Rasputin's Shadow

55

I landed at Reagan and was in a cab less than ten minutes later.

Since wheels-up, Ivan, or Koschey or whoever he really was, had receded out of my system, and my thoughts had zeroed in on Corrigan. I didn’t know how this thing with Kirby would play out. Either way, there were still several burning hoops to jump through, but the hairs on the back of my neck told me that I was about to be closer to him than I had been at any point since Corliss blew his own brains out.

I pulled out my phone and started reviewing what Kurt had sent me, and as the Washington Monument drifted into view, the leviathan himself called.

“Konnichiwa. Thursday night is poker night.”

Not exactly what I needed to know. “Well, good luck then.”

“No, not my poker night, man. His poker night. You seriously think I play poker? Even the online version is for losers. Why flush virtual money on blackjack when you can spend it on proficiency points for your Blood Knight?”

I had to stay calm and remind myself he was coming through for me. “So that’s Kirby’s alibi?”

“That’s what I reckon. On three of the last fifteen Thursdays, he’s charged cigars to the shared credit card. On five, he’s charged a crate of beer.”

“They take turns.”

“Exactly. Just four dudes drinking the undrinkable and smoking the unsmokable.”

I glanced at my watch. We were good. “What about his companion? Anything on her?”

“She’s a mystery. Hotel doesn’t have enough cameras to track guests to and from each room, and they only keep CCTV footage for a week at a time. Kirby arrived on his own last week. Same with leaving. They’re very careful.”

I chewed on his info for a moment. “All right. Stay put. I’m going to try and borrow her purse or her cell phone, like we discussed.”

“Sure thing, dude. I’m not going anywhere. Not in Newark, anyway.” He laughed like a high school kid. “Oh, and by the way. The guy has taste. She’s a 36E with medium-sized thongs. The dream combo, assuming there’s no silicone in there.”

I had to get him and Aparo together. They’d have a blast. Then again, I’m not sure the women of New York would ever forgive me.

My phone buzzed. I had another call coming in.

From Federal Plaza.

At least it wasn’t from Aparo’s cell, but it still sent a jolt of alarm through me.

“Consider me overinformed and underbriefed,” I told him. “I’ll let you get back to your lovely Pandaren. Sayonara till later.”

I swapped calls, and breathed out. It was Wrightson, from the computer analysis and response team, and he didn’t sound urgent.

“I’ve looked at your pictures,” he told me, referring to the shots I sent him of the electrical junk pile we found at Sokolov’s garage. “It’s nothing weapons-grade, if that’s what you’re worried about. It actually looks like your guy’s into some high-end microwave technology. He’s got strip line, cavity and dielectric resonators in there, transistors, low-power diodes.”

None of that meant anything to me. “What’s it all used for?”

“I’d say he’s been tinkering with some kind of microwave transmission device. Some of these circuits you’d find in any cell-phone tower, but others are more specialized.”

This wasn’t in line with what I’d been thinking. “I thought cell-phone towers were huge?”

“Not at all. They’re tall, but that’s to get the best transmission. The components themselves aren’t that big.”

I don’t know where the question came from, but I asked, “Small enough to fit in the back of a van?”

“Sure. Everything in microwave tech is small because the wavelengths themselves are so short, and that includes everything from consumer Wi-Fi to satellite comms. Microwave tech doesn’t use your standard electronic circuitry-what electrical engineers call ‘lumped-element’ circuitry. It uses distributed circuits that are generally pretty minute.”

I focused on the part where he said it could fit in a van. I still didn’t see why Sokolov would do that. “Anything else you can think of?”

“I couldn’t say for sure,” he said, “but it looks like he was trying to increase the range and penetration of his signal through multiple resonator clusters.”

“What sort of range are we talking about?”

“Depends on the power supply and how the resonators were laid out. Anything from ten to a thousand yards would be my guess.”

I’d been hoping for something else. This was all sending me on a tangent that didn’t make sense.

“Sorry I can’t be any more help,” Wrightson concluded. “Let me know if you find the kit. I’d love to see what he’s been up to.”

I was angling for the same thing.

THE TRAFFIC WAS RUNNING smoothly and it wasn’t long before we were crossing over the Potomac and hitting Georgetown.

You’d never know from the view that you were leaving Virginia and entering the nation’s capital. The parkland along both sides of the river and the low skyline always looked more to me like a Midwestern town than the part of the city that housed the seat of government. I asked the driver to drop me off at the corner of M and Thomas Jefferson so I could cover the last couple hundred yards on foot. I needed to know who Kirby was seeing before I confronted him, and that meant being there when she arrived. It also meant attracting as little attention as possible. Since I wasn’t carrying an iPad or a Kindle, I had no choice but to fall back on doing this old-style and use a newspaper, the classic cover for discreet surveillance. I bought a copy of the Washington Times from a vending machine, then I walked the single block to the hotel.

At around twenty minutes to eight, I entered the hotel and took a quick look around. The lobby had a tony, classic elegance. Plush velvet sofas. Richly veined woods and chrome. Several hundred dollars’ worth of fresh flowers. And darkness. A lot of darkness. The whole place screamed “Not for Kids,” which was just as well, seeing as what Kirby and his companion used the place for.

There was a small niche by the entrance for the concierge. A couple of guests were clearly putting his local knowledge to the test. At the other end of the lobby were two separate desks and armchairs in lieu of the traditional reception counter. Much more personal. The desk on the right was empty. A overly primped receptionist sat behind the other one, typing away at his computer’s keyboard.

I sat in a leather armchair with a perfect view of the hotel’s entrance and hoped that nothing had made Kirby alter his weekly routine tonight. I opened the newspaper and affected the casual air of someone waiting to meet a hotel guest.

About ten minutes later, Kirby walked in.

He went straight past me and across to reception. He was carrying a small gift bag from Biagio. The lady was clearly more than partial to chocolate.

He checked in with the minimum amount of fuss and was already on the way to the elevator before I had finished folding my newspaper.

The second the elevator doors had closed I walked over to the reception desk. There were no other guests there. Some situations called for an FBI badge, but others called for dead presidents. Given why I was here, this was definitely one of the latter. I pulled out a hundred and slid it across the desk.

“Stan Kirby. Just checked in. What room is he in?”

The clerk glanced at the bill somewhat haughtily, then looked up at me. “Sir, I can’t-”

“Sure you can,” I interjected while peeling off another hundred. I held both bills cupped discreetly against the desk.

He gave me an uneasy squint. “You a private detective?”

“Something like that.”

He considered it for a moment, then adjusted his immaculately trimmed eyebrow with a finely manicured finger and said, “The guy pays me fifty every week to ensure discretion. That adds up over time. You’ll need to go considerably higher.”

I leaned in. “I’ll let you in on something. That streak-it’s over. So you might as well take this and hang on to it until your next gravy train pulls in.”

The clerk thought about this. Maybe this was Kirby’s last Thursday. I clearly knew about the affair. Why else would I be there?

He reached over and, grudgingly, took the cash.

“Four fourteen,” he mumbled.

I gave him a smile. “Good call.”

He looked bummed, and proceeded to shuffle papers aimlessly across his desk.

“One more question,” I said.

He raised a stiff hand. “The woman?”

I smiled again.

He glanced down at his now-open palm, pointedly.

I pulled out another hundred and gave it to him.

“Long black hair. Spectacular body. You can’t miss her.”

I nodded. “Appreciate it.”

I was heading back to my chair when a noticeably attractive woman with long dark hair, a short dress, and four-inch pumps came in and went straight for the elevators.

To the untrained eye she could have been a high-class escort, but everything was a bit too perfect and considered. This was a woman who genuinely cared about the impression she gave, rather than giving an impression because she was paid to.

I already knew she wasn’t Kirby’s wife, since some of the pictures Kurt had taken off Facebook and sent me had Mrs. Kirby in them. To be doubly sure, I pulled them up on my phone. It wasn’t her. Then something clicked in the periphery of my memory, and I scrolled through the other shots. Our mystery woman was in one of them, standing next to Kirby’s wife, the two of them all hair and heels with big smiles all around. They were friends.

I called Kurt.