Page 43 of Goodbye Girl

“Amongus, tell me where you are!”

No reply.

“Amongus!”

More silence, and Amongus’s words—kidnap the son of a Russian oligarch—echoed in his mind. Oligarchs didn’t mess around. Jack caught a glimpse of himself in the vanity mirror over the sink. His hand was shaking as he lowered the phone.

“Holy shit,” he said to his reflection.

Chapter 16

Vladimir Kava spent the afternoon relaxing on the deck of his superyacht, eighty-five meters of luxury that he loved so much he’d named it theDilber, after his late mother. Built and launched in Germany, the elegant yacht seemed to change colors in the sunlight as it glided across the Indian Ocean at a cruise speed of up to 14.4 knots. TheDilberaccommodated twelve guests and twenty-eight crew. Two heliports made it easy for guests to come and go, and once onboard, they were sure to enjoy themselves with three swimming pools, a spa with two Jacuzzis, a smaller speedboat, jet skis, and a movie theater.

Kava was sixty-two years old, which actually exceeded the combined ages of the three beautiful, bikini-clad women in his company. They were in the Maldives Islands, southwest of Sri Lanka, a favorite destination of Russian oligarchs and their superyachts. The allure was much more than warm waters and scenic archipelagic islands. At the outset of Russia’s war with Ukraine, international sanctions triggered government seizure of Russian superyachts worth in excess of $200 billion. The Republic of Maldives had proven to be a friendly refuge for oligarchs. The bribes from Kava had been especially generous.

A porter approached with a satellite phone on a silver tray. “You have a call, sir,” he said.

Kava raised his sunglasses up over his eyes, but otherwise didn’t move from his relaxed, prone position in the chaise lounge. “Who is it?”

The porter leaned closer and whispered, “It’s Utkin, sir.”

A call from Utkin was always cause for utmost discretion. For so many reasons, his role in the Kremlin didn’t officially exist. Mercenaries are illegal in Russia, but over the years, Utkin, a lieutenant colonel inthe armed forces, had received numerous medals for his “leadership,” all secretly tied to Wagner, a group of special-force mercenaries that had proven itself indispensable to the federation. Wagner mercenaries had a bloodthirsty reputation for fighting battles that Russia’s organized military could not undertake without violating international law. Under Utkin’s leadership, thousands of mercenaries had carried out operations in Ukraine, South America, the Middle East, Syria, Libya, Mozambique, the Central African Republic, and other war zones. Prisoners were regarded as an unwelcome mouth to feed. Countless shallow graves marked the group’s trail of massacres, rapes, torture, and indiscriminate killings along their way. The Wagner Group eventually became so dangerous that even the Russian government refused to pay them directly. An oligarch was needed to finance and control the group. Moscow tapped Vladimir Kava, a close ally of the Kremlin who was once dubbed “Putin’s chef.” The official position was that Wagner didn’t exist, and that Kava provided only catering services to the Russian government.

With a dismissive wave of the hand, Kava shooed away the sunbathers and the three women gathered up their bikini tops and moved to the other side of the swimming pool.

The two men spoke in their native Russian.

“London’s Metropolitan Police Service has your son in custody,” said Utkin.

“For what?”

“Our London solicitor tells us that the Department of Justice is seeking extradition to New York to face charges under U.S. law.”

“What charges?”

“A criminal case was just filed in Manhattan. It involves piracy. The U.S. attorney is dragging in everybody he can get in his crosshairs. Even that singer, Imani, is one of the defendants.”

Kava had first entered the piracy business in the days of peer-to-peer file sharing, when his network of platforms provided access to websites where total strangers could exchange pirated material in peer-to-peer file transfers. In its first year alone, Kava’s network facilitated the exchange of 132 billion music files and 11 billion movies. Even though the pirated files were free, other forms of revenue—advertising, links togaming websites, and data mining—were off the charts. P2P file sharing was no longer the business model, and frankly, the modern piracy model in the streaming world was beyond Kava’s technical comprehension. His son, Sergei, ran that part of the organization.

“This is not possible,” said Kava. “Is this the same solicitor who told us that if the U.S. sought extradition, we would know about it in time to get him out of the UK before he could be arrested?”

“Yes. And under normal circumstances, that would be the case. The U.S. makes the extradition request. The UK secretary of state has to certify the request and send the case to court. The judge has to issue a warrant for arrest, and by the time the police go out to make the arrest, Sergei would be long gone. But there was a quirk.”

“I don’t accept quirks.”

“This was not foreseeable. Sergei’s driver betrayed us.”

“How?”

“Every man has his price. He was supposed to pick up Sergei in Covent Garden. There was an ambush, and Sergei was kidnapped.”

“I heard nothing about a ransom demand.”

“There was none. The kidnappers held him just long enough for the arrest warrant to issue. They dropped him off right at the fucking police station the minute the judge issued the warrant. No chance for us to get Sergei out.”

“Obviously, this was no coincidence. Who did this?”

“We’ll find out. I’m told one of the kidnappers is also in custody. An American. Theo Knight is his name.”

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