Then she saw that it wasn’t a gun at all, but an expanding steel baton. Garber extended it with a flick of his wrist, and as Ilya neared the door, he swung it savagely, taking the other man off his feet.
Ilya fell, colliding with one of the tables on his way down. Chessmen went flying. As the players backed away, clearing a space, Garber yanked the gun from its concealed holster and pointed it at Ilya, who was lying on the ground, facedown: “Don’t move! Don’t you fucking move!”
Wolfe slid to a halt, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Looking down, she saw Ilya on the floor, his hands held away from his body, his face impossible to read. She couldn’t believe it was over.
Powell appeared at her side, his glasses slipping down his face. He pushed them back up the bridge of his nose, then took a set of handcuffs from his pocket. Kneeling, he cuffed Ilya by the wrists, reciting the standard caution between lungfuls of air, something unreal in the tone of his voice: “You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be given in evidence—”
A crowd was gathering around them. Wolfe was doing her best to keep them back, her warrant card up in the air, when she realized that Ilya was speaking, his face pressed against the floor: “—James Morley. He’s the target. I’m not the one you want. It’s the photographer. You understand?”
Hearing this, Wolfe remembered the man in the green coat, the one she had seen leaving the auditorium a second before Ilya. It occurred to her now that although he had entered the lobby just after the protester’s attack on Chigorin, he had barely even glanced at the confusion, which had drawn every other photographer in sight. Instead, he had calmly gone the other way.
Without a word, Wolfe turned and headed back toward the lobby, moving in a fast walk at first, then breaking into a run. Powell’s voice crackled over her earpiece: “Wolfe, what the hell are you doing?”
“The photographer,” Wolfe managed to say. She reached the doors leading out to the lobby and burst through, hoping blindly that she wasn’t too late. “It’s him. We’ve got the wrong man—”
22
Karvonen had observed the chase from a distance. Standing at the far end of the lobby, a few steps from the door to the seminar room, he watched warily as the man he had seen in the auditorium took off across the floor, followed by a man and woman who did not seem entirely ready for the pursuit. It struck him as a piece of good luck, but he didn’t yet know how it would affect his plans.
As he turned away, ignoring the commotion behind him, he asked himself who the first man could be. He had seen him before, in Golden Square, and might not have remembered him had he not been trained, in both his professions, to scrutinize every face he saw. When he considered who else might be watching him, he thought briefly about walking away, but did not. Even if this was a trap, he would not escape by turning from his purpose now.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw that everyone in the lobby was staring at the confusion unfolding at the opposite end of the hall. Satisfied that no one was even facing in his direction, he went up to the door of the seminar room, turned the knob, and went inside.
The first thing he saw was Morley, standing next to the conference table, on which his briefcase had been set. A rolled copy of the tournament program was clutched in his right hand.
An instant later, Karvonen felt someone strong seize him by the shoulders. He was shoved and spun around so that his face pressed against the smooth surface of the dry-erase board on the wall. A voice whispered in his ear, a threatening rumble with a thick Russian accent. “Don’t move, suka.”
Karvonen smiled, his face squashed against the whiteboard. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Keeping one hand pressed against the small of Karvonen’s back, Morley’s bodyguard shut the door. Karvonen laced his fingers behind his head as the bodyguard began to frisk him, searching his pockets and jacket for weapons. A rough hand ran up and down his legs, pausing only to feel his groin. Karvonen patiently endured the search, saying, “A strange meeting place, with Chigorin himself only a few steps away. Or is that the reason you chose it?”
In response, the bodyguard only yanked away his camera bag. He unzipped the cover and rooted around inside, checking all the pockets, examining the camera and lens, even uncovering the false bottom. Finally he shoved the bag back into Karvonen’s hands and turned to Morley. “He’s clean.”
Karvonen slung the camera bag over his shoulder. “Now is it my turn to search you?”
“You’re lucky we agreed to meet you at all,” Morley replied. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Of course,” Karvonen said. As he went up to the conference table, he kept an eye on the others. The bodyguard, who braced a chair under the doorknob as easily as he might have thrown a prisoner around an interrogation room, was straight from the Lubyanka, but Morley was a more polished presence. When he undid the clasps of the case and lifted the lid, he seemed to be playing a role he had seen in movies, and Karvonen thought the case itself was also a bit much.
Morley turned the suitcase around, indicating its contents. “Are we satisfied, then?”
Karvonen looked inside. Lying on a layer of molded foam padding were two brushed steel cylinders, sleek, beautiful, and no larger than a couple of CO2 cartridges. He reached down and picked one up. It was heavier than he had expected. Turning the cylinder over, he studied the base, comparing the socket to the one in the plans that he had examined so carefully. At once he saw the trap that had been set. “No. I want the real ones. Where are they?”
“Good,” Morley said. “I wanted to be sure that you were the man I was told to meet.”
Unrolling the tournament program he held in one hand, he gave it to Karvonen, who opened it to the first page. Beneath the list of players in the invitational, two small, not very impressive ceramic canisters had been secured with translucent tape. He undid the tape and examined them. This time they were what he had expected. “All right. We’re good.”
“Then we’re done here,” Morley said. “You have everything else you need?”
Karvonen pocketed the canisters. As he did, he wondered whether this question meant that Morley was ignorant of what had happened to the others. He shut the case, then allowed the fingers of his right hand to wander under the edge of the conference table, brushing what he had taped there earlier. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“So this concludes our transaction.” Morley picked up the case, then looked into Karvonen’s eyes. “You won’t see or hear from us again. And I don’t want to hear from you. Not until this is over.”
Karvonen, holding the businessman’s gaze, saw a grain of fear there. “You won’t.”
The bodyguard, who was standing to one side, stretched out a muscular arm. With the tip of his finger, he prodded Karvonen in the chest. “And if you depart from our arrangement, you answer to me. You understand?”
“I do,” Karvonen said. Then he reached under the table and pulled out the gun.
Before anyone could react, he brought the silenced pistol up and around and thrust the barrel against the bodyguard’s chin. For a fraction of a second, their eyes met. Then Karvonen pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was like the sharp sound a man makes with his teeth pressed against his lower lip. Morley’s bodyguard staggered back, blood streaming from his throat, and slumped against the wall. Karvonen could hear the steady pulse of liquid. Everything around him seemed lit from within, his movements precise, deliberate, perfect.
Karvonen turned to Morley. He saw the businessman’s eyes widen, his mouth falling open, but before he could say anything, Karvonen shot him twice, two taps in the chest, and watched as he fell to the floor.
All was quiet. Karvonen looked around the seminar room. There was blood everywhere. No time for the purifying fire. Tucking the pistol into his waistband, he took off his green coat, which had caught most of the blood spatter,
and let it drop. Then he tore the metal case from Morley’s hands, not wanting to leave any evidence behind, and headed for the exit at the rear of the room. The real canisters were still in his pocket.
He opened the exit door, the lock of which he had taped, and went out to the stairwell. His other overcoat was rolled up at his feet. Leaning down, he scooped it up, then quickly descended the stairs.
Back in the seminar room, nothing, except the faint push and pull of a man breathing.
Morley lay on his back, in a pool of his own blood, staring at the light fixtures on the ceiling. Dimly, as if the noises were being filtered through layers of fine cloth, he heard shouts, then a splintering sound as the door was forced. A moment later, the light from overhead was blocked out as a woman leaned over him, her hair backlit, a shadow falling across his face.
Wolfe looked into the eyes of the man on the ground. She said something that Morley could not understand. He drew air into his lungs one last time, then forced out two words before the darkness descended.
“Dyatlov Pass—”
II
DECEMBER 14–21, 2010
The kingdom of the father is like a certain man who wanted to kill a powerful man. In his own house he drew his sword and stuck it into the wall in order to find out whether his hand could carry through. Then he slew the powerful man.
—The Gospel of Thomas
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot . . .
—John Donne
23
Through the window of the custody room, Ilya seemed otherworldly, seated in a folding chair, his pale face sticking out through its plastic shroud. Wolfe knew that it was only a blue forensic suit, a sterile wraparound sheet given to prisoners to lock in trace evidence, but to her eyes, it still made him look like a ghost.
She glanced at her phone, hoping that Asthana had checked in without her noticing, but saw no missed calls. Then she looked again at Ilya, who was being photographed by a constable with a digital camera. She wanted to talk to him now, but there was no halting the booking process, even though every passing second reduced their chances of finding Morley’s killer.
The police station stood in Kensington, where Ilya had been brought immediately after his arrest. At two in the afternoon, the officers were nearing the end of the early turn, but many had lingered to stare at their new celebrity. Wolfe had been particularly interested to hear what name he would give. In the end, he had simply identified himself as Ilya Severin, replying in the same tone he used for everything else, quiet, brief, and with a prisoner’s regard for the circle of his integrity.
On the other side of the glass, a scenes-of-crime officer finished swabbing Ilya’s hands, then ran a comb back and forth through the prisoner’s hair. Ilya leaned forward obediently, but as he did, he raised his eyes to the window. For a second, his gaze seemed to latch on to Wolfe’s, although she knew that there was no way he could really see her. Then he turned away again.
At the far end of the room, Powell was speaking to the detective inspector, who had arrived five minutes ago. Wolfe checked her phone one last time, hoping in vain to find that Asthana had called with an update, then headed over to where the two men were standing.
“The firearms charge is enough to hold him,” the inspector was saying. “We have the gun he was carrying when he was arrested. It doesn’t look like a match for Campbell or Akoun, but we’ll run it against the database—”
“Yes, that’s fine,” Powell said absently, his eyes fixed on the view through the window. Wolfe could sense his impatience to begin the interrogation. “In the meantime, we have an outstanding warrant for his arrest on suspicion of the murder of Lermontov, which means that we can question him without a solicitor present. I want to talk to him alone.”
As Wolfe looked into the next room, where the scenes-of-crime officer was preparing yet another swab, she knew that they had to move quickly. A description of the man from the tournament had been issued to all available units, but for now, Ilya was their best source. And as she watched him sit stonily as a cheek sample was taken, Wolfe saw that he was already retreating into himself.
She turned to the others. “Listen, the rest of the process can wait. The longer we let this go on, the less cooperative he’s going to be. He was tracking our killer. We need him to work with us.”
“Unless he and the killer were in collusion,” the inspector said. “We can’t rule out that possibility. Frankly, it’s easier for me to accept than the idea that he was planning to disrupt this assassination—”
“But we won’t know until we ask him. And we need to ask him now.” Wolfe pointed into the next room. “I know how the process works. They’ll take his blood and confiscate his clothes. By the time they’re done, he won’t want to cooperate. He’ll tell us to go to hell.”
Wolfe nearly blushed at the unaccustomed profanity, which seemed to hang in the air, though she knew that the others wouldn’t even notice it. Finally, the inspector said, “Fine. Give me one minute.”
The inspector went into the custody room, closing the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, Wolfe turned to Powell. It was the first time they had been alone together since the arrest. “How do you want to handle this?”
“I’ll lead,” Powell said. “I know Ilya best. Which is to say I don’t know him at all.”
Wolfe heard a certain bitterness in his tone, which unsettled her. “Alan, listen to me. I know you’ve been hunting this man for a long time, but we can’t get sidetracked. We’ve got to find this killer. If Ilya knows who he is, we need to convince him to help. Anything else is a distraction.”
Powell headed for the interview room. “I’m aware of that. And to be honest, I’m not convinced that he knows much of anything. At the most, he has a knack for turning up at just the wrong time—”
“I know,” Wolfe said. “Which means the three of us have something in common.”
Inside, the interview room consisted of a table and four chairs, the walls lined with acoustic padding. Wolfe pulled out a chair, then decided that it was better to be standing. She tried to convince herself that she was extraordinarily calm, and yet she was also very aware of her heartbeat.
When the door opened again, Ilya entered the room with the detective inspector at his side. The forensic sheet was gone, taking away some of his ghostly aura, but his eyes remained distant and veiled. When he saw them, his face did not change, although Wolfe thought she saw a flicker of recognition.
As Ilya took a seat at the other end of the table, the inspector loaded a disc into the player on the wall, pressed the RECORD button, and gave the standard cautions. Powell sat down as well. Only a narrow table stood between him and the man he had pursued for so long.
After a beat, Powell shook out his handkerchief and began to polish his glasses. “Ilya, my name is Alan Powell. Do you remember me?”
Ilya said nothing, but he gave a short nod, as much with his dark eyes as with his head.
“Good.” Powell put his glasses back on. “It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been trying to find you for years, ever since you showed up at that club in Brighton Beach. We were both foreigners there, but now we’re home. And I know you must have returned for a reason.”
He paused, as if waiting for Ilya to speak, but the other man said nothing. Powell continued, unperturbed: “I don’t know how much you’ve been told so far, but James Morley is dead. So is his bodyguard. They were shot at the tournament, as you expected, just as we were taking you into custody. The killer, the photographer, is gone. We’re currently in the process of tracking him down, but I think you know more about him than we do. Am I right?”
Ilya listened to this speech in silence, his eyes brightening only slightly at the news that Morley and his guard had been murdered. Wolfe noticed that his most striking features, aside from
his eyes, were his hands, which were those of a lens grinder or other fine craftsman.
Powell, for his part, kept his attention focused on Ilya’s face, which remained neutral. “Ilya, I know you’ve been tracking this man. I know that you went to the armorer’s garage and the other crime scenes. I also know that none of this would interest you without reason. I’ve followed you long enough to suspect what this reason might be. Was this an intelligence operation?”
For the first time, Ilya seemed to take an interest in what Powell was saying. A challenging gleam appeared in his eyes, but when he spoke at last, his voice was soft: “The signs were there.”
“And what signs were those?” When the other man did not respond, Powell smiled tightly. “Let me tell you what I think. You saw that an intelligence operation was under way, and you resolved to disrupt it, because this is what a man like you does. You did it in Brighton Beach. And you did it with Lermontov.”
If Powell had been hoping for a reaction to the art dealer’s name, Ilya disappointed him. He only sat in the same attitude as before, looking silently across the table, as if waiting for something more.
“There’s no point in denying that you killed Lermontov,” Powell said, his voice hardening. “The gun used to kill him was last seen in your possession. You brought it across the Atlantic, which couldn’t have been easy, but it was intended to send a message. You wanted your enemies to know who had done this. And they do. But now it’s time to send a message again.”
Powell paused. “I know you don’t trust me or the system I represent. You prefer to work on your own. But at the moment, the system is all you have. So I’m asking you, if you still hate the Chekists, to help us find this man.”
Even before this entreaty was over, Wolfe saw that Ilya had tuned out. Powell, she realized, had taken the wrong tack. Before anyone could speak again, she was surprised to hear her own voice: “Ilya, what is the Dyatlov Pass?”
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