Zrada

by Lance Charnes

  As she approaches the place where the SUV started, she can see the dark shape that fell away from it. A body, sprawled halfway off the street.

  No no no no no no…

  “Galina? Galina?”

  Chapter 16

  FRIDAY, 13 MAY

  “Please don’t let her be hurt.” Carson doesn’t even know who she’s mumbling to. “Please let her be okay.” I don’t wanna hurt somebody helping me…again.

  “Here.” Galina’s voice, dazed.

  No no no…Carson crashes onto her knees next to Galina, who’s trying to push herself upright. The flashlight reveals blood dripping down her forehead, mixing with the blood dribbling from her nose. “You okay? Are you hit?”

  “They hit me with their car door.” Galina sounds like she’s half-asleep. She touches her hand to her upper forehead, then tries to focus on the dark smear on her fingers.

  “You are so lucky.” Thank God it wasn’t worse. Carson’s been hit by a car door a couple of times. It’s no fun at all, but it’s way better than a bullet.

  “Hmpf. Lucky.” Galina shakes her head. “It was him. The bandit. I shot the windscreen. There were two men. One carried a backpack and something that looked like that big black thing you had the painting in. He was helping the other one. How did they find us?”

  Goddamn Stepaniak. Six hours before the swap and he decides to take everything. He never wanted a deal. Asshole. “The backpack and portfolio were from the bedroom. Why didn’t you stay in the car?”

  “I couldn’t let you fight alone. I waited here for them to come for their car. An ambush.” Galina squints up at her. “They took your money and your painting?”

  “Yeah. They must’ve followed us from the bar.” Or, more likely, followed the tracker. She’d never told Galina about that. Now’s not a good time for extreme honesty.

  “It’s good I took what I did, then.” She points toward a low wall screening a house from the road.

  Carson skirts the end of the weather-beaten block wall. Behind it, she finds a Halliburton briefcase and a rectangular something wrapped in a plastic bag. “Where’d you get this?”

  “From the car. It was behind their front seats. Silly men. They left it unlocked.”

  She opens the attaché. It’s full of €200 notes. A wave of relief washes over the upwelling of doom she felt when she saw that Stepaniak got away with the Cranach and the money. I can still fix this. Carson trots to Galina, gives her a one-armed hug, then kisses the top of her head. “You’re amazing. Let’s get you inside and clean you up.”

  Carson half-leads, half-carries Galina to what’s left of the house. She weighs more than Carson expects, not helpful as Carson comes crashing off her adrenaline high. She sets Galina on a battered wood-frame chair in the kitchen, then props up the flashlight to shine on the ceiling. Galina’s first-aid kit is unusually well-stocked.

  She quickly surveys the house before she goes to work on Galina. The painting and backpack are definitely gone. A blood trail leads from the side door into the bedroom, then out the back door. Did she shoot Stepaniak or Stas? How badly? How much she should care?

  In the kitchen, Carson cleans Galina’s head wound. “Quit wiggling.” She grabs the top of Galina’s head to hold it still. “This beats getting an infection.”

  “It’s not so bad. Don’t worry so much about it.”

  “I’ll worry about what I want to.”

  Galina grimaces as Carson swabs more iodine on her wound. “What will they do when they see we have their painting and money?” Her voice is awake again.

  “Louder. My ears.” Carson’s been asking herself the same question. “They’ll be pissed off. Don’t know what they’ll do with it.”

  “They shot at you twice? Three times since yesterday? They shot at us. That makes me pissed off.”

  “Me, too.” Carson steps back. “There. Butterfly strips should hold it closed enough to scab over. Don’t fuck with them.”

  “Language.”

  Whatever. Carson sags against the counter. It’s almost two in the morning. The day had ended the same way it started—with Stepaniak and his pit bull shooting at her—and she’s beyond tired of that shit. The adrenaline’s gone. Her brain’s processing what happened. She’s weak and vaguely sick to her stomach.

  This time was different. The first time, at the chicken farm, she can almost buy as Stepaniak’s dumbshit way of getting her out of the way. The second time, at Olhynske, was clearly a shakedown, not a hit. This time? They threw a fragmentation grenade at her. The dark and her ability to duck fast are the only reasons she’s still alive.

  Plus, Stepaniak conned her. He isn’t interested in a deal. He wants everything and almost got it. Shame on her for not expecting this and not being prepared.

  That’s not gonna happen again.

  An ache in her hands makes her look down. She’s been throttling the thin blue towel Galina had pulled from a duffel when they unpacked.

  “Tarasenko?” Galina leans forward, her elbows on her knees, staring at Carson.

  Carson’s brain is drifting. “Sorry about tonight.”

  Galina shrugs.

  “You did good. We were both lucky. Maybe we won’t be next time. I can’t risk your life for this money or some old picture. They aren’t worth getting killed over.”

  Galina leans back into the creaking chair, frowning. “You’re quitting?”

  “No. I’m done with Stepaniak. Bastard tried to kill me tonight. Nobody gets to do that more than once. I’m gonna find him and kill him.”

  “Good.”

  “But I’m not gonna risk your life to do it. It’s not fair. My fight, not yours. Tomorrow—this morning, I guess—if you help me get a car, you can go home. You’ll get your money and live to use it. Okay?”

  Galina’s eyes try to drill into Carson’s head. Her mouth’s a pucker. “I want to help.”

  “I know. Thanks. But…what I asked you to do before was dangerous enough. This is too much. You’ve seen these guys—they’re not amateurs. We got lucky. Could’ve turned out way worse for us.”

  “I understand. It’s dangerous.” Galina sniffs. “Living here is dangerous. Some Russian shell or bomb could hit my house tomorrow. I could step on a mine in a field.” She reaches out to touch Carson’s knee with her fingertips. “I still want to help. I know where things are, how things work. These tarhany are everywhere here. They made this place the way it is. I want to help stomp on a few.”

  Carson would rather not be alone when she hunts down Stepaniak. But… “A few years ago, when I was a detective? I had an informant. He fed me amazing stuff. Worked with him for almost a year. Kept telling him, ‘You gotta get out, it’s dangerous, they’ll kill you.’ He wouldn’t. He had a grudge. He wanted to help put these Russian mafiya assholes away.” Just telling this story bunches up her guts. “One day he disappeared. I went nuts trying to find him.” Long pause; trying to get the words together. Andrei, I’m so sorry…“They sent me his head in a box.”

  Galina grimaces.

  “I promised myself I’d never let anybody sacrifice themselves to help me again. Especially when it’s just about stuff or money. Haven’t changed my mind.” She pushes off the counter, looking everyplace except at Galina. “I’m gonna run down Stepaniak and take him off the board. I like that you want to help. I do. But I can’t let you. This isn’t worth your life.”

  Chapter 17

  Carson wakes up slowly. There’s an overcast sky outside the busted-out window in the washroom. Her watch says it’s past eight, far later than she normally sleeps. She must’ve needed it.

  They’d barricaded the outside doors, dragged the shredded mattress into the mudroom, and huddled on it in sleeping bags. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it was more secure than sleeping in the car and they didn’t have anywhere else to go. Carson took the first watch, switching out with Galina at five. She fell off fast and hard. Galina must’ve let her sleep in.
/>
  She’s not there now. Carson feels for the other sleeping bag and doesn’t find it. Huh.

  She sits up carefully—her head’s still vibrating from the grenade blast—and works out her left shoulder for a minute. That side of her body stiffened up again overnight. Before she turned in, she finally got the Cheata bra off and had her first good look at where Stepaniak shot her: a livid bruise bigger than a bread plate, already turning green around the edges. Nothing seems to be moving under there, luckily. Her ribs may only be cracked.

  Carson pulls on her jeans and steps into her boots. The house echoes as she shambles around, trying to kick-start her brain and her body as she brushes the bedhead out of her hair. She’s groggy from sleep and lack of sleep.

  Galina’s not there. The chair that barred the side door is in the kitchen. Rounding up breakfast?

  Then she looks at the stuff piled at the entry hall’s far end. The briefcase is still there.

  Galina’s beat-up blue duffel is gone. The car is gone.

  The icon is gone.

  There’s a note written in loopy Cyrillic script: It belongs in a church.

  When she asks a neighbor where the closest church is, he points Carson toward Saint Nikolai on the south side of town. It’s about half a block east of Viktoriia, where she and Galina had supper last night.

  The kilometer-plus walk helps turn on her brain and unkink her body. She broods about this new fresh hell on the way.

  Saint Nikolai is a large, white building with a pair of tall columns flanking the red front doors. No dome. A gilt Orthodox cross and a large icon-like portrait of Jesus loom over her.

  Carson’s been in Russian Orthodox churches—a couple of weddings (which lasted freaking forever, standing up the whole time), a baptism, a funeral—but never as a customer. Her parents were good Soviet nonbelievers, as were most of their friends in Canada. Her mother dredged up her vestigial, long-ignored Jewish heritage to get a rabbi in Kharkiv to vouch for her. It was enough for them to leave the USSR in the ‘70s when Soviet Jews were allowed to emigrate. Carson sometimes wonders what she’d be like (if she existed at all) had they gone to Tel Aviv instead of Edmonton.

  She ties on the navy-blue kerchief she bought as she walked through the market on her way to the church. Then she climbs the four steps, passes between the columns, and pushes through the doors.

  She paces through a roomy, softly lit vestibule and a pair of wrought-iron gates into the nave. The space she enters reminds her of cathedrals she’s been in: wide, tall, long, lit from above through windows near the ceiling. Like the one in Milan that Matt dragged her into last year, except that one was full of pews and this one has enough empty floor for a hockey rink. Chandeliers full of electric candles hang overhead.

  An icon is propped on an ornate wood-and-gilt stand a few steps past the gate. It’s the one Heitmann unwrapped at the chicken farm. That was easy.

  Too easy?

  A woman shaped like Galina stands alone at the front of the nave’s north half. A simple white scarf covers her head. To the right, near the raised dais at the room’s east end, stands a bearded priest in a long, black cassock. There’s nobody else in sight.

  Carson works her way to Galina. Her black eye and bruised cheek have colored up since last night. The white headscarf isn’t so simple; it’s densely tatted lace. Even Carson can tell it’s old. Carson hisses, “You stole the icon.”

  Galina’s hands are clasped in front of her. She doesn’t look up. “It belongs in a church.”

  “It belongs in a museum in Bonn. It’s their money I’m paying you with.” That gets her a scorching look from Galina. “Look, I get it. It means something to you. But the museum’s spent a ton of money to get it back. They won’t want to hear I left it on the prairie.”

  “You’re too late. I gave it to the church.”

  “It’s not yours—”

  “Hush! I’m trying to listen to God.” Galina returns to praying, if that’s what she’s been doing.

  Wonderful. Carson watches her for a few moments. What’d she say yesterday? You always have to do the right thing. Must be nice to have that kind of certainty. It’s nothing Carson’s ever had since she crashed into adulthood early and discovered how complicated everything is. “You mad at me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Is it about last night?”

  “You want to get rid of me.” Galina shoots Carson a wounded look. “All I want to do is help.”

  “All I want to do is keep you alive.”

  Galina resumes listening to God.

  The priest gives Carson a sour look. Because she’s talking? Because he can tell she doesn’t belong here? She tries to figure out what to do as she glances around the sanctuary. Broken windows, empty spaces on the icon screen, fraying carpet on the dais. The tiled floor is gently glossy, but that takes muscle, not money.

  She passes behind Galina and marches toward the priest. Up close, he’s younger than she imagined. There’s no gray in his full, heather-brown hair and beard, and his face shows less mileage than hers or Galina’s. He watches her like she’s a species of animal he hasn’t seen before and he wants to figure out if she’s dangerous.

  “Otets.” One of many Russian words for father. She has no idea if it’s the right one.

  He nods. “My child.”

  Child? “You’re not older than me.” Should she have said that? Too late to take it back. “Maybe younger.”

  An almost-smile. “All the members of this church are my children, just as we are all children of God.” He has a good voice for a priest: smooth, gentle, warm.

  Here goes. “My friend over there”—she nods toward Galina, who’s watching them—“says she gave you that icon back there. Did she?”

  The priest solemnly nods once. “Yes, she did. It is a very generous thing to do. It’s very old and precious. I imagine you already know that.”

  “I do. She gets…confused sometimes. It doesn’t belong to her. Doesn’t belong to me, either. It’s stolen. I’m taking it back where it belongs.” I hope.

  “I see.” He frowns. His palms scrub each other in front of his hips. “If I may ask, where does it belong if not in the house of God?”

  This is another time she wishes Matt was here. He’d spin a big line of bullshit and the priest would just hand over the icon and be happy about it. Talking was never her strong suit, and persuading people with words rather than a headlock is way outside her skill set. “An art museum in Germany. Bonn. Somebody stole it seven years ago. They’ve been looking for it since.”

  “I see.” The priest glances at Galina, then toward the icon, then settles on Carson again. “Tell me…do you think an art museum in Germany is an appropriate home for that precious object? You know what it represents, yes?”

  “It’s an Annunciation.” Good thing she listened to Heitmann.

  “Yes. It shows the moment when the Archangel Gavriil tells the Theotokos that—”

  “The what?”

  “The Blessed Virgin. This is when she learns that she will give birth to the Son of God. Can you imagine her reaction? Can you imagine the courage she must have had to accept her part in the most important event in history?”

  Carson knows exactly how Mary reacted to waking up pregnant. And did Mary have any choice? Could she say ‘no’ to the God who destroyed cities and turned people into pillars of salt? This is what she’d been afraid of: that they’d end up arguing theology rather than the real world.

  The priest smiles gently. “It is overwhelming, yes? Icons help us focus on the people and events they depict so we can revere them. The icon your friend brought to us will help every member of this church to contemplate the awe and the power of that moment, and the Blessed Virgin’s strength and courage then and throughout her life. The people who see the icon in that museum—will they do this? Will they understand what it means? Or will it be a pretty picture to them?”

  She knows where this is
going. Once they get into philosophy, she’s sunk. She needs to keep them rooted in reality. “Doesn’t matter if it’s appropriate. The museum owns it. If I decide to leave it here, they’ll send somebody else to get it. You don’t get to keep it.”

  The priest frowns. Maybe he’s not used to people telling him no. “Is it right? Is it just? How did the museum come to have this–”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s theirs. Even if it somehow becomes yours, you know you can’t keep it.” She points to the screen across the dais. “The gaps up there used to have icons?”

  He follows her finger, then nods sadly. “Yes.”

  “Where’d they go?”

  After a few moments, his hands resume scrubbing each other. “There was fighting here two years ago. There were soldiers. Some damage you see happened then.”

  “Men with guns took them.”

  “Yes.”

  Just what she’d figured. “You have any idea how much that icon is worth? How old it is?”

  “It is priceless to us.”

  “Maybe to you. Other people put a price on it.” She’s going on pure instinct now. Her plan ran out a few minutes ago. “What makes you think more men with guns won’t take this one? Want to figure the odds on whether it’ll still be here Sunday after next?”

  Carson turns when the priest glances over her shoulder. Galina’s drifting toward them, looking grim. He turns his attention to the icon screen. “You have a very dark view of the world.”

  “I’ve earned it. You take confessions, right? Between that and what happened here, tell me you don’t have a ‘dark view.’”

  “Do you intend to take away the icon?”

  “I’m leaving with it. Either you give it to me or I take it, but it’s not staying.” This probably qualifies as threatening a priest. She ought to feel worse about it than she does. Another reason for God to smite her if She’s still in that business.

  He turns to her. His eyes have hardened in the past minute. “What do you want from me, then? My blessing?”

  Galina lands next to Carson. “What are you doing?” She speaks Russian, probably so the priest can understand.