Ellen was the keener intellect of the two. She was a University of Chicago graduate and a skilled interpreter in Russian and Ukrainian. Ellen was also the official note taker. At every embassy meeting there was a note taker to draft the report on meetings, except in the case of the very rare “under four eyes” meetings that the bureaucracy dreaded. Recording devices were almost never allowed, since principals wanted to be able to deny any misspeaking.
Ralston was a wealthy man in his thirties who played at being a diplomat and had already spent much of his time talking about his home in New Canaan, Connecticut, as if anyone else was interested. Half an hour earlier, he had been laughing and showing pictures of the house back in the United States. Now, going into the meeting with Federov, he looked taut enough to explode.
They arrived in the conference room at the same time as the opposition.
The Ukrainians wore overcoats on top of suits. They seemed to have been carved from the same block of solid Russian stone. They smelled of tobacco and cologne.
Federov was the tall one in the middle, a thick jaw, very short hair, stubble across the chin much the same length. He was handsome the way a retired boxer is handsome, the wear and toughness suggesting survival and the survival suggesting a certain intense masculinity. His nose looked as if it had been broken once and bent out of shape, then broken a second time and pushed back in the right direction, probably without anesthetic either time.
Federov was six four. Imposing. Powerfully built. In American terms, the body of a tight end. He was a head taller than Alex was, with huge hands and a weightlifter’s body, definitely more of a presence in person than he had been in the photographs. His teeth-the teeth that had bitten the ear off a Brooklyn cop-were yellowed but straight.
The stories came back to her: him abusing women in his night clubs, two wives “disappearing,” and having people murdered almost for sport.
He was physically intimidating to her, but there was no way she was going to tip him off to that fact. He moved close to Alex, offering a hand, his dark eyes midway between a glare and a smile. She got the idea that he was mentally undressing her as he eyed her and she stifled a cringe-she tried to tell herself that she had dealt with more vile human beings than this and survived, but on second thought, she wasn’t sure that she had.
Alex accepted his hand. It was firm, strong, and dry.
“I’m Yuri Federov,” he said in Russian.
“I’m Anna Tavares. US Department of Commerce,” she said, also in Russian.
He switched into Ukrainian, testing her already. “Aren’t you going to say you’re pleased to meet me?” he asked. “That would be the polite thing, Anna Tavares.”
“It would also be a lie,” she said in Ukrainian. “Let’s be seated. We have a lot of business to discuss, so I appreciate your coming in.”
Silently, she said a big thank-you-
A smile crept across Federov’s face with the slowness and deliberateness of sun breaking through the clouds on a mostly cloudy day. He introduced his two backups, Kaspar and Anatoli, no last names given. They looked like bookends or, more appropriately, the twin doors on the rear of a truck. They were husky and stocky. Alex assumed they were bodyguards of some sort. She further assumed that the metal detectors around the embassy’s entrance had done their jobs and any artillery hauled over by Kaspar and Anatoli had been left outside.
Back to Russian. “Charmed,” Federov said.
“Let’s get to work,” she said.
“I don’t know what this meeting is about,” he said.
“Well, as soon as it starts, I’ll tell you,” she said, gaining some traction.
He switched to English. “Then let’s begin. I can express myself well in English, so we will speak your language.”
“I speak Russian,” she said in Russian, “and some Ukrainian. Mrs. Brown here is able to interpret and take notes. So any of the three languages are fine.”
“I still prefer English,” he said.
“That’s fine,” she said, relieved. The meeting began.
Alex guessed that Kaspar and Anatoli wouldn’t have much to say in any language, particularly with the boss present. It turned out she was right.
They couldn’t smile, and for all Alex knew, they couldn’t read either, because when files were placed before everyone in the room to present the topics of the meeting, unlike their boss, they ignored them. Instead, they sat there beside their boss, their four hands folded on the table, staring at her as if someone were holding a gun on them.
“Why is there a note taker if we are anyway being recorded?”Federov asked.
“Who says we’re being recorded?” Alex asked.
“Why
“I want to talk about The Caspian Group,” she said.
He looked first to Kaspar and then to Anatoli. “What is The Caspian Group?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of it.” His two peers understood enough to smile on cue.
“Mr. Federov,” she said. “You’re not a mystery to the United States government. You do millions of dollars of business that are subject to US taxation. You’ll either pay your proper share or we will make certain that you no longer can do business in the US, even through one of your puppet companies. Am I being clear enough?”
He went through the same charade. He laughed slightly. He took out a pack of cigarettes and pulled one into his lips. She intentionally watched him until he had lit it and inhaled deeply. There were tattoos on the backs of his fingers, common with Russian hoods. The rest of his body, not that she wished to see it, would tell an even larger story, she knew.
“There’s no smoking in this room,” she said.
“I’m smoking,” he said.
“And you’re about to stop,” she said.
He looked at his bodyguards and exchanged a shrug. They chortled.
“Something funny?” Alex asked.
“A lot is funny,” he said.
“Put the cigarette out.”
The look in his eyes mocked her. So did the contempt in his voice. “Yes, ma’am,” he finally said.
He turned the cigarette around and tamped it down on his tongue without flinching. She was ready for the move and didn’t bat an eyelash. He flicked the remains of the butt across the room.
“Very good,” she said next. “Now. I want to talk about The Caspian Group.”
“What is The Caspian Group?” he asked again.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll do it the hard way.”
She held him in her gaze and flipped open the file in front of her.
She began to read aloud.
THIRTY-SIX
The destination of Mark McKinnon, an American with an important job in Rome, was a basement bar in Trastevere, a neighborhood of Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City, which felt more like a small Italian town than part of the capital city. Trastevere was a community of small streets lined with restaurants and cafe bars spilling out onto the narrow sidewalks. There were not so many tourists here, which was always nice for McKinnon. He didn’t like to run into anyone he knew, other than the individual he might be looking for.
Normally four o’clock in the afternoon would be considered early to meet a contact for a drink and some chat. But McKinnon easily found one of his regular haunts for just such afternoon meetings. It was a small basement bar called San Christoforo, around the corner and down a few side streets from the Piazza di Santa Maria. McKin-non walked down four brick steps and pushed open a wooden door to a dark place, dimly lit with candles.
