Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

Boris had weighed who frightened him the most-Yvgeny Karchovski or the man on the telephone-and decided that at least he could kill Yvgeny and maybe survive. Betray the other man and death would not only be assured, it would be drawn out and painful. So when Yvgeny yelled his warning, he’d pulled his gun and shot him in the back. He aimed again to finish the job when his attention flicked to the woman at the bottom of the stairs. Too late, he realized she was pointing a gun at him.

Marlene pulled the trigger, killing the big Russian at the same moment that the hot dog cart exploded. Surrounded by a case filled with thousands of ball bearings, the C4 plastic explosive tore the young couple and the mother with her infant apart.

Twenty feet away, Vladimir would have met the same fate, except that hearing Yvgeny’s shout followed by the gunshot, the first of his burly bodyguards had grabbed the old man and thrown him to the sand off the boardwalk. The bodyguard had jumped on top of Vladimir, while the second bodyguard turned his back to the hot dog cart, both men using themselves to shield their boss.

Marlene wasn’t knocked off her feet by the blast but had heard the deadly missiles as they’d whistled past her. She saw the two women running across the park and took off after them. However, they had too great a head start and reached a car that was waiting for them, jumped in, and with tires burning, took off down Atlantic Boulevard.

Everywhere was pandemonium, some cars had screeched to a halt on the street. People were running in various directions, most away from the explosion, but many toward it as well. Screams, shouts, sirens shattered the boardwalk’s usual serenity.

Cursing, Marlene turned back for the boardwalk. She saw that Yvgeny had already reached the spot where she’d last seen Vladimir. He was kneeling in the sand as she ran toward him; he’d removed his coat to place it under his father’s head and that’s when she saw the body armor. She paused only long enough at what remained of the young woman, her infant, and the young couple to see that they were beyond help, and kept running to Yvgeny.

The first bodyguard was dead. His pants had been torn off by the blast and his legs looked like someone had put them into a meat grinder; however, the fatal wounds had been to his head. The second man was severely wounded and moaning on the sand as Yvgeny turned him gently over, speaking softly in Russian. Even their heroics might not have been enough, except that both men had been wearing Kevlar body armor, which had absorbed the worst of the ball bearings and blast.

Other than a hard fall for an old man and some scrapes, Vladimir had survived the blast. With his bodyguard no longer weighing him down, Vladimir was picking himself up off the sand.

“I am all right,” the old man said. “You two must leave. Yvgeny cannot be here when the police arrive and neither can you, Marlene. It would be too hard to explain. But first here…” The old man reached into the inside pocket of his linen suit and handed her a note card on which was written an address. “If it’s not too late, I believe that you may find Mr. Kane at this address in Aspen, Colorado. But hurry, Marlene, events are moving quickly and as you can see, these people will stop at nothing.”

Special Agent S. P. Jaxon peered over the rock wall with his field binoculars. There was no movement in the mansion on Red Mountain, the aptly named rust-red ridge opposite the town of Aspen. But he knew there were anywhere from a few to a half dozen or more armed terrorists inside the house, as well as the owners-a Saudi prince and his family who were being held hostage. He also hoped that one person in particular had been trapped when agents of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Aspen Police, and a Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team surrounded the property.

The various federal law enforcement leaders had arrived at the Aspen Square Hotel in downtown Aspen singly or in pairs, ostensibly tourists in the Wild West town of movie stars and wealthy tycoons ready to party. With the help of the hotel manager, a former FBI agent who’d retired young to run a high-end ski lodge, they’d assembled in the hotel meeting room where a sign on the door proclaimed that the room was closed to all but The Greater Cleveland Rotary Club members and their spouses. They’d also been joined by Homeland Security agent Vic Hodges, who’d apparently worked his way into the terrorist cell and was reporting to them at considerable risk to his life if one of the bad guys spots him with us, assistant HS director Jon Ellis noted to the others.

“Think he’s in there?” Marlene asked.

Jaxon lowered his binoculars and looked over at Marlene Ciampi, who’d walked up to kneel beside him at the wall. “That’s the information you gave us and Agent Hodges confirmed. Kane’s supposed to be in the main house with the hostages.” He paused to glance back at the mansion. “You ever going to tell me where you got this address? I mean, Aspen was on the list because the Green Opal jewelry store is one of only a dozen in the country that sells Carlos Torres chess sets. But the owner didn’t remember the pieces we showed him.”

Marlene smiled grimly. “I could tell you but-”

“-you’d have to kill me, I know. Isn’t everybody tired of that one yet?” Jaxon said. “Maybe someday when we’re old and gray, you’ll tell me.”

“I’m already gray, but it’s a deal,” she replied and thought, If you only knew.

Immediately after the bombing, Vladimir had insisted that they leave before the police arrived. So Yvgeny and Marlene split up, agreeing to meet back at the Karchovski house as soon as they could work their way there without being noticed. There, they’d argued about the next step, including what to do with the address she’d been given by Vladimir.

The old man had been the one to track down Carlos Torres, who was on vacation aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean, and had his man hand deliver one of the knights sent to Dugan that Marlene had taken with her. She’d figured that the FBI had the others, so when Vladimir had asked to “borrow” one, she’d consented. Funny, she’d thought when she handed it over, I trust an ancient Russian gangster more than I do anybody in the FBI, except Jaxon.

Torres had identified the piece as belonging to set Numero Dieciocho…I know each of these pieces as though they are members of mi familia. This exquisite creature is lost from his family, which I believe resides at the Green Opal jewelry store in Aspen, Colorado.

When Vladimir’s men visited the Green Opal, the owner had again claimed amnesia-until he was taken for a midnight helicopter ride and held upside down out the door over a thousand-foot drop above the Roaring Fork Valley. Then he’d suddenly regained his memory and said that a certain Saudi prince had purchased not one, but two of the Torres sets. The prince had been accompanied by a beautiful young woman whose only imperfection was a large mole on her cheek. She’d warned the store owner to avoid discussing the purchase of the chess sets with anyone, and something about the way she looked at him said it was worth his life to cross her.

Further investigation by Vladimir’s men had noted a great deal of unusual traffic at the prince’s home by an unusually large number of serious, fit, Arabic-looking men, some of whom had been seen carelessly handling automatic rifles when they slipped out at night to smoke cigarettes.

After getting back to the house following the bombing, Yvgeny had led Marlene into the library where he poured them both a shot of chilled vodka. I will take care of this now, he said. He reached for the telephone and punched in a number, then spoke rapidly in Russian before hanging up and saying to Marlene, Forget the note my father gave you.