The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(100)

Krueger had been stunned when the “Promisor” appeared, mimicking Krueger’s role, right down to the ski mask, gloves and box-cutting knife. It didn’t take him long to realize that it was probably Rostov. He, or his employer in Moscow, would have hacked Krueger’s computers and phones and would be sucking up real-time details of the South African’s progress here as he communicated with his own company and his employer for this mission. Rostov knew everything about Krueger’s crimes even before the police did.

Krueger had swapped phones and installed new proxies, but finally sent a message on a phone he knew had been hacked. “Rostov. Contact me.” Though he’d expected a phone call, not the man’s sudden appearance in his front seat. The Russian would have learned where he was staying and followed him here.

Krueger started the car. “Let’s go talk someplace. Out of the way. We have a problem, Vlad, and we need to address it.”

“Yes, yes. Can we go to restaurant somewhere? And remember. Nyet ‘Vladimir.’ I am Alexander. I am Alexander the Great!”

*



A half hour later the two men were in a restaurant in Harlem.

Andrew Krueger didn’t know New York well. He had come to the city only a week ago, to put the plan into operation. But he had believed Harlem to be mostly black and working-class, so it would be unlikely to run into somebody involved in the police investigation in a place like this. Krueger was mildly surprised to see that this modest establishment was filled with as many white people—a lot of them hipsters—as black.

Pleasant enough.

But heaven to Vladimir Rostov. He was loving Martha’s Authentic BBQ. Krueger sipped a Sprite. He’d feigned a love of single-malt scotch to ingratiate himself further into the world of Rhyme and Amelia. The fact was he drank very little alcohol, mostly only red Pinotage, a wine unique to his home country.

The Russian was on his second bourbon. He had a coughing fit. “Fucking cigarettes.” He held up his glass. “This helps. Good for you.”

Krueger knew Rostov had worked in the diamond mines of Siberia from a young age. No, his tattered lungs weren’t failing from cigarettes, not entirely.

Krueger and the Russian had crossed paths, and swords, for years and Krueger well knew that the Russian was larger than life, a big drinker (though he hated the national beverage of vodka). Also, a food lover. He was presently working away vigorously at his order: the full baby back rib meal, what looked like a kilo of meat, along with mounds of soul food accoutrements.

Krueger picked at the salad he’d ordered. He was in crisis and not the least hungry.

He noted Rostov’s eyes following the ass of the server. She was a tall, solid woman whose skin was the color of perfectly done toast. The Russian, he knew, was largely insatiable in all appetites.

“What did you call me?”

“Call you?”

“When you got in the car?”

Rostov laughed—loud. “I say, ‘kuritsa.’ My little kuritsa. It is hen. A bird. Everybody is kuritsa to me! I might even be kuritsa to someone. I love you, you know, Andrew. You are my brother, you are my father!”

Eyes slipping to and fro around the restaurant, Krueger sighed. “As they say here, take it down a notch.”

“Ha! Yes, yes.” Rostov ripped the meat from a rib with his yellow teeth and chomped it down. An eerie smile filled his face. “First!” He tapped his glass to Krueger’s. “To you, my friend. To you. You are genius. This fucking great plan you have came up with! Genius.”

Krueger’s lips tightened. “Except it didn’t work quite the way I’d hoped.”

We have a problem…

“So,” Rostov asked, lowering his voice, “you working for Nuevo Mundo—New World Mining—Guatemala City.”

He’d know this from the hacking…Goddamn Russians.

Krueger said, “Right. New client. Never worked for them before. You know them?”

“I hear of them, yes, yes.”

“And you’re here for Dobprom, of course?”

This was the Russian quasi-state-owned diamond-mining monopoly based in Moscow. Dobychy: mining. Promyshlennost: industry. It was the biggest diamond-mining and -distribution operation in the world. Rostov was a regular troubleshooter for them.

“Who the fuck else I working for? Look at my shitty clothes, look at my belly fat from eating cheap food. Tell me, kuritsa. New World pay you up-front?”

“Of course. Half.”

“Ach. Never for me. Fuck Marx, Lenin and Stalin!” He winked and washed down a mouthful of ribs with bourbon.

Krueger sighed.

The “fucking great plan”—and the circumstances of these two men’s paths crossing here in New York—had begun some weeks ago, thanks to a curious occurrence.

A contractor—that is, a hired-gun “troubleshooter”—working for New World Mining had contacted Krueger and explained that the famed Manhattan diamantaire Jatin Patel had come into possession of some kimberlite, drilled up by Northeast Geo Industries at its geothermal site in Brooklyn. The analysis showed the rocks were diamond-rich, with very high-quality rough. Now, it was likely that the kimberlite find was a freak occurrence—serpentinite, a related stone, was common in New York, but its diamond-embedded cousin was not.

But if the lode was large and the quality as good as it seemed, and the owner of the land learned of the find, he would license mineral rights to a mining operation, surely an American company. The output could depress the price of diamonds worldwide. And worse, a U.S. diamond mine would have a vast marketing advantage over foreign mines. Why would consumers buy possibly suspect third-world diamonds when U.S. mines were unquestionably ethical? This would be an utter disaster for overseas mines; the United States accounted for more than half the retail diamond purchases in the world, around forty billion dollars’ worth a year.