More movement to Bannerman's right. The door of the first Lincoln opened abruptly. A man stepped out, a radiophone in his hand. He was calling, urgently, after the Americans. They stopped. Clew and Kaplan turned and walked toward him.
Bannerman was more concerned about the Chaika. It came to a stop between Yuri and the terminal doors. A rear window was rolling down. Carla reached with her right hand under Yuri's jacket at the small of his back. Must be a gun there. But Yuri took her arm, restraining it.
“Mr. Brugg,” the flight engineer called from the cockpit. “I've picked up that call if you're interested.”
Willem glanced at him. The engineer was holding a headset, gesturing toward the Lincoln with the open door. He had been playing with his dials, monitoring what he could. Willem thanked him. He raised the headset to his ear, but he, too, kept his eyes on the Chaika.
The rear door had swung open. A man was climbing out. Not a young man. Yuri seemed to know him. He stepped forward to take his arm. The man straightened his fur hat and then, as if he had forgotten himself, tipped it politely to Carla. He glanced over toward the Americans and, as if an afterthought, turned so that his back was to them, and raised the collar of his raincoat. Now he was speaking to Carla. Carla knew no Russian—perhaps fifty words—as Yuri was evidently explaining. A look of surprise came over the old man's face. A look of anger over Carla's.
”I think Yuri just blew her cover,” said Bannerman. “I'd better get her back here.”
“Binoculars,” Willem said to his engineer. He kept the headset at one ear. The binoculars came. He raised them just as Yuri and the older man embraced. Carla had softened. The man separated himself from Yuri. He offered her his hand. She took it. Carla almost curtsied.
“It's Leo's uncle,” said Willem Bragg, surprise in his voice. “I'm sure of it. That man is Nikolai Belkin.”
“You know him?” Bannerman had never heard the name mentioned.
“From the photograph, yes. In Leo's flat. There had been an ... estrangement of some years and yet Leo kept his photograph. It was always on Leo's piano.”
The man was reaching back into the Chaika. He returned with several files and began showing them to Yuri, his manner grave but animated. Yuri's fingers rose to his temples as if what he was hearing was too much to grasp. He spread his arms, a gesture of helplessness. Now he cocked his head toward the plane while reaching a hand for the files. He wanted to bring them . . . show them. The older man was clearly hesitant but, at more urging from Yuri, he relented.
Yuri was backing away from him. Motioning for him to wait and for Carla to stay with him. Yuri turned toward the airplane and ran toward it, head down, at a trot.
Willem, with his headset, grunted. “We have another problem,” he said.
“First this one, Willem. Tell me about this one.”
“Nikolai Belkin,” said Willem, groping. “He is ... was ... a great man, I think. An Academician twice over. Many honors. Became a dissident, but fell back into line. Leo said he should have stood up to them. Was ashamed. He said his uncle could have been as revered as Sakharov if he only had more backbone.”
Yuri climbed the stairway three steps at a time.
“This man who just came,” he said breathlessly, reaching Bannerman. “He is—”
”I know who he is. What's happening?”
“He said it's finished. He said we can do nothing.”
“Yuri . . . what is finished?”
“He knows everything. He says all you have done is drive them underground. The names you have ... all of them ... are probably dead already. Sacrificed, He hopes you have not killed Major Podolsk. He says Major Podolsk is ours, not theirs. Two years' work, two years trying to penetrate, it's all for nothing.”
“Um ... slow down, please. What's in those files?”
He fanned them. “Borovik ,. Kulik, a man named Sostkov. All thrown out of KGB. Borovik goes crazy because of you. General Belkin goes crazy because Arkadi Kulik murdered his father to marry his mother and then learns he's here in Moscow after this Sostkov ordered a BMW for himself. Everything is shambles.”
Bannerman grasped about a tenth of this.
“Yuri, is Academician Belkin one of those you're working with? Those I wouldn't understand?”
The Russian grimaced. “Was grief talking. Not me.”
“Forget that. Will he talk to me now?”
“Too many eyes and ears.” He gestured toward the two embassy Lincolns. “But it is to see you that he came. He asks that you come to his car.”
“If you're going,” said Willem Brugg, “go now while they're distracted.”
Bannerman glanced toward the Lincolns. At the one with the open door, an argument had started. It was Invin Kaplan, angered about something, berating Roger Clew. The other Americans had turned. They were walking back.
“What's that about? Did you hear?”
“It's our other problem. Lesko was freed at gunpoint. He's now armed, has an embassy car, and he has help.”
“You remember Ernie Lechmann, right?”
“The wedding. Sure.” Lesko reached for the Austrian's free hand and shook it, but his eyes were on the rear window. Meltzer and his muscle were a block behind them. They'd been let out in a factory area about a mile from the embassy.
The two civilians turned out to be CIA. They were out in the street, handcuffed together, frantic, looking for a car to flag down. Good luck. Even Meltzer was shaking his head at them.
Lesko settled back in the seat of Waldo’s car. “Listen.” he said, “Don't think I'm not glad to see you guys . . .”
“Here. Take a Beretta.” Waldo had been checking the mechanism of both CIA pistols. He handed one to Lesko together with the clip from the pistol he'd rejected. Lesko hesitated, but he took it.
“Ah . . . how about a few answers, John.”
Waldo took a breath. “Last night? Yeah, it was us. And yeah, we could have been quicker.”
“Bannerman sent you? He saw this coming?”
“Second part is no. First part is more or less. We're tourists, mostly.”
A snort from Lechmann.
“Who else is here?”
“We're not sure. But we think just us.”
“All that shit last night and the fires? That was just you two?”
“Some of it. We don't know who else.”
Lesko rechecked the Beretta. “How illegal is this?”
Waldo jerked a thumb toward the street behind them. “It's more illegal for the two we got them from. They're not supposed to carry outside the embassy compound. It's why they had Mace, so guns could be a last resort. You want the Mace?”
Lesko waved it off. The day he needed Mace ...
“Look,” he said. “The more I think of it, if they won't let me stay with Elena, I'd just as soon stick around the embassy in case there's word on her.”
He saw Lechmann's eyes in the rearview mirror. Lechmann was nodding agreement.
“How is she doing?” asked the Austrian.
“Skull fracture. Coma. But she's stable.”
“Belkin?”
“Touch and go. I saw him. He doesn't look good.”
“How about yourself?” Waldo asked. “You holding together?”
Lesko started to nod, but shook it off. “Not that well,” he admitted.
“There's some Swiss doctors coming. Willem Brugg, Bannerman, and I think Susan. You heard that?”
”A whole mob, yeah. The Meltzer guy told me.”
Waldo checked his watch. “They were due in by now. Figure another two hours before the doctors can get in and go to work. We thought you'd rather be with friends. Anyway, we might know a better way to pass the time.”
“How?” Lesko closed one eye. “In a hot Lincoln with embassy plates? I don't want to tell you guys your business, but...”
“Relax. We got a better car stashed. You're gonna feel right at home.”
Lesko saw the smirk. “I'm supposed to guess? A cop car, right?”
“Bingo.”
Lesko could only sigh.
“Yeah, but . . .” Waldo's smirk faded. “That brings up something else. We gotta talk about where your head is. Like, do you still feel like a cop or do you just want the shit bag who shot your wife?”
Lesko stared. His mouth went dry. “You found him?”
“We gotta know, Lesko ”
“You did find him. You found Kulik.”
Waldo showed his palms. Go slow. “If we did, you gotta be clear on something. There's this house out in the suburbs. Once we go in, we don't read any rights, we don't sort them out. If they're there, they're dead.”
Lesko blinked. “Who's they? That whole table?”
“Four of them. For starters.”
“Who else?”
“Ah ... the car is just ahead,” said Lechmann, discomfort in his voice. “Also a metro station. If you want my advice, Mr. Lesko, you'll take the metro. Elena will need you.”
Lesko chewed his lip. “Who else, John?”
A sigh. “I'm gonna say it again, Ray.” He spoke slowly, almost gently. “If a neighbor stops in to use the phone, he's dead. If we find a Tupperware party going on, they're dead. You start trying to pick out who's who, then I'm dead. Who else can't be the issue.”
Lesko's eyes dropped to the Beretta. The Lincoln slowed.
“You must decide,” Lechmann told him.
Lesko nodded. “I'll take the table,” he said. “Anyone else is yours.”
73
“Murphy's Law, Mr. Bannerman.”
The Academician sorted through the files that Yuri had returned to him. He was shuffling them, sifting through them, as if looking for a place to start. He had the glazed look of a man who was overwhelmed by events. “Murphy's Law applies nowhere else the way it applies in my country.”
Leo's uncle had greeted him correctly but coolly. He showed considerably more warmth toward Carla. It was clear that Yuri had told him about her. The editing must have been substantial.
When Carla climbed into the Chaika, however, taking the right front seat, she startled the driver with a Russian endearment and an affectionate embrace. He understood the reason for it only when she backed away and he saw his pistol in her right hand, being cocked with the left. Yuri, mortified, insisted that she give it back at once. The older man patted his knee. Never mind, he told Yuri. She is everything you said she is. If Georgi's gun puts her mind at ease, perhaps it will calm Mama's Boy as well.
Yuri caught his eye. His expression seemed to say, “You see? This is a great man.”
Bannerman grumbled inwardly. He was anxious to be done with this and do something about getting into Moscow. He watched as Leo's uncle picked through his files once again and extracted four photographs. He laid them out atop his briefcase. The four men wore KGB dress uniforms. Bannerman recognized Borovik at once. A few pounds heavier. Hair was dark. Probably dyed. Mean eyes. The Academician identified the others as Arkadi Kulik, Victor Podolsk, and Oleg Sostkov. Then he covered their faces with his hands.
“There are good men in the KGB, Mr. Bannerman. Are you able to believe that?”
“Yes, sir. I know that.”
“My nephew is one. Yuri, here, is another.”
“Yes sir. But could we please ...” He gestured toward the photographs.
“Stop me if I go too fast,” said Nikolai Belkin coldly. He seemed unaccustomed to being prodded.
Bannerman listened.
In a stream of nearly flawless English, Nikolai Belkin took him through the maze in which all of their lives had recently connected. The Academician was not KGB, he said. But, a few years back, he had found himself adopted as a sort of moral authority by certain elements within the KGB. These were men, he said, who had been struggling to redefine themselves. “If you know my nephew, and understand him, I hope that perhaps you get my meaning.”
Bannerman sighed inwardly, feeling Yuri's eyes on him.
‘They know, Mr. Bannerman, that their country is being systematically looted. They are also aware that if the KGB is not stopping it, the KGB must therefore be part of it. Need I explain KGB? That its strength has been, and continues to be, a monopoly on all information?”
“No sir. I know that.”
“This is not like the West, Mr. Bannerman, where information is readily available. The KGB controlled everything, infiltrated everything. They do not stop a habit of seventy years just because some politician tells them they're disbanded.”
He was doing it anyway.
“But let's move on.”
Thank you.
“What our men have chosen to do, in effect, is to infiltrate the infiltrators. This brings us to Major Podolsk. For two years now, he's been working to win General Borovik's confidence, trying to find out who is next up the ladder. As of only last night, I think we know. At the next rung up, and possibly much higher, is Arkadi Kulik.”
Bannerman listened closely. As he did, he was forming an opinion of Leo's uncle. He was a decent man, to be sure. A teacher. A philosopher. Liked to talk about the good in people. Bannerman wondered how he'd lived this long.
He caught Carla's eye. He saw the beginnings of disappointment there. And an assessment not unlike his own.
Bannerman asked about Leo. Why had he come to Moscow? Why had he brought Elena?
These questions brought a dizzying flood of new names and images. At first, the answers did not seem responsive. There was Leo Belkin's father. Leo's mother. Arkadi Kulik, again, who destroyed them both. Leo finding out. Hounding Kulik out of the KGB. But that was not enough for him. Leo wanted to kill him. Kulik, however, had vanished.
Forget him, his uncle had insisted. No personal vendettas. Don't you think I know how you feel? The man Kulik murdered was my brother-in-law. It was my sister whose bed he desecrated for all those years. But we have bigger fish to fry. We have a nation to rebuild. Leo could not accept this. They quarreled. There was bitterness. Leo went back to Bern, but he kept pestering his uncle with reports that Kulik was seen in this or that city, that he'd gone to America, even that he was dead. But never that he was living in Moscow.
When he first made the offer of this wedding trip, therefore, he had no thought of searching for Arkadi Kulik. The Academician was now convinced of it.
“What makes you so sure?” Carla asked, before Bannerman could.
“Murphy's Law, Ms. Benedict.” He tapped a finger against the tight-lipped mouth of Captain Oleg Sostkov.
“Sostkov, it seemed, had ordered a new BMW to be shipped from Germany. One week ago—and I learned of this only this morning—my nephew received a routine request from Yasenevo. It merely asked how an unemployed KGB captain can afford such a car. Leo was to determine how it was paid for, in what currency, how the funds were transferred. A file on Sostkov accompanied the request.
“The first thing Leo saw was that Sostkov had been a junior officer on Kulik's staff. The whole staff got its walking papers when Kulik did. The address the BMW had for him was a dacha in Zhukovka, which should have been even more beyond Sostkov's means than the BMW. No, it's not in Kulik's name either, but, to make a long story short, he lives there. Someone at Yasenevo told Leo. This person had been asked not to, but he did.
“This same person told him that Arkadi Kulik made a habit of dining Sunday nights at Kropotkinskaya 36. You see what happens, Mr. Bannerman, when people become impatient and lose sight of their goals. You see what happens when men let their emotions get the better of them.”
Bannerman turned to Yuri. “Did you know about this?”
The young Russian shook his head miserably. “Not this. No.”
“But you knew that he came here for a reason.”
Yuri grimaced. “The offer of a wedding trip was sincere, Mr. Bannerman. It was only ... he came to realize that such a visit would cause discomfort, rub some noses.”
“Then why didn't he cancel it?”
“He tried. Elena said she would come regardless.”
Exas
perated, Bannerman took a breath. “These noses. Was one of them Borovik's?”
“He knew nothing of Borovik. Nothing of Podolsk. Nor did I until last night.”
Bannerman looked at Leo's uncle. “But you did? And you said nothing?”
The old man drew himself up.
“Mr. Bannerman . . . I've read about your visit to Leningrad some years ago. Has it occurred to you that the shooting might have been an act of vengeance and that those close to you, not my nephew, might have been the real target?”
“Ah . . . what difference would that make?”
“It would clarify motive, certainly. A case of chickens coming home to roost, perhaps. And you wouldn't be looking for someone else to blame.”
Yuri winced. Carla's eyes had become hooded. They met his. They were saying, “Screw this. Let's go do something.”
Bannerman glanced back toward the plane. The first truck was loaded, its tarp secured. White coats were climbing into the second.
“Let me summarize,” he said to the Academician. “Leo confronted Kulik. An hour later he was shot. Either Kulik or Borovik ordered the shooting, and I'll tell you that I don't care which. All you want of me is that no harm comes to Major Podolsk. Is that why we're talking?”
The old man's expression turned grim. “If your death squads haven't killed him already, yes.”
Another slap. Bannerman held his temper.
“Don't you know? I would think you'd have people protecting him.”
A hesitation. “He was to stay home, wait at his apartment. He is not there. Do your people have him or don't they?”
”I have no idea.”
“Last night, Mr. Bannerman, General Borovik was dragged from his home. Did your people do that?”
“I'll know when I talk to them.”
“If they didn't, then Kulik did. If so, it means that Borovik must have acted on his own and Kulik is trying to keep himself removed from it. He's too late, you know. Murphy's Law. Half of Moscow knows what happened inside that restaurant.”
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