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16 – CHAPTER SIXTEEN – 1.189^16
"Don?"
Charlie could hear the door falling shut and stared at the point where his brother had disappeared. What was that supposed to be about? Not even a farewell, no further questions about the case? A shame, because this time Charlie would really have been able to give him some news!
Today, he had finished his provisional analysis of the mafia – or rather, analysis of both mafias. Charlie had first thought he'd made a mistake. He had verified repeatedly all his calculations, all initial conditions and each step of his analyses, but he'd reached the same result again and again: they weren't up against one, but two mafias.
First, Charlie had been shocked. Two mafias? As if one hadn't been enough! However, when he'd taken a closer look at his result, he'd became aware that the second mafia weren't necessarily going to be a problem, for the two groups seemed to compete against each other. All their actions of the past months seemed to come down to one objective. An objective he hadn't been able to detect up till now.
By now, he'd only been able to assign some of the upper members as belonging to the main mafia and lesser members to a minor mafia that apparently had separated from the big organization more or less officially some time ago. He'd figured out the most probable identities of the bosses of the two mafias, although these results weren't certain. He'd have liked to have been able to also classify the lower or at least the middle members. However, he'd then figured out that he couldn't get further. He hadn't been able to concentrate anymore. He'd caught himself multiple times when his thoughts had wandered until he'd finally decided to turn the lights off and continue the next day.
However, just when he'd entered the Craftsman through the still open back door he'd heard steps. In the darkness, he hadn't been able to detect who was there, but his desire to switch on the kitchen light hadn't been very strong. Instead, he'd crept as quietly as possible into a dark corner of the room, and waited for the right moment (according to his estimation) to attack the intruder.
Charlie shook his head slightly. There was probably no one who would believe this story. Even to him it still seemed so unreal. Two brothers who behaved as burglars in their own home attacking each other…
He sighed. Who could honestly believe that everything was all right?
0 – 0 – 0
The boss turned around when he heard the door open. Two of his men came in and he lifted his eyebrows. The rest of his face didn't change; the mask remained; and words weren't necessary. "The father isn't there anymore," Oleg Borisov said. "They must have taken him to a safe place somewhere. We don't know where."
"When?"
"A couple of hours ago."
The boss's face darkened. He hated learning about things when they'd already happened. Granted, the father hadn't been part of his plans, but he didn't like it at all that now he was being forced to leave it that way.
"And what are we going to do now?" Boris Chrushtshov wanted to know.
The boss thought. "Wait," he eventually answered. There was silence for a while. Borisov and Chrushtshov were a bit unsure what to do. Leave? They became a bit uneasy when the silence continued on. However, as long as their boss didn't tell them to leave, they had to stay.
Maybe they'd be needed to answer further questions. "What are the others doing?"
Chrushtshov took up the task. "We don't know exactly; we've got no concrete information right now. They don't seem to have changed their tactics, though."
The boss nodded. That was good. Maybe everything would sort itself out if the other players acted.
0 – 0 – 0
It was late morning when Charlie woke up. Originally he'd intended to get to the garage early in order to complete the analysis, but this time his exhausted body had won out and successfully demanded a time-out.
Without wasting time with a breakfast, the professor hurried to his boards. Within minutes he was sucked into his world of numbers and formulae. Gradually, the separate parts were knitting together to form a picture; again and again he found a new piece of the puzzle, a new connection…
It was already noon when Charlie surfaced from his thoughts and he remembered that he'd originally intended to present his results to the FBI that morning. How could he have possibly forgotten that?
The answer was maybe not too difficult. Charlie's subconscious was probably not that eager to make a decision that would again bring him into Don's immediate vicinity. Yet, he apparently had no other choice.
It might be childish. It was certainly childish, but Charlie hadn't been able to overcome his feelings and call Don directly. Instead, he had let himself be passed on by the main switchboard with the faint hope that David or Colby or anyone else walking by might randomly take the call.
"FBI, Special Agent Colby Granger."
Wow. His plan had worked out.
"Hello Colby, I –"
"Charlie, hey! You wanna talk to Don? Wait a sec –"
"No!"
Charlie's answer came out so violently it not only stunned the FBI-agent, but also himself. "No… uh… th-that… that's not necessary, certainly not. I can just explain it to you."
"What?"
"I've got news about your case, important news."
"Wait, could you maybe come over quickly and tell me and the others directly? I don't know if I'd be capable of giving a good account of what you're going tell me."
Charlie could hear from the tone that Colby had to be grinning whereas his own mien was more resembled a whimper. Of course, with information relating to the case, it'd be more helpful if he went to the office. However, that would mean that he'd see Don again and that he'd have to face him instead of just smuggling the information past him.
Colby was right, though. He didn't want to play Chinese whispers here; the information was too important for such things. "All right. I'll be with you soon."
He hung up, sighing heavily, collected his documents and hit the road.
A bit later he stepped out of the elevator, seeing David immediately who'd just put down the phone. "Hey Charlie," he greeted Charlie when had come nearer, "it's good you're here! Come along to the conference room." And he led the mathematician into one of the rooms where he'd already explained his theories multiple times.
"You can connect your laptop and do whatever you need; you know your way around, don't you? I'll go get the others," David informed him leaving him alone. Charlie briefly looked after him, standing indecisively in the room for some seconds then finally started getting his data ready.
He was just starting the program showing the network when the door opened and the three agents entered the conference room. Charlie looked up and suddenly felt he was back in the law firm when he'd delivered his talk. Indeed, Colby and David were looking at him openly, but Don's bitter features were enough for all three of them. Had this rift between them really only been last Thursday, not even a week ago? How could all these things have happened since then?
Charlie swallowed, forcing his gaze away from Don. "As I explained to you earlier, I worked out the structure of the organization with a network analysis", he began. "That means I'm still on it. However, I've got already some valuable findings that should – I think – help you. The most important characteristic about this organization is probably the fact that it's not merely one, but two mafia groups."
"What?" Colby interrupted with a trace of dismay on his face. "Are you saying that we not only have to deal with the Russian Mob, but also with another?"
"No, that's not the way I mean it. It is the Russian Mafia; however, it is split into two sub-groups. Imagine a road from which a dirt road branches off with both ways arriving at the same destination. On the normal road, there are more vehicles than on the dirt road, but the cars on the dirt road are more familiar with the area. Although they cannot drive as fast as the others, they hope to come to their end faster because, with their know-how knowledge of the area, they can take a short cut, namely this dirt road. The two mafia groups are to be seen in a similar configuration: the smaller branch-mafia tries to outsmart the big mafia by taking the dirt road. They haven't as much power, but they are smart and have got very ambitious men for there are practically no subordinates. The group consists of people from the former middle echelon of the big mafia that have broken away and that, if they're successful, all have the same profit."
"Okay," said Colby, "this is really a new development. But I'm afraid I can't see how that could help us in any specific way."
"But that's clear! You had a completely wrong initial situation! For instance, you arrested Kalinkov because you thought Norvtcharov's death would give him an advantage even if Norvtcharov's cover hadn't been blown. But since Kalinkov now has a different position in the network, namely one in the branch-mafia, it's extremely unlikely that he killed your agent, at least that he did it himself. He's got an extremely high position in the group; I even suppose that he's at its head."
David frowned. "Wait, didn't you just say that there is no hierarchy in the branch-mafia?"
"No, I didn't. Of course there's a hierarchy in the branch-mafia: there's the boss, an upper echelon and a middle one, as far as I've been able to determine. The difference is that the organization, being smaller and their members having made the decision to become independent, is much more – let's say democratic – than the big mafia. Also the middle echelon seems to have an influence in the decision-making of the organization, even if it often has to take tasks that in the big mafia would be pushed over to the under echelon. Therefore, it's likely that either someone from the branch-mafia's middle echelon or someone from the original mafia killed Norvtcharov. In any case you now have a motive for his murder. For if you exclude that his cover was blown, there's, I think, only the motive to rise through the ranks due to his death."
"But did Alex have such a good standing in the mafia? He hadn't been in the group for long."
Charlie was silent, thinking. Yeah, there was some truth in David's words. "You're right," he agreed. "I still haven't been able to give him the correct rank in the organization; there are some inconsistencies. However, a killing because of hierarchy reasons still remains possible. You have to bear in mind that your victim, if you want to get promoted, may only be one or two steps higher than you, otherwise you clear the position for someone that's beyond you in the ranking."
"But the way you've displayed it, Norvtcharov's murderer must come from their own group. So in which of the two groups has he been in?"
"I don't know yet, David," Charlie admitted. "As I said, there are some inconsistencies; some of the actions seem to contradict with other actions, and I have numerous members that I still can't allocate a position to."
"Couldn't it be –," began Colby, then stopped deep in thought. "Couldn't it be, that someone suspected Norvtcharov of being a mole?"
Everyone in the room, even the hitherto motionless Don, was staring at Colby. He sensed their gazes on him and hurriedly went on, "Hey, I'm not proud of it, but I'm well versed in this stuff." Since a bit over a year ago they all had thought that their friend was a double agent for the Chinese government before they'd found out that he had been working as a triple agent against the Chinese, it didn't occur to them to doubt his knowledge. "As the two mafias have the same objective, it could be that they wanted to spy on each other or at least that they were afraid of espionage from the other group. And because Norvtcharov spied for us, it could be that his behaviour had aroused suspicion among the members of the organization, couldn't it?"
They all fell into a thoughtful silence that was ended by Don. "That sounds plausible. The only question now is if we can prove it."
As if on cue both of his colleagues looked at Charlie who didn't miss that Don's features darkened even further. He knew his brother well enough to know that he hadn't wanted to increase Charlie's further participation in the case with this statement. However, that surely enough didn't keep Charlie from answering the two federal agents' unexpressed question: "It could be difficult. I'll probably be able to detect if Norvtcharov had acted as a mole for one of the two parties or not…"
"But that's rather unlikely," Colby interrupted. "He would have given any information to the Bureau. The question is only if the other members considered him a mole."
"And for me that seems to be impossible to determine. I can only give you the probability with which Norvtcharov, according to the mobsters' state of knowledge, has been a mole, and what his position in the group was. But to find out how other people saw that? I'd really have to speculate a lot to get an idea."
Silence fell. This was usually the moment when Don told everyone what they had to do. Don remained silent, though.
"Do you... do you have any more questions?" Charlie's gaze rested hesitantly upon Don.
Don's colleagues also looked at their boss before David finally began to speak and by that took the initiative, "No, I guess that's all for now, Charlie. Thank you."
"David, you check again everybody with whom Norvtcharov was in contact as far as we know, and you, Colby, take a look at the members of the sub-mafia." All of them were both relieved and surprised when Don finally started talking, even if Charlie's relief remained limited – not having missed that Don had neither addressed him nor responded to him in any way.
"Well... see you and... work well." After Charlie had closed his laptop, he remained standing in the door for some seconds, but beside David's and Colby's good-byes the three of them had nothing more to offer him.
Charlie swallowed hard and left the conference room. On his way to the lifts he felt like crying due to the pain in his heart. Once more he had screwed it up. He had made the wrong decision. He hadn't listened to Don, had lied to him and acted against his orders and now he was paying for it. His brother hated him and didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore.