Foreign Agent

CHAPTER 31

The bald man Harvath had killed at the estate was a guest of Malevsky’s named Valery Kumarin.

He was a drunk and a womanizer. He was also a very influential figure in organized crime. He and Malevsky were in the same syndicate but different branches, which were often at odds, particularly when it came to territories.

Kumarin had flown in from Moscow to discuss taking some of the ISIS business. The fact that he had died while visiting Malevsky was going to cause problems. Big ones.

Worried about a hit, Malevsky might very well go to ground. If he did, he wouldn’t be taking his wife and children with him. He’d find someplace else for them.

That someplace else would include Alexandra. If there was any way to prevent it, she had to try.

When Harvath had explained what had happened outside, she was ready to kill him. In a matter of hours, he had ruined more than two years of work by the SVR. She had to come up with a plan, quickly.

With Kumarin dead, there was only so much she could do. The key was in helping reinforce the narrative that it was an accident.

All of Malevsky’s men had seen Kumarin eyeballing Alexandra. Even Malevsky’s wife had noticed. The Russian mobster wasn’t exactly subtle. Alexandra decided to use that to her advantage.

He was drunk. He forced his way into her room. He struck her in the face and tried to have his way with her. She fought back, kneeing him in the groin to get him off of her. Groaning, he had retreated from her room.

That was the story she told after Malevsky’s men had beaten down her door and found her curled up sobbing on the floor of her bathroom.

While everyone agreed the situation wasn’t good, it was beyond obvious what had happened. Kumarin was a pig. Trying to force himself on Alexandra was beyond the pale. He had taken the easy way out by falling down the stairs outside and breaking his neck. If he hadn’t, Malevsky would have killed him with his bare hands.

That left them with one final item to deal with — the body. If they called the police, they would be inviting all sorts of problems. If they didn’t, they’d be inviting an entirely different set of problems. Malevsky was damned regardless. The only way out was to shift the responsibility to someone above him.

Back in Moscow, the powers that be were not happy. He had taken all the appropriate precautions with making contact, but this was a dead body, on his property, in another country. They might have been criminals, but they hadn’t gotten to where they were by being stupid. Malevsky was putting them in a very difficult position.

His superiors turned it right back around on him. What if, they suggested, it wasn’t an accident and someone is trying to frame you? That didn’t do much to ease Malevsky’s anxiety. If he hid the body, he could be in trouble. If he didn’t hide the body and he went to the authorities, he might still end up being in trouble, especially if someone was trying to frame him.

They told him to stay by the phone. They would call him back. Malevsky looked for some vodka but couldn’t find any. They were out. Fucking Kumarin.

Finally, the phone rang. A decision had been made. Get rid of the body. And as soon as that was done, they wanted Malevsky to return to Moscow so they could question him in person. That could mean several different things — many of them not good. Not good at all. Fucking Kumarin.

Malevsky saw to the disposal of the body, then he packed a bag. Ever since he had hung up the phone, he had been thinking about running. He had enough money hidden in different banks in different countries. He could live quite well.

But if he ran, it would be an admission of guilt. He wasn’t guilty. He hadn’t done anything. If he were going to kill Kumarin, he certainly wouldn’t have been stupid enough to do it on his own property. He also wouldn’t have been stupid enough not to have an airtight alibi.

He would go to Moscow, state his case, and return home. He wasn’t going to run.

He had half a mind to take the nanny with him, to let her explain what had happened, but he decided against it. It would make him appear weak. His word should be enough.

If they required any more corroboration than that, two of his security team would be with him. He’d bring one of the men who had found the nanny on the bathroom floor and one of the men who had found Kumarin at the bottom of the stairs. It had been an unfortunate accident, but it was an accident nonetheless.

If anything, fucking Kumarin had brought it upon himself by getting so blind drunk. There wasn’t a one of them back in Moscow that didn’t know how bad his drinking was. Malevsky doubted this was the first time the old fool had fallen. In fact, he’d probably tripped and fallen too many times to count.

If they were honest with themselves, many of them back in Moscow would have to admit that it was a wonder Kumarin had survived this long. The problem with Moscow was that they were rarely honest with themselves.

Exiting the house, travel bag in hand, Mikhail Malevsky found his men in the motor court milling around the Rolls-Royce. “Let’s go!” he barked in Russian.

The five-foot-seven barrel-chested mafioso had been a wrestler in his youth. Now, in his mid-forties, his thinning blond hair was going gray, he was plagued with psoriasis, and he had to pop tons of Viagra just to get an erection.

Those factors, combined with his already distasteful personality, made him perpetually angry, abusive, and predisposed to acts of extreme violence. Even the four-letter-word descriptions used by his enemies didn’t come close to doing him justice.

Adding to his foul mood was the fact that it had taken forever to arrange a jet to fly him back to Russia. He hated flying commercial, but he hadn’t been able to justify the cost of owning his own plane. So, he had split the difference and bought into a private jet program.

As was typical of criminal syndicates, he knew a guy who knew a guy — and that was whose advice he took.

The company Malevsky had bought into was fine for trips planned weeks in advance. But if you needed to fly right away, they were a disaster. He nearly had an aneurysm yelling into the phone at the client “service” representative trying to find him a plane.

Eventually, the company found him a Gulfstream G650. And they not only agreed to waive the upgrade fee for such an exclusive aircraft but also to have it pick him up in Salzburg, rather than his having to drive the further distance to Munich.

Respect, Malevsky had thought as he had hung up the phone. Some people expect it, others demand it.

He was going to look like a rock star traveling in that aircraft. Not only to the men who were traveling with him but also to anyone meeting him at the airport in Moscow. And he was going to make sure there were people waiting to meet him in Moscow. Only a fool would blow an opportunity to make that kind of an entrance.

Rolling out of the wrought iron gates of the estate, they made a right turn and headed down into the village.

Privately, Malevsky had been pleased that the old hunting lodge hadn’t sold yet. His wife and two children enjoyed it here. It was a simpler pace. Cleaner and less hectic than Munich.

There were also no Muslims. He didn’t mind doing business with them in their part of the world, but he certainly didn’t want to raise his family around them. They were animals — unclean, uncivilized. At least in Russia, they knew how to deal with them. Russia recognized all too well the threat that they posed.

Malevsky sank back into the quilted leather seat and tried not to think about Muslims, Kumarin, or having to deal with his superiors back in Moscow. He was in one of the most beautiful places in the world, being driven in a Rolls-Royce, on his way to board a sixty-five-million-dollar aircraft. He had come a long way in life and he still had much further to go.

If he had time, there was a girl he wanted to see in Moscow — a dancer. She was the complete opposite of his wife. She didn’t complain. She liked to have fun. And she had a tight ass. Oh, that ass. He would have to make the time to see her.

Malevsky closed his eyes for a moment in order to picture her. As he did, he felt the car slow.

“Chyort voz’mi,” the driver said. Damn it.

“What is it?”

“Politsiya.” Police.

They were being pulled over.

The words Chyort voz’mi passed through Malevsky’s mind. But what came out of his mouth was something completely different.

“Fucking Kumarin,” he said, as he reached for his diplomatic passport.