Politika (1997)
Page 8
The men continued beating him relentlessly, their pipes slamming his neck and face. They hit him in the mouth, knocking his front teeth down his throat. Blood gushed from his nose and an open gash on his cheek.
Tears spurting from his eyes, he saw the third man tilt the jerry can forward. Something poured from its spout and the room filled with the stink of gasoline. The man moved quickly around the room with the can, dousing the curtains and furniture. Then he came over to where Todshivalin was lying and splashed some gasoline on his bathrobe “Please, don’t,” he moaned weakly. His head spun and his mouth was swamped with blood. “I can ... give ... you ... money ... food ...”
“Shut up!”
A pipe slammed Todshivalin just below the jawline and he emitted a high, choked whimper. Then the men stepped back from him. He caught a blurred glimpse of one of them pulling a lighter and a hank of cloth from his pocket, holding the lighter to the cloth, setting the cloth on fire.
“Shliúkha,” the man said through his mask.
And tossed the fiery swatch of cloth onto Todshivalin’s gasoline-soaked robe.
He shrieked and writhed on the floor, flames leaping up his back, flashing hungrily as they enveloped his body.
Todshivalin heard footsteps pounding away from him, and then he was alone in the house, fire roaring in his ears, black smoke churning around the room. He was burning, burning! He heard a voice, started to cry out for help, but then realized it was only the television, Pedachenko still droning away in the background as the fire ate him alive. He tried to pull himself to his knees, rose about an inch off the floor, then sank back down under a ragged fringe of flame, his flesh searing with agony, thinking that they’d killed him, the bastards, the bastards, they’d—
“You’re on the air.”
“What I would like to ask, Minister Pedachenko, is your opinion of why the American grain has been so slow in becoming available. Some towns in the east have received a single truckload for hundreds of families to share. And where I live outside of Stary Oskol, we have seen none of it.”
“A good question, my friend. As you know, there are members of our government who insist that political squabbles in the United States have been responsible for the irregular deliveries. But we might at least consider another explanation. Could it be the Americans have engaged in economic sabotage by deliberately having assistance reach us at a trickle? That their goal is to dominate us through long-term dependency? Sooner or later we must ask ourselves ...”
Vince Scull glanced at the clock on the wall above him, and turned off the television. Enough was enough. He’d had about all he could take of Pedachenko’s contrived outrage for one night. Even in Russia, a man was entitled to enjoy himself on New Year’s Eve. Or at least keep the unwanted shit outside where it belonged.
He looked at the bland round face of the clock again. It was eight P.M. Meaning it was not yet noon in California, where his wife Anna—no, strike that—where his ex-wife Anna and their two daughters would be getting ready to celebrate the big event. If his memory was accurate, they were all going to Anna’s mom’s place in Mill Valley. He wondered if he should phone the kids there; probably they would be staying up till midnight to ring in the new year, century, millennium, and maybe another cosmic turning point or two Scull wasn’t aware of.
Midnight in California, he thought. That was, what, seven A.M. tomorrow his own time? Which would make it three A.M. in New York, where Scull’s mother still lived, eighty-two years old and going strong. He guessed she’d be celebrating in her own fashion, watching the ball descend from the roof of One Times Square on television, a glass of wine on one side of her armchair, and a tray of cocktail weenies on the other.
Scull rose to get his coat. His private quarters here at the Kaliningrad installation—three rooms in a modular living and recreational building that housed over a hundred people—were boxy and claustrophobic, like something that had been made with a giant Erector set. He needed, really needed, some fresh air.
Zipping into his parka, Scull went to the door, hesitated with his hand on the knob, then turned back inside and entered the kitchenette. He stepped on the foot pedal that opened his tiny refrigerator, knelt in front of it, and eyed the bottle of Cristal on the upper shelf. He’d been planning to pop it at midnight, but what the hell, why wait? Surely midnight had already arrived somewhere in the world.
He pulled out the bottle, then reached into the shoe-box-sized freezer for a tulip glass he’d left in there to chill. It was funny when you got to thinking about time. Look up at some distant star in the sky, and what you were really seeing was the way it looked a few million years back. Turn that perspective on its head and it got even weirder—some alien skywatcher in a far-off system looking at Earth through a futuristic megatelescope would actually see dinosaurs walking through prehistoric jungles. All the human effort that had gone toward reconstructing a part of the past, the fossil digs, the scientific debate over how the monsters lived, whether T Rex was fast or slow, smart or dumb, whatever, and meanwhile Mork the Astronomer out in space would know the truth at a glance. For him, tonight was New Year’s Eve 2000 going on a million years ago.
And it gets even weirder, doesn’t it? Scull thought. A million years from now, when there’s nothing left of me except dust—if that much—an egghead on that same planet might see me leaving the building with my bottle of champagne, taking the walk I’m about to take. A million minus ten, and he’d see me and Anna on our first vacation together, a romantic cruise to the Caymans, most of which we spent in our cabin cooking up baby number one. A million minus one, though, and Mork would be witness to the sorry episode of Anna catching me with another woman, stupid, irresponsible fucking fool that I was.
Scull sighed. The whole thing not only got his brain in a twist, but made him feel about as deep a shade of blue as there was on the color spectrum.
He uncorked the Cristal. Then he turned his champagne glass upside down over the neck of the bottle, and carried them back to the door.
His quarters were on the ground level of the building, and when he stepped through his doorway, he was gazing out across a large, flat field toward the complex’s three spherical satellite receivers. Perched atop concrete platforms some three hundred yards distant, their angular metallic tiles gave them the appearance of huge, multifaceted gems.
For no particular reason, he started walking in their direction. The air was dry and bitterly cold, the ground frozen solid beneath a thin crust of hardpacked snow. Dense, unbroken woodland hemmed the field on three sides, with a single paved road giving egress through the forest on the eastern perimeter. The bare, ice-sheathed branches of the trees shone like delicately blown crystal in the clear winter night.
Scull stopped midway between the dwelling facility and the array of antennas, listening to the silence. Lights were on in most of the windows behind him, smudging the whitened ground with their reflections. Most of the crew would be at a party that a couple of the techies, Arthur and Elaine Steiner, were throwing in one of the rec rooms. The rest would be at smaller get-togethers in their rooms. And Anna and the kids were thousands of miles away.
He took his glass off the bottle, poured it half full of champagne, and then set the bottle down on the ground. That done, he stood there some more with the wind slashing at his cheeks, trying to think of a toast.
It was a while before anything appropriate came to him.
“May my vices die before I do,” he said at last, and raised the glass to his lips.
FOURTEEN
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 31, 1999
GORDIAN LIFTED HIS FOOT OFF THE BRAKE ALMOST long enough for the tires of his Mercedes SL to make a complete rotation, then halted again and frowned impatiently. To say he was doing ten miles an hour in the bumper-to-bumper traffic would have been far too optimistic. Flanked by two huge semis in the center lane of 1-280, he felt like a minnow caught between two stalled whales.
He checked his dash clock. Almost eigh
t P.M.
Shit!
He reached into his sport coat for his flip phone and pressed in his home number.
“Yes?” his wife answered on the first ring.
“Hi, Ashley, it’s me.”
“Roger? Where are you? What’s all that racket in the background?”
“I’m on my way home,” he said. “And the noise is highway traffic.”
There was silence on the phone. As Gordian had expected. He didn’t try talking into it.
“Nice to see you’re not cutting things too close,” she said finally, her voice edged with sarcasm.
Gordian figured he’d deserved that. He looked out his windshield at the back of a Jeep Cherokee, saw a little white dog with a black bandit stripe across its eyes staring back at him through the window of the hatch.
“Listen, Ashley, I take this road all the time. If I’d known it would be this jammed tonight—”
“If not on New Year’s Eve, then when else?” she said. “And do I have to remind you we have dinner reservations for nine o’clock?”
“I’ll call the restaurant, see if they can switch our reservation to ten,” he said, knowing how stupid his offer sounded even before it left his mouth. As his wife had just pointed out, it was New Year’s Eve. Trader Vic’s would be booked solid.
Gordian waited for her answer. Nothing moved on the congested road. The dog in the Cherokee nuzzled the window and continued watching him.
“Don’t bother,” she said. Her sarcasm had curdled into anger. “I’m standing here in my good dress, ready to leave the house. Damn it, you gave me your word you’d be on time.”
Gordian felt his stomach sink. He was thinking that he had not only given her his word, but he’d also very much intended to keep it. With most of his staff having left early for the holiday, however, he’d decided to play catch-up with his paperwork in the rare absence of distractions, figuring he could leave for home at six-thirty and be there within an hour. Why hadn’t he allowed for the possibility that he’d get stuck in traffic?
“Honey, I’m sorry. I wanted to get some odds and ends done—”
“Sure. As always. To the exclusion of anything remotely connected to a personal life,” she said, and took an audible breath. “I’m not going to argue this over the phone, Roger. I won’t be reduced to the role of a nagging wife. And we’ve been through it all before, anyway.”
Gordian couldn’t think of anything to say. The silence in his earpiece had a barren, hollow sound. Ashley had been talking about a separation for the past several months. He never knew what to say to that, either. Other than to tell her he loved her, didn’t want her to leave, and was surprised she felt things were so bad between them that she would even consider leaving.
There was a mild surge in traffic. It started in the left lane, where one of the flanking trucks hissed and rumbled forward as its driver released its air brakes. Then the Jeep began to move and Gordian toed the accelerator.
He figured he’d gained about a car length of blacktop before the taillights of the Jeep flickered on and he had to brake behind it.
“I don’t think I’d better be home when you get here,” Ashley said.
“Honey ...”
“No, Roger,” she said. “Don’t. Not now.”
Gordian’s stomach dropped some more. He knew from the flatness of her tone that there wouldn’t be any further discussion. She had closed up tight.
“I need some room,” she said. “It can only make things worse if we see each other tonight.”
“Where are you going to be?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll call you later and let you know,” she said.
And hung up.
Click.
Gordian held the phone to his ear for almost a full minute after the line went dead, then finally slipped it back into his pocket.
He leaned back against the seat rest and rubbed his forehead, expelling a tired, resigned sigh.
No reason I need to hurry home now, he thought.
In front of him, the little dog with its face in the window had started barking and wagging its tail. Or looked like it was barking, anyway, since he couldn’t actually hear it through two panes of glass and the drone of several hundred idling motors.
Gordian held his hand up and waved and the dog swished its tail back and forth more rapidly.
“Happy New Year,” he said to the interior of his car.
FIFTEEN
NEW YORK CITY DECEMBER 31, 1999
11:40 P.M.
ON AN UPPER STORY OF A SLEEK STEEL-AND-GLASS OFFICE tower at Forty-fourth Street and Broadway, a group of German executives from the international magazine empire Fuchs Inc. had gathered behind floor-to-ceiling windows to watch the proceedings below. Well in advance of their holiday visit, office space used by their American editorial staff had been converted into an observatory /banquet area that included plush lounge chairs, high-magnification telescopes, a wet bar, and gourmet hors d’oeuvres served by a white-glove waiter staff. Also prior to their arrival, a memo instructing employees to leave the building early on New Year’s Eve had circulated down through the corporate hierarchy. It was their express wish that the observation deck be inaccessible to Americans, regardless of their positions in the company. The spectacle taking place in Times Square, so oddly crass and colorful, was one the foreign management wanted to view—and comment upon—in secure, uninterrupted privacy.
While the hectic New Year’s Eve gathering might be an American tradition, the German businessmen, who had poured millions of dollars into glossing up the district, felt it was theirs alone to enjoy from on high.
11:43 P.M.
A large outdoor parade stand had been erected on the concrete island occupying the middle of the square from Forty-second Street to roughly Forty-third Street, the military recruiting office and benches that normally stood in that area having been uprooted prior to the festivities by the mayor’s New Year’s 2000 Organizing Committee. It was here that the mayor and other public officials stood with their families, friends, political patrons, and a smattering of entertainers, making speeches, waving to the crowd, leading cheers of “I love New York!,” smiling to camera lenses, and urging people to have a good time while please, please, please remaining considerate of the guy with his elbow in your ribs and his hand on your girlfriend’s fanny. Overlooking the street on the uptown side of One Times Square, the Panasonic Astrovision Giant Display Screen, which had replaced the Sony Jumbotron Screen in 1996, and been leased to the NBC television network shortly thereafter, flashed enormous images of everyone on the stand across 890 square feet of pixels, so that all in the crowd could bask in their charismatic nearness.
Seated beside his wife and daughter on the platform—where a famous, born-on-the-lower-east-side comedian had just begun snapping off one-liners at the mike—Police Commissioner Bill Harrison felt like a cold piece of meat on a makeshift smorgasbord. Any minute now somebody was going to flip the damn thing over on its side, and the starving rabble would feast.
He looked around skeptically, wishing he could be more confident of the precautions that had been taken for the safety of the big shots on exhibit, not to mention the safety of his wife and daughter, who had cheerfully (and against his protestations) insisted on accompanying him to this fiasco. Half the City Hall establishment, and enough stars to fill a week’s worth of Entertainment Tonight programs, were in attendance. Despite the transparent bulletproof shields protecting the speakers, despite the constellation of uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, and private bodyguards surrounding the stand, despite the mounted cops, bomb-sniffing dogs, and rooftop surveillance teams sweeping the scene, despite the endless hashing over of Operation 2000’s details by its planners, there was still room for something nasty to slip through the net. With over a dozen crosstown streets and every major subway line in the city feeding into the neighborhood, how could it be otherwise?
As his eyes continued making their circuit of the immediate area, the
y fell briefly on the Emergency Services Unit’s One-Truck, parked in close proximity to the VIP stand on Forty-second Street. Besides being chock full of rescue and tactical equipment, the big, bulky vehicle was loaded with firepower ranging from Ruger Mini-14s to 12-gauge Ithaca shotguns to belt-fed Squad Automatic Weapons to M16s equipped with grenade tubes and multipurpose ammunition. Behind it on standby were two smaller Radio Emergency Patrol trucks, a surveillance van, a temporary headquarters vehicle, and a bomb truck.
Harrison took more than a little comfort in knowing that the elite ESU personnel were trained to respond to virtually any crisis; if something bad went down, they would be able to meet the challenge of coping with it head-on. But response wasn’t the same as prevention, and Oklahoma City loomed darkly over his thoughts tonight, reminding him that it only took a second for hundreds of innocent lives to be lost.
“Is that Dick Clark?” Rosetta said, pointing toward a sudden swirl of activity near the stand. “By those TV cameras over there?”
He sat forward, craning his head.
“Don’t think so,” he said. “That guy looks too old.”
“You never know, Bill. He’d have to be around seventy by now.”
“Dick Clark stopped aging at thirty,” he said. “Unlike your poor bedraggled husband, whose energies are on the wane as we speak, and who will be sleeping like a rock the moment his head hits the pillow tonight.”
“Is that so?”
“My days as a late-night party animal are behind me, sweetheart,” he said.
She put her hand on his thigh and let it rest there, a slanted little smile on her lips, her eyes glinting in the way that never failed to make his throat tighten and his heart skip a beat.
Tonight was no exception.
He looked at her with surprise, catching his breath.
“Like I said, old man, you never know,” she said.