For the time being, however, he still had to deliver real results, and his terror of getting caught “improvising,” as he liked to call it, was starting to wear on him. The nightmares, the tremble in his pinky finger, the days of insomnia before any meeting with a superior, and the crushing lower back pain that seemed to start at his arches and shoot up to his buttocks before lodging itself at the base of his spine had all intensified as expectations of him increased and he was finally being considered for the very positions he’d been striving for, but had never got offered.
Finally, not two weeks before, Comrade General Pushkin—Kosmo Zablov’s superior—had revealed to him that a diplomatic post was indeed in his future, but not for another two to three years. By then, Pasha Tarkhan would be taking his seat at the big table in Moscow, and Zablov could replace him on the lobster and Lafite circuit, as it was called.
Two to three years was an eternity under his present circumstances. Not only could a colleague stumble upon his shortfalls, but a foreign agent could exploit them as well—the way Tony Geiger had done on numerous occasions.
Of course, what Zablov lacked in aptitude, he made up for in malevolence. He had learned a lot from his time under Stalin. When Geiger had made inquiries about him at Zablov’s favorite brothel in Berlin, the Russian agent knew it was the last straw. Kosmo Zablov was but one slip-up away from his whole house of cards collapsing, and this meant but one slip-up away from a bullet in his skull, or worse, a gulag, where he would die slowly. This was no time for him to be conservative.
So, once again Zablov created a trail of stolen documents and double agents, laying them at General Pushkin’s feet and prompting the order for the elimination of Tony Geiger. It was true that a couple of honest agents would be trampled in the crossfire, but Kosmo Zablov couldn’t make that his problem. Besides, confirming Tony Geiger’s death for the general gave Zablov the perfect cover for his trip to Romania, where he could finally do something to further his own career instead of merely protecting his hide.
“You’re early,” Nicolai Ceausescu said, devoid of his usual deadpan tone. “What a delight.”
Kosmo Zablov took a languid step over the threshold of the Romanian politician’s villa. A guard ushered him into Ceausescu’s library, while Elena, Nicolai’s wife, ran to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of private reserve Russian vodka out of her icebox. She put the vodka on a serving platter with some slices of Brânză de burduf cheese and two exquisite crystal glasses the President of Czechoslovakia had sent her, nearly dropping one as she fumbled to get it firmly in her grasp.
“Comrade!” Elena wailed, as she entered the library where her husband and the Russian were waiting. She put the serving platter on a French Renaissance coffee table and forced an open-mouthed smile that put nearly all of her irregular teeth and receding gums on display.
“I have ached every day since your last visit, and now my heart can sing once again,” Elena lathered in Russian as she kissed Zablov on both cheeks. The men sat, and she knelt between the two of them.
For the Ceausescus, a visit from a high-ranking member of the KGB was an event on par with a call from a head of state, a public appointment with the Secretary General. Especially now, when Romania was vulnerable to a Soviet crackdown.
“You’re too kind, Madam,” the Russian responded. Even putting their grotesquerie aside, Kosmo Zablov had never liked the Ceausescus very much. They were gruff, common and grossly sycophantic—like a lot of power couples these days. Still, they had their uses. “Nicolai, my comrade, I want to thank you personally for ridding me of my annoyance in Greece yesterday. My man in Athens tells me there has been a positive identification. Tony Geiger is out of our hair for good.”
Nicolai Ceausescu nodded.
“I always know I can count on you—the way you always know you can count on me to favor you in my reports—even if you’ve always been a little too independent at heart for Soviet tastes.”
“We are here to serve the great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” Elena interrupted. “We are happy to be slaves for you and would dig our own graves with our very own hands if we ever thought we had displeased you.”
Zablov crossed and uncrossed his legs.
“That won’t be necessary, Madam. Really, I’m only here to extend my thanks.” Zablov drank half of his vodka and picked up a slice of cheese, smelling it before putting it back down on the serving platter. “Of course, there has been a minor snafu in my regular report.”
Nicolai Ceausescu tilted his head, and his usually neutral mouth curved downward at its corners.
“Not on my end. Never that. I’m afraid a man in our diplomatic corps—a bit higher up on the food chain than I am—has had a few unfavorable things to say about you particularly, as well as some mildly derisive observations about your esteemed Secretary General.”
“But this is an outrage!” Nicolai Ceausescu blurted. “I mean, we have done nothing but served in our most humble and loving way.”
Zablov sighed.
“Of course you have. I know this. You know this. But I’m afraid Comrade Tarkhan—oop.” Zablov covered his mouth and shook his head with a slight tremor. “I’m afraid my Comrade, who I cannot name, believes your government has retained its Stalinist leanings despite the Politburo’s private condemnation of our late leader’s policies. You know these young up-and-comers. They’re not nearly as tolerant as someone of my experience.”
Nicolai Ceausescu slammed his open palm on the coffee table, causing the cheese platter to tremor. “I despise the cult of the individual as much as Comrade Khruschev! And I can say with supreme confidence that our esteemed Secretary General, whom I will serve till my death and have known since we rotted together in a concentration camp, deplores the actions of Comrade Stalin in the years after his great contribution to the Revolution.”
Nicolai Ceausescu rose and leaned his squat body against his bookshelves, fingering several volumes entitled The Glory of 1917.
“Did you know I owned every book ever written on Comrade Stalin?” Nicolai Ceausescu barked, putting his fist to his chest in an awkward, dramatic gesture. “But when I learned of his treachery and realized that I, too, had succumbed to believing he was a god—even if it was against everything my Marxist-Leninist beliefs were whispering—no, roaring from my heart—I burned every volume myself, putting out the fire with my bare hands.”
Nicolai Ceausescu opened his hands and shoved them in Zablov’s face so that the Soviet agent could see the scarred, wrinkled skin of his palms. In reality, the scars had been from a childhood incident concerning a dare and one hot piece of coal. His mother had whipped his burned palms when she found out, further mauling his skin.
“You’ve never needed to convince me of your loyalty, Comrade,” Zablov assured him, leaning back and brushing aside the Romanian’s hands. “But this is all nonsense that I’m sure can be cleaned up during your questioning after I’m forced to turn in the report next month. I wouldn’t worry about it at all.” Zablov stood and walked to the coat stand, taking his hat and raincoat as Elena Ceausescu struggled to help him dress.
“Please stay, Comrade,” she begged. “Our maid is a wonderful cook and we can make for you anything you love.”
“My dear Madam Ceausescu.” He smiled, touching her nose with his fingertip. “I’ve taken up too much of your time already.”
Kosmo Zablov thrilled to the feel of the cool, spring rain as he left the Ceausescu’s stuffy residence. He removed a small flask of Becherovka from his breast pocket and inhaled a deep sniff of the herbal liquor—a gift from Tarkhan for helping clean up the mess with his dead American mistress. He took a copious gulp. It was good.
Yes, Pasha Tarkhan had to go, and Nicolai Ceausescu was the perfect man to get rid of him.
Chapter 6
Moscow, Russia
Moscow was chilly and sullen, not at all the city of contradictions and enchantments from some of Lily’s favorite novels. She took an instant dislike to it, one cu
shioned only by the fact that the Hotel Rude—her new home, at least for the time being—felt as warm as the hearth-bed of a ski chalet. It was a pleasant contrast to the crisp “spring” air that Tony Geiger’s friend Fedot was extolling the virtues of as he led her away from the registration desk. With her suitcase in his little hand—he was at least a half-head shorter than Lily—he pressed the elevator call, then ushered her inside with a bow. Fedot stood next to her in the car, staring and smiling into her face without a trace of self-consciousness. Somehow, despite his odd demeanor, she felt a certain affection for him. But maybe it was just because he was a link to Tony, and Tony’s ugly death was still plaguing every moment of her waking life.
“And this is the Soviet Women’s Liberation from Tyranny Suite,” Fedot instructed, as he carried Lily’s suitcase through the sizeable double doors. Lily only smiled and nodded as she followed him, feeling acutely aware that the most casual observers—a grimacing woman dressed as a maid, but who carried herself with the authority of a police sergeant, and a toadying man from the concierge desk—were watching her every move.
Lily’s attention wandered to an unframed portrait of a woman. It hung above the camelback of a Biedermier sofa in desperate need of re-stuffing, and its artlessness clashed with the sofa’s scrolled arms and Sabre legs. The woman was depicted wearing a plain, pale blue babushka that matched her eyes and stared impassively at the suite before her. Lily thought she looked a bit like her mother without makeup.
“And if you need anything at all,” Fedot pledged, “Our front desk will be happy to assist you. Merely pick up your telephone and you will be connected to the lobby. The lobby is the only number your phone is suited to dial, but it’s also the only number you will need.” Fedot pointed to the plain, black phone as he took Lily’s suitcase into the bedroom and laid it on the bed. He grinned before opening it for her.
“So, you will like your stay at Hotel Rude,” he said.
“Yes, I’m sure I will.”
“I wrote some places down for you,” Fedot informed her, holding out a folded, brown paper. “Places of interest to enjoy with or without my assistance.”
Lily had no idea what it was that Fedot was trying to tell her, but she knew he believed he was being helpful. Every sentence he spoke seemed coded, and she realized that she and Tony had only begun to talk about her trip to Moscow when he was killed.
If she had a brain in her head, Lily thought, she would fly back to Boston and tell her father everything that had happened, including her short and mildly sordid—certainly strange—relationship with Tony Geiger. But for reasons that seemed to have nothing to do with self-preservation, she couldn’t bring herself to go that route.
The words “legacy” and “residue” wouldn’t stop resonating through her head in Tony’s offhand tough-talk, and Boston was nothing but residue for her. Broken promises, juvenile love affairs, frivolous friendships and, above all, a complete lack of inspiration awaited her there. That in itself was a kind of death.
“Tony,” she whispered. Lily couldn’t get the sardonic New Yorker out of her head. She wondered if he had a mother and siblings, or if he’d left behind a wife and kids. Somehow she doubted all that. She imagined that the only person he’d really left behind was her, and the more she thought about Tony, the more he mattered. He’d had a job—a job important enough to die for—and he’d really never been anything but fair to her, even if she didn’t matter much to him. She realized she was envious of him, and that envy was what had drawn her to his friend, Fedot, and Soviet Russia with a peculiar metal card and a membership in the American Communist Party. Tony Geiger had given her a taste of what it was like to be a part of real events, and once she’d tasted that, she wanted more and more of his world. Truth be told, she wanted Tony’s life, and as Fedot blabbered on about the wonders of communism and the liberated woman glowered at her like a strict nanny, she knew now that she was going to take it.
“With or without your assistance,” she repeated. “Of course.”
Fedot bowed before he left, leaving Lily with a sloppy pile of her warmest summer clothes heaped on her bed.
“Fedot,” she called, but he’d already closed the doors behind him. She’d forgotten to ask him where she could buy a jacket and a warmer sweater. Moscow was a good thirty degrees colder than Greece, and except for the brief respite of the too-warm Hotel Rude lobby, Lily had been freezing since she stepped off the plane. Freezing and hungry.
“Hello, room service please?” she inquired in English, then French, then German, but the line turned to static and went dead. Lily grunted and slammed the phone down, sitting at the edge of her mattress and taking in her suite for the first time.
She was perched on a French antique bed, flanked by incompatible modern lamps from a German designer. Three ornate Russian writing tables littered the living area and were, according to Fedot, built by a carpenter who had made a name for himself by building libraries in the late Czar’s family residences. Before his death, he’d become an ardent communist, Fedot had assured her.
All of the furniture had flaws that might have been fine had they been part of a collection in a home but made the hotel appear sloppy even when the floors and appliances shined. The bed was a bit lopsided, the tables were scratched with jagged, awkward strokes as if they’d spent time in a child’s room, and the lamps were plain and ugly.
It was as if Hotel Rude had been decorated by a burglar. One who had no taste of his own, but had assembled mismatched yet expensive furniture that he’d pilfered from variously styled mansions. Even the telephone, which was old but a standard enough model, didn’t quite look like it belonged. Lily stared at it for a moment, and it started to ring—as if she’d willed it.
“Hello. Yes, hello, is this room service?” Lily yelled into the phone. “I’m sorry, speak up—I can hardly hear you. I’d like some breakfast, please. Breakfast. Borscht? From last night? Look, don’t you have . . . hello? Are you still there? Hello? Yes, good. No, borscht will be fine. Can you bring it up to room 1036? Oh!”
The line went dead again. Lily set the receiver into the cradle and folded her arms in a huff. She looked down at the royal blue hand-woven carpet that spilled out from under her bed like a large puddle. It had once been stunning and must have cost its original owner a small fortune. Her eyes followed its tattered edge to the base of a short and stout dresser that Lily had at first mistaken for a writing table.
“Happy birthday,” Lily said, remembering Tony’s directives. She treaded one careful step at a time to the dresser and crouched down, pulling open the bottom drawer. Inside was a safe the size of a modest hat box. Plain, but sturdy. Lily reached down and turned the dial, entering her birth date and drawing the door up slowly.
The contents of the safe were anti-climactic. An olive-green folder lay at the bottom topped with a small, brown bottle of Myer aspirin—like a cherry on a sundae. Lily picked up the aspirin bottle and held it to the light. It looked empty. She uncorked it and, on instinct, sniffed the contents. The interior smelled bitter and chemical, not at all like aspirin. Lily dipped her index finger into the bottle and explored the inside. As she ran her fingertip along its inner wall, she felt something a little slippery and pulled it up and out of the brown glass. It was a tiny roll of film, so small it seemed made for a doll. Lily backed up from the dresser and sat back down on the bed, clicking on the reading lamp at her bedside table. She positioned the film under the light, beholding the strangest blue print patterns she had ever seen.
“What on earth?” Lily whispered.
The doorbell buzzed, and she nearly leapt off the bed.
“Just a minute,” she called, tucking the film into the top of her stocking and dropping the empty bottle back into the safe. Lily kicked the drawer closed.
“Who is it?”
She tried to sound casual as she walked to the door. There was no peephole, so Lily put her ear to the lacquered wood, as if the visitor’s movements could tell her something.<
br />
“Room service,” the Russian replied in a voice that was like thick paper rubbed between a thumb and index finger.
“That was awfully fast. What do you have for me?”
“Borscht,” he answered.
Lily cracked the door first, and then opened it wide. An impressive man in a dark, tailored suit stood before her. His black hair was slicked back and shiny, looking like the grooves on a record album, and his shoulders and chest overshadowed the rest of him.
The dark man’s eyes swept the suite before focusing on Lily. She could smell his breath, anise and cigarettes, and his cologne, citrus.
“Where’s my borscht?” she asked.
The dark man raised his eyebrow and smirked, entering the suite without her invitation and closing the door.
“Where’s my dossier?” he countered.
Lily shook her head.
“The dossier in the small safe at the bottom of your wardrobe over there.” The dark man pointed to the squat, three-drawer dresser.
“I haven’t even unpacked yet,” Lily said.
“But you know the combination, so why don’t you open it for me?”
Lily wasn’t afraid of him, but she knew she should be. “No,” she told him.
The dark man took a lugubrious breath and walked to the wardrobe himself. He opened the bottom drawer, lifted the safe and entered Lily’s birth date. The door popped open, and he placed the contents of the safe—the folder and the tiny bottle of Myer aspirin—into his breast pocket without ceremony.
“I’m sorry,” Lily began. “But you’re two days early and I didn’t want to take any chances.”
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