The First Billion

30

Damn it!” muttered Gavallan as he turned the doorknob and found it locked.

He was standing at the back door of Ray Luca’s house, a run-down clapboard cottage with dormer windows, a weather vane, and paint peeling by the bucketload. Bougainvillea, ferns, and frangipani grew untended on three sides of the small home, enough vines and vegetation to qualify the place as a jungle. Frustrated, he took a step back, looking for spots where Luca might have hidden a key. He ran a hand along the door frame; his only rewards a splinter and a dead beetle. A few potted plants dangled from exposed rafters. His fingers probed the moist dirt, again without success. Behind him, a redbrick patio stretched twenty feet in either direction. A hot tub occupied one corner, a rusted hibachi and a flimsy set of lawn chairs the other. He walked to the hibachi and removed the lid. Fired charcoal briquettes dusted the interior. He replaced the lid carefully, his grasp that much tighter because of the sweat rolling down his forearms. The heat and humidity, coupled with his anxiety, made him feel plugged in, electric. He held out his hand and it trembled slightly, not so much with fear as with adrenaline.

He had parked two blocks up the road and walked boldly to Luca’s front door, calling out his name to show the world he was a friend. He’d decided that noise was less suspicious than silence, and that an innocent visitor wouldn’t think to camouflage his arrival. The neighborhood was sleepy bordering on comatose, with quaint cracker box houses spaced twenty to thirty yards apart and a scarred macadam road shaded by a palm canopy. Though he hadn’t seen a soul, he could be sure someone had laid eyes on him. He figured he had fifteen minutes before his window of safety closed. After that he had no idea who might come—police, the FBI, a nosy neighbor.

His anxiety growing as the seconds ticked by, Gavallan returned his gaze to the rear of the house. A watering jar, a can of insecticide, and a terra-cotta pot holding a spade and a trowel sat a few feet from the door. Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped his forehead and dried his palms. Eeny-meeny-miney-mo. He chose the watering jar. Wrong again.

The key was under the insecticide.

Inside the kitchen, Gavallan stood with his back pressed to the door, listening. He heard the tick of the oven clock, the whir of the ice machine, the deafening static of abandonment. Mostly, though, he heard the draw of his own shallow breathing and the boom-boom-boom of blood thumping in his ears.

Satisfied the home was deserted, he made his way through the dining room, past the front door, and into the den, or what his daddy would have called “the parlor.” A sky blue La-Z-Boy recliner occupied pride of place, four feet from a big-screen television. Luca hadn’t watched TV; he’d bathed in it.

Blinking, Gavallan remembered his father’s recliner, an olive velour “EZ-cliner” from Sears, armrests threadbare but spotless after fifteen years. The Captain’s Chair, his daddy had called it, though it was strictly for enlisted men. He saw, too, the fifteen-inch black-and-white television, the creatively mangled wire hanger that served as its antenna, and the TV’s cinder-block perch, prettied up with a pink pillowcase and a shiny glass jar filled with freshly picked daisies. Cleanliness alone had rescued the Gavallans from poverty.

A curtain fluttered and a faint breath cooled the room, but instead of catching a hint of jasmine and wisteria, he tasted the day-old scent of red beans and rice and the wet, ambition-robbing heat of a Texas summer.

Keep moving, he told himself.

Luca’s bedroom lay at the end of a narrow corridor. The queen-size bed was neatly made, colorful stitched pillows strewn over a white bedspread. Poster prints of Monet’s water lilies tacked to the wall supplied the culture. Gavallan spotted a few photos of three young girls he presumed to be Luca’s daughters—skinny little things with pigtails and overalls, around four, six, and ten. A personal computer sat on a long desk that took up one wall. A screensaver flashed a field of racehorses with the header “254 days until the Flamingo Stakes.”

Ray liked the ponies, mused Gavallan. And his “victory burger” with jalapeños.

Six piles of neatly stacked paper were laid out to the left of the computer. Technical charts. Analysts’ reports from bulge bracket firms. Typewritten notes. His eye stuck on a page with strangely familiar script. Craning his neck, he looked closer. The header was written in Cyrillic and the body of the text in English. The fax was dated two days earlier, and addressed to Assistant Deputy Director Agent Howell Dodson, Chairman, Joint Russo-American Task Force on Organized Crime.

As he dropped a hand to pick it up, something creaked in another part of the house. It was a distinct sound, high-pitched and whiny, lasting a second or more. It was the kind of noise that made you shiver. A door closing? A footstep?

Ten seconds passed. Fifteen. Gavallan held his breath, his ear tuned to any vibration that might indicate the presence of another. He wasn’t feeling so electric anymore. Not so plugged in. Jittery was more like it, the adrenaline long gone. He was breaking and entering into the home of a man shot and killed barely two hours earlier. If the police found him, he could count on a one-way trip to jail with bail an impossibility for days.

The house held its breath and was silent. Using his handkerchief, Gavallan pulled the chair out from under the desk and sat down. He had no intention of leaving any fingerprints. As far as he or anyone else was concerned, he was never here. Picking up the fax, he read about the proposed raid on Kirov’s headquarters. A second go-through and he’d memorized the cast’s names—Baranov, Skulpin, Dodson of the FBI. He knew the star personally: Kirov, Konstantin R. Replacing the fax on the desk, he recalled an old saw about playing cards: If you can’t spot the sucker, it’s probably you. A disgusted smile burned his lips.

But if Gavallan thought he’d found his trophy, the souvenir of his secret visit, he was mistaken. A marked-up copy of the newest article for the Private Eye-PO’s web page lay crumpled in the trash can by his feet. “Mercury in Mayhem,” it was titled, and it offered a blow-by-blow account of Prosecutor General Baranov’s failed raid on the offices of Mercury Broadband.

That would have done it, thought Gavallan, reading intently. Word that Kirov was under investigation would have proved the straw that broke the camel’s back. And so the victory burger!

“Ah, Ray, you were so close.”

Finished reading, he laid the paper to one side. He had no time to digest, just to collect. Still using the handkerchief, he clicked on the mouse and watched as the parade of galloping Thoroughbreds was replaced by a copy of the same article. Closing the file, he thought of burrowing into the computer’s directory and deleting it. He decided against it. Mercury was what it was. He’d never planned on abetting a fraud. He wouldn’t start by erasing a dead man’s last words.

A bedside clock showed the time as 12:08. His window of safety would close in seven minutes. Abruptly, he rose. Collecting the Russian fax, he laid it on top of Luca’s last article, then folded the papers in half, as was his habit, script side up. That was when he saw it: ten little numbers printed across the top of the page, indicating the phone number of the sending fax machine. Area code 415 for San Francisco, 472—and he knew the rest by heart.

Leave, a voice told him. You can be sick outside.

He had stepped into the corridor outside the bedroom when a door opened and closed. This time there was no mistaking the noise. Footsteps crossed the kitchen floor, squeaking on the checkerboard linoleum. He made out voices. Murmured. Controlled. Guilty.

Gavallan ducked back into the bedroom, eyes desperately seeking a hiding place. Under the bed? Too narrow. Behind the door? Too easy to find. In the closet? He didn’t have time to find anything better. The sliding doors were half open. Five steps and he was inside. Edging into the tight space, he moved as far as he could to one side, maneuvering between neatly hung pants and shirts, jostling a golf bag. Laying his fingertips on the sliding doors, he eased them together, leaving a slim crack through which he could see the room.

The man came in first, big as a linebacker, hair cut to a jarhead’s exacting specifications—high and tight with plenty of whitewalls showing. Military, Gavallan thought, spotting the caged stance, the disciplined posture. The intruder scoped the room, moving immediately to the computer.

“Tatiana,” he called, then issued instructions in what Gavallan took to be Russian.

A young blond girl dashed into the room, her stride as taut as a feline’s. A lioness, to be sure. What else would you call a svelte knockout wielding an automatic with a marksman’s ease?

“Da, Boris,” she answered.

A flash of platinum blond, the wink of gunmetal, and she was gone.

The man named Boris busied himself at Luca’s desk, gathering the day trader’s papers and shoving them into a plastic duffel he’d produced from his pocket, then sitting down and tapping a blizzard of instructions into Luca’s PC. From his hiding place, Gavallan could just about read the windows popping onto the screen, asking Boris if he was sure he wanted to erase the files. A voice inside of him railed and grew frantic. That’s your proof he’s destroying. Your evidence that Kirov manipulated the offering from the beginning, that you weren’t part of the whole damned scheme.

Gavallan found the golf clubs. Sliding a hand from the clubhead to the grip, he selected what he thought was a five-iron and deftly withdrew it from the bag. He was no longer thinking, but acting. Rationality had left him when he’d entered the house. Inching the closet door open, he found his vision framed by a fizzing red tide.

You killed Luca and nine others.

You kidnapped Graf Byrnes.

You’re going to kill him too, if you haven’t already.

Then he was out of the closet, closing the gap between himself and soldier Boris. An eye darted to the door. He could hear Tatiana rummaging through another part of the house. Cocking his wrists, he drew the golf club back, his strength coiling in his arms, his shoulders.

“Hey, Boris.”

“Da?”

He swung as the man swiveled toward him, involuntarily holding back a fraction as the iron connected. The club struck a glancing blow, toppling Boris from the chair. Gavallan ran to the doorway, ready to deliver a like blow to the girl. Behind him, Boris was already rising, a feral groan escaping his bloodied mouth. No way, muttered Gavallan, retreating a step. Hands slick on the leather Fairway grip, he brought the club back for a second shot. Tatiana appeared in the doorway. Her gun was rising, her laser blue eyes focused on Gavallan’s.

“Nyet, Tanya,” called Boris, waving her off. He rushed a few words in Russian that Gavallan took as a caution.

Tatiana inched toward the closet. Boris, a hand assaying his bruised jaw, held his ground next to the desk. Gavallan shifted his eyes from one side of the room to the other, from the lithe blond to the hulking thug. He felt tingly and alert and unafraid.

“You, be calm, okay?” said Boris.

“I’m fine. Why don’t you two just turn around and leave. This is not your home. You shouldn’t be here.” His hands tightened on the club. “Just go… I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

“You, hurt us?” Boris wiped at the blood and drool leaking from his mouth. The bastard was smiling.

And then, the telephone rang, an old-fashioned jangle that in the tense silence practically blew the roof right off the house. Boris’s eyes shot to the phone. Tanya shifted her head. And in that instant, Gavallan moved. Jumping forward, he drove the iron hard into the soldier’s ribs.

“Boris!” screamed the girl as the flat top collapsed to a knee.

Gavallan kept the iron in motion. It rose into the air, then dove in a silver arc, the shaft striking Tanya’s hands, sending the pistol pinwheeling across the carpet. The girl registered no disappointment. Planting her feet, she came out swinging. One fist darted at his head, another at his gut. Gavallan sidestepped the blows, and as the girl’s momentum carried her by him, he dropped the club and drove an elbow into her back. When she rose from the floor, Gavallan had the automatic in his grasp—a Glock 9mm, he now recognized.

“Freeze,” he said, one eye scanning the room for Boris. “Don’t move a mus—”

The blow hit him low in the back, a kidney punch delivered with ferocious verve. He wanted to cry, but no sound escaped him. His body was paralyzed. The cords of his neck flexed, his shoulders bowed, his lips bared over screaming teeth. The whole of his being grimaced with a pain it had never known. He collapsed, first to his knees, then to his chest, his arms and hands ignoring his every reflex to cushion his fall.

He wasn’t sure how long he was unconscious. A minute. Maybe two. Boris stood by the desk, dumping the last of Ray Luca’s papers into his duffel. The computer had been turned off. Tatiana kneeled close by, smelling pleasantly of lilacs and rosewater, the gun once again in her possession. Her head was tilted, and seeing his eyes open, she smiled. “Allo, Mr. Jett.”

Hearing Tatiana speak, Boris abandoned his duties. “I’m sorry, sir, but we will kill you now,” he said, turning toward Gavallan. “Mr. Kirov, he insists. He says to tell you, it is business only.”

“You mean, ‘It’s only business,’” said Gavallan.

Boris shrugged. “My English is not so good as should be.”

Gavallan lifted his head. Watching the blond cock the hammer and level the barrel at his forehead, he felt like a spectator to his own death. He wasn’t frightened; he was too groggy for that, too fatigued by pain. He felt only disappointment, a terrible sense of letting Graf Byrnes down, of sentencing his company to an unknown fate, of allowing life to get the better of him.

“Ray? Ray, you home? What’s going on back there?”

The voice came from inside the house. Boris whispered something to Tanya and she moved toward Gavallan.

“Ray? That you?”

Gavallan opened his mouth to cry out, but at the same instant, Tatiana brought the butt of the gun crashing onto his head. The last thought to pass through his mind, even as he drifted into darkness, was that he knew the voice.

Cate.

What the hell are you doing here?