Buried Secrets Page 23

  His friends sniggered. He got up bashfully and followed her through the purple-lighted drapes to one of the private areas on the other side.

  Arkady’s bodyguards hustled over, but he waved them away.

  As I’d expected.

  Before they returned to the banquette I was gone.

  THE CURTAINED-OFF private-dance area where Cristal had led Arkady looked like a fake Victorian boudoir in a Nevada brothel. It had red velvet tufted walls, a shaggy red carpet, and a large red velvet bed with gold fringe. The lights were low.

  From behind the red curtains I could see the two of them enter.

  “—to make yourself nice and comfortable while I fetch us some champagne, all righty? You like Dom?”

  She settled him down on the bed and put her tongue in his ear and whispered, “I’ll be back in two shakes.”

  “Hey, where the hell you going?” the kid said. He had a flat, over-Americanized Russian accent.

  “Honey, when I get back I’m gonna take the top of your head off,” she said, slipping out through the curtains. Then I handed her a wad of bills, the second half of what I’d promised her.

  Arkady smiled contentedly, stretched like a cat, and called after her, “That a promise?”

  He didn’t notice me sidling up to the bed from the other side. I lunged, quick as a cobra, clapped a hand over his mouth and jammed my revolver against the side of his head. I cocked the trigger.

  “You ever see the top of a man’s head come off, Arkady?” I whispered. “I have. You never forget it.”

  73.

  Roman Navrozov owned the penthouse condominium in the Mandarin Oriental, with one of the great views of the city. He had been spending a lot of time in the city recently. He was trying to buy the New York Mets, whose owner had been hit pretty hard by the Bernard Madoff fraud.

  He felt safe in the Mandarin, according to my KGB friend Tolya. There were multiple layers of protection and several entrances and egresses. The vigilant staff were only his first line of defense.

  I was met in the lobby of the Residences by a slim, elegant, silver-haired man of around sixty. He wore an expensive navy pinstriped suit with a gold pocket square, perfectly folded.

  He introduced himself as Eugene, no last name: an “associate” of Mr. Navrozov.

  He reminded me of an English butler. Even though it was after midnight, and he knew I had just kidnapped his boss’s son, his demeanor was cordial. He knew I was here to transact business.

  As he led me toward Navrozov’s private elevator, I said, “I’m afraid there’s been a slight change in plans.”

  He turned around, arched his brows.

  “We won’t be meeting in his condo. I’ve reserved a room in the hotel, a few floors below.”

  “I’m quite sure Mr. Navrozov will not agree to that…”

  “If he ever wants to see his son again, he might want to be flexible,” I said. “But it’s up to him.”

  74.

  Fifteen minutes later, the elevator on the thirty-eighth floor opened, and five men emerged.

  Roman Navrozov and his small army of bodyguards moved with a military precision: one in front, one behind, and two on either side. These bodyguards seemed to be of a higher caliber than the cretins he assigned to his son. They wore good suits and curly earpieces like Secret Service agents wear. They were all armed and appeared to be wearing body armor. Their eyes briskly surveyed all angles of approach as they escorted their boss down the hallway.

  Roman Navrozov was a portly man, not tall, but he exuded authority. He could have been a Vatican cardinal emerging on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to proclaim, “Habemus papam.” He had hawkish eyebrows and an unnaturally black fringe of hair around a great bald dome. He reminded me a little of the actor who played Hercule Poirot on the British TV series.

  His thin lips were cruelly pursed in a regal glower. He wore a black blazer with one tail of his crisp white shirt untucked, as if he’d just thrown it on and was annoyed to be skulking around the halls of the hotel in the middle of the night.

  When they were halfway down the corridor, the lead guard made a quick hand gesture, and Navrozov stopped, flanked by the rest of his entourage. Meanwhile, the first guard approached the door, weapon out.

  He saw at once that the door was ajar, propped open on the latch of the security lock.

  He flicked his hand again, and a second guard joined him, then the two moved swiftly into position on either side of the door. The first one kicked the door open, and they burst in, weapons drawn, in classic “slicing the pie” formation.

  Maybe they were expecting an ambush. But since I was watching through the peephole in the room across the hall, they didn’t find anyone inside.

  Then I hit a number on my phone. “Moving into position one,” I said when it was picked up.

  “Roger that,” a voice replied.

  The voice belonged to a member of my Special Forces detachment named Darryl Amos. While I was in flight, Darryl had driven into the city from Fort Dix, New Jersey, where he worked as a convoy operations instructor. He’d checked into a true fleabag on West Forty-third called the Hotel Conroy. If you look it up on one of the travel websites, you’ll find it described as the filthiest hotel in the city. Not long ago a maid had discovered a body under a bed wrapped in a bedsheet. The sheet was reused, though they did launder it first.

  Then he waited for me, and Arkady Navrozov, in the alley behind the strip club.

  Right now Darryl was babysitting Roman Navrozov’s son at the Hotel Conroy. I was fairly certain the oligarch’s son had never seen its likes before.

  Satisfied that Navrozov’s men were simply doing their job—making sure their boss didn’t walk into a trap and not attempting anything more—I opened the door and crossed the hall.

  75.

  A minute later I was standing at the window a few feet away from the man who had masterminded Alexa Marcus’s kidnapping.

  We were alone in the room. He sat in a chair, legs crossed, looking imperious. “You’re a very trusting man,” he said.

  “Because I’m unarmed?”

  We both were. He rarely carried a weapon, and I’d surrendered mine. His guards were stationed in the hall right outside the door, which had been left propped open, by mutual agreement. I was sure they were prepared to burst in if their boss so much as coughed.

  He replied without even looking at me. “You say you have my son. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. In any case, now we have you.” He shrugged. Very matter-of-fact; very casual. “Now we have all the leverage we need.” He grinned. “So you see: You haven’t played this very well.”

  “You see that building?” I said.

  Directly across the street, looming like a great gleaming black monolith, was the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

  “A fine hotel, the Trump Tower,” Navrozov said. “I wanted to invest in Mr. Trump’s SoHo project, but your government blocked me.”

  “See that row of rooms right there?”

  I pointed again, this time to a line of dark windows. Offices, not hotel rooms, though he probably didn’t know that.

  Then I raised my hand, as if to wave, and a single window in the long dark row lit up.

  “Hello,” I said. “We’re right here.”

  I raised my hand again, and the window across the street went dark.

  “My friend over there is a world-class sniper,” I said.

  Navrozov shifted his body to one side, away from what he probably thought was the line of fire.

  “An army buddy?”

  “Actually, no. He’s from Newfoundland. Did you know some of the best sharpshooters in the world are Canadian?”

  “Perhaps, but at this distance—”

  “My Canadian friend holds the record for the longest confirmed combat sniper-shot kill. He hit a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan from two and a half kilometers away. Now, do you think we’re even one kilometer away from the Trump Tower?”

  He smiled
uncomfortably.

  “Try four hundred feet. You might as well have a bull’s-eye painted on your forehead. To my Canadian friend, you’re such a big fat easy target it’s not even fun.”

  His smile faded.

  “He’s using an American Tac-50 sniper rifle made in Phoenix. And fifty-caliber rounds made in Nebraska. It’s a hot round—ultra-low-drag tip and a flat trajectory.”

  “Your point?” he snapped.

  “The second any of your men approaches me, my friend across the street will drop you without a second’s hesitation. And did you know that this room connects with the two on either side? Yep. The doors between them are unlocked. The hotel management really couldn’t have been more accommodating to a group of old college buddies in town for a reunion.”

  He just stared. His eyelids drooped.

  “So am I trusting?” I said. “Not so much.”

  To my surprise, Navrozov laughed. “Well done, Mr. Heller.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you ever read O. Henry?”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “O. Henry was very popular in the Soviet Union when I was a child. My favorite was his story ‘The Ransom of Red Chief.’”

  “And I thought we were here to discuss your son.”

  “We are. In O. Henry’s story, a rich man’s son is kidnapped and held for ransom. But the boy is such a little terror that the kidnappers, who can’t stand him, keep dropping their ransom price. Until finally the father offers to take him off their hands if they pay him.”

  “Maybe you’d like to tell your son you don’t care what happens to him.” I turned to the laptop I’d set up on the desk and tapped at the keys to open a video chat window.

  “Here’s Red Chief,” I said.

  On the laptop screen was a live video feed of Arkady Navrozov, hair matted, against a grimy white plaster wall, a wide strip of duct tape over his mouth.

  He wasn’t wearing his black velvet jacket anymore.

  Instead, Darryl had put him in a medical restraint garment borrowed from the hospital at Fort Dix, used to immobilize and transport violent prisoners. It was an off-white cotton duck Posey straitjacket, with long sleeves that crossed in front and buckled in the back.

  The Posey wasn’t strictly necessary—Darryl probably could have duct-taped him to the chair—but it was an effective restraint. More important, it had its effect on Roman Navrozov. In the bad old days, Soviet “psychiatric prison hospitals” used them on political dissidents.

  I knew the sight would strike fear into Navrozov’s granite heart.

  His son was cowering. You could see the corner of a bed next to him, its coverlet a hideous shade of orange.

  Then you could see the barrel of a gun, with a long sound suppressor screwed onto the end, move into the frame and touch the side of the guy’s head. His eyes started moving wildly. He was trying to shout, but nothing was coming out except high, screeching, muffled sounds.

  His father glanced at the screen, then away, as if someone tiresome were trying to show him an unfunny YouTube clip.

  He sighed. “What do you want?” he said.

  76.

  “Simple,” I said. “I want Alexa Marcus released immediately.”

  Navrozov breathed softly in and out a few times. His eyes had gone hard.

  A few minutes ago he’d regarded me with something approaching admiration. Now he recognized me as a threat. I could see the predator instinct come out. He looked at me the way a wolf stalks his prey by staring it down, his body rigid.

  “Is this a name I should recognize?”

  I sighed, disappointed. “Neither one of us has time for games.”

  He smiled mirthlessly, a flash of long sharp teeth.

  “Where is she?” I said. “I want exact coordinates.”

  “When I hire a man to do a job, I don’t look over his shoulder.”

  “Somehow I doubt that. Guy like you, I bet you know exactly where she is and what they’re doing to her.”

  “They don’t know who I am, and I don’t know who they are. Much safer this way.”

  “Then how do you communicate with them?”

  “Through an intermediary. A cutout, I think is the term, yes?”

  “But you have some idea where they are.”

  A shrug. “I think New Hampshire. This is all I know.”

  “And where is your cutout located? Don’t tell me you don’t know that.”

  “In Maine.”

  “And how do you reach him?”

  He replied by pulling out his mobile phone. Wagged it at me. Put it back in his pocket.

  “Call him, please,” I said, “and tell him the operation is over.”

  His nostrils flared and his mouth tightened. It rankled him, I could see, to be spoken to that way. He wasn’t used to it.

  “It’s far too late for that,” he said.

  “Tell your men to close the door,” I said. “Tell them you want privacy.”

  He blinked, didn’t move.

  “Now,” I said.

  Maybe he saw something in my eyes. Whatever the reason, he gave me a dour glance and rose from the chair. He walked to the door, spoke in Russian, quickly and quietly. Then, pulling the security latch back, he let the door shut and returned to his chair.

  “Cancel the operation,” I said.

  He smiled. “You are wasting my time,” he said.

  Now I tapped a few keys on the laptop, and the video image began to move. Then, hitting another key to turn on the computer’s built-in microphone, I said, “Shoot him.”

  NAVROZOV LOOKED at me, blinked. A slight furrow of the brow, a tentative smile.

  He didn’t believe me.

  On the laptop screen there was sudden movement. A scuffle.

  The camera jerked as if someone had bumped against the laptop on the other end. Now you could see only half of the kid’s body, his shoulder and arm in the white duck fabric of his Posey straitjacket.

  And the black cylinder of the sound suppressor screwed onto the end of Darryl’s Heckler & Koch .45.

  Navrozov was staring now. “You don’t think I will possibly believe—”

  Darryl’s hand gripped the pistol. His forefinger slipped into the trigger guard.

  Navrozov’s eyes widened, raptly watching the image on the screen.

  Darryl’s finger squeezed the trigger.

  The loud pop of a silenced round. A slight muzzle flash as the pistol recoiled.

  Navrozov made a strange, strangled shout.

  His son’s scream was muted by the duct tape. His right arm jerked and a hole opened in his upper arm, a spray of blood, a blotch of red on the white canvas.

  Arkady Navrozov’s arm twisted back and forth, his agony apparent, the chair rocking, and then I clicked off the feed.

  “Svoloch!” Navrozov thundered, his fist slamming the desk. “Proklyaty sukin syn!”

  A pounding at the door. His guards.

  “Tell them to stand down,” I said, “if you’d like to discuss how to save your son’s life.”

  Enraged, face purpling, he staggered out of his chair and over to the door and gasped, “Vsyo v poryadke.”

  He came back, stood with folded arms. Just stared at me.

  “All right,” I said. “Call your cutout and tell him the operation is over.”

  He stared for a few seconds. Then he took out his mobile phone, punched a single button, and put it to his ear.

  After a few seconds, he spoke in Russian, quickly and softly.

  “Izmeneniya v planakh.” He paused, and then: “Nyet, ya ochen’ seryozno. Seichas. Osvobodit’ dyevushku. Da, konyeshno, svyazat’ vsye kontsy.”

  He punched another button to end the call.

  He lowered the phone to his side, then sank down in the chair. The power and menace seemed to have seeped out of the man, leaving a mere Madame Tussaud waxwork: a lifelike model of a once terrifying figure.

  In a monotone, he said, “It is done.”

  “
And how long after he makes the call before Alexa is free?”

  “He must do this in person.”

  “You haven’t heard of encrypted phones?”

  “There are loose ends to tie up. This can only be done in person.”

  “You mean, he’s going to eliminate the contractor.”

  “Operational security,” Navrozov said.

  “But he has to drive from Maine?”

  He glowered at me. “It will take thirty minutes, no more. So. We are done here.”

  “Not until I speak to Alexa.”

  “This will take time.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “My son needs immediate medical treatment.”

  “The sooner she’s free, the sooner your son will be treated.”

  He exhaled, his nostrils flaring like a bull’s. “Fine. We have concluded our business here. Marcus will get his daughter, and I will get my son.”

  “Actually, no.”

  “No … what?”

  “No, we’re not done here.”

  “Oh?”

  “We have more to talk about.”

  He squinted at me.

  “Just a few questions about Anya Afanasyeva.”

  He drew breath. I knew then I had him.

  “Where did she pick up such a lousy Georgia accent?”

  77.

  Roman Navrozov took from his breast pocket a slim black box with a gold eagle on the front. Sobranie Black Russians. He carefully withdrew a black cigarette with a gold filter and put it in his mouth.

  “This is a no-smoking room, yes?”

  I nodded.

  He pulled a box of matches from his front jacket pocket. He took out a match and lit it with his thumbnail. He put the match to the end of the cigarette and inhaled. Then he let out a long, luxuriant plume of smoke between his rounded lips.

  Navrozov didn’t just smoke Russian cigarettes; he smoked like a Russian too. Russians, especially older Russians, hold cigarettes the way Westerners hold a joint: between the thumb and forefinger. Habits like that never go away.