Point of Contact

Where the hell is my SIG? Rhodes asked himself, his mind fogged and frightened all at once. In the bedroom, he remembered.

Too far away.

Zvezdev read his mind. His smile faded, his eyes hardened. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”

Rhodes swallowed hard. “The last time I saw you, you were dead.”

Zvezdev smiled again. “I thought so, too. Fix me a drink and I’ll tell you the story.”

Rhodes hesitated. Tervel Zvezdev was a dangerous man, and he’d found Rhodes, after all these years. Rhodes wanted to run or, better yet, strike him down.

But how do you kill a ghost?

* * *

They sat on the white modular couch across from each other, separated by a teak-and-glass coffee table. Rhodes absentmindedly rubbed the couch fabric with one hand, a subconscious reminder of what could have been.

Zvezdev lifted the tall glass to his lips for another sip of gin and tonic. His green felt hat sat on the couch next to him. The massive divot in the man’s forehead where his skull had been caved in at the hairline and repaired — inexpertly, in Rhodes’s mind — was now clearly revealed. The puckered skin looked like melted plastic. Rhodes tried not to stare at it. His eyes flitted between the golf ball — sized divot and the USB drive on the table glass.

“I can’t work for you,” Rhodes finally said, trying to be firm. But he saw the look in Zvezdev’s narrowing eyes and quailed. “I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t clear. I only need you to do just this one thing.” He smiled. “And did I mention it will make you very rich?”

“I’m a lot of things, but a traitor isn’t one of them.”

Zvezdev shook his head. “This has nothing to do with your government, nor does it affect American national security. It’s purely business.”

“So you’re a businessman now? I remember you being a Communist, working for the Second Directorate of the Committee for State Security for the People’s Republic of Bulgaria.”

Zvezdev set his glass down. “Then you weren’t paying attention. Yes, I was a Party man with a license to kill the enemies of the state. But all that meant was that I was a businessman with a gun.”

“You mean a gangster.”

“Ha! Exactly!” Zvezdev leaned forward. “But you never really caught on, though, did you?”

“In the end I did.” Rhodes’s eyes shifted involuntarily to Zvezdev’s divot. “Obviously.”

“The Bulgarian CSS was already a criminal enterprise, and we were connected with other elements in security services all over the Eastern Bloc who were, shall I say, equally as enterprising as we were. When the Iron Curtain fell, we formed our own organization, expanding our operations and profitability as opportunities presented themselves — which they did, enormously. We’re a global organization now. If we were a legal corporation, we’d be listed in the S&P 500.”

“Glad to see you made out so well.”

Zvezdev wagged his head, grinning. “Not too bad. Of course, I have worked very hard. So many things to do these last thirty years.” The Bulgarian’s smiling eyes turned menacing. “Naturally, I wanted revenge against my enemies, and against those who had done me harm.”

Rhodes felt the blood drain from his face.

“But thirty years is a long time, Weston. I was too busy making money, fucking too many women, and having such a good time that, well, maybe I’m just an old man now, but killing for revenge seems like such a waste of time. Better to make friends and make money, yes?”

“I certainly think so.”

“Ha! Of course you do! Look at you, still handsome, still rich, right? Oh, sorry about the girls tonight. I know you had big plans.”

“Mind telling me how you knew?”

Zvezdev grinned. “Because they’re my girls! My organization runs the service you use — along with half of Capitol Hill! Ha!”

“Well, as much as I appreciate your newfound civility, and while I always want to make money, the fact of the matter is that I’m just not interested. I have too much to lose and, frankly, I’m already rich.”

“Can a man be too rich?”

“If all those millions put a man in jail, then yes, a rich man in jail is too rich.”

“Then tell me this: Can a dead man be too rich?”

“Really, Tervel? You’re going to be that obvious? You used to have more finesse.”

“If you don’t do this thing, Weston, then I’m the dead man.”

“Who would want you dead?”

“You don’t want to know.” Zvezdev didn’t dare tell Rhodes about the North Korean, or his savagery.

“And why is any of this my problem?”

“Because if I’m a dead man, well, I hate to be alone in the dark.” Zvezdev drained the last of his glass.

Rhodes turned up his hands. “Even if I wanted to help you, what can I possibly do?”

“Like I said before, install this software program.” He pushed the USB drive closer to Rhodes.

Rhodes picked it up, examined it. “I’m no techie.”

“All you have to do is insert it into a USB drive on one of the Dalfan computers. When the light turns from red to blue, you insert your own four-digit code and you’re done. Thirty seconds at most. How hard can that be?”

“And tell me again what this program does?”