Last to Fold (45 page)

“You can’t prove—”

“It’s the reason you worked over Polina the way you did. You needed the girl. You needed Polina to make that call. From what I could see, she held out as long as she could—longer. Whatever else you say about her, she loved Eva.”

“You still can’t prove anything.”

“You forget. I have Kosokov’s records. The one unmolested set. The ones he hid, you couldn’t find, and Polina took with her. The ones that made her go to you in December when she needed money. She saw what I saw. Kosokov covered his ass. He made sure every transaction was client-approved. The client doing the approving is you, Iakov. ChK22—that’s your Cheka designation. She knew enough to recognize it. So did I.”

He took a step back. It might have been the darkness, or my imagination, but the blue eyes turned color, closer to Lachko’s gray. “What do you want? Money? Position? Rehabilitation?”

I shook my head. “I’m not a Chekist anymore, Iakov. I’m just an old
zek
trying to make my way. I was reminded recently about the light of day. I want this whole affair to be seen in the light of day. That’s why there’s going to be a trial. Here. A jury may well decide there’s not enough evidence to convict, but the world—including Russia—will get to see what happened, in 1999, in those apartment buildings, at Rosnobank, in that barn, at Greene Street, last night under the Brooklyn Bridge. Russians will gain a little better idea who runs their country and how they came to be there. I’m not naive, I don’t expect much to change—but we’ve spent too long hiding under a cloak of secrecy and deceit. Tsarist cloak, Bolshevik, Stalinist, Chekist, doesn’t matter. They’re all the same. I’m pulling this one off so everyone can see. That’s what I want.”

“SERGEI!”

“I’m right here,” a new voice said from behind. “Drop the gun, shit-for-brains. Only thing pulled gonna be this trigger.”

Sergei stepped out of the same pipe section I’d been standing in a few minutes before, his big frame just visible against the wall of darkness behind. He held a silenced machine pistol at his hip, like the ones in the car. I let the SIG fall from my hand.

“Move away from him,” Sergei said. “Over there.”

“No.”

“Turbo, don’t be stupid,” Iakov said. “There’s no point now. You played out your hand. You lost. Game over.”

He ran his hands over me and pulled out the hard drive, the recording device in my vest, the detonator, and his cell phone and mine. He picked up my gun and moved away.

“Clint Eastwood,” he said. “Nobility is a fool’s pursuit. If you’re lucky, you end up a dead hero. Usually you just end up dead. Especially when you’re stubborn.

“Just so we’re clear, not that it will matter. Lachko knows nothing of this. Sergei has worked for me for years. Long before Lachko. I recruited him into the Cheka, like you. I flattered you at the hospital, when I said you were the best. Loyalty’s the ultimate test, Turbo. I thought you’d learned that back in 1988.”

I wasn’t ready to fold. Not yet. “I’m not stupid, Iakov. You trained me, remember. I copied that hard drive. It’s in a safe place. Anything happens…”

“You’re bluffing. I don’t blame you, it’s all you have left. Even if you’re not, I’ll take that chance. I’ll be back in Moscow. Sergei will be in Brighton Beach. The girl … things happen, as we know. But no one will be able to put together the story you have, however fanciful. A nick to the Cheka’s pride, perhaps. We’ve endured worse.”

He was right, of course. There would never be a trial in Moscow. Mulholland might try to protect Eva, but he didn’t begin to understand what he was up against. Polina was right to be paranoid. I, on the other hand, had been stupid and, worse than that, arrogant, thinking I could do this myself.

“I’m sorry it worked out like this, Turbo. You always had this streak, you know, I saw it way back when you started with the Cheka. I thought you were smart, you’d learn how the world works, you’d adapt. After all, you’d survived all those years in the camps—you must have learned something. I was wrong. You didn’t learn. You had a chance in ’88. You made the right decision then. It was difficult, I know, but you overcame your misguided instincts and did what was best for yourself, your friends, the organization. I see now that was an aberration. You did what you did for whatever reason, but you hadn’t changed at all.”

There it was. For me anyway, the final Russian irony. Absolution on my execution ground—from my executioner. I’d die, if not happy, without sin.

“I have to get my plane,” he said. “Good-bye, Turbo. I wish it had been different, I mean that.”

He started for the hole in the fence.

“Not yet,” a new voice said.

“WATCH OUT—IN THE PIPES!”
I dove at Iakov. Sergei’s machine pistol flashed, and the fire was returned from in front. No noise, just deadly muzzle flame. Iakov sidestepped my lunge and turned toward the intruder, bringing up my SIG. Sergei’s muzzle fire arced upward and disappeared. Iakov was lining up a shot in the dark.

“NO!”
I dove again, from my knees, knowing I was too late.

More fire. The force of the slugs threw him back into me. I caught the body and we fell backward into the mud. He was dead before we got there.

I sat in the muck holding his corpse. I felt motion to my right and heard running feet. A minute or two passed before Petrovin walked out of the darkness, dressed in black, head to toe. He held up his own machine gun. “Would have intervened sooner, but it took a while to find the clips for this thing. Next time leave them in one place. Dead?” he said.

“You hit him square.”

“Big guy, too.”

My head was spinning. “How’d you find me?”

“Victoria—and your friend with the hair. She got him to trace your cell phone. He pegged the call you made to Iakov. I convinced them to let me handle it, but I suspect the police aren’t far behind. Victoria—well, you know how patient she is. I heard that speech, by the way, the one about the trial and the cloak, while I was looking for the clip. You’d better watch that idealistic streak. Might cause you to fold prematurely.”

He was smiling. I couldn’t respond. My mind was still on the dead man in my lap. All the emotions fought with each other—sorrow, anger, resentment, doubt—mostly aimed at myself.

“He was going to kill you,” Petrovin said.

“I know. I could have stopped—”

“No. You did what you had to. And you didn’t change a thing. Not as far as he’s concerned.”

“I don’t follow.”

“If I hadn’t killed him tonight, I would have sometime soon, back in Moscow.”

A bell rang in my head. It pointed to something I should see but couldn’t quite make out.

“That doesn’t sound like you,” I said. “Why?”

“You don’t know? Polina was my mother.”

CHAPTER 47

Too much to process, and no time.

One imperative—get Petrovin on a plane. If the Cheka got wind of his presence on this killing ground, he’d be a dead man the moment he set foot on a Moscow street, maybe sooner. No one could know he’d been here—ever.

I pulled Iakov’s airline ticket from his pocket—miraculously, it hadn’t been shredded. He was still traveling as Andropov. He had a passport in the same name. I held both out to Petrovin. “Exchange the ticket, take a ride home on the Cheka. Dump the passport in Paris. I’ll take care of things here.”

He looked skeptical. “How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll think of something. If you don’t go now, you won’t anytime soon. We both know what that means. Leave the machine gun. Dump this cell phone, too—with the passport. It doesn’t mean anything now. There’s a Beretta over there. Iakov’s.”

He found the pistol while I laid Iakov on the ground. We moved outside the fence.

I tossed the detonator and pistol in the backseat of the Lincoln. “There are two of Lachko’s men and a bomb in the trunk.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“But not smart. Thanks for saving my skin.”

“The first ex-Chekist should live long enough to learn what it feels like.”

I gave him the hard drive. “Take this. Kosokov’s bank records—but you know as well as I do, the Cheka will never allow a trial, not a real one.”

He nodded. “They squelched the official investigation back then.”

“Your friend Ivanov won’t feel so constrained.”

He smiled. “I can almost guarantee that.”

I got some rags out of the back of the
Valdez.
“You’d better move. I’ve got some rearranging to do, before the police arrive.”

“Do you … do you ever visit Moscow?”

“Had a trip planned a couple weeks ago, before events intervened.” That seemed like a different era.

“Look me up next time. You’ll find me—”

“I know,” I said. “I know everything I need to. Get going. I hear sirens, and I’ve got work to do before they get here.”

That was a lie, but certainly a short-lived one. He had to realize the truth, too—neither of us wanted to broach the subject. There’d be time enough later—if he got on the plane and I stayed out of jail.

He held out his hand, and I took it. I wanted more than anything to pull him to me, but I gave him a firm grip, avoiding his eye, looking past his shoulder to the main road.

“Go.”

He went. I watched him trot out to the service road and disappear into darkness. I ran back with the rags to wipe down the machine gun he’d used, work Iakov’s prints over it, and help the lifeless hands fire a quick burst into the mud. I laid the body down again. The sirens came into range shortly after.

CHAPTER 48

I stayed out of jail—but it was close.

I used one of the eight stories the naked city keeps retelling—this one, the falling-out among thieves over a girl, specifically Iakov and Sergei, who, in my version of the tale, was sweet on Polina and intent on revenge. Iakov foresaw that and lured him to JFK with two of Lachko’s thugs waiting. Sergei anticipated the trap and disposed of the thugs, and he and Iakov fought a Cheka-
urki
duel to the death. I had phoned Iakov to say good-bye, and he had called me to Kennedy. I arrived too late to stop the bloodshed.

I needed one supporting fact. Just before the cops arrived, I got Foos and the Basilisk to tap into the Big Dick and adjust the location of my cell phone call to Iakov. Dzerzhinsky would have killed for that capability.

Tell a lie, but stick to the plot—one more proverb. I made up the plot and held on, all the way through the weekend. I doubt they believed me, but they didn’t care much about a couple of dead Russians either. It helped that I was able to give them a front row ticket, as Foos put it, to Lachko’s laundry. They’d be able to watch every dollar moving through Ratko’s washing machines. It also helped that there was no one left to contradict me.

Except Victoria, who wasn’t buying any of it. “Where’s Petrovin?” she asked, after Coyle and Sawicki finally let me go. “He said he was going to JFK. Where is he? Don’t tell me you didn’t see him. Don’t tell me you don’t know. I don’t believe it.”

We were sitting across from each other at the counter in my apartment. I was sipping vodka, my first in four days. She had a glass of wine.

Coyle and Sawicki hadn’t asked about Petrovin, which meant they hadn’t known to ask, which meant Victoria hadn’t told them to ask, which meant that maybe she wasn’t going to throw my ass in jail after all. Maybe. Once again, I found the idea of lying to her impossible. But I couldn’t tell her what had happened either.

“I can’t tell you,” I said. “I can’t tell anyone. Ever.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t.”

“You covering your ass or his or both?”

“It’s complicated. Goes all the way back to the Gulag.”

The glass was halfway to her mouth when the green eyes froze. She returned the wine to the counter. “Jesus Christ, he’s your son, isn’t he? The one you left with your wife.”

I nodded.

“You told me his name once…” She pulled at memory. “Aleksei.”

I nodded again.

“That’s Petrovin’s name, his real name—Aleksei. Aleksei Tiron. Wait … Polina was his mother!”

I could only sit there silently, filled with sadness and pain.

“Christ! How long have you known?”

“Since Thursday.”

“Does he know—about you, I mean?”

“I think he’s known longer than I have.” I remembered his words almost a week ago—right here at this counter.

I couldn’t help thinking you’d make a good father.

If we both live long enough to get to know each other better, I’ll tell you the story. That might explain things. I’d like to hear yours, too. That could explain more.

“He did go to the airport, didn’t he?” Victoria said. “He was at JFK.”

“Don’t ask me that.”

I watched her work it out—she knew enough to put the story together and come out somewhere close to the truth. I sipped my vodka as I wondered what she’d do.

“I warned you—twice.”

“I know.”

“Remember that promise about not breaking my heart?”

“Yes.”

“You’re awfully damned close.”

She went back to her thoughts.

I made a silent bet on her leaving.

I won.