'Maybe six hundred dollars for two-I think that's what Jimmy Wolfe said. You can get them at Radio Shack.'
'Get two,' Grandpa said.
'Where'm I gonna…'
'I've got funds,' Grandpa said.
'You got six hundred…'
'More than that. Official funds. I'll get the money, you get the radios. You'll have to show me how to work them…'
'Easy. Easier than a cell phone,' Carl said.
'I can work a cell phone,' Grandpa said. 'I don't have all of it figured out, the damn thing has that terrible ring now, I pushed something wrong.'
'I'll show you,' Carl said.
And just before Carl got out of the car, Grandpa said, 'We will have to get some ammunition for the pistol.'
'I know how to get it,' Carl said. 'I was over at Jerkin's, looking. All the pistol ammo is right behind the counter. I've got the nine millimeter spotted. If we wait 'til Jerkin's wife goes to dinner, and then we go in, and you ask him for some tire inflator, and he comes around to get it for you-I spotted that, too, it's way down at the end of automotive-I can lift it right off the shelf.'
'Cameras?'
'I looked real dose, didn't see any. There's a big round mirror, but it's set to show somebody at the counter what's going on in the appliance aisle. If you're over there in automotive, he won't be able to see back.'
'Got it all figured out,' Grandpa said.
'Figured we were gonna need some ammo, sooner or later,' Carl said.
Chapter 11
Lucas had arranged to meet Reasons and Nadya at nine o'clock; Harmon called back at eight o'clock, waking him out of a restless sleep.
'On Spivak, specifically, we're drawing a blank,' Harmon said. 'We pulled every record we could find from his army records to the credit reports and his checking account. It doesn't look like he's ever been out of the U.S. except when he was in the army. And his army record… he was a truck driver and sort of a fuck-up. He had almost no clearance for anything, so whatever he was doing, it wasn't espionage.'
'Damnit,' Lucas said. 'If you could get me just one thing.'
'I know. We're still looking.'
'So: Should I brace Nadya, or what?'
'Your call,' Harmon said. 'We talked it over last night and couldn't see any reason to be subtle.'
'Who's we?'
'Us guys,' Harmon said.
'You said you were drawing a blank on Spivak specifically. Does that mean you're not drawing a blank on something else?'
'Yeah. We talked to some old guys, you know, from back in the fifties and sixties. There were quite a few Soviets doing hard-core espionage. Height of the Cold War, and all that. When we'd get a line on a guy, sometimes they'd figure it out and run for it. They'd fly to Chicago or Omaha and rent a car or catch a bus and then they'd disappear. The cars were usually found in Iowa, around Des Moines, or in Wisconsin, around Milwaukee. The point is, there was a big-time cell operating someplace in the upper Midwest, specifically tasked with getting their agents out of the country. We never found the cell. Now we see there's this longtime residential network showing up on the Iron Range, where there's this long history of radicalism, lots of eastern European immigrants, ore ships and grain ships going in and out… and the Canadian border's right there. It'd be a perfect spot for an exfiltration cell. Maybe that's what we've got.'
'Huh. But they'd be sort of the lay-low type, right? They wouldn't get involved in murdering people.'
'Depends on what the problem was. If it was a question of getting caught, I don't think murder would be off the table.'
When he got off the phone, Lucas called BCA headquarters in St. Paul and checked with a secretary in technical services about the phone trace he'd requested the night before.
'The call came from a pay phone at Snelling and University in St. Paul,' said the secretary.
'The supermarket?'
'No, it's out on the street. Outside, anyway. That's what the note says.'
'Damnit.' If the woman had used the supermarket phones, they might possibly get a description from a cashier or a bag boy. If the phone was on the street, finding a witness would be next to impossible. 'Okay. Thanks for the check.'
He called Marcy Sherrill, but her cell phone was in message mode: 'Get anything on that fence? Call me-I'm on the cell phone.'
Reasons was running late, and Lucas was sitting alone with Nadya in a breakfast booth. After ordering, Lucas asked her what she'd done the night before, and she said, 'Shopping. There are excellent shops at this mall. Everything is cheap compared to Russia.'
'You didn't talk to your shadow?'
She looked at him over her coffee cup. 'Shadow?'
'You know, your shadow operative. Our FBI people said you'd have one.'
She was shaking her head. 'They misunderstand what is going on.'
'Then why don't you tell me what's going on?'
Now she put her coffee cup down. 'You are angry, and you weren't angry last night. What has happened?'
'First, tell me what's going on. What you know. Why the feds are wrong.'
'The… feds.' She worked it out. 'The federals. The FBI… Okay. Here is what they don't understand.' She leaned forward, intent now. 'We don't care for two shits who killed Oleshev. We care nothing about this. Nothing. We care for one thing, that somebody take his father and Vladimir Putin and all of their friends off our backs. You have that phrase, off our backs?'
'Yes.'
'So-we don't care if this murder is solved. We can't do anything, one way or the other. We have not the power. We have not the resources. We want only to get ourselves clear of the trouble. If Maksim Oleshev wants to blame your president, your FBI, your Lucas Davenport, or your Jerry Reasons for this problem…' She shrugged. 'What is it you teach me yesterday? Tough shit? We don't care, as long as they go away and leave us to work. Do you understand that?'
She sounded exactly like Rose Marie Roux, Lucas thought: Just make us look good. He nodded, and said, 'I understand what you're saying, but I don't think I believe you.'
'Why is this?'
He told her what happened with Spivak. She listened, her eyes narrowing as he got into the story. He finished with, 'There are only three people, Nadya, who knew that Spivak wasn't telling us what he knew-me, you, and Reasons. I didn't pull this stunt and I doubt that Reasons would have the resources, unless he's some kind of spy, too.'
She thought for a moment and then said, 'Well, there are some others…'
'Who?'
'Anyone Spivak talked to. If Oleshev told one of his associates that he was meeting Spivak, if Oleshev is then killed, his associates might want to know what happened. If Oleshev's killer came from Spivak.'
'And he just happens to show up a few hours after we talked to him,' Lucas said skeptically.
