Countdown in Cairo

something right there.”

“How much do you know about Vladimir Putin? And Russia under Putin?”

“Aside from what we all know?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Rizzo’s expression went faraway and journeyed back after several seconds. His face grew serious. “I can tell you what Europeans in law enforcement know and are talking about,” he said. “A few cases that are discussed in private circles.”

“That would be a good start,” she said.

“Just recently I was speaking to one of my other contacts at Scotland Yard,” Rizzo began. “He tells me that the British are seeking the extradition of one Andrei Lugovoi from Russia. He is to face a homicide charge in the poisoning death of former Soviet agent Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko was a former KGB operative who became a prominent dissident opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The people trying to kill him used a radioactive substance called metalloid polonium 210. They broke into his home and hid it there, gradually poisoning him with radioactive contamination day-by-day. Ninety percent of the world’s polonium 210 comes from a single facility in Russia. Scotland Yard found traces of polonium 210 not only in Litvinenko’s home in Britain but also in Hamburg, at locations visited by Lugovoi’s associate Dmitri Kovtun, the day before Kovtun and Lugovoi attended a meeting with Litvinenko in London. It is theorized that Kovtun and Lugovoi shipped the chemical from Russia and infiltrated Litvenenko’s home. But this was particularly messy, this case, because maybe another two hundred people came into contact with the polonium 210. These Russian hoods are like that Colombian cocaine gangster who blew up an airplane with a hundred people on it to kill his own victim.”

“Pablo Escobar,” she said.

“Yes. Human life means nothing to beasts like them. Only terror and death and the ability to get their way mean anything.”

“Any chance of the case being resolved?” Alex asked.

“Very little. The Russians and the British have so far not agreed on much about the case. The Russians suggest that Litvenenko’s murderer is more probably to be found among London’s community of exiled Russian dissidents and expatriates. This is nonsense, of course. Nothing like this happens without Putin’s approval.”

Alex’s eyes drifted from the table she shared with Rizzo. At the next table a roast duck was being carved for what appeared to be a Chinese couple.

“There was a story out of France last year,” Rizzo continued somberly. “The well-known Russian human rights lawyer, Karina Moskalenko, found mercury in her car. Moskalenko had pursued the Russian government in international courts for human rights abuses. She works out of France now, Strasbourg, I think, since Russian prosecutors sought to disbar her and destroy her work in Moscow. Before authorities found the poison, Moskalenko had complained of deteriorating health. Does this sound familiar?”

“It sounds similar to the case you just mentioned,” she said.

“Exactly. And Litvinenko was once Moskalenko’s client. Interesting?”

“Very,” Alex said. “We’re not too far removed from the era when the Russians tried to smuggle a live body out of Rome in a trunk, are we? Or when they stabbed a Bulgarian dissident in London with an umbrella with a poison tip.”

“Not far at all,” Rizzo said, finding a perverse humor in it. “Same dog, new tricks. Where’s James Bond when we need him, right? From Russia with Love. One could do a modern sequel called From Russia with Lovely Polonium Tablets,” he said. “I dislike the new James Bond, by the way. Daniel Craig. Makes Bond look like a homicidal thug. He behaves like a bouncer in a Corsican mob joint. But what do I know? All I know about movies is that I don’t enjoy going to see them anymore.”

Still no Mimi, which was fine. A beautiful young waitress appeared wordlessly and refreshed their glasses of Prosecco. Rizzo gave her an adoring smile, then turned back to Alex to dwell further on politics, death, and assassination.

“Moskalenko was a very high-profile target,” Rizzo said. “She had won thirty cases of rights abuses against Russian authorities before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Her offices and her assistants have another hundred pending. Moskalenko represented the jailed former oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky whom Putin had imprisoned, as well as the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who now leads anti-Putin opposition in the old Soviet. Moskalenko also once represented a woman named Anna Politkovskaya. She was a journalist, but she was shot to death two years ago as she was entering her house in Moscow. Moskalenko was poisoned just as she was set to travel to Moscow to take part in pretrail hearings for the Politkovskaya murder. Flagrante, no? If the Putin people go after her like that, they’d go after you or me in half a heartbeat. And where does it come from? It comes from orders right at the top. Putin and his thug gangster friends who run the country.”

“How far is their reach?” Alex asked.

“Their reach is everywhere,” Rizzo said. “Their reach could be around your neck as you sleep. Even to America. In Europe, they operate with impunity. Rome, Paris. London. Who’s to stop them? Putin’s killers are quick and devious, and they retreat immediately into a criminal Russian underground and beat it back to Russia before Western European law can catch up with them. Frankly,” he said and then paused, “if I could, if I needed to, I’d use my own weapon to take one out before he could disappear with lawyers and diplomatic cover.”

A basket of warm bread arrived. Alex made herself busy with it. What she was hearing was deeply disturbing, but she listened intently and absorbed everything.

“Look,” said Rizzo. “Politkovskaya’s murder even agitated strong public disgust over what was seen as a blatantly political assassination. Politkovskaya was one of the most trusted journalists on the subject of Chechnya. She had many ties to moderate Chechnyans and wrote scathing articles critical of the way Putin dealt with the secession crisis. Politkovskaya had survived a previous attempt on her life: someone attempted to poison her as she prepared to cover the siege and massacre in Beslan in 2004. So her funeral turned into a powerful outcry against the brutality of Russia’s politics. She was buried at the Troyekurovsky Cemetery in Moscow. Before Politkovskaya was buried, two thousand anti-Putin pro-democracy Russians filed past her coffin to pay last respects. No high-ranking Russian officials could be seen at the ceremony. Eventually, there were some suspects charged, but a jury refused to convict them.”

“So the police and the judicial system are useless once again?” Alex said.

“Completely. The assassins sent forth by Putin operate with impunity. No one in Russia or Europe or the Middle East is surprised at anything. Saddened, maybe. But shocked, no. Listen, this month marks the anniversary of the murder of Dmitri Kholodov. Kholodov was an investigative journalist killed while he was investigating corruption in the Russian army. His attache case had been booby-trapped. The trial of his alleged murderers ended in acquittal. A colonel charged with the murder won compensation for his forced retirement and pretrial confinement. He was rewarded, in other words, and given decorations by the Putin government. Kholodov’s friends complain but nothing will be done. The murder goes unpunished like thousands of similar crimes under Putin and Stalin.”

At the next table, a champagne cork popped with all the proper subtlety of five-star dining.

“Five years ago, for a final example,” Rizzo said, “my acquaintance Yuri Shchekochikhin mysteriously died. He was a member of the Duma, the Russian parliament. He too was poisoned. Putin’s people love poison and give it to people they wish to be rid of because the poisons they use cause slow, horrible, painful deaths. Officially Shchekochikhin died of an allergy, but his body was cremated before an independent analysis could be done of his remains.”

For a moment, Rizzo seemed to be thinking of several other stories to add but then preferred to leave them out of the evening’s chat.

“The Russian gangsters who now run the country are a blight upon the civilized world,” he said. “There is no defeating them because we are limited by our democratic means. Thousands of crimes are committed, never to be resolved. You know, my uncles were Communists in the auto factories of northern Italy. They were foolish in their time, though their foolishness was understandable. They idolized Lenin and Stalin and that pig Khrushchev. They were workers, my uncles, and they reacted against the fascisti here in Italy. I loved my uncles, but I was forced to hear quotes from those old red bastards. Here’s one I remember. Stalin once theorized, ‘No man, no problem.’ You see what that means?”

“Eliminate the man and you’ve eliminated the problem,” said Alex.

“Not only are you very intelligent but you understand too well the basest forms of human behavior,” Rizzo said. “I don’t know if that is good or bad for you, Alexandra LaDuca, but it is what it is. And you are correct. Stalin spoke of killing the man who causes the problem in order to kill the problem. The Putin management style is exactly the same. In the latest government-sanctioned high-school history text, Stalin is described as someone who used ‘terror as a pragmatic means of resolving social and economic problems.’ Understand that? Russian society under Putin now sees individual murder as a means of social management. Want to call it, ‘godless neo-Stalinism’? I would.”

Alex nodded. “I would too,” she said.

“Putin is Stalin’s disciple, just as John, Mark, and Paul were disciples of Jesus. Now,” he said, his eyes flicking away for a moment, “have I answered your question?”

“More than adequately,” Alex said. “Thank you.”

“Good! Here’s Mimi.”

A smile swept Rizzo’s face, and Alex quickly located the indiscreet object of his desire.

A young woman of about twenty had entered the room. She had Technicolor hair, chopped short in a trendy fashion. It was streaked with blue, green, and yellow in a blend of Japanese schoolgirl and manga fashion. She was trim and lithe and wore a snug red miniskirt. Most of the male eyes in the room followed her as Carlo, the starchy maitre d’, led her to their table.

Rizzo embraced her with a long hug and a kiss on each cheek. Then he introduced her to Alex. She giggled slightly, flirted with him outrageously, and Rizzo held her chair as he seated her. It wasn’t a matter of her being half his age; she was closer to a third.

“Now,” he said. “Where were we?”

The topics of Russia and Putin did not come up again over dinner.

Alex dined amiably with her old friend and his new friend. They switched into Italian after Mimi joined them, but during the meal Mimi demonstrated a thorough ability in English. Alex’s instincts told her that she could like the young girl and trust her. She, Mimi, seemed to have one foot in several different cultures, or perhaps one long sleek leg if Rizzo described it, and reminded Alex of herself. Alex brought them both up to speed on her assignment in Egypt. Alex also wondered if there would be a way she would work them into the equation. Mimi could easily be an asset. One never knew.

Rizzo and Mimi listened carefully as Alex briefed them, interrupting occasionally to ask questions. Rizzo offered suggestions about dealing with Arabs and Russians: useful stuff such as, with a smile, “They’re cutthroats. Don’t trust any of them.”