The Expediter (27 page)

“Dick was down here raising hell. Wanted me to call Mrs. M and have her put some pressure on you.”

McGarvey had to smile. “What did you tell him?”

“That if he wanted to try to involve her I’d crash every computer in the building, and it’d probably take a couple of months before we got back to normal.”

“How’d he take it?”

“I don’t know,” Rencke said. “But I’ve never seen a DCI do a one-eighty so fast in my life.”

“I’m going up there sometime after midnight. Do we have a satellite in position to give me some real-time shots of his house and the immediate surroundings? I’d like to see if he’s making any preparations.”

“Give me five minutes and I’ll have something for you,” Rencke said. “But be careful, Mac, he’s no good to us dead.”

“That’s the tough part,” McGarvey agreed. “And there’s something else I want you to start looking for. Something in Turov’s background, maybe even as far back as his KGB days.”

“You looking for connections? A bridge from then to now?”

“American connections.”

“Shit,” Rencke said softly.

“Yeah,” McGarvey said. “Shit is right.”

Turov rarely smoked, which was unusual for a Russian, even a modern Russian, but just now he felt the need, and he got an American Marlboro from a cigarette box at his bedside, lit it, and walked out onto the broad platform looking onto the garden.

His American contractor had not called back, which wasn’t surprising. And even if he had, Turov had decided that he would take care of Kirk McGarvey in his own fashion. As Minoru had warned, if only half of the stories about the former CIA director were true, he was a dangerous man. And Turov valued his personal freedom too highly to allow a dangerous man to stalk him.

Minoru came out of the main house at the far end of the veranda and stopped for a moment in the shadows, as if he were a bearer of bad news and hesitated to bring it forward.

The night was still. Only the muted hum of traffic down the hill near the Ueno Station and Metropolitan Festival Hall slightly marred the peaceful silence. The prime house rules were for silence, discretion, and invisibility. All the staff members, except for Minoru, were to carry out their duties as discreetly as possible while at all other times remain in their own wing of the compound. No radios or television were allowed, no voices raised, no musical instruments or games be played. If and when someone needed to celebrate, they would leave
the compound. No one complained because the money Turov paid was very good.

Turov remembered his childhood as one of nearly monastic silence. “The man who babbles ceaselessly is the man who is unsure of himself or who does not know what he is doing, and wants to convince you otherwise,” his stern father had told him.

Later, at the beginning of his KGB career, he’d learned interrogation techniques from Sergey Kuzin, a master, who taught that the fewer questions asked, the more likely the prisoner will believe he has to say something merely to fill the silence.

“All of them want to cleanse the sins from their souls,” Kuzin advised. “In the end they want absolution. Become a sympathetic listener, a Catholic priest who will hear their confessions.”

Turov had used the same techniques during his assassinations, sometimes learning the most amazing things. Men and women on their deathbeds had no loyalties to anything other than their own lives. It was one of the other lessons that he’d learned early on, that knowledge is power. More often than not he would return from a kill knowing more about his masters than they wanted.

It would be the same tonight with McGarvey who would confess who had sent him here and why. The information would undoubtedly be valuable.

“Come,” Turov called softly.

Minoru came down the veranda to where Turov was standing.

“He refused your invitation for this evening, but said he will come tomorrow at eight.”

It was about what Turov expected would happen. “Where did you speak with him?”

“In one of the dining rooms.”

“Let me guess, French?”

Minoru nodded. “He also refused your card. Said that he knew the way.”

That, however, was unexpected, but Turov held back a frown. “Was he very rude?”

Minoru shrugged. “When he is dead his past inelegancies will not matter. But he will come here tonight, possibly very early in the morning when he believes we are asleep.”

“I expect that you are correct,” Turov said. “But since he didn’t accept the card, we shall have to reset the trap. I would like that taken care of within the hour.”

Minoru nodded. “Naturally.”

“I do not want him damaged too badly. Bring him to me and I’ll kill him myself, but first I would like to ask him a few questions.”

“As you wish. I have several people in or near the hotel who will call when he makes his move. It will give us plenty of warning.”

“Very good, Hirobumi-san,” Turov said, using the honorific, and a brief flash of pleasure crossed Minoru’s face. “Everything is happening according to my plan. I allowed him to see me in Seoul and he came here as I expected he would. I sent you to speak to him and he will come here.”

“One other thing, Colonel,” Minoru said. “He referred to you by the name of Nikolai Boyko.”

Turov was physically rocked for an instant before he recovered his poise.

“Is this of some significance that we should be aware of?” Minoru asked. “Perhaps I can help.”

“It’s a name I used a very long time ago. But it has no meaning now.”

“Except that Mr. McGarvey’s sources of intelligence must be very good. Best that he be eliminated as soon as possible.”

“Yes,” Turov mumbled, but he was lost in thought about exactly how he would conduct his interrogation of McGarvey.

McGarvey rose from a sound sleep a few minutes after three in the morning, and went into the bathroom where he splashed some cold water on his face and rinsed out his mouth.

Back in the bedroom he dressed in dark slacks and a dark pullover and placed the Wilson in its holster at the small of his back. He pocketed the silencer, two spare magazines of ammunition, and sat phone, then pulled on his dark sports coat and opened the door a crack so that he could make sure the corridor was empty before he slipped out and headed to the elevators.

Before he’d gone to sleep he’d spent a half hour watching the realtime downloads of satellite images of Turov’s compound from a Key-Hole bird. But if they had been making any preparations for his arrival, which he was certain they had, they’d been discreet.

He got off on the mezzanine, took the stairs down to the main floor where he made his way past the gift shops to the lobby, and held up just short of the corner. No one was behind the front desk, nor did there seem to be any cleaning or maintenance people doing their work. Only one figure in a bellman’s uniform was stationed near the front doors. Outside a lone cab was waiting.

McGarvey stepped back. It was a setup, of course. The bellman was there to report to Turov the moment McGarvey showed up and got into the cab. His people would be waiting, which was what McGarvey had expected.

He went back to the stairs and took them one floor down to the service area in the basement. At this level the hotel was already alive for the coming day, in fact areas such as the laundry never shut down. Everyone was busy here, so he had no difficulty reaching the loading
dock area without trouble. It was the same everywhere, the man who moved smartly as if he had a purpose and he belonged usually never attracted more than a passing glance.

Three small delivery trucks were pulled up and deliverymen in white gloves, white coveralls, and bright yellow caps were busy unloading cartons of what were probably canned goods, along with fresh-cut flowers in long boxes, and three large aluminum cases covered in frost that were removed from the truck by a small forklift.

As inside, no one paid the slightest attention as McGarvey jumped down from the dock, made his way between the trucks, and up the ramp to the street level where he turned away and headed down the all but deserted street.

Under ordinary circumstances if he were stopped by a cop who wondered what a
gaijin
was doing wandering around the streets at this hour of the morning he might be questioned. But if that happened and the cop called in the incident, he would probably be told to forget it. No one in Tokyo wanted trouble from the former CIA director. If he wanted to go for an early-morning walk he was breaking no laws. In any event PSIA had taken an interest and that would be enough for any beat cop unless there was some serious trouble involving a Japanese citizen and/or a firearm.

The only vehicles on the streets at this hour were delivery vans, street cleaners, and garbage trucks, plus the occasional car or SUV. The nearest subway station was at Tawaramachi on the Ginza Line where McGarvey figured he would find cabs waiting for the early wave of workers coming into the city. Although he would stick out he didn’t think he would be refused a ride.

He reached the station without trouble, where again he held up in the shadows across the street. A half-dozen tiny vans with green lights were parked at the cab stand in front, the drivers gathered outside for a smoke before the rush began. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him. If he had been spotted leaving the hotel he hadn’t picked up any indication of a tail, nor did it appear as if Turov had sent someone here to wait for him.

The Russian had been in the business for a long time, and that he had survived for so many years meant that he was a careful man. He would have to know that McGarvey was coming sometime this morning, and he would have made preparations.

McGarvey stepped out into the light and crossed the street as a red double-decker bus rumbled past. One of the cabbies said something and they all looked up as McGarvey approached.

“Does anyone speak English?”

“No trains yet,” one of the drivers replied.

“I need a cab,” McGarvey said.

The cabbie said something to the other drivers, and they all started to turn away, until McGarvey pulled out a hundred dollar bill.

“I want to go to Uneo.”

“
Hai
, you have directions?”

“The Ueno station.”

The driver shrugged and nodded toward the entry to the subway station behind him “Take the train.”

“I want to go now.”

The driver said something to the others, who laughed. But then he took McGarvey’s money. “We go now,” he said.

Turov was lying in his bed, fully awake, listening to the gentle sounds of water flowing over the rocks in his garden and thinking about his later days in the KGB after the breakup when he’d been recalled to Moscow to help reorganize the service, especially Department Viktor.

Nobody knew what was going to happen next. Germany had collapsed
and like a row of dominoes the first piece tipped by Gorbachev’s hand started the chain reaction. All of Eastern Europe collapsed, and no Soviet soldiers were sent. The Balkans became independent, and nothing happened. Finally the entire Soviet Union disintegrated, and except for Chechnya there was no fighting.