Last Snow

NINETEEN

HAVING TRACKED Kirilenko, Mondan Limonev arrived in the Crimea. He’d spent four years here, a time when he’d been happy—almost carefree, or what might pass for carefree in a man of his dark calling. Six commissions, all assassinations of Russian oligarchs who had fled their country after the tide had turned against them. Limonev was unique among FSB assassins inasmuch as he was paid per commission. His fees were exceptionally high, but Yukin and Batchuk were more than happy to cough up state money for the exclusive privilege of his services. They knew that the moment he was handed a commission the target was as good as dead.

Kirilenko had been no exception. Using his FSB elite-level credentials Limonev quickly canvassed the airport personnel in the Arrivals hall, one of whom had seen Kirilenko enter the CCTV monitoring station. Kirilenko had left by the time Limonev reached it, but with his usual thoroughness, Limonev made a complete circuit of the hallway. Further down he saw something lying against the wall. Reaching down he retrieved a slim box of wooden matches. He’d seen Kirilenko strike matches from this very box numerous times. Drawing a handgun, he put one foot silently in front of the other. At each door he paused to place his ear against it. Such industriousness paid off when he heard Kirilenko’s voice seep through the fifth door. He had his hand on the doorknob and was about to turn it when he heard other voices he could not identify. Listening carefully, he determined that these people, whoever they were, had managed to capture Kirilenko, something of a feat in its own right. However, it was Kirilenko alone who interested him.

THE MOMENT Kirilenko’s brain registered the text message he broke out into a cold sweat.

“I don’t fucking believe this,” he said. “There’s no way, no way at all.” He looked up at Jack. “This is a trick.”

“How could it be a trick?” Jack asked in a pleasant, almost friendly voice.

Kirilenko indicated Alli with his chin. “The girl. She must have done something when she had the phone, manufactured that message.”

“Don’t be idiotic.” Jack shook his head. “How could she—or any of us, for that matter—know about Mondan Limonev, who he was, or that he was a member of your team at the dacha?”

Kirilenko stared at Alli as if he was seeing her for the first time. Then his eyes went out of focus as the bleakness of his current situation began to sink in. At length he nodded. “Fuck it,” he said to Jack, “what d’you want to know?”

“What can you tell me about Trinadtsat?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Are you a member of Thirteen?”

Kirilenko reared back as much as his bonds would let him. “I don’t know a thing about it. I keep my head down and my nose clean. I’m a detective, not an apparatchik. I’m a field man, small potatoes.”

Unsure whether the Russian was telling the truth, Jack tried another tack. “I could understand why the Izmaylovskaya might be after Annika, but what were you and your people doing lying in wait for us at Rochev’s dacha?”

“ My people. You mean your people.” Kirilenko nodded. “That’s right, Americans. The Americans are after Annika Dementieva.”

“You’re full of shit,” Jack said. “What Americans?”

“I’m dying for a cigarette,” Kirilenko said. “There’s a pack—”

“I know where the pack is,” Alli said, fishing it out of his pocket.

Jack put a cigarette between Kirilenko’s lips and Annika lit it with her lighter.

Kirilenko took a deep drag and slowly let out the smoke. “Harry Martin, you know him?”

“Harry Martin sounds like a made-up name.”

Kirilenko nodded. “That would be my guess. In any event, the man—whatever his real name is—is no fiction. He’s a spook, of that you can be sure. I was assigned to be his support.”

“Why? What’s he here for?”

“I don’t actually know because he didn’t tell me. I took him to Rochev’s dacha because that’s where he wanted to go. You know the rest.”

“Pretend I don’t know a thing,” Jack said. “What else do you know about Harry Martin?”

“Only bits and pieces, what I picked up overhearing parts of his cell phone conversations, presumably with his handler.” Kirilenko took another drag deep into his lungs. When he spoke again the smoke drifted out of his mouth and nostrils as if he were a dragon. “I overheard a word—Aura. I have no idea what it means, but I’m fairly certain that whatever else he’s after he needs to talk with that one.” He indicated Annika with a lift of his chin.

Jack turned briefly to Annika but she shook her head. “I never heard of Aura.”

Jack returned his attention to Kirilenko. “If you were assigned to Harry Martin, where is he?”

“I ditched him after I saw that photo and identified Annika Dementieva.” The acrid smoke drifting upward caused his left eye to half close. “I’m tired of being pushed around by everyone, my superiors included.”

“Is that why they want you dead?”

Kirilenko blew out smoke and shuddered. “I have no fucking idea why a sanction was put out on me, nor who authorized it. Like I said, I’ve kept my head down and my nose clean.”

“Not clean enough, apparently; you’ve picked up some serious shit on the way to the office,” Annika said dryly.

“Maybe it’s because you ditched Harry Martin,” Jack said.

“Everything went into the shitter when I was assigned to him,” Kirilenko said morosely.

“Who did you get the assignment from?” Jack said. “Who do you report to?”

“It wasn’t him, or at least it didn’t begin with him, though my boss is the division head. When he called me into his office he said he’d been given the directive. He didn’t seem happy about it.”

“Who?” Annika said. “Who would give him his marching orders?”

Kirilenko shrugged, then winced at the pain the gesture caused him. “You know the FSB, it’s a fucking mare’s nest of bureaucracy above division level. There are so many competing siloviks vying for power it’s difficult to know where anyone stands.”

Annika took out her cell phone. “What’s the name of your boss?” When Kirilenko told her, she punched a number on her speed dial and began to speak into the phone.

“I think we should untie him,” Alli said.

_____

RETRACING HIS steps down the hall Limonev hurried though the Arrivals hall and out the glass doors. He ignored the taxi lineup, and went swiftly around to the side of the building. From the layout of the Arrivals hall, he determined the window that led to the room where Kirilenko was being held. Looking for the most likely escape route, his gaze passed over the westernmost runway, the drop-off and subsequent field that led up to the parking lot. It was to the lot he went, stationing himself on the top of a car that overlooked the route. Then, using the replacement cell phone the SBU had given him, he called airport security and reported a disturbance in one of the airport facilities offices. Immediately following, he opened the case he’d been carrying and assembled the Dragunov, slamming home the ten-round magazine. Then, stretched out on his small but perfect patch of high ground, he put his right eye to the 4X PSO-1 telescope sight and waited for events to unfold.

JACK, LISTENING to what Annika was saying, at first missed her comment. People spoke to other people in varying ways. His brain was a repository of those different intonations. That was how he knew Annika was talking to Dyadya Gourdjiev, asking him about Kirilenko’s boss.

Alli was already behind the chair to which Kirilenko was bound by the time he’d diverted his attention back to her.

“What are you doing?”

“Untying him,” she said. “I think that’s what we should do.”

“You’re the one who spat in his face.”

“I didn’t like what he said to me, that doesn’t mean I hate his guts.”

Annika folded away her cell. “I’ll know who assigned you to the American spy in a couple of hours,” she promised. Then, seeing Alli unwinding the electrical flex from Kirilenko’s crossed wrists, said, “That’s a mistake we’ll all regret.”

“I don’t think so,” Kirilenko said.

“There’s a surprise!” Annika still held his pistol in her hand, though it was no longer pointed at him.

“Listen, in light of everything that’s happened here I have a proposal to make.”

Annika snorted. “This from a supposedly incorruptible FSB homicide investigator?”

“Let’s hear what he has to say.” Alli threw the unwound flex into a corner.

Jack was about to answer her, but into his mind came the image of Alli bound to a chair, which was immediately supplanted by the memory of Annika explaining why Alli had wanted to go to Milla Tamirova’s apartment, or, as Annika put it, to her dungeon. Kirilenko sat in the chair into which up to a moment ago they’d bound him. Jack knew Alli couldn’t help but equate his position to hers, and who was to say she was wrong.

Kirilenko made no aggressive move, or even an attempt to rise from the chair. He did nothing but massage his wrists in order to return circulation to his terribly chapped hands.

Lifting his head, he addressed Annika frankly, “My proposal is this: You kill Mondan Limonev and I’ll take care of the American Harry Martin who’s been sent to find you.”

“Wait a minute,” Jack said, “I think I’ve seen this film.”

“Strangers on a Train, yes, I’m familiar with it.” Kirilenko stopped his massage to gratefully put another cigarette between his lips. He leaned forward as Annika lit it. “But I’m not joking.”

“Aren’t you the great detective who relentlessly runs down murderers?” Annika said with understandable skepticism.

“Yes, yes, of course you would say that. I would, too, in your position.” Kirilenko expelled smoke in a deep sigh. “In the last half hour it’s occurred to me that you and I have been cleverly set up. I may not know what’s going on, but I’m convinced that you didn’t kill Ilenya Makova.”

“We’ve been trying to find out who did,” Jack said. “The trail has led us here.”

“I believe that, as well.”

Annika was obviously still a skeptic. “What could possibly have changed your mind so quickly? You’re known as the great crusader against murder and rape; your convictions, your sense of right and wrong must be immutable.”

“It’s true I hate criminals and that my outrage at the taking of a life is absolute, but my hatred of mistakes trumps them all. This is why in my twenty-two years as a manhunter I’ve never brought down the wrong perpetrator. When it comes to my employers I may be deaf and dumb, but I’m not blind. I’m aware that a percentage of their activities is criminal. Head down, nose clean, that’s what’s needed to survive in their system.” He peeled a bit of tobacco off his lip, eyed it for a moment before flicking it away. “But I suppose that’s true of any system, the larger the system the greater the need to ignore the illegalities going on around you, the more vital it is to keep your mouth shut.”

“Illegalities!” He’d clearly hit a nerve, and Annika was outraged.

“Look, I’m not in the directorate that spends its days and nights trumping up charges against the officers of legitimate companies and the oligarch owners on Yukin’s and Batchuk’s orders. I’m not throwing innocent people in prison to rot for the rest of their lives. I’m not terrorizing their wives and mistresses, I’m not putting my gun to the back of their heads and pulling the trigger.”

“But you won’t do anything to stop it.”

“My God, be realistic, what could I do?”

“Then explain to me why they do it.”

“Like everyone else you want answers, you want to know why people do evil things. But evil can’t be parsed, because, in fact, it’s too simple, too stupid. And, anyway, why would you want to understand it, why the desire to dissect it? Don’t you understand that devoting your energies to the subject gives it a power, a rationale, a legitimacy it doesn’t warrant?” He smoked for some time, seemingly deep in thought, then he looked up. “As for me, self-interest is the best rationalizer, isn’t it, and, let’s face it, these days you can’t live your life without employing some form of rationalization.” He looked at them all in turn. “So the long and the short of it is I’m different from my coworkers because I’ve learned to adapt when I discover that I’ve been wrong. Considering the sewer in which I work, I couldn’t live with myself otherwise.”

Now, having explained himself, he looked at Annika. “My proposal?”

Jack said to her, “You’re not seriously considering—”

“The idea has a logic,” Annika said. “A symmetry I find immensely appealing.”

“Annika, really—”

“Can you think of another way we’re going to stay alive long enough to find out who killed Rochev?”

“Wait.” Now Kirilenko stood, but there was nothing threatening in his body language. “Karl Rochev is dead?”

Jack explained how they had been led to Magnussen’s estate by the odd murder weapon, how they had found Rochev, who bore the clear signs of torture before he’d been killed by the two sister sulitsa.

Kirilenko was about to reply when they heard a sharp scraping from the corridor. Then the door opened inward.

HARRY MARTIN arrived at Simferopol North Airport one pissed-off human being. During the flight from Kiev he’d done nothing but seethe inwardly, feeding a rage that felt overwhelming by the time he emerged in the Arrivals hall. All he could think of was putting a bullet into the back of Kirilenko’s head. It had been Kirilenko who had misdirected him, ditched him, humiliated him with General Brandt. Now he understood why Kirilenko had so easily agreed to separate when he himself had suggested it, thinking that by heading back to Kiev while sending the Russian off on a wild-goose chase he’d be able to find Annika Dementieva on his own.

He scrutinized the passengers milling around the Arrivals hall as he would examine his past, looking for the one person on which his laserlike attention was currently fixated, so he could expunge the memory of what had happened.

So many things in Martin’s past needed extermination or exorcism, depending on whether your bent was practical or metaphysical; he’d concluded long ago that it all amounted to the same thing. The past was a vast swamp, reeking of mistakes, betrayals, lies, and delusions. If he’d had any say in it he’d obliterate his past and everyone in it. Wouldn’t that be sweet, he thought as his eyes swept the concourse, searching for Kirilenko.

Perhaps they’d both disappeared—Kirilenko and Annika Dementieva—and he’d never be able to find either of them. Then he could walk away and never come back. But he doubted that would happen because he knew all there was to know about disappearing. Harry Martin was a legend—in spook terminology, a fiction, like a short story or a novella. And what an exacting effort it took to maintain him! Creating him had been a snap, a conjuror’s trick backed up by documents the Legends Department had manufactured like the air in a plane or a refrigerator, canned, artificial, recirculated, hermetically sealed. He was a ghost built up like a Frankenstein’s monster from the pasts of people long dead. That’s where the legends wonks got their ideas, God knows they had none of their own. But with every lie he told Harry Martin became more difficult to sustain. The short story became a novella with a crisscrossing of fabrications that took immense care to keep from contradicting each other.

By this time he had circumnavigated the Arrivals hall, cataloguing each person, but without seeing Kirilenko. He took another visual sweep of the hall. As he glanced down the corridor leading to Airport Services he saw a security guard stepping across the threshold of a doorway on the left perhaps two-thirds of the way down the corridor. Something in the man’s expression—surprise, shock, even—warned Martin even before the man collapsed. As he was dragged inside, Martin was sprinting down the corridor. He pulled his ceramic pistol from its hard leather holster at the small of his back, thumbing the safety off. He reached the door just as it was being shut. Throwing the bulk of his leading shoulder between the door and its frame he kicked the door backward, so that it slammed wide open.

He just had time to register Kirilenko’s presence, other people on the periphery of his vision, when he fired blindly. He was fixated on Kirilenko, who had thrown himself behind a table. He aimed and was in the process of pulling the trigger when he heard a deafening noise.

Blown violently backward by the bullet that entered his skull, Harry Martin was dead before he hit the floor.