The First Billion (17 page)

And straightening her body, she summoned the will to open the study door.
I’m a dangerous woman,
she thought proudly, taking another step.
I can plug a nickel at twenty paces. I can
—

She didn’t hear him coming. Not a footstep or a whisper or even a breath of wind. One second she was alone, the next a large, sweaty hand had clamped itself over her mouth. Cate struggled to turn, to drive an elbow back and into his ribs as she’d learned in self-defense class, but the man was upon her, pulling her into his body, his free hand locking onto her wrist, wrenching the gun loose with one furious twist.

“We’re in the library,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you to join us.”

Cate stopped squirming and allowed the man to guide her into her study.

Two men stood by the safe. They’d managed to open it, God knows how. One was perusing her journals, the other tearing through her desk. She knew their type, if not their names. The crew cuts, the aggressive eyes, the pumped-up shoulders and size-twenty necks.

“What are you looking for?” she said when he’d removed his hand.

“You know what,” replied the man holding her. “Why are you talking to the police?”

“I’m not.” Her fear had vanished, cowering before her mammoth indignation. “You’re wasting your time.”

“We’ll see.”

He let her go and spun her around, and for a moment she thought that was it, he was moving to the rough stuff right away. She had no illusions about her ability to guard her secrets. If they beat her, she would talk. Instead, the man brushed by her and devoted himself to a tour of her bookshelves. She remained where she was, quiet, suddenly embarrased by her nudity, covering herself.

After a few minutes, the man gave up his perfunctory search. “Anything?” he asked, turning to his colleagues.

Shrugs were their only response.

He approached Cate, taking her face in his meaty hands and bringing it close to his. He was older, with pitted cheeks, black eyes, and a slit for a mouth. “Keep your mouth closed,” he whispered. “Understand?”

When Cate didn’t answer, an angry expression contorted his face. “Understand?” he said again, squeezing her cheeks and twisting her jaw.

“Yes,” she managed to grunt. “I understand.”

A minute later they were gone, leaving the front door open behind them. Cate walked to the door and shut it. As an afterthought, she turned on the alarm. But as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, a smile of bitter satisfaction played on her lips.

She had them on the run.

20

Stop it there!” shouted Howell Dodson, deputy assistant director of the FBI, slapping a palm onto his desk. “I want to hear the last part again.”

Roy DiGenovese reset the digital recorder, punching the play button when he’d gone back exactly thirty-one seconds. A tinny voice began to speak, the Eastern European accent faintly noticeable.

“And what about the Private Eye-PO?”
asked Konstantin Kirov.
“What do you plan on doing to him? Surely you do not expect us to sit still while our good name is besmirched.”

“
I have some people on it already,”
answered Jett Gavallan.
“With any luck, we’ll have him located by tomorrow, day after at the latest.”

“And then? All of us have our part to play to insure Mercury’s future. We expect you to take any and all measures to silence this man. Nothing can stand in the way of Mercury Broadband’s going public. Nothing.”

“And nothing will. I’ll see to it the Private Eye-PO’s mouth is shut—permanently, if I have my way. In the meantime, these receipts refute his accusations nicely. I’d say we’re back on track.”

“
Good,
” said Kirov.
“It’s time to put an end to this tomfoolery. There’s already been enough snooping.”

The recording ended, and DiGenovese turned the machine off.

It was eleven-thirty in Washington, D.C., and outside the temperature registered a sweltering ninety-two degrees. From his office on the second floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Howell Dodson, chairman of the Joint Russo-American Task Force on Organized Crime, could see the early lunch crowd making their way to the mall in hopes of staking out shaded benches or dipping their big toes in the Reflecting Pool. It wasn’t much of a view. The prime offices were on the opposite side of the building, facing south and offering a panoramic vista of the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and Mr. Thomas Jefferson, fellow Son of Virginia. One day he hoped to gaze out at the Lord of Monticello, but good views required good politicking, and good politicking required a cunning he did not possess.

“What do you say, Roy?” Dodson asked in a slow Williamsburg drawl, his voice the texture of cured tobacco. “Mr. Gavallan talking prudent business practice or did we just hear collusion among conspirators?”

“That depends on Mercury, sir. If the business is legit, I’d say we listened to a bunch of execs who want to stop someone from bad-mouthing their stock. If not, we just tuned in to a group of criminals discussing murder. Me, I opt for the latter. I think we caught some crooks red-handed.”

“So the Private Eye-PO is correct? Mercury’s nothing but ‘a scam dog with mucho fleas’? That what you’re saying, Roy?”

“We’re getting the same information from our informant in Moscow. Why shouldn’t we believe it?”

Dodson couldn’t help but chuckle. Three years in the Bureau and Mr. DiGenovese still considered an informant’s cant the holy scripture. The boy was a greenhorn. Yes sir. Nothing but a big-city hick. Dodson himself wasn’t so much interested in whether what the Private Eye-PO said was correct as in how he came to be in possession of the information. And for that matter, just who in the hell he was. “What’s the latest on finding this boy? Mr. Chupik have any luck?”

Lyle Chupik was the Bureau’s in-house webhead and the man who’d been charged with tracking down the Private Eye-PO.

“Nothing yet, sir,” said DiGenovese. “Says he’s close to nabbing him, though.”

“Close?” Dodson lifted a thumb beneath his suspenders and let them slap on his chest. “Close don’t count but for horseshoes and hand grenades. Isn’t that right, Mr. DiGenovese? Mr. Gavallan seems to think he’ll have him located today. That leaves us one step behind. And I don’t like stomping through another horse’s droppings,” he whispered, with just a smattering of menace. “Follow?”

“Likewise, sir.”

“Good boy. It’s time we considered using an outside source. Find me the name of that odd fella does some consulting for us. If I’m not mistaken, he doesn’t live too far away. Get him in here this afternoon and put him to work. Here’s a dollar. Go buy Mr. Chupik a couple of those chocolate Yoo-Hoos he’s so fond of, and tell him better luck next time.”

Howell Ames Dodson IV was a Son of the South and ever proud of it. He was tall and lanky, with a shock of brown hair that fell boyishly into devilish blue eyes that teased the world from behind a scholar’s half-moon glasses. He favored poplin suits in the summer, worsted gabardine in the fall, and the finest manners all year round. He liked smartly striped shirts, exuberant ties, snazzy cuff links, and pocket squares. He was foppish and a bit of a dandy, and if anyone cared to say a word about it, he’d point them to his unmatched arrest-to-conviction ratio, the commendations he’d received from the President of the United States, and a certain article in the
Washington Post
he kept tucked away in his desk for just such occasions.

The article described the shooting of four Georgian mafiosi by an unnamed FBI agent in a sting gone sour in the city of Tbilisi late last summer. The article was sketchy in parts. It failed to mention that the agent had shot the men after escaping from their custody or that he’d pulled off the feat fifteen minutes after having two fingers on his left hand severed with a carpet knife.

Sliding the digital recorder toward himself, Dodson listened to the pirated conversation again. “So, Roy,” he said when the recording ended. “Think our boy isn’t content with a little innocent fraud? That why you asked for this crash meeting? According to you, Mr. Gavallan’s joining the big leagues. Premeditated murder is moving up the ladder p.d.q., wouldn’t you say?”

“Sir, the Mercury offering is for two billion dollars,” answered DiGenovese, leaning across the desk. “Leagues don’t get much bigger than that.”

“No, son, they do not,” said Dodson, rocking in his chair, tapping a pencil on his weathered shipwright’s desk, a nineteenth-century antique on loan from the Dodson Family Collection. “Just wish that damned recording didn’t make them all sound like robots. Hard to tell if Gavallan’s joking or if he’s serious.”

“Sir, with all due respect, when an associate of a known criminal talks about permanently getting rid of someone, I think that qualifies as serious. Our job is to take a man at his word, not to guess his intentions.”

Such fire, mused Dodson, looking at the lean, vital young man seated across the desk. Such drive. His hair was ruffled, his suit wrinkled and in need of a press, but his black eyes were awake and dancing with a mean-spirited ambition. DiGenovese was the kind of agent who wanted to arrest the whole damned world to keep it safe for the police.

“Come now, Roy, we both know that conversation doesn’t amount to a hill of beans,” he said kindly. “It wouldn’t hold a drop in any court in the land. Between you and me, I doubt it would even garner an indictment from so docile a beast as a sitting grand jury. I will grant you one thing, though: It does appear that Mr. Gavallan and Mr. Kirov are closer friends than any of us thought.”

Dodson could have added that contrary to DiGenovese’s opinion, Kirov was hardly a known criminal, but he didn’t want to dampen the boy’s enthusiasm. DiGenovese’s killer instinct was about all the task force had going for it these days. Truth was, Kirov hadn’t ever been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. Not that Dodson didn’t think Kirov was dirty. It was just that these days you could label any businessman worth his salt in Russia a suspected criminal. What with all the bribery, extortion, and strong-arming that went on to make the wheels of everyday commerce go round, if you looked closely enough just about anybody was guilty of one infraction or another.

“Now do tell, Roy, what did your team find in Mr. Gavallan’s private chambers? Love notes between him and Mr. Kirov? Written promises about how they’re going to split the booty? Plans to overthrow the President?”

“No sir,” DiGenovese answered without a hint of regret, going on to explain that they hadn’t found any documents of an incriminating nature, not with regard to Mercury, Novastar Airlines, or anything else. The bugs were clean too. Only thing they learned was that Gavallan liked to listen to country music. Before going to the ball last night, he’d sat in the bath for half an hour singing along to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

“Bob Wills, eh?” asked Dodson, cleaning his bifocals with a hankie. “At least Mr. Gavallan has himself some taste. Still, it is a shame. Going to all that trouble for nothing. A damned shame indeed.” And though his voice displayed no irritation, he was, in fact, hopping mad. Howell Dodson wanted Kirov more than the headstrong Mr. DiGenovese or Mr. Baranov combined. It wasn’t ambition but realism that told him the trajectory of his career depended on it.

Konstantin Kirov had popped onto the Bureau’s radar half a year back, when Yuri Baranov had launched an investigation into allegations Kirov was embezzling from Novastar Airlines, the country’s recently privatized national carrier. Three months into the case, the Russian authorities had managed to slip an informant into Kirov’s head office. Since that time, all he’d unearthed were a few documents relating to some shell companies in Switzerland and Kirov’s connection with the Dashamirov brothers, a trio of Chechen warlords-cum-businessmen with whom he held interests in some aluminum smelting factories in Perm and a chain of used-car dealerships. As for Novastar, they hadn’t managed to find a thing linking Kirov to the missing $125 million, and Dodson had his doubts as to whether the Russian was involved at all—or, to be honest, whether the money was missing in the first place.

The link to Gavallan came as an adjunct to the Novastar inquiry. Baranov’s informant had whispered that Mercury Broadband was being used to launder the funds Kirov had skimmed from Novastar. Hence the surveillance on Gavallan. Hence the “Daisy” taps that monitored every E-mail going into and out of Black Jet securities. So far, the Russian stoolie hadn’t provided a shred of evidence to back up his claims, and Dodson had taken to wondering if the scuttlebutt on Mercury’s Moscow operations center and its failure to purchase adequate routers and switches for its IP backbone weren’t just diversions to justify the informant’s five-thousand-dollar monthly retainer, all of which came from Howell Dodson’s operational budget.

“Sir, I’d like to bring in Gavallan immediately,” suggested DiGenovese. “Rustle his feathers a little, question him about his dealings with Kirov.”

“The point being?” asked Dodson, with a little pepper. “Only thing you’d get out of him is an invitation to speak with his lawyer. No, son, we’ll bring in Gavallan if and when we charge him with a crime. Right now, let’s keep the focus on Mr. Kirov, where it belongs.”

“But, sir—”

Dodson cut him short with an icy glare. Like every agent who worked for the FBI, he thought twice these days about whom he did and did not arrest. After Whitewater and the special prosecutor’s spending forty million dollars of the public’s money for little more than a cum-stained dress and a couple of iffy convictions, the government had become more demanding before allowing its lawyers to get involved. These days, the powers that be were asking for a 90 percent probability of conviction before they’d even look at a case. Law enforcement had become a business. Guys like Howell Dodson had to demonstrate a good ROA if they wanted to move up in the ranks, “ROA” meaning “return on
attorneys,
” not
assets
. And that “return” was convictions.

“Trouble with you, Roy, is that you’ve got too much piss and vinegar running through your veins. This isn’t some Sunday afternoon raid in downtown Mogadishu. We are conducting a sound and systematic investigation into the alleged wrongdoings of some very sophisticated personalities. Time we slow down, examine the evidence.”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, amen,” sang Dodson. “Finally, we agree on something.” And he offered his subordinate an approving nod to let him know there were no hard feelings.

Dodson had come to the Bureau late in life, abandoning a promising career as a CPA with an international accounting firm to help balance the scales of justice. Taxes were his bag, but sometime after his thirtieth birthday he’d undergone a conversion. The private sector wasn’t for him, he decided. Helping one bigwig after another whittle down their tax exposure brought scant satisfaction. He certainly didn’t need the money. The Dodsons were comfortable, thank you very much, Southern planters who’d moved from corn to tobacco to semiconductors without a backward glance. So on a whim, he quit, joined the FBI, and became a thirty-one-year-old neophyte loping over the O-course at Quantico, acing his criminal justice exams, and taking target practice with an H&K 9mm. Time of his life.

As chairman of the Joint Russo-American Task Force on Organized Crime—or the “ratfuckers,” as some wiseacre in forensics had nicknamed it—Howell Dodson’s mandate was to corral acts of racketeering associated with business endeavors aimed toward the West. In sixty months of operations they’d jailed crooked oil salesmen, murderous rug merchants, and every type of illegal operator in between.

Of late, however, pickings had been lean. Nine months had passed since the last arrest was made, and talk had surfaced about shuttering the task force, assigning its members to more productive areas of the Bureau. Feelers were put out to Dodson about taking a posting to Mexico City as the Bureau’s liaison to the
Federales
. It was a lateral move in title, but came with a higher pay-grade salary and a diplomatic allowance. Dodson read it as recompense for his two fingers and wanted none of it. Margaritas, mariachis, and menudo, he summed it up, cringing at the prospect.
No, gracias.

Mr. John J. Gavallan hadn’t been the only man cheering when Kirov entered his life.

“Roy, I want you to humor me,” said Dodson, easing back in his chair. “If you’re so sure Gavallan’s in cahoots with Kirov, start from the get-go and make your case against him. It’ll be good for you to polish those argumentative skills. But make it quick. The missus is due in any minute.”

Dodson had recently become a father for the second time. At the age of forty-two, he’d been presented with twin baby boys to go along with his sixteen-year-old daughter. Every day at noon, Mrs. Dodson stopped by to leave her boisterous infants with their father while she whipped by Lord & Taylor and Britches of Georgetown to pick up a few household necessities.