Stavisky nodded. “He would have been in his twenties at the time, and we know that he was stationed in Istanbul and Ankara. The document doesn’t say what the action was, but my source claims it was big. And he says that it somehow relates to a plot to kill Victor Chigorin.”
Looking at the grandmaster again, Powell still saw no visible reaction. “And you feel that this source is credible?”
“I’ve been in contact with him for close to a year,” Stavisky said. “All I can say is that he has access to a vast trove of intelligence files. He’s leaked documents to me before. All have been authenticated. But such men always have reasons of their own for coming forward.”
“I know.” Powell turned to Chigorin. “Does Operation Pepel mean anything to you?”
“No,” Chigorin said. “But I can see a connection. Have you ever been to Novgorod? The cathedral there has two doors from the twelfth century. One is from Europe. The other is from Istanbul. Russia has always felt that its destiny is to join these two empires. And the place where its eye turns first is Turkey.”
As he listened, Powell recalled that Chigorin himself was part Turkish, and that he had been a strong advocate for Turkish rights within Russia. “So you think that this document reflects a covert operation aimed at Turkey. And it has something to do with a plot against your life?”
Chigorin smiled. “As I said before, I have my doubts. If they truly had designs against me, they could have killed me at the tournament. And whatever this document describes took place fifty years ago. Still, these men think in decades or centuries. When it comes to the security services, the past is never gone.”
“In any case, my source says that he will have more information soon,” Stavisky said. “We’re attending a conference on energy policy next week in Helsinki. He indicates that he will deliver additional documents then. Once we see the files, we’ll share any relevant materials with you. In return, we only ask that you keep us apprised of developments in the investigation.”
Powell saw that he was being offered a deal, although he wasn’t sure what it was yet. He handed back the tablet. “I’ll do what I can.”
“We ask for nothing more.” Chigorin gave the tablet to his assistant, who had listened to their conversation without speaking. “If we hear anything further, we’ll be in touch. Thank you.”
After a closing exchange of pleasantries, Powell rose from his chair and was escorted outside by a guard. As the door closed, he glanced back, and saw Chigorin and Stavisky speaking quietly, their heads close together. Then the door swung shut, hiding them from view.
Powell nodded at the two smiling guards standing outside, then headed for the elevator. As soon as was out of sight, he pulled the notebook from his pocket and began to jot down what he remembered. Operation Pepel. Ashes—
As he was finishing up these notes, his phone rang. He almost didn’t take the call, but when he looked at the display, he saw it was Asthana. Distracted, he answered it. “What is it, Maya?”
Asthana’s voice was shaky. “Alan, it’s about Wolfe. Something bad has happened.”
33
When Asthana entered the hospital room, Wolfe screwed her face into a smile and delivered the line she had previously rehearsed, with, she hoped, the right amount of toughness: “Sorry about the car.”
She had hoped for a laugh, but Asthana looked as if she was about to tear up. “Don’t worry about it,” Asthana said, coming over to where the others were sitting. “It was all insured, anyway.”
“Good thing I am, too,” Wolfe said. She was in a hospital room in Woolwich Common, seated in a chair by the window, which looked out at the park across the way. Powell and Garber had squeezed themselves into the tiny space as well. Before the first of her visitors had arrived, she had contrived to wash her face and fix her clothes a bit, but she knew that she didn’t look great.
As Asthana sat down, Wolfe had no choice but to regard herself through the other woman’s eyes. Her left arm was in a brace. The force of the blast had driven her forward in the driver’s seat, wrenching her shoulder and elbow, and her cheek and the back of her neck had been lightly grilled by the heat. She had been lucky to be wearing long sleeves, reminding her of the stories that Mormons liked to tell about the sacred garments, which allegedly protected their wearers from fire.
Wolfe nearly laughed out loud at this, but stifled it. She was feeling more than a little peculiar, a sensation that was partly due to the Vicodin. In the abstract, she knew that she had been miraculously untouched. If the blast had been a few inches forward, it would have taken out the entire front of the car. Still, she couldn’t quite process how close she had come. And these days, after years of certainty, she found that she had no particular opinion about what happened after you were dead.
Her ears were still ringing slightly, so she had trouble hearing what Garber said next. “What was that?”
“I was saying that the car has been defused and towed to Lambeth for examination,” Garber said, picking up the conversation from a moment before. “Looks like the bomb was attached by magnets under the front and rear seats. A mercury tilt fuse wired to two pellets of Semtex. Serious stuff.”
Wolfe nodded at this, although she was still regarding herself and her situation from a comfortable remove. A tilt fuse, she dimly knew, consisted of a plastic tube with mercury at one end and an open circuit on the other. When sufficiently jolted, the mercury flowed to the top of the tube and closed the circuit. If she had been on the freeway when the circuit closed, she would almost certainly have crashed. “So why didn’t it take me out the way it was supposed to?”
“We aren’t sure,” Powell said. “It looks like there was an extra timing device, not part of the original design, meant to activate the circuit after a certain number of minutes had passed. And it seems that it was badly installed.”
Garber agreed. “We’re still looking into it, but I’m told that the Semtex was wired in relay fashion, like a string of holiday lights. The wiring was bad, so only the charge under the rear of the car exploded. The plastic itself was untagged, meaning that it’s at least twenty years old, probably of Czech manufacture—”
“So it’s certainly something that Russian intelligence could have done,” Powell said. “The incompetence alone makes me suspect them.”
Wolfe tried to process this last piece of information. “But not Lasse Karvonen.”
“We don’t think so,” Asthana said. She looked around at the others. “On my way here, I spoke on the phone with prison security. Surveillance footage shows that the bomb wasn’t planted at Belmarsh. Which means—” Her voice nearly failed, but she forced herself to continue. “Which means it was probably set when the car was parked outside my house. I’m so sorry, Rachel.”
“It could have been meant for you,” Wolfe said. “How did they know I’d be driving?”
“That’s the big question,” Powell said. “It was common knowledge, at least at the agency, that you were using this car for surveillance. The mileage reimbursement forms alone would have told the story. You didn’t tell anyone else that the car was being used by Wolfe?”
This question was directed at Asthana, who shook her head. “Only my fiancé.”
“We’ll need to talk to him, then,” Garber said. “If it turns out that he spoke to anyone about the case—”
Asthana blew up at this. “What exactly are you implying? Tell me. I’m curious.”
Powell broke in. “Calm down, everyone. Garber’s perfectly correct. We need to check every possible lead, no matter how unlikely it may be.” He looked over at Wolfe. “The real issue is whether you were targeted because of your work. Until we know more, Cornwall wants to transfer you to another case.”
Wolfe stared in disbelief. “You’re kidding. You can’t reassign me now. Not when I’m so close to a breakthrough with Ilya.”
“Which raises questions of its own,” Garber said. There was something in his tone that she didn’t like. “I’m curious as to what you were doing there at all. It looks strange, especially in light of the concern over leaks—”
Wolfe felt an arrow of anger enter her chemical detachment. “Ilya was looking into these deaths when he was arrested. He understands Karvonen in a way that we don’t. And I think he likes me.”
Garber only turned aside, shaking his head, but Powell had listened with evident attention. In the end, to her relief, he said, “I hate to say it, but I agree. I still don’t believe we’ll get much out of him, but if he’s talking to you, we need to continue. Are you ready to see him again?”
“Yes,” Wolfe said at once. “Send me back in. The fact that someone came after me only shows that they’re afraid of what I might learn.”
“Fine,” Powell said. “From now on, though, you’ll clear your visits through the usual channels. And you’ll have an agency driver. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Wolfe said. She wanted to tell him more of her thoughts on what Ilya had said, but before she could raise the issue, a nurse entered, saying that it was time for her visitors to leave.
As the others rose to go, she watched them enviously. The hospital, to her annoyance, had insisted that she remain under observation until the end of the day. Garber left first, with a muttered farewell, then stalked off into the hallway. Asthana smiled. “Don’t worry about him. He’s under a lot of stress these days.”
“Aren’t we all?” Wolfe accepted a hug, then waved as Asthana left the room. As soon as she was gone, Wolfe turned to Powell. “Alan—”
“It’s all right,” Powell said. For only a second, some emotion he had been repressing appeared in his voice, and she saw how moved he was. Then his usual dispassionate self returned. “You understand, of course, that I’m only allowing you to continue because we need Ilya to talk. In particular, I want you to ask him about Victor Chigorin. I believe his life may be in danger.”
“Chigorin?” Wolfe asked. “But if Karvonen was really planning to kill him—”
“—he would have taken him out at the tournament,” Powell finished. “I know. But there have been other developments. I’ll tell you more soon. In the meantime, Cornwall is hopping mad. She says she expected better of you. I told her to blame it on temporary insanity.”
Wolfe smiled at this. “Honestly, it seemed like something you would have done.”
“On the contrary. I couldn’t have done what you did with Ilya. No one could.” Powell paused. “Wolfe, I’m only going to tell you this once. You can be whatever you want. You could be like Cornwall and run your own division. I see it in you. Everyone does. And it would be a terrible waste.”
Before she could respond, he set a folder on the table next to her chair. “Here are the files you wanted, in case you want to do some real work.” He headed for the door, where he turned to face her. “I’m glad you’re safe. But if you ever go behind my back again, you’ll be lucky to end up on mail fraud.”
He left. Once she was alone, Wolfe sat in silence, thinking of what he had said a moment ago. Remembering some of the things she had told Asthana, she felt an uncomfortable sense of shame.
In the end, she simply got back to work. Her own notes had been destroyed in the blast, so the first order of business was to reconstruct everything she remembered from her interview with Ilya and to prepare for the next meeting, which she would need to approach as if nothing had happened.
Before she could begin, her cell phone rang. It was Lester Lewis. “How are things?”
Wolfe smiled into the phone. Clearly not everyone had heard the news. “Not too bad. What can I do for you?”
“I have some updates,” Lewis said. “I’ve been looking into reports from the Dyatlov Pass, and there’s no sign of an avalanche. It was ruled out by observers at the time, and based on the photos, the slope wasn’t steep enough. The snow prods you saw were just standard rescue equipment.”
Listening to his words, Wolfe was glad to plunge again into the details of the case, which allowed her to think of something besides her close call. “What about the weapons-test theory?”
“The presence of radiation is suggestive, but it doesn’t make sense for the site. One of my colleagues says that most weapons testing would have been conducted farther north, or in the Kazakhstan desert. In the mountains, it’s hard to predict where radioactivity will go. But I’ll keep looking into it.”
“I appreciate that,” Wolfe said. After a few more pleasantries, she thanked him and hung up. She wrote down some notes, her shoulder aching, then turned again to the file. Inside was a series of pictures of the shelves in Karvonen’s apartment: art books, photographer’s manuals, the works of John Donne. Remembering what Ilya had said, she decided to begin here.
As she studied the pictures, her hand strayed to the scorched hair at the back of her head. She would have to cut it off, she realized. And as she considered this, feeling the ache of the burns through her cushion of drugs, she found herself thinking of the work of the chariot, and of the seekers who, in their carelessness, had been touched by the avenging fire.
34
An overnight cruise ship plowed smoothly through the darkening swells of the Baltic Sea, bound from Stockholm to Helsinki. It was a sleek, handsome ferry of thirteen decks, with a beam of just over one hundred feet. In the failing light, its windows gleamed in bright rows, so that from a distance it seemed like a child’s toy that had been cast on the ocean, wreathed on all sides by the water.
One of these lights belonged to Karvonen, who was standing in the bathroom of his private cabin, looking into the mirror. Although the changes to his appearance were objectively subtle, his new face was still strange to him, like a mask grafted onto his skull. For a moment, he found himself searching for the telltale signs of the airbrush, as if his features had been retouched by a hand less skillful than his own. Then he turned off the light and left the bathroom.
In the commodore cabin, his bag was on the floor, still packed. Karvonen picked it up and took it to the other end of the room, where he stripped the cushions from the sofa and folded out a hideaway bed. Unzipping his bag, he reached beneath a pile of clothes and removed the shotgun, which he laid carefully on the mattress, followed by the pistol, holster, and ammunition.
It had been a busy two days. The morning after retrieving the guns from the cache, he had taken a train from Brussels to Cologne, and another from there to Copenhagen. After that, there had been an overnight tilting train to Stockholm, where he had checked into a hotel for the day. There he had finished cleaning the guns, removing the coating of rust protectant with a rag saturated in methyl chloroform, the cloying scent of solvent filling his room.
He had also performed a few additional modifications, more as a reflection of personal taste than anything else. Among other things, using the roll of white medical tape that he had employed to secure the canisters to his body, he had laid a strip along the top of the shotgun, an aid to sighting in poor light.
Now he folded up the convertible bed with the guns inside, nestling them snugly between the layers of the mattress. He replaced the cushions, then draped a shirt and pair of slacks on the sofa, memorizing their position, so that he could tell at a glance if the sofa had been disturbed.
When he was done, he felt oddly restless. For the first time in days, he found himself with nothing to do until the next morning. Part of him wanted to examine the guns again, but he knew that checking them once was enough. In the end, he turned out the lights in his cabin, locked up, and headed for the promenade. The canisters, as always, were taped under his shirt.
Karvonen went down the companionway to the centerline mall, which ran along the heart of the ship. For most passengers, this was less a simple ferry than a party boat with its own bars, clubs, and casinos. The central promenade was roo
fed with glass, protecting tourists from the elements as they drifted in groups through the rows of shops and restaurants.
He began by buying a bottle of Armagnac, which was not entirely to his taste, but would come in handy at his destination. Swinging the heavy round bottle by the handles of its bag, he glanced around at the shops along the centerline. And as he walked past one of the display windows, he was surprised to see, among the other souvenirs, a rack of puukko knives.
Going into the shop, he gave the clerk a nod, then examined the knives more closely. The realization that he had left his grandfather’s knife behind had been a bitter one. One day, he hoped, it might be possible to retrieve it, but in the meantime, he needed to buy a replacement.
Looking at the knives on display, he saw that there was a respectable selection. Most were tourists’ trinkets with cheap plastic handles and stainless steel blades, but there were also a few decent knives with real birch handles and blades of crucible steel. After some thought, he finally selected a good hunter’s knife, its tip pointing downward, with a blade the length of his wide palm.
Satisfied, he went for a drink at a nightclub at the fore of the ship. After securing a table for himself, he ordered a pint of Lapin Kulta and settled back into his cushioned chair, feeling the music swell around him in waves of sound. The club had switched twenty minutes ago from a live cover band to house and electronica, and now the floor teemed with a young, sweating crowd.
Karvonen drained his beer rapidly and ordered another. The purchase of the knife had rekindled his good spirits, as if part of his old self had been restored. All the same, whenever he caught a glimpse of his face, with its dark eyes and widow’s peak, in the mirror above the bar, it continued to trouble him slightly, and he was haunted by the possibility that he was becoming a different person from before.
As he downed his second beer, he gradually became aware of a conversation taking place at the table to his side. Although the pulse of the music made it hard to hear the words, it was evidently an argument between a man and a woman, conducted mostly in Russian. He eavesdropped idly, catching a few stray syllables here and there, and was about to shift his attention elsewhere when he heard a familiar note in the woman’s voice. She was Finnish.
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