by David Wood
Telesh was sitting at his desk. “Petrov. Good. You’re here. Show me what you found.” It was a demand, not a request, spoken with none of his customary silkiness. The mobster’s manner was abrupt, not quite threatening, but only a few degrees removed from it.
Petrov swallowed nervously, then nodded and motioned for Telesh to follow him. “It’s in the document archives.”
Lia wasn’t at her workstation, and he could only surmise that she had left shortly after calling him.
Smart girl, he thought, wishing he could as easily brush off the consequences of his call to Telesh.
He switched on the microfiche reader, and was relieved to see that the film was still in it. After flipping back a couple frames, he found the portion Lia had read to him. “This is it,” he said. Translating the English into Russian for Telesh’s benefit. He could feel the man’s bulk not hovering so much as hanging over his shoulder, poised to crush him. “It does not say specifically what Müller was carrying,” he said when he was done reading.
Telesh said nothing and when Petrov looked up, he saw the man’s eyes moving back and forth as he read. After a moment or two, his pudgy lips began to curl in a smile of satisfaction. “I did not dare to hope that the search would bear fruit so quickly.” His eyes met Petrov’s. “Who discovered this? It wasn’t you.”
“No. It was one of the archivists. A graduate student. Lia Markova.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Her flat, I would think.”
“You will call her,” Telesh said flatly. “Tell her that you need to see her here, right away.”
Petrov swallowed again. He felt lightheaded. This was all dreadfully wrong. “I... I am certain she knows nothing more than what you see here.”
“Then she knows too much.”
Darkness began to close in around the edges of Petrov’s vision. If he had not already been sitting, he would surely have fainted straightaway.
She knows too much.
Telesh already knew what the “something of great importance” was; he had been looking for it all along, and now that he had a solid lead, he was going to eliminate anyone outside his own inner circle who might expose his search.
What was it? A fortune in gold? Was that worth killing for?
Petrov already knew the answer to that question.
She knows too much. And so do I.
“Petrov,” Telesh rumbled. “I’m waiting.”
Even though he was breathing rapidly, panting like a dog, Petrov couldn’t seem to catch his breath, but he nevertheless took out his mobile phone. He stared at it for a moment, trying to remember what he was supposed to do next.
Call her. Call Lia. But what is her number? “Office,” he managed to gasp. “Her number. My Rolodex.”
Telesh shot a glance toward Nadia. The raven-haired beauty was already moving, striding from the room like some kind of beautiful but deadly automaton, leaving the two men alone.
For a fleeting instant, Petrov contemplated fleeing. Telesh would never be able to catch him. He could run, and then he would be safe and so would Lia....
Nadia reappeared, stalking toward them, a small card clutched in her right hand. She thrust it at Petrov.
He stared at the card, seeing the letters and numbers, struggling to make sense of them.
“Do you need me to dial it for you?” Nadia asked, icily.
He shook his head and then punched in the digits for Lia’s mobile phone. It rang once, then again. Three times. Four.
“She’s not—” he started to say, and then stopped when the trilling sound ended and he heard Lia’s voice.
“Hello?”
He swallowed again, his mouth now dry as a desert. “Lia, it is Oleg. Where are you? I thought you were working late.”
There was a long silence, followed by a heavy sigh. “I was tired, professor. I need to get some sleep. It will wait one more day.”
What do I say?
“Lia, this cannot wait. I need you to come back here.”
Another long pause. “Look, professor. I really am flattered that you want to spend time with me, but I think right now it would be better for both of us to keep things professional.” She spoke rapidly, as if it had taken all her courage to make the declaration.
She thinks I am hitting on her. The thought pained him. He was not summoning her to an assignation, but to an execution.
He glanced up at Telesh. The man’s eyes shone out from his ogre-face with a warning that burrowed into Petrov’s soul. Do not cross me.
“Lia,” Petrov said, his mouth so dry that he almost coughed the word. “You must listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say.”
“Professor...”
“Run, Lia. Hide. They are going to kill—”
There was a flash of blue light and the next thing Petrov knew, he was lying flat on his back. His ear and the side of his head felt alternately hot and numb. His hand was empty. The phone had been knocked away.
Petrov felt a strange warmth at his groin. It took him a moment to realize that his bladder had just let go.
A baleful moon floated into view above Petrov—Telesh’s bloated face. “That was a very foolish thing to do, professor. Most unwise.”
THREE
East Hampton, New York
It was a beautiful day, which made the graveside service seem all the more surreal. Maddock moved like someone walking in a dream—shaking hands, accepting condolences from family friends with what they probably mistook for stoic reserve. In truth, he felt numb. Even though he had looked inside the polished caskets, looked upon their faces, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that any of it was real.
For most of his life, he had understood that he would outlive his parents, but it was never more than an abstract intellectual concept for him. In his career as a SEAL, confronted on an almost daily basis with the fact of his own mortality, he had begun to think it pretty unlikely that he would actually survive them.
He certainly never imagined that he would bury both of them in a single day.
Hosting the wake at their house—his house, now—gave him something to do, something to keep his mind occupied, but it also meant surrounding himself with pieces of his childhood. This wasn’t the house where he had grown up, of course. His father’s military career meant that they never stayed in any one place long enough to put down roots. After retiring from the Navy Hunter Maddock and his wife had relocated to East Long Island because of its close proximity to Gardiner’s Island—the location of the only confirmed instance where a pirate buried his loot for later retrieval. But while the house was a place the younger Maddock had only visited occasionally in his adult life, the things in it—pictures, mementos, books—were all too familiar. The dusty study where Hunter had spent endless hours researching pirate lore, searching for the lost treasure of the notorious Captain William Kidd, was like a fixed point in the universe—an unchanging room that seemed to exist in every house they had ever lived in.
But now it was missing something—missing someone—and it would never be the same.
He sat at the desk, idly brushing away the thin layer of dust that had settled on the blotter. There was a framed picture resting on one corner—a picture of the whole family together, taken shortly after his graduation from the Naval Academy.
Two of the three people in the photograph were gone. I’m all that’s left.
He wasn’t sure what to do with the house, yet. His first impulse was to sell it. What use did he have for a house?
But then he thought about all the memories he had made in a house like this one. He would never have any new memories of his parents, only regrets for missed opportunities. Maybe it was time to start making new memories. And maybe this was the place to do it.
“Dane?”
He looked up and found Melissa standing in the doorway, looking beautiful, even in mourning black. They had been together and more or less exclusive for the better part of a decade, shared an abiding p
assion for history and archaeology—she was currently working at the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC—and he genuinely enjoyed her company. Why hadn’t he popped the question? “Hey. I was just thinking about you.”
“I was wondering where you snuck off to,” she said. Her tone was apologetic rather than reproving. “Do you need some time?”
“No.” He shook his head, then smiled up at her and reached out his arms. “Come here.”
She crossed the room and took his hands in hers, but there was something tentative in her movements, as if she wasn’t sure that this was what she should be doing. She kissed him lightly, then drew back. “Coach is looking for you.”
“Is he?” Marco “Coach” Cosenza had been Maddock’s Little League coach, and had stayed a family friend ever since. He had eventually relocated to New England where he chartered his boat Sea Foam, for fishing and SCUBA diving trips. Cosenza was one of the few people in the house who knew Maddock as well as he knew his parents. They had spoken briefly at the cemetery, but there hadn’t been opportunity to catch up. “Let’s go see what he wants.”
Cosenza was in the front room, pretending to study a framed print on the wall beside the fireplace—a flat reproduction of the Lenox Globe, a historical map from the early sixteenth century, one of the few antique maps to bear the warning of what lay beyond the unexplored frontiers.
HC SVNT DRACONES.
Here be dragons.
“Coach!”
Cosenza turned to him, a wary smile on his lips, and extended a hand. “Dane. Good to see you. Dress blues look good on you.”
“I don’t get to wear them very often,” Maddock replied. The import of this hit him almost as soon as the words were out, but he hid his dismay behind a smile, accepting the handclasp. He felt Melissa’s hand on his arm, her breath in his ear.
“I’ll leave you two to talk,” she whispered, and then was gone.
He returned his attention to Cosenza who, almost awkwardly, was still holding Maddock’s hand. “How have you been? How’s boat life?”
“More work than I expected. I tell you, I’m seriously thinking about going ashore for good.”
“No. Really? Give up Sea Foam?”
“You know what a boat is? It’s a hole in the water into which you pour money. I think I’d rather just sit on the beach. Know what I mean?”
Maddock smiled. “I don’t think I’d ever get tired of being on the water, but I am...” He shook his head. “I’m seeing things differently.”
Cosenza gave Maddock’s hand a knowing squeeze, then his smile fell. “Dane, listen. There’s something I need to say to you.” He took a deep breath, as if trying to summon the courage to deliver bad news. “Your father was a good man, but he was... Complicated.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“I know. But sometimes, the consequences of decisions we make come back to haunt us long after we think we’ve paid the price. Someday, you might learn things about your father that will surprise you. Maybe even disappoint you.”
Cosenza gave his hand another firm squeeze. “Just remember that he was a good man, and that he loved you and your mother very much.”
“Coach, what are you trying to tell me?”
Cosenza seemed ready to elucidate, but just then, another familiar voice intruded.
“Dane.” It was Maxie. Like Maddock, he was attired in a dark blue dress uniform with the distinctive eagle-trident-pistol badge that identified him as a SEAL. Maxie had been at the graveside service but had left early without offering an explanation.
Maddock nodded to the other man. “Coach, this is my CO, Commander Hartford Maxwell. Maxie this is an old friend, Marco Cosenza.”
Cosenza released Maddock’s grasp and exchanged a quick handshake with Maxie. “I hope you’ll pardon the interruption,” the latter said, “but I need a private word with Dane.”
“Of course,” Cosenza said. “Dane, just remember what I told you.”
He stepped away quickly, as if granted an unexpected reprieve. Maddock just shook his head. People could be weird at funerals.
Maxie cleared his throat to get Maddock’s attention, and then cast a glance around the room. “Is there someplace a little more private?”
“Sure. This way.” Maddock led him back to the study, closing and locking the door behind them. “So, I guess it’s time for that talk?”
“Dane, I’m sorry to—” Maxie paused, took a breath, and then started again. “How are you holding up?”
“I think I’m still trying to...” He stopped, remembering who he was really speaking with. “Actually, I think I’m starting to see things clearly for the first time. I’ve wasted the last ten years of my life. While I was busy playing Rambo, the world slipped right through my fingers. I should have been building a home, a family... A life. My parents... I should have given them grandchildren. And don’t tell me about sacrifices made for the greater good. I’m not even sure what that means anymore.”
Maxie stared back at him for several seconds. “Feel better now?”
Maddock uttered a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. I do. I’m done Maxie. It’s time I started actually living my life.”
“Okay.” Maxie nodded. “Now that you’ve got that off your chest, we need to talk. I’ve got new orders for you.”
Maddock gaped at him. “Orders? Are you kidding? Did you not hear what I just said?”
“I read you loud and clear,” Maxie replied. “But you don’t get to just say ‘take this job and shove it.’ There’s a procedure you’ll have to follow, and until you’ve jumped through all those hoops, you are still under orders.”
“For God’s sake, Maxie. I just buried my parents.”
“And I had to move heaven and earth to let you do that,” Maxie shot back. Then he softened a few degrees. “Dane, this comes from way above my pay grade. SECNAV signed these orders. There’s nothing I can do to block this. You’ve got two options: do as ordered, or jump ship. Trust me, the brig is not where you want to start living life on your own terms.”
Maddock’s gut was churning. He knew Maxie was right, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to submit his letter of resignation before leaving. “So where am I going?”
“Russia.” Maxie gave a heavy sigh. “The NSA flagged an ECHELON intercept in Moscow two days ago. A mobile phone call between a history professor—Oleg Petrov—and a university archivist—Lia Markova. They were both working on a project to search for Nazi loot. During the course of the call, Petrov warned Markova that her life was in danger, after which the call ended. The intercept got kicked to the Naval attaché in Moscow, who tracked Markova down and debriefed her. She didn’t know much, but our officer thinks the threat to Markova is real.”
“What exactly is the threat?” asked Maddock.
“Uncertain. The Kremlin is sponsoring the research project, but there’s a long list of agencies and people who might be interested in finding a cache of Nazi loot. We do know that Petrov is missing. Our working assumption is that he was coerced into making the call to Markova in order to lure her into a trap, and that his captors probably punished him for warning her off. You’ll be providing security and logistical support for Markova’s exit. Bonebrake, Chapman, and Sanders are already en route. They’ll meet you on the ground in Moscow. You’ll be traveling commercial using your Jim Abbott alias. Your flight leaves JFK at 1900 hours, so you should probably wrap things up here.”
Maddock shook his head, resignedly. “Why me? This isn’t our AO. None of us speak Russian, and Bones and Willis will stick out like a pair of sore thumbs.”
“Personal request from the attaché. Evidently, she thinks very highly of you clowns.”
“She?”
“An old friend of yours. Zara Leopov.”
FOUR
Moscow, Russia
Owing to the time difference, it was early afternoon when Maddock’s flight arrived at Sheremetyevo International
Airport. He traveled by taxi to the historic Arbat—a brick paved pedestrian street popular with tourists—and wandered around for half an hour to make sure that he wasn’t being followed. He wasn’t, or rather, if he was, his shadow was skillful enough to avoid detection. The more likely explanation was that his cover was holding, and he was just one more American sightseer.
Although the collapse of the Soviet Union had wrought profound changes, in many ways, Moscow still resembled the Hollywood version he had experienced in countless spy thriller movies watched in his formative years. Despite showing many of the trappings of modernity and capitalism, it still felt like an old city. More Brooklyn than Manhattan, there were few glass and steel towers, and plenty of squat, graceless Constructivist concrete structures, interspersed with the occasional Byzantine onion-domed church or bizarre, logic-defying Stalinist monstrosity.
As he wandered about, he couldn’t help but think how incredible it was that he was walking the streets of the Russian capital. Growing up, he had always imagined Moscow as a forbidden city, a place where few Westerners dared visit, and where KGB agents in black trench coats lurked around every corner, waiting to whisk suspected spies—and everyone was a suspected spy—off to a dank interrogation room somewhere under Lubyanka Square, never to be seen again.
Even though there was the perception of openness, he knew better than to think that he was on friendly soil. The rivalry between America and Russia went beyond the ideologies of Capitalism and Communism. The KGB agents in black trench coats hadn’t simply gone away when the USSR fragmented. They had just changed their initials, and added burgeoning Twenty-first Century technology to their arsenal, which was why he was surreptitiously checking his six for any hint of surveillance.
It had taken a while, but the further Maddock got from his parents’ house and all its strange familiarity, the more the events of the day began to slip from his mind like a bad dream. Somewhere over the North Atlantic, the sting of being denied time to grieve subsided, to be replaced by something almost like relief. There was nothing he could do to change what had happened, but at least this—duty, orders, a mission—was something he knew how to deal with, even if it no longer gave him the same satisfaction it once had.