“How very nice,” murmured Rubens.
“He’s over by the pool, getting ready to take a dip. You should talk to him later—he’s running for senator.”
“He is?” said Rubens, feigning not to know much about him. “Greene is from Kentucky, right?”
“He’s on the Defense Appropriations Committee,” said Greta. “You didn’t know?”
“I can’t keep track. Honestly.”
Greta nodded. She knew that her cousin worked for the NSA, though they never discussed it. He doubted she knew what he did. More than likely she thought him a career paper-pusher, an image Rubens did his best to reinforce. He even doubted she knew Desk Three existed, though it was possible she had caught references to the supporting infrastructure through her work.
“Maybe I’ll say hello to the congressman,” said Rubens. “After I mingle.”
“Good.” Greta gave him a peck on the cheek and slipped away, leaving him with a perfect view of the waitress, who was now serving drinks to a cluster of leering white-haired business associates of Greta’s husband. Rubens sidled into a position to watch her pass back to the bar, feigning interest in the band. He tilted his glass up in her direction as she went by as a signal that he wanted more. She nodded; it seemed a professional nod, however, and after smiling in response he turned to look at the stage, determined to be discreet in his ogling.
Which meant he had a perfect view a moment later when the lead guitarist did a full-gainer off the stage into the nearby pool, guitar and all.
Unfortunately, the guitar was still plugged into its amp and power source. Even more unfortunately, Congressman Greene had just gone in the pool himself. The enormously loud pop and the massive blue spark that enveloped the stage appeared to some in the audience as just another part of the band’s act, but the odor of ozone and fried gristle that followed permitted no such delusion.
6
The first flight on the board at Gate Two proved to be a flight to Rzeszow, a city in southeastern Poland. Dean dutifully bought his ticket, though he had begun to have his doubts about both the woman from the rest room and the mission itself. Hadash had said it would be easy; Dean had doubted that, but he had at least thought it would be straightforward. So far it had been anything but.
Looking at the plane did nothing to assure him. The aircraft could be charitably described as a torpedo-shaped screen door with propellers attached. In fairness, the Ilyushin IL-14 had been a serviceable transport in its day; unfortunately, its day had come and gone fifty years before.
As Dean strapped himself into the thinly padded seat, two Polish nuns took the row in front of him. Undoubtedly their presence was beneficial, because the plane made it to Rzeszow in one piece.
Dean followed the others out the cabin door, down the stairway to the tarmac, lit in the darkness by a pair of distant lights. The passengers had to retrieve their own bags; Dean hesitated for a moment before grabbing the blue-and-brown suitcase he had been given back in the States. He snapped out the handle and began pulling the suitcase behind him toward the nearby terminal building. He had taken only a few steps when a Polish customs agent materialized from the shadows, demanding in good but brusque English that he follow him back to his office. Dean’s muscles tensed and his eyes narrowed into wary slits as he studied the shadows for the most likely ambush spots. But rather than shanghaiing him in the customs office, the Polish officer led Dean through a narrow corridor at the side of the terminal to an outside door. He grinned and held it open.
A wave of paranoia flushed through Dean, but there was nothing to do but go through the door. For a moment he feared that the man’s coffee-stained teeth would be his last memory of the world.
They weren’t. A car waited a short distance away. In the driver’s seat was the woman he had seen in Heathrow.
“In,” she said.
“You want to pop the trunk so I can put my suitcase in?”
“Leave it,” she said. “It’s junk. Same with the carry-on. Clothes probably don’t fit anyway.”
Dean hauled the suitcase around to the other side of the car anyway. He might have thrown the bags in the back, except that the woman pressed the accelerator as he opened the door. He barely got inside in one piece.
“Did I do something to you, or have you been a bitch all your life?” asked Dean.
“Listen, Chuck, there’s one thing we have to get straight,” she started.
She didn’t finish, because Dean had his hands around her throat.
“Enough is enough,” he told her, nudging his right hand against her neck. His fingers held a small, very sharp blade made of a carbon-resin fiber he’d smuggled aboard the plane in the back of his belt. The material was only 90 percent as strong as the steel used in the best class of assault knives, but 90 percent was more than enough to slit a throat, even a pretty one.
“Your call,” said the woman, whose foot remained on the gas.
“Pull off the road gradually,” said Dean.
“I don’t think so. We’re being followed.”
Dean pushed the knife blade ever so gently against her neck, tickling her common carotid artery. It wasn’t the best placement, but it was adequate.
“Have it your way, Chucky boy.”
“Hit the brakes and you’ll bleed to death in thirty seconds,” he warned.
“Don’t be so dramatic.” She eased off her speed and pulled to the right, driving past a row of trucks. “It would take two minutes for me to die, if not three or four.”
A blue light began flashing behind them.
“See what I was saying?” said the woman.
Dean nudged her throat one last time as a warning, then slid his hand down to the back of the seat rest as she stopped the car. A pair of policemen approached with flashlights. Dean noticed that she not only kept the car running but also had her foot hovering over the gas pedal.
He also noticed that she had changed her miniskirt for a pair of multipocketed cargo pants, which seemed a bit of a shame.
The woman waited until the policeman was at the side of the car before rolling down the window. When she did, the policeman said something in Polish; the woman answered with a laugh and the policeman laughed, too. Then the man became very serious, apparently asking for her papers. She dug into her jacket for them. It occurred to Dean that the policeman’s angle gave him a pretty fair peek at her breasts, a view that she did nothing to discourage. Finally she handed over a thickly folded set of papers. The policeman frowned some more, took something from the middle, then gave them back. He and his comrade retreated to their car. When they were inside, she started forward slowly.
“What did you say?” Dean asked.
“That we’re American spies and would kick his butt if he interfered with us.”
“Seriously.”
“I am serious.”
“What did you really say?”
“He is nosy, isn’t he?”
“Who are you talking to?” said Dean.
“Voices. I hear voices. I’m Joan of Arc. Didn’t they tell you that, Chuck?”
Dean grabbed her neck again. “Never, ever call me Chuck, Chucky, or Chuck-bob.”
“Chuck-bob?” She started laughing uncontrollably, and didn’t even stop when he pressed the knife harder against her flesh. “Chuck-bob?”
“Explain what’s going on.”
“Hang on. I have another bribe to pay.” She pulled over to the side of the road, which had narrowed somewhat since they left the warehouse area of the airport. It looked deserted, but it wasn’t—a pair of headlights appeared on the opposite shoulder. They belonged to a Toyota pickup, which revved across the pavement. The driver pulled close enough to their car that Dean could smell his breath when he rolled down the window. Joan of Arc handed him an envelope and the truck flew away. She put the car in gear immediately, continuing down the long, dark expanse. After about a minute and a half, she took a turn onto what seemed to be a dirt road; fifty yards of potholes later they whip
ped onto a highway, just in front of a panel truck.
“One damn truck on the road for miles and it nearly flattens us,” she said after accelerating from the squealing tires and piercing horn. “You’re bad luck, Charles Dean.”
“My friends call me Charlie,” he told her.
“I’m not your friend.”
Dean slid the knife blade back up his sleeve and brought his arm back to his lap. “What’s your name?”
“I told you. Joan of Arc.”
“You’re not much of a comedienne.”
“True. I like the meaty tragic roles.” She shifted a bit in the seat. “Lia DeFrancesca.”
“Funny, you don’t look Italian.”
“My parents are second-generation Italian-Americans. I’m adopted. No bullshit, Charlie.” She glanced at him. “Look, we have certain ways of doing things, okay?”
“Like barging into men’s rest rooms?”
“Got your attention. And I knew it was secure.”
He couldn’t tell whether she was smiling or not.
“Look, your only job here is to watch what we do,” she said. She sounded as if she was making an effort to be nice, though it fell short. “You’re just a baby-sitter. So don’t get in the way and we’ll be fine.”
Before Dean could say anything, Lia jammed on the brakes and spun the car into a one-eighty. Then she started accelerating back in the opposite direction.
“Now what?” asked Dean.
“Now we board another flight,” she said.
“Another flight?”
“They did tell you we were going to Siberia, didn’t they?” she said. “They didn’t tell you that?”
“They told me Surgut.”
She made a face. “Not exactly. In any event, we need to take a plane. We’ve already lost a lot of time.”
“What was all the business at the airport?”
“What business?”
“In the bathroom.”
“You happened into a Russian agent.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Was he tracking me?”
“We don’t think so.” Lia touched her ear. “No, we don’t think so. So what if he knows? That’s bullshit.”
“Who are you talking to?”
“God, Charlie. God.”
“Look—”
“I have a radio hookup,” she said. “I talk to the Art Room. Fuck yourself.”
“You talking to me or them?”
“Anyone who thinks it’s appropriate,” Lia told him. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Charlie. But at least you’ll learn it from the best.”
It was lucky for her, he thought, that he’d put his knife away.
7
Rubens stepped back as the sparks continued to arc above the bamboo of his cousin’s swimming pool. He saw immediately what had happened and realized the grisly consequences—the guitarist had jumped into the water still connected to his amp, freakishly electrocuting himself and the congressman in what would undoubtedly become the lead item on the evening’s news broadcasts. Rubens saw headlines and news magazines, articles and pictures, video interviews, innuendo, rumors, Nightline specials, and debates on Crossfire.
It was time to leave.
As discreetly as possible, he walked through the house to the front door, down the long driveway to his car at the curb, got in, and started away. As he turned onto the main road, he thought he heard a siren in the distance. He punched the CD selector, calling up a collection of piano sonatas from Mozart.
Hours later, resting at home in his den, he put on the television. CNN greeted him with a special graphic and musical interlude, just coming back from commercial break during a half hour devoted to what it called Congressman Greene’s Unique Life. Rubens flicked the remote to MSNBC, where a pair of talking heads argued about whether guitars should be banned from poolsides. FoxNews used the occasion to roll out clips from other bizarre deaths, including one where a man had been gored by a rhino and carried for a mile, impaled on his horn.
The local television station showed a shot of police interrogating witnesses. His cousin Greta was being comforted by her husband in the background. Rubens felt a slight pang of sympathy—it was unfortunate that anyone had to be connected with such a bizarre media parade. As for Greene—well, he hadn’t been the agency’s most reliable supporter; hopefully his successor would prove more pliant.
Rubens pushed the remote again. A&E was just beginning a broadcast of Carmen, the opera based on Prosper Me´rime ´e’s classic story of love and betrayal. He settled back to watch.
8
The word Siberia had an almost magical ability to conjure a thousand images, none of them particularly pleasant. Yet the reality was infinitely more complex, as Dean realized scanning the vast plains below from the copilot’s seat of the Antonov An-2 that had brought them from Rzeszow across the Urals, with two brief stops to refuel in between. A seemingly infinite pattern of green and black stretched forward over the horizon, blotches of land that, from the distance, seemed oblivious to human intrusion, let alone any predictable pattern of development characteristic of modern Homo sapiens. As they descended, the blurs and blotches of color gave way, first to brown and blue, then to complicated dots and swirls. As Dean focused his bleary eyes, the dots and swirls revealed themselves as roads and towns and clusters of factories and oil fields. The vast whiteness that Dean had imagined Siberia to be was nowhere in sight; this did not mean that it did not exist, only that it lay beyond the horizon of his imagination.
Dean put his hand against the dash as the An-2 began banking sharply. If the Ilyushin he’d taken earlier was old, this aircraft seemed to date from the very first days of flight. It was a single-engined biplane, with portions of its exterior covered by fabric rather than metal. Its large—and loud—1,000-horsepower Shveston Ash-621R engine grumbled below Dean’s feet, the swirl of its propeller at the nose of the plane a haze before his eyes. But the An-2 was in fact a steady, extremely dependable aircraft, and while its wings harked back to an ancient era they gave the craft amazing stability and maneuverability, factors not to be taken lightly when hunkering through mountain passes such as those they had taken through the Urals. These wings also allowed the plane to land on makeshift fields, which it did now, touching down on a dirt strip that seemed too short and narrow for a game of football. Dust and grit flew in a small tornado as they turned and taxied back; as the prop feathered, the pilot, who hadn’t spoken a word on the flight, looked expectantly at Dean. Dean took this as a signal that he should get out; he undid his seat belt and squeezed back into the rear cabin.
Lia was already outside. As Dean landed, the engine whipped back up and the plane shot forward, almost instantly lifting into the sky.
“So?” he asked Lia as it circled away.
She didn’t answer.
“This is Surgut?” he asked.
“No, we’re a little north of Surgut.”
“How far?”
“Two hundred miles.”
“That’s a little?”
“It is out here.” She stopped, spun around slowly for a moment as if checking her bearings, then took what looked like a small cell phone from her pants pocket. Unlike most women, she didn’t have a handbag.
“What about the radio in your head?” Dean asked.
He meant the question sarcastically, but she took it seriously. “Doesn’t work everywhere or all the time. Here, we’re out of range.” She punched some buttons, waiting for a connection. “It’s a satellite phone, Charlie,” she said sarcastically, as if he had asked. “Yes, it’s very small. Yes, it’s secure.”
Lia shook her head, as if he had said something stupid.
“Hey,” she said into the phone. Whoever was on the other end must have told her something, because she answered by saying, “Well, kick ass then,” and hung up. She slipped the phone back into her pocket
“All right, come on,” Lia told Dean.
She began walking along
a path crusted with thick tire tracks, the sort a tractor would make in mud. The field lay at the edge of a swamp and, in fact, had drainage ditches nearby; it had obviously been part of the swamp at one time. Lia’s shoes were low-slung affairs, the sort that might be called sensible on a city street but here were barely up to negotiating the clumpy dried mud and ruts on the scratch road. Still, she labored on. Dean grabbed her once as she lost her balance; she pulled away without thanking him, and the next time she slipped he let her fall.
The road curved out from the field through a set of green rushes, past a scummy pond to a larger road. This road wasn’t paved, but it was wide and flat, or at least flatter than the one they had taken from the field. As they walked along it, a swarm of bugs flew up so thick that they seemed like rain. Dean swatted and batted them away, but the swarm was thick and persistent; bugs flew into his eyes and nose and against his mouth. Finally he broke into a trot, running ahead, then twisting and turning like a kid playing keep-away on the school ground. The swarm was not easily dodged, however; finally he got away from the thickest part of it by running full blast for about twenty yards and dropping to his knees.
“They’re a bitch, aren’t they?” said Lia when she caught up.
“You have bug spray?” he asked.
“No.” She kept walking. It might have been his imagination, but the swarm didn’t seem to be bothering her.
“You get used to them?” he asked.
“Are you crazy?” She stopped. The land around them had gradually become drier; on their right a long, narrow field stretched to the horizon. Dust rose in the distance, a cyclone bent on its axis.
“You’re the only woman I ever met who doesn’t carry a pocketbook,” said Dean.
“You don’t get around much, do you?”
A small van materialized in front of the approaching cyclone. Except for its oversize double tires and a raised suspension, the truck looked like a standard GM panel van, the type a small florist in the States might use for deliveries. Its radiator grille had a symbol made of Cyrillic characters; otherwise it had no markings.
“Took you long enough,” said Lia, who had to reach up to pull open the door when it arrived.
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