by Greg Wilson
The second man had taken her ticket and winked at her, helped her up to the pink and yellow carriage, locked the bar down in place and then it was moving. Slowly to begin with. Stopping and swaying each time another carriage emptied out and filled up again below, until the process ended and the huge wheel had begun turning, picking up speed, and the carriage she was sitting in had glided higher and higher until the fun park spread out below was just a blur of sweeping, dazzling color and light.
For the first few turns she clung tight to the steel bar hardly aware of anything, then gradually, as she started to become familiar with the height and the motion, she began to relax and take it all in.
To her left she could look out to the ocean. Close in the sea glowed green in the wash of the floodlights from the boardwalk, then where the light ran out it turned to black and as the wheel swept lower she could hear the surge of the waves and see them rolling forward, their edges creased by lips of white foam. But that was the least of it. At the other side the world went on forever. A glittering, twinkling, magic carpet of lights that spread wide across the landscape for as far as she could see, rising in sparkling ladders where tall buildings climbed everywhere from the ground and, below them, endless red and white trails crawling and snaking through the streets, and then ahead, and over to the right, across the black expanse of the bay, the astonishing sight of what must have been the heart of the city, towers and spires soaring into the night sky, massive even at this distance, the clouds above them drenched in their glow.
And now she was at the very top and the wheel was still and the carriage she sat in was swaying in the breeze and she could see it all. And she was alone but she wasn’t. The voice inside her was talking to her again.
See, you were scared to begin with, but you’re not now, are you? I told you to trust me. Told you everything would be all right.
Then the wheel was cranking back again and as she got closer to the ground she saw Sergei again and the fear rose in her chest and caught in her throat, then behind him she saw someone else… her father. Her father forcing his way through the crowd, sliding around people, lifting them aside.
Larisa shuffled across to the other side of the seat and tried to call out but her voice was so small it was picked up by the breeze and carried out to sea.
She saw the flash of surprise in Sergei’s face as the arm closed around his chest, then her father was dragging him backwards and there was something in his right hand. Something small and silver that caught the light. She lost them as they disappeared into the crowd and the fear swept back over her again and then suddenly she could hear her name being called, but it wasn’t her father’s voice, it was someone else. The voice of a lady. Then Larisa saw her, pushing her way along the fence, swinging left and right, her hands cupped to her mouth, calling out her name again and again, her face twisted and tight with concern.
Who was she?
For a moment Larisa hesitated. What if the lady was with Sergei and not her father? Then the voice inside her spoke to her again. Trust your instincts, Larisa. And then she heard her own voice ringing in her ears.
“I’m here!” She stood up, waving, the carriage swinging beneath her feet. She caught the rail and called again, louder this time, as loud as her lungs would allow. “I’m here!”
The lady stopped in her tracks and turned around, her eyes scanning the carriages.
“Larisa?” she called. “Larisa… is that you?”
The lady was only ten yards away and three below. She was an awful mess. Her clothes and her face were filthy and her hair was everywhere but she was very pretty. And in a way she reminded Larisa of someone else.
She grinned and waved, nodding her head frantically. “Yes! It’s me! It’s me!”
The lady’s face broke into a smile of relief and she blew out a huge breath that swept the stray hair aside from her face, then she started struggling ahead towards the gate.
When her carriage stopped she didn’t wait. She ignored the man’s protests and slid under the bar, dragging the bag with her, running towards the fence. Behind the lady she could see her father again now, pushing his way towards them, closing something in his hand and sliding it into his pocket, the tension easing from his face as he saw her, his smile widening with every step. By the time she reached them her father and the lady were standing together and she fell into their arms, holding on tight, never wanting to let go, but finally she did. Finally she took a step back and that was when she saw the bandage on her father’s arm and the blood on his hand and she looked up at him, her eyes wide and anxious.
“Daddy! You’re hurt!”
The lady was looking at his hand as well. Larisa saw their eyes meet as he lowered it to his side, wiping his palm against his leg.
“It’s nothing,” he said gently. But he was looking at the lady, not at Larisa. “Nothing at all.”
From somewhere behind them Larisa heard a shrill scream, then another. She had become used to the crazy screams from the people on the rides, but there was something different about these ones. Behind them the people were turning aside, talking to one another and looking, and then everyone seemed to be swarming away, rushing towards something new – some new attraction – that had taken their attention. Another show she supposed. Something different. Larisa turned to the lady beside her father, studying her for a moment with a bemused expression.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Larisa. Who are you?”
The lady’s cheeks lifted as she smiled. She really was pretty and she had lovely gray eyes that danced in the fairground light.
“Hello Larisa. My name’s Kelly,” she said. “And I’m especially pleased to meet you.”
38
Senator Harold Chisholm rapped his gavel twice on the cherry wood plate and the paneled room fell silent. Chisholm’s gaze trailed slowly back and forth behind his rimless glasses.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” The microphone squealed as he leaned towards it.
He adjusted it, the hollow scraping sound amplified through the chamber.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the room fell to silence as he started again. His voice was measured and somber. “As you all know, at this point in our proceedings this committee was due to hear evidence from Mr Jack Hartman, an acknowledged authority in the field of Russian organized crime.” A soft murmur coursed through the rows of spectators and press. Chisholm allowed it to pass.
“Most of you, I am certain, will have seen or heard news reports of the tragic events that occurred in New York last evening.” The murmur began to surge again. Chisholm let it run, playing the theatrics to maximum effect.
“However…” his eyes swept pointedly to the section of the room where the members of the press were gathered, the trace of a smile touching the corners of his lips,” like so much else we hear from our friends in the media, I am delighted to tell you that those reports were ill-informed and incorrect.”
There was a delay as the significance of his words sank in. When it did the murmur started again, rising to a flurried swell of speculation that grew in volume and momentum as it swept forward through the room. The other members of the committee to Chisholm’s left and right were leaning forward now as well, looking at the Chairman with confused, quizzical expressions. Chisholm ignored them, rapped his gavel a second time and looked straight ahead, his face set for the cameras.
“Contrary to those reports, I am delighted to tell you that Mr Hartman survived the attempt made on his life last night…” It was impossible to keep the audience under control now. Chisholm leaned in closer to the microphone, his voice rising above the mounting furor, “and will now be joining us for this hearing of the Special Senate Committee on Organized Crime.”
Chisholm raised his head beyond the audience to the twin paneled doors at the back of the chamber, nodding to the attendants stationed at either side. The room erupted with the sound of scraping chairs and jostled equipment as the camera crews lining the walls struggled in uncertain expectation
to realign their sights. People were standing now, craning to see. The Deputy Chairman on Chisholm’s left threw a hand across his microphone and spun towards Chisholm, whispering urgently at his ear. Chisholm ignored him, his gaze, with that of everyone else, fixed on the opening doors. Two men in dark suits came first, taking up positions at either side, then a third figure stepped between them, striding ahead into the aisle.
Jack Hartman dipped his head at the sudden blaze of television lights, walking forward steadily, ignoring the cameras and the sea of questioning faces, continuing down the center aisle to the table at the front. When he reached it he paused to nod at Chisholm, then set down his bundle of documents, drew back one of the four leather chairs, settled into it and pulled it closer to the table. At the front of the room Chisholm was slamming his gavel again, calling for order. Hartman sat silently, waiting for the noise to subside. His own image now filled the huge screen mounted on the wall behind the rostrum. He glanced up, studying it.
His face was streaked with cuts and grazes, taut and bleached pale, due only in part, he presumed, to the glaring wash of the lights. His hands, folded before him on the oak table, wrapped in the bandages the medics had insisted on despite his protests. Three carloads of FBI agents had arrived while they had been working on his burns. After that he’d spent the next five hours locked in interviews and debriefings – at the house to begin with, then in the car travelling back to the city and, after that, at the Bureau’s New York Field Office at Federal Plaza. He’d broken away every half hour or so to try Kelly’s number, his anxiety rising with each attempt until finally, just before eleven, she’d answered. She was fine, thank God. So were Aven and his daughter. He explained where he was and that people from the Bureau would need to talk to her and Nikolai but that could wait until tomorrow. She’d wanted him to come over to stay the night but he’d begged off, arguing that with Aven and his daughter there as well there wouldn’t have been room. He’d get a hotel he said, catch up with her in the morning, and in the end she’d reluctantly agreed. He hadn’t wanted to worry her any further so he hadn’t mentioned that the Bureau thought it best that they remained separated for now, just in case. Didn’t mention that they’d already dispatched half a dozen agents to her building as an extra precaution.
It had been almost two by the time they’d checked him into the TriBeCa Grand, leaving two agents stationed outside his room and another two in the lobby for good measure. But despite the strain and the exhaustion, sleep didn’t figure on the agenda. At six he gave up trying, got up and ordered something from room service then showered and dressed in the same ruined clothes he’d been wearing when Aven dragged him clear of the house and which now, it occurred to him, constituted the entire extent of his personal wardrobe. At seven they collected him and took him across to Kelly’s apartment where Donovan, the Bureau’s agent in charge, spent the next hour crosschecking Kelly’s and Aven’s versions of events with his own.
He started with Kelly and that had given Hartman his first chance to talk with Aven. How much he had changed since that first meeting at the Rossiya almost a decade ago.
And with all that he had lived through, how could he not have changed?
They had only just touched the surface when Aven’s daughter emerged from the spare room, then the agent wanted to talk with Nikolai and Kelly together so he had been left to look after Larisa. He’d fixed her some breakfast and sat with her while she ate it. It had been hard going at first, for both of them. He didn’t have a lot of recent experience in communicating with twelve year olds and she had been unsurprisingly reserved. But then gradually the ice had melted and as it turned out she was a great kid – gorgeous, sharp as tacks, and remarkably composed – and by the time the interviews were wrapped up they were getting along like old pals, sitting together on the sofa sharing their life stories while the TV played quietly in the background. The same story from last night was still running on the news. The fire. Two people killed. Hartman believed to have been one of them. That was the way Donovan had wanted it while they got their act together and caught up with the game.
Donovan finished with them around nine, leaving a couple of agents behind to see them through the day. Not long after that Kelly had headed off with Larisa for a foray uptown to buy them some fresh clothes, reluctantly accepting the Bureau appendage who insisted on tagging along. That had left Hartman alone again with Aven to pick up where they had left off, fitting together the fractured pieces of the past. By the time the girls arrived back laden down with packages Aven had come to the end of his story leaving Hartman sitting silently, contemplating the floor. Most of the rest of it – his side – had been filled out on the Bureau jet that had flown them into Reagan National at DC, what was left over covered off in the Bureau car that had whisked them from the airport to the underground car park on Capitol Hill.
“Mr Hartman?” Chisholm’s voice registered. Hartman’s tired gray eyes dropped from the screen.
“I’m sorry, Mr Chairman.” He shook his head, his eyes swinging back to the rostrum. “Could you repeat that, please?”
Chisholm regarded him with a forbearing smile. “What I said, Mr Hartman, was that as I understand it, before you present your testimony to our committee, you have a statement you wish to make.”
Hartman stared for a moment at the crusty old Senator. He had reached Chisholm at his home in Virginia at just before two, filling him in with a confidential but still edited version of events. Like everyone else he had seen the newscasts. Despite his genuine relief that Hartman was alive, it had been a tense conversation. The Senator had been pissed as hell with Hartman’s admission that the initial report had been a decoy; that he had anticipated that it would be leaked so it was only an edited version of the full extent of the material he had intended to present. He’d managed to maneuver around that issue by explaining that he had intended to provide Chisholm with the full report and a comprehensive briefing at the meeting they had scheduled before the hearing but now there wasn’t going to be time, added to which there was another problem as well. Much of the original documentation he was going to present had gone up in smoke in the blaze that had destroyed his house. Chisholm had made it outstandingly clear that he wasn’t impressed. First with Hartman’s second-guessing of the integrity of his office; second with the fact that now, by Hartman’s own admission, there was an apparent absence of support material for the public claims he intended to make.
On the first point all Hartman had been able to do was play contrite. As far as the second was concerned, it had taken a while, but in the end he had managed to persuade Chisholm that anything missing could be reassembled, it was just going to take time. After that the Senator had fallen quiet for a long minute while he pondered his position. As he waited through the silence Hartman could almost hear the machinery of the seasoned old political mind working, weighing up reputational risk against the publicity value of being able to present a star witness everyone thought was dead.
In the end Chisholm had drawn a long breath and given him the green light to go ahead, making it abundantly clear in his final few words that he didn’t like surprises and that Hartman should remember that. Surprises of any kind. So how was he going to react now, Hartman wondered.
His eyes lifted again to the projection of his own image that filled the screen behind the Chairman. He was wearing the new white shirt, dark tie and blue blazer Kelly had picked out for him that morning. She’d got everything right except the shirt. The collar was a size too small; pinching the hell out of his neck. He stretched against it. Nodded at Chisholm.
“Yes, Mr Chairman. I do have a statement I would like to read. Thank you.” He cleared his throat and leaned towards the microphone and the room fell silent.
“Several months ago I was requested to give evidence before this Committee on the findings of my investigations into the expanding extent of involvement in legitimate American enterprises by criminally linked organizations and individuals of Russian origin.” H
e paused, scanning the members of the Committee. “Some weeks ago I tabled a summation of my intended testimony at that time which, as I understand it, has been circulated to Committee members, all of whom will by now have had the opportunity to review and study that document.” There were nods of acknowledgment from the line of heads on the dais. Hartman continued. “In the intervening period, however,” he reached to the table, picking out the single bound document hastily reprinted that morning from the backup file held at his attorney’s office, “additional exceptionally serious matters have come to my attention.” He caught Chisholm’s eyes. Noticed the almost imperceptible nod of approval towards the way in which he was handling the introduction of the new material.
“At this hearing today,” Hartman continued, “it was – and still is – my intention to table this new evidence which, in particular, deals with a current and gravely disturbing association between…” He paused again to clear his throat, “… between one of Russian’s leading industrialists, a gentlemen by the name of Mr Marat Ivankov,” a low murmur rippled through the room behind him, “and a major United States defense contractor, MISSION TECHNOLOGIES…” The murmur swelled louder. On the rostrum Chisholm’s eyes had narrowed. Hartman cleared his throat again. “… and, Mr Ivankov’s close United States associate,” Hartman paused, took a breath, “prominent United States businessman and former US Ambassador to Russia, Mr Malcolm Powell.”
Behind Hartman the murmur rose to an uproar. Chairs were moving, scraping against the floor. The television lights seemed to flare suddenly brighter. Behind his image projected on the screen above the dais he could see half a dozen reporters already scurrying for the door. In front of him Chisholm was just recovering, swinging the gavel, calling for order, his astonished gaze locked on Hartman. Hartman returned it. Leaned in closer to the microphone and ploughed on.