“My sheikh vouches for them.”
“That might be enough for you, Tajid, but I need more.”
“Your neighbor Mikhail, does he still bother you?”
“Today and every day. Worthless scum. Why do you ask?”
“We’ll talk soon, cousin.”
A WEEK LATER,
Grigory came home to find his apartment unusually quiet. He soon realized why. No porn actresses were screeching in fake pleasure next door.
Mikhail’s body was found the next day, dumped on a back road outside Chelyabinsk. He’d been shot between the eyes. Worse, he’d been stabbed over and over, his ears and tongue cut off, or so the rumors went. Grigory heard the news and poured himself a glass of vodka, waiting for the phone to ring. He didn’t have to wait long.
“You heard what happened to your neighbor?”
Grigory was silent.
“When can we meet?” Tajid said.
“Whenever you like.”
“An hour, then. At the Moscow”—a rundown café on the edge of Ozersk.
Tajid hung up and Grigory threw back his vodka. The drink warmed his belly but his mind was still cold. Tajid’s men had proved in the most emphatic way possible that they weren’t police agents. They’d also sent Grigory a lesson in what might happen to him if he didn’t cooperate. Two doves with one arrow.
TAJID SAT IN A CORNER
of the Moscow with another man, a light-skinned Arab, small, clean-shaven, and neatly dressed, his only distinctive feature his almond-shaped brown eyes. He wore a black leather jacket and a thin gold bracelet. In all, he looked more like a junior member of the
mafiya
than the jihadi Grigory had expected. But then this man would want to blend in, Grigory thought.
“Your cousin speaks highly of you,” the Arab said in Russian, extending his hand. “I am Yusuf.”
Grigory couldn’t pretend he was a brave man. Nonetheless he screwed up his courage. “Yusuf. This thing you propose to take . . . what will you do with it?” Even now, Grigory could not make himself say
bomb.
Tajid frowned. “Cousin, you’ve only just arrived and already—”
“Let him ask,” Yusuf said. He looked at Grigory. “Truly I don’t know. But I promise you this. We won’t use them inside Russia. Part of my job is to get them out.”
“Them?”
“We need two.”
“Madness.”
“Madness or no, we need two.”
“Let me ask you something else, then.” Grigory spoke with bravado he did not feel. “Since we are friends now, speaking frankly as friends do.”
“Go on.”
“You understand these devices have locks? What the Americans call permissive action links? They cannot be used without the proper codes, and the codes cannot be broken. Not even by the most skilled cryptographer. So you must know that whether you steal one of these, or two, or a hundred, they’re useless to you. Unless you have some way of breaking into the Kremlin for the codes.”
“Grigory, you’re very smart. I’m merely a technician. I have a shopping list. And I would like your help in filling it.”
“I don’t think it’s possible, Yusuf. I would tell you, I swear.”
Yusuf patted Grigory’s shoulders. Despite himself, Grigory flinched. “Consider all the alternatives. There’s always a way. Meanwhile—”
Yusuf reached into his jacket and slid a thick white envelope across the table. Grigory peered inside. A wad of green hundred-dollar bills, the new kind, counterfeit-proof, secured with a red rubber band. Grigory tried to hand the envelope back to Yusuf but the little Arab raised a hand.
“Yours,” he said. “Whatever you decide. If you help us I promise ten times more.”
“Very generous of you,” Grigory said. “Now I can buy all the vodka I like.” His tone was ironic, but Yusuf didn’t seem to notice.
Yusuf stood, touched Grigory’s arm. His fingers were as weightless as the devil’s. “We’ll meet again soon. I hope you can work with us.”
SURE ENOUGH, A WEEK LATER,
Grigory heard the knocking on his door, a light rapping, so soft that at first he hoped he was dreaming. But the knocking continued, and Grigory opened the door, knowing what he’d see.
“Cousin,” Tajid said. Yusuf stood beside him, holding a leather satchel.
They came in and sat around the plastic table in the kitchen. “Would you like coffee?” Grigory said. He poured himself a glass of vodka. Let them watch him drink.
“Your cousin says you’re an excellent chess player,” Yusuf said.
“Mediocre at best.”
“I’m sure you’re lying. We must play.”
“Whenever you like.”
“So have you given any thought to my proposal?” Yusuf opened his satchel and extracted two oranges and a long curved knife with an ebony handle in a leather sheath. He slid the sheath off, revealing the sharpest blade Grigory had ever seen. Under the fluorescent kitchen lights the blade gleamed silver.
The devil, Grigory thought. Truly, he’s the devil.
“Tajid tells me you like oranges,” Yusuf said.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Not me,” Yusuf said. “They’re too fleshy. Something almost human about them.” He worked the blade through the first orange, slicing it in half, then quarters, his movements fine and careful.
Then a frenzy seemed to come over him and he cut faster and faster, turning the fruit into a pulpy mess, not recognizable as an orange at all, its juice dribbling off the table onto the crackled linoleum floor. “I get excited,” he said. “It was the same with your neighbor.” He stood and moved behind Grigory, the knife poised in his hand.
“Please,” Grigory said.
“May I use your sink?”
“I’ll help. I promise.”
“I can do it myself.” Yusuf washed the blade gently, humming to himself.
“I mean with your project. I’ll help.”
Yusuf dried the knife, sheathed it. “This is wonderful news.”
“You don’t have to pay me.”
“Of course we’ll pay, Grigory,” Yusuf said. “We keep our word.”
“But—” Grigory hesitated. “Shall we talk about this now?”
“Why not?”
“So. I don’t want to disappoint you”—Grigory looked at the knife—“but this isn’t as simple as you imagine. We’ve tightened security, switched to the American system. No one enters the warehouses alone. Ever. Always two men, with a third watching on a camera. And you need a reason to enter.”
Yusuf swept up the mess of the orange, threw it in the sink, and sat down beside Grigory. “Even you? Your cousin says you’re very senior.”
“Not so senior. Why do you think I live here? Anyway, the president himself must have a partner when he visits the depot.”
“Depot.”
“What we call the warehouses where we keep the weapons.”
“Do you always have the same person with you? Someone for me to talk with?”
“To improve security, the pairings are random. Also—” Again Grigory hesitated. He didn’t think he’d ever feared anyone as much as this man.
“Yes,” Yusuf said.
“I work nights now. Along with Tajid. I audit the work we’ve done the previous day. It’s paperwork. The plant is basically closed. There’s no reason for anyone to be inside the depots. The guards check them at the beginning and end of each shift. Otherwise they’re not touched. We figure the less they’re entered, the better.”
“But you could go inside. If you had a reason.”
“Perhaps. But I’d be watched.”
Yusuf idly peeled the second orange. “Surely there’s another way.”
Tajid coughed. “What about when the convoys come, cousin? Didn’t you say—”
“I know what I’ve said. But the convoys never arrive at night.”
“But if they did?” Yusuf popped an orange slice in his mouth.
“I thought you said you didn’t like oranges.”
“Who doesn’t like oranges? Especially in this miserable cold.”
Now the devil can laugh about his joke, now that he’s won, Grigory thought. Aloud he said, “The same rules are supposed to apply when a convoy arrives and we move warheads in or out of the depots. Always two men. But sometimes we get sloppy. The pairings aren’t always random. The convoy commanders want to hand over the material and be gone.”
“So if a convoy came late, you would receive it?”
“It’s not my job. But the man who would, he’s a drunk. He sleeps all night.”
“So you could receive it. And you could pick your partner.”
Grigory drank down his vodka and poured himself another glass. “But none of this matters, you see. The convoys arrive during the day. Always.”
“The convoys, do they always take the same route?”
“In theory, no, for security reasons. But effectively, yes. In winter there’s really only one road they can use.”
“And you know when they’re due to arrive?”
“For production purposes, we must. You aren’t thinking of attacking a convoy, are you? It’s impossible. You’d need hundreds of men.”
“No. Delaying it.”
“But how?”
“Leave that to me.”
“In that case. If you could. It’s possible—” Grigory turned over the scene in his mind. “Not guaranteed. I would need some luck. But it’s possible.”
“Can you find the dates of the next convoys and show me their route by tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Until tomorrow, then.” Yusuf flipped his satchel over his shoulder and stood. Tajid followed. When they’d left, Grigory sat at his kitchen table. The devil had left a stink of oranges and Grigory knew that for the rest of his life, which he feared wouldn’t be long, the fruit would never again cross his lips.
Grigory grabbed a rag from under the sink, wiped furiously across the kitchen table, hoping to rid the kitchen of the sweet orange smell. What was he doing? How could he consider helping these men steal a special weapon? No, no euphemisms now, no pretty names. It wasn’t a special weapon. It was a nuclear bomb.
But then, what choice did he have? He would be signing his own death warrant if he told the police what Yusuf planned. Even if the police believed him and arrested his cousin and Yusuf, Yusuf ’s friends would find him afterward. They would gut him front to back and toss his innards in the trash.
Anyway, what he’d told Yusuf was true. Without the codes, the weapons were useless. And Yusuf couldn’t possibly get the codes. Could he? No. Impossible. The codes were more heavily guarded than even the weapons themselves.
Grigory finished mopping and tossed aside the rag. He wouldn’t say anything to the police, not yet. Perhaps later, when he had more evidence . . . but he knew he was lying to himself. This was the moment to go to the police, not later. The further this went, the harder it would be for him to get himself out.
Fine. He would help. He would hope that Yusuf stuck to whatever bargain they made and didn’t kill him as soon as Grigory handed over the warheads. In the worst of all cases, if he learned that Yusuf had somehow gotten the codes, he would tell the police everything he knew.
“Only a fool trusts the devil,” Grigory said to the empty kitchen. He took another slug of vodka, but this time the drink was bitter in his throat.
THE DAYS HAD GONE
quickly after that meeting, too quickly for Grigory. He gave Yusuf the dates when the next five convoys were scheduled to arrive. The little Arab disappeared for a few days and Grigory hoped he might be gone for good. And one night he looked at the envelope filled with hundred-dollar bills. He put on his best black shirt and covered himself in cologne, a new bottle he’d bought a day before. Hugo Boss, it was called. Grigory didn’t know it, but it sounded fancy. Then he extracted twenty of the bills and made his way to the Paddy O’Shea, a knockoff Irish bar that had somehow become the fanciest nightspot in Ozersk. The Russians felt a kinship with the Irish, their cousins in heavy drinking, gloomy novels, and depressive behavior. The Paddy played true to every Irish stereotype imaginable, throwing in a few Scottish stereotypes for good measure, like the set of fake bagpipes hanging from the ceiling of the bar. Grigory ordered shots of Jameson at 100 rubles—about $5—each for everyone at the bar. He pulled the wad of hundreds from his pocket, making sure the women in the place saw it. They did, and they forgot his pocked skin. For one night, he felt beautiful.
When he woke the next morning, the two hookers he’d brought home were gone. So was the envelope with the rest of his money. He’d hidden it, but not well enough. When he staggered into the bathroom to vomit, he discovered that they’d even taken his bottle of cologne. He knelt over his toilet, throwing up whiskey and Guinness, a thick brown ink that rolled down his chin and stuck to the sides of the toilet. He knew he should be ashamed, but he wasn’t, not a bit.
In the next month, convoys came and went. Grigory allowed himself to exhale. Maybe Yusuf had seen the difficulties he faced.
THE KNOCK CAME
on a quiet afternoon. Outside, the sun had set. On the concrete plaza of the apartment complex, kids were playing in the dark. Grigory expected to see his cousin, but when he opened the door, Yusuf was alone.
“Is there still a convoy this Thursday?”
“I’ll double-check tonight, but yes. But the convoy is due in the afternoon.”
“Inshallah”
—God willing—“it will be late.”
“The later the better.”
“I understand. Now explain again how you will do this.”
Grigory did. Even as he said the words, he wondered if he’d have the courage to go ahead. Yusuf must have sensed his uncertainty, for when Grigory finished he was silent. Finally he sat next to Grigory on the lumpy couch. He was much smaller than Grigory. And yet he radiated a strength that Grigory couldn’t hope to match.
“After you’re finished, I’ll meet you here. We’ll go on from there.”