them?”
Gage glanced at Ninchenko and smiled. “Even better. There’ll always be people just minutes away.”
“And if I say I want out?”
“We’ll get you out.”
She turned sideways and rolled her shoulder. “You’ll need to untie me.”
“You going to run?”
“No.” She flashed a smile. “I think I’d like a ride back.”
Gage nodded, then Ninchenko released her. Gage then pointed at the front passenger door and said to Alla, “You ride in front.”
She slipped down from the tailgate, rubbing her wrists, then walked around and climbed in. Gage and Ninchenko got into the back.
Alla turned toward them as the driver pulled out into the street. She locked her eyes on Ninchenko, and then tilted her head toward Gage. “I know how he fits in. What about you?”
“I work for an enemy of Gravilov-”
“I should have guessed.” She glared at Ninchenko. “The enemy of my enemy. It’s the Ukrainian way.”
“Except,” Ninchenko continued, “this enemy agrees with you and Mr. Gage. The devices have to be disabled. They mustn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“They better be disabled, and fast.” Alla looked back at Gage. “You know what Stuart’s leverage for more money is?”
Gage shook his head.
“The video amplifiers are supposed to be installed in Ukrainian air-to-ground missiles next week. Like your Hellfires. Orders were placed. Part of the money has already changed hands. And they’re in a hurry to get it done. Hadeon Alexandervich is afraid the opposition will win the new election. Within weeks there’ll be a new prime minister and a new chief prosecutor. Hadeon Alexandervich knows he’s target number one. He wants the rest of his money. Now.”
“How much?”
“For the missiles? His profit is going to be about two hundred and seventy million. And Stuart is supposed to get twenty million. Same as Gravilov.”
“Who’s buying them?”
“Stuart doesn’t know exactly. He heard Gravilov refer to his Middle Eastern friends, but that may just mean the intermediary, like the Jordanian in the sale of the Kolchuga radar to Iraq. But I know this: Whoever the buyer is will be at a demonstration at the Black Sea the day after the installation is completed. If he’s satisfied, they’ll be shipped out right afterwards. A boat is already waiting.”
“Isn’t Matson afraid of these people?”
“Yes, but he doesn’t quite get it. Violence to him is an abstract concept.”
“And I take it he doesn’t understand what protection means over here, either.”
Alla shook her head. “He doesn’t have the slightest idea.”
The driver pulled into the shadowed alley behind the restaurant.
“Where do I tell Stuart I was?” Alla asked.
Ninchenko told her the story his man had used.
“You have a cell phone?” Gage asked.
“From London.”
Gage pulled out his own. “Keep this on you. You never know when you’ll have a chance to sneak a call.” He deleted the numbers in the memory except for Ninchenko’s, then looked at the battery meter. “It has about four days of power left. There’s just one number programmed in, Mr. Ninchenko’s.” He thought for a moment. “If anybody finds the phone, tell them it’s a local one you use for convenience.”
“Whose number do I say is in memory?” Alla asked.
“Your cousin, Ivan Ivanovich. Say you’ve been planning a surprise party for Matson when you get back from Dnepropetrovsk.”
“There’ll be a fucking surprise all right.”
CHAPTER 67
Ninchenko and Gage drove back toward the apartment, leaving Ninchenko’s men to watch Alla and Matson’s return to the Lesya Palace Hotel.
“I sure didn’t see that coming,” Gage said as they wound their way back toward central Kiev.
He stared for a moment at the dimly lit street, then shook his head slowly. “Makes me wonder what else I missed.”
“Why not blow up the plant?” Ninchenko asked when he, Gage, and Slava met for a drink at the apartment. They sat at the dining table, bottled water in front of Gage and Ninchenko, vodka in front of Slava.
“I want it,” Slava said. “If Gravilov fall or opposition win, I get it. And blow up not solve problem anyway.”
“No, it won’t,” Gage said. “Rubble in Eastern Ukraine isn’t evidence.”
“Bullet in head solve everybody problem,” Slava said.
Gage gave Slava a sour look. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Just little joke.” Slava poured a shot of vodka into his glass and tossed it down. “Not easy to bury body in forest when ground frozen.”
“With Alla on the inside”-Gage glanced at Slava-“and Matson still alive…”
Ninchenko nodded. “Maybe she can gather enough evidence so she can testify about what Matson was really doing over here.”
Gage shook his head. “And then spend the rest of her life on the run? Gravilov, Hadeon Alexandervich, and all of Ukrainian security will be tracking her like wolves on the hunt.”
“What about your Witness Protection Program?” Ninchenko asked.
“That’s only if she’s willing and if the U.S. Attorney buys her story-which he has no incentive to do. How will it sound? Daughter of gangster Petrov Tarasov, traveling under Panamanian passport, fights with her boyfriend, then gets even by running to the government with a made-up story?”
Gage stared at the water bottle on the table before him, overcome by a sense of foreboding, worried that he was leading Alla, like Granger before her, into a Gravilov trap-and feeling straitjacketed by conflicting, if not contradictory, goals: making sure the devices never got installed in missile guidance systems while obtaining hard enough evidence to crush the conspiracy of words upon which Peterson was resting his indictment of Burch.
Then a thought.
He looked at Ninchenko. “How many people would it take to break in and destroy the devices? I’ll just need to preserve a few for evidence.”
“That depends on the security at the plant,” Ninchenko said.
“How soon can we get out there?”
“You take my plane at Zhulyany Airport,” Slava said, after tossing down another shot of vodka. “Ready in thirty minutes. Two-hour flight to Dnepropetrovsk. Car waiting when you arrive.”
“Good. Now let’s hope that Alla doesn’t snitch us off.”
CHAPTER 68
Midnight shadows dominated the wide boulevard sweeping through the heart of Dnepropetrovsk. Sepia-toned sidewalks emerged from a grassy blackness under the light cast by halfhearted yellow bulbs. The only souls Gage observed on the street were heavily coated swing-shift workers and a few vodka-inebriated wanderers, seemingly impervious to the chilly wind off the Dnepr River flowing down from Kiev.
