Private Moscow (Private 15)

CHAPTER 13

A CLOUD OF steam rose from the stovetop percolator, filling the tiny kitchen with the scent of freshly brewed coffee. Dinara Orlova waited until the brew bubbled and spat before turning off the gas. She split the thick black liquid between two travel cups, stirred in brown sugar and heavy cream, and screwed the lids on. She grabbed her down coat from one of the retro American-diner-style chairs that surrounded her red-topped kitchen table, and pulled on her rabbit-fur trapper hat.

“Good morning,” her neighbor, Mrs. Minsky, said as Dinara left her apartment.

Mrs. Minsky had developed a strange habit of spending most of her days sitting in the corridor outside her apartment, reading a book and watching the comings and goings of her neighbors. She had a folding garden chair, matching table and had even put a couple of potted plants in the corridor, treating the tiny space outside her front door as though it was a garden.

“Good morning, Mrs. Minsky,” Dinara said as she edged past the old woman.

“Off to find a husband?” Mrs. Minsky asked.

Dinara couldn’t tell if the hunched old woman was joking, but she suspected not. “Off to work,” she replied.

“Well, don’t let me keep you.”

Russia had a long history of trying to promote gender equality. It had been one of the central tenets of communism, but Dinara often wondered how much of it had been lip service, because she’d been on the receiving end of far too many critical comments about her age and the need for her to get married. Whenever she felt the social pressure of ingrained sexism, she asked herself whether a 33-year-old man would regularly be quizzed about his marital status.

Dinara admired herself in the smoked-glass mirror of the tiny elevator as it took her on a slow and steady four-story ride to the first floor. She wasn’t a woman who needed the reassurances of a man’s compliments. She knew she’d been blessed with great hair, beautiful features and an athletic physique, and was confident that when she set her mind to it, the right man would be found. But who had the time? Her early thirties were when she would make her mark on the world.

Dinara stepped out of the elevator and nodded a greeting at Vikto, the doorman, who spent his day in the functional but warm lobby. She hurried outside, and the moment she stepped through the front door of her apartment building, the steam rising from the tiny holes in the coffee cups thickened as it met the freezing air. Her eight-story block stood on the corner of Malaya Bronnaya Street and Yermolayevskiy Lane, opposite a small park. The children’s play equipment was buried beneath huge snowdrifts, and the little lake was frozen solid. Dinara shivered as she jogged along the sidewalk.

Leonid Boykov had mounted the curb a short distance from her building, and was waving motorists past him. Dinara cradled both coffee cups with one arm, opened the passenger door, and slid onto the front seat.

“Good morning, boss,” Leonid said.

His humor was dry, and rich in sarcasm. He’d greeted her as “boss” every morning for the past three months, but somehow managed to say the word so it sounded like “kid.”

Leonid was fifteen years her senior and the toll of every one of his forty-eight birthdays showed on his craggy face. He’d been a Moscow police detective for twenty years, working serious crime and murder, and he had a reputation for being honest and ruthless. Dinara had yet to see his darker side, but he had the lean features and sharp eyes of a predator, and she had no doubt his reputation was well deserved. She’d hired him to be her number two at Private Moscow, but she suspected he thought he should be running the show.

“Good morning, Leonid Boykov,” she replied. “I made you coffee.” She handed him one of the cups.

“You’re the boss. I should be making you coffee.” He took a sip. “But I’m not sure I could make it this well.”

Was that an insult? Was he being sarcastic? Dinara couldn’t tell. “Drive,” she said.

Leonid put the car in gear, waved his arm out of the window to signal his right of way, drove off the curb and headed along Malaya Bronnaya Street. Dinara loved her tree-lined neighborhood, which mixed classical architecture with elegant modern apartment buildings. It was also conveniently located, and within moments they were on the

Garden Ring, an eight-lane highway that encircled the city center. After a couple of minutes, the traffic started to build, but this was more than the rush-hour grind, it looked as though there had been an accident ahead.

“Business has been slow, huh?” Leonid remarked, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.

The man rarely spoke without purpose and Dinara knew him well enough to suspect he had an agenda. The traffic ahead of them came to a standstill. A short distance along the street, a bus had collided with a truck and the police were filtering three lanes down to one.

“It will get better,” Dinara responded. “The mood toward businesses such as ours isn’t favorable at the moment.”

She didn’t need to elaborate. She and Leonid had discussed the drawbacks of Private’s foreign ownership many times. With relations between Russia and America at a low point, there weren’t many establishment figures who’d engage a US-owned firm. In fact, there were none. Private Moscow’s last case had been closed three weeks ago—a missing person they’d located and recovered—and they had nothing new on the books. Jack Morgan was a patient man, but if things didn’t pick up soon, Dinara was certain the Moscow office would have to be shut down.

“Maybe today is the day,” Leonid said, and Dinara noticed a mischievous glint in his eye. Something else caught her attention. Two men in a car four vehicles behind them. She watched the pair in the wing mirror, and noted their eyes never left Leonid’s Lada Vesta. She felt a rush of adrenalin, but told herself it could be nothing. She wasn’t in the espionage game anymore.

“What do you know?” she asked Leonid.

“Are you ordering me to tell you? As my boss?” He smiled.

“Stop with the boss stuff,” she replied. “We both know you’ve got me beat on age and experience.”

Leonid glanced at her with somber concern. “I’m sorry if I upset you. I was only joking …” He hesitated. “Boss,” he added with a broad smile.

Dinara punched him playfully. “You want to play that game? OK then, as your boss I command you to tell me what you know.”