Dark Waters (8 page)

G
anani parked her car across the street from the Dizengoff Apartments and waited. With a clear view of the front of the building and the alley, she could see anyone coming or going. Knowing the Palestinian had left empty-handed, she was sure he would return, and she planned on being there to greet him.

Through Colonel Brodsky’s back channels, she also knew that the USB drive with the information she needed hadn’t turned up in al-Ajami. With luck, the Palestinian had it in his possession. Her sources identified him as Umar Haddid, a man with little tying him to the Palestine Liberation Committee except for his best friend, Mansoor Rahman, one of the men she had killed. Hopefully that was enough to drive him back.

An unmarked sedan pulled up in the alley at eleven sharp, and Ganani perked up. A Marine exited the vehicle and entered through the gate in the back fence. A block to the east, a driver in a green Subaru Forester started his engine and let it idle.

Ganani adjusted her side mirror and studied the vehicle. The Subaru’s windows were illegally tinted a deep blackish-gray that repelled any attempt to see inside. The doors and fenders were streaked with dirt. A sign the vehicle had come from outside the city. There appeared to be three men in the car.

She considered leaving her car for a closer look, but common sense dictated that would also give Haddid an opportunity to identify her. Better to wait and watch.

The back alley gate opened again and the driver came back out. He checked the car, checked the alley, and then signaled to someone inside the fence. The DSS agent stepped out.

Ganani glanced down at the passenger seat at the dossier she had pulled that morning. The agent’s name was Raisa Jordan. She was smart and well trained, not one to be underestimated.

Jordan hustled the American and his daughter into the backseat of the sedan before joining them. Another Marine followed, sitting shotgun.

Ganani watched as the sedan exited the alley and turned south. When it neared the corner, the Forester and its occupants fell in behind.

She hesitated only a second before she started her car and shifted it into gear.

E
verything ran like clockwork—the dash through the alley, the loading of vehicles. Now seated in backseat next to Taylor and Lucy, Jordan kept her eye on the road while PFC Donner drove and Corporal Price sat shotgun. Master Gunnery Sergeant Walker and one other Marine had gone ahead to scope out the situation and set up defense parameters. One guard had been left behind to cover the apartment.

Under Jordan’s direction, Donner exited the hotel parking lot and headed south on Pinsker. Turning west on Bograshov, he drove straight to Ben Yehuda and turned right.

Jordan kept her attention on the cars around them, on the people on the streets, and on the windows of the buildings they approached and passed. It didn’t take long for her to spot the black Hyundai one lane over. It tailed them as they crossed Gordon and stuck tight when they swung onto Jabotinsky.

Jordan tapped Donner on the shoulder. He nodded. He must have spotted it, too.

“Lucy,” Jordan said, “I need you to bend over as far as you can and keep your head down.” She gestured for Taylor to cover his daughter.

Taylor didn’t panic, and he didn’t argue. He pushed Lucy forward and covered her back.

Jordan pulled her gun from its holster as the car gained on them in the left lane. Glancing over at Taylor and Lucy, she sucked in a breath and waited for the car to pull even.

Donner slowed the sedan and the Hyundai shot even.

Jordan clicked off the safety on her gun.

A little old lady hunched over the wheel of the car while a boxer pup in the passenger seat barked frantically. Jordan puffed out her breath with a laugh. Lowering her gun, she patted the judge on the shoulder. “You can sit up now.”

Taylor sat up as Lucy shifted and wiggled out from under her father’s arm. Jordan felt a slight pang of guilt for scaring her. Still, better safe than sorry.

Two more right turns and Donner pulled up and parked in front of a small strip mall on Arlozoroff. Alena Petrenko’s office was located in the basement. The ranch-style building had a wide, glassed-in entrance. A nail salon opened to the street on the left. On the right, a small convenience store served as a conduit into the mall.

Walker, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and cowboy boots, loitered near the front entrance. Jordan could have spotted his buzz cut a mile away. So much for blending in.

Corporal Price joined Walker on the sidewalk. Taylor reached for the door handle, and Jordan placed her hand on his sleeve. “Hold on a minute. Let me check things out first.”

She eyed the street for signs of trouble. If they were going to be ambushed, this was a logical place.

A black, unmarked car was parked in front of them. The Marine’s ride. Across the street, a blue Nissan with two occupants, a man and a young boy, idled at the curb.

“The man’s wife is in the salon,” said Walker through the mic in Jordan’s ear. “She’s almost done.”

A skinny kid smoking a cigarette scurried down the opposite sidewalk. There were no cars moving on the street and only a few parked in the next block—a silver Passat and a black Mazda.

“Any movement from the cars?”

“All’s quiet. Harper’s got a bead.”

Gunnery Sergeant Harper was the detail’s best marksman—markswoman. It made Jordan feel better knowing she was somewhere surveying the scene.

The sedan grew hot and stuffy and still Jordan waited. Her gaze traveled over the houses across the street, shifting from second-floor window to second-floor window. From the farthest one on the right, a glint of sunlight on metal caused her to plant her gaze.

“Harper?” she said.

Donner nodded.

“Okay, everyone wait here.” Climbing out of the car, she signaled to Price. “You, come with me.”

Jordan posted him outside the convenience store entrance and stepped through the doorway. Inside, it was crowded enough to stir feelings of claustrophobia. Shelves lined the walls, stocked floor to ceiling with everything from cigarettes to baklava. A
feenjan
pot bubbled on a hot plate on the counter diffusing the smell of Turkish coffee into the air.

A thin, dark-skinned man nodded at her from behind the counter and then turned his attention back to the pot. He pulled the
feenjan
free of the heat, barely in time to prevent it from boiling over, and poured the bitter liquid into two cups.

Jordan slipped down the aisle between the narrow shelves and the counter. Outside the door to the lobby, two men chattered loudly about how much time it was taking the shopkeeper to bring them their coffee and sweet cake. Reaching the mall entrance, she could see them seated at a small, glass-topped table in the lobby. They stopped speaking abruptly when she came through the door.

“He’s pouring the coffee,” she said in Hebrew. “It won’t be long now.”

They glanced at each other and then nodded, resuming their chatter.

Jordan quickly scanned the lobby. Except for the two men, it was empty. A cluster of three tables fashioned the small eating area, and what appeared to be offices ringed an open staircase. Aside from the store, only the beauty salon showed any activity. To the left, a corridor ran to the back of the building.

Jordan stepped back into the convenience store and signaled the corporal to enter. She waited for him to draw alongside and then spoke softly in English.

“Dr. Petrenko’s office is downstairs. It looks like there’s an exit at the end of that hallway.” She pointed down the corridor that took a sharp left at the end of the hall. “Check it out.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The corporal took off down the corridor. A few minutes later, he climbed back up the stairs. “There’s one door to the outside at the end of the hall. It’s locked. The stairs to the roof are chained shut. I walked the stairs to the basement. Everything’s secure. Most of the offices downstairs are empty.”

A sense of fear fueled by adrenalin came and went. She hoped they hadn’t missed something.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s bring them in.” Moving to the entrance, she pushed open the glass doors and spoke into her mic. “We’re a go.”

O
nce Taylor and Lucy were inside the mall, Jordan ratcheted down a notch. The next big danger would be getting out and back to the apartment, which they would have to do in about an hour.

“Which office is it?” she asked, allowing Taylor to take point. He walked them down the stairs to an office on the right. Jordan stationed one guard at the top of the stairs and one by the door and then followed Taylor and his daughter in.

The waiting area was small and cramped, with sour-apple-green paint, four chairs, and a beat-up wooden desk. Three framed diplomas hung on the wall above the desk chair. In the back corner, a white door was closed.

“They’ll come out.” Taylor sat down beside Lucy. “They may have another client.”

It wasn’t long before a short, stocky man with spiked brown hair wearing khakis and a polo shirt stepped into the room. Better than most doctors’ offices, thought Jordan. At least these guys were on time.

“
Shalom,
Ben,” said the man. “Lucy.”

“Yury.” Taylor shook his hand. The man turned to Lucy and spoke in a thick Russian accent.

“And how are you feeling today?” he said with genuine interest.

Lucy moved closer to her dad. “Okay.”

“
Nyet
, ‘okay.’ What kind of answer is this? Are you sick feeling? Does it ache in your head?”

Lucy looked up at her father.

“She ran a fever yesterday,” said Taylor. “There was some trouble at Dizengoff.”

“I read about it.” Yury stared at Jordan, as if the trouble were her fault, and then looked toward the white door. A tall, angelic-looking woman with short-cropped, dark hair and nearly translucent skin glided into the room. Alena.

Foregoing introductions, the woman honed in on Lucy, tipping the child’s chin upward and studying her eyes. The scrutiny came with a torrent of Russian that made Jordan chuckle.

Taylor looked at her. “What’s so funny?”

“Something caused Lucy anxiety,” Alena said in English. “It must be stopped.”

“She said a lot more than that,” Jordan said.

“What do you mean?” Taylor asked.

“She said you have a tendency to inflame things. That she spends a lot of time undoing the harm you’ve done.” Jordan wasn’t sure why she felt the need to translate so literally. She could see he looked hurt.

Yury looked surprised.

Alena threw up her hands. “I think you worry too much, that is all. It is normal for you to be worried, but the emotion transfers to Lucy.”

Jordan held her hand out to Alena. “
Menya zavut
Raisa Jordan.”

Alena stared hard at Jordan. “
Priyatna poznakomitysa
.” It’s a pleasure to meet you.

The woman gripped Jordan’s hand. Jordan had to pull it away.

“You speak Russian very well,” Alena said in Russian.

“Thank you. I was born there,” Jordan answered in kind. “My father was Ukrainian.”

“And his name?” asked Yury.

Jordan glanced between the couple. “Olek Ivanova.”

Alena looked at Yury. “I took a class from Olek Ivanova.”

“It must be a different Olek. My dad wasn’t a teacher. He was a hockey player.”

“Yes.” Yury sounded excited. “The goalie for the national team.”

“It was him I knew,” Alena said. “He was ahead of me in school. He taught as a graduate student in one of my classes.”

Jordan found that hard to believe. The doctor’s diploma hung on the wall, and Jordan picked up the name. “At the Kyiv Medical Institute of the Ukrainian Association of Folk Medicine?”

“Yes.” Alena nodded enthusiastically. “Your father was amazing.”

Her father had been an intelligent man, and Jordan knew he had gone to college, but they had to be talking about someone else. Her father was a great hockey player, not a student of alternative medicine.

“Do you mind speaking in English?” Taylor said, clearly annoyed to be left out of the conversation.

Yury spoke in halting English. “We were just saying that Alena knew this woman’s father. He was a Russian national treasure. A hockey player with very raw talent.”

Jordan wanted to end this conversation. She wasn’t comfortable with the direction it was going, and it wasn’t the time for it. “I think we should get started here.”

“Hold on,” Taylor said. “I had forgotten you were from Russia.”

“I mostly grew up in the States,” Jordan said. “My father died when I was young.”

“What happened to him?” Lucy asked.

Jordan tried to think of what to say. She didn’t want to tell Lucy the truth—that he had been caught in the crossfire of a botched
assassination attempt. The child had just experienced a shooting. “It was an accident. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all.”

“
Nyet!
He was murdered,” Alena said, lapsing back into Russian. “The KGB wanted him dead.”

Jordan stared at Alena.

Taylor grabbed her elbow. “Is everything okay?”

Jordan yanked her arm free.

“Everything’s fine,” Jordan said before switching back into Russian. “Why do you say that, Dr. Petrenko?”

“Your father was much more than just a hockey player. He was part of the PSI program, until he married your mother.”

Jordan had heard of the Russian, government-run program designed to study the use of psychic discovery in warfare and spying. At the end of the Cold War, the Russian PSI program had been working on their subjects’ ability to physically control things with their minds. In the 1970s, the United States had created its own psychic program in response. Both were ridiculous failures.

“You’re wrong,” Jordan said.

Alena’s expression softened. “You didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

Jordan must have raised her voice, because the office door swung open. The Marine guard stepped inside. “Everything okay, ma’am?”

She reverted to English. “Everything’s fine. Hold your position.”

The Marine glanced from Jordan to Taylor to Alena and then beat a hasty retreat. Jordan waited until the door clicked shut before reengaging with Alena. “Are you suggesting my father worked with spies?”

The doctor smiled.

“You are definitely mistaken. My agency would have picked up something like that in my background check.” Information like that would have ended her career before it ever began.

Alena continued to smile. “Would they have? I can’t say.”

Taylor had tensed up and was looking annoyed.

“We need to talk more,” Alena said. “But now I must see to Lucy.”

Jordan nodded without actually agreeing. In her opinion, Alena Petrenko was nothing but a con artist who had convinced hundreds of people that she could cure their illnesses where Western medicine failed. Why should Jordan believe anything she had to say?

“I apologize for speaking with your friend in Russian,” Alena said to Taylor before disappearing through the doorway.

Yury looped his arm around Lucy’s shoulders. “Come, child. It’s time.”

Once the door was shut, Taylor turned on Jordan. “What was she saying to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

“It was personal.”

“You look a little shaken.”

The last thing she wanted was her protectee worrying about her. “I’m fine.”

Jordan ended the conversation by sitting down and picking up a magazine. She pretended to read while her mind wandered to an argument her mother and father had in the weeks preceding his death. The two of them were standing in their living room in St. Petersburg. Jordan was sitting on the stairs listening but not understanding. Her mother wanted to return to the United States, but her father insisted there was something he had to finish. Two weeks later, he was dead and buried, and she and her mother were on a flight to America.

Alena’s allegations disturbed her. Jordan had survived the government’s scrutiny of her Russian heritage, but there would be no
surviving rumors—true or untrue—that her father was involved in the PSI program. The DSS rules were clear. There could be nothing in your past, or your family’s past, that could be used against you. The slightest hint of something off raised questions of loyalty, and she already had Posner and Daugherty gunning for her.

Jordan glanced at her watch. Only five minutes had passed since Lucy had gone into the back room. Taylor had told her the appointment would last about an hour. No way could she sit still that long.

Putting down the magazine, Jordan slipped out of her chair. “I’m going outside to confer with the Marines about the plan for getting back to the apartment. Please stay here until I come and get you.”

“Sure.”

It bothered her that his tone was clipped. She had her hand on the doorknob before she turned back. “Taylor?”

He looked up.

“Thank you for letting it go,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes. “No problem. Thank you.”

“For what?”

He spread his arms so that they took in the waiting room.