The Silent Man Page 8

  Yusuf and the man walked behind the Nissan, and Yusuf flipped up the trunk lid. A minute or so later, the trunk lid was lowered. The man sat in back beside Tajid and pulled off his cap, revealing a nearly bald head—unusual for an Arab. He was in his thirties, medium height, with a neatly trimmed goatee, wide dark eyes, a handsome round face. He looked gentle, though Grigory was certain he wasn’t.

  They drove down the hill, leaving the Toyota behind. At the coast road, Yusuf swung left, to the southeast. “I won’t ask you how you did it, but it’s a great accomplishment,” the bald man said.

  “At last,” Grigory said. “Someone understands.”

  THEY MADE GOOD TIME for a while, but then the road became a true coastal serpentine, rising and falling along the swooping contours of the hills. Yusuf drove slowly, and after two hours they’d traveled barely seventy kilometers—forty miles. But neither Yusuf nor the man in the back showed any impatience. Grigory figured they must have driven the route before and knew how long it would take.

  Russians called this strip of the coast their Riviera, and during the summer, this road was jammed with vacationers. Now the houses and hotels scattered through the hills were mostly dark, closed for the winter.

  Just past midnight, Yusuf swung off the road, to the right, down a narrow track that hugged a steep cliff down to the sea. When they reached the base of the cliff, they were in a campsite beside a narrow, heavily forested cove. The main road stretched high above them on a concrete bridge supported by a dozen pillars. With trees all around them and thick gray clouds blocking the moon, they were invisible from the road.

  “I hope you’ve arranged a boat,” Grigory said. “Otherwise it’s a long way to swim.”

  No one bothered to answer.

  “Hard to believe the Olympics will be in Sochi in 2014, isn’t it? Though I don’t suppose any of us will be there.” Silence. Grigory sighed. “All right, then. Tell me this, Yusuf, since you’re such a philosopher, dividing the world into categories. What’s the harm in a bit of chatter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “At least he speaks! Go on, then.”

  “As long as you’ve got something to say. Which you don’t.”

  “And who made you emperor?”

  “My knife.”

  “Yes, because you have a weapon, you can do as you please, insult me or anyone you like. Some world this is.”

  “Shh,” the bald man in the back said. “Listen.”

  In the silence, Grigory heard the distant rumble of a boat engine.

  The man in the back swung open his door and the others followed. Yusuf popped the trunk and they pulled up the toolboxes and their bags. By the time they were done, the boat had arrived, a black motorboat with an open deck. Grigory couldn’t imagine it would get them across the Black Sea. Nonetheless they transferred everything to the boat, and then Yusuf and the bald man hugged briefly and whispered in Arabic.

  The motorboat’s captain clapped his hands together, obviously anxious to be gone. Yusuf and Grigory and Tajid stepped into the boat. “Allah yisallimak,” the bald man said to them all. God keep you safe. He waved at them as the boat turned and headed for the open sea. And then he disappeared.

  THEY LOST SIGHT of the coast within an hour, and Grigory began to get nervous. But the captain steered confidently, occasionally checking the GPS tacked to the dash of the boat.

  The fishing trawler was running without lights and Grigory didn’t see it until they were almost on top of it. They drew up alongside and someone inside threw down a rope. The motorboat’s captain tied the two boats together. The men in the trawler hauled up the toolboxes in a reinforced net and then sent down a rope ladder. Grigory wasn’t sure he would make it up, but somehow he did, the ladder creaking under his bulk. Tajid and Yusuf followed. The motorboat turned back toward the coast and the trawler rumbled into the sea.

  THE SUN ROSE and set again and all the while they headed west. Grigory passed the time by amusing himself with his magnetized chessboard, even playing a couple of games with the ship’s captain. At midday the seas picked up, and by nightfall the waves batted the boat like a cat playing with a mouse. About then, Tajid threw up.

  But Grigory, to his surprise, felt fine. Another unexpected talent. First he’d stolen the bombs. Now this. A new day for Grigory. He closed his eyes and imagined his future. He’d take the money they gave him, go on a diet, and—

  He startled as someone tapped his shoulder. Yusuf. He was smiling, a thin smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth and frightened Grigory.

  “Let’s play chess,” Yusuf said.

  So Grigory set up the board and they played, twice. Yusuf played well, but Grigory beat him both times. Yusuf’s smile never faded.

  “Let’s go,” Yusuf said when they were done, nodding at the door that led to the storage room behind the main cabin.

  “What?”

  “It’s time, Grigory.”

  Grigory didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Please, Yusuf,” he whispered. His bowels came loose and he thought for a moment he would soil himself.

  “Don’t beg,” Yusuf said. “I’m giving you the chance to do this properly, with dignity.”

  “But you promised, and I’ve done everything you asked.” It’s the chess, Grigory thought madly. He’s angry about the chess. If I hadn’t beaten him—

  “You knew how this would end, Grigory. It’s the same for all of us.”

  Yes, of course, all of us, but why now for me? Whynowwhynowwhynow . . . the words clung together in Grigory’s mind, all question and no answer.

  “I should have turned you in.” So many chances, so many wrong choices.

  “Come on.”

  Yusuf carried a pistol to go with his knife. Grigory knew he couldn’t escape. The sea surrounded them. And he couldn’t swim. So he pushed himself up and took the two steps to the storage room. Yusuf closed the door behind them. A single bulb lit the space, which was empty aside from a rusty anchor and a few nets balled up in the corner, stinking faintly of the sea’s sulfurous brine. A fitting place to die.

  “Lie down,” Yusuf said.

  “Is this about the chess?” Grigory couldn’t stop himself. “We can play again. As much as you like. You’ll win, I promise.”

  “Lie down. On your stomach with your hands above your head.”

  “I will. But tell me. Was what you said about blackmail true, or do you plan to use them?”

  “You think we’ve gone to this much trouble to give them back?”

  “Then what about the video? Why did you make me do that?”

  “Down, Grigory.” Yusuf’s voice was at once soothing and commanding, as if Grigory were an unruly dog who needed a firm master.

  “But you don’t have the codes.”

  “Lie down.”

  And Grigory did. A plastic tarp covered the floor. For him. His coffin.

  “Do you want to pray, Grigory? It’s never too late. Allah is always listening.”

  “Fuck you and your crazy Allah.”

  “I want to read you something. A poem that was written for Sheikh bin Laden.”

  Grigory heard Yusuf unfold a piece of paper. Then:

  How special they are who sold their souls to God,

  Who smiled at Death when his sword gazed ominously at them,

  Who willingly bared their chests as shields.

  Grigory’s heart pounded wildly. He was dying for this? For a moment, he wanted to stand and fight. But he knew he wouldn’t even reach his knees before Yusuf finished him.

  “Are you ready to bare your chest?”

  Grigory turned his head and spat on the tarp. Not much of a protest and half the saliva rolled down his cheek, but at least he would die a man, not a beggar. “Fuck you, I said.”

  “Your choice. Close your eyes.”

  At the base of his skull, where his hair touched his neck, Grigory felt the tip of the pistol graze his skin. It pulled back, then touched him again, higher this time. Yusuf must have don
e this before; he was placing the pistol so Grigory’s skull wouldn’t deflect the bullet. To his surprise, the pistol was warm, not cold, and then Grigory remembered it had been lying in Yusuf’s armpit. Such a strange last thought—

  THE PISTOL BARKED, and Grigory Farzadov was dead. Tajid followed. To Yusuf’s annoyance, where Grigory had accepted his fate with a certain poise, Tajid blubbered like a child. He moaned about his family and promised that if Yusuf just let him be, he would never ever say anything to anyone. It was all the same, though, all the same in the end, because Yusuf had the gun.

  When he was done, Yusuf and the fishermen wound up the two bodies in the tarp and wrapped thick steel chains around them and threw the whole package into an old anchovy net. They put the luggage that Grigory and Tajid had brought with them into another net and weighted that one down as well. Then they dumped both nets overboard. Yusuf could have prayed for the cousins, but he didn’t. Grigory didn’t deserve Allah’s blessing and Tajid’s whining had irritated him. The nets sank into the water and the waves kept coming, as if Grigory and Tajid had never existed at all. And the boat and its cargo turned south and made for the Turkish coast.

  7

  Wells stalked the first-floor corridors of George Washington Hospital, long strides cutting through the clean white halls. He reached the double doors that marked the entrance to surgery, turned, paced back to the entrance.

  The hospital was on 23rd and I, seven blocks from the shooting. The first ambulance had come in five minutes, the first cops two minutes later. Wells flashed his identification at them, shook off their questions, told them they could find him at GW if they needed him. Then he sprinted up 21st, wishing all the while that the hospital was farther away so he could keep running.

  He’d made enemies of some of the most dangerous men in the world. Then he’d refused to take the most elementary precautions. He and Exley drove unarmored cars, took the same route to work most days. If he’d been on his own, his happy-fool act wouldn’t have mattered . . . but he wasn’t.

  When he reached the hospital, Exley was already in surgery. No one would be able to tell him anything for at least an hour, the nurses said. So Wells walked the halls, expecting someone would tell him to stop moving, sit down. But the orderlies looked at his agency identification and the blood on his hands and his empty shoulder holster and didn’t say a word.

  A HAND TOUCHED his shoulder. He turned to see Ellis Shafer, his boss.

  “John.” Shafer gave Wells an awkward half-hug and led him to a door marked by a brass sign that said “Family Room B.” Inside, they sat on uncomfortable plastic chairs around a battered wooden table. Wells wondered at the conversations that had taken place in here, well-meaning doctors and their hard truths. I’m sorry, but we’ve tried everything . . .

  “What happened, John?”

  Wells told him.

  “Was the Russian there today?” Wells had told Shafer about the strange incident with the Russian outside their house.

  “They were wearing helmets.”

  “You didn’t check? Afterward?”

  “I had to keep pressure on her so she didn’t bleed out.”

  A light knock. The door opened—Michaels, the head of Wells’s security detail. He squeezed Wells’s arm, set a laptop on the table.

  “I’m sorry, John. We should have done a better job. My guys—”

  “Your guys never had a chance.”

  Michaels grimaced. Wells balled up his hands, dug his fingernails into his palms. “Didn’t mean that how it sounded. Just that it all went down so quick. They were pros, whoever they were.”

  Michaels pulled up a photograph on the laptop. A fleshy face, black eyes shiny and dead, hair still tousled from the helmet he’d been wearing. The collar of his leather jacket was just visible at the bottom of the screen. Then a second photo, a full-body shot, the corpse curled against the curb where Wells had shot him two hours before. Blood trickled from a corner of his mouth. Wells knew him immediately. The Russian who’d come to the house the week before.

  “He was on the red bike,” Michaels said. “The passenger.”

  “We have a name?”

  “Not yet. We’re running their prints against immigration.” Michaels pulled up more images, the other two men that Wells had shot. “You know them?”

  Wells shook his head.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Because maybe you want to settle this yourself, but I’ve got a stake. Two of my guys. Even if they never had a chance.”

  Wells said nothing. At this point, he didn’t plan to tell Michaels that though he didn’t know his assassins, he had a pretty good idea who’d sent them.

  “Any of them carrying ID?” Shafer said.

  “No. But the bikes had temporary Georgia tags. And one of the guys had a Marriott keycard in his pocket. We’re checking every hotel within a hundred miles and we’ll go from there. The first guy was carrying a key to a Pathfinder. We haven’t found it yet.” Michaels drummed his big fingers on the table. “We don’t have to do it now but we’re going to need an official statement, John. For us, the D.C. police, the FBI.”

  “Sure.”

  “Shouldn’t take long. With all the weapons we found on them—”

  “I told you it’s no problem.”

  “I’ll let you know when I hear more. I’m sorry, John. I mean it. We owed you better.” Michaels disappeared into the hall.

  Shafer waited until the door was closed.

  “You think you know who did this, don’t you?”

  Wells said nothing.

  “Don’t play with me, John. I’ve known her longer than you have.”

  “Yes, I think I know.”

  “So tell me.” Shafer waited. “Of course. I get it. Your fault and you’re the only one who can fix it. The man of steel. Don’t you see this is how you got into this mess?”

  “You just love being the smartest guy in the room, don’t you, Ellis.”

  “Let me help you.”

  Wells shook his head. The silence stretched on as an ugly fifties-style clock above the table clicked away the seconds. Finally, Shafer stood, reached for the door.

  “All right. Play it your way.”

  “Pierre Kowalski. I think.”

  Shafer sat. “Why? He’s lucky we didn’t bust him for helping the Chinese.”

  “I never told you what I did when I broke into his house.” Wells explained how he’d tied Kowalski up, humiliated him.

  “You wrapped his head in duct tape,” Shafer said when Wells was done.

  “I made sure he could breathe.”

  “That was thoughtful.”

  “So you see.”

  “Yeah, I see why he might be pissed.” Wells saw the unasked question on Shafer’s face: Why? What were you thinking? Even now Wells couldn’t fully unlock his motivations. He knew only that he hated Kowalski. To sell weapons, to profit from death, couldn’t be denied or explained away.

  “Even so, maybe it wasn’t him,” Shafer said. “Maybe it was al-Qaeda.”

  “Qaeda would have put a truck bomb in front of the house. Kowalski was furious that night I taped him up. Told me he’d get me no matter what. And we know he’s got contacts in Russia. These guys this morning, they were pros. You get it now, Ellis? You see why I think I may have to do this myself?”

  “I get it.”

  Neither of them needed to say the obvious: These days, Russia was going out of its way to prove that it didn’t need the West. In 2006, when a former KGB operative was poisoned at a London restaurant, the Kremlin had basically refused to help Scotland Yard investigate. If the connection between Kowalski and today’s assassination ran through Moscow, the CIA would have a tough job convincing the Russians to cooperate.

  “It’s not so bad, John,” Shafer said. “Two of our own died today. Practically in front of the White House. We can’t ignore that kind of provocation. If we can lock it down, find the link, the big man will put a lot of
pressure on the Kremlin.”

  “If we can lock it down.”

  “Promise me one thing. Whatever you do, tell me. Ahead of time. At least give me a chance to give you some advice. Since I am the smartest guy in the room.”

  “All right.”

  “Now let’s find out how your girl’s doing.”

  “Our girl,” Wells said.

  “Our girl.”

  But the nurses had no news. Exley was still in surgery.

  “What does that mean?” Shafer said.

  “It means she’s still in surgery. Are you a relative, sir?”

  Wells leaned into the nurse. “Ms. Exley is my fiancée. So, please, if you have any information—”

  “I don’t. You probably won’t hear much for a while more.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Fiancée?” Shafer whispered as the nurse walked away. “Was it a special invisible ring? Because I didn’t see it.”

  “She didn’t care about the ring.”

  “You really don’t understand women at all.”

  And you don’t understand Exley, Wells didn’t say. She would have been happy with a Cracker Jack ring. Though maybe Shafer was right. He’d managed to stay married for thirty years; Wells had barely lasted two.

  “Were you going to make it official?” Shafer said. “Or did she not care about that part either?”

  “New Year’s, we were saying. Something simple, our way. Just before the South America trip. The trip was the honeymoon.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “We didn’t tell anyone. Just her kids. Not even our exes yet.” Wells turned away from Shafer, leaned his head against a wall, closed his eyes. The white plaster was cool and reassuring.