“Liliya, please,” he said. “It’s for Marya.”
July 2012
Moscow, Russia
When the plane’s hatch opened, Viktor ordered Ivan and Yakov
off first. “Take the cargo. I’ll follow with this one,” he said,
squeezing Natalie’s arm like a blood pressure cuff.
Natalie watched the Vympel men hurry to obey, studiously
avoiding Sergei’s body. She heard a squeak as the cargo hold opened,
followed by a dull scrape—the sound of a body being dragged against the
floor. A car’s engine started, doors slammed, and the car sped
away. Beth didn’t make a sound.
Viktor pushed her into the back seat of a black sedan with
tinted windows. The car pulled onto a crowded highway, two lanes in each
direction separated by a thin metal guardrail. Soft green embankments
rounded away from the highway on either side. The driver sped around
solitary cars that chugged along, belching exhaust. Even the cars looked
strange to her: metal squares in bright colors, animal cracker boxes on
wheels. Suddenly she realized how far from her own home she was and how
unprepared to pull off any sort of rescue.
She glared at Viktor, perched happily in the seat next to
her.
This is all your fault
, she thought. She imagined a
child, a boy, who idolized a traitor—someone who became famous for how well he
lied. “Why do you do it?” she asked.
Viktor turned to her and raised an eyebrow. “Do what?”
“Philby. The British shit. Why can’t you just be
yourself?”
“Darling, I’m a spook. There’s no such thing as being
oneself.”
“That’s not true. What the hell are you running
from?”
“The law, the truth, a particularly unsatisfying
childhood…take your pick, love.”
She shook her head. “I’ve bullshitted shrinks my whole
life. I know the difference between the truth, a lie, and what they want
to hear. You lie, Viktor, all the time. Why?”
Belial snickered and shuffled his feet. Rolling waves
of pain rippled over the surface of her brain.
I’d think you know all
about that, little one. Except you learned how to tell the truth instead
of how to lie. Or have you already forgotten how it happened?
No
, she thought.
I haven’t forgotten
.
She remembered the day her parents told her they were taking her out of public
school, in fourth grade. They told her the principal didn’t want her
around other students until the cause of her “episodes” could be determined and
addressed with medication. But later that week, she heard Beth telling
their mother that Natalie’s teachers wondered what had happened to her, that
homework was piling up. The school knew nothing about her absence.
Up to that point, she’d done her best to hide the fact that
Belial was with her all the time, but it hadn’t been enough. Her own
parents were afraid and embarrassed by her. There had been no point in
fighting it after that.
I still hate them for it
, she
thought.
And suddenly it all made sense to her.
“That’s it,” she said. “They didn’t believe you.
That’s how it started, isn’t it?”
“What the bloody hell are you talking about?”
“That’s why you lie. Your parents, family,
friends…someone accused you of lying, or of doing something you didn’t
do. No matter what you said, you couldn’t make them believe you.”
“You’re insane,” he spat. “You have no idea what
you’re talking about.”
“It easy to become what people already believe you to
be. No one’s disappointed that way.”
“Shut your goddamned mouth or I’ll do it for you!”
“Did it work?” she asked. “Did it make them proud of
you?”
Without warning, he raised his arms and slapped her across
the cheek, black brows drawn together. “Say one more word and I’ll lock
you in the trunk.”
Natalie absorbed the sting of his palm and compared it to
others she’d felt. Anger hurt less than fear, she realized. Viktor
was angry, but her mother had been afraid.
*
They drove for another twenty minutes before the driver
turned off the Leninsky Prospect and veered east. Natalie saw a vast
green park on her right, followed by spaced-out office buildings. Except
for the Cyrillic signs, it looked to her like pictures of the South or the East
Coast: trees and green grass everywhere. The driver turned right again
and the office buildings grew taller. They sped down an access road
toward a tall building shaped like a capital “I.” The sedan continued
around the back of the building where a driveway sloped down into an
underground parking lot.
A guard station and gate protected the lot. The sedan
pulled up slowly and the driver rolled down his window, flashing a badge.
The guards inspected it and nodded, opening the single-armed gate. The
driver sped through and stopped beneath the center of the building, next to an
elevator bay.
“Let’s go,” Viktor said, grasping her arm and pulling her
from the car. She stumbled behind him into the elevator. He pressed
“12” and waited for the doors to close. When the elevator docked, he
marched her into a mahogany-paneled office and closed the door behind
them. Natalie scanned the conference table, leather settee, and
assortment of salon chairs but no one else was inside. “Where’s
Beth? Where did they take her?”
“Not here, obviously.” Viktor waved a hand to indicate
the office’s green marble fireplace. “Are you cold?” He flipped
another switch and the gas logs inside ignited with a comforting orange
flame. “This place belongs to Starinov. Well, actually it belongs
to the Ussov family, but
they
belong to Starinov.”
“Did you hear me, asshole? I want my sister and I want
her now.”
“All in good time.” Viktor stepped closer to her and
touched the neckline of her dress, spattered with drops of Sergei’s blood.
“You need to clean up a little, pet.” He pointed to a set of double
doors on the far side of the room. “Through them and to the right,” he
said, giving her a push. “But don’t take too long. If you’re not
back in ten minutes, I’ll tell Ivan to slice off one of your sister’s fingers.”
July 2012
London, England
Algernon Perry, governor of the Bank of England, hung up the
phone and sighed heavily. He was sick and tired of the way Russian
oligarchs behaved as though London were merely a satellite of Moscow.
“Buying up our property, jetting around as if they own the place,” he
grumbled. “Barbarians, the lot of them.” Still, he couldn’t deny
that they were good for business, depositing tens of millions of pounds and
rarely requiring anything more than a quarterly interest statement.
In bed beside him, his wife lay silent as a stone.
She’d never had trouble sleeping; even the phone failed to wake her. It
allowed him to conduct business at odd hours. She snored like a
jackhammer as he sorted out the bank’s Asian affairs with the Hong Kong
office. If anyone inquired about the noise, he told them he was on a
turbo prop plane, scheduled shortly for landing.
“Just one more call, sweetheart,” he said, reaching for the
piece of paper tucked beside the phone. He dialed the number he’d been
given, still half asleep and unsure why he was complying with the head
barbarian’s request.
“
Da
?”
“It happened just as you said it would, Your Excellency.”
“I appreciate the prompt update, Mr. Perry. Can you
tell me what was said?”
“A man claiming to be Vadim Primakov called and requested
access to the tsarist account. He said you were already on your
way. I told him what we’d agreed upon, that access was simply not
possible in so short a time.”
The Russian prime minister sounded pleased. “Exactly
right. As I told you earlier, this man is a dangerous fanatic who must be
stopped. It’s quite unfortunate—his granddaughter has been kidnapped by
one of our most prominent crime syndicates. I’m afraid he has become mad
with grief, and will do anything they tell him.”
“Dreadful,” Perry said dryly. As far as he was
concerned, all Russians were gangsters. Things like this were bound to
happen sooner or later when one handed policing tasks over to men who were
criminals themselves.
“I will make sure the man doesn’t cross your borders, Mr.
Perry. He won’t trouble you again. In the meantime, there is one
more thing you can help us with.”
“Delighted,” Perry said, stifling a yawn.
“Since the machinery has already been set in motion, I would
like to access the account.”
“Have you the password, Your Excellency? I believe you
had not yet located it the last time we spoke.”
“The password is no longer a problem, but based on the
number of interested parties, we cannot take any chances. I wish to
restrict the account’s access to myself and myself only. No generals, no
ministers, no ambassadors.”
Perry shivered. The room was cold and he longed to
slip back beneath the duvet. “I must warn you, Your Excellency.
There is one provision that has never been made public.”
“What is that?”
Algernon Perry told the Russian Prime Minister about the
only stipulation on the account, enshrined shortly after the bank’s officers
learned of the tsar’s murder. “It’s highly unusual,” he finished.
“But it was authorized by Sir Peter Bark, with the full knowledge and approval
of His Majesty George V.”
Perry heard nothing but long-distance crackles on the other
end of the line.
“Your Excellency?” Perry said. “Are you still there?”
He heard a torrent of Russian swear words, followed by the
sound of the phone being tossed at the wall.
Bloody barbarian
, he thought.
July 2012
Moscow, Russia
Cold water removed the last trace of Sergei’s blood from her
skin but did nothing to erase the stains on her dress. The red circles
faded and spread, looking like impressionist cherry blossoms against the pale
purple fabric. She stared at them in the mirror, transfixed.
Belial had told her once that blood held no secrets from
those who could read it.
Why do you think we have no books in heaven?
he
said.
We read your blood instead. It tells us everything about
you. Sometimes we can’t wait to read the next chapter, so we open you up.
Sergei had no more story to tell. Neither did
Yuri.
What about you
? she wondered, staring at the pale, half-dead
thing in the mirror. With her smeared eye makeup, she looked like a
creature from a black and white movie, the bride of Frankenstein. All the
better, she thought, for fighting the devil and his emissaries.
She returned to the office the way she had come.
Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, burnishing the mahogany
executive desk until it was the color of blood. The gas logs in the
fireplace burned brightly, emitting light if not warmth.
Viktor clapped his hands. “Much better, my dear.
Now come here and sit down. I’m making you a drink.”
Natalie obeyed, perching on a leather settee beside the
desk. He handed her a cut-crystal glass filled with vodka and pulled a
matching footstool out from beside the settee. Gently, he put his hand
beneath her ankles and lifted them onto the stool.
“You’ve had a stressful day,” he continued, moving to stand
behind her. “I think you’ve earned the right to relax.” He groped
her neck, searching for the elastic band that held her hair in place. His
cold fingers sent slithers of unease across her shoulders.
“What do you care if I’m happy?”
He found the elastic and pulled it from her hair. His
hands covered her shoulders, strong thumbs grinding into her back.
“You’re hurting me.”
“Just calm down.”
“I’m already calm.”
“Don’t lie to me, pet.”
“Why not? You do it all the time.”
“I’m trying to be kind to you. This is my apology in
advance.”
“Most people apologize for things they’ve already done.”
“I’m not sorry about any of that rot. But I do feel
badly for what’s about to happen.”
She felt her heart pulse too quickly. “What’s that?”
He bent close to her and whispered, the warm breath from his
mouth tickling her skin like a feather. “Constantine will die once he’s
given us the letters. You know that, don’t you?”
“Belial won’t let you do that.”
His fingers paused in their kneading, moving to encircle her
neck. “Starinov wants everyone who has seen the letters to die.”
“Including you?”
“Starinov can’t kill me.”
“I beg to differ.”
Viktor chuckled and came around the settee to face
her. “For a nutter, you’ve quite a good sense of humor. If only
you’d met me first, lamb, you’d have fallen for me instead of him. Think
how different your life would be right now.” His index finger traced the
diagonal path of her cheekbone and she shivered.
“Your finger is cold.”
“I’m sorry.” He placed it in his mouth, licked it, and
stroked her cheek again. “Is that better?”
She held herself still, willing herself not to pull
away. “You can still do the right thing, Viktor. Let my sister go.”
“This is Russia, darling. No one gives a damn about
the right thing. All they care about is money.”
“Starinov isn’t going to give you any of Nicholas’s money.”
“He will. Or I’ll leak the story to the press.”
“What story?”
“The story of how he killed a pair of American sisters to
get his greedy hands on the Tsar’s secret account.” Viktor smiled
ruefully. “You’ll be another Daniel Pearl, my dear—cut down by a rabid
nationalist desperate to take out his hostility on the United States. I
promise not to behead you, though. I’ll leave your pretty face
intact.” He motioned with his hands, as if he were tying a knot.
“Like the bow on a package, tied up ever so neatly. Merry Christmas to
me.”