The Kobalt Dossier

by Eric Van Lustbader

Releasing her, Ben stooped down, plucked the sphere off the floor. That’s when he felt the hard object he’d taken from Evan’s would-be abductor and unthinkingly shoved into the pocket of his pants. It had been an automatic response; his mind had been filled with Evan and only Evan, getting her out of her smoking Charger.

  He rose and placed the sphere onto the table beside Evan’s elbow. Then he extracted the object from the bottom of his pocket and looked at it for the first time. It was a blue plastic hexagon, inscribed with the number 512. Attached to it was a key. A hotel room key, surely. Except what hotel these days still used a key instead of a magnetic key card? Even Lethe now used key cards, though, according to the receptionist, some of the motel’s oldest regulars had complained, until he’d explained the key card’s added security. No one could duplicate one of those.

  So what hotel had Evan’s would-be abductor been staying at? He turned the blue hexagon over and over between his fingers, but there was nothing except the room number. Never mind, he happened to know someone who might be able to give him the answer. He took a close-up photo of it with his mobile.

  He glanced at Evan, who had not budged from her position. Her breathing was deep and steady. Reassured, he retreated to the bed farthest from her, punched in a number on his speed dial.

  “Hold on, Dad. I’m in class.” He held while Zoe excused herself and apparently went into the deserted hallway. This was not an unusual occurrence, for once Ben had explained a heavily expurgated version of his situation to her teachers, she was free to take his calls, unless she was taking an exam. Happily, she wasn’t this morning.

  “Hi, honey, how are you?”

  “Everything’s cool. Did Aunt Evan get back?” She’d been asking this same question practically every day since Evan left for Sumatra.

  “I’m with her now.”

  “Cool. Let me speak with her.”

  “At the moment, we have a pressing problem I need your help with.”

  “Really?”

  How disappointment and excitement could be expressed in a single word was a mystery to him. “Did you get the photo I WhatsApped you?”

  “Just a sec. … Got it.”

  “We need your expertise. We found this last night. We know it’s a hotel, of course. Probably a fleabag. But it’s got to be local.”

  “It might be haunted, too.”

  “Always possible.” Ben tried not to laugh. His daughter’s current obsession was serious—at least to her.

  “Huh.” Silence for several moments.

  “Zoe?”

  “I think … hmmm. I think it’s from either the Sans Serif or the Majestic. They’re sister hotels … wait a sec. Both in Anacostia.” She read off their addresses, presumably from her Google Maps app.

  “I don’t know, Zoe. How d’you do it?”

  “What can I tell you, Dad.” She laughed. “It’s a gift, though what I’ll do with it I have no idea.”

  “Thanks, honey. You’re a life saver.”

  She laughed again, a golden, rolling chuckle he adored. “Anything for king and country, Dad. Love you forever.”

  “Love you forever.”

  He was reluctant to disconnect, but he knew she had to get back to her lessons. The mobile was warm against his palm. It took him a moment to put it away.

  “Evan?” He rose, crossed to where she still sat.

  She was slowly draining one of the containers of soda, sipping through a straw. “Just dehydrated.” She turned, giving him a watery smile “What did my lovely bonbon have to say?”

  “Well, first off she asked for the millionth time whether you were back, and then she wanted to speak to you.”

  “I would’ve liked to hear her voice right about now.”

  “I know, but I pulled her out of class.”

  Evan’s brows knit together. “What for?”

  “This.” He plunked down the hotel key. “From your murderous friend. It was thrown clear in the crash. I nearly stumbled over it getting to you.”

  “Huh, his hotel key. Ancient of days.”

  “According to Zoe, it’s from the Majestic Hotel or the Sans Serif, in Anacostia. She gave me the addresses.”

  *

  Ben drove them over to Anacostia in the poorer, borderline dangerous southeast quadrant of DC. Strips of newspaper littered the well of the floor around Evan’s boots. She had reached the center of the sphere. As the noise it made when it hit the motel room floor presaged, there was a hard core.

  “This last slip of paper. Ben. It’s not newspaper.” She unfolded it. “It has Fisher’s name typed on it.” She peered at it more closely: FISHER “Made with an old-school manual.”

  “Clearly a man or men with a plan,” Ben said.

  Her fingers had turned cold. She pocketed the slip, turned her attention to what was underneath.

  “So what is that?” Ben could only risk quick glances that told him nothing.

  “Not a clue. It’s black, metallic, about the size of a poker chip with the same vertical grooves along the edge, but it’s thicker—about three times thicker, slightly rounded on one side, flat on the other.”

  The rain had passed. The low ominous clouds had been replaced by streamers of cirrus, high up, translucent in spots. The sunlight had felt good as they left the gloom of Lethe behind them.

  “No markings of any kind.”

  “Nope. Completely blank.”

  He stopped for a light, took it to have a better look. “Mysterious. It must mean something.”

  “But what?”

  The light changed, and they took off. They were in the Anacostia area. Ben had inputted the address for the Sans Serif Hotel Zoe had given him into his mobile. Security dictated that he never use the car’s GPS system.

  He made a right turn. “We’re about six blocks away.”

  Evan turned the disk on end, leaning to her right, holding it up to the sunlight streaming through the rolled-down window. She kept turning it slowly between her hands. “You know,” she said, after a time, “I think there’s a line, thin as a hair, running all along the circumference.”

  Ben pulled over and stopped the car. He handed her his knife, a very useful multi-bladed gadget. She chose the smallest blade and pulled it to the open position. Inserting the point into the hairline, she twisted the blade. Nothing happened. Tried again with a bit more force.

  The two halves opened like a clamshell.

  Ben leaned closer. “What the hell?”

  Inside, nestled into a bed of black foam formed expressly to fit it, was a letter made of what appeared to be gold. It was an incomplete circle with two feet.

  “It’s the Greek letter for—”

  “Omega,” Ben finished for her. He couldn’t help himself. “The end of all things.”

  12

  ISTANBUL, TURKEY

  Ermi Çelik’s workplace looked more like a London gentlemen’s club than a Turkish lawyer’s offices: large rooms, plushly furnished with expensive pieces imported from England and France. The walls were covered in trellises of climbing roses and ivy courtesy of fine English fabrics, the desk in the main room was of polished mahogany, large enough for an elephant to stand on. Floor lamps, shaded and fringed, bathed it all in soft light. Kobalt switched them on when Zherov broke into the second-floor suite. The last one she turned on was on Ermi’s desk, an old nickel and glass banker’s lamp with a long base, grooved to hold pens. It cast its rectangular light over the mocha desk pad.

  It was after hours and the offices were empty. This was slightly disappointing as Kobalt had hoped to find Ermi still at work. She didn’t think he was one to burn the midnight oil, but it would have been sloppy not to check.

  “As long as we’re here,” Kobalt said, “let’s see if Ermi’s business has anything to tell us that he was unwilling to give up himself.”

  “Like who paid him for selling you out.”

  Kobalt shot him a wicked glance. “As if you never had a Boris turn on you.” Boris was the generic term for
a clandestine contact.

  Zherov grunted. “But yours almost got me killed.”

  Kobalt shook her head. The man was an incorrigible egotist. Everything revolved around him. Ignoring him, she looked through the files piled on Ermi’s desk, then the drawers, one after another. The last one on the left held a humidor and a bottle of single malt scotch lying on its side. Naturally, in a country that was 98 percent Muslim, the consuming of alcohol was prohibited. Ermi wouldn’t take the chance of offending any of his clients by keeping his liquor visible. She flipped open the humidor. Cigars were lined up like fat little soldiers. She started to shut the drawer, when she noticed how shallow the interior was compared to the outside.

  Her removing the humidor and the bottle caught Zherov’s attention, and he drifted over. “Found something?”

  Digging her fingernails into the seam between the bottom and the side, she levered the bottom up. Underneath was a rather large manila envelope. With mounting excitement, she undid the cord and reached in.

  Zherov leaned forward. “What is it?”

  “Looks like a ledger.” She read page after page, dizzied, then fascinated. “Well, well, well, it looks like Ermi was doing business with Dima.”

  “What?” Zherov was at her side in an instant. “That’s impossible!”

  Of course it would be written down. Ermi was too smart to risk an efile that could be hacked, especially one that contained such explosive data. “Here, take a look yourself.” She handed him the folder. “The boss you idolize—”

  “He’s your boss, too,” Zherov snapped.

  “But I don’t idolize him.” She watched the blood drain from Zherov’s face. A better just reward for this imperious prick she couldn’t imagine. “Dima is shoveling ill-gotten gains out of Russia through Ermi, who’s stowing them in a secure vault in Credit Cypriot. And not only that. Look where the IGG is coming from.”

  “Skimmed from FSB operational services.” Zherov could hardly get the words out; his tongue wanted to cleave to the roof of his mouth.

  “Oh, but that’s not all, Anton. Turn the page.” She pointed. “I’ll say this for Ermi. He keeps meticulous books, most likely to use as leverage when he needs money or when he wants to retire to a life of leisure aboard his boat.” She stood, the better to judge Zherov’s expression. “Remember the missions outside St. Petersburg, Berlin, Kiev, and Aleppo that blew up in SVR’s collective face? All in the last decade. Dima’s doing. Check the entries under the misleading title ‘Misc. Trans.’ The dates correspond exactly with the fiery ends of those missions.” She gave a mirthless laugh. “Dima had me crosscheck all the mission personnel, trying to find a leak. Fifteen of your comrades, all told. Dima was the leak, Anton. Our dear Dima is as corrupt as they come, making money off the deaths of his fellow Russians.”

  Zherov, who seemed lost in the numbers, dates, and times, ran fingers through his hair. They came away damp. He sat down so hard he almost fell back into the cushy upholstered chair. He read and reread the pages of dates and figures as if they might change to Dima’s benefit, or weren’t detailing Dima’s traitorous dealings, but someone else’s.

  Kobalt could have pitied him or felt a surge of triumph, even contempt, but she felt none of those things, though any or all would have been appropriate. Anyone who kept up such a rock-hard façade was bound to be brittle underneath. In fact, brittleness was the very reason for the façade. Zherov was hiding out behind the guise of the tough, fearless assassin. This was who Dima had sicced on her, this was who she had to deal with. She couldn’t afford to feel anything toward him. He was a burden, a sleek beautiful mink she carried on her back, who, she knew, could sink its teeth into her neck at any moment.

  There was an attempt anyway: “This is a lie,” he grated. “All of it. It must be.”

  “Ah, no, Anton, you’re not thinking clearly. Or not seeing clearly, to be more accurate. What you hold in your hands is the diary of a man in love with numbers, with accounts and balances, asset and debits. A man who sees the world in terms of mathematics. If Ermi listened to Western music he’d love Bach. This isn’t the man I know, but he’s revealed so little of himself to me. Now I know him down to his roots. Mathematics doesn’t lie. It is hard-edged, clean, neat as a pin.”

  He was shaking his head, but whether in denial or in bewilderment she couldn’t tell.

  “You say the ledger is a lie. You believe your allegiance to Dima is commendable, and once it might have been. He was your mentor, after all. But it’s put blinkers on you.”

  Up close his smell was harsh, rank as a zoo animal. “You think I don’t know why you hate me? It isn’t because I’m a woman. You think I don’t know why you don’t trust me? It isn’t because I was born in the West, and it isn’t that I’ve been infected with American decadence.”

  He twitched. “It’s because Dima is in love with you. You have only to open your legs and his legendary carnal desires—”

  “No, Anton. Why d’you insult me so?”

  He had been half out of the chair, but now he subsided back into it, still edgy, still seething.

  “Hear me, Anton. Dima is in love with the idea of me, what he’s confident he’s molding me into. But what matters to you is I have managed a bloodless coup. I have supplanted you. I am now his favorite. And I didn’t have to open my legs. I wouldn’t, anyway, even under pain of death. He creeps me out.

  “But where does that leave you? Clinging to what once was, like a drowning man grasping a rotten spar. Keep that up and you’ll both go under.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  She shook her head. “Just a statement of fact, of an outcome if you keep going down this path.” She smiled with her teeth. “But the truth is, unlike you, I am who I am—my own person. Dima doesn’t own me, despite his delusion otherwise.” She thrust her head forward. “Becoming your own man will give you choices.”

  He looked up at her with narrowed eyes. It was not a good look for him.

  She gestured, and said almost gently, “Read the ledger again, Anton. This time with your eyes open.”

  Turning away, she crossed to the bookshelves, ran her finger along the tops until she came to Jane Eyre, which she had read many years before. Opening it, her gaze roved over the pages until she found the paragraph she remembered best: “… and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes …” And further down: “It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to—”

  She felt Zherov’s looming presence just before he struck her from behind, and her instincts saved her from the full brunt of his assault. The blow glanced off the side of her head, knocking her against Ermi’s massive desk. Her hip struck the edge, pain shooting up her side and down her leg.

  Before she could draw another breath, Zherov was on her, hands at her throat. His eyes were wild, his beautiful lips pulled back in an animal snarl. She looked at him calmly.

  “Anton, stop,” she said, and then, as her windpipe was restricted, whispered it again. “Anton, stop.”

  But he gave no sign of stopping or even that he heard her, so she raised her arms and slammed the heels of her hands against his ears. The pressure-pain was intense. His grip on her loosened, and she ripped his hands from her throat, slapped him hard across his cheek.

  He blinked, and again. His eyes cleared. He was panting, his hands were trembling as he put them up, too late to protect his ears.

  Her eyes engaged with his. “Will you stop now? Anton. Will. You. Stop.”

  For some time, he made no response. She waited, listening to his heavy breathing; seeing his tongue come out to wet his chapped lips. Her throat felt as if he’d sandpapered it from the inside and her contused hip felt hot and tight, but she was careful to keep her eyes calmly trained on his with no discomfort, let alone pain, visible in them.

  After a long time, he d
isengaged his eyes, looked down at the ledger open on the floor, an indictment of his essential failing.

  He scrubbed his face with his hands. “What now?” His voice sounded as if he were far away. He did not offer an apology; she hadn’t expected one, not from a man like him, who found it so hard to admit his mistakes to himself he felt compelled to attack her instead.

  Stooping over, she took the ledger, folded it lengthwise, stowed it carefully away in an inside pocket of her jacket. “Ermi’s house is our next stop.” She headed across the office. “You’ll need to restrain yourself. Make sure you don’t kill him before I squeeze every bit of information about his relationship with Dima out of him.”

  “I hope to Christ you’re not making a joke at my expense,” he grated.

  “Frankly, it never occurred to me that you had a sense of humor.”

  13

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Sans Serif stood on a corner, next to a bodega. Not long ago someone had thrown a couple of missiles—bricks, beer bottles, who knew—through the bodega’s front window. Accordion gates had been deployed, barring the entire place. The interior was dark and empty.

  Sans Serif was no more inviting. It was narrow, mean, and filthy. The lobby, if you could call it that, reeked of stale beer, cat piss, and cigarette smoke. It was hotter than Hades on a summer afternoon. But as it turned out the Sans Serif wasn’t their target. The clerk, a superannuated guy in a filthy wifebeater out of which gray hair sprouted every which way, showed them a room key. It was the same size and shape as the one Ben carried, but it was green, not blue. They couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  A half mile away as the crow flies the Majestic announced itself with a vertical neon sign, dark now, probably forever. If not for its neighbors—a chop shop masquerading as a garage, and a clothing store specializing in Army-Navy surplus—it seemed likely it would have fallen down by now.

  The front steps were crumbling and the interior, though less claustrophobic than that of its sister, was nearly as run-down. A pair of chairs with worn-out cushions flanked a potted palm, its leaves bowed by layers of dust, as if having absorbed all the sorrow that had flowed through the lobby, they had given up the ghost. So, it seemed, had the old man asleep or dead in one of the chairs. He might have been there for years.