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  “Sarnov. Maxwell. Nice to see you fellows,” Peanut said, standing.

  “How you been, Peanut?” Max Randall asked him. “You know Serge Sarnov.”

  Peanut had met Sarnov once before and he knew that the Russian didn’t say anything unless he had some wise-ass remark to make. Sarnov shook hands like a woman and acted like he was too good to be in the same room as you.

  Max Randall was a different story. He’d been an Army Ranger parachuting into Afghanistan weeks before that invasion, along with Colonel Bryce and a few others. In Peanut’s book Bryce and Randall were real men. Both men were nice enough guys, but if push came to shove, both could cut out your heart and eat it like an apple. Bryce hadn’t thought twice about personally cutting the undercover agent’s throat for betraying him-exactly what Peanut would have done in his shoes. Randall had white-blond hair that was short and he had a face like an action-movie star. A strong and fast fellow, Randall didn’t say anything unless he had something that needed saying, and it was always something you’d want to hear.

  “I can’t think of anything to complain about,” Peanut replied. “Wait, that sounded like a complaint!” He laughed at his joke.

  Peanut would have liked to slap the smirk off Sarnov’s face. First off, Peanut didn’t like foreigners. He especially didn’t like people from any place that had chickened their way out on Iraq, leaving George W. to do it all with just the help of the Brits and a few wormy-looking little whatnots from countries you wouldn’t go to unless your plane was hijacked there.

  “Gentlemen,” Laughlin said as he entered the office dressed like he was going out to play golf. The lawyer shook his guests’ hands with the enthusiasm of a politician greeting his prime benefactors.

  “May I offer you something to drink? Serge, may I offer you a glass of twenty-seven-year-old Macallan? It was a Christmas gift from the ambassador to Scotland.”

  The damned ambassador to Scotland gives Mr. Ross Laughlin liquor, Peanut thought. If there was ever a more impressive or intelligent man than Ross Laughlin, Peanut sure hadn’t met him. He was also the only man Peanut really trusted.

  The Russian frowned. “I never drink when I am talking business.”

  “He might rather have vodka,” Peanut said. “That’s potato juice and pure grain alcohol.”

  “Too early for me, sir,” Max Randall said, declining.

  Mr. Laughlin sat down in a sleek black leather chair across from Sarnov and Max. Peanut sat heavily on the leather ottoman with the elbows of his long arms on his knees.

  “So,” Sarnov said, placing a gold lighter and a package of fancy cigarettes carefully on the glass coffee table. “Let’s get to it, Ross.”

  Mr. Laughlin folded his hands on his leg. “I met with Hunter Bryce this morning. Monday evening we will conclude our outstanding business,” he said. “And Colonel Bryce is ready to go on to the next load as soon as the financials are ironed out. He assures me that he can provide whatever amount of merchandise you require on a reasonable schedule and at bargain-basement prices.”

  Sarnov looked at Max, who nodded once and said, “Colonel Bryce can certainly do that.”

  Sarnov said, “Nothing I know about this judge gives me the degree of confidence you have that he will give in to pressure.”

  “Max’s plan was a stroke of genius,” Laughlin said. “It will work.”

  “We have his little girl and her kid,” Peanut said. “And my daughter Dixie spoke to the judge personally about how to get them back safe and sound. He doesn’t know he’s going to be as dead as they are.”

  Ross Laughlin plucked a speck of lint off his pant leg. “Judge Fondren is a man who has lost his wife and son-in-law in a tragic accident. His grief is deep and he will not risk the sole remaining members of his immediate family over Bryce-someone whom he has no emotional investment in. The agent Bryce killed knew his risks, was killed in a war of sorts. Plus, I have introduced more than ample reasonable doubt to allow the judge to rule in Hunter Bryce’s favor without drawing too much criticism. The judge will go for it.”

  “You guarantee that?” Sarnov asked.

  “I guarantee it.”

  “My employers take guarantees as blood oaths. I sincerely hope you are correct,” Sarnov said. “By refusing to divulge the location of the shipment, for which my firm paid you three million up front upon my assurances, Colonel Bryce has in effect been extorting my employers for a year.”

  “The advance-a third of the purchase price your firm agreed to pay for the merchandise-went directly from me to the colonel and on to his suppliers to pay for the shipment,” Mr. Laughlin pointed out.

  “I understand business.” Sarnov shrugged. “But the fact remains that the firm’s funds have been in the hands of others, while our merchandise-which we never laid our eyes on-sits gathering dust, only Bryce knows where. We could not keep our word to the people we had promised to deliver to. It made us look like we have no control.”

  “You’re going to make out like bandits,” Peanut told the Russian. “You pay nine million and get stuff worth a minimum of three times that much.”

  “What you think,” Sarnov said to Peanut, “is of no importance or of any interest to me.” He turned back to Laughlin. “For all I know, the Feds have located the missing merchandise. Maybe what we have bought is long gone, or maybe they are waiting to catch us taking possession of it, or maybe they will track it and take down the people we sell it to. Perhaps the risks have risen exponentially with the passing time.”

  “The type of business we do is filled with maybes,” Peanut said. “Bigger profits always come with bigger risks.”

  Sarnov continued, “My employers have decided that some changes in the terms are necessary.”

  Mr. Laughlin crossed his legs. “Alterations at this point on an agreement that is in place? Your employers and I have a mutually profitable history.”

  “The cigarettes my people get hold of we sell to you people at less than we get from a lot of others,” Peanut added.

  Mr. Laughlin sat back and placed the tips of his fingers together.

  The Russians bought hundreds upon hundreds of cases of hijacked cigarettes and, after affixing forged state tax stamps to the packs, sold them to store owners all over the world.

  Sarnov said, “But for the other business that we do, you and your helper here would be dead already. Keeping an advance without delivering on an agreed-upon schedule isn’t something we would normally allow.”

  “What?” Peanut said, bristling at the man’s threat. He wished he could whip out his stainless.44 special and blast the Russian’s heart out.

  “What sort of alteration do you have in mind?” Laughlin asked.

  “The up-front payment will become a rebate against the total we owe,” Serge said.

  “Bull dooky,” Peanut scoffed.

  “I could do this,” Mr. Laughlin said, cool as a cucumber. “I repay the three mil out of my own pocket and you walk away from this deal. It’s the long-term association that matters. I am quite certain I can line up new buyers for the Bryce merchandise.”

  Sarnov smiled. “In order to salvage our reputation with our buyers, we will expect to take delivery of that shipment and pass it along as planned. Naturally we will have to give the buyers a considerable discount for the inconvenience factor.”

  “You mean you’d like a thirty-three percent discount on the deal?” Mr. Laughlin asked, raising a brow.

  “Yes. It’s fair for the year you’ve had our money,” the Russian said.

  “You must be on dope!” Peanut blurted out. “Of all the screwball crap I ever heard, that takes the cake!”

  Mr. Laughlin held up his hand to silence Peanut.

  Peanut was running figures in his head. He was getting a twenty percent cut of Mr. Laughlin’s ten points on Colonel Bryce’s deals. He was getting one hundred grand for the Dockery kidnapping and disposal of the bodies. Four of his kids would get five thousand each. If Sarnov got his asked-for cuts, Peanut woul
d lose a lot of money.

  Sarnov lit a cigarette without asking permission, which bothered Peanut, but nobody else seemed to care. “We don’t have any business history with Colonel Bryce.”

  Laughlin said, “After this is over, your people can do deals with him for years to come.”

  Max nodded his agreement.

  Sarnov shrugged. He looked down at the ash on his cigarette, down the coffee table, and, seeing no ashtray, casually tapped ash into a cut-glass dish with peppermint candy in it.

  “If we don’t get the shipment, we expect you to pay us the profits we would have made if we had completed our end. A moment ago, Mr. Peanut set that figure at three hundred percent, which if my math is correct is twenty-seven million we would expect to receive.”

  “What?!” Laughlin said in disbelief.

  Peanut was sure he was hallucinating. Twenty-seven million dollars for something that never happened was insanity.

  Sarnov took a long pull from the cigarette and exhaled the smoke across the table. “In the interest of friendship and a valued business relationship, I’ll get my employers to take nine million if the deal doesn’t go through. If it works out, we pay a total of six for the shipment. After that, we do the deals like we initially agreed. A third down, two thirds upon delivery.”

  Peanut had watched the color drain from Mr. Laughlin’s face by degrees-his lips tightening. He had never seen Mr. Laughlin physically affected by anything.

  Peanut could keep quiet no longer. Mr. Laughlin didn’t know Russians as well as Peanut did, having watched the History Channel. “You commies have been pulling this bluff crap since World War II,” Peanut said, guffawing. He gestured with his hands in the air. “Ask for something crazy as hell, then threaten something insane like maybe a nuclear war, then y’all take the best deal going backwards you can get. You’re the world’s biggest bluffers.” He wagged his finger and smiled. “Ballsy sons of bitches. I’ll give you that. But it don’t play here in America. Not any longer.”

  Peanut knew he had the bastard’s game pegged, and he was sure Sarnov knew he knew it. The Russian had lost his ability to shock them with a sky-high demand.

  Sarnov pinched the cigarette’s filter between his thumb and index finger, held it up level with his face, and stared at the smoke flowing from its tip. “Negotiations are over. Ross, tell your howling monkey to shut up while you are ahead.”

  Peanut bristled. “You mean to sit there and poke a barky stick up our butts and say smile? Buddy, the damned Berlin Wall came a-tumbling down. In case you didn’t notice, you lost.”

  Sarnov tilted his head, breaking off his gaze on the cigarette, and, looking at Ross, said, “I never allow hired help to sit in on business meetings. If I require their presence, I do not allow them to speak, and to insult a guest would demand severe punishment. You should explain to your help the fact that you are winning here. It costs you a little bit of money; we get a fair settlement and we don’t have to bury anybody. And, for the benefit of the severely misinformed, the fact is that the Wall came down to allow us better access to business opportunities.”

  “I don’t threaten easy,” Peanut growled, rising from the ottoman, looming like a thunderstorm over the narrow Russian seated on the couch. His anger had canceled his ability to reason beyond the present. “You communist piece of-” He was already swinging his fist down at Sarnov’s face, knowing that the man was as good as unconscious.

  It was odd the way Peanut’s perspective suddenly changed and, before the lights went out, he was somehow looking up at a fluorescent light fixture in the ceiling.

  14

  The North Carolina Piedmont, once a sleepy southern backwater with one hand on the plow, one on a loom, gold ore in its pocket, eyes on the Bible, and its nose to the grindstone, had become over the centuries the nation’s second-largest banking center.

  Winter was fond of most of the additions to Charlotte’s skyline in the years since he had come to North Carolina to work in the satellite office of the United States Marshals Service, serving under Hank Trammel. The vast majority of the additions to the skyline seemed to have crossed the city’s “traditional Presbyterian brick-solid” with a sense of whimsy. Towering buildings like Bank of America’s headquarters and the Hearst Tower looked like inhabitable sculpture. Trammel liked to say the city was looking like the set for a Batman movie.

  The Westin Hotel, one of Charlotte’s newer buildings, was a sleek glass-skinned structure with the visual warmth of an ice cube.

  Winter parked in the deck, grabbed his overnighter from the passenger’s seat, and strode across the courtyard, going inside through one of the glass doors opened by a man in a black suit. At the front desk, he dropped his name and the clerk handed him a pair of electronic keys to room 412. No check-in required. As was his habit, he scanned the lobby for anything worth noting, allowing his mind to sort and file away its impressions.

  He took the elevator up to the fourth floor, used the key and entered a room that could have been in any first-class hotel in the world. He set his bag on the bed, opened it, took out his shoulder rig and slipped it on. He unrolled a microfiber windbreaker and put it on over the weapon.

  Winter had turned in his federal badge, but thanks to grateful friends in very high places, he had been issued a rare concealed-weapon permit that was valid in any state in the union. Unlike a normal civilian permit, Winter’s allowed him to enter any business, any building or facility, state and federal government structures included, while armed.

  As he was opening the note that had been left on one of the beds, he heard raised voices in the adjoining room. Winter opened the note and unfolded it.Welcome, Massey. Room next door at your earliest.

  He moved to the door on his side of the wall, opened it quietly, and knuckle-tapped on the second door. Alexa opened it.

  “Good afternoon, Lex,” Winter said. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  “No. Please come in. There’s somebody you need to meet,” she said, stepping aside and gesturing him into the room, which was pretty much identical to his.

  The bearded man on the couch stood up reluctantly. He was medium height and looked like a man who didn’t waste time exercising. His mouse-brown hair was far thinner than the graying Vandyke beard he wore. Under bushy brows, his bored eyes were light brown, and a Falcon pipe with a dull aluminum stem jutted from between his plump lips. The knit shirt was too snug around his middle, the green khakis too high over his well-broken-in chukkas.

  “Winter Massey,” Alexa said, “this is-”

  “Clayton Able,” the man said, usurping Alexa’s introduction. He crossed the room with his hand extended and Winter shook it. Able’s palm was warm and damp. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

  “My pleasure,” Winter replied, fighting the urge to wipe his palm on his pant leg.

  “I’ve learned quite a lot about you,” Clayton told him. “You are an impressive individual.”

  “Alexa said nice things about me?”

  “Yes, of course she did. But my knowledge of you is mostly from sources other than Special FBI Agent Keen here. There’s no shortage of material on the Deputy U.S. Marshal Winter Massey.” Clayton Able had a manner reminiscent of professors Winter had known; men who were so deeply embedded in academia they believed degrees were not only badges of rank, but accurate measurements of intelligence.

  “Nobody regrets that more than I do,” he answered, only partly joking.

  At that, Clayton’s eyes reflected the sort of self-amusement that often precedes a smart-ass remark, but none was forthcoming. Instead Clayton put the pipe in his mouth and sucked hungrily on its stem.

  Winter turned questioning eyes to Alexa. Who is this prick?

  “Clayton is a colleague.”

  “I see,” Winter said, although he didn’t.

  “He’s giving us assistance with intelligence.”

  “FBI?” Winter wondered.

  “Heavens, no. I am a freelance information worm,” Clayton s
aid around the pipe’s stem.

  “I’ve utilized Clayton’s considerable talents in the past,” Alexa explained.

  “With the Bureau’s blessing?” Winter asked.

  “Of course not.” She frowned.

  “Not exactly fans of mine,” Clayton snorted. “They resent my success where they have failed. They are not able to utilize the same techniques of intelligence acquisition and therefore resent what they covet.”

  “What sort of techniques? You’re a hacker?” Winter asked.

  “Guilty as charged on that score,” the man said. “Also I acquire tidbits through other avenues and I swap information with select people.”

  “Believe me,” Alexa told Winter, “we couldn’t do this without him. You’ll understand when you see what he’s compiled. We’re not starting from scratch thanks to Clayton.”

  Puffing up proudly, Clayton added, “I have gathered up a basket of goodies from the FBI, CIA, DEA, ATF, Interpol, Military Intelligence, and the NSA.”

  On its face, Able’s claim sounded to Winter like that of someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, but Alexa vouched for him.

  “Tell him what you just told me,” Alexa told Clayton.

  “Military Intelligence is aware of the Dockerys’ abduction, and they know that Judge Fondren intends to let Bryce go in order to get them back.”

  “So why doesn’t M.I. just notify the FBI? The Bureau will step in and the Attorney General will prevent that ruling. Then the FBI can get to work on the kidnapping,” Winter said.

  “M.I. can’t tell a soul,” Clayton said.

  “Why?”

  “Because they learned it from a wiretap they have on Hailey Fondren’s telephone to gather intelligence on Bryce’s trial.”

  “They tapped a federal judge’s phone?” Winter was stunned. Not because Military Intelligence did it, but because Clayton knew about it. If it was true, Clayton was plugged into a golden source.