by Saul Herzog
“I was just making sure,” Roth said.
“I know, Levi. And I’m sorry. I really am.”
“No one could have survived that blast,” Roth said to himself.
The president nodded. “But your man, you were right about him all along. All the shit I gave you. All the pushback. You always stood by him. You never once threw him to the wolves. And your instincts were right, Roth. This situation was resolved because of that man, what he was capable of, and there isn’t a man alive who could hae done for us what Lance Spector did today.”
Roth nodded sadly.
“You were right when you selected him, Roth. You were right when you trained him. And you were right when you stood by him.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now come on,” the president said, hitting him on the arm. “There’ll be other assets. There’ll be other fights. War was averted today, but the fight will never be over. It goes on and on. It takes new forms. It puts on new masks. But it continues down through the decades, and nothing any of us does will ever truly change that.”
Roth let out a long sigh. He was getting old, and suddenly, more than ever before, he felt it.
94
Tatyana and Laurel were at the diplomatic terminal of Riga international airport, waiting for the jet that would take them back to DC.
Tatyana looked out the window at the plane as it refueled. A few others from the embassy were waiting for the same plane. The events of the past few days had led to dozens of recalls, and the president had named a new ambassador and an entirely new diplomatic team in Riga.
He was also beefing up the CIA’s presence in the region, and had announced that the US would be maintaining a significantly larger military presence in the Baltics to deter further Russian aggression.
Regarding the massacre, the Council of the European Union had announced the establishment of a multilateral inquest into the events that had taken place in the village of Ziguri. It’s mission was to find out what had truly happened there, and it was to be named the Agata Zarina Inquiry in honor of the Latvian policewoman who first raised the alarm.
The Russians opposed to the inquiry, and protested vehemently that the victims had been ethnically Russian. It was becoming increasingly clear however that they were the ones responsible, and Tatyana thought that the sooner they shut up about the victims being Russian, the better it would be for them.
There was a television in the departure lounge and Tatyana looked up at it. The news networks were streaming live footage of the NATO air strikes. The rockets flew out like a hail storm, like a Katyusha barrage, over and over. Fighter jets took off from aircraft carriers in an impressive display of prowess.
Laurel was over at the kiosk, getting them coffee, and Tatyana turned back to the window. She looked out at the drizzly expanse of concrete, the planes taxiing and fueling, and felt a shudder. All of this, an entire country, had almost been swallowed up in a matter of hours by the Russian army.
How could anyone, anywhere feel safe if that had been allowed to happen?
Tatyana wondered what would have happened if Lance hadn’t taken out the Russian command. Would the mobilized Russian units have fought back? Would the tanks have rolled on into Riga?
And in the face of resistance, would the US president have backed down rather than get drawn into an all-out war?
Tatyana suspected he would have.
Ingram Montgomery was a good man, but he was no match for the world Vladimir Molotov inhabited.
Molotov wasn’t encumbered by the moral and humanitarian considerations that the US president prioritized.
And when it came to a fight, he wouldn’t care about the costs, about the sacrifice in blood and tears, that would be required from his own people.
How could the Americans stand up to that?
How did you fight someone who had a death wish?
“What are you thinking?” Laurel said, handing her a cup of coffee.
Tatyana shook the thoughts from her head. “That was a close call,” she said.
Laurel nodded. “Things could have gone south fast.”
Tatyana ran her hands over the thin fabric of her skirt. They’d been provided with fresh clothing at the embassy but it was a far cry from what she usually wore.
She looked at Laurel and smiled.
They trusted each other now.
Looked out for each other.
They liked the same things, expensive clothes, fine restaurants, fancy hotel rooms.
But they weren’t the same.
Laurel had signed up for the military as a way to get back at the men who’d killed her father.
She believed in what she was fighting for.
She believed in the world that would emerge from it.
For Tatyana, the reason was simpler. Less inspiring.
Money.
She couldn’t bear the thought of being reliant on a man for her security, so she joined the GRU.
For Tatyana, the expensive clothes, the jewelry and perfume, it wasn’t for fun that she bought those things. They were necessities, as urgent as oxygen, symbols of her security, an armor with which she protected herself.
She’d grown up in Communism. She knew what it was to be hungry. She knew what it was to fear for her survival, for her sustenance. She knew what it meant to struggle in a world that didn’t care whether she lived or died.
She’d watched her mother die when she was four years old. She’d spent six days locked in the apartment with her corpse.
She knew that the American view of the world, that happy, orderly place portrayed in television shows and Hollywood movies and on the covers of glossy magazines, wasn’t the only world that could exist.
There was a meaner world.
A world in which unspeakable things happened.
And she wasn’t sure that Laurel knew just how dark that world could get.
And how could she?
She was an American, a US citizen, born and brought up in a nation that was successful, and optimistic, and materially secure. She knew hardship, that was true. Her mother died during childbirth, and her father was killed in Afghanistan when she was fourteen.
Tatyana knew she’d refused to attend his funeral.
She knew there was a wound there, somewhere beneath the surface, that festered.
They’d both been hurt by the world. They both knew what it meant to want to get even.
But for a girl who grew up pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States, who grew up under the security and prosperity of a democratic government, who loved her country, Tatyana didn’t think she’d be able to understand the rules of the game played by the Kremlin.
Even the American president didn’t understand those rules. When Tatyana saw how he faltered in the face of Vladimir Molotov’s challenges, the way he hoped that things would be better than they were, she was shocked.
President Montgomery’s optimism was a problem.
A problem that was only going to get worse.
Because between Washington and the Kremlin, there was an unbridgeable gulf in which lurked dangers the US leadership had never fathomed.
Where Washington still believed in hope, and optimism, and a world that was secure and peaceful, the Kremlin was determined to see that such a world never came to pass.
And the things they were willing to do to achieve that, things Tatyana had seen with her own eyes, would have made President Montgomery’s hair stand on end.
Tatyana knew Laurel was going to need her help.
And she’d already decided she was going to give her that help. She would stand by her side. She would help carry the burden.
Because Lance was dead, and the world Laurel was walking into was darker and meaner than she could ever imagine.
“Are you all right?” she said to Laurel.
Laurel wasn’t all right. She’d been crying earlier, in the cab on the way to the airport, and she was crying again now. Her eyes were red and no matter wh
at she did with her mascara, it kept getting ruined.
“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s just…”.
“I know,” Tatyana said.
“I’m heartbroken,” Laurel continued.
“Of course you are,” Tatyana said again.
Tatyana didn’t like this sort of conversation. Displays of emotion made her uncomfortable. They were as foreign to her as so many other things Laurel took for granted.
Tatyana took a sip of the coffee. It was good. Strong.
“I think…” Laurel said, then broke down into a fit of weeping.
That was something Tatyana hadn’t seen before.
“You were in love with him, weren’t you?” Tatyana said.
Laurel looked up at her, and in the midst of all that grief, Tatyana saw a flash of something else. It was a look of gratitude. Gratitude for letting her say out loud, something she’d been keeping locked inside for so long.
“Yes,” she said, before bursting into more tears.
Tatyana nodded. She reached out and put her hand on Laurel’s shoulder.
Laurel leaned into her and then clung to her in a tight hug, burying her face in Tatyana’s neck.
Tatyana held her, looking out the window as if suddenly very interested in the planes on the tarmac.
“You were in love with him too, weren’t you?” Laurel said into Tatyana’s ear.
Tatyana took a step back. She should have expected the question, but the words still came as a shock.
“Women like me,” she said, “we’re not really capable of love.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Laurel said.
“I fucked for money,” Tatyana said.
“You did what you did for your country.”
Tatyana let out a quiet laugh. “I did it for the money, Laurel. You know that.”
Laurel said nothing. She was looking into Tatyana’s eyes, searching, probing in a way that made Tatyana feel like she had nowhere to hide.
“Excuse me,” she said.
She walked, almost ran, across the lounge to the women’s washroom, went into the first stall, and locked the door.
Then she put her fist into her mouth and silently, without emiting the slightest sound, wept bitterly.
95
Roth sat by the side of the grave and listened to the chaplain drone on. Across the grave, Laurel and Tatyana stood in black dresses, under black umbrellas.
Laurel wept openly.
Tatyana was as still and lifeless as a statue made of granite.
But Roth knew that, however they showed it, both their hearts were broken.
The funeral was small. Just the three of them, and the servicemen and chaplain stationed at Arlington. Everyone knew the coffin, draped in a flag, was empty, but that did nothing to lessen the pain, or the sense of loss.
When the chaplain finished his sermon, the bugler played the wailing triplet of notes that had been used to honor dead soldiers since the days of the Civil War. Then, the officer-in-charge issued his order, and three soldiers fired three volleys into the air.
The sound of the guns brought tears even to Tatyana’s.
The casket team stepped forward to lower the coffin into the ground.
“Before you fold up the flag,” Roth said, “I want to say something.”
The men stood back respectfully, and Roth cleared his throat. He looked up at the chaplain, then across the grave at Laurel and Tatyana.
“The world will never know the man we’re burying here today,” Roth said. “They will never know who the star on the Memorial Wall at Langley commemorates. The Distinguished Intelligence Cross, and the Intelligence Star, which were both awarded this morning by the president himself, will never bear his name.”
Laurel and Tatyana’s weeping grew louder with every word.
“But we know,” Roth said, looking directly at Laurel and Tatyana. “The three of us know. And we won’t forget the sacrifice he made for this country, and for the world. He died as so many soldiers before him. He died alone, uncelebrated, doing his duty, holding back the horde that threatened our very existence. He stood and faced the monster, so the rest of us would never have to know what it looked like.”
Roth reached into his pocket and took out the two medals that had been awarded by the president, anonymously and posthumously. They were in ceremonial boxes and he opened each of them, looked at the medals, then stepped forward and slipped them inside the coffin.
“All right,” he said, and turned and walked down the slope to his car, which was waiting on the gravel drive, engine running, wipers running.
96
Alex Sherbakov knew he’d fucked up.
He knew he was in trouble.
He hadn’t meant to kill that girl, he was only supposed to scare her.
But in the heat of the moment, something came over him.
A feeling of power.
He could remember so clearly, so viscerally, the look in the girl’s eyes when she realized what he was going to do to her.
He was a man who knew all too well what it was like to be powerless. He knew what it was to be an insect, insignificant, under the thumb of others.
When that girl realized he had the power to kill her, when she realized that it was real, she’d looked at him in a way no other woman ever had before.
It wasn’t love, but it was just as intoxicating.
It was a drug.
And once he’d tasted it, he was hooked.
He’d done things to that girl, to the body, disgraceful things. Things he hadn’t even known he wanted to do.
But power was a potent mistress, and now that he’d tasted it, he wanted more. Like a dog that’s tasted blood, there was no going back.
He could feel it, crawling inside him like an itch that needed to be scratched.
He’d hurt that girl, and he wanted to do it again.
When he got back to New York, he never called Kirov like he was supposed to. He never went back to his apartment.
He knew Kirov would send men looking for him.
And Kirov had.
For a time.
But that had stopped.
Sherbakov had been watching. Three weeks had passed and no one had been to his apartment.
It then he found out that Jacob Kirov was dead and he dared to wonder if maybe, he’d get away with the mistake he’d made.
Sherbakov was grown in confidence. He carried a gun, and more importantly, he knew he could use it.
He’d been visiting night clubs, strip clubs on Cypress Avenue, watching the women with a new interest.
A new hunger.
He knew the girls thought of him as an easy target. They saw him as a city worker with a suit and an office and more money than dick.
An easy lay.
An easy paycheck.
He didn’t imagine that any of them would ever talk about him, but if they did, he knew what they’d say.
They’d call him pathetic.
Flaccid.
Impotent.
Now, all he thought about was making them pay.
A month had passed since he’d killed the girl in Montana, and he was ready to do it again.
He was going to take out years of frustration and humiliation on one lucky girl. He could already picture.
Just the anticipation was making him hard.
He’d gone over every detail of what had happened in Montana a million times. He’d luxuriated in every excruciating detail. He knew what he’d do the same, and what he would change.
He wouldn’t rush so much.
He would savor it.
He wanted it to last longer.
He wanted to drag it out.
He wanted her to know the full limits of his control over her.
He got out of the cab and walked into the bar. It was still early in the evening, about six, and the place had yet to pick up.
There was a girl leaning on the pole, half-heartedly swaying to some eighties rock. A fat bartender with gr
ay stubble stared at her with his mouth slightly open.
Sherbakov sat at a table in front of the stage and the girl came closer. She got down on her hands and knees and gave him a closer look at what she was selling.
There were plenty of strip clubs in New York that obeyed the laws around prostitution, human trafficking, and drug use, but this was not one of them.
Sherbakov watched her dance and imagined sliding a knife deep into her stomach. He imagined reaching inside her until he felt her organs.
The bartender came over and Sherbakov ordered a beer.
He drank the beer fast and ordered another.
He wasn’t going to do it tonight. He would have to prepare. He would need plastic to line the floor. He would need a plan to dispose of the body.
And he would need to go back to his apartment. He needed a place to commit this crime, and his apartment at the Oceanic was perfect.
He would have to be careful. Kirov may be dead, but some henchman might still be cleaning up old jobs.
Sherbakov didn’t think so, but he would take precautions all the same.
He had the cab drop him off at the Oceanic and looked around the lobby for a long time before going to the elevator.
He took the elevator up to his floor and looked out at the corridor. It was empty.
He waited a few minutes before approaching his door. He listened before unlocking it, and he pushed it open without stepping inside.
The place was silent.
There was a light switch in the hallway and he slid his hand along the wall searching for it.
He found it and flicked it on.
The light didn’t come on.
He wondered for a moment what was wrong, maybe a bulb had blown, or a breaker had tripped in his absence.
Then he heard the click of a gun being cocked.
97
Inside the apartment, sitting on a sofa in the dark, sipping Sherbakov’s scotch, was Lance Spector.
“Come in, Sherbakov,” he said, pointing a gun at the man. “Don’t be shy.”
There was a lamp next to Lance and he switched it on.
“Come on, Alex,” he said.
