Palace of Treason

by Jason Matthews

  Dominika saw the hooked-talon bat wings of black unlimber behind Zyuganov’s head. She sensed his agitation; she knew he was watching, assessing, calculating. Assuring him of her loyalty was folly: He did not expect it, and he would not believe it, from her or from anybody. She would not antagonize him, even though she was certain he had ordered the mugging in Paris—about which she said nothing on her return to Moscow. It showed what Zyuganov was capable of, how far he would go. How little the Service had changed since the purges of the 1930s and 1950s.

  In Line KR, there was no specific group dedicated to offensive operations—the Jamshidi Iranian case was an example—so Egorova had conveniently been tucked away and assigned responsibility by default. Zyuganov wanted her occupied, kept in the dark. She would not be included in the other work of the department; he and Yevgeny would see to that. Not so easy keeping her penned up. Not easy at all. Shilo v meske ne utaish, you cannot hide an awl in a sack.

  With the dim intuition of a sociopathic paranoid, Zyuganov acknowledged that he repulsed her, but that did not bother him. He did, however, want to establish alpha-wolf primacy. So after the briefing, Zyuganov had insisted she accompany him to Lefortovo to observe an interrogation. “You need to learn this work”—he had smirked—“for when you conduct your own investigations.”

  “Of course,” said Dominika, determined not to show the panic she felt at returning to Lefortovo. She had been imprisoned there herself and “interrogated,” but she never confessed, never gave in, and was released after six weeks of agony. She had endured refrigerated cells, electric shock, and nerve manipulation, but in the end she had looked into the eyes of her interrogators, read their colors, and knew she had won.

  She followed Zyuganov’s black fog as he scuttled along the same Lefortovo basement corridor she herself had been frog-marched down, the splintered wooden cabinets at each corner still there, into which prisoners would be shoved and locked to prevent them from seeing another passing prisoner, to starve the soul and deny human contact. Dominika kept her face impassive—Zyuganov was sneaking looks at her—and forced herself to keep walking on nerveless legs. The dwarf hurried forward with his nose up like a bird dog in a wet field. They passed the familiar steel doors with the spalling paint, the ones that hid the drains, hooks, and horrors, and rounded a corner. Zyuganov motioned for a guard to open a separate steel door, then continued down the corridor with solid doors on either side. There were none of the familiar prisoner screeches and bellows from behind these doors, no animal eyes peering out from the narrow food hatches. It was utterly silent here.

  They stopped at the last of the doors in the corridor and Zyuganov hammered on it with his fist. A steel slat banged open, eyes briefly appeared, then a steel bolt shot and the door opened. Zyuganov bustled in, nodding at a plump prison matron in a too-tight uniform coat. Dominika followed Zyuganov inside, hearing the door slam closed behind her. It was an interrogation room unlike any she had ever seen before, more like a surgical theater. The room was brilliantly lit in a gassy white haze from overhead tubes that cast no shadows. Three-inch square white tiles covered the floor and continued up the walls to the ceiling. The air was thick with fumes that stung her nose and throat—the wall tiles had been mopped down with ammonia. Zyuganov turned to her to gauge her reaction, breathing in the air as if he were in a rose garden.

  Along the wall, stainless-steel tables had tools and instruments laid out. A larger table was in the center of the room, beneath a canted surgical light head. A drainpipe ran from one corner of the table into the floor. Zyuganov took off his suit coat and draped it over the back of a chair. He took a brown coat off a hook on the wall and put it on, buttoning the bottom buttons but leaving the tunic top unfastened. Jaunty, with a barnyard smell. He looked at his watch and turned to the matron.

  “Ring for the tray before we begin,” he said.

  She walked to the wall, pressed a button, and in a minute there was a knock on the door and a second matron entered carrying a tray covered by a cloth napkin. She set it on the stainless table over the drainpipe for bodily fluids and whipped the cloth away.

  “Selyodka, Captain,” said Zyuganov, “we haven’t had lunch yet.” Dominika, standing just inside the door to the room, could smell the pickled herring and onions over the tang of the disinfectant ammonia. She shook her head and sat in a chair away from the table. Zyuganov was enjoying himself.

  “Fetch our guest,” he said to the guard, his mouth full of herring.

  They waited two minutes in silence, apart from the wet noises Zyuganov made while he ate. Looking at the back of the dwarf’s little head, Dominika focused on the depression below the back of his skull and just above the start of the cervical vertebrae, the spot she would choose to plunge one of the stainless-steel surgical chisels set out on the side table.

  The door opened and the matron pulled a woman into the room. Her hands were handcuffed behind her and she wore only a dirty prison smock and felt slippers.

  “Gospozha Mamulova,” Mrs. Mamulov, said Zyuganov, wiping his mouth with a napkin. The matron pushed the woman into a steel chair, which Dominika noticed was bolted to the tile floor, and stood behind Mamulova, her hands casually on her shoulders. Zyuganov dismissed both matrons with a wave and turned to Dominika.

  “Captain, come here and hold her shoulders.” Dominika frantically thought of some excuse to refuse, but was determined not to falter in front of Zyuganov. She could feel the slight woman trembling under her hands, and wondered what she had done. Zyuganov pulled up a chair to sit facing the woman, their knees almost touching, and leaned forward till he was inches from her face. There was a faint crackling sound when the dried gore on his jacket flaked off. Dominika breathed through her mouth to avoid the smell while trying to recall how she knew the name Mamulov. Who was this woman?

  Irina Mamulova was in fact the wife of Russian media tycoon Boris Mamulov, whose communications empire included print and broadcast holdings. Mamulov had massively defied the Kremlin: His reporters had assiduously covered current Russian politics, running successive interviews with dissidents and rival political figures, including the telegenic members of the punk-rock protest group Pussy Riot after their release from prison. Mamulov’s public opposition to the reelection of Vladimir Putin naturally triggered an investigation into his taxes and overseas bank accounts, which in turn led to the inevitable charges from the Moscow Procurator’s Office of corruption, tax evasion, and theft. The blue-eyed scorpion’s tail was rigid, curled forward, waiting to lance into flesh.

  Mamulov knew what happened to people who defied Putin—prison terms, traffic accidents, cardiac episodes, fatal muggings—and chose not to return to Moscow after a business trip to Paris. He sent urgent word to his wife, Irina, to gather her sable coat and jewelry and meet him at their antiques-filled apartment on the Avenue Foch. Irina was detained at Vnukovo International Airport thirty minutes before departure to Orly and driven to Lefortovo in a closed van. As she was processed into the political prisoners’ block, no property inventory was completed. Her fur and jewelry disappeared as completely as President Putin’s previous enemies had.

  Putin had called Zyuganov on the Kremlovka—the direct line from the Kremlin—and, with a straight face, directed him to request that Mamulova kindly detail her husband’s overseas holdings, including the numbers of the accounts, to be able to clear him of the charges of corruption. Zyuganov was also directed to ask that Irina please convince Boris to return to Moscow from Paris as soon as conveniently possible. Putin told Zyuganov he had full confidence that he would satisfy the investigative requirements with discretion.

  The Kremlovka needn’t have been encrypted, for Putin’s sly requests were clear. Irina was a hostage, bait to draw Boris back to the Rodina, and if black eyes, or loose teeth, or tissue hematomas—Level One injuries—inflicted on his young wife did not hasten his return, well, there were Levels Two and Three to consider.

  Irina Mamulova was in her early thirties, with black h
air to her shoulders. She was of medium height and slim, with Slav cheekbones and large brown eyes. She had met Mamulov when she was twenty-five, while working in one of his radio stations, and, despite her new life of private jets and yachts and penthouses, the pretty young Mrs. Mamulov was sensible and perceptive. She had been in Lefortovo for a week already and knew what was happening. She had resolved not to cooperate. Her husband, Boris, must stay out of Russia.

  Dominika stood inside the green bloom around Irina’s head—she was terrified, anticipating discomfort. Zyuganov’s black wings overlaid her color as he leaned close, breathing pickled herring in her face.

  “I was eager to come today to see how you are,” said Zyuganov. “We have heard that your husband is quite concerned for you, is contemplating returning to Moscow to settle these legal troubles.” Irina’s head came up and she searched Zyuganov’s face. Her eyes dimmed when she realized he was lying.

  “When Monsieur Mamulov returns, this unpleasant interlude can end,” said Zyuganov. Monsieur? Interlude? marveled Dominika, trying to imagine the oxidized circuits in this little man’s brain. Zyuganov moved so their knees touched, and Irina cringed. Zyuganov looked up at Dominika without expression, as if checking whether she was still in the room.

  “I heard a story yesterday,” said Zyuganov conversationally. “A woman came to the police. ‘Please, help, my husband is missing. Here is his photo and personal information. When you find him, tell him that my mother decided not to visit!’ ”

  Zyuganov looked up again at Dominika, as if to confirm she had liked the joke. Irina stared motionless at him. Russians had long been programmed to get the message. Irina’s mother’s neck was in the noose next.

  “We should tell Boris that your mother decided not to visit,” whispered Zyuganov. “Maybe that would reassure him.” He got up, went over to a side table, and came back with a short leather sap in his hand—flat black stitched leather, weighted at either end. Irina closed her eyes. Her hair fell on either side of her face, the tips of her locks trembling.

  “Open your eyes,” he said, and when she did, limpid eyes opened wide, Zyuganov struck her right shin with a downward snapping motion. The woman’s head went back and she hissed with the pain, but did not cry out. She chooses to fight them, thought Dominika, holding on to her heaving shoulders. “And there is the little matter of the bank accounts, the numbers,” Zyuganov said.

  Zyuganov hit her right shin again, then reached across and instantly struck her left shin. Irina cried out, then bit her lip to stop herself. Her head came down and her shoulders shook under Dominika’s hands. Zyuganov said nothing more; there was plenty of time. He reached down and tugged the felt slippers off Irina’s cringing feet.

  The dwarf looked at Dominika with a lifted eyebrow, and raised the truncheon delicately in both hands. “Shins and the soles of the feet are well-known areas to exploit,” he said conversationally, “but I have identified alternate areas, such as the heel and behind the knee, that are most effective. I have recently obtained excellent results—quite unexpectedly I might add—with strikes to the tips of the toes.” He leaned down and swung the truncheon parallel with the floor to jam the tips of Irina’s toes—the tops of her bare feet were already black-and-blue. She screamed and hunched her shoulders involuntarily. Her legs jerked spasmodically. Zyuganov inhaled her groans as if from a bottle of perfume.

  Dominika fought down her nausea. She considered walking around the chair, twisting the sticky leather dubinka from his hand, and beating his frying-pan face into a paste. Irina raised her bowed head. Her cheeks were wet, and she looked vacantly at Zyuganov. It is time to signal Nathaniel; it is time to start working again with CIA, Dominika thought.

  “Captain,” said Zyuganov, holding the dubinka out to her. He expected her to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and beat the woman. This was a test; he was pushing her. Dominika knew she could not refuse—it would jeopardize her by showing him weakness, revulsion. She came around the chair and took the leather thing from his hand.

  “Colonel,” said Dominika confidentially, crowding him. “I cannot hope to duplicate your expert application. But something occurs to me, an idea that may bring results, especially after your preliminary efforts have shown the prisoner the realities of her situation.”

  Zyuganov looked at her sourly. “What idea?” he said.

  “I wonder if you would indulge me this little experiment,” said Dominika. She was keeping the anger inside her gut, and she tried to control her voice. “Can you leave me alone with her for five minutes?”

  “Regulations are for two people to be in the room at all times,” said Zyuganov.

  “Certainly you determine the rules in this place,” said Dominika. “And if we can achieve quick success, wouldn’t it be worth the experiment?”

  Zyuganov looked at Dominika, then at a weeping Irina, whose head was down.

  “Colonel, give me five minutes.” She reached over to Irina and squeezed her face, shaking it lightly, mostly to hide her own trembling hands. “We’ll get on very nicely together.”

  Zyuganov’s eyes narrowed. He was both suspicious and provisionally interested. He wondered what sugary, girl-on-girl pain Egorova had in mind. He would have liked to stay, but he was intrigued and knew he could watch the action on the monitor in the guards’ room. He nodded and left the room. The door clicked shut, and Dominika turned and walked toward Mamulova.

  There were two of them watching from the corner of the room, her two friends: blond milkmaid Marte, and Junoesque, hazel-eyed Marta, veteran Sparrow and her confidant in Helsinki, who had defied the Service and disappeared one winter night without a trace. Her friends watched her cross the room, telling her with a look to hurry and to be careful.

  Dominika put her face close to Mamulova’s, pulled her head back by her hair, and whispered into her ear. She was risking it all in the next instant. “Sestra, sister, you have about three minutes to listen to me,” Dominika said. “Will you pay attention?” Mamulova stared at her, not understanding. Dominika hit the leg of the chair with the sap, hoping that on the video monitor it would appear that she was hitting the woman. Irina stared at her in amazement. Dominika looked at her significantly, and swung again at the chair leg, the sound of the leather hitting steel mimicking a pistol shot. Dominika leaned over her again and grasped her face in one hand.

  “Listen carefully,” she hissed to the woman. “They’ll permanently cripple you, then throw you in an asylum. Your mother will be put in a refrigerated cell.” She pushed Irina’s face back farther, putting her lips close to the woman’s ear. “Tell them the account numbers; it’s only money. They will let you loose for a time, free to contact your husband, so they can listen to the call. While they wait, you’ll be able to get out. You and your mother.”

  Irina looked at her through a swirling green fog, and shook her head slightly. She didn’t believe her. Dominika swung the sap sideways, as if to strike her shoulder, but instead hit the back of the chair. Irina flinched and gasped—a good-enough reaction. Dominika’s own bruised ribs were alight with pain from swinging the thing, but she stood over the woman, brought her face close again, and whispered, “Do you ever want to have children? Do you want to see Boris again? Give them what they want. All of it.”

  Dominika bent closer to her, visualizing what it must look like on the video monitor.

  “Hand over your husband’s ledgers, the ones with the foreign account numbers. Give them the keys to the overseas bank boxes. Show them where the safe is in your house. Promise to get more from your husband. Then get out, with your mother. Can you arrange it?” Irina hesitated, nodded once. Not surprising—she probably had access to Mamulov’s well-paid lawyers, second-country passports, business jets. Getting out of modern Russia would be relatively easy for her, if she planned ahead this time.

  “You are one of them,” Irina said, wondering. “Why?”

  The sound of the latch of the cell door caused Dominika to stand up, and as Zyuganov pok
ed his head in the door, Dominika slapped Irina hard across the cheek, turning her face and cutting her lip. Nothing a little bacitracin in Paris wouldn’t smooth out.

  And I’m not one of them, Dominika thought. Perhaps one day they would meet for tea in Paris at Le Procope, alligator bags and suede gloves on the table between them, and Dominika could explain it all. Sure. Kogda rak na gore svistnet, when the crayfish whistle on the mountain, when pigs fly.

  “Tell him,” said Dominika to Irina, tilting her head toward Zyuganov. “Tell him.” She looked at Irina, the green halo of fear and indecision swirling around her. Would the little twit decide to save herself? Zyuganov looked at Dominika, then back at Irina.

  “I . . . I will give you the account numbers,” Irina said, eyes downcast.

  Zyuganov, impressed, looked back at Dominika, who held up the sap and delicately ran a slim finger around the edge like an antiques dealer examining an objet d’art.

  “You’ll concede perhaps that a woman knows best what another woman fears the most,” Dominika said. “Mamulova did not want to test your patience further. Congratulations, Colonel.”

  This was all nonsense. But was it? Zyuganov contemplated the most interesting epiphany that perhaps a woman could torture a woman better than a man could; something about getting into each other’s heads, knowing their own bodies. Egorova certainly hadn’t been sickened by the tableau. Bah, Zyuganov didn’t know what to think, but he knew Egorova had given him a gift, a victory for the president over Mamulov, whose accounts would be siphoned dry in an hour of cybertheft. This would put Zyuganov at the top of Putin’s New Year’s Favorites List. But there had to be a trap: A gift from Egorova was poison, for she would use it against him; she would find a way to take advantage, to show him up. And President Putin would notice.