Breakpoint (23 page)

Arriving at the Grand Hyatt on the waterfront, Rubenstein was escorted through the lobby to the twelfth floor, where there appeared to be a special reception desk. The floor, he was informed, was a special Asian spa area. His room had blond wood paneling, a raised floor, its own steam room, and a deep tub with a picture window. From his balcony, he looked down on a frenzy of ferries and passenger ships zipping back and forth to Kowloon, Macau, and up the Pearl River. The high-rise towers all along the waterfront were engaged in some sort of synchronized light show. Inside on the desk was the traditional welcome letter from the manager, but next to it was a business card. It read: “Simon Manley, Purveyor of Fruits and Nuts, Durban, South Africa.” Sol almost laughed out loud. The card's sender had used the same alias during the Islamyah crisis a few years before. Sol surpressed the laugh, assuming the room was bugged and not wanting to attract attention to his discovery. He flipped the card over and saw the handwritten scrawl: “Welcome. I will be in the spa garden at 9pm.”

The spa garden was a series of outdoor rooms, meditation pools, and decks. He found “Simon Manley”—Brian Douglas—in the spa's bar and then followed him out to the lap pool. “This place still has a British flavor, Queens Road, Lower Albert Road, where the Foreign Correspondence Club still feels very colonial. I'm not so sure that we actually gave it up,” Brian mused as they looked out at the harbor traffic.

“In some ways, you Brits gave up Hong Kong, but China didn't get it. It's a Special Autonomous Region for fifty years,” Sol recalled. “Right?”

“With its own little army of twenty-five thousand police and a navy of over one hundred vessels,” Brian added. “The way they operate reminds me very much of England, of Scotland Yard.”

“The only part of Britain this reminds me of is the Docklands, with all its clusters of high-rises,” Sol replied, walking up next to Brian at the edge of the balcony. “Was your previous stop productive? Find a lot of nuts?”

Brian placed a small digital camera on the railing and pressed its power button. A green light appeared. It had not detected a laser or other technical audio collection, and it was now sending out ultrasonic sound waves to break up any remote collection. “I'm not sure whether the man I met was a sincere source or someone the Guoanbu was running at me. Basically, he said President Huang did not authorize any attacks in or on America, has some loyal Guoanbu types checking into it, and is having a hard time reining in the leaders of the People's Liberation Army. Seems the PLA boys took the shoot-down by Taiwan personally and are looking to teach Taiwan a lesson if they push independence, even though it will cost the PLA and China a lot economically.”

“Hmmph,” Sol replied.

“I know, I know. It sounds like what the Chinese would want us to believe, but they did at least make a good show of chasing me and the source into the air-conditioning ducts,” Brian added, sniffing at his single-malt. “But maybe Huang does need help, and it's certainly true that sailing the Seventh Fleet up close won't help things right now.”

“My President needs help, too. We've sustained a lot more damage than the PLA's air force,” Sol countered, turning his back on the harbor.

“They still haven't gotten most of California's power grid back online,” Brian observed. “And if it wasn't China that did that attack and the internet beachheads, who did? I'm still betting on Beijing.”

Sol Rubenstein shook his head in agreement. “Apparently the Pentagon has cleared Botswana as a suspect.”

1530 EST
George Washington Bridge
New York City

“Don't you think it's dangerous, meeting him at a private airport? What if he plans to snatch you, kidnap you, take you to Russia, for God's sake?” Jessica Foley was looking at her husband as much as the traffic as she drove him to the executive jetport a few miles away on the New Jersey side. “Can't you call for backup or something?”

“Jess, you watch too many cop shows. I don't want backup. It may be better that I'm the only one, I mean, we're the only ones that know about this, whatever Belov has in mind.” Jimmy had thought about calling his old partner, Vinny DeCarlo. “Why would Belov kidnap me? He's trying to help me.”

“The mafia don, or czar, or whatever you call a Russian godfather, is trying to help you? Give me a break!” Jessica looked away from the traffic for a second and at her husband. “Jimmy, you arrested his nephew in Boston, you're sending him to Siberia.”

“Petersburg, probably, but not if Belov comes through for me. I shouldn't have brought you along this morning. I think he might have made you for my wife. He calls on our landline.” Jimmy gently pulled out his Sig and chambered a round. He felt his left calf for the holster with the concealed carry Walther P99. Jessica just looked at him. “Stay in the car,” he said as he walked into the executive jet terminal.

He looked out at the apron. There were scores of private jets, from VLJs to the near supersonic-cruise Gulfstream VIIs, that could get to the coast in under three hours. “Gregori wants to see you in his plane,” a deep voice said behind him. Jimmy flashed his credentials to the security guards and walked around the screening post onto the tarmac and out to a Yak-188 halfway down the flight line. Belov stood by the foot of the stairs to the plane.

Jimmy looked at the odd Russian aircraft. “This is not a Boeing, Gregori,” he began. “When you're flying, you always want the plane to be American.”

“Somebody owed me some money, so I got a plane instead. It's a nice plane, flies to Petersburg nonstop.” Belov shooed his guard away. “Jimmy, before we go inside, I need another promise.”

“Your nephew and Fort Drum. What else?”

“You wanted information, Jimmy. You wanted it fast. I got some of it, fast. You can forget how I got it, yes?” Belov waited for an answer.

“Within limits. You guys didn't shoot the Pope again, did you?”

Belov climbed into the Yak, and Jimmy followed. “Jimmy, this is Sergei Yellin, Dimitri's son. He will tell you what he learned today.”

Sergei looked to be in his early thirties. He sat in one of the large flight seats that could recline into a bed. There were small stains on his shirt, darkened blood. His right hand was red and swollen. Jimmy was beginning to understand Belov's concern about methods.

“As you know, Detective, the day that my father disappeared, his body guards did, too. I have been paying their families survivors' benefits, with Gregori's help.” He nodded respectfully to his new protector. “Usually on a meet with someone, Papa would take his car and the Escalade for the men. Then there would be a backup car trailing, something simple like a Chevy, sort of undercover. That day there was no backup car, because Papa told Igor Tumanek to run an errand over to Queens. That's what Igor told me.” He exhaled. He was nervous, anxious, irate. “But when Gregori called me today after he met with you…I checked the E-ZPass bill for the Chevy. It went over the GW bridge thirty-two minutes after Papa's Caddy.”

Belov picked up the story. “Igor was simply running late, like a half hour late. He was not involved, I'm convinced. If he had been doing his job, he would have been outside the alarm company up the street here where the meet took place. He would have heard or seen something. Dimitri would be alive today.”

Jimmy sat next to Belov on the couch and asked him, “So how does this help me?”

“Igor realized something was up when he got to the alarm company and there was nobody there, no cars. He's a bright boy, lazy but bright, so he thinks ‘Why meet in Teterboro unless you're using the Executive Jet airport?' He drives over to the airport, to here, where we are now. Let him tell you what he did then. Come with me.”

Jimmy followed Belov through the cabin door into the rear compartment. A man sat bound and beaten, strapped in a flight seat, with a goon on either side of him. One of the men ripped off the duct tape over Igor's mouth, and with it some flesh. Igor moaned and gasped for air. Jimmy noticed a large bloody bandage totally covering Igor's right ear and wondered if there was anything left underneath it.

“Igor, tell this man in English about the planes,” Belov instructed.

He gasped again and nodded toward a bottle of water. They let him have a short drink and then poured the rest over his head. He was shaking, but he spoke. “When I got to the airport, I saw the man. Dimitri call him Spetsnaz, but he call himself Coming Ham. It was the man I had seen at the other meet, the time before. I was supposed to follow him after the first meet, get his license plate, but it didn't work.”

Belov shook his head at the incompetence. “Never do business with someone you do not know. Greed! Igor, go on.”

“Mr. Spetsnaz was getting into a Gulfstream, but first he talk to his men at their Boeing. They were loading big bags onto the Boeing.” Belov struck him hard across the face. “What did you think were in those bags, Igor, you idiot?”

Surprisingly, Igor Tumanek continued with his story. “I write down the plane numbers and give some money to the girl inside the terminal, check out who owns them. I thought if I tell Sergei I was so late, he'd be mad, so I didn't give him the names. Until today.”

Belov stood and walked back to the forward cabin. Jimmy went, too, leaving Igor Tumanek with his mob associates. “The names come back to shell companies in Vienna and McLean, Virginia,” Belov said, reseating himself next to Sergei Yellin. “You know what that means, Jimmy. You guys.”

For a moment, Jimmy wondered if he was going to be strapped into a chair, too. “It means somebody wants it to look like CIA. Please give me the names and I will personally find out.”

“And you will tell us,” Sergei added.

“I will.”

Belov stood. “Let's get off the plane. Sergei is taking Mr. Tumanek to Petersburg tonight. Or maybe Igor won't make it all the way.”

Back in the terminal, Belov wanted to cash in. “Good enough?”

“If that lead gets me where I want to…Wait a minute. Hold on,” Jimmy said, looking over Belov's head. There was a surveillance camera on the wall. He turned and looked out the window at the ramp. There were cameras all the way down the flight line. He walked over to the TSA screeners and pulled aside the supervisor, flashed his credentials again. “The cameras, they're digital? You keep back files?”

“Sure they're digital. Intelligent surveillance software does the looking for us, then it's all fed to D.C. in real time and stored at headquarters. I think they keep it ninety days. But you'll need a warrant.”

Jimmy walked away, then hit his headset and then hit the touch-pad inside his jacket. “Sox, my man. TSA headquarters. How's their firewalls and shit?”

“Piece a cake, James. Whaddaya need? How's the eye thing working? They give you an upgrade?” Soxster was already typing in the IP address of TSA's internal network.

When he was done talking to the Dugout, Jimmy walked back to Belov. Then he hit another speed dial. “Tommy, how are ya? How's my aunt doin'? Listen, Tom, remember that Russkie from up in Lynn there? The one I wanted to send to Novosibirsk? Yeah, that's the slimeball. Listen, Tommy, turns out he was an innocent bystander. No, really. So you're the charging officer on it, right? No, don't let him walk, we need him on a federal case. May hafta put him in the Wipp somewheres. I'll work out the details with ya tomorra. Great, Tommy. Hey, and remember the Yanks are gonna clobber them Red Sox down in Florida Monday. Right, Tom. 'Night.”

“I assume that was Gaelic.” Belov looked up at the tall, young Irish-American. “Thank you.”

“Fort Drum may take a while,” Jimmy said, shaking hands, “but it'll happen.”

Belov began to walk off and then turned. “And thank your partner, Susan Connor. She looks so much like your wife, Jessica.”

1830 EST
The Dugout
Watertown, Massachusetts

As usual, Soxster was the first to show up at the Dugout. Saturday night usually meant pizza, beer, and the liveliest activity in the private hacker chat rooms where passwords and credit-card numbers were traded for newly discovered flaws in websites and source code. He punched in his security code and then pushed the ten-foot-long warehouse door back on its wheels. The shards of glass by the door were the first things he noticed. Then he saw that the shelves, which had held every imaginable type of server, PC, and storage device, were empty. At their workstations, the monitors had been smashed.

Realizing that the men responsible might still be around, or have left a couple of thugs nearby, Soxster reached inside his parka to its zippered inside pocket and withdrew the P232 and its clip. It was a SIG-Sauer, but not the law-enforcement kind like Jimmy's. It was a knockoff of the famous Walther PPK, a .380 designed to fit in a pocket or an ankle holster. Jimmy had reluctantly talked Tommy McDonough into giving Soxster a concealed carry permit, which was practically impossible to get out of the Mass. State Police. Soxster slipped in the clip and chambered a round. He wished he had spent more time at the Rod and Gun Club range in Acton.

Crouching down, Soxster moved into the Dugout, holding the gun with both hands. He moved behind Greenmonsta's workstation. It had been trashed and, he noticed, the hard drive had been ripped out of the Mac G8. All the hard drives were probably gone. He hoped there were fingerprints as he sat quietly on the floor, listening for any sound in the cavernous space. Quietly, he slipped out his PDA and tapped out a text message to the Dugout group list: “Dugout raided. Stay away.”