One: All these men were Kulik's enemies. But that went without saying.
Two: He, that very morning, had spoken to one of these dozen or so men with Sostkov. But which one?
Three: He would never see that man's face. He is not to leave this house alive.
Four: It will be Sostkov who kills him. After he kills these three.
He listened in growing numbness as Kulik explained what would be done with this videotape. It would be sent to the Americans with a note. The note, signed by “The Committee for Justice” or some such thing, would tell them if they need more proof they can go to Borovik's apartment. Look in his mother's hatboxes. They'll see currency, emeralds, heroin. Not great amounts but enough to convince them. They'll also find his mother. Poor woman. In her shame, she hung herself.
“Poor woman,” snorted the one who had winked. He pulled at his collar to show scratch marks on his neck.
Kulik glared at him but said nothing. Podolsk felt a scream rising from his soul. Kulik rose from his chair and walked to what seemed to be a minibar.
“With the note and the videotape we will send something else.” He paused, his hand on the key to the minibar. ”I should ask first if you have a strong stomach.”
He managed to nod.
Kulik opened the metal door and withdrew a plastic bag. He held it up. Something wine-colored and black. Podolsk could not make out its contents at first because condensed moisture had made the bag opaque. But Kulik held it closer, turning it in his hand. Podolsk saw the face of General Borovik. He thought he would be sick.
The two other boobs were enjoying his discomfort. One was elbowing the other. Grinning eagerly, he said to Kulik, “Tell him your joke about that.”
Kulik cracked a smile but declined. He returned Borovik's head to the minibar.
The same boob turned to Podolsk, chuckling. “You know what General Kulik said? He said, 'Borovik is finally making his head useful.’ No. Not quite right. He said, ‘It's high time that Borovik . ..‘”
He stopped himself. He cocked an ear, listening.
Podolsk heard it. The sound of pistol shots in the distance. But, just then, he was past caring. A sickening joke, told badly, had pushed Viktor Podolsk beyond his limits. The last straw can be a very small one.
He saw the Makarov before he knew he'd reached for it. All sound in the room, all motion, stopped. Only his right arm moved. It seemed to have a life of its own.
The one who could not tell a joke was first. He died before the stupid grin could fade. The other, the one with scratch marks, could only stare at the blood that splattered him from the first. The Makarov shot him through the heart.
It swung left, finding Kulik. He had backed away, his eyes darting this way and that, as if looking for a place to hide. He snatched something from his desk. A broken golf club. He hugged it, uselessly, then threw it at Podolsk. It bounced off his hip. Kulik backed away further, finally reaching the wall. Arms crossed to protect his chest, he tried to make himself smaller. He tried to talk. No sound came. Either his voice was gone or Podolsk's brain had turned off the sound. Slowly, eyes wide as saucers, he lowered himself to the floor.
The Makarov kicked, belched fire. The Scottish hat popped up, settled back, Kulik only squeaked. He quivered for a moment, and he was dead.
Podolsk stared down at him. This monster. Dead.
It seemed too quick. There should have been more to it. A man such as this should have suffered. Screamed out loud. Dragged up to a roof and thrown off the edge. Soaked with gasoline and set on fire. Something. There should have been more.
Podolsk turned toward the library's door. He backed away from it, several steps. His arms were his own now. He gripped the Makarov in both of them, ready position, poised at his right shoulder.
He cleared his throat.
“You can come in now,” he said.
80
Elena could hear Susan.
She could even smell her hair.
And she could see lights and movement. Some of the time.
The trouble was . . . she didn't know how much of what she saw and heard was real. It was all mixed up with dreams. And ghosts.
Uncle Urs came by. He took her hiking, told her the names of flowers. That one was more of a memory. David Katz always seemed to be near, wearing a sport jacket with a turtleneck underneath. She knew who he was because she had seen photographs of him among Lesko's things. And he was dressed in the way Lesko had described him. Hollywood clothing. Already out of date.
He wouldn't speak to her though. He'd never quite forgiven her. But he had told Lesko, “She can hear you.” And that was nice of him.
There was a moment when she would have spoken to Lesko herself if he had let her get a word in edgewise. He was too busy making deals with God and proving that he could count in German. She would have told him to make whatever deal he likes but leave our child out of it. She was fading again. Wait. Susan?
You were talking about a child just then. I'm sorry. Things take a while. You were talking about a child of your own. Are you . . . ?
I heard you. Don't you dare. Don't even think of it.
Yes, you stay close to me. Yes, and Miriam. I hear. But you especially, because the minute I'm awake I'm going to tell you what I think of talk like that.
”... talk like that.”
Yes, I know what Paul is. I know what he was and I know why he gave it up. Need I tell you why? He was looking for you, Susan.
Why you in particular, I don't know. Why two people find each other, come to love each other, I can't explain. Explain Lesko and me if you can.
”. . . explain.”
I know only this. You are his lifeline, Susan, just as Lesko is mine.
“Life .. . line . . . Susan.”
Oh, good grief, don't shout like that. Can't you see my head hurts?
Susan!
Why are you running off?
“Susan?”
81
Waldo was giving hand signals.
I open, draw fire, you shoot, I finish.
Lesko waved them off.
”I got a feeling,” he said softly.
The voice from inside was Podolsk's. “You can come in now,''he said. But there was something about the voice. A hollow sound at the end. Like in his head he was adding, “you son of a bitch.”
A lot about Podolsk now bothered him. The way he sounded when he came in. Didn't really want to be here. The way he looked in the Savoy lobby. Didn't want to be there either. In front of Detsky Mir, the way he was reaming out that slug who shot Leo and Valentin. Stomping off to the KGB building like he was going to ream out someone else.
“Sostkov?” Podolsk's voice again. Concern in it.
Waldo touched a finger to his lips. Let him come look. Lesko shook his head.
“You're all alone, Viktor,” he said. He took a quick step back.
Silence from the library.
”I just killed the son of a bitch.”
Lesko crouched to one knee, bent low, but no bullets ripped through the wall where his head had been. Waldo's scowl said he wished one had. Lesko could hear him in his mind. You never talk to them, he was saying. You never, ever talk.
“You are ... the American,” came Podolsk's voice.
Lesko heard astonishment. He thought he heard relief. He waited.
“Please ... you must answer. Are you the policeman? Are you Lesko?”
Heavy breathing. But definitely relief.
“Mr. Lesko, I am not your enemy.”
And now desperation.
”I am their enemy. These three ... Sostkov ... that thing in the bag.”
Thing in the bag? He looked at Waldo. Waldo rocked a hand and flipped it. / think I know, the gesture said. But later.
He reached for the doorlatch before Lesko could stop him, opened it, and pushed. But he backed away quickly. Still no shots. He signaled Lesko that he could see two men, both dead. Lesko saw the third, Kulik. He was in the far corner, crumpled, hea
d back, mouth open, another dumb red hat down over his nose.
“Two of you,” came Podolsk's voice. “And more outside? Those shots?”
Lesko hesitated.
“If they are not yours, Mr. Lesko, they have come to kill me. They must now kill you as well.”
Even Waldo hesitated. But Lesko was watching his eyes. Waldo knew that room. He knew that Podolsk was standing in the middle and he knew what cover there was. Probably none. He could stick the MP5 through the door, sweep the middle with one long burst, listen for Podolsk to drop, and, that distraction gone, get ready for who else might be coming.
“Podolsk? Don't get nervous.”
Gritting his teeth, Lesko showed one arm, his Beretta at the end of it, pointed toward the ceiling. From inside, he heard a deep sigh.
“Mine is same way.”
A breath. Lesko showed more of himself. He saw Podolsk.
Both hands were raised, an automatic like Valentin's in one of them, finger clear of the trigger. He saw Podolsk's eyes. Expecting fear, he saw none. What he saw was exhaustion. This man was totally drained. Lesko could have shot him, he thought, and he would have died with a look of relief.
He glanced over his shoulder expecting to see Waldo backing him. Waldo wasn't there. He wasn't even in the hallway. The Russian could have shot him if he wanted.
“Your wife?” asked Podolsk hopefully. The eyes said he meant it.
”I don't know.”
Lesko, the Beretta still raised, scanned the room. Three dead. Everyone on his list but the Arabs. The hell with the Arabs. His eye fell to the telephone on Kulik's desk.
“You know how to call that hospital?” he asked.
Irwin Kaplan didn't like the way he felt. He felt guilty.
The guilt was because he was feeling good about it.
I know, he told himself. For Irwin Kaplan, angst is the normal emotional state. Self-inflicted wounds. Two thousand years of suffering.
But for anyone to tell him that he could kill a man, even a lowlife goyim thug prick who slapped his face, he would have said no chance. Wishing he had the guts, maybe. Shooting to protect his family, maybe. But not to kill, not if he could help it. Until this time.
The Russian went for his gun and he had to shoot. But now, now that it was settling, that fat fuck was everyone he ever hated.
“There's the house,” said Miggs. ”I don't see the other Zhiguli.”
“Keep going. They'll be looking for this one.”
The guys he envied, as a kid, were never the bruisers like Lesko. He didn't want people to be afraid of him. He didn't even want to fight, especially. What he wanted was to be able to walk away from an insult without it ripping at him for weeks afterward. Sometimes years.
The guys he envied were the ones who nothing bothered. Never brooded, never cried. They would set their sights and go. As an adult, though, he began to change his thinking when he noticed that half of these guys had been through three wives and the other half turned into druggies, drunks, or dropouts.
Then he meets Bannerman. Wanting to hate him at first, mostly because he was afraid of him. He knew why and now he's seen why. That was murder back there. Those first two guys. Never mind what they might have done. Or what Bannerman guessed they were going to do. Even if he's right, which it looks like he is, it was murder by any standard. And you want cold-blooded? When he shot that second guy, the driver? He shot him as low as he could, avoiding his head. It was so they wouldn't have to clean brains off the windows before they could drive his car. That even shook Miggs.
“There's one of them,” said Bannerman from the back. “On foot, just past the wall.”
Miggs looked. “Where?”
“He's gone. He started to flag us down from those trees, but he .. .” Bannerman cursed. “Stop and get down. Fast.”
Ducking low, Miggs slammed on the brakes. Bannerman snatched at Kaplan's head, throwing him against Miggs. Miggs grabbed the head and held it, bending the glasses again.
“Stay low,” Bannerman told Miggs. “He'll go for the driver.”
“Who will?” asked Kaplan, muffled.
Bannerman groped for a handkerchief. He shook it out, jammed one end into the barrel of his shotgun, and shoved it out the window.
“Waldo will, if you give him a shot.”
He counted to three, took a breath, then stuck his head out with the handkerchief. His right eye flashed red as Waldo's laser beam washed over it. When he could focus again, he saw the man he'd seen moments before. The man had popped out, then was whipped back. Now he was a rag doll tumbling toward the roadway. Waldo had taken him. He had come within a blink of taking them as well.
Twenty minutes passed.
They were in the trees near the place where the body had fallen. Miggs had dragged it back up the slope, covered it with branches. Further in, they found the second Zhiguli, empty. It had come in through the birch and pine forest as far as it could. Kaplan and Bannerman, armed with shotguns, sat facing the house although they couldn't see it for the trees. Miggs watched their rear.
“How long do we sit here?” asked Kaplan.
“They might still come back for that car.”
“And if Waldo already got them?”
“Then we wait, Irwin. Until we're told that we're no longer in the way.”
Bannerman was embarrassed. Kaplan loved it.
Bannerman has this great idea. We use one yellow Zhiguli as a Trojan Horse. We drive up to the second one and whack the men in it before they know what hit them. But he doesn't figure that Waldo might already be out there turning them into organ donors. The guy who waved from the woods fell for the Trojan Horse but so did Waldo, who probably would have shot us. Give Bannerman credit for realizing it in time but the prick doesn't get straight A's.
“So our part's over.”
“The day is young.” Bannerman gestured toward his pistol. “You can carve a notch if you're bored, Irwin.”
Embarrassed. And now snippy. Kaplan loved this.
They heard the first short bleat of Lechmann's siren. Bannerman relaxed. He asked Miggs to take their Zhiguli, go get the Lincoln, and bring it back to Kulik's house. A second bleat sounded, then a third, each closer than the last. Bannerman stood up, began walking toward the road. Kaplan followed.
“This means Waldo got them all?”
Bannerman nodded.
“How could he know how many?”
“He would have asked the first or second.”
Asked. Nice. “Now what? We hit the house?”
“There's no need. The house is secure.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Lechmann left his post.”
So now it's Twenty Questions. “Okay. How could Lechmann know? Wait . . . Waldo went and told him. But how would Waldo know where you sent Lechmann?”
“Irwin ... he just knew.”
“Hey. Excuse me. We're taking a walk in the fucking woods here while you're assuming that no one from that second car is still functional. It's not like you're never wrong, Bannerman.”
A sigh. “Waldo knows me. He knows I'd have sent someone to cover the rear and that could only be Lechmann. He also knows Lechmann. He knows what position he'd choose.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” ¯
“Just don't screw up again.”
Boomalacka-boomalacka.
Kaplan couldn't help it. He knew that he was on an adrenaline high. And that he'd crash. What the knowledge that he'd killed a man would do to him, he'd have to wait and see. But for right now, fuck him. For the first time in his life, he felt that he could handle anything. He'd been on a mission with Mama's Boy, been in a gunfight with him, more than held up his end. He wished people could know.
Certain people.
“Hoooh-ly shit!”
Kaplan paused at the entrance to Kulik's library. He felt the adrenaline draining.
Two men, big bellies, blue suits, sat in matching chairs. Except for the blood, they
could have dozed off watching TV. The TV was on. It was a program about private vegetable gardens.
A third man, skinny, older, was slumped in one corner, a red tam down over his face. His knees were drawn up, his hands clutched at his chest. No visible blood. He could have been a wino sleeping it off.
Lesko is standing behind the desk. He's on the phone, talking away, as if there's nothing wrong with this picture. He looks up, gives the high sign. It's like, Hey, Irwin, good to see you, be with you in a minute. At his side, chair pulled up, is a guy wearing KGB collar tabs. He's holding a video-cassette under his chin, looks shell-shocked. He's sticking close to Lesko while he's staring out at Bannerman.
Bannerman had looked in, but he's still in the hallway. He's huddled with Waldo, who had let them in through the dining room. Why is Waldo's coat on inside-out? A fourth body on the dining-room floor. A rug has been folded over it.
What does this make? Ten dead? Three from the first car, figure three from the second, four in these two rooms. They're like ninety minutes into their eight-hour window and already it's like Stalingrad.
Why is nobody else bothered by this? But as the thought floated through his mind, it struck him that he isn't either. Not that much. It's like the times he's had to visit a morgue. You'd see five or six people laid out on tables. Heart attacks, overdoses, stabbings. After a while, they're just stiffs unless they happen to be someone you know. Or unless they're children.
The guy with the cassette, Waldo is telling Bannerman, is Podolsk. Maybe he's okay ... he popped those three . . . Lesko clocked this one. Waldo lowers his voice, says something about the basement, something else about a minibar.
Miggs comes in, says his own holy shit, spots the open safe, and makes a beeline for it. Lesko wonders who he is but he doesn't really care. He looks like his horse just came in. Must be the hospital. Good news about Elena? Kaplan spreads his hands to ask. What?
Lesko gives thumbs-up. Yeah, it's Elena, he says. She's awake ... or she was ... and the EEG something-something is looking good . . . she's going into surgery . . . this is Susan . . . less damage than they feared, but some . . . will know better when they go in, but she was talking, making sense, recognized faces, was even bawling out Susan for something ... I don't know . . . Hey, Bannerman . . . she wants to talk to you . .. Susan.
Bannerman's Promise Page 49