by John Altman
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We will eviscerate them,’ said the President cheerfully. ‘The wily old monkeys. We will bury them alive as they cry for mercy. We will drink wine from their skulls, feed their eyes to the birds.’
‘Vechnaya Slava,’ said Marchenko warily – Immortal Glory.
The President offered a hand. When Marchenko reached to take it, the Imperial Eagle ring caught the firelight, sparkling.
ULAN-UDE, BURYATIA
Six thousand kilometers to the east, a small terminal huddled in low mountains.
Descending a stairwell from a Tupolev Tu-95, three passengers paused on the tarmac to look off for a moment at the surrounding landscape, ice-bright beneath a new day’s sun.
The turboprops of the Tupolev, the world’s loudest military aircraft, thundered deafeningly, but as the passengers crossed the single short runway, the noise dissipated quickly behind them on the weird thin air. An industrial clock inside the deserted terminal announced the time as just past seven a.m. At a grimy ersatz café – a few chairs, two metal tables, and an electric heater – the three passengers and their escort, one Chief Marshal Uimanov, breakfasted on tomatoes, cucumbers, smoked fish, and strong black tea. Uimanov then led them past two snoozing customs agents, outside again, to a rack of rusted bicycles and motor scooters. A dark young boy pushed himself off a low stone wall. The boy’s cheekbones were lower than those of Muscovites, his coloring closer to Mongol, his straight black hair almost Chinese. The Chief Marshal barked a few words, and the boy unchained from the rack three prehistoric Uralmoto motorcycles, with battered helmets hanging from handlebars. At Uimanov’s guidance, the boy affixed extra petrol and water to handlebars and side-racks.
Uimanov grinned, revealing slanting tombstone teeth. ‘Neplokho,’ he said. Ravensdale shook his hand and the man turned, trotting again into the airport. The boy leaned back against the wall.
Settling on to a bike which lowered dangerously, Ravensdale reached into a pocket of his knee-length black leather jacket and consulted a magnetic compass. He clamped on the helmet and drew on gloves. His fellow travelers followed suit.
Before they started, he spent a moment considering them. Sofiya’s pallor was deathly; her cheekbones stood out in sharp relief beneath the helmet; her blackened eye was mottled and swollen. Fatigued and ashen though she was, however, he nonetheless picked up a glimmer of her old self, a touch of obstinacy in her gaze and her wide-set stance. She would make it – for Dima’s sake, if for no other.
The girl was harder to read. Beneath the helmet, her face was set, expressionless.
They pushed off, heading south, Ravensdale in the lead.
The initial path from the airport followed a dirt track. Soon the motorway bore east; the travelers continued off-road, bouncing over hard-packed steppe. After an hour they reached the banks of the Reka Selenga, which they followed past foxes and thatched yurts, and one elderly woman wearing a shawl, too busy at the riverbank to turn even at the racket generated by the ancient motorbikes.
Fifty kilometers on, they reached a small cluster of gabled red buildings. Dismounting, Ravensdale stretched his aching back, massaged his right shoulder and left knee; the ride had given new color to old injuries. The village’s few occupants assembled to gawk. They were not Russian but Buryat, nomadic Siberian aboriginals. Sofiya handed a silver kopeck to one child, a protein bar to another. Then they were welcomed into the largest of the buildings, where they ate shchi, cabbage soup.
By the time they moved on, a dark note had crept into the afternoon light. Harsh winds drove down the already-frigid temperature. A hawk circled before the emerging moon. Shivering now beneath their leather jackets, they continued south. The few hints of life they glimpsed beneath the rose and violet skies were as they might have been tens of thousands of years earlier: goats, yurts, tribesman, camels, and sheep.
Full night brought a starry sky, which was awesome, disconcertingly grand. The night wind leeched away body heat – but also, thought Ravensdale, prevented the old Uralmotos from overheating. They stopped again, refilled gas tanks, ate protein bars, chased them with melted snow. Spending some of the precious charge of the GPS, he corrected course slightly.
They continued. Beneath gloves and boots, hands and feet grew numb. A distant owl hooted desolately. Once, a helicopter passed several thousand yards to the west. They rolled the bikes to a halt, killed engines and headlights, and watched. A spotlight swept in wide searching arcs. The helicopter disappeared. They drove on.
Half an hour after the helicopter, Ravensdale looked back to find that one of the bikes had drifted far behind. Not the girl, who was sticking close. Sofiya. They stopped, giving her a chance to catch up. When she did, she looked whiter than the snow. One of her eyes was bloodshot. Her stance was less sure than before; she teetered on her feet. He put his helmet against hers. ‘We can’t stop here,’ he said. ‘We’ll freeze.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘We’ll rest for a few minutes.’
‘No. I’m all right.’
He put her in front, where he could keep an eye on her. Her balance was off; as she rode, the motorcycle pitched and yawed. Sometime in the smallest hours of the night, her left footrest clipped an icy rock, and she almost went over, almost spilt out her brains across the tundra. But she righted herself, and he swallowed his heart, and they drove on.
At sunrise, Ravensdale consulted the GPS again. They turned south-south-east.
When they reached the Tuul River, they celebrated with the remaining protein bars. Ravensdale smoked his first cigarette in twenty-four hours. By his math, they had crossed the border into Mongolia sometime around midnight, roughly when they had seen the helicopter.
They refueled for the last time and followed the banks of the river, and at half-past nine, exhausted and frozen and trembling with lassitude, crested a shallow hill and saw spreading before them a modern metropolis: Ulan Bator, the capital city, population one million.
He looked at Sofiya. Beneath the helmet, she was smiling.
He looked behind himself; the girl was gone.
SEVENTEEN
The Institute for Advanced Strategies – INTERDEPARTMENTAL MEMO – EYES ONLY
From: HG
To: Roger Vaughn
Date: 21 January
Re: PROJECT MATCHMAKER
Dear Mr Vaughn,
Permit me to acknowledge receipt of your letter of January 19th, which was forwarded to me by Paul Gastmeyer. I read your proposal with great interest, and invite you to visit my office at your earliest convenience to discuss the endeavor directly.
Your letter is being retained on file for possible future reference.
Sincerely yours,
Howard Gibson
Director
*
The Institute for Advanced Strategies – INTERDEPARTMENTAL MEMO – EYES ONLY
From: HG
To: Roger Vaughn
Date: 22 January
Re: PROJECT MATCHMAKER
Dear Mr Vaughn,
Regarding our discussion during your visit: I am setting the necessary paperwork in motion, and we can go from there.
Sincerely yours,
Howard Gibson
Director
*
The Institute for Advanced Strategies – MEMORANDUM FOR: THE RECORD
Subject: PROJECT MATCHMAKER Subproject 50
Date: 22 January
1.This memorandum is written to record the purpose of Subproject 50, the reasons for establishing it, and the mechanics by which it will be administered.
2.The purpose of this subproject is twofold: (1) To determine the location of former operative XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX (Subproject 32); and (2) To determine the location of former asset XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX (Subproject 4).
3.The reasons for establishing the subproject are to conduct debriefing re: PROJECT MATCHMAKER.
4.As Project originator XXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX is deceased, general management of the Project has transfe
rred to XXXXXX-XXXXXX, and the subproject will be handled under the stewardship of XXXXX-XXXXXX. As expenses are incurred and upon presentation of vouchered proof of expenditure, requests will be made in the amounts expended. Subproject 50 will be closed out upon completion and cash on hand returned to Finance.
Distribution:
Orig – IAST/CD
1 – Chrono (b)
*
The Institute for Advanced Strategies – MEMORANDUM FOR: THE RECORD
Subject: PROJECT MATCHMAKER Subproject 50
Date: 29 March
1.In this subproject, procedures have been implemented to fulfill the following criteria: (1) To determine the location of former operative XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX (Subproject 32); and (2) To determine the location of former asset XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX (Subproject 4).
2.PROJECT MATCHMAKER, in which operative XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX (Subproject 4) gained access to XXXXXXXX-XXXXXXX for purposes of neutralization, was successfully completed on 9 January XXXX (N.B. See Subprojects 3 – 49) but remains open because two key elements (Subprojects 4 and 32) remain unavailable for debriefing.
3.Development of Subproject 50 has proceeded to the satisfaction of this office. Balancing time and budget restraints against the demands of the project, XXXXX-XXXXXX has implemented surveillance on select known associates and financial holdings of XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX, XXXXXX-XXXXX, and XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX.
4.Another review should be conducted on 1 May, or when expenditures reach $500,000.
Distribution:
Orig – IAST/CD
1 – Chrono (c)
*
The Institute for Advanced Strategies – MEMORANDUM FOR: THE RECORD
Subject: PROJECT MATCHMAKER Subproject 50
Date: 1 May
1.In this subproject, procedures have been implemented to fulfill the following criteria: (1) To determine the location of former operative XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX (Subproject 32); and (2) To determine the location of former asset XXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX (Subproject 4).
2.A tax payment filed on April 1st for the residence of XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX (Subproject 32) in Ticonderoga, NY, was administered through a bank located in Schenectady, NY, where a cash deposit was made on 21 February by one ‘XXXX-XXXXXX’. Inquiries suggest that ‘XXXX-XXXXXX’ is a manufactured identity. SS# was assigned following a personal interview in the Schenectady Social Security office conducted on 6 October XXXX, during which ‘XXXX-XXXXXX’ presented a Delayed Certificate of Birth, NY State Photo ID Card, and supplementary evidence in the form of Visa credit card bills. Delayed Certificate of Birth was obtained on 28 January XXXX via the Office of Vital Records of the New York Department of Health, following a request for search of records which resolved inconclusively. All efforts to trace ‘XXXX-XXXXXX’ to listed addresses and credit card companies have failed.
3.To avoid the risk of putting subject XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX (Subproject 32) on alert, subproject manager XXXXX-XXXXXX has determined that the bank should be kept under surveillance. As subproject costs to date are rapidly approaching $500,000, a request to extend the budget has been filed and awaits approval.
4.The payment of the tax on the Ticonderoga property indicates that XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX cannot afford to let the property foreclose. The likelihood that he will attempt to orchestrate a sale in the near future, using the Schenectady bank and the ‘XXXX-XXXXXX’ persona, are high, and this should be taken into account when the budget extension is considered.
Distribution:
Orig – IAST/CD
1 – Chrono (c)
*
The Institute for Advanced Strategies – INTERDEPARTMENTAL MEMO – EYES ONLY
From: HG
To: Roger Vaughn
Date: 7 May
Re: PROJECT MATCHMAKER Subproject 50
Roger,
Permit me to inform you personally that to my great pleasure the request for budget extension has been approved.
And just in time, as I understand from our conversation this morning that your hunch was correct, and as of yesterday the Ticonderoga property has been put on the market.
As you close in your quarry (one of them, anyway), I want to thank you for your insight and your brilliant, focused labors over the past several months. Never doubt the value of your contribution to our national security.
I want also to note how much I have valued the chance to get to know you, for the first time, as a friend.
Let’s celebrate with dinner this weekend? Claire requests that Laurie bring some of her wonderful New England Cranberry Pie.
HG
PS. Go Yanks!
*
NEW YORK CITY
Cassie sat on a bench in Tompkins’ Square Park, watching the late-night Saturday crowd evolve slowly into the early-morning Sunday crowd.
She sat beside a relief which showed a woman and child gazing forlornly out to sea, a commemoration of the 1904 sinking in Long Island Sound of the General Slocum. Her eyes moved steadily across chess boards, dog runs, flaking benches, wire trash baskets, winding paths; misfits and drunks, pervs and junkies, blurry-eyed bridge and tunnel kids, and families done up in their Sunday best. Somewhere in this park, she thought, was someone who could put her on to Michelle’s trail. She planned to sit right here, soaking in the faces, until she found them.
Some faces were old, some new. Nothing ever changed out here, not really. The dramatis persona shifted as people followed mild weather or went to rehab or went home; then it shifted again as they failed at rehab, failed at home, and showed up back in the park. Only very rarely did someone disappear forever … and most of those, Cassie suspected, met a bad end. For everyone else, life on the streets formed an endless Möbius strip. Exhibit A, Cassie herself: right back where she had started.
She scratched absently at one arm. Her clothes were dirty; they itched. Her hair, cropped short and dyed black, felt filthy. Four days spent on a Greyhound bus had left her feeling grimier than four months spent in LA … and LA had left her feeling pretty goddamned grimy.
Footsteps crunched up on her right. Turning her head, she felt only dim surprise at the sight of Michelle. Nothing ever changed out here, she thought again; not really.
‘Hey,’ Michelle said, dropping down on to the bench. ‘Long time.’
Her companion – Xavier Dark, Cassie remembered, although his given name had been Steve, Scott, something like that – remained standing, gazing at nothing. The past sixteen months had taken a toll on Xavier, who looked cadaverous and wasted. But Michelle looked essentially the same, if a bit older, a bit leaner.
‘Where you been?’ Michelle asked.
‘Boston,’ Cassie said. ‘Then LA, for awhile. How about you?’
‘Ehh.’ Michelle gestured loosely, inclusively, at the park around them.
They sat for several moments without speaking. A few pigeons strutted importantly past the bench, pecking at air. Xavier swayed on his feet. From a black denim jacket he took out rolling papers and a pack of Drum tobacco and began to assemble a cigarette, still swaying. As he rolled the cigarette he started nodding, chin jerking down to his chest and then up again.
Cassie examined Michelle, trying to figure out if she was using too. But Michelle’s eyes were clear. She was rubbing chapped lips, then examining the flecks of dead skin on her fingertip. ‘So what’s going on up in Beantown?’
‘Nothing much,’ Cassie said.
‘Out in LA?’
Cassie wrinkled her nose. ‘Sketchy out there.’
‘Missed you, Cass.’
‘Missed you too.’
‘Where you staying?’
‘Nowhere. I just got here.’
‘You’re outdoors?’
‘I’m outdoors, man,’ Cassie agreed, and they both laughed.
‘We got a place, few blocks away. Section Eight. Except it’s kind of a dry spell so everybody’s got to bring something. Food or whatever. But you’re a special case. I can probably talk to Jesse; he’s the alpha there …’
‘I’ve
got cash,’ Cassie said.
‘No problem, then.’
‘Enough cash,’ Cassie said, ‘to really get a place. Like, legit. Like, just you and me, if you’re interested.’
‘No shit.’
‘But I’ve been in some trouble. So I don’t want to, like, put my name on a lease.’
Michelle looked at Cassie alertly. But she didn’t say no.
The railroad-style Section 8 flat had uneven splintered floors and water-marked ceilings. Stepping through the door, they were intercepted by a kid of around fifteen, rail-thin, with spiked hair and a triple-pierced lip. ‘Moo ha ha ha,’ the boy said. ‘That’s my evil laugh. MOOOO ha ha ha ha!’
‘Fuck off, Matt,’ said Michelle kindly.
A girl holding a bong lay on a couch, watching a Steve Carell movie on an old TV. A chubby freckled brunette wearing a flowered scarf sat on the floor before the couch. A tall rangy man dozed in a corner, near a small-boned hip-hop kid, Asian or maybe Spanish, who read a tattered paperback. An overweight black-and-orange tabby prowled between sprawled legs and empty bottles and full ashtrays, tail switching.
‘This is Cassie,’ Michelle informed the assemblage. ‘She’s staying here a couple days.’
Nobody reacted.
In a tiny adjoining room, they found a dirty bare mattress. The walls were covered with pornography featuring under-aged-looking models in pigtails and schoolgirl uniforms. Michelle paid the decor no attention. She took out a phone, tilted it, trying to find a wireless signal. After a few moments, she gave up. ‘Gonna grab a paper,’ she said. ‘Hang tight. Lie down if you want. If Jesse shows up, tell him you’re with me.’
She left. Cassie spent five minutes lying on the mattress, looking away from the porn, at the warped bleary glass of a window facing an air shaft, before wandering back into the front room. The girl on the couch offered the bong. Cassie took a small, polite hit and passed it to the freckled brunette. Someone made strong, fragrant black coffee with a French press. Outside, kids played on the street two floors below, running and screaming.