Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

“Then this Nadya Malovo might be working with Azzam and Kane,” Marlene finished. She whistled. “Which means the Russian government, or some rogue element, as you say, within the government or its secret police, is working with an Islamic terrorist and an American megalomaniac killer on some terrorist act on U.S. soil? That’s the stuff-”

“-wars are made of.” Yvgeny was the one to finish the sentence this time.

“So you think they’re still after Putin?” Marlene asked.

“It makes sense,” Yvgeny said. “Or at least, a staged attack directed at Putin with plenty of deaths among the UN ambassadors and staff to blame on the Chechen nationalists. The FSB isn’t the only spy agency in Russia. The army has its own network, some of whom are still my friends. Of interest while I was there was the apprehension of an Arab courier on the border between Kazakhstan and Chechnya. He killed himself before he could be questioned, but a CD data file was found sewn into his jacket. It was encoded, however, the army had recently broken that particular code. The only thing on the CD was a blueprint of a building.”

“Don’t tell me,” Marlene said. “The building was the United Nations.”

“ Da …yes,” Yvgeny said. “Of course, the army cannot come out and accuse anyone of plotting to kill the president, or against the Chechen nationalists, not without proof. After all, no one knows how high this conspiracy goes. But put it all together and the signs are pointing to something big happening in September.”

“So is this the information that Vladimir wanted to pass on?” Marlene asked.

Yvgeny shook his head again. “No…well, not entirely,” he said. “It is perhaps for you to judge who might make use of this information. Though you do not need me to tell you that not everyone involved in all of this can be trusted. But that I leave to you. Me and my people will continue our own ‘investigation.’ However, what my father wanted to pass on to you, while related, is of a more personal nature.”

Yvgeny and Marlene arrived at the top of the stairs leading down to the boardwalk. Below them a woman in colorful Lycra jogged along the boardwalk pushing a baby stroller. Farther along toward Coney Island, a young couple was buying hot dogs from two Hispanic female pushcart vendors. Twenty-five yards beyond them, Vladimir Karchovski strolled, throwing bread crumbs up in the air for the hovering seagulls as his two bear-sized bodyguards walked a few yards behind. He spotted Marlene and Yvgeny and waved as he stopped feeding the birds and walked toward them.

Marlene smiled when she saw the old man, but it was with a small feeling of guilt. Vladimir was a little older than her own father, and she found herself looking forward to visiting him more than she did Mariano Ciampi these days. Where the old Russian was still sharp, engaged, and living in the real world, her father seemed to be slipping more and more into doddering senility.

The other day Mariano had given her quite the start when he “confessed” to killing his wife, Marlene’s mother, Concetta. I’ve lived with the woman most of my life, he cried as she stood behind him, cutting his hair at the kitchen table. I used to know if she got up in the night or was having a restless sleep. I knew the sound of her heart through the mattress. I should have known, even in my sleep, that she was in trouble. I failed to take care of her.

Relieved that her own worst fears had not suddenly been realized, Marlene had rumpled his hair and kissed him on the top of his head. Nonsense, Poppa, she said. Mom had a stroke, there was nothing you could do.

It unnerved her to watch her father’s decline. He was often weepy over the smallest things. A memory. Or losing something. Or something as silly as a television commercial for diapers. I remember when I used to change your diapers, he said. Funny how cleaning up such a horrible mess was such an act of love.

Occasionally, he called her by one of her sisters’ names, which frightened her as that had been one of the effects of Alzheimer’s on her mother. But it was more how he refused to take care of himself, or the house-content to watch television for hours at a time amid a heap of television dinners, potato chip bags, and empty beer bottles. She even had to clean him up and chase him out of the house to the VFW post four blocks away-something neither she nor her mother, who’d always known to look for him there, had ever had to do before.

Meanwhile, Vladimir was still the emperor of his empire even if the heir apparent, Yvgeny, ran much of the show. He was up on world events, played chess, could identify obscure operas, and loved to debate the meaning behind the meaning of Anton Chekov.

Marlene waved back and started down the steps, when Yvgeny suddenly grabbed her by the arm. “Wait,” he said. “Those women-the vendors-what are they doing?”

Marlene looked where he was staring and saw that the two women were walking away from the stand, toward a park that ran parallel to the boardwalk. Then she noticed that one of the women was wearing a sling, as if she’d injured a shoulder or an elbow. The woman looked back at the hot dog cart and Marlene caught a brief glimpse of her face…most notably, the mole on her face.

“It’s Azzam!” she shouted and began to run down the stairs, her eyes on the women and the cart where the young couple was still fixing their hot dogs, just as the woman with the stroller was passing. Vladimir was still twenty feet away but closing fast on the cart.

Above her, Yvgeny also saw the danger. He’d also recognized Azzam, as well as the woman with her, Nadya Malovo. “Stop!” he shouted at his father, pointing at the cart. “It’s a bomb!” He started to shout again but was cut off by a loud bang and a blow to his back. He tumbled down the stairs.

Standing at the top with his gun drawn, Boris tried to draw a bead on the tumbling Yvgeny. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. He was only supposed to keep track of the Karchovskis and report back anything unusual. There had certainly been enough of that over the past few months, which had helped his bank account swell many times over. After all, young prostitutes were expensive.

The string of unusual events began when he recognized the district attorney of New York as the dinner guest of his employers, the Karchovskis. That alone had been worth more than Vladimir paid him in a year. There had been an additional bonus when he reported that, according to the butler, who’d been eavesdropping but innocently as he simply liked to gossip, the Karchovskis had given a photograph of a woman named Azzam to the woman, Marlene.

Today, he’d called the telephone number he’d been given for such things to report when the old man was going on his walk and who would be with him. The implication was that he shouldn’t expect the old man to return…ever. The son would then die in an apparent “mob shooting” that the police would write off as a battle between rivals. But the arrival of the woman had caught him by surprise, as had their sudden decision to walk to the boardwalk to find Vladimir. He’d called on the way to the boardwalk to relay the news.

You’ll have to kill him, the man on the other end of the line had said. He can’t be allowed to interfere.

Nyet! Boris, frightened, had said. I would be a dead man.

You will be a dead man if you don’t, the other man said. Kill him and then go to the house in Brooklyn and await further instructions. We will take care of you then.

What about the woman? Boris asked.

The other man was silent for a moment before sighing, Well, she was supposed to live a bit longer…but this is as good a time as any. She is too great a threat. I don’t know what she has been told by your target.