Hidden prey

Chapter 27

Grandpa pushed the door shut on the cop, and waited. Would the cop come in after him? No. Instead, the cop seemed to laugh at him, turned, and walked back toward the other two, motioned, and they all went back out toward their car.

Let him laugh. But now there was no exit, now the endgame was critical. In a way, he felt a certain satisfaction because he'd seen it coming.

He pushed Grandma into the front room, facing the TV. She lifted her head when she saw it, and her face seemed to loosen, as though she were relaxing with the familiarity of home.

Grandpa rubbed the top of her head, something he used to do when she was still with them; he would do it before he went out, a kind of good-bye and good luck and I love you. And he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead and said, "I'll be back in a minute."

He went into the kitchen, got the walkie-talkie from the drawer, buzzed it. A minute passed, and he buzzed it again. If Carl wasn't home, that could be a setback. Another minute, then "Yeah?"

A growing knot in his stomach suddenly unwrapped. "Instructions. Write this."

"Let me get a pencil." A few seconds. "Okay."

"Number one. Recover this walkie-talkie before police do."

"What?" No code. Carl was confused.

"I'm going to take this walkie-talkie and put it under Mrs. Kriegler's garbage can, between the bricks they stand on, back in the alley. Get it there."

"Why-?"

"No questions. Just write. Number two. You are a child. Act like one. You must remember! Act like a child."

"I don't-"

"No questions! Remember. Will you remember?"

"Yes."

"The instructions will be clear, soon enough. They were here this afternoon, and my endgame proceeds."

"Should I come over?"

"No! Not until you must. Be a child. Act like a child. And when you must come over, you will know it's time."

"Okay…"

"Now we need silence. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

Grandpa sighed, got his jacket and a piece of newspaper, crumbled it into a ball, put it in his pocket with the walkie-talkie. They might be watching; maybe he couldn't get rid of the walkie-talkie. He would see.

He went out the back door, shuffled down the block, around the corner, back up the alley. Hadn't seen anyone. Came up to the Krieglers' garbage can, took the walkie-talkie and the ball of paper out of his pocket, stooped, slipped the walkie-talkie between the bricks that held the can off the ground, then stood, lifted the top off the can, and tossed the ball of paper inside. Hoped any watcher would think he'd picked up the paper and was dumping it into the can. Or, if they didn't believe that, that they would look at the trash.

Continued up the alley. Thought about Carl as he shuffled along. He hadn't had enough time with the boy. He needed two more years. He wasn't ready for what Grandpa was putting on him-but then, Grandpa hadn't been ready when he was pushed out into the world, either.

Maybe that's all it would take-to be pushed into the real world.

Back home. Preparing the endgame, such as it was, would take only a few minutes. Before he did it, Grandpa went to his favorite chair, turned it to look out over the front lawn, closed his eyes, and remembered.

His first memory, the earliest he'd had, came from the countryside near Moscow. In the fall, he thought, because the memory was of a gray-and-tan landscape. He was standing with his father, maybe looking out a window, and a man was walking through a field not far from them. The man had a cigarette dangling from his lip, and a gun over his shoulder. His father must have known the man, because the man smiled and held up a dead rabbit, dangling the furry body by its tail… There were other scattered childhood memories: watching four men trying to push a car out of a muddy ditch, groaning and swearing; sitting in a cold outhouse with an older man-an uncle?-as they talked and shared space in a three-holer. He remembered looking down the holes, into the mysterious pit below. And he remembered the smell of a country kitchen, and the big round cold purple beets sitting on the counter, ready for the soup…

He remembered the first time he'd seen Melodie, who was a typist at the Cheka training school, and the way she'd cocked her head when she laughed…

He turned away from his memories of the kulaks; those were not for this day, though he couldn't repress the memory of a peasant who tried to joke with him, tried to make him laugh as a way out of execution. The man's oval, careworn face but with the jolly mobile lips as he told his joke and did a little awkward dance to accompany it… Didn't work.

He remembered the English lessons, the violent old man who beat the grammar into them, the long lists of words. He remembered the first time he saw Canada, the trip across the bleak prairie, on the train, the walk through the frozen farm fields from Manitoba to North Dakota, Melodie freezing in an inadequate wool coat that turned out to be mostly cotton, and leather shoes that seemed to dissolve in the snow.

The memories after that all ran together: World War II, the arrival of the children, Korea, moving operators across the border and up the lake, the victory in Vietnam followed by the growing anxiety of the post-Vietnam years, the car accident that took his children away and left him Roger.

Regrets about Roger: he'd been too harsh with him, too demanding of a boy who just didn't have the fiber for a spy's life.

He remembered scouring the newsstands for word of Afghanistan…

Then the collapse, and the years of silence from the motherland.

Grandpa opened his eyes when he heard a car crunching off the road in front of the house. A police car, and his heart sank. He stood up, waiting for the cop to get out of the car. He could see the cop looking at him, but he never got out.

What was going on? Was he waiting for more to arrive?

Maybe there was still time, he only needed five minutes…

He hurried into the small bedroom they used as a library, found the video camera, the new tape and the cheap tripod that had come with the package. The battery he'd recharged over the last two days, and had already tested: it was fine.

The camera had been a Christmas gift ten or twelve years earlier, and he'd only used it a few times. That wasn't a problem, though, because it was a simple, inexpensive machine. He took it into the living room and set it up in front of the picture window, aimed toward Grandma. At the same time, he looked out at the cop: the cop was reading a newspaper.

Nothing but pressure? An attempt to embarrass him? Maybe he had time…

Grandma stirred, and he said, "Just a minute, Melodie. It'll be just a minute."

He started the camera, made sure it was running, and focused on Grandma, then walked around it, stood beside her, and said, "This is Sergey Vasilevich Botenkov, also known as Burt Walther, checking the camera."

He went back to the camera, ran the tape back, and watched himself speaking. Fine. Plenty of light from the picture window, focus was good, sound was tinny, but clear.

Ready. He went back to the bedroom, changed into dress pants, a white shirt, and a suit coat, then went back to the kitchen and got the gun he'd taken from the Russian agent in the bus museum parking lot.

He peered out the window, the cop was still reading the newspaper.

He cleared his throat and went back and stood in front of the camera, next to Grandma, the gun at his side, one hand on her shoulder, and began.

"My name is Colonel Sergey Vasilevich Botenkov, known here in the United States and Hibbing as Burt Walther. This is my last will and testament. I came here in nineteen thirty-four as part of a spy group working with the Soviet Union. I was first a lieutenant in the Cheka, a major in the NKVD, and when the Soviet Union dissolved, I was a colonel in the KGB. Since then we have been stranded, out of contact with the motherland. Melodie and I came here with three other couples. I have reason to believe that the U.S. government knows their names, but I will not mention them here, so as not to bring embarrassment upon their children.

"I was the commander of the group. Of the group, only my generation, now all dead except for Melodie and me, were intelligence agents-with two exceptions. My son worked as an agent, and my grandson; I was able to train both of them personally, as I raised my son as a good Communist, and, after he and his wife were killed in an automobile accident, my grandson, Roger. I felt the only way I could create a reliable agent was to teach them myself. The other families, and the later generations, lacked commitment and reliability.

"Our mission here in the United States was not to spy, but to move men and materials in and out of the country. We were a major support group for Soviet intelligence in the USA.

"About three weeks ago, a man came here from Russia, and told me that I was being reactivated, after a long period without contact with my department. I learned in the course of the meeting that he was part of a rogue group within the KGB that cooperated with Russian and American criminals: they were the so-called Russian Mafia.

"We are Communists, here. We are not criminals, not Mafia, and we work only for the betterment of the working class, everywhere. This man, Oleshev, threatened to reveal my name and background. We took action: my grandson, Roger, killed him at the port in Duluth, when he was about to reboard the ship that brought him here.

"During the investigation, Russia sent two investigators here: one aboveground, known as Nadezhda Kalin, as reported in the newspaper, and another, secret investigator. The covert operator tortured and threatened to kill the descendant of one of the original families. This man was innocent, and couldn't tell anyone anything because he knew nothing.

"When I learned of this, I called the embassy, got in touch with Russian intelligence, and asked to meet with this man, the secret investigator. We met, and I learned that Russian intelligence was intent on bringing us to trial-we who'd worked faithfully for them for seventy years!-for the killing of this criminal. Because the Russian embassy did not know who we were, but this Russian investigator had now seen our faces, Roger and I were forced to eliminate him as well.

"We then sent a message to the embassy: no more investigators. The embassy ignored us, and Nadya Kalin persisted. We decided to eliminate her, to make the point. Unfortunately, an American policeman intervened and was killed. This we did not intend.

"Also, at this time, it became apparent that the American police were unraveling the family names. When they had determined them all, it would become apparent that there was, ultimately, only one possible suspect in the killings, and that was my grandson, Roger. And that was the end for us. We began making preparations for this conclusion.

"Roger is now gone. We have had seventy years to perfect our transportation and reidentification techniques, and Roger is now safe, out of the country, and has a good, established identification and enough money to live upon. You will not find him.

"As for Melodie and me-we are too old to run, and Melodie is suffering from the final stages of Alzheimer's. I have therefore decided that the best way to end this is to end ourselves."

He held up the pistol, then, and said, "I took this pistol from the Russian agent that we met in the parking lot of the Greyhound Bus Museum." He seemed to look at it for a moment, and then said, "I will finish this film after I make a phone call."

Still on camera, he took a cell phone out of his pocket, and dialed in a number. A woman answered, "Law Offices," and he said, "Could I speak to Kurt Maisler or Kathy Stamm?"

"I'm afraid they're in a meeting…"

"My name is Burt Walther, and I need to talk to one of them immediately. This is literally a matter of life and death. Somebody's going to die in the next couple of minutes, and I need to talk to a lawyer."

There was a pause at the other end, a hasty "Just a moment, please," and then, "Mr. Walther? This is Kurt Maisler."

Walther said, "Kurt, I'm about to kill my wife and commit suicide…"

"Mr. Walther…!"

"No, listen. It's all very rational. But I have a last instruction. I have changed my will slightly, and it is on a videotape that the police will have. The tape is running right now. I want you to get the tape from the police, and I am directing you to show it to the TV stations. It concerns a series of killings here in which I was involved, with my grandson, Roger."

"What?"

"Just listen. I want you to give the tape to the TV stations, if you can get it from the police. I'm not sure if this will work, but I am making it my last will, and I am appointing you to administer it."

"Burt…!"

"Good-bye."

Grandpa punched the power button on the cell phone, looking up at the camera, and said, "I leave everything here, my entire estate, to Janet Walther, the wife of my grandson, Roger. I swear before God that Janet knew nothing of this, nor do the descendants of any of the other families. And I am proving my sincerity with this last act."

He thought of the "swear before God" at the last second, and it amused him: he no more believed in God than he did the tooth fairy, but he wanted viewers to sympathize.

He rubbed Melodie on the head one last time, and tears started down his cheeks. He looked up at the camera, to let them see the tears, which were real enough, then kissed his wife on the forehead and said, "I will see you in heaven, my love," placed the pistol against her temple, and pulled the trigger. The blast was deafening in the small room, and he turned away from her, at the sound of the shot, so he wouldn't have to see the wreckage.

Without looking back down at her, he spoke directly to the camera, said, "Workers of the world, unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains." Then he put the muzzle of the gun to his temple, just above and a little forward of his ear.

I should've been in show business.

He pulled the trigger.