Chapter 43
KATE
The Sawgrass team are busy while I sleep. They set up a table at the far end of the boardroom, beyond the range of all three cameras. They lay out a gleaming array of tools—pliers, a meat cleaver, a hacksaw with jagged teeth…
They spread a blue tarp under Tarasov’s chair.
When Richardson and Bennett take their usual places, they leave the door open to the empty cubicle farm. The Sawgrass guards wrestle off Tarasov’s hood and headphones, but there’s no trip to the toilet this morning. No offer of a sandwich. No coffee, with or without bitter grounds.
After registering the darkened floor, Tarasov grows very, very still. “What time is it?” he finally asks.
“Nine o’clock,” Richardson says. “In the morning,” she adds, always helpful.
“What day is it?”
“Thursday,” Richardson says with an encouraging smile.
Tarasov shakes his head, visibly confused. “Where is everyone?”
Richardson says, “MAJAT staff are working from home today.”
“Working from home?” Tarasov sounds like he’s fighting to master a whole new vocabulary.
Bennett circles behind him. “We call it plausible deniability, asshole.”
“Plau—”
Bennett grabs the back of Tarasov’s head and slams the pakhan’s face into the table.
The shitehawk’s nose is shattered. He howls. Blood streams down his face.
Bennett returns to his side of the table. “Our paperwork is a hell of a lot simpler when there aren’t any witnesses.”
With blood dripping from his chin, Tarasov says, “My lawyers will destroy you for this.”
“Lawyers?” Richardson asks, as if she’s never heard the word.
“You have deprived me of counsel. You have detained me for more than three days. No judge in the country will allow any charges against me to stand.”
“We’ll take our chances,” Bennett says with a vicious grin. “Welcome to your very own black site, you motherfucking piece of shit. You’re the only prisoner. And we have all the time in the world to convince you to talk. So, let’s start over. Why don’t you tell me about Crash?”
Tarasov only misses one beat. “How many times must I say it? I do not know this Crash.”
Bennett grasps Tarasov’s left thumb, yanking it up and away from his shackled wrist. The saddle joint dislocates with an audible pop.
The pakhan’s scream is sharper than any man’s should be. I’m reminded of Pyotr’s eerie giggle as he pushed his way into my body. The crotch of Nikolai’s trousers darkens with piss.
“Crash,” Bennett says.
Tarasov rocks in his chair. His arm is rigid. His thumb hangs at a horrifying angle. He glances at the table beyond Bennett, with all its metal tools.
And for the first time in days, he begins to bargain.
“The government pays you what?” he asks Bennett.
“One hundred thou a year? I can give you more than that. Just say I faked a heart attack. While you tried to keep me alive, I stole the key to my cuffs. Here. I will give the money now. Transfer from my bank to yours. One million dollars, and I am free.”
I clutch Cole’s arm.
“One million,” Bennett says, as if he’s seriously considering the option. “Each.” He juts his chin toward Richardson.
“Yes! Yes! One million each!”
At first Bennett looks like he’s weighing the offer, but then he shakes his head. “There’ll be too many questions. We’ll end up in our own black site, trying to explain.”
“Two million each,” Tarasov says.
“Five,” Bennett counters. “Each.”
Tarasov looks like he wants to argue. But he wants freedom more. “Five each,” he says. Then, before Bennett can push for more: “You have your phone? Type this in.”
Bennett does, quickly accessing a numbered Cayman Islands account.
“Sweet Jesus,” I breathe. “The shitehawk’s actually doing it.”
Tarasov hisses in pain as the money is transferred. The instant both transactions are complete, Cole attacks his keyboard. Tarasov’s offshore account lights up the computer monitor.
“How much is left?” I ask.
“Seven mill and change.” Cole draws it down to zero.
I speak through my headset. “Bennett. Tell him it’s not enough.”
Like I’m watching a television show, Bennett says, “It’s not enough.”
Tarasov’s bellow is pure rage. His Russian curses are garbled by his swelling nose.
I say, “You have to report something. Your bosses will figure out you let him go if you don’t have anything to turn in.”
Bennett feeds that too.
“Ask him about the protection money he took from the Canton Crew’s local. The Emerald Arms. Last year, on Christmas Eve. Get him to give you that.” It was a lousy nine hundred dollars. But it left Da mortified he couldn’t protect his clan at Christmas.
Bennett pushes.
Tarasov resists.
Richardson pleads. She wants to help him.
She wants to set him free. She just needs this one little thing.
The Emerald Arms was probably a misunderstanding.
Tit for tat. Even if some Baltimore DA did get hold of it, the charge would only add up to misdemeanor extortion.
If Tarasov can’t make one small tender, they cannot let him go.
At the far end of the room, Bennett shifts his weight. His hip knocks against the table and metal clanks against metal. He straightens, holding a hacksaw.
Tarasov’s face turns gray beneath the crusting blood from his nose. “Yes,” he finally says. “I ordered my men to take it.” He closes his eyes as his voice shakes with exhaustion. “Nine hundred dollars. The Emerald Arms. On Christmas Eve.”
Beside me, Cole says, “Got it!” It only takes him a moment to add the FBI logo to the recording, making it look like an official government record. Fingers shaking, I follow the protocol we rehearsed for days, feeding the video to my waiting crew.
Ariadne’s Daughters start the confession’s journey across the internet.
In those few seconds, though, Tarasov’s brain has caught up to his agonized body. Looming hacksaw or not, he has committed the one unforgivable sin of an organized crime kingpin: Ratting out his crew to the feds. He drops his head to the table, clearly stunned.
“Don’t let up,” I say into the headset.
Bennett slams his fist onto the table, close enough to make Tarasov’s head bounce.
A drop of blood splatters on the blue tarp.
Leaning close to the pakhan’s ear, Bennett whispers, “What will your bratva do now? Your goddamn Russian brotherhood? How long before one of your fucking thieves puts a knife between your ribs?”
Richardson steps up as if they’ve choreographed this ballet. “Come on,” she says to her partner. “We can go to the boss with this. Get him into witness protection.”
“WITSEC?” Bennett snorts. “You think stealing nine hundred bucks from a mick bar is enough to put this piece of shit in WITSEC?”
Richardson crouches at Tarasov’s eye level. “Work with me,” she begs, like they’re on the same team. “What can I take upstairs?”
Tarasov hunches his shoulders. If his wrists weren’t chained to the table, he’d fold his arms around his ribs. But his wrists are chained, and his thumb still dangles. He’s on the very edge. All he needs is a single, well-placed push.
“Fiona Moran gave you real dirt,” I whisper into the earpiece. “She gave up a prostitution ring and a string of murders dating back to the nineties.”
Cole chokes on the coffee he’s drinking. I flash him a savage grin.
Bennett takes the bit. He says to Richardson, “We’ve barely got the budget to put one of these assholes in the program. And if we have to choose, I vote for the Irish bitch.”
Richardson says, “Moran gave us a couple of whores. A few dead bodies. She clammed up tight about that extortion scheme.”
“What do you think?” Bennett says to Tarasov. “Can you deliver more than some mick girl?”
Tarasov closes his eyes. He takes a noisy breath through his ruined nose. He shakes his head slowly, like he’s reciting a prayer for the dead. But he finally says, “My son, Pyotr Nikolaevich Tarasov, took out Fat Sammy, the man who had all the drug trade west of Patterson Park.”
Cole manipulates the camera feed at a record pace, trimming away all the talk about Fiona. He adds the FBI logo, along with captions at the bottom. I send the edited confession to Ariadne’s Daughters.
But Nikolai admitting to Pyotr’s sins is like a lizard casting off its tail. He’s doing his best to wriggle free. I speak into my headset: “The FBI already has Pyotr’s confessions. Keep the gobshite talking.”
Bennett prods. Richardson pleads. Tarasov repeats names and details we already have from the Viktor software.
Pyotr bought off dockworkers to boost containers off ships.
Pyotr paid Baltimore’s mayor for a construction contract to build a new school.
Pyotr skimmed pension payments from nurses at County General.
Cole prepares it all. I transfer it to my waiting network. And Bennett finally says, “Enough about Pyotr. That won’t get you WITSEC.”
Tarasov says, “Pyotr raped a child.”
This was in the Viktor files too—so many children… I want to weep for the eight-year-old I was.
Bennett says, “You want WITSEC. Tell us what you did. Or we’ll throw you out right now and you can answer to your bratva for everything you’ve shared.”
Tarasov stares at the far wall, past the gleaming instruments of torture.
Bennett says to Richardson, “He’s wasting our time.”
Tarasov’s eyes lose focus. He swallows hard. And then he whispers, “I ordered him to do it.”
“What child?” Bennett demands immediately.
“Katie Lynch.”
Of course I’m not surprised by the fact, but I’m astonished Tarasov is finally owning up to it. My arms tighten across my belly like I’ve taken a punch to my gut. Blood rushes in my ears like a shadowed river. Cole’s fingers spread across the back of my neck, comforting me, anchoring me.
Bennett pushes: “When? Why?”
Tarasov murmurs to the killing tools, “Years ago. Because I wanted her father to know Tarasovs never back down.” But then he adds: “It did not work. The fucking girl loved it. She begged for more. Her family shipped her off to Ireland so she could not embarrass them at home.”