Zrada

by Lance Charnes

This again. Big parts of her brain are still mush. Pushing ideas around is hard, tiring work, and so is maintaining an attitude. A name? She eventually goes for simple, about all she can handle right now. “Tarasenko.”

  Mashkov nods. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit? You look…unsteady.”

  She feels it, too. Maybe pacing for however long wasn’t such a good idea. “Only if I get the chair.”

  “Sorry, no. You put two of my men in the hospital and another three on light duty. You’re not popular here.”

  I did that? She can’t remember much that happened after she shot Stepaniak. “They probably deserved it.”

  He frowns and shifts in his chair. “You were found in a room with Abram Stepaniak. Do you know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was dead. He’d been shot at least four times by at least two different weapons. Do you know how that happened?”

  “Yes.” Glowing static creeps into her vision. She tries to breathe slow and deep, but it isn’t working.

  He waits for her to go on. “Would you care to inform me?”

  “He attacked me twice in the past couple of days. The chest shots? That was me.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know him?”

  Carson reuses what she can remember of the summary she gave Rogozhkin. It takes a while; her tongue isn’t behaving. She tries to blink away the static but it won’t leave her alone. Maybe the stool isn’t such a bad idea…

  Mashkov taps his knee idly while he considers her. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not letching on her; it’s cooler, more abstract, like he’s looking at a picture that doesn’t make any sense. Not how men usually look at her when she’s naked.

  “This Stepaniak took half the ransom from the Amvrosiivka massacre. Our money. Do you know where he put it?”

  She can picture the knapsack at the farm. She was going to pick it up when Stepaniak asked her to kill him. They don’t have it?

  Carson’s head floats like it’s full of helium. She tries to squeeze the stars out of her vision with her eyelids, but it doesn’t work. “Stepaniak…had…” She’s collapsing into a hunch. That won’t do. She tries to stand straight.

  Her knees turn to jelly.

  She doesn’t feel herself hit the floor.

  Chapter 35

  Carson wakes up to a woman’s voice speaking Russian.

  “…thinking? Look at her! She’s been beaten half to death.”

  Mashkov’s voice, defensive. “She was standing a few minutes ago.”

  “And she’s not now. You should’ve called me as soon as she got here.” The woman’s voice is closer to Carson than Mashkov’s. “And, naked? You put a woman in a cell that these men can get into, and you take away all her defenses? You know—”

  “Remember the five men you looked at a few hours ago?” Mashkov sounds like he’s had enough of being read out. “She did that to them. She’s hardly defenseless. What’s wrong with her?”

  Carson wants to be unconscious again. She hasn’t even bothered to open her eyes. But someone’s near her: a latex-covered hand rocks her onto her back, then another latex hand gently pats her cheek. She fights her eyelids open.

  A pretty young brunette with a kind-but-worried face looks down at her. “Hi. How do you feel?” Russian, but gentle, like she’s talking to a hurt kid.

  It takes a while for Carson to work up enough spit to say anything. “Like shit.”

  The brunette smiles a little. “I bet. I’m Dunya. I’m the brigade’s chief medic. What’s your name?”

  That again. The answer’s no easier than last time, though this time it’s about not being able to think. “Lisa.”

  “Okay, Lisa. I’m going to take you to the clinic—”

  Mashkov: “You are not—”

  “—so I can examine you and patch you up—”

  “A guard’s going with you, then.”

  “—with a guard, but don’t worry about him. I’ll take care of you. You’ll be safe.” Dunya points at the guard in the doorway. “You. Give me your blouse. Now.” Nothing gentle about that.

  The guard looks to Mashkov for help. The colonel gives him a whatever-makes-her-happy wave. The guard reluctantly hands Dunya—a senior lieutenant, according to the shoulder boards on her baggy uniform top—his hip-length camo field tunic.

  The medic manages to wrestle the blouse onto Carson and get her on her feet. Carson has a good four inches on her. Dunya helps her stagger toward the door.

  Mashkov retreats to give them room. He doesn’t look happy. “She’s your responsibility now, Lieutenant.”

  Dunya stops. “Sir. If I can fix her up enough for her to start making trouble, you can do whatever you want to me…because I’ll be a miracle worker. We’ll be in the clinic.”

  The clinic’s a small, white box of a building close to the front gate, about twenty meters from the makeshift prison. It must’ve been a clinic longer than this complex has been a military base; there’s a lot of wear on the powder-blue ceramic tile lining the walls in the three rooms, and the scratches and dings on the stainless-steel examination table are rusted.

  Dunya shoos away the guard, gets Carson seated on the table, then peels the tunic off her. She tsks. “What did they do to you?”

  “Don’t remember.”

  “Well, the first thing we need to do is clean you up. Between the blood and the dirt, I can’t see a thing. Come on.”

  Carson sags against the tile of a small shower cubicle in the back of the exam room while Dunya gives her a thorough top-to-toe scrubbing with sturdy rags, bottled water (the tap isn’t working), and soap that smells like it’ll kill any living organism it touches. Then Carson melts onto the table and lets her mind wander as Dunya does a workup on her, including a pelvic exam.

  “You are a very lucky woman. I don’t see any labial or vaginal trauma. There’s bruising, but you’ve got bruises all over you, so…”

  Carson drains two full water bottles in less than two minutes as she sits slumped on the table’s edge, her legs dangling. For the first time, she can take stock of what’s happened to her. All the dark welts make her look more like a leopard than a woman.

  She watches a slightly blurry Dunya fill out a chart at the stainless-steel counter along the opposite wall. Rescue? Carson’s not fond of being rescued; it makes her feel weak. She’d rather work out her own problems. In this case, though, she wasn’t getting out of that tin box without help. Maybe Dunya will be an ally, something she needs here while she’s so messed up. “There was a kid at the chicken farm in Amvrosiivka. Did he make it?”

  Dunya turns, a slim eyebrow up. “Did you patch him up?”

  “Yeah. Is he okay?”

  “Hardly.” Dunya rests her rear against the counter’s edge. “He’s alive…thanks to you.”

  At least I did something right.

  Dunya’s cute little nose scrunches. “What are you? You’re not from here.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You’re healthy.”

  It took Carson almost two years of working for Rodievsky and Allyson to figure out how to explain what she does without inviting a lot of unwanted questions. “I fix things.”

  “Okay.” She waits a few beats. “What kinds of things?”

  “Things that need fixing.”

  More waiting. Dunya sighs and rubs the back of her neck. “Okay. It looks like you were hit on the head hard enough to break the skin at least three times. I’m about ninety-nine percent sure you have a concussion. It’s amazing you don’t have any broken bones. I’ll give you something for the pain, and you’re going to lie down on that table and rest for a while. Your body needs time to heal. I’d let you sleep in my cot, but you need more support than that. While you’re resting, I’ll try to find your clothes and get some food for you. Please don’t try to leave—you’re in no shape to go anywhere. Understand?”

  C
arson’s not sure she can walk, far less escape. “Why are you doing this?”

  “What, my job?”

  “No. Being nice. You saw what I did to your guys. I’m the enemy or something, right?”

  Dunya gazes at her for what seems like a long time. The action behind her eyes tells Carson she’s trying to figure it out herself. Then she steps to a glass-fronted cabinet and rummages through medicine bottles. “Yes, I saw what you did to those men. But I also saw what you did for the boy, Artem. You didn’t have to. Stopping to do it probably put you in danger. So I think you’re probably a good person who I don’t want to make mad.” She drops two white capsules into her left palm, then brings them to Carson. “Take these. You know, I see a lot of abused women when I go out in the villages on calls. I never see them hit back. So maybe…maybe I see you and think, someone’s finally hitting back.”

  Chapter 36

  Mashkov enters the Ops Center and crosses to Vasilenko, who’s frowning at the plotting table in the room’s center. “What do you have for me, Lenya?”

  The senior sergeant concentrates on his radio headset. He holds up his left hand, palm out: wait a moment. Then he murmurs, “Understand. Makiivka Ops out.” He pushes away the microphone stalk and shifts his focus to Mashkov. “Did you get anything out of the woman?”

  “She passed out before she said much. Lieutenant Fetisova is patching her up enough for questioning.”

  Vasilenko frowns. “Why are we even bothering with her? She was part of that massacre in Amvrosiivka. Why not—”

  “We don’t know what part.” On his way here, Mashkov had to answer several versions of the question, when are you going to shoot the woman? At least he’s had a chance to practice an answer. “Frankly, the only reason she’s still alive is because she saved that boy’s life. There’s more to it than what’s in the rumors going around. She’s tied up with Rogozhkin somehow, we know that. Maybe she’ll be useful for getting our money back from him. We’ll see. You called for me?”

  “Yes, sir. Remember the beacon on the bandit’s Range Rover?”

  An odd question. “Of course. Except it moved to a Škoda saloon. That’s how we found him in Byryuky. Why?”

  “It’s moving.”

  Rogozhkin asks nobody in particular, “Who’s driving that car?”

  He’s sitting on a collapsible sling chair on a concrete pad outside the warehouse sheltering his Hunter and Syrov’s two Tigrs. The storage yard is less than three kilometers from last night’s debacle at the ruined farm, but the militia didn’t bother to chase him or Syrov’s men. He finds that curious.

  “What car?” Syrov grumbles. He plunks onto an upended plastic bucket, slurping tea from a tin cup. His mirrored sunglasses reflect the two warehouses across the hundred-meter stretch of concrete and dirt from where they sit.

  “The one the women were driving.”

  Syrov shrugs. “Maybe it’s the women.”

  “Mashkov’s people got Tarasenko. I don’t know what happened to the short one.”

  “Maybe she’s driving it.”

  “Could be. She’s heading north. Maybe she has enough sense to get out of this mess. How are your men?”

  Once the scale of the militia assault became obvious, the section broke off its defensive fire and withdrew. God alone knows what the militia was shooting at after that—itself? Two snipers managed to melt into the night, but the third was trapped and killed. Syrov personally led a sortie to recover the man’s body. Rogozhkin told them all to stand down and get some rest, though he doubts they did much sleeping.

  Syrov drains his cup. “They’re angry. I don’t blame them. Vitya was a good man. Fucking militia got lucky.” He leans his elbows on his knees. “What now, sir?”

  What now, indeed? They took the icon from the Octavia and almost a million euros from Tarasenko. The militia must have the rest.

  He knows what he should do. He should turn over the money to the militia, then find Tarasenko and give her the icon, as they’d agreed.

  But that doesn’t solve his retirement problem. It’s also complicated by Proskurin’s aborted coup attempt against Mashkov. Rogozhkin knows he won’t get a warm welcome in Kuteinykove.

  He could spirit the money off to a numbered account in Cyprus. He could contact certain Moldovans he met years ago who can sell the icon for a substantial sum of money. True, it’s a gangster move. Then again, he’s been enriching other gangsters and warlords for years. This way, he could put in his papers and find a little place to settle down in Crimea, where it never gets too cold. He remembers it from his time helping rip the peninsula away from Kyiv’s greedy fingers. Green grass and sunshine in February: no secret why Moscow wants it so badly.

  Neither solution requires Syrov or his men.

  When in doubt, rely on old habits. “I’m waiting for instructions from Rostov.”

  Syrov nods knowingly. “Sir…the men were wondering if we could send some money to Vitya’s family. You know how low the death benefits are, even if the army admits he was killed in action.”

  “I know. How much?”

  “Fifty thousand?”

  The least he can do for a fallen soldier. “That’s fair.” He makes a quick calculation. “Take another fifty for yourself and the men. It’s the only reward they’ll get. And…ask them to keep quiet about it. All of it. Nobody else needs to know.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Syrov grunts off the bucket and shakes out his legs. “Do you need us anymore?”

  Rogozhkin hates to let them go until he knows what he’s going to do. “I’ll tell you in a few hours.”

  “When you hear from Rostov.” Something in Syrov’s voice implies he may not completely believe Rogozhkin’s waiting for orders.

  “Of course.”

  Rogozhkin watches Syrov disappear into the warehouse. He settles into his chair, massaging his leg.

  Then his satellite phone rings. General Tulantyev. Now what? “Rogozhkin here.”

  “Edik. Good morning.” Tulantyev sounds expansive. It seems too early for him to be drinking already, though. “Or is it? Perhaps you should tell me.”

  He knows. But how does he know? “Sir, I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Don’t play the innocent with me.” His voice turns hard. “The coup at your pet militia? Or should I say, attempted coup? Surely you’re aware of it, if you didn’t actually organize it.”

  Rogozhkin takes a moment to calibrate how he should handle this. “Sir, I’m in the field. All I’ve heard are rumors that Proskurin tried to arrest the local commander and died doing it. I won’t know more until I get back to the base.”

  “So this isn’t your doing?” Skepticism lies heavy in his voice. “It’s not like you haven’t done this before.”

  “True, when it’s been necessary. I don’t mean to boast, but if I’d organized this action, it wouldn’t have failed. You know that from my record.”

  The general grumbles, “Yes, yes, I know. I also know that two of our colonels and two majors are dead and the hohol commander’s declared war on us. What in hell is happening out there? Why are you in the field?”

  Rogozhkin explains in very rough terms the bandit problem and how he’s trying to keep the militias from butting heads. He leaves out the parts about the patrol, the money, the women, and the stolen artworks; there’s only so much complexity that Tulantyev can deal with.

  “So what happened?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Proskurin’s a bigot and an egomaniac. The local commander, Mashkov, is a Donbass patriot and a pain in the ass. They’ve been butting heads for over a year. Proskurin may have taken advantage of my absence to do something rash. Now that the bandit’s dead, I can look into this matter and report my findings."

  Tulantyev’s line goes silent for an unusually long time. Who else has been listening? Who’s Tulantyev talking to now? What intel hasn’t he shared? How much trouble am I in?

  “Edik Gregorivich.”

&n
bsp; “Sir?”

  “You’ve let things get out of hand. The locals are killing our officers, for God’s sake. You’re supposed to keep them in line. I’m relieving you. Don’t go to the militia base—God alone knows what they’ll do to you. Report back here with that spetsnaz section we sent you. We’ll discuss this matter and decide what we’re going to do with you.”

  No. Oh, no. “But, sir—”

  “No buts. Your time in the field is done. I expect to see you in my office on Monday morning. Understand?”

  Rogozhkin understands. His world is ending.

  Chapter 37

  Carson sits as straight as she can on the exam table and glares at Mashkov.

  He raises an eyebrow. “Was that a difficult question, Miss Tarasenko?” He’d asked, Are you feeling better?

  “I want my shit.”

  She’d still be naked if Dunya hadn’t scraped up some extra-large utilities for her. Carson’s clothes and gear are still missing. If Dunya hadn’t fed her after she woke up after lunchtime, she’d be good and pissed off.

  “Lieutenant Fetisova is dealing with that.” Mashkov settles into the ancient rolling office chair. “But before you get it, we need to establish exactly what part you play in this situation. You understand that, of course.”

  Carson glances toward Dunya, who’s leaning into the corner formed by two legs of the countertop lining the opposite walls. The nurse’s eyes switch between her and Mashkov like she’s watching a tennis match. She’d insisted on sticking around, making Carson marginally happier. “Whatever. Let’s get it done.”

  “Right. The money. Where is it?”

  “Stepaniak had it. I never got it.” She stares at the wall for a moment. “Any of your guys go missing? Maybe they took it.”

  “None of my men are missing. If you had taken it, what would you have done with it?”

  “Give it to Rogozhkin.”

  Mashkov leans back and frowns. That must be a surprise. They really aren’t working together. "What did he intend to do with it?”

  “Give it to you.” Shrugging hurts, like everything else. “That’s what he said.”