The Troika Dolls

by Miranda Darling

  Stevie crouched down then shot forward, her hands clenched in a double fist, straight for the assassin’s groin.

  The man stumbled. Henning leapt from behind the car and grabbed him in a headlock, pulling him down. Stevie scrambled up and grabbed her knife, holding the point half a millimetre from the man’s right eye.

  He was clearly shocked.

  That was the beautiful advantage of being a girl, thought Stevie, no one ever expected you to fight so dirty.

  Henning searched him quickly, taking away his other gun, his boot knife, his radio. In the man’s pocket he found a photo of Dragoman, and one of Stevie, taken in St Moritz.

  ‘It’s rather good, actually,’ he said, handing it over to her.

  It had been taken in the Suvretta House, the day before the polo match—Stevie remembered, she had been wearing her pearl earrings.

  There was a huge explosion in the west wing of the sanatorium and Stevie guessed Dragoman and his men were battling Orlikov there.

  They had to move fast.

  Henning raised his fist and elbowed the man hard and sharp in the temple. He crumpled and lost consciousness.

  Stevie, rather stunned, stared up at Henning. ‘Since when do librarians punch like that?’

  Henning fumbled with the car door. ‘Libraries these days are much more rowdy. Students are not what they used to be.’

  Stevie scrutinised her friend for a moment, noting his bloodshot eyes. ‘How many vodkas did you drink with Heini, Henning?’

  ‘Enough that perhaps you should drive.’ He threw her the keys.

  The three escapees leapt into the Jaguar and sped out.

  ‘Lucky you parked cavalry rules,’ said Stevie, spinning the steering wheel.

  ‘Always facing out. Old habits die hard.’

  Stevie headed for the exit but they had forgotten the helicopter, crouched like a scorpion on the snow. Stevie slowly circled the car park, headlights off.

  ‘This car’s not bulletproof is it?’

  ‘No, Stevie, afraid not. It’s not usually required in my line of work.’

  They saw Dragoman and his shadow racing out of the entrance. Dragoman was stumbling, holding his eyes, his shadow holding him by the arm. They were heading for the helicopter, circling around behind it so the pilot could not see them.

  The shadow reached the machine, wrenched the door open and shot the pilot in the face. Tossing the body aside, he shoved Dragoman into the chopper and leapt to the controls. The helicopter lurched wildly then righted itself. The rotor blades spun faster as it began to leave the ground.

  Orlikov appeared, covered in blood, and began to run for the helicopter. A sudden burst of machine-gun fire exploded into the top of his head. He crumpled.

  ‘I think it’s high time we left.’ Stevie, shaking with adrenaline, put her foot on the accelerator and drove straight for the helicopter.

  It cleared the car by inches, the Jaguar roaring through the gates at high speed, the snow whipping up around them in the rotor wind.

  Stevie looked up as they passed. The shadow was staring right at her—for a split second their eyes met—and then the helicopter was gone into the night and their car was a hundred metres down the icy road.

  17

  Pale light had begun to creep into the valley. It was day break. The road circled down the mountain, the sanatorium growing ever so slowly smaller on the other side of the ravine.

  Stevie turned the heating up on full, poor Anya was shivering like a lake in the back seat.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Stevie asked.

  Henning turned around and spoke to Anya quietly, holding her frozen hand, coaxing her. It would help that he was a familiar face, she thought. Mostly though, Anya would be in shock. Stevie had seen it before. One never knew how long the kidnap victim would take to recover: sometimes weeks, sometimes years, sometimes never. They could at least be thankful that Anya appeared unhurt.

  Stevie concentrated on speeding down the winding mountain road. She was beginning to feel lightly euphoric, the adrenaline of terror wearing off, the happiness of having rescued the girl kicking in. They were driving, she was sure, towards a happy ending. That didn’t happen often now, did it? Not often enough.

  ‘Stevie,’ Henning’s voice was full of alarm. ‘Anya says there were two other girls with her.’

  The cold crept back into her heart. ‘What?’

  ‘In the sanatorium, held captive with Anya.’

  ‘Dasha and Ludmilla,’ Anya said, her voice quivering. ‘They never told me their last names. Yesterday, the man told them they were going to be a gift to a fighter from Sudan who was buying lots of his guns.’

  Stevie was speechless as the horror sank in.

  Then came the sound of sirens in the distance.

  ‘The Swiss police!’ She almost shouted with sheer relief. ‘They must have heard the explosions.’

  ‘They’ll find the girls,’ she told Anya reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, Anya, my love, they’ll be—’

  She was cut short by the young girl’s gasp and spun to follow her gaze.

  The west wing of the sanatorium was clearly visible from the road now, although they were below it and on the other side of the ravine. Two tiny figures, one in a bright pink top, the other in canary yellow, were standing up on the balustrade of a stone balcony. They were holding hands.

  ‘Nyet!’ Anya screamed.

  Like tiny blossoms from a tree the two bodies fell, so slowly it seemed, through the air until they disappeared from view, lost in the ravine.

  For kilometres, no one in the car could speak.

  Anya was the first to break the long silence with her low whisper. ‘Ludmilla was always saying she would rather die.’ Tears were rolling out of her eyes like marbles now. ‘They promised each other they would stick together, no matter what.’

  Stevie’s eyes were fixed to the icy road but her mind replayed the falling girls over and over.

  ‘They decided they would rather jump and die free.’ Anya was staring at her hands. ‘At least then you know what is going to happen to you.’ She looked up at Stevie. ‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’

  Stevie nodded. ‘No one could survive a fall from that height. I’m sorry, Anya.’

  The river was fast and deep. The bodies would probably get swept down the mountain and either catch under a rock, or end up at the bottom of a lake. It was unlikely they would ever be found.

  No one spoke again until they reached the street lamps of Zurich and the safety of Stevie’s home by the woods.

  Things felt better after hot showers and fresh clothes. They were sitting in Stevie’s tiny kitchen, around her even tinier kitchen table. Her flat was above the lake, by the edge of the woods. The floors were polished parquet and the shared garden below was full of apple trees—naked in the winter light. In the summer, pots of red geraniums flowered on the balcony.

  Stevie made Anya a warm Ovomaltine with milk then lit the gas under her metal coffee pot.

  Henning had called Irina and Vadim. Aware that the telephone of Kozkov’s widow and son might be monitored, Henning had merely called to offer condolences for Valery’s passing, then added ‘but there are so many reasons to be happy,’ and urged them to visit him and see for themselves. They had understood from this that Anya was safe and they were on their way to Zurich on the first plane out of Shermetyevo airport.

  Anya had not been able to speak to her mother, but that would come later. Everyone was just happy to be alive.

  Stevie toasted slices of Walliser mountain bread under the grill and put butter, a pot of blueberry jam, and a large slice of Emmenthal cheese on the table.

  Anya, warmed by the shower and the hot drink, was beginning to relax a little. Stevie and Henning asked her gentle questions, not wanting to press too hard, knowing she would be exhausted from her ordeal.

  She told them how she had gone with Petra to Zima in Moscow and they had been offered work as models. Petra had pressed her to meet the men the ne
xt day at GUM. She had ordered a tea with lemon, and the next thing she could remember she was locked up and blindfolded. Stevie guessed the kidnappers had probably been drugging Anya’s tea with Rohypnol, which would explain why she could not remember much, just this series of confusing and terrifying images.

  Mostly, Anya said, she had been worried for her family. She remembered she cried a lot, and read the magazines her captors sometimes gave to her. She had liked the interviews at home with the stars the best. She had no idea how long she had been captive.

  Stevie then told Henning about the nurse, the syringe of Midazolam and the ginger barbarian, then their flight to the boot room.

  She jumped up as the coffee pot boiled. ‘Dragoman must have been looking for us when he ran into the car park.’

  ‘I left in a bit of a hurry,’ Henning added. ‘They must have got suspicious.’

  ‘Well, the men from GROM were a good distraction.’

  Stevie sipped her coffee—too hot—and felt a glow of pleasure. After so many days on the horrid ‘green’ diet it was heaven to slather butter on toast and drink hot coffee.

  Anya looked up from her breakfast. ‘Were the men there to rescue me?’

  ‘No.’ Stevie poured out another cup of coffee and thought how beautiful the wintery trees looked gathered at her doorstep. It felt so good to be home. ‘They were there to kill Felix Dragoman. And me. They thought I had your father’s secret list and that I had passed it on to him, that Dragoman and I were working together. Actually Valery didn’t tell me anything, but the siloviki weren’t to know that.’

  ‘But why would Dragoman want the list anyway?’ Anya asked, her eyes deep and round with fatigue. ‘Doesn’t he know who his partners are?’

  Stevie shot a look at Henning. He was particularly attractive that morning, she thought, all freshly shaved and full of purpose.

  ‘Of course,’ she nodded to Anya, ‘but he doesn’t have the meticulously gathered evidence of their corruption that would be his most powerful bargaining chip. The list would have been hugely valuable to him.’

  Stevie opened the kitchen window and put a handful of toast crumbs on the window sill. It was still freezing outside and she noticed icicles hanging from the eaves of her building.

  The image of the man in the snow, neck snapped like a sapling, ambushed her and Stevie suddenly felt a little sick.

  ‘The man that was killed in the snow was from GROM, too,’ she added, closing the window. ‘The insignia on the knife was a bat on a blue globe. At the time I couldn’t remember which special forces group use the bat as their emblem. Dragoman recognised it straight away.’

  ‘He must have radioed Moscow before he was killed.’ Henning was watching her closely, concern in his still-bloodshot eyes. ‘Orlikov would have leapt to the conclusion that little mysterious Stevie Duveen had already killed two of his men.’

  Stevie smiled at him, happy that Henning was with them—with her—in the little kitchen.

  ‘It must have made them wonder who on earth I was really working for . . .’ Stevie turned her empty cup in circles. ‘Until they saw Dragoman appear. That would have been quite a surprise.’

  Anya was buttering her third piece of toast, the colour returning to her cheeks. ‘That man told me no one was coming to rescue me, that he had power over the Kremlin. I don’t know why he said these things to me. I guess he thought I was going to disappear forever.’ Anya smiled happily.

  Stevie shuddered at the thought of how close she had come to doing just that.

  Henning refilled Stevie’s coffee cup, a hand lightly on her shoulder. ‘Dragoman would have been convinced his friends in the Kremlin had turned on him when Orlikov jumped out. We know he recognised his face because he pointed him out on the television. Stevie saw him through the window.’

  Anya’s eyes opened wide and stared at Stevie in wonder. ‘It was you on the roof? Dragoman went so crazy after that.’

  Henning grinned. ‘I bet he did—it was quite a show.’ He squeezed her shoulder and Stevie felt herself blushing, but she left his hand there, enjoying the warmth of his touch.

  ‘So,’ Henning asked, ‘will Dragoman pursue his vendetta against the siloviki?’

  Stevie nodded. ‘I’m guessing he will—he survived, didn’t he? And he’s not a man who forgets. I think we’re going to start seeing a series of accidents and mysterious deaths, possibly a small epidemic of suicides . . .’

  ‘How grim.’

  ‘Maybe, but without the list, Dragoman’s probably the only one outside the circle who knows who the bad guys are.’ Stevie put her cup down and looked at Henning, her clear green eyes steady.

  ‘It’s as close to justice for Anya and for Valery Kozkov as we’re going to get.’

  They both glanced at Anya but she seemed not to be listening, her attention caught by two sparrows flitting on the window sill, pecking happily at the toast crumbs Stevie had put there for them.

  Good, thought Stevie. The sooner Anya put all this behind her, the better. A quest for a justice that would as likely never come, given the current administration’s track record, would only poison what was left of her childhood.

  Stevie didn’t think this made her a cynic. She was far from being that. She believed strongly in the power of good to triumph, and in the responsibility of the individual to do what good they could. But she was no fantasist. Ideals were important, but they meant nothing if they didn’t have a human face; and sometimes the person was more important than the concept.

  Stevie also suspected Vadim might feel differently. She hoped he wouldn’t do anything silly.

  EPILOGUE

  Their heads appeared amongst the crowd at the Bahnhof and Anya ran to meet them. Irina’s face was awash with tears as she held her daughter close, the pause button in her life now released. Vadim held Anya’s hand tight, wouldn’t let it go, not even when they ordered five celebratory glasses of champagne and drank them standing, as was fitting, in the bustling anonymity of the railway bar. They would be safer in a crowd.

  For a few minutes amongst the little group, there was only pure and unmitigated joy.

  Stevie herself couldn’t stop smiling. Although Kozkov was dead, nothing could change that. The time to mourn the dead would come, but Anya was alive and right now it was about rejoicing in the living.

  While Anya and her mother chattered away, Vadim said very little. Stevie watched his face closely. He was so pale she could see the faint blue veins under his skin. She doubted he would ever be the same again, and moved closer to the boy.

  She held out a cigarette. ‘Sometimes you have to let it go or it consumes you. My father was murdered too, and my mother.’

  Vadim took the cigarette and fixed haunted eyes on Stevie. ‘Didn’t you want revenge?’

  ‘I still have no idea who did it. I’ll find out one day . . . It was a case of mistaken identity.’ She shrugged her shoulders at her young friend. ‘What was I going to do, run around killing people at random to satisfy my rage? Then the assassins would have destroyed me as well as my parents. I suppose I went into this line of work instead.’

  Vadim stared past her and out at the milling crowds on the platform. ‘I saw Gregori Maraschenko, you know, one day in Moscow. I went looking for him at The Boar and I followed him for three days. I wanted to kill him. I carried my knife in my jacket and walked the streets.’

  This was exactly what Stevie had been afraid of.

  ‘On the third day,’ Vadim continued, ‘he went to the banya and I followed him in. It was so steamy in there. I managed to get very close, on the same bench. We sat there sweating together for half an hour. My mind was crazy.’

  Vadim drew heavily on the cigarette. ‘I wanted to kill him for what he had done to Anya. I wanted to slit his throat. But my knife was in the locker. I think I was almost glad it was—then I told myself I was a coward for feeling glad. What brother wouldn’t avenge his sister? I wasn’t worthy of being called a brother. My heart wanted to shrivel and die. I
was so angry and so powerless.’

  His free hand was shredding a paper napkin into snowflakes. ‘I even thought about killing myself. Idiot, neh?’

  Stevie smiled back. ‘Idiot.’

  ‘Then I saw another man come in. Even in the mist I could see he had the most frightening eyes—black and small and cold. Maraschenko got up and went to sit on a stone slab in the centre of the banya. When a new burst of steam filled the room the man with the eyes got up too. He walked over to Maraschenko. I thought maybe they were friends.’ Vadim’s voice grew hoarse. ‘Suddenly he grabbed him by the hair and cracked his skull against the stone. He did it twice. It made a sound like billiard balls.’

  Vadim was shaking and Stevie wasn’t surprised. ‘Then he dropped his head, wiped his hands on his towel and walked out. Maraschenko was unconscious or maybe dead already, bleeding from the back of the head. The heat in the banya made the blood flow faster and faster. It started to drip and pool. I—’ He looked as if he might be sick. Instead he downed his drink. ‘I left after that,’ he whispered.

  Stevie was staring at the Bahnhof clock. She didn’t know what to say. Maraschenko’s killer might have been Orlikov himself—Vadim’s description of his eyes was unmistakable. Maraschenko’s link to Dragoman had been enough to get him killed. It was happening already.

  Stevie felt so relieved Vadim had not killed the man, but horrified at what had happened. And yet it was all part of the plan she had set in motion.

  Was she now a killer, too? Shouldn’t she feel guilty?

  She did feel guilty, and sick.

  Only by looking across at little Anya’s happy face and Irina’s tears could she numb the horrid feeling in her throat. Every action had a reaction and they were all living out the consequences of their choices, good and bad.

  ‘How is Masha Ivanovna?’ she asked finally.

  Vadim’s face cleared. ‘Very busy saving Russia.’ He shrugged. ‘The eternal optimist. She has finished her book on the lives of ordinary Russians. She didn’t know whether she should leave Gregori Maraschenko’s story in it, out of respect for my family. I told her she must.’ Vadim brushed his hair nervously from his eyes. ‘I think she feels partly responsible for everything because she brought Gregori into our lives, but I told her they would have found another way. It wasn’t her fault.’