Mark Greaney: On target

No, Gennady enjoyed Venezuela because of a woman. One woman, which was hardly the norm for a bon vivant such as Gennady Orloff. On his flights to Bolivia, in contrast, there were three women from whom he was forced to choose. In Cuba, there were seven, although a couple were getting a bit long in the tooth for Orloff's taste. In Vietnam there were nearly a dozen ladies whose company he enjoyed for a single night, though half accepted dong or credit cards for the service, and none of them would have been able to keep his wandering eyes or other body parts from straying had he any forty-eight-hour layovers in Ho Chi Minh City.

But Miss Venezuela was different. She was the only woman in the country that he had eyes for. He'd met her on the Internet, which was de rigueur for the forty-four-year-old Russian husband and father. For the past eighteen months he'd made at least one flight a month to Caracas, ferrying missiles or warship parts or seemingly every major item from the Russian military catalog with the exception of the Kalashnikov rifle, as the Russian government had licensed a plant in Maracay, Venezuela, to produce AK-103s domestically. And virtually every time he came to Caracas, twenty-nine-year-old Tanya del Cid was waiting for him in a junior suite at the Gran Melia Caracas, arguably the most opulent five-star hotel in all of Venezuela. Tanya was a cashier at a Lexus dealership, and she had a girlfriend who worked as a concierge at the Gran Melia, and both women traded secret overnight loans of the goods and services of their employers. While Tanya enjoyed her dashing Russian pilot in a junior suite, Maria cruised Avenida Principal de las Mercedes in an SC10 convertible "borrowed" off the lot.

Two weeks to the day after his flight to Al Fashir, Gennady Orloff and his crew said good-bye at Ground Transportation of Simon Bolivar Airport, with plans to see one another the next afternoon for the return flight. The four other Russians ran through a late afternoon downpour to jump into a shuttle bus to ferry them to a nearby airport inn, while Gennady climbed in a cab with instructions to rush him to the Gran Melia.

Thirty-five minutes later, the rain-soaked shoes of Gennady Orloff squished down a beautiful hall on the seventh floor of the hotel, his weathered canvas flight case and nylon overnight bag rolling behind them. Gennady's tension, both nervous and sexual, made him feel like he was back in school. He arrived at room 709 and found the door cracked. Curious but not worried, he pushed the door open slightly.

Rose petals lay in a wide path through the sitting area, disappearing down the candlelit hallway to the bedroom. Soft Latin music, a somber serenade by Maria Teresa Chacin, played on the stereo.

Gennady smiled. Ah, this again.

Inside he left his cases at the door as he shut and locked it. He kicked off his wet shoes and yanked off his soaked socks, quickly pulled a long-stemmed white rose from an arrangement on the coffee table, and walked down the hallway. He paused at the door to savor the moment, the smell of lavender wax from the candles, the feel of the moist petals between his toes, the perfume of Tanya, which wafted gently in the air.

Gennady opened the door, his eyes following the petals all the way to the bed.

Tanya sat on the bed, fully clothed. Her arms were tied behind her back at the elbows, she'd been gagged with panty hose, and her eyes were wide from fright and red and puffy and dripping tears.

Gennady heard the hammer of a pistol cocking behind his head.

He dropped the rose.

English words: "Hands high. Walk backwards down the hall. Slowly."

Gennady Orloff did as he was told. His frightened eyes locked with Tanya's. She tried to say something, but only a series of high notes and a quarter cup of spit came out of her mouth through the panty hose.

Once back in the living room, the music was turned down. He waited several seconds for instructions, but when none came, he put as much masculinity into his voice as he could muster and said, "I am turning around slowly."

A man in a suit sat in a leather chair, his back to the far wall, a raincoat folded beside him. Both hands were empty now; they rested on his knees. To the man's left the thunderstorm raged in the window, the light on his face coming from outside and, through the water streaming down the glass, made it seem as if his face was melting before Orloff's eyes.

The face. Gennady knew that face.

It was the American assassin he'd flown into Sudan, the one who'd caused him so much trouble. The Russian tried to not let his nervousness show. "Chto Novava?" What's new?

"Nichivo." Nothing much.

"Shto ty hochesh?" What do you want?

"For starters, I want to speak English. Sit down."

Gennady sat on the sofa across from the American. He moved slowly, warily, but the bearded man in the leather chair gave no indication of threat. He seemed thinner somehow than in the Sudan. His face appeared drawn and gaunt, though again, his face was somewhat obscured by the rain-diffused lighting.

The Russian pilot switched to English. "All right. What do you want?"

"I want to have a conversation with you."

"You caused me a lot of problems after Al Fashir."

The American shrugged. "Apparently everything is okay now. You are still flying weapons for Rosoboronexport."

"A kak je? Why wouldn't I be? I did nothing wrong."

"Other than violating sanctions, you mean."

Gennady relaxed a little. He waved his arm like shooing a fly from his face. "Politics. I don't have anything to do with those decisions. I am just a pilot."

The American shrugged. "We all have our expertise."

Gennady swallowed, stopped himself from asking about the American's expertise. He knew he was a killer, and did not want to bring that up.

"Did you… do anything to Tanya?"

"Depends on your definition of 'anything.' I put a gun in her face. I tied her up. I scared the piss out of her, quite literally, as a matter of fact. Yeah, I did 'something' to her." The man seemed distant for a moment. But his eyes retrained on Gennady in a second. "She's a spook, by the way." He said it nonchalantly.

"What?"

"Yeah. She's GIO."

Gennady just stared back. He did not understand.

"General Intelligence Office."

Still no comprehension of what he was being told.

The American sighed, frustrated. "A Venezuelan spy. I pulled a wire from her." He dangled a tiny listening device with an antenna no wider than a strand of wet spaghetti out in front of him, then swung it across the coffee table to Orloff.

Gennady caught it and looked it over. He laid it down on the table. "You lie."

"No… I kill. I do not lie."

Orloff believed. For several seconds he all but forgot about the American in front of him. He wanted to stand and return to the bedroom to beat the shit out of the little lying Latin whore, make good use out of those restraints holding her arms back.

But the American? What was his angle?

"You work for Gregor Sidorenko. The FSB told me this when they questioned me about your disappearance. Are you here to protect me from Venezuelan intelligence?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"Does your wife know about the affair?"

Gennady's eyes narrowed. "Not this one, no. But she would understand. She knows I am a man who is loved by many women."

"Especially those paid to sleep with you."

The Russian sighed. Shrugged. "I love my wife."

"Do I look like I give a flying fuck about your marriage?"

"Then what is this about?"

"I don't know what the Venezuelans plan to do with the intelligence they've gotten from you, but you have to ask yourself if you have ever said one thing in bed with the beautiful Tanya del Cid that you don't want the FSB to know about. Nothing negative about home? About your work? Nothing significant that could hurt you if Russian state security heard it?"