Beyond Suspicion

51

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Katrina switched on the lights at 8:00 A.M. As usual, she was the first to reach the combined offices of Viatical Solutions and Bio-Research, Inc. That hour to herself before nine o’clock was always the best time to get work done.

And it was the best time to snoop.

She walked by her work station in the back, past the filing cabinets, and down the hall to Vladimir’s office. The door was locked, but a little finesse and a duplicate key solved that problem. She was sure she was alone, but it still gave her butterflies to turn the knob and open the door.

Over the past eight months she’d had her share of close calls. Rifling through the files of a money-laundering operation was dangerous work. Sam Drayton was a prick, and she hadn’t gone undercover with any illusion that the U.S. government would bail her out of trouble. Truth be told, she’d gotten everything she’d wanted from the feds, which was nothing more than a chance to get inside the Russian mob without risk of going to jail. Katrina had her own agenda, and she was closer than ever to reaching it-at least until Theo Knight had come along. With him sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, time was truly of the essence.

She walked carefully around Vladimir’s massive desk to the computer on his credenza. It had taken nearly sixteen weeks of casual conversations about his mother’s birthday, his dog’s name, his old street-number in Moscow, but finally she’d cracked his password.

She typed it once on the blue screen, then again at the prompt: kamikaze.

It stood for “Kamikaze Club,” a Moscow bar where Russian mobsters used to gather with their well-dressed mistresses to get smashed on vodka and bet on the fights. Young men were pulled off the streets, thrown into the ring, and ordered to slug it out with their bare hands. Only one would walk out alive. The loser ended up in a landfill, eyes gouged out, jaw torn off. After five impressive victories, Vladimir earned himself a job as a bodyguard for a vor v zakone, “thief in law,” the highest order of made men in the Mafiya.

Katrina logged on to his Internet server and scrolled down the e-mails he’d sent over the last week. She recognized the usual money-laundering contacts, but this morning her focus was on that shipment of blood to Sydney. The buyers had requested a specimen from an AIDS-infected white female, but the only blood in their vault was typical of junkies, filled not just with AIDS but also hepatitis, and any number of parasites and street illnesses that made their blood unsuitable for strict AIDS research. Somehow, Vladimir had come up with three liters of AIDS-infected blood from an otherwise clean source.

Only then did Swyteck’s theory about that woman in Georgia seem not so cockeyed.

The fifth e-mail confirmed it. The message was to an investor in Brighton Beach, written in Vladimir’s typical bare-bones style, the less said, the better. “Insurer: Northeastern Life and Casualty. Policy Number: 113855-A. Benefit: $2,500,000. Decedent: Jody Falder, Macon, Georgia. Maturity date…”

The date chilled her. All within a matter of days, Vladimir had fresh, AIDS-infected blood to ship to Sydney, and his viatical investors were in line for a big payday. It hardly seemed coincidental.

Swyteck was right. This isn’t just about money laundering anymore.

A door slammed, and her heart skipped a beat. It was the main entrance, and she was no longer alone. She switched off the computer, ran to Vladimir’s office door, and fumbled for her key.

A man was singing to himself in the kitchen, fixing himself a morning coffee.

Vladimir! Her hand was shaking too much to insert the key and lock the door.

“That you, Katrina?” he said, calling from the kitchen.

His voice startled her, but on her fifth frantic attempt at the lock she felt the tumblers fall into place. She thanked God, hurried down the hallway, and forced herself to smile as she entered the kitchen. “Good morning.”

“Coffee?” he asked.

“No, thanks. I had some invoicing work to do.” She could have kicked herself. He hadn’t even expressed any surprise at seeing her, and she was already offering some knee-jerk justification for being in the office a little early.

“Good.” He sipped his coffee. It was so strong, the aroma nearly overwhelmed her from across the room. Then he stepped toward her and said, “Let’s you and me take a walk.”

The words chilled her. She’d known Vladimir to take many a walk with employees and even a few customers. None of them ever came back smiling.

“Sure.”

He grabbed his briefcase, took it with him.

This is it, she thought. Although she’d never been caught snooping, the scenarios had played out in her mind many times. Never did it turn out well for her. Vladimir didn’t take chances with a suspected musor.

He led her out the back door, the warehouse entrance. It was a hot, sunny morning, and the smell of baked asphalt-sealant stung her nostrils. They crossed the parking lot and walked side by side beneath the black-olive trees that lined the sidewalk, heading toward the discount gasoline station and the perpetual roar of I-95. Rush-hour traffic clogged all eight lanes on Pembroke Pines Boulevard.

“I’ve been thinking about your friend Theo.”

She caught her breath, relieved to hear that someone else was on his mind. “I figured.”

“The three of us talked openly at the Brown Bear.”

“Of course. Talk among friends.”

“He seemed to have the viatical settlements all figured out.”

“He’s a pretty smart guy.”

“Yuri thinks maybe he’s not so smart. He thinks maybe you told him something.”

“I told him nothing.”

Vladimir stopped. The traffic light changed and a stream of cars and huge tractor trucks raced toward the I-95 on ramp. “I believe you,” he said. “But Yuri has his questions. So there is some repair work that needs to be done there.”

“Repair work?”

“Rebuilding of trust.”

“Vladimir, I’ve worked here like a dog for eight months. Guys come and go all the time. But I’m right here at your side, day in and day out.”

“I know. That’s why I don’t want you to look at this as a test of your loyalty. Think of it as an opportunity to prove yourself worthy of advancement.”

“What are you asking me to do?”

“Your friend Theo got himself in some serious trouble.”

“I know. I saw the news last night.”

“So we both know this prosecutor is going to lean hard on him.”

“Theo’s no musor.”

“I wish I could believe that. But the good ol’ days are gone. No more honor among thieves, the old code of silence. These days, people get caught, they talk. We can’t risk Theo cutting a deal and telling that prosecutor what we talked about at the Brown Bear. Hell, I think I even mentioned Yuri and Fate by name.”

Katrina knew this was coming. She’d even shared those exact fears with Drayton. “Like I said, what are you asking me to do?”

He lit a cigarette, then flipped his lighter shut. But he just looked at her, saying nothing.

“Please. Theo is my friend. Don’t ask me to be part of any setup.”

He took a long drag, exhaled. “All the time you’ve worked here, I’ve never once so much as seen you hold a gun.”

“Never had a need to.”

“Seems like a waste. Two years in the U.S. Marines, you must be a decent shot.”

“Sure, I can shoot.”

He handed her his briefcase. “Take it.”

She hesitated, knowing full well what was inside.

He narrowed his eyes and said, “Friend or no, Theo has to go. And the job is yours.”

“You… you want me to take out my friend?”

“We’ve all taken out friends. We make new ones.”

She couldn’t speak.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

She fought to keep her composure, then took the briefcase and said, “No. None at all.”

He put his arm around her, and they started back to the office. “This is a good move for you. An important step. I can feel it.”

With each footfall, the briefcase seemed to get heavier in her hand. “I feel it, too,” she said.