Dead or Alive (12 page)

Yuriy scanned the restaurant. A few customers had looked up upon his entry but had almost immediately returned to their meals or conversation. While Russians weren’t a common sight in Chechnyan restaurants, neither were they rare. Despite their reputation, Yuriy had never had much trouble with Chechnyans. For the most part they were live-and-let-live, but woe betide the person they decided to kill. Few organizations were as brutal as the Obshina. They liked their knives, the Chechnyans, and they were handy with them.

In the rear, down a short hall, he saw Nima sitting at the last booth against the wall, beside the kitchen door and the bathroom. Yuriy walked back, held up a “wait a moment” finger to Nima as he passed, then slipped into the bathroom to wash his hands. His hands were perfectly clean, of course; his interest lay primarily in confirming that the bathroom was unoccupied and offered no alternative entrances. Care and caution that the normal person would think excessive had kept him alive as an Illegal for many years, and he saw no reason to change his habits now. He dried his hands, then took a moment to ensure that the Makarov 9-millimeter pistol was seated safely in its holster in the rear waistband of his trousers, then walked out and sat down in the booth, facing the front of the restaurant. The swinging kitchen door was to his left. While Yuriy had been in the bathroom, Nima had removed his sport jacket. It lay draped across the back of the booth. The message was clear:
I’m unarmed.

Now the Arab spread his hands and smiled at Yuriy. “I know you’re a careful man, my friend.”

In return, Yuriy opened his sport coat. “As are you.”

A waiter appeared, took their drink orders, then disappeared again.

“Thank you for coming,” Nima said.

His Russian was good, with only a slight Arabic accent, his skin light enough that he could pass for a local with some Tartar in his blood. Yuriy absently wondered if the man had been schooled somewhere in the West.

“Of course. It’s my pleasure.”

“I was unsure if you were available.”

“For you, my friend, always. Tell me: Your colleague arrived safely at his destination?”

“He did indeed. The woman as well. As I understand it, she is everything you told us she would be. My superiors are very pleased with the help you’ve already offered. I trust the compensation was satisfactory? No problems?”

“No problems.” In fact, the money sat securely in a Liechtenstein account, admittedly earning very little interest but safe from the prying digital eyes of curious intelligence and police agencies. How he would move the funds once he needed them he hadn’t decided, but there were always ways, especially if you were careful and willing to pay for such services. “Please pass along my thanks to your superiors.”

Nima tipped his chin. “Of course.” The drinks came—vodka for Yuriy and sparkling water for Nima, who took a sip, then said, “We have another proposal, Yuriy, something we believe you are uniquely qualified for.”

“I am at your disposal.”

“As with our other two arrangements, it is a delicate matter, and not without some risk to yourself.”

Yuriy spread his hands and smiled. “Anything worthwhile in life usually is, yes?”

“Very true. Of course, as you know ...”

From the front of the restaurant came a shout, then the shattering of glass. Yuriy looked up in time to see a man, clearly drunk, pushing back from his chair, a plate of unidentified food resting on his upraised palm. The other customers stared at him. The man uttered a string of what Yuriy assumed were Chechen curse words he felt best described the subpar quality of his meal, then stumbled toward a waiter in a white apron.

Yuriy chuckled. “An unhappy customer, it seems ...” His words trailed off as he realized Nima had never turned in his seat to watch the commotion but was instead looking squarely into Yuriy’s eyes with something akin to regret. Alarm bells began ringing in the former KGB officer’s head.
Distraction, Yuriy, an arranged distraction.

Time seemed to slow.

Yuriy leaned forward, his hand reaching behind him toward the Makarov in his waistband at the small of his back. His fingers had just reached the gun’s checkered grip when he realized the swinging kitchen door to his left was standing open, a man-shaped figure standing at the threshold.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” he heard Nima say in some distant part of his mind. “It is for the best. ...”

Over the Arab’s shoulder, Yuriy saw another waiter walking toward them, holding up a tablecloth, ostensibly going through the motions of folding it.A curtain to shield the deed ... Yuriy saw movement in the corner of his eye. He rotated his head to the left in time to see the figure in the doorway—another waiter in a white apron—raising something dark and tubular in his hand.

Somewhere in a still-calm, analytical part of his brain, Yuriy thought,
Makeshift noise suppressor. . . .
He knew he would hear no noise, see no flash. Nor would there be any pain.

He was right. The 9-millimeter Parabellum hollow-point bullet struck him just above the left eyebrow before mushrooming into a tangled lump of lead that turned a softball-sized chunk of his brain into so much jelly.

G
ODDAMN IT,” former President of the United States John Patrick Ryan muttered into his morning coffee.

“What is it now, Jack?” Cathy asked, though fully aware of what “it” was. She dearly loved her husband, but when a topic attracted his attention, he was like the proverbial dog with a bone, a trait that had made him a good spook and an even better President but not always the easiest of souls to get along with.

“This idiot Kealty doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. What’s worse, he doesn’t care. He killed twelve Marines yesterday in Baghdad. You know why?” Cathy Ryan didn’t answer; she knew the question was rhetorical. “Because somebody on his staff decided that Marines having loaded rifles might send the wrong message. Goddamn it, you don’t send messages to people pointing weapons at you. Then get this: Their company commander went after the bad guys and whacked about six of them before he was ordered to pull back.”

“By whom?”

“By his battalion commander, who probably got instructions from brigade, who got his from some lawyer Kealty’s goons slipped into the chain of command. The worst part is he doesn’t care. After all, the budget process is under way, and there’s that flap over those friggin’ trees in Oregon that has his undivided attention.”

“Well, for better or worse, a lot of people get their panties in a twist over the environment, Jack,” Professor Ryan told her husband.

Kealty,
Jack seethed. He’d had it all figured out. Robby would have been a great President, but he hadn’t considered the twisted mind of that old Ku Klux Klan bastard who was still waiting to die on Mississippi’s Death Row. Jack had been in the Oval Office on that day—what had it been? Six days before the election, with Robby comfortably ahead in the polls. Not enough time to set things back in place, the election in chaos, Kealty the only major candidate left standing, and all the votes cast for Robby voided by circumstance. So many voters had simply stayed home in confusion. Kealty, President by default; election by forfeit.

The transition period had been even worse, if that was possible. The funeral, held at Jackson’s father’s Baptist church in Mississippi, was one of Jack’s worst-ever memories. The media had sneered at his display of emotion. Presidents were supposed to be robots, after all, but Ryan had never been one of those.

And with good damned reason,
Ryan thought.

Right here, right here in this very room, Robby had saved his life, and his wife’s, and his daughter’s, and his as yet unborn son’s. Jack had rarely known rage in his life, but this was one subject that caused it to erupt like Mount Vesuvius on a particularly bad day. Even Robby’s father had preached forgiveness on the subject, proof positive that the Reverend Hosiah Jackson was a better man than he would ever be. So what fate suited Robby’s killer? A pistol round in the liver, perhaps . . . might take five or ten minutes for the bastard to bleed out, screaming all the way to hell . . .

Worse still, rumor had it the current President was contemplating a blanket commutation of every death sentence in America. His political allies were already lobbying for him in the media, planning a public mercy demonstration on the Washington Mall. Mercy for the victims of the killers and kidnappers was something they never quite addressed, of course, but for all that it was for them a deeply held principle, and Ryan actually respected it.

The former President took a calming breath. He had his work to do. He was two years into his memoirs and in the home stretch. The work had gone quicker than he’d expected, so much so that he’d also written a confidential annex to his autobiography that would not see the light of day until twenty years after his death.

“Where are you?” Cathy asked, thinking of her schedule for the day. She had four laser procedures scheduled. Her Secret Service detail had already checked out the patients, lest one come into the OR with a pistol or knife, an event so unlikely to happen that Cathy had long ago stopped thinking about it. Or maybe she had stopped thinking about it because she knew her detail
was
worrying about it.

“Huh?”

“In the book,” his wife clarified.

“The last few months.” His tax and fiscal policy, which had actually worked until Kealty had applied a flamethrower to it.

And now the United States of America was muddling along under the presidency—or reign—of Edward Jonathan Kealty, a silver-spooned member of the aristocracy. In time it would be fixed one way or another, the people would see to that. But the difference between a mob and a herd was that a mob had a leader. The people didn’t really need that. The people could do without it—because a leader usually came along somehow or other. But who chose the leader? The people did. But the people chose a leader from a list of candidates, and they had to be self-selected.

The phone rang. Jack got it.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jack.” The voice was familiar enough. Ryan’s eyes lit up.

“Hi, Arnie. How’s life in academia?”

“As you might expect. See the news this morning?”

“The Marines?”

“What do you think?” Arnie van Damm asked.

“Doesn’t look very good.”

“I think it’s worse than it looks. The reporters aren’t telling the whole story.”

“Do they ever?” Jack wondered sourly.

“No, not when they don’t like it, but some of them have integrity. Bob Holtzman at the
Post
is having a conscience attack. He called me. Wants to talk to you about your views—off the record, of course.”

Robert Holtzman of
The Washington Post
was one of the few reporters Ryan almost trusted, partially because he’d always been straight with Ryan and partially because he was a former naval officer—a 1630, the code the Navy used to designate an intelligence officer. While he was at odds with Ryan on most political issues, he was also a man of integrity. Holtzman knew things about Ryan’s background that he’d never published, despite the fact that they would have made juicy stories, perhaps even career-making stories. But then again, maybe he was just saving them for a book. Holtzman had written a few of those, one a bestseller, and had made decent money from the effort.

“What did you tell him?” Jack asked Arnie.

“I told him I’d ask, but you’d probably say not just no but hell, no.”

“Arnie, I do like the guy, but a former President can’t trash his successor. ...”

“Even if he’s a worthless piece of shit?”

“Even then,” Jack confirmed sourly. “Maybe especially then. Hold on. I thought you liked him. What happened?”

“Maybe I hung around you too much. Now I have this crazy notion that character counts for something. It’s not all political maneuvering.”

“He’s damned good at that, Arnie. Even I have to grant him that. Arnie, you want to come down for a talk?” Ryan asked. Why else would he call on a Friday morning?

“Yeah, okay, so I’m not exactly subtle.”

“Fly on down. You’re always welcome in my house, you know that.”

Cathy asked sotto voce, “What about Tuesday? Dinner.”

“How about Tuesday for dinner?” Jack asked Arnie. “You can stay the night. I’ll tell Andrea to expect you.”

“Do that. I’m always half worried that woman’s going to shoot me, and as good as she is, I doubt it’d be a flesh wound. See you around ten.”

“Great, Arnie, see ya.” Jack set the phone back down and stood up to walk Cathy to the garage. Cathy had moved up in class. Now she drove a two-seat Mercedes, though she’d recently admitted she missed the helicopter into Hopkins. On the upside, now she got to play race-car driver, with her Secret Service agent, Roy Altman, former captain in the 82nd Airborne, holding on for dear life in the passenger seat. A serious guy. He was standing by the car, jacket unbuttoned, paddle holster visible.