The Hunted, page 33
She had turned fifty years old only two weeks before. Same age as the attorney general. Twelve years older than Tromble. Yet they lashed into her like a little schoolgirl who had failed to finish her homework.
“It’s not all lost,” Parrish protested weakly, almost vainly, avoiding their damning eyes. “He’s still in custody. We’ll have our day in court again.”
“His ass should already be on a plane back to Russia,” Tromble yelled, slapping a hand on a table. “You blew it. A knockdown case, and you just blew it.”
“It wasn’t my decision to bring in the Russian prosecutors. I had them on the ropes until Jones used that ace.”
“How did Jones learn about it?” the attorney general asked, plainly puzzled.
Kim Parrish shrugged. “You tell me.”
Tromble stared down at his shoes. The profligate product of the wiretaps on Jones’s office had been quietly reviewed that afternoon by a team of ten agents. No mention of it. Not in Jones’s phone calls. Not even in private conversations inside his office. Not a hint, not a word.
He glowered at the INS director. “Your operation leaks like a sieve. Wasn’t this Jones guy once one of your lawyers? Obviously one of your people tipped him.”
“Maybe it was one of your people,” Parrish’s boss punched back, just as nasty now that the thrashing shifted toward him. “Myself and Miss Parrish were the only ones who knew. I sure as hell didn’t let him know.”
“When do these Russians arrive?” Laura Tingleman asked, cutting off the discourse. She hated confrontation.
“Could be months,” Tromble replied, and with that, he suddenly had a new idea.
“Then another month or two for them to pass off their knowledge to one of your attorneys,” Tingleman calculated to the director of the INS, choosing her language carefully, deliberately avoiding Parrish’s eyes. That pointed “one of your attorneys” line was a clear shot—this girl either kicks it up a notch or find a replacement.
“Sounds about right,” Parrish’s boss replied, notably not going to Parrish’s defense.
“So this might take six months?” Tingleman asked.
Tromble smiled and nodded. “Maybe longer. A year is a possibility. You’ll have to call this judge,” he advised her. “Tell him to be patient. Emphasize the importance of this thing.”
She nodded.
Parrish’s boss said, “I’ll assign two more attorneys to Parrish’s team. That’ll speed things up.”
Tromble looked at him like he was an idiot. “No you won’t.”
“I won’t?”
“As long as Konevitch is in custody, what’s the rush?”
“Hey, I’ve been your whipping boy every day to get this thing done. Why the sudden change of heart?”
The question did not faze him in the least. “Miss Parrish has been under unbearable pressure. Look at her, she’s obviously exhausted. But the timing’s no longer in the defense attorney’s hands, is it? She needs to take her time, get this thing done right.”
The sudden shift to kindness was unnerving. Tromble walked across the room and slapped Kim Parrish on the back. “Good luck, Counselor. Knock a home run next time, or else.”
The meeting was suddenly over, to everybody’s surprise and Kim Parrish’s complete delight. She nearly left a smoke trail she moved out so fast.
Then it was just Tromble and the attorney general. Alone. The two of them, together, all by themselves in the big office filled with overwhelming burdens and responsibilities.
Tromble turned to her and observed, “The judge released Konevitch to your custody. The second you give the word, he’s going into a federal prison.”
“Well, there’s that very nice one in Pennsylvania. The one where all the Wall Street fat cats go. Out in the countryside. I hear it’s lovely in a pastoral sort of way.”
Tromble said, not very pleasantly, “You’re not really going to let some pissant immigration hack boss you around, are you? Just roll over and bark for that guy?”
That stung. Tromble was right, though; he was a lowly immigration judge in a backwater court. And she was, after all, the attorney general. Her eyes were glued to his face. “What do you have in mind, John?”
“You understand how important this case is?”
“Remind me.”
“The Russian mobs are climbing all over our coastal cities. They’re the newest thing, and it’s not pretty. They earn a ten on the viciousness scale. And now they’re battling us, the Italian Mafia, and the black gangs, and the Colombians and Mexicans to get a foothold. The Russians are very good, and very, very violent. They learned how to thrive in the most totalitarian country on earth. Don’t forget that. Imagine what they can accomplish in our wide-open liberal democracy. We’re frighteningly vulnerable. Let them get traction, let them have an inch, they’ll become another rooted criminal institution inside this country. Another cancer that’s impossible to dislodge.”
“And Konevitch is the key to this?” she asked, leaning on her plump elbows and watching him carefully.
“Yes, the Russians are quite clear on this. He’s a very guilty man, Laura. The man stole hundreds of millions. They get Konevitch, and in turn we get twenty agents in Moscow, with full access to their intelligence about the Mafiya. They’ll assign liaisons to us, and we’ll trade information back and forth. It’s a gold mine. We’ll break the back of these Russian goons.”
“I see.”
“Understand this, too. This guy Konevitch is sticking his finger in our eye, Laura. It’s a disgrace. The press is watching. A damned foreigner exploiting our own legal system to make you and me look like eunuchs. It’s very dangerous for us.”
She sank about two more inches into her seat. Her forehead added about ten wrinkles. Left unsaid was that Tromble himself had issued the boneheaded directive to cream the Konevitches on the front pages, and attracted all the public scrutiny. He regretted it now—it had been a terrible mistake—but the die was cast. If Konevitch wanted to make this a pissing contest, a waterfall was about to land on his head.
Tromble placed a hand on her shoulder. “You decide what damned prison he’s going to. If he wants to play games with you, stick it to him.”
“You’re right,” she said, feeling a sudden burst of something called determination.
“Pick the worst, festering pisshole in the federal system. Put him in with the worst scum in our society. Someplace hot as Hades, with crap for food, and unrelenting violence. Let him rot and suffer until he begs us to throw him out of this country.”
“I suppose a little softening up might encourage him to see our side,” she agreed.
* * *
Mikhail had managed at last to hide listening devices inside the big black limo. For months he had looked for a chance. There just had been no openings. And it had to be unquestionably fail-safe; getting caught would blow everything apart. But the driver had dodged into a coffee shop one cold afternoon, leaving the engine running and doors unlocked. Mikhail gently eased over, ducked down, and quietly opened a rear side door. He jammed one bug into the deep crevice between the rear cushions. For insurance, he attached another tightly to the undercarriage of the front seat.
The range was only half a mile, and that was on a clear day. It gave him two important edges, though. He could hear what they were saying and record every word. And he no longer had to keep the limo in sight during the weekly meetings on the Moskva. They were oblivious to his presence, so far. But Mikhail intended to die peacefully in his bed at a ripe old age.
The limo was parked there, right now, a few meters to the right of its regular spot overlooking the river. Mikhail was parked three blocks away, the receiver/recorder in his lap, volume turned up full blast. He was sipping carefully from a large thermos of coffee and listening intently. Golitsin, then Tatyana, then Nicky sat in the rear, in their usual order, performing their usual ritual, nursing drinks, arguing back and forth, plotting their next big heist.
Nicky, in his distinctively caustic tone: “I thought you said it was going to be easy. Kid’s play.”
Golitsin: “All right, I lied. So what?”
“So what? Nine of my guys dead. Two of my chophouses blown to pieces, that’s what. Somebody’s screwin’ with my dope business, too. I had half a million stolen from a pusher last week. Every time I hit Khodorin’s company, I get hit back, twice as hard.”
Tatyana, in a soothing tone obviously intended to unruffle the feathers: “What makes you think Khodorin’s behind it, Nicky? He’s just a businessman.”
“’Cause we keep finding notes pinned on the corpses. ‘Lay off Central Enterprises, or we’ll kick your ass.’” A brief pause. “Hey, you know what? They are kicking my ass.”
Golitsin, in an annoyed, slightly absent tone: “He never called.”
Tatyana: “Who never called who, Sergei?”
“Yuri Khodorin. He never called my man to handle his company’s security.”
Nicky: “Yeah, well, sure as hell he called somebody. Somebody connected. I’ll tell ya who he called. A real vicious prick.”
Tatyana: “Well, we can’t let him off the hook. Not now. The man is worth billions, Nicky.”
“You know, you keep sayin’ that. But I don’t see your ass out on the street, takin’ the lumps this guy’s dishing out. I’m tellin’ ya, this guy’s smart.”
Golitsin: “How smart?”
“Last week, a few of my guys went to lay a little dynamite in that warehouse. Same one we talked about last week. It was a massacre.”
Mikhail laughed so hard he nearly choked on his coffee. He had overheard their plan the week before, and quietly passed it along to his old friend from police days who was now handling security for Khodorin—with brutal effectiveness, based upon what he was hearing.
Tatyana: “Is it possible another syndicate is going to war with you? That sometimes happens, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah, good point, I hadn’t thought of that.” A brief pause. “Stick with what you know. No syndicate leaves messages warning me to lay off this Khodorin guy.”
Tatyana: “Come on, Nicky. We’ve invested months in this. Central Enterprises is perfect, just perfect. Five hundred million in cash reserves. Cash, Nicky, cash. We’d be idiots to walk away at this point.”
Nicky: “It’s his fault”—presumably pointing a finger at Golitsin—“wasn’t he supposed to get one of his snoops inside? Whatever happened to that, huh?”
Yes, whatever did happen to that, Mikhail wanted to yell in their faces.
But for a few long moments there was silence. Mikhail chuckled. He’d almost do this job for free. He couldn’t wait to share this tape with Captain Yurshenko, the recently appointed head of security at Central Enterprises. They would crack a bottle of vodka, sit back, and bust a nut over the poisonous frustration on the other side.
Eventually, Golitsin, turning the tables: “All right, I’ll find a way to get some people inside. Now what’s the story with Konevitch?”
Nicky, speaking to Tatyana in an accusatory sneer: “Yeah, thought you said he was taken care of.”
Tatyana: “It’s under control. Tromble called this morning. Konevitch is in a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Tromble swore he placed our friend in the nastiest hole in the universe.”
Nicky, who presumably knew something about this subject: “I hear they got some places over there that are just unbelievable.”
Tatyana: “We’re cooking up the case to be presented to their courts right now.”
Golitsin: “I have experts with decades of experience in this. Why don’t I help you?”
Tatyana: “I don’t think that’s a good idea. The team that manufactures this evidence has to go over and present it to their lawyers. If you build your own lies, you should know your own lies, don’t you think?”
Loud chuckles all around.
Three days languishing at the federal transit center in Atlanta—while Justice hotly debated which of its many prisons was the most awful at that particular moment—proved to be a godsend. Despite frequent requests, nobody would tell Alex his eventual destination.
Two days after his appearance in court, he had been hustled out of the Alexandria jail by a pair of federal marshals whose only words to Alex were, “Say good-bye to the good life.” A quick flight on a Bureau of Prisons 737 to a private hangar in Atlanta International was followed by a fast trip in a shiny black van to the sprawling prison facility in Atlanta. The moment he entered the transient center for what he was warned would be a brief stay, Alex knew he wasn’t headed for the pleasurable resort the judge had ordered.
He was locked in a small cell with a repeat sex offender named Ernie, who favored small boys but settled for little girls, depending on his mood at the moment. Ernie was a leper, a small, oddly ebullient man despised and avoided by everybody. Even Alex could not bring himself to speak with the twisted pervert.
The transient prisoners moving through this portal to hell were a mixture of hardened two- and three-timers, seasoned vets, and others like Alex, wide-eyed newbies about to be thrown into a frightening new world.
The old-timers adored the chance to show off their experience, and they acted like garrulous college kids returning from spring break. They hollered back and forth, spitting out stories, exchanging names of acquaintances in this prison or that. The only verboten topic was any mention of their newest crimes. Alex listened carefully to every word, every boast. He studied how they moved, their mannerisms, how they wore their prison garb. He took careful mental notes and absorbed every nuance. Head down, always, but stay alert. Avoid eye contact at all costs—a wrong glance in this milieu was an invitation to rape, or worse. Among enemies, among guards, among friends, it didn’t matter—act indifferent, no matter what. Better yet, be indifferent, and trust no one. And the golden rule: never, ever, under any circumstances, snitch.
On day four, Alex’s toe was jerked out of the water. He was led out of his transient cell by a pair of stone-faced guards, escorted through a number of cellblocks and hallways, across a large courtyard, and, after four hours of tedious processing—including another shower, another delousing, and another invasive body search—was shoved into his new home.
Ernie, his former cellmate, smiled and welcomed Alex to his new cell. The cold, unpleasant relations between Alex and Ernie had been duly noted by the authorities. Being trapped in a small cell with this pervert would surely kick up the misery level a few notches.
Ernie had arrived two hours earlier, enough time for a little interior decorating. The walls were already plastered with pictures of little boys and girls clipped from magazines.
Based on the most recent indices of prison violence and brutality—and only after the chief of Justice’s Bureau of Prisons twice swore it was the pick of the litter—Atlanta’s medium-security prison earned the booby prize.
The truth was that by almost every measure, Atlanta’s high-security facility had an impressive edge over its adjoining medium-security counterpart—three more murders over the past year, eighty percent more vicious assaults, nearly thirty more days in lockdown, and an impressive seventy percent lead in reported AIDS cases.
That year, Atlanta’s high-security prison was, without question, and by any conceivable measure, the worst canker sore in the entire federal system.
The medium-security facility, however, offered a big advantage, one that swung the argument in its favor. Because it was medium-security, Alex would be forced to mix freely and openly with the prison population. Two hours every day in the yard, socializing with killers, gangbangers, big-time dope dealers, rapists, child molesters, and assorted other criminals. Showers twice a week in a large open bay, with minimal supervision. Three meals every day in the huge mess, where violence was as pervasive as big southern cockroaches.
Alex Konevitch, they were sure, would be petrified. A rich boy from Russia who had pampered and spoiled himself silly with unimaginable luxuries. Nothing in his background had prepared him for this. They were sure he would panic and end up begging for a seat on the next plane to Russia. Or maybe he would run afoul of one of the inhabitants and be shipped home in a casket. Who cared? The Russians never stipulated dead or alive.
The tipping point, though, was the large concentration of Cuban criminals. The facility contained the usual toxic mix of Crips and Bloods, a large, swaggering White Power brotherhood, and an assortment of lesser bands that huddled together under a hodgepodge of quirky banners and social distinctions. But the Cubans ruled. They terrorized the other groups, ran roughshod over the guards, got a piece of all the prison drug traffic and black-market action, and generally did as they pleased.
The ringleaders were a long-term institution, a troupe of thirty cutthroats shipped over on a special boat by Castro at the tail end of the Mariel Boatlift. The Immigration Service had been tipped off about their impending arrival by a Cuban convict who hoped his little favor would be met by a bigger favor. This was Castro’s biggest flip of the bird, he warned without the slightest exaggeration; a group of handpicked incorrigibles, men who had been killing and raping and stealing since they were in diapers. The dregs of the dregs—once loose on America’s streets, the havoc would be unimaginable.
They were picked up the second they climbed off the boat onto a lovely beach just south of Miami, and sent straight to Atlanta’s prison. It was unfortunate, but since they had been denied the opportunity to commit crimes on American soil, no legal justification existed to place them in a high-security lockup, where they clearly belonged.
On the second day of Alex’s incarceration, a guard, acting on orders from the warden, tipped the Cubans that the new boy in cell D83 was worth a boatload of money. By Alex’s third week in the new facility, the Choir Boys of Mariel, as they were known, decided it was time for the new arrival to make their acquaintance.
Alex was one minute into his shower when three men surrounded him. “What can I do for you boys?” he asked, trying to pretend polite indifference, when every cell in his body screamed run. Just run. Don’t look back, don’t even breathe, just run.
