One Child (3 page)

Chapter

4

Soho, New York City

"When do you start?"
Nicki
asked.

"July 29
th
,"
Carson
said. He stirred a touch of cilantro into the spaghetti sauce and tasted it. Perfect. He spread it on the steaming noodles and sat opposite
Nicki
at the rickety table.

"That's tomorrow." She broke a piece of bread and dipped it in the sauce, then bit into it and rolled her eyes back, a smile on her face. She touched her napkin against thin lips. Her hand unconsciously traced the bones above her gaunt cheeks. "This is good. Really good."

He smiled. "I'm not trying to take over the kitchen. It's still your domain."

She toyed with the strands of pasta for a minute, then said, "It's getting harder,
Carson
. I don't know how much longer I can cook."

He reached across the table and touched her hand. She had never asked to be born with cystic fibrosis. The disease was genetic. It just happened. "We can deal with it."

She grasped his hand and squeezed. "Why are you marrying me?" she asked. "You know this isn't forever."

"I'll take whatever time I can have with you." He looked around the cramped room, at the peeling cabinets and scratched laminate. The wallpaper had teapots on a floral background and the curtains were striped polyester. Two years was too long. Twenty-four months of living in a rental that needed work while they saved every extra dollar toward a place of their own. He was done with the apartment.
Nicki
deserved more than this for the waning years of her short life. "Let's hand in our notice and move."

"When?"

"Now," he said. "We have the down payment for a small place in Midtown. The new position is almost twice my salary and the bonuses will push it to four times. I'll check around the office and see if anyone knows a good Realtor."

Nicki
set her fork on the side of the plate. Her breathing was shallow and she coughed, bringing up liquid into her napkin.

Carson
stood and came around to her side of the table. He knelt on the chipped lino and pulled her against him. She shuddered and sucked air into her damaged lungs, tears running freely. This was the hardest part of their relationship. Making
Nicki
understand that he didn't want to be with anyone else. That there was no pity in the gamut of emotions he felt for her. Love, caring, adoration - but not pity. Not an ounce.

He wanted to tell her that he had lied to William
Fleming
about why he was marrying her. It had nothing to do with commitment. It had everything to do with love. But that was one secret he would take with him to the grave. He would never repeat those words again. Ever. He'd assessed the moment and guessed at what the man wanted to hear. The reward was a job almost every Massachusetts Institute of Technology MBA would kill to have. High Frequency Trades accounted for over seventy percent of the daily stock trades in the US. And he was running the division of a major player. It was an opportunity to influence business on a global scale. The chance of a lifetime. Telling
Fleming
he was marrying
Nicki
because he had committed to her was a white lie with no downside.

If that was the truth, he wondered why did he feel so dirty.

Carson
lifted her chin and wiped a tear from her cheek. "You and I," he said quietly, "are going to find a nice, cozy place close to the park. We'll get a dog and call it some stupid name that means something to us and no one else. And we'll walk the little guy every day."

"Every day," she repeated. The tears had stopped. "Dogs need walking every day."

"Except when it's brutally cold."

"Okay."

"And raining or sleeting or snowing. Or too hot. We can't walk him if it's too hot."

She smacked him on the arm. "Let's get a wiener dog. A little brown one. They're cute."

He shook his head. "No way. They take too long to let in when it's cold outside."

"Funny," she said. She kissed him and pushed him away. "Go back to your side of the table and eat your dinner. You're only over here because you're after my spaghetti sauce."

Nicki
finished her dinner and headed for the living room. She plopped into her favorite spot on the couch and flicked on the television. A news program was on but it didn't register. She was thinking about
Carson
- and her disease.

The CF was progressing. Attacking whatever healthy cells were left in her lungs. Making it almost impossible to get enough air. It was like breathing through a tiny tube - constantly feeling like she was asphyxiating. Which she was. Not quite enough to kill her. Not yet. But that was coming, and faster than she had hoped. She was a realist and had long accepted that she wouldn't live a long life. No children, few plans for the future, and until a couple of years ago, no partner. No one to share the days and nights with. Until
Carson
.

She glanced into the kitchen. He was at the sink doing the dishes. She wanted to help, to wash or dry, but it wasn't possible. The effort was too much. The last time she had tried to stand for long enough to clean the kitchen she had collapsed. Broke her finger when she threw her hand out to cushion the fall. That was the last time he had allowed her to stand at the sink for any length of time. Most days he came home from work, cooked dinner, served it, ate and cleaned the mess. Then he sat on the couch with her and held her hand as they watched a movie or one of their favorite programs. She teared up watching him. He was so kind, so thoughtful, so loving. And he was hers.

He wanted to marry her. A woman with end-stage cystic fibrosis. On the list for a lung transplant. Waiting. Enduring each day, hoping for the call that might extend her life. She had no idea why he loved her. He did though, and that was good enough.

"What's on?"
Carson
asked, joining her.

"Good movie on HBO."

"Romantic comedy?"

"Boy movie." She snuggled in against him. "You deserve it. Big promotion at work, excellent spaghetti sauce, and you cleaned the kitchen. I think you should have a movie with guns and stuff."

"You're the best,"
Carson
grinned.

* * *

Midtown Manhattan, New York City

Fleming
dialed Jorge Amistav's cell phone and waited. He hated waiting. Line-ups. Traffic lights. Ringing telephones. Waiting on things or people cost him money. He had calculated the rate his net worth was increasing, then broke it down to the second. If he added an additional five-hundred million a year to his bottom line, and there were 31,536,000 seconds in each twelve month period, then he was earning $15.85 every second of every day. He counted silently as he waited. Amistav answered after five rings - twenty-seven seconds. Waiting for the arms dealer to answer the phone had cost him $427.95 in lost time.

"I have a couple of questions about the deal,"
Fleming
said.

"Go ahead."

"Where will the arms be deployed?"

"The 5
th
Stryker Brigade, 2
nd
Infantry Division is entrenched in Spin Buldak. It's in Afghanistan, about 60 miles from Kandahar. The delivery works well for them."

"Why?"

"The Stryker is an eight-wheel armored combat vehicle that carries six to eight Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank rockets. The soldiers accompanying the Strykers can blow up buildings where snipers or Taliban troops are hiding. Problem is, the Javelins cost eighty grand each, so the military brass only put two, maybe three, on each vehicle. The infantry hate that. So we come in with two hundred and fifty of these things and they love us. That puts a cool twenty million in your pocket."

"You can reroute the Javelins to Spin Buldak?"

"Easily. We make sure it's a normal shipment, with a couple of 81mm Mortars, some M134D mini guns and the M-4s."

"M-4s?"

"The M-4 is an M-16 with a shorter barrel and a collapsible stock."

"Okay. So is that the entire shipment?"

"That's it. We'll throw in a few cases of ammo so the thing looks legit."

"What's the cost on the mini guns and the large bore mortars?"

"The mortars are one-point-five each and the mini guns run about a quarter million."

"Two hundred and fifty thousand for a mini gun?"

"That's not a very accurate name. They fire three thousand 7.62mm rounds a minute. Nasty machines."

"What about the M-4s? They're cumbersome. Can we eliminate them?"

"The small arms are part of the deal. It's all or nothing. My guy won't ship the big-ticket items without including the rifles. He's adamant on that."

Fleming
toyed with the idea of simply hanging up and getting on with the next deal. There was risk associated with Amistav's proposal. What bothered him most was the bulk of the shipment. The M4s didn't add much profit to the bottom line. Still, thirty-five million and no tax. It would buy him a house and yacht in St. Bart's. He didn't have a place in the Caribbean. Hadn't since he'd sold his Cayman Island estate in 2006. He liked the Caribbean. A new place would be nice.

"If I can invoice the Pentagon through a shell corporation I have in the Caribbean, you have a deal," he said.

"That's between you and the Pentagon."

Fleming
ran through the paper trail in his mind. The shell corporation was registered in the Cayman Islands, and it was linked to a second numbered company in the Seychelles. The board of directors for the Seychelles company was six men spread over four Eastern European countries. All of them fictitious. The money coming in to both the companies was forwarded through a chain of offshore bank accounts. Providing the money was legitimate, each bank was protective of their client's identities. And few things were more legitimate than a check from the US military. He could make it work without the trail leading back to him.

"My net is thirty-five million US dollars, after expenses?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'll wire you three-point-five million to cover half your fee and the cash to purchase the weapons." There was a pause and
Fleming
knew the man was deciding whether or not to complain about not getting his entire fee upfront. "You still there?"

"Yeah. That's fine. You have my account number?" Amistav tried to sound upbeat but irritation clouded his voice.

"Probably, from the last deal we did. E-mail it to me just in case. Send it to my private e-mail, not my Platinus one."

"Okay," Amistav said.

Fleming
hung up and walked over to the window. New York was a different city from forty-seven floors above the sidewalks that ran along the Avenue of the Americas. Quieter. More refined. It lost the raw edge that the street injected. The constant bombardment of noise and activity that saturated every pore of Midtown Manhattan. He liked the city both ways. It depended on his mood. There were times when he walked the streets, another worker among a throng of similar faces and suits that crowded the concrete, enjoying the congestion. Other times, like tonight, he preferred his perch far above the streetscape. Sterile. Removed from the mundane world.

Dusk was throwing long shadows over Central Park, and he turned back to his office. His desk was clean, only one sheet of paper left from the day's business. The cover page on
Carson
Grant. The young MBA was a good pick. He was bright and ambitious. But the defining trait that had won
Carson
the coveted job was his detachment from emotion. It would serve the job description well. He pushed the paper to the side of his desk and touched the computer mouse. The screen lit up and he searched for a phone number in his directory. Trey Miller. Florida area code. He wondered why this particular man lived in Florida. It seemed so out of character. He dialed the number and lifted the phone from its cradle.

"Yes?"

Fleming
liked Miller. His one-word greetings and answers. Decisive and intelligent. "Trey, it's Bill
Fleming
."

"Good evening, Mr.
Fleming
."

"I have something I'd like you to look into."

"Where and when?" Miller asked.

"Moscow. The latter part of August."

"I can make that work."

"We should meet,"
Fleming
said.

"I can be in New York by Friday."

"Ten in the morning. The east side of Bryant Park."

"Between the library and the lawn?" Miller asked.

"Yes. There are lots of tables and chairs. Shouldn't be a problem finding an open one at that time of day."

"Fine. I'll see you there at ten o'clock."

Fleming
ended the call and set the phone back in its cradle. Trey Miller was ex-CIA, a covert operative who was tied into the underbelly of American interests throughout the world. He refused to talk about the twenty-one years he had spent with the agency, other than to say it was an interesting time in his life.
Fleming
had spent over a million dollars digging into Miller's past and had managed to piece together a hazy picture of the agent's time with the agency. None of it was pretty.

Miller had left a trail of dead foreign agents across the Baltics and the breakaway republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. He spoke six languages fluently, including Russian, and could enter and exit countries without leaving a trail. Trey Miller was a very dangerous chameleon. And perhaps the man who could derail the concert and disgrace Dimitri
Volstov
. Just thinking about yanking
Volstov
down a few notches on the world ladder brought a smile to his face. He harbored few grudges, but this was one that refused to die. It was time to do something about it, and Moscow was looking to be the place. He'd find out on Friday when he talked to Miller.

Revenge. Served cold. He liked the sound of that.