Midnight in Moscow, page 4
“Lamb Pasanda for me, Chicken Vindaloo for him,” O’Rourke told the waiter. “How about you Doctor P?”
“Lentil Soup, Tandoori Shrimp and Vegetable Pakora,” came the reply.
“No liver?” Kowecki grinned.
“I don’t eat red meat, Detective. Never sure of its origin!” came the response.
CHAPTER FIVE
On her way back to Annapolis, Emily thoroughly considered the impromptu meeting with the two police officers and Simon Parker. Neither was giving out any new facts, both simply reiterating what she already knew. It seemed abundantly clear that they were concealing a great deal, particularly from her. As the two officers enjoyed a longstanding friendship, clearly one of them had requested some sort of unofficial involvement from the other. Emily knew good and damned well that Maryland State Police and Anne Arundel County Police Department seldom if ever worked together, the enmity between the two departments ran strong and deep. MSP’s reputation as glamour boys in khaki who cruised ‘their’ roads, by their own admission was a source of the utmost annoyance to the underpaid AACPD, who struggled to do their jobs with far less funds and resources. Working together, if at all, was an intense experience for both departments. Emily wondered what was really going on.
She knew for a fact that the longstanding friendship between Kowecki and O’Rourke began in New York when they were both rookies, Kowecki for NYPD and O’Rourke for Anne Arundel County. They met in a ‘Deviant Behavior’ workshop and kept in touch afterwards. When he married, Kowecki settled in Anne Arundel County and they’d subsequently partnered up. Unlike many of his colleagues, Kowecki was not surprised when O’Rourke joined his father and brother on ‘the other side’ in Maryland State Police two years later. Despite the ongoing rivalry between both agencies, if State help was required, Kowecki would be called upon to circumvent the red tape and go directly to his friends in the O’Rourke family at Maryland State Police. There was no doubt in Emily’s mind that this was such a case. Chief Medical Examiner Parker on the other hand was a strictly ‘by the book’ kind of man with no great love for any police department, thus he could certainly be ruled out of any kind of conspiracy.
Emily knew full well that within the continental United States there were allegedly no fewer than thirty-five Russian organized crime families. Pete Kowecki mentioned this during lunch, while searching the eyes of his friend as if looking for some sort of verification. Emily noticed each time Kowecki hinted at a connection between the Russian Mafyia and Freitag, O’Rourke would return to Freitag’s known connections to arms dealings as if trying to get him off track. “This,” Emily said to herself, “was becoming ‘curiouser and curiouser’.”
Emily’s own scant knowledge of the Russian Mafyia had come from a lecturer in the local college where she herself taught occasional workshops on counterterrorism for law enforcement and criminal justice students. His name was Jacob Samuel Goldsmith and he was known to most people as ‘Jack Sam’. Goldsmith, an ex-FBI agent with a Doctorate in Criminal Psychology and years of experience in international crime and its affects on the U.S. economy, sat in on one of Emily’s lectures and had been duly enthralled with both her topic and presentation. Her subject, ‘Women in Terrorism’ was one with which he was very familiar. He was first generation Israeli of Russian ancestry through his mother and had, as a result, much to offer Emily in terms of insight into Israeli settlement and Eastern European exile problems from a non-Arab perspective.
She called his cell phone and left a message as she drove down Route 50 crossing the Severn River bridge and was making a turn heading towards the college campus when he returned her call.
“Hey you! You’re finally divorcing your husband and running away with me?” Emily could visualize his smile over the phone.
“Right. Of course, all the way to the Gaza Strip. I’m crazy that way,” she answered, delighting in his flirtatiousness. “Can we meet for coffee somewhere? I’ve got a client with a problem and I need an expert opinion.”
“Sure Emily. How about the coffee shop in Olde Severna Park opposite the church? I can get there in about ten minutes and I don’t have to be back here until around three this afternoon.”
“OK, I know the place. Give me a few minutes. I’m on College Parkway.”
She put a “Dido” CD she had borrowed from her daughter into the player and within seconds her car was filled with the sounds of ‘Here With Me’. Emily Byron Cowan, no longer feeling like a pre-senior, smiled smugly to herself and being of fine voice, sang along with the music, her windows down and her curls blowing in the wind.
Emily parked next to Goldsmith’s ancient Saab, noticing for the first time the bumper sticker displayed in stark contrast to the classic black paint job. It showed the Israeli and Palestinian flags with the motto, ‘Two People, One Nation’. Her eyes filled with tears at the sentiment. ”I do like this man,” she said to no one.
He sat by the window, smiled at her and beckoning her in. Jack Sam Goldsmith, in his mid forties, graying, bespectacled with John Lennon frames, was tall and wiry. His overt Semitic features resembled a singer popular in the eighties that Emily had at the time developed a fondness for but could now no longer remember his name.
“It’s good to see you Emily. I’ve missed your smile or, sparing your blushes, what do you need?”
“Cheeky Bugger! You know Jack Sam, my son is not that much younger than you,” she said, coloring predictably.
“Actually Emily I’m older than I look. Forty-five, would you believe?”
“A mere child. I’m fifty-six.”
“Vintage wines mellow with age.”
“And flattery will get your coffee paid for.”
“Maybe I should continue.”
“Enough already. I called you here for a reason. Tell me about the influence, if any, of the Russian Mafyia around here.”
“In this area it’s not too overwhelming, but in Baltimore and little pockets of Western Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania it’s really beginning to be a problem. These areas don’t have the monetary resources to combat what looks like a foothold. And frankly this type of thing has the police department, I should say, all police departments, in a tailspin. The biggest problem for the FBI field offices and the police departments, in my opinion, oddly enough isn’t the drug trafficking we know goes on, it’s slave trafficking.”
“Slave trafficking?” Emily was astounded. “These days?”
“Sure. Generally these women are abducted from small towns and villages all over Eastern Europe. They never return home. Most of them are conned by phony advertisements to become dancers or bartenders, even nannies overseas in exotic sounding places. All of it looks very legitimate, until they arrive at their destination which in the past has usually been Israel or the Middle East but is now more often major cities throughout Western Europe. The ultimate venue of course is the good old USA!”
“And this is all the work of the Russian Mob?” Emily asked.
“Of course not, but they certainly are big players along with many of the poorer Latin American countries. A lot of their girls end up in Argentina. Right now the Argentine Government is taking steps to enact new laws based on the 1990 United Nations Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers bill, but most of the more affluent Latin nations seem to ignore the problem. Did you think slavery had vanished after America’s Civil War?”
“Of course not. I know the United Kingdom had its heroes and villains and I suppose it’s reverse racism, but when I think of slavery I don’t think of white people as victims. I think of the deep South with African slaves.”
“Do you watch that TV cop show about Baltimore City?” He asked her.
“You mean the one about the Russian Girls found in a crate, the series a few years back?”
“The very same?”
“Is it based on fact?”
“For the most part it is. Emily, you’re a researcher and a good investigator, but you know that if it’s on TV it usually happened two years prior! That’s the general rule of thumb.”
“Alright I get the general idea. But how do they really get here?”
“As I asked, did you see the TV show?”
“Yes. Do you mean they do actually get shipped into ports like Baltimore in crates?”
“It certainly has been done Em. There have been at least three instances in the Maryland area where this has taken place.”
“Nah!” Emily stopped herself from sounding like a complete idiot. “Good grief! It’s that bad?”
“It would take hours to explain to you and I’m a little short of time now. Why don’t you stop by my office or audit a class tomorrow and afterwards we can grab a bite to eat and I’ll give you some other stuff to read? Maybe we can meet for lunch or dinner next week to discuss it,” he smiled slowly, “No tricks. I’m a trustworthy guy. Honestly, it’s part of my lecture series this semester. You can see some of my notes. It’s an ongoing project for me. I’ve even got people at the Russian Embassy looking into it. You should know what you’re getting into.”
“OK, Jack Sam. I’d be happy to retain your services professionally. I mean all this is really for a client and I don’t know whether it’s long or short term. She was married to a person I met years ago in Europe. His body was found in a car fire and there’s rumor that he had some very bad associates. He was on his way to an appointment. No remains were found of his briefcase and his wife is understandably afraid of reprisals against her as well as her remaining family. As I remember he had arms connections in the seventies. He was Russian. Well, you know, it was the Cold War, things were different.”
“Sounds interesting enough. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Emily Cowan changed the CD in her car, selecting Dusty Springfield’s ‘I Only Want To Be With You’. She sang all the way home and like thousands of other women, she planned what she would wear the following day.
CHAPTER SIX
Berkleigh, Maryland
Leonid Markov, a huge, barrel-chested man, heaved a sigh of relief as he downed his second vodka. The doctor had finally managed to sedate his wife, who in the darkened bedroom they shared for almost thirty years had finally ceased screaming for her daughter and pleading with her unjust God for retribution.
Markov looked out of the window onto the sum total of his life in America. By any standards he was well-to-do with a life-style validating his success, a large landscaped garden with an oval shaped swimming pool which, as he stared down from his atrium clearly reflected the image of his house. The two hundred year old home, known as “Polly’s Pond” to the locals ran adjacent to one of Maryland’s most beautiful bike trails. It as once the home of a high ranking railroad official. Markov had purchased the Allegheny County mansion to show the result of hard-earned cash. He had labored long hours as a tailor, building his business, making do with very little for himself in the beginning and he kept the house’s historic name because his wife’s family name had been Pollecoff and he always called her Polly. Markov now owned three clothing stores, a tailor’s shop and a designer boutique. He supplied several high end Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore department stores with his own designer label, ‘MarX’. He had accomplished this all for his children, in the hope that they would never suffer hardship. And now his only daughter Anastasia was dead, brutally murdered the police report deemed, by persons unknown.
“Come on Pop, sit down. Nothing’s going to bring her back. We’ll find who did this. We’ll get our own justice. Our police department is small, they can’t handle something like this. We don’t have murders here. It’s not New York or Philly. We have to go outside.” Valery Markov was a younger version of his father, black tee shirt bursting at the seams, exposing muscular arms embellished in tattoos, thick dark hair, long and wavy, pulled back into a pony tail, the end of which almost covered his broad shoulders.
“Valery, listen to me, this was no ordinary murder. She had money in her purse, eight hundred dollars. It wasn’t robbery. My God Valery, your sister had no face left! Someone shot her so many times she was recognizable only by her fingerprints and belongings. Thank God for the FBI’s help. I tell you, this was an execution! Not since I left Russia have I seen such brutality. I came to this country thirty years ago. I left everything Russian, our relatives, our language, the savagery of the Gulag, communism, everything, because I believed I could make you safe here. Look at us. Look at what has become of your sister. You are right, the police won’t help us, even with our money. Not because they cannot but because they will not. Your sister knew police officers. She came to me just two weeks ago and told me she had seen something involving a local police officer and she knew, I tell you, she knew she was going to die. She told me she had to leave here for a while. She left the children with us and closed her shop. She knew she was going to be killed! Valery, I want you to contact someone. There is a woman in Annapolis. I make clothes for her and her husband. They are good customers. This woman has connections. She is not with the police, nor is she with the government, but she has something to do with investigations. I want you to contact her. No mention of your sister by phone. Go there. Go to Annapolis, deliver her order. Talk to her of this only after you get into her home. No phone calls ahead of time, no early warning, you understand me? Tell her this is why I didn’t come myself. Do it after the burial of Anastasia. Tell no one, not even your mother.”
“Of course, Father. Who is this woman?”
‘Her name is Emily Cowan. We have a friend, how do you call it, a common denominator. Your Uncle Dimi.”
“Uncle Dimi? Is she a spy as well?
“Come, come, Valery,” he smiled sardonically at the younger man, “There are no spies now, only capitalists.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Emily Cowan received an email from her son Mason that morning. He had telephoned her a few days earlier to say that he would soon be visiting Germany and asked if she could meet him in Heidelberg or pick him up at the airport. The family had lived in an apartment in Ziegelhausen, a few miles down the River Neckar from Heidelberg many years ago and Emily had maintained ownership of the place, using it as her European base for business. Whenever family members were in Europe they would, when possible, stay in the comfortable family quarters cared for by the still sprightly and now octogenarian family friend, Frau Margot Blatz.
Mason was Chief of Staff at a hospital funded by his family near the Afghan-Pakistan border. His family there consisted of his wife Safiya, who was also a physician at the clinic, their two little sons and his half sister and stepmother, who had longstanding tribal ties to renegade factions working against western reconstruction efforts. Emily saddened whenever she thought of her son. Ironically, throughout his life she had shielded him from his cultural heritage out of fear that he would become exactly who he was now. He was handsome, gifted and intelligent but, and there was always that but, prone to the romantic idealism of freedom fighting. Mason wanted to save the world from western oppression. Mason was, in the opinion of his mother, severely deluded. He called himself Masud now, which although his given name, was not the most familiar to his Anglo-American family. Like his father Ghulam Ansari, Emily’s first husband, her son had adopted one of the strictest forms of Islam. Mason Desai had become a Wahhabite and was now a man obsessed with his religion, adhering to the purist and perhaps harshest of all Islamic doctrines, which to Emily often appeared hypocritical and obsessive. Despite his new religious fervor he revered his wife and maintained a strong sense of family. It was her son’s fierce devotion to God and his extended family that left Emily with sleepless nights and fearful days. Her only son had relatives connected by marriage to arguably the most powerful player in the ultimate game of international terror, none other than Sheikh Osama Bin-Muhammad bin Laden. As a direct result, Mason’s visits to America were restricted, always observed by the Secret Service of at least three nations and when they occurred at all cast an immediate dark shadow of suspicion on his and Emily’s immediate family.
Emily fully realized she was being observed. It didn’t bother her. She understood why, thus it went without question. The Cowan home was frequented by radical thinkers, politicians from both mainstream parties as well visiting diplomats from other countries. It was a safe house one might argue, with a twist. As her Aunt Yacouta D’Aboville in Cairo often said, more international policy was decided over bread and wine in her home’s vast kitchen than at United Nations or the European Union Headquarters. It was a family tradition that Emily as well as her aunt and her daughter Hailey maintained..
Emily and Harrison Cowan were unquestioningly loyal to their adopted country, but while their allegiance knew no boundaries there was still no denying their worldwide intelligence connections both formal and informal. The Cowan home was thus considered neutral territory, almost a ‘safe’ house and along with their other business interests the base of an international think tank.
Each year the Cowan’s hosted a symposium at a discrete location an hour away from the nation’s capital, inviting some of the bigger players from the worldwide intelligence community to present and discuss topical subjects going far beyond the political effects of terrorism. This year their agenda ranged from lobbying on matters relating to international monetary transactions, counter-terrorism, foreign sovereign and diplomatic immunity for valuable intelligence assets, national security, arms dealings, drug peddling, long-term effects of illegal immigration, even pandering legal advice to newly established nations in transition. Attending would be representatives from World Terrorism Task Forces, former SAS, SEAL, and Green Beret Officers, law enforcement officials, international security experts, active senior ranking military members, FBI, CIA and NSA officials, Homeland Security experts and a sprinkling of international human rights activists for good measure. Emily Cowan had urged her son to address this ‘summit’ as a presenter or moderator. He had been held as a prisoner in brutal violation of his human rights by a unit commanded by a rogue British Intelligence Officer two years previously and had been rescued by the efforts of his sister Haley with the help of her biological father, Yassir ‘Tony’ Shallal. Shallal, a diplomat, mediator, former high ranking British intelligence agent and onetime lover of Emily Cowan was still somewhat involved in the secret service of his country.
