“For instance. Yeah.”
“There aren't so many Zils. Technically, the government owns all of them. Someone would know who's using that one.”
“How long would it take?”
“For enough dollars? By lunch tomorrow, probably.”
“What about matching names to photographs?”
“Hard to say. Days. Weeks. But what for?”
”I don't know.”
“You think something happened inside?”
“Something did. We just don't know if we care.”
Yakov was crying again. It got Feodor started.
They kept it up all the way past GUM where it got worse because there were still police cars. It continued, Yakov the loudest, all the way to the storage room in the Shelepikha district where they kept a number of weapons. Kerensky tried to tell Yakov what the plan was for Sasha's killers, but it was no use. It was all Yakov could do to keep his eyes on the road.
Always, since they were children, Yakov looked up to his cousin Sasha and Sasha used to beat up anyone who picked on little Yakov. He always laughed the hardest at Sasha's jokes, even harder than Kerensky. Yakov would do anything for Sasha.
What he had to do first was stop crying.
Kerensky could not blame him but this was not good. Twice, between the Savoy and the Shelepikha house, policemen had flicked their batons at him because of the way he was driving. Kerensky made him keep going. Both policemen wrote down the plate number, probably, but it wasn't Yakov's taxi. The owner could say it was stolen. The important thing was that they get to the restaurant before the killers of Sasha finished eating. Also that a policeman in a car didn't decide to pull them over and then notice the guns on the floor of the back seat. No use trying to bribe him. He would never take their first offer. He would want to haggle and this chance would be lost. They would have to shoot him.
When they picked up the weapons—an AKM submachine gun and a Dragunov sniper rifle—Kerensky saw the Toshiba. Sasha had been here, he realized. Kerensky saw him in his mind, rubbing his fingers over it, wondering how much it would fetch. This vision caused his throat to thicken. Next, Sasha had put it down, so carefully, and then hurried off to GUM to do as Major Podolsk had ordered.
Something troubled him about the Toshiba. What? That Podolsk knew he'd stolen it? That he was now supposed to rush it out to Sheremetyevo where that fat German was waiting for it? Just so he would shut up about it? Another stupid order from Podolsk. Let the German grow old waiting.
But it wasn't that. What troubled him was how Sasha got to GUM, but he felt sure he knew the answer. You don't see many taxis in Shelepikha, so Sasha must have told his driver to wait. Probably promised to pay him extra although the driver would never have seen a kopek. Sasha was not one to throw money around.
It occurred to Kerensky that his murder must have happened very quickly by the time he got to GUM. How did his brother even have time to find them in such a big and crowded store? Could they have been waiting for him? If so, how did they recognize him? They had only that one glimpse of him as they drove on past the Savoy, and Sasha had even changed his jacket in the meantime.
Perhaps he would look for that driver. Ask him if he saw anything when he dropped Sasha off at GUM. Show him a picture of the big American.
The ride to Kropotkinskaya took only ten minutes. Kerensky explained his plan once more to Yakov, who was better now.
The first thing to do is to look for the black Chaika. KGB plates. Number MOC331. If it's still there, so are they. The KGB driver is probably inside with them because Borovik said the reservation was for a party of four.
Once they find it, they drop Feodor off one block down from the restaurant entrance. There is an apartment building with a row of thick junipers in front. Lots of deep shadow. Feodor has the Dragunov. It holds only five shots but is semiautomatic and it has a sniper scope. Also he has two extra clips. He waits under the nearest juniper, very quiet, doesn't light a cigarette. His job is to provide a crossfire when the Belkin party comes out and then covering fire after that.
Yákov drives once around the block and pulls up just above the restaurant. Kerensky stays low in the back seat with the AKM at his feet. When the Belkin party comes out, Yakov drives to the canopy and asks if they need a taxi. They will pause to say no. Kerensky will mow them down. Feodor picks off any of the men who manage to jump behind cars. If the woman is clear they will try not to shoot her, but if she isn't, too bad. Yakov then speeds off, they pick up Feodor, and then they go and get good and drunk in Sasha's memory.
Yakov acknowledged the soundness of this plan. His only complaint was that he had no weapon other than his knife and the length of pipe he kept under his seat. Perhaps, he said, he will get a chance to bash a head or two to finish them off. Perhaps, even, we can take the American alive and bring him back to the sausage room. Watch his eyes pop out when the grinder reaches his hips. Like the Armenian.
Kerensky regretted telling him about that.
But he let his cousin talk. It was better than crying. When they got to Kropotkinskaya, however, he would have to be firm with him. He had not worked out a good plan so Yakov could improvise. Anyway, a look from Feodor said enough was enough as far as sausage machines are concerned. When Yakov learns how to take one apart and clean it, maybe then we'll discuss it.
Yakov turned onto Kropotkinskaya.
“There.” He gestured with his chin toward the awning in front of number 36. It was a half-block ahead and on the right. The entrance was brightly lit.
“And there and there,” said Feodor. He pointed with his finger at two Chaikas they were passing.
“Shit,” said Kerensky. He saw Chaikas everywhere.
He counted four of them, all black. Also several other makes. There were drivers in many of them, dozing for the most part, waiting for their big-shot bosses to finish stuffing their faces. Worse, down ahead, Kerensky could see a man and woman standing at the curb outside that apartment house. The man was now stepping into the street to try to flag down their taxi. The plan would need to be flexible after all.
“Keep going,” he told Yakov. “Go around the block.”
”I don't get off at the trees?” asked Feodor.
Kerensky's face darkened. So good with machinery, he thought. But cement between the ears.
“There. That one,” Yakov, excited, tossed his thumb at a Chaika parked a few cars up from the entrance. “That was their driver. He is staying with the car.”
Kerensky put a hand on Feodor's neck to keep him from turning to gape.
“Go around,” he said again.
After four right turns they were back where they started. None of the chauffeurs even glanced at them. Just another taxi looking for a hard currency fare.
More good luck. The man and the woman seemed to give up on getting a taxi. They were walking toward the Smolenskaya metro station. No need, now, for Feodor to explain why he's walking into their shrubbery with a sniper rifle.
“Get ready,” Kerensky told his brother. “Hold the rifle against you. Don't let it show when you're getting out.”
“You don't have to tell me everything,” grumbled Feodor.
The taxi stopped. They waited a few seconds to make sure no one was coming through the lobby. Kerensky nudged Feodor, who quickly climbed out, banging the barrel against the taxi's roof. Kerensky cursed within himself. But Feodor managed to walk to the front door without dropping it. As instructed, he stepped briefly inside. Then, on a signal from Kerensky, he stepped out again and slipped behind the first of the junipers. He could now make his way to the last of them.
“Go,” Kerensky said to Yakov.
”I have an idea,” said his cousin.
“Don't have ideas. Just drive.”
Yakov rounded the corner. ”I can cut his throat,” he said.
“Whose?”
“The driver. The one who helped to kill Sasha.”
“Yakov ... have you been listening to me?”
“Yes, but this is good. If I get the driver first, the others will stand out in front wondering where he is and you will have more time to shoot.”
“Yakov . . . did you notice that he is not the only driver out there?”
“Yes, but do you know what they will see? They will see only a taxi driver who needs a light for his cigarette. He pulls up next to the Chaika, he gets out, he has the cigarette in his hand, and he goes to the window of the Chaika. The driver rolls it down. The taxi driver leans in. They see the glow of a lighter. They see the driver take a puff and walk back to his taxi.”
Kerensky grunted. “And meanwhile, the driver is banging on his horn while he tries to hold his throat together.”
“Okay, not his throat. I go for his eye. One thrust, one twist, and his brain is soup.”
Kerensky considered this.
To polish off the driver first would certainly isolate the others. But he could not trust Yakov's knife to do the job. A knife can kill quickly if the victim is helpless or else doesn't see it coming. But if he gets a glimpse of it and tries to protect himself, you can spend all night trying to finish him, and all the time he's yelling. Besides, he had a hunch that Yakov would want to make that one suffer.
“You just drive,” he said to Yakov. “Drive and keep your eyes open.”
Yakov started to speak. But he only grumbled.
“On Kropotkinskaya, pull up just behind that Chaika. I want to check the license plate.”
“You think I don't know that car?” Yakov was offended. “At the Savoy it emptied right in front of me.”
“At the Savoy, you weren't so upset. Do what I tell you, Yakov. Do only what I tell you and I'll give you a present.”
“What present?” he asked glumly.
“I'll give you Major Podolsk.”
Yakov brightened somewhat.
“For sausage. You can make him into sausage.”
Yakov shook a fist. Triumphant.
“Just don't say nothing yet to Feodor.”
51
“Now what?” said the American.
It was the second time he asked that question.
The first was when Belkin's driver came back out of the restaurant looking like a man who suddenly expected trouble. He was peering up and down the street, arms folded, one hand well inside his jacket. After a while he walked to the car and unlocked it. He reached in from the driver's-side door and took a flashlight from the glove box. Back out, he got down on his knees and shined it under the chassis. He went to the rear bumper and looked there as well, also feeling along with his fingertips. Satisfied, but still wary, he climbed behind the wheel and sat.
The next time was when the same yellow taxi made its second pass of the block.
The first pass was already peculiar. The taxi had slowed as if its destination was the restaurant. Two passengers in back. Both men. But it didn't stop. It continued on as if to pick up two more passengers who were waiting outside a building further down. Then it drove past them as well.
It went around the block. Now it was back. It stopped in front of the apartment house where a man and woman had been waiting. They were gone. A man was climbing out of the taxi. He seemed to be hugging something against his chest. Whatever it was, it banged against the taxi before he turned and walked quickly toward the lobby.
“Probably nothing,” said the Austrian. “Maybe he just didn't want to run into those people. Maybe he's behind on his rent.”
“Or something,” John Waldo said, nodding.
The Austrian's name was Lechmann. He yawned.
“How long are we going to do this?”
“Don't start. You're getting an all-expense-vacation here.”
The Austrian hooted. “This is your idea of a vacation? An oil barge into Riga. Hard class by train to Zagorsk, sleeping with goats. To Moscow by truck with a load of rotting cabbage. What would you consider roughing it?”
”A KGB prison.”
Lechmann grunted. “And I'll tell you something else. If they catch us, they don't have to ask how we got here. They can trace our route just by smelling us.”
Waldo said nothing.
Ernst Lechmann pressed his shirt to his chest. This was to cut off the fumes that were rising from his body. Five days he had gone without bathing. He had chosen this truck because he thought the flowers would help. They only made it worse. The various odors seemed to be reacting chemically. The resulting scent smelled something like ammonia mixed with honey.
He appreciated the alternative—a cage in Lefortovo. But he also understood that these days you can bribe your way into this country, no problem. You could probably even tell them you're a spy if you felt like it. They would look at you like you're crazy. Spying? Spying on what? Didn't anyone tell you the news? Don't you get CNN at home? But they would take your bribe and be satisfied.
Lechmann knew this because he knew the Russians. He used to work for them. And he knows Moscow and St. Petersburg inside out, which is why Waldo asked for him. That, and because he can drive anything on wheels. And steal anything on wheels. And because he could not say no to Elena. Call it a wedding present. Call it also staying on the good side of Mama's Boy.
Still...
They didn't have to come this way. If Waldo would admit the truth, he simply likes beating them. In his heart, he liked the old days better.
”I meant tonight,” he said. “How long tonight?”
A shrug. “If they go back to the Savoy, we'll hang around there for a while. Then we'll knock off.”
“And go get a bath?”
“You don't want a bath. You want to smell like a Russian.”
Lechmann snorted. ”I have news for you,” he said. “When a passing Muscovite holds his breath, preferring asphyxiation to gassing, it's a definite sign that this scent is unfamiliar to them.”
Waldo seemed to consider this. In his mind's eye, thought the Austrian, he was seeing those people in the Irish Shop on Kalinin this morning when he went in to buy his Guinness and corned beef for lunch plus a jar of instant coffee. Their lips were turning blue.
“Okay,” he said. “We'll go to a banya later. Maybe pick up some new clothes.”
Lechmann felt sorry for the bather who came back and found these in his locker. He was relieved nonetheless.
“We'll go to the Moscow Swimming Pool. It's open until eleven.”
Waldo sneered. ”I hate that fucking place.”
The Austrian rolled his eyes. Waldo didn't hate the pool. It was a wonderful pool. Perhaps the biggest outdoor pool in the world, open year round, heated. You could swim in a blizzard. What Waldo hated was that on that site was once a great cathedral. The Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer. This name annoyed Stalin. He tore it down to build the new Palace of Soviets in its place. It was to be the biggest building in the world. Except then they discovered that the ground could not support its weight. The cathedral was gone. Nothing but a vast mud hole, seventy meters deep, in its place. Stalin is philosophical. At least the cathedral is gone. Stalin says, okay, so we make a swimming pool.
When it comes to architecture, don't get Waldo started.
“There's that cab again,” said Waldo.
The two men watched as it coasted down the block, stopping, double-parked, just behind Belkin's Chaika. Belkin's driver, Valentin, was eyeing it in his side mirror. He had probably noticed the first two passes as well. More than probably. He was now reaching his right hand inside his coat, no doubt to make sure that his pistol would come out easily.
Maybe not a bad idea, thought Waldo. He reached behind his seat. His left hand found a large bouquet of mixed spring flowers wrapped in green paper. He placed it upright between his legs. With the fingers of his right hand, he probed among the ferns for the pistol grip of a German submachine gun. It was a Heckler & Koch MP5 fitted with a sound suppressor and a laser sight. The sight alone had cost him a Rolex watch in Riga. Lots of German weapons there, stashed for a guerrilla war that got cancelled when Yeltsin said screw it, let
the Baltics go and good riddance.
The occupants of the taxi seemed to be arguing. The driver opened his door partway. The passenger grabbed at his jacket. The driver shook him off and stepped out. Skinny little guy. Face like a hawk. The passenger started to come after him. But he decided against it.
The driver now walked to the Chaika. He tapped on the side window with a hand that held an unlit cigarette. Waldo couldn't see the other hand. But he had a feeling. He flipped the safety off the MP5.
Hawk-face was tapping again. Waldo couldn't see Belkin's driver, but he could see part of the window and it wasn't rolling down.
Sorry. No matches. Get lost.
Back in the taxi, the passenger was watching this. He looked tight as a drum.
“Get ready to start this thing,” said Waldo.
Hawk-face was getting pissed. That was part of it. The other part was that he didn't seem to know what to do next. He turned away from the Chaika. Then he turned back and kicked the door. He stepped back a bit, as if daring this Valentin kid to come out and fight him. Waldo could see Valentin's face now. No fear on it. Maybe a little anger. But he had a job to do and it wasn't swatting flies.
Hawk-face gave up. He walked back to his taxi, the unlit cigarette now in his mouth. He hesitated before getting in because the big guy in the back seat looked ready to strangle him. But he did get in. The big guy popped him one. Belkin's driver, watching all this, decided to start his engine.
He pulled away from the curb. No lights. He stopped again three car lengths down just short of the restaurant entrance. Now he climbed out, through the passenger side, leaving the motor running. He stood there, watching the taxi.
“There's Elena,” said the Austrian.
Waldo looked. The doorman was first. He gave her a little bow. Next came Belkin, then Lesko. The doorman, for some reason, wanted to embrace Lesko. He was slapping his back with both hands. Lesko looked embarrassed.
Waldo glanced back at the taxi. The argument was over. The two men were sitting like statues. Now the one in the back touched the driver's shoulder. A calming gesture. Waldo felt a chill. That was no tail.
Bannerman's Promise Page 32