by Mark Terry
“Yes, the Evil Empire, as President Reagan called us.”
Derek waited.
Jurek seemed to be studying the inside of his coffee mug. “There is someone you might talk to. I have no idea if it will be helpful or if it’s even relevant, but his name is Yuri Tomilin. He was part of security at Vector, but he retired recently. I will give you his address and let him know you’re coming by.”
“And you think he’ll be helpful?”
Jurek shrugged. “Will you be in Novosibirsk long, Derek? Will there be time for dinner?”
“I really don’t know, old friend. I’ll call you if we are.”
“That would be lovely. And be careful.”
A smile touched Derek’s lips. “Do I have something to be careful about?”
“Why yes, Derek. Somebody probably threw Jim McGill out of a high-rise window.”
13
Konstantin was on the edge of exhaustion. He had been up all night investigating the bombings, overseeing his team, and trying to organize his notes. Now he was in his office at Lubyanka trying to write up a preliminary report. He stared at the computer screen, eyes blurry. The smell of tobacco alerted him to Pietr Titov’s presence behind him. Titov didn’t look well either. The long violent night had kept him up as well.
Titov gestured toward a TV playing quietly in one corner. “What do the bosses have to say?” He was referring to President Eltsin and Prime Minister Arkhipov.
“Everything’s under control and the terrorists will be brought to justice. Not to panic.” Konstantin ran a hand over his head as if to wipe away the exhaustion.
With a grunt Titov said, “And you, Konstantin, what do you have to say?”
“I wish Zukhov would shut up. He’s making matters worse. He’s firing up people.”
“You don’t believe the military could control this problem?”
Konstantin turned his full attention to Titov. “I think Zukhov would enjoy running the country.”
“Perhaps he would,” Titov said. “Perhaps we would become a super power again.”
“Let him run for office then. I’m going to go home and get a couple hours sleep. You look beat. Maybe you should, too.”
“Reports to write, meetings to attend. If we don’t come up with some ideas on how to get ahead of these bastards, these fuckin’ Chechens, heads will roll.”
Konstantin was quiet a moment, thinking. “What makes you think the Chechens are behind these attacks?”
Titov made a massive shrug. “Who else?”
“The Red Hand.”
“Ah. Them. Your pet project. Have they taken credit yet?”
“Not yet. But neither have the Chechens.”
“They will.”
Konstantin and Titov’s eyes met. Konstantin leaned back in his chair, which creaked under his weight. Voices murmured on the TV. He cocked his head. “I think it was the Red Hand. I’m convinced of it.”
Titov waved a pudgy hand. “Proof, Konstantin. I can’t go to a meeting with the director with guesses. You’ve got three hours. Or are you going to go home and take a nap?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Titov nodded. “You do that.” And he plodded out of Konstantin’s office. Closing the door, Konstantin thought for a moment, then sent a text message to Alek Kutz. Throwing on his coat, he left his office, noting the density of the picketers in Red Square had increased as the sun rose. He picked up his car and drove through the city, making sure he was not being followed, stair-stepping through streets, finally parking near the Savelovo Railway Station. The trains weren’t running today, although President Eltsin had promised to have them running by tomorrow. He had also promised to “haul the perpetrators of these crimes from the sewers” and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.
Hunching into his coat, Konstantin began to walk. A block away, Alek Kutz stepped out of a storefront and paced alongside him. Kutz was tall and broad-shouldered and wore a black leather trench coat.
“Quite a night.”
“Comrade Titov insists the Chechens are behind it,” Konstantin said.
“Does he now? What is he basing that on?”
“Nothing, from what I can see.”
“What of the Red Hand?”
“They haven’t laid claim yet either, although that’s where my money’s at. Everyone’s working this now. I should be, too.”
“Keep your focus, Konstantin. We have to dig out the rot.”
Konstantin sighed. “We’re not getting anywhere and I keep losing members of my team. How deep is this group? Are we making any headway at all? And what’s going on with the Americans? Why is the Gekko going after Stillwater?”
Kutz shook his head. “Stillwater and Kirov are in Novosibirsk. Hopefully they’ll stay there. We have enough problems here.”
“Who’s leading the Red Hand, Alek? Who do you suspect?”
Kutz stopped walking and turned to face Konstantin. For a moment his gaze took in the crowd of people walking the streets—shutting down the subways had crowded the sidewalks, streets and buses. “It has to be higher than Titov. Much higher.”
“Zukhov is squawking.”
“It might be Zukhov. It might be someone else, someone in FSB—Danilov, Yenko, or someone in the military like Bashirov, even someone in the Duma or the executive office. But we have to find out and soon.”
“I’m working on it.”
“I know you are. And be careful. And for God sakes, try to find some evidence it’s the Red Hand before we have another August Putsch.”
Konstantin felt a chill. He had been in the army during the Avgustovsky Putch, when hardliners tried to wrest control of the country from President Gorbachev in 1991. It had been a very frightening two days and despite the failure of the coup, it had reverberated throughout the country, shaking the foundations of the Soviet Union enough to collapse it. And now it felt as if someone were trying to do it again, only returning the Russian Federation to an earlier time of dictatorship.
He nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”
Yuri Tomilin met Derek and Erica in a diner. It was made clear that Derek was picking up the tab, which was not a problem. The restaurant was clearing out as the Siberian workday began. The three of them sat in a booth near the window. It was snowing. Yuri ordered buckwheat pancakes, sausage, potatoes and an omelet. Derek was amazed. Yuri was tall and thin, in his sixties, a thinning shock of white hair floating around his scalp. His English was good, though heavily accented.
“So,” he said. “Americans. Jurek says I can talk to you, but not to get myself in trouble.”
“We appreciate it,” Erica said.
Tomilin eyed her over his reading glasses. “I worked in security at Vector for twenty-five years. Not military, though. What do you want to know? Not that I can necessarily tell you anything.”
“There was a theft out there a few months ago,” Derek said. “I spoke with an FSB agent, Konstantin Nikitinov, about it.”
Chewing a huge mouthful of pancakes covered with syrup, Yuri said, “Of course there wasn’t a theft. Nobody has ever stolen anything from a Russian military facility ever.” He rolled his eyes.
Derek sipped his coffee and thought for a moment, but didn’t get a chance to formulate a question. Yuri said, “But, perhaps, we could talk about a hypothetical situation, one in which a theft might have happened and I could suggest, perhaps, how and who might have done it. That’s a different matter. Just talking hypothetically, after all. Because nothing has ever been stolen from Vector.”
“Of course. Hypothetically.”
Yuri leaned forward. “Hypothetically, let’s suppose that there were a couple military guards, young guys, sort of angry, that perhaps could have left a gate or two unlocked at a certain time. Could happen.”
“Must be more than one gate,” Derek said. “Although I haven’t been to Vector in quite a while, it would be more than just a gate. Particularly if you wanted to get actual, er, specialized property.”
Yuri wolfed down his omelet and washed it down with steaming tea. “Right, right. I’m sure you Americans have similar precautious. Specialized property, as you say, requires specialized security procedures. Why, if I was designing a system like that, I would have armed soldiers at the gates and you would require special permits to get through, and maybe even a palm scanner or retinal scanner, possibly guards inside a security center would have to punch in a code that allowed a door to open.”
Sipping from her own tea, Erica said, “So, it sounds like somebody fairly high up would have to be involved to make this work.”
“Hypothetically,” Yuri said.
“Of course.” Erica leaned back and glanced over at Derek. He said, “Certainly there are people inside the warehousing areas, people that stock things, retrieve things, do maintenance, clean up.”
“Dust the warheads,” Yuri said with a chuckle. “Of course, but they’re supervised. Lots of cameras.”
“And there might even be some very specialized, uh, property, that would be very difficult to, mmmm, just, oh, load onto the back of a truck.”
“Oh yes. Hypothetically.”
They lapsed into silence broken only by the murmur of other diners and the occasional clank and clink of silverware on china. Derek finally said, “Let’s go back to angry soldiers.”
“Very angry.”
“About what?”
“Everything. But especially about how the country is going to hell and the rich are getting richer and the Ukrainians and Uzbeks and the Chechens are ruining the country for good Russians.”
Derek sighed. “Some things are universal. These soldiers, though, they’re not very high up? Are they grunts?”
Yuri cocked his head. “Grunts?” Erica said something in Russian. Yuri nodded his head. “Ah. Yes. Grunts. Yes. They would be grunts.”
“So they had to have help. Someone higher up.”
“In our hypothetical situation. Definitely. Someone, perhaps, who worked in security. Or someone even higher up in the military.”
“Would it have to be military?” Derek asked. “Could it be someone in the FSB? Or someone civilian who had a high security clearance?”
Yuri scratched his chin in thought. “Perhaps, but more likely military. The soldiers.”
“Would your hypothetical soldiers have names?” Erica asked.
“Oh, they would have good Russian names. Ordinary Russian names. Like Ivan and Boris. Yes, good common ordinary Russian names. Names like Ivan Golov and Boris Ivankov. Yes, common names like that.”
Derek blinked. “And in this hypothetical situation, what happened to Ivan and Boris?”
Yuri said, “Their bodies would be found in a stolen truck out on the steppes. Somebody shot them in the heads.” He finished off his pancakes. “Hypothetically.”
Pietr Titov had been up most of the night. He was frustrated with Konstantin’s insistence on investigating the Red Hand. He considered another meeting with Zukhov, but decided instead to go eat. He took his car and drove to a local restaurant and ordered steak and eggs and hash browns. While waiting for his food, he waddled to the restroom to relieve himself. As he was leaving the restroom he stumbled into a man who was just entering.
Titov almost knocked the man down, but the man caught his balance by grabbing onto Titov’s jacket. The man swore at him, then stumbled away, letting Titov pass. Titov thought nothing of it, returning to his seat where his food awaited him.
The man who bumped into him was Mikhail Grechko. Grechko washed his hands and left the restaurant by a rear entrance, mission accomplished.
Derek leaned forward. “Two guys working at the gate wouldn’t be able to pull off this kind of theft on their own. Somebody higher up would have to have been involved.”
“Da,” Yuri said. “That would be so. A military officer, perhaps, or even one of the security staff.”
“What level?” Erica asked.
“Oh, it would have to be someone who was at least a captain. Not just for any theft. If, for instance, things were being transferred from one facility to another, or from Vector to a military base, many things could disappear that way. But for things to just disappear from Vector—” Yuri shook his head in mock dismay. “—that would be a different story. A boss had to have been involved.”
“A captain,” Derek prompted.
“Yes, hypothetically. Someone with access codes, someone who would be able to be in the security room and turn off, delete or destroy video feeds.”
Erica and Derek were quiet, waiting. Yuri didn’t say anything, so Derek said, “In your hypothetical situation, once the theft was discovered, I would think this captain would be arrested.”
“If she could be found. Da.”
“She?”
“Yes, why not? A woman, perhaps. Hypothetically.”
“Did this captain murder the two soldiers?”
“A very good question, Dr. Stillwater. I do not know.”
“And this captain would just disappear?”
“It seems so.”
“What would a captain’s name like that be? Hypothetically.”
Yuri shrugged. “Could be anything. Could be a name like Zoya Maximova.”
Derek sighed. “Does the FSB know all this? When Konstantin Nikitinov paid a visit, did he learn all this?”
“My hypothetical story? This Konstantin Nikitinov, he sounds like a very smart man. I’m pretty sure he would know.”
“And nobody knows where this captain went to, this hypothetical Zoya Maximova.”
“Like smoke in the wind.”
Erica said, “What did she look like?”
Yuri smiled. “She would have to be a world-class bitch, I believe. Hard body, thin, short blonde hair. Hypothetically.”
Closing his eyes, Derek rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. The hunt was energizing him, but he had a slight headache, probably from jet lag and too much stress. Hypothermia, bruises—his wrist ached and was swollen and black and blue where Ivan had smashed it with his combat baton.
“Did you ever interact with Dr. James McGill with the American inspection team?” Derek asked.
Yuri nodded. “Of course.”
“He died.”
“Yes, I know.”
“We’re trying to determine if he actually committed suicide or was murdered.”
“He was a brooder,” Yuri said. “Like a good Russian.” He laughed.
“Do you have any idea what he was working on? Who he was interacting with?”
Yuri scraped a hand over the bristles of his unshaven jaw. “He spent a lot of time inspecting our security protocols and looking over inventory control.”
Derek thought of when he had been on a visiting inspection team. In many ways the inspections were a farce—the Russians let you see what they wanted you to see. If McGill had gotten any real evidence of India-1 smallpox or of Novichok he would have screamed bloody murder. Which was the question, he supposed. Did McGill see something he wasn’t supposed to? And what? Or was he just a clinically depressed middle-aged American traveling away from his family in a Siberian winter affected by loneliness, booze and Seasonal Affective Disorder?
“Did he interact with Captain Maximova?”
“Yes.”
“Did they get along?”
Yuri made an obscene gesture. Derek cocked his head. “They got along too well?”
Yuri smirked. “Who’s to say? I did not care for Zoya, but she is not without her appeal.”
Derek turned to look at Erica, who raised her eyebrows. She said, “Thank you, Yuri. We’ll get the check.”
He grinned. “Oh, give me the money. I’ll pay the bill.”
Understanding, Derek slid several hundred dollars into Yuri’s outstretched hand as they shook. They thanked him again and got up to leave.
Yuri said, “These things, these weapons that may have been stolen … not that such a thing could happen in Russia, you understand … but you know the Greek story, the one ab
out Pandora and the box of evils?”
“Of course.”
“Nobody was able to get them back in the box. You understand, right? I help you not for this—” He tapped the gestured with the hand holding the money. “—but because I hope someone can get them back in the box. Can you do that? Is that something you can do, Dr. Stillwater? Perhaps you and Ms. Kirov and Konstantin Nikitinov? Can you put evil back in Pandora’s box?”
Derek met the Russian’s gaze. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I’m going to try.”
Back in Erica’s rental car, Erica said, “Zoya Maximova. You’d think Nikitinov and the Russian authorities could track her down. Military people don’t just go AWOL around here.”
Derek was staring out at the snow. When he didn’t respond, Erica prodded him. “Oh, sorry. Just thinking. Well, military people might just disappear if they were working for someone in the military. And I suppose, if we take this premise all the way, if whoever’s behind the theft is high up in the military or the government—the Duma, the FSB, the military, whoever—then I would think it would be possible. Particularly—”
When he didn’t complete his thought, Erica said, “Particularly what?”
“Particularly if nobody was trying especially hard to find her. If you’re just trying to cover up the theft and investigate it quietly and internally.”
“So where does that leave us? Do you want to join the rest of the team at Vector?”
Drumming his fingers on the dashboard, Derek shook his head. “Why don’t we go back to the hotel and see if we can go through the room McGill was in.”
“Do you honestly think you’re going to find anything?”
Shrugging, Derek said, “Well, the other option would be to go to the local cops and see what they have to say. But frankly, I’d rather hold out on that as a last gasp, because they’ll just tell us to go to hell—in a sort of polite Russian way, if we’re lucky. Otherwise, I doubt we’re going to find anything out at Vector. It’s sealed up tight and I’m not going back on an inspection team just because Mandalevo thinks it’s a fun idea.”