Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

A car pulled up in front of the house. Duncan’s Lyft. It would take him to the Back Bay train station. Duncan was taking the Acela, the express train, to New York.

She put her arms around him and kissed him. Then he said, into her hair, “Please be careful, Jules.”

“You know I will.”

“I know. But still.” And he hugged her, hard.

Venkovsky drove the Escalade into Boston.

“So, Alex Venkovsky,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s a Russian name.”

“You’re Russian?”

“I lived in Moscow until my parents emigrated when I was six. That a problem for you? Are you one of those Russophobes? Think we’re all in cahoots with the Kremlin?”

“Seriously?”

“Sorry to be touchy. The circles I move in — I sometimes wonder. German-Americans got the hairy eyeball during the First World War. Japanese-Americans got rounded up in the Second. Now, with all these news stories about Russian mischief, I meet people who think I must keep a nerve agent next to the allspice in my kitchen.”

“You ever have reason to use it?”

“The nerve agent?”

“The allspice. Because I’m pretty sure I never have.”

Venkovsky let out a laugh. “Okay, apologies. I’m a little hypersensitive on the subject. Moving on.”

Half an hour later, they pulled up outside a large, ugly government building on Causeway Street. Venkovsky put a blank parking ticket on his windshield and put on the emergency flashers.

He escorted her into the building, took her up the elevator to the sixth floor. It opened on a bleak expanse of cubicles. He signed her in, took her to a conference room, and introduced her to a man named Glenn Hawkins, a chunky redheaded man in his twenties, wearing jeans and a green polo shirt. In the middle of the conference table was a big box of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and a couple of cartons of doughnuts.

Venkovsky poured them both coffee, and he took a doughnut. “Glenn’s going to wire you up,” he said.

The redheaded guy lifted a ridged aluminum briefcase and opened it on the table near the doughnuts. It was lined with black foam and held various electronic-looking components. Then he put down a canvas tote bag.

“I understand you’ve arranged to get into his estate?” Hawkins said.

“That’s right.” Juliana thought briefly of Nazarov and the favor she’d called in.

“Well, that’s the hard part. I’m not going to ask you how you did that.” He smiled. “Protasov’s spread on Nantucket is more than sixty acres, and it’s protected. Fenced in. We can’t possibly get close enough to use wireless bugs.”

“Okay,” she said.

“That leaves us with covert recording devices, which is what we got here. This belt?” He reached into the canvas tote bag and pulled out a skinny black leather belt with a simple silver buckle.

“The recorder’s in the buckle. Good quality too. Do you have a Tesla?”

“No.”

Hawkins smiled. “Well, now you do.” He handed her a small black-and-silver key fob with the Tesla logo on it. He was making a joke, sort of. “This records. Or there’s a pen. Which does write. And records.” He held up a ceremonial-looking pen with a black lacquer body.

“Do I choose one of these devices, or—”

“How about you take a few of them? As backups.”

“Why not?”

“Of course, they might not let you keep your purse with you.”

“Who, Protasov’s security people?”

“Right. His guys take precautions.”

“Okay, and what if they take away my purse?”

“Ma’am, you’re a size nine, right? Shoe?”

She nodded.

The door to the conference room burst open and a portly middle-aged man in a white shirt and tie, no suit jacket, barged in, red-faced with anger. He had a bristly mustache and thick glasses and was waving a piece of paper.

“I just read the op report!” he shouted. “This is not happening!”

“Yeah, it is,” Venkovsky said quietly.

“You realize this is insane, right? It’s totally irresponsible. You’re throwing a duckling into a raccoon den!”

“It’s what she wants,” Alex Venkovsky cut in. “And Brennan said it’s happening. So.”

The guy in the white shirt kept going. “The idea of sending a civilian on an op with stakes this high, wiring her up — and no backup? Are you out of your freakin’ mind? Confidential informants get killed that way! I want you to mark it down in the log that I objected to this op. I want it on the record .” Red-faced, he said to Juliana, “Do you know about this dude? Do you know what he does to his enemies?”

“I have no choice,” Juliana said. She swallowed hard. She didn’t want to hear it.

“You think he’s just, like, this guy who gives libraries and hospital wings? Yeah, that’s the public image. But you wanna know the truth? People who cross him tend to die .”

She nodded. “Yes, I’m aware.”

“If his people suspect you’re working for US law enforcement — or God forbid they find out you actually kinda-sorta are ! — they’re not going to hesitate. Anyone can arrange a murder, but it takes a professional to arrange a suicide. Ever hear of a polonium cocktail?”

Alex Venkovsky quietly asked the man in the white shirt to step outside for a minute. She could see, through the window in the door, Venkovsky talking to the guy, gesticulating wildly. Then he pulled out a phone and made a call. After about five minutes, he returned, alone, looking chastened, holding a folder of papers.

Hawkins threw him a look, and Venkovsky returned it by wordlessly shaking his head. She didn’t know what they were communicating.

“We’re fine,” Venkovsky said.

“What does that mean?” Juliana said. “Who was that?”

“No change in plans,” Venkovsky said. “The operation proceeds.”

“Good.” She was glad Duncan wasn’t with her. He wouldn’t have liked what he heard.

Hawkins reached into the canvas tote bag and took out a couple of shoeboxes. “I’m hoping one of these fits you,” he said.

He slid the first shoebox toward her. It was Coach, she noticed. Nothing too high fashion. A sensible shoe.

He said, chuckling nervously, “One’s brown, one’s black. Both size nine. There’s a recording device built into the soles of each shoe. We have an Israeli guy who makes these for us, and he’s awesome.”

She took out the shoe, a simple brown wedge heel. Then she took off her right pump and slipped on the doctored shoe. It fit perfectly. He saw and said, “Excellent.

“Now, they can detect recording devices with something called a nonlinear junction detector, I have to warn you. They might use one of those. But they’re not likely to run it over the bottoms of your shoes. So even if they take away your purse and scan you with a detector, you’re probably not going to get caught.”

Probably , she thought. “And what if I do?”

He looked at her. “Ma’am, just one thing.”

“Yes?”

Venkovsky opened the folder and slid several pieces of paper across the conference table.

She looked at them.

“These are indemnity forms,” he said.

“Understood.” They wanted to ensure the US Government wasn’t legally responsible for whatever might happen to her.

They were bureaucrats, and they were scared.

“We need you to sign these. Holding the US Treasury Department and the US Government blameless in the event of—”

“I know,” she said. “I know what they are.”

Alex Venkovsky drove the Escalade to a terminal at Logan Airport she’d never seen before, a private-aviation terminal. Instead of parking, he drove right across the tarmac and up to the aircraft, a white, swoopy-looking airplane with elliptical portholes.