Last Snow

FIFTEEN

“LLOYD BERNS’S death was almost certainly the work of Benson and Thomson.” Dennis Paull, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, leaned forward tensely, seeking to keep his voice low. He was speaking of two prominent members of the previous administration, Miles Benson, the war vet and former director of the CIA, and Morgan Thomson, the former national security advisor, the last of the neocons who had managed to maintain his power, due mainly to his ties to companies manufacturing war materiel.

On one of those dank District days when winter and spring, for a short time evenly matched, fought one another to a standstill, five of the most powerful men in the capital, and therefore in America, clustered beside the newly turned grave of Senator Lloyd Berns, following the mournful pomp and circumstance of his funeral and burial among the fallen heroes of the country at Arlington National Cemetery.

Paull was huddled with President Carson; Vice President Arlen Crawford, the big, rangy, sun-scarred former Texas senator; Kinkaid Marshall, the new head of NSA; G. Robert Kroftt, director of Central Intelligence; Bill Rogers, the national security advisor; and General Atcheson Brandt, who had handled the delicate arrangements with Russian president Yukin for Carson’s historic U.S.-Russian security accord. This meeting had convened following the services, after Berns’s family—his wife, sister, two sons, daughter, various inlaws, and grandchildren—had stood stiffly, wept, and thrown handfuls of dirt on the coffin. Around the six men, at a discreet distance, was a constellation of Secret Service operatives, all staring outward across the sea of headstones, bouquets of flowers, mourners, miniature American flags, and the occasional eternal flame.

“You’ve given us no proof, Denny,” Marshall said, “but even if you had, what have they accomplished with Lloyd’s death?”

“I’ve already appointed Ben Hearth as the new whip,” President Carson said, “and he’s tougher with the opposition than Lloyd ever was. I’m not suggesting that Benson and Thomson aren’t still formidable enemies, but that particular motive’s a no-go.” He spread his hands. “What else do we have?” He briefly considered bringing up Jack’s mission, then almost at once dismissed the notion.

“Setting aside the matter of Senator Berns’s demise, I’m still of the opinion that our most pressing business concerns the changes taking place inside the Kremlin even as we speak.” This from CIA Director Kroftt, who was understandably alarmed by the recent developments in Russia.

Vice President Crawford nodded emphatically. “The severe downturn in Russia’s energy-based economy has made those inside the Kremlin—especially President Yukin—nervous about the longevity of the country’s influence.”

“The fact is,” Kroftt continued, “Russia as a power has been in retreat ever since the end of the Cold War. The West’s decision to formally recognize Kosevo as an independent Serbian state marked the nadir of Russia’s sphere of influence. Ever since then, the Kremlin has been spinning its webs at light-speed, manufacturing a plan that would bring the country back into prominence.”

“Pardon me, but if I may interject an observation and some pertinent facts,” General Brandt said, “the Baltics, the Balkans, the Caucasus, all of Central Asia and Central Europe, in fact, are experiencing the same fate as Russia’s.”

Carson, watching Lloyd’s family marching slowly toward the limousines that had brought them here, saw a small boy turn and stare back toward his grandfather’s grave. Carson recognized him because he was the only one of the grandchildren who had remained completely dry-eyed during the burial. But now, with his back to his family, free to vent his terror and his sadness, he wept openly. Perhaps he was remembering how his grandfather had taken him to the zoo, or to a movie, letting him stuff his face with chocolate and ice cream. Certainly he had no inkling that his beloved grandfather had left behind a mistress, a mysterious younger woman who might herself be mourning his passing, wherever she was. And seeing the sadness leak out of this child reminded him of his own daughter so far away in every manner imaginable. The thought pierced his heart, made him want to run to the child, pick him up in his arms, and tell him that everything would be all right.

“However,” Brandt continued, “Russia maintains a distinct advantage over its surrounding neighbors in that, owing to its rich stores of oil and natural gas, it maintains an enormous amount of reserves, both in funds and in currency, more than all the other countries combined. Moreover, it owns and controls the natural gas that supplies virtually all of Western Europe.”

“True enough,” Kroftt affirmed, “as far as it goes.” He cleared his throat as he handed around Xeroxed dossiers. “However, my Russia desk has prepared a white paper, the major thrust of which is this: Based on the successful military incursion Russia recently made into Georgia we envision an imminent reemergence of Russian power using a three-pronged strategy through military, intelligence, and energy means. What this, in effect, means is that the era of Russian retrenchment is over. Yukin intends to extend its sphere of influence outward once again, to encompass Georgia and Ukraine, to name only the first two strategic expansions.”

“This is all purely conjecture, and in fact has been put forward in other forms by other members of the intelligence community.” Closing the dossier, which he had skimmed with a practiced eye, General Brandt turned to Carson. “Sir, as you know, I’ve had many one-on-one meetings with President Yukin over the past eight years and in all that time I’ve never once caught a glimpse of this bellicose scenario.”

“I beg your pardon, General,” Crawford drawled, “but I can’t think how it would benefit Yukin to let you in on what he’s planning. On the contrary, as you can see by the previous administration’s hostile response to Russia’s war with Georgia, he would take great pains to keep you from knowing anything at all.”

“It’s the previous administration’s grievous errors vis-à-vis Russia I’m trying like hell to amend,” General Brandt said. “What we don’t need is a return to our old adversarial position, which resulted in the bitterest of exchanges between the White House and the Kremlin.”

“The Kremlin’s time has come and gone, which is why it’s flailing away at anyone or anything it believes is antagonistic to it.” The CIA chief thumbed through the dossier. “As you all can see from the exhibits on page five we are most concerned with Ukraine because strategically it’s the cornerstone of any Russian expansion. Ukraine’s location gives Russia access to the Black Sea and, from there, the Mediterranean. Without an integrated Ukraine, Russia is vulnerable to the south and the west. Furthermore, the preponderance of a Russian-speaking population, along with the fact that Ukrainian transport is already entwined with Russia’s agricultural, industrial, and energy businesses, make it an absolutely vital acquisition.”

Kroftt let the pages of the dossier flutter closed. “All that being said, there’s yet another aspect to Russia’s designs on Ukraine that make us the most uncomfortable. As he’s done with Gazprom, Yukin has nationalized Russia’s uranium industry. Like China, Russia sees no viable future without atomic energy to take the place of coal, oil and, yes, even natural gas. The trouble is that Russia itself has fewer uranium resources than its geologists had forecasted even three years ago. That means Yukin must venture outside Russia’s current borders in order to build up its reserves.”

General Brandt cocked his head. “Have you heard something I haven’t, Bob? Because there’s been no indication that Ukraine is or even could be a significant source of uranium.”

For the first time, the CIA chief looked less than confident. “That, of course, is the conundrum we’re wrestling with. The General is correct. As of this moment there has been no major uranium strike in Ukraine.”

General Brandt looked vindicated. “Sir, I’m not trying to dismiss the hard work the CIA has put into this white paper, but the fact is that during the past eight years so much damage has been done to our relationship with the Kremlin that just to get President Yukin to agree to the summit with you took untold hours of blood, sweat, and tears. I respectfully submit that now is not the time for rash action, saber rattling, or even accusations. Sir, together we’ve made significant progress. We’ve forged a diplomatic détente with Russia. Now you’re about to sign an accord that will solve the worldwide deadlock on the Iranian nuclear weapons threat and bring a renewed level of security to the American people.” He looked around at each grim face in turn. “Do we really want to jeopardize what will turn out to be your presidential legacy on the basis of one intelligence report? Besides, as we are all painfully aware, our military capability abroad is already stretched to the breaking point.”

“Edward,” the vice president said in his deceptively soft Texan drawl, “you can’t deviate from our position now. The press will excoriate you; your own party will accuse you of flip-flopping on an issue you made a cornerstone of your first one hundred days in office.”

There was silence for a moment as everyone looked to President Carson for an answer. He’d staked much of his reputation on this rapprochement with Russia. He’d expended a great deal of political capital on the two bills the Congress had failed to pass. If he failed with the accord with Yukin he risked being dead in the water for the rest of his term—and forget about a second one. No matter his private thoughts on the subject, everyone present knew the president had no choice.

Carson looked over for the young boy, but he was gone now, bundled into the back of one of the anonymous-looking limos. Was he crying still, or had he put his stoic face back on in front of his family? It’s going to be all right, Carson thought. Then, his attention returned to the matter at hand, he sighed. “The General is right. For the moment we bury this intel; what we have spoken of here today goes no further.” He turned to his CIA chief. “Bob, in the meantime have your people follow up on this intel. I want specifics. If and when your boys unearth a smoking gun, we’ll move on it, but not a moment before. And Dennis, continue to pursue all avenues regarding the investigation into Lloyd’s death. If there’s something to it I want to know about it pronto. Okay?” He nodded. “Good. Thank you, gentlemen, for your valued input and opinions. Now it’s time to return to Moscow. General, you have just under two hours to get your kit together and hustle on over to Andrews. I want you with me when I meet with President Yukin again. Dennis, you’re with me.”

_____

AS SOON as they were in the presidential limousine and on their way to Andrews Air Force Base, Carson turned to Dennis Paull, his longtime confidant, and, slapping the CIA white paper against his thigh, said, “To be honest, Denny, this report concerns me, especially Yukin’s designs on Ukraine. The incursion into Georgia was bad enough, but if he decides to make a move against Ukraine how can we stand idly by?”

“The report is intel, and like all intel it shouldn’t be taken as gospel,” Paull said as he settled back in the plush bench seat. “Besides, after six years of constant battles, our military is in need of withdrawal from the field, the men need time to stand down. But even if the intel is correct it wouldn’t change a thing, would it? Your intent is on record, your position clear.” Pulling a cigar from his vest pocket he stuck it between his teeth and went searching for a match or a lighter. “It doesn’t matter what action Yukin takes or is planning, it doesn’t matter if you like the sonuvabitch or if you hate him. The accord has got to be signed and with all due haste.”

“I agree, but Brandt has been urging me to rush past minor points in the negotiations.”

“Ignore him, get what you want out of Yukin,” Paull said firmly. “But I must point out with the security accord signed Yukin’s hands will be tied, he won’t be able to follow the scenario Bob has outlined, not with us as allies. No, the best way to stave off Russian expansion is to follow through on your promise as quickly as possible.”

Carson threw the dossier aside. “In office less than ninety days and already my hands are dirty.”

“The nature of politics is to have dirty hands,” Paull astutely pointed out as he lit the cigar. “The trick is to govern without being concerned with your dirty hands.”

“No, the trick is to wash them constantly.”

Paull puffed away contentedly. “Lady Macbeth tried that without success.”

“Lady Macbeth was mad.”

“It seems to me that madness is inherent in politics, or at least a preternatural ability to rationalize, which can be a kind of madness.”

“The ability to rationalize is a trait common to all humans,” Carson observed.

“Maybe so,” Paull said from within a cloud of aromatic smoke, “but surely not on such a massive scale.”

Carson grunted. “Anyway, it’s not the first time I’ve gotten my hands dirty.”

“And we both know it won’t be the last.”

Reaching over, Paull pressed a button and the privacy glass slid into place, ensuring that their conversation couldn’t be overheard even by the driver or the Secret Service escort riding shotgun.

“Speaking of which,” he said in a soft voice, “I want to run an investigation on everyone in the cabinet.”

The president sat up straight. “You suspect someone? Of what?”

“Of nothing, of everything.” Paull took the cigar from between his teeth. “Here’s how the situation looks from my particular vantage point, Edward. Frankly, I don’t trust anyone in your inner circle. It’s my opinion that Benson and Thomson have taken steps to ensure they know what your moves will be before you implement them.”

“Denny, what you’re saying—”

“Please let me finish, sir. Consider: Your first two initiatives have been shot down in Congress, embarrassing defeats for a newly elected president. Recall that Lloyd Berns had assured you that he’d have the votes from the other side of the aisle to ensure the bills’ passage, but unaccountably he was wrong. It was as if someone had spoken to the right congressmen before Berns, which could only have happened if the opposition had knowledge of the decisions of the inner cabinet.”

The president blew out a little puff of anxious air. “Come on, Denny. I’ve known you a long time, but this sounds preposterous. What you’re intimating is that a member of my cabinet is leaking information to my enemies.”

“I’m not intimating it, sir, I’m stating it straight out.”

“On the basis of what? Circumstantial evidence, a series of set-backs that are normal—”

“With all due respect, Edward, the string of setbacks we’ve suffered are anything but normal.”

The president made an exasperated sound. “But there could be any number of explanations, all of which might be perfectly innocent.”

“Innocence doesn’t belong in politics, you know that. And, if I may say, in the position you’re in you don’t have the luxury of kicking suspicions into the gutter. If I’m right, your enemies have already started to poison your presidency. We’ve got to short-circuit your enemies, and I mean right now.”

Carson considered for some time. At length, he nodded. “All right, Denny. Begin as soon as you get back to the office. Pick your team and—”

“No. All the work is going to be done by me alone, unofficially, outside the office. I don’t want to leave a trail of any kind.”

The president rubbed his temples. “You know this is the sort of assignment Jack ought to be handling.”

“Naturally, but you and I have sent him on what I trust is a parallel course.”

“I detested lying to him.”

“You didn’t lie, you withheld knowledge, and for a damn good reason.”

“Jack is a friend, Denny. He brought my daughter back to me. I owe him more than I can ever repay.”

“Then trust in his abilities.” Paull stubbed out his cigar. “For the moment, that’s all we can do.”

_____

ENTWINED, CRADLED by the softly breathing night, Jack and Annika spoke in the secretive tones of ghosts:

“What do you think is happening beyond these walls,” Annika said, “in the hallway, the other apartments in this building, out on the street, in other sections of the city? It’s impossible to know, just like it’s impossible to know who’s thinking about us, thinking about following us, extracting the secrets we keep so close to us, who harbors thoughts of murder and mayhem.” She turned in his arms. “What are your secrets, Jack, the ones you keep closest to you?”

“My wife left me—twice,” Jack said with a vehemence that was almost like menace. “Who the hell knows what secrets are held inside the human heart.”

Annika waited a moment, possibly to allow his anger to subside, before she said, “What happened on the sofa beneath the Tibetan mandala?”

Jack closed his eyes for a moment as he felt his heart beating hard. “Nothing happened.”

“So you were talking to a ghost, is that it?”

“I was talking to a secret.”

“A secret Alli knows.”

“She and I, yes.”

“This just underscores what I said. We know so little, less than what seems apparent, less even than we believe.” She placed her hand on his arm, moved it down to the back of his hand, tracing the veins. “So you won’t tell me your secret, but I’ll bet it has nothing to do with your wife, or ex-wife, because she’s just a word now and words fade with incredible quickness. It has to do with your daughter, with Emma.” Her fingers twined with his. “Was she out there on the sofa? Is she there now?”

“Emma is dead. I told you that.”

“Mmm. Is she one of the things we don’t know about?”

“What do you mean?” He knew exactly what she meant, but Emma was too intimate, too precious to share.

“I’ve killed a man, as you know, but still I know nothing about death. Do you?”

“How could I?”

“Yes, how could you. I have asked myself that very question many times since I saw you on the sofa, and the answer I’ve come up with is this: I think you know more about it than I do. I think you were talking to death, or something like death, under the Tibetan mandala.”

“What an insane notion.”

He halfheartedly sought to disentangle himself, but she climbed on top of him, reached down for him, her fingers encircling. “We all have insane notions, now and again.” She squeezed gently, bringing him to readiness. “It’s the human condition.”

DYADYA GOURDJIEV was in the midst of making coffee, strong enough to keep him up for the rest of what remained of the night, when a pounding on the front door set his heart to racing. Setting down the plastic dipper full of freshly ground coffee he stepped out of the kitchen, padded on slippered feet across the living room. The pounding came again, more insistent this time, if that were possible.

“Who is it?” he asked with his cheek nearly against the door.

“Open up,” came the voice from the other side, “or I’ll have the damn knob blown off !”

Figuratively girding his loins for what was to come, Dyadya Gourdjiev flipped open the lock. No sooner had he begun to turn the knob than the door fairly exploded inward. Had he not stepped nimbly aside the edge of the door would have cracked the bone above his eye socket.

Two men rushed inside, one of them slammed the door shut behind them. He was the muscle, the one with the Makarov pistol. The other man was Kaolin Arsov, the head of the Izmaylovskaya grupperovka family in Moscow. Dyadya Gourdjiev had been expecting him more or less from the moment Annika and her new friends had left his apartment.

Arsov had the eyes of a predator and the complexion of a dead fish, as if he preferred darkness to sunlight. Perhaps he was allergic or in some perverse fashion averse to natural light of any sort. He looked like the kind of man you wouldn’t want to cross, a man whose strong arm you’d want with you in, say, a knife fight or a street brawl, even if his judgement was suspect. He’d sell his brother to the highest bidder—Dyadya Gourdjiev knew that he had, in fact, done just that—in order to gain territory and prestige, but once given he’d never renege on his word, which was, in his neck of the world, the only true and lasting measure of a man.

“Gospodin Gourdjiev, what a pleasure it is to see you again.” His lips were smiling, but his eyes remained as cold and calculating as any predator.

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same.” Dyadya Gourdjiev held his ground, which was the only way to play this situation. Arsov could smell fear and indecision from a mile away. Weakness of any kind or to any degree was what he sniffed out, using it like a cudgel against his prey, because for him the world was strength and weakness, nothing existed in between. Not that Dyadya Gourdjiev thought that Arsov considered him prey, but in the end the difference was negligible. Gourdjiev was someone to intimidate, knock around a little, someone from whom he could get information. That was how Arsov would play it, anyway; there were no surprises with men like him, who were akin to steel girders, neither bending nor breaking, thinking themselves invincible.

Arsov shrugged as he swaggered around the living room, picking up a statuette here, a framed photo there, studying them with blank eyes. He returned them in deliberately haphazard fashion, a silent warning to Dyadya Gourdjiev that Arsov had the power to turn his world upside down. “No matter. I’ve come for Annika. Where is she?”

“In the back of beyond,” Dyadya Gourdjiev said. “Far away from your clutches, I expect.”

“And of course you helped send her there.” Arsov paused in his perambulation and grinned with teeth that were preternaturally long, wicked as a wolf’s. “Wherever there is.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

Arsov leered. His breath was sour from vodka, cheap cigarettes, and a stomach that could tolerate neither. “I don’t believe you.”

“I can’t help that.”

Arsov’s head flicked only slightly, but his muscle cocked the hammer on the Makarov.

“That’s not a good idea.” Dyadya Gourdjiev held his ground like the front line against a putsch.

Arsov beckoned his man with a wave of his hand that was almost perfunctory, or negligent, as if the life or death of Dyadya Gourdjiev was of little moment. “I’ll decide whether it’s a good idea or not, old man.”

“He’s right, Arsov, it’s not a good idea.” The man who spoke had emerged from the kitchen as silently as an angel, or a demon. He was wide shouldered and slim hipped. With his wire-rimmed glasses he looked like a professor, or perhaps an accountant. And yet there was something in him that made the observer wary, set him back on his heels, as if struck by a sudden fistful of air. A discernable chill invaded the room, as if the man had sucked the oxygen out of it.

Arsov’s eyebrows arched in hateful surprise. “I had no idea you might be here.”

Oriel Jovovich Batchuk spread his hands. “And yet, here I am.” His basilisk gaze alighted on the muscle. “Put that idiotic thing away before you hurt yourself.”

The man, mumbling something, looked to his boss for guidance.

“What’s that?” Batchuk said.

“I said I don’t take orders from you.”

Everything happened at once then. The muscle lifted the Makarov, Arsov started to speak, and Batchuk raised his left arm as if he were about to direct traffic, or hail a friend on the street. Something small launched out of the space between his sleeve and his wrist, blurred through the air, and buried itself in the center of the muscle’s throat. The man dropped the pistol, clutching at his throat with his trembling fingers. He gasped, his lips took on a distinctly bluish tint. A white froth foamed out his half-open mouth as he collapsed in a heap.

“Who do you take orders from now?” Batchuk said with contempt rather than irony. Then he turned his attention back to Arsov, smiling without revealing a single iota of emotion. “Now, Arsov, what were you saying?”

“I have a legitimate grievance,” Arsov said, his gaze magnetized by his own man, now nothing more than flesh poisoned by a dart coated with hydrocyanic acid. “Annika Dementieva must pay for the murder she committed.”

“You leave Annika to me.”

Arsov’s eyes at last engaged Batchuk’s. “You yourself guaranteed me complete noninterference.”

“I said I will deal with the matter.” The deputy prime minister cleared his throat. “There will be no more interference in Izmaylovskaya business.”

Arsov nodded. As he was about to step over his fallen bodyguard, Batchuk said, “You brought it in, you take it out.”

Grunting, the mob boss dragged the corpse to the front door and opened it. As he was about to drag him over the threshold, Batchuk added, “A grievance doesn’t excuse vulgarity. You’re in society now, Arsov, you’d do well to remember that.”

The door slammed behind the two men and, in three strides, Batchuk crossed the room, locked the door, and turned back to his host.

“The vermin that comes in off the street these days.” He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Perhaps I should send an exterminator over for a week or so.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Oriel Jovovich.” Dyadya Gourdjiev returned to the kitchen to continue preparing the coffee.

“Still,” the deputy prime minister said as he leaned against the doorway, “it might be prudent.”

“I’d really prefer not.” Dyadya Gourdjiev set the coffeepot on the fire ring, took down two glasses as large as beer steins. “You’ll do what you want, in any event.”

“It’s a deputy prime minister’s prerogative.”

“I’m talking about long before you rose to that position.” Dyadya Gourdjiev turned to face Batchuk. “I’m talking about the young man I knew, the young man who—”

“Stop! Not another word!” Batchuk raised a hand, a singularly violent gesture that might have been directed as much at himself as at the older man.

Dyadya Gourdjiev smiled, much as a father might at a mischievous child. “It does my heart good to know that all the feelings haven’t been squeezed out of you by Yukin and his murderous kind.”

Batchuk waited until the steaming glass of coffee was in his hand and he had sipped it graciously. “You knew these people were going to come, didn’t you?”

“I knew it was a possibility, yes.” Dyadya Gourdjiev took his coffee, padded back into the living room, and made himself comfortable in his favorite chair.

After spooning in sugar, Batchuk followed him, stirring the coffee with a tiny silver spoon. He remained standing for some time, as if to remind Dyadya Gourdjiev of his superior status. Apparently he thought better of the stance, because he did not continue the conversation until he had settled on the sofa obliquely across from the older man.

“Do you know why Arsov is interested in your daughter?”

For just an instant Dyadya Gourdjiev looked startled, fearful even. Then he gathered himself. “No, and I’m not interested.”

“You trust her too much.”

Dyadya Gourdjiev did not respond. He wondered whether this statement was an admonition or an admission of envy. It could be either, or both, he decided. Batchuk was impossible to read, he’d proved that many times over. Dyadya Gourdjiev was reminded of a video he’d seen of an elephant safari in Rajasthan, in northwest India. Nothing but a sea of tall grass could be seen in front of the people on the elephant, until, with the quickness of a heartbeat, a tiger appeared. It ran directly toward the elephant and, in an astonishing attack, leapt onto the head of the elephant and severely mauled the mahout. Tigers aren’t supposed to attack elephants, but unlike other big cats tigers are as unpredictable as they are deadly. In Dyadya Gourdjiev’s mind Batchuk was aligned with this tiger.

“Oriel Jovovich, please. Trust is an absolute, either you trust someone or you don’t. There’s no halfway position.”

Batchuk, sipping his coffee, appeared to mull this over. “I don’t trust anyone, why should I? People make an industry out of lying to me. Sometimes I feel as if there’s a cash prize awarded to anyone who can put something over on me.”

Dyadya Gourdjiev knew this was absurd, but he also knew that this was the only place for Batchuk to safely blow off steam while someone listened. This spoke directly to the matter of trust, which, in Russia these days, was uppermost on every silovik’s mind.

“Every day, it seems, there are new people joining the applicant’s pool for the cash prize.” Batchuk made a face. “And, you know, it’s impossible to kill them all, or at the very least, put their balls to the fire.”

“Yet another industry underwritten by the Kremlin.”

At this, Batchuk laughed. Actually he smiled, which, for him, was more or less the same thing. “Time hasn’t dulled the edge of your sword. Your daughter doubtless gets her smart mouth from you.”

“I was happy to give her whatever I could.”

On the face of it, this was a simple, declarative statement, and yet with these two men nothing was simple, everything possessed layers of meaning that struck at the very core of their friendship, if their relationship could be called friendship. It was at once less and much more; there was, perhaps, no word adequate for what they meant to one another, or how entwined their pasts were. Several months ago, Annika had used a word, perhaps it was American slang, or possibly English, that had stuck in Dyadya Gourdjiev’s mind. In speaking about an associate of hers she had said, “what we really are is frenemies.” She’d supplied the explanation when he’d asked for it: The word was a contraction of the phrase “friendly enemies,” though she admitted that the actual relationship was far more complex than that, that this was the norm for frenemies.

Were he and Batchuk frenemies? He shrugged mentally. What did it matter? Why was there always a human desire to put a name to everything, to neatly sort, catalogue, pigeonhole even things like relationships that by their very nature were so complex they defied classification? They liked one other, admired one other, even trusted one another, but there would always be friction between them, always a bitterness and, on Dyadya Gourdjiev’s part, a profound disappointment whose origin could not be erased or forgiven. And yet here they were like two old friends who confided secrets to one another they’d never reveal to anyone else. It was their shared secrets, their shame, envy, and dispassion, that bound them tighter than father and son, than brothers. There was bad blood between them, but there was also love—curious, mystifying, impossible in any creature other than a human being.

“There you can’t be faulted,” Batchuk said with a tone that implied that there were other matters for which he still held Dyadya Gourdjiev liable.

Finishing off his coffee, Dyadya Gourdjiev smiled as if with secret knowledge, an expression that infuriated Batchuk and also put him in his place. “Now you must tell me why you’ve come here. I need some facts to offset the armada of innuendo you’ve been launching.”

Setting aside his cup, Batchuk rose and walked to stand in the entryway. He stood for a moment, hands in his pockets, frowning as he stared down at the smear of blood Arsov had left behind.

“Kaolin Arsov is no one to count as an enemy,” he said, as if speaking to the polished tips of his expensive English shoes. “To have the Izmaylovskaya grupperovka aligned against you is to court disaster.”

“This is Trinadtsat-speak.” Dyadya Gourdjiev shook his woolly head. “To think it comes to this. Warnings of this nature would never have been necessary even two years ago.”

“This is a new world, it’s being remade every day,” Batchuk said. “If you don’t have a spade in your hand then get out of the way.”

Dyadya Gourdjiev turned to confront the younger man. “Trinadtsat is your doing, I warned you that it would be your undoing. Crawling into bed with the grupperovka was a grave mistake—”

“It couldn’t be helped,” Batchuk interjected.

“—and now, as you yourself have discovered, it can’t be undone. You’d have to exterminate the Izmaylovskaya, and even Yukin doesn’t have the stomach for that.”

“Circumstances had come to a head, they demanded to be dealt with by the harshest possible measures.”

“And now you have your wish.”

Batchuk sighed and looked back at Dyadya Gourdjiev as he covered the smear of blood with the heel of one shoe. “The truth is I face reality every minute of every day. The truth is the grupperovka—most notably the Izmaylovskaya—have both the power and the access to avenues crucial to the success of Trinadtsat.” He lifted a finger. “And make no mistake, Yukin needs Trinadtsat to succeed. His entire vision for Russia’s future rides on it.”

Dyadya Gourdjiev scrutinized him now because he knew they were coming to the crux of the visit. Oriel Jovovich Batchuk was a long way from the Kremlin; he hadn’t come all this way to simply vent his frustrations, or to seek advice. Not this time, anyway.

Batchuk took a step forward and put his hand on the doorknob. Looking back over his broad shoulder he said, “It’s your daughter.”

“Yes, of course, it always comes back to Annika, doesn’t it? And do you know why? People want to see what’s best for them, not what actually exists. You do nothing but pretend, to yourself as well as to me. You try to reshape events in the past to suit yourself when we both know very well that what happened—the terrible events that must never be mentioned—is immutable, it can’t be changed and, therefore, expunged, no matter how hard or in which ways you try.”

Batchuk’s eyes glittered; no one else on earth would dare speak to him that way. When he was certain Dyadya Gourdjiev was finished, he continued his own thought to prove to the old man how little he thought of what he’d said. “She’s like a spanner in the works. I don’t know what she’s been up to—I suspect you don’t, either, not that it matters, I know you wouldn’t tell me even if you did. But I know she’s not stupid enough to tell you.”

“She’s not stupid at all,” Dyadya Gourdjiev felt compelled to say. “On the contrary.”

“Yes, on the contrary.” Batchuk opened the door, the empty hallway looming in front of him. There was a smear of blood there, too, too large for him to cover with his heel, or even his entire shoe. “And that, essentially, is the problem. She’s too smart for your own good.”

“My own good?” Dyadya Gourdjiev said, reacting to the warning.

“Yes,” Batchuk acknowledged as he stepped into the echoey hallway. “And hers.”