# Chapter 5: Ghosts and Graveyards
Three days after the arrests, the Hotel Post returned to its normal rhythm of gentle decay. The fourth floor was open again, Suite 412 scrubbed and repainted, its past tucked away like a shameful secret. The Copper Kettle was fully booked for dinner service, with a three-week waiting list that had materialized overnight thanks to a food blogger who'd declared Andy Melone's cooking "transcendent, even under duress."
Andy himself was out on bail, facing charges that were serious but not insurmountable. Obstruction, accessory after the fact, moving stolen property. His lawyer—a sharp woman named Priya Sharma who specialized in white-collar cases with unusual circumstances—was confident she could plead it down to probation and community service.
"You returned the money," Priya had said, pacing Andy's tiny apartment. "You cooperated. You saved lives. That's a story a jury loves."
"I don't want a jury," Andy had told her. "I want this over."
But over, it was not.
He'd spent the last three days cooking. Not at the Post—he'd been suspended with pay while the investigation wrapped up—but at home, in his apartment's tiny kitchen. He made stocks that simmered for eighteen hours. He baked bread that rose with geological patience. He broke down whole ducks, fileted fish, turned vegetables into art. It was meditation. It was penance. It was the only thing that kept him from thinking about Yuri Volkov, somewhere out there in the city, planning.
Because Yuri was planning. Andy felt it in his bones, the way he'd felt incoming mortar fire in Bosnia—a pressure change, a stillness in the air.
At 9:47 PM on the third day, his doorbell rang.
Andy didn't answer. He lived in a fifth-floor walk-up in a building with no doorman, no security cameras, no witnesses. He'd chosen it for that reason. He peered through the peephole.
Resa Rational stood in the hallway, holding a bottle of wine and looking tired.
He opened the door.
"Detective. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"You weren't answering your phone."
"I was cooking."
"Of course you were." She held up the wine. "I thought we could talk. Off the record."
He let her in. The apartment was small but immaculate—the kitchen dominating the living space, every surface clean, every knife in its place. She sat at the counter while he opened the wine, a decent Burgundy that he appreciated.
"We found Yuri's tunnel exit," she said. "Abandoned building three blocks from the cannery. He had a car waiting. Stolen plates, wiped clean. We're tracking it, but..."
"But he's good at disappearing."
"He's had practice." She accepted the wine he poured, swirled it, sipped. "We also found something else. In the tunnel. A body."
Andy's knife hand went still. "Who?"
"Not Yuri. A man named David Kim. He was a blockchain analyst who'd been looking into the Singapore heist privately. We'd been in contact with him. He disappeared two weeks ago."
"Yuri killed him."
"Looks like it. Tortured first. He wanted information about the wallet, about Peter, about you. David must have given him something, because Yuri found you. Or at least, he found Peter's connection to you."
Andy poured himself a glass, though he didn't drink often. He needed it now. "So this whole time, Yuri was using me as much as I was using him."
"Seems like it. He let you transfer the money because he knew it would draw out whoever was helping Peter. He didn't know it was you specifically, but he knew there was someone. He was going to let the transfer happen, then take the money and eliminate the middleman."
"Me."
"You." Resa set down her glass. "But you surprised him. You involved us. You changed the equation."
"Peter taught me one thing about Yuri: he hates uncertainty. He likes control. When I brought the police in, I took away his control. So he ran."
"He'll be back."
"Yes." Andy looked at her. "Which is why I'm leaving."
Resa's expression hardened. "Running? That's your plan?"
"Not running. Baiting. Yuri wants me because I know where the real wallet is."
"You moved the money. We tracked it. It's in custody."
Andy smiled. It was the saddest expression she'd seen on his face. "Detective, you tracked the money I moved. That was the decoy wallet. Peter's emergency wallet. The real wallet—the one with the actual stolen Bitcoin—is still out there. Still in my control."
Resa stared at him. "You're telling me you still have two billion dollars?"
"I'm telling you I have a insurance policy. Peter gave me two wallets. One for emergencies, one for real. I moved the emergency funds. The real wallet never touched the internet. It's on a hardware wallet in a safety deposit box. I checked it yesterday. Untouched."
"Jesus Christ, Andy."
"I was going to tell you. Eventually. When I figured out how to use it to draw Yuri in for good."
"That money is evidence."
"That money is leverage. And right now, it's the only thing keeping me alive. Yuri knows I wouldn't give up the real wallet easily. He knows I'm the only one who knows where it is. As long as that's true, he'll come for me. And when he does, we can catch him."
Resa stood. "You should have told me."
"You would have had to confiscate it. Then I'd have no leverage and Yuri would know. He's watching, Detective. He has people in the FBI cyber division. He has people everywhere. That's how he knew about David Kim. That's how he knew to come to the Post."
"You're saying we have a leak."
"I'm saying Yuri Volkov doesn't work alone. He has a network. The Consortium was just the crew for this job. The organization is bigger."
Resa paced the small apartment. "You're telling me we've only cut off one head."
"I'm telling you we've angered the body." Andy refilled her glass, though she hadn't touched it. "You need to let me go. Let me make contact. I'll tell him I want to negotiate—the real wallet for my life. He'll agree because he wants that money. And when he shows up, you take him down."
"That's insane. You'll be killed."
"I'm already dead, Detective. I just haven't stopped moving yet." He leaned forward. "Peter died because he thought he could outsmart Yuri. He couldn't. I'm not trying to outsmart him. I'm trying to give him exactly what he wants, delivered on a silver platter."
"With a side of handcuffs."
"If the plating is correct." He smiled, just slightly. "Peter taught me about crypto. But Yuri taught me about people. He taught me that everyone has a price. Mine is my kitchen, my staff, my life. I want to go back to making duck confit and not worrying about two billion dollars hanging over my head."
Resa sat down again, picked up her glass, drained it. "If I agree to this, it's my operation. My rules. You don't make a move without my say-so."
"Agreed."
"And when it's over, you give me that wallet. All of it. No more games."
"Agreed."
"And you go back to cooking. No more soldiers, no more wars, no more crypto heists. You cook. That's it."
Andy extended his hand. "Detective, that's all I've ever wanted."
She shook it. His hand was warm, calloused, steady. She believed him.
But she also knew that wanting something and getting it were two different things. Especially when you were dealing with ghosts like Yuri Volkov.
At the door, she turned back. "One question. Why cooking? After Bosnia, after everything, why kitchens?"
Andy was already back at his cutting board, slicing something she couldn't identify. "In the army, I saw how food could break down barriers. Break bread with someone, and they're less likely to shoot at you later. In Bosnia, we traded rations with the locals. Shared meals. For a few minutes, we weren't enemies. We were just people eating." He didn't look up from his knife work. "I wanted to create more moments like that. Fewer moments like... well, like this."
Resa nodded. "Good answer."
"It's the truth."
She left him there, in his kitchen that felt more like a sanctuary than a room. As she walked down the five flights of stairs, she took out her phone and called Mike.
"We have a new plan," she said. "And you're not going to like it."
"Does it involve our chef playing bait for a Russian intelligence ghost?"
"How did you know?"
"Because it's the only play left. And because it's exactly what I'd do if I were him."
Resa smiled in the dark stairwell. "Get the team ready. We're going fishing."
"With a chef as bait. What could go wrong?"
"Everything," Resa said. "That's why we need to be perfect."
She hung up and stepped into the night. The city pulsed around her, indifferent to the dramas playing out in its streets. Two billion dollars in digital currency. A dead hacker. A missing Russian. A chef who just wanted to cook.
It sounded like a joke. But the punchline was still being written.
And somewhere, Yuri Volkov was reading over their shoulders, waiting for his moment to edit the ending.
