The Hunted

18

The office of MP Jones was on the second floor of a seven-story commercial building, almost dead center in the middle of M Street. MP was a graduate of Georgetown Law, a prestigious school, though not top five. He did it the hard way, four years of night school while he slaved at two menial jobs. Four years of pinching pennies. Four years of sprinting from class to McDonald's, where he pushed the torts and contracts to the back of his brain and shoved Big Macs and greasy fries across the counter. Four years of the cruel monotony of mac and cheese, of sleepless nights, of vying with full-time kids from wealthy families and wondering if this was the right choice. But he made it.

He graduated bottom third, but at least he had no onerous student debts. No interviews with big firms landed in his lap; sadly, no interviews at all. He had, however, passed the very difficult D.C. bar exam the first time around.

The Immigration Service was hiring and nobody else took his calls. Why not, he figured. Spend as few years as practical learning immigration law, then hang out a shingle and get rich quick.

Now it was him, two other lawyers, three stressed-out paralegals, and one very rude secretary who hated her job and couldn't wait till something better opened up. They called themselves partners. They referred to their setup as a firm. Nothing could be further from the truth. They were three struggling, scrambling attorneys dividing up the rent, a clutter of secondhand office furniture, and a few second-rate employees. No casework was shared, no fat profits divvied up at the end of a prosperous year. There were no prosperous years.

Married, with two kids and an attractive wife six months pregnant with the third, MP had cold sweats that it might turn out to be twins. They lived in a tiny, shabby ruin of a house he rented in a modest, run-down South Arlington neighborhood across the river.

Immigration cases, MP learned the hard way, paid squat. Nearly all his clients were poor, desperate people whose language skills were rudimentary, their earning power zilch. Too many were indigents assigned by the court. Hopeless causes seemed to be his specialty. They were booted out with regularity, which did not incline them to pay their legal bills. Immigration law, he had learned the hard way, was a poor man's game. Wealthy clients were scarce. The very few, mostly millionaires fleeing legal or tax troubles in their own lands, were bitterly scrapped over by every immigration attorney in the city; usually the large firms with dozens of lawyers to throw at their defense landed them with ease. MP had long since stopped hoping for a big score. His livelihood depended upon a backbreaking log of cases, and the oft-disappointed prayer that half of his clients might pay their bills.

But Alex and Elena Konevitch were different. An odd case, he thought as he stared at them holding hands across his desk. These were seriously frightened people. Probably had a right to be.

"So then the FBI just left? Walked out the door?" MP asked after listening closely to their story. A yellow legal pad was splayed open in front of him on his desk. Ten pages were filled with scrawls, questions, and other musings.

"With our computer," Alex clarified. "Can we get it back?"

"They entered without a search warrant?"

"Alex asked about it," Elena replied. "They didn't give him an answer."

"Okay, they didn't have one," MP concluded with the sad confidence earned through hard experience. Immigrants had few if any rights in this country. The police knew it and too often abused them in ways that would be unimaginable against a full-fledged citizen. Yes, Alex and Elena had been granted asylum. But what the government giveth, it can, and sometimes doth, taketh away. MP had seen it before. That the Feds would act with such callous abandon was not a good omen.

"You're sure you committed no crimes in Russia?" MP asked. He had repeated this same question a hundred times in preparation for their asylum hearings a year before. It wouldn't hurt to hear the answer again. He studied their faces, hard.

"None," Alex told him. "A traffic violation once. I parked illegally and paid the fine."

Blushing slightly, Elena said, "When I was sixteen, I was with a group who had been drinking and became a public nuisance. I was brought before a judge and released."

"You're sure you didn't steal anything from the bank?" This question, obviously, was directed at Alex.

"Not a penny. Fifty million was stolen, according to the Russian news. But by the people who took away my bank, not me," Alex answered quite resolutely.

MP seemed undecided for a moment. He ran his pen aimlessly across a page, trying to decide what to do next. "Could you step out for a moment while I make a call?"

They left and found seats in the small, cramped lobby. MP worked the phone for almost twenty minutes. It was Saturday, late afternoon. He was calling home numbers and getting the expected responses. The lawyers of INS were either out watching their spouses shop, clubbing divots into the back nine, or observing their kiddies tumble around soccer fields. He finally caught Tommy Kravitz, on a cell phone, apparently.

Kravitz was a lifer who did as little work as possible, an inveterate busybody who amused himself by knowing everybody else's business. The roar of a baseball game, live, loud, and raucous, made it difficult to hear.

"Who's winning?" MP yelled.

"Not the Orioles, damn it. Why do I root for these guys? I'm an idiot."

"You are an idiot, Tommy. Nineteen years in the INS trenches. You should've left ten years ago, gotten a life."

"Yeah? Hey, seriously, how's the money out there? Great, right?"

"Just okay. The kids love their new private schools, Terry considers our mansion in Great Falls to be too ostentatious, and I'm looking around to replace my six-month-old Jag with a Mercedes. The Jag picked up a small scratch on the bumper and it's just too embarrassing to be seen in. What do you think? Mercedes 500, or splurge and go all out for a 600? It gets better mileage, that's what I hear."

Tommy laughed. "You're a lousy liar. Still got that same tiny shoebox in Arlington?"

"Yeah. The air-conditioning compressor went on the fritz last year, but we Joneses are tough. We'll sweat it out until Terry wins the lottery."

"Don't depend on her luck, pal. She got herself knocked up on your fourth date."

"Thanks for pointing that out."

"And that dented-up Chrysler minivan? That clunker still getting by the inspectors?"

"What do they know? We're driving it, anyway. Hey, you ever hear of a guy named Konevitch? Alex Konevitch."

A long moment of silence. Amid a loud roar, Tommy finally answered in a low whisper, "He your client?"

"Who scored?"

"Damn-that was a Yankee bat boy. The Orioles, remember? He your client or not, MP? Curious minds demand to know."

"Yeah, he is."

"Drop him. Just drop him, and run far, buddy."

"What's going on, Tommy? Tell me."

"I don't care if you were my brother. It's hush-hush, times ten. No can do. Mucho trouble's about to land on his head. Your guy's got problems he can't begin to imagine."

"Like that, huh?"

"Insist on cash, and make him pay you up front, MP. He has the dough, believe me. And count it real close-he's a rotten thief."

"Who's handling him?"

"Kim Parrish. That's not good news for you, either, pal."

The name was familiar: a vague memory, though. She had come aboard during his final year, when MP was more concerned with putting the INS in the rearview mirror than acquainting himself with the new associates he intended to leave in the dust. Like all new attorneys, she started out with the soft cases where she wouldn't embarrass the service-immigrants who snuck over a border or allowed their green cards to expire or committed some petty offense. Inside six months-record time-she was bumped up to the big leagues, the narcotraffickers, the big-time tax cheats, high-profile cases reserved for the best and brightest. She was old for a starting attorney, forty-five, maybe fifty. She was also smart and good, very good. Single, no children, intense, and very married to the law.

In a knowing tone, MP asked, "Who's pushing the case?"

"Are you deaf? I can't tell, MP. I swear I can't."

"Tommy, Tommy. That Gonzalez case, remember it? The one where you let the ball drop and the director wanted your-"

"Damn it, MP, I know I owe you. I'm not gonna say. Can't, just can't."

"I understand. I really do."

"Good. Believe me, if there was any way, I'd tell you everything."

After a brief pause. "So what aren't you gonna say?"

"You're a dogged bastard, you know that?"

"I can barely stand to eat with myself. Spill it, Tommy."

"All right, all right. For starters, I'm not gonna say the director was dragged over to Justice last week. I'm not gonna say the attorney general and FBI director reamed him purple 'cause he let this slimeball lie and cheat his way into asylum. I'm definitely not gonna say that this guy has the entire machinery of the Justice Department after his ass. I hope you're listening, MP. He's toast."

"Thanks for everything you didn't say, Tommy. I'll sleep better tonight knowing it's such an easy case."

"He's going home."

"He's got me as a lawyer."

"I'm telling ya, he's going home. Nothing you do will stop it."

"Watch me."

"You'll hurt yourself, pal. You're jumping in front of a steam-roller. The heat on this guy's nuclear. Take the cash up front, then take a fast dive. Don't still be standing for the second round."

Tommy punched off, but MP still felt compelled to say, "I owe you one."

He called Alex and Elena and they filed back into his office. MP paced behind his desk, trying not to look overly concerned. The wrinkles on his forehead told a different story. They held hands as they fell back into their chairs.

"It's bad isn't it?" Alex asked.

"I'll be frank. Yes."

"How bad, MP?"

"The director of the FBI and the attorney general want you gone." He let this sink in, then continued, "I'm wondering why. Any ideas?"

"Yes, a few. My enemies in Moscow have powerful allies inside the Kremlin. They've obviously pulled strings with your government."

"But they can't ship us back, can they, MP?" Elena rocked forward in her chair, her hands tightly clenched beneath her knees. "They gave us political asylum. And there's no extradition treaty. If they send Alex back to Russia, they'll kill him."

"Those are the obstacles in their path. Ordinarily they're very powerful," he said, nodding thoughtfully, trying to balance optimism with his growing awareness of how serious this might be. He battled a temptation to jump out of his seat and scream, "Pack your bags and race for Canada. You haven't got a prayer."

"But…?" Alex said.

"But they'll look for ways around them."

"What are these ways?"

"Every case is different, Alex. I can't predict. But I advise you to get your affairs in order. This can get ugly." The first blow arrived Monday morning. Elena went to the bank to cash a check. They wanted to stay and fight, but they were realists. Flight might become their only option. To exercise that option they would need money, a hoard of cash, enough to get across the border and get settled. A withdrawal of ten thousand or more would trigger an immediate report to the IRS, and Alex was losing faith in all American authorities; so $9,999 it was. The teller, a plump young girl with a polite smile, punched the account number into her computer. The smile disappeared. She looked up with a puzzled expression. "Sorry, I can't cash this."

"You… What do you mean?"

"Your account's frozen." She was pointing at the screen Elena couldn't see.

"Frozen? How is it frozen?" Elena thought maybe her English was failing her, that maybe "frozen" was some enigmatic banking term like "overdrawn." A minor inconvenience that could easily be cleared up. "We have hundreds of thousands in that account," she insisted.

"Yes, I know. But the police or somebody has ordered the bank not to disburse any money from your account. I'm very sorry."

She felt like crying. Not here, though-not in front of all these strangers. She rushed outside and called Alex on her cell. She explained what had happened. He told her not to get upset, this had to be a misunderstanding. He would call MP, who would work a little legal magic and fix it.

They hung up and Alex immediately placed a call to his bank in Bermuda where the vast bulk of their money was parked. He was thanking God he had kept the account offshore, deeply relieved that he had not moved all that cash to an American bank where the interest rates were impressively higher. His business brain told him it was costing him thousands of dollars a year in lost income. A reckless waste. He had been sorely tempted a dozen times to just do it. Now he was pleased he had followed some darker instinct.

An assistant manager answered and quickly placed Alex on hold. A senior manager came on the line. "I'm sorry, Mr. Konevitch."

"What do you have to be sorry about?"

"There was nothing we could do."

"About what?"

"Well…" A lame cough. "Your account, sir, it's frozen."

The discussion lasted five minutes. Only an hour before, the governor of Bermuda had called in the head of the bank and read him the riot act. He himself had just gotten off the phone with a senior American Justice Department official who kicked him around like a third world tin can. Though Bermudan banking laws were notoriously loose, he was told that, in this case, the rules would tighten up. Ugly threats were traded back and forth, but in the end the outcome was preordained. Neither the governor nor the Bermudan banks wanted to be listed as havens for criminal money. It mattered not that they were-being accurately labeled was what they deathly feared. Tourism would dry up. Bermudan exports would sit on American docks, rotting. Bermuda, so dependent on rich Americans, would shrivel to a wasteland of empty beaches and foreclosed hotels, massive numbers of angry, unemployed people, etcetera. The governor remained steadfast for about three seconds before he crumbled under the onslaught of threats.

The FBI now had a death grip on both of Alex's accounts.

Not thirty minutes later, Illya called from Austria. "Alex, what's going on?" he yelled, clearly at the outer edge of reason.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"No idea? The roof's falling in here."

"Settle down, Illya. Take a deep breath and tell me what's happening."

A long moment passed while his excitable protege tried to order his harried thoughts. "This morning I was informed that our license to do business in Russia has been revoked. All day, we've been getting calls from clients canceling their contracts."

"On what basis?"

"The American clients were advised by the American FBI that we're a front for criminal operations."

"And the Russian clients?"

"No reason was given. They were just ordered by the Ministry of Security to terminate their relationships with us, or else."

Alex quietly cursed himself. The computer! He had password-coded his files, a false sense of security, he realized now, very unhappily, and a little after the fact. The FBI had talented specialists who probably could crack his password in seconds flat. He tried to recall what was in those files. Nothing. Everything. Too much. He had never imagined he would have to protect himself against this kind of police abuse. Not here. Not in America.

Everything he and Elena had done with Orangutan, the accounts they had brought in, the names of his contacts in Austria. What else? His bank records, of course-that accounted for how swiftly the FBI moved in and strangled their finances. A new thought struck him and his blood ran cold.

As coolly as he could, he said to Illya, "Pack your bags and get away, Illya."

"Why, Alex? I'm-"

"Don't ask questions I can't answer. Just get away, right now." "Alex, I have three hundred employees. I can't. I have responsibilities and obligations here."

"Do you want to live?"

"Of course, but-"

"Use cash, Illya. Don't leave a trail. Don't call your family or friends. Find a place to hide where nobody will expect you."

Mysteriously, the line suddenly went dead. The three men parked one block away in the white, unmarked van, turned down the volume, and sipped lukewarm coffee. They exchanged knowing winks and satisfied smiles. They were "press aides" assigned to the Russian embassy, a thin guise for intelligence operatives. Yes, run, Illya, run as fast as your legs can carry you. Dodge and hide, spend only cash, ignore your family and job, and disappear into the darkest hole in the universe. We'll still find you.

Volevodz had littered bugs in almost every square inch of the Konevitch apartment. The two Fibbies had observed him, had idly watched as he wandered around the Konevitch home hiding a listening device here, a bug there. They never said a word. After a while, Volevodz dropped any pretense of caution. They obviously didn't care. They had orders from on high to allow the Russian as much latitude as he wanted-as long as he didn't kill anybody. This was America, after all: a land of laws and inalienable rights. Beatings were questionable, they figured, in a gray area; guess it depended how bad the thumping got, the two agents decided.

The house phone was bugged as well. The men in the van could barely contain themselves when Elena had called that morning with the surprise news about the bank. Alex, we have no money. Oh Alex, how will we pay our lawyer? Alex, how will we buy food? The questions and pulled hair would come soon. Probably that night.

Another van, similarly equipped, and also filled with Russian "press aides," was parked half a block up from their lawyer's office. His phones, too, both at home and at work, were riddled with bugs. His house had been burgled the day before. While he, his wife, and two kids were doing the prayer thing at church, a team had entered through the broken back door. It was easy. A bad, decaying neighborhood. His neighbors generally stayed inside and very specifically ignored what happened outside their doors. His office, too, was wired like a sound studio.

So they knew the lawyer hadn't come in yet, was apparently still wandering the halls at INS, trying to fathom how bad his client's situation was.

Bad, pal. Real bad.

Neither the lawyer nor the Konevitches had the slightest idea how awful this was about to get.