Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

“It is no secret that the Russian people’s support for the war in Chechnya was waning; mothers were tired of their sons coming home in body bags. After Beslan public opinion in support of the war soared, as did Putin’s approval rating for his promises to root out terrorism, which by the way was met with great enthusiasm at the White House and Ten Downing Street. There has been a lot of discussion on the internet as to whether the terror bombings in Moscow and the massacre at Beslan were actually tailor-made for our president and his government.”

“So we’re barking up the wrong tree on that one?” Karp asked.

“Barking up trees?”

“An expression meaning ‘concentrating on the wrong possibility,’ ” Marlene said. “In other words, Putin wouldn’t be a target.”

“Ah, thank you for the explanation, but no, not necessarily,” Yvgeny said. “Assassination is a time-honored tradition in Russia, especially among its secret police agencies going back to the tsars. There are plenty of powerful people in Russia who would not shed any tears over the death of Vladimir Putin-some find him too weak, some find him too strong…sort of like your fairy tale of Goldie and the Three Bears. It would certainly mean all-out war in Chechnya, perhaps the use of nuclear weapons, to destroy the nationalist movement and complete the permanent absorption of Chechnya into the Russian federation. There would be no one left who opposed it. His death would serve that purpose.”

“But if Azzam and al Qaeda have this working agreement with the Russian government,” Marlene said, “that means the Russians were involved with the escape plot too…and the murder of those children and police officers.”

Yvgeny hung his head. “I am ashamed to say it, but yes, I think it is possible.”

“I still don’t understand what this has to do with Kane,” said Karp, who was wishing he had not had the last cognac. “Maybe it’s the liquor, but I seem to be the only one who doesn’t get where he comes in.”

Yvgeny smiled. “No, cousin, the liquor I’m sure has us all well grease-”

“Lubricated-” Karp said.

“Well lubricated, then. But we are all in the dark on that question. It may be that Azzam and al Qaeda need his connections with the New York Police Department, which provides security for big events at the UN. He also had a lot of nefarious dealings with some of these rogue governments, so who knows which ones might be willing to listen to him and his schemes. But it could be as simple as his banking connections, too. Something big like this will cost a lot of money, preferably untraceable cash, and it’s a lot harder to move cash around without getting noticed than it was before 9/11.” He laughed. “I can tell you that from personal experience…. We have little to go on at this moment…just rumors being passed to us by associates in Moscow and in Chechnya…but an attack on Putin, real or not, makes sense. Azzam was sent to Chechnya to help destroy the nationalist movement-our spies know that much-and this would be the coup de grace for that mission.”

“So what does that leave us with?” Marlene asked.

No one answered right away. Instead, everyone was tuned in to their thoughts and the crackling of the burning logs.

Inside one of the logs, boiling sap built up pressure until the wood exploded with a shower of sparks and a sound like a gunshot. The hosts and their visitors all jumped, then laughed in embarrassment at their discomfiture.

“What does that leave us with, my dear Marlene?” Vladimir Karchovski chuckled. “Why, the most Russian of all stories…a dark mystery full of intrigue and danger. I bet if you look outside that window, the snow will be falling in the moonlight and somewhere in the distance wolves will be howling.”

Marlene shivered at the thought. “Can I have another cognac, please?”

May

Somebody was talking about the war in Iraq. Whether establishing a democracy was worth the deaths of two thousand American soldiers.

“Terrorists need sympathetic governments…they need access to banks, a place where they can recruit, train and operate freely…”

“There’s no proof Saddam had any connection to terrorists, any more than he had WMD…”

“He allowed al-Zarqawi, who had an international warrant out for his arrest in connection with 9/11, to be treated in a hospital in Baghdad after he was wounded in Afghanistan, and then continue to operate in Iraq. He should have been turned over to the World Court for trial…”

“So all these deaths because one terrorist wasn’t apprehended?”

“How about over twenty-seven hundred deaths in the World Trade Center…and how many the next time? We had to fight these guys somewhere, might as well be Iraq…”

Karp hardly followed the conversation; his mind was elsewhere. It was seven o’clock, Monday morning. One hour before his weekly meeting, but first he’d wanted to meet with his “inner council,” those he trusted most in his office, to update them on Fey’s murder and what little there was on efforts to recapture Kane. The group-consisting of Murrow, Newbury, Kipman, Guma, and his wife, Marlene-were still getting settled, getting their coffees, and debating Iraq.

Karp’s eyes strayed to the plastic bag on his desk. On the outside of the otherwise plain container was an FBI evidence label marked Timothy Fey, 04/26/05, Encinitas, CA and some other coded case number. Inside was what appeared to be an ordinary set of dark amber-colored rosary beads, though he knew that they’d been re-strung on high-tensile wire strong enough to cut off a man’s air supply. The gold pendant depicting St. Patrick’s Cathedral glinted in the early morning sun that peered over his shoulder.

He’d seen similar rosaries-even had two locked away in the evidence vault. They’d been labeled in a similar fashion, just the New York DAO’s version with the victims’ names, that of two young boys, and the date they’d been found. Only the location was different; the other rosaries had come from Central Park graves.

The two rosaries in the DAO vault had been the calling card of the child killer priest Hans Lichner, who’d tossed them in the shallow graves of his victims. It was how they’d eventually tied together the apparently unrelated rape and murder of Indian boys in Taos, New Mexico, to Andrew Kane and his schemes in New York City.

Karp smiled grimly recalling an argument he’d had with his daughter, Lucy, over Lichner’s intent. He’d called Lucy after Fey’s murder to warn her that the stakes had gone up and to ask her to reconsider having federal agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security watching out for her.

Lucy’s reply had been half-angry and half-frightened. Oh puleeze, like you didn’t know there’s been a couple of square-jawed fed types hanging around here for a week, trying to play tourist-very stiff tourists-who just happen to turn up wherever I go with Ned. One even showed up at the cabin where Ned stays in on the ranch, pretending to be lost when it was obvious he just wanted to get a look around. Some others have been following John Jojola around, too, but he’s been making a game out of ditching them.

Still, Lucy hesitated. But I guess if they can stay at a distance, I’ll have to accept it. I’d hate to have something happen to Ned because Kane was after me.

It’s just until we catch him, Karp had replied. It had been some time since they’d had a good father-daughter conversation, so he’d happily stayed on the telephone when the conversation turned to philosophy as it applied to Hans Lichner and the rosary beads. His daughter, who liked to believe that within every human being there was some goodness, some spark of the divine that binds us all to a loving and forgiving God, argued that it was that spark that caused Lichner to expose himself. Maybe, he wanted to get caught. Maybe that spark worked subconsciously to try to stop the demon in him from hurting any more children; maybe, it even acted in Lichner to lead you to uncover the real Andrew Kane.