Steven Gore - Final Target

“Jack, you’re forgetting the Afghanistan rule. If they ever get us-”

“It’ll only be for something we didn’t do. But this time I’m doing it, and they’re probably going to find out.”

“Don’t worry. I know a prosecutor in Geneva. I’ll tell him in advance what we’re up to and give him the name of the bank and the account number.”

Gage thought for a moment. He had planned to handle the second part of the setup himself, but decided that rebuilding Burch’s confidence required bringing him along. “What do you know about Chuck Verona?”

“Just a paper shuffler. His job is just to make sure corporate fees get paid and do whatever I need to maintain companies in Nevada. And not just me, everybody in the business in San Francisco uses him. Russian immigrant. Grateful to be in the States.”

“Any Russian organized crime connections?”

“None that I ever heard of. There’s always a risk that he was unwittingly used-I know how that is.”

“Does he trust you?”

“Of course. I’m the one who passed his name around.”

“Matson sent three FedEx boxes to a company called Checker Trading in Las Vegas that Verona runs. They contain microchips he’s stealing to fund his lifestyle until he can tap his offshore money again. Find out from Verona what he did with them-”

“I see where you’re going. Then we backtrack the money from the Swiss correspondent account-”

“And dress the little punk in prison stripes and drop him on Peterson’s doorstep.”

Gage’s cell phone rang the moment he hung up from Burch. It was Milsberg.

“He’s traveling again. To London. First-class. And we’re running out of money for office supplies. I searched his office when he went out to lunch and found the ticket in his briefcase. Same flight as last time, and-this is the good part-a book about Kiev. Brand-new.”

“Is there a ticket for Ukraine?”

“No. But he must be traveling there. Matson isn’t a reader.”

Gage got up from his desk, looked over the charts and chronologies hanging on his wall, wondering both what Peterson expected to learn as a result of allowing Matson to travel out of the country again and why Matson hadn’t booked his flight all the way through to Kiev.

Does Peterson even know he’s traveling? Gage asked himself. And is Kiev part of Matson’s exit strategy? Slip out of London and break the chain connecting his neck to Peterson’s hand? Maybe even make the sale to Mr. Green in the comfortable surroundings of a Ukrainian dacha?

Gage snagged an international treaty book from the shelf, checked the index, and turned to the U.S./Ukraine section.

There wasn’t an extradition agreement.

The U.S. couldn’t touch him any more than it could touch Gravilov or the other gangsters involved in the scam. Matson and Alla would live happily ever after, just out of reach.

But treaties only bound governments.

Gage flipped the volume closed and reached for his cell phone to call a man who didn’t accept the legitimacy of either.

G age’s flight landed at Borispol Airport fifty kilometers west of Kiev four hours after Matson, who’d stayed in London only long enough to pick up Alla. Gage had waited in Zurich until he got word from Slava that Matson had arrived. He’d been fortunate to get a seat since journalists from around the world were rushing to Kiev to chronicle the Bread and Freedom Revolution, an uprising triggered by the revelation that the president had diverted a fifty-million-dollar IMF agricultural loan into his election war chest.

One of Slava’s impassive bodyguards met Gage in the unheated arrivals hall and led him to an armored Mercedes sedan in the parking lot. Gage got into the backseat with Slava while the bodyguard entered a trailing silver Land Cruiser. Slava appeared so relaxed that Gage wondered whether he’d taken his own advice in Geneva and spent a week soaking in the aromatic steam baths of Montreux.

“What’s happening in Kiev?” Gage asked him.

“Opposition took over Independence Square. Hundred thousand. Demand new election.”

“Will there be one?”

“Wrong question.”

“What’s the right one?”

“What difference it make.”

Gage glanced over. “I didn’t think you took such an interest in politics.”

“I take interest in business.” Slava flashed a predator’s smile. “Politics is business in Ukraine.”

The driver sped out from the tree-lined airport road onto the highway toward the city.

“Where’s Matson staying?” Gage asked, as they passed a sprinkling of two-story stucco dachas owned by the Ukrainian nouveau riche.

“Where else? Lesya Palace Hotel.”

“Apparently he’s not afraid of being seen.”

“Or heard. Bugs everywhere. For Soviets, state secrets. For capitalists, business secrets.” Slava snapped his hand shut. “Like mousetrap.”

“Do you have any way to find out what goes on inside?”

“Only little. Waiters and doormen. Guys in president’s entourage took it over right after independence. Gravilov maybe own a piece.”

Gage smiled. “Am I in a mousetrap, too?”

“Your place clean. My people check it.”

Gage gave him an I-wasn’t-born-yesterday look.

“What? You think I plant something? I thought we trust each other again. Like partners.”

“I brought a little device of my own,” Gage said. “But there are a few things I need.”

Slava spread his hands. “You want. I get.”

“A fur ushanka and a black overcoat. I need to blend in. A hat and coat should be enough.”

“You get in hour.”

“Thanks. What’s Matson doing?”

“So far, nothing. Reservation for dinner at hotel restaurant.”

After passing concrete Soviet-era apartment blocks, concentrated together as if to squeeze out everything soft or green or human, Slava’s driver sped across Paton’s Bridge over the Dnepr River. He slipped between the botanical garden and the Monument to the Great Patriotic War, then aimed for the heart of Kiev. As a light rain fell, the driver skirted around Independence Square, its chanting crowd of a hundred thousand spilling into the side streets, their tone celebratory.

The driver pulled up to the arched driveway of a white six-story apartment building built in the anonymously ornate style dictated by Moscow in the 1950s. He honked once. Moments later the iron-framed wooden gate swung open and he drove through the courtyard into a two-car garage on the opposite side. Once the garage door was closed, Slava heaved himself out of the car. Gage stepped out behind him.

“You should think about losing a few pounds,” Gage said.

“Few not do it.”

Gage followed Slava into an elevator that took them to the top floor.

“Okay?” Slava said after his bodyguard opened the apartment door.

Gage walked into an Italianate living room, gilded to the barest limits of good taste.

“Sveta do,” Slava said.

“I didn’t realize your wife was an interior decorator.”

“She not. She like to spend money. When she get enough things we hire somebody to do something with them. Some of it match.”

Slava ran a finger along the back of one of two aqua and gold Louis IX armchairs. His eyes blurred for a moment.

“When I was boy, ten families live ten years on what this cost.”

As soon as Slava left, Gage removed a debugger from his briefcase and checked the apartment. He disabled four bugs, but left them in place. He then set up a local Internet connection and checked his e-mails. Boss: Mr. Burch called. Chuck Verona said he forwarded Matson’s FedExed boxes from Checker Trading to New York. He couldn’t remember the name of the company, but will find out. Everything is in order as far as Matson’s new account is concerned. Mr. Burch is still wondering why you chose the name KTMG Limited. He thinks “TMG” is The Matson Group, but he can’t understand what the “K” means. I think I do. Cute. Blanchard called. He reviewed the list of what was missing and said the most valuable were the monolithic microwave circuits. He suspects that a competitor is using gray market SatTek components to make their own devices. He’ll put together a list of possible companies and I’ll research them. Alex Z