The Ice Curtain

by Robin White

  They were waved through. Soon, a three-story beige house appeared from behind a dense stand of birches. Other than a roof studded with satellite dishes and antennae, Boris Yeltsin’s dacha, his country home in Moscow, was surprisingly ordinary.

  The Volvo pulled in front, then stopped. Chuchin got out, came around, and opened Nowek’s door. There was snow on the ground, but this was clearly not Siberia. The air was still rich with the lingering smell of wet, decaying leaves, spicy with wood smoke.

  Chuchin slammed the car door. “Now what?”

  Nowek had expected more of a reception. “Go knock.”

  Chuchin seemed dubious, but he obeyed.

  It opened. A golden light spilled out, bright and cheerful, silhouetting the very identifiable shape of the President of the largest country on earth, dismantler of empires, sheller of recalcitrant Parliaments, heartsick, weary Boris Yeltsin. He wore a dark blue cardigan sweater, buttoned almost to his neck, dark pants, and his trademark scowl.

  Nowek could see the gray pallor when the light fell across his face. His hair was full and silvery, but Nowek could hear the wheeze and rattle of labored breathing. Boris Yeltsin was alive. Just.

  “You’re going to stand or come in?” Yeltsin’s voice still rumbled like tanks tearing up bricks. He waved a hand slowly, deliberately. “Delegate Nowek? I have someone anxious to see you.”

  Inside the front door were muddy boots, a scarf, a stern young man seated at a desk with an earphone. A man sat on a simple wooden bench. Yeltsin retreated down the hall. “Take your time,” he said with the wave of an arm. “You’re keeping only the President of the Russian Federation waiting.” With that, Yeltsin doddered down the corridor like a pensioner hunting for his glasses.

  “Major Levin?” said Nowek. At least, Nowek thought that’s who it was. His face was an atlas of bruises and swollen enough to pucker the stitches that ran in a jagged line from his ear to the corner of his lip. His hair was cut very short, and he wore a large black patch over one eye. His mustache used to be full, almost dashing. Now it looked like a poorly applied disguise.

  “Zdrastvootsye, Delegate Nowek,” said Levin. He stood and clasped Nowek’s shoulder and whispered, “And it’s Colonel Levin, now.”

  “What some people won’t do for a promotion.”

  “The half blind, the half lame, in the service of the half dead,” said Levin. “You had the President’s private number all along. Why didn’t you use it?”

  “I didn’t have anything to tell him.”

  “I hope you do now.”

  So do I, thought Nowek. “Let’s not keep him waiting.”

  They walked down the hall and into a large, bare room that shouted state function. It was sparsely furnished, though what was there was deeply Baroque: a black velvet sofa edged with gold, a small, oval table with ornately carved legs, four matching chairs. A television on a stand of Finnish birch. A fireplace blazed. Embossed white paper covered the walls. A window hid behind thick gold curtains.

  Yeltsin sprawled on the sofa and indicated that the others were to sit. “Delegate Nowek,” he said, “before you begin, first let me say that I knew Delegate Volsky. I am here today, Russia is here today, because of what he did then. There’s nothing you can add to my sorrow over what happened. Moscow loves rumors. There have been some unpleasant ones about Arkady Vasilievich. They will stop.”

  “Thank you, Mister President. I know that—”

  Yeltsin continued as though he hadn’t heard. “Second, the International Monetary Fund will arrive in three days to inspect the state diamond stockpile.” He looked at Levin. “My aides have informed me that Petrov’s plan to sell Siberian gems to the world has not worked out in accordance with our hopes. Is that so?”

  Levin nodded. “Yes, Mister President. That’s so.”

  “Then the diamonds are gone, the money is gone, and the Closet is truly empty?”

  Once more Levin spoke. “Yes.”

  “And there’s no possibility of recovering them in time?”

  “Not in time, Mister President. We know how the stones have been getting out. We have nearly a million carats in hand. They were stopped on their way out of the country. They were—” Levin searched for the right word. “. . . impounded by Delegate Nowek. They’ve arrived from Siberia and are under close guard. But the vast majority is missing.”

  Nearly a million? thought Nowek. What happened to the rest? Then a name: Yuri!

  Yeltsin took a deep breath and said, “Then there’s nothing to be done.”

  “There might be, Mister President,” said Nowek.

  Yeltsin gave him a baleful look. “There’s no time for word games. If you have something to say, say it.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this all the way from Irkutsk. As Levin said, we stopped a million carats on their way to—”

  “Almost one million. And it’s not the same as four million. If I know the difference, the IMF will also know it.”

  “But we can borrow the rest.”

  Levin leaned over. “Nowek.”

  “Borrow them?” asked Yeltsin.

  “The South African, Eban Hock, said that when it came to refilling the Closet, we’d have to look to the cartel. Well, he could be right. They maintain the biggest stockpile of gem rough in the world in London. It can be here in a matter of hours. They have a hundred times what we kept in the Closet. They’ve soaked up every loose diamond on the planet for the last hundred years. Every diamond that went to Golden Autumn, every stone that was never paid for, is sitting there, Mister President. All we have to do is ask for them back.”

  “Why would they agree?”

  “Because we still control Mirny Deep.”

  “I’m told it will be years before the mine can be repaired.”

  “But it will be,” said Nowek. “And what will happen then? The cartel knows what’s down there. It’s a sword hanging over their heads. They can’t afford to lose control of it. Not and remain a cartel.”

  “But they have lost control of it.”

  “Not if we sell it back to them.”

  “What?” Levin exclaimed. “But you told me . . .”

  “Listen,” Nowek explained. “In three days, the IMF will be here. If the Closet stays empty, it will be 1998 again, only worse. We could give the cartel Mirny Deep and it would be a bargain next to that.”

  “What kind of a deal are you thinking of?” asked Yeltsin.

  “We give them exclusive rights to Mirny Deep once the mine is back in operation and they send us a few million carats to parade in front of the IMF.”

  “We sell them the future in exchange for the next few days?”

  “We have to survive the next few days to get to the future. We just have to find a way to contact the cartel quickly. Tonight, if possible. Perhaps our ambassador in London can call—”

  “Excuse me,” said Chuchin. “But don’t we have one of them in a cell? He would know how to make the arrangements.”

  “You mean Hock?” asked Nowek.

  “He’s at Lefortovo,” said Levin. Moscow’s main prison. “Along with Petrov and the . . . with General Goloshev. He’s going to stand trial as an accessory to Volsky’s murder.”

  “Maybe he shouldn’t,” Chuchin said with a shrug.

  “Chuchin,” said Nowek. “You know what Petrov has admitted. Hock—”

  “Excuse me. You know your way around mines, but when we speak of cells and jails, forgive me, I’m the expert here. I was two tenners na narakh.” Twenty years behind the wire. “So Hock is an accessory to murder. Is that even a crime? You can’t put Russian murderers in prison. How long do you think Hock will be there before his friends buy him a key? A week? I say send the bastard back where he came from. Let them cut his throat.”

  “Eban Hock is the key to our investigation,” said Levin.

  “Fuck investigations. You already know he’s guilty. It only gives the eel more time to slip the hook. I say let his own friends put his head on a pike. They’ll
do a better job of it.”

  Yeltsin’s face was animated. He didn’t often get the chance to hear someone like Chuchin, and it took years off his face.

  “I’m just a pensioner who drives cars and raises flags,” said Chuchin, “but even I know you can catch big fish in muddy waters. You think the cartel wants the world to know how dirty their precious diamonds are? We’ll promise to keep it to ourselves, give them Hock, and borrow those diamonds for the fucking bankers to see. And if they don’t like the deal, fuck them. There’s always Mirny Deep to hang over their heads.”

  “Go on,” said Yeltsin.

  “Let those foreign bastards come look in the Closet. They’ll see what they need to see, and then you can pack the diamonds and Hock into one box and kick his ass over the border.”

  Give them Hock? “Why do you think they’ll put his head on a pike, Chuchin?” asked Nowek.

  “Because when he takes back the diamonds we borrowed,” said Chuchin, “they won’t be the same diamonds. I’ll tell you what I mean. . . .”

  When Chuchin was done laying out his idea, Yeltsin looked at Levin, then Nowek, and let out a laugh that was so loud it brought his guards running, fearing the worst.

  “No, I’m fine!” he said when he caught his breath. He waved at the door, and a steward brought in glasses of tea, some bread, wild berry preserves, and a silver pot filled with Vologda butter, the finest in the world.

  “Tea?” said Chuchin with a look of distaste. “Is someone sick, Mister President?”

  Yeltsin looked into his teacup and roared, “Bring us something proper!”

  A frosted bottle was brought in, and glasses all around. “About the diamonds,” said Yeltsin as the glasses were filled with fiery liquid. “We’ll do it.”

  “There’s one matter left,” said Nowek. “The miners of Mirny have been paid with veskels, plus a promise of dollars. The dollars are being held in an overseas account.”

  “That’s completely illegal.”

  As if you don’t have such accounts, thought Nowek. But he said, “And that’s the last thing we must fix. As part of the arrangement with the cartel, those dollars must be brought home. They must be made available to the miners. It comes to only a few million. It’s nothing to London and everything to them.”

  “A lot of people haven’t been paid,” said Yeltsin.

  “This is what Volsky wanted,” said Nowek, wondering whether he’d stepped over an invisible line.

  “Can it be done quietly?” Yeltsin looked to Levin.

  “The mafiya sends money overseas every day,” he said. “And no one hears a thing. I think we can bring some of it back.”

  “Then it’s done.” Yeltsin held up his glass and said, “To Arkady Volsky, our hearts. To the new Siberian Delegate, our hopes. Sto lyet!” A hundred years.

  It was a very short toast, shamefully so by Russian standards, but Yeltsin was flagging.

  Chuchin, Nowek, and Levin stood with their glasses raised and shouted,

  “Sto lyet!”

  The business was conducted with the same exaggerated solemnity of a Cold War spy swap. The prison vans. The stony-faced guards. But when Eban Hock passed through the gates at Vnukovo 2 airport, a facility reserved for state visits, and saw the British-registered Hawker jet waiting for him, he knew he was safe. He knew he’d been absolutely right. Warlords, despots, presidents came and went. But the cartel would always stand.

  The driver stopped on the ramp. Hock got out into the chill, gray light of early winter, and walked up the stairs with a lightness of step known only to the truly, reverentially grateful.

  He settled himself into his seat as an armored truck pulled up, flanked by motorcycle outriders. He’d told Nowek it would happen, that the diamonds would go to 17 Charterhouse Street, one way or another. Forget the blizzard of criminal cases surrounding Petrov, Goloshev, and Kristall. The stones would go to London the way a ball rolled downhill: by natural law. What was Moscow’s law against that?

  The familiar brown boxes were carried up the steps and into the Hawker. But soon, Hock found cause for surprise.

  There were too many of them. He made a quick count, and after the thirty he expected, he sat back in his seat and reevaluated. He’d expected the one million carats. Where were all these others coming from? Forty boxes. Fifty. One hundred. More. The chain of bearers seemed endless. They finally stopped at one hundred and nineteen. Four million carats?

  The hatch was sealed. The jet turned west, leaving Moscow’s grizzled haze behind, climbing to where the sun burned with the yellow fire of a faultless canary diamond. Four hours later, the jet came to a stop at a private hangar located in a reasonably inconspicuous corner of Heathrow’s air cargo facility. Another armored car, another endless procession of boxes. It was the entire picture at Vnukovo 2 run in reverse.

  A black Mercedes was waiting for him. Together with the stones, Hock left the airport for Charterhouse Street, a district known in the eighteenth century as the hangout of highwaymen and villains. The procession arrived at Num-ber 17, a six-story building clad in white stone and warm bronze, with stout gates and armed guards pacing the street with drawn guns.

  Hock was given a room on the south side of the fifth floor. It had a lovely bank of windows that offered a glimpse of the Thames. While he showered off the accumulated filth deposited by a week in a Moscow cell, the diamond boxes were taken to the sorting rooms on the north side of the building. There, beneath tall windows, in cold, shadowless light, one hundred and nineteen containers were opened and the stones plucked from their foam nests.

  One thousand seven hundred pounds, four million carats, of gem rough worth three quarters of a billion dollars had been loaned to Moscow to parade before the IMF auditors. One thousand seven hundred pounds of industrial diamonds, sixty million dollars’ worth, and Eban Hock, had been returned.

  The bright October light faded to dusk, and streams of traffic glowed like strands of pearls. A yellow crescent moon burned like kerosene. The London sky was soft, almost feminine, compared to the unearthly glint of starlit Mirny.

  Two managers from the Russia desk told him the news. “We’ve lost Russia,” one of them said.

  He knew these two men by name. He knew them by type even better. Hock thought of them all as Jesuits. Serious, intelligent, iron-gray hair, polished shoes, their faces full of the moral certainty Hock could never afford.

  He’d worked with their like in a hundred dismal spots. Sierra Leone. Congo. Angola. Zaire. Moscow. Like missionaries, they lived to impose a kind of order on a chaotic world. Once they’d been adventurous young men in khakis and pith helmets with trains of native bearers and sacks of cash. They’d march off into the bush, unfold their tables, set up their beam balances, and wait for the diamonds to arrive. Their buying table was an altar to something greater, something pure. Something almost like religion.

  Now you are one of us. . . .

  Tramping through the bush was too dangerous these days. Now the cartel’s missionaries floated above the foul streets of Africa, the urine-soaked alleys strewn with garbage, the crushed, immense cities where old cars honked their way through crowds of vendors selling peanuts, pineapples, bright plastic sandals.

  Somewhere above the reeking mess there would be a hermetically sealed chamber, an air-conditioned suite, sleek with black leather and chrome, shielded behind thick steel doors, bulletproof glass, security cameras. An outpost not so much of empire, but of order.

  Mombassa, Moscow, Mirny. They were all outposts. All messy spots where the natives were free to lie, to steal, to wage war in whatever horrible form they wished, so long as the cartel ended up with the rough. It always came down to that. The natives did the work and the dying. The cartel got the rough.

  We’ve lost Russia. Apparently, the natives had decided the old rules no longer applied. They might have said, We’ve lost gravity. The ball no longer rolled downhill.

  Hock let the curtain fall shut and went to the door and locked it. He picked
up the wet towels, the filthy clothes he’d worn in Moscow, and placed them in a plastic bag someone had thoughtfully left.

  The cartel was more than just a business, more than a profession. It was a faith, a religion that offered the world but demanded in return both loyalty and results. What was one without the other?

  He walked to the bath, switched on the light above the washbasin, plugged it, and ran the water scalding hot. It wasn’t quite boiling. He watched it fill.

  Russia was Africa with snow. The cartel had always played it masterfully, and easily. Mirny might have enough gems to drown London in diamonds, but Moscow could be bought for pennies. Now something had changed. Now Russia was playing the cartel. Russia, a vast clock slowly unwinding, its gears slipping, its springs rusted. Russia, a consignment shop, not a nation, where everything was for sale on the cheap. Nowek. Could one man have found a billion-dollar key and, instead of trading it for pennies, stayed to rewind the clock?

  He stared at his reflection in the mirror. They’d left him with a toiletries kit. Soaps. Colognes. A toothbrush. A simple, old-fashioned straight razor. He pulled it out and tested the blade against the edge of his thumb.

  A red thread of blood welled up.

  He plunged his right hand into the scalding water and grimaced with the pain. Looking down, his hand seemed to branch off at a ridiculous angle, no longer part of his body at all. A refracted object. The pain eased, and he pulled his hand out and dried it with a snowy-white towel that was almost impossibly thick. He pulled a wooden chair next to the sink, folded the towel neatly across its ladder back, and sat down.

  Grasping the blade in his left hand, he drew it slowly, deeply, surely across the burned, red flesh of his right wrist, pressing down hard enough to make certain.

  The hot water in the sink instantly swirled red as his heart pumped, pumped, pumped. There was no pain, only a slight stinging where the razor had done its work. He looked up into the polished mirror. As he stared, tendrils of steam rose from the water, misting the bright glass, obscuring his face, his eyes, one green, one blue, now gray, now both lost behind a curtain that reminded him of an aurora, shimmering, dancing in the black winter skies of Mirny. A curtain of ice, of fire, of spectral light. Shimmering, fading, then gone.