World Without End (23 page)

Raymond sat in his living room with its antique furniture and went into shock. It was like that day when he came home from school, just two weeks after burying his father, and found repossession men moving his world into two moving vans. That day he had stood paralyzed with fear.

Now, older and wiser, his brain desperately sought some neutral ground where it could formulate some explanation that would extricate him from this situation.

"Where's Toni?" Raymond asked.

"At home with her momma. Ever since she learned that her opportunity to have kids is gone, she hasn't been right in the head."

"Does she know about " "Of course she doesn't. You think I'm going to tell my baby that the man she loves is a monster? You know what that will do to her?"

A thought came into Raymond's mind. He almost smiled.

Winthrop leaned forward, placing his elbows on his small knees.

"Now you listen up and listen good, because I'm only going to say this once. You're going to leave, tonight. The divorce will be rushed through, nice and quick, and you're not going to be in our lives anymore. You understand me, boy?"

Raymond didn't like the word boy, and he didn't care for Winthrop's self-righteous Southern tone.

"I've put four years into this marriage," Raymond said.

"And for that you will be duly compensated."

"How much?"

"Half a million. Cash."

"That's insulting."

"That's the deal. If you don't like it, go pound sand."

"What do you think the knowledge of the vasectomy will do to her fragile mental condition? I hope she isn't suicidal."

"Boy, this isn't a negotiation. You either take the money and run, or tomorrow morning you wake up and your private life will be national front-page news and you won't get a cent. Bradfield, that company you work for, you think I don't know it's a CIA front? You think I don't know what you do for a living?"

Raymond had his poker face on.

"I think there are drugs in your cigar."

"And I think you're one stupid son of a bitch. You're not the only one who can make bodies disappear."

"That sounds like a threat."

"It's a fact, sir." WInthrop smiled, and then tapped the end of his cigar against the edge of the coffee table, watching as the ashes drifted to the hardwood floor.

Raymond stared at the man's green eyes that crinkled at the corners.

He's got you by the balls and you know it.

"What about the house?"

"I'm going to hang onto it until the real-estate market shoots back up," Winthrop said.

"Don't think I'm not aware of your connections, how you collect people in your pocket. Don't make the foolish mistake of believing that you're the only one who has connections. If anything happens to me or my family, I'll release everything I've got on you along with a few other tidbits to your superiors and the media, of course. The media hounds will lap this story right up. I'll let you suffer for a while, the CIA will boot your worthless ass out, and then at some point you'll disappear." Winthrop smiled again, and Raymond wanted to reach over and punch it right off the old goat's face.

"I'm giving you the easy way out. Don't be blinded by greed."

Roll the dice and fight or take the half million?

Haifa million in cash wasn't a bad severance package.

"You got the money here?" Raymond asked.

"No, a financial planner's got it."

"Yours?" Winthrop's planner was a magician with money.

"Someone else. Conflict of interest. Now, you do what this man says, he'll invest the money for you and make you a rich man in a year. This guy's that good. I figured that little extra touch will keep you happy and away from me and my family. Of course, if you decide to piss it away, that's your problem."

Raymond used the financial planner, and by the end of the year, with the stock market soaring into the stratosphere, had tripled his money.

Winthrop and his family were distant memories. Raymond had his money, and with some patience and planning would have his old life back. Then Raymond walked into the two-bedroom condo he was renting and found the stinking, massive figure of Misha Ronkil, the Russian mob's most notorious hit man, hunched over the architectural plans for Raymond's new home.

"Pull up a chair, Big Ray," Misha wheezed.

"I've got one hell of a story to tell you."

The financial planner worked for the Russian mob. All of the money Raymond made was through stock scams. Nobody knew about it yet, and no one would know about it as long as he played along. If he didn't, well, Misha said his boss had ways of making the evidence look more damaging. Maybe no jail time, Ray, but no permanent CIA gig either. If the CIA cut him loose, Raymond would have to protect himself against the Russians. Not a realistic option.

"You and I have this common problem with this rat fuck Angel Eyes,"

Misha said.

"He's been in Russia stealing some of our stuff, and we found out he's doing it here in the States. You got the inside line on the stuff we want. So unless you want to spend the rest of your days bagging groceries and looking over your shoulder for me, you better give us access to all those goodies. Like this military suit you're developing that allows you to become invisible."

Four years now and Misha and his boss still had Raymond by the balls.

Imagine, a section chief for CIA special ops, a puppet for the Russian mob. Funny how the world has a way of biting you back. Twice.

You 've got to get out from under them.

Jonathan Cole could do it. The problem was that the son of a bitch didn't accept assignments. He chose them. In fact, all this time he had been wandering the planet, doing his own thing until the Malcolm Fletcher operation came along and suddenly Jonathan Cole was on the phone, wanting in.

Raymond Bouchard broke out of his reverie and was back in the restaurant with its warm air filled with hushed conversations and the clink of antique silver brushing against fine china. He had to find a way out of this fucking mess and quick. As he drank his wine, his eyes happened to wander over to the restaurant entrance where Misha was tossing his overcoat to the maitre d', the Russian's hungry eyes scanning the room like a panther in search of wounded prey.

Raymond felt his back stiffen.

Get out of here, a voice said.

Too late. Misha's eyes settled on his.

The densely packed three-hundred-pound animal, draped in an awful black double-breasted suit with a gray undershirt, lumbered his way through the dining room, flexing his fists as if preparing for a brawl.

Sometimes he moved closer to one of the tables to inspect the food, his face curious but mostly disgusted, his queerly set dark eyes giving him the strained expression of an intellectually challenged man trying to solve a complicated puzzle.

But the look of mild retardation was deceptive, for while Misha's younger associates tended to view him as some sort of middle-aged professional wrestler whose body had turned to hard fat from years of steroid abuse, the fact was that Misha was one of the Red Mafiya's most feared enforcers. His cruelty was legendary. Raymond recalled one story of how Misha made a woman eat a bowl of what he called homemade Grapenuts: small rocks and sand mixed with milk. When Misha finished force-feeding the nineteen-year-old prostitute, he threw her into an ice-cold bathtub, tossed in a plugged-in radio and took pictures while the electricity thrashed her body. He later sent copies of the pictures to the young girl's family.

Misha walked up to Raymond's table. The waiter, his throat working nervously, slid out a chair next to the window.

"What's with you and the foo-foo food?" Misha asked as he sat down, his voice a dry wheeze. He sounded like an emphysema patient. He folded his hands on the table and grinned, while chewing a thick wad of gum. He snapped the gum and said, "You ain't going faggot on us, are you?"

His English was excellent, his speech patterns and colloquialisms molded from hanging out with members of the Italian mob and from watching The Sopranos, which he thought was the funniest comedy show on TV Raymond looked around him to make sure no one was within hearing and then leaned in closer to Misha. The warm, pleasant air, once rich with the fragrance of wine and gourmet food, was now fouled by Misha's cheap cologne and the combined stench of cigar and booze.

"Misha, we talked about this."

Misha said nothing, just smiled. His brown teeth were small and pointed, carnivorous, useful for when he bit women during sex. It was his way of branding them, he said. His black hair and goatee were trimmed close to the skin, and his dark eyes had the vacuous look of a tunnel.

"Relax, Ray, the fed dies don't know I'm here."

Typical mob mentality; neither Misha nor his cohorts knew the meaning of discretion. They imagined themselves as gods who could walk on water, above the laws of man, and as a result, came and went without thought or consideration for the aftermath their actions always produced. Raymond remembered a story about Misha from his Brighton Beach days when, in a parking lot in broad daylight, he grabbed a fellow Russian gangster by the throat, picked him up with one hand while the other pumped nine shots from a Beretta into the man's stomach in front of seven eyewitnesses, all of whom later stated that they hadn't seen the shooter.

That sort of intimidation may have worked with the locals, but it wouldn't fly with the FBI's Russian mob unit, whose members were working around the clock investigating Misha's boss, the seemingly untouchable Alexi Zvereva, on several stock scams on Wall Street. The thought of what they would find made Raymond cringe.

"What's wrong, Ray? You look like you're going to have an accident in your pants." Misha snapped his gum and without moving his eyes from Bouchard said to the waiter, "The fuck you staring at?"

"I didn't want to interrupt your conversation, sir. I was waiting for you " "Give me a menu."

"We're leaving," Bouchard said.

"No, we're not" Misha replied and snapped the menu out of the waiter's hands. Raymond shooed the waiter away, and then leaned in closer to Misha.

"You know how dangerous this is," Raymond hissed, his face flushed.

"You talking about the John McFadden spy case that's all over the news?"

"That and the fact that the FBI has you and your boss locked in its crosshairs. This this is insane. I'm leaving."

"Keep your ass parked in that chair."

Misha said it in such a way that Raymond didn't move. He moved back a little but kept his hands folded on the table. Misha smiled.

"Seriously, what's with this place? Everyone acts like they got something plugging up their butthole look at those two faggots in the corner staring at me. I got a bad case of BOor something?"

Bouchard, sensing that the attention in the room had turned to them, said, "Misha, please. You're creating a scene. At least watch your language and keep your voice down."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Misha said, waving his hand dismissively. He looked over the menu, blew out a long pink bubble and then snapped it.

He handed the menu back to the waiter and said, "I'll have the caviar for starters, the good stuff, not the cheap shit, followed by the chef's tasting menu. And bring another bottle of this foofy wine. Then I want you and your buddy over there leaning against the wall to scram.

Be fucking polite and give us some privacy."

Raymond shifted in his chair. The wine was over three hundred dollars a bottle.

"Excellent choice, sir," the waiter said and turned, thankful to be gone.

Misha watched the waiter leave and then surveyed the room, watching with amusement as everyone turned back to their plates and conversations.

"What were you doing in that apartment?" he asked.

Fuck. He's been following me.

Misha looked back at Bouchard for an answer.

"Interviewing a source," Raymond replied and felt a sinking feeling inside his chest. He glanced out the window and looked at the people bundled up in their coats walking along the sidewalks under the streetlights and the bald trees, a knot twisting inside his stomach. If he finds out what happened, he'll hand it over to his boss, andAlexi will have another fucking thing to hold over my head.

Not unless you kill them off, a voice countered.

"Why are you following me, Misha?"

"Alexi wants to make sure nothing happens to you. You're our most prized asset." Misha grinned and blinked an eye at him.

"By the way, I appreciate you letting my boys take a look around Delburn. The place was a gold mine of info on this cocksucker Angel Eyes."

"I didn't sanction your men to destroy my communications systems."

"I wanted it to look authentic. The boys at Delburn didn't mind."

Raymond had authorized the hit. It didn't bother him. He felt no guilt because this was business. His men understood that when they signed on.

"Because of what you did at Delburn, I have no way of knowing what Conway talked about inside the lab," Bouchard said.

"I was there. He didn't say anything interesting." Misha grinned and blew out another bubble.

Raymond looked at Misha, at his big shit-eating grin, and thought, Go ahead and keep smiling, you stupid fucking pig. Your days are numbered.

"Relax, it was a clean hit," Misha said.

"Looks like Angel Eyes raided the place and then went ape shit Now all you need to do is press a few buttons on a keyboard and these guys will disappear."

"It doesn't work that way."

"Pin it all on Angel Eyes."

Raymond had pinned it on Angel Eyes. In fact, he had planted electronic trails suggesting that John McFadden, the CIA operative turned Russian spy, had access to certain restricted computer folders on the IWAC group. McFadden was viewed as the source of the leak. But that didn't mean Raymond could be careless.