ONE LAST TIME, FULTON OPENED the side door, and Nadya Malovo sauntered through. Dressed in a gray federal prisoner jumpsuit that failed to hide her lithe, curvaceous body, she still walked like she was the one in control of the situation. Even Court Clerk Duffy McIntyre, who thought he’d seen almost everything in his long service to the court, turned beet red as she approached to be sworn in, and then stumbled over his words as she transfixed him with her eyes.
Malovo gave McIntyre a smile, then stepped onto the stand and took her seat like an Oscar-winning actress aware that all eyes were upon her. She gazed at Karp, who had positioned himself in front of the witness.
“Good afternoon,” Karp said. “Please state your full name and spell your last name.”
“Good afternoon. I am Nadya Malovo,” she purred, “M-A-L-O-V-O.”
“Do you also sometimes go by the name Ajmaani?”
“I am known in some parts of the world as Ajmaani, yes.”
“And why the alias?”
“I guess you could call it my nom de guerre,” Malovo replied with a shrug. “I sometimes find it necessary to pass myself off as a Chechen jihadi.”
“An Islamic terrorist?”
“That’s accurate.”
“Ms. Malovo, let me back up a bit and have you give the jurors a little history about yourself.”
Malovo laughed. “A little history,” she said with a smile at the jurors. “I have a long and varied history, but I will try to keep this short. I was born in Moscow and raised in an orphanage. I’ll skip the horrors of that place and how I was able to escape and rise above it, but eventually I was trained by what was then known as the KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency,” she said. “As a KGB agent, I traveled to many places in the world on the orders of my superiors, who in turn reported to whoever was in power in the Kremlin. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, I decided to follow my comrades in the brave new world of capitalism and resigned from the intelligence service and began freelancing for whoever paid for my services, which sometimes included the Russian government, or those who collaborate with the regime.”
“You worked for the KGB, but you were not just a spy, were you?” Karp asked.
Malovo shook her head. “Actually, I was trained to be an assassin.”
“An assassin. As such, have you killed people?”
“Many.”
“Sometimes because you were ordered to by your government, and after that for money?”
“Both. Yes. And sometimes just to survive.”
Karp held up a folder, which he handed to her. “Ms. Malovo, I’m handing you legal documents marked for identification as People’s Exhibits 54 to 58. Would you please look these over and describe them to the jury?”
Malovo leafed through the papers. She then nodded and closed the folder, handing it back to Karp. “These are indictment papers charging me with six counts of murder in the County of New York.”
“You’ve been charged by my office, is that correct?”
“Have you been offered any deal by my office in regard to those charges in exchange for your truthful testimony today?”
“No.”
“Are you aware of what will occur after you testify here today?”
“Yes. I will be handed over to U.S. law enforcement, who also have indicted me for I believe a dozen murders.”
“Will you be tried in federal court and then returned to New York to stand trial for murder here?”
“Perhaps someday,” Malovo said, “but first I am to be handed over to Russian authorities at Fort Dix in New Jersey. I will then be transported back to Russia, where I am accused of murder and treason. I am so popular, I doubt I will be able to return to New York anytime soon, if ever.”
“And yet your testimony today is voluntary?”
“Indeed, my testimony here today would not have happened if I had not arranged for it to happen.”
“Why did you agree to testify today without a deal, such as a lesser charge, from my office, perhaps, or the federal government, or the Russian government?”
Malovo looked over at the jurors and studied their faces for a moment before she smiled sadly. “I’ve asked myself that, too, for some time now, and I don’t have a complete answer. But the closest I can come is that I am testifying today to take a little bit off the mountain of debt I owe for the life I’ve led and the things I’ve done.”
“Are you saying you have a guilty conscience?”
“That’s part of it,” she replied. “But I am also trying to learn to forgive myself. I take full responsibility for who I am, but I was also shaped by others. I didn’t grow up wanting to kill other human beings to make a living. When I was a child, I just wanted a family. And when I was a young woman, even after my training with the KGB, I still dreamed of falling in love and having a home of my own, a safe warm place where my man would be waiting at the end of a day. I confess I never wanted to bring children into a world such as this, but I wanted all the rest.”
“Do you still want that?”
The question seemed to catch Malovo by surprise. She was quiet for a moment as she looked out into space at nothing in particular. “I suppose deep inside of me that young woman, who dreams of the soldier she once loved, still exists. But the debt weighs on me, and too many people want me to account for it, for me to ever find that kind of peace. We shall see.”
“Are you in danger by testifying today?”
“Extreme danger,” Malovo said. “I am making accusations against powerful people both here and in Russia, not to overlook that ISIS will not be happy with Ajmaani’s role in wrecking the MIRAGE conspiracy.”
“You mentioned that in a sense you ‘arranged’ to testify today. Can you explain what you meant by that?” Karp asked.
As he spoke, Karp stood firm against the jury rail. The jurors were about to hear a fascinating tale straight out of a Bogart mystery movie, and he recalled how he’d first heard it that day after Jaxon and Fulton got her out of federal custody and transferred to his. She got her meeting alone with Ivgeny, which neither had ever explained to him and he didn’t want to know, and then she’d told him the whole story.
“Some eighteen months ago I returned to Moscow from a mission in which I’d nearly lost my life,” Malovo began. “It certainly wasn’t the first time, nor was it the first time I’d had thoughts that it was time to get out of the business. I was tired of the danger, and the killing, but I was also tired of being a pawn of governments and powerful men who pretend to work for peace and prosperity yet all the while they thrive on chaos, poverty, and death. But in reality they are guilty of worse than anything I’ve ever done, and on a far greater scale, sometimes even duplicitously claiming it’s for ‘the greater good’ when really it’s only about power and wealth.”
“How did your . . . I guess we could call it your crisis of conscience eventually lead you to the witness chair in a New York County Supreme Court?”
“I have many enemies in Russia, but I also have very powerful friends,” Malovo said. “Some of them are involved in the acquisition and sale of black-market oil. The Russian economy relies on cheap oil. I believe it was your Senator John McCain who said that Russia is a ‘gas station masquerading as a country,’ and that is not far from the truth. Through them I learned of a complicated plan in which they, and their friends in the Kremlin, would have access to cheap refined oil that would not be otherwise available to them. I knew that the plan would benefit Russian, Syrian, and Iranian interests, as well as those of a well-connected, wealthy American, though I did not have details of the plan or names, except one. I learned that a former Red Army general and organized crime figure, Ivan Nikitin, was involved. We went way back—to the time of the Russian incursion into Afghanistan—and I knew he was enamored of me. I met with him and talked him into a job as his bodyguard and go-between.”
“Did this plan also involve the terrorist group known as ISIS?” Karp asked.
“Yes. You could say it was the—what is the American expression?—straw that breaks the camel’s back? But when I learned that the plan also involved those murderous monsters of ISIS, I knew I would attempt to stop it.”
“Why?”
“Again, there was something that rankled me about these countries and businessmen who publicly rattle their sabers and complain about the horrific abuses committed by ISIS and yet were ready to deal with the devil for money and power.”
“Yet you just admitted to these jurors that you kill people following orders and for money?”
Malovo nodded. “Yes, I know . . . What is the other expression, ‘Pot calls the kettle black’? I understand my own duplicity. But it is governments and people like these who create monsters like me and ISIS. You can kill me and bomb Islamic fanatics into oblivion. But we will be replaced until you stop the people at the top whose only desire is for power and money.”
“So how did you plan to stop this conspiracy?”
“I knew that I was being hunted by a U.S. counterterrorism agency headed by an agent named S. P. Jaxon,” Malovo said. “I knew he was a good man, incorruptible, and that if I could get him the information, he would know what to do with it. So I left a trail, so to speak, for him and his operatives to follow. I made my association with Nikitin known and appeared with him in public. And I made sure we were seen in various locales, such as Tehran, Damascus, and Istanbul, and that word got out we would be meeting with the ISIS leader Ghareeb al Taizi. I knew Jaxon would not be able to resist trying to capture me, Nikitin, and al Taizi, so I made it easy to find us.”
“You said one of these locales was Istanbul, Turkey,” Karp said, as he walked over to the prosecution table, where Katz handed him two manila folders. “What was the purpose of that meeting?”
“One of the main points of the plan was to ensure that U.S., Syrian, and Russian air strikes did not destroy oil facilities that ISIS was operating,” Malovo said. “Nikitin had already worked the Russian side with his friends in the Kremlin, as well as Damascus. However, the main player in the conspiracy, in fact the person who came up with the concept and the name, was an American. I did not know his name, only that he was extremely wealthy and had powerful connections in the U.S. government, particularly the administration. We went to Istanbul to work out some of the details with this man’s representative.”
Walking over to the witness stand, Karp asked, “At one point were you asked by me to view a lineup and identify, if you could, this representative you met in Istanbul?”
“Yes, I picked him out.”
Karp handed a folder to her. “Is this a photograph of the man as he appeared that day in the lineup?”
“Yes, that’s him, holding the number 6 against his chest,” Malovo said, handing the photo and folder back.
“Your Honor, for the record, the witness has identified Shaun Fitzsimmons as the man she met in Istanbul.”
“Same objection. All of this is improper,” Arnold said.
“Overruled. The exhibit is accepted.”
Karp handed the second folder to Malovo. “Did you meet with someone else in Istanbul?”
“Yes. I met personally with the national security adviser, Sylvia Hamm.”
“Do you recognize the two women in the photograph you’re holding?”
Malovo nodded. “Yes. That’s me and Hamm. I had an accomplice take the photograph from the other side of the street.”
“Why did you do that?”
“As part of my plan to expose this conspiracy.”
“Where was Nikitin during this?”
“In the hotel. He and Hamm did not want to be seen together.”
“Why did you need to meet with Hamm?”
“To give her the locations and coordinates of the ‘protected’ facilities, as well as the transportation routes that would be off-limits to air strikes.”
“Did this plan have a name?”
“Yes. MIRAGE, because it is illusory—not just because of the false oil facilities but also the chimera of a united front against ISIS and terrorism, when in fact they were supporting both.”
“Were the details of this plan written down and saved to a data storage device?”
“Yes. It was on a flash drive that al Taizi had created. He didn’t trust any of the others and created it as a way to blackmail them if they went back on their word. But I’d been introduced to him as Ajmaani, the Chechen jihadi, so he told me about it.”
Malovo smiled. “I have certain charms that men like him find hard to resist.”
“If I understood your testimony, your plan was to lead Jaxon and his counterterrorism team to this meeting in Syria. Did something go wrong with your plan?”
“Yes. Someone tipped off the American, and he’d didn’t show.”
“What happened to those who did?”
“I killed them all, including Nikitin,” Malovo said as nonchalantly as if she was discussing taking out the trash.
“Why?”
“Well, part of it was I had developed a certain . . . affection . . . for Jaxon and his team, and I did not want to see them hurt or killed,” Malovo said. “But more important, if the others had been captured, they might have talked, but the identity of the American might have been swept under the rug, and the MIRAGE files would disappear. I had to know who created MIRAGE, and I thought the only way to do that would be to get Jaxon involved.”
“Did that plan change at all?” Karp asked.
“Yes,” Malovo said. “Jaxon’s team was intercepted in Saudi Arabia and the MIRAGE file was seized, along with many other documents and computer drives. I thought my plan had failed until I was interrogated by Colonel Swindells, who asked me about MIRAGE. Call it female intuition, but I hoped that if I put Jaxon in touch with him, together they would expose the conspiracy, including discovering the identity of the American.”
As she said this, Malovo looked pointedly at Constantine. “I regret that Colonel Swindells lost his life as a result.”
“Ms. Malovo, did you attend the performance of Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theatre last night?”
“Yes. It was quite interesting.”
“Could you explain to the jury how that happened and why?”
“It was a plan to get Hamm to reveal that she knew about MIRAGE and its connection to Mr. Constantine. I pretended that I was calling from an apartment where I was being held for safekeeping for this trial. I told her that I wanted to discuss my testimony about MIRAGE and that I wanted money and my freedom.”
“Did you arrange a meeting?”
“Yes. I told her that I was going to be allowed to attend the performance,” Malovo said, “as a way to relax before my testimony today. I also said that following the performance I would get away from my escorts and meet her backstage to tell her my demands and give her a Swiss bank account for depositing funds.”
“Did this telephone conversation actually take place in my office?” Karp asked. “And was it recorded?”
“Yes.”
“Who was present in my office when this was recorded?”
“You, me, Detective Fulton, and S. P. Jaxon.”
“Your Honor,” Karp said, again pointing to where Katz stood at the audio machine, “I’d like to play People’s Exhibit 71, which is the exact record of the conversation between the witness and Ms. Hamm the witness just testified to. Also, Your Honor, I offer in evidence a court-certified transcript of the conversation, People’s Exhibit 72, which I ask to be distributed to the jurors to enable them to follow the taped conversation with greater ease and understanding.”
“Same objection,” Arnold said impassively.
“Overruled. Go ahead, Mr. Karp.”
After the tape was played, Karp turned to Malovo. “Was that a fair and accurate recording of the conversation you had with Ms. Hamm?”
“Yes, every word.”
“I’m going to play a recording of a conversation backstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre last night. Tell me if you can identify these two voices.” He nodded at Katz one last time.
“You have not changed since Istanbul.”
“I’m not here to talk about Istanbul. . . .”