“Choucroute garni,” she said with a grin. “Sauerkraut and fresh Strasbourg sausage. A true Alsatian plate.”
Evan put her coat aside as Otto sat down. Ben stayed where he was, observing the two women as if he were across the street, watching them through binoculars.
Evan took up her fork and knife. “Come on, Ben. You must be as hungry as I am.”
Otto gave him a sardonic look, reached over, stabbed a piece of sausage off his plate. “It’s not poisoned, I promise.” She popped the meat into her mouth, chewed delightedly. “See?”
She gestured. “It’s been a long, exhausting day. Please enjoy yourself while you can. We’ll eat. We’ll sleep.” She wiped her mouth. “You’ll want to be well rested. The clinic won’t be a walk in the park, believe me.”
Ben came away from the wall at last, sat down at the table. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?”
Evan glanced at him. “Unless you’re sweating vodka you can’t talk to these Russians.”
“What Russians? Otto here is German.”
The look she gave him was like a razor scraping over his skin.
“Right.” Picking up his cutlery, he began to eat his choucroute garni.
“Benjamin,” Otto began, “just so you don’t think I’m an Orc or a Nazgûl—” She grinned. “I’m a Tolkien scholar, seriously.” She took a mouthful of sauerkraut. “I was born into poverty—abject poverty. Being Germans in Alsace, the French took everything from my family. They shot my grandfather and left my grandmother for dead. My father died five years ago, my mother no longer recognizes her children. My older brother is an officer in the military, my younger sister is a therapist in Berlin. She oversees our mother’s care. I’m unmarried and have no children.”
“You left out one thing,” Ben said flatly. “You work for an ex-FSB officer.”
“Ben.” Evan paused, fork partway to her mouth. “We are in Otto’s home. She has let us clean ourselves up, laundered our clothing, and fed us.”
But Otto appeared unfazed by his stark rudeness. “Lyudmila and I are friends first and foremost. She’s an extraordinary woman. She saved my life when no one else would. I owe her everything.”
Ben, filling his mouth with Strasbourg sausage, said nothing while he chewed. “So,” he said finally, before forking another bite of sauerkraut and sausage, “what can you tell us about Reveshvili, other than what we can find out through Google or any other search engine?”
Otto poured herself more vodka. “While you were both getting cleaned up, I did a bit of research, down and dirty,” she said. “It seems he works from eleven in the morning until midnight or 1 A.M., but it’s virtually impossible to get in to see him once he’s in the clinic.” She put down her knife and fork. “However, every working day, he takes his breakfast at Gästehaus Wald, a small family-run inn at the edge of the Gierather Wald. That’s the same forest visible in one corner of the photo you showed me. It’s only a few minutes’ drive from the clinic.” Her expression became thoughtful, and after a moment she added, “He is a fanatic about the benefits of a good breakfast. And he’s fascinated by the subject of twins. A few points around which you might engage him.”
“Okay, so you want Evan to talk with him.” Ben did not look happy about this. “But she needs protection.”
Otto shook her head. “I very much doubt she’ll have anything to fear from Herr Doktor, so allow Evan the space to talk with him.” She turned her attention to Evan. “Anyway, many people believe him to be a genius. Whether or not that’s so, you’ll judge for yourself. But one thing is clear, the patients’ success rate at the clinic has been nothing short of stellar.”
*
“You really can be a shit,” Evan said, as they drove out of Cologne the next morning in a rental car, Evan behind the wheel.
Ben stared out the window. “Part of my job description.”
“You know,” she said, steering around a lumbering truck, “it occurs to me that you were fine as long as you were taking care of me, but now that Otto’s put me in the driver’s seat literally and figuratively you’ve grown an attitude.”
She moved into the left lane of the highway, accelerating. “And it’s an attitude I don’t much care for.”
For the next thirty minutes or so they traveled without a word being exchanged. Evan moved over to the right and, following the directions Otto had given her, took the next exit.
“Evan, why did you go to Sumatra, of all places?”
Ben’s voice echoed in the car’s interior like a clarion call to war.
As soon as she was clear of the off-ramp, she pulled over to the side of the road, put on her hazard blinking lights, and turned to him. “I went to Sumatra because that’s where Lyudmila was. She called me to her, and I went.”
“Why?” His voice was hoarse, thinned out, vibrating like a wire. “Why would you do that?”
How could I be so wrong? she asked herself. His hatred of Lyudmila and everything she touches has nothing to do with her being Russian, with her being ex-FSB, ex-Politburo. It strikes much closer to home.
But just to be sure, she said, “After taking down Nemesis in Bavaria I was burned out. I needed a rest. In Sumatra, there was nothing around us but the sun, the water, and the macaques.” And though he tried to hide it, she saw. “You’re jealous of her. Oh. You are, you are.”
He reacted predictably. “You’re nuts.”
“She’s a friend,” she said softly.
“She’s a Russian. And not just any Russian. She was with SVR. She was a member of the Politburo, for God’s sake.”
“That was then,” Evan said. “She’s quits with all that now.”
“Oh, Evan, come on. You’re never quits with our world. Once a spy, always a spy.”
“Listen, as far as anyone knows—and this includes the Russians—Lyudmila’s dead. I’m one of just a handful of people outside her private network who she trusted to tell that she was still alive. And she told me the truth about my sister. And now she’s helping to find Wendy and Michael. I trust her, Ben. You need to trust my instincts.”
They sat like that for some time, the engine humming beneath them, cars passing on the road to their left, the world indifferent to their deep-seated dilemma.
“So,” Ben said. “What do we do now?”
“Aren’t you curious whether I’m jealous of Isobel Lowe?”
“Why should you be?”
“Hm. Let me think.” Her tone was sarcastic. “Well. For one thing you hid your relationship from me.”
“Operational security. She was instrumental in making my shop a reality and getting Aristides to be my boss. It was imperative that no one else know of her involvement.”
“Need to know, in other words.”
He nodded. “Precisely.”
“I’m not asking you to, but under the circumstances, you have to put your bias about Lyudmila aside. Please.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
He had nothing, but he needed something in order to save a bit of face. She knew that, too.
“Okay. Then I am asking you, Ben. Please let this thing between us go, at least for the time being. It’s already starting to fuck up our working relationship. We’re under Moscow Rules. We can’t afford this. We have to be on the same page all the way down the line. Sooner rather than later we’ll forfeit our lives if we don’t.”
The silence between them was coming to seem like an ocean neither of them had the equipment to cross.
Ben ran his hand across his eyes. “Sorry, Evan. I have been acting like a shit. I know it. Being terminated, having the whole shop blown up, the transition back to field work has been far tougher than I expected.”
“I understand. We’re under no one’s auspices, we have no backup. We’re out here in a kill zone completely naked.” She leaned toward him, her heart softening, because, as usual when it came to the emotional side of things, she was a couple of steps ahead of him. “But that’s not all, is it?
”
He took his hand away from his eyes, turned to watch her watching him. “I saw the whole thing happen—the car T-bone the light post, the awful wreck I didn’t think anyone could survive. In that instant, I felt more helpless than I’ve ever felt in my life.
“When I went to pull you out of your car, I thought you were dead. My blood ran cold—it’s a literary cliché, but damn that’s exactly how I felt. And when I discovered you were alive and not seriously injured something broke open inside me.” Hands spread. “And now … now that it’s out of its shell I don’t know what to do with it.” He took a breath, let it out in a rush. “Particularly because I have no idea how you feel about me.”
Evan felt the pain in her head, which had never fully gone away, becoming acute once again, and she winced. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Ben.”
“I don’t want you to say anything. But what’s the truth?”
“There is no truth here, not one that I can get my mind around right now.”
“So you don’t know—”
“Why push it, Ben?” She had to intervene; she was feeling overwhelmed. “Let it alone.”
“Now is not the time, is that it?”
“Jesus, you know it’s not.”
He nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
31
ODESSA, UKRAINE
They came in very quickly. Zoltan was down, gone—a shock tactic that hit home. The two men entering the bar were big and heavily armed. One had a tattoo of a multi-pointed star on his forehead, the other, shorter, square of both body and face, sported a jagged scar that drew down the outside of his left eye and left a fissure that split his cheek in two unequal parts.
They seemed to ignore Lyudmila—they obviously did not recognize her—fixating on Kobalt.
Scar grinned. “There you are.”
Star nodded. “Take her down.”
Scar leveled his machine pistol at Kobalt, but before he could pull the trigger, she hurled the bottle of vodka at him. He recoiled as the glass shattered against the weapon, splashing the liquor over his face. Star’s weapon came up, but before he could do anything with it his head exploded in a volley of sound, fury, blood, and bits of bone. Scar whirled only to get a three-round face full of bullets from Zherov’s Scorpion. At that very moment, Lyudmila bolted out of the banquette. She had a gun drawn, a Ruger SR40c. It held sixteen rounds of .40 S&W, arguably the most powerful small handgun on the planet.
Kobalt was right behind her as she disappeared through the doorway into the kitchen. She stepped over the threshold; Zoltan lay unmoving, all breath gone. She heard the four shots, one right after another, and stumbling into the kitchen, came upon Lyudmila standing in classic two-handed shooter’s stance. A man, larger even than Scar and Star, lay spread-eagled across the grill, his shirt and jacket smoldering. The volume of blood pouring from the man’s wounds was more than sufficient to smother the burners, and the stench of gas was already infiltrating the kitchen. The terrified staff was huddled in a far corner, trembling and whimpering.
Ripping past Lyudmila, Kobalt turned off all the unlit burners to stop the gas flow. As she did so, she saw the patch sewn into the inside of his jacket: Поліція-Politsiya. Ukrainian Police.
An instant later, Zherov came bounding through the kitchen door, threw Kobalt’s tricked-out jacket to her, and the three of them headed toward the rear exit without a word being said among them. Time for introductions and explanations when they were well clear of what had become a kill zone.
*
“I’m sorry about Zoltan,” Kobalt said.
Lyudmila nodded, but said nothing.
Kobalt knew her time in Odessa was at an end; there was nothing more to glean here. But with Lyudmila as their unexpected companion, she and Zherov could not return to the FSB jet. She knew without having to ask that he wanted to ditch her. She knew Lyudmila made him nervous. Zherov was out of his depth, stranded in what was for him terra incognita. She hoped he was a fast learner, otherwise he’d be the one who was ditched.
She had no choice but to follow Lyudmila as they exited the hotel. Lyudmila was far more conversant with the byways of Odessa than she was. As they hurried away, she thanked Zherov, but that was the extent of their conversation.
Just north of the vast container shipping complex that was the heart of Odessa’s port lay a docking complex large enough for navy vessels and pleasure boats, though the latter were few and far between. Soon they were ensconced below deck on a sixty-five-foot yacht docked no more than a stone’s throw from where the Krivak III–class frigate in the Ukrainian naval fleet was tied up alongside a brace of Island-class patrol boats.
From below, they could hear the rubberized footsteps of Lyudmila’s crew as they moved back and forth topside on their mysterious rounds, like nurses in a hospital. It seemed they were preparing to get under way.
Zherov had already taken a giant slug of vodka and Lyudmila was pouring him another. They sat around a polished teak table with a thick central post bolted to the deck. The cabin, more spacious than seemed possible, was lined with teak and another wood Kobalt couldn’t identify. On the table was a nautical map of Odessa to the north and Constanta in Romania to the southwest. Kobalt had no idea what Lyudmila was up to and was about to ask her just that, when Lyudmila herself spoke up and answered at least one of her questions.
“Be assured we are safe from the police here,” Lyudmila said. “This yacht is an asset of a legitimate software company I own through a maze of shell corporations. The ship’s registry is in Panama.”
Kobalt nodded.
“It’s time I tell you why I risked coming out of hiding.”
“You think now that every concern you had about me is true.”
“What I know, Kobalt, is that you have done everything they have asked of you. But in the process you have become something else—a killing machine.”
“I’m just following in your bloody footsteps.”
Lyudmila pinned her with a gorgon’s look that caused her bones to ache, just as if she had fallen a long way before reaching the stony earth.
“Unlike you, Kobalt, I feel remorse for every life I’ve taken. The dead return at night with their gaping wounds, their accusatory stares.”
Kobalt did not know where she was, what was expected of her, only that she was being judged, and judged harshly. So of course she said the worst thing possible. “Then I feel sorry for you.”
“I am human,” Lyudmila said after a thoroughly uncomfortable pause during which Kobalt felt as if fire ants were crawling over her body. “What are you?”
Kobalt knew she had to reverse course before the hole she had fallen into became too deep to climb out of. She cleared her throat.
“What?” Lyudmila leaned in, the space between them turned gelid. “What was that?”
“I’m sorry.” Kobalt shook her head because she was. She was sure that Lyudmila had broken her cover to punish her. “I misspoke. … Stupid of me.”
Lyudmila lifted a hand. “However, what you have done at their behest is no longer my concern. I am not one of them now.”
So Lyudmila really was quits with them, Kobalt thought. What, then, did she want? She did not seem to be someone to retire to Tahiti or Sumba to live out the rest of her life in eternal sunshine, sea breezes, gentle surf, and unutterable boredom. She was like a shark: if she wasn’t moving forward it was because she was dead. Kobalt wanted to be like that so badly she could taste it.
“On the other hand I am bound to ask you a question before moving forward. About your children.”
Kobalt knew that this was her final test, that if she failed she would never be like Lyudmila, would never have her wisdom and connections no matter how much of Ermi’s money she had sequestered. She took a deep cleansing breath let it out. Time to trust, time to tell this person whom she admired so much, the truth. “In the almost four years since I was exfiltrated I have never thought of them. Certainly, I haven’t missed them. W
hat were they to me, anyway? They might have been birthed and raised by someone else altogether. I never had a maternal instinct; it’s alien to me. They’re alien to me.”
Lyudmila made no move, nor did her stony expression change. “Really. And yet it is because of them that you’re here.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m here because I have a job to do, and I’m going to destroy Omega, even if it kills me.”
32
BERGISCH GLADBACH, GERMANY
Evan and Ben crested a rise and were greeted by the Gierather Wald—the dense blue-green forest, at the near edge of which sat Gästehaus Wald, the half-timbered inn where, according to Otto, the director and lead researcher at Schneller Psychiatric Clinic, Dr. Konstantin Reveshvili, took his breakfast.
If he looked like anyone, Evan thought upon entering the inn, it was a dark-haired Max von Sydow—long face, pale eyes, saturnine mouth, thinning hair combed straight back off his wide forehead.
She stood in the entryway, as if unsure whether to come in or not, but in reality, making meticulous mental note of her surroundings. The ground floor was actually two rooms—the one on the right a restaurant, the one on the left, two steps down, was the inn’s public space with comfy-looking sofas and upholstered chairs set in small groupings, along with side tables laden with newspapers and magazines and shaded reading lamps.
The ceiling was low, the heavy wooden beams and floor blackened by woodsmoke and burned ash of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. A massive fireplace in the far wall of the restaurant was merrily blazing. It was much cooler here at the edge of the forest than it had been in the city. In fact, the trees seemed to dominate the inn, as if they, too, were its patrons. The blue-green gloom of Gierather Wald seemed to have permanently leeched into the rooms. Branches were used to hold light fixtures in the restaurant area, the tables and chair frames appeared to be hand-hewn, using local wood. The chair cushions were a handmade forest pattern. Heavenly smells swirled out of the kitchen: woodsmoke mingling with the scents of melted butter, fried potatoes, grilled meat, and caramelized sugar.
The Kobalt Dossier Page 22
