Belkin was trying to get up, trying to get over to Valentin's table. He had managed to undo the strap across his waist and got up on one elbow. He was naked. A bloody gauze pad peeled away from his hip as he swung one leg over the side. A male nurse ran over and eased him back down.
They were using defíbrillating pads on Valentin. Clear... zap . . . clear . . . zap. Belkin tried again. He was calling Valentin's name. Lesko knew that this was all a dream because David Katz was standing over by Valentin's table trying to talk to one of the lady doctors. The doctor told him to get lost so Katz went over and stood with John Waldo, who was watching all this with a Guinness bottle in his hand. Katz looks at Waldo and shrugs. He cocks his head toward Valentin and gives a thumbs-down signal.
Waldo.
This was further proof that Lesko was dreaming, because this was the old John Waldo. He looked the way he did before he got his nose job and his tuck and before he dyed his hair the color of wet sand. Earlier, in the same dream, there was a guy in a flower truck who sort of looked like the new John Waldo, but Waldo said it wasn't him. He said he was over in Red Square at the time pissing on Stalin's grave. Ask anyone.
He asked, “How is Elena, by the way?”
Lesko said she's fine but the question bothered him. There was something about Elena. He just couldn't seem to remember what it was.
The doctors had finished with Valentin. They unplugged him, covered him up, and turned to Belkin. Leo started fighting the straps again. He was waving them off, jabbing his finger, trying to get them to go back and do more work on Valentin. . ,
But Valentin wasn't on the table anymore. He was standing over with Katz, fully dressed, showing Katz where the bullets went in and how one of them bounced off his sternum and sent bone fragments down into his heart and left lung. He wasn't upset about it, especially. Katz, in. turn, showed him how he got shot a few years back. Shotgun blast. Boom. Blew off most of his face. He was using his hands to show how it sprayed all over his windshield.
Waldo wasn't there anymore. Lesko wondered why. Katz, who could read his mind, said that it's because Waldo isn't dead.
Just then, the doors behind them burst open. A bunch of men. Suits. Speaking English. A surgeon in a mask waved his hands at them, yelling “Get out.” But more men came in. They walk right through Katz and Valentin. The second bunch is quieting the surgeon, showing ID. Americans, Russians, all flashing ID at each other. One of the Americans, bald guy, short beard, is carrying a medical bag. Two others, Lesko saw, are gesturing in his direction. The gestures say we'll take that one.
Suddenly Elena waltzes in. She's holding what looks like a baby and she walks right up to Valentin, who is very excited to see her. Elena is beaming as well. It is a baby and Valentin can't wait to see it. Elena folds back the blankets. Katz peeks in over Valentin's shoulder and he screams. He turns away, sticking a vomit finger down his throat but, real fast, he tells Elena that he's only kidding. He looks over.
“Just kidding, Lesko.”
He gives thumbs-up this time.
“Good-looking kid,” he's saying. “You got a son.”
Then Lesko remembered.
Hardly daring to breathe, he called Elena's name.
She didn't answer.
He kicked at the straps on his ankles as he called her again. She didn't seem to hear. In rising panic, he remembered why Waldo couldn't be there with Katz anymore but Valentin could. One foot pulled free, then the other. He whipped his legs to one side. The table danced. He whipped them again. It fell over with a crash.
Lesko tore at the remaining straps, all the while calling her name. He managed to get to one knee with the table on his back. He stood up. He tried smashing it against the tiled wall. Men were rushing toward him, grabbing the table, shouting at him. He couldn't hear them past his own roar.
The bearded one with the medical bag. He was filling a needle. Lesko tried to kick at it but the big male nurse fell on his leg. Two others turned the table, pinning him with it. The man with the syringe was on the floor with him, aiming it like a dart at his upper arm. He felt the cool sting. Lesko tried to bite at it. It was emptied and gone too quickly.
The man who injected him now reached for his head. He took a knot of hair in one hand, Lesko's jaw in the other. He was shouting at him! Shaking him.
“She's not dead,” he was saying.
Damn it.
She's not dead.
This was what Lésko heard as the black wave came over him.
But his last conscious thought was that it can't be true.
Four-in-the-morning dreams.
Nothing about them is ever quite true.
57
Bannerman's sleep was dreamless. For the most part, it was sound.
The first-class cabin was fully dark but for one sliver of light coming from the galley behind him.
At one point, he became aware that the cockpit door had opened and closed and the flight attendant who came through it was standing over him. Looking at him. He chose not to stir.
She reached over his body to pick up a blanket that had slipped from Susan's legs and covered them again. Next, shei reached again and placed a small piece of paper on the console between the seats. Her shadow moved away. It disappeared behind the galley curtains.
A message slip? He wondered.
Whatever it was, it could wait. He'd wake up half the cabin if he used the phone. But he was curious all the same, so he fished for his car key, which had a small flashlight built in for finding the ignition in the dark. He read the message. Call Irwin Kaplan, it said. It gave what looked like a home number.
He could only guess why Irwin might be trying to reach him. A reasonable guess, knowing Irwin, was that he knew or had learned something about Aldo Corsini that Roger, being Roger, had held back. Irwin, while by no means an ally, had an aversion to being used.
The message, however, did not say Urgent. Bannerman put it back down and settled himself. He was asleep in seconds. An hour passed.
He was awakened again by more activity in the cabin. The cockpit door opened and closed more than once, it seemed. Shadows moving. He noticed that the message slip was gone. He stopped one of the shadows and asked about it. She whispered that she didn't know. She hadn't seen it. But he could hear the lie in her voice.
He gestured toward the air-to-ground that was built into the seat in front of him. “Is this working?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “There's a problem with atmospherics.”
“Thank you.”
Two rows up, on the aisle, Bannerman saw a shadow that had not been there before. A man. He had moved up, no doubt, from the coach section. He was, if Bannerman were to guess, a Swissair security guard such as the armed air marshals who mix with the passengers on American flights. He was positioned between Bannerman and the cockpit.
Bannerman squinted at the dial of his watch. Another two hours to Zurich. One hour, more or less, until they turn on the lights to serve breakfast and hand out customs declaration forms.
That done, and this was more than a guess, the chief steward would come and whisper in his ear. Bannerman would be asked, very politely, if he would remain in his seat until all other passengers have deplaned. The Swiss authorities, he will say, would like a word with you.
Roger, you devil, he thought. You know Aldo's dead, don't you.
Someone had found him. Or something had gone wrong when Yuri and that woman ... Lydia... got to Carla's place.
Roger would have made a call. Got the Swiss to put him on ice until he could be reasoned with.
Fine. That meant he'd have to be leveled with as well.
His only concern was for Yuri. Wondering what he might have walked into. But he shook it off. It was not a useful train of thought. He settled back once more.
Another hour's sleep.
He had an idea that he might be needing it.
58
Viktor Podolsk, sick at heart, picked up his telephone and dialed a number.
It rang; a man's voice answered.
“Is this Brodsky?” he asked.
The voice was irritated. “There's no Brodsky here. Don't you know it's late?”
“I'm sorry. What time is it?”
“Almost midnight. Next time, be more considerate.”
The phone slammed down in his ear.
An hour later, when it was almost midnight, Podolsk was pacing the lobby of the metro station between the old and new Lenin libraries. There was no Brodsky. It was a code designation for this meeting place. The man he called would not have known that. He would merely set a time and then pass the message on. Eventually, it would reach the old gentleman in the raincoat and fur hat, small dog on a leash, who was now entering the station.
“Viktor.” The old gentleman nodded a greeting. His expression was grim. “You heard, I take it.”
“Heard? All of Moscow heard, Academician. It was on Vremya.”
The older man sighed. He had known that. It came on just at the end of the evening's broadcast. Since then, he had been following events by other means. There was one report, so bizarre that he barely gave it credence, that his mild-mannered nephew had started a small riot an hour before the shooting happened. Took on a table of six all by himself. Burned their hats and sent them packing.
Burned their hats? It was ridiculous. In what restaurant, least of all that one, do six men wear hats to the table? Still, he was told, the militia was investigating this report in their search for a possible motive. A waste of time, probably. But let them search. It will keep them out of the way.
“Viktor...” He put a hand on Podolsk's arm. “The young driver, Valentin, died during surgery. They fear that General Belkin himself might not make it through the night.”
It was Podolsk's turn to sigh. ”I am...so very sorry,” he said.
The older man looked into his eyes. “It was not your fault, Viktor. He should never have come here with those two. It was both foolish and pointlessly dangerous.”
It was himself, thought Podolsk, who should be offering comfort. This man is about to lose his nephew. The son of his sister.
”I should have done more,” said the major. ”I should have seen it coming. I should have done more to protect him.”
The Academician grunted. He shook his head. “You can't protect a man from himself, Viktor. He is a good man, however. I wish you'd had a chance to know him.”
He started to say more, but just then, the little fox terrier began turning in circles. The Academician tugged at its leash to keep it from squatting. “Give me a minute,” he said. “She needs to go. I will take her out to the curb.”
Podolsk welcomed the chance to gather himself. Should have—should have—should have. He must have sounded like an old woman. All the same, he shared the wish that he could have met General Belkin. Or, more to the point, that General Belkin would not die thinking that Viktor Podolsk is just another criminal. Another of Borovik's pimps and errand boys. But he understood, he supposed, why General Belkin could not be told.
He knew that these two had quarreled. No surprise there. Two very different personalities. One was patient, the other was not. One was orderly, the other was impulsive. One kept his objectivity while with the other you would almost think this was personal.
It was more, thought Podolsk, than the difference in approach between the spy and the Academician. In their most recent quarrel, General Belkin was harshly critical of his uncle.
“You plod along while they bleed our country dry,” he said then, according to his uncle. “You want everything tied up in a neat package with a red ribbon on it. You behave too much like the intellectual who wants to know for the sake of knowing. Worse, you begin to behave like them. Control for the sake of control.”
This was unjust.
General Belkin's problem, Podolsk had often thought, was that he was spending too much time with this Mama's Boy. Too much time with attack dogs. Also, it is easy to throw stones from the safe distance of a Zurich posting.
Nikolai Belkin could have had such a sanctuary. When they arrested him, in the first year of Gorbachev, exile had been his for the asking. He could have said, “No, I will not shut up, I will not retract.” But they would have answered, “Okay, pack one bag small enough to carry on a plane. You're not a Soviet citizen anymore. Go wherever they'll take you. Say you're a Jew and go to Israel. They'll give you a job sweeping streets. By the way, don't pack any papers. Not a single document, not one notebook, not a single address or telephone number. Just get out.”
But he stayed. And he retracted. He retracted because you can't fight them from Israel.
The Academician came back into the lobby. His dog's mood had improved. Not so his own.
“This ambush.” Nikolai Belkin signaled a return to the subject at hand. “You believe, I take it, that Borovik gave the order?”
Podolsk nodded. “There's no question.”
The Academician had none either. The three gunmen had all been identified. Chicago Brigade ... the brother, found earlier, dead outside GUM ... the clumsy effort to make it seem that the American had done it. The murder of Borovik's man ... that Italian. And finally Borovik himself. A twisted and diseased mind whose every action is guided by what he thinks Stalin would have done in his place.
”I can't go on with this,” said Podolsk. “You have to get me out.”
The older man shook his head. ”I know it's been hard on you, Viktor. But you're too close to quit now.”
“But I'm not close at all,” Podolsk argued. “Two years out of my life for this and I can identify no one besides Borovik who is higher than the rank of captain. Two years of being a criminal. I'm surprised my parents haven't died of shame.”
Nikolai Belkin could have argued this considerable understatement. Podolsk had, after all, become the control for Borovik's entire European network. Add to that, he had learned the name of every member of the Chicago Brigade, the registry of every truck, the location of at least three warehouses, and could give evidence against scores of corrupt officials.
But all of this, for all its scope, was still only one spoke of the wheel. The trick was to get to the hub. But one cannot just go there. One must wait to be invited.
“It will change soon, Viktor,” he said. “Trust me on this.”
Podolsk looked away. “The problem,” he replied, “is to trust myself.”
The older man lifted an eyebrow.
”I waited almost one hour,” Podolsk told him, “before I asked for this meeting. Do you know what I was considering?”
The older man nodded. “It's on your face, Viktor.”
”I wanted to march over to Number Two. If that little son of a bitch was still in his office, I truly think I would have picked him up out of his chair and thrown him out his goddamned window.”
The uncle of Leo Belkin said nothing.
“And you know something else? I could have walked straight to the elevator, straight out of the building, and every guard who heard Borovik screaming all the way down would have taken a sudden interest in the number of cracks in the ceiling. They despise him as much as I do.”
Still nothing. But the older man's expression was thoughtful.
Podolsk tried several other reasons why his mission should be given up as a bad job. Because Borovik despises him as well, advancement is impossible. Two years, and the closest he's come to those pulling the strings was an angry voice on the telephone this evening. Overheard. Berating Borovik. After today, certainly, Borovik will want to get rid of him and, very likely, try to blame him for all that has happened. One night, very soon, he's liable to open his door and be looking down a gun barrel. Behind it is Borovik. No. Worse nightmare. Behind it is Borovik's mother.
This last was not meant as a joke. Nor did Nikolai Belkin smile.
“This . . . angry voice,” he said. ”I assume you did not recognize it.”
Podolsk started to shake his head. He changed his mind. “It was . . . very distinctive. My impression w
as that I've heard it before. I want to say that I've heard it giving speeches but, like all of us, I've had to listen to thousands.”
“Describe it, please, Viktor.”
Podolsk did his best. Singsong. From deep in the chest. He mimicked the inflection. As he did so, he thought he saw recognition in the older man's eyes.
“Who is he?” Podolsk asked quietly.
The eyes were distant. They were staring through walls.
“Do you know him?” Podolsk asked again, this time suspiciously.
Nikolai Belkin raised a hand as if asking for time. He turned away, pacing, his hand at his mouth, the dog, now confused, pacing with him. He would nod, and then he would cancel the nod with a rapid shake of his head. But the nods became more frequent. At last, he turned to give his answer.
”I should have guessed,” he said. “The answer is I should have guessed.”
Podolsk waited.
The old man took his arm. “Walk with me,” he said.
They went outside. The two men walked, in virtual silence, down toward the Pushkin Museum, crossing toward the lights and the rising steam of the Moscow Swimming Pool. The dog barked at the sounds made by swimmers. The old man tugged the leash. They continued on, stopping only when they reached the embankment of the Moscow River.
It took this long for him to trust himself to speak. It took this long for him to stop saying to himself, Leo must have known. Somehow, Leo must have found out. It is why he came to Moscow.
But how much he knew, what he hoped to achieve, did he come in search of martyrdom . . . these questions he could not begin to answer.
The Academician knew full well the leap of logic he was taking. He had only the barest evidence that the voice on that telephone might have been Arkadi Kulik's. And yet here— he touched his chest—he had no doubt of it. That story, the burning of hats, might have credence after all.
There were two possibilities. One was that Leo, on his own, had learned all about Borovik and had followed that trail to Kulik. Nikolai Belkin did not believe it. How could he follow a trail that had, to this point, been invisible to everyone else? If Leo had even been aware of Borovik's existence, surely he would have tried to call up his file from Bern. He never had. Until a few hours ago, according to Yasenevo, no one had. A few hours ago, suddenly, a code and cipher official named Voinovitch tries to call up the Borovik file, but Leo by that time was already in Moscow, and has had no contact with Bern since he arrived.
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