Rasputin's Bastards

THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD

The brochures didn’t lie when they said the Emissary Hotel had a view of Central Park. Not technically. It was true for nine rooms, stacked on top of one another on the 11th through 19th floors. If you knelt on the corner of the king-sized beds, pulled yourself up on the headboard and craned your neck just so, you could make out the tufts of greenery through the twenty-metre space between the water tanks that crowned two ancient apartment blocks.

There was a better view, of course, but it took some work to see it. You had to slow down your breathing, empty your mind of worldly worry, reach into yourself and unleash your imagination. Then you could expand the greenery here and here, there and over there, transform the buildings and water towers into transparencies until the deep green splendour of the heart of Manhattan was spread before you.

For guests of discipline and vision, these nine rooms were a deal. The rooms cost no more than the other thirty-seven similar-sized rooms at the Emissary that looked out on the roof of the parking garage next door.

Stephen Haber sucked his cigarette dead and climbed down off the corner of the bed in the topmost of those rooms. The vision of Central Park shrank back to its unimpressive line of green.

The telephone was ringing. Stephen lifted it from its cradle and readied himself for the worst.

“Good afternoon Amar,” said Stephen.

“M-m-mister Haber?”

Stephen relaxed. It wasn’t Shadak, or Shadak’s people. As per Kolyokov’s instructions, Stephen had put the call in for the Turkish gangster — but he wasn’t looking forward to having it returned. Amar Shadak liked to fuck with him on the phone, play the big-time power broker to Stephen’s meagre executive assistant, and Stephen did not like that at all.

This was just Richard, the day guy at the front desk. Richard used to be one of their professors at MIT, before they’d retired him in ’95. Kolyokov had locked up the old identity as tight as he could, but nothing was airtight, and the procedure had left poor old Richard with a quavering voice, a tic in his lower lip, and an unshakable sense he should be off inventing something instead of here, waiting for reservations that seldom came. Stephen liked talking to Richard a lot more than he did Shadak.

“Hello Richard,” said Stephen.

“The-e-ere is a young woman here to see you, sir.”

“Yeah? Don’t move, buddy.” Richard gripped the phone tight against his head and shut his eyes.

Kolyokov wasn’t teaching him shit about dream-walking, so Stephen had done a little work on his own. Last month, he went down to the psychic fair in Jersey while the old bastard was sleeping.

There, he’d met Lorelei Jones, a middle-aged lady with wide raccoon eyes and a constant smile, who claimed to be able to use telephone lines to read people’s feelings. She’d sold Stephen some tapes that promised to help him do it too. The tapes turned out to be a pretty basic alpha-state inducement loop, but she had some handy visualization metaphors and Stephen had incorporated a couple of them into his repertoire.

So, eyes closed, Stephen imagined himself climbing a set of spiral stairs that went up the twisty wire of the telephone receiver. He opened the big iron door behind Richard’s ear that led into his head. And he sat down at the big control panel behind the old engineering prof’s eye sockets. He flipped the on-switch to fire up the twin security monitors that would tap into Richard’s visual cortex, so he could get a look at this woman who knew he was staying at the Emissary.

“Mr. Haber?”

The metaphor dissolved and Stephen’s own eyes snapped open. “Fuck!” He bashed the telephone receiver against the night table. “I said sit still!”

The outburst had left Richard flummoxed. He cleared his throat for a few seconds before asking: “Mr. Ha-a-aber? She say-ays she works with you? At Wo-olf-Jordan? Shall I send her u-u-u-up?”

“Wolfe-Jordan.” Stephen calmed down: he wouldn’t need to get a look at Richard’s “young woman” if she was from Wolfe-Jordan. He knew who she was. The only other person in the world who worked at Wolfe-Jordan was a piece of thick-necked ex-KGB muscle named Kilodovich — whom they’d hired just a couple of months ago over Stephen’s objections.

It would have to be Kontos-Wu. And neither she nor Kilodovich should have any reason — any means — to be showing up at the Emissary tonight. Unless — unless she was coming back with some resolution to the snafu with the pickup this morning.

“Send her up,” said Stephen. “Just have Miles follow her. Make sure she’s not being followed by anyone else.”

“I-I-I’ll call him, sir.”

Miles Shute was the Emissary’s Convention and Conference Liaison. Being as the Emissary didn’t generally attract too many of either, it didn’t matter that Miles’ true skill set lay elsewhere. If there was any trickery in this unannounced visit, Miles would ferret it out and eliminate it before the elevator had made it between the 12th and 14th floors. Stephen hung up, satisfied that he’d covered everything. He thought briefly about going and rousing Kolyokov, and thought better of it. The old man had been in a rotten enough mood the last time he’d woken — and that was only because he had to pee. Stephen didn’t want to think about what kind of wrath a deliberate interruption would bring down on him.

And frankly, it was only Kontos-Wu. Stephen didn’t need Kolyokov awake to deal with her.

So Stephen shucked his bathrobe, pulled on a pair of pants and a T-shirt, lit another cigarette and waited for the knock at the door. Kontos-Wu would be easy. It was Shadak he was worried about, and that call might not come for a while.

There were no elevators at Bishop’s Hall — if a young lady wanted to change floors she used the sweeping mahogany-banistered staircases with plush violet-patterned carpets, thank you very much — so Mrs. Kontos-Wu didn’t even think about using the ones here. There was a staircase around the corner, under the creamy white EXIT light, and there she went.

The stairs immediately disappointed her — The Emissary was no Bishop’s Hall, not by any means. The banisters were metal, for one thing, and the steps weren’t carpeted but covered in a knobby black plastic deal.

Mrs. Kontos-Wu ran the first nine floors before the cumulative fatigue of the day caught up with her and she had to rest. It was then, as she stood bent over, gasping for breath, that she heard her pursuer — just for an instant, clattering up the stairs as she had been. Then the noise stopped. Mrs. Kontos-Wu gulped one more lungful of air and pulled back against the wall. She slowed her breathing, willed her thundering heartbeat back, and as she did so, she could almost trick herself into believing she was standing on a landing in the west wing of the Hall — evening sun casting shafts of light through the leaded glass windows behind her. She could almost imagine the other there with her: not Mr. Bishop this time, but a student — her best friend Lois? Yes! Lois! Thick black hair and the palest of skin, Mrs. Kontos-Wu had thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. She’d wanted desperately to be like Lois, and missed her fiercely when she’d graduated.

Now, Lois stood in the shadows beneath the window, visible only by the faint ember of the cigarette she was smoking. The smoke curled over her head and joined the dust motes in the sunlight. Don’t let them catch me, she said. Whatever you do.

“Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Kontos-Wu. Shh, said Lois, so Mrs. Kontos-Wu repeated: Don’t worry.

The footsteps were still coming up the stairs, but more slowly. Over the banister, Mrs. Kontos-Wu could see the pink curve of a bald man’s scalp — she could hear his own laboured breathing as he climbed.

In the shadows, Lois lit another cigarette. Lois took a brief puff, and gestured impatiently to Mrs. Kontos-Wu.

Well?

The bald man’s eyes were well over the top of the banister by then, but he didn’t get a chance to see Lois or anything else before Mrs. Kontos-Wu was upon him.

“Jesus,” said Stephen a minute and a half later, “you look like hell.”

Most of the time, Stephen would have found something more diplomatic to say — but looking at Mrs. Kontos-Wu standing in the hallway, Stephen thought that if anything he’d understated the case. More than anything, she resembled a street person. The kind of street person who’d gone off their medication a month ago, been rolled for their coat and last bathed in an East River garbage scow’s wake. It was a long way from the sleek, predatory Wall Street maven she was programmed to play. Her long black hair was tangled like dry branches — her face was smudged with dirt and maybe blood — and the walking shorts and tank top she was wearing were grey and torn.

Her eyes were the deadest thing about her — they stared blankly at him and through him, hooded as they were beneath slightly swollen lids.

“Well, get inside,” said Stephen. He stood aside and beckoned. Mrs. Kontos-Wu nodded and stepped across the threshold. He shut the door behind her as she continued across the floor toward the suite’s modified bathroom.

“Hey!” said Stephen, following after her. “What’re you doing?”

“I have to pee.”

“What?” Stephen frowned. She’d said it in Russian — idiomatic Russian, which so far as Stephen understood, Mrs. Kontos-Wu was not programmed to speak. And she was heading to the bathroom.

Where Kolyokov’s tank was set up.

Evil premonition lanced through Stephen.

Someone was dream-walking in Mrs. Kontos-Wu, and it wasn’t Kolyokov. Stephen had seen the master at work in Mrs. Kontos-Wu, and this dream-walker was an amateur by comparison.

It wasn’t Kolyokov. But she was going to see Kolyokov. And when she saw him, Stephen was sure, she was going to kill him.

Stephen launched himself across the room. He connected with Mrs. Kontos-Wu in the small of her back, and his momentum carried both of them into one of the armchairs flanking the bathroom entrance. Stephen locked his arms around her waist.

Mrs. Kontos-Wu shrieked. She twisted and bucked in his grip, but Stephen held tight. She managed to get hold of his left ear and twisted hard. The pain was incredible, but Stephen didn’t let go. He had, after all, been through this before. He’d been through worse than this, in fact — with his parents, no less, when he was eleven.

They were hosting a dinner party in Wisconsin when the call came. Stephen didn’t have any idea who it was at the time — although later, with Kolyokov’s help, he would learn that it was from a New York-based embassy official named Gregor Ivchyn. When Stephen caught up with him much later, the old ex-Commie had stutteringly explained he was doing the KGB equivalent of cleaning up his office on the way out.

Like shredding documents, da?

At the time, all Stephen had known was that a shadow had drawn across his mother’s eyes as she handed the phone to his father, and when he took it he nodded and that same look fell upon him. What is it? said Mrs. Stewart from the dining room. Is everything all right? Dad strode across the room like a marching soldier and strangled her before she could say anything else. Mr. Stewart tried to stop him, but Mom brained him with the cast iron frying pan and he collapsed into the mashed potatoes. Their son, Ted — an athletic 13-year-old whom Stephen had developed something of a thing for — was upstairs in the bathroom at the time. The fact that he wasn’t in the room — and that Stephen had such an overpowering thing for him — was probably what saved Stephen’s life. Before his Dad had even released Mrs. Stewart’s neck, and his Mom had recovered her balance from the second fry-pan swing, Stephen was on the staircase. He burst into the bathroom, found Ted was just buckling his trousers, and somehow managed to convince him to follow him to the back bedroom where there was a window that opened and a small porch roof. Ted was halfway out the window when Stephen’s Mom appeared in the door, framed against the hall light. She held the pan like the weapon it had become.

But she dropped it as she saw Ted making his escape, and lunged across the room. Stephen’s Mom grabbed his foot with both hands and yanked hard. Stephen can still remember the cry that Ted let loose — a surprisingly girlish sob as his middle hit against the windowsill. Stephen’s Mom braced her foot against the wall beneath the window and prepared to yank again. But Stephen didn’t let her. He jumped on her back, pulling at the long, greying hair around her temples like reins on a horse, and digging his knees hard into her side. She shrieked and let go of Ted, who scrambled outside.

Mom! Stop it! Stephen screamed, but Mom wouldn’t. She threw herself backwards so hard he could hear plaster sprinkling loose from the ceiling below them. Stephen let go, the wind knocked out of him, and as he lay there gasping his Mom rolled over and got to her knees. She straddled him, and placed her left hand over his mouth. Without so much as blinking — so much as blinking! — she pinched his nose shut with her right hand. Stephen could feel his lungs closing off and his breathing diminish almost immediately.

He would have died but for Ted, who shouted through tears: Hey! Stop it, Mrs. Haber! Where’s my Mom! MOM! Stephen’s Mom let her only son go to finish the job on his best friend — and Stephen took the only chance he had. He grabbed the frying pan from where it had fallen and swung it the same way he’d seen his Mom swing it at Mr. Stewart. He wasn’t tall enough to have the same devastating effect — he just managed to reach the middle of her back — but it sent her to the floor twitching if not dead. Stephen yelled at Ted to run and call the police before heading out the window — followed by the pounding footsteps of his father running up the stairs.

When the police got there, they found four corpses. Which, as Ivchyn explained later, had all been according to their programming. A catastrophic termination was how he put it. Like the paper shredder, da? Ivchyn had smiled — still not understanding the depths of his predicament so far as Stephen was concerned. I am glad they did not finish you too, boy. You are a treasure of the state — a true treasure. And then his eyes had widened, and taken a quite sinister cast. He leaned forward, and spoke the words:

Baba Yaga. Manka. Vasilissa.

The old man had thought those words would shut Stephen’s own programming down — make him docile, knock any thoughts of murder from his mind; and then make him pliant to whatever new programming Ivchyn wanted to install. Baba Yaga. Manka. Vasilissa. That’s what the words were for: every sleeper in the Komitet could be switched off, their programming accessed with the little mnemonic. Had Stephen known the words the night of his parents’ death, everyone would have been spared a lot of grief. Of course, at the time they would have had a similar effect on him — his parents had been programming him since he was old enough to see straight.

It was comical, actually, watching the brief triumph in the Ivchyn’s eye turn into terror as Stephen raised the little revolver and shot him through the heart.

Thanks to Kolyokov, Stephen wasn’t programmed for anything these days.

But Mrs. Kontos-Wu was. “Baba Yaga. Manka. Vasilissa,” said Stephen as the cartilage in his ear made a cracking noise. “Baba Yaga—”

“—Manka. Vasilissa,” said the boy at the top of the book-ladder.

“Sh-sh!” said Mrs. Kontos-Wu. The boy was making her angry. Mrs. Kontos-Wu had found what she thought to be a refuge in the library; just her and the books, the wonderful smell of the old leather and house dust, cooked to a sharp intensity by the afternoon sunlight.

Lois had sent her here for a while, to relax; catch up on some reading; maybe get a little shut-eye curled up in one of the high-backed leather chairs by the windows. Let the setting sun do its work on her. You’re putting yourself under too much pressure, Lois had said, and Mrs. Kontos-Wu had to agree.

So the boy at the top of the ladder did nothing but tick her off. She closed the pink and blue covers of the Becky Barker book she’d picked for the afternoon, and set it down on the end table beside her.

“Just what do you think you’re doing here?” she snapped. “This isn’t the gym! Get off that ladder now!”

“Ow!” said the boy. He appeared to be on some pain. “Listen — Manka! Ow! I mean — Baba Yaga — Manka! Vasilissa!”

What a hateful, curious boy. Mrs. Kontos-Wu got up and crossed the library floor. She stood at the base of the ladder and gave it a good shake. “What kind of talk is that?” she demanded.

“Hey! Let go!” The boy’s face scrunched into a mask of pain and he swatted at his groin — as though an invisible hand were grabbing and twisting there. “Jesus! Mrs. Kontos-Wu! Wake up!”

Mrs. Kontos-Wu shook her head. “I came here for a nap you — you fucking little weasel,” she said. “Talk to Lois.”

“Who?”

“Just go — fuck yourself! How about that, smart boy?”

And then the boy did the most peculiar thing. He let go of the ladder with both hands, raised a fist, and brought it down in a swift punching motion. As he did so, a stray cloud passed over the setting sun behind Mrs. Kontos-Wu, and the library was for just a few seconds plunged into the deepest darkness. When the cloud passed, Mrs. Kontos-Wu blinked and searched the library. The boy was gone. Without a trace.

Mrs. Kontos-Wu shrugged and returned to her chair. She must, she assumed, have nodded off after all — and the hateful, curious boy had been nothing more than a dream. An unusually intense one, to be sure — it wasn’t every night that Mrs. Kontos-Wu found herself sleepwalking through the library — but a dream nonetheless.

Stephen winced as the disinfectant settled into the twin gashes across his cheek and started to fizz. The fizzing stung, but Stephen had expected as much; the disinfectant would have plenty of work to do there. Mrs. Kontos-Wu’s nails were filthy, and probably they were home to more harmful bacteria than a crack-house toothbrush. Stephen hoped the disinfectant would be enough; Stephen’s immune system wasn’t up to dealing with stragglers.

It could have been worse, of course. The gashes across his cheek were the only part of Stephen’s skin that Mrs. Kontos-Wu had broken. The other injuries she’d inflicted were the kind that didn’t come with a mark; she’d twisted his ear hard enough to leave an ache that seemed to reach all the way down to his tonsils, and she’d twisted his balls hard enough to send another tree-root of pain up as high as his tonsils. But that was as far as it went. She’d missed his eyes, left him his teeth, and hadn’t pulled out more than a few strands of hair or broken even a single bone.

Indeed, it could have been much worse. In her weakened state, Mrs. Kontos-Wu succumbed with little fuss when Stephen had brought his fist hard against the side of her head. She hadn’t even made it through the bathroom door to where Kolyokov slept.

And overall — cut for cut, injury for injury — taking down Mrs. Kontos-Wu had been a piece of cake.

So why was Stephen shaking?

It might, he thought, have something to do with the mnemonic. It should have worked. Hell, nine times out of ten it would work — if Kolyokov was the dream-walker, and Kolyokov was the master. The mnemonic was a serious enough trump card that Stephen was on standing orders to kill anyone who heard it in the context of use. It was tangible mojo.

And yet here, he’d used the mnemonic four times, and the dream-walker hadn’t budged.

Who the hell was it in there? Stephen stuck his head out the bathroom door to check, make sure the restraints were holding. They were: he’d strapped Mrs. Kontos-Wu to the bed with thick leather belts that Kolyokov had brought over from Russia along with the tank. He hoped they’d be enough to hold the dream-walker when Mrs. Kontos-Wu came to.

Stephen was more worried about what would happen to him when Kolyokov came to. The old man’s mood wouldn’t be improved by the sight of Mrs. Kontos-Wu tied up in bed. It would only be improved slightly if Stephen could convince him that in tying her up, he had been doing nothing more than saving Kolyokov’s life.

On the whole, Stephen would have rather let the old bastard sleep, and figure this situation out on his own. But that, he knew, would be the worst mistake of all. Kolyokov trusted Stephen to a point — but he didn’t trust him enough to teach him the dream-walking tricks. If Stephen left Kolyokov out of the loop in a situation such as this? Kolyokov’s rage would be limitless.

So Stephen propped open the door and turned back to the sensory deprivation tank that dominated the room.

“Now or never,” he said, and gave the locking wheel a quick turn. The door opened easily.

Worries of Kolyokov’s anger evaporated in the stink that wafted out. Stephen’s image of Kolyokov the master dream-walker was instantly replaced by that of Fyodor the incontinent old man. Stephen took his hand from his nose and sniffed again to confirm it: the old man had done it. Pissed himself, and — yes, and shat himself too. Probably a couple of hours ago. In the enclosed space of the tank, the smell had thickened — notably foul even among the catalogue of stenches Stephen had learned to recognize from his years on the streets.

“Sir?” Stephen stepped back to the opening, and peered inside. Kolyokov kept the bathroom lighting low — so as to not shock his eyes when he woke. The light level meant that Stephen couldn’t see much of Kolyokov in the tank, however. All he could make out was a fan of hair spreading in thick grey tentacles through the swamp made by Kolyokov’s bladder and bowel. Stephen leaned closer, tried not to choke, and whispered: “Sir. You must — wake up.”

Nothing. Stephen cursed. He wished there was a mnemonic to wake the master as well as Baba Yaga, Manka, Vasilissa woke his underlings. Grimacing, Stephen reached into the tank and touched Kolyokov’s forehead. He recoiled as quickly. It felt waxy and cool to the touch. Kolyokov didn’t stir.

“Shit.” Maybe the dream-walker’s visit had been redundant. Was Kolyokov dead in his tank?

Stephen reached in further, found Kolyokov’s wattled throat. He searched for a pulse. Nothing.

“Shit shit shit.” Dead. Fucking dead in the tank. What the fuck had happened? A stroke? Heart attack?

Stephen wouldn’t be surprised if it was. Kolyokov was only getting older, and more to the point refusing to accept the fact that he was getting older. He ate badly and drank too much and got all his exercise dream-walking in young people’s bodies. Sooner or later, something would happen. Today, something had.

Stephen returned to the main phone and picked up the telephone. It rang twice at the main desk before Richard answered.

“Ye-e-es sir?”

“Richard,” said Stephen, “we’ve got a situation here. Send up Miles immediately.”

“Muh-iles? Isn’t he-e up there a-lready?”

“No,” said Stephen, “he’s not. He didn’t—”

—didn’t make it.

Stephen mentally kicked himself. Of course he didn’t make it. Miles had been shadowing Mrs. Kontos-Wu. Mrs. Kontos-Wu had a dream-walker in her. A dream-walker who was no doubt expecting a shadow.

Stephen glared over at the bed. Mrs. Kontos-Wu’s eyes were open, and whoever it was behind them glared back.

“All right Richard,” said Stephen, “you’re going to have to come up here yourself. It’s an emergency.”

“Sir — I-I ca-an’t leave—”

“An emergency,” Stephen repeated. “I need you up here — now!”

He hung up the phone without waiting for a reply. “Shit shit shit shit shit.” Stephen crossed the room to the bedside. “What the fuck did you do with Miles!” Stephen shouted. “You fucking killed him, didn’t you?”

Mrs. Kontos-Wu blinked and smiled a little.

“Well fuck you, whoever you are!” Stephen could feel his eyes heating up. Tears were starting. “Fuck you! Get the fuck out of her! You got nothing to do here, all right? Get out!”

Stephen wanted to punch her again, but as he raised his hand to do so, he saw the smile broaden.

“Go ahead,” said Mrs. Kontos-Wu in thickly accented English. Stephen lowered his hand. He would only be hitting Mrs. Kontos-Wu, he knew. Whoever it was that was dream-walking her wouldn’t even feel a sting.

“Baba Yaga,” he said. “Manka.”

“Vasil-issa,” finished Mrs. Kontos-Wu. Her mouth enveloped the word like it was melting chocolate. “Baba Yaga. Manka. Vasilissa. Funny words.”

Stephen moved to the foot of the bed. He felt like that guy in The Exorcist — the priest with faith problems facing down the devil in the little girl, with the Exorcist himself dead in the other room. Stephen wasn’t in the same situation exactly — he was no doubter where dream-walking was concerned, and Fyodor Kolyokov was no Exorcist.

He also had more to worry about than driving the Devil out of Mrs. Kontos-Wu. There was the matter of Kolyokov in the bathroom —

— and the ringing telephone.

Stephen snatched it from its cradle. “Richard!” he snapped. “What the fuck did I tell you? Upstairs!”

“What is upstairs?”

Stephen’s blood turned to ice. It wasn’t Richard on the other end of the line. It was the call he’d been dreading most of the day.

Amar Shadak.

“Stephen? Have I caught you at a bad time?”

Stephen took a breath and forced his voice to modulate. The world may be collapsing, but Stephen couldn’t afford to let Shadak in on that little morsel of information. Just because he was across an ocean and a third of a continent further didn’t make Amar Shadak any less dangerous.

“No. Things are fine, Amar.” The line was secure, but Shadak insisted on keeping things on a first-name basis anyway.

“I am pleased to hear that things are fine, Stephen. Very pleased.” Shadak cleared his throat. “I was wondering if I might speak with Fyodor? Is he available just now?”

Shit. Stephen glanced at the bathroom door, took a breath.

“Unfortunately, no. He’s not available just now.”

“In a meeting is he?” Shadak laughed mirthlessly. “I think he can speak with me. We’ve an urgent matter to discuss.”

Stephen took a breath. Shit shit shit. “I don’t, ah—”

“Why Stephen,” said Shadak, his voice taking on a tone, at once edged like a butterfly knife and soft as honey. “You’re hiding something from me. Something’s got you so scared, you’re hiding something from me. Fyodor’s not in a meeting, is he?”

Stephen didn’t answer. Something was up — something that included Mrs. Kontos-Wu, Kolyokov’s death, the thing that Kolyokov was investigating — the anomaly at the yacht. It was something that also evidently included Shadak. What was it? Stephen still had no idea — so kept his mouth shut.

“I think,” said Shadak after a second, “that there are two possibilities here. Either he is dead, or he is fucking me.”

When it was clear that Stephen wasn’t going to bite, Shadak continued. He was rolling now, relishing his big-time-player-versus-nervous-executive-assistant gambit. “Either possibility explains this nervous little bum-boy I’m talking to now. He’s got a corpse in the hotel room, and he doesn’t have a fucking idea how to tell this to Fyodor’s honest business associates and not fuck things up. If that’s what’s happened, I understand.

“But I’m afraid it’s not that at all. I’m afraid that Fyodor is fucking me. And I’m afraid that you are in on it, little bum-boy.”

Until now, Shadak’s voice had been the deep, confidence-inspiring rumble that Stephen had come to recognize in their telephone sparring matches over the years. But as he continued, his voice grew louder and more shrill. And as this happened, a peculiar calm came over Stephen.

So what if Mrs. Kontos-Wu was tied up on the bed making like Linda Blair? So what if Fyodor Kolyokov was dead in the isolation tank, which was so full of piss and shit it would take a Home Depot full of cleaning products to make it right again? So what if Miles was bleeding in some corner of the hotel and Stephen’s only prospect for some help was a 63-year-old computer engineer good for nothing but manning the front desk at Kolyokov’s hotel? And yeah, so what if Amar Shadak — the cool fucker from eastern Turkey who normally played Stephen like a mandolin — was so freaked out about something he was ready to scream?

In this sea of calamity, Stephen would be the one signpost of serenity and control. He thought back to the tapes he’d purchased from the psychic fair. The telephone mind-reading trick.

Stephen cleared his throat.

“Amar,” he said, “would you stop talking for a moment?”

As he said the words, Stephen imagined himself climbing the spiral staircase inside the wire of Amar Shadak’s telephone. He got to the metaphorical door to his brain, and metaphorically booted it in. He turned on the two TV screens behind Shadak’s eyes.

“Fuck you, you little piece of shit!”

Stephen opened his eyes. This really worked best with a cooperative subject —

“—the fuck did you do with my boat? And my 641! You used your fucking tricks to send a fucking torpedo! My people are killed!”

— but a cooperative subject isn’t always available. Sometimes, you have to learn to make do with what’s at hand. He shut his eyes, and willed the words away.

It seemed to work. He ran up the spiral stairs, pushed open the door once more, turned on the television screens and looked —

At mountains. Shadak was operating out of an old caravansary he’d remodelled near Silifke these days. It was older than Jesus, as Kolyokov liked to say. Now it had electricity and running water and floors redone in fine Italian tile, and an army of Romanian mercenaries who ran the thing like Castle Dracula.

It’s working.

In the background, he could hear the muffled noise of a diesel engine, and a voice. Stephen leaned forward, to better hear. “—Hzekul’s dead? I think you fucking KILLED HIM YOU FUCKING LITTLE—”

The voice quickly mutated into a high-pitched yowl, and as the pitch rose higher, the television screens exploded into prismatic fire.

Whoa. Feedback.

Stephen blinked and sat up. The phone was on the floor beside him. The back of his head was sore, but not from any impact.

“Feedback,” he said wonderingly. The combination of his words over the telephone and the words coming from Amar Shadak’s head had created a feedback loop that had blown Stephen’s empathic link like a cheap pair of bookshelf speakers.

Stephen picked up the phone. Shadak had hung up. Stephen wondered if the feedback had hit him in the same way.

And what, Stephen wondered, did he mean by torpedo?

Before Stephen could wonder any more, the hotel room door swung open. Richard stepped in. To Stephen’s relief, Miles followed. He was limping, with a bright red handkerchief pressed against his forehead, the handkerchief matching the bloody red blotches on his shirt. From the cast of his eye, he was pissed off beyond belief. But he wasn’t dead.

“That’s the bitch,” he said as soon as he stepped in the room. He limped menacingly toward Mrs. Kontos-Wu. “Let me go to work on her.”

“No,” said Stephen. “That’s not why you’re here.”

Richard gave Stephen a helpless look. He brushed a long white strand of hair from his eyes. “You-ou said the-ere was an emergency, sir?”

“Right,” said Stephen. “Mr. Kolyokov has… taken ill. I need the two of you to help me remove him from the tank and get him to the infirmary.”

Richard sniffed the air — no doubt he was smelling the stink of the tank, which had now wafted out from the bathroom.

“Shou-ouldn’t we perhaps call an ambulance?”

Miles and Stephen shared a look. Poor, brainwashed Richard — he really did think he was a desk clerk in a Manhattan hotel, and that the reasonable thing to do when Fyodor Kolyokov fell ill was to ship him off to the Sisters of Mercy in a city-run ambulance.

“Ah, no Richard,” said Stephen. “The infirmary will be fine.”

Miles gestured to Mrs. Kontos-Wu, who was grinning malevolently at him. “You want me to call housekeeping then?” he said.

“Not housekeeping,” said Stephen. When a death was involved, the Emissary’s housekeeping crew consisted of a tightly knit Croat family, with a cart full of sulphuric acid and a bone saw. “But you might want to call a maid up here once we’ve got Mr. Kolyokov downstairs.”

Miles raised his eyebrows in a question.

“The tank,” said Stephen. “I’m not getting in that thing until somebody gives it a good cleaning.”