The Bookworm
Page 21
He pressed Power and, as the virtual desktop built itself, a message appeared: “For official use/Army of the Commonwealth of Independent States.”
Lara glanced over and observed, “That thing’s an antique.”
“The hardware, maybe. The software’s up to date. Anyway, it’s all we’ve got; can’t be sure the snoops aren’t still watching your iPad.”
Katrina was not to be ignored by the ex-couple. “Tell me again how you know this … this trick … will work.”
“I don’t.” Lara let out a bigger sigh than she meant to. “Let’s just say I have a hunch, a chess player’s read of Nikki, the guy across the table. You should have heard him at dinner; he hates the British and the Americans.”
“Why did he steal the Bible now, this week?”
“To plaster the damning evidence of what the West did to us all over the walls of the Kremlin. With the whole country, the world watching. Anyway, it’s what I’d do.”
“I’m in.” Gerasimov’s ID and password, Romance and Babies, admitted Viktor to the latest version of the prerecorded show. He swiveled his Army laptop around so the women could see the screen as he searched at high speed. When something with a white background flashed by on the screen, Viktor smacked the table with his hand. “Gotcha, boys!”
“What? Really?” Lara searched Viktor’s triumphant face.
He paused the streaming video and hit the Back button. This part of the evening was supposed to be the twenty-five-minute light show playing across the Kremlin’s façade that coordinated with a fireworks display. Running in reverse, the colors danced crazily on the built-in monitor, the Firebird Suite atonally playing backward. After a couple of minutes of running time, though, everything went white, or nearly white. In the middle of the screen was a large leather book, a Bible, open to the flyleaf.
“You were right, Larashka. They uploaded it nine minutes ago, replacing the approved show with this revised one … same file name and number,” Viktor told her. “Cute. Probably took them all this time to shoot the images in a studio somewhere and then cut them in. Figured no one would be rescreening an entire three-hour show this close to airtime. They’re good.” Viktor grinned again. “But I’m better.”
Lara asked, “How long will it take you?”
“An hour at most,” he said. “Let’s go over our cues.”
Chapter 66
Of the nearly half million souls gathered in Red Square as night fell, the handful whose fates were about to intersect had conflicting emotions. The US leader and the Russian president, not far from each other on the temporary metal rostrum just in front of the Kremlin wall, were elated. Hours earlier they shook hands on a deal each believed would guarantee personal, if not national, success for years to come.
Viktor Nikolayevich Maltsev, Katrina Petrovna Chernova, and especially Larissa Mendelova Klimt, in a roped-off section for guests of State Broadcasting and other departments, were as tightly strung as violin strings. Their thing tonight had better work. A failure would take place in front of the whole country in real time and on national television.
Meanwhile, the restive Muscovites out there in the cobbled Square were taking the rare opportunity to assemble in numbers without a permit or fear of being jailed as anti-Government demonstrators. There had been warm applause for the G20 leaders as they filed onto the risers, but only whistles greeted their own president. And Lara could count at least a hundred hand-lettered signs starting, “Down With …”
It could have been worse. The crowd tonight wasn’t concerned with politics, just economics. Surfing their phones and tablet computers or scanning the headlines of hastily purchased evening papers in the meager light of the Square’s streetlamps—dimmed to enhance the visibility of the images on the walls—they knew by now the price of a barrel of oil had fallen by 30 percent that afternoon on news that America had all but weaned itself off foreign oil for years to come. And the commentators were saying that, with most US energy traders still asleep in their beds, oil had even farther to fall—threatening to pull Russia’s economy down with it. Making more babies was suddenly the furthest thing from any Russian’s mind.
As the head of a government department, Gerasimov had to seem unconcerned. He was glad-handing the guests inside the rope, working the crowd before going back to the TV truck to oversee the production. When he came up to Lara, he leaned in to give her the traditional double kiss of greeting.
“Why couldn’t you have told me about your family?” she asked in a low voice amid the general hubbub. “I would have understood.”
He pulled back to look at her. “My family?”
“Nikki and Tatiana. Tatiana Ivanova Gerasimova … Tati … your wife. Your son I can understand. He makes no secret of his feelings. But Tatiana … when I saw her Tuesday night, she told me—”
“You saw her? Tuesday night? How is she? Did she … mention me?”
Over the man’s shoulder, she was watching Viktor, in full Army uniform with major’s braid on the visor of his service hat, ducking under the ropes and heading for the production truck. She needed to hold Gerasimov here, not let him return to the truck. “You? I’d only just met you that afternoon and I don’t think she knew about it. Besides, what could I have told her … then?”
Uh oh, wrong thing to say. He was embarrassed and turning away.
“Why did she leave you, Grisha?”
He turned back, angry now. “Irreconcilable differences, they call it.” Lowering his voice he added, “How can there be ‘differences’ if one person loves the other completely, without reservation?”
“Then, she fell out of love with you.”
“Over politics, can you believe it? Nikki’s politics.” He looked around; people in the VIP area were edging closer, trying to hear. “Look, I gotta go, I have a job to do.”
Behind him, Viktor was mounting the two metal steps to the truck. He needed more time.
“Over Nikki’s politics?”
He was angry again. “Do you have any idea what he does, him and his Nashi friends? They beat up people. Legislators who don’t vote to send us back to the Stone Age, to the Tsars, they put in the hospital. Or worse. Two crippled just last week.”
“What about Tati’s politics?”
“What about them?”
“She told me she was working for Kasparov, told me she was an admirer of mine … working for a free press, a more open government. But then I saw the video she made for Putin: it was all a lie.”
Gerasimov tried to pull away. “Sorry, I … I have to get back to …”
Lara had hold of his lapel so he couldn’t leave. She felt all this … angst … coming up, unbidden. “Where do you stand in all this? It’s time for the truth, Grisha. For instance, Tatiana’s job on the newscast … doing the weather … did you get that for her?”
“Why, uh, yes. Are you accusing me of nepotism?”
“No, just of lying. She got you the job, didn’t she? Her godfather was a Party bigshot back in the day, Mikhail Stoichkov … it’s amazing what you can find out from a couple of birth certificates, you know. Stoichkov ran everything in London during the war. Afterward, behind the scenes in the ’70s, he ran Moscow.”
The head of Gosteleradio started to say something but thought better of it.
A tear rolled down Lara’s left cheek, followed by another. “Everything this week has been a lie. The suicide note of Lev’s murdered friend Craig. The Americans striking oil in Alaska, that one’s a whopper. Oh, and the lie that started it all—the false prophecy of Nostradamus you wanted me to find for you.”
“Me? Don’t be absurd. That was Nikki.” A few of the nearby guests, hearing the raised voice, looked at him.
Lara said, “Tell me you’re not working for the guy in the Kremlin.”
Lowering his voice to an urgent whisper he said, “My wife and son don’t get along. Never have. If she says ‘up,’ he says ‘down.’ I wasn’t a bad husband, just a lousy referee.” He stopped and looked at her.
“I can see you don’t understand.”
She grabbed him by the shirt with both hands. “No, you don’t understand.” To her shock, a tear had formed itself in her right eye and was rolling down that cheek too. “I felt something for you, Grisha. Dammit, I made love to you! I let you … in.” She was awash in tears now.
He pried her hands, gently this time, from his shirt. “Look, I have to go. The show’s starting. I have a job to do.”
To his back, as he moved off, Lara whispered, “So do I.”
Chapter 67
Mikhail Baryshnikov stepped to the microphone. Behind him, the first image of the evening was projected upon the Kremlin walls and music from the Bolshoi Ballet’s Giselle welled up: archival footage showed his much younger self performing an effortless jeté that took him from the Tsar’s Tower all the way to the Arsenal.
“Ugrozy vzryva!”
Seven startled technicians and Pyotr Tamnov, the director in the Channel One truck, swiveled their heads as an Army major strode into their protected area.
“You heard me,” the soldier said, “there’s a bomb threat. Vacate the premises now.”
“But, the broadcast …” Tamnov began.
“Just let it run. We received a call threatening the bigwigs out there. Everybody, please … I must conduct a sweep. This will take less than ten minutes. Get something to eat, take a bathroom break, whatever. And give me your keys. No one gets back in till I’m sure it’s safe.”
As soon as the last man was out the door, Viktor locked it and un-holstered his Yarygin 9mm service pistol. If and when the authorities realized what was happening, they’d be coming through that door. Or at least trying to.
Viktor popped the DVD he and Lara had made thirty minutes earlier into the slot on the console. Finding the exact point in the prerecorded show where the graphics accompanying the fireworks display would begin, he overwrote the entire sequence, Bible and all. Fireworks, indeed.
A knock came from outside. “It’s Grigoriy Alexandrovich. Why is this door locked?”
When Viktor didn’t answer, the knock came again, louder this time. “Let me in, Pyotr. Now!”
From her vantage point in the crowd, Lara could see Gerasimov on the metal steps, banging on the door to the truck before taking out his phone and using it. Then he hurried off. Meanwhile, Baryshnikov soldiered on, intoning the words of the poet Igor Mikhailusenko as more images from the ballet swept across the walls behind him:
On a quiet night, unearthly,
Over Saturn—first time thus—
Two young beings danced the tango,
Thinking tenderly of us …
Two young beings danced the tango,
Danced away outside the Earth,
And to distant cosmos vistas
Rocket ships in peace sailed forth.
Two young beings danced the tango—
Saturn gave that pair a ring,
Cupid aimed straight at their hearts
In that interplanetary Spring!
The young red-haired tough, off to the side in the shadows, saw Gerasimov trying to get in the truck. Something wasn’t right; the man was locked out. Nikki’s orders were clear: make sure nothing went wrong with the telecast that would expose the Bible to the world.
In the roped-off section, Lara saw him go up to the truck and try the door handle. She turned to Katrina, holding a large takeout container of coffee, and told her, “Idti.”
Buzz Cut was taking something out of his pocket, a penknife or a pick for the lock. Lara repeated the order, more sharply this time, to her ex-roommate. “Go!”
The woman didn’t budge. “Why do I have to?”
“Because your druga, Viktor, needs you.” Lara gave her a gentle but firm shove toward the rope that separated the guests from the working area. “Now, go!”
Finally, Trina moved toward the mobile studio. Just as she was passing the production truck she suddenly tripped, spilling the coffee all over herself.
The guy was still bent over the lock. Damn, had he missed her whole act? Trina was making an enormous fuss now, bemoaning her clumsiness, even as everyone else in Red Square was engrossed in the festivities a hundred meters away.
The kid finally looked down from what he was doing and saw the woman at the foot of the steps, ineffectually dabbing at the huge stain on her dress. Could he help her? Did he have a hankie? She said something to him, and absently gripped the boy’s arm to support herself as she dealt with her outfit.
The old Damsel in Distress ploy, not as good as the Lover in Peril, but just as time-honored—would it still work in the twenty-first century? No, Alexei did nothing to help her. But wait, he did nothing to move her hand off his arm either. Then, in her frantic efforts, she managed to spill what was left of the coffee on him, too.
Edging the young man down the steps and around the side of the truck, she began dabbing at various places on his trousers, centrally located places mostly, which Alexei didn’t seem to mind at all. Finally, Katrina prevailed upon him to move off toward the portable lavatories, so she might get a wet paper towel for them both. Or something. It would buy Viktor a little more time.
Just as Alla Pugachova was following Baryshnikov to the microphone, a woman stepped in front of Lara, blocking her view. It was Tatiana Ivanova, Grisha’s meteorologist of a wife.
“Do you still have the book, Larissa Mendelova? If so, you have us over a barrel. I’m authorized to double our previous offer to you: ten million rubles.”
“Authorized by whom? Garry Kasparov? You can stop pretending, Tati, I know which side you’re on. My friend Pavel sent me your vodcast.”
A look of utter sadness flickered across the woman’s face. “He was my friend, too. In fact, he worked for me.”
Pugachova had launched into the sad tale of the artist who sold everything he had to fill the street outside his lover’s window with millions of roses, and the crowd was responding, as Russians loved to do. A million hands began clapping rhythmically out there in the Square. There was no way anyone could have a conversation, but Lara tried.
“Worked for you at the Broadcast Center?”
“Worked for me at British Intelligence. I’m a … field officer, I guess you’d call it. I wormed my way into making that video so I could … so we could …”
She looked at her wristwatch. “Look, we’re wasting time. The only reason I’m telling you this, blowing my cover, is we’re desperate to keep that Bible from falling into the wrong hands … my son’s hands. Now, how about it?”
It felt like a punch to the gut. Had Lara been wrong about absolutely everything? And everyone? To the rhythmic clapping the crowd now added foot stamping as Pugachova launched into her song of love.
Once upon a time there lived an artist
A house he had and canvases
But he loved an actress,
An actress who desired only flowers …
He then sold his house
Sold his paintings, too
And with all the money he bought
An entire ocean of flowers!
Lara could see the woman was telling the truth. She pulled Tatiana close and spoke in her ear so she could be heard above the din. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Nikki has the Bible, the recordings, everything.”
The other woman drew back with a look of horror. “Oh my God, have you any idea what you’ve done?!”
Before Lara could explain, the woman had hurried off into the crowd.
Chapter 68
Inside the production truck, Viktor was almost done with the transfer. The thin aluminum cladding of the metal box only amplified the thumping and stamping from outside. Pugachova was taking them higher, clapping her own hands high over her head, urging the crowd’s participation in the chorus of her beloved classic:
Millions and millions and millions
Of scarlet roses
From your window, from your window, from your window
You can see
Who’s in love, who
’s in love, who’s in love
For real
Will turn his life for you … into blossoms
wide as the sea.
Russia’s beloved diva had everyone’s attention, artfully lowering her singing voice to little more than a whisper for dramatic irony as she reprised the opening verse:
Once upon a time there lived an artist
A house he had and canvases
But he loved an actress,
An actress who desired only flowers …
He then sold his house
Sold his paintings, too
And with all the money he bought
An entire ocean of flowers!
It would only be clear afterward, when the feeds from the various cameras in the Square were played back, that the problem began with the gasp from the crowd, reacting to the new sequence of images on the Kremlin walls behind the dignitaries.
As big as a football pitch, the image of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge had its own kind of industrial beauty, in stark contrast to those of the dancers and roses it replaced: a working oilfield with at least a dozen structures large and small and drilling apparatus everywhere, set in a natural bowl carved out by the Canning River just before it emptied into the deep blue of the Beaufort Sea.
The Russian leader’s mistake came in trying to turn around and see what was going on behind him. He lost his balance on the risers and fell several steps to the bottom, just as Pugachova was striding off, blowing kisses to the crowd. His guards at first assumed he was heading down to the microphone, albeit awkwardly, for an impromptu speech. But he’d sprained his ankle in the fall. When he tried to stand up, the ankle wouldn’t support him. The second time he fell, he tripped over the exposed microphone cord and killed the mic.
Meanwhile, the scheduled fireworks display was going off in the night sky. But instead of a Stravinsky soundtrack, a woman’s narration took over, describing the visual splashed across the Kremlin: “You’re looking at the northernmost region of the state of Alaska, the very state in America where one of our honored guests announced his people had struck oil. Those of you with smartphones can go right now to Google Earth, and you can confirm for yourselves that this is what you’ll see.”