From the top of the InterContinental Kansas City, Chuck Roche watched the cars twisting down the roads of Country Club Plaza. “They look like toys.”
“Yessir.” David Watson cleared the dining table and stacked the dishes on the room service cart.
“You should’ve gotten Arrowhead Stadium.”
“It’s not available, sir.”
“CNN said I couldn’t fill it.” Roche turned around and faced his Chief of Staff. “I could fill Arrowhead.”
“We filled the auditorium, sir.” Watson pushed the cart into the suite’s main room. “That’s three thousand. They love you.”
“They do, don’t they?” Roche turned back to the window. “They really do.”
Watson continued pushing the cart to the foyer, where he turned it over to a Secret Service agent and came back.
“Is Popov going to take care of Sabel once and for all?” Roche asked.
“Sir,” Watson whispered. He looked over his shoulder at the agent’s position by the door. The man was dealing with the cart out of earshot. “It’s important to speak in the code we discussed. We have reason to believe the deep-state spies have infiltrated the Secret Service. Sir.”
“Them too?” Roche scratched his head. “I thought the Secret Service was beyond politics.”
Watson stepped closer to the President-Elect. “When talking about murder and foreign conspirators, assume everyone is deep state.”
“No goddamn loyalty anymore, Watson. That’s what’s wrong with this country. No one understands loyalty.” Roche grabbed his man’s shoulder. “Except you. But then, you have good reason to fear what I might tell your former coworkers at the FBI.”
Roche turned on his cane and crossed to the piano. “I could’ve been the greatest concert piano player in the world. I’m the best at anything I set my mind to. But I didn’t pursue it because I don’t like the piano. I had a teacher who kept telling me, ‘practice makes the master’ and all that crap.”
Watson stood silently at ease.
“All right, we’ll do it your way.” He raised the keyboard cover and looked at the keys. “Is our old friend going to take care of the new problems that keep cropping up? He should. After all, she invaded his country.”
Watson craned over his shoulder to see the agent retaking his position. “Use fewer identifiable—”
“Just answer the goddamn question.”
“I’ve stayed out of the reporting loop, sir.” Watson took one more glance over his shoulder and lowered his voice again. “Sabel has already linked me to our friends in Spain. We don’t need another connection cropping up. Keep everything compartmentalized.”
“This cloak-and-dagger bullshit is ridiculous, Watson.” Roche shook his cane at the man. “Where is my National Security Advisor, General Krasny? Is he the compartment I need for a straight answer?”
“He’s waiting downstairs.”
Watson made a call, and a few minutes later a Secret Service agent ushered Krasny in.
The tall, thin retired general greeted the President-Elect. “Can’t wait to hear your victory tour speech in person, Mr. President-Elect. They’ve been wonderful—”
Roche rolled his hand impatiently. “What happened with Ambassador Sadesky?”
Watson trotted out of the room and took up a casual conversation with the agent in the foyer.
Krasny glanced at Watson for a moment, then turned back. He softened his voice. “Communications were difficult.”
“You did get to their NSA-proof room, right? Did you get hold of Popov?”
“Well.” General Krasny checked Watson and the agent again, assessing their ability to eavesdrop. “They did lend me their secure communications system. I was able to connect. But. Um. Sir. We have a problem with Popov.”
“He got us into this mess. You better not have a problem with him.”
“He’s making demands.” Krasny bowed his head. “He said, and I’m quoting directly here, ‘Tell him I delivered the White House. If that is not enough to ensure his loyalty, tell him to check with Kasey Earl.’ I don’t know what that means, but he demanded the sanctions be dropped—”
“Goddamn it!” Roche’s silver-handled cane landed on the nearest table lamp. The ceramic base exploded into tiny shards. “Watson! Popov has Kasey’s payment records. How the hell did you let Kasey Earl get those? Damn it to hell.”
He swung his cane across the piano, taking out the lid prop that held it open. The lid crashed onto the case with a resounding bang and splintered into pieces. “Can’t anybody do what they’re supposed to?” He struck the window repeatedly until he realized it would not give way. “Son of a goddamn bitch!” Breathing hard, Roche turned to another lamp and used his cane like a baseball bat. The lamp shattered against the wall. “I’m surrounded by fucking losers.” With overhand blows, he pounded the silver handle into a painting on the wall, shattering the glass and leaving the handle embedded in the drywall. Roche tugged and tugged.
When Yuri returned from his last consultation with the reconstructive surgeon, he found the other SHaRCs in the living room watching the big screen.
It took Yuri a moment to register what held his men’s attention. It was the view of the fake-house in Cartagena, Columbia. Six men ransacked it. Cartagena was a tripwire, an alarm to let them know when Popov was getting close.
And they’d just begun to like island life.
“Who are they?” Petr asked.
“Americans.” Yuri scratched his smooth, beardless chin, which felt odd. “Sabel Security?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Roman said. “They’re in the fake-house. For precaution, we leave here tonight. Next hideout is in—” he checked a list on his phone “—Durrës, Albania.”
The group groaned in unison. Someone said, “For the winter?”
A phone alarm rang. Then another. Several men checked their phones.
“We’re in!” Roman shouted. “Quick, pull it up on the big screen.”
Someone clicked away on a laptop’s keyboard. An email screen came up. An inbox with hundreds of emails.
Petr stepped to the front. “This is one of six email accounts used by Viktor Popov. Like dictators who move every night, Popov keeps opening and closing accounts. This is not his official email. But it’s been in use for weeks.”
“Send everyone a copy.” Yuri raised his voice. “We can look through them on our long and painful flights to Albania.”
They grumbled but went to their rooms to pack.
Yuri went to his, but the lure of looking through Popov’s email was too strong a call to resist. He sat on the edge of his bed and started to look at his phone. Before he grabbed it, a nearby movement drew his attention. He reached for his gun and looked up quickly.
A stranger in the mirror stared back at him. He let go of the pistol and stared at himself. He sensed a new opportunity, a clean start with a new face. He resolved to do good deeds this time around. He would kill fewer people. If one of his men created trouble, he would try to work it out. He nodded at his reflection.
He did a quick scan of Popov’s email. There were reports from Strangelove and other agents. They mentioned operations in Cyprus, Bornholm, France, and an interesting one in New York. It mentioned Yuri’s newest acquaintance, Jacob Stearne. The agent reported he’d killed Kasey Earl and tried unsuccessfully to frame Stearne. In his reply, Popov requested information about “the package.”
The field agent had replied, “Shipping via embassy courier. Summary: canceled checks signed by Chuck Roche. Correspondence about the murder of Lloyd Aston. Kompromat on the American President-Elect.”
Yuri dropped his phone.
He couldn’t believe it. Popov had something Sabel would want. He saw that as an opportunity. Changing his face had indeed changed his luck.
Roman appeared at his door. “Our man at the airport called. Eight men rented two cars.”
The two men looked at each other and knew whoever their adversary was, they were in trouble.
“He called the police.” Roman pounded a fist against the door jamb. “The men have been detained, but that only gives us an hour.”
They both scrambled to finish packing. Twenty minutes later, every member of SHaRC was in a car or on a bike heading for an airport or a boat. Each man finding his own circuitous way back to Europe with new ID.
Yuri took his seat on the seaplane heading for Barbados, his laptop under his arm. His Avos’ swung hot and cold. But he didn’t believe in superstition. He knew his next move.
He called Sabel Security’s main desk. Yuri said, “I need to speak to Jacob Stearne. Tell him, his friend from the New York Public Library is calling. He will want to speak with me.”