by Craig Thomas
He moved closer to the ruined house, scuffing a scorched floorboard with his boot, shuffling his feet amid ashes and shattered brick and stucco. The snow was already lying; it was white on his shoulders.
The cop had been taken to the American hospital, so the janitor next door informed him, turning away from a tenant grousing about the absence of a glazier to replace shattered windows and the snow coming in and her baby sick … Could he risk the hospital, the Grainger Foundation Hospital? It had to be tied in to the drugs somehow, it would be too easy for it not to be. Vorontsyev was still alive, surely he’d be under surveillance? Under guard?
What else could he do? Walk away? Go back out to the airport?
He’d be snowed in anyway, he told himself with a self deprecating grin. Might as well spend the time where it’s warm and quiet He had no plan, beyond talking to Vorontsyev, beyond the attempt to enlist the policeman’s aid. Vorontsyev, as they listened to his jazz records and drank his vodka weeks before, had been someone afraid of awakening his own moral ardour.
However, his inspector’s tragedy was eating at him, making him pursue the drug smugglers. He had intended feeding Vorontsyev everything he knew, ihen turning on him like a trapdoor spider and demanding his help. Giving him Turgenev, of all people, on a plate — and enlisting his help in killing the man.
Badly injured, yes … the janitor had informed him. He had spat as much out of habit as dislike.
What possible help could Vorontsyev be to him now? He was on his own …
Christ, but it was cold, so damn cold.
‘Very well. No, just have him watched for the moment … you have someone on him? Good. Keep me informed.’
Turgenev put down the telephone, the forefinger of his left hand brushing back and forth across his lips, as if he had only recently shaved off a moustache. He studied the telephone as if he expected it to continue to inform him of Lock’s whereabouts and intent. Intent? Obvious, of course. He had wondered about the man during the last three days, since his people had let him get away in the Arizona desert. He’d thought that the sister’s death had been avenged when Lock had killed Tran, but he’d been traced to Reno, then Sacramento, finally Vancouver. There, in the melee of the international airport, descriptions of him were futile; and he’d changed to another identity, new papers.
They had no name for him.
Now, he was in Novyy Urengoy. Bakunin’s people, alerted by himself almost on a whim and certainly not from anxiety, had identified the American disembarking from the Moscow flight two hours ago. Last plane in. A blizzard continuing perhaps three or four days was sweeping down on the region from the arctic; the first real storm of winter. No one would be able to get in or out, certainly not Lock. The blizzard would imprison him in Novyy Urengoy. Turgenev was satisfied.
He glanced down the columns of figures he had received detailing his currency speculations against the French franc and the measure of his profit. Given such gains in so brief a period, the profits from heroin — now that he was poised to acquire Grainger Technologies — seemed meagre, begrudged. He smiled, then continued plucking his lower lip between finger and thumb, removing his half-glasses.
Grainger Technologies and the other companies he had acquired in the US — and those he was moving against now would render him immense power and wealth. The two thousand and more emigres from Russia who comprised the biznizmen engaged in organised crime in the United States were small beer, fleas. People like himself — perhaps at first only himself — were making far greater inroads … He was content.
His thoughts returned to John Lock with a mild, nostalgic regret. Novyy Urengoy was the best possible place to have Lock situated. His town. He must consider how best to rid himself of the American, then set Bakunin on him like a savage dog. Lock was alone — of that he was utterly certain. There would be no loose ends. He had fled America as the subject of a murder charge. His death in Russia would not be reported. He would simply have vanished, which was perhaps suitable for someone so unformed as Lock, someone who left so little impression on people and things. Sad? Well, perhaps, for nevertheless the American was likeable … But he was unimportant.
In the end, it was a simple matter, only the death of a single individual.
‘Yes?’
It was the American doctor, Schneider — the one with the Jewish name. Bakunin tasted contempt as ready as raw onion in his mouth.
‘My routine report,’ he heard Schneider offer in a humiliated, angrily self-pitying tone. ‘Vorontsyev has been visited by the overweight officer and by the girl. They didn’t stay long.’
‘Which one of them is guarding him now?’ The chief of police had refused to enforce any order keeping Vorontsyev’s people away from the Foundation Hospital; Bakunin could not openly demand it. Unless someone like Schneider could administer a lethal dose of something, by needle or via his food, Vorontsyev was safe in his bed.
‘His name’s Goludin, I think. He seems very innocent — and innocuous.’ Then, Schneider added quickly: ‘Why can’t one of your men make these reports. Colonel?’
‘One of them is,’ Bakunin snapped back. ‘Goodbye, Doctor.’
He put down the receiver and rubbed his ear where perspiration made it itch, then he picked up his cigarette and drew deeply on it, blowing the blue smoke at the ceiling of his office.
Schneider was shit-scared, that much was obvious, but entirely malleable because of his involvement with the heroin. He could be extradited to a country that would crucify him — his own or he could die as a foreigner just like his friend Rawls in a distant country. Either way, his cooperation was ensured, almost genetically guaranteed. Bakunin grinned to himself, coughing on the amusement and cigarette smoke.
Vorontsyev …? Turgenev seemed unduly hesitant, if not reluctant, in Vorontsyev’s case. Was he waiting for him to leave hospital? All he wanted for the moment was surveillance on the man’s team — the woman, fat Dmitri, Goludin and the young forensic officer Lubin. All of whom had been ordered back to normal duties by the police chief… and all of whom appeared to be engaged on other cases — a rape, small-scale extortion, an overdose, a knife wounding. The usual scum on the surface of crimes committed by the rabble. If they had been given any orders by Vorontsyev, then they didn’t appear to be carrying them out.
Bakunin rubbed his chin with the fingers holding the cigarette.
The smoke curled into his eyes, making him blink.
It didn’t seem suspicious; it was difficult to believe that after what had happened to their chief of detectives, they were left with sufficient nerve to continue their investigations. They’d run their cart into a brick wall, the donkey was injured, they were dazed. End of journey … though Bakunin would prefer that they were eliminated altogether; one by one or at the same time, it didn’t matter. Who, after all, would have the temerity to ask questions about their deaths? He had to press that matter with Turgenev. The problem had not been solved, simply postponed.
Vorontsyev …? For the moment, Turgenev appeared to be preoccupied by the American, Lock. Bakunin looked down at the file that had been faxed to him by somebody Turgencv employed in America. Lock was a State Department official …
Bakunin did not recall having encountered him in Novyy Urengoy, despite the American’s frequent visits to the region. A bland, good-looking, too-young face looked up at him from the fax. A bland record, too. He didn’t appear dangerous, though Turgenev stressed that point particularly. He had made this Lock a priority, one that overrode even Vorontsyev.
Very well — so be it, Prince Turgenev, he remarked mockingly to himself. Yours is the say-so, the authority. If you want Lock killed, so be it.
His accent and manner appeared as effective as his passport. He was an American in an American-funded, American-run hospital, and if he wanted to’ talk to an injured Russian, so what?
The nurse on duty simply pointed along the corridor to the door of Vorontsyev’s room and dismissed him from her mind.
He h
esitated for a moment with his hand on the doorknob.
A wave of weary defeat came over him and he wanted to surrender to it. It was as if he were a parent summoned to this place because of an accident to his child. He anticipated the scarring, the brokenness, the incapacity that lay beyond the door. His desire for revenge which had brought him here in the drugged, heightened state it induced — a state in which anything and everything was possible — now deserted him momentarily, leaving him drained, incapable, anxious. What help could this Russian policeman give him, having barely managed to survive a bomb attack? What help would he want or dare to give to someone he hardly knew?
He pushed open the door. The man’s one arm was in heavy plaster but the other scrabbled beneath the sheet. His forehead was bandaged; eyes glittered abnormally bright, watching him.
Lock raised one hand defensively and closed the door behind him.
‘I — er, they said I could see you, you were OK for visitors,’
Lock stumbled out. The man in the bed, so disappointingly immobile, was surprised at his accent, the words in English.
Relaxed by his evident innocuousness.
‘Who are you?’ Vorontsyev seemed to hesitate on the edge of recognition. ‘You’re American?’
Lock nodded. ‘We’ve met.’
Suddenly, Voromsyev’s eyes were brightly suspicious.
‘I remember — Lock.’ The hand rustled beneath the sheet.
Then: ‘You’re State Department — American government …’
The hidden hand had a firm grip now on what had to be a gun.
Had he imagined the tiny click of a safety catch being moved?
‘Sure,’ he said tiredly. The man entirely disappointed him; cancelled everything in an instant. Uninvited, he slumped onto a chair beside the bed, his head held in his hands. He was so tired, his body at last admitted, having nothing of the drug of revenge to stimulate it.
‘Why are you here?’
‘My family are — were — connected with this place, the people who run it. My sister married into this … She’s dead.’ Lock obviously disconcerted the Russian.
Vorontsyev saw bent shoulders, a stubbled face, stained pouchy eyes; a man defeated, inadequate. It was as if he was interrogating some petty criminal, someone small, motiveless, opportunistic. Lock, the man he had invited to his flat — the flat Turgcnev had had blown up, killing Vera Silkova and her baby — given drink and confidences to, warmed towards; forgotten within days. The man had seemed as anonymous and trusty as a counsellor, a doctor. ‘But why are you here, John Lock?’
Lock hesitated for some time. The warmth of the room was somnolent despite Vorontsyev’s tension. Then he said: ‘J knew I could trust you. I even told my sister about you.’ He smiled bleakly. ‘My sister … She was murdered.’
‘In America?’
‘Yes.’
‘But not by an American?’
‘Not by an American. Not on American orders.’
Vorontsyev shifted in the bed, as if Lock’s bleak, aged gaze disconcerted him. He rested the gun in his lap.
‘Have we — ?’ he began, clearing his throat. ‘Have we anything in common?’
‘I don’t know.’
It was a simple matter of trust; an extremely complex matter.
He couldn’t read the American’s mind or his recent experiences in his face. To pretend to do so would be to delude himself. This man knew Turgenev, had been close to him, he recalled. Lock had told him thai, as they had eaten a Chinese meal from one of the new take-away shops in the town and drunk foreign beer.
He’d liked the American, then. Only weeks earlier … ‘Someone has to begin,’ he said. ‘You?’ He waited, then added: ‘If there’s something you want from me?’
‘Are you in any condition to supply it?’ Lock replied. The American seemed baffled and defeated by his being injured and in hospital.
‘You wanted my help, then?’ Vorontsyev said softly.
‘Maybe.’
‘Because of a single evening’s conversation? You trusted me to help you?’
Eventually, Lock replied: ‘You were my only hope — I knew no one else.’
Lock glanced around the hospital room, towards the double glazed window. Snow flew in the glare of sodium lighting thrown up from one of the car parks and a gas rig flared like a fading distress signal out on the tundra. Then he looked intently at Vorontsyev, realising that the decision to tell the Russian why he was there was … well, it was no big deal, was it? He’d walked into this place of his own free will.
He struggled to remember Vorontsyev’s remarks on the heroin problem in Novyy Urengoy, his concern, his anger; there was his inspector, too, the one whose daughter had overdosed.
‘It’s about the drugs,’ he said. Vorontsyev flinched in surprise.
‘I know a lot about it — now. I didn’t, when we talked. I wasn’t even very interested. It was your problem, not mine … But it is mine, now-‘ His voice was choked off by memory gripping his throat tightly. He cleared it and continued. Vorontsyev was watching him as if he were telling the most compulsive tale ever created. ‘It’s GraingerTurgenev. The whole place is a conduit ‘
‘Don’t say anything more, just for the moment,’ Vorontsyev said. Lock looked at him suspiciously. ‘This place is a staging post. A warehouse’
‘Jesus, they contaminated everything, didn’t they?’
‘Who is they?’
‘Pete Turgenev — my dead brother-in-law, his father.’ He sat back on the chair and rubbed his face as if roughly washing away a great deal of grime.
‘How big is the — business?’
‘Millions of dollars. The whole of GraingerTurgenev’s been built on the profits.’ Vorontsyev’s eyes gleamed, then grew alarmed as they heard a knock on the door, which opened at once.
‘Dmitri.’
‘Who’s your visitor, Alexei?’ Dmitri Gorov was holding oui a package of sandwiches towards Vorontsyev. Two bottles of beer were tucked into the crook of his arm.
‘An American — a friend. Someone who has good reason to be here. The same drugs that killed your daughter, Dmitri, were most probably responsible for his sister’s death. Not through a needle, maybe, but just as directly.’
Dmitri’s features, clouded with pain, became at once conspiratorial.
‘This the American you took home, the diplomat, by any chance?’
‘Yes.’
‘What does he want?’
‘I think he wants to kill Turgenev.’
The only sound was the inspector’s surprised breathing. The silence that followed was heavy, stormy. Lock’s Russian had come back fluently, naturally. He’d stumbled over simple phrases at the airport in Moscow. Now that he’d burned his bridges behind him, he had become, in a strange and somehow comforting way, almost as Russian as the two policemen. As if he had changed his identity. Eventually, Vorontsyev said:
‘And he wants us to help him do it, old friend. Turgenev, as we were forced to realise for ourselves, is the kingpin.’ Dmitri was nodding and frowning. The sandwich remained unregardedly held out towards Vorontsyev. ‘It’s much bigger than we ever imagined ‘
‘You’re taking a lot on trust, Alexei, from the mouth of a Yankee who just walked through the door and introduced himself.’
‘Look-‘ Lock began, but was interrupted by Vorontsyev.
‘We haven’t time to go through all that, Dmitri. The hour’s too late.’
The door opened and each of them turned to it. To his great surprise, Lock recognized the doctor.
‘Dave — Dave Schneider,’ he said, getting up from the chair.
The expressions of mistrust on the faces of the two Russians startled him.
‘John — what are you …?’
Lock knew that it was all somehow wrong, that Schneider was wary of him just as the two Russians seemed afraid of Schneider; alarmed at his having seen Lock in their company.
Lock and Schneider shook hands. Vorontsyev kept his free
hand firmly around the butt of the gun. The safety was still pushed to Off. It would make a noise, of course, but if necessary he would shoot Schneider … if Lock would stop placing himself in the line of fire. Something bleeped and Schneider removed his pager from his pocket.
‘Back in just a minute, John — you can tell me how the hell I find you here, and in the chief of detectives’ room!’
The door closed behind him.
‘Quick, Dmitri — get Lock out of here. Back to your place!’
‘What-?’ Lock was bemused.
‘He’s part of it. Lock. Get moving! Who’s in the car with you, Dmitri?’
‘Goludin — why?’
‘Take him with you — lie low at home until I can think our way out of this mess! Get moving!’ Lock turned to him as he said: ‘Get either Marfa or Lubin over here to watch my door!’
‘What is going on here-?’ Lock began.
‘I’m saving your life. Lock! Just be satisfied.’ Dmitri was already at the door, checking the corridor. ‘Now Schneider knows you’re in town, the GRU and Turgenev himself will know inside another ten minutes! I would imagine their only idea wiJl be to kill you.’
‘Clear,’ Dmitri said, drawing back from the door, glaring at Lock. ‘And they’ll bloody well know you’ve talked to us! What the hell did you come here for, Yank?’
Lock hesitated between their evident enmity and their panic.
He stared at the injured Vorontsyev, the man’s body tense and enraged as if it struggled in chains rather than plaster and sheets.
Then he nodded. ‘OK — what about you?’ Vorontsyev seemed relieved that his question was appropriate.
‘Just go with Dmitri. I’m safe for the moment, but you’re not.
Go on, get moving!’
Dmitri dragged him by the arm and he gave in to the hard urgency of his grip, following him through the door. His disappointment was already insinuating itself. One injured man in bed, another fat man suspicious of him — and he’d heard only three other names …
He hurried after Dmitri, whose coat was flying around him, aware he was unarmed.