The Kobalt Dossier

by Eric Van Lustbader

  They found Otto up in the last row. She had her remaining shoe in her hand, heel outward. A look of profound relief flooded her face when she saw Evan.

  “You put my other shoe to good use,” she said in her French-accented German.

  Evan nodded. “They’re both dead.”

  “Both Russian ex-cons,” Ben said. “Murderers.”

  Otto lifted her chin. “And who is this specimen?”

  “My partner. Ben.”

  Otto’s expression turned wary, her eyes dark and haunted. “I was told the meet would be with just you.” She turned to go.

  “Wait,” Evan said. “The authorities have entered the theater. We need an escape route.”

  Otto turned back. “What happened to the other one?” She was looking at Evan, but when Ben raised the silenced PB, her eyes opened wide.

  “I shot him in the head,” Ben said matter-of-factly.

  “Dead?” Otto asked.

  “As a poisoned rat.”

  That made her smile. She tossed her head. “Okay. Follow me.”

  This theater was clearly part of her bailiwick. She led them up past the projection booth, out onto the roof. Evening had descended with the usual Germanic heaviness, as if it were orchestrated by Wagner. They could hear the sirens clearly now, see the revolving blue-and-white lights from the police cars, the ambulances, and the fire trucks. The clatter drowned out the chatter from the crowd that had amassed across the street, the closest the cops would allow them to the crime scene.

  The building itself was quite large, and Otto led them to the rear, where the low parapet overlooked the roof of a smaller building. The walls abutted, so there was no space in between the buildings. They clambered over the parapet, dropped down onto the lower rooftop, and found a protected spot to hunker down. Otto stepped away for a moment to throw her remaining shoe down an airshaft, before returning to them.

  “The Russian I shot had a manacle tat around his right wrist, signifying a prison sentence of more than five years,” Ben began. “He had a demon’s skull on the back of his hand, signifying defiance against Russian law. My guess is he managed to escape and took his commander with him.”

  “The question,” Otto said, “is who were they working for?”

  Ben gave Evan a hard look. “Not your contact, huh?”

  “Lyudmila?” Otto gave a curt laugh. “Don’t be absurd.”

  And then it all clicked in Ben’s mind: Evan’s contact was ex-SVR, ex-Politburo, and her given name was Lyudmila. He had to work hard to keep his jaw from dropping open. “Lyudmila Shokova? Evan, your contact is Lyudmila Alexeyevna Shokova?”

  Even in the semidarkness of the rooftop, he could see Evan’s cheeks coloring in the blinking lights of restaurant signs and other brightly lit marquees.

  “Wasn’t Shokova purged from the Politburo a year, year and a half ago?”

  Evan nodded.

  “So why isn’t she dead? Defenestrated, killed by hit-and-run, poisoned at their favorite restaurant, or arrested on some bogus charges. That’s what happens to the purged in Russia.”

  “She fled,” Evan said.

  “She’s exceptionally clever,” Otto added, like an exclamation mark.

  Ben shook his head. “She was also FSB. Aren’t they trying to find her?”

  “They’re certain she’s dead. Died in a flaming wreck after speeding around a hairpin turn in the Moscow hills.” Otto was studying her nails. “I helped arrange that moving tableau.” She picked her head up. “It was very convincing, down to the smallest detail.”

  Ben turned to Evan. “Did you know all this?”

  She shrugged.

  Ben’s gaze swept over both of them. “Why was she purged?”

  “She’s a woman,” Evan said.

  Otto spread her long-fingered hands. “It’s Russia. Who can understand anything?”

  Neither of those was the answer he was looking for, but it seemed it was all the answer he was going to get. He shifted uncomfortably. His head hurt where Manacle had butted him. Now he knew something of what Evan felt. The commotion on the street had not abated. He glanced over to the roof of the theater. “Are we safe up here?”

  Otto nodded. “Perfectly. The police won’t come up to the theater’s roof. The detectives are a lazy bunch and once they see the tats there’ll be no reason for them to follow up, unless they want to bring the matter to the Federal Foreign Office. But again that involves paperwork so …” She shrugged her shapely shoulders.

  Evan scrolled through her mobile until she found the photos of Wendy and Michael. “Have you seen either of these children? They’re my niece and nephew. They were abducted from their home in DC three days ago. Their father was murdered.”

  “I haven’t,” Otto said. “But I’ve seen the photos. Lyudmila sent them to me. She distributed them to everyone in her network. She’s trying hard to find them.”

  Evan glanced at Ben, but he seemed to be scarcely paying attention. She kicked him with the heel of her boot. He glared at her, folded his arms across his chest.

  Best to ignore him, she thought, as she brought out the two photos to show Otto, turning on her flashlight app. “Do you know this woman? Her name is Ana.”

  “Without a family name … But hold on now …” Otto frowned, took the photo of Ana and Onders in the countryside somewhere outside of Köln, looked at it more closely. “I know this place. Yes, this photo was taken in the Bergisch Gladbach countryside. It’s only about an hour’s drive northeast.”

  “That photo is dated about two years ago,” Evan said. “The other is undated.”

  “Hmm.” Otto tapped the image of the hazy building in the background. “That’s the Schneller Psychiatric Clinic. I myself have never been inside. It’s rather famous for its experimental treatments on psychiatric patients. I’ve heard they are often quite successful.” She looked up at them. “Perhaps the woman in the photo was a patient there—or if you’re in luck she still is.”

  Ben massaged his temples. “That’s where we need to go next.”

  “Ask for Dr. Reveshvili, he runs the clinic,” Otto said. “He ought to be able to locate this Ana you’re looking for. Either she’s still at the clinic or she’s been sent home.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Just by reputation, which is excellent.”

  Over Ben’s covert objection, Evan held out one of the disk-like black cases in her palm, opened it to show Otto the gold Omega. “This mean anything to you?”

  Otto shook her head. “It’s the Greek letter omega, but I’m guessing you already know that.”

  Evan raised her eyebrows. “So, nothing else?”

  “Sorry, no.” She looked at them quizzically. “Look, night is falling, it’s getting dark and I’m getting cold. And I suspect we could all use some fuel.” She pointed. “There’s a fire escape at the back of this building. I know a snug place to get some food and put our heads together regarding tomorrow’s foray out to the clinic.”

  When they didn’t move, she looked at Ben. “You don’t like me.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “Lyudmila sent me to help you.”

  “I for sure don’t trust Lyudmila Shokova.”

  “Guilt by association from an American,” she said, rising. “As a German born in Alsace that’s no surprise.” Her mouth gave a little quirk. “A German with a Russian friend, that’s irony for you, right?” She turned up the collar of her jacket. “As I said, I’m in need of some good Russian vodka and a comforting Alsatian dinner to fill my stomach.” She indicated the far side of the roof. “You can either accompany me or go your own way.”

  She started off and, rising, Evan followed. “Do as you wish, Ben. Just don’t take your time deciding.”

  28

  MICHAEL

  I wake up into darkness. Or maybe I’m not awake at all. There is no sound: no trilling of the songbirds that nest in our backyard, no buzzing of spring flies, no sound of wind in the willows—if we
even have willows, which now that I think about it, we actually don’t. But even though I’m already nine years old, my favorite book is still Wind in the Willows. I’ve lain in bed at night so many times rereading chapter after chapter, and then, finally switching the light off when my father—Paul, he says in his sternest voice—yells at me to go to bed, I don’t sleep right away, I stay awake in the dark and imagine myself in the riverbank world of Moley, Badger, Toad, and Rat—who, I discovered in Wikipedia, is really a European water vole, which so far as I am concerned, is a whole lot better than a rat. I don’t much like rats, or moths, or, worst of all, hairy millipedes, which give me nightmares. But I do like badgers—I like them very much.

  In this darkness of nothing-at-all, I call out to Wendy. She hears me because a moment later her hand finds mine and holds it tightly.

  “Wendy, where are we?” I whisper because the darkness of nothing-at-all seems made for whispers.

  “Somewhere,” she whispers back.

  “Not home?”

  “No, Mikey. Not home.”

  Stupidly, I begin to cry.

  “Oh, don’t do that, Mikey.” She squeezes my hand. “It will turn out right.”

  It was Aunt Evan who first called me Mikey, and now Wendy knows it. I don’t mind. Especially now. I’m surprised, but I’m not angry that she shares my secret with Aunt Evan. I like hearing my sister call me “Mikey.” I love Wendy, and I stop crying because she has also said “It will turn out right,” which is the song by someone called De-Phazz that she listens to at night. When I hear it coming from her room, it always calms me. But I do wish Aunt Evan was here. I feel safe with her.

  I love Aunt Evan. She always spends time with me, which is more than I can say for Paul. He pays no attention to me whatsoever. He’s too busy, he says. But I don’t understand what that means. And Mama … for a time I was just so angry at her for leaving us with Paul, who isn’t really a father at all. But then one day Aunt Evan caught me crying and when I told her how I felt she said that was normal, that she had been angry too, and I didn’t feel so alone. Then she said something that I hold on to. She said that Mama’s leaving wasn’t her fault, it was no one’s fault, and anyway, what good would it do holding on to the anger. She’s right, I know she is, but there’s something missing, a hole inside me I don’t know how to fix. Time, Aunt Evan said, holes take time to fill in. The first time Wendy and I looked at snapshots of Mama, I said, “She doesn’t look like I remember. Does she look like you remember?” and I thought Wendy was going to say something, but she didn’t. She sat silent as the owl that visits our backyard now and again just after twilight disappears. I tried to look at where she was staring but I couldn’t see anything, and I was too scared to ask her what caught her attention.

  It seems to me sometimes that the owl is waiting for me to come out of the house. Then its head swivels and it stares at me as if bringing wisdom from far away, as owls do. The kids my age that I know would name the owl Hedwig, after Harry Potter’s snowy owl, but not me. In the first place, my owl isn’t a snowy owl, something anyone who has studied owls like I have would know in about a second. In the second place, I think Hedwig is a stupid, stupid name. I have named my owl Omega, which might sound like a weird name for an owl, except there is this wonderful owl named Omega in Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood, a story Aunt Evan reads to me every time she comes and that she even got Wendy to read to me, when her head’s not buried in her Peter Pan books.

  Aunt Evan once told me that there’s a space inside her where nothing lives, a space where Mama used to be. She said, I know you can’t understand that, Mikey, but I did. I understood it completely, but I’ve never known how to tell her, I get all tongue-tied when I try, it’s like trying to tell her I understood what breathing is. I don’t have the words, but I’m sure she can see what I’m feeling in my eyes. I have the same space inside me where nothing is, a space reserved for Mama that was never filled. And the reason I’m sure Aunt Evan knows is because she tells me all about her own time with Mama, how they grew up together, played tricks on each other, how they argued and made up. Just like you and Wendy, she says, but her eyes are clouded, and she seems to me troubled, though I can’t make out why. But I’ve learned many things about Mama from Aunt Evan, which makes me love her even more. Sometimes I think of Aunt Evan moving into the empty space inside me so it’s filled, and she will put an end to the ache I feel all the time. I love best the stories of how mischievous Mama was, how she was drawn to forbidden things, like her father’s liquor or her mother’s cigarettes. Hearing about Mama being bad makes me shiver like the scary movies Wendy likes so much. I would never dare taste liquor or puff on a cigarette, but I’m secretly thrilled that Mama once did.

  Once. Mama is gone now. Mama is dead. I still don’t understand death. But then I can’t quite grasp life, either. Or time. When Wendy says something about next year, I have no idea what she means. I know about next week, which often makes me groan aloud because it takes ages and ages to come about.

  I wish Mama would come back, but Wendy tells me there is no coming back from being dead. Why not? I ask her. Dad comes back from all his trips. All of them. Wendy says, It’s not the same, Mikey, but she can’t explain why.

  But Aunt Evan does. She tells me there is one place—and one place only—you can’t come back from, not even next week. When I ask her why, she tells me: because if you’re in that place, it means your time here in this place is over. And when your time here is over, you must cross over a bridge—the bridge to forever—to that other place. The bridge is one-way only; once you cross over you don’t come back.

  “I still don’t understand,” I say to her. If I said this to Wendy, she would make me feel stupid, but not Aunt Evan. She never makes me feel stupid, she never talks down to me like Wendy sometimes does because she still thinks of me as a child, even though I’m only two years younger than she is.

  Aunt Evan is ever so clever, and she tells me, “Remember when I took you and Wendy downtown, and I showed you there was no J Street?” When I nod, she smiles. “Okay, then, but somewhere there is a J Street, we just can’t see it.”

  “Is J Street across the bridge?” I ask her. “The bridge to forever?”

  She laughs and claps her hands. “How clever you are!” I’m bursting inside, I want to be clever like Aunt Evan. “That’s just where your mama is. She has crossed.”

  “She’s walking on J Street,” I say, trying to imagine it, and failing. “I hope she likes it.”

  Aunt Evan tousles my hair. “I’m sure she does, Mikey. I’m sure she likes it a lot.”

  Now, in the darkness of nothing-at-all, I turn to my sister and whisper, “Are we on J Street?”

  “What?”

  “Maybe we’ll see Mama.”

  At that moment, a door opens. Blinding white light destroys the darkness of nothing-at-all, and a voice hurts my ears.

  Wendy says, “That’s not Mama’s voice.”

  We have not crossed over the bridge. We are not on J Street.

  29

  ODESSA, UKRAINE

  The opalescent dawn contrasted harmoniously with the dull gray of the buildings. As usual, their hotel stood out—a peacock in a land of pigeons. As soon as they stepped inside, the night manager, about to go off duty, handed Kobalt a slip of folded paper, bid her good morning and stepped outside, disappearing into the tender light. She opened the paper, read the handwritten note. Her head snapped up. She ordered Zherov to take the weaponry back up to their suite.

  “Where will you be?”

  She gestured to the bar. “I need to do this alone.”

  He hesitated a moment.

  “It’s okay,” she reassured him. “I’ll be fine.”

  He nodded, then walked away.

  She waited until he stepped into the elevator and the doors closed before she made her way to the bar. Only in Odessa would a hotel bar be open at the crack of dawn. Possibly it never closed.

  For a long moment, s
he stood on the threshold, taking the temperature of the room. It was nearly deserted, just the bartender, a disconsolate businessman in a disgracefully rumpled suit, taking vodka shots one after the other without so much as a pause to take a breath, and the woman at a semicircular banquette off to the right. She was seated so that she had a full view of the entrance, so she must have seen Kobalt, and yet she made no sign of recognition. Her ice-blue eyes passed over Kobalt’s face as if she were a part of the bar’s décor. Her blond hair was pulled back from her sharp-featured face. Her nose was too long, her mouth too wide, her chin too prominent, and yet when taken all together, through some mysterious alchemical means, she was gorgeous in a manner most women only dreamed about as they leafed through Vogue or Vanity Fair.

  Since ignoring people seemed the order of the morning, Kobalt crossed to the bar. The businessman smelled of metal and canned air and sweat, the way you do after a twenty-four-hour flight. The bartender, a barrel-chested man who might have been police or military in his former life, studied every inch of her from the top of her head to the toes of her boots, after which he greeted her in a surprisingly soft voice.

  She looked over the bartop. “What are you mixing there?”

  He had a shaved head and a face like an extremely intelligent bear. “I’m trying out a new type of Negroni.” A toss of his head indicated the businessman. He winked. “For all the sophisticates.”

  “Too early for a Negroni.”

  “Why, yes, it is.” He put a filled shot glass on the bar along with an ice-cold bottle of Mamont Siberian vodka. The bottle was shaped like the curved tusk of a Yukagir mammoth. He indicated with his chin. “Courtesy of Madame.”

  Kobalt sat at the bar, two stools away from the wrecked businessman, but soon moved farther away. The bartender tasted the Negroni, found it wanting, and threw it out. He drifted closer to her just as she threw the shot he’d poured for her down her throat.