3
Charlie’s plan of attack called for experienced soldiers. To recruit them, he descended from the rickety elevated subway station in Brooklyn’s Little Odessa. Had he not been to Little Odessa before, he might have believed he’d arrived at the neighborhood’s namesake in Russia. Cabbage, onions, and potatoes boiled in pots at sidewalk kiosks. Caviar vendors were as prevalent as Starbucks were in other parts of town. The street signs, the restaurant names and menus, and even the listings on the theater marquees were in Cyrillic. The impassioned chatter on the sidewalks was in Russian. There were bearded old men in Cossack hats and wrinkled women in babushkas out of the pages of Tolstoy.
To blend in, Charlie bought a fake fur Cossack hat from a street vendor. Then he waited in a dark doorway down the block from Pozharsky, the celebrated blintz joint named after a seventeenth-century Rurikid prince-the place was so old and run-down, though, the joke was the prince had been named after it. Pozharsky’s kitchen ran at full steam until four in the morning, catering to two distinct groups, Kingsborough Community College students requiring second dinners and Russian gangsters kicking back after a night’s work.
Charlie’s vigil was rewarded when a red Cadillac Eldorado bombed into a handicapped parking space in front of Pozharsky and six men poured out. Leading the way was the menacing Karpenko, Grudzev’s muscle. The way things had been the past two days, Charlie now thought of Karpenko’s as a friendly face.
Behind Karpenko, Grudzev and four other Russians bobbed into the eatery. Sticking to shadows and lagging far enough behind to avoid notice, Charlie followed.
The thugs converged on a big, wooden corner table covered with decades worth of knife and fork carvings. The eight undergrads seated there had just been served steaming blintzes and pierogi. At the sight of the new arrivals, they grabbed their plates and vacated, going to the end of the line to wait for another table.
Paying the students no notice, Grudzev and his cronies heaved themselves onto the chairs. Grudzev corralled a plate left behind by a panicked coed and took up a gooey cheese blintz as if it were a candy bar. To the waitress, something of a Ukrainian Dolly Parton, he said, “Tatiana, I want your melons.”
“The restaurant have no fruit, Leo,” she replied in earnest.
Karpenko laughed, pounding the tabletop with such force that a water glass flew off and shattered against the faded harlequin floor tiles. He didn’t stop laughing until Charlie slid into the vacant seat beside him.
The Russians all glared at Charlie. Activity and conversation at surrounding tables lulled. Charlie saw a young couple drop a twenty on their table and hurry off, their egg creams not even half finished.
“You here to pay up or you fucking suicidal?” Karpenko asked. His English was slightly better and less accented than Grudzev’s.
“Yes to the first part, maybe to the second part,” Charlie said.
Karpenko’s hand dipped under the table, to a gun tucked into his shiny tracksuit pants no doubt. Two days ago, fear would have frozen Charlie. He still felt fear, but it was relegated to the background by his sense of mission.
Looking past Karpenko, he said to Grudzev, “I have your money. I also have a business proposition for you.”
4
Holding his breath against the wake of musky cologne and garlic, Charlie followed Grudzev up a narrow flight of stairs to an empty private functions room. Charlie smarted in nine or ten places from the “pat down” Karpenko had administered in search of a wire, resulting in the temporary confiscation of his new cell phone.
They sat at a table and Grudzev opened the shopping bag from Yuri’s, the convenience store up the block, where Charlie had bought the prepaid cell phone. The Russian dumped out the stack of hundreds and flicked through it with the practiced dexterity of a bank teller. An hour ago the money had been in a Chinese take-out container. He grunted his approval.
“And now, how about a way to make that seem like chump change?” Charlie asked.
“This better no be a fucking horse.”
“I’m totally over that action.” Charlie paused to look around the room, as if wary of snoops himself. “Here’s the story: My father, who has Alzheimer’s, gets out of bed at four yesterday morning. He forgets he’s on sick leave and goes to the office. Perriman Appliances.”
“Cheap crap.”
“I know. That’s why they’re way the hell up in Morningside Heights. So, anyway, nobody’s in yet when Dad shows up. He’s sort of in a daze, and he goes down the stairs to the basement and opens a closet that’s supposed to be locked. It leads to another flight of stairs, then into a tunnel and, next thing he knows, he’s in the old Manhattan Project complex. I don’t know if you know, but during World War Two-”
“Yeah, yeah, I saw thing on History Channel.” Grudzev slid his chair closer to the table. “I thought that place was sealed off.”
“It’s supposed to be. But some Columbia scientist types have gotten in. Evidently they’re planning to moonlight as arms dealers. My dad’s an old physicist. He could tell that they’d put together a ten-kiloton atomic demolition munition. You know what an atomic demolition munition is?”
“Of course, ADM.” Grudzev’s flat nose twisted as if he smelled a rat. “Why you telling me this?”
“You deal weapons. You could retire on this, right?”
“Or get killed before I can spend this.” Grudzev patted the sweatpants pocket that contained his new stack of hundreds. “What’s in it for you?”
“Dad wandered out and went home a little while later, before anyone saw him. But they snatched him back tonight-to sweat him would be my bet. When he talks, he’ll be in real trouble. And so will I.”
“So why you come to me instead of cops?”
“I didn’t think the cops would give me a twenty percent finder’s fee.”
Grudzev flicked a dismissive hand. “Craziness,” he said, as if announcing a verdict.
Charlie had anticipated the Russian would be drooling by now. What had gone wrong? Poor acting? Was the tale just too preposterous? Despite Karpenko’s frisk, did Grudzev suspect a sting? Perspiration sprung from Charlie’s scalp.
Grudzev said, “ Ten points, maybe.”
“Twenty is fair,” said Charlie, hiding his delight at being back in the game. “You’d never figure out how to get into the place without me. Also, I could take the deal to Bernie Solntsevskaya.”
Grudzev was impassive at the mention of his rival. “Thing is, if I am these Columbia guys, I worry you out blabbing now, so I close up shop, like, now.”
Charlie placed his chin between thumb and forefinger, striving for the appearance of the pupil contemplating the wisdom of the master.
“If I can get men and guns- if,” Grudzev said, “I give eleven points.”
For reality’s sake, Charlie argued for fifteen and caved on twelve.
5
Things were going too smoothly, Alice thought.
Within ten minutes of her call, the backup unit had fished her out of the Caribbean. On the yacht ride to Martinique, she used a Birdbook encrypted communication system to cable HQ the lowdown on Fielding, then she took a hot shower, ate a sandwich, and changed into a fresh linen suit. An NSA agent, meanwhile, having paid off a Martinican air traffic controller, learned Cranch’s flight plan-Newark, New Jersey. And one of the Caribbean desk jockeys at HQ tapped into the FAA radar system in case of deviation.
