“When you saysouth,do you mean like Argentina, or like Atlanta? Or is this another official Nathan Phillips classified adventure?”
“How about somewhere in between, and we leave it at that?” I didn’t want to be rude, but she should know better. I would set her straight at dinner; it was time to have “the talk” about what I really did. If we were to give this a chance, she had to be read in on the real deal at CSTC. Shit, she had a clearance that was higher than mine anyway.
“Okay, okay. Go do your thing, and call me later. I can’t wait, Nat—I’m looking forward to picking up where we left off in Nantucket.”
* * *
A former soldier who does private military contracting isn’t quite who I need by my side just now,Rowan Anderson thought,but it’s worth considering how he could eventually be of use.
Perhaps she could play both sides again. Maybe.
CHAPTER 74
CSTC Team Rhino Command Center
Team Rhino gathered for our daily intelligence update.
Meg stood behind the lectern and began. “We’ve made some outstanding progress on our do-outs. I’ll lead off and let Jimmy T. follow, then Stu will bat cleanup.”
According to Meg, the 39.8-meter yacht—christened theOryolafter the first Russian warship, circa 1660s—had been built in 2001 by Heesen Yachts, in the Netherlands. As Oliver had previously reported, theOryolwas registered in George Town, Bahamas, and currently docked in Palm Beach.
Thanks to what Meg called “some crafty hacking” from inside the SCIF, she had analyzed several cutout companies before determining that the yacht belonged to Alexander Egorov, a seventy-seven-year-old Russian widower with forty-three-year-old twin sons, Pavel and Taras.
Word was, the elder Egorov had cut his teeth in the 1950s selling used AK-47s and hand grenades in Algeria. One deal ledto another, one uprising to another, and one civil war to another, and within two decades Egorov had become the go-to guy for anyone wanting to start a revolution.
The twins had followed in their father’s arms-dealing path, building a book of business throughout Africa and some choice hot spots in the Middle East. Governments friendly to ours were decidedly not among their clientele.
Meg’s assessment: Alexander Egorov was Russia’s answer to our own John Gotti. He was Teflon. Nothing stuck, ever. He hid in plain sight. Though to his credit, and unlike his degenerate sons, he stayed well below the radar.
“I cannot confirm the elder Egorov’s current location. He’s got places all over the world. However, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find the boys, who enjoy spending time at their father’s house in Palm Beach. Looks like Pavel is the guy I kicked in the nuts aboard the yacht. Pavel likes to run around Palm Beach in a pink Lamborghini Murciélago, I shit you not. His brother Taras prefers to be seen in a purple Ferrari F430. We should arrest them for that douchebaggery alone.”
With that, Meg stood aside so that James Teagan could take her place at the lectern.
“So I talked to some people,” Jimmy T. announced. Bysome peoplehe meant he’d worked his family network: first cousins, second cousins, their families, and so on—basically the entire Boston Irish community, and probably some Italians too. As Jimmy liked to say with a wink, his father and brothers were in no way even remotely connected to the Irish mob—but he was pretty sure his mother was.
He’d gotten a firm ID on the dead woman we’d foundupstairs at Senator Harrison’s house. She was a Harrison staffer—and the senator’s mistress. Her name was Aimee Sullivan, and she’d grown up in someone’s cousin’s Boston neighborhood. According to Jimmy’s people, she was well-known to be wicked smart, very attractive, and super ambitious. But also far more eager to sleep her way to the top than to work hard to get there.
What Jimmy T. had also turned up was the news that some low-level Ukrainian toughies had recently been hired to break into her apartment and leave a bunch of cocaine behind. He couldn’t find out who had paid for the drugs, but it sure as shit wasn’t Aimee Sullivan. Total setup: Nobody breaks in to someone else’s place and drops off a kilo or so of coke for non-nefarious reasons. Jimmy T. assured us that his dogs were on it.
One of Jimmy’s cousins, a bartender at a place near Fenway, asked one of his bartender buddies on Nantucket if he’d heard anything about Sullivan or her crew. The buddy said she’d seemed friendly enough. Looker. Came into the place once or twice a week. Good tipper.
Then one night a week or two ago, some self-important, obnoxious asshole—presumably Walt Fitzgerald—came in pissing and moaning all over his scotch.
Bartender chatted him up and the old Mick started bitching about some broad who was making his life miserable.Ever heard of Chappaquiddick?he’d asked the bartender menacingly. It wasn’t much, Jimmy conceded, but it was a pretty fucked-up thing to say.
Apart from the background on Sullivan and Fitzgerald, Jimmy hadn’t heard much else. There was a lot of chatter about who could have blown up the ferry, but nobody knew anything aboutwho had actually done it. Seven out of ten informants theorized it was Al-Qaeda.
Last but not least, Jimmy’s crew said some high-level sit-downs with various bosses were said to be going down soon. There was a lot of noise about whether the Russians or the Chinese had been involved in the hit. Oh, and he had another cousin in the Boston Police Department sniffing around the organized-crime unit for more details; the cousin would let Jimmy know what she found out.
“That’s all I could get so far, Nat, but they’ll keep me posted.”
“Please thank your mom for me,” I laughed. “Next time see if your dad and brothers will get off the couch and give her a hand—it’ll speed things up.”
“Of course, Nat. My mom loves you. You know that.”
Jimmy gave me a wink as he sat down. I turned to Stu Arden. “Okay, Stu, what’s up?”
“Nerd version or what?”
