Maddy paused again. “I don’t know. Most attempts at reform have been crushed. But the need for change is there. It’s deep underground, but sometimes it breaks out. The hard part is knowing what shape it will take.”
“I know,” Wolfe said, thinking back to the violence she had seen on the streets of this city. London itself had grown quiet again, but similar convulsions had continued in more distant lands, and as she considered the impulses that brought them to the surface, she thought of Asthana, who had been willing to do whatever it took to hasten the change she was convinced was coming. If she was ever tempted to forget this, the scar on her chest was reminder enough.
There was an extended silence, not altogether comfortable, as Maddy went to refill their cups at the electric kettle.
While Maddy added more hot water, her back turned to Wolfe, she reflected that she had not told the entire truth. Part of her work for Tarkovsky would forever remain a secret, but as far as the public was concerned, she had done well. Virginia had agreed on a deal, allowing the egg to spend half the year in Richmond and half in Moscow, a compromise suited to its divided nature.
Afterward, Tarkovsky had expressed gratitude for what she had done, and he had offered to back her gallery openly. Maddy had declined at once. Change, she knew from experience, could not be imposed from the outside but had to come from within. She suspected that Tarkovsky knew this as well, which was why she believed his investments at the pole were only part of the story.
This, she knew, was why the color white had always been associated with Shambhala, where white flowers were supposed to rain from the sky whenever a new king was born. White was the color of ice, but also of purity and rebirth. Shambhala was a symbol of transformation, a process that took place invisibly, one soul at a time, before you were aware it was coming. But it could take hold only when a country, or a person, had the freedom for change to endure.
As Maddy returned to where Wolfe was seated, she decided to learn how much freedom she really had. “How’s Powell doing?”
“He’s right where he wants to be,” Wolfe said, taking back her cup. “Keeping an eye on events, trying to see past the veil. The official position in Moscow is that it was a terror attack, but rumors of an intelligence angle are everywhere. Powell thinks that heads are rolling, and the fallout will last for decades.”
Maddy, who had guessed as much, knew that this would buy Tarkovsky breathing room as he continued to build his vision in the north, as well as closer to home. “What about the gangs?”
“Powell is under the impression that the state has broken off all ties with the vory,” Wolfe said. “They were on their way out anyway. When Moldova, of all places, is cracking down, you know you’ve outlived your usefulness. The attack just happened to hurry it along.”
Maddy thought of the respected young solicitor, Owen Dancy, who had been found at his club with a plastic bag over his head, a peculiar suicide that had been widely reported in the press. “And Ilya?”
Wolfe set her cup down untouched. “Personally, I don’t think we’ll hear from him again. He waited until we had enough evidence to connect the plan to the system that set it in motion, then took out the last of the old thieves. Without Vasylenko and his kind, the brotherhood is dying. Even if it emerges again, it will be very weak. That’s all he wanted, ever since he went after Lermontov. But he’s the only one who understands his reasons. That’s why he always worked on his own.”
Before Maddy could respond, she saw Wolfe glance out the window. “Looks like my friend is here.”
Following her gaze, Maddy saw a man standing on the pavement outside. She had met Lester Lewis briefly before, shortly after her return to London. Seeing them, Lewis raised a hand in greeting but lingered on the street, perhaps sensing that the two of them wanted to be alone.
Wolfe rose from her chair. “I’m staying here, you know. The agency is being pulled apart, but I should still have a job when the dust settles.”
Maddy stood as well. “I’m glad to hear it. I was hoping you’d stay in the city.”
“Well, we’ll see how it goes.” Reaching into her pocket, Wolfe fished out a business card. “Before I forget, I should mention that I’m looking for someone to consult on cases, on a freelance basis, involving art crime. Fraud, art trafficking, that sort of thing. It’s still a big headache at the agency, and we don’t always have the expertise we need, so we’re always open to outside help. If you can think of anyone who fits the bill, you should let me know.”
Wolfe handed her the card, then turned to leave the gallery. Maddy remained where she was, watching as Wolfe went to join Lewis, who took her by the arm as they strolled together up the street.
Maddy glanced down at the business card, studying it with a faint smile, then looked at the television in the next room, which was turned to news coverage of recent protests over parliamentary elections in Moscow. Tens of thousands of demonstrators were chanting in the snow, filling most of a city square with flags and signs. She had seen these images before, but as she watched the footage now, one small detail caught her eye. The protesters were wearing white ribbons.
EPILOGUE
Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets in Moscow on Saturday shouting “Putin is a thief” and “Russia without Putin,” forcing the Kremlin to confront a level of public discontent that has not been seen here since Vladimir V. Putin first became president twelve years ago. . . . A photographer circulated photographs of a riot police officer holding a white flower, a symbol of the protest, behind his back.
—“Rally Defying Putin’s Party Draws Tens of Thousands,” New York Times, December 10, 2011
At the house in Leova, the front door had been put back on its hinges. It had always been one of the nicer homes at the edge of the city, with tables and chairs set up in the garden, but now the lawn was showing signs of neglect, and the curtains on the top two stories were drawn.
Ilya studied the house from a distance. He had parked up the dirt road and walked a quarter of a mile. In the field across the way, children were chasing one another with guns made of folded paper, among the small flowers that had sprouted with the coming of spring.
Climbing the steps, he tried the door, which was locked. There was no sign of movement in the windows. He was raising a hand to knock when he noticed the sound of music. Moving quietly around the house, keeping to a strip of shadow, he found himself facing the rear yard.
On the porch, a girl was seated in a lawn chair, facing away from him. She was smoking a cigarette, her hair tied back with a kerchief, and had evidently been working in the garden. On the table behind her lay a pair of canvas gloves and a trowel, along with a cassette deck that was playing a song from America.
Ilya came up softly and pressed a button on the tape deck, silencing the music halfway through the fourth verse. The girl glanced back, then straightened up so quickly that her chair tipped over and fell sideways to the ground.
“It’s all right,” Ilya said, opening his hands to show they were empty. “I’m not here to hurt you. I only came to talk.”
The girl took a step backward. He saw that she recognized him. “Dolgan isn’t here.”
Ilya remained where he was. “I know. I’ve been in town for a week. No one seems to know why he was arrested, but I’m sure they’ll come up with a charge. Apparently there are limits to protection these days, even in Moldova.”
Moving slowly, so as not to startle her, he reached down and righted the fallen chair, then took a seat at the table. “You can sit down, if you like. But I won’t be long. Are you here alone?”
The girl swallowed. “Yes. There used to be many visitors. But they’re staying away. And I have nothing else.”
Ilya observed that she was keeping her fear under control, but that it could break out again at any moment. “You’re taking care of the birds?”
She shook her head. “I let
them go. A few wouldn’t leave. I feed them when I can.”
“It can be hard to give up the old ways,” Ilya said. “Even when your cage is opened. Or when it has fallen apart on its own.”
He paused, weighing what the best approach would be. “It isn’t just happening here,” Ilya continued at last. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The thieves are dying out. They’ve been overtaken by stronger forces. But some things can’t be undone. Their works live on, even if their empire does not.”
The girl glanced down. Following her eyes, Ilya saw that she was looking at his arm, which still bore the tattoo he had received here nine months earlier. He had left it there as a reminder.
“When I was your age, I lost my own parents,” Ilya said, his eyes still on the snake. “I was told they had died in an accident. Really, though, they were taken from me so I would become what the brotherhood wanted. But that doesn’t make me less guilty. If I changed, it was to turn into something I had been all along. I learned this when I tried to change again. Do you understand?”
The girl only stared at him. Ilya glanced away, looking out at the garden, and thought of his own recent travels. Almost unconsciously, he had retraced his steps, working back across the places he had visited over the last year. And it was only in Romania, near the palace in Sinaia, that he had seen the truth at last.
After their fall, the Khazars had vanished, dispersed among the steppes they had once ruled. Yet even now, signs of their presence could still be seen, if you looked carefully enough.
Shortly before the empire’s decline, several tribes had broken from the king and gone west. Allying themselves with the Magyars, they had fought bravely in a series of bloody wars and ultimately found refuge in the Carpathians. Their images were still unearthed there from time to time, mounted on horseback with hauberks and spears, like the one he had seen in the owner’s suite of the yacht.
Looking at these warriors, it was hard to believe that such a nation could change its underlying nature, even for a moment. Yet the signs were there, in the tombs of the Khazars themselves, who had once buried their dead with their horses, like Scythians, but later had inscribed their gravestones, even those of the poorest among them, with the menorah and the staff of Aaron.
This was the lesson of the Khazars. The legends stated that the conversion was a political decision, decreed by the king and the ruling class, but in fact, it had begun among the people. Jews from Constantinople had sought refuge on the steppes, bearing their laws and history, and almost invisibly, a gradual transformation had occurred, on all levels of society, one imperceptible step at a time.
Tarkovsky had understood this. Ilya suspected that this was why the oligarch had taken such an interest in Transylvania, where the last traces of the empire could be found. The Khazars were the secret model for the transformation he hoped to enact in Russia, building it from the ground up, not imposing it from above. Change could arise only from within. But it could also be helped along.
These thoughts, which had been growing slowly within him for a long time, passed through his mind now in the space of a few seconds. He turned back to the girl, who had remained standing, and rose from his chair.
“I know a house in Yalta,” Ilya said quietly, reaching into his jacket pocket. “When I was there, I met a woman. Years ago, she was sent to prison, and when she went to work for the thieves, she gave up her only child. But perhaps it isn’t too late for them to make a life together.”
From his pocket, he withdrew an envelope, about a quarter of an inch thick, that was held shut with a rubber band. A name and address had been written on the front. The girl watched as he set it down on the table, then looked up at him again. She did not move to take it.
Ilya gave her a nod, as if she had spoken, and turned away. As he did, he pressed the button on the tape player, which resumed where the song had left off: “And she fears that one will ask her for eternity—”
Descending the steps of the porch, he went around again to the front of the house, not looking back until he was standing at the edge of the lawn. The children across the way had disappeared, leaving only a few guns of folded paper on the ground. For the moment, he was alone.
He looked down at the white flowers that had sprouted in the dirt, some of which had been trampled underfoot. For all their strength, he thought, the Khazars had not survived, but had been destroyed by a trick of history.
Ilya headed up the road, his hands in his pockets, moving away from the house. There were no guarantees. A revolution was more likely to die than endure. Yet one still had to believe that change was possible, for men as well as nations, even if it came like a thief in the night.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to David Halpern, my agent; to everyone at the Robbins Office, especially Kathy Robbins, Louise Quayle, Arielle Asher, and Micah Hauser; to Danielle Perez, Kara Welsh, Talia Platz, Jessica Butler, and the rest of the team at New American Library; to Jon Cassir and Matthew Snyder at CAA; and to Mark Chait, Eileen G. Chetti, Alla Karagodin Holmes, Trevor Quachri, Stanley Schmidt, and Stephanie Wu. Thanks as well to my friends and family, to all the Wongs, and to Wailin and Beatrix.
Read on for an excerpt from
Alec Nevala-Lee’s
THE ICON THIEF
Available now from Signet
PROLOGUE
In Russia, the outlaw is the only true revolutionary. . . . The outlaws of the forests, towns, and villages . . . together with the outlaws confined in the innumerable prisons of the empire . . . constitute a single, indivisible, tight-knit world. . . . In this world, and in it alone, there has always been revolutionary conspiracy. Anyone in Russia who seriously wants to conspire, anyone who wants a people’s revolution, must go into this world.
—Mikhail Bakunin
Andrey was nearly at the border when he ran into the thieves. By then, he had been on the road for three days. As a rule, he was a careful driver, but at some point in the past hour, his mind had wandered, and as he was coming over a low rise, he almost collided with two cars that were parked in the road ahead.
He braked sharply. The cars were set bumper to bumper, blocking the way. One was empty; the other had been steamed up by the heat of the men inside, who were no more than shadows on the glass. A yellow field stretched to either side of the asphalt, flecked with mounds of debris.
Andrey waited for what he knew was coming, barely aware of the music still pouring from his cassette deck. As he watched, the door of one car opened, disclosing a figure in a fur cap and greatcoat. It was a boy of twelve or so. His rifle, with its wooden buttstock, seemed at least twice as old as he was.
As the boy approached, Andrey reached into a bag on the floor of the van, removing a fifth of vodka and a carton of Bond Street Specials. He rolled down his window, allowing a knife’s edge of cold to squeeze through the gap. As he handed over the tribute, something in the boy’s eyes, which were liquescent and widely spaced, made him think of his own son.
The boy accepted the offering without a word. He was about to turn away, rifle slung across one shoulder, when he seemed to notice the music. With the neck of the bottle, he gestured at the cassette deck. “What band?”
Andrey did his best to smile, painfully aware of the time he was losing. “Dip Pepl.”
The boy nodded gravely. Andrey watched as he carried the vodka and cigarettes over to the other car, speaking inaudibly with the man inside. Then the boy turned and headed back to the van again.
Andrey slid a hand into his pocket, already dreading what the thieves might do if they asked to search the vehicle. Withdrawing a wad of bills, he peeled off a pair of twenties and held them out the window. When the boy returned, however, he waved the cash away and pointed to the stereo, which was singing of a fire on the shore of Lake Geneva: We all came out to Montreux—
“Cassette tape,” the boy said with a grin. “Dip Pepl. You give it to me
, okay?”
Andrey’s face grew warm, but in the end, he knew that he had no choice. Smiling as gamely as he could, he ejected the cassette, silencing the music, and handed it to the boy, who pocketed the tape and went back to his own car. A second later, the thieves pulled over to the road’s scalloped edge, clearing a space just wide enough for Andrey’s van to slip through.
Easing the van forward, Andrey drove through the gap, keeping an eye on the thieves as he passed. Once they were out of sight, he exhaled and took his hands from the wheel, flexing them against the cold. Reaching up, he lowered the sun visor, glancing at the picture of the woman and child that had been taped to the inside. After a moment, he raised the visor again and turned his eyes back to the road.
The following morning, unwashed and weary, he arrived at a town on the river Tisza. Studying the ranks of buses preparing to cross over to Hungary, he saw a familiar face. The driver seemed pleased to see him, and was especially glad to load a cardboard box from Andrey’s van into the back of his bus.
Andrey followed the bus across the border. At the customs checkpoint, he said that he was a businessman looking for deals in Hungary, which was true enough. Sometimes the officers wanted to chat, but today, after a cursory search, they waved him through without a second glance.
Driving slowly through the countryside, he caught sight of the bus parked at a roadside restaurant. The driver was leaning against the wheel well, smoking a cigar, which he ground out at the van’s approach. The package in the rear was untouched. Handing the driver a carton of cigarettes, Andrey loaded the box into the van again. Back on the road, his mood brightened, and it grew positively sunny when, in the distance, he saw the city of Budapest.
He drove to a hotel on Rákóczi Road. In his room, he locked the door and set the box on the bed. The lid was secured with tape, which he sliced open. On top, there lay a loaded pistol, which he set aside, and ten rectangular objects wrapped in newspaper. Nine were icons taken from churches and monasteries throughout Russia, depicting the saints of a tradition in which he no longer believed.
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