He believes that all four homicides were planned, financed, and carried out, either through contract operatives or outsourced assets, by the FSB, the Federal Security Service, i.e., the Russian secret police, the successor to the KGB of Soviet days.

Why has DivSix been permitted to continue to participate in what is obviously a multi-jurisdictional, in fact federal/international, investigation?

GLEASON

Because the first U.S. body dropped on our turf. Because we got the tools and we got the chops. And because if these murders ain’t “special case,” I don’t know what the fuck is.

What Gleason doesn’t say is that he and the New York County DA, not to mention the mayor, smell a big one here, and they’ve called in all markers to keep DivSix in the game.

I’ve only been in the division for five months, but one thing I’ve learned: anytime there’s a task-force-style investigation like this one (four of the division’s nine teams have been assigned to these murders as Priority One), every team conspires nonstop against every other and competes without scruple to make its own theory come out on top.

From the meeting room’s wings, Gleason’s tech sergeant brings forward a quartet of easel-mounted whiteboards. The first is headed “LV SIGN.” Bullet points hand-scrawled in grease pencil read:

LV = ?

Terrorist signature? Political? Satanic?

Why does killer leave sign? To communicate what?

Why subcutaneous? Why between eyes?

I snap pix of all the whiteboards, but take notes by hand as well. Another Manning mandate.

Gleason begins by addressing the significance of the “LV” sign. It’s just weird enough, he says, and creepy enough to point in a very specific direction and at a very specific criminal entity.

He spells out his working hypothesis.

Gleason believes, he says, that our two U.S. murders were subcontracted by the FSB to homegrown operators, specifically professional assassins of the Russian Mafia, also known as the Solntsevskaya Bratva, “the Brotherhood,” based here in our own five boroughs. These were the killers, Gleason believes, who took out Nathan Davis and Michael Justman.

It goes without saying that Gleason would like nothing better than to be the law enforcement official responsible for taking this notorious outfit down, not just for the points he would score within the NYPD but because it would ace the Feds, the CIA, even the NSA.

The second thing I’ve learned in my months at DivSix is that when the skipper puts forth his own theory on a case, you the individual investigator have two choices—ride along or ride into the sunset.

Up front Gleason has stepped to a second whiteboard, this one headed “RUSSIAN CONNECTION.”

Victims #3 and #4 killed in Russia. Both anti-Kremlin activists.

U.S. Victim #1—Russian-born, did biz w/Russia

U.S. Victim #2—State Dept (Russian affairs)

“LV” = Roman numeral 55 = FSB code for political murder

Gleason circles this in red.

GLEASON