Fatal Conceit (30 page)

With that the young woman stood up from the table. “You will hear from me by this evening.” Over by the door, the two rough-looking men in leather coats who had accompanied her got up and escorted her out.

“What do you think?” Jaxon asked Karchovski.

The Russian's eyes flicked from the door to Jaxon. The gangster looked a lot like Butch Karp—same height and build, same Slavic features and gray, gold-flecked eyes, though the right side of Karchovski's face had been scarred during an escape from a burning tank in the Khyber Valley many years before. “Daudov has not stayed alive this long without an abundance of caution and attention to self-preservation,” he said. “But my contacts say also that
he is a man of honor and dedicated to his cause; Nadya would be a great propaganda prize. I guess we'll see.”

Returning to the house of his friend, Karchovski went to check on Malovo, who was being kept in a windowless room in the basement of the house with two armed men guarding the door. He walked down the stairs and found her sitting on the bed set up for her, reading a book by a small electric light. Her ankles were shackled to the bar at the bottom of the bed.

When she saw him, Malovo smiled, her jade green eyes sparkling in the low light. She moved her feet and made the cuffs rattle on the metal bar. “Remember when this was something you and I did for fun?” she said with a laugh. “Or is that why you're here now? Something fast before you turn me over to my killers?”

Karchovski hesitated for a moment. Even in a thick, knitted sweater and long pants, and despite her captivity with Grale, Malovo was still an amazingly sensuous and beautiful woman. “That was a long time ago, Nadya, we were both younger and I, at least, was more susceptible to your charms,” he replied. “As for your killers . . . you chose the road that led to this place. I am just checking to see that you are comfortable.”

Malovo scoffed. “As comfortable as I can be without being able about to stand or walk or even change positions in bed. But it is certainly better than my hole in the wall in that madman's cave, so I guess I shouldn't complain.” Suddenly her face softened and her eyes and expression were that of a frightened woman, as she whispered, “Ivgeny, please, for the love of God, help me. We were lovers once, doesn't that mean anything?”

“It did once upon a time in Afghanistan,” Karchovski said. “When you were young and the evil in you had not yet matured. It was there; I knew it was there; you enjoyed your dirty work with the KGB far too much. But I always blamed it on your rough childhood and your KGB trainers. However, we all make choices in our life—free will—and you chose to follow your dark side when you had options.”

“I had no choice,” she retorted angrily. “I had nothing, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was everyone for themselves. You have no reason to talk that way to me; you became a gangster in America. You have killed men.”

“I am well aware of my sins,” Karchovski replied quietly. “But I never killed with the enjoyment you did, nor is that how I make my living. I will kill to defend those who are under my protection and to defend what is mine. And even then I accept that I will have to answer to my Creator for that. But you, Nadya, you kill for money and for the pleasure you get from watching others suffer and die. You will have your own day in that higher court, and what will you say?”

Malovo laughed harshly. “Don't give me that religious nonsense, Ivgeny. When did you become such a man of God? I remember the former loyal Communist Russian army colonel who believed in the here and now and not some foolish myth about the afterlife.”

“Perhaps it was when I was being pulled from a burning tank,” Karchovski said with a shrug. “Or maybe getting older, I grew wiser, realized that it was okay to believe in something bigger than myself, something bigger than the state. One thing I do know is that we are capable of change no matter how long it takes, even you.”

“First Grale and Karp and now you,” she sneered. “This insane idea that I will somehow, and for whatever reason, undergo this miraculous metamorphosis from black widow to butterfly when the time comes.”

“You let the old woman's husband live.”

Malovo scowled. “Goldie's old man, Sobelman, in the bakery? I saw no point in making the woman suffer; they've only got a few more years.”

“But how unlike you to even care,” Karchovski pointed out. “And what's more, because you didn't pull the trigger and gave yourself up, you set yourself on the road to federal prison and then Grale's cave after that.”

A troubled look passed over Malovo's face, but then she snarled, “An error in judgment, I agree. And it only bolsters my argument that kindness is a weakness that can kill you.”

“Or change you for the better. Remember when we first met in Kabul, you the young woman who could laugh at silly jokes, loved fiercely, who was loyal to her comrades, treated a war-hardened soldier like me with tenderness, and even risked her life to protect the helpless. Or don't you remember saving the children in that Khyber Pass village?”

Malovo shook her head again. “You're a fool, Ivgeny,” she said. Then a sly look came across her face and she lowered her voice. “But you're also a businessman, and I have a proposition for you.” She glanced toward the stairs. “We can come up with a plan to capture Al-Sistani and then get away from the others.”

“Even if I wanted to do that, what would it accomplish?”

“While he was pretending to be the business manager for the Saudi prince, Al-Sistani squirreled away millions of dollars in Swiss banks, so that if his larger plan didn't work, he'd have something to fall back on,” she replied. “I'm sure it's what's funding his little religious war now. Give me a few minutes with him, and access to that money will be ours.”

“I have all the money I need,” Karchovski said. “And having you as a business partner would be like inviting a cobra into my bed.”

Malovo reached out and grabbed his arm. “Then we could go back to New York and get Kane away from Grale. I know the way into and out of his lair, though we should kill Grale to eliminate the danger. Kane has the account numbers and passwords to bank accounts all over the world worth billions! We could be rich beyond our wildest dreams!”

The beautiful assassin took Karchovski's silence as his mulling her offer over. She lay back and moved her body seductively on the bed. “And I know you remember what lies beneath these clothes,” she purred. “I still know how to give pleasure better than
any woman you've ever known. And if you'd like others to join us in our play, I am not the jealous type.”

This time it was Karchovski's turn to laugh. “Ah, Nadya, my beautiful evil vixen,” he said, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes. “You never stop trying, do you? But I put you out of my heart and away from my desires many years ago. Your enchantments no longer have any power over me.”

Malovo spat at him as she sat upright in bed. “Fuck you, Ivgeny. You were always afraid to take what could have been yours. Fine, my death will be on your head.”

“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “You chose to be here, whether you knew it or not; and now what happens to you is up to God.”

At that moment there was a knock on the door above and Jaxon walked down the stairs. “Daudov's man returned,” he said. “Lom is willing to meet and hear what we have to say. We're to bring her.”

“When?” Karchovski asked.

“Now. There's a truck waiting outside. Have you finished talking?”

Karchovski looked back at Malovo, who glared malevolently at him. “Yes. There is nothing more here that needs to be said.”

R
OD
F
AUHOMME HAD TO HIDE
the smirk he felt when he saw Tucker Lindsey nod at him and raise his glass of wine from across the ballroom.
The little shit's happy with me for now,
he thought.
We won—correct that,
I
won—and because I won, he gets to keep his job. The warm and fuzzies won't last, but not to worry, I've got a nice little insurance policy.

As he glanced around the president's election-night victory party, he received many similar looks from others whose jobs had been on the line. Along with the president, he was the man of the hour. Some knew more than others about what he'd done to ensure victory. However, all were aware that he was the mastermind who had buried the opponent under a barrage of personal attacks that had little to do with who was more qualified to run the country. At the same time he had skillfully deflected the Chechnya incident, using Allen's “suicide” as a pretext for getting the hearings postponed until after the inauguration. Any efforts by the opposition to raise the issue and attempt to get the hearings going before the election had been met with accusations by the president's press secretary, Rosemary Hilb, of being “inappropriate and insensitive to a fallen American hero and his family.”

It had worked like a charm. Then Fauhomme turned around
and saw to it that the story about Allen's possible affair with Jenna Blair had been leaked to reporters who could be trusted to report exactly what he told them. As expected, they'd gone along with the program; after all, what they really cared about after the election was access to the president, and if that meant submerging their journalistic ethics, then that was the price of admission to the White House. The result was that the public's attention was diverted from a U.S. mission's being overrun, and Americans killed, to a tawdry sex scandal.

The election results had not given the president a landslide, or a mandate, though with a little massaging and a lot of cooperation from the media, it could be made to appear as one. It didn't really matter; for the next four years, the president and his cohorts in Congress and appointees to the Supreme Court could continue the process of moving the country to the left. Already demoralized before the election, the opposition party could be expected to devolve into assigning blame—to “low-information” voters, to their candidate, to Fauhomme, anything to avoid looking at their own lack of a message that appealed to a worried country and at the pundits who kept them trapped in believing there was no reason to adapt or change. He'd just come from watching one of the postelection news shows, and the opposition party leaders were already cannibalizing their candidate.

Fauhomme raised his glass of scotch to acknowledge Lindsey's toast. The national security adviser had failed to catch Jenna Blair, but at least he'd secured the computer. Thinking about what was on the computer sent a shiver up his spine, though he quickly dismissed it. His own computer forensics expert had examined it and determined that the recording of Allen's death had not been downloaded or emailed. So he had reason to believe there was only one copy, which was now in a bank safe deposit box in Arlington, Virginia. It had Lindsey's fingerprints all over it—his insurance policy should Lindsey ever turn against him.

The other major threat to the campaign had also passed
without incident. Through unofficial channels, the administration had made overtures to Amir Al-Sistani to make him believe that an exchange of his prisoners was imminent. Fauhomme could not have cared less about the threat from Al-Sistani to kill David Huff and the unidentified female hostage if Al-Sistani's demands weren't met.
In fact, that would take care of a problem,
he thought. But the danger of Al-Sistani's going public about the attack and negotiations was very real; the American public would not have been happy to learn that they'd been lied to about the Zandaq mission's being overrun, or David Huff's purpose there. Nor would they be thrilled with the administration's covert deal-making with a terrorist regarding the blind sheik.

In the meantime, Lindsey was working with the Russians to make sure that neither Al-Sistani nor the hostages survived to trouble the president's next four years in office. But that was for another day, tonight was for celebrating.

Turning his eyes from Lindsey, Fauhomme noticed an attractive blond woman staring at him. She didn't look away when he made eye contact but smiled invitingly.
Another “politics tramp” who wouldn't have given me a sneer if I wasn't connected.
It never ceased to amaze him that power was such an aphrodisiac, and he had taken full advantage of it over the years. The thought brought him around to remembering Connie waiting for him back at the apartment. She'd wanted to come to the party but had been irritating him lately, so he was punishing her by making her miss the victory party. He blamed her for Jenna Blair's turning out to be such a problem. Now in the flush of victory, he was feeling that he might go home and slap her around before letting her “make it up” to him with whatever sexual act appealed to him at that moment.

I'm getting tired of the demanding bitch,
he thought.
Maybe it's time to turn her out on the streets.
But at the same time that the idea of moving on to the next woman interested him, he knew Connie presented a problem. She knew too much. He'd have to talk to Baum's replacement about taking care of the problem.

Fauhomme watched as the blonde handed a note to one of the pages who was working at the party. The young man hurried over to him and handed him the folded piece of paper. He looked at it—a phone number—then glanced back at the blonde and nodded as he tucked it into his suit coat pocket. He might or might not call, but tonight Connie was the easy target.

Two hours later he was naked and snoring on the couch at his Georgetown apartment when he was awakened by Connie's voice. The last thing he remembered was the sound of her crying in the bathroom, where she'd gone to wipe the blood off her mouth and nurse the new bruises he'd given her. He'd come home from the party and found her pouting and ignoring his demands. She tried to go to bed in a guest room but he followed her in there and violently forced himself upon her. Her protests and screams had just excited him more and he hit her a little harder than he intended and drew blood. Then he left her alone crying.