The Hunted, page 28
“We’ll throw on all the additional charges we want later. And we’ll bring the press into this thing, maybe put out a statement that throws all kinds of dirt at Konevitch. I just want them in the judicial system for now.”
“Them?” A brief pause and a look of disbelief. “Both of them?”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
“What crime did she commit?”
“She married him.”
Hanrahan cleared his throat and stood his ground. “So you want us to use her to pressure him? I wanna be sure I heard this right.”
Tromble played with a paperweight on his desk. “Did I say that?”
Hanrahan didn’t dare answer.
Tromble lifted up a document and pretended to read it.
Hanrahan wouldn’t budge—they were skirting on the thin edge of the law already. Now Tromble was trying to shove him across it. He was two years from retirement. He had it all mapped out: a small home on a golf course in Florida, as little private consulting as he could get away with, divorce the hag he married, and find a new hottie who looked good in a skimpy bathing suit or wearing nothing at all. He wasn’t about to put it all at risk. He wanted an unequivocal order in the presence of the two witnesses against the wall.
When it became clear they would stand against that wall all night, Tromble finally relented. Without looking up, he said, “He entered our borders under false pretenses. She accompanied him, and she participated in his falsified testimony for asylum. That makes her party to the conspiracy, and her role merits similar treatment.”
“Got it. When is this supposed to happen?”
“Tonight. Late tonight. It’s Friday and his lawyer won’t be able to do anything until Monday.”
The knock came at three in the morning. Alex threw on his bathrobe, again, and again tiptoed to the door. A quick peep through the spyhole—Marty Brennan, the co-op maintenance man, peered back with a worried expression.
Alex opened the door. “What is it, Ma—”
Marty was suddenly shoved aside by a crowd of eight people who barged inside, seven men and a stout woman dressed like a man. The agents fanned out and raced into every room in the apartment, which did not take long as it was so small.
From the bedroom, Elena screamed. Alex made a move in that direction before he was restrained by two men with thick shoulders and rough hands. They yanked his arms behind his back and with well-practiced efficiency fitted flex-cuffs around his wrists. “Who are you?” Alex yelled.
“Immigration Service,” replied a voice from the small kitchen.
“We’ve done nothing wrong. We have political asylum.”
“Past tense. You had asylum,” the man corrected in a snarling tone, moving back into the room and positioning himself before Alex. “That’s now suspended, pending review.”
“Fine. We also have visas. The passports are in my briefcase,” Alex told him, using his chin, awkwardly, to indicate the case resting precariously on the now three-legged living room table.
The man walked to the briefcase, deftly snapped it open, and withdrew two booklets. He flipped through until he came to the pages with the American visas—a millisecond of study before he looked up and frowned. “These are obvious forgeries.”
“So is the American Constitution, apparently.”
“Search the place,” the man directed his people. Everybody but one man in the corner snapped to and began rummaging through drawers and overturning furniture, again.
Alex informed them, “The FBI tossed our place over two weeks ago. What do you expect to find?”
No answer. Alex turned away from the destruction and studied the one man who leaned against the wall, not participating. He wore a cheap gray suit like the others, though he was clearly more observer than participant. Alex directed his voice at him and said, “You must be FBI.”
The man looked a little uncertain, then replied very amiably, “Good guess.”
“I want to call my lawyer. He has all the papers regarding my asylum and legal status. I’m sure you want to see those papers, right?”
“Nope. Not tonight.”
“What about my rights, sir?”
“Illegal immigrants don’t enjoy rights.”
“I want to be clear on this, sir. You’re denying me the right to counsel?”
In one of many conversations with MP, the lawyer had advised him that something like this might happen. Ignore the indignities and offensive behavior, stay cool, don’t get confrontational, no matter how bad the goading gets, MP had advised quite insistently. It won’t sound good at an immigration board hearing, or in a courtroom, that Alex, an immigrant, lacked respect for American authorities. Stay firm and polite. Gently remind them of your rights, and remember how many legal procedures they violate; later, we’ll drag them through all that dirt in a courtroom.
But at that moment, Elena was tugged out of the bedroom and into the small living room by the female agent who looked like a drag queen in reverse. Elena wore only her nightie, a skimpy, nearly transparent garment that left little to the imagination. A few of the male agents were openly leering at her. Elena didn’t care. She stared back with a ferocity that would make an armored tank wilt with shame.
The FBI agent also was sneaking quick lurid peeks at her, at least he was before Alex snapped, “Even the KGB didn’t employ so many perverts.”
The agent, who was named Wilson, shifted his eyes to his shoes and turned slightly pink.
“Are you married?” Alex asked him. No answer, so Alex again prodded, “Do you have a wife?”
“Yes.” Still staring down at his laces like a shamed child.
“Would you enjoy seeing your wife treated this way?”
“How were we to know what she was wearing?”
“But you know it now, sir. And like sick perverts you’re all leering at my wife. If you had any decency you’d allow her to go into the bathroom and get dressed.”
Agent Wilson could not stop staring at his shoes, the tips, the laces, the stitching along the sides. His orders were clear and brutal. Humiliate Konevitch. Goad and provoke him into doing something stupid—any pitiful attempt at resistance, disrespectful behavior toward the agents, or, better yet, some mild act of violence. The charges against him were precariously flimsy, trumped-up bullshit that was dangerously toothless, if truth be told. His boss, Hanrahan, had demanded something a real judge could sink his teeth into.
But that “pervert” word really stung. Now looking at anything but the nearly naked, gorgeous blonde in the room, he said to the female agent, “Let her get some clothes and change in the bathroom.”
Elena was led off, stomping angrily down the hall.
Alex leaned against a wall and resigned himself to watching the INS agents tear his apartment apart. The few pieces that weren’t already broken—and those he and Elena had carefully and lovingly repaired—were now destroyed beyond repair. It was hard, grim work and, to their credit, nobody smiled or laughed this time.
After about five more minutes of frantic homewrecking, the sounds of somebody pounding hard on a door at the rear of the apartment brought a sudden halt to the action. A deep woman’s voice was frantically yelling, “What are you doing in there? Open up. I said, open this damned door! I mean it, I’m not fooling around.”
The FBI agent, Wilson, suddenly lost his polished cool and dashed back to the rear bathroom. After a few moments of loud confusion accompanied by more ignored demands to open the door, Alex heard a loud crash. A moment later, Elena was dragged back into the living room, fully dressed now, in jeans, a loose sweatshirt, and a petulant expression.
“What were you doing in there?” the FBI agent demanded two inches from her face.
“I changed clothes.”
“What else?”
Elena could not resist a big smirk. “Isn’t that a rude question to ask a lady who was in the bathroom?”
Mr. FBI rolled his eyes and barked at the INS agents, “Search the bathroom.”
Two minutes later, one of the agents reappeared, sheepishly gripping a wet cell phone in his hand. “This was hidden inside the toilet.”
It was senseless to ask Elena if she had made a call. And equally a total waste to ask whom she had called. At that moment, their lawyer probably had his foot glued to the metal as he raced to the apartment.
“Slap her in cuffs,” the FBI agent ordered. “Time to get out of here.”
As they were led out the doors on the ground floor, somebody had obviously alerted the press. They were there in force, it was 3:15 in the morning, and they were swapping jokes about the infamous Watergate, sipping coffee, playing with the klieg lights, waiting for the fun to begin.
It had been a slow, dry week for the news cycle—the Hollywood brats were behaving surprisingly well; plenty of murders, but none gruesome or weird enough to break the threshold of public monotony with such things; and of course Washington hosted its usual political scandals involving graft and sex, but nobody cared about that anymore. The boys from the Bureau publicity machine had gone into overdrive and kicked up huge interest in this fast-breaking story. The Runaway Millionaire, they had called Konevitch. The number one most wanted man in Russia. A beautiful celebrity couple, and better yet, the news bureaus were promised all kinds of inside leaks and dirt to fan the public interest and give the story long legs.
A blonde woman lingered at the rear of the crowd, gripping a big pistol under her jacket, silently cursing that there were so many witnesses. The hell with them all, Katya swore to herself. Her orders from Golitsin were clear and unequivocal: make their deaths look like an accident, or a robbery gone wrong, or a joint suicide pact by the obviously distressed couple. But in her long, fruitful career of killing and assassinating, no target had ever pushed her buttons this way. The humiliation of the escape from Budapest was bad enough. But the full year of misery in Chicago, and to learn now that it was all because Mr. Smartass inside that big building had outsmarted her, again. Oh, she was long past caring what Moscow wanted. If she saw any chance for a clean shot, she would take it—just blast away with her forefinger glued to the trigger. Just keep firing until the Konevitches had more holes than a doughnut shop, then flee into the night and hop the fastest transport headed to Mexico. She rather enjoyed the idea that it would all be caught on camera.
She would somehow acquire a copy of that tape. She intended to spend the rest of her life watching herself blow them both to hell.
Suddenly, the doors flew open. Tightly surrounded by the clutch of agents, Alex and Elena were led outside, then halted for a brief cameo. Cameras flashed, film rolled, and dozens of unanswered questions were flung at the INS and FBI people. Katya tried pushing herself through the mob, but the reporters were veterans at this game; with the brutal skill of NFL linemen they shoved and pummeled her backward till she landed on her ass.
Alex and Elena were pushed through the crowd then shoved into the backseat of a large blue sedan. An FBI spokesman stepped forward and began issuing a statement as terse as it was obviously rehearsed: “Mr. Alex Konevitch is wanted for serious crimes back in Russia. He and his wife embezzled hundreds of millions from innocent investors and fled here. They’ve been living like jet-setters in America, hiding in one of the most luxurious buildings in the city, hiding from the Russian authorities and pretending—”
The door slammed shut and Alex could hear no more.
Next, a fast trip to the INS building, where the suddenly notorious couple were swiftly photographed, fingerprinted, and processed into the INS system for deportation.
Alex was handed a pair of orange coveralls and allowed to step into the men’s room for a quick change. When he emerged, Elena was gone. He was led back outside and stuffed into a van, shackled to a floor bolt, then sped quickly to the Alexandria jail, where he was shoved into a holding cell filled with other miserable men, a mixture of Hispanics, Chinese, Albanians, and sundry other violators of the apparently whimsical immigration system.
22
The guard rattled his keys and called for Prisoner Konevitch to step forward. Alex pushed through the crowd of disconsolate men and appeared at the door. He had not showered in three days. He had barely slept, quick catnaps frequently interrupted by another prisoner stumbling over him, or a fresh internee being jammed into the overcrowded cell. He looked tired and unshaven, his hair greasy and limp. He smelled of stale sweat and urine.
He stepped through the door and two guards shackled his hands and feet before he was led in a series of awkward shuffles to the visitor area.
MP Jones was seated at a table, briefcase in lap, frowning and clutching his hands together. “Alex, I’m sorry this took so long.”
“Elena called you Friday night, MP. Don’t tell me you’re sorry, tell me what happened.”
“Games. I called every number I know at INS. Nobody would tell me where they took you. You should be in a D.C. cell. That’s where you’re domiciled and where you were arrested. Instead, they moved you here, to Alexandria, to throw me off the scent. Was it bad?”
“It hasn’t been pleasant. I don’t care about me. Get Elena out of this.”
MP wouldn’t look him in the eyes. “That’s going to be difficult.”
“Why? Arrange bail. Murderers get out on bail. Our apartment is paid for. Use it as collateral and get her out.”
“Don’t think I haven’t already tried, Alex. Remember all those reporters outside the Watergate? The Feds are turning you into a showcase. You were big news over the weekend, all those crime and legal channels on cable had a field day. You got creamed in the papers and TV.” He held up a picture cut from a newspaper. It showed Alex and Elena being led from the Watergate, cuffed and looking guilty as hell. “Apparently, they want the Russian government to know they’re playing hardball.”
“They want me, MP. Elena has done nothing wrong.”
“The answer’s no, Alex. They claim you’re a flight risk.”
“They can let her go. They’ll still have me in jail.”
“Alex, you’re not listening. They want her in jail, too.”
Understanding what MP was saying came slowly, but it finally struck with full force. He tried to swallow the huge knot in his throat. It wouldn’t go away. The U.S. government was using Elena as a hostage, as leverage to force him back to Russia. He prayed her conditions were better than his. He hoped she was in a private cell. His cell was filthy and so thoroughly overcrowded that the men took turns sleeping on the hard floor. They fought with one another for a turn at the toilet, trading insults in an array of languages that only contributed to the frustration. The room was cold and noisy: between the sounds of a toilet constantly flushing and the constant drone of fearful men sharing loud complaints, sleep was nearly impossible. The food was awful, microwaved garbage mixed together on a tin tray.
MP pushed on. “By law, they can hold you four days before a release can be applied for. I’ve demanded a hearing tomorrow. They can’t say no.”
“What am I charged with?”
“An expired visa.”
“But you can easily prove that’s false?”
“Of course. As long as everybody sticks to the truth, it should be easy.”
“Get Elena out, MP. I don’t care about me, I don’t care what it takes, get her out.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Yuri Khodorin’s first hint of trouble was anything but subtle; five of his corporate executives ended up splayed out on tables in various morgues around the city. In less than three hours, five dead. An array of methods had been used, from shootings to stabbings to poisonings. The swath of killings spread from Moscow to St. Petersburg; it made it impossible to determine where the next strike might land, or, indeed, if there would be another.
On day two, this question was answered with an unmistakable bang. Six more dead. For sure, it was no longer an unlikely coincidence, or a sated spike of revenge, or spent anger: the killings weren’t incidental. They were deliberate, and they weren’t about to stop.
At thirty-three, already Russia’s second richest man, Yuri Khodorin was perched within one good, profitable year of landing at number one. Like Alex, he had started young and early, even before the crash of communism opened the door to huge money. He sprinted out of the starting block and cobbled together an aggressive empire as wildly diversified as it was vast, profitable, and hungry. Central Enterprises, it was named, an innocuous title for a holding company that had a grip on everything from oil fields to TV stations, including myriad smaller businesses, from fast food through hotels, and almost too many other things to count. It created or swallowed new companies monthly and spewed out an almost ridiculous array of products and services.
A pair of Moscow police lieutenants appeared unannounced at Yuri’s Moscow office the morning after the second set of killings—an odd pair, one an oversized butterball, the other thin as a rail. They unloaded the bad news that the Mafiya was kicking sand in his face. And no, sorry about that, no way could the city cops protect him; they were stretched so thin they could barely protect their own stationhouses. But in an effort to be helpful they generously left behind the business card of somebody who surely could.
Day four opened with three of Yuri’s corporate offices fire-bombed; suspiciously, the local firefighters were dispatched to the wrong addresses, and all three buildings burned to the ground. Insurance would cover the losses, but droves of his terrified employees were threatening to stop showing up for work. At the sad end of day four—having once more been refused municipal protection—Yuri bounced his problems up to the next rung. He placed a desperate call to the attorney general, Anatoli Fyodorev, and pleaded loudly and desperately for help. Fyodorev made lots of sympathetic noises, and promised an abundance of assistance of all sorts. He was just disturbingly vague about what that meant.
The best Yuri could tell, it meant nothing. Not when day five opened with a car bomb in his headquarters parking lot that slaughtered three more employees.
