The Fifth Man (16 page)

“Utter nonsense.”

“I agree. Still, have you heard anything?”

“We hear things all the time.”

“I’m sure you do, but as to next Tuesday, the eleventh?”

“Max said something about the Chechans.”

Chris raised his eyebrows, elongating as he did the lightning bolt between his eyes. When he did this he could feel the scar tissue stretching, a silent reminder of his encounter with the Russian he had come to call the Wolf. The scar didn’t bother him, but the memory of the saliva on his face did. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said, his voice neutral, but not quite friendly.

“Who are you, Mr. Massi?” Kovarik asked. “We have you categorized as an immensely wealthy, highly sophisticated Mafia boss.”

“And Max?” Chris asked. “How have you categorized him?”

“I am here because of him.”

“We’re old friends,” Chris said.

“I understand, but…”

“Let me make myself as clear as I can,” Chris said, as Kovarik’s voice trailed off. “Max works for me. If I told him to kill you and your assistant right now, he would do it without the slightest hesitation. Do you understand?”

Chris kept his eyes on Kovarik while the Czech agent thought this over, and Max, who had not said a word after introducing Kovarik and his associate, cleared his throat.

“Whoever you are, your cover is very good,” Kovarik said.

“Not good enough,” Chris said. “Dravic didn’t pick me out of the phonebook.” Throughout this exchange, Chris’s tone of voice had remained not friendly but not hostile, his face, except for his eyes, expressionless. It was the look in these dark, almost black eyes, that he knew had stopped Kovarik in mid-sentence.

“No,” the Czech said.

“You kicked the Russians out,” Chris continued, “but don’t underestimate them. They’re very good at this. Something very nasty is about to happen. I can feel it in my bones. My Sicilian bones.”

Kovarik nodded. His assistant, a young technician, had pushed himself as far back in his chair as he could. He had seen the look in Chris’s eyes as well, and did not want this Max French person to end his life before it had really begun.

“So,” Chris said. “We will divert for a second. Dravic
did
mention Caucasus Emirates, as Max
did
in fact tell you. Are they on your radar?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“We have been watching two Russian couples who are here on work visas.”

“Why?”

“We don’t think they are Russian.”

“Why?”

“We profile, and we have a facial scanner at the airport that tells us generally where people have their roots. Their blood roots.”

“Did they come up as Chechan?”

“Yes.”

“Why are they here?”

“They are members of Russia’s delegation to the UN’s Human Rights Council. The fall council session is underway here.”

“What have they been doing?”

“Nothing. Working, having dinner out.”

“Visitors?”

“They live in a high-rise, so no. We have a few pictures of them out with friends. I’ll send them to you.”

“What about the street entrance, the lobby, the elevators?”

“Nothing. We have lots of pictures, which we’ve run through our computers as well as Europol’s, but no matches, no one on our radar or even close.”

“I’d like the whole file.”

“Of course.” Kovarik nodded to his assistant, who nodded back.

Chris had risen early to swim in the penthouse’s pool, first calling Max to arrange this meeting with Stefan Kovarik, who was ostensibly the owner of an English language school in the office building behind the Europa, but in reality worked for SIS, the Czech equivalent of the CIA. His associate, a teacher at the school, had just swept the penthouse for bugs. Chris was dressed casually, in tan slacks and a lightweight navy blue sweater over a snow-white collared shirt. His black hair was still wet from his swim and shower, a morning ritual, an ablution of sorts that he tried to perform wherever he was in the world.

They were sitting, Chris and Max facing Kovarik and his assistant, in a quiet room off of Chris’s study that had a view straight down the café- and hotel-lined Vaclavske Namesti to the Wenceslas Monument and the National Museum. The famous square and the broad avenue were nearly empty. A lone street cleaner and a couple of waiters setting outdoor tables for early coffee drinkers and tourists were going about their business, their deliberate movements accentuating rather than marring the stillness. In the pink early morning air, there hovered the spirits—their presence felt by all Czechs as a chill down the spine—of the crowds of people that had animated, and immortalized, the square with cries of freedom in November, 1989.

“Is anything happening in the square on the eleventh?” Chris asked.

“The national museum has been closed,” Kovarik replied, “undergoing an extensive renovation. The ribbon-cutting for the reopening is that day and there is an American exhibition that will debut.”

“What time?”

“One p.m.”

“Who will cut the ribbon?”

“President Klaus. I believe Mrs. Clinton will be present.”

All were silent as this sunk in.

“What exactly is the intelligence that the Russians have?” Kovarik asked.

“I don’t know,” Chris replied. “I was told that when I arrived in Prague I was to call a certain number to arrange a meeting.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I have been invited to a reception for the new Iranian ambassador at the Russian Embassy on Friday night. I assume someone will approach me.”

“The Jiri Popper House,” Kovarik said. “His daughter is suing to get it back.”

“I wish her luck,” Chris said. He knew the history of Jiri Popper, the wealthy Jewish businessman, whose elegant mansion in the leafy Bubenic section of Prague had been confiscated by the Germans in the war and the Russians afterward. He had met Popper’s daughter, Lisbeth, at a reception in New York in 2009 and later donated to her legal fund.

“Tell me, Mr. Massi,” Kovarik went on, “on what basis would you be invited to this reception?”

“I deliver crude oil all over the Mediterranean. I have Russian clients.”

Kovarik, with short sandy hair, young for a man in such a position, no more than thirty-five, turned to his left to look down at Wenceslas Square. Turning back, he pulled a pack of cigarettes and a gold lighter from a front pocket of his sport jacket. “May I?”

“Yes, be my guest,” Chris answered.

The Czech intelligence agent tapped a cigarette from the pack, a Murad, with thin blue stripes above the filter, lit it, inhaled, and blew out the chalky gray smoke. “I do not understand,” he said, “why the Kremlin feels the need for you to be involved.”

“I don’t either,” Chris said, “but I plan on finding out.”

“Shall I contact them?”

“No, I suggest we wait.”

“Have you dealt with the Russians on this level?” Kovarik asked.

“No.”

“Do they have a reason to want to harm you?”

“Not that I know of.”

Neither of these answers was true, but Chris did not want Kovarik to know more about him than was absolutely necessary. He knew more than enough already.

“I take it you’ve done this kind of thing before, Mr. Massi.”

“I have.”

“I can’t help you inside the Russian embassy.”

“Max will be with me.”

“Does it occur to you that
you
are the target? Or that you are being set up for something?”

“Yes.”

“But you have no idea why.”

“Correct.”

“Of course I don’t believe you.”

“I understand. It is your job to distrust people.”

“And to protect my country. If you live through your evening at the Popper House…”

“Yes?”

“You must report directly to me. I am now responsible for this operation.”

“Of course.”

“You will have no choice in the matter. I say this with respect.”

“I understand. Will you do me a favor?”

“If I can.”

“Keep an eye on Dravic. Tell me where he’s staying.”

Kovarik thought this over, then nodded, and said, “Yes, of course.”

“Thank you,” Chris said. “Please keep Max informed.”

The Czech intelligence agent nodded again, then said, “In the meantime I am going to pick up our Chechan love birds. Time is too short for anything else.”

Chris would have strung out—and intensified—the surveillance, but time
was
very short. In four days, the American Secretary of State and the Czech president could be killed, on sacred ground no less, with perhaps hundreds of collateral losses, a dagger plunged into the heart of Prague, of the Czech people. If the Chechan couples were professionals, it could take several days—possibly longer, possibly never—to get any useful information out of them. “Show them Dravic’s picture,” Chris said.

“I will, and I will run it through our system. Have you?”

“Yes. Nothing.”

“Until now.”

“Yes,” Chris said, “until now.”

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

“I don’t see anything,” Max French said.

“I don’t either,” Chris Massi replied.

Chris had bid Max stay behind after Kovarik and his assistant left. They were still in the same chairs, but leaning over the coffee table in front of them, staring at another eight-by-ten photograph of Marko Dravic in the lounge of the National Hotel in Moscow. On the right side of this picture was a slightly blurry woman in a black, strapless cocktail dress turning a corner. Just half of her appeared, the rear right. Her black hair was worn up, revealing a diamond earring on her right ear and the back of a glittering diamond necklace at her throat. Max had a magnifying glass in his hand, which he now put down. “That doesn’t mean it’s not there,” he said. “But not to worry, the Company could tell us in a few seconds.”

“I don’t want them involved.”

“Why? If she’s GRU or SVR, they’ll have a file on her, or they’ll open one.”

“Talk to Matt. Ask him to get his friend Diego Lopez to do it.”

“Chris…”

“They’ll ruin her.”

“You have other ideas.”

“I do.”

“Like what?”

“That will be up to her.”

Max nodded.

“Offer to help with the Chechans’s interrogation,” Chris said.

“Don’t insist?”

“No. I’ve insulted Kovarik enough. They’re good at it anyway, better than us maybe.”

“Anything else?”

“Send Kovarik’s surveillance file to Costa. There may be a match. He has the Moscow pictures and the boat pictures.”

“Do you want a copy?”

“Yes, and you look at it carefully, too.”

“You put a GPS tag on Dravic’s yacht?”

“Yes, it’s tagged. Costa’s people will watch him on shore.”

“Someday you’ll have to tell me about Costa. There’s nothing he can’t do or get done.”

Chris smiled, remembering the night in Athens seven years ago, Costa lying in a gutter, two men in leather jackets standing over him, pistols pointed at his head. “I will,” Chris said, “when you need to know. Just like you’ll tell me about yourself, the real Max French, when
I
need to know.”

Now Max smiled, thinking of his secrets, including the pictures in his wallet. “I’ve been out with Tess,” he said, pausing just a beat before continuing, “walking around Prague. She’s restless, and nervous about Arizona.”

“What would you do if it were your daughter?” Chris asked.

“I’d have killed Dravic.”

Chris did not respond.

“But I assume,” said Max.

“Assume what?”

“That you’re waiting.”

“Yes, I’m waiting. I’d like to find out who he works for first, who started all this, who had
me
in mind, and why. Then I’ll take care Mr. Dravic, or you will for me.”

31.

Prague, September 3, 2012, 8:00 a.m.

“Do you know what quantum entanglement encryption is, Matt?” Max French asked.

“No.”

“It’s an encryption system based on quantum mechanics.”

“Quantum mechanics?”

“Do you know what that is?”

“It’s a mathematical description of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter.”

“Christ, you
do
know.”

“It’s the end of the line for physics, Max. After quantum mechanics there’s God, and scientists don’t want to go there. They’d go insane.”