Last to Fold

CHAPTER 11

Six fifteen A.M., eighty-five degrees, the air heavy enough to hold in my hands. I wake up at six, no matter what—a habit I’ve never been able to break. I live on South Street in what was once a warehouse serving the seaport two blocks north. The seaport is now a tourist attraction, and the warehouse had long fallen into disuse when enterprising artists converted its big, open floors into studios and residences. Initially they were illegal, but as with hundreds of loft buildings in New York, that eventually got sorted out, thanks to a lot of hard work, some legal wrangling, and a few envelopes filled with cash. In 1996, I moved in two years after it became kosher. In recent years, my neighbors who’ve been there since the beginning have started to acknowledge me.

I own half the sixth floor in the back, away from the noise of the elevated FDR Drive, which passes outside our door. My windows face south and west into the canyons of Wall Street. I’ve kept the space mostly open—living area, bedroom, guest room, and baths in twenty-two hundred square feet—a reaction to the cramped quarters of my childhood. It’s still more a commercial neighborhood than a residential one, but that doesn’t bother me. I like the solitude, especially at night. Another reaction.

I stretched outside the building in my running clothes and an old painter’s hat. I took off to the south, picking up speed for the first half mile before settling into my normal gait, thinking about Polina, Ratko Rislyakov, and whether Marko and company had figured a way out of Jersey City.

I did one of my five-mile loops, this one down through Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan and up the west side along the Hudson to Greenwich Village, where I turned east through the quiet cobbled streets all the way across the island before heading south again and home. I try to run at least five days a week, regardless of weather, although days like this make me question my resolve if not my sanity. On alternate mornings I take a shorter route and stop at the gym to work the weights.

I arrived back in the neighborhood hot, soaked, and possibly enlightened—I had an idea where I’d seen Rislyakov’s name. I used to cool off strolling the Fulton Fish Market down the street, taking in the seafood and the characters who worked there, but the market’s moved up to the Bronx, and only a lingering fishy smell remains. They’ll have to tear up the asphalt to get rid of that. Today, I just walked around the block a couple of times and bought a bagel at the deli. I met Tina in the lobby, filling out her top beautifully, as she always did.

“Off to work,” she chirped. Too bad. Well, it was a lousy day for sunbathing.

I showered quickly, poured some coffee, and logged on to Ibansk.com. I paused to read Ivanov’s latest post. It started with his signature rant about how the Cheka, “the state within a state,” had taken over the state itself, along with everything else, as Vladimir Putin and Iakov Barsukov “dispatched Cheka operatives throughout the government, industrial, and criminal structures of Ibansk with the mission of throttling democracy, corrupting free enterprise, and coddling crooks. Most important, wrapping Cheka hands tight around any strings worth pulling.”

Ivanov’s keyboard spews acid—he makes no attempt to be balanced. That’s one reason he’s as popular as he is. Power run amok—especially Cheka power—is unmitigated evil, in his single-minded opinion, and the only defense left is holding it up to the bright light of the blog. I don’t always agree, but it’s hard to argue with his basic premise. The fact is, the Cheka does pull about every string worth pulling in Russia these days, and has since the fall of the Yeltsin government. One of these strings is the regular media, all but entirely state controlled. Ivanov and a few others are lone voices trying to tell what they see as the truth in a thoroughly hostile environment. Truth, even imperfect truth, gave Ivanov a voice of authority. In a land where the official voice lied with impunity—confident that no one would notice or care—Ivanov shouted, “Pay attention!” as loud and long as he could. He screamed the truth as he saw it, just as Zinoviev, his Soviet-era predecessor, had done.

Where Ivanov and I part company is the subject of Iakov Barsukov. To Ivanov, he’s the personification of Cheka malfeasance, Putin’s chief henchman in the inexorable extension of Cheka control. He may not be totally wrong about that—but to me, Iakov’s the man who plucked me from the living hell of my adolescence, recognized a talent, and gave me a chance for a career and a real life. Without him, I doubt I’d have made twenty. Even with everything that happened later—to me, to him, to our families, to our friendship—it’s hard to turn against a man like that.

Ivanov had news.

I scrolled back through Ivanov’s blog, looking for an old post. I stopped here and there to skim diatribes on the Cheka and the Barsukovs, making sure they added nothing to my current knowledge. Ibansk.com was a way to check in on a world I’d left behind and planned to continue to leave behind. Now, thanks in part to Ivanov himself, that world had jumped years of time, a continent, and an ocean to land here, today. Polina, Lachko, even the Cheka, all seemed to be chasing me down. How long before Ivanov started calling the race? After last night, on another sweaty New York morning, the world I was living in was feeling more and more like Fucktown.

I kept scrolling and found what I was looking for, back in early May.

I remembered that scheme. It had been the first really big heist of identity information—the one that put large-scale ID theft on the map. At least forty million accounts, maybe as many as a hundred million, as Ivanov claimed. Front-page news at the time. Front-page news again a few years later when one of the hackers heisted another hundred million credit card numbers, demonstrating the old fool-me-once/fool-me-twice adage was as apt as ever. Foos was bemused by the brazenness—the hackers literally reeled in their prey with a laptop and some wireless equipment readily purchasable on the Internet, sitting in a car in a strip mall parking lot. He was more appalled by the near total lack of security on the part of major retailing chains. Most of all, he wondered what the thieves planned to do with all those names and numbers.

It appeared Rad Rislyakov—Ratko Risly—was a big-time player, which didn’t mesh on any of a number of levels with the lowlifes supposedly working for him, and certainly not with the three Ukrainians I’d met last night in Jersey City.

Ivanov had more to add.

Could there be two Rad Rislyakovs? Unlikely. The photo in my pocket of Eva Mulholland—an “auburn-haired, blue-eyed beauty” if there ever was one—made it more so. But if Ratko was such a big-shot, globe-trotting, jet-setting, high-tech crook, why was he pretending to screw around with penny-ante kidnapping?

One more manifestation of Fucktown?

One way to find out—ask.

It was still early, but Chelsea bustles at all hours, especially along Sixth Avenue, where the big discount emporia have reclaimed the elegant limestone buildings constructed originally as department stores for the carriage trade. Times change. In New York, commerce adapts and carries on. Yet Mother Nature can work her will, even in the concrete jungle, and this morning, the heat sucked life from the street. A cab dropped me outside Rislyakov’s luxury loft conversion. (New York is still waiting for its first nonluxury conversion.)

The lobby was all blond wood and stainless steel. A uniformed doorman, Hispanic, early thirties, sat behind a circular counter. I told him who I was there to see.

He shook his head. “Not home.”

“When was the last time he was home?”

“Can’t say. We’re not allowed—”

I slid a Department of Homeland Security ID card across the blond wood. A forgery, a good one, a gift from a Russian FSB officer for whom I did a favor. The man looked down at the card and up at me.

“You’ll be helping your country. Rislyakov runs with a suspicious crowd, Middle East connections, if you know what I mean.”

“I had no idea. He’s… He’s always been polite to me.”

“Of course he has. No way you could know. When did you last see him?”

The man thought for a moment. “Couple months, now that I think about it. He didn’t say anything about going away. But that’s not unusual.”

“Anyone else asking for him?”

He hesitated. I tapped the card on the counter. “Couple of guys—foreign guys, Russian maybe, I’m not sure. Big men, thick accents. They come by every few days. Gave me… They wanted me to call them when Mr. Rislyakov returns. I wouldn’t, of course.”

“Of course. You have the key to the apartment?”

“I can’t—”

“You heard of the Patriot Act?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Gives us the power to prosecute people who prevent us from stopping a terrorist incident before it occurs.”

“Hey! I never—”

“Of course you didn’t. Key?”

He opened a drawer and handed across a ring. “You want 7B. Left off the elevator.”

“Thanks.” I put a fifty on the counter.

“That’s not necessary, sir. I didn’t realize… I’m glad to help.”

“Don’t worry. The Patriot Act created a special fund for situations like this. Consider it a thank-you from a grateful government.”

I headed for the elevator before he could think too much. One reason I chose to live in America is that I agree with Churchill. Democracy is the worst form of government yet invented—except for all the others that have been tried. Proof point—the Patriot Act is exactly the kind of law that could’ve been enacted by the Communist Party Central Committee. I assuaged the mild guilt I felt over the Homeland Security ruse with the argument that it was a lot less harmful than the fear I’d instilled in Jersey City last night.

The elevator opened onto a small hallway with five doors. I rang the bell for 7B and waited. Nothing. I rang again. No sound from within. I unlocked the door and entered.

The air was hot, still, and stale. No one had been here in weeks, if not months, as the doorman said. A large, open, modern space that resembled the lobby in its use of wood and steel. A lot of Sheetrock painted white, big windows out to Sixth Avenue. Double glass muffled the noise from the street.

The space was neat and clean. No clutter. I spent a short hour going through it. At the end, I had a portrait of a young man with expensive taste in design, clothes, furniture, toiletries, and sex toys, but not much else. A lot of things were missing—a computer, for one, for a reputed geek, but maybe he had a laptop he took with him. Also photographs, mementos, notes, files—all the things that accumulate in life, even a young one. Remove the clothes and toiletries and it was as if no one lived here; the apartment could have been a sale model. Nothing here for me. On the way out, I noted a stack of books next to an easy chair. Ross Macdonald and Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt on top. At least Ratko had good taste in writers.

I went back to the lobby and gave the keys to the doorman. His eyes traveled to two large men sitting on black leather chairs. They were as broad and coarse as the decor was sleek and trendy. Pasty faces, cheap suits, unfriendly eyes. One of them stood and came toward me.

“Dobrya utro,” I said. “Good morning.”

“Yeb vas,” he replied. “Fuck off.”

“Thought so.”

“Thought what, asshole?”

“Urki muscle. You work for Lachko?”

“Don’t fuck with us.”

“Fine. See ya.”

As I turned I started a count in my head. I got to eight.

“Wait.” He wasn’t quick, but the dimwit’s brain was starting to function. “What do you want here?”

“See Ratko.”

“What for?”

“Friend of friend.”

“He ain’t here.”

“So I’m told. But if he’s not, why are you?”

“Fuck off.”

The brain had apparently maxed out. He went back to his seat and took out a pack of cigarettes before remembering he couldn’t light up inside. He put them back in his pocket with a curse. These weren’t the Badger’s best men. One more try wouldn’t do any harm.

“Hey, I’ve been trying to call Ratko, but nobody answers. When’s the last time anyone saw him?”

“Fuck off.”

That seemed to be the extent of his conversational repertoire. They would certainly report my presence. Question was, did I want to make it easy for Lachko to know I was interested.

Couldn’t hurt.

Bullshit.

It could hurt in the extreme.

That didn’t stop me from saying, “Tell Lachko, Turbo sends his regards.”

Neither man looked up as I walked out the door.

Five phone messages from Bernie at the office, two from last night and three this morning. One from Gayeff, curt but informative.

“Guys left at six. One went out to a shelter, came back with clothes. The two we followed went straight to SoHo, 32 Greene. Couldn’t see the buzzer, but there was no one home. Followed them to Manhattan Beach. Same addresses you had. One more thing. Somebody followed us following them. Blue Chevy Impala. Probably a rental. New York plates but couldn’t get the number without getting spotted. Car stayed at Greene Street when we went back to Brooklyn.”

Who the hell could that have been? And where did they pick us up? The hotel? Montgomery Street? Maybe Marko and his friends were sharper than I thought. But I still had the money. I checked the safe, just to make sure.

I gave Foos and Pig Pen a rundown on the night’s activities. The parrot gets obstreperous if he’s left out of the loop.

“Wait a minute,” Foos said. “You telling me this guy Risly pulled off the T.J. Maxx job?”

“That’s right.”

“Shrewd dude. That was one ballsy hack.”

“See what the Basilisk can find on him. He goes by Risly and Rislyakov. His apartment is 663 Sixth. SoHo address is 32 Greene.”

“Sure.”

I had gotten some coffee and a traffic update from Pig Pen when Foos’s baritone rumbled through the office like close-by thunder. The last bites of a bacon-egg-cheese-grease-on-a-roll concoction sat on tinfoil on his desk. My doctor is constantly on my case about blood pressure and cholesterol. He has me on statins, and I watch what I eat. I tried to compare notes once with Foos, but he just grinned and said he had no issues. I think he was swallowing a cheeseburger at the time. Like the Ralph Lauren girlfriends—life just isn’t fair.

“No Rislys or Rislyakovs at 32 Greene. But there is a Goncharov. Number 6A.”

“Goncharov?”

“Alexander.” He banged on the keyboard.

“Ratko has a sense of humor. The Russian poet Pushkin’s first name was Alexander, and his wife’s name was Goncharova.”

“Hilarious. The Rislyakov side of his personality has a gambling problem. Accounts at four online casinos. Down about eight hundred grand, all told.”

“You don’t say?”

“I also say he’s three months behind on the rent in Chelsea. Eighty-five hundred a month. Sold the car in May—Audi TT—for eighteen grand. Stiffed the garage for two months before that. Prepaid Con Ed and Time Warner. Eight hundred and change. That covers Internet and phone.”

“Huh. Sounds like he was getting ready to run.”

“Yep. Goncharov’s up to date on the financial basics of life, but he’s accumulating credit cards and bank accounts. Eight Visas, five MasterCards, five Amex. Only just started using them, though. Been running up a Visa bill in Moscow the last eight days—six grand and change. Hotel, restaurants, a few shops. Huh, he used a Rislyakov Visa. Can you tell what this is?”

I leaned over his shoulder. “Looks like an undertaker.”

“We all gotta go sometime. Let’s see. He’s got bank accounts at Chase, Citi, B of A, and some locals. Twenty-two in all. Nothing much in them. Few hundred each. I’d say he’s getting ready to leave Rislyakov and his debts hanging, and switch to the Goncharov identity. Maybe he was arranging for Rislyakov’s funeral.”

“Funny. Phone calls?”

“Patience. On to those next.”

“Think I’ll pay a visit to Greene Street. Order another breakfast delight. On me.”

I went next door and called Bernie.

“I’ve got Mulholland’s money. And a possible line on the so-called kidnapper. Unless I miss my guess, he’s sleeping with Eva. Although he might be gay—or AC/DC.”

“Turbo! It’s already been a long day. Make sense. What happened last night?”

“The less you know, in your current capacity of practicing attorney, the better.”

“Just give me the basics.” Bernie’s twenty-five years in the CIA were spent mostly behind a desk. Sometimes he can’t contain his curiosity.

“Three Ukrainians, small-time hoods. I used some contract muscle. We shot one of them so they’d know we were serious, then faked killing another so his pals would talk. Oh, and we threatened to hunt down their families, kill them or worse. The last time I saw the Ukrainians, they were naked in bed together in a Jersey City rent-a-flop.”

“Okay, you made your point.”

“The Ukrainians are working for a guy named Rislyakov. He works for Barsukov.”

“That’s not good.”

“Yeah, but Rislyakov’s not where he’s supposed to be. Lachko’s got men out looking for him.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“Rislyakov’s a geek playboy. Geek as in Gates, not Onassis. He probably has a gambling problem, and rumor is, he’s dropped from sight. Before he dropped he was seen a lot with an auburn-haired, blue-eyed beauty on his arm. Sound familiar?”

“I really don’t need this.”

“She’s still priority one, right?”

“Right.”

“I’ve got an idea where Rislyakov and Eva might be. I’ll be by later with the dough. Mulholland sprung?”

“Arraignment’s in an hour.”

“Good luck.”

Pig Pen was watching as I headed for the door.

“Au revoir, parrot.”

“Adios, cheapskate.”

The Basilisk was humming as I passed through its core.

CHAPTER 12

Lower Greene Street was quiet in the late-morning haze. The bazaars of Canal Street bustled at the far end of the block, but only a few cars and fewer pedestrians passed 32 Greene. A gray eight-story loft building with a cast-iron facade that needed paint. The hand-lettered sign by the buzzer for 6A read GONCHAROV. I pushed the button, waited, pushed again, waited and pushed again. I pushed the other buzzers to see if I could at least get into the building. That didn’t work either.

I crossed the street and looked up. The windows on the sixth floor needed washing even more than the facade needed paint. I took out my cell phone and found the number I wanted.

“Gina,” the clipped voice answered immediately.

“I know that. I called you.”

“Turbo!”

“Want a job?”

“Does it involve running around sweating buckets in this fucking heat?”

“Involves watching a building. From the street. No shade.”

“And the hottest friggin’ day of the year.”

“You want the job or not?”

“Yeah. I need the bread. But I’m only good till six. I’ve got a job at the library for the summer. It’s air-conditioned.”

“That’s fine. I’ll spell you then. Thirty-two Greene. We’re interested in 6A. I just want to know who comes and goes. I’ll wait across the street.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen, twenty tops.”

I often use college students for simple research or observation jobs. They’re good at blending into the background. I know because I was trained to be, and I recognize the talent. Gina’s a junior at NYU and one of the best—smart, quick, intuitive, tenacious. All attitude with a mouth attached, but she doesn’t have the two annoying habits that afflict three-quarters of America’s youth: ending every sentence as a question (I’m told that’s called “uptalk”) and injecting the word “like” into every third phrase she speaks, the San Fernando Valley’s most pronounced contribution to the culture. Fascism isn’t good for much, but a dictatorial approach to language has its merits. One of the few things the French and I agree on.

I leaned against the brick, but it was too hot. As I straightened, a Town Car parked down the block. A man got out and came in my direction. Same breed as the thugs at Ratko’s apartment building. My message had traveled fast. Did he know about Goncharov’s studio, or had he followed me?

He opened his coat to show the automatic in his waistband. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’re already late. Fucking traffic.”

“No good. Tell Lachko—”

“Get in the fucking car. Now!”

He had the gun halfway out when I said, “Okay. Quick call first.” Who knew how many men Lachko had here. I wanted to warn off Gina.

“No calls. In the car.”

He climbed into the Lincoln after me. Another side of Russian beef was behind the wheel. He smelled of sweat and tobacco in equal measure.

“Move,” the man said. The car took off, rattling as it accelerated on the cobblestones. I didn’t ask where we were going. At the corner, the driver turned east across the bricks of Grand Street toward Brighton Beach.

Don’t buy the house, buy the neighborhood—another Russian proverb. Exactly what Lachko Barsukov did.

Lachko owned a full square block in Brighton Beach. On two sides, he left the existing houses. The other two blocks he demolished and constructed a replica of the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, an enormous baroque-neoclassical pile of pink stone, gilded columns, and marble statuary that must have a hundred rooms. The original stands on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s main drag, a bigger-than-life billboard advertising excessive opulence and reminding us why the tsars had to go. The Badger’s reproduction was evidence that both the wealth and ostentation of the New Russians were on a scale with their predecessors’.

Two guards approached the car while it idled outside a massive iron gate. The driver put down the window, and one of them signaled someone somewhere. The gates swung open. The Lincoln pulled into a courtyard and parked to one side. It looked out of place next to a refurbished ZiL limousine, doubtless belonging once to a Politburo boss, a red Bentley, and a white stretch Hummer. Another two men approached as we got out of the car. One held a gun while the other patted me down. Then he pointed to a door across the courtyard.

Yet another man waited at the door and took me up a flight of marble stairs and down a long marble corridor to a reception room furnished entirely in Biedermeier. He knocked once on a paneled door, entered briefly, then stepped back. In I went. I wasn’t ready for the sight.

Lachko and I had once been close, as close as two men can be who don’t like each other. His father, Iakov, the man who had guided my early career in the Cheka, also welcomed me into his family. I loved him like the father I never knew and tried to love Lachko and his brother, Vasily, too, but affection doesn’t necessarily pass down generations. Iakov was the glue, and over time, Lachko and I moved apart, old planks separating with age and wear. Then events intervened, and whatever glue was left was burned—scorched would be more accurate. Ivanov said he was sick. Ivanov had a spy.

Lachko was about my size and build—or had been the last time I saw him. Disease had taken sixty or seventy pounds, and overfed muscles were now starved and atrophied. He was wearing a silk polo shirt, warm-up jacket, and track pants that probably cost more than one of Mulholland’s suits. They couldn’t disguise the devastation. His cheeks and lips, once plump and heavy, now pulled against the bone. Two enormous dark black eyebrows hung over what was left of the face, thunderclouds ready to erupt. The withdrawal of flesh made them all the more pronounced. The eyes beneath hadn’t changed—they were as cold and gray as ever. He had a plastic oxygen tube in his nostrils and a Belomorkanal smoking in his right hand.

The room was all white—walls, carpet, furniture, marble mantelpiece. The sole exceptions were a bright red lacquered desk and the pile of pillows on his white leather daybed—an array of red, green, and gold, too many to count. The effect was quite striking and very Russian, in its gaudy kind of way. We’ve never been known for subtlety.

“Greetings, Electrifikady Turbanevich, you shit-eating son of a whore fucked up the ass by her pederast father,” Lachko wheezed in Russian, smoke floating from his mouth. “I hope you don’t mind paying a visit to an old, sick friend.” He stopped to cough.

Russians excel at vocal vitriol. The language facilitates improbable, attention-grabbing slurs, and Lachko was well practiced at the verbal body slam. To respond was simply to invite more.

“Lachko, I am sorry. I heard about your illness. I hoped it wasn’t true.”

“Bullshit. You’d dance on my grave naked. These fucking doctors. They say I have cancer. They may be right. They say it can be treated, maybe. They may be right about that, too. They tell me to stop smoking. Fuck what they say. What can I offer you? Coffee, beer, vodka?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Vodka, Sergei,” Lachko said to a large, well-built man in a silk suit and wraparound mirrored sunglasses. “Two glasses. You will drink with me, Electrifikady Turbanevich. We have not had many opportunities recently, and who knows how many we have left.”

I thought he was referring to his disease, but the grim grin on his withered lips told me to think again.

Lachko picked up a couple of cashews from the crystal bowl on the table beside the bed and dropped them, one by one, into his mouth. He chewed slowly. He’d eaten the nuts for years—in a small way, they were part of the reason for our rift. He used to smuggle them by the bushel, intended for a store serving the nomenklatura, the privileged class, but diverted to the Barsukov private stock.

“How long has it been, Turbo? Twenty years, twenty-five?”

“That’s how you wanted it.”

“That is correct. I still do. I had hoped to finish my days without ever setting sight on your piss-ugly face. Do you like my home?”

“Magnificent,” I lied. “I recognized it immediately, of course.”

“Of course.” The withered lips turned ever so slightly upward beneath the pointed nose, as close as Lachko ever came to a real smile.

He did not offer me a seat, so I remained standing. I didn’t try to make small talk or fill in the years. If he was interested, he’d know what I’ve been up to.

Sergei returned with a chilled bottle and two glasses. He poured Lachko’s first, then mine. Lachko held his up.

“Za vashe zdorovye—to health, Electrifikady Turbanevich. Mine, that is. You can rot from your maggot-infested insides out for all I care.” He tossed back the drink. I skipped the return toast and took a sip. Lachko was watching my every move. The scrawny paw scooped up more nuts. He hacked twice, spat in a silver bucket on the floor and fired up another Belomorkanal.

Lachko chain-smoked a vicious brand of papirosa, an unfiltered Russian cigarette made by stuffing the cheapest possible tobacco into a cardboard tube. They were introduced in the 1930s to commemorate the completion of the Belomorsko-Baltiyskiy Kanal, the White Sea–Baltic Canal, which runs from St. Petersburg through a hundred and forty miles of rock to the White Sea. One of Stalin’s showpiece projects, built entirely by prison labor from the Gulag—170,000 laborers to be precise—using only handmade picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, and such. No machines. No explosives. No technology. Tens of thousands died of starvation, exposure, exhaustion, and illness. Of course, the cigarettes have killed many times more. The irony is, when it was completed, the canal was too shallow and too poorly constructed to be of much use. Still, it was completed, and therefore it needed to be commemorated.

“I’m told you’ve been asking after an associate of mine,” he said.

“If I’d known he worked for you, I would have come here first,” I lied again.

He appeared to consider that, weighing its truthfulness, deciding whether he cared. “What do you want with him?”

There was a question requiring a delicate answer. What did he know? It rarely paid to underestimate Lachko.

“He kidnapped a young woman. Or he and the young woman pretended she was kidnapped. I was hired to deal with the problem.”

“Kidnapping? Ratko? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Why would I make up such a stupid story?”

“Who’s the girl?”

“Not your concern.”

Mistake, I knew it as I said it. The fist came down on the table, and the crystal bowl jumped. Cashews spilled over the top. He still had strength.

“I decide what concerns me, Electrifikady Turbanevich. Look around you. Have no doubt, I alone decide. You concern me now, you and this bullshit kidnapping. Who hired you?”

I was treading on cracking ice around a gaping hole. “A rich American. I didn’t know it had anything to do with Ratko until his associates told me last night. He hires stupid people.”

“How much was he after?”

“Hundred grand.”

That came as a surprise. The storm-cloud eyebrows wobbled slightly. He reached for some more cashews.

“Who are these associates?”

“Three Ukrainians.”

“Names?”

“They don’t matter.”

Another mistake. The thunderclouds shook until he brought his anger under control. “You understand as well as I, it will be easier for everyone, including these stupid Ukrainians, if you tell me who they are. If I have to find out myself…”

Sergei grinned and flexed his fist. I did understand. This was the way the Cheka worked. Pressure, squeeze, exploit. The only modus he knew. Here he was a criminal, but he was a Chekist at heart, and I was on his turf. His rules ruled, and I wouldn’t do Marko and Company any favors by bucking them. I told him their names. The thunderclouds twitched and Sergei took out his cell phone. The Ukrainians would soon be receiving visitors.

“You’re not drinking, Turbo. How’s Aleksei?”

“Why?”

“You show such an interest in my affairs after all these years, I thought I should return the favor. Still working for those shit-sucking faggots at the CPS?”

Not sure where he was going, or whether he was just needling me, I stayed silent.

“He and some other pea-brained bunglers have been sniffing around Rislyakov, too. I was curious if there’s a connection. Perhaps you’re trying to help out.”

“I haven’t talked to my son in years, Lachko.”

“You blame me, of course.”

“I didn’t say that. How’s Iakov?”

He didn’t answer, just glowered.

“Ivanov says his bronchitis—”

“Ivanov. Hah!” He practically spat the words. “We should have shot that bastard Zinoviev when we had the chance. Filthy liar.”

This time he did spit.

“This new bastard’s no better, maybe worse. Ibansk-dot-com! Thinks he’s funny. He’s arrogant, they all are. He’ll make a mistake and the Cheka’s axe will chop his balls into farina. I hope I live to see it.”

He spat again and lighted another papirosa. The air-conditioning was working fine, but the room smelled like damp cardboard.

Sergei closed his cell phone as he returned to his boss’s side. Lachko nodded, and he went to the desk and brought me a thick manila envelope.

“Like your son, you’re sticking that ugly nose up a lot of assholes that aren’t yours,” Lachko said. “Open it. It’s what you’ve been looking for.”

I undid the clasp and looked inside, but I already knew what I’d find. Lachko wheezed again, or maybe it was a laugh. “You thought you were so smart, you and your little faggot helper, snooping. You thought you could fool the Cheka. Hah! Sasha’s in a cell, Turbo, and it’s your fault. There’ll be an interrogation, and he’ll confess. They always do, as you know. What happens next is up to you.”

I lunged toward Lachko. Strong arms wrapped around me from behind. I could feel Sergei’s breath on my neck. I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe.

“Sasha didn’t do…” Sergei squeezed. I couldn’t finish.

“What? Sasha didn’t what?” Lachko said, smiling. He was enjoying himself.

Sergei loosed his grip—a little. “He didn’t do anything. You know that. He was helping me with information about my family.”

“Selling state secrets, Turbo. That’s twenty years.”

“State secrets? My mother’s—”

“Gulag secrets are Cheka secrets, Turbo. You, of all people, should know that. You’re not the only one, by the way, he was assisting. He had a long list of clients, I’m told. Maybe enough to hang for.”

Sergei tightened his hold. My chest ached.

“What do you want with Rislyakov?” Lachko said.

“Kid… nap. I told you the truth.”

“You haven’t become any more cooperative with age, Electrifikady Turbanevich.”

“Tell Sergei he can let go,” I managed to hiss. “I’ll stay right here. I’d like some vodka.”

Lachko nodded, and the arms released me. He pulled himself upright on the daybed.

“Do you know why you’re still alive, Turbo?”

There was no good answer to that.

“What my father saw in you, I’ll never fucking understand. Once a shitty little zek, always a shitty zek. You had no place in the Cheka, you have no place in the world. No one wants to know you, not when they discover that’s what you really are. Polina fucked half the officers at Yasenevo when she found out. She even fucked me. You didn’t have the balls to tell her yourself.”

I threw my glass, but missed, before Sergei’s arms clamped on again. Shame and hatred filled my veins—shame for myself, hatred for him, more hatred for myself and where I came from. I pulled against Sergei, but he held on. The rage passed, but the humiliation remained, as it always does, razor wire wrapped tight around the soul. For the millionth time, I told myself to ignore it, it meant nothing. For the millionth time, I had no chance.

Lachko didn’t budge, the cold gray eyes staring at me, filled with loathing, waiting. “You haven’t had the balls to tell your own son either, have you, zek coward?” he said.

The rage came roaring back. I couldn’t have responded if I wanted to.

“Maybe I’ll take care of that, too. If I don’t have him killed first. Like you, he’s getting too close to things that don’t concern him.”

I lunged again—or tried. Sergei squeezed. My ribs felt like they were cracking.

Lachko said, “I will happily drink vodka while I rip your dead eyes from their sockets with the strength I have left. Here’s a deal, your lifeline, more than you deserve. Stay away from Rislyakov. And tell that mouse-eyed son of yours to do the same. That goes for the other leprous whores at CPS, too. He’s none of their fucking business. He’s no longer any of yours.”

“I just told you—we haven’t spoken since Aleksei was two.” My voice came out as a wheeze almost as weak as his.

“BULLSHIT!” The fist landed on the table again, and the cashews danced across the glass. “Russian sons obey their fathers, even when the fathers are pathetic, pointless piss-colored zeks. If either of you try to do something stupid, it will be the last mistake both of you make. And your faggot friend might just rot in his cell forever. Now get out.”

Sergei shoved me back down the long hall. He didn’t need to push—I went willingly.

I spent the first half of the ride back to Manhattan thinking about how easily Lachko could inflict pain and self-loathing, not just with his threats toward Sasha and Aleksei, but with his bigoted reminders of my background. He struck every chance he got. The fact that he’d been committing crimes against the state, the Party, and the Cheka, to which we’d all sworn oaths, was irrelevant. I’d undermined his rise to the top, and he was going to spend the rest of his life getting even. Polina was one way. Another was my past. Once I let him see how much he could hurt, he attacked with relish.

Millions of Russians are just like me. The fact that we’re all victims of a calculated, state-sanctioned system of betrayal does nothing to relieve our shame and disgust. We can’t even feel any kinship with our fellow zeks. None of us wants to recognize a fellow traveler—if we do, we admit our complicity in the horrors of our Gulag pasts. The complicit victim. The Soviets’ greatest irony. Stalin’s enduring legacy.

I spent two decades running from my childhood inside the very organization that did so much to shape it. I’ve spent another trying to find freedom in a foreign land where we’re all told, repeatedly, we can be anything we want to be. Even so, like anyone, I’m a prisoner of the past, as surely as I was born an inmate of the Gulag. I’ve yet to find freedom from either.

Bemoaning fate was getting me nowhere, as usual, so I spent the rest of the ride making a mental list of things out of whack—right here, right now, today. Polina/Felix hiding out on Fifth Avenue. Ratko Risly kidnapping Eva Mulholland. Eva’s cooperation. Barsukov’s fear about Ratko. Sasha, a low-level FSB archivist, whose only crime was helping people like me find out what happened to their families, locked in a cell, serving as leverage for something Lachko knew I couldn’t deliver. As we came out of the tunnel, I thought about my options. The only one that made any sense was going back to Greene Street.

CHAPTER 13

Sergei left me outside the office at 6:30. He hadn’t said a word. I walked around to the sidewalk. His window slid down. He dropped the manila envelope on the pavement.

“Boss said you forgot this. He also said, ‘Oo ti bya, galava, kak, oon a bizyanie jopuh—your face looks like a monkey’s ass.’”

The window rose as he sped away. I took the envelope upstairs. Foos was nowhere to be seen. Pig Pen was sleeping. I dialed Gina’s number.

“Sorry I stood you up.”

“What happened to you? I waited as long as I could, but I had to split at six twenty. I was late as it was.”

“Thanks. Not your fault. You see anyone?”

“Guy, girl, and an older guy.”

“Together?”

“No. Guy came first, at four fifteen. Girl at ten to six, and the older guy just before I left, six ten.”

“Describe them.”

“Girl’s tall and thin, about five-nine. Probably eighteen, nineteen years old. Reddish-brown hair, real blue eyes. Great skin, you see that, even across the street. Hot figure, could be a model.”

I’d seen a picture of someone who looked like that, tied up with a gun to her head. Eva Mulholland.

“She looked kind of nervous,” Gina said.

“Strung out?”

“Maybe. More furtive, jumpy. Like she’s afraid someone’s gonna take something away from her.”

“The guy?”

“Medium height. Medium build. Brown hair, expensive cut. Good-looking, slightly pudgy, big nose. Dressed in black. Had a suitcase, one of those rollers, and a messenger bag.”

“Look like Dustin Hoffman?”

“Yeah, when he was younger.”

“The older guy?”

“Seventy, maybe seventy-five. White hair, tall, maybe six-four. Thin as can be. Wearing a suit—you don’t see many of those in SoHo. Looked like he was checking numbers as he came down the block. He rang the bell and got buzzed in. Girl, too. First guy had keys.”

That description sounded all too familiar. I would have dismissed it as coincidence, even though my Cheka training didn’t believe in coincidence, except that I’d just spent an unpleasant hour with his son. This was turning into a family reunion.

“You want me to go back when I get off here?” Gina said.

“Send me a bill and forget you were ever there.”

“You’re the boss.”

I went downstairs, hailed a cab, and told the driver Franklin and Broadway, where there’s a building with an entrance on each street. I watched out the back window the entire ride but saw nothing. I got out on Franklin, went inside, came out on Broadway, walked a block south, then east to City Hall subway station, stopping along the way to look in shop windows, tie my shoe, buy the Post at a newsstand. Nobody appeared to be following me. At City Hall, I caught a crowded uptown train to Fourteenth Street, where I waited until the doors started to close to step out. Up and down the platform, nobody followed. I crossed over to the downtown side and repeated the trick back at City Hall. I returned to the street and hailed a cab. This time I said Greene and Grand. I was sure I was clean of tails.

The block was still quiet. Almost eight o’clock now, but no cool to the evening air. Just to be sure, I waited in a door across from number 32 for fifteen minutes, watching for any activity on the street. A few people walked by, carrying briefcases, backpacks, and shopping bags. Locals on their way home. This was a daytime block. SoHo nightlife was Prince, Spring, and West Broadway.

I crossed and rang Goncharov’s buzzer once, twice, three times. No answer. I returned to my watching post and called a Russian locksmith I know. Forty minutes later a van pulled up with AAA-ACE-ACME LOCKSMITHS painted on the side. A wiry man got out and grinned. I met him at the front door. Three minutes later we were climbing a stifling stairwell to the sixth floor. Two doors, marked A and B. I pointed to the former, and he went to work. It took twelve minutes before the door swung open on oiled hinges. Glad that I’d insisted on expenses from the Mulhollands, I gave the man five hundred dollars. He nodded his thanks and left. I stepped into the cool, dry, air-conditioned air of Alexander Goncharov’s loft.

The lights were on. A dozen halogen cans shone like high noon from the twelve-foot ceiling. If Ratko’s Chelsea apartment was minimalist-chic, this was neoclassical color run amuck—greens, reds, and golds everywhere. A pair of enormous matching sofas faced each other in the center of the room—each could seat six—covered in embroidered gold fabric folded over on itself in a way that defied both physics and finance. Maroon upholstered chairs bookended the sofas. Ebony coffee table with mother-of-pearl inlay in the center. The full-length curtains shimmered avocado and orange. Green paint on the walls, the kind of green and the kind of paint you hire a guy who doesn’t advertise in the Yellow Pages to spend weeks applying. Carpeting picked up all those colors and worked them against red and sky blue in a chain-link pattern. Too much—too much of everything. Before the blood.

A ragged streak marred the carpet, nearly a foot wide, winding from the door, where I stood, through the furniture to a pillared archway at the back of the room. I put a finger to the pile. It came away red and wet. I stood rock still, listening for sounds of life and wishing I had brought a gun. Nothing to hear except the low rush of air being pushed through vents in the ceiling. I followed the trail as quietly as I could, but the old floor creaked under the carpeting. Nothing I could do about that, except stop every few feet to listen. Still no human sounds other than my own.

Through the archway, a kitchen on the right and dining area on the left. I followed the blood down the middle to more pillars and a closed door. Painted steel. I put my ear to the metal. Silence. The knob turned easily in my hand. I gave a gentle push. It didn’t budge. I pushed harder, and the hinges moved without squeaking. Movement to my right. I jumped. Nowhere to go. A big water bug skittered across the stainless steel counter, probing for somewhere to disappear. Exposed like me, until he ran down the leg to the floor and under the baseboard. The door swung softly shut. Some kind of automatic closer. I took a minute to regain my breathing before pushing it open again.

A large, square windowless hall with three more doors, one straight ahead and one on each side. Light shone through four ragged holes in the one straight ahead. Below the holes was a body. Beside the body was another.

They lay backs toward me. The closest was dressed in black. The other had white hair. I put a finger to the neck of the man in black. Not cold, but no pulse. I pulled at the shoulder. He fell over backward, wide still eyes staring at the ceiling, the front of his black shirt covered in dark red. The late Ratko Risly, unless I missed my guess. The other body was breathing. I rolled him over softly.

Iakov! I found the light switch. His eyes were closed, his right shoulder was soaked in blood. I patted his face gently. The eyes opened.

“Iakov?”

Crack!

The bullet passed over my back. Another hole in the door, this one a few inches higher than the others.

I hit the door low and hard. It pulled away from hinges and latch, and I fell into the room with splintering wood, rolling fast until I banged into a wall. I pushed back one revolution and came up in a crouch. Eva Mulholland, naked on a bed, lined up another shot.

Crack!

Wide. I grabbed her wrist, and the gun fell on the sheets. She looked straight at me, but what she saw, if anything, was anyone’s guess. I picked up the gun and slapped her, not hard, but not gently either.

“Eva!”

She stared straight ahead.

“Turbo. Friend of your parents.”

More stare.

I passed a hand a few inches in front of her face.

No reaction.

“That Ratko outside?”

No response.

“You shoot him?”

Nothing.

I pushed her gently, and she fell backward on the pillows. Like Gina said, a model’s figure, inherited from her mother. Fine shoulders, small, round breasts, tucked waist, narrow hips, long, slender legs. Under other circumstances, she’d be beautiful to gaze upon, except the beauty was marred by ugly scars and discolored skin covering both thighs from knees to hips. Burns, or bad medical treatment. Circumstances, as well as decorum, vetoed closer examination. I pulled the sheet over her nakedness and ejected the clip from the automatic, a Glock 9 mm. The same one in the photograph? Four gone. Two at me, one in Iakov, one in Ratko? For whatever reason, that didn’t feel right. I put the gun in my pocket and went back to Iakov.

His eyes were still open. He blinked once as I knelt beside him.

“Turbo?” His voice was just above a whisper.

“It’s me. How bad are you hurt?”

“He who’s destined to hang won’t drown.”

I smiled. If his humor was intact, the rest of him couldn’t be too badly injured. I exhaled. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath.

“Who shot you?” I said.

“Don’t know. Didn’t see.”

“I’ll get help. You want an ambulance or Lachko?”

He closed his eyes for the better part of a minute before he said, “Lachko.”

I’d never known for sure how deep the split between them ran. Since I was part of the cause—the whole cause, in their eyes—I’d never asked, but it had to be serious if it took that long to choose the lesser of two evils when he had a bullet in the chest. At least the brain was functioning. That was a good sign.

“I’ll call him. The girl in the bedroom—she’s your granddaughter, isn’t she?”

He looked surprised. “Eva?”

“That’s right. She’s drugged. I’m going to get her help.”

He waved his good hand and closed his eyes, as if trying to think. “She’s Lachko’s child, Turbo,” he said after another minute. “He’ll take care of her.”

It was clear from my visit that afternoon, Lachko didn’t know about Polina. A good guess he didn’t know Eva was here either. Getting between them was a true fool’s errand, but I’d been hired to find the girl. I went back to the bedroom. Eva lay as I left her, sheet around her shoulders, eyes staring into space. King-sized bed, four-poster. Mahogany. Two bullet holes in the wall behind. They hadn’t missed by much. T-shirt and jeans tossed on the floor. A can of Diet Coke on the bedside table, half drunk. I sniffed the top. Smelled like Coke. Another door led to a bathroom-spa bigger than the bedroom. Whirlpool twice the size of the gold sofas, steam shower, sauna, two sinks, racks of multicolored towels.

Back in the hall, Iakov had worked himself up against the wall. He watched as I went through the dead man’s pockets. Keys, change, eight hundred twenty-four dollars, and a U.S. passport in the name of Alexander Goncharov. In the last pocket, a shiny new BlackBerry. The message light blinked. I pocketed the BlackBerry and replaced everything else.

“I want that,” Iakov said.

“What?”

“BlackBerry—I want it.”

“Okay, later.”

A rolling suitcase by the bed was packed full of men’s clothes, mostly worn, mostly black. The luggage tag read GONCHAROV with the Greene Street address. The used boarding pass indicated he’d just flown in from Moscow. Beside the suitcase was a messenger bag with a laptop inside. I put it to one side.

“That, too.”

Iakov had pulled himself to the open door. He was cataloging my every move. The caution of an old spymaster? More than that. Why should I be surprised?

“Stay still, Iakov. You’re losing blood. I’m calling Lachko now.”

“That computer is mine, Turbo.”

“Okay.”

I went out to the kitchen-dining area, where he couldn’t follow, and weighed the merits of my cell phone versus Ratko’s landline. Both would leave a trail, but going out to a pay phone would take too much time. I decided on the latter for the first call—to Brighton Beach. When a man’s voice answered I said, “Tell Lachko it’s Turbo.”

It didn’t take long before Lachko said, “Nothing in twenty years, twice in twelve hours. To what do I owe this misfortune?”

“I’m with Iakov. He’s okay, but he needs a hospital. He’s been shot.”

“Turbo, what the fuck are you talking about?”

I repeated myself.

“You fucking with me? Let me speak to him.”

Lachko didn’t know his father was in New York. I shouldn’t have been surprised by that either. I carried the phone back to the hall.

“I told Lachko you need help. He wants to hear you say it.”

“Listen to Turbo, Lachko,” Iakov said into the phone. “I’ll explain later.”

He handed it back. I went back through the door as Lachko wheezed, “Where the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing there?”

“Thirty-two Greene, between Grand and Canal, 6A. Belongs to Rislyakov, although here he goes by Goncharov. He’s here, too, but he’s dead.”

“What the fuck?!”

“I’m playing it straight, Lachko. Rislyakov was dead when I got here. He was shot, too, from the looks of it. I found him and Iakov and called you.”

I could hear him barking orders in Russian. I looked at my watch. I figured I had at least forty minutes before they got here, but I’d be gone in thirty to be sure.

Lachko said, “I thought we agreed—stay the fuck away from Rislyakov.”

“I didn’t know he would be here. Iakov neither.”

“Bullshit. What else is there?”

I hesitated. He was going to find out soon enough from Iakov. “Eva. Stoned silly. She might have shot Iakov, without knowing what she was doing. She tried to shoot me. I don’t think she shot Ratko.”

“Eva? What the hell? Turbo, I am personally going to—”

“Shut up, Lachko. You’re not going to do anything. I’m taking Eva to get help.”

“You stay right the fuck where you are. My men are on their way.”

“I’ll be gone by the time they get here. She can’t wait. Could be an overdose.”

“Turbo, do exactly as I fucking say.”

“Lachko, I could have called the cops. I still can.”

Silence. I thought I could hear the scratch of a lighter and the faint crackle of burning tobacco.

“I’m telling you one more time…”

“Don’t bother. I’ll tell Iakov help is on the way.”

My second call was to Bernie. I used my phone for that. He wouldn’t like it, but he was going to have to get his hands dirty. He was at the office.

“Mulholland sprung?” I asked.

“Million dollars bond.”

“He’s got more trouble.”

“I don’t need this, Turbo.”

“You don’t begin to know the truth of that. I’m with Eva. The least of her problems is she’s non compos—totally zonked on something. She can’t talk, but she can shoot, which she did, at me.”

“Christ! Are you all right?”

“Fine. The drugs didn’t help her aim.”

“Least of her problems?”

“Yeah. I’m not going to tell you about the worst. You won’t approve of how I’m handling them. I need someone to take Eva to a hospital—someone you can trust. She might have overdosed, and have her checked out thoroughly, including STDs.”

“STDs?”

“Sexually transmitted diseases.”

“Turbo!”

“She’s naked in a bachelor pad, Bernie. Just being prudent.”

Sharp intake. “You got any good news?”

“She’s alive. That’s not a universal truth here.”

That stopped him. “Turbo, have you called the police?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you intend to?”

“If anyone asks, Bernie, I called you about Eva, that’s all. How long do you need to get someone to SoHo?”

“Give me half an hour. I’ll set it up at NYU Hospital. Rory’s on the board. Where are you?”

I looked at my watch. “We’ll be at Grand and Mercer, southeast corner, at ten fifteen.”

“Turbo, I—”

“I’ll need to talk to Eva when she comes out of it. Before anyone else—including her parents. Got it?”

“Turbo, I can’t—”

“You have to. Unless you want Mulholland and his daughter to have adjoining cells.”

Silence. Then, “Okay.”

“Ten fifteen.”

Iakov hadn’t moved. His eyes were closed, but his breathing was slow and easy. The other doors in the hall opened to a bathroom and a den. A quick check found nothing of interest in either.

I knelt by Iakov and put my hand on his hair. His eyes opened, and he smiled.

“Lachko’s men should be here in fifteen minutes. They’ll get you to a hospital.”

“Are you…”

“It’ll be better if I’m not here. Lachko and I… Well, you know better than most. I’ll come see you tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

I went to get Eva. “We’re going to get you some help, okay?”

I wasn’t expecting a reply, and I didn’t get one. It took a long five minutes to get her dressed. Iakov was nodding again when I took the messenger bag and put it by the front door. I went through the drawers in the kitchen until I found masking tape to hold the latch of the door and the front door downstairs. I spent five more minutes carefully removing all evidence of my presence from the loft.

Eva had little interest in walking, so I leaned her body against mine and held her upright with my right arm under hers. We’d gotten as far as the hall when I felt her stiffen suddenly and start to shake. Her eyes grew wide as she looked down at Iakov. Then she screamed—a long piercing wail. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO…”

I picked her up and carried her to the gold sofa in the living room. She stopped screaming, but her eyes stayed wide with terror.

“Eva!”

She didn’t move or speak.

“That’s your grandfather.”

No response. Eyes still wide. Terrified. I backed away. She didn’t move.

I returned to the hall. “What was that about?”

“No idea. My condition?”

This was no time to argue, but we both knew Eva’s scream wasn’t one of surprise. It was a wail of terror, deep-rooted terror. “She needs help,” I said.

He was trying to push himself up with his good arm. “Where’s the computer?”

“I’ve got it. Lie still, Iakov. Lachko won’t be long.”

“No! Leave it. It’s… mine.”

“It’s Rislyakov’s.”

“Goddammit, Turbo! This is Cheka business.”

I was halfway out the door. His eyes were wide open now, his injury all but forgotten. He looked as determined as I’d ever seen him.

“Cheka business?”

“You heard me. I want that computer.”

“I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”

“Turbo…”

I left, before he could argue further, carrying Eva down the stairs and most of the way to Grand and Mercer, Iakov’s assertion, angry, defiant—This is Cheka business—filling my head. A Town Car idled at the corner. The window slid down, and young Malcolm Watkins peered out.

“Didn’t tell you about this in law school, did they?” I said.

“Not at Harvard. My father wanted me to go to Chicago.”

I made a mental note to tell Bernie the kid was okay. He helped me load Eva in the backseat and crawled in after her.

“She’s high on something. Not sure if she took it or it was slipped into her drink. She’s also terrified, but I have no idea of what. Sorry I can’t be more specific.”

He nodded and spoke to the driver. The car pulled away. I gave a wide berth to Greene Street as I walked south out of SoHo and through what’s left of Little Italy and Chinatown back to the office.

Cheka business?

Foos was sipping Kalashnikov vodka and banging away at his keyboard. I picked up the bottle and examined the label, eyebrow raised.

“He’s entitled to make a buck,” Foos said.

I fetched a glass from the kitchen. General Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov invented the most successful weapon in the history of weaponry, the AK-47 rifle. More than a hundred million in circulation. Unfortunately, since he’d done it in service of the Soviet state, he hadn’t earned a kopek, and two Hero of Socialist Labor medals won’t get you on the Moscow Metro these days. So he was cashing in, any way he could, like everyone else in the great Russian rush to capitalism. As Foos said, who could blame him? I took a sip. The bottle had been out too long, so the vodka had lost its chill, but it still tasted good. I made a silent toast to the general while I took Ratko’s laptop from the messenger bag.

“I need to copy a hard drive. Pronto.”

“Everybody’s in a hurry. Let’s see.”

I handed it across. He opened the top, pushed the power button, and sipped his vodka.

“Problem,” he said.

“Encrypted?”

“Yep. Where’d you find it?”

“Belonged to Ratko Risly.”

“Belonged?”

“He doesn’t need it anymore.”

“Whose fault is that?”

I told him how I’d spent my evening.

“Who shot Risly?”

“No idea. Then again, I have no idea what the whole thing is about. I’m hoping something on the computer will tell me. I’m going to have to hand it over to one Barsukov or another, probably tomorrow.”

“Okay. We’ll try brute force. See how good the late Mr. Risly was. Once we get in, copying is no big deal.”

“Can you do it so no one knows? Ratko probably has some tech-savvy associates.”

“You’re talking to the maestro.”

“How about a keyboarding bug, one that can’t be found if someone looks?”

“No problemo.”

“I owe you.”

“You’re working on a lifetime tab.”

“In that case, the next bottle of Kalashnikov is on me.”

I put the Glock and the BlackBerry in the safe, next to the payoff money I’d forgotten to return to Bernie. I’d take care of that first thing tomorrow.

Or so I thought.

CHAPTER 14

The Chekist moved the indicator on the computer forward. He knew the exact spot.

Polina said, “Jesus Christ, Tolik, have you gone mad? They’ll kill us for this.”

“I didn’t plant the bombs, Polya. But we did provide the money. That’s why they burned the bank. To kill us, they have to find us. We’re leaving, within the hour. I can get us into Latvia, and from there—”

“Who’s that man—Leo?”

“Gorbenko. Boris Gorbenko. FSB colonel. Point man on the whole operation. He determined the targets, recruited the others, acquired the explosive, oversaw the whole thing. The money moved through him.”

“Jesus Christ, Tolik. He’s a mass murderer. What’s he doing here?”

“He’s had an epiphany, a little late in the game. He’s concluded that the people he did all this for—the real mass murderers—plan to kill him, too. He made a deal with the CPS, told them his story. They want him to bring me in, too.”

“And?”

“I told him no deal, of course. Our only choice is to run, disappear, buy new identities abroad and make sure the Cheka knows that we’ve hidden those CDs in a safe place.”

“Who else knows?”

“No one.”

“And Leo?”

“Forget him. He’s a dead man.”

“No way, Tolik. We don’t know him. He’s already double-crossed the Cheka. We’re nothing.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He could be listening right now.”

The whispers became inaudible, their intensity apparent, individual words impossible to make out. Except at the end. Polina, her anger rising, said, “God damn it, Tolik, if you won’t, I will. Come on.”

Nothing for a few minutes, then Polina’s voice with Gorbenko. They’d moved to the kitchen.

“Leo?” she said.

“What the…”

“Move, out the door.”

“Kosokov, what the fuck is this? I have no time for—”

The shotgun roar drowned the rest of the sentence.

Polina spoke again. “One barrel left. Move!”

The door creaked open and banged shut a few seconds later.

Silence on the tape.

It came back to life with a rumble. As the Chekist found out when he got there, they’d taken Gorbenko to the barn.

“Over there,” Polina said.

“What do you want?” Gorbenko said, his voice betraying panic.

“We’ll get to that. Open that trapdoor.”

A grunt as he pulled at the concrete slab covering the hatch in the back of the barn.

“Look, Kosokov, I can—”

The blast from the shotgun cut him off. The Chekist would see later she’d hit him square in the chest. The force knocked him through the opening and down the cement stairs to his grave.

Kosokov said, “Jesus Christ, Polya. You didn’t have to—”

“Where’s Eva?”

“But you just—”

“Where’s Eva, God damn it?”

“I don’t know. Around somewhere. She was playing with her doll an hour ago.”

“Find her. Finish getting ready. I have to go to our dacha. That’ll take an hour, it’s already snowing, but I have money there, and jewelry we can sell.”

“What about… What about him?”

“Leave him. He was the Cheka’s stooge, let them worry about it. And stop drinking. We’ve got a long night.”

The barn door rolled closed. Silence on the tape again until they were back in the house.

“I put Eva’s stuff in this bag,” Polina said. “She must be outside. I’ll leave it by the front door. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Kosokov belched. The Chekist stopped the tape. Timing, they say, is everything. His, that day, had been a little off. Today it was better.