“Weapon was an SR-1 Vektor. Silenced, from the condition of the bullets. Less deformation that way. Either the victim or the killer-or both-had ties to the item we discussed Sunday.”
“Sometimes I wish that Berlin still had a wall,” Duke said. “I’m told this job was a hell of a lot easier back then. How good is your source?”
“FBI. They get called in on major rez crimes.”
“You trust an FBI agent?”
Cooperation between the two agencies was a minefield filled with back-stabbing, misdirection, and agent eat officer.
Politics as usual.
“The agent owed me a favor,” Harrow said. “Even if he didn’t, he’s reliable.”
“Stay on top of it,” the DDO said. “If it moves off the rez to Canada, somebody will stick us with the ticket.”
“Then I’m praying it doesn’t.”
“No shit.”
Neither one of them wanted to testify before the kind of political investigation committees that would be formed if the op that wasn’t quite the CIA’s went south.
22
DAY THREE
ROSARIO
7:48 A.M.
Shurik Temuri trimmed his fingernails with a very sharp Japanese folding knife. The big, wedge-shaped blade hadn’t been designed for manicures, but Temuri didn’t care. He simply wanted to flash the lethal knife as he browbeat the two stupid Americans.
Once the knife appeared, any Georgian with balls would have pulled his own knife and begun working on fingernails or other body parts. But it seemed that Lovich and Amanar had lived a soft life too long to recognize the old-country insult of an unsheathed knife.
It was the same problem with the language the cousins spoke-an outdated, corrupt form of what any proper Georgian would speak.
“So what did your informant tell you?” Temuri asked Amanar.
“Don’t call him an informant,” Amanar said unhappily. “He’s the chief of police. He briefed me along with other members of the city council, that’s all.”
“Policemen are always informants to politicians.” Temuri shaved off a piece of nail. “Unless they’re the politician as well as the policeman.”
“Look, I keep telling you that you aren’t back in the old country,” Amanar said. “This system is different.”
“What is it Americans say? Shit of the bull?” Temuri waved the knife. “Police and politics are the same everywhere. What did he say to you?”
Blank faced, Lovich looked out the window. He wanted no part in this conversation.
Amanar started to argue with Temuri, then shrugged. The Georgian simply didn’t grasp the nuances of American politics. Or maybe the other way around. Whatever.
Either way,
“I was told that the Indian was shot twice in the back of the head,” Amanar said. “Then the murderers doused the trailer with kerosene and lit it off. Any real evidence was destroyed in the fire.”
“Murderers? More than one?” Temuri asked.
“Uh…that’s what the police chief said.”
Another crescent of nail shaving hit the carpet. “One child with balls could have executed the Indian and burned the place down.”
“Look, I’m just telling you what I was told.”
Temuri grunted.
Amanar kept talking in his out-of-date dialect. “The body was almost burned beyond recognition. The assumption is that it’s Tommy. Considering that he isn’t answering his cell phone and can’t be found, we’re going with Tommy as the corpse. Even if he’s alive and running, we can’t count on him anymore. My cousin and I are really, really unhappy with how this is turning out.”
“Yeah,” Lovich said in English. “This talk about an execution isn’t making me feel the love.”
Temuri gave him a hard look for speaking in English. Then he turned his attention back to Amanar. “Is there a problem?”
“The chief didn’t say anything about any execution,” Amanar said. “He thinks it was some kind of ongoing, uh, argument about fishing rights or something among the Indians.”
“Why, then, is your Federal Bureau of Investigation involved?” Temuri demanded, his dark eyes glittering with temper.
“They always investigate crimes of violence on reservations. That’s what the chief said, anyway.”
Temuri spit on the rug.
Amanar winced but didn’t say anything.
“Amateurs,” Temuri said.
The knife flashed so quickly Amanar couldn’t see much beyond a metallic blur. He swallowed hard and didn’t ask just who the amateurs were that Temuri spit upon.
“You are telling me a cheap murder on a tribal reserve that is mostly scrub timber and blackberry bushes is worth the attention of no fewer than fifty federal agents,” Temuri said with a deadly lack of inflection.
“Fifty? Are you sure? The chief never said anything about that many feds.” Amanar shook his head in disbelief. “How did you find that out?”
“I drove by the tribal headquarters building and counted the shiny four-door sedans parked there. That is called intelligence work. I know Chechens who can drive by a Russian barracks and tell you within five men the number of soldiers housed there. It is how we determine the number of bullets issued to our freedom fighters.”
Amanar started sweating. “I don’t like this talk about soldiers and attacks. You told us this was a simple smuggling operation, like dope or cigarettes. That’s all we signed on for. We’re Americans, not freedom fighters or terrorists.”
“Yet you smuggle the
“It’s not the same,” Amanar said impatiently. “It’s just a game. Dope doesn’t hurt anybody. Guns do. My cousin and I don’t want anything to do with anyone else’s wars.”
Temuri stared at him, then tested the edge of the knife on Lovich’s wooden desk.
Lovich worked hard on ignoring him.
“What of the people of yours who disappeared at sea years ago?” Temuri asked. “Was that all part of the game that hurt no one?”
The two boat brokers traded startled glances.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Lovich said in English. “Why the hell did-”
“I didn’t tell him,” Amanar said in the same language. “Now shut up. He knows more English than he lets on.”
Sullenly, Lovich returned to staring out at the bay.
“Look, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to or what they’ve been saying,” Amanar said. “We never killed anybody. Accidents happen, especially when you’re in a small boat on big water.”
“I know precisely what happened and why,” Temuri said. He carved another groove in the desk. Wood shavings fell on the rug next to neat slices from his nails. “So would your police, if they ever decided to investigate. Yet death at sea is a federal matter, is it not? I am told death has no limitation in the United States.”
Amanar got the point: Temuri knew that the statute of limitations on murder had no end date.
“And then the monies owed-taxes, yes,” Temuri said. “Is there a limitation on them?”
