The Collaborator

by Ian Kharitonov

  An object materialized, sealed in bubble wrap. A yellowish metal glittering under the fluorescent lights.

  Gold.

  Sokolov dug the object out of the foam and unwrapped it.

  He was holding a golden goblet.

  It was the size of a small vase. Astounded, he studied it carefully. The solid gold mesmerized with its vivid color and radiance. The goblet had an ideal round shape, but despite the refinement, Sokolov doubted that it was of recent manufacture. Decorating the smooth surface was an intricate relief which depicted a hunting scene. Two archers riding horseback were attacking a wild beast. Sokolov marveled at the amazing handiwork. The embossed detail was so fine that he could see the folds in each rider's clothing. With equal artistry, the vessel's handle had been crafted in the form of a deer. Specks of encrusted turquoise made the animal blue-eyed.

  The gold vessel cast an almost hypnotic spell over Sokolov. He could hardly stop admiring it. Then he regarded the other boxes.

  Was that warehouse full of ancient art? He had no idea where the shipment had come from but it could only be contraband. His Sonim model lacked a camera, designed for potential use in top-secret environments. He tried Rezler's smartphone. When he pressed the unlock key, the display lit up, prompting to input a PIN code. He had no success in getting past it and accessing the camera. Perhaps he could figure it out later, but for the time being, he removed the battery and put the unusable phone in his pocket.

  Frustrated, Sokolov gave the goblet one last look before placing it back into the box and venturing outside. He needed to get back to Michelle urgently.

  The Ferrari beckoned.

  14

  ALIK IMAGINED HIMSELF AS a predator moving in for the kill. He felt the excitement building up as he approached the designated hotel in Pigalle. To his delight, he'd found it easily not far away from Le Marteau. As he was scanning the street, he'd also spotted a BMW X6 matching the description of the car rented by Sokolov, which confirmed that he'd got the right place.

  Entering the hotel, he inspected the lobby. Unsurprisingly, it was deserted, save for a sleepy receptionist. Alik avoided him and hastened upstairs.

  He proceeded down the passageway, pulling out the gun tucked under his belt. At the door to Michelle's room, he paused. Not a whisper was audible from beyond. No light issued from the door cracks. The stupid girl must be sound asleep. Alik smacked his lips, debating if he should use her right there. He'd hate to share his prey with Prince, although raping her in front of Sokolov would give him kicks. First he'd do it on the bed, then a second time in the warehouse, he decided with glee. They didn't call this dump a love hotel for nothing.

  He bulldozed his way in, crashing the flimsy door open with his shoulder. The room was dark, only the corridor light spilling through the doorway. Sticking his gun out before him, he flicked the lights on.

  The room was vacant. The neatly made bed hadn't been slept in.

  He barged into the bathroom but it, too, was unoccupied.

  Alik roared.

  He checked if anyone was hiding under the bed, but nobody was there. He was alone in the room. Cursing, he sat on the edge of the mattress, his mind overcoming the confusion.

  Sokolov, that dumb Russian swine, had cheated them. Alik couldn't believe the futile idiocy of this ploy. What was Sokolov trying to achieve? It was suicide. He surely knew what punishment would come his way for lying. And he'd tell them where the slut really was.

  Alik dialed Rezler. Upon hearing about the trick, he would cut out Sokolov's eyes. Alik waited for the connection but received a network error message. He tried again, but still couldn't reach Rezler. Calling Prince, he spent a full minute listening to the tone and then the call dropped, unanswered. Once more, he rang Rezler. Again, no result.

  Impossible.

  Rezler always carried his phone with him.

  Unless …

  A chill ran down Alik's spine.

  Could Sokolov have killed them? No, it was absolutely unfathomable.

  But most likely, someone else had neutralized both Prince and Rezler. A special EMERCOM hit squad? His mind drew a blank.

  Alik scrolled through his phonebook. He had to contact the Avarus security team so that they would check out the warehouse and clean up if necessary.

  Then, abruptly, realization dawned on him.

  He himself had walked straight into a mousetrap.

  Alik bolted away from the bed, pressing his back to the wall, and hit the switch to kill the lights. He swallowed, his mouth dry. Heart pounding with fear, he aimed the gun at the open door. If ambushed, he would have no escape route.

  A shadow lurked in the corridor. Alik tensed.

  They were coming after him.

  He prepared to pull the trigger. A silhouette passed by, but it was only the concierge. Alik dashed out of the room and ran down the stairs. He had to save his skin. Nothing else mattered.

  15

  MICHELLE WOKE FROM HER scant, dreamless sleep to a nightmarish reality of not finding Eugene anywhere in the room. She calmed herself down, believing he would be back any moment having gone on some minor errand. Maybe he was just as hungry and was off to fetch them both a snack? Soon, a rational explanation of his departure became ever less likely. Each passing minute augmented her anxiety.

  He'd abandoned her in the dead of the night. She was left clueless as to what to do or where to go. She didn't have his phone number or any other means to find him, no trace of his existence. What if he had only been part of her fantasy, envisioned in her slumber? But that room she'd found herself in was real enough. Everything had actually happened, with Eugene vanishing as abruptly as he had turned up.

  A sense of foreboding gripped her. He must have run into trouble. Those horrible people, could they have followed him? She trembled.

  She realized how much she cared for him. In just a few hours she'd grown attached to him as a loving cousin. Eugene had emerged from an obscure link to her past as the most important person in her life. The thought of now losing him seemed devastating.

  She almost wept when he returned. Startled as he entered the room, joyous at seeing him, and dismayed by his condition, she rushed into his arms.

  “Eugene!”

  Caked blood matted his hair and stained his jacket. Ugly sores marked the flayed skin around his wrists.

  “Gene, oh no … What's going on?”

  His hand hovered over her head as if to stroke her hair.

  “Everything is finished now. I'm taking you to the airport.”

  16

  THEY ARRIVED AT CHARLES de Gaulle Terminal 2 in time for the 8:20 a.m. flight to New York after a last-minute e-ticket booking. Sokolov's plane to Moscow departed an hour later. Having washed away the blood, he was still cautious as they passed through airport security and immigration. But nobody gave them a second look. They reached the departure lounge without incident.

  The passengers were lining up at the gate to board the Air France Airbus A330. Sokolov and Michelle waited at a distance, letting the crowd move through. He looked at her, not knowing if he'd see her ever again, and she returned his gaze. They stood silently amid a bustling airport.

  “Promise to keep in touch,” she said at length. “I want you and Constantine to come visit me.”

  “I promise we'll be seeing each other so often that you'll get fed up with such annoying relatives.”

  She laughed softly. “You know you can never become a nuisance to me.”

  The last call announcement sounded.

  She drew close to him and kissed his cheek. Her hand slipped inside his jacket pocket. Smiling, she turned away, but he noticed her tears welling up.

  She presented her boarding pass and walked along the jet bridge, receding from view.

  Sokolov felt a lump forming in his throat. He wiped the moisture from his eyes.

  Then he reached into his pocket to discover the item she had placed inside.

  It was a small box of red leather, a presentation case
not unlike those containing the Gold Star awards―only this one showed signs of century-old wear. Once smooth, the surface had become creased and scratched with age.

  The markings imprinted on it had faded, leaving only the indentations of the imperial double-headed eagle and an inscription below, written in old Russian.

  In his hand, he was holding the St. George's medal, fourth class.

  PART III

  1

  LIKE A METHOD ACTOR, he had played so many roles that his true persona had diluted. Imran, Victor or Hermann Weinstock—countless aliases succeeded one another in layers of masks. Yet unlike performers who pretended for the sake of entertainment, he relied on his deceitful art as a crucial element of spycraft.

  His audiences numbered the select few required to believe his illusions. In the case of Imran, he'd planted bits and scraps of information to create a fearsome legend. Word spread among law enforcers and hardened criminals that a mysterious terrorist was operating in the shadows, the mastermind behind the recent Moscow bombings. Nobody knew the details, yet the name, carried by whispers, grew in presence. Imran.

  Soon, he would put the character to good use, as the pieces began to fall in place.

  But now he returned to his principal skills. A former black-ops saboteur, presumed dead and erased from all records, he specialized in assassination.

  When the instructions came, he was having lunch at a sushi bar. He retrieved his phone to read the coded message, deciphering it instantly. He'd expected the go-ahead signal to arrive in the coming days, but not so soon. Something had gone wrong and it was up to him to rectify it.

  Constantine and Eugene Sokolov must be eliminated.

  2

  LUXURY CARS PROCEEDED ALONG eight lanes, as if parading in front of the myriad boutiques, restaurants and banks. Crowds marched down the sidewalks, passing by Sokolov. In downtown Moscow, the Garden Ring encircled the city's glitziest district around the Kremlin, and Tverskaya was its glitziest street. Hectic excitement never abandoned Tverskaya Street, giving the Champs Élysées a good run for its money.

  Money ruled Tverskaya, manifest in every storefront, the price tags extortionate even for the world's most expensive city. But aside from all of the modern chic, Tverskaya Street retained the allure of past centuries in its façades—and something else. Rudiments destined for extinction, very few of them remained in Moscow, yet several could be found here. Payphones.

  Often during emergencies, public phones proved indispensable as mobile networks overloaded. At the moment, it suited Sokolov's needs like nothing else. He spotted a kiosk outside an insurance company office and approached it.

  He took the phone off the cradle and inserted a prepaid card into the slot. Then he dialed a U.S. number linked with Constantine's voice-over-internet account. He waited, listening to the tone.

  Several long beeps sounded. Sokolov was getting impatient.

  Then the answer came from the other end.

  “Yes?”

  The voice belonged to his brother.

  Sokolov sighed with relief.

  “Hi. Meet me at the Hermitage.”

  With that he hung up and walked down Tverskaya.

  He debated whether such covertness was justified. He was not a spy, after all. But his body still ached after he'd almost been killed, and Constantine had narrowly escaped death as well. They still had little idea who was facing them and what capabilities these enemies could employ. After Paris, he didn't want to commit the same mistakes as Nina. All he knew was that he had to use every precaution available in his limited arsenal. Better safe than sorry.

  The Hermitage did not refer to the famous museum in St. Petersburg, but rather the Hermitage Garden, a small park established in 1895 only a few streets away. Sokolov reached it in minutes, passing the Moscow Criminal Police Headquarters on Petrovka along the way.

  Within the park, yellow leaves were scattered around the alleyways and green lawns like confetti. The benches were mostly empty, his choice justified.

  Constantine arrived shortly. Sokolov hugged his brother.

  “Michelle? Did you find her? Is she really who we thought she was?”

  Wordlessly, he produced the red leather box from inside his jacket. Examining it, Constantine held his breath. His eyes lit up. He needed no further proof. The white cross shimmered in the sun as he opened the box.

  He handed it back.

  “No, it's rightfully yours,” Sokolov said. “Our ancestor and Michelle's great-grandfather was decorated with the cross during the First World War. You're the eldest in the family and now it's your duty to keep it. If you felt that the Gold Star did not belong to you, the St. George certainly does.”

  Constantine looked at his brother with understanding and affection. Then he carefully wrapped the medal case in his handkerchief, like the cherished treasure that it was.

  Sokolov recounted the events in Paris, from the story of Adrian and Grigory Sokolov to his escape from the warehouse.

  “What are we going to do now?” Constantine asked after he finished.

  “We need to see Netto immediately. There's something else I brought with me from Paris.”

  3

  AFTER TRYING THE BUZZER to no avail, Sokolov started banging his fist against the door.

  “Hey, cut it out!” came a shout in reply.

  “Open up, it's your commander.”

  The lock clicked and the creaking door swung to reveal a red-eyed Netto sporting a tee and boxers.

  “What gives, boss?” he asked as he shook hands with Sokolov and Constantine.

  “Are you alone?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Don't keep us waiting, then.”

  “Come on in. No need to take your shoes off.”

  As soon as Sokolov entered Netto's apartment, he could see why. The place needed cleaning up. Old Soviet furniture smelled of dust. Inside the room, various paraphernalia were strewn around in complete disorder. The clutter converged around the desk, with papers, peripherals, gadgets, junk food wrappers and a mesh of wires surrounding the impressive computer setup, which appeared nothing like an average consumer configuration. It consisted of a workstation connected to six huge displays, aligned in two banks of three and filled with lines of code and system data, reminiscent of some mission control center from a sci-fi movie. Netto lived in a nerdy den devoted solely to work.

  “I was just about to tidy up.”

  “That's understandable. So, here's what I want you to do,” Sokolov said, showing him Rezler's phone. “I need access to this thing.”

  “Sure, no problem.” Netto took the handset as he sat in his chair.

  He powered the phone on and reached the security prompt. Inputting default PIN combinations yielded no result.

  “I've already tried that,” Sokolov noted.

  “Hmph.”

  “Is it too hard to break?”

  “I doubt it, but let's find out.”

  Netto picked out a USB cable from the tangled bouquet leading to the back of the computer and connected the phone. Then he rebooted the mobile device holding down a couple of hardware keys.

  “It's in recovery mode now,” he explained.

  Turning back to the row of monitors, he typed commands on the keyboard with great dexterity. On the main display, lines of text ran off scrolling inside a full-screen terminal window.

  “What is this, some cool supercomputer for hacking?” Constantine wondered out loud. “Definitely looks different from my home PC.”

  “Nah, just my Linux rig. No fancy interface effects but it's fast, secure, powerful and totally awesome. So it can do some really serious stuff. Right now, I'm getting it to bypass the phone's security settings.” He typed in another command. “That might do the trick. The phone should now accept any random PIN that I enter.”

  He tapped the device's touchscreen.

  “Ah-ha! Worked like a charm.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I've unlocked it, Gene, see for yours
elf. Where do you want to start?”

  “Let's just go through the contents one step at a time.”

  “All right.”

  The phone mounted as an external disk, and Netto browsed its storage with the computer's file manager.

  “So, these are system files and firmware data … App items … Oh, here's the camera folder.”

  “Open it.”

  Doing so brought up a list of fifty photos. Netto selected them all and hit the slideshow key.

  Full-screen pictures filled each of the six displays for a stunning album.

  The first one showed a close-up shot of the golden vessel that Sokolov had held in his hands, although no amount of pixels could give justice to its fantastic craftsmanship and the luring power of the precious metal.

  “Just as you described it,” Constantine said in awe. “Look at those hunters … Amazing quality.”

  The rest of the photos also contained ancient artifacts, totaling an entire catalog. Golden daggers and sheaths, intricately embroidered with gems. Assorted vases, crowns, necklaces, bracelets and combs in an overwhelming abundance of pure gold. The collection left a profound impression. The three of them stared at the last items in utter fascination, and those were perhaps the most beautiful to behold. Elements of horse embroidery, breathtaking in their design and finish: brasses shaped as golden discs, patterned with turquoise.

  “Unbelievable,” Netto muttered. “How old is this stuff?”

  “I can only provide a rough estimate,” Constantine said, “But phalerae such as these are typically dated around the first century B.C., give or take a couple hundred years. I can assume the origin as being South European. The style is unlike any Greek or Roman art I've ever seen.”

  Taking his eyes away from the treasures, Sokolov bent over Netto's shoulder to look at the EXIF data next to each file. Geo-location had been switched off for the pictures, but he had little doubt that the shots had been taken inside the same warehouse. The ranging dates suggested a substantial turnover of consignments over the last few months. And those were only the batches that had been photographed, with the total number perhaps even greater. It implied a massive operation going on.