“So let’s say the helicopter belonged to them,” suggested Telach, sitting at the console next to him. “What’s it mean? Units operating independently of Moscow.”
“Private force, answerable to the defense minister,” suggested Rockman. “Big, though.”
“Why the defense minister?”
Rockman shrugged. “Who else? Yeltsin’s ghost?”
“Could be a
“Yeah. Mr. Rubens is going to want to know.”
“Definitely.”
“What do you want to do about Dean?” Rockman asked.
“Have Fashona fly him and the metal back, pack it into a transport, and get it home.”
“Karr’s going to complain about having the Hind taken away.”
“Who’s running this operation, us or him?”
“You know Tommy.”
They were interrupted by Granay. “You ought to listen to this,” she said. “Line Four. And it matches, I checked it.”
Rockman punched the feed button, bringing up the raw intercept in his earphones. He was about to key in a translated overlay when he realized he didn’t have to: the voice being picked up by the tiny bug was speaking English.
American English. Reciting, in fact, a passage from the Bible — one so well-known that even Rockman, who was about as religious as Rin Tin Tin, could recite by heart.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” said the voice shakily in a low whisper. “I shall not want.”
Telach and Rockman looked at each other. They didn’t need the audio library to know the voice belonged to Stephan Moyshik — aka Stephen Martin.
32
Favors begat favors. In exchange for the information that the consultant provided to the FBI on the guitar — information that would be forthcoming from the FBI anyway — Rubens had managed to obtain access to the local police department’s complete investigation file on the Greene murder.
It was a shockingly easy transaction, though it required Rubens to go to the police station in person. The investigator clearly didn’t know who he was. He had accepted the rather bland declaration that Rubens was “looking into the matter on an informal basis for the administration” far too easily. That didn’t speak well for the quality of the investigation, but then, he’d never thought very highly of them to begin with.
And yet, the file was fairly thorough. The interviews with the surviving band members indicated that the guitarist had never jumped into a pool while playing before, with or without his guitar — but then again, they’d never played anywhere there was a pool. He did do bizarre stuff, no question. Plunking himself into the water, wire and all, was completely in character.
The band members didn’t know much about Greta Meandes and were vague on whether she even worked, let alone what she did. Rubens got the impression that they had been playing up the drugged-out airhead band thing for the police, but in any event they had added nothing of substance. One suggested the guitarist had been “boffing” her; the investigator’s notes said specifically that he doubted it.
The notes suggested there was plenty of opportunity for the guitar to have been tampered with. The detective had attempted to put together a time line, but it was full of gaps. Obviously working on the assumption that it was a freak accident, he hadn’t even bothered to speak to everyone on the guest list, though Greta had provided one.
Rubens’ name, of course, was on it. He had to exert every bit of his self-control not to grab it from the file. He surely would have if the detective had left the room.
Not that it would have done much good. By now the congressional committee would know he had been there, though no one had made an issue of it.
Yet.
It required no imagination and even less paranoia to envision the scene:
Congressman Mason:
By the way, did you see Representative Greene the whole time he was in the pool?
Witness:
No, actually. William Rubens was in my way.
Congressman Mason:
William Rubens? [pretends to be shocked] Is that
Witness:
I wouldn’t know…
By the end of the hearing, the papers would be printing that the death was an NSA plot. They’d have it all figured out.
Rubens, waiting to clear the last check into the Art Room, wondered how he could prove that his cousin had murdered the SOB. That, and only that, would end the investigation.
But there was no proof. If this were a Desk Three mission, he could have such proof manufactured — a security video showing her playing with the guitar would suffice.
Of course, this wasn’t a mission, and it was his cousin he was thinking of railroading. Nor would he break the law by manufacturing evidence.
Still, if he was convinced his cousin committed the murder, if he had real evidence, he’d definitely give it to the police. That was his duty.
Especially if it would ward off potential embarrassment.
Not that it wasn’t embarrassing to have a cousin accused of murder. But that was preferable to being accused yourself.
Rubens cleared the matter out of his head as he waited for the computer to admit him to the Art Room, substituting his yoga mantra instead. He needed to clear his mind so he could focus on the Russian coup and his plan to thwart it.
If he could only
Not everybody, but definitely himself.
The Art Room door opened. Telach looked like she was about to explode.
“Martin’s alive,” she blurted. “We have his voice pattern at Veharkurth.”
“Martin?”
“The Wave Three op. Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Matches exactly. We have a possible location. We have the facility sketched out, but we’re going to update. We’ll have a satellite on-station in twenty minutes.”
Rubens’ skepticism grew as Telach detailed the situation. The voice they thought was Martin’s had spoken only for a minute or so, saying a short prayer apparently to himself. Analysis put it in one of two buildings about equidistant from the bug’s location in the northwestern corner of the facility.
“Is it a prison or what?” asked Rubens, looking at the satellite details.
“It’s two things,” said Telach. “One is a base for a Marine unit that Defense Intelligence says is attached to a Black Sea naval force.”
