by John Weisman
Sam had always been nervous about having the Browning at his apartment—possession of suppressed weapons was illegal, even for diplomats—and so he’d stored the gun, the holster, the silencer, and the unmarked brown cardboard box containing fifty rounds of subsonic hollow-point ammunition he’d been given with the weapon in a safe-deposit box. Later, the Hi-Power and its accoutrements resided in the same small, fireproof safe lag-bolted to the floor of his condominium in Rosslyn in which Sam kept German, Irish, and Belgian passports and half a dozen other forms of alias identification. But Sam had always been uneasy about having a gun in the apartment. And so the pistol and all its accoutrements currently resided in the library wall safe of “Rose House,” Michael O’Neill’s 1730 stone cottage on the outskirts of the fashionable horse-country town of Upperville, Virginia, seventy-five miles from Washington.
Right now, though, Sam wished he had the old Hi-Power cocked, locked, and tucked into the waistband of his trousers.
SAM PUSHED the minuterie, a single dim bulb came on, and he proceeded down a shabby, narrow hallway. The first apartment on his left belonged to the concierge. No one was home. Sam knew that because the door, which had a plaque bearing the word “concierge” stenciled on it, was locked with a padlock and hasp. The light went out. Minuterie, hell. This was a damn thirty-secondrie. He fumbled along the wall until he found the button. When the light came on again he made his way to a narrow stairwell.
Sam glanced down. There was water on the tiled floor—from the shoes of people coming in from the snow-covered street. Directly ahead was another minuterìe button. Sam pushed it and a light somewhere above him came on. He put his gloved hand on the utilitarian wrought-iron handrail and started to climb, stepping gingerly on the concave marble treads. Wet marble was more slippery than Teflon-coated ice.
Carefully, he mounted the stairs. On the first-floor landing he peered into the hallway, sniffing like a dog catching scent. Someone was cooking cabbage in vinegar. He saw lights under two doors. He moved across the landing, pushed the light button, and continued his climb. There was no sign of life on the second floor. He pressed the minuterie button to sustain the light, and continued his climb.
On the third-floor landing he paused to get his bearings. The hallway plunged into darkness. Sam cursed silently, found the minuterie button by running his hands along the wall. He hit it with his thumb. Nothing happened.
He sighed, descended to the second floor, and hit the button with his gloved fist. When the light came on he scampered tiptoe up the stairs and started down the hallway to his left, searching out doors for Irina’s flat number. He was halfway down the hall when his world was plunged into darkness. He ran his hand along the cold, rough stucco until he felt a button, which he squished. A single bulb at the end of the hall came on. But it was enough to see by, and Sam pressed on, only to discover he was in the wrong wing. Then the lights went out again.
This alleged encounter was turning into a frigging comedy of errors. Sam made his way back to the stairwell in the dark, then felt his way down the opposite hallway, running his hands along the wall until his fingers located a minuterie button. And having found the damn thing without killing himself, he depressed it with his index finger.
Yet another ten-watt bulb came on, illuminating the dingy hallway. Sam turned and quickly scanned the doors. He was in the right place. Apartment III- should be on the right side of the hallway as he faced the rear, three doors down. Sam searched for another wall button just in case the lights went out. There was none. He tapped the one in front of him again, then moved quickly toward his target. Just as he reached the door, the hallway went black.
A fissure of light spread along the length of the frame. The door to apartment III- was slightly ajar.
CHAPTER 16
SAM STOOD in the hallway for some seconds considering possible scenarios. As a case officer, he had been trained never to make a move without having at least one alternative plan up his sleeve. Right now he felt sleeveless.
The simple answer was that Irina had left the door open for him. More probable was that she’d been trailed and there were half a dozen FSB goons in the closets just waiting to pounce.
But if that were the case, Sam’s radar would have picked up a blip. And there had been no blips today. Not a single one.
Sam slowed his breathing until he felt the tom-tom beat of his own pulse in wrists and neck. Then he stood, silent and immobile. Every environment, he knew, has its own natural rhythm. As a young turkey hunter, Sam had learned how to wait out his prey. The turkey is a cunning bird, with sharp eyes, and a keen sense of its natural habitat. Sam was taught by experience in the field that anything he did to disturb the turkey’s surroundings spooked the birds and spoiled the hunt.
And so he became both practiced and patient. He’d find a position up against a tree and camouflage himself and his shotgun to make it hard for the gobblers to spot him. He would mask his human smell by using scent blockers. And most important, he would establish his hunting site early enough so that the forest would return to its normal and natural rhythms long before the turkeys moved into Sam’s area. By the time Sam was ready, the songbirds would be chirping, the insects buzzing, and the other critters doing whatever they did naturally.
Now, in the darkened hallway, Sam opened his mouth ever so slightly, and then … just … listened.
After some seconds, he heard the gurgle of water running through pipes somewhere above his head. He heard muffled voices. He heard the sound of faint music. The apartment-house habitat was in its natural state. He cocked his head. There was no hint of ominous creaking of floor; no giveaway squeak of stealthy soft rubber boot soles; no adrenaline-heightened shallow breathing close by.
Then Sam inclined his head slightly and put his ear close to the door of the apartment. There was nothing coming from inside. No breathing. No water. No muffled voices. Only silence.
Sam eased the door open, mouthing a silent prayer to the god of spies to keep it from creaking. His prayer was answered. He stepped over the threshold into a small, low-ceilinged living room and closed the door behind him, careful to turn the handle so as not to make any noise when the latch caught.
The door firmly shut, he looked around. The furniture—what there was of it—was sparse and utilitarian. A daybed sat against the far wall. In front of it, on an imitation Azeri rug, were a pseudo-Scandinavian coffee table and a teak-colored armchair with a concave, burnt orange upholstered seat. Two narrow windows looked out on a brick air shaft just wide enough so that a hint of daylight came through the filthy glass.
To Sam’s immediate left was the kitchen: a stove that used bottled gas and a four-foot-high fridge were the only appliances. There was a dinette with two chairs. A single cup and saucer, and an aluminum ashtray holding a number of cigarette butts, sat on the scuffed metal table.
To his right, he could just see into what he guessed was the bedroom. There was a light on. Quickly, Sam scanned for closets and other places to hide. There were none in the living room.
He checked the kitchen. There was a no coffee in the cup, but a lot in the saucer, and some puddled on the tabletop. He picked up the ashtray in his gloved right hand and checked the bottom with the back of his bare left hand. It was warm. There were eight butts in it. One was dark brown—the Punch cigarrito Irina had taken earlier. The others were filters; all identical. They were smoked only halfway down. Then they’d been carefully stubbed out.
He examined one. It was American—a Marlboro. They were all Marlboros. He opened the fridge, which held a single bottle of beer. There were six glasses, three plates, and two cups and saucers in the single metal cabinet above the tiny, cold-water-only sink that stood opposite the stove and fridge. Sam ran his fingers under the empty drawers on either side of the sink. Nothing had been secreted there.
Sam pulled his glove on, left the kitchen, and made his way toward the light. In the short passage between the living room and the bedroom stood a tall, dark, Art
Deco armoire. He opened one of the burled wood doors. It was empty except for a dozen or so wire hangars that jangled when the armoire’s base moved on the uneven floorboards.
He peeked into the bedroom. A single window, shade lowered, provided light. Obviously, it looked out on the inner courtyard. The room was devoid of furniture except for a bare double bed. Not quite a bed, just an ancient, stained, ragged-around-the-edges box spring, sitting on a cheap wheeled metal frame. He backed away. The whole place absolutely reeked of safe house. With the exception of the cigarrito, there was not a single sign of Irina, or anything that linked the place to Ed Howard.
Sam paused. Something was terribly wrong here. The pieces didn’t fit the puzzle.
To his right was the bathroom door with its frosted glass panel. No light shone through. He tested the handle. The door was unlocked. He tried to open it but the door wouldn’t budge. He leaned his shoulder against the frame and pushed, gently at first, then with increasing pressure. But the damn thing was wedged shut.
He pushed hard. Whatever it was that had held the door shut slipped. Sam saw bright light through the frosted glass panel.
He shoved, forced the door open, and saw Irina in the bathtub.
That was when it all began to make sense.
The bathroom had no windows or vents. They’d used the mattress to muffle the sound of her screams. She lay in the empty porcelain tub, eyes open, lips rolled back from her teeth, frozen in a pitiful smile that Sam knew wasn’t a smile at all. Animals, crushed on the highway, often display similar, upturned lips. But roadkill didn’t smile in death. And neither did Irina.
He stepped across the mattress very carefully so as not to disturb anything. There was blood on the tile floor and the sides of the tub.
They’d bound her arms and legs with some kind of wide, dark tape. He wrestled the mattress on end and examined both sides. There was blood on it, as well as urine—wet splotches in three separate areas. At one point they’d laid her atop it and worked her over. He examined the black-and-white tile of the bathroom floor and saw the drag marks. Then they’d moved her to the tub, where they’d finished their … work.
He wasn’t ready for this level of butchery. The urge to get the hell out was overwhelming.
And yet … and yet, Sam forced himself to stay, understood that he had to stay, because this, just like Pavel Bara-ov’s murder, was a message—a form of communication. It was a hideous message. And it had to be deciphered.
And so, he went on autopilot, relegating every response and reaction that might be detrimental to forward progress to a mental shredder. There was no time for compassion now. Nor empathy, nor sensitivity.
There are no coincidences. Sam had to read the signs here—they’d provide the road map. That was his job. Nothing else.
And so, he slammed the emotional door shut and started to reconstruct what the hell had gone on—and more important, why.
Sam backed out of the bathroom, careful to ensure that he wasn’t leaving any bloody boot prints, and went to the front door. From his trouser pocket he took a fresh handkerchief inside of which was folded a pair of latex gloves. He stuffed the ski gloves in his jacket and pulled the rubber ones on. He went to the front door, listened to make sure no one was outside, turned the handle, and opened it. Quickly, in the dim light, he examined the lock. It was a simple cylinder lock. He reached into his pocket for the box of matches, struck one, and held it up to the plug. There were scratches around the keyhole. The match burned down and he blew it out before it burned his gloved fingers, then struck another and squinted at the lock again. There were three fresh scratches around the keyhole.
He turned the handle from the inside, revealing a simple and unlockable spring-loaded latch. The lock itself was a keep-it-simple two-turn dead bolt. There was a T-shaped knob just below the inner door handle that secured the dead bolt manually.
Sam snorted. These things could be opened in a matter of seconds—even by someone as rusty as he. There were no tumblers or pins—the key was an old-fashioned one, which turned the dead bolt directly.
He closed the door, made sure the two matches were fully extinguished, and dropped them into his jacket pocket. So they’d broken in and surprised her. That explained the coffee in the saucer and on the table.
Quick in the door—and grab her. He moved to the kitchen, turned the light on, and dropped onto hands and knees, examining the floor. There were faint but unmistakable fresh scrape marks on the scuffed linoleum.
Sam stepped back and examined the kitchen with a critical eye. The front legs of the small refrigerator had been moved recently. He knew that because half an inch to the left was the indentation. Sam eased the fridge from the wall and checked behind it. Nothing had been concealed. He slid it forward and tilted the four-foot-high box backward. Nothing underneath but wads of accumulated dust.
The living room appeared to be undisturbed. But Sam’s practiced eye saw that every piece of furniture in the room had been moved and then replaced. The armoire, too, had been searched. He pulled a chair from the kitchen and stood atop it. The dust on its top had been touched. It was unmistakable: someone had dragged a finger along the back edge, feeling for a cache, or an envelope, or something.
He probed the walls and tested the floors for places where Howard might have hidden materials—and came up dry.
After a quarter of an hour, there was nothing left to examine. The place had obviously been gone over by professionals—and from the look of it, they hadn’t found anything. Why professionals? Because Sam knew that normally, the premises looked like a disaster zone after having been searched. Tossed, Sam remembered, was the police term for the procedure.
But Edward Howard’s safe house hadn’t been tossed. Nothing was out of place. Which suggested to Sam that whoever had done this knew Howard wouldn’t keep anything sensitive at the safe house.
Which bothered Sam. Because there had to be a reason why Irina had summoned him to this place. Had to be something tangible for her to give him.
Sam returned to the bathroom. He went over the mattress inch by inch, looking for slits, tears, or resewn seams. There was nothing.
He put the hard part off until last. Finally, he stared down at Irina. Her throat had been slashed. Blood ran down her chest, coating her breasts. She’d lost two fingernails on her right hand. They’d been discarded, bloody, next to the tub.
They—whoever they were—used the cigarettes on her body. The Mafiya used cigarettes—especially Chechens and Georgians. There were burns on her nipples. On her stomach. Her cheeks. Her shoulders. Sam was nauseated. But he kept looking.
That was when he saw they’d left him a message.
It had been burned onto her forehead with a cigarette. It was unmistakable. Two long raw red dashes and an ash-crusted dot where they’d stubbed the cigarette out. He looked carefully. They’d branded her with the letter G.
The same call-out sign that had been left on his pillow last night to establish the bona fides of the message he’d received. The same call-out sign he’d arranged with Pavel Baranov to use a onetime site: the same stalovaya where Irina had showed up three and a half hours ago.
The cigarette was there, too—a Marlboro. The filter had been shoved between her lips. The rest of the cigarette had broken off, leaving strands of tobacco between her blood-soaked breasts. That was when he remembered the Marlboro crushed between Pavel Baranov’s dead lips.
Sam gagged. He almost lost it. But he fought the nausea, sustained by a white-hot hatred of those who’d done this unspeakable damage—first to Pavel Baranov and now to Irina Howard. So he swallowed hard, sucked the stale air that smelled of blood, and continued examining the broken corpse of what had been Ed Howard’s wife.
He was sweating buckets now. Sam realized that if he stayed much longer he might pass out. And he’d seen everything he had to.
Quickly, he wrestled the mattress up against the door the way he’d found it. He squeezed past it out of the bathroom and ease
d the door shut. The mattress fell into place and blocked most of the light. Gasping, Sam checked the bottoms of his boots for blood once more. The soles were blessedly dry.
Bile rising in his throat, Sam opened the front door, slipped into the darkened hallway, and silently closed the door behind him.
Get a grip, Sam. He leaned up against the wall and forced himself to concentrate. Why had they tortured Irina?
The obvious answer: to see if she knew where Howard stowed his paper. The hundred-dollar question was what Howard had told his wife.
There was, perhaps, a way to get some sort of rough idea.
Sam made his way down the hallway to the landing. His outstretched hand found the banister in the dark, and using it as a guide, he headed toward the street. By the time he’d reached the second level and the cabbage fumes hit him again, he felt as if he was suffocating. In the building’s foyer, he paused long enough to change his appearance once more. The tweed cap morphed into the fur hat; the long blue overcoat became the military-style tan padded jacket; he pulled the latex gloves off, and shoved his wet hands into the black-and-green ski gloves.
Finally, he lurched onto the snowy street. Checked for watchers. Sensed none. He stood there for some seconds, hyperventilating. He rubbed his hand across his chest. He’d sweat completely through his thermals and thick sweater.
The weather, he noted, had gone from bad to worse. It struck Sam right then that the deterioration was visible bad karma—a meteorological reflection of his current psychological condition. He walked in a trance through the sleet north one block, turned west, and made his way to the trolley bus stop on Seremet’evskaya Street. Seven minutes later he climbed aboard a southbound No. 15, displayed his trans-portnaya karta, and found a seat on the left-hand side.