Last Snow (27 page)

All at once he shivered and, focusing on the reflection of the room in the glass, thought he saw Nina, or more accurately her shadow, passing from right to left. Whirling, he confronted the half-dark room, lit only by the lamp that shed a pool of light over the desk, his work area, one corner of the stained pizza box, bloody with tomato sauce.

He wanted to laugh at the empty space, at his own foolish fears, but something stopped him, a sense of foreboding, perhaps, that he couldn’t shake. There was, for him, a sense of things ending, instead
of beginning as they should have with the installation of the new administration. The world appeared to be sliding away from him, as if it were falling off the edge of a table into darkness.

Of course he was furious for allowing himself to be deceived by Nina, but that was in the past and it belonged there. Nevertheless, he was still furious, possibly more so, because he couldn’t forget her, because he missed her. She hadn’t been just another fuck, she hadn’t been just another sexy woman. When she betrayed him she’d devoured a piece of him he now knew he’d never get back. In the wake of her betrayal he felt diminished, not simply foolish or abashed. She’d stolen something vital.

Turning back to the window he stared out at a world hustling by, indifferent to his pain. He was alone, as he would be in the moment before death took him, and this made him think of his father, who was alone when he died because Paull was busy studying for his graduate school finals. He wished his father were here now, because he was the only person Paull had ever been able to confide in. Even Edward Carson, arguably his best friend, didn’t know everything Paull’s father had. The man had been compassionate enough to forgive Paull his sins and mistakes no matter their severity. “Why wouldn’t I forgive you,” he said once, “you’re my son.” And then, continuing, said, “Your mother’s gone and forgotten. You’re all I’ve got, I have to forgive you.” And yet he died alone, Paull thought, as we all do, whether we forgive or not, whether we hold people close to us or push them away, as Paull had his own wife, who was in the final, horrifying stages of Alzheimer’s, locked away in a facility. He went to see her less and less these days; she didn’t know him, but what did that matter, he had an obligation, didn’t he, he’d taken an oath: in sickness and in health. But he’d distanced himself from her, both physically and emotionally. She was like a painting, or someone perpetually asleep, dreaming a life he could never understand. Did a radish dream, or a head of cabbage? She never responded in the slightest
way to the music he put on during his visits—Al Hibbler singing “After the Lights Go Down Low,” for instance, or the Everly Brothers singing “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” songs they had loved and, in their youth, had danced to. He’d thought of this, a calming consolation, when six months ago he’d taken up one of the spare pillows and prepared to lower it over her face that, in her infirmity, had grown round and shiny as a metal globe. She wouldn’t know what was happening, what he was doing to her, and if she did, he was certain she’d be grateful. What kind of life was this she led? Even cows had it better, but not, perhaps, radishes. He was seconds away from doing it, his fingers gripping the sides of the pillow, his mind already made up, set on its path, when the music came on: Roy Hamilton’s “Don’t Let Go.” It seemed somehow sacrilegious to commit murder—even compassionate murder—while that song was playing (“I’m so happy I got you here/Don’t let go, don’t let go”), and something inside him shifted, everything changed and, turning, he put the pillow back where he’d found it. Then, without a backward glance at his wife or the radish, he left and hadn’t been back since.

He turned back into the hotel room, away from the glare of the headlights, and sat back down at the dingy desk and the endless lines of information scrolling across his laptop’s screen.

Why wouldn’t he forgive Nina, she was all he had.

But Nina was beyond his forgiveness, Jack had shot her through the heart before she’d had a chance to poison everyone at the inauguration with the vial of anthrax given to her by Morgan Herr. This, then, was Dennis Paull’s dilemma as he sat scrolling through the so-far innocuous mountain of electronic data: He was indebted to Jack McClure for saving Edward Carson, but he hated Jack for killing Nina.

R
HON
F
YODOVICH
Kirilenko had just enough time to swing by his office and pick up the photos his assistant had pulled off the CCTV
cameras at Zhulyany Airport before transferring to a waiting FSB vehicle that took him, at reckless speed, to board his scheduled flight to Simferopol.

While his driver was weaving through the clogged arteries of Kiev he studied each of the three photos. The first was of the three people: Annika Dementieva he could see clearly enough. Behind her, his face partially obscured, was a man who looked vaguely familiar. Kirilenko spent several fruitless minutes trying to place the visible features before moving on. The second photo was of the young girl, who bore no resemblance to anyone in Kirilenko’s memory bank. He studied this photo in a rather abstract manner; for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what she was doing with the two adults. To his knowledge, which was extensive to the point of encyclopedic, Annika Dementieva had no sisters, and the girl was too old to be her daughter. So who on earth was she? Sighing in frustration he turned to the third and last photo, which was a full-face shot of the man. Almost immediately a galvanic shock rode up his spine. He knew this man, he worked for the President of the United States. What the hell was he doing with Annika Dementieva?

Kirilenko stared out the window, seeing nothing but his own muddled thoughts. He knew his duty was to inform his superior of this shocking development, but something—a stubbornness, resentment, a feeling of being at once played and betrayed—stayed his hand. He was tired of being manipulated. Bad enough to be fucked over by the Americans, that kind of treatment was a given, but to be fucked by his own people, who had to know they were throwing him into an international arena filled with land mines, was more than he could tolerate. But there was something else—something deeper—at work in his mind. He was finally in possession of information not available to his superiors; now, fate had given him a modicum of power, and he was not willing to part with it so quickly. Shoving the
photos away, he resolved to keep his own counsel until he could determine just what was going on.

I
T WAS
too bad for Kirilenko that he wasn’t carrying the only copies of the photos his assistant had taken off the airport CCTV. Twenty minutes before he’d arrived, Oriel Jovovich Batchuk, standing in front of Kirilenko’s desk, confronted his assistant. He received the latest oral report from a young man he’d found it ridiculously easy to suborn, with half his mind still chewing over his disturbing conversation with Gourdjiev.

When it came to the subject of Annika there could be no equivocating, no ending, no exit for either of them. No matter how hard either of them tried to fight it their roles were set in stone, there was no reversing position, no going back. But the knowledge of what had happened, of what could never be changed, was a hateful thing, a spider spinning its malevolent web in his mind. And this was because of one simple fact he’d never uttered to anyone, but which he suspected Gourdjiev knew: Even if he possessed the impossible power to change the past, he wouldn’t. He did what he had to do, something a man like Gourdjiev could never understand, let alone condone. Batchuk was a man who could not afford to second-guess himself; rather, he preyed on others’ not wanting to know, not wanting to see the truth about themselves or those whose acquaintance was politically or financially important to their careers; preyed on people afraid of conviction, of being wrong, who would rather close their eyes and listen to his guidance. Gourdjiev had done that once—only once—to his unending sorrow, a situation Batchuk could read on his face every time they met.

A certain silence made it clear that Kirilenko’s assistant had finished his oral report. Nodding, Batchuk ordered him to make copies of the photos. He took them without comment and, turning on his heel, left.

He was already on his cell phone as he descended in the elevator and exited the huge, intimidating lobby of the FSB building, striding through the slush of Red Square.

G
ENERAL
B
RANDT
, seated next to President Carson and across a gleaming marble table from President Yukin, received Batchuk’s call at a most inconvenient time. Nevertheless, seeing who was calling, he excused himself, went out of the room and partway down the corridor, out of earshot of the various Secret Service personnel from both sides who were flanking the door like sphinxes.

“There’s been a new development,” Batchuk said without preamble. “Annika Dementieva isn’t moving on her own. I’m looking at a photo of her from one of the closed-circuit cameras at Zhulyany Airport. She’s with two other people, one of whom is the American Jack McClure.”

“President Carson’s Jack McClure?” the General said, and almost immediately regretted the stupidity of the question. Of course it was Edward’s Jack McClure. “I don’t understand.”

“Carson is playing you,” Batchuk said tersely. “He’s got an agenda he’s keeping from you, which means he no longer trusts you.”

The General gave an involuntary glance over his shoulder, toward the silent bodyguards and closed door that led to the negotiating room, where Carson was even now locking horns with Yukin. “But that’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Batchuk said with unconcealed fury. “Clearly. This is on you, General. McClure is your mess, I suggest you clean it up with all the haste you can muster.”

“I can’t imagine what Carson is playing at, putting McClure into the field, and with Annika Dementieva, no less.”

“It doesn’t matter what either of them are up to. McClure needs to be extinguished, expunged, immolated. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.” The General was too taken aback to be off ended by
Batchuk’s taking control. They were facing a mess, he’d trusted Carson, and in doing so had allowed matters to get out of control. They were all finished if McClure remained alive, of that he was absolutely certain.

“Don’t worry,” he said, gathering himself. “McClure won’t live to see another sunrise, that I promise you.”

“W
HO
’
S HUNGRY?
”
Jack said as they entered the echoing Arrivals hall at Simferopol North Airport.

“I am,” Alli said immediately. “I’m starved.”

“Good, so am I.” Jack led them over to a crowded cafeteria-style coffee shop with food that looked as if it had been prepared last week. Nevertheless, they loaded up their plates, paid for the food and drinks, and took their trays to the lone empty table near the checkout, a location lousy for a peaceful meal but ideal for watching passengers as they stumbled off their flights.

They dug into leathery pirogi, cabbage rolls, and pungent
kovbasa
, washed down with glasses of cherry-red Crimean wine. While he ate Jack kept one eye on the waxing and waning stream of humanity. From the other side of the table Annika watched him. He knew what she was thinking: If they were hungry why not just go into Alushta, where they’d have their choice of restaurants with food
better than what they were eating now? She said nothing, however, doubtless waiting for him to provide an explanation.

“Karl Rochev, the last person Berns visited before he left Kiev for Capri, was tortured and killed on the grounds of Magnussen’s estate,” Jack said.

Annika shrugged. “The evidence seems straightforward. Both Rochev and his mistress were killed with
sulitsa
, the antique Cossack splitting weapon. Magnussen is a collector of antique Russian weaponry, including
sulitsa
. Magnussen just ordered replacements for his
sulitsa
. Ergo, he killed Rochev and his mistress. It couldn’t be simpler.”

“It isn’t simple at all,” Jack corrected her. “Did whoever killed Rochev and his mistress also kill Senator Berns in Capri, or order his death? If so, then we’re dealing with a conspiracy of international proportions and unknown dimensions. Some of what we know is fact and some of it is supposition or deduction, however you want to look at it. Either way, at this point, before our investigation goes any further, we have to ascertain what is fact and what could turn out to not be supposition at all, but rather the product of imagination and invention and, therefore, a dead end or, worse, an erroneous conclusion.”

Annika stared at him with a baleful look. “And how do you propose to find out? Ask Magnussen himself?” She gave a short, derogatory laugh.

It was now just over an hour after they had sat down, and the next flight from Kiev had arrived, spilling its passengers out onto the concourse. Jack’s eye was drawn to a well-built man with reddened hands who had stopped to light a cigarette with the haste of an addict. He wore his hair in the same rumpled way he wore his cheap, shiny suit. Everything about him shouted Russian bureaucracy, but without the accompanying dullness. Instead, he emanated something
toxic—the odors of fear and death congealed into a gluey substance that lodged in the folds of his neck and made his cheeks shiny as a wax effigy.