Minotaur

33

Time was of the utmost essence. If there was even the slightest chance Chapel could still catch Favorov, it was going to come down to a matter of minutes, not hours. Still, he could only think in silence for a few seconds as he considered what she was saying. “If you can’t deliver what you’re promising it could go very badly for you,” he said finally. And your children, he thought, but it sounded like she knew that already.

Fiona turned to look into his eyes, with all the confidence of a model on a catwalk. “I know exactly where he’s going.”

In his ear, Angel said, “Chapel, just because she’s beautiful doesn’t mean you can trust her. This could be a trap! I know you’re a guy, and guys think with their—”

Chapel tuned her out. “Drive,” he said.

He had to lean out of his window to flag down the officer in charge of the SWAT teams, to tell the man to stand down and clear the gates. Luckily there was no argument—Chapel had total oversight on this operation, thanks to Director Hollingshead. It had been clear from the start that his orders were to be followed without question.

They had to move a SWAT van away from the gate so the Bentley could get out. That was SOP, Chapel knew—you blocked any exit from the perimeter, to stop any overconfident or desperate people from trying to make a break for it. Now it just slowed them down. Eventually, though, Fiona took the long car out onto the drive and hurried down toward the main road.

“Where are we going?” Chapel asked.

“I’ll tell you when we get closer,” Fiona answered, her eyes on the road.

Chapel bridled and started to demand that she tell him that instant, but she reached over and patted his artificial arm.

“You don’t trust me, and that’s understandable. I don’t trust you, either. When we’re well out of the way of all these policemen, I’ll talk.”

“You’ll talk right now. You don’t want to tell me where we’re going, I can’t make you. But you said you had other information. Things you’ve overheard.”

“Yes,” she said. She drove south until she reached a road that ran along the coastline, on top of a line of cliffs. The same cliffs that had sheltered Favorov’s secret boat launch. She turned west along the cliff road, picking up speed. “Ygor is a secretive man, of course, and he never told me anything directly. But it’s amazing the things men will do and say in front of their women. They treat us like we’re too stupid to understand what they’re saying. I heard phone calls, saw Ygor give orders to his servants. I saw people come to the house, and because I’m a good hostess I made sure I knew who they were before they arrived.”

“Russians?”

“Only once, and then in the middle of the night. About five years ago. Pavel Galtachenko. A very furtive little man. He reminded me of a mouse that thinks it’s a rat. He went into Ygor’s study but only stayed there for about fifteen minutes. I was in the process of bringing him a drink when he stormed out. I heard the tail end of their conversation.”

In Chapel’s ear Angel got excited when she heard the name. “Galtachenko’s a low-level diplomat, a flack for the Russian delegation to the UN. He’s also a known KGB agent.”

“I’m familiar with the name,” Chapel said, though he’d never heard it before. Fiona didn’t need to know where he got his information.

“He came to put an end to things. To stop Ygor from selling any more guns. He was very worried that it was going to reflect badly on his government. In the end, though, he couldn’t stop Ygor. He didn’t have the authority. He left empty-handed.”

“Interesting,” Chapel said.

“I’ll say,” Angel interrupted. “If whoever is supplying Favorov with guns has more authority than the KGB, that means—”

“It doesn’t mean anything on its own,” Chapel said, because he wasn’t ready to draw any conclusions.

“No,” Fiona replied, assuming he’d been talking to her. “But Galtachenko wasn’t the only visitor he had. Most of the time he met with clients. Americans. Very polite but rather uncultured men who wore ill-fitting suits and smelled of cheap cologne.”

“You have names for them?” Chapel asked.

“Some. Terry Belcher. Andrew Michaels. Vince Howard, those are the ones I remember.” Fiona peered forward into the halogen light coming from the Bentley’s headlamps as if she could see the names written out there on the road. “I noticed that they always kept their shirts buttoned up, both at the throat and the cuffs, even on very hot days. It took me a while to realize they were covering up tattoos.”

Angel had plenty to say on the names Fiona had provided, but Chapel had already guessed most of it. “Gang tattoos,” he said. “These were white men?” he asked. “I’m guessing they had short hair. Very short.”

“As if at some point they’d shaved it all off, and were only now letting it grow back, yes,” Fiona confirmed. “Skinheads, all of them, though these were a better class than the kind you expect. They presented themselves as businessmen. I never saw any weapons leave the house, nor any money change hands. But everyone was always in a good mood when those meetings broke up. I’ve seen enough deals made in my life to recognize when both parties are happy with arrangements.”

“So Favorov was funneling Russian guns to white supremacist groups here in the States,” Chapel said. “Only white power groups?”

Fiona shook her head. “No, there were others. African Americans, Chinese, Mexicans. Anyone who wanted guns, I gather. Recently though, the whites have had a monopoly on his business and his time. Ygor seemed to prefer dealing with them to the others. They made him more… comfortable.”

“The non-whites—are we talking about gangs? Straight-up criminals? Or political groups?” Chapel asked, synthesizing.

“That I can actually answer,” Fiona said. “He told me as much, once. I think I’d suggested—mind you, I could never say anything outright—suggested that these people were dangerous, and that bringing them to the house was a bad idea. He laughed off the idea of moving his negotiations somewhere else. The people he dealt with, he told me, were strictly politicals. Separatists, splinter groups, that sort of thing. He refused to deal with what he called gangsters and thugs, because they would turn on him if they were caught. Politicals could be trusted not to report him to people like you.”

Chapel nodded. “Jesus. It sounds like he was arming half the domestic terror groups in the country. But I need to know. Who was supplying him? That’s the most important thing.”

“Really? It matters so much where the guns came from?” Fiona asked.

Chapel studied her profile. The answer to that question was technically classified, but if telling her made her take him more seriously, if it helped her remember anything, he didn’t care. “Yes. Because if he was getting the guns from the Russian mafia, then it’s a police matter. But if the Russian government was supplying those AK-47s, consciously arming a fifth column inside American borders, then they were all but declaring war on us. And if my boss can’t find out the truth, he’s going to have to come down on the side of war.”

“The US would go to war with Russia over a couple of guns?”

“I don’t want to have to find out,” Chapel told her.