length he said, “Dear lady, you were intimate with Admiral Drummond?”
“What do you mean by ‘intimate’?”
“Did you have sexual intercourse with him?”
Alex started. “Of course not. Our relationship was strictly business.”
“Then how do you know he wasn’t gay or bisexual?”
“A woman can tell.”
Abakov shrugged dismissively. “Of course.”
“I want to view Drummond’s body before it’s prepared for shipment to the States,” Scott said. “Alex?”
She nodded faintly.
“Can you make the arrangements, Colonel?”
Abakov looked exasperated.
“What’s the problem?” Scott said.
“The problem, Captain, is that my department lacks manpower. The few men I have are overworked.
Visiting a corpse uses up time better spent solving crimes. I myself have not been home for supper in a week and my children have forgotten what I look like. My wife is not, as you Americans would say, a happy camper.”
“Sorry,” said Scott.
“Sorry, yes.” Abakov pointed to a stack of case folders on his desk and on the floor. “The FSB has a backlog of these and not enough men to handle them.” He picked up a file and slapped it with the back of a hand. “Here, for instance. We’ve had to send a team to St. Petersburg to find an FSB officer who has been missing for several days. We have no idea what happened to him. On top of that, there was also a mafiya shoot-out in St. Petersburg in which a man ended up dead, another perhaps badly wounded, but we don’t know for sure. It appears the dead man was a member of Ivan Serov’s organization, which has links to Alikhan Zakayev, who we believe was behind the bombing of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. The pressure from the Kremlin, to say nothing of your Secret Service, to find Zakayev before the summit opens is unrelenting.”
“He’s your number one suspect?” Scott said.
“Yes. He’s a monster who enjoys killing Russians. Can you imagine killing a thousand innocent civilians? The sooner we find and capture him, the sooner we can end this nightmare of terrorism.”
“Any leads on his whereabouts?” Scott said.
“All we know is that where one finds Serov, one often finds Zakayev.”
“Interesting. What do you make of the fact that Zakayev may have been in St. Petersburg?” Scott said.
“At the moment, nothing. In any event, I am eager to wrap up this Drummond business,” Abakov said, shifting subjects. “After all, we don’t want something like this unfortunate incident in Murmansk to affect U.S. Russian relations.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Scott said.
Abakov jammed the ushanka on his head and reached for the phone. “I’ll let the morgue know we are coming.”
A 9mm slug had furrowed Zakayev’s left forearm just below the elbow. The girl had fussed over him until the painkillers made him drowsy and he fell asleep. He awoke hungry and in pain. While he ate, the girl demonstrated by poking a finger through a bullet hole in the sleeves of his cashmere topcoat and suit jacket, both stiff with dried blood, the track the bullet had taken.
“Get rid of them,” Zakayev said. “Your fur coat too.”
The girl tied everything in a bundle and took them into the work area of the car repair shop for disposal.
He had no recollection of having been shot. Only later had he discovered that his clothes were wet with blood. After he’d been stitched up by one of his men, the pain had set in. He was familiar with bullet wounds: He’d been shot twice by Russian Spetsnaz in Grozny and had the ugly red scar tissue to prove it. There was no way to know for sure, but he wanted to believe that it had been Serov who shot him.
It had been a setup from the start. No one could be trusted now, not even the Brotherhood. The girl was sure she’d shot Serov, but even if she had, he might still be alive and plotting another trap. Still, Serov would have a mess to deal with in the aftermath of the shoot-out that could only be cleaned up by bribing
“What do you mean by ‘intimate’?”
“Did you have sexual intercourse with him?”
Alex started. “Of course not. Our relationship was strictly business.”
“Then how do you know he wasn’t gay or bisexual?”
“A woman can tell.”
Abakov shrugged dismissively. “Of course.”
“I want to view Drummond’s body before it’s prepared for shipment to the States,” Scott said. “Alex?”
She nodded faintly.
“Can you make the arrangements, Colonel?”
Abakov looked exasperated.
“What’s the problem?” Scott said.
“The problem, Captain, is that my department lacks manpower. The few men I have are overworked.
Visiting a corpse uses up time better spent solving crimes. I myself have not been home for supper in a week and my children have forgotten what I look like. My wife is not, as you Americans would say, a happy camper.”
“Sorry,” said Scott.
“Sorry, yes.” Abakov pointed to a stack of case folders on his desk and on the floor. “The FSB has a backlog of these and not enough men to handle them.” He picked up a file and slapped it with the back of a hand. “Here, for instance. We’ve had to send a team to St. Petersburg to find an FSB officer who has been missing for several days. We have no idea what happened to him. On top of that, there was also a mafiya shoot-out in St. Petersburg in which a man ended up dead, another perhaps badly wounded, but we don’t know for sure. It appears the dead man was a member of Ivan Serov’s organization, which has links to Alikhan Zakayev, who we believe was behind the bombing of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. The pressure from the Kremlin, to say nothing of your Secret Service, to find Zakayev before the summit opens is unrelenting.”
“He’s your number one suspect?” Scott said.
“Yes. He’s a monster who enjoys killing Russians. Can you imagine killing a thousand innocent civilians? The sooner we find and capture him, the sooner we can end this nightmare of terrorism.”
“Any leads on his whereabouts?” Scott said.
“All we know is that where one finds Serov, one often finds Zakayev.”
“Interesting. What do you make of the fact that Zakayev may have been in St. Petersburg?” Scott said.
“At the moment, nothing. In any event, I am eager to wrap up this Drummond business,” Abakov said, shifting subjects. “After all, we don’t want something like this unfortunate incident in Murmansk to affect U.S. Russian relations.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Scott said.
Abakov jammed the ushanka on his head and reached for the phone. “I’ll let the morgue know we are coming.”
A 9mm slug had furrowed Zakayev’s left forearm just below the elbow. The girl had fussed over him until the painkillers made him drowsy and he fell asleep. He awoke hungry and in pain. While he ate, the girl demonstrated by poking a finger through a bullet hole in the sleeves of his cashmere topcoat and suit jacket, both stiff with dried blood, the track the bullet had taken.
“Get rid of them,” Zakayev said. “Your fur coat too.”
The girl tied everything in a bundle and took them into the work area of the car repair shop for disposal.
He had no recollection of having been shot. Only later had he discovered that his clothes were wet with blood. After he’d been stitched up by one of his men, the pain had set in. He was familiar with bullet wounds: He’d been shot twice by Russian Spetsnaz in Grozny and had the ugly red scar tissue to prove it. There was no way to know for sure, but he wanted to believe that it had been Serov who shot him.
It had been a setup from the start. No one could be trusted now, not even the Brotherhood. The girl was sure she’d shot Serov, but even if she had, he might still be alive and plotting another trap. Still, Serov would have a mess to deal with in the aftermath of the shoot-out that could only be cleaned up by bribing
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