Dead Man's Rule (5 page)

“Thanks, Tony,” said Ben, who was still a little giddy from his victory. “It’s always nice to get a win, particularly when the competition is so good.”

Simeon’s smile was both affable and hard edged. “Savor the moment.”

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

S
ECRET
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OLICE

Twenty-two phone messages and forty-three e-mails awaited Ben when he finally reached his office at two forty-five the next afternoon. He had spent most of the morning at Circuit Dynamics, preparing their tax returns for review by John Weaver and his minions. Then he’d spent forty-five minutes taking a slow and construction-intensive drive downtown. After that, he’d wasted two hours cooling his heels with roughly a hundred other lawyers at the “cattle call,” where a single judge went through several dozen cases and checked on the status of each one while everyone else waited. Ben had once calculated that the collective billing rate for all the lawyers kept loitering by the cattle call was about $20,000 per hour.

One of the waiting phone messages, from a college friend of Noelle’s, piqued Ben’s curiosity. A friendly woman’s voice with a slight but noticeable Russian accent said, “Hi, Ben, it’s Elena Kamenev. Congratulations on your TRO win yesterday. Please give me a call when you get a chance. And say hi to Noelle from me. Thanks!”

Elena Kamenev was a tall, athletic woman who would have been a serious contender for the Russian women’s biathlon team in the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, but she’d injured her knee in a fall. Her athletic career over, Elena had decided to settle in the United States and become an American citizen. She had subsequently joined the FBI, which always had openings for native Russian speakers who could shoot. She now lived in Chicago and occasionally had lunch with the Corbins or met them at alumni functions. But Ben hadn’t seen her for over a year, and he didn’t think Noelle had either.

He played the message twice, then sat back in his chair and stared absently out the window at the empty offices in the building across the street. How did Elena know about the hearing yesterday? Why would she call him and not Noelle? He buzzed Noelle to get her thoughts, but she wasn’t in. He wondered if there was any reason to wait to call Elena back, decided there wasn’t, and picked up the phone.

“Hi, Elena. It’s Ben Corbin returning your call. What’s up?”

“Hi, Ben. Thanks for getting back to me. How do you like having your own firm?”

“It can be a headache, but it can also be lots of fun. There’s nothing quite like seeing your name on the door when you walk in each morning.”

“And how are things going in court? I understand you won a TRO hearing yesterday. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. It’s always nice to win. By the way, how did you know about that? The FBI isn’t investigating me, is it?”

She laughed. “No, no, of course not. We’re just keeping an eye on a client of yours.”

That couldn’t be good news. “Who?”

“Mikhail Ivanovsky. He is a person of interest to us.”

“Really?” Ben was genuinely surprised. “What’s so interesting about him? Or can’t you tell me that?”

“I can’t tell you. Sorry.”

“Can you tell me why you’re investigating him?”

“We’re not really investigating him,” she explained. “We do routine monitoring of anyone in the US with certain types of backgrounds. We noticed that he had filed a lawsuit and I saw that you were representing him, so I thought I’d give you a call.”

“Okay,” said Ben, thinking quickly. “So what can I do for you? I assume you’ve seen the complaint and the TRO filings.”

“I read them this morning. We’re not looking for anything in particular. We’d just appreciate it if you kept us in the loop about developments in the case.”

“Why’s that?”

“As I mentioned, your client is a person of interest to us, and Nikolai Zinoviev has a pretty long rap sheet. Any connection between the two of them is something we want to keep tabs on.”

“I see,” said Ben, jotting down a note to track down Zinoviev’s criminal records. “So do you think there might be more to this case than a box full of jewelry?”

“Do you?”

Ben thought for a moment. Zinoviev was lying, of course, but what was he lying about? Just the type of jewelry in the box? Maybe . . . but maybe not. “It wouldn’t shock me.”

“What do you think it is?”

A box full of drug money, or maybe evidence of a crime,
Ben surmised.
Either of those would explain the men in the back of the courtroom.
He had to be careful what he said, though. Elena was a friend, but she was also FBI. And it suddenly occurred to Ben that he wasn’t entirely sure his client was clean in all this. “It could be lots of things,” he said carefully. “What do you guys think?”

“Nothing really,” Elena replied casually. “Like I said, this is just routine monitoring, not an active investigation. I’d appreciate it if you’d send me copies of court papers, let me know about upcoming dates, and that sort of thing. It’s nothing I couldn’t get from the public record, but it would make my life easier if I didn’t have to go dig through the court file every week to find out what’s going on. We’ll reimburse you for copying and postage costs.”

Sounds harmless,
Ben thought. “I’ll need my client’s permission, of course, but I don’t see why he’d have a problem with what you’re asking.”

“Actually . . . he hasn’t been that cooperative in the past. He can be a little . . .” She paused, searching for the right word. “Cranky. But if you have to ask, you have to ask.”

“I have to ask. I’m sorry, but my first duty is always to my client. So, how are things at the Bureau?” They chatted for several more minutes, sharing news about mutual friends and catching up on developments in each other’s lives.

After they hung up, Ben immediately dialed Ivanovsky’s number. He knew he probably should have collected his thoughts a little more before calling, but there were some questions he wanted answered
now
.

“Ivanovsky,” said a familiar man’s voice.

“Hi, it’s Ben Corbin. I just got a call from the FBI, and there are a few things I’d like to talk to you about.”

Ivanovsky paused for a heartbeat before responding. “What did they want?”

“They asked if we would keep them informed of developments in the case—”

“No.”

“—and give them copies of any court filings.”

“No.”

That sent up a big red flag. Through hard experience, Ben had learned that people who wanted to keep information from the FBI generally had reasons for doing so. “Why not?”

“They are secret police. I never cooperate with secret police. You cannot trust them.”

“The agent who called is an old friend of mine,” protested Ben. “I’ve known her for years.”

“No,” repeated Ivanovsky firmly. “Maybe she is a nice person, but she is secret police. My lawyer must not be informing to secret police.”

“We wouldn’t be ‘informing,’” Ben replied. “She’s not asking for anything she couldn’t get by walking over to the Daley Center and looking in the court file.”

“Let her look in the court file. You must not help her.”

Ben took a deep breath. “Mr. Ivanovsky, what is in that safe-deposit box?”

He paused before answering. “Jewelries. I told you this already.”

“Anything else?”

He hesitated again. “I do not know. You heard Nicki say in court there is an old passport.”

“Why would those men in the back of the courtroom pay $100,000 for some jewelry and an old passport?”

“I do not know.”

“That’s an awful lot to pay for some jewelry, isn’t it?”

“Maybe it is. It depends on the jewelries.”

“Is it possible that there’s something else in there that would be worth $100,000?”

“Maybe,” admitted Ivanovsky. “I told you I have never seen inside the box.”

“What might that something be?”

“I do not know!” Ivanovsky shot back. “You are speaking as if you do not trust me.”

That, of course, was entirely true. Ben had started the conversation with some suspicions, and now he had more. In fact, he was beginning to have doubts about whether he could continue representing this man. He didn’t want to become an unwitting accomplice in some crime. “Mr. Ivanovsky, I can’t think of a single good reason not to cooperate with the FBI, but I can think of plenty of bad ones. Before I can continue representing you, I need you to convince me that you have a good reason. I cannot allow you to use my services to commit a crime or a fraud, and if I suspect you’re doing that, I have to withdraw from this case. I—”

“No! No! No!” exclaimed Ivanovsky, cutting Ben off. “I am committing no crimes or frauds! I promise this! I swear on twenty Bibles and all holy things!”

“Then why don’t you want me to talk to the FBI?”

Ivanovsky didn’t respond for several seconds. “You will stop being my lawyer if I do not tell you?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I’ll have no choice.”

“Okay, I will tell you this thing,” he said. “But it is shameful for me and you must promise never to tell it to anyone else.”

“Of course not. Anything you say to me stays secret.”

“Okay. I will tell you the whole story so you understand.” Ivanovsky sighed and his voice calmed. “I began at the university in 1946, one year after the Great Patriotic War against the Germans ended. It was a glorious time for a young fool who did not doubt what he was told. Many countries were becoming socialist around the world. Soviet teachers and engineers and doctors were going to them to help our new comrades rebuild their countries and advance their societies. I thought that we were finally done with war and that we could now stop spending our energy on fighting and begin making a world with peace and enough to eat spreading out from the Soviet Union.

“I decided to study microbiology so that I could someday find cures for diseases afflicting many peoples, particularly poor victims of imperialism. I progressed quickly in my studies and made good marks on all exams.

“Then one day, the professor who taught the class on infectious organisms asked me to see him in his office after the daily lecture. He was a great and famous scientist named Pavel Vukov. So I went to see him. He said, ‘Mikhail, you are a very intelligent young man and you can do great service to the motherland.’ I asked him what this service was, and he said, ‘A great struggle is beginning between world socialism and capitalist imperialism. The war against the fascists was just the beginning to this struggle. It will not stop while both sides still exist. They will use all possible weapons to destroy us, and we must be ready to respond the same way. In the history of the world, germs have killed more millions than all weapons ever created by men. We must harness this power of the germ to protect ourselves, Mikhail. Will you help us to do this?’

“I said yes to Professor Vukov and began working with him right away. Every day after classes, I would spend hours helping him with his experiments and researches.”

“Wait,” Ben interrupted. “You were part of the Soviet germ-warfare program?”

“Yes,” Ivanovsky said, “but I did not make these weapons. I did decontaminations and inspections.”

“Okay, uh, please go on,” Ben said. He could see why his client would interest the FBI.

“Professor Vukov and I, we became very close and he was like a second father to me. He helped me to get my PhD, and I did many researches for him during five years. We would eat our meals together and I often sleeped at his house when we had worked late. I would stay in the room of his son who died in the war.” His voice suddenly wavered, and he stopped for a few seconds.

Ben said nothing, waiting for his client to continue.

Ivanovsky took a deep breath and mastered himself again. “Then I did this stupid and shameful thing. We were trying to find ways to make our germs resist the decontaminating chemicals used by the Americans. I wanted to do experiments on a new method I had thought, but he said, ‘No, it will not work, Mikhail.’ I said that the theories of Lysenko predicted that it would work, so we should try, but he said, ‘Lysenko is a fraud. Do not waste time on this foolish idea.’ Ben, do you know who Lysenko was?”

Ben searched back through dim memories of his single college biology course. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Do not be afraid; it is good that you do not know about such a man. Trofim Lysenko was a biologist who had certain scientific theories. These theories were very wrong in many ways and Lysenko was a bad scientist, but Stalin thought his ideas were socialist and progressive. So Lysenko was made in charge of all scientists and his theories were taught in Soviet universities as absolute truth.

“So when Professor Vukov said, ‘Lysenko is a fraud,’ this troubled me. Had my other professors and my textbooks taught me lies? Or was this great man who was my mentor lying? And I did not like that he had said my idea was foolish.

“The political officer working with our team was a young man only a little older than I. He and I would sometimes drink vodka and play chess together, and I thought he was my friend. I said to him, ‘Alexander, may I ask you something?’ He said yes. I said, ‘Do not repeat this to anyone, but Professor Vukov says that Lysenko is a fraud. Is this true? I must know so that I can do my researches correctly.’ He said, ‘Professor Lysenko is a great man. It is good that you have told me this, Mikhail.’

“The next morning, Professor Vukov was gone. The head of our laboratory said that Professor Vukov had become an enemy of the revolution and that I should take over his work. The first experiment I did was to test the Lysenkoist idea I’d had. It failed completely.”

Dr. Ivanovsky simply stopped talking, and it took Ben a few seconds to realize that he was done with his story. “That’s terrible that they did that to Professor Vukov, but I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. You don’t want to talk to the FBI because the KGB arrested your mentor?”

“Yes. Secret police are secret police—in America or Russia. They are all secret police.”

“But the FBI is nothing like Stalin’s KGB,” protested Ben.

“They are different and they are the same,” replied Dr. Ivanovsky. “Maybe the FBI does not make people disappear for having wrong opinions. Maybe the FBI works for a democracy and not a dictatorship. But they are the same in one very, very important way: it is their job to learn things and do things for the state. It is not their job to help me or you or to be our friends. Maybe they are helping and friendly now, but their help and friendliness go away as soon as being your friend stops helping the state. To give them information is like going into the den of a tiger to feed him. He may be very nice to you for a long time, but one day maybe you run out of food and he will be hungry and looking at you, and then you will wish you had never fed him at all.”