Disposable Asset

by John Altman

  A police Zhiguli-8 appeared, racing across an intersection, ramming her, the crazy fuck.

  The Zhiguli crunched into the side of the Kalina, tossing her head painfully on her neck. The rear windshield exploded. She wrestled again with the gear shift. The Kalina was drifting, being pushed across the road toward the frozen river. She lifted her foot from the ac-celerator, popped the car into reverse, and then spun the wheel hard.

  She hit the gas again; with a torturous scream of metal the Kalina disengaged, ripping away from the Zhiguli. Back into second. Then she was jouncing forward again, with cold wind filling the car. Something was dragging from the undercarriage. Her neck blazed pain. The entire left side of the Kalina seemed to be crumpled in. Distantly, she was amazed that the car was still moving. In her rear-view the Zhiguli was turning in a circle, trying to orient itself to give chase, looking like a wounded insect. And a black sedan was looping around it, engine opening up. And the drone was still with her, buzzing maddeningly.

  Finished, she thought.

  Not yet, god damn it.

  She shifted up to third.

  Sirens ahead. A flock of flashing lights. Fragmented in the remains of her side-view mirror, the black sedan.

  The helicopter soared up from behind rooftops, arcing high, blades pounding, whonk-whonk-whonk, the sound that would haunt her dreams.

  Finished, she thought again.

  She twisted the wheel, smashed through a kiosk, clipped a standpipe, twisted the wheel again and veered to the right, bounced up over an island of grass – whatever was dragging from the under-carriage caught hard and tore free – and landed on pavement again.

  Before her, a checkpoint had been hastily assembled. She swerved again up on to the sidewalk, passing over a spike strip, losing all four tires, plowing a stop sign off its post. Riding on rims, kicking up sparks. Past a marketplace, a Chinese restaurant. The helicopter and drone had stayed with her.

  She laughed.

  Ravensdale heard the car before he saw it.

  Calmly, he drew his gun, flicking off the safety.

  He held the weapon steady, focusing on the vanishing point just beyond the sight. In his earpiece, Bordachenko was warning him to stay ready. And here came the helicopter. And here came the whine of the revving engine. And here, he thought, came the car. Any time now. Any time now. Any … time.

  He saw it: an unwieldy hunk of metal and shredded rubber, slaloming on and off the sidewalk, around stalled traffic, through kiosks and carts and road signs, sending pedestrians scattering; a collapsing ruin of a car, steaming, fragmenting, punctured tires flapping, engine laboring into higher and higher registers. Two faces loomed behind a windshield freckled with blood. One was deflated with death. The other was strained and white and intense. As he took aim, the latter gave its chin a small obstinate uptick.

  Ravensdale held his breath and fired.

  The windshield starred, spiderwebbing with cracks.

  Blinded, she hit the brakes. The Kalina plowed into a street vendor’s table – tortoiseshell and copper and plastic sprayed – and then into a brick wall, pow. And then the mad dash was over. Her neck was aching, and everywhere was steam and screaming and the stink of spilled oil. A few pieces of junk jewelry slithered down the ruined glass, clung to the windshield wipers.

  The dead woman in the passenger seat rolled slowly forward, striking her head against the dash with a meaty thud. Lights flashed, distorted through the webbed glass. Sirens cried. People yelled. Steam fizzed. Cold wind blew. Helicopter blades pounded. Drones buzzed. Oil dripped. Something was pressing against Cassie’s ribcage. She wondered dreamily if she had impaled herself on the steering column. Her hands slipped beneath the loose-fitting Red Army jacket, exploring. The explosives she had devised in Mariya’s laundry nook were still there, still intact, duct-taped to her stomach.

  She tore the smaller bottle free from her belly, unscrewed the cap. Found the fleck of aluminum foil in the right-hand pocket of the jacket. Dropped it in, screwed the cap back into its grooves. Inside the bottle, toxic gases began to build pressure. She tore the larger bottle from her torso, jammed it beneath the wheel well, leaned the smaller bottle against it.

  The steam billowing around the car was colored, now, by a tongue of orange flame. For one more eternal instant she paused, watched inky black smoke start to swirl.

  Steeling herself, she reached for the door.

  Ravensdale advanced with the gun held two-handed, straight-armed.

  As he drew near the burning vehicle, an instinct came into play. He slowed, reluctant to move closer. The licking flame, the stench of petrol …

  The driver’s side door seemed to crack open. But black smoke rose in thick billows, confusing things. Ravensdale risked another step forward, scowling. His hands were shaking.

  There came a thud; from every side at once, from above and below, traveling through the ground, beneath the street, toppling him. He felt his eyebrows singe. He began to crawl away, back the way he had come. After crawling for what seemed a long while, he looked over his shoulder. The flaming metal carcass of the Kalina was flipping up, spinning with dreadful slow-motion majesty. Swirls of fiery ash, lariats of dark flame; a melting tire, a soaring steering wheel, and a blackening human cadaver, all caught in a timeless frieze.

  The Kalina came down hard.

  A pipe burst; water scintillated into the air.

  He coughed … and vomited.

  Found the gun, aimed it back into the inferno. The Kalina was a skeletal husk, shot through with fire. He saw the charred corpse. As he watched, the corpse curled, flaked, and disintegrated.

  TWELVE

  FURSHTATSKAYA ULITSA

  On the wall-mounted monitor ran footage captured by helicopter, drone, and private camera-phone: the Kalina rocketing around a checkpoint, right side crumpled in, tires punctured, hood lolling, rear fender barely hanging on—

  Vlasov’s phone rang. Propped in a chair, eyes hazy from opioids, jacket open to allow his bandage to breathe, he seemed not to hear.

  Ravensdale paused the footage. Another ring. Vlasov started, answered; listened, grunted, hung up. ‘The genetic material,’ he reported, ‘shows it’s not her.’

  Bordachenko and Ravensdale said nothing. Vlasov slipped the phone back into his pocket. The footage ran forward again. Ravensdale’s own figure made an appearance, advancing straight-armed, firing. The Kalina’s bloodied windshield starred. The vehicle plowed through a vendor’s table, sending costume jewelry spraying. Then into a brick wall. Smoke thickened. Ravensdale switched feeds, to a new angle provided by the drone. Brackish black mushrooms provided the driver ample opportunity to escape – and from this vantage point they could see the route she must have followed, down an alley beside a donut shop. Then the cataclysmic explosion, the momentary white-out. Chaos and confusion.

  Vlasov thumbed open a vial, swallowed another oksikodon.

  Ravensdale skipped back to just before the helicopter joined the chase. The girl ran north on Mokhovaya, loose jacket flapping. Moments before, off-camera, she had stabbed Inspektor Vlasov with a knitting needle, which had been recovered from a gutter. Moments from now, she would fatally shoot Andrew Fletcher in the head, providing, as it happened, a simple and decisive conclusion to one of Ravensdale’s agendas … but not all.

  A sudden memory: Andy Fletcher not as a runner of agents, but only as a man. Ten years before, at a dinner in Georgetown, his first wife, three margaritas deep, had started boasting about her walk-in closet full of mink. Fletcher had shot Ravensdale a quick look – embarrassed, beseeching – more vulnerable, in that moment, than he would ever be again. For the first and probably last time, Ravensdale had felt for the man a pulse of genuine sympathy.

  He focused. Fletcher was gone. But Sofiya was still here. Switching feeds again, he enjoyed the clearest view yet of their quarry’s latest incarnation. Shaved head and hollowed cheeks reminded him of the corn-husk scarecrow that had once been Sofiya. Flat blunted affect and expres
sionless set features reminded him of nothing so much as himself.

  He froze the image. The three men in the conference room considered the small girl swimming in the tattered Red Army jacket.

  Ravensdale tapped his chin thoughtfully. ‘Where did she get the coat?’

  He switched to yet another angle, from which insignia on the epaulets were plainly visible: red stripes, gold stars.

  ‘Standard infantry insignia,’ Bordachenko said, ‘dating from World War Two. Thirty-five million men served during the Great Patriotic War. The coat might have come from any veteran, any second-hand store.’

  ‘Or,’ said Vlasov, ‘from any war widow.’ Tenderly, he indicated his blood-spotted bandage. ‘Who would be more likely to have a knitting needle.’

  The clocks on the conference room wall counted off the fleeing seconds.

  ‘How many veterans are left?’ asked Ravensdale. ‘How many war widows?’

  ‘And how many in Petersburg?’ wondered Vlasov.

  ‘And …’ Ravensdale turned to Bordachenko. ‘How can we find them?’

  SOUTH OF NEVSKY

  Except for a single light burning in the parlor, Mariya’s cottage was dark.

  Coming through the front door, Cassie paused. She could see the old woman in her usual place, propped in the damask chair. She could hear the usual ceaseless murmur of the radio. But there were no cooking smells tonight, not even the smell of clove cigarettes.

  ‘… initiated the high-speed pursuit. But what is beyond question is the cost it has inflicted on the city of Pieter. Seven dead, many millions in property damage. No fewer than six agencies were apparently involved. Despite such resources, according to sources directly involved with the investigation, authorities ultimately proved unable to …’

  With a single charged glance, as Cassie entered the parlor, Mariya stopped the younger woman in her tracks.

  ‘The incident began at about seven fifteen a.m. According to eyewitnesses, the object of the pursuit was a young woman with a shaved head, green Army jacket, and heavy piercings. The fugitive initially led authorities on a desperate chase through the district between embassy row and the embankment. Helicopter and drone—’

  For the first time in Cassie’s experience, the old woman snapped off the radio. ‘Ischezni,’ she said tonelessly: Get lost.

  Cassie shook her head.

  ‘It’s not a request.’

  ‘Masha—’

  ‘I count to five. Then I call the police myself.’

  ‘They didn’t follow me. I spent all aftern—’

  ‘One.’

  ‘It won’t happen again. I won’t go out again.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Masha – please.’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Four.’

  They regarded each other.

  ‘All I do for you,’ said Mariya darkly. An involuntary grimace twisted her face. ‘And you bring trouble to my doorstep. This old fool should have known better. You can’t ever trust a thief.’

  Cassie blinked. Eyes shining, she nodded.

  As a necessary side effect of the parabolic microphone, the low frequency lacked fidelity; the treble was spiky, the mid-range spotty.

  Marrying you was a mistake, said a tinny female voice. I’m not making any excuses. I did a stupid thing.

  Don’t get defensive, a man answered. I’m just saying—

  You try to turn everything around! I was actually looking forward to spending some time together after you retired. That’s how stupid I am …

  The gray van rolled ahead; the voices faded, faltered, and died. The master sergeant suppressed a sigh. Running a finger down the list in his hand, he found the next address, two blocks ahead.

  As they moved, his headphones transmitted a child’s laughter, a patch of black silence, the sound of running tap water; a lone classical guitar, a flushing toilet, a whistling tea-kettle. Nearing the target address, the driver slowed. The tech working the thermal imager nudged his joystick, taking aim, conjuring on his screen swirls of roiling pinks, purples, and yellows.

  Inside the apartment, a solitary figure sat on a couch, watching TV. A second swirl of heat became evident: a smaller figure curled up on a floor on the other side of a wall. The sergeant leaned forward. A fugitive, hidden in a crawl space …?

  The figure rocked on to its back, rolling over. A tail unfurled, lazily wagged. A dog.

  The master sergeant leaned back, consulted the list in his hand, and read to the driver an address on the next block.

  They drove. The microphone listened.

  … interested in hiring people who can rise to the challenge, who can fill whatever position needs to be filled at the moment … they do employee reviews at six-month intervals, and the sky’s the limit. Well … You know, Mother, a little support once in a while never killed anybody …

  Past blaring rock music, a television laugh track, passionate sighs. Then:

  How do you know you’re the one with the problem? Pause. I’m just saying. Until you talk with the doctors, you don’t really know, do you? He smokes a lot of—

  The van turned a corner. A clicking keyboard, a creaking hinge, a squalling baby. Then:

  … the start of last summer. And I didn’t even realize who they were. But Feodor did. We actually argued about it. He said: Do you know who that was? And I said, yes, I know, we just met them, she seems very nice. And he said, no, that’s Anastasia Leskov. And I said, no. She seems so down to earth …

  A popping cork, clattering silverware. Then:

  Should I stop? Does it hurt?

  Yes … it feels good. Yes, Kostya, yes. Put another finger in me. Oh, Kostya.

  Say my name.

  Konstantin. My baby …

  Not the neck. Don’t leave a mark.

  At the next address on the list, they found a sole figure sleeping silently in a bed.

  At the next: a woman sitting at a table, whisking out playing cards while squabbling with someone working in the kitchen. V zádnitse. I knew the day I hired a Vietnamese that I was fucked …

  At the next: an old man humming to himself, the same two thin cracked notes over and over again.

  At the next: a pair sleeping heavily.

  At the next: a figure sitting alone in a parlor, listening to a radio.

  The van rolled on.

  FURSHTATSKAYA ULITSA

  Ravensdale cracked his neck, stretched the cramped muscles of his shoulders, ground his cigarette into an ashtray, pushed back his chair.

  In a restroom down the hall, he washed his face. Then he visited the small communications room on the embassy’s first floor. After pulling rank with the sleep-deprived PFC on duty, he enjoyed his first unsupervised access to a secure connection since arriving in Russia. He dropped into a creaking leather seat and dialed. Pings echoed as the encryption took hold. After thirty seconds came a hollow buzzing. Two rings, three … ‘Hello?’

  ‘Tess.’

  ‘Sean!’

  In the background: ‘Whozit?’

  ‘It’s your daddy, honeybun.’

  ‘Da-deeee!’ The phone scraped mysteriously. ‘Daddy,’ said Dima breathlessly. ‘When I was baby, I din like pizza. Now I big boy, I real like pizza.’

  The voice sounded different – more mature, even after just a few days apart. Ravensdale smiled. ‘How you doing, champ?’

  ‘I playin’, Daddy! I dream, dream ’bout cookies an, an, an, planets and stars and Cap’n Hook!’

  ‘I miss you, buddy.’

  ‘I don’ cry at all and I see birdies way way up high and I read Hungry Cat’pillar with Miss Tess. OK, ’bye!’

  Tess came back on the line. ‘I trimmed his hair,’ she said apologetically. ‘It was getting in his eyes.’

  ‘I trust your judgment. How’s he treating you?’

  ‘He is,’ she said with unmistakable satisfaction, ‘a very good boy.’

  ‘I a big boy,’ piped Dima in the background.

 
‘We only had pizza once,’ she said. ‘Mostly, we’re eating healthy.’

  ‘Sleeping OK?’

  ‘Like a doll. Kids can adjust to anything.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be much longer. I owe you, Tess.’

  A pause, slightly too long. She had been interested in Ravensdale, he suspected, ever since Sofiya’s disappearance, and perhaps even before. ‘My honest pleasure,’ she said carefully. ‘He’s a joy.’ In the background, the joy screamed bloody murder. ‘Don’t chase the cat,’ said Tess quickly.

  ‘I’m sorry to do this, Tess, but … there’s something else.’

  ‘Name it.’

  He closed his eyes for a few instants, then opened them again. ‘You’ve got my key. There’s a shovel in the mud room. Out back, past the porch, there’s an old oak with a fork in the middle. If you go past it, there’s a rock face leading down to the lake. Careful; it’ll be slippery.’

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘At the lake, turn right. You’ll find Indian kettles back there. Each a few inches wide except for one, about two feet. Shaped kind of like Texas. Can’t miss it. Filled with natural clay. You’ve got to dig down maybe two, three feet. Won’t be easy, this time of year.’

  Another pause. ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘A lockbox. Take it. Then take Dima. Go to the Radisson in Newport.’

  Silence.

  ‘Register under the name … Let’s say Parker. I’ll call as soon as I can. Might still be a few days. Then I’ll come get Dima and the box, reimburse you, and—’

  ‘Sean: that’s crazy. I’ve got obligations here.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tess. I didn’t want to put you in this position. But I’m afraid I have.’

  ‘Am I … in danger?’

  ‘Not if you do what I say.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Don’t drag your feet. You’ve got to go now.’

  ‘What is this?’

  He said: ‘Give Dima a big kiss for me.’

  He hung up.

  Closing his eyes again, he pinched briefly at the bridge of his nose.

  Dialing Serebryany Bor, he listened to the encryption kicking in.

  A man answered. Ravensdale asked for Tsoi. Waiting, he looked at a tasseled American flag hanging by the door. His fingertips explored the singed remnants of his eyebrows: a curious sensation.