by Dan Mayland
Mark didn’t respond to the sarcasm. Instead, he focused on the sounds around and below him, listening for evidence that Titov was advancing, or was just talking to cover the approach of another assailant.
“Ceramic armor, Russian kind. Very good quality. I recommend it to you.”
Titov spoke flippantly, but in a way that seemed to border on mania.
“You’ve got big problems,” said Mark. “The Azeris are coming. There will be more than your men can handle.”
“You don’t know my men, Sava. And my own reinforcements will also be coming soon. Spetsnaz GRU from our base in Yerevan, the very best. If I were you, I would not be so confident.”
Mark wasn’t feeling the slightest bit confident. And spetsnaz GRU troops, elite special forces culled from the military intelligence branch of the Russian army, were no joke. “There is fighting in the north. Heavy fighting.” He tried not to sound as drained as he felt.
“I have seen it.”
“That does not bode well for you.”
“I do not know what it bodes, nor do you. All I know is that I have been ordered to secure the roof of this hotel, so one of our helicopters can land here. If you are still alive when it arrives, that will mean I have failed. But still, the men inside the helicopter will kill you.”
“The hell they will.”
“There will be too many of them, even for a slippery person like you. So either way, if I kill you first or they kill you later, it is the same for you.” A long silence, then, “And if these men don’t come, well…yes, you are right, that will mean the invasion has failed, in which case things will not be so good for me, you understand? If you don’t kill me, well, the Azeris will.”
Mark didn’t answer.
Titov said, “So, Sava, will you try to kill me now?”
Mark still didn’t answer.
“Katerina was my half sister, by the way. I don’t think you knew that. We shared the same mother, but had different fathers—my father died when I was two, then my mother remarried and had Katerina. She was ten years younger than me.”
The words just hung there in the thick air. The heat from the condenser stuck in the back of Mark’s throat, making it difficult for him to swallow. The fact that Katerina and Titov were related was a shock, but less of a shock than what Titov’s words implied.
“Was your sister?” said Mark. When Titov didn’t answer, Mark asked, “What do you mean was? What happened to her?”
More sirens sounded from down below. Mark heard tires screeching in the front lot of the Tabriz. He glanced north, but couldn’t see any more evidence of fighting.
Titov said, “Some might say I killed her. I resisted that thought for years, but now I’ve come to accept that yes, in a way I did kill her.”
“What did you do?” Mark took a deep breath and decided he didn’t feel as lousy as he’d thought. He certainly still had the energy to kill Titov.
“She didn’t know about me. She just thought I worked at the embassy.”
Mark tried to remember back that far. He thought, yes, Katerina had talked of an older brother. He recalled her saying that her mother and brother supported the Soviet Union, and that she was afraid they wouldn’t like him, because he was an American. So she’d never taken him to meet them. Mark had been too absorbed with Katerina to care.
“What didn’t she know about you?”
“When I was twenty-one I was pulled from university in Moscow and sent to the war in Afghanistan. After the war, the commander of my tank battalion was recruited to work for the KGB. He brought me with him.”
Remembering what Orkhan had told him, Mark said, “You dealt heroin in Afghanistan. Your commander was your krisha, and still is. He is the director of the FSB. That is why you are here.”
“This is true. I am not proud of everything I have done, but I will not deny it. Katerina never knew I was a KGB officer, though. She just thought I was in the army, and then worked at the embassy in Tbilisi.”
A thought suddenly occurred to Mark. “Did Katerina know about your history with heroin?”
“No.”
“The painting of the poppy—it wasn’t a message?”
“I wondered the same thing once, but no. I don’t see how she could have known. I look at a poppy and I see seeds that can be made into a drug. She sees a pretty flower.” Titov let a weary sigh escape. “It was a mistake for me to have come to Tbilisi, where Katerina was, where my mother was. But I did not choose the posting. And, of course, I didn’t ask her to get close to you, do you understand? I didn’t intend to use her like that. But when she told me she was seeing an American, well, of course I was going to investigate who this American is, and why he was in Georgia. She was my sister. And when I investigated, I learned things about you. I learned that you associated with bad people at the university, people who would cause trouble, so I made sure you were watched closely, and then I saw you met with this Bowlan man who we knew was CIA…I should have told Katerina to break it off then. I should have told her you were dangerous.”
“Not to her I wasn’t.”
“But I made a mistake. I told my superiors about Katerina’s relationship with you. And they insisted that we use her to learn more about you, and what you were doing with Larry Bowlan. You understand, being in the KGB, this was a very good job for me. I alone was supporting my mother, helping to pay for Katerina to go to school.”
“You—you were the one who planted the bug on her?”
“So, yes, I planted this listening device on her. And this was my mistake. Because if I hadn’t involved her in my world, she would never have been targeted.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was killed the same day that you were freed.”
Mark felt his heart rate quicken as he anticipated what Titov was going to say next.
“You see,” said Titov, “your friend Larry Bowlan, he didn’t just arrange for those Georgian criminals—”
“They were Georgian patriots fighting an occupation.”
“Ioseliani and his men were criminals!” Titov’s voice trembled. “Bowlan didn’t just arrange for those Georgian criminals to attack and kill the men who were holding you prisoner. He also arranged for them to kill…”
Titov stopped in midsentence, unwilling or unable to finish.
“Katerina,” said Mark. “You’re saying Larry Bowlan arranged to have her killed?”
Could Bowlan have done it? A man Mark had considered a friend for twenty-four years?
The answer, Mark knew, was yes. If Bowlan had thought Katerina was a willing agent of the KGB, and not just the unwitting half sister of one, he could have done it.
“Yes. That criminal son of a bitch Bowlan and his gang of criminals had her killed! Because of her association with me. For years I looked for him…”
Mark was too old, and too weathered, to cry anymore, but if he’d been twenty years younger, he might have now. In the years right after leaving Georgia in 1991, whenever he’d thought of Katerina, he’d imagined her living a happy life somewhere. Falling in love with someone who was kind to her, painting for pleasure, taking joy in beauty, aging with grace. Maybe even thinking of him every so often. Their relationship had been transitory, but in the end, what relationship wasn’t? What mattered was that, for a time, however brief, they had loved each other.
He wanted to bridge the gap of time, to go back and comfort her, to let her know that he was sorry about what had happened, and that he wished her well.
“Our mother never recovered, you know,” said Titov. “The death of Katerina was too much for her to bear. She only lasted a year.”
Mark let his head hang as he recalled the lethal efficiency with which the team of Georgian men who’d rescued him had dispatched his Russian captors. It sickened him to think that Katerina had met a similar fate. It was such a shitty, mean thing. Why God or fate had allowed him to survive for so long, when others more deserving had long since passed, was beyond him.
&nbs
p; He realized he was breathing quickly, almost to the point of hyperventilating.
“The painting,” Mark said. “Where—”
“I found it in Katerina’s dormitory room. It was still wet, she must have just finished it before she was murdered. I gave it to our mother. She lit a candle next to it every day until she died. When I inherited her house, I stored the painting in the attic over all the years I rented the place out. I thought I was saving it because I couldn’t bear to throw it out. But now I know it was so that I could bring it to the Dachi hotel, so it could be the last thing that son of a bitch Larry Bowlan saw before he died.”
She’d been one of the innocents, thought Mark, collateral damage in a cold war that had already gone on for far too long, a war that had already destroyed far too many lives. Her death hadn’t even helped to end that war; it had been utterly pointless.
Titov was quiet for a long, long time. Mark listened to the shouts and sirens in the city, and the sound of sporadic gunfire below them.
Just when Mark was beginning to wonder whether Titov was through talking, the Russian added, “Life is funny, Sava.”
Mark closed his eyes, leaned his head against the warm condenser, and let both his pistol and assault rifle rest loosely in his lap. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it sure is.”
70
Mark heard two sharp beeps. After a time, Titov, sounding as though he was speaking on the phone, said, “I understand. Thank you for all you have done for me.”
Titov was then silent for several minutes.
Below them, the sound of gunfire grew louder and more frequent. An explosion, maybe a door being blasted open, echoed up the stairwell.
“What’s the news?” asked Mark.
“Do you know what I planned to do when I retired, Sava? No, of course you don’t, but I will tell you. Manager for a hunting and fishing lodge. A big one, the best in eastern Russia. Of course, I would prefer to own such a lodge myself, but I have always known my place, and I know that ownership is not possible for a man like me. But I am very good at helping people for whom ownership is possible. And that would not have been such a bad life.” Titov paused, then said, “There will be no helicopter. Our troops are retreating back to Armenia. The attempted incursion never happened. I was never here.”
Mark smiled grimly, relieved, but too battered and weak to take much satisfaction in the news.
“Was this your work, Sava? The Azeris could not have stopped us on their own. They had help, from the Americans, I think.”
Mark considered that if he hadn’t investigated Larry’s death, and found out about the drone base, and told Orkhan about the Russian military buildup and Titov’s paramilitary operation in Nakhchivan, then Orkhan would never have thought to ask the Americans for help—Mark was certain that was what had happened—and then Nakhchivan might have fallen to the Russians, and the Russians might have used their position in Nakhchivan to bully the Azeris for years to come, and to make an example of Azerbaijan so that other former Soviet states would know what was in store for them if they dared to resist a resurgent Russia. In that sense, he’d stopped one very important domino from falling.
But that was false reasoning, he knew. By that standard, Titov himself had stopped the domino from falling by killing Larry and inviting a deeper investigation. Or Orkhan had stopped it, by coming himself to the sanatorium. One could even say Katerina had stopped it decades ago by saying yes when Mark had asked her whether she wanted to go out for tea, for without Katerina, Titov and Mark would never have crossed paths.
In the end, Mark didn’t believe—despite superficial appearances to the contrary—that any one man or woman had much control over the fate of nations…whether that man was a president, a spy, or just a young woman who wanted to paint like Renoir.
Mark said, “If you surrender yourself to me now, I will try to see that you live.”
The torture Mark had endured as a young man, and the executions he’d witnessed—even when he tried to consider that bleak, awful time from a distance, to imagine what it would have been like to be in Titov’s shoes—even then he didn’t believe Titov’s actions had been necessary evils. No, Titov had inflicted far more unnecessary pain than any decent human being should have been capable of inflicting. He might have been Katerina’s half brother, but he didn’t have her kind soul.
Still, Mark wasn’t out for revenge. He’d do what he could to see that Titov wasn’t hanged in the streets by an angry mob.
“Being kept alive is different from living, Sava. You of all people should know this.”
Mark didn’t answer.
Titov said, “The Azeris are not a particularly forgiving lot. I’m going to stand up now.”
Mark stiffened, and readied his assault rifle. “Put your hands above you. Leave your weapons where they are.”
“You know, I have a different idea, Sava.”
Mark lifted an eye just above the air-conditioning condenser he was using as protection. In the dim light of a half-moon, he could see Titov’s silhouette at full height, completely exposed, holding his pistol at his side. The night-vision goggles he wore on his head were flipped up. Mark knew what Titov was asking of him, but he didn’t want to do it.
“Stand down!” called Mark.
“Do it, Sava!”
Titov fired a shot above the condenser. Mark’s ears rang.
“Stand down!”
Titov fired again.
Ignoring the pain in his chest, Mark rolled out from behind the condenser, flicked the safety switch to semiautomatic, and fired a single round at Titov’s chest. When the Russian fell back, Mark advanced quickly, shot Titov’s gun hand, and then kicked the Russians’ assault rifle aside.
Titov’s eyes were wide open, as was his mouth. For a moment, he appeared to be incapable of breathing. But then one breath did come, and then another.
“You fool! I told you I was wearing armor.”
“I remembered.”
Titov closed his mouth and took several short, sharp breaths through his nose. “Please. If not for me, then for Katerina.”
Mark slowly raised the rifle, aimed for the center of Titov’s head, and pulled the trigger twice.
Speaking now only to himself, he said, “For Katerina then.”
71
Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan
Six hours later
Daria hadn’t been certain whether the American the US Rangers were whispering about was really Mark.
Certainly when classified reports began to come through about a man, possibly American, who had single-handedly stopped a group of Russians from taking over the Tabriz Hotel, she’d hoped it was him. And when Decker had called Kaufman, and received word that Mark had made contact and might be able to meet them at the airport, her hopes had soared. But until she actually saw him step out of the Azeri armored car and onto the airport tarmac, carrying the leather satchel he’d left Bishkek with, she hadn’t been sure.
“Mark! Mark! Over here!” Daria started jogging toward him. He turned, and when he saw that it was her, his face registered disoriented confusion. He gestured to the two Azeri army officers standing on either side of him that it was OK.
“Daria?”
His face was haggard, the circles under his eyes unusually dark, and he sounded exhausted, and confused. He appeared to be trembling, or maybe shivering.
“Oh, Mark.” She’d been so, so worried.
They embraced, but Mark’s body stiffened when she wrapped her arms around him, as though he were in pain.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“I’m OK.”
“No, you’re not.” Daria had felt something when they’d embraced, something protruding from his chest. She put her hand out to touch it. “What is that?”
“It’s nothing.”
His voice sounded gravelly, as if he’d been smoking too many cigarettes.
“No it’s not.”
“Had a little lung issue, but it’s going to be OK.” He coughe
d. “Orkhan’s got some doctors lined up for me, one should be here at the airport. Daria, what are you doing here?”
“I came to look for you.”
Daria told him about receiving his text, and of the deal she’d struck with Kaufman, and the role she and Decker had played in helping to fend off the invasion.
“I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” Then, “But where’s Lila?”
Daria wasn’t sure whether the question was just a display of fatherly concern or an implication that she should have stayed home and worried about caring for their daughter, even if it meant he might not return.
“With Nazira. They’re staying at Nazira’s cousin’s place in Tokmok… Lila’s safe, don’t worry.” Daria had just talked to Nazira ten minutes earlier. Lila had taken well to a bottle, and accepted the formula.
“Good.” Mark’s eyes closed for a moment. “Good.” He inhaled deeply, then said, “I got the diaper cream.”
“What?”
“Desitin, the kind you wanted, they had it in Baku.”
“OK.” Daria wasn’t sure whether he was delirious, trying to be funny, or just telling the truth. But she couldn’t care less about diaper cream just then. “What happened to you, Mark? You look like you’ve been through a war.” She observed the way his shoulders slumped, as though he barely had the energy to stand. “Here, let me take that.”
Daria lifted the strap from the leather satchel he carried and slung it across her own shoulder.
“I’ve got something else in there for us. We don’t have to hang it up, but I couldn’t throw it out, and I didn’t know what else to do with it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve had a strange few days, hon. I…” his voice trailed off as he gently shook his head.
Daria studied him, concerned.
She knew her husband well enough to know that when things got tough for him, he typically closed up. His eyes would go dead, in a mean sort of way, and with ruthless emotionless efficiency he’d do what it took to get the job done. It was a disconcerting aspect of him that Daria both admired and feared, but she also knew it was the reason he’d survived for so long.