by Jenni Wiltz
Chapter Thirty-Four
July 2012
San Francisco, California
Ivan Tarasenko rapped on the back door of the ambulance parked in Elizabeth Brandon’s driveway. The vehicle’s paint job was barely dry. If anyone looked closely, they’d see the red numbers and letters had begun to drip. In Moscow, they had fixers paid to stand by for rush jobs like this; in a strange and crowded city, they’d done it themselves with supplies stolen from a hardware store and an abortion clinic.
Ivan knocked again and Sergei flung open the ambulance’s back doors, sliding a gurney towards him. “Hurry,” Sergei said. “The police went around the block.” Then his eyes fell on the patch of red spreading across Ivan’s shoulder. “What happened?”
“Bitch stabbed me.” Ivan wheeled the gurney from the driveway into the house’s foyer. The professor lay on the floor, unconscious but breathing. Her throat had already begun to bruise, a thick band of blue-black wrapped around it like a necktie. He hadn’t intended to choke her. Her submission was all he wanted, but she’d fought him until the very moment her eyes closed.
He picked her up and put her on the gurney, strapping her limbs down in case she woke up before he got her in the vehicle. “You fought well, lastochka,” he said. His hands stroked her legs, feeling the soft flesh of her inner thigh and the thick band of muscle in her calves. “I’ll give you your reward later.”
Before he left the house, he used his cell phone to record a copy of the phone message that had caused her stop dead in her tracks. Then he wheeled the gurney back to the ambulance, pushed it inside, and pulled the doors shut behind him. Sergei signaled to Yakov, who punched the gas so sharply the gurney jerked forward and slammed against the back of the driver’s seat.
“Easy!” Sergei barked. “Like a grandmother, not a mafiya wheelman!”
Yakov slowed the van and rounded the corner without upsetting the gurney.
Ivan rotated his shoulder and grimaced. The woman had stabbed him just outside his body armor; an inch to his left and he would be unharmed. “Sergei, listen to this,” he said, reaching for his phone. He played his superior the recording of the answering machine message.
Sergei’s scarred face twitched with concentration as he deciphered the English words. “Voloshin,” he muttered.
Ivan nodded. “The same name as the man we killed this morning. It cannot be a coincidence. I think we should kill him, too.”
Sergei shook his head. “We have no orders to do so.”
“What if he knows about the letters, too?”
“The message says he is in a nursing home. Old men talk and no one believes them.”
“What if he makes them listen? The younger sister has obviously visited him. We should silence him before he helps anyone else.”
“It is too dangerous,” Sergei protested. “We cannot risk being caught now.”
Ivan let his eyes flicker toward the front seat. “Send Yakov,” he said softly.
“And if he is caught?”
“You and I go back to Moscow with the woman.”
“The American police will interrogate Yakov.”
“Not if the cleaner gets to him first.”
Sergei shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“Do you want Starinov to hear this message? What will you tell him when he asks if we have taken care of it? He will hear it, Sergei. I will make sure of it.”
“Bliad,” Sergei swore. He pulled out his phone and began re-charting their course. “Yakov, we have another target.”
Ivan shuffled through the bags they’d stolen from the abortion clinic until he found something useful. He pulled out a crumpled white coat and a stethoscope and tossed them up onto the van’s empty passenger seat, next to Yakov.
“Here,” he said. “You’re going to need these.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
July 2012
San Francisco, California
Constantine watched Natalie’s eyes roll back in their sockets as she slumped in her chair. He caught her before she slid to the floor. “Christ, not now,” he said, feeling her twitch in his arms. Balancing Natalie’s weight on one hip, he reached out for the letters and his translation and shoved them into his pocket. He swung her up into his arms and crept through the stacks, anxious to avoid being seen.
On his left, between a break in the stacks, he saw an unmarked gray door. He swung it open and hurried inside, fumbling for the light switch. It was a janitor’s closet; the walls were lined with metal racks stacked high with cleaning supplies. He set Natalie down on the floor as gently as he could and put his hand to her forehead. There was no fever.
He opened the miniature whiskey bottle in his pocket and waved it beneath her nose, with no response. He swore out loud and reached for a folded towel lying on a nearby shelf. Dipping it into the whiskey, he patted her forehead and wrists. Her pulse beat like a child’s, fast and faint. He tilted the bottle to her mouth, but she twisted in his arms and the liquid dribbled down her chin.
His parents, he realized, had gone through this agony every single day with Lana while he’d remained oblivious, off playing war games in Chechnya. For the first time, he understood how much harder it was to be the one who stayed behind. Guilt ripped into him like an animal’s claws. Mamulya, I’m sorry, he thought.
The doctors had told him that Lana survived the kidnapping by becoming someone else inside her head. But afterward, instead of putting them back together, she tried to kill the girl to whom it had all happened in order to remove any permanent reminders. He put his hand on Natalie’s forehead. “That’s how it is, isn’t it? It’s like walking into a trap every day.”
He decided to try the whiskey again. He propped her up in his arms, squeezed her cheeks, and poured a quarter of the bottle into her mouth. Then he pinched her nostrils shut and waited for her to swallow. A moment later, her throat convulsed and she sputtered and choked. She twitched, swallowed, and drew in a huge breath of air. Her eyes flew open, racing from corner to corner.
“You’re safe,” he said. “Natalie, you’re safe.” He poured a few more drops onto her tongue and she lapped them up. “Can you hear me?”
She nodded, panting as if she’d run a race. Her hand latched onto his arm and held on tightly. “He wanted to fight me.”
“Belial?”
Her eyes filled with tears, the clear liquid diluting their color until she looked like a transparent ghost. “I’ve never fought him like that before.”
He bent over her until their noses touched. “Natalie, you won. You’re here, with me. Belial’s not in control. You won.”
“I won,” she repeated softly. “But it doesn’t feel that way.” One hand reached up to wipe the tear tracks from her cheeks. “We need that password, Constantine.”
“I know. But there’s time. I’m just glad you’re all right.”
“I’m not all right,” she said, struggling to sit up in his arms. “He’s going to try again. We have to beat him to it.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
July 2012
Daly City, California
“It is done,” Yakov said, sliding into the ambulance’s passenger seat and slamming the door behind him. The stethoscope still hung around his neck.
In the driver’s seat, Sergei nodded. He shifted into gear and maneuvered down the steep driveway. “Did anyone see you?”
“Nyet. The old man was asleep.”
“Good.” Sergei glanced over his shoulder, to the blond woman on the stretcher. Ivan sat beside her, flicking his cigarette lighter on and off. As long as they got away before anyone raised the alarm, the hardest part of their task was over. All that remained was to communicate the password directly to Starinov.
Sergei followed the signs for the southbound interstate. Once they were safely headed for the airport, he reached under the seat and pulled out the rusted metal box they’d retrieved from Dashkov’s hotel room. He pulled out the Romanov letters and handed one to Yakov and one to Ivan.
“Read these. We will tell Starinov the password before we get on the plane.”
The men unfolded the letters and began to read. Sergei concentrated on the late afternoon traffic, keeping an eye out for a patrol car. Anyone looking closely would see the dripping paint, the lack of medicinal supplies inside, and the impossibility of their being actual rescue personnel. He made sure to signal before each lane change and stayed two miles per hour below the speed limit. He’d driven no more than three miles when Ivan cleared his throat. “Sergei?”
“Yes?”
“We have a problem.”
“I don’t want to hear that.”
“He’s right,” Yakov said, letting the letter flutter to his lap. “This doesn’t make sense. It’s a bunch of garbage.”
“Mine too,” Ivan replied. “It doesn’t say anything about a password. Or money.”
Sergei swore. A thin, nervous sweat broke out beneath his arms and on his palms.
“What do we do?” Yakov asked.
Ivan flicked his lighter and held it close to the woman’s hair. “Let the woman help us. If she doesn’t, we’ll kill her.”
“No,” Sergei barked. “The Prime Minister ordered us to bring her alive.”
“She doesn’t know that.” Ivan flashed an impish smile and pinched the woman’s nose shut. Within three seconds, her eyes flashed wildly and she struggled against the restraints of the stretcher. “Good afternoon, lastochka,” he said softly.
“Who the fuck are you? What do you want?” Her blond hair had fallen into her eyes and she tossed her head to shake it away. “Are you the one who shot up my sister’s apartment?”
“You put up quite a fight. I’m proud of you.”
“Where’s Natalie?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. Right now, you will help us get the tsar’s password.”
The woman blinked twice then rested her head back on the stretcher. “This isn’t happening. I’m dreaming. This must be how Nat feels all the time.”
Ivan held up his letter. “This looks familiar, doesn’t it? Voloshin showed them to you and now he’s dead. Give us the password or you’ll die, too.”
The blond woman snarled at him. “What the fuck are you talking about? I told Nat and I’ll tell you—the password doesn’t exist.”
“You should hope it exists. Your life depends on it.” Ivan dangled the letter in front of her face.
Her eyes followed it like a child following a hypnotist’s swinging coin. “Untie me,” she said, rattling the restraints on her arms.
Ivan looked up to the front of the van. “Do it,” Sergei said. “And shoot her if she moves.”
Some of the color drained from the woman’s cheeks as Ivan pulled the gun from his waistband and laid it on the floor of the van. He unbuckled the wrist restraints, but left her legs shackled. “Read,” he said, picking up the gun and pointing it at her. “Tell us the password.”
Yakov tossed the other letter into the back of the van. Ivan scooped it up and presented it to her. She snatched it out of his hand. When she reached the end, she flipped back to the first letter and read it again. She turned each one over, looking for more. “Where’s the rest?”
“What do you mean, the rest?”
“I mean the rest,” she said. “There’s no password here. There’s nothing about a bank, a branch, a type of account, the name the account is under…not a damn thing. There has to be more.”
Sergei felt the sweat drip down his back, pooling above his belt. He signaled right and moved out of the passing lane. The airport signs were all pointing to the right, toward an overpass veering up and over the freeway. “We must have that password. You are not looking.”
“There’s nothing else to look at,” the woman said, voice rising on the last two words. “It doesn’t exist. That’s what I’ve said all along.”
Ivan growled. “Voloshin said he worked with you. He said you verified the authenticity of these letters.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen these pieces of paper before.”
“You’re lying!”
“Even if I were, those letters are still missing vital information! Unless you have something else you’re not showing me, I can’t help you. Please, just let me go.”
“I can’t do that,” Sergei said. He followed the signs for cargo, directing him away from the main passenger terminals. When they’d left behind most of the traffic, he pulled over in a loading zone and put on the vehicle’s emergency flashers. “Go,” he said to Yakov, pointing at his stethoscope. “Stand over her with that.”
Yakov clambered into the back of the van and bent over the woman. Sergei pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed the primary speed dial. It rang three times.
“Do you have it?” Starinov asked.
“We have the letters and the woman. But there’s a problem.”
“Solve it.”
“The letters appear to be missing vital information. They don’t specify a bank or an account number.”
The line fell silent. Sergei heard his own breathing amplified by the fiberoptics. Even his lungs sounded scared. “What about Voloshin?” the Prime Minister asked. “Interrogate him. Make him tell you.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Your Excellency. We killed him already.”
“Zavali yebalo,” the Prime Minister swore. “Should I send the Red Cross or the Youth League to replace you? Either one could do a better job.” Then he paused. “Vadim,” he said in a smooth, silky voice. “Oh, Vadim, you cold-hearted son of a bitch.”
“Your Excellency?”
“It’s Dashkov. You said he took the wrong sister, but Vadim allowed it. It must be because she knows something we don’t.”
“Sir, what are your orders? Do we go back into the city to find them?”
“Not yet,” Starinov answered. “Hold your position and wait for my signal. I believe I know how to locate them. Give me an hour to so to make the arrangements.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
July 2012
Moscow, Russia
Two letters, one woman, one password. He ruled nearly one-sixth of the world’s land mass but these three things continued to elude him. Starinov looked at the first portrait hung on his wall. What would Ivan the Terrible have done to a subordinate who professed to be stymied by these things? He would have tied the disobedient one to a pole and slow-roasted him over hot coals.
Things had been simpler before the advent of mass media, microjournalism, and satellite imagery. Modern rulers were forced to hide behind religious terrorists and organized crime. These shadow organizations got the glory for doing Russia’s dirty work, and he took the blame for not curtailing their nefarious activities. But it was impossible to reveal how connected they all were—the members of the Duma and the press wouldn’t stand for it.
He pulled the blue curtains open an inch, watching the rays of the morning sun warm the slanted rooftops of the buildings inside the Kremlin. The world was waking up and he had more business to attend to. The first part, the hardest part, had already been done.
He picked up the phone, pressed the button that scrambled the caller ID, and dialed. His prey answered on the second ring. “Da?”
“Good morning, Vadim Petrovich. I wasn’t sure you’d be in the office yet.”
“It is a busy day, Your Excellency.”
“It is indeed,” Starinov said. “I know what you’ve done, Vadim.”
“Oh?” The strain in the other man’s voice wore it filament-thin. “What is that?”
“Don’t be coy,” he said, gazing into Great Peter’s hypnotic brown eyes. “I know everything.”
“Then why bother asking?”
“Because I wanted to test you, Vadim, and you failed. Your little game is over. I have the letters. I even have one of your agents.”
The older man’s voice revealed his pique. “Then why bother speaking to me? Have me killed and be done with it.”
“Oh, I
will. But before you die, I am going to ask you for a favor.”
“Go to hell, Maxim.”
“You first,” he snapped. “After you deliver Dashkov and the woman to me.”
“I will do no such thing.”
“I suspected you would feel that way. Valery, however, thought you would be much more agreeable.”
“What does Valery have to do with it? This isn’t a matter for the Criminal Intelligence Department.”
“But it is, you see. How else could I learn that your granddaughter’s favorite color is purple? That she loves it so much she would follow a man waving a purple scarf right into a waiting van instead of continuing on to school?”
He heard Vadim suck in his breath sharply. “You bastard! What have you done?”
“I have done what I do best and you know it.”
“Maxim, she’s just a child. She has nothing to do with this.”
“I never thought she did.” He paused. “She is unharmed, I assure you. Tell me where Dashkov and the woman are and my men will collect them. When I have word that they are in my custody, I will release your granddaughter.”
“Jesus, Maxim, I need time.”
“How long does it take to make a call? Two minutes? Maybe three?”
“I’ve been calling Dashkov for hours already. He won’t answer.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“An hour. Give me an hour.”
“You have ten minutes.”
“I need more than that to run a trace! Give me an hour, Maxim.”
“You have ten minutes. Then I will tell the officer holding a gun to your granddaughter’s head to pull the trigger. Unless, of course, he has other things he’d like to do first.”
“If you do that, I will hunt you for the rest of my days, Maxim.”