Travin said, “The Yakut authorities appear to think it’s better for what was recovered to remain there.”
“So you did ask for it?” pounced Charlie.
“The inquiry is at a very early stage,” floundered Travin, trapped. “The concentration has been upon assembling an investigation team … advising your respective governments ….”
It was sufficient, decided Charlie, allowing the pause which Miriam Bell hurriedly filled. “Have the files been checked here for any records of an American or a British officer being in that region, which I understand to have been a closed part of the old Soviet Union?”
“Yes,” said Travin, grateful to escape. “Both Foreign and Interior Ministries. There is nothing officially recorded.”
“What about photographs of the bodies?” said Miriam.
Travin shifted uncomfortably. “Yakutsk have said there are some, with the other material.”
Colonel Lestov should have been asking questions, thought Charlie. More bad rehearsal. “What about prison records? Virtually all of Yakutskaya was a prison colony, wasn’t it?”
Travin’s face began to color. “It was. But the records are very inadequate. What do exist are being examined, naturally. There can be no question of British and American nationals being sentenced to this or any other region ….” His face began to clear, in realization of escape. “And as our advice to both your governments made clear, these officers were dressed in their military uniforms and carried some personal items, which would not have been allowed had they been prisoners ….” Too forcefully in his eagerness, the man finished, “So a search of records would be pointless.”
“But you are still looking?” insisted Charlie. “That’s what you said …?”
“What I’m trying to make clear is my government’s total commitment to investigate these murders.”
That very definitely was rehearsed, recognized Charlie.
Just as rehearsed, Miriam said, “I’ve been authorized to offer every facility on behalf of my government.”
Might as well go for broke with those busy little pens and recordingtapes scratching away, decided Charlie. “I appreciate, as I’m sure my American colleague does, the cooperation you’re offering. I, for my part, want it to be understood that I see my role as an observer-although prepared at all times to contribute in any way that I am asked-to a Russian investigation ….” He allowed a long pause. Come on! Come on! he thought, although not looking at Miriam.
“Yes,” came in the American, as if on cue. “That’s certainly how I see it, too.”
Travin nodded, to disguise the heavy swallow. “I see you all acting together as a team,” he tried. “We respect your ability. Don’t expect you to hold back to be invited to give an opinion. This is, in fact, going to be a unique investigation.”
The precise words Alexei Popov had used in this very same room about a year earlier, remembered Charlie. Popov had been a far more adept bastard than his successor. Still wrong to be too confident, too soon. Looking obviously at the note-takers, Charlie said, “I am impressed by the obvious efficiency with which this has all begun. I will, of course, make available copies of all my reports to London, for your murder dossiers. And would like copies of yours-including that of this meeting-to create my full file ….” He smiled sideways at Miriam. “That’s the sort of arrangement to which you’d agree, wouldn’t you?”
She said, “Yes. That sounds fine.”
Miriam Bell offered the drink and suggested the conveniently close Intourist Hotel and Charlie accepted, although he preferred the bar of the Savoy. After they were served, she said, “You want to tell me what that was all about back there?”
“Doing my best to prevent the back of my head from being blown off, like some poor bastard’s was fifty years ago.” If he’d added any more water to his whiskey after the barman’s adulteration, there wouldn’t have been any taste at all.
“Not enough,” she protested.
The bolted-door reserve wasn’t the earlier suspected arrogance, Charlie decided. It was get-all-but-say-nothing.
“Things go wrong, they want scapegoats. We’re it.”
“What if things go right?”
“Same role.”
“I thought Lestov seemed a nice enough guy.”
“We’ll see.”
“What about you and I?”
“No reason for us to work in opposition.”
“What about together?”
“Doesn’t seem there’ll be an alternative.” He gestured for more drinks, changing his to vodka: there wasn’t the need to dilute the cheaper local drink so much to get a three hundred percent markup.
“But if there was, you’d prefer it?”
“Don’t want anyone else to suffer from my mistakes.”
“Or suffer those of others yourself?”
“That’s about it.”
“I suppose it’s also being honest.”
He grinned at her. “You get the identity of your American first, it’ll most likely lead me to my man, won’t it?”
“I think I’ve got the rules.” She sipped her drink. She’d chosen vodka from the beginning. “Surprised it’s me, not Saul?”
“Yes.”
“He’s expecting to be called back to Washington any minute. Didn’t want to be off base. So I get the big chance.”
Jesus, thought Charlie: sneaky bastard didn’t lie any better than Irena described the way he fucked. Emptily he said, “That’s what we all need, the big chance.”
“This isn’t my first overseas assignment,” she said, in unasked defense. “I’ve worked Manila. And Tokyo.”
“But nothing like this before?”
“Is it too obvious?”
Charlie recognized the little-girl-lost ploy. “Not at all. You all set to go?”
“I guess.”
“Pack a lot of chiffon scarves.”
“What?”
“Chiffon scarves. Pack as many as you’ve got.” The protection he’d decided upon after reading about Yakutskaya had arrived from Harrods that morning, in the embassy’s diplomatic shipment. He could hardly wait for Gerald Williams to get the bill.
Charlie assessed his score at ten out of ten. He judged Travin to be working to a separate agenda, to which Natalia limited her agreement, but she did admit there’d been a much longer, separate briefing between her deputy and the three Russians, which was why they’d made the mistake of not asking questions. And the Yakut ruling council had refused to send any evidence in advance of the investigation team’s arrival.
“Travin’s furious,” said Natalia, delighted with the recorded outcome of the man’s encounter with Charlie. It could hardly have been better if she had told him the threat she believed herself to be under.
“He’s not very good.” It was unthinkable that he would make any comparison with Popov.
“Don’t underestimate him.”
“I don’t underestimate anybody, not this early in a case.”
“What about the woman?”
“What about her?”
“Think you’ll have a problem working with her?”
That wasn’t at all what Natalia meant, Charlie knew sadly. “I don’t work with people, if I can help it. But there’s every reason-every advantage-in cooperating here, until it proves otherwise. So I will ….” He was about to make a joke of her real concern but abruptly stopped himself, remembering the hurt of her past. Instead he continued, seriously, “And I seem to remember promising that I would never, ever, cheat you. And I meant cheat in every way. So no, I’m not going to try to seduce Miriam Bell. Or anyone else, for that matter ….”
Natalia smiled, abashed. “I’m sorry.”
So was he, decided Charlie. One day, he supposed, the trust would be there. He wondered when.
Vitali Maksimovich Novikov straightened triumphantly from the attic box, gazing down at what he considered the treasure it contained. His father had been a meticulous man. There had to be something.
<
br /> “Good to hear your voice,” greeted Kenton Peters.
“And yours,” said Boyce.
“Everything’s in place this end. The confusion is absolute.”
“That’s good.”
“And I’ve spoken to the man himself.”
“How is he?”
“As overconfident as always.”
“I’m glad the Yakutskaya authorities are being awkward.”
So am I. Like to know a little more of their thinking, though.”
“We can’t have everything, James! Who’s your disposable man?”
“Odd name. Muffin. An awkward bastard, according to his file. Actually caused a lot of trouble in your CIA a long time ago. Embarrassed your director as well as our director-general.”
“Deserves to be punished, then.”
“Quite. You briefed anyone?”
“Selected him. Haven’t briefed him yet. Too early. Better send me Muffin’s file. That CIA business would be ‘enemy of the state’ justification.”
“Will do,” agreed Boyce. “I think we’ve got everything under wraps, don’t you?”
“Can’t think of anything we’ve overlooked.”
8
All of Charlie’s forebodings were confirmed from the very outset. There was no trace of their confirmed reservations on Aeroflot’s ten A.M. Domodedovo airport departure for Yakutsk until Charlie offered his passport with a $50 note folded inside. That still, however, didn’t guarantee a seat. It was agony for him to have to run, like everyone else, but they got to the aircraft ahead of families with small children and the infirm, while there were still unoccupied seats. Vadim Leonidovich Lestov determinedly elbowed his way through to get beside Miriam Bell, and Olga Erzin and the Russian forensic scientist remained stubbornly and protectively together, which left Charlie to fight for himself, which suited him perfectly. He hoped it would be a permanently established division.
He managed a seat next to a Yakut who greeted him with a graveyard-toothed smile and a miasma of halitosis so bad Charlie wastempted to surrender his place to a loudly demanding, arm-waving woman with an apparent official boarding pass. There were, however, at least seven more identical arguments going on simultaneously throughout the aircraft, which meant it was overbooked, as Aeroflot planes always were, and that no other seat was available. Charlie was isolated as a dispensable foreigner by an androgynous stewardess, whose arrival he greeted with another $50 note, which secured his occupation and got the pass of the still-protesting woman torn up as she was escorted from the aircraft.
Immediately after takeoff the passenger directly in front abruptly and without warning fully reclined his seat, the back of which stopped just inches from Charlie’s face, even though he threw himself backward. The frame of the inset meal table jammed tightly just below Charlie’s knees, threatening the blood supply. The man ignored Charlie’s shoulder tap and whispered plea to ease forward and told him to fuck off when he tapped harder. The Yakut obligingly made room for Charlie’s legs.
Despite his advanced tooth decay Charlie’s companion chewed contentedly upon an appropriately turd-shaped black and sinewy piece of pemmican he took, unwrapped, from inside an enveloping jacket. Aware of Charlie’s interest, the man smiled again and generously offered Charlie a bite, wet end first. When the tepid mystery described as lunch was put before him, Charlie wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision refusing the chance of even previously chewed dried meat. He offered the tray, minus the vodka and wine, to the Yakut, who eagerly accepted. The manly stewardess was just as eager to serve him more vodka when she realized he’d pay in dollars.
The visa kiosk at Yakutsk airport was shuttered. Charlie stood back to let other passengers hammer and protest against the metal grill and Miriam stayed with him. So did the three Russians, and Charlie frowned at the prospect of being the group tour guide. It was only two in the afternoon, but already it seemed to be darkening from twilight into night.
It took them more than an hour to progress into the customs hall. Their luggage was already waiting. The pathologist and forensic scientists had tried to anticipate the equipment they might need, with no way of knowing what would be locally available. Olga said at once, “I’m missing a case. Some saws, spare scalpel blades.”
“You’d better report-” started Miriam, before stopping abruptly, embarrassed.
“We are the police,” Charlie reminded, grinning at her. There was no air-conditioning within the terminal building and Charlie felt his clothes melting around him in the humidity. Already there were a lot of flies and insects.
Resigned, Olga said, “There’ll be no point, will there?”
“None,” said Lestov, positively. “Can you manage without?”
“I’m going to have to, aren’t I?”
Yuri Ryabov, Aleksandr Kurshin and Vitali Novikov were waiting on the outside concourse. The silver-haired, urbanely mannered militia chief, who’d put on his neatly pressed and newest uniform for the occasion, looked curiously at the disheveled although obviously Western-dressed Charlie-particularly at the snowshoes-spread Hush Puppies-and said in Russians, “Who’s that?”
Charlie said, “I’m the British investigator. Everyone able to speak Russian will make it easier to work together.” Charlie wasn’t offended-he never was when somebody underestimated him-but he was surprised at the stupidity. He was sure he’d caught the slight smirk of satisfaction from Kurshin. Charlie was conscious of the intense examination from the third man in the group.
Also in Russian, Miriam said, “And I’m American. Hello.”
Ryabov looked more confused than embarrassed. Gesturing toward three waiting, undesignated cars, the local militia chief said, “You’ll want to settle in, after such a long flight. We’ve booked you into the Ontario.”
First stupid, now clever, thought Charlie, who’d spent the intervening days since first being alerted to the murders preparing himself far more thoroughly than by simply buying a beekeeper’s hat that would be necessary in the summerlike temperatures. In the short time outside the airport terminal he’d already noted the preeminence of horse-drawn transport in his search for nonexistent taxis. And knew the Ontario Hotel, a Canadian joint venture, was a thirty-minute car ride from the Yakutsk town center: effectively they would be as imprisoned as the original Russian exiles.
It was the thin, intense man who at once introduced himself and maintained the aircraft division, hurrying forward to usher Charlie into his car, which Charlie allowed unprotesting but curious, wonderingif Novikov was intended to be his personal jailer. Ryabov shepherded Miriam and Lestov into his vehicle, leaving the remaining Russians to go with the local homicide investigator. Always ready to kiss as well as look a gift horse in the mouth, Charlie said, “Is it always as dark at this?”
“In the proper summer it’s lighter. Maybe for two months of the year.”
The car’s body shell was a Lada but the inside was cannibalized from other vehicles. It smelled of longtime dampness. Charlie said, “You lived here all your life?”
There was a quick look across the car. “Regrettably I was born here.”
Charlie awarded himself ten out of ten again. Sometimes the gods, whoever and from wherever they were, truly smiled. He said, “Until a few days ago I’d never heard of Yakutsk. Or the region.”
“Few people ever have. Or want to.”
Charlie saw the pathologist was white-knuckled from the tightness with which he was holding the wheel. Why, wondered Charlie, had the arrival examination been so equally intense? The man was blinking rapidly and perspiration was bubbled on his upper lip. Charlie moved to speak, but before he could Novikov said, “You have come especially from London?”
The temptation to rush-to try at once to use the advantage of being alone, how he always preferred to be-was enormous, but Charlie held back. “I am permanently based in Moscow.” I hope, he added mentally.
“Officially?” queried the man. Then, just as quickly, he nervously answered his own questi
on. “Yes, of course you must be. The end of the old system, I suppose?”
“It’s a very new arrangement,” agreed Charlie. There were times to push against the tide and times to go with the flow.
“You are the first, under that arrangement?”
“Yes.”
“You must have been special chosen? Have influence maybe?”
The man wanted him to be special. Why? “There were reasons,” he said, seeking another guiding question to fill the emptiness of his reply.
“Are you attached to the British embassy in Moscow?”
“Yes.” Where the hell was this going?
“You must know important people?”
Charlie exaggerated the shrug of apparent modesty, seeing the crack of light in the literal darkness. “I suppose I do. Things are very different in Moscow now: different in Russia.” He gestured to the two cars in front. “Once our being here like this would have been unimaginable.” As it was unimaginable that a British officer was here more than fifty years ago, he thought.
Novikov said, “Very little changes here. Never for the better.”
It was difficult to conceive that what little Charlie could see outside the car could have been worse. The countryside was unlike anything he had seen or experienced before, ever imagined. The stretched-to-the near-horizon twilight was only broken by the stick-drawn blackness of skeletal, leaf-naked trees, a child’s pencil drawing abruptly denied by the suddenly vivid, paint-box colors of rarely seen plants brought to life by the strange thaw. Most difficult of all was to believe that beneath such a barren, infertile moonscape, larger than the entire Indian subcontinent, lay the majority of the world’s reserves of oil, gas, coal, gold and diamonds. Or that for so many Stalin years-and after-men, women and child slaves had little more than their bare hands, and those stick-thin tree branches for pit props, to mine it.
Charlie, with difficulty, remained silent, his foot-throbbing instinct telling him the other man had more to say. But abruptly Novikov had fallen silent, although his hands were still white-knuckled at the wheel and the perspiration still flecked his upper lip.
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