by Greg Wilson
Nikolai shrugged in supposition. “Why would it matter?” He hesitated a moment, watching her. Moved a step closer. “Why don’t you tell me what you know, Katrina?”
She tossed her head sharply, her denial too abrupt.
“Nothing. I know nothing.” She paused, her lips pressed together in a tight line. “Please don’t hurt him,” she said. “He is stupid and childish and he gets angry and even hurts me sometimes,” her lips rose and fell quickly in a sad smile. “But he’s all I have.”
Nikolai regarded her evenly. “Then you will understand,” he answered softly. “My daughter is all I have.”
That was it.
Jack Hartman strummed his finger across the edge of the thick, spiral-bound report.
Finished!
Names. Dates. Places. Transactions. All the evidence anyone could need packaged and sealed with exhibits into one single, two-hundred-page document that – unless he was very much mistaken – was going to stop Malcolm Powell and Marat Ivankov and their friends dead in their tracks.
He set the document down atop its two identical copies, pulled the memory stick from the computer and carried the bundle across the room, dropping to his haunches and lifting the corner of a rug and throwing it back. Set into the floor was a steel plate two foot square. He hauled it back on its hinges and worked the code panel to the floor safe beneath: two inches of fireproof steel buried in three feet of solid concrete. The red lights of the digital readout began flashing and he lifted back the lid and dropped the stack of documents and the USB stick into the cavity, feeling the rush of displaced air against his face. Gave the documents a final look then lowered the lid to a fit, dropped the steel cover-plate into position and pulled back the rug. He rose from his haunches, feeling the snap of ligaments and the crack of joints as his legs unwound, straightening slowly.
Christ! Was he starting to get old?
He propped a hand against his back, leaning into it. Too much sitting at computers and not enough exercise. A smile crossed his face… Apart from the increasing amount of time spent with Gina, moments that made him feel like a horny teenager again.
Running into her at his favorite watering hole in the village a few months before had been one of life’s lucky breaks, like the final link he had uncovered between Kolbasov and the trail of dirty money Marat Ivankov was using to finance his deals. She was intelligent, attractive, independent, mature enough that being seen with her didn’t make him feel like a child molester, and unattached – a year out of a failed, decade-long, childless marriage, which meant that it was unlikely she was just bouncing into the relationship out of desperation since she’d had the time to think things through and work herself out.
He crossed back to his desk, tidying it, stacking papers, powering down his computer and casting a glance at his watch. Time for a quick shower before kitchen duty then dinner for four. Maybe he’d even break out the silver and a bottle of champagne.
The knock came a few minutes after five. Sergei was watching the seventh inning of a game between the New York Mets and the Minnesota Twins broadcast live from the Minneapolis Metrodome. With his eyes still hooked to the screen he set down his half empty bottle of beer and began to lift himself from the ragged armchair, but his ribs caught him and he winced and gave up, collapsing back into the seat, brusquely signaling for Katrina to answer the door. There was a smack as the leather ball connected with the bat and the crowd erupted in a roar, then the noise ran down to nothing as Sergei worked the volume control and all that remained was the muted sound of voices in the hall, above the loose rattle of the window air-conditioner. A moment later Katrina returned, two steps ahead of the visitor as he followed her into the room.
He was short and squat with a tight barrel chest and olive-colored skin, and small dark eyes set too far apart in a strangely rounded face. His eyes darted back and forth between Sergei, whom he clearly knew, and the silent stranger by the window. Sergei nodded at the man and cast a hand in the air towards Nikolai, grimacing with the effort.
“This is Peter. Peter Alisenko. Tonight he works with you.”
The small man slid his gaze towards Nikolai and gave a guarded nod. Sergei turned carefully towards Nikolai. “This is Yuri,” he explained. “That is all you need to know.” He turned back again.
“So,Yuri, you have the car?”
The sharp dark eyes swung back to Sergei. “Downstairs.”
“And you know where you are going and who you are supposed to meet?”
The man named Yuri nodded impassively.
Sergei hiked his brows. So, what are you waiting for? Get out. Go sit with the car. My friend Peter will be with you shortly.”
The small man nodded again and swung away. Sergei turned to Nikolai, his cheeks lifting in a lazy smile.
“So, my friend, it is time for you to go to work.” His eyes trickled across Nikolai, assessing his clothes. “It can get cold by the river. You should take your jacket.”
Nikolai regarded him a moment. Pushed himself away from the sill and made his way back down the hall.
Larisa was lying on her mattress, propped on an elbow, flicking through the dog-eared pages of one of a pile of movie magazines bequeathed to her by Katrina. Nikolai crossed to the room’s only chair, scooping up the black nylon jacket he had bought in the Arbat, came back to Larisa and dropped down beside her, running a hand through her hair.
“I have to go now,” he said quietly.
She looked up, her lips pressed together, watching him. Her eyes dropped back a moment to the open pages then lifted, her brow furrowed.
“How much longer do we have to stay here, Daddy?”
Nikolai’s fingers traced her temple. He pushed a smile. “Just until Sergei gets our new papers. A few days, that’s all.”
She turned the page distractedly, her lips set in an expression of doubtful frustration. “Will you be late?”
He ran his thumb across her brow. “Probably,” he admitted with reluctance. “But you mustn’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’ll just do what I have to and then I’ll be back. Katrina will look after you.”
Larisa regarded him for a long moment. “I’m scared, Daddy,” she finally whispered. Her lips tightened and she shook her head. “I don’t know why, I just am.” Her dark liquid eyes searched Nikolai’s and for a moment time reversed. He was back in the apartment in Mira, and they were Natalia’s eyes. Eyes that intuitively reflected the perception of danger without yet comprehending its source. His gaze narrowed as he studied his daughter through a long silence. His respect for instinct was infinitely more acute now. He understood what Natalia had seen. He had lived it.
He looked aside, measuring his response, turning back to his daughter and fixing her with his gaze.
“I understand,” he said evenly. He thought for a moment. “Yesterday when we were at the cafe, further along the boardwalk we could see a fun park: roller coasters and a big wheel?”
Larisa nodded solemnly. “It’s called Coney Island. Katrina told me about it. She said she would take me there. There’s a funfair, like Gorky Park, but a lot bigger.”
Nikolai watched her. Thought about how to say this without causing her alarm. His hand closed gently on his daughter’s shoulder. “Larisa, this is very important.” Her eyes held his. “If anything should happen… If you are afraid or if there is a problem of any kind I want you to go there. Go to the big wheel and wait for me there.” He cast a glance across his shoulder to the travel bag that lay propped against the legs of the chair. “Take the bag, alright? Whatever you do, don’t lose it. There’s money in the side pocket. Use whatever you need.”
Larisa’s eyes flicked across the room and returned to his. Her voice began to falter. “What if you don’t come?”
Nikolai pressed his smile as far as it would go. “I will,” he said quietly. “Remember what I said. We only have each other so you must trust me as I trust you.”
The car was a Jaguar. Painted silver, low and sleek, its cabin drenched wi
th the heavy rich smell of leather. There was a black hole in the dash, gouge marks to the timber around it where the radio deck had been pried loose leaving a twisted trail of red and black wires that hung down across the center console. Nikolai sat silently in the passenger seat as Yuri guided the car north through Brooklyn and Queens, taking the reverse of the route Sergei had driven when he had picked them up at La Guardia a few nights before. To the west the towers of Manhattan rose against the skyline like the bars of a crowded graph. As they drew closer to the airport Yuri picked up a highway that swung left, taking them onto the approach to a massive bridge that thrust out across the river. Nikolai pulled down the visor to block the lowering sun and turned to the man next to him.
“Where are we?”
Yuri looked ahead, his gloved hands set on the wheel. Why the gloves, Nikolai wondered. “Triborough Bridge,” he answered sparingly. “Crossing the East River.”
Nikolai turned back to the road. “Where are we going?”
Yuri shrugged his thick shoulders. “Upstate,” he replied without expansion.
Nikolai squinted against the sun. “How long?”
Another shrug. “An hour or so.”
There was no point, Nikolai recognized, in pursuing the conversation. Instead he settled back, thinking, nursing the black nylon jacket cast across his lap.
What was it Larisa had sensed, he wondered?
Whatever it was he now felt his own tense foreboding. Since Novokuznetsk everything had happened so smoothly and so fast he had barely had time to think. But now the fragments of illusion were beginning to form a shape. When he was a child – perhaps nine or ten – his parents had somehow found the money to buy him a small electric train set. He would sit in his room in their tiny flat and play with it for hours, enthralled by the way he could set the toy engine down on the shiny silver rails and immediately some unseen power would seize it from his hands and propel it forward, round and around on its circular course, while from the switchbox on the side he could control its speed and even its direction, slowing it down one minute, speeding it up the next, bringing it to a stop and throwing it into reverse. The faster the engine went the more mesmerized he became as he watched it loop the track, past little wooden houses and a tall water tank and through the station, past the platform where tiny painted figures waited, round and around and around, so fast that after a while everything began to blur, and that was how he felt now. Like that train. As though he had been set down on a line already charged with current, invisible hands regulating his speed and his direction, propelling him forward at a pace that left no opportunity to question individual events or their sequence, each vague doubt or uncertainty swept aside by the next turn of the track. He gazed out the window, replaying his course, slowing it down, considering people and events and coincidence now in a different light. As his mind worked, his hand absently smoothed the fabric of the jacket draped across his legs, his fingers tripping to rest on something out of place. Something rigid and almost square in shape, smooth and flat beneath his touch.
He stopped. Shifted in his seat and threw a sideways glance. Yuri’s eyes were fixed on the road, his wrapped hands nursing the wheel. Nikolai drew the jacket aside and slipped his fingers into the inside pocket, their tips tracing the object’s surface – a booklet of some kind – feeling their way around its curved edge. As casually as he was able he folded his left arm across his body, forming a shielded space in its crook where his fingers could work. Gradually, inch by inch, he eased the object free until it rested ominously in his lap, his eyes lowering, settling on the deep red cover with its embossed gold lettering.
He blinked. Glanced at Yuri again and then back to his lap, his eyes narrowing as his mind worked the puzzle.
It was a passport. But he had no passport…
The documents Vari had arranged had been handed over to Sergei the morning after they had arrived. He needed them, he had said, to arrange the American papers. So what was this and where had it come from?
He edged the cover aside with his thumb and a face he had forgotten stared back at him. A younger version of himself, trapped behind a celluloid shield, with clear unsuspecting eyes and an open, confident smile and his own name – Nikolai Aven – typed below in bold Cyrillic script. He found his head moving, turning gradually from side to side in dismay as his eyes rolled down across the rows of type below. It was the passport he had been issued more than a decade ago when he and Natalia had travelled to Estonia to set up their overseas account. The passport he had been carrying in his jacket pocket the night they had taken him from the street.
His brow drew tight as his eyes fell to the dates.
It had expired now but it was still his passport. His likeness. His name.
He glanced up and found Yuri regarding him, his small dark eyes shifting inquisitively between Nikolai’s face and his lap. He swung his gaze back to the road and spoke ahead.
“You alright? You look pale. Like you seen a ghost.”
Nikolai flicked the booklet closed and slid it back into the sheath of the pocket, thinking. His mind fell back to the image of the toy train gliding onwards, diligently gathering momentum as the hand at the side twisted the dial. Picking up speed and whirling faster and faster around the track.
Yuri swung the Jaguar onto a wide parkway heading north and tripped the gas and the sleek sedan shot forward, the sudden acceleration pushing Nikolai back against his seat.
So whose hand was it, he wondered. Who was working the controls?
34
They were an hour into the trip – fifteen minutes into the countryside – when Yuri slid the Jaguar onto the road’s soft shoulder bringing its wheels to a crunching stop in the gravel. His hand slid into his jacket pocket and Nikolai’s limbs instinctively tensed then relaxed again as Yuri pulled out a cell phone, his short squat fingers stabbing buttons, making an error, cancelling and trying again. He held the cell to his left ear, reaching across with his right hand to open the door, dumping it back on its hinges as he waited for an answer then, when it came, swinging his legs out of the carpeted tunnel and onto the gravel, pulling himself upright, sauntering away from the car as he began to talk.
When he was ten paces off with his back turned, standing at the edge of a grass bank overlooking the river, Nikolai reached for the catch of the glove box, dropping the polished timber door and working quickly through its contents. A street directory for Baltimore. Insurance and registration. Notes and receipts. A cheap silver-barreled ballpoint pen. A small matt black plastic case. He retrieved the case and thumbed the lid. Found a slender black torch nestled in the gray foam housing; next to it a miniature Swiss Army knife. He scooped them out, snapped the lid into place and tossed the box back into the glove compartment. Hesitated a moment then grabbed the pen; slipped everything into his trouser pocket and pressed the compartment cover closed as Yuri turned away from the river, studying the face of his cell phone a second then flicking it shut.
He slid back into the driver’s seat and Nikolai cast him a questioning glance.
“Final check. It’s all on.” He glanced at his watch. “We are to be there around seven-thirty. Plenty of time.”
Nikolai nodded. Glanced around. They were pointed north on a country highway that traced the line of the Hudson. On the right side of the road dense green forest trickled down the hill and pressed in tight to the shoulder. On the left the verge extended to the lush grassed knoll where Yuri had been standing. Beyond it the gray river glistened with flakes of evening light. Every so often another car swept by, blasting aside a rush of displaced air. Otherwise, apart from the evening chatter of the birds and the crickets, everything was silent. Nikolai ran down his window and listened to the quiet, his right hand working unobserved beneath the cover of the black nylon jacket.
After a moment he sprung his door, glancing back to Yuri, answering the other man’s unspoken question. “I need to take a leak.”
Yuri nodded and pulled out a packet of Turkish cigar
ettes and a Zippo lighter. As Nikolai passed in front of the low raking hood he lit up and drew in the smoke, his head turning slowly, observing Nikolai’s path.
Nikolai reached the spot where Yuri had been standing and carried on a few paces beyond to a straggly cluster of bushes at the edge of the knoll. As he passed behind them his left hand moved to his zipper while, beyond the other man’s view, his right slid into his trouser pocket. When he was certain that the shrubs concealed him he pulled the passport from his pocket, tearing it into fragments and tossing them over the bank, watching the wind skitter them across the steep grassed slope below. He waited until they had dispersed, watching as the last section of red cover cartwheeled down to the water’s edge and slipped into the stream, the torn fraction of gold Cyrillic script on its surface glinting in the evening light as it drifted away. Then he turned and walked back, zipping up his trousers as he rounded the bushes. Yuri slipped out of the driver’s seat again as he approached, stretching his arms back from the shoulders and out to the sides. For the first time in the journey his face lifted in something approaching a smile.
“Tell you what,” he said, with a strained casualness, “why don’t you drive for a while?”
He yawned and stretched again, raising his arms, his jacket lifting briefly from his side. Beneath its hem Nikolai noticed the butt of the pistol tucked backwards into his belt. Yuri lowered his arms and the jacket fell back. Nikolai regarded him for a moment.
“Sure,” he said, finally, his expression cast in a tight shallow smile. “Why not?”
Kelly sat in the passenger seat of the big Mercedes, inclined slightly towards Alex Bukovsky, silently admiring his casual style. Not only was he charming and good looking and a marvelously attentive lover, but he also knew how to dress.
It had been a day in the country, more or less, if you could call North Salem country. She had entertained herself for an hour in the town while Alex disappeared for his meeting then they had driven on to Yorktown where they had stopped for a leisurely lunch. He had dressed down for the occasion. Dark brown, knock-around leather shoes, beige chinos with expensive wrinkles and a soft white, open-neck shirt with the cuffs turned back from his wrists, the white cotton a stark contrast to the deep golden tan of his arms. Kelly studied them: the sinews and muscles that worked beneath his skin as his hands rode the wheel. He cast a sideways glance and saw her watching him, looked up to the mirror and back to the road. She had dressed for the country too but, on reflection, with a little too much Madison Avenue chic. Taupe trousers from Sonya Rykiel with four hundred dollar sandals to match, topped off with an extravagant handmade shirt from Alexander Kabbaz. Trying too hard to make an impression, she decided, when they were already past that.