Putin's Gambit

16

Derek Walsh felt out of place on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There were no protests going on and no real need for a heavy police presence. The population was better dressed, and he felt shabby in his untucked shirt and now-uncombed hair. He’d tried to call Mike Rosenberg on his new throwaway phone, but Mike didn’t answer, and he left no message. It was his hope that Mike would see the New York number and realize he should call it back as soon as he was able.

He made the short walk from the deli he’d been sitting in to Alena’s apartment building in just a few minutes. Walsh looked at his watch and realized it was almost exactly six o’clock in the evening and she should be home by now. He paused outside the front door of her five-story walk-up and glanced down the street to make sure he hadn’t been followed. Was he becoming paranoid? If he was, he’d earned the right. There were very few people on the street and no police officers. It was time to find some respite at the one place he’d feel safe.

There was no doorman even though the building looked like it should have one. As he walked up the four flights of stairs, he did consider the irony of a foreign student living so much better than a would-be Wall Street banker. The place was clean, and her apartment was more than twice the size of Walsh’s SoHo flat.

He stepped out of the stairwell onto the new plush carpet in the hallway, then took a moment to straighten his shirt. He wondered how he’d explain the pistol on his belt to Alena. He’d just tell her the truth and let the chips fall. It didn’t matter; all he needed now was to see her beautiful face and feel her arms around him. He knew she must be sick with worry over not hearing from him.

He paused again just outside her door, ran his fingers through his short brown hair, and gave the door his special rap, four quick knocks with a slight pause before two more. It was Morse code for “Hi.” Alena didn’t care much for secret knocks or nicknames. Maybe it was cultural. Walsh hoped to see for himself one day and planned a visit to Greece when he had saved enough money. At this rate it would be years, unless he had to flee because of extradition.

From inside he heard Alena’s voice say, “It’s open.”

Walsh loved her slight accent. He opened the door and felt a wave of relief when he saw her sitting up straight in the antique chair by her wide bay window that looked out onto another building.

Alena stayed seated as she said, “Derek, I was worried I’d never see you again.”

As Walsh stepped into the room a male’s voice behind him said, “Me, too.”

Walsh spun quickly to see a man holding a Beretta pistol, just like his. It took a moment for him to realize it was the same man who tried to rob him. The man with a scar on his face. And he realized for the first time the man had a Russian accent.

Joseph Katazin felt very confident holding the pistol in one hand pointed at the former marine a few feet in front of him. He stepped out from behind the door, and Walsh was smart enough to turn his body so they remained face-to-face. That also gave Walsh a chance to see Serge pop up from behind the tall back of the chair that Walsh’s girlfriend was sitting in.

Katazin said, “Recognize him?”

“What do you want?”

Katazin liked the fact that the former marine didn’t want to waste any time. “A few answers. Not much more.” He paused, then said, “I like what you’ve done with your hair. Interesting choice, and probably enough to throw off most people.”

Walsh let his eyes roam around the room, then focused his attention back on Katazin. “What sort of questions?”

“Who have you talked to? What have you told them? Who is the old guy who hit Serge? You know, the usual.” He watched Walsh as the marine turned and looked at Serge, assessing his black eye and bruised face. Walsh’s expression gave away the fact that his true concern was for the young lady, and Katazin might be able to use that later.

Walsh stared straight ahead at Katazin and said, “And if I don’t feel like answering any of your questions?”

Katazin looked over to Serge and made a motion with his left hand around his neck. He was surprised the dim-witted Serge picked up on exactly what he wanted done. The lean young man with a badly bruised face didn’t hesitate to grasp the cord holding the blinds and drape it around Alena’s throat.

Before Walsh could say anything else, Katazin jerked his left hand, and Serge followed the order by tightening the cord like a noose around the young woman’s throat. She gasped and rose in the seat slightly as Serge pulled the cord tighter across her windpipe. Her face almost immediately went red.

Walsh called out, “No, stop.”

Then Katazin heard a phone. It took a second to realize the ringing was coming from Walsh’s pocket. But by then the marine was already moving.

Mike Rosenberg had done everything he could and still was leaving the building later than he had meant to. One of the things that slowed him down was a presidential address that started at exactly five thirty. The timing of the press conference had told everyone this was important, and the whole building seemed to come to a standstill, every eye glued to the nearest TV set.

Being a former military man and currently employed by the federal government, Rosenberg took the idea of the president being his boss very seriously. He wanted the president to bolster the country and tell the citizens exactly what was happening and the plan to fix it. But once again this president had let him down. He didn’t know why he was disappointed; it wasn’t the first time. Of course the president urged calm. Every president in history who had access to mass media had urged calm during times of crisis. The most famous was Franklin Roosevelt’s “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” This president was not Franklin Roosevelt. He looked more annoyed at the public’s reaction than anything else.

Rosenberg and some of the people he worked with wondered if this guy understood threats. Incredibly, his foreign policy had set the country back further than his predecessor’s. Cool only got you so far. Now people needed a leader. A true commander in chief, not an empty suit with a few catchphrases.

The security check was quick as he stepped through a scanner. No briefcase meant he avoided the longer scrutiny. As he hustled out to the parking lot, Rosenberg hoped the president’s speech had not depressed the rest of the country as much as it had him. Now he really was worried. It didn’t matter if everything that happened was a distraction for some kind of Russian military activity; the president clearly had no plan in place to deal with it.

Rosenberg got to his one-year-old Chevy Impala and dug his personal phone out of the console. There was a call from a number with the 212 area code that he didn’t recognize. He hesitated before he hit the redial button. This had to be Derek Walsh, but he was nervous about the contact. He knew what agencies like the NSA could do with just a fragment of information. He also wondered if the FBI had linked him to Walsh from their time in the marines together. He didn’t want to be considered an accomplice to what could turn out to be one of the most disastrous crimes in history.

Then he pictured his friend, alone, and he knew he couldn’t abandon Walsh. Besides, the FBI looked like it was too busy right now with the hunt for a banker who might or might not have sent money to terrorists.

He mashed the button and heard the phone ring.

Fannie Legat slid out of bed in the middle of the night. The tall Russian major snored soundly and never noticed her ease toward the door and back out of the cramped room. He didn’t notice her smile, either. It had been a wonderful night. In truth, she wasn’t sure why she had approached him at first. She was always thinking of the Cause before anything else and viewed him as a potential source of information. She clearly liked him and appreciated his manners, but the American major had similar manners. It was just something about this Russian that melted her will, and she had given herself to him freely in the end. Maybe it was because the Russians, like most Muslims, had very little materially and the U.S. had so much. Did that make it jealousy? Was she envious of the American lifestyle? She shook off the notion.

It was against the established norms of Islam and her own standard of behavior to sleep with a man who was not her husband. It was not like she was a virgin. In fact, before she had seen the true path she had had many liaisons, mostly with other students. But she was a woman, and men paid attention to her. Sometimes it had an effect. She had no regrets about this lapse, but the last thing she wanted was for Amir to find out. She didn’t care what the little dope thought of her, but she could not have him reporting back to their superiors that she was free with her favors and sleeping with men.

She hurried down the narrow hallway with her robe wrapped tight. The hotel was saving money by not heating the hallways, and she wanted to avoid anyone who might be out at this ungodly hour.

Just as she reached her room and turned the knob she had purposely left unlocked, the door next to her swung open, and Amir thrust his head out and barked, “Just what do you think you are doing?”

“More than you.”

“Harlot.”

Fannie answered the only way she knew how, by slapping him hard across the face, then stepping into her room with as much dignity as she could muster. He would be a problem, and she would have to deal with him soon.

Derek Walsh knew that hesitation could kill him, or worse, kill Alena. When the phone in his pocket rang and distracted the man with the gun, he lowered his head and instantly charged forward like a linebacker. He let his full weight slam into the man and heard the pistol clatter onto the hardwood floor and bounce off the wall into the hallway. He turned and reached for his own pistol in one movement. As soon as he had it aimed at the other man’s face, the man dropped the cord, and Alena slipped back into the chair, immediately gasping for breath and grabbing her throat with both hands.

His mind was clouded with a thousand details, but he knew he had to grab Alena and get out of there now. He yanked her from the chair and pulled her along as he bolted out the door and turned toward the stairwell. She was keeping up and sounded like her airway was open as they hit the stairway, and he sent her ahead so he could turn and back down slowly with the pistol pointed at the top of the stairs. No one seemed to be following.

Who in the hell were these guys?