Politika

scarred frames and green baize playing surfaces that had been restored to their original appearance and leveled for optimum performance. There was a Coca-Cola soda bar with a Formica snack counter and rotating vinyl stools. There was a Wurlitzer jukebox that was wrapped in neon tubing and stocked with vintage rock and roll 45s. There were cheap plastic light fixtures from which a bilious glow seeped through conscientiously preserved layers of grime. The wall-to-wall memorabilia Nimec had scavenged from innumerable secondhand shops and flea markets included outdated nude pinup calendars, as well as signs stipulating ancient game rates and prohibitions against betting by minors.

The only thing missing was the pervasive bouquet of sweat, brilliantine, and cigarette smoke, and while Nimec supposed he was better off without that final touch of authenticity, he often had a perverse longing for it all the same.

Flicking on the lights, he pulled one of his custom twenty-ounce cues down off the wall and went to a table. He took six of the balls out of the built-in storage shelf at its foot and arranged them in a semicircle around a side pocket, having decided to work on his drills instead of racking up for continuous shooting. It had been over a week since he’d gotten in any practice.

Nimec chalked his stick, bent over the table rail, then laid the cue tip in the bridge he formed with his fingers and methodically sawed it back and forth.

Out of habit, he had placed the eight ball in the lead spot, his way of discharging any bad luck at the onset. He always took luck very seriously into consideration, had since his days in the Army Rangers, when he’d developed a host of elaborate — some had called them superstitious — rituals for courting good fortune in battle. Though his propitiations to Fate had assumed different outward forms in civilian life, the general practice had stuck.

Now, as he visualized the intended path of the cue ball, his gray eyes showed the quiet, steady focus of a sharp-shooter. The trick here was to pocket the balls in sequence from right to left, using draw English to gain position each time for the following shot.

Keeping his wrist loose and his arm close to his side, he brought the stick straight back and then came through with a fluid, precise stroke, striking the cue ball below center to apply reverse spin. It sank the eight ball and came rolling back toward him, stopping right behind the next ball in line.

Exactly where he wanted it.

He pocketed three more balls in rapid succession, but on his fifth shot inadvertently tightened his hand around the butt of the cue stick, causing it to jerk upward at the last instant. To his annoyance, the cue ball went clattering down along with his fifth object ball.

A scowl creased Nimec’s angular face. He had scratched like a rank amateur.

He took a deep breath. A lot more than just his game was off tonight. A whole damn lot. Nordstrum’s reports seemed to indicate that the FBI was, as the press had been claiming for days, in possession of an intact explosive package; he doubted the Lian-Zavtra connection would have been made so quickly without a scientific check of taggants or traceable components within the instrument of destruction. Of course the chemical residue of tagged, detonated charges also would have yielded that information, but the bottom line remained the same either way. Bashkir’s handprints were everywhere. There was good reason to suspect he was at the innermost level of the bombing conspiracy, if not its principal architect. But what would his motive have been? To fire up isolationist sentiments in the U.S., provoke a reassessment of the food relief effort that was drawing Russia closer to the West? That was the only explanation that made the slightest bit of sense, and there were too many problems with it. Bashkir was a military man. Someone who had held one of the highest posts in the Russian Navy, commanding the world’s second largest fleet of ballistic-missile subs. He was also a dealmaker, used to carefully weighing his decisions. Would he really be able to justify the wholesale murder of civilians for such indirect and uncertain gains? Moreover, he recently had been involved in negotiating major arms transactions between his country and China, and perhaps even had a financial interest in a Russian firm that listed weapons distribution among its diverse shipping enterprises. He would know how easy it would be to follow the trail of the explosive from manufacturer to purchaser, and that the search would eventually lead to questions about his role in the bombing. Where was the sense in the thing?

Frowning, Nimec crouched down, reached into the pool table’s innards again, and set the balls up at one end of the table for a point-of-aim drill. The more he thought about Bashkir’s possible complicity, the greater his misgivings. It wasn’t just that the puzzle was incomplete; he felt as if he’d been given pieces that didn’t fit at all, and had been slipped into the box to confound him.

He supposed there was nothing to do except take it one step at a time… and the logical way to proceed was to follow the explosives from their point of origin to the final point of sale.

He put some more chalk on the tip of his stick, leaned over the table, and began firing balls into the corner pocket opposite him. First thing in the morning he would give Gordian a call. As an exporter of American technology, Roger had constant dealings with people in Customs, and one or two of them might be good for a tip. If Lian was the producer of the explosives, and Zavtra had acted as the middleman outfit, who had received them in the United States? And how exactly had they been moved?

Somebody had completed the transfer, and Nimec intended to find out who it was.

TWENTY-FIVE

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK CITY JANUARY 8, 2000

The moment he got off the horn with Nimec, Gordian rang up Lenny Reisenberg, who headed his regional shipping office in New York.

“To what do I owe a call from the gantse knahker?” Lenny said, taking the call from his secretary.

“I thought I was the groyss makher.”

“There’s a subtle difference,” Lenny said. “The first means ‘big shot.’ The second’s somebody who makes things happen. Generally speaking, though, the terms are interchangeable, since most makhers are also knahkers, and vice versa.” He paused. “Now, on the other hand, if I were to call you an ahlte kakhker, you’d have reason to be peeved.”

Gordian smiled tolerantly, shaking his head. He had no idea why, but Lenny seemed convinced it was vital that he learn Yiddish, and had been giving him these lessons in regular installments for over a decade. Were the best employees always so full of idiosyncrasies, or was it just that he knew how to pick them?

“Len, I need a favor,” he said.

“And because it’s only nine in the morning in your neck of the woods, and you’re still on your first cup of coffee, I’m assuming it’s urgent.”

“Very,” Gordian said. “There’s a Russian exporter, the Zavtra Group—”

“Hold it a sec, let me jot this down.” Gordian heard Lenny shuffling things around on his desk. “Okay, that’s spelled Z-A-V-T-R-A?”

“Right.”

“Don’t think we’ve ever done business with them. Off the top of my head, of course.”

“That’s not important, Len. What I want are chronological records of everything Zavtra’s shipped into the New York area over the past, say, six to eight months. We may eventually have to go back further, but let’s start with that. I’ll need to know the ultimate purchaser, too.”

“May I ask why I’m getting hold of this information?”

“On this one, it’s better you don’t.”

Reisenberg huffed out a breath. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. There’s a guy I know in the customs office over at the World Trade Center. If we end this conversation in the next ten seconds I might be able to get hold of him, take him out for a bite. I’ve got just the thing to make him feel kindly toward us, come to think of it.”

“Whatever it takes, as long as you don’t get yourself in hot water.”

“Right, right. I’ll call you back soon as I find out anything.”

“Thanks, Len.”

“No problem. This is why I’m known far and wide as a stud among prizewinning thoroughbreds.”