d used a different fake passport, and back then the Russians hadn’t gone for retinal scans or fingerprints.
“Never?”
“Never. I don’t speak Russian.”
“Where were you posted?”
“Mostly Afghanistan and Pakistan. But I tell you, I quit years ago.”
“Yet here you are.”
“Sometimes people ask me to do things.”
She waited.
“In this case, Senator Duto. From Pennsylvania. The former DCI, as I’m sure you know.”
“He sent you to Buvchenko.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The question. The FSB obviously wasn’t sure who he was, or what to do with him. They didn’t have any reason to provoke another diplomatic incident over a guy who had agency connections and might have a legitimate reason to be here. At the same time, Buvchenko had told them enough to get Wells brought to Lubyanka. This interview was a test. They hadn’t drugged him, or beaten him badly enough to do permanent damage. They didn’t have a team interrogating him. They were giving themselves the option to let him walk. If Wells could give this woman the right answer, the words she wanted to hear, she might. And as he tried to figure out what those words might be, he had one edge.
Salome had played their meeting in Volgograd brilliantly. But she’d made one mistake, telling Wells the story she and Buvchenko planned to peddle to the FSB. Of course, she’d done so to distract him from the fact that she didn’t expect to involve the secret police at all. She’d planned to seal his fate with a block of heroin. But Wells had beaten that trap. And thanks to Salome, he knew exactly why the FSB had brought him here. Buvchenko had told them he had come to Russia to buy weapons for the Syrian jihadis. This interrogator had signaled as much by making Wells admit he was Muslim.
All at once Wells saw the play. Lean in.
“I told Buvchenko I was looking for guns. For Syria.”
“You confess this?”
“I’m telling you that’s what I told him. But really it was a sting. Someone in Washington, I don’t know who, tipped Duto about rumors that Buvchenko was shipping weapons to the jihadis. So Duto asked me to get involved. I’m a Muslim, I have credibility, I could go to Saudi Arabia first and tell Buvchenko I raised money from the sheiks there.”
“I don’t believe you. Duto would just have told the CIA.”
“No, he’s angry because they dumped him. Wants to embarrass them. He thought if he could get the truth about Buvchenko, he could use it against them.”
She nodded, and Wells knew the story rang true to her. Why not? The Russians specialized in this kind of palace intrigue.
“Use it how?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me that.”
“He sends you to Russia to stand in a cell with your khuy shriveled up and doesn’t even tell you his plans, and you say yes.”
“When I get home, I’ll ask for a raise.”
“This was a stupid game. Very stupid.”
“I had an arms dealer who knows Buvchenko set up the meeting. I thought I was safe. I didn’t know Buvchenko would go running to the FSB. Bad for business.”
“He’s loyal to his country. Russia doesn’t help these terrorists.”
No, Russia helped Bashar al-Assad, who killed kids with nerve gas. But they could have that talk another time.
“It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
“Duto should have asked us himself.”
“I guess so.”
She made more notes. “If this story is a lie—”
“Call Duto. Tell him you have me. He’ll confirm it.”
Assuming he figures out what I said while he’s talking to you. If not, Wells and his shriveled khuy would be staying in these cells. He wondered if Buvchenko could play back. But the man couldn’t change his accusation at this point, and he might not want to press his FSB masters any harder. Salome was just one client, and no matter how much money she could offer Buvchenko, he’d lose it all and more if he angered Moscow.
As for Salome, she’d no doubt already left Russia. Whatever other contacts she and Duberman had here, she couldn’t risk involving them. Like Wells, she couldn’t be sure how the Kremlin would react if it discovered what Duberman had done. It might see the chance to tell the White House, put the President hugely in its debt. Plus she had no need to take risks. She won by running out the clock.
And the clock was still running.
“Don’t look so sad, Mr. Wells,” the woman said. “I think I believe you.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Poor baby.” She said something in Russian, and the guards laughed. Wells didn’t mind. The less of a threat he presented, the more likely she would be to let him go. “If I unlock you, you’ll be a good boy?”
“You unlock me, I’ll do whatever you want.”
Five minutes later, Wells found himself in a cell all his own. Aside from the fact that it was underground and thus windowless, it wouldn’t have been out of place in a maximum-security American prison. It had a cot with an inch-thick mattress, a pillow that smelled like a locker room, and a plastic gallon jug half filled with water that Wells hoped wouldn’t make him sick. His clothes were too wet to wear, but the guards had fetched him underwear, a T-shirt, and sweatpants, all in the same shade of gray.
The day had gone worse than a country song. Wells wouldn’t know until the morning at least if the interrogator had bought his story. Still, he counted his blessings. If he hadn’t found that brick of heroin in his hotel room, he’d still be in Volgograd, in a cell far less inviting than this one.
Sometimes the only sane move was to lie down and sleep.
So he did.
15
Hussein Ayoub considered himself lucky.
More than lucky. Blessed.
Ayoub commanded the soldiers and militia who fought for Hezbollah, the Shia political party that dominated Lebanon. His army totaled more than ten thousand fighters, three thousand full-time and the rest irregulars. Despite its small size, it was highly capable. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, his people fought the IDF nearly to a draw.