Michael Kozlov. A couple of gangsters. You don’t have to worry about either of them.” He paused. “Former business partners of Federov. They disappeared, and now he owns full interest in the club. Draw your own conclusions.”
“Thanks. I will. But I’m sure you have more details.”
“Kozlov’s remains were found in an industrial furnace in Toulon, in the south of France. Marchenko was found in the River Seine outside of Paris. He was in sixteen feet of water, but his feet had been wired to a diesel engine block. According to the autopsy, he had been alive when he was dumped from a bridge. Then again, apparently Marchenko had been alive when he was shoved into the furnace.”
She handed the pictures back. Cerny placed them in the files he was giving her.
“Federov,” Alex asked. “Is he Russian mob or Ukrainian?”
“He’s a blend of both. Worst aspects of each. Ethnically he’s Russian, socially he’s a Uke. Maybe if you can get close enough you can ask him that question. We wouldn’t mind knowing what he considers himself.”
“How close am I going to get?”
“As close as you can,” Cerny said. “And I should warn you. This guy knows how to turn on the charm. For whatever reason, a lot of women find Federov irresistible.”
She laughed. “An over-steroided gangster isn’t exactly my dream date.”
If Cerny was amused or encouraged, he wasn’t showing either.
“Yuri Federov owes the United States government about ten million dollars in personal taxes,” Cerny said, “and that’s just the beginning of it. Then there are the corporate taxes and a long list of criminal activities just since we last deported him.”
“And?” she asked.
“He has agreed to meet with a representative of our government to discuss the issues,” Cerny said. “That’s where you come in. One of the most dangerous men in the world. Federov is your assignment.”
ELEVEN
In Rome, an American couple known as Chuck and Susan were looking for a taxi. They had stumbled out of a late-night watering hole in the medieval neighborhood of Trastevere shortly after 3:00 a.m. on January 8.
It had been quite an evening, starting with “ladies night” at Sloppy Sam’s, a popular pub on Campo dei Fiori. In front of the commemorative statue of the philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was condemned to death by the Catholic Church for heresy in 1600, beefy shirtless male bartenders had served up discounted shots of Sambucco. Susan loved to sit at the bar, knock back the Sambucco, and ogle the guys, while Chuck worked the room for single women. Then Susan and Chuck had moved on to the Zeta Lounge around the corner. There a reveler could have all one could drink for one low price, and usually did. The Zeta was also well known as a pick-up joint for couples looking for a special sort of excitement.
Giordano Bruno, the philosopher, would have had much to ponder if he could have seen his old neighborhood and the debauchery that took place there nightly. But there wasn’t much old Giordano could do about it, other than roll in his grave for another few hundred years.
There was a taxi sitting down the block from the Zeta Lounge when Susan and Chuck emerged. The cab’s meter was off, the driver with a mobile phone to his ear, talking furtively.
Secrets. Chuck and Susan had plenty of secrets.
First off, it was the secretive nature of their work and the European nightlife Susan and Chuck loved most. That and the risque thrills. The thump of the clubs late at night, the dancing, the drinking, living for the moment. The lasting friendships among those who worked in the clubs in London, Paris, and Rome. The casual assignations when couples would pair off, including each of them without each other.
Then there was their professional life.
Their current assignments would soon have them in one of the old Soviet republics again where it was even colder and nastier. Oh, well, they were making a good career out of their involvement in this international cloak- and-dagger stuff.
They had money stashed in Switzerland, New York, and the Bahamas. If they weren’t doing it, they reasoned, someone else would be, just not as well. So they continued on. Across the street an American tourist was barking through a souvenir-shop megaphone asking a woman to hike up her skirt, eliciting laughs from his friends and, surprisingly, the woman herself, who was equally soused. Chuck was amused.
The sidewalk was terrible. Ice everywhere. Chuck checked the shadows in the doorways nearby. He was always on his guard. He never knew when someone would step out of such shadows and, from some grievance in a complex past, raise a weapon. He always had an eye out for anyone who might recognize them and know them by their real names. There would be no end to the inconvenience that would cause.
They were partners in a gray world, a world of the political underground, half-formed conspiracies, plots, and counterplots. They thought of themselves as warriors for a good cause. The truth was, they were closer to foot soldiers, and the validity of the cause was open to argument.
Their last work project, the one in Paris, had ended in complete disaster. So they weren’t celebrating this evening. They were trying to forget.
Chuck led Susan to the single waiting cab. He and Susan had a local woman in tow, someone they had met at the club. The woman had called her roommate and left a message, or so she said. She was staying over with “a friend” that night. So as she dropped her own cell phone into her purse, she was at liberty.
Chuck approached the cab. The driver looked up. A face that could have belonged to one of Caesar’s centurions. Drawn, unshaven, and tired.
“Le Grand Hotel,” Chuck said. He spoke good Italian but an American accent was noticeable.
It made perfect sense. A hotel with a French name in the heart of Rome. Back in the 1890s when the hotel had been named, the French motif had suggested elegance, as if the Romans didn’t have enough on their own. Yet the hotel was still the most luxurious in Rome. “
The driver replied with a grumble. He was still gabbing into his own cell phone. “Non in servizio,” he answered, pointing to the roof of the cab. “Off duty.”
“I’m never off duty, so why should you be?” Chuck said. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
The cabbie looked at him as if he didn’t understand. The Italians were good at that. Chuck dug around his pocket and came up with something the driver would understand.
An American fifty-dollar bill. Nice and crisp. Ulysses S. Grant in one of his sober moments.
“This is yours on top of whatever’s on the meter.”
The cabbie hesitated. Then, “
The cabbie put his hand on the fifty. Chuck eyed the vehicle from end to end, trying to assess any potential danger.
Standard Roman cab. A white Mercedes with a fresh dent in the driver’s side front door. Brand new and it had already collided with the rest of the city.
He dug deeply into the cabbie’s eyes. Standard sorehead Roman cabbie.
“I’m getting cold,” the second woman said, stamping her feet briskly, holding her legs tightly together against a sharp breeze. “Are we going somewhere or not?”
“Okay,” Chuck concluded. He released the fifty. They huddled into the taxi, the three of them in the back seat, Chuck on the far end, Susan in the middle, their new friend on the end. The cabbie pulled away from the curb.
Chuck eyed the hack license that the driver displayed on the dashboard. More bad vibes: The name was Italian but the face was something more Eastern. Still, one saw just about everything these days in the capitals of Western Europe.
Maybe Chuck was growing too paranoid. Maybe he had spent too much time in the back alleys and out of the sunlight for his government. Maybe he was too old for this sort of thing. Sometimes he didn’t even recall what name or identity he was using.
From that point, the ride was over in a few seconds.
