The Hunted (19 page)

“Who exactly confirmed Bernie Lutcher’s death?” he asked, staring directly at one of the bloodshot-eyed assistants crowded
around the table. This particular man, as a sad result of his previous time at a backwater desk in MI6, had the rare misfortune
to be nearly fluent in Hungarian. That peculiar distinction earned him a turn on the hotseat, but he had worked himself into
a lather and felt eager and ready for whatever Number Eight threw at him.

The young man straightened his tie, gathered his wits, and sat up. “The coroner of the Budapest police. The body was called
in by airport security at one-fifteen, Budapest time. The police arrived a few minutes later. Bernie’s corpse was transported
to the city morgue, then placed in cold storage until six, when the night shift came on. The preliminary workup was done by
a Dr. Laszlo”—he conferred with his notes—“Massouri.”

Lord Pettlebone nodded, not at anything the man had said but a gesture to speed this up.

“We requested a full and immediate autopsy, of course. They begged off until tomorrow. That’s our Hungarian friends for you.
Even a ghastly murder in their capital airport doesn’t put a hop in their step. But the preliminary cause of death,” the man
continued, browsing through his notes, “was a small knife puncture in the back.”

He reached over and with a brash forefinger pointed like a dagger scraped an X slightly below the left shoulder blade of the
man beside him. He plowed ahead. “A slight tearing around the incision suggests a twisting of the blade. The weapon was a
stiletto, twelve or perhaps fifteen inches in length, only a few centimeters in width. Not a garden-variety weapon, I should
say, more a specialist’s tool, and it went directly for poor Bernie’s heart.” He waited a beat before he revealed this next
revelation. “But his pupils were widely dilated, and his face also had a purplish discoloration, the visual by-products of
oxygen deprivation. But no scarring or lesions from ligatures or bruises on his neck. As you know, this could be suggestive
of poisoning.”

“Assume both. He was poked with a coated blade,” Pettlebone concluded swiftly, before the assistant could voice that rather
evident opinion himself. “Let’s further assume, hypothetically, the assassin was professional.”

“Sorry, sir. Did I mention the dark bruise slightly below Bernie’s breastbone?”

“Right you are. A pair of assassins.” He examined the other faces. Knowing nods all around. “Witnesses?”

“Yes, and here’s where it gets interesting,” the man said with a relieved grin: this tidbit had fallen in his lap only ten
minutes before. “The Budapest police were contacted about two hours ago by a Russian lady and man claiming to be her boyfriend.
She swore she observed Konevitch stab his bodyguard in the back, then flee outside and jump into a cab.”

“The client? The client stabbed his own security escort and fled?” Pettlebone sniffed and scowled. This firm did not hire
out bodyguards, it provided security escorts.

“Quite right, sir. Alex Konevitch. Claimed she recognized him clear as a bell from the newsie magazines back in Russia. Seems
he’s quite the celebrity back home, being filthy rich and all.”

Pettlebone removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “But it took her ten hours to recall who he was?”

“So she says.”

“I don’t suppose the lady has a name?”

Back to the notes. A few pages were flipped. “Ah, here—according to her passport, Alisa Petrova. It might be a phony, though.
I had a nice chat with the detective who received her statement. Not much of a lady, in his words. A rough piece of work.”

“So she saw Konevitch stab our man. Did she also see who punched him in the gut?”

“She didn’t mention it, no. Though it might be prudent to consider the possibility that her angle of observation precluded
it.”

“Is that your considered opinion?”

“Well, if her view was from the rear, Konevitch is quite tall, and Bernie very wide. Fat, actually.”

“But is that your opinion?”

It was as close as he was going to come to one. The man clammed up and stopped talking. He suddenly found the blinking lights
on the far wall endlessly fascinating.

Pettlebone looked up and down the table again. “Can anybody here recall an instance where one of our clients murdered one
of our employees? Anyone?”

A retired partner leaning on the far wall, an old man, who missed the excitement with apparently little better to do than
hang around the headquarters, took the challenge. “Aye. Back in ’59, if I recall properly, Clyde Witherspoon got offed by
his man. Seemed Clyde was shagging the client’s old lady. Got caught in flagrante and the client blew his pecker off.” The
old man shook his head and whistled in wonder. “Ten meters away, too. Quite a shot, that. Allowed poor Clyde a distressing
moment or so to ponder the damage, then finished him with a shot between the eyes.”

Pettlebone adjusted his glasses. “Yes… Well, thank you, Bertie.”

After a quick survey of the young pups around the table Bertie smiled and replied, “My pleasure.”

“Now, can anyone tell me why our client had only one bodyguard?”

“At his own insistence, I’m afraid,” the head of scheduling replied with a disapproving frown. “We recommended four escorts
in the strongest possible terms. The client wouldn’t hear of it. Said it would be poor for business.” He arched his thick
eyebrows and looked up. “A record of that conversation is on tape, if you’re interested.”

Malpractice suits were rare in the trade, since potential claimants were usually dead, one of the few upsides in a business
loaded with downsides. But they happened. The firm had been dragged through a highly publicized courtroom brawl eighteen years
before. That experience still smarted: business did not recover for five years. Pettlebone was satisfied that the firm’s backside
was covered, and moved on. “And does anybody have a clue where our client disappeared to? Anybody?”

Apparently not. The best and brightest shuffled papers, sipped tea, and adjusted their striped ties.

“Right you are,” Pettlebone said, placing his hands on the table and leaning forward. “Then let me hazard a guess.”

The best and brightest collectively thought: Have at it, old boy. You always like your own theories better than ours anyway.

He lifted three long, bony fingers. “He’s either running away from murder, kidnapped, or dead.” They stared at the fingers
and said not a word.

The collective response: Oh, spare me; a brain-dead copper two days out of the academy could summarize the obvious.

“But the former looks a little shaky, I should think we all agree.” One finger flopped down.

The collective wisdom: You’re getting warmer, old boy. That possibility was discarded by the rest of us well over two hours
ago while you and your pathetic old chums were chugging sherry in your snooty, prehistoric club.

Another finger folded. “And the latter we can do little about but send a bucket of roses after the dust settles.”

The collective rejoinder: In which case you’ll fall back on your standard response—dodge for cover, shove the blame downward,
and send three or four of us packing. The first report of Bernie’s death was called into your office six hours ago; you fled
for sanctuary in your club so fast there are burn marks on your office carpet. And how very convenient of you to forget your
pager and cell phone, which we found conveniently stuffed in the bottom drawer of your desk, you sly old bastard.

“So why haven’t we heard from his kidnappers yet?”

The collective response: twenty sets of eyes suddenly shifted upward, in the general direction of the ceiling. Why not, indeed?

Statistically, they all knew, kidnappers nearly always make their demands a few short hours after the fact. Like card players
holding a blackjack, why let the pot get cold?

More shuffling of papers, more sipped tea, more tightening of ties. A recorder in the attic was silently capturing every word.
The lads around the table had sat through Pettlebone’s inquisitions before and to a man weren’t taken in by his Socratic bullshit.
The first fool who guessed wrong, on the record and imprinted forever on the device in the attic, would end up first on the
chopping block when this crisis ended, one way or the other, and they shifted into the usual blamestorm.

Bertie, the retired partner, with nothing to lose, took a stab. “I don’t suppose we’d hear anything if it’s an inside job.
These Russki millionaires are all surrounded by nasty chaps. Sleep with the wolves, one shouldn’t wonder when one wakes up
main course on a dinner plate. If it’s insider work, the culprits aren’t likely to bring in outside help, are they? What do
you think?”

“Have we contacted his company?” Pettlebone asked, deliberately sidestepping Bertie’s theory. The recorder in the attic was
his own clever idea; he had no intention of leaving a magnetic trace that might not withstand scrutiny later.

Another of the bright lads in the middle of the table said, “I’ve spoken with his head of corporate security. Three or four
times, in fact. Sergei Golitsin, a former KGB general. Not a nice sort. The conversations weren’t all that pleasant. Kept
insisting that Alex’s security outside Russia was our concern, not his.”

“Had he heard anything from the kidnappers? A demand for ransom, a threat, that sort of thing?”

“Well… I did ask, sir.”

“And?”

“He laughed, then cursed me and hung up.”

“We’re not going back to Russia,” Alex announced with a very firm frown. After ten minutes of staring intently out the window,
interrupted by occasional searches through the stack of passports on his lap, tossing ideas back and forth, he had finally
made up his mind. “Too obvious,” he announced.

“What’s that mean?” Eugene asked.

“They’re expecting it. In fact, they’re hoping we’ll try. We got lucky. I don’t want to depend on luck again.”

“Who’s they?” Elena asked. Good question but one Alex didn’t have the answer to.

“Certainly more than just Katya and Vladimir and the other goons we saw,” Alex answered grimly.

“Did you see more of them?” Eugene asked. After all, his ass was on the line as well; naturally he wanted to know what he
was up against.

“No, but they were too ignorant to put this together. They’re working for somebody. And there may be… no, there definitely
are more where they came from.” But who knew how many more were in on this? They could be Mafiya, or they could be independents
partnered with the mob. For such a big score, there could be hundreds of them, possibly thousands.

And for sure, an employee, or a number of employees of Konevitch Associates, were in on it up to their larcenous necks. Somebody
who knew Alex’s travel plans. Somebody who knew the instant Eugene called his secretary to query about his whereabouts.

Alex knew exactly what this meant: somebody very high up in the corporate food chain was feeding the goons precious inside
information and trying to put a noose around his neck.

He searched his mind, but quickly lost count of potential suspects. He now had several hundred former KGB people, more or
less, on the payroll. Some were good people, smart, honest, and deeply relieved to be able to look themselves in a mirror
without, for a change, wrinkling in self-disgust. Too many others were cutthroats in fancy suits. Nearly all were in security
positions. Nearly all might have found a way to learn his travel plans. The security department was always notified in advance
of his trips with a detailed agenda, a regrettable routine but one that was unequivocally necessary. Only a small handful,
though, could’ve learned about Eugene’s call to Sonja.

Where had it all gone wrong? Alex had once prided himself on personally hiring his chief lieutenants and a sizable number
of his other employees as well. But the explosion of business happened so fast, Alex kept chasing more and more opportunities,
and the need for more and more people became crushing. From one thousand to twenty thousand employees in less than two years.
It was an old-fashioned gold rush: the lion’s share went to the one who stampeded in with the most diggers and sifters. Supposedly
qualified executives were being hired off their résumés, sans interviews, sans background checks, or even cursory calls to
their former employers. Money beckoned. Each new opportunity begat others. Caution had long since been thrown out the window.

Greed. Money. He was printing it almost faster than they grew trees. They all wanted a piece of the action and too many were
hustlers on the make. He swore to himself he would conduct a fierce purge when he got back and this was behind him. He could
count on two hands the number of executives he fully trusted.

“Checkpoint’s straight ahead,” Elena announced, breaking into his deepening thoughts about who to sack.

Alex plucked two passports out of the stack, then carefully shoved the rest under his leg. Elena pumped the brakes and the
car bounced and wrenched to a squealing halt. They held their breath and prayed.

The road was a two-lane, sparsely trafficked one surrounded by countryside and a light sprawl of quaint villages. The checkpoint
itself was little more than a yellow crossbar, lightly manned, with a wood shack and a few flickering lampposts—nothing more
than a hastily erected shelter placed there in the aftermath of the abrupt Soviet withdrawal and the helter-skelter opening
of the borders.

A skinny young man in an ill-fitting green customs uniform approached from the passenger side. The sound of an angry generator,
spitting and sputtering, came from behind the shack. No words were exchanged. He stuck out a hand and Alex, trying to match
his air of lethargy, yawned and casually handed him two passports. Eugene shoved his out from the backseat as well.

The guard studied Eugene’s first, then in awful English prodded, “You are American?”

“No, I’m from Brooklyn,” Eugene replied with a stupid grin. The guard eyed him suspiciously, obviously unable to match a citizen
from Brooklyn to the American passport. Just cool it with the wisecracks, Alex and Elena wanted to scream at him.