by James Lepore
This statement produced a slight upward tilt of Valentina Petrov’s chin, a movement that enhanced the Russian woman’s great, dark beauty, softly modeled at that moment by the flickering light from a group of candles on the glass coffee table between them. Next to them were the two pieces of Don Marchenko’s stone goddess, and next to them two fluted glasses and a bottle of Cristal Champagne on ice in a silver bucket.
“Shall we drink?” Chris said, lifting the champagne and filling the glasses. “I appreciate your help in this matter.” He lifted his glass and watched as Ms. Petrov placed a napkin on the stem of hers and lifted it. “Thank you,” he said.
“You are welcome.”
They drank.
“Don Marchenko is lucky to have such a beautiful employee,” said Chris, setting his glass down.
“I am not an employee,” Valentina Petrov replied. ”But I admit, he has been good to my family and I am happy to carry a message for him from time to time if he asks.”
“He is a great man,” Chris said. “What has he done for you and your family?”
“He and my grandfather were boyhood friends in Odessa. When my grandfather died young, Don Marchenko helped support the family. He sent my father to America to college and medical school.”
“As I say, a great man.”
“You remind me of him,” Miss Petrov said. “Very much.”
“Thank you. That is a great compliment.”
“Do you want to hear his message?”
“Not yet,” Chris answered. “Do you know your Russian history?”
“Russian history?”
“Yes, this champagne, for example, was first produced by Louis Roderer for Czar Nicholas. Later, Alexander II insisted it come in clear bottles with flat bottoms.”
“Why?”
“He was afraid someone would smuggle a bomb in it.”
“Better to be a poor nobody,” Valentina said, “than a czar worried about assassination all the time.”
“Not in 19th century Russia.”
“He was assassinated though, was he not?” Valentina asked.
“Yes,” Chris replied. “In 1881, despite all his precautions. Do you know why?”
“No, I’m afraid not. The czars are still not much in favor in Mother Russia.”
“Your present prime minister is pretty much a czar, is he not?”
“We have many freedoms.”
“Have I insulted you?”
“No, I am not naïve, but communism was much worse.”
“How did you learn to speak such perfect English?”
“My father hired private tutors for my brother and me. He was two, I was three.”
“Shall we speak more English at dinner tomorrow?” said Chris. “Say ten o’clock at the restaurant here?”
“I would enjoy that. Shall I wait till then to give you Don Marchenko’s message?”
“No, tell me now. What does he say?”
“That Mr. Dravic is not connected to the diamonds. That the Kremlin’s concerns about something happening in Prague are legitimate. That the deadline remains September eleven.”
“Thank you, Valentina,” Chris said. “May I call you Valentina?”
“Of course.”
“When will you see Don Marchenko again?” he asked.
“It is rare that I see him.”
“Do you know what the something is that might be happening in Prague?”
“Of course not.”
“Did you come to Prague just to see me?”
“My brother is here to tape a television show. I help him organize his life.”
“What kind of television show?”
“He is a priest who is much in demand for his political views.”
“Which are?”
“Conservative. Anti-communist.”
“He must be good looking and well-spoken, like his sister.”
Valentina did not reply.
“Charismatic, perhaps,” Chris said.
“Yes,” the Russian woman said. “He is that.”
“Please ask him to join us tomorrow night. He sounds very interesting.”
“I will.”
Chris rose and watched as Valentina placed her glass, with the napkin still wrapped around its stem, on the coffee table, and got to her feet as well.
“Alexander II was killed by a bomb in St. Petersburg,” Chris said. “Thrown by a fanatic from The Peoples Will.”
“The Peoples Will?”
“Terrorists fomenting a peasants revolution, which Lenin and the Bolsheviks accomplished in 1917.”
“You do know Russian history.”
“It’s a hobby.”
“A hobby. And what is it that you do?”
“It will bore you, I promise,” Chris replied, “but I will tell you tomorrow night.”
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
When she was gone, Chris lifted the napkin from Valentina Petrov’s champagne glass, then raised the glass to a nearby lamp to inspect it. As he was putting it down, his cell phone rang. Costa, he said to himself, when he retrieved the phone from his jacket’s inside pocket and saw the ID number on the screen. He touched the answer bar.
“Yes,” he said.
“Anadochos.”
“Costa.”
“Josef Bukov was at Octha in 1979. He washed out. He is the bishop.”
“Who else was there that year, and the years before and after?”
“I will find out.”
“Thank you. One more thing.”
“Of course.”
“Valentina Petrov, age: mid-thirties, born Odessa. She has a brother who is a priest and is on television.”
“Where is she now?”
“Here in Prague.”
“I will do my best.”
“Thank you.”
29.
Prague, September 3, 2012, 1:00 a.m.
Chris asked no questions at dinner. Inquisition, no matter with what finesse it was done, would be a red flag to a professional, which Chris assumed Valentina Petrov was. Her brother he was not so sure of. Perhaps he was a crusading priest and perhaps not. Conversation was light and breezy, but nevertheless revealing. Father Nicholei was officially assigned to Christ The Savior, Russia’s great national cathedral, though his primary work was to disseminate the church’s traditional values. This he managed to do with great success with the help of Valentina, who had worked for years as a newscaster on Russian television. They loved him in Central Europe’s capitals, where communism was hated and the church was still regarded with reverence and respect.
When Valentina, in a simple black evening dress with diamonds at her throat and ears, went off to powder her nose before the coffee arrived, Chris decided he could be a little less cautious. “She is beautiful,” he said, as they watched her wind her way through the quiet and beautifully appointed restaurant to the ladies room behind the bar area.
“She is,” the handsome young priest replied.
“And a great help to you.”
“Yes, devoted.”
“You have no pastoral duties?”
“No.”
“You speak to a much wider audience.”
“Yes, you could say that.”
“Do you live on the cathedral grounds?”
“Yes, in the residence on Lenivka Street.”
“I would like to see it one day.”
“I will give you a tour.”
“I would like that. I’ve read that the original cathedral, the one that Stalin tore down, had twenty tons of gold in the dome.”
“Alas, Stalin built several dachas with it.”
“And that it had underground passages leading to the Kremlin and the czars’s residences.”
“Yes, many are still there, though I doubt they are used
much, if at all.”
“I saw you on television tonight, Father.”
“You did? Do you speak Czech, Mr. Massi?” the young priest asked, his dark eyebrows raised.
“No, it was in English. I have Dual Sound software on my computer.”
“Amazing. How did I do?”
“You were quite critical of Mr. Putin.”
“Ah yes, the Pussy Riot Girls, protesting at the cathedral. Are you surprised?”
“They want Putin thrown out of office.”
“They are free, in my opinion, to say so.”
“Do you say the same things in Moscow?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I assumed you would stick to safe subjects, like abortion and homosexuality.”
“You were wrong in this instance.”
“Shall I be frank?”
“Please.”
“I did not think people were allowed to disagree with Putin, especially on television, especially a priest.”
“A priest? Why?”
“The church supported Putin in both of his elections. It has harshly condemned the three young girls. Does your bishop support you?”
“My bishop?”
“Yes, Father Bukov.”
“You seem to know a lot about us, Mr. Massi.”
“I am an amateur historian. But I will expose my ignorance if I continue. I will change the subject. Does your father still practice medicine?”
Father Nicholas was silent as he pondered this abrupt turn in the conversation. He glanced at Chris for a second, the first time, Chris noted, thus far in the evening that he had looked with care in his direction. Yes Father, do not trust me.
“Yes,” the priest replied finally, “he is a surgeon in Odessa.”
Chris nodded. “At which hospital?”
“The Medeyev Clinic. Do you know Odessa?”
“It is a great port city,” Chris answered. “I own ships that stop there frequently.”
“Do you own a hotel there as well?”
“No, this and the Intercontinental in Budapest are my only hotels.” Then, looking over the priest’s shoulder and nodding, Chris said, “Here is your beautiful and devoted sister.”
They rose as Valentina arrived, her diamonds glittering even in the room’s subdued lighting. They sat again after, with Chris’s courtly assistance, she had retaken her seat.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
“I have surprised myself,” Valentina Petrov said.
“What do you mean?” Chris Massi asked. “By being here with me?”
“Yes. We’ve just met, and here I am in your beautiful penthouse with the lights low and candles burning.”
They were seated in the same chairs in Chris’s suite as the evening before. The same candles were burning in an otherwise nearly dark room. A bottle of very good Cognac and two half-full snifters sat near the candles.
“Fire, water,” Chris said, “I like them around me. In Skopelos I have a fountain in the center atrium that is often the only music we need.”
“Elemental.”
“Yes, like you.”
“Like me?”
“I meet many women, Valentina. Most are ungrounded, afraid.”
“Who is we?”
“In Skopelos?”
“Yes.”
“My staff and me. My children when they visit.” Chris paused, then continued, “you need not stay long.”
“I am here,” Valentina said. “I have crossed the Rubicon, as they say. If I stay ten minutes or ten hours, it doesn’t matter.”
“So you’re here to conquer me, as Caesar did Gaul?”
“You are not conquerable, Don Massi, and that is most attractive, most elementally attractive, to a woman.”
“You are not relaxed, though. I can tell.”
“Did you mean it when you said people here see only what you want them to see?”
“My private elevator is guarded around the clock,” Chris answered. “The men who escorted you up here are professionals.”
“Yes, but when I leave…?”
“How did you exit last night?”
“I was blindfolded, but I suppose you know that.”
“Yes, a necessary precaution.”
“They took me out by way of an office building on the block behind.”
“You can relax. I bought this hotel with that kind of ingress and egress in mind. The office building is not the only one. Are you concerned about appearances? Your brother? Is that it?”
“I never…I don’t do this as a rule, and I never do this when I travel with him.”
“He can’t be tainted you mean.”
“Yes. Correct.”
“But you are here.”
“You noticed.”
“Why?”
“You must know how attractive you are. I am not a girl that you feel you must be…careful with. Do you find me attractive?”
Chris did not answer immediately. He allowed himself to look carefully, for the first time, at Valentina Petrov. What he saw—the wide-apart dark eyes lit with desire, the creamy skin, the sensuous mouth, the hardness at the core of her—brought to mind the complicated nature of his sexual life, of its occasional ravenous affairs separated by long intervals of austerity and self-denial. This was as distinct from his love life, which had included only two women, his ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend who had saved his life, both icons locked in a room he could never re-enter. He could feel himself getting aroused. Thank God, he thought, it’s been too long.
He rose then, and went to sit on the wide cushioned arm of Valentina’s chair. She turned to face him, but he put his hands on her bare shoulders and turned her away from him. On the back of her right shoulder was a small amoeba-shaped patch of lighter-colored flesh, where perhaps a tattoo had been surgically erased or a vaccination had left its mark. He bent and kissed this patch and then, lifting her long hair, brushed his lips against the back of her neck, lingering for a second, breathing in her faint but sweet and heady perfume. Then he sat up and slowly unzipped the back of her dress, revealing a black strapless bra, which he unhooked. Reaching around he pulled the top of her dress and her bra down to her waist at the same time, then turned her firmly back to him. Hovering a foot or so above her, her head tilted up to face him, he looked down into her eyes and reached for her heavy breasts and caressed and kneaded them. As he did this he kept his eyes locked on hers and felt himself get very hard when he saw the half dazed, half pleading look in them. Taking her hand he led her into the bedroom where he pulled open the wall-to-ceiling drapes so that the lights of Prague, like eyes in the night, could watch them making love, and the full moon hanging over the Charles Bridge could bathe them with its silvery, elemental light.
30.
Prague, September 3, 2012, 7:00 a.m.
“Are we clean, Mr. Kovarik?”
“Yes. Now tell me, why am I here?”
“Here,” Chris said, handing Stefan Kovarik an eight-by-ten color photograph of a pale man, in his fifties, in a stylish suit, sitting in the lounge of a bar or restaurant, a drink in front of him, dim light, possibly from a streetlight, filtering through large draped windows at his back.
“Who is this?” the Czech asked.
“His name is Marko Dravic. He is a Russian businessman. Or so he claims. He approached me last week to tell me that the Kremlin has intelligence regarding an attack in Prague, in Wenceslas Square, on September eleven. He asked me to let SIS know. The Russians want to help, he claimed, but they believe that your government would not take them seriously if they approached you directly.”
“Utter nonsense.”
“I agree. Still, have you heard anything?”
“We hear things all the time.”
“I’m sure you do, but as to next Tuesday, the eleventh?”
<
br /> “Max said something about the Chechans.”
Chris raised his eyebrows, elongating as he did the lightning bolt between his eyes. When he did this he could feel the scar tissue stretching, a silent reminder of his encounter with the Russian he had come to call the Wolf. The scar didn’t bother him, but the memory of the saliva on his face did. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said, his voice neutral, but not quite friendly.
“Who are you, Mr. Massi?” Kovarik asked. “We have you categorized as an immensely wealthy, highly sophisticated Mafia boss.”
“And Max?” Chris asked. “How have you categorized him?”
“I am here because of him.”
“We’re old friends,” Chris said.
“I understand, but…”
“Let me make myself as clear as I can,” Chris said, as Kovarik’s voice trailed off. “Max works for me. If I told him to kill you and your assistant right now, he would do it without the slightest hesitation. Do you understand?”
Chris kept his eyes on Kovarik while the Czech agent thought this over, and Max, who had not said a word after introducing Kovarik and his associate, cleared his throat.
“Whoever you are, your cover is very good,” Kovarik said.
“Not good enough,” Chris said. “Dravic didn’t pick me out of the phonebook.” Throughout this exchange, Chris’s tone of voice had remained not friendly but not hostile, his face, except for his eyes, expressionless. It was the look in these dark, almost black eyes, that he knew had stopped Kovarik in mid-sentence.
“No,” the Czech said.
“You kicked the Russians out,” Chris continued, “but don’t underestimate them. They’re very good at this. Something very nasty is about to happen. I can feel it in my bones. My Sicilian bones.”
Kovarik nodded. His assistant, a young technician, had pushed himself as far back in his chair as he could. He had seen the look in Chris’s eyes as well, and did not want this Max French person to end his life before it had really begun.
“So,” Chris said. “We will divert for a second. Dravic did mention Caucasus Emirates, as Max did in fact tell you. Are they on your radar?”
