52
CAU
THE HOOVER BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C.
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
The conference room sounded with the clatter of computer keys, the occasional comment and halfhearted curse. Water bottles, coffee cups, and a plate with half a Danish hanging off the edge sat in the middle of the long table surrounded by CAU agents. Ruth and Ollie were working through passports of Russian citizens who’d entered the United States and also made frequent trips to England. Ollie was going through photos of Russians with British and international driver’s licenses. Jack was looking at surveillance videos of the entrances to the chancery of the Russian Embassy on Wisconsin NW, and Cam, to the Russian Consulate on Tunlaw Road NW. Savich was on MAX, scouring old English private school records for Russian students from twenty and thirty years ago, cross-matching the names with recent American visa applications. They were looking for a Russian in his forties with a pale complexion, who may have been in the Washington area six weeks ago. It was tedious work that took intense focus.
An occasional chair scraped back to allow a stretch or a bathroom break. Savich called a ten-minute time-out when pizza arrived.
They’d been at it for three hours, found several Russian middle-aged men who could fit Saxon Hainny’s description of him, but there was always something not quite right—the height, the weight, the widow’s peak not dramatic enough, the background, the record of recent travel.
It was seven o’clock in the evening and everyone was tired, their nerves jangled from too much coffee. They were taking their first bites of pizza when Ollie shouted, “Look at this! Everything fits, finally. Come look!”
Chairs scraped back in unison and everyone crowded in behind Ollie to look at the passport photo on his computer screen. “Look at him, he fits Saxon Hainny’s description. Look at that widow’s peak.”
Energy flashed in the room, everyone on alert as Savich read out, “Sergei Petrov, age forty-six, five foot eleven, one hundred seventy pounds, resides in Moscow, but a frequent visitor to the U.S., mainly Washington and New York. He last entered the United States eight weeks ago. Listed as a businessman, the purpose of his visit listed as pleasure and business. Does he have a local address, Ollie?”
Ollie typed madly, pulled up a Google map, and raised his head. “He’s listed at 1701 Arcturus Road, Alexandria, but it’s really south of the city, in a rich private area, right on the Potomac.”
Savich said, “All we need is verification by our eye witness, Saxon Hainny”—Savich rubbed his hands together, gave them all a blazing smile—“and we can go get him. Ollie, print out Petrov’s photo. Everyone, get started on a dossier of Mr. Widow’s Peak. I’m calling Saxon in.”
Computer keys were clacking again when Savich punched off his cell. He looked around the table. “Saxon will be here in a few minutes. Ollie, you said when you answered the burner cell, you spoke to a man with a thick Russian accent?”
“Yes, his accent was so heavy I was tempted to say da, but I stuck to mimicking the dead man’s voice, said as little as I could. If he knew I wasn’t the dead guy, he didn’t let on. He said to be sure to bury the burner with Bowler’s body somewhere neither would be found. He ended the call telling me the other half of my money would be mailed to my P.O. box. Then he hung up.”
Jack said, “So Petrov believes he’s safe; he’s cut all the loose threads, killed both the pilot and Bowler. But guys, who is Cortina Alvarez?”
Cam grinned. “Maybe we’ll find her on the same passenger manifest as Petrov’s to and from Moscow.”
There were forty-seven women on the passenger manifest of Aeroflot 104, leaving Moscow in the morning and arriving at Dulles in the early afternoon. None of them were named Cortina Alvarez, but one of them—Elena Orlov—listed Petrov’s address in Moscow.
“That’s it; that nails it,” Cam said.
Ollie read out, “Elena Orlov is thirty-four, five feet six inches, one hundred twenty-five pounds, purpose of visit listed as business. She matches Kim Harbinger’s description of the second person with Manta Ray at the national forest.”
Savich looked up from MAX’s screen. “The CIA’s file on Sergei Petrov lists him as an officer of the Transvolga Group, an investment firm that’s a partial subsidiary of Bank Rossiya. And would you look at this—the second largest shareholder of the Transvolga Group is Boris Petrov, Sergei’s father.” Savich scrolled another minute on MAX, then: “The Bank Rossiya was pegged by the Treasury Department as providing material support to Russian officials, meaning they serve as personal investment bankers for all the millions of dollars the kleptocrats steal from the Russian people—including senior officers of the Russian Federation, and Putin himself.”
Cam cocked her head. “So father and son are important Russian bankers. How does that fit in?”
“Another moment, Cam,” Savich said, still typing. He sat back. “Boris Petrov, Sergei’s father, was included along with dozens of other Russians in the sanctions the Treasury Department issued under the president’s executive orders of 2014 and 2015. You remember, the sanctions have been in place since Russia annexed Crimea and sent its military into eastern Ukraine last year. The people under the sanctions can’t do business in the United States, can’t access financial markets, had billions of dollars of their assets frozen. As a result, the Russian economy fell into a recession, the ruble and stock market dropped, and there was massive capital flight from the country. More than two thousand millionaires left Russia. The individuals sanctioned aren’t even allowed to travel to the U.S. or to Europe.”
Cam said, “You’re saying Sergei’s father was sanctioned?”
Savich nodded. “Big-time. More than one hundred million dollars of his personal investments are frozen, and the Transvolga Group lost much more—they were put virtually out of business. That includes a great deal of money belonging to very powerful Russian officials.”
Ruth said, “So we’ve sanctioned the bankers who invest a lot of the communist big wigs’ money and put a big dent in Putin’s pocketbook.”
Savich nodded. “I’ve got to think some powerful Russians are very angry at the Petrovs for not protecting them. And now Sergei Petrov is in the country because his father can’t be. The question is what he’s up to.”
Jack called out, “Here’s something on Elena Orlov. Her father is a mid-level manager at—guess where—the Transvolga Group in Moscow. She’s an only child, educated in Switzerland, where she became proficient in four languages, then returned to Russia. She entered the Military Educational and Scientific Center, but dropped out after a year. She’s been on Sergei Petrov’s staff for ten years, listed as his bodyguard. According to her file, she’s also his lover.”
Ollie looked at her photo, said under his breath, “She’s very beautiful, puts a new twist on the concept of bodyguard.”
Ruth punched him. “Ollie, pay attention. The man you spoke to on the burner phone with the thick Russian accent, I wonder if he could be one of Petrov’s muscle. There could be more of them.”
Jack said, “And I’ll bet we find some of his flunkies with him at the Arcturus address on the Potomac.”
Ruth gave herself a head slap. “I just realized. That name Detective Ben Raven found in Mia Prevost’s address book—Cortina Alvarez, a woman who doesn’t really exist. That’s it, isn’t it? Cortina and Elena are the same woman. Now she may be dead along with the pilot in that helicopter crash today. But how does it all fit together?”
Shirley, the CAU secretary, stuck her head in the conference room. “Dillon, Mr. Saxon Hainny is here to see you.”
Savich rose, picked up the photo of Petrov that Ollie had printed out. “I’ll be back as soon as Saxon tells us it’s Petrov for sure.”
Savich quietly closed his office door. Saxon was sitting in front of his desk, his hands clasped between his legs, staring down at his scruffy sneakers. He still looked beaten down, folded in on himself.
“Thank you for coming, Saxon.” Savich handed him the black-and-white copy of Petrov’s passport photo. “Is this the man you saw standing behind Mia Prevost the night she was murdered?”
Saxon seemed to stop breathing. He stared at the photo and back at Savich. “Yes, those are his eyes, I remember them, staring at me and talking to her, to Mia. It was like I was nothing at all. And his hair, see how it looks like a sharp spear on his forehead? Yes, that’s him.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Yes, Agent Savich. It’s him.” There was life in his face, at least for the moment, the deadly pallor gone, his eyes no longer deadened with pain. “How did you find him?”
“You gave us an excellent description of him, Saxon. We found him on an inbound flight to Washington from Moscow. If you’d never remembered seeing him, it would have been very difficult.” He laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Now that you’ve confirmed his identity, we can bring him in.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sergei Petrov. He and his father are personal investment bankers to Putin and some other Russian plutocrats.”
Saxon looked blank. “He’s a banker? But why would a banker want to set me up for Mia’s murder?” Saxon began to laugh. “He hired Mia to get close to my father, didn’t he?”
Savich said nothing, only watched him. Saxon’s face leached of color again. “It was never me, was it? Mia was supposed to get close to my father, maybe hack his computer?”
“Yes.”
“But wait, didn’t Petrov know my dad would never tell anyone anything that could hurt President Gilbert or the United States? He never talked about anything remotely sensitive to either me or my mother. It was always ‘off the table.’ As for hacking his computer, I know my dad keeps everything important at the White House, and his personal laptop has some pretty high-tech safeguards I installed myself. I didn’t even build in a trapdoor for myself. No one could get into that computer.”
Saxon licked his dry lips, said slowly, so much pain in his voice Savich winced, “My missing shirt and T-shirt.” He raised his eyes to Savich’s face. “They were covered with Mia’s blood, weren’t they? And he took them.”
Slowly Savich nodded. He looked down at his watch. He had to hurry.