THE PRICE SHE'LL PAY: For the secret she never knew she had...

by Cara Charles

  Johan spent his youth around predators and he recognized that trait in Mavra Kimirov.

  So had little Hansie.

  Johan’s doorbell rang, twelve minutes later. He bristled, thinking she was back. He threw his lap robe over his collected personal effects on his ottoman. ‘Persistent. Being a spoiled brat, no one has ever said no to her.’

  Johan looked through the peephole. It was just Jacob from the cheese shop with a gift basket.

  Hansie knew who it was.

  Johan opened it. Jacob bent down and gave Hansie a small dog cookie, which Hansie dropped.

  He wanted what was in the basket.

  “No sausage, sorry Hansie. A basket for you. From a pretty lady, sir. Former student?”

  “Hello, Jacob. Just someone trying to persuade me to work for her.”

  “Might be a good thing.”

  “No. Not my cup of tea.”

  “See you tonight at rehearsal?”

  “Yes. Ah Jacob? Was the basket ever out of your sight or Hilda’s?”

  “For a few seconds, as she wrote the card. Two men entered as I got my jacket.”

  “You never know about people, these days.”

  “You told her no, didn’t you?”

  “I told her maybe. She needed to convince me first.”

  “Should I take it back then?”

  “No, no. I’m sure it’s all right. Just remember I asked you about it.”

  “Of course. Doctor, don’t give Hansie the sausage. It’s too rich for old dogs. Remember last time. Good night, little Hansie.”

  “How could I forget how we almost lost him? See you soon, Jacob.”

  Mavra sent a basket with artisan breads, smoked sausages, and a cheese assortment. Inside a note, thanking him for the chat if he ever changed his mind before their results came in, to find her in Zurich. Her note smelled of her perfume.

  Hansie barked and sat up for his treat.

  ‘Good try, but no go, darling,’ he thought.

  The ominous feeling stayed. He smelled the sausage. It smelled normal. He fed Hansie a tiny slice of sausage.

  Dr. Titus went to the dining room to open his floor safe under the rug. When he returned, Hansie’s little legs were twitching, the sausage gone, the basket on the floor.

  “Hansie? Hansie? Oh my God. No! Hansie, my boy, my little boy.”

  He checked his carotid, nothing. He did CPR and puffed into his little gray muzzle. Nothing. Realizing his little dog had been poisoned, he wiped his own mouth, lifted Hansie to listen for a heartbeat. Nothing.

  Johan broke down and cried and cradled his little dog in his arms. When he had composed himself, he smelled the cheeses. It all smelled of almonds. He’d lost about four to five minutes. He pulled an old shawl from behind his chair placed his little friend in it, removed his collar and kissed him good-bye. He wrapped Hansie in it, and grabbed a pillow.

  With tears in his eyes, he grabbed a trowel and broom and went to his rose garden. With his pent up anger and grief, he quickly dug a hole, kissed his little bundle for the last time, and buried his precious Hansie.

  “Until we meet again, my little friend.” Johan planted a miniature potted rose bush over his old Hansie. Nothing looked disturbed. Johan looked at his watch, they’d be coming soon.

  He quickly put his wife’s photo, a thick journal, Hansie's collar, coat and leash in his bag, emptied his safe of manuscripts, boxes of computer stick drives, money and an old leather shaving kit full of jewelry, then spun the dial.

  Upstairs, he grabbed his old overcoat, old wallet, stuffed his bed with pillows, added his wife’s old hairpiece to the pillow and tucked it under the blanket, as a final touch and chuckled. He had thirty seconds. He was nearly ready.

  Johan opened the door to listen to the quiet street, now absolutely empty. Everyone was at practice. He looked at his watch. The LSD should be hitting her now. If she had alcohol in the next hour, the additive would potentiate the dose and she’d be high for five days. He’d found out the hard way and spent a week in a mental institution. By the look of her skin, she was a drinker, like every Russian he’d ever known. She’d be in a rage when she came down, days from now.

  He had days to get to Zurich. He’d live off his Swiss bank account and sabotage her lab. Johan looked at his list, grabbed his photo album, lap top, address book, revolver and bullets, stuffed them in a backpack, grabbed the food basket and left his home from his basement, through an old tunnel he had dug over sixty years ago, after the Russians visited him.

  Johan was in his neighbor’s carriage house, when two men quietly entered his kitchen.

  ‘Where’s the dog,’ motioned the first guy inside.

  ‘Sleeping upstairs,’ pointed the other guy.

  ‘Where’s the old man?’ motioned the first guy.

  The second guy drew his finger across his throat and smiled.

  The explosion rocked the rehearsal hall.

  Johan heard the sirens, and saw the flames as his train pulled out. He’d used too much C-4. He prayed they could put out the fire.

  As the train passed over the river, Johan dropped the basket contents into the water, keeping the basket. She used a spray. He’d analyze what she’d used and use it against her.

  Johan opened his mother’s leather rosary holder. Inside was Herta’s hair, his most precious possession. Before he died, he’d find the right person to give it to.

  One thing Dr. Johan Herman Titus knew, he’d pay Mavra Kimirov back.

  What Johan did from now on would matter, greatly.

  Mavra did take a week to come down. She’d holed up in a spa as they detoxed her. She thought someone at the club had spiked her drink. Only two bodies were found in the charred remains of the house, still unidentified. Where was his dog? Something nagged at her, the missing dog. But the fire had been a hot one and probably cremated Titus and the yappy dog.

  Switzerland was still the land of privacy underscored by increasingly strong world controversy. Her first call was to Dr. Herman Wise in America.

  Dr. Wise said he’d do her networking and agreed to Switzerland as her chosen place to build their lab. So she bought a small boarding school for them, and promised Dr. Wise they’d have every luxury.

  Instead of hanging out with her jet set friends, Mavra told them she was at an exclusive retreat taking the cleanse.

  Disguised as a middle-aged well-heeled divorcee, her story was that she was setting up a new apartment in Zurich. The shopkeepers and grocers loved another rich patron. Mavra in her matronly disguise ran around town buying expensive wines, clothes, watches, briefcases, skis, any incentive present she thought a geeky scientist would love. She bought them young women, too, completely unknown to the scientists. Innocently a pretty woman would strike up a conversation with one of them as they enjoyed the little coffee shops and bistros.

  One day Mavra met all her scientists in the teacher’s room at the old boarding school. Ceremoniously Dr. Wise introduced her. She felt like a Queen holding court. The applause was infectious.

  “My dear, Geniuses. What you will be doing will be revolutionary, but top secret. Please do not discuss the work with your significant others. I’d hate for the press or our competition to get wind of our mission here.” ‘Or other ethical scientists whose motives were for the science not the money,’ she thought. Mavra shook their hands and left the room.

  Late one evening in Zurich, Dr. Titus was sitting in the back of the Sprungli Café, his collar up, his neck wrapped in a black wool scarf, wearing his own blond wig under his Cossack wool hat.

  Looking out the window he recognized Matron Mavra in her brown wig and a padded middle-aged, thick midriff, fat woman suit. Matron Mavra had just come out of Tom Ford’s men’s shop. The manager helped put garment bags and parcels into the taxi, kissed both of Mavra’s heavily-rouged cheeks, and sent her on her way.

  The waiter handed Johan a note as her cab turned left and Johan rose to follow, “A man left this for you.”

  CH
APTER THIRTEEN -- MAD SCIENCE

  “WHAT MAN?”

  “Long gone. Said I was to give you this, ten minutes after he left.”

  “Thank you.” Johan opened the sealed note and read.

  ‘Your wig is too obvious Dr. Titus. You need lifts in your shoes. If I know you, she’ll know you. Your secret is safe as long as you meet me here tomorrow at your table, 11am sharp. You’re needed on our team. JTR.’

  Dr. Titus wiped the cold sweat from his brow, and looked at the patrons. All were engaged in reading or talking. His shadow was long gone. He had no time for this. Johan quickly left money for his coffee and pastry.

  Luckily, Johan caught up with her taxi in his old Renault. He followed her to an expensive apartment block and watched her go inside as the doorman rescued her from the burden of her parcels.

  Johan in his ‘not so good’ disguise, waited in the tavern across the street for an hour.

  A waiter approached with another note. Furious, Johan grabbed it before the waiter could utter a word. Johan stood up and looked around. Seeing no one, he read ‘be less obvious, more careful. We need you. JTR’.

  Johan watched Matron Mavra leave with a briefcase, dressed for a party, then left to follow.

  Shadowing Mavra’s cab in his old non-descript Renault, Johan entered Regensberg, a village ten miles outside Zurich and drove on as she entered the gates of a girl’s boarding school. The school had been quickly renovated with lots of Kimirov money, her new genetics lab with dormitories was no longer the shuttered, abandon girl’s boarding school.

  Janitor had stayed far behind Dr. Titus’ old rust bucket. He’d nearly lost the ‘Smart old codger’ several times. By Dr. Titus’ reaction he was not a man with a sense of humor.

  At her Muse Corp Lab’s grand opening, Mavra changed her matron clothes, climbed out of the bodysuit that gave her waistline bulges and put on her Armani business suit to telegraph her authority.

  She laid out all the contracts and the non-disclosure agreements she had proudly prepared herself, copying the templates from other contracts drawn up by her lawyers in the past. Within those documents, she’d offered the scientists and their assistants millions of dollars in salaries, had bonuses tied to incentives and production timetables, sweetened with holiday and vacation time luxury property timeshares, and generous profit sharing.

  The grand opening bash Mavra provided and the lavish buffet she was accustomed to herself she had duplicated for her team. Plus all the young beautiful women she had flown in for the occasion, made the stuffy academics party hard, for the first time in their stuffy little lives, probably since graduate school or maybe never.

  Hours later, all the scientists were happy and drunk on Dom and sex. That night they happily signed without reading over their contracts.

  The first duty of the lab to warm up the machines was a trial run designed by Mavra. Mavra had her lab analyze the DNA in the small hair sample found in the briefcase against the one she’d added from the sample she’d stolen from the trash of an ethnic beauty shop.

  Dr. Wise’s assistant handed her the test results. One of the samples was the oldest DNA they had ever found, even though quite degraded, they told her.

  “Which sample?” She asked

  “Sample B.”

  They passed. That Sample B was Herta’s hair from Ivan’s briefcase.

  Dr. Wise asked, “Miss Kimirov? Where’d this sample come from?”

  “A mummy. It was a test.”

  “Did we pass?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are we to expect any more tests like this?”

  “Perhaps. Loyalty is not always earned. It is demanded, by testing.”

  “Good luck with that philosophy. Loyalty like love and trust is one of the only things that can’t ever be demanded. It has to be earned. It can only be given from the heart. Good-day.”

  Dr. Wise and his loyal assistant had done the test themselves, keeping her game away from the others.

  During her first research trip to Israel, a nagging instinct told Mavra to get back to New York immediately after she’d inspected the contents of Ivan’s secret Berlin basement apartment. While in the Nuremberg archive however, Mavra read a footnote from one of the Ravensbruck files used in the Nuremberg trials. That footnote said, “Ravensbruck lab samples sent to U.S. Smithsonian.”

  On the trip back to NYC, Mavra brainstormed on how to locate those samples.

  Back in NYC, Mavra went straight to her grandfather’s Central Park West residence and let herself in. She immediately noticed the air had the scent of a new fire in the fireplace. She quietly opened the double doors to the study.

  Ivan was burning the contents of the old briefcase in the fireplace. When he noticed her, the wild look in his eyes gave him away. He knew, she knew and she knew, he knew, she knew.

  She held his gaze, acutely aware avoiding his eyes would be stupid of her. “I’m back Deduska.” She kissed his cheek.

  “Darling. Good trip?”

  “The yacht will be ready in four weeks Deduska! I’m so excited! You’ll love the decor, so relaxing and elegant. Burning out the spiders, huh?”

  “Good news. Must always be systematic, right darling?”

  “Absolutely, you taught me well.”

  Mavra felt his eyes carving holes in her back as she poured them both a Brandy. Mavra went on and on about the trips she was planning for them.

  They listened to Handel, sipped their brandy, and watched the fire together, the gulf between them widening as each stroke of the antique grandfather clock devoured Ivan’s love for her.

  Ivan had felt her looking at him while he’d been lost in thought. She was clever, but not as practiced at clever as he was.

  After dinner, Mavra had watched the sign of resignation cross Ivan’s mind, as she peered at him over The Wall Street Journal. She heard him sigh. A sudden panic grew inside her. She dare not look at him now. She suddenly felt terribly alone, as Ivan’s heart drifted away from her forever. Tears were stinging her eyes. She fought hard to contain them.

  Ivan had slipped away from Mavra to journey back to old memories, seeking refuge from Peder’s shocking video of her betrayal.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN — IVAN

  AT THE BREAK-UP of the USSR, moderate mining assets had been placed in Ivan’s lap and that of Yvgany, his son. Someday, Ivan’s new fortune would belong to his grandson Igor and his highly intelligent, precocious granddaughter Mavra, smarter and more ruthless than any of them. Ivan had convinced Yvgany to follow all the rules, treat the workers with respect and not get greedy. They worked hard at protecting their growing fortune, by not over spending and careful conservative investing. However when they bought an old mining company in America their problems began. Rapidly the infrastructure of the mine was compromised by unknown geological changes. They immediately fixed the problem gaining the respect of the workers. But tragedy found them anyway and the mine collapsed and good men died, leaving their families vulnerable.

  Ivan felt responsible for them and provided for them and their children paying off mortgages, creating college trust funds, and finding the widows employment or re-education and a trust fund for them to cover living expenses for their life times.

  Mavra adamantly disagreed, but Ivan ignored her this time. She knew nothing about being hungry, personal loss or tragedy. She revealed daily she lacked empathy and that disgusted him. He never knew this part of her existed, until now.

  Mavra had refused to come into the family business and Ivan agreed but he kept her current on the business dealings, at their weekly family dinners. She’d slam her fist on the table and mock their stupidity. He’d give her a look, she’d calm down then and would explain in terms, “a monkey could understand” why her solution was better than theirs. She was never wrong. Ivan realized early on she had a killer instinct for business but she didn’t want to be tied down to a daily grind. She loved being the strategy consultant.

  When Ivan applied her suggestions against the
advice of his son and grandson, Kimirov Mining made a lot more money. Ivan would buy her a beautiful set of birthstone earrings to match the month in which her suggestion brought them more riches. By keeping her mind unencumbered, she was able to be a highly objective consultant and strategist. Mavra had not ever disappointed him, until last year when she had a fit he’d overpaid the lawsuit award to protect the miner’s families.

  For decades, Ivan had arrogantly kept the briefcase information and the restored sets of copies as a bargaining chip, but when he had made his own fortune in mining in so short a time, he had ceased to yearn so much for Herta, except every anniversary when he was alone in his Berlin basement apartment, with his memories of Winnie and Herta. His mind sought solace in Herta’s memory, and the bittersweet memory of Winnie, his brave, beautiful, heroic, long lost true love.

  He’d imagine Herta happy, wherever she was. He kept looking for her in the magazines. Any photographer coming upon her would take her picture. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Ivan meant to destroy the old briefcase files when the family had died in the crash, except Mavra. But he’d also been a sentimental fool, thinking his money could find Herta or his beloved Winifred.

  Rescuing Winifred and Herta had happened a lifetime ago. He hoped Herta had a quiet life of her own with some shred of happiness. He’d loved his wife very much, but it was Winnie who had stolen his heart forever. He didn’t want to believe she hadn’t escaped, but it was clear to him, she’d given her life so that he and Herta could live.

  Since the day Winnie left their bombed out apartment, he’d been out of his mind with worry. With all of his resources, he’d never been able to find a trace of her.

  ONCE A YEAR, on the anniversary of their meeting, Ivan would comb the cemeteries around Berlin and her hometown, and the mass graves of all Berlin’s train stations’ drowning victims, hoping to see her name added there. He’d searched her hometown Heidelberg, and the University just to walk in her footsteps and imagine her young and her student life there. He’d re-visit her family’s graves, her name never among them, hoping to find a trace of her or a distant relative. He never did.