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SVITLANYA KEPT A LIGHT on at night while she slept. The lamp in the bower window, close to her dressing table, worked best. And because her bed rested against the wall directly opposite the door to her room, she didn’t sleep in it anymore, choosing the couch behind the door instead.
When she dialed down the lamp’s dimmer switch to lower its light, the rest of her room lay in shadow—and she lay in wait, the Makarov loaded and ready under her pillow. Oh, she slept, but her ear was always listening, subconsciously attuned to the particular sounds the locks made when they slid open and the soft ssss her door made when it turned on its hinges.
Each morning, she went through the same routine. She removed the evidence of sleeping on the couch, mussed her bed as though she had slept there, and rearranged the pillows that had served as her “body” during the night.
Svitlanya had lived like this—fearful of an attempt on her life—for two years. Her precautions began the day her brother Symon had gone to prison and her father had announced that he would be grooming her to take over the entirety of the Ukrainian crime syndicate’s US operations at his death.
Me. A woman, fear shrilled in her ear.
A competent woman, her outrage answered. More than capable. A better businesswoman, in fact, than my father—better educated, better prepared for the future.
Her father, Semion Davydenko, was old now, nearly eighty-five, and growing feeble. Fact or opinion as to her competence would matter little if certain men in the organization chose to decide the matter of Semion’s replacement themselves.
She was aware of the danger surrounding her. Hadn’t she lived with it in one form or another every day of her life? If it were only herself, she might have abdicated and gone far away to live out her days somewhere pleasant.
But it isn’t only me. I have Zoya to think of.
Svitlanya had never married. It had been a blow to her parents when, at age thirty-nine, she announced her pregnancy. Her intentional pregnancy.
I wanted a child, but I didn’t want the husband that went along with the usual way things are done—for who would have married me other than an ambitious man? A man who said he loved me but really wanted only to advance himself in the organization?
Eventually, her parents had accepted the news, and they had doted on Zoya. As Svitlanya had.
Wolfe was right. My daughter is the only pure thing in my life, the only thing I love—which is why I sent her away to school in Europe after Symon went to prison. To keep her safe and out of this ugly life entirely.
Svitlanya glanced at the clock again. Sighed.
Why can’t I sleep?
When she checked the clock a third time, she gave up. Threw off the covers and sat up. Walked around her poorly lit room, restless. Concerned.
The meeting with Wolfe had been . . . eye-opening, particularly when he revealed that his operative had been instrumental in saving Zoya’s plane. Svitlanya’s heart pounded as it had on that day when the planes struck the twin towers and when Zoya’s incoming flight had been rerouted to Canada. When the news had announced that two sky marshals had foiled one of the 9/11 hijackings. Had saved the plane. Had saved Zoya.
Wolfe’s exact words came back to her. “Without my agent on board, the sky marshal, by his own testimony, would have failed to save the plane. We found out that the hijackers had intended to fly the plane into a hospital. They wanted to kill a thousand sick people—and your daughter.”
“I owe this woman for Zoya’s life—and yet, I am forbidden to return the favor in kind.”
Svitlanya knew little of this Sayed person, the man at the top of AGFA’s hierarchy, only what Khasurt, Sayed’s American commander, had unconsciously let slip. That and what Svitlanya herself had deduced during the negotiations between her father and Sayed. The negotiations had been held via Sayed’s satellite phone with Svitlanya and Semion’s two top pakhans present.
The image of Sayed she’d formed was of a self-obsessed, religious fanatic—a little man with a derisive and contemptuous view of women. “The kind of man,” she was convinced her father’s pakhans whispered to each other later, “who will never conduct business dealings with our organization if it is headed by a woman.”
I must make a move, Svitlanya told herself, and soon. Before my father dies and my Zoya and I follow him to the grave.
She crept to her dressing table, retrieved her laptop, and took it back to the couch. She opened it and logged on to the new email account she’d created and used to send AGFA’s shipping information to Wolfe.
Wolfe or his IT person had replied to the information on the carfentanil shipment with a succinct “Information received.” Nothing more.
Svitlanya tapped the edge of the keyboard, thinking, weighing the few options open to her. Director Wolfe had been surprisingly candid about his operative. He had allowed Svitlanya to see his earnest feelings for the woman, the woman he said had saved Zoya’s plane.
I regret that I was unable to give Wolfe what he needed to find and rescue his agent. If Papa had allowed it, I would have done as Director Wolfe asked and made a friend of this man. Friends in high places, even those on the other side, can sometimes render a favor in time of need. A personal favor—that is a given—not a business favor.
Something tinkered around beyond the edge of her conscious grasp. The glint of an idea in the making, not yet formed.
Our financial records in the hands of the FBI are a ticking time bomb. Someday, perhaps soon, they will crack the encryption on those files and have all the proof they need to ruin us.
Svitlanya didn’t move as a suggestion crept around the corner and came into view.
If Papa agreed, I would attempt to trade his agent for our data.
It was an audacious proposal. Smart and simple.
If Papa allowed, I would exchange a conversation with Sayed for our records. No, not for the files themselves, but for their destruction.
But she knew Semion Davydenko too well. He would insist that she pitch the scheme to his pakhans. They, most certainly, would talk the idea to death and then slow-walk it to its grave.
Oh, the things I’d do if Papa’s approval weren’t needed.
Svitlanya mulled over the idea of sending Wolfe a second email. She stilled, barely breathing, as she considered how she might approach him. She even opened a file and slowly typed the initial gambit, the language she might use to put forward the suggestion.
Dear Director Wolfe,
Thank you for reaching out to us on a matter of grave concern on both sides—the safety and security of America from terrorism. I am glad we could come to a mutually beneficial resolution, now that you have received the requested shipping information.
Svitlanya thought through the next paragraph, then typed it out.
We also spoke of our other security needs, you of your agent’s safe return, us of our data, presently held in other hands. How simply could both problems be solved if we were to, again, cooperate.
I propose we think on how to achieve such a solution. I await your timely reply.
Cordially,
S.D.
With the boldness she would need when her father passed, Svitlanya copied the text, pasted it into an email, and sent it to the address Wolfe had provided.
As the message flew away, she did not allow herself to fear the repercussions.
If I wait until Papa is gone to be bold, it will be too late. I must be the leader now that we will need then.
Svitlanya returned to the couch, crawled under the covers, and slept at last.
JAZ SIGHED AND TURNED over again. It wasn’t that she didn’t need the rest. Plainly, she was exhausted. She couldn’t sleep because she couldn’t shut her brain off.
When she closed her eyes, her thoughts turned to finding wherever AGFA had stashed Bella and how Wolfe, with his many resources, would mount a rescue. The only things able to turn her thoughts in another direction were the problems assigned to the task force to solve.
Jaz was never far from her laptop, her ears attuned to its every sound. Even now, with the volume turned down low, the soft ping of an incoming email roused her.
She lifted the lid on her laptop and opened her email account. Nothing. She switched to the account she’d set up for communications between Wolfe and the Ukrainian mob.
Another email from Svitlanya Davydenko?
She read Svitlanya’s email. Read it again.
“If the Lord moves in that situation, Jaz, we’ll know it.”
“If the Lord ‘moves’? What’s he gonna do? Wave a red flag? Send up a flare?”
“However he chooses to act, it will be unmistakable. Until then? Keep your hands off.”
Jaz shivered. “Yah, this is pretty unmistakable.”
Okay, I did what you asked, Tobin. I kept my hands off—until I got the unmistakable nod from your god.
SVITLANYA WAS TIRED when she crawled from the couch to start her day. She had back-to-back meetings with her father and several pakhans all afternoon and would need her wits about her.
She showered, dressed, and called downstairs for the kitchen staff to bring her a breakfast tray. While she waited, she opened her laptop to review notes on the meetings. On a whim, she checked the email account she used to communicate with Wolfe.
Svitlanya was surprised to see an immediate response to her message of a few hours ago. Her surprise grew when she realized who had sent the response. Not Wolfe.
She read the message’s content . . . and read it again. A viable path opened before her, the means to a successful transition as head of her father’s organization.
If she dared to step onto the path.
She chewed her bottom lip, gathering her courage. Then she replied to the email.
I accept. However, time is short. In a show of good faith, I will hasten to do my part. I expect you to complete your part of the exchange within the week following.
She set her laptop aside and thought through her next steps. The adrenaline racing through her blood had wiped out all traces of fatigue.
I can rest later. Now I must prepare myself to act decisively.
USAMA INTERRUPTED COSSACK’S conversation with the men in the cavern. “General Sayed wishes to see you.” Something about Usama’s demeanor and the tense set of his shoulders gave Cossack pause. As did the two flint-faced men who accompanied him.
“Of course.” He murmured to the soldiers he had been sharing his lunch with, “Please excuse me.” He tried to follow Usama, but the man insisted he go first.
“You know the way.”
Not “You know the way, General Labazanov.”
I am in trouble, and I don’t know why or how. But after being found “wandering” around the coal-fired furnace in the cavern three nights past, he already knew he was walking on thin ice. He had explained that when he couldn’t sleep, he had gone into the cavern to warm himself by the furnace, and had become interested in its workings.
“We need a dependable heat source in our stronghold, and I have been pondering how we might utilize such a device. I went behind it merely to explore and find where the ductwork came out of it.”
“You weren’t hiding from my men?”
Cossack had allowed his response burn hot. “Why would I need to hide myself, General Sayed?”
Sayed hadn’t replied. He had flicked his fingers at Usama, dismissing them both.
Cossack arrived at the entrance to Sayed’s rooms and waited for Usama. At Usama’s signal, the guard pulled back the curtain and let them in.
Then Cossack saw the woman standing respectfully behind Sayed’s seat. Even veiled, the intensity of her hatred reached out to him—as did the jangling alarms telling him that he should know her.
“Arzu, Arzu, Arzu. Halima bint Abra has the most incredible tale to relate. Honestly, I cannot give it credence . . . but she is quite persuasive. So, shall I let her tell the story?”
“As you wish, Sayed. I do not know the woman.”
Sayed crooked a finger at her, and she spoke. In English.
At the sound of her voice, Cossack started to sweat.
“I was a medical doctor, a gynecologist, when I first laid eyes on you. And you? You were but a lowly trainee.”
She removed her veils, and Cossack studied the woman’s sallow skin, the pouches hanging below her dark eyes, trying to place her.
“You and she were quite close.”
“I do not speak English as well as General Sayed. Please use Chechen or Russian.”
“But you do know English—it is your first language. And I think you begin to remember me now? From Marstead’s training camp? Yes. You knew me as Dr. Gupta back then, Black. You and Miss Green—or should I call her Magda?”
It took only seconds for Cossack’s carefully crafted cover to come undone.
Sayed chuckled. “Oh, Halima! Yes, I see his guilt. It is written across his face. No wonder I have been suspicious of him all these years. You say he and the woman trained together to become spies?”
Gupta smiled her triumph. “That is precisely what I am saying. It was at least twenty-five years ago. I went on to other things later.”
“What are you talking about?” Cossack roared, switching back to Russian. “I do not know this—this liar, this deceiver!”
“Oh, I believe it is you who is the liar and deceiver, Arzu—if that is your name. But no mind. We shall get the truth from you soon enough. I must know how many lies you have told and to whom you have whispered our secrets.”
To Usama he said, “Give me his mobile phone then put him in a secure cell. I will use my own hand to pry the truth from him.”
Usama shoved a gun into Cossack’s side and pulled the phone from his pocket. “Do not resist me, General.”
With Usama and his men following close behind, Cossack found himself being prodded down a tunnel, past the side tunnel where the kafir women were kept, to a cell carved into the side of the tunnel.
Usama stared at the peg pounded into the tunnel wall. “Where is the key?” he demanded of his men.
They looked at each other. One of them said, “I will fetch another key, Usama.”
Minutes later, Cossack was alone in the cold cell, locked behind its barred gate.
THE HOUSE WAS QUIET. The kitchen servants were out doing the day’s shopping. It was a good time to approach her father with a sensitive request. Svitlanya knocked on her father’s door. Semion’s office on the main floor of their family’s home was spacious and grandiose—as befitting an American oligarch.
“Papa. I wish to speak to you.”
“Come in, Svittie. Come in.”
It struck Svitlanya almost daily how much bone and muscle mass her father was losing. He was, quite literally, shrinking before her eyes. In her mind’s eye, Svitlanya could see her mother wringing her hands and hear her bemoaning her husband’s fickle appetite—exactly as she would have done had she still been alive.
Her beloved mother had passed during the night six years ago, and Svitlanya could honestly say she was glad her mother had been spared her eldest son’s death, her second son’s trial and incarceration, and her husband’s physical and mental decline.
“What is it, Svittie?”
Svitlanya sat before her father’s desk like one of his pakhans. “I have received an email, Papa, from the hacker who stole our data, the woman called Vyper.” She left the statement hanging in the air for her father to contemplate, for him to believe that the initial move had come from the other side.
“Is it a trick?”
“I cannot believe it is. The message came through the email account Director Wolfe provided. I think this Vyper must be under the director’s personal supervision.”
“And what does this woman want?”
“She wishes to make an exchange.” Svitlanya laid out the offer. It wasn’t long or complicated, but Svitlanya used simple, concise phrases. Her father’s mind wasn’t as agile as it had been in years past—and she wasn’t the only one to have noticed.
As Semion Davydenko’s mental acuity had slackened, the atmosphere in this room when his pakhans and their brigadiers were gathered, while calm on the surface, was often tense below, the cunning jockeying for position. And whenever Svitlanya joined them, the tension became a sticky, sucking quicksand, a subtle but ongoing group effort to run her down. Wear her down. Intimidate and repudiate.
But never directly. Never enough to catch her father’s notice.
He sighed. “This woman. She has done us a great wrong, eh? But now she wishes us to trust her? And to set such a short deadline without allowing us proper consideration first? I don’t know, Svittie.” He shook his head wearily. “I don’t know.”
“Perhaps we could consider the benefit versus the cost. The benefit? Our data could never be used against us. We would be safe from FBI prosecution. And the cost? It is little to us.”
“Tell her I will think on it. Perhaps I will talk it over with Gregor. Yes, I will ask Gregor.”
“Of course, Papa. Gregor is wise.”
Gregor is a snake coiled in the grass, waiting for his moment to strike. But your eyes cannot see the danger, can they, Papa?
Svitlanya nodded to herself. She already knew the outcome of such a conversation. Gregor would pretend to ruminate on the situation, give it the serious consideration it deserved. Then he would denounce the suggestion—because it had come through Svitlanya to Semion.
But the window was too small to wait. Mere days. She would never have an opportunity like this one. Not before it was too late.
“Would you like a cup of tea, Papa?”
“Hmm?”
“Tea, Papa?”
“Oh. Oh, yes. Please.”
In the kitchen, Svitlanya filled the kettle with fresh, cold water, and put it on to boil. While the water heated, she set a tray on the counter. Took down her father’s favorite cup and saucer and carefully wiped them. Folded a snowy-white napkin and set it on the tray beside the cup.
She measured the loose tea blend he loved into a strainer. The tea filled her nostrils with the familiar mingled scents of orange, clove, white tea leaves, and nostalgia. Days long gone by, never to return.
She poured the boiling water into her father’s cup and rearranged the napkin. Every little task an honor, each movement of her hands a loving tribute. When tears stung her eyes, she sniffed them back.
From her pocket, she withdrew a candy-like tab. She tore the wrapper’s end and, taking care not to touch the tab, she squeezed it into the strainer then closed the strainer and placed it in his cup. She hummed a distracting tune to herself as the tea steeped exactly four minutes.
When she lifted the strainer from the cup, she dumped its contents into the garbage disposal, added the tab’s wrapper, and flipped the switch that turned the disposal on. She ran water down the sink as the disposal worked, until nothing remained except the sweet scent of orange peel and cloves.
She poured a full tablespoon of honey into the cup and stirred.
Oh, Papa. The life you were born into didn’t make you a good father, but you did love me . . . and I am grateful.
She carried the tray to his office and set the cup in front of him.
“Thank you, Svittie.”
“I love you, Papa.”
She kissed him on the forehead, picked up the tray, and closed his office door behind her.
