Judge & Jury - James Patterson [69]
The man had short brown-gray hair and Slavic features, serious, slate-gray eyes.
Russian—and that wasn’t all that interested me.
He was an ex-member of the Spetsnaz Brigade. Army Special Forces. He’d been stationed in Chechnya. In 1997 he went AWOL. For a long time he had simply disappeared. He was thought to have gone over to the rebel side.
Remlikov. Kolya.
I pulled out the file.
He’d been implicated in several Mafia-type slayings throughout Russia and Europe. A corrupt police inspector in St. Petersburg. A testifying gangster in Moscow. He was also being sought for questioning in the very public killing of a Venezuelan oil minister a year ago in Paris.
But what really stopped me wasn’t just his résumé. Which had promise. Or even those brooding, dark eyes.
It was that he’d been wounded—in Chechnya. His right leg had been struck by shrapnel from an exploding grenade. He was thought to still walk with a slight limp.
I was thinking about those shoes.
I put the small file photo close to the screen, side by side against a frame from the courthouse tape.
Holy shit! It was a long shot, but it just could be.
I glanced at the clock. It was already after five. Nothing was going to happen here, but that meant it was lunchtime halfway around the world.
I opened my desk and leafed through packets of business cards I had held together with rubber bands. I had a number, somewhere, for the antiterror desk at the Russian Security Service in Moscow. I’d used it when we wanted to extradite a contract killer who had worked for the Russian mob and had fled back home. I frantically searched through my files and found it. Lt. Yuri Plakhov. Federal Security Service. FSS. I dialed the thirteen-digit European number. I was praying to find him at his desk. It was a prayer answered when I heard his voice.
“Plakhov, vot.”
“Yuri, hello. You may remember me.” I reintroduced myself, reminding the Russian official who I was. It was a bonus to be able to keep this call this far away from the Bureau.
“Sure I recall you, Inspector.” Yuri Plakhov’s English was well practiced and colloquial. “We tracked down that mafioso of yours. Federev, right?”
“Good memory, Yuri,” I congratulated him. “Now I need you to run someone else through your files.” I read him off the name.
“Rem-li-kov?” He stretched it out. “Rings a bell.” I gave him a moment while he punched it in. “A little early back there, is it not, Inspector?”
“Yes,” I answered quickly, not into small talk. “It is.”
“Here it is, Inspector. Remlikov, Kolya. Wanted in questioning with several murders throughout Russia and Europe. Quite a dossier. Among his credits, he’s suspected of taking part in bringing down an entire apartment building in Volgodonsk, in which a government official resided. Twenty-four people were killed.”
My adrenaline was pumping. “How do I find this man, Yuri?”
“I’m afraid I’m unable to give you his mobile number, Inspector.” Plakhov chuckled. “It’s clear here he’s used several aliases and passports. Estonian, Bulgarian. Names of Kristich. Danilov. Mastarch. We think he was in Paris last year, when that Venezuelan oil minister was killed. The trail is very gray. I doubt he is in Russia. It says he is known here, Inspector, as the eh-oop, the Eel. Very slippery, yes? I can send a facsimile of his fingerprints, if you like.”
“Please,” I answered. The Eel. A slimy fucking eel. Things were starting to add up. “Where would I start to look, Yuri?”
The Russian paused, scrolling farther down the file. “Perhaps with your own State Department, Inspector. Judging from what I see, they may be better help than us.”
The State Department, our State Department. “Why is that?”
“Remlikov’s last-known whereabouts. He is thought to be in Israel, Inspector.”
Chapter 87
FINALLY I WAS ONTO something. The bearded face now had a name, and a history. Remlikov’s prints came in over the fax a short time later, but my eyes had started to close.
I dozed off until nine. Then I shaved and showered, and called a colleague I had worked with at the FBI. I asked if I could meet him around