‘Those are the initials of the owner of this business empire,’ Cooper replied as he laid a photograph on the table. ‘Victor Ivanovich Orlov.’
Cooper then placed another photograph next to the one of Orlov, this one of an attractive brunette in her mid-forties.
‘The woman is Oksanna Zoshchenko, an assistant director of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Shortly after the body of Johann Wolff was found, Zoshchenko and I both, independently, requested a search for information about Wolff from the old KGB archives at Lubyanka. I found this coincidence odd, until Cal told me about his investigation. A further check on Zoshchenko revealed two very interesting facts. First, she was in Ann Arbor this spring as a guest of the university. Apparently, one of the regents brought her to a MARC board meeting, the one where Ted Sandstrom made a presentation.’
‘So that’s how they found out about Sandstrom,’ Nolan said.
‘She even signed a nondisclosure agreement, not that she kept that promise. The second thing I learned about Zoshchenko is that she’s supplementing her income by providing consultation services to Orlov. This kind of arrangement would be considered a clear conflict of interest here, but it doesn’t appear to be a problem in Moscow.’
Cooper then laid a third photograph on the table. It was an enlarged headshot of a man with blond hair. ‘This guy is Dmitri Leskov. Currently, he’s Orlov’s fixer; he handles the dirty jobs, the wet work. Leskov’s a former captain in the Spetsnaz – Soviet Special Forces.’
‘A real bad-ass, I take it?’ Grin asked.
‘That’s putting it mildly. Leskov is a highly trained and very capable mercenary. You don’t want to underestimate him. My contact in Moscow and I ran some checks on border crossings, and we found arrivals and departures that put Leskov and four other Russian nationals in the U.S. at the time of the attack on Sandstrom’s lab.’
‘Nolan, you ever see this guy before?’ Mosley asked.
‘Yeah.’ Nolan seethed with anger. ‘He led all three attacks.’
‘Of the four other individuals who entered the U.S. with Leskov on that first trip,’ Cooper continued, ‘only one made the trip home.’
‘I took out the other three,’ Nolan offered matter-of-factly, his voice displaying neither pride nor remorse.
‘I gathered as much from the police report,’ Cooper said. ‘None of those bodies have been found, and I don’t expect they ever will be. Interesting thing about one of the men you dispatched’ – Cooper thumbed through the other photographs until he found what he was looking for – ‘this one is Pavel Leskov, Dmitri’s younger brother.’
‘That’s bound to piss off his big brother, Nolan,’ Grin said, looking at the dead man’s photo.
‘Leskov’s reputation says he’s a coolheaded professional. Whether something like this is going to affect how he deals with Kelsey or you is unknown. I just thought I’d let you know in case Leskov has an agenda outside Orlov’s game plan. The rest of these’ – Cooper laid out a series of grainy pictures – ‘came in with Leskov last week. This is the crew that hit the library and snatched Kelsey and Elli. All are Spetsnaz veterans who either served with or were trained by Leskov. It’s a handpicked crew.’
‘Two of these guys are in the morgue, right now,’ Nolan added. ‘What about the man who’s holding Leskov’s leash?’
‘Victor Orlov gets as much press in Russia, both good and bad, as someone like Bill Gates does here. His wealth gives him access to the highest levels of the Russian elite. For every friend, he has a bitter enemy. When communism fell, this guy was a nobody. Now he’s one of the richest men in the world, and the road that got him there is littered with dead bodies.’
‘I take it you are not speaking metaphorically?’ Kilkenny asked.
‘No, I am not. Orlov’s not a sociopath; to him, murder is just another business tool. If putting a bullet in a rival’s head gets him what he wants, that rival ends up dead. Moscow has received a lot of bad press about car bombings and the assassinations of Russian businessmen – most of what you heard is attributable, in some way or another, to Orlov.’
‘Do you think he’ll kill his hostages?’ Nolan asked, respecting Cooper’s experience with such people.
‘Truthfully, Nolan, if he feels that killing them is in his best interests, then that’s what he’ll do. This whole situation is like a chess match for Orlov, and at this point in the game, I don’t see what value killing Kelsey and Elli will bring him. Orlov wants the key to Wolff’s code, and the women are his best means of getting it.’
‘Changing the subject,’ Mosley interjected, ‘we think we’ve ID’d the author of that mysterious E-mail that came out of VIO FinProm.’
‘My contact,’ Cooper continued, ‘says a-v-v is a woman named Lara Avvakum, a physicist with the Russian Academy of Sciences. She’s currently on loan to VIO FinProm for an industrial research project. Orlov and Zoshchenko pulled Avvakum out of a Siberian research facility and set her up in one of Orlov’s buildings in Moscow.’
‘If she works for Orlov, why’d she send the E-mail?’
‘Avvakum’s relationship with Orlov is barely three weeks old. Prior to that, she was so far out of the loop that I doubt she’d ever even heard of him. Zoshchenko is the connection between Avvakum and Orlov; her position in the Russian Academy of Sciences allowed her to locate a bright young underpaid physicist to continue Sandstrom’s work to the point where Orlov could file patents and become father of a new industry.’
‘So Avvakum’s just a means to an end,’ Kilkenny concluded.
‘That’s our take on it. She’s just a specialist hired to do a job. I think she wrote to you because Orlov didn’t tell her where her project research came from. Orlov surely had the files he stole from Sandstrom sanitized, but something must have been missed that allowed Avvakum to identify Sandstrom and you. I think she’s the one person on Orlov’s team that we can trust.’
‘Why?’ Kilkenny asked.
‘She took the job not knowing what kind of man she was working for. According to my contact, I think she now knows. Avvakum appears to be under house arrest in that building where she works. Orlov paid her a visit yesterday and left a big ugly man to keep her company. My guy over there tried to send her an E-mail; it was returned as undeliverable.’
‘Makes sense,’ Nolan said. ‘She’s become a security risk, so they cut her off.’
Grin shook his head. ‘If Avvakum’s a threat, why didn’t Orlov just have her killed?’
‘Simple, Grin,’ Nolan answered. ‘Orlov still needs her. She’s a skill player. If he kills her, he’s got downtime until he can get a replacement. Better to put Avvakum on a short leash and keep her working until he finds a new physicist for the job.’
‘Then she gets whacked,’ Mosley added.
A small window appeared in the corner of Nolan’s monitor, and a voice announced the arrival of a new E-mail message. Nolan got up and walked over to his desk. He didn’t recognize the sender’s E-mail address, which was a string of random letters and numbers. The subject of the message read: Trade two for one, Kilkenny? Nolan selected the message. We have Kelsey Newton and Elli Vital. We will return them unharmed in exchange for the key to Johann Wolff’s notebook code. Attached is a video clip of our guests. You will be contacted on the morning of July 31 with instructions for the exchange.
‘It’s a message from Orlov,’ Nolan announced.
Cooper, Mosley, and Grin gathered around the computer.
‘May I?’ Grin asked as he reached over Kilkenny’s shoulder and typed a quick command that displayed all the message’s header information. ‘They covered their tracks really well; this could have come from anywhere.’
‘Pretty straightforward demand,’ Cooper said. ‘Let’s have a look at the video clip.’
Nolan downloaded the attached file. A moment later Kelsey and Elli appeared on the screen. They were seated at an old wooden table in a rustic, wood-paneled room. Both sat rigidly, with their forearms resting on the table. For the first few seconds, neither moved.
‘Hi, Nolan. Elli and I are all right. The people who took us want the engagement ring Johann Wolff gave to Elli.’
The clip ended with the final frame frozen on the screen.
‘Short and sweet,’ Cooper said. ‘Just enough to let us know that they have them.’
‘Actually,’ Nolan said, the tone of his voice revealing his curiosity, ‘I think it might have told us something
