Chapter 52.

Paul Ernenwein and I were called to a surprise lunch meeting with Secret Service special agent in charge Margaret Foley, at the famous Bull and Bear Prime Steakhouse at the Waldorf Astoria.

We found Agent Foley at a black leather banquette in the corner, sitting with a boyish dark-haired fortysomething gentleman in a tailored navy suit.

"Guys, I'd like you to meet Mark Evrard," she said. "Mark's with the DSS."

DSS was the Diplomatic Security Service, I knew, the security and law enforcement service of the State Department. They were the guys who protected US amba.s.sadors and emba.s.sies all around the world.

"After you brought up the Russian angle at our last meeting, I asked around, and a friend got me in touch with Mark," Agent Foley said as we sat. "He's been with the DSS for the last fifteen years at the American emba.s.sy in Moscow. He also teaches a Russian foreign relations seminar at Johns Hopkins and is considered one of the most knowledgeable people about Russia in all of Washington. If anyone could broaden our understanding about the Russians and the way they think, it's Mark."

"Well, I don't know about all that," Evrard said in a down-to-earth Chicago accent after a sip of his whiskey sour. "But maybe I can help. What kind of Russki info are you guys looking for?"

"Well, I guess the first question is, how credible do you think it is that Putin or anybody else in the Russian government would actually try to kill President Buckland?" I said.

"Exactly," said Paul Ernenwein. "I mean, I know some of these Russian mobsters are nuts, but is it also true of officials in the Russian government? Of people that high up?"

Evrard took another sip of his drink.

"You're actually talking about the same people," he said, smoothing his tie. "Along with the oligarchs who seized control of the Russian industries after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Russian mafia and the Russian government are all part of the same power structure."

I shook my head as that sunk in.

"It's that bad? I mean, it's obvious Russia has some corruption issues, but that's nuts, isn't it?"

"Yep, it is nuts, and tragically true," Evrard said, looking at me calmly. "They all work together. The Russian mafia provides security and muscle for Russian industry bigwigs. Russian industry bigwigs pay off corrupt politicians and bureaucrats and cops.

"You actually have corrupt Moscow cops who have multimillion-dollar properties in places like Switzerland and Dubai. Politically connected oligarchs have vacation mansions built on protected public land. They say Putin himself had a billion-dollar summer palace built for himself on the Black Sea with Russian tax money."

"How can that be? How can they get away with that?" I said.

"Easy. When asked about it, the spokespeople at the Kremlin all have the same standard Russian answer: 'We are not authorized to speak on this issue.' Reporters who push harder have a funny way of ending up dying under mysterious circ.u.mstances. Everybody scratches everybody else's back. It's all one big rotten family."

"With Putin as the daddy," Paul said.

"Yep. He's the top of the pyramid, the shot caller. He was KGB in the old days, and ruthlessly worked his way up to prime minister, and then president. Some say he put the squeeze on all the oligarchs during his first two presidential terms for a hefty slice of Russia's entire economy. All its oil, mining, logging, fleet fishing, telecommunications-everything. Because of this, the same people say that Putin is probably the richest guy in the entire world."

"Does that make him crazy enough to go after Buckland?" I said.

"Have you ever heard of the Russian apartment building bombings of 1999?"

I shook my head.

"In 1999, apartment buildings in three Russian cities suddenly blew up, causing upwards of three hundred deaths. Putin and the Russian government quickly blamed it on Chechen terrorists, despite the fact that ma.s.sive amounts of highly sophisticated RDX Russian military explosives were used. Then Putin, who was prime minister, ramped up the Chechen war and then rode the war's popularity into the presidency."

"You're saying it might have been a false flag?" I said. "That he might have killed three hundred of his own citizens to get his poll numbers up?"

Evrard nodded.

"And it's not just in Russia that he's not afraid to take off the gloves," he said. "In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian ex-FSB agent and Putin critic who emigrated, was actually poisoned and a.s.sa.s.sinated with radioactive material in London."

"Okay, that answers that," Paul said. "Putin apparently has no qualms about anything."

"Which brings me to the other reason why I wanted to have this meeting," Foley cut in. "Putin is coming. Putin is coming here to New York to join the UN talks."

"Putin is coming here?" I said. "But I thought Buckland was coming."

"He is!" Foley said. "As if we need another ball to juggle. They're both coming. Putin and Buckland will be in town at the same time."

Chapter 53.

With no traffic, it took the British a.s.sa.s.sin two hours flat to get to East Hampton, Long Island, in the Camaro.

It was the first time he had ever been there. He'd read that it was supposed to be a big deal, a tony artist colony and summer playground for the rich. But driving down Montauk Highway, its main street, and pa.s.sing a lousy Starbucks and a CVS pharmacy, he wasn't seeing it. Billionaires were attracted to this dump?

What a grubby, horrid country America was, he thought, not for the first time. He couldn't wait until this job was finally done so he could get back to civilization.

His final destination was east of Montauk Highway near Two Mile Hollow Beach. Behind the chain-link, the address was more wood-shingled shack than house. There was a broken surfboard propped beside the front door and the rusting sh.e.l.l of an old Jaguar coupe under a listing carport. As he stood there, an old filthy dog that might have been a German shepherd came out from behind the ruined sports car and began barking.

A moment later, a man in faded blue coveralls opened the hovel's front door. He took off a pair of oil-covered black rubber gloves as he came out into the yard.

"Down, Airplane," Billy Dee said to the dog as he gave it a soft kick. "Manners, now, girl. We have a visitor."

Billy Dee was a tall, lanky Australian with dirty-blond hair, dark-brown eyes, and a netlike crisscross of fine lines up and down his long, weather-beaten face. He had a reputation as a highly competent and discreet mechanic and designer who'd work for anyone for the right price. He'd worked for the cartels. Wall Street hustlers. Even Hollywood.

The back of the house was one big studiolike workroom piled with tools and spare parts. The British a.s.sa.s.sin couldn't make out what half the stuff was. There was a drill press beside a 3-D printer. An engine crankshaft on a blue rag-covered workbench. Wired circuits on an elaborate breadboard hanging from the far wall.

"It's a big job, is it?" the Aussie wanted to know. "I only ask because you came with the highest of recommendations."

"Where is it?" the British a.s.sa.s.sin said, ignoring him.

"Straight to business, eh? No problem, friend. I got your baby right over here," Billy Dee said as he brought over a milk crate from a corner and placed it down beside the crankshaft.

Inside the plastic crate was what looked like a mix between a metal skeleton of a robot and a bagpipe. It was a jumble of hydraulic cylinders and pistons and clamps and wires, all jutting from the torso of a large electric motor box.

"How does it work?" the British a.s.sa.s.sin said.

"Okay," Billy Dee said excitedly as he lifted one of the pistons. "The signal opens the float switch in the control box here, which engages the magnetic contact over here, and-"

"I don't give a f.u.c.k how it works technically, monkey wrench," the a.s.sa.s.sin said coldly. "I meant, how do I work it?"

The Aussie looked hurt.

"Install the hardware, then hit that app I already e-mailed you. Everything pops up on your phone screen, the video feed, the whole shebang, and Bob's your uncle, you're in control."

"What's the range?"

Even more lines appeared on Billy Dee's Old Man and the Sea face when he smiled. His crooked yellow teeth were sickening.

"What's the range of a wireless cell phone signal? Infinite?" the Australian said, and began laughing. "That's the real beauty here. You could be anywhere, mate. You could work her from the other side of the world."

The British a.s.sa.s.sin smiled himself as he looked at the contraption, picturing it. It just might work after all.

He took out the large manila envelope with the hundred thousand in it and placed it next to the crankshaft.

"I'll see myself out," the British a.s.sa.s.sin said as he lifted the crate.

"Pleasure doing business with you," said the Australian, already thumbing hundreds.

A moment later, the big Aussie made less noise than expected as he dropped to the workshop floor with the back of his head blown open.

The British a.s.sa.s.sin stepped over Billy Dee, straddling his waist, as he put two more in the bigmouthed grease monkey-this time in his temple-with his suppressed .22.

There was no way he could have let him live. Not at this point. The risk was too great.

The man had actually been right. This was a big job. The biggest probably of all time.

Too big to fail, he thought with a smile.

"Pleasure's all mine, mate," the British a.s.sa.s.sin finally said as he aimed his gun to take care of the dog.

Chapter 54.

There were over a hundred people in the West Chelsea gallery that night for the opening.

You could tell right away that these were not the PBS tote bagschlepping bridge-and-tunnelers you sometimes saw at MoMA and the Met. Quite the contrary. With the amount of Botox and Hermes Birkin bags and bespoke tailoring on display, it was obvious that some of the most serious players in the multibillion-dollar downtown NYC art world were on the scene.

In front of the mixed-media installations and huge paintings, you could hear exotic languages being spoken: Portuguese, Chinese, Russian. The art market, like the real estate market, in New York was red-hot right now with the new influx of foreign billionaire money. One had to have something just so to hang on the wall of one's new twenty-million-dollar sky-view apartment, after all.

Since I wasn't a foreign oligarch and my art collection consisted mostly of finger paintings on my fridge, I was there because I was on the job, of course. In the Chanel-scented crowded gallery behind me, about twenty feet away, over my right shoulder, stood Matthew and Sophie Leroux, the ex-CIA art dealers who for some unknown reason seemed to want to pull a Lee Harvey Oswald on President Buckland. They were under 24/7 surveillance now, and we'd been on them from the second they left their SoHo town house an hour before.

In his sleek black suit and expensively simple white shirt, Mr. Leroux certainly looked the part of the rich art dealer. And could act it as well, given the expert way he and his pretty and slim wife, Sophie, air-kissed and backslapped with all the globally loaded folks in attendance.

As I watched them, I couldn't help sensing how tight they seemed. The way they held hands and conferred with each other between meet and greets when no one was looking. They were attractive and sociable, but their relationship seemed quite real. They seemed like serious, committed people.

Which was more than a little troubling, I thought, considering the two highly trained ex-spies seemed very much to be plotting to blow the president of the United States' head off in less than a week's time.

I turned as my old buddy Brooklyn Kale arrived in a c.o.c.ktail dress and handed me a club soda. I noticed that my head wasn't the only one turning at the sight of my tall and lovely partner in her little black undercover dress.

I'd actually pulled some strings and had several of my old Harlem crew buddies rea.s.signed to the anti-a.s.sa.s.sination task force. In addition to Brooklyn, I had Arturo Lopez and Jimmy Doyle in an unmarked Chevy parked outside, across West 24th.

With the president and now Putin due in town, and still having really no clue what was up, we definitely needed all the help we could get.

"What are these paintings supposed to be about again?" Brooklyn said, staring up at the immense dark-toned abstract canvas in front of us.

"'With their never obvious inert compressions,'" I read off a pamphlet some pretty blond waif had handed me at the door, "'Scheermesje's latest work possesses a fragmented rawness that is at once a departure from, but also a profound echo of, his earlier work's often gummy tactile resonances.'"

"Oh, I'm feeling those compressions," Brooklyn said, shaking her head. "Every time I look up at it, I want to pop a couple of Tylenol."

When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that Leroux and his wife were suddenly moving through the crush of people.

"Maybe they're heading for the bar," Brooklyn said hopefully.

But they weren't.

We stood there watching as Matthew and Sophie reached the gallery steps near the entrance and went up them and straight out the front door.

Chapter 55.

"Arturo, Doyle. Look lively. They're coming out," I called into my hastily dialed phone as we made a not-so-subtle beeline after the couple through the dense crowd.

When we finally climbed the steps and hit the street, I could see a gaggle of models oohing and aahing at one of those Mercedes six-wheeler super-SUVs that had pulled up on the cobblestones out in front. What I wasn't seeing was the Lerouxes.

"Where are they?" I asked Arturo.

"Down the block. On your left," he told me.

d.a.m.n it! Half a block away, on the corner of Eleventh Avenue, I could see the Lerouxes already getting into a taxi. No, wait: it was only one of them. Sophie Leroux sat in the cab while Matthew closed its door and quickly jogged east across dark Eleventh Avenue.

"What the...? Splitting up?" Brooklyn said.

Had they made us? I wondered.

"Arturo, you guys stay on the wife in the taxi," I said into my phone as I hurried east with Brooklyn. "We'll stay with the husband on foot."

On the other side of Eleventh Avenue, Brooklyn and I picked up the pace as we watched Leroux moving quickly along West 24th Street's shadows and steel shutters. He was on his phone now, I saw. He definitely seemed purposeful, which was weird since the entire industrial area was completely deserted.

Where was he going now? I wondered as I rushed to keep up. To meet his contact?