The Bookworm

by Mitch Silver

  Luckily, his brain was still working. He knew he was supposed to be sitting in the middle of the biggest oil strike on the North American continent, at least since the East Texas gusher of 1930, and it was all a fraud. He knew Craig had been killed because of it, and that he’d nearly gone the same way. Someone was desperate to keep the fiction going, but who? And why?

  It couldn’t be the dead guard lying on the ground over there, he was only the trigger man. How high up did it go?

  Lev’s cell phone had no bars, so he couldn’t tell anyone what he’d found, or call for help. He made himself get up and out of the concrete pipe.

  He walked around the guy’s booted feet, coming up behind him so he wouldn’t have to look at the pulpy features, and went through his pockets. Nothing. No ID, no phone. Lev tried to think. The guy must have gotten his orders somehow.

  He’d have to make it out of here and over the encircling hills to the security shed on a damaged ankle. He looked at the sun and then at his watch. Five o’clock. An hour till the bus came back on its return loop.

  Lev picked up the camera case with the bullet in it where it had been dropped in the dust. Time to get going.

  Chapter 41

  It took Lev three quarters of an hour to hobble back to the gate and the road beyond it. Once there, he inventoried the information booth. There was the visitors’ log, a satellite phone hanging on a nail, the People magazine the dead man had been riffling through, extra ammunition for the rifle, and a half-eaten sandwich with a thermos of coffee. That was all. Maybe there was something more in the guy’s dusty Jeep Cherokee, parked in a little turnaround.

  On the floor of the Jeep he found a day-old USA Today, and a Styrofoam cup in the cupholder. Guy liked his coffee. He opened the glove box. Just a couple of maps. No car keys. Lev had gone through the dead man’s pockets, looking for them. When he hadn’t found them, he assumed they were here. Now he realized they must have fallen out when Lev hit him. Damn, they were probably back there under the guy; he’d been too squeamish to roll the body over.

  Lev limped back to the kiosk and scanned the list of visitors admitted through Gate One of the Refuge. Two people in a Land Rover yesterday, photographers. They’d both checked back out by nightfall. His own name was still the only one down for today. Funny, the guy had written down “Lev Klimt,” even though the driver’s license he’d handed over said “Len.”

  While he searched the little shed, no car came by on the road, no one passed by on foot. Lev’s own foot was throbbing, swelling so much he’d had to take off his boot. Thank God the bus back to civilization would be along any minute; he’d get medical attention back at Prudhoe.

  He turned his attention to the bulky satellite phone with the extra-long antenna. He took it down and worked the buttons, looking for the list of Incoming Calls. There: one from an Anchorage number that morning; nothing since. He switched to the outgoing calls. That same number had been dialed a little later, around the time Lev was shot.

  He hit redial.

  “State House, Carl Hendricks.”

  Lev didn’t speak.

  After a moment, the man said, “Ray, that you?” Another pause, then, “I didn’t want to send the copter, it could be seen going in. So the guys are driving up … should be there any minute. Make sure you don’t leave any of Klimt’s stuff behind. Ray? You got that?”

  Lev pushed the phone’s End button. More bad guys on their way? There was no place to hide; plus, if it came to it, he couldn’t outrun anybody on a broken ankle.

  And then, salvation. He saw the bright green Tatqaani Tours bus coming up from the south. Hailing it, he showed the driver his ticket and painfully hoisted himself up the three steps. Taking the first open seat, Lev leaned back and let his backpack drop down next to the window. He had a couple of pieces of evidence in there, the camera case with the bullet in it and the guy’s satellite phone. The real proof, though, was in his pocket: all the pictures on his cell.

  The satellite phone! He could use it to call Lara. It was five in the morning in Moscow, so he’d leave her a message. He undid the backpack. Before he could get to it, he saw a black Land Rover speed past the bus in the direction of the gate and turn in—the guys coming to retrieve a dead body.

  There was a body, all right. Good thing it wasn’t his.

  Chapter 42

  Uspenskoye

  Thursday

  When Lara came down to breakfast, she looked out the window and saw the foliage outside was still dripping from the rain overnight. The shirt Nikki had been washing was pinned to a clothesline, as wet as before, brick red stains clearly visible even at a distance. The Alfa Romeo was gone again, but Nikki was out there, adding to the water table by hosing down his pickup truck.

  Breakfast for one was set out in the big kitchen. She was going to ask Cook about it when her mobile rang with Peter and the Wolf. It was Grisha.

  “Good morning, Larissa Mendelova, I hope you’ve found the food. My boss, too, has a dacha out here, and he roped me into an early-morning budget meeting. Nikki left me a note, told me he wanted to drive you back in, make amends or something, so I thought I’d let him, if it’s all right with you.”

  His boss? Didn’t the State Director of Broadcasting report directly to the Kremlin? Lara was about to say something, but he beat her to it. “Look, I’m terribly sorry about last night. These kids, they think they know everything … you and I were that way once, weren’t we? I don’t mean the bad manners, no, I’m sure you were never—I just mean, well, it’s a generational thing these days, isn’t it?”

  Three beeps from her mobile told her she had another call coming in. Gerasimov’s half-baked apology hung in the air. Looking down, she saw the caller was Viktor. Listen to him hem and haw over signing the divorce papers? Not today.

  Natalya the Cook had filled her cup with tea. Lara gave her a silent nod of thanks as she held the phone to her ear, ignoring the incoming call.

  “What I said just now … I didn’t mean to imply that you and Nikki are in different generations … nothing like that …” Gerasimov paused. “I seem to be apologizing for my apology.”

  “No apology is necessary.” Lara lifted her teacup so she wouldn’t have to say anything more.

  “Cook will make you whatever you want. When you’re back in town, call me on this number and we’ll go over the arrangements for tomorrow.”

  Nikki walked into the kitchen, his trousers wet at the cuffs. Ignoring the fact that she was on a call, he said, “Just let me change and we’ll go.” She took a second sip of the tea and said, “Okay,” to both father and son.

  Cook picked up a tray of ponchiki, sweet Russian doughnuts covered in powdered sugar, and silently offered them to Lara, still holding the phone.

  “May I have one for later?”

  “Have two.”

  The woman wiped her hands on her apron and picked up two of the sweet rolls, wrapping them in paper towels. Lara dropped them both in her purse; she was a morning person, not a breakfast person.

  In a dry change of clothes, Nikki stowed her wheeled suitcase in the truck bed, started the engine, and steered the big Dodge Ram pickup down the hill. As they passed over it, Lara could see the stream was still high, just inches below the rough boards of the little wooden bridge.

  Out of nowhere, Nikki said, “My father likes you.”

  “I like him too.”

  He took his eyes off the road for a moment to meet her gaze. “You shouldn’t. He’s not the nice guy he appears.”

  “And you are?”

  He turned back to his driving. “No, but I don’t pretend to be.”

  Another silence, and then he said, “About last night … well … I could see Father was taken with you so, naturally, I had to do what I could to drive you away.”

  She looked across at him. “And so this morning you’re driving me away?”

  He smiled, briefly. “I shouldn’t have involved you in a family fight. Prostitye, Larissa Mendelova.”
/>   “Spasibo, Nikolai Grigorevich.”

  Nothing was said for the next five kilometers as Lara gazed out at the traffic in her side-view mirror. If objects are closer than they appear—the printed warning on the truck’s mirror said as much—traffic must be right on top of them, especially the silver-and-red motorcycle flashing in and out of her line of sight in a mirror that was the size of her iPad’s screen. Which reminded her—she hadn’t checked her email since yesterday. She’d do it first chance.

  “My place is on Lubyanskiy proyezd. It’s a one-way street, so you have to—”

  He smiled. “I know my way around.”

  Chapter 43

  Moscow

  Lara’s apartment, three blocks from the Kitay-gorod metro stop, was on the fifth floor of a building that had been put up in the ’50s to house minor party officials. In other words, the lift worked.

  She prayed her tenant/roommate had gone to work today, hawking her lipsticks and eyeliners at the counter in TsUM, and that she hadn’t left her stuff all over the bathroom the way she usually did, because Lara was looking forward to a nice long soak in the tub.

  “Katrina! Trina, you here?”

  The silence was wonderful. Lara made a quick visual survey of the place. A dishtowel was draped over the kitchen doorknob, the fern was dying from a lack of water, and the goldfish, Mr. Russky, was frantically splashing in his bowl close to the unopened jar of fish food. Next to it, her grandfather’s prized Prussian helmet, booty from the First World War, was covered in dust. If Lara wasn’t around to do it … Katrina couldn’t cook, she couldn’t sew, and she wouldn’t clean. Or rather, she performed what Viktor called “Chechen battlefield housekeeping.” She’d make some poor schnook the perfect post-Soviet wife.

  Lara quickly fed the grateful Mr. Russky and looked around. A few pieces of mail—bills, apparently—had been left on the little half-moon table in the foyer. Her backup handbag was lying on its side next to the mail. She hadn’t left it like that, had she? She strode into the bedroom, shrugging off her jacket and dropping it on the bed.

  There was a brown wallet, a set of keys and some pocket change on the bedside table. Opening the wallet, she saw a laminated ID card for a Major Vassily Bondarenko. Under the name it read, “Commanding Officer, Sakhalin Island Garrison,” but the clear, sharp picture grinning back at her was definitely that of her husband, Viktor.

  Behind her she heard the bathroom door start to open. She turned and saw, walking into the bedroom and wearing only a bath towel, Russian Intelligence Officer and Hero of the War in Chechnya Viktor Nikolayevich Maltsev.

  He was drying his hair, not that it looked wet, with one of the hand towels and saying, “You’ve never seen that before, have you, Larashka?”

  “What is it? Who’s Bondarenko?”

  “Nobody.”

  Lara sighed. “Is there anything about you that isn’t a mystery?”

  “My love for you.” The man grinned, just like his picture. Thanks to the Army’s free dentistry, his capped teeth were his best feature.

  She sighed a bigger sigh. “What are you doing here, Viktor?”

  “Is that any way to welcome your hero, home from the field of battle?”

  “The battle of the sexes, you mean.” She hated playing the bitchy wife, but he gave her no choice.

  “Okay, I’ll rephrase: Is this any way to welcome your husband, home from the wars?”

  “Ex-husband, Viktor. Ex-husband.”

  He was rubbing his hair vigorously, so his words were somewhat muffled by the towel. “Not until I sign the papers. Till then, I’m all yours.”

  Lara had never noticed that thinning spot of his, right on top. How long had it been since she ran her fingers through his hair? “You were never all mine. That’s why we’re getting the divorce.”

  He dropped the crumpled hand towel. “You’re getting the divorce. I like things just the way they are.”

  “I’ll bet you do.” She let herself drop down and sit on the edge of the bed. “Viktor, why are you here?”

  He parked himself in the chair across from her. “I told you I had some leave coming, so I came. Thought I’d surprise you and let myself in. Then, when you didn’t show up, I called your mobile a few times. But all I got was your recording. Let’s see, what did I do next? Went through your old handbag, but it was empty. Listened to the calls on your landline’s machine, and then …”

  “You listened to my calls?”

  “Yeah. Maybe one of them was from that Gerasimov guy you’re seeing, and I could—”

  “What? Call him back and threaten him?”

  Viktor flashed that smile again. “I don’t threaten to do stuff; I do stuff. No, I just wanted to ask him where you were. But then I heard a couple of messages from Pavel. Are you two having an—”

  “Me and Pavel?” She wanted to laugh and cry, both. “No, we’re not … having … anything.”

  “He sure sounds jealous of you and that Grisha guy. Anyway, since I knew I had no way to get in touch with you, I guess I … dozed off.”

  She stood up again and walked around the bed, away from him. “I don’t like you listening to my private calls. In fact, I hate it.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, I’m the head of Electronic Intelligence, that’s what we do. Besides, this guy you’re working for, Gerasimov, seems like one bad dude.”

  Lara picked up the crumpled hand towel from where he’d dropped it on the floor. She’d have to get a fresh one from the linen closet in the other bedroom. She started to move toward the bathroom hamper when Viktor took the towel from her hand and began smoothing it out. “It’s just a little damp. Don’t go tidying up on my account.”

  He put the towel on the towel bar. Immediately, Lara took it off the bar and dropped it in the hamper, saying, “I’m not drying myself with that. It’s been on the floor.”

  She moved toward the door to Katrina’s room and Viktor stopped her, grabbing her wrist. “Can’t we try again, Larashka? Forget the towels, come to bed with me, I miss you.” He was actually pulling her toward their bed.

  Lara let herself think it over. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what she’d ever seen in him. She broke free of his grip. “I’m over missing you, Viktor. I want you to go.”

  With the officiousness of a chambermaid at the Ukraina, Lara pushed open the door to the far bedroom and strode over to the linen closet. She looked around. Her roommate never made her bed. She’d left all the bedding in a vast lump down the middle of the mattress. Better get out a set of sheets and pillowcases while she was at it.

  Looking a little closer, Lara saw there was a bit of color amid the tousled sheets on the bed. A bit of khaki color. Lara gave a little tug, and she was holding Viktor’s Army-issue boxer shorts.

  “I was sleepy from the flight here, so I took a nap till you got home.” He walked over and took the boxers, putting them on with the bath towel still around his waist.

  Lara said, “Sleepy? Is that what you call it?” She was looking at a square inch of exposed female flesh where the boxers had been. Taking hold of the duvet cover, Lara pulled it and the tangle of sheets off the bed. There was Katrina, wearing nothing but a smile.

  Not again. Not in her own flat.

  Trina tried to pull the sheet up around herself, but it was caught under her. Her embarrassed giggle didn’t go with the mood in the room. “Larashka, I won’t insult your intelligence by saying it’s not what you think.”

  Lara turned to leave the room and came back with Viktor‘s wallet. When she threw it at him, she missed his ear by a couple of centimeters. Damn. She said, “Viktor … Vassily … whatever your name is … you and Katrina have five minutes to clear out. That’s what I think.”

  Retreating to the kitchen, she fixed herself tea with shaky hands. Just as the teapot whistled on the stove, she heard the apartment door slam behind the two of them. She sat down with her tea and cried.

  Chapter 44

  With the shock wearing off and the tear
from her one working duct drying on her cheek, Lara knew, if she wanted those divorce papers signed, she was going to have to make up with Viktor. But not right now. Right now, she desperately needed a long hot soak.

  At least the bathroom was reasonably presentable. She dropped the stopper in the drain and turned on the taps. Grabbing the mat from the towel bar, she spread it on the floor. On a shelf above the soap dish was her collection of American bath salts from the ’40s, each a different floral scent in a colorful paper packet, like seeds. She reached for Lily-of-the-Valley.

  Some cold warrior from Washington or New York must have brought them in to trade for—what? A drink? A meal? Information? Who gives away the location of a missile base for a bunch of bubble bath? Black market collectible or not, Lara ripped open the packet and let the powder run out under the faucet.

  Almost immediately, the strong, and strongly artificial, fragrance filled the air. While the tub was filling, Lara went and got her mobile. Letting her clothes fall to the tile floor, she carefully placed the phone on the wide flat edge of the tub. It was reckless, she knew; one false move on her part and it was checkmate, electronics. But she needed to be connected to the outside world.

  As soon as she put it down, the phone rang. It was her brother. “Larashka!”

  “Lev?”

  “You were right! Someone did try to kill me, but I got him instead.”

  “Lev, what? How? Are you all right!? Where are you?”

  “I’m fine, but you should see the other guy. I left him in the wildlife area where they’ve started drilling. Or rather, not drilling.”

  “Lev, slow down, I don’t understand.”

  “I’m up near Prudhoe, calling you on a satellite phone. They’re supposed to be drilling for oil, only they’re not. That warning you got … it was for real. The guard here tried to kill me, almost did too. Look, I don’t know how much more juice this baby still has, and I have to call around for an emergency room.”