“And let’s not forget this whole thing with Teresa supposedly skipping the country and living the high life somewhere else was a pretty sophisticated operation. But Bassaline said Kaplan was no rocket scientist, took too many left hooks to the head.”
Karp agreed with the assessment. “Yeah, I guess it’s a good thing Fairbrother’s report is still on my desk, waiting to be sent to the defense.” But, he cautioned Guma, the defense had just drawn a pretty tough hand to beat. “Our star witness was five years old and says he remembers his mother and father fighting, a couple of pops that may or may not have been gunshots, and the sound of someone digging. They have an adult, granted one with a sheet, who says he saw the whole thing. Nice that the statute of limitations for conspiracy to obstruct and accessory after the fact is up. But he did get the caliber of the gun, which wasn’t mentioned in the newspapers, right.”
“Don’t tell me you buy this crap?” Guma said. “Isn’t it just a little too convenient that this guy is popping up now?”
Karp nodded. “Ray, I think this guy’s totally full of it, too, but we’re going to have to counter him. We can’t just ask the jury to believe our version based on our mutual good looks.”
Guma laughed. “Maybe you can’t, but I’ve won plenty of cases on that very notion.”
23
The burly guard at the gate leading up to Vladimir Karchovski’s house gave Marlene a suspicious look but let her in. He was the same gorilla who’d been there when she and Butch visited and his disposition wasn’t much better that afternoon. Then again, the Karchovskis don’t pay him the big bucks to be nice, she thought. She glanced quickly over her shoulder and saw that he was still watching her.
“Don’t let Boris put you off,” a male voice said as the door to the house opened. “He’s a dangerous man when necessary, but shy as a lamb around women. Not that he doesn’t appreciate the sight of a beautiful woman such as yourself.”
Marlene smiled as she looked up at Yvgeny Karchovski. Butch with an accent, she sighed inwardly, but not the integrity, nor could anyone ever understand me the way Butch does. Karp had been wonderful after she got back from Jojola’s memorial service-strong and supportive when she wanted to cry on his chest, fun and engaging when she needed a night out to get her mind off of her friend’s death and the threats against her family, as well as her vow to someday, somehow seek and exact her vengeance against Andrew Kane.
It had been some time since she’d seen the Karchovskis. Yvgeny, she understood, had been traveling-she figured in Russia, although his father, Vladimir, had waved his hand vaguely and said it was “to see old friends.” So that remained a mystery as did how Yvgeny, who was in the United States illegally, traveled so freely.
The old man had also been quiet for several weeks, since before Jojola’s death until that morning when he called on her cell phone.
Yvgeny asked her to come in. “Vladimir is out for his walk,” he said. “But he should return in a half hour or so.”
“Let’s go catch up to him,” Marlene suggested. “I could use the fresh air.”
“As you wish,” Yvgeny said, and they stepped back out of the house and walked down to the gate.
“You leaving?” the guard asked.
“
“You are not waiting for Mr. Karchovski to return?” Boris asked.
“No, we are going to meet him,” Yvgeny said. “Now if you don’t mind, we’d like to leave.”
“Yeah, sure,” Boris responded and opened the gate. “Um, Mr. Vladimir Karchovski has to me give orders, ‘Watch out for Yvgeny.’ So I must go with you.”
Yvgeny shook his head. “That’s all right, Boris, stay here,” he said. “I’ll be okay.”
“But Mr. Vladimir Karchovski, he give me this order-” The man looked like he might weep.
“Okay, Boris, okay,” Yvgeny said, rolling his eyes at Marlene to whom he muttered under his breath, “Doesn’t say three words in a week, but now he’s my shadow.”
With Boris lumbering along twenty feet behind and talking on his cell phone, Yvgeny and Marlene headed for the Brighton Beach boardwalk where Vladimir took his walks. Along the way, Yvgeny told her he’d been “snooping around” in Moscow and Chechnya to see if any of his associates with the black market had heard anything about what Samira Azzam was doing in the United States linking up with Andrew Kane.
“There’s nothing much more than rumor,” Yvgeny said. “However, one of those rumors is that an agent with the FSB-which used to be KGB-a woman named Nadya Malovo, is also rumored to be in this country. I actually met her once, many years ago after Afghanistan; she was with senior agents questioning officers about defections and anti-Soviet sentiments in the army. I thought she was a-how do you say-a cold one then, but I hear she may be much worse than that. Some claim she was with Azzam at the Nord-Ost theater and later Beslan. That is not for sure and even if she was, there could be a legitimate reason if, say, for instance, she is trying to work her way close to the Islamic extremist hierarchy.” Yvgeny hestitated a moment as if working things out in his head.
“But?” Marlene asked.
“Excuse me?” Yvgeny said.
“You didn’t say it, but there was a ‘but’ on the end of your last sentence,” she said. “You’re not sure you buy that theory.”
Yvgeny shook his head. “I am not sure. However, if the theory that I was talking to you and Butch about the night you were over for dinner-that the Russian government, or at least some rogue element in the government, and the Islamic hard-liners are working together for the moment to discredit the Chechen nationalists-”
“Then this Nadya Malovo might be working with Azzam and Kane,” Marlene finished. She whistled. “Which means the Russian government, or some rogue element, as you say, within the government or its secret police, is working with an Islamic terrorist and an American megalomaniac killer on some terrorist act on U.S. soil? That’s the stuff-”
“-wars are made of.” Yvgeny was the one to finish the sentence this time.
“So you think they’re still after Putin?” Marlene asked.
“It makes sense,” Yvgeny said. “Or at least, a staged attack directed at Putin with plenty of deaths among the UN ambassadors and staff to blame on the Chechen nationalists. The FSB isn’t the only spy agency in Russia. The army has its own network, some of whom are still my friends. Of interest while I was there was the apprehension of an Arab courier on the border between Kazakhstan and Chechnya. He killed himself before he could be questioned, but a CD data file was found sewn into his jacket. It was encoded, however, the army had recently broken that particular code. The only thing on the CD was a blueprint of a building.”
“Don’t tell me,” Marlene said. “The building was the United Nations.”
“
“So is this the information that Vladimir wanted to pass on?” Marlene asked.
Yvgeny shook his head again. “No…well, not entirely,” he said. “It is perhaps for you to judge who might make use of this information. Though you do not need me to tell you that not everyone involved in all of this can be trusted. But that I leave to you. Me and my people will continue our own ‘investigation.’ However, what my father wanted to pass on to you, while related, is of a more personal nature.”
Yvgeny and Marlene arrived at the top of the stairs leading down to the boardwalk. Below them a woman in colorful Lycra jogged along the boardwalk pushing a baby stroller. Farther along toward Coney Island, a young couple was buying hot dogs from two Hispanic female pushcart vendors. Twenty-five yards beyond them, Vladimir Karchovski strolled, throwing bread crumbs up in the air for the hovering seagulls as his two bear-sized bodyguards walked a few yards behind. He spotted Marlene and Yvgeny and waved as he stopped feeding the
