Puppet Master Read online

  “Stratowich.” Tolevi pronounced the name to rhyme with garbage, which completely synched with his tone.

  “He speaks highly of you,” said Jenkins.

  “I doubt that. He’s talking to you?”

  Jenkins shrugged. No, Stratowich was many things, but not a squealer. Still, if you had him, you could get a lot of information, make connections.

  “Stratowich is an asshole,” Tolevi told them. “I want to talk to my daughter.”

  “If you’re so concerned about Borya,” said Jenkins, “why did you set her up to take the fall for your ATM scam?”

  “What ATM scam? What is the obsession with ATMs?”

  “You had nothing to do with that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. No. Listen, Stratowich is a goon. Strictly low level. He doesn’t have the brains to rob a candy store, let alone diddle with banks, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “A bag guy for Russian intelligence?” asked Jenkins.

  Tolevi turned to Johansen. “What’s the game here?”

  Johansen didn’t answer, pretending to stare out the window. Tolevi decided that he could use a little silence himself, so he sat back between them, feeling more than a little cramped in.

  Middle seat blues: The theme of the last forty-eight hours.

  It wasn’t until they were on the New England Thruway nearly a half hour later that Johansen broke the silence.

  “So, you could not recover our friend the butcher,” said the CIA agent. “Tell me what happened.”

  Tolevi glanced at Jenkins. Obviously these guys were working together.

  “The Russians moved in,” Tolevi said. “They were apparently sweeping up the rebels who were corrupt. I got caught in the middle of that. The brother wasn’t much help. Nor, frankly, was Dan. I lost track of them.”

  “How?”

  Tolevi described what had happened, leaving out the SVR connection. If Johansen knew about it, he’d bring it up. Otherwise, it would open him up to too many questions, most of which he preferred not to answer.

  “The man who cut your ear off is a colonel in the Spetsnaz,” Johansen told him. “He has a reputation for being honest. And ruthless.”

  “I figured he was a colonel. He had that f-u look in his eyes they get when they’ve been in the army too long.”

  “Where is your prize now?”

  “Still in jail, as far as I know.”

  “Describe it.”

  Tolevi slumped back in the seat, trying to force a replay of his visit through his mind. But thoughts of his daughter kept getting in the way.

  What am I going to tell her about my ear?

  “Oh that . . . cut myself shaving.”

  And the damn thing was throbbing out of control.

  Times like this he really missed his wife. He missed her always, but right now even more. She would have soothed the way somehow, absorbed some of Borya’s shock.

  The girl will freak. She thinks of me as indestructible. She is such a good kid.

  “You’re describing an impenetrable fortress,” said Jenkins. It was the first sign that he was listening. Johansen shot him a look.

  “It’s not easy to get into,” admitted Tolevi. “But I went through the front door. I would have been able to get him out. The money was all lined up. We need to take care of that.”

  “The Russian took it over?” asked Johansen.

  “It looked that way. There’s some sort of power struggle going on. I’d guess the Russians are in the middle of it.”

  Johansen, satisfied for now, leaned back on the seat.

  They really need me, thought Tolevi. He’s playing it too cool.

  But do they need me as a patsy? Or because I’m the only hope they have?

  Either way, there wasn’t enough in it for him to risk his life going back.

  “What was your role in all this?” asked Jenkins. “Why are you involved?”

  “Ask Yuri.”

  “You can tell him,” said Johansen. “He knows you work with us.”

  “I’m just trying to make a living. Sometimes I help an old friend out.”

  “You make a living by smuggling things.”

  “It’s not necessarily smuggling. I just find a way to get things people need from point A to point B, with a lot of interference in the middle.”

  “You corrupt people.”

  “No. I make my living off of other people’s greed,” said Tolevi. “They’re the ones who are corrupt.”

  “Which explains why you had your daughter rip off those ATM machines.”

  “You keep talking about ATM machines. I have no idea what you mean.”

  “You know nothing?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “The night we arrested you—”

  “He wasn’t technically arrested,” interrupted Johansen.

  “The night we found you outside the bank with your daughter,” said Jenkins, correcting himself. “Why was she there?”

  “She found an ATM card. Being a teenager, she wanted to try it. I punished her, don’t worry. She knows it was wrong.”

  “She reprogrammed that ATM card as part of a scam.”

  “What?”

  “She programmed that card so it would put money into her account.”

  “There’s no way my daughter would have done that.”

  “That’s my point,” said Jenkins. “No fifteen-year-old girl is doing that. But she confessed. She took the fall for you.”

  “Are we talking about my daughter?”

  “Someone funneled over two hundred thousand dollars from people all across the city. Borya claims it was her.”

  “Get away.”

  “You know nothing about that?” asked Johansen.

  “Borya did that? No way. She’s a good girl. There’s no way she did that.”

  They stopped for a bathroom break and something to eat about two hours out of New York. On the way out of the restroom, Tolevi spotted a pay phone.

  “I’m calling my daughter,” he told Jenkins.

  Tolevi went to the phone and put in a quarter, then all his change to make the call.

  He was still twenty-five cents short and had to borrow it from the agent.

  He went straight to voice mail.

  “Borya, this is your father. What the hell have you been doing with the banks? You are to talk to no one until I get there. Do you hear me? No one! And . . . do your damn homework.”

  He slammed the phone into the receiver.

  “Teenagers are tough, huh,” said Jenkins.

  Tolevi gave him a death stare before starting back toward the car.

  “I have a kid about the same age as yours,” said Jenkins, trailing along.

  “I told her never to lie to me,” said Tolevi. “Never. How did she do this?”

  “She claims she found some of the information on the Web and adapted the rest.”

  “Bull. Someone put her up to it.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll break his legs when I find out. I’ll feed him his balls. Was it Medved, one of his people? He’s a slime.”

  “Not having your wife is hard, huh? I don’t think I could raise my girl on my own. She’s not as smart as yours, but she’s still a handful.”

  “Everything is a test,” said Tolevi. “Everything.”

  Johansen was waiting in the parking lot.

  “I have to go deal with something,” he told Tolevi. “I’ll be back in touch.”

  “When do I get my money?” said Tolevi. “I borrowed money to get the butcher out. It needs to be paid back with interest right away.”

  “You didn’t get the butcher out. There’s no payment.”

  “I need that money.”

  “Get us the butcher.”

  “The place is impenetrable,” said Tolevi. “You said it yourself.”

  “Jenkins said it, not me. If you can’t do it, that’s not a problem. But we’re not going to pay you.”

  “I rea
lly need the money.”

  Johansen stared at him.

  “I can’t go back to Donetsk,” said Tolevi. “Maybe not even Russia. Not for a while.”

  “Then you have a lot of problems that I can’t solve, Gabe.” Johansen looked at Jenkins. “I’ll be in touch.”

  82

  Boston—about the same time

  Massina caught up with Sister Rose Marie as the nun made her way through the children’s ward. He watched her from the hall for a moment, talking with the little ones. For a woman who had never had any herself, she certainly seemed to have a way with children. She offered neither toys nor candy, yet the Good Humor ice cream truck couldn’t have gotten a brighter response as she walked through the large room, stopping at each bed. Her smile was contagious, but more so was her optimism; she exuded grace, to use the religious term, and the children were eager to soak it up.

  As was he.

  “I see your secret source of energy,” said Massina as she came out of the ward. “This is your fountain of youth.”

  “It is. The Holy Spirit is strong with them. He always gives me energy.”

  “What I have to do someday,” he told her, “is come up with a computer program that can duplicate your enthusiasm.”

  She wagged her finger at him. “Computers are not people, Louis. They have no souls.”

  “Maybe not yet.”

  “Don’t blaspheme. Only God gives souls.”

  “Why can’t God give a soul to a machine?” asked Massina. “Certainly He could. He could do anything.”

  “You are always provocative, Louis. And maybe you are right. A machine with a human soul.”

  “Or a machine soul, as God directs.”

  “Now we are getting into areas that Sister Williams is better at,” said the hospital administrator. “Have you had lunch?”

  “It’s nearly three.”

  “Have you had lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come with me to the cafeteria anyway. I assume you want to talk.”

  “Yes.”

  They walked to the end of the hallway, the Sister waving and nodding to patients and staff alike.

  “I had a bad experience the other night,” Massina told her in the elevator.

  “I saw the news. Someone broke into your building.”

  “There’s a lot more to it than that,” said Massina. He had managed to keep much of the story—including the fact that he had escaped to the roof—out of the papers and TV broadcasts. He told her about it now, lowering his voice as they went into the patients’ cafeteria. Sister Rose liked to mingle with the families; she had gotten several ideas for improvements simply by overhearing complaints. This had become more difficult over the years, however; few people in town didn’t recognize her instantly.

  Sister Rose selected a tuna salad from the refrigerated display, along with a water. Massina insisted on paying.

  “It sounds like quite an ordeal,” said Sister Rose Marie when they sat down.

  “It was. There was a moment—I cursed God for putting me up on that roof.”

  “You climbed there yourself, though.”

  “True. But I felt as if He wanted me to die. And I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to follow his will.”

  “Louis, if you want to make a confession, Father Dalton will surely hear it.”

  “He’ll just give me a couple of Hail Marys and Glory Bes and call it a day,” said Massina. “I had my doubts on my roof. I thought I was going to die.”

  “But you didn’t. And so now, what else is it that you’re supposed to do?”

  “That’s a point.”

  “That’s the important point, isn’t it? We all have our moments. Peter had his moment of despair. Even Christ on the Cross. ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.’ But He wasn’t forsaken at all. And neither were you.”

  “No,” agreed Massina.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “A lot,” said Massina.

  “Souls in machines?”

  “More than that.” He looked around the cafeteria. He’d been so focused on that moment of doubt on the roof, his cursing at God, that he hadn’t looked at it as Sister Rose did. And hers was the proper view: It was a moment of affirmation. He was alive. It had to be God’s will.

  So what was he going to do with that?

  “I have a question for you, Sister.”

  “Yes?”

  “What you do—you’re obviously a force for good.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  “I wonder if there are limits to what we can do.”

  “I can’t answer that for you, Louis.” She laughed. “You seem to have no limits.”

  Massina remained serious. “You think it’s right to work against evil?”

  “Of course. Someone has to. Someone has to fight.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  83

  Boston—around the same time

  Chelsea went to the door of the lab and cleared the lock. The door flew open; Borya and Johnny Givens were standing in the hall.

  “Today’s supposed to be a study day for you at school,” said Chelsea.

  “I’m in trouble,” said Borya. “Can I come in?”

  Inside the lab, Borya played the voice mail her father had left.

  “You’re going to have to face the music,” Chelsea told her. “Even if it’s not going to be pleasant.”

  “Can you be there? You and Johnny?”

  Chelsea looked up at Johnny. He looked bemused.

  “I’ll go for moral support,” said Chelsea. “You have to do the talking.”

  “Can I do it here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “In the lobby. So he sees I’m not lying about the internship. And that I’ve turned over a new leaf.”

  “You’ve turned over a new leaf?” asked Chelsea.

  “I work here. That’s new.”

  “Let me check with Mr. Massina to see if it’s OK.”

  Jenkins didn’t recognize the number on his cell phone, but he decided to answer it anyway.

  “This is Jenkins.”

  “Mr. Jenkins, this is Chelsea Goodman at Smart Metal.”

  “Ms. Goodman. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. I heard that you are bringing Borya Tolevi’s father back to Boston.”

  “I’m giving him a ride, yes.”

  “His daughter is at our building. She’d like to meet him here. She’s interning with us.”

  “I . . .” He glanced over at Tolevi, who was staring out the window of the SUV. Tolevi had calmed some from earlier, but he was still clearly upset with his daughter. “Why there?”

  “It was part of the deal for restitution.”

  “But why meet there?”

  “I think she wants to . . . explain what she did.”

  “And I can listen?”

  “That’s up to her. I checked with Lou. He said it’s fine. They have to stay in the lobby. No tour.”

  “All right.”

  Jenkins hung up, then leaned across the front seat and gave the driver the address.

  “We’re making a stop before we get to your house,” Jenkins told Tolevi.

  “Why?”

  “To pick up your daughter.”

  Every part of Borya’s body trembled as she stood in the hallway in front of the reception area. She was relieved that her father was on his way home, and safe.

  And petrified at his anger, which came through loud and clear in his voice mail.

  Her dad had punished her countless times. But this was going to be different.

  At least he was home.

  The first man through the door was the FBI agent, Mr. Jenkins. She didn’t see her dad.

  And then there he was.

  Borya forgot her fears and ran to him, throwing herself at his chest. Relieved, crying, joyful to hold him.

  Tolevi held his daughter for a long moment, unsure what to say. He was extremely angry—so angry that he could f
eel his face burning.

  And yet, how could he be mad at her?

  Oh, he was angry. So angry.

  PISSED!!!

  But damn.

  Baby.

  “You and I have to talk,” he told her.

  She clung harder.

  “Mr. Tolevi, this is our lawyer,” said Chelsea. “He’ll explain the legal arrangements. No charges are to be filed. Full restitution is to be made.”

  “I gave all the money back,” sobbed Borya. “I’m working here to pay the rest.”

  “Maybe we should go someplace where there is more privacy,” suggested Chelsea. “There’s a space right over there.”

  It wasn’t until Jenkins saw the way Borya clung to her father that he finally accepted that her father had nothing to do with the scheme. He thought of his own daughter, and what he would do if she had pulled a stunt like that.

  No way would she ever do it. Not even close.

  He should spend more time with her.

  “So, let me understand this,” Tolevi told Chelsea. “There was a shortfall, and Borya is going to make it up by working here.”

  “That’s right,” interrupted the attorney.

  “Assuming you agree,” said Chelsea.

  “I can pay whatever it is.”

  “Wouldn’t it better if she worked it off?” asked Chelsea.

  “I agree,” said Jenkins. “She’s showing some responsibility.”

  Tolevi shot him a look.

  “Just saying.”

  “Borya,” Tolevi asked, “do you want to work here?”

  “One hundred percent. You should see the cool stuff they have. Robots, computers—”

  “We’ll discuss it at home,” he told her. “We’ll discuss it.”

  Jenkins didn’t have to have a daughter to know that meant yes.

  84

  Boston—a short time later

  “I’d say we’re ninety-five percent sure the Russian intelligence service was involved,” Jenkins told Massina in his office after Tolevi and his daughter left. “I’d say one hundred percent, but nothing in life is certain.”

  “They want our plans for the robot. And this Tolevi wasn’t involved?”

  “No. Although he knows some of the players. The CIA had him under surveillance here. It’s Stratowich and this mafya chieftain, Medved. Medved has ties to what used to be the KGB. Your plans are worth a fortune. They figured you were an easy mark. Low-hanging fruit.”