The Death of Achilles

FOUR

According to a system of classification that Achimas had developed earlier in his life, the current task belonged to the fourth and highest category of difficulty: the disguised murder of a celebrity with an extremely tight deadline and the complication of additional conditions.

There were three difficulties.

First, the target’s strong and devoted bodyguard.

Second, the need to imitate a natural death.

Third, the fact that in the eyes of the general public the death had to appear respectable, but a narrow circle of initiates must regard it as shameful.

Interesting.

In anticipation of fruitful mental endeavor, Achimas settled himself comfortably on the small velvet divan in the first-class carriage. Ten hours of traveling ought to suffice. He didn’t need to sleep — when necessary, he could go without sleep for three or even four days. He had his training with Uncle Chasan to thank for that.

Also, der Reihe nach.* He took out the information that the client had provided at his request. This was a complete dossier on Sobolev that had clearly taken several years to compile; a detailed biography including his service record, interests, and connections. Achimas failed to discover in it a single useful eccentricity that might offer some leverage — Sobolev was not a gambler, or an opium addict, or a dipsomaniac. His character reference was dominated by the word ‘excellent’: an excellent horseman, excellent marksman, excellent billiards player. Very well.

Achimas moved on to the ‘interests’ section. Drinks in moderation, prefers Chateau d’Yquem, smokes Brazilian cigars, likes romantic Russian ballads, especially ‘The Rowan Tree’ (composer Mr. I. Surikov). Yes, yes.

“Intimate habits.” Alas, disappointment awaited Achimas here as well. Not a homosexual, not a disciple of the Marquis de Sade, not a pedophile. Formerly, it seemed, he was a well-known womanizer, but for the last two years he had remained faithful to his mistress, Ekaterina Golovina, a teacher at the Minsk girls’ grammar school. There was information to the effect that a month ago he had offered to legitimize their relationship, but for some unknown reason Golovina had refused him, and the relationship was broken off. Right, there was something in this.

* And so, everything in order. (German) Achimas looked pensively out of the window. He picked up the next document, which detailed the names and character references of officers in Sobolev’s retinue. For the most part they were men of the world who had seen military action. When he traveled, the general was always accompanied by at least seven or eight men. Sobolev never went anywhere alone. That was bad. Even worse was the fact that the food the general ate was checked, not just by one taster, but by two: his senior orderly, the Cossack captain Gukmasov, and his personal valet.

However, the only possible way to imitate a natural death without arousing suspicion was to use poison. An accident would not suit — they always left a lingering odor of suspicion.

How could he bypass the tasters and give his mark the poison? Who was closer to Sobolev than his orderly and valet?

Apparently no one was. There was his old flame in Minsk; no doubt he had eaten from her hands without having the food checked. But the relationship had been broken off.

Stop! That thought clearly pointed in the right direction. A woman could get closer to a man than anyone else, even if he had only made her acquaintance recently. Always assuming, naturally, that they entered into intimate relations. In that case the adjutants and the valets would have to wait outside the door.

So, when had Sobolev broken things off with his mistress? A month ago. He must be famished by now — he would have had no time for love affairs on maneuvers, and they would have been reported in the file. He was a hot-blooded man, in the very prime of life. And in addition he was plotting an enterprise so risky that he could not possibly know how it would turn out for him.

Achimas half-closed his eyes.

Sitting opposite him were a lady and her son, a junior cadet. She was talking to him in a low voice, trying to persuade him to behave himself and stop wriggling.

“You see, Sergei, that gentleman is trying to work and you’re being naughty,” the lady said in French.

The boy looked at the neat, blond-haired man in the fine-quality gray jacket. The German had spread out some boring papers on his knees and was moving his lips without speaking.

The German glanced at the cadet from under his eyebrows and suddenly winked with a pale eye.

Sergei scowled.

The renowned Achilles did have a vulnerable heel, and one that was not particularly original, Achimas concluded. There was no point in trying to be too clever and reinvent the bicycle. The simpler the method, the surer.

The logic of the operation defined itself:

A woman was the most appropriate bait for a strong, healthy male of Sobolev’s character who was weary of abstinence.

The easiest way of all to give the mark poison was by using a woman.

In Russia debauchery was regarded as shameful and certainly unworthy of a national hero. If a hero gave up the ghost, not on the field of battle, or even in a hospital bed, but in a bed of vice with his mistress, or even better, with some slut, according to the Russian way of thinking, that would be (a) indecent, (b) comical, (c) simply stupid. Heroes were not forgiven for such behavior.

The retinue would take care of everything else. The adjutants would go to any lengths to conceal the unseemly circumstances of the White General’s death from the public. However, word would spread in a flash among those close to him, among the conspirators. It is hard to oppose an emperor without a leader, especially if the place of the knightly banner fluttering above one’s head has been taken by a stained bedsheet. The White General would no longer appear so very white to his own devotees.

Well, then, the general method had been determined. Now for the specifics.

Among the various useful things he carried in his trunk Achimas had a generous selection of chemical compounds. The one ideally suited to the present case was an extract of the juice of an Amazonian fern. Give two drops of this colorless and almost tasteless liquid to a healthy man and a slight increase in the rate of his heartbeat would induce respiratory paralysis and heart failure. The death, moreover, appeared perfectly natural and it would never enter anyone’s head to suspect poisoning. In any case, after two or three hours it was quite impossible to detect any trace of the poison.

It was a reliable method, proved repeatedly in practice. Achimas had used it most recently the year before last, in carrying out a commission for a certain idle parasite in London who wished to get rid of his millionaire uncle. The operation was completed simply and elegantly. The loving nephew arranged a dinner in honor of his dear uncle. Achimas was among the guests. First he had drunk poisoned champagne with the old man, and then whispered to the millionaire that his nephew wished to do away with him. The uncle had turned scarlet, clutched at his heart, and collapsed as if his legs had been scythed from beneath him. The death had occurred in the presence of a dozen witnesses. Achimas had walked back to his hotel at a slow, measured pace — in order to allow the poison to disperse and become ineffective.

The target had been an elderly man in poor health. Experience had shown that the substance took effect in a strong, young man when his pulse reached a rate of eighty to eighty-five beats a minute.

The question, therefore, was whether the general’s heart would accelerate to eighty-five beats a minute at the climax of his passion.

The answer was that it was certain to do so, for that was the very nature of passion. Especially if its object were sufficiently sultry.

Only one trifling matter remained — to locate a suitable demi-mondaine.