Steven Gore - Final Target

“I want it,” Slava said. “If Gravilov fall or opposition win, I get it. And blow up not solve problem anyway.”

“No, it won’t,” Gage said. “Rubble in Eastern Ukraine isn’t evidence.”

“Bullet in head solve everybody problem,” Slava said.

Gage gave Slava a sour look. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Just little joke.” Slava poured a shot of vodka into his glass and tossed it down. “Not easy to bury body in forest when ground frozen.”

“With Alla on the inside”-Gage glanced at Slava-“and Matson still alive…”

Ninchenko nodded. “Maybe she can gather enough evidence so she can testify about what Matson was really doing over here.”

Gage shook his head. “And then spend the rest of her life on the run? Gravilov, Hadeon Alexandervich, and all of Ukrainian security will be tracking her like wolves on the hunt.”

“What about your Witness Protection Program?” Ninchenko asked.

“That’s only if she’s willing and if the U.S. Attorney buys her story-which he has no incentive to do. How will it sound? Daughter of gangster Petrov Tarasov, traveling under Panamanian passport, fights with her boyfriend, then gets even by running to the government with a made-up story?”

Gage stared at the water bottle on the table before him, overcome by a sense of foreboding, worried that he was leading Alla, like Granger before her, into a Gravilov trap-and feeling straitjacketed by conflicting, if not contradictory, goals: making sure the devices never got installed in missile guidance systems while obtaining hard enough evidence to crush the conspiracy of words upon which Peterson was resting his indictment of Burch.

Then a thought.

He looked at Ninchenko. “How many people would it take to break in and destroy the devices? I’ll just need to preserve a few for evidence.”

“That depends on the security at the plant,” Ninchenko said.

“How soon can we get out there?”

“You take my plane at Zhulyany Airport,” Slava said, after tossing down another shot of vodka. “Ready in thirty minutes. Two-hour flight to Dnepropetrovsk. Car waiting when you arrive.”

“Good. Now let’s hope that Alla doesn’t snitch us off.”

Midnight shadows dominated the wide boulevard sweeping through the heart of Dnepropetrovsk. Sepia-toned sidewalks emerged from a grassy blackness under the light cast by halfhearted yellow bulbs. The only souls Gage observed on the street were heavily coated swing-shift workers and a few vodka-inebriated wanderers, seemingly impervious to the chilly wind off the Dnepr River flowing down from Kiev.

“This is called Karl Marx Avenue,” Ninchenko said. “We haven’t entirely shaken off the past.”

Gage found no opposition protestors camped out in the main square, no opposition banners strung from building to building across the boulevards as in Kiev. Gage pointed at a dozen headstones draped in yellow as they passed a Russian Orthodox cemetery.

“They’ll be gone by morning,” Ninchenko said. “The president owns Eastern Ukraine. The graveyard is the only place out here where the opposition gathers. He orders the murder of opposition journalists and politicians who show their faces in his hometown.”

Gage thought back on the demonstrators in Independence Square encircled by police and soldiers. “Courageous people.”

“They don’t see that they have a choice but to take the risk if they’re going to change the country. The opposition knows it can’t win the election without carrying at least thirty percent of the vote out here, so they keep coming.”

As they drove past the cemetery, Ninchenko ceased speaking in a moment of respect for those who’d fallen in the cause, then pointed ahead. “We’re almost at the hotel.”

Gage made out the four-story, redbrick Astoria in the distance. The entrance was dark and the sign in front wasn’t illuminated. Clearly, walk-ins weren’t welcome.

“Has Slava decided whether to meet us out here?” Gage asked.

“His presence in Dnepropetrovsk could be viewed as a provocation.”

“I thought he had investments in the area.”

Ninchenko shrugged. “They don’t threaten anyone. They’re not viewed as a toehold, just a place to put money. A personal visit is another thing altogether. Especially with the country on the verge of chaos.”

Ninchenko swung around behind the hotel, stopping at a guarded gate that slowly opened, allowing him to drive into a parking area formed by the L-shape of the building. A beefy man in a ushanka and a knee-length leather jacket opened Gage’s door and handed him a room key anchored to a brass plate. He passed another one to Ninchenko, then removed their luggage from the trunk and followed them through the back door and into an elevator to their rooms.

He set Gage’s on a rack in the bedroom and left without waiting for a tip. Moments later Ninchenko appeared at Gage’s door.

“I didn’t need all of this,” Gage said, gesturing toward the heavy leather couch and chairs and satellite television in the living area. “Just a place to lay my head.”

“Slava said you should be comfortable.”

“Can we take a look at the plant tonight?”

“One of my local people is bringing over a surveillance van. Let’s get something to eat while we wait.”

Gage turned the face of his watch toward Ninchenko: 2 A. M.

“Hotel staff in Ukraine work twenty-four-hour shifts.” Ninchenko grinned. “They say it gives the guests more continuity but it’s really just a holdover from Soviet days. People slept on the job anyway, so the leaders found a better way to schedule their naps.”

Ninchenko and Gage walked down to the second floor restaurant, passed through it, then entered a private dining room. One of the four tables was already covered with plates of smoked fish, cheese, pickles, olives, tomatoes, and bread. Ninchenko walked over to the bar and switched on a radio to cover their conversation.

Gage reached his fork toward the smoked sturgeon, then drew it back. “Is this from the Dnepr River?”

“Only the poor eat fish from the Dnepr. It’ll be a million years before the Chernobyl radioactivity washes out. This is Siberian.”

Gage stabbed a piece and shook it onto his plate.

A bleary-eyed waiter in a wrinkled white shirt appeared with bottles of mineral water, filling both of their glasses, then slinked away.

“When will your helpers from Kiev arrive?” Gage asked.

Ninchenko glanced at his watch. “A few more hours. They’ll be staying on the other side of town. No reason for all of us to be seen together.”

Gage and Ninchenko ate in silence. The waiter reappeared with a customary bottle of vodka and two shot glasses. They waved him off simultaneously. He walked away bearing a mixed expression of disappointment and violated expectation.

“For the Ukrainian male, a meal without vodka is like Chinese food without rice,” Ninchenko said.

“A cultural impossibility?”

“Very close.”

Ninchenko’s phone rang. He looked at Gage after answering, forming the word “Alla” with his mouth. He listened for thirty seconds, spoke quickly and quietly, then hung up.

“Matson and Alla are confirmed on a commercial flight tomorrow morning.”

“She sound okay?”

“Nervous,” Ninchenko said, smiling. “She’s lost the fire she displayed when she was kicking at you.”

“Did she say where they’re staying?”

“The Grand Domus Hotel. I know it. Hadeon Alexandervich pried it out of the hands of the former owner through tax inspections. The Ukrainian Tax Authority is like your IRS except it’s a political and economic tool of the president. The government seized the hotel and auctioned it to the single qualified bidder.”