Red Square

by Martin Cruz Smith

  'Where is Benz?' Arkady asked.

  'Gone,' Peter said. 'He boarded a plane to Moscow an hour ago.'

  It wasn't a bad time to leave Berlin. Maybe Borya was abandoning the entire Benz identity, Arkady thought. After this Boris Benz might never be seen again. Eliminating Makhmud was certainly a more important accomplishment than hanging on to the German asset of Fantasy Tours. All the same, he was surprised; Borya wasn't the type who settled for less than everything.

  Peter said, 'Benz boarded the plane with Max Albov. They're both gone.'

  'Max was coming here,' Irina said.

  Arkady remembered how the lift had paused on his floor before continuing to the sixth. Max must have been packing. 'Why would he go to Moscow?'

  'They got on a charter flight,' Peter said.

  'How could they get on a late-night charter flight at the last minute?'

  'There were lots of seats available at the last minute,' Peter said.

  'Why?'

  Peter looked at both Arkady and Irina. 'You haven't heard? You don't have a radio or a television here? You must be the only ones in the world who don't know. There's been a coup in Moscow.'

  Irina softly laughed. 'It finally happened.'

  'Who took over?' Arkady asked.

  'A so-called Emergency Committee. The army rolled in. That's all anyone knows.'

  A coup was the predicted catastrophe, the long-due sum of Russian fears, the Moscow night that followed day, yet Arkady was stunned. Stunned to find himself stunned. Max and Borya must have been surprised, too.

  'With all that confusion, why would Max go back?' Arkady asked.

  Irina said, 'It doesn't matter as long as they aren't coming here.'

  'So you don't need this anymore.' Peter took the machine pistol away from Arkady, scooped the clips off the floor and stuffed them in his belt.

  'We're safe,' Irina said.

  'Not quite.' Peter motioned with the pistol for them to move to a corner. Arkady had put the safety on; now Peter pushed it off.

  The room was still dark. Peter could see them against the glow of the glass better than they could see him, but Arkady caught the gesture for them not to move. In the hall the lift door opened. Irina took Arkady's hand. Peter motioned for them to lie down, then turned around and fired through the wall.

  The Skorpion wasn't a particularly loud weapon, though its 7.62mm heads went through plasterboard as if it were paper. Peter walked along the wall, sawing waist-high, reloading as he went. A couple of rounds sparked off studs and nails. Shouts of outrage and confusion answered from the halt. Peter sprayed the second clip at knee level. Someone in the hall finally understood what was happening and fired back. A saucer-sized chunk of the wall exploded into the room. Peter used the shining hole as a target. He turned his back to the wall, disengaged the empty clip and inserted the last. An arc of holes answered through the walls. Peter walked to the high point of the arc, aimed low and fired, standing as close as a carpenter to the wall, surrounded by shafts of light. He moved to the side when a single shot responded, took his stance again, put the barrel in the hole and widened it with four more shots. He set the rate to manual and listened for moans, then placed a shot straight through the wall at his feet. Reset to automatic and finished the clip in a spray. In ten seconds Peter had put eighty rounds through the wall. On his way to the door, he let the Skorpion fall and reached around to the holster at the back of his belt for his own gun in case he needed it.

  He didn't. Four Chechens lined the hall. Covered in blood and lime, they seemed to have suffered an industrial accident. Peter sorted through them, holding a cautionary gun to each head with one hand while he checked the carotid pulse with the other. A couple of the dead men held Skorpions of their own, for all the good it had done them. Arkady recognized Ali's friend from the Wall café staring up through a layer of dust. He didn't see Beno.

  'They were parked outside when I got here,' Peter said. 'Two in each car.'

  'Thank you,' Arkady said.

  'Bitte.' Peter relished the word, like a mouthful of satisfaction.

  • • •

  People are confused when they wake to the sound of automatic fire. In an area of the city with so much construction, the first reaction is bourgeois outrage that anyone would break the law and drive a nail before dawn.

  On the street, Arkady saw blue police lights floating far off down Friedrichstrasse, approaching without sirens since it was the middle of the night. He and Irina followed Peter around a corner to his car. As he started to drive, Peter monitored the police radio.

  The responding officers had to locate the right address, then search four floors to find the bodies. There were no witnesses in the building. Arkady knew that possibly someone in a flat across the street had noticed them leave the building, but what was there to describe except two men and a woman seen from hundreds of metres away at an angle in the dark?

  Peter said, 'There's nothing we can do about your finger- and footprints; they're all over the flat, but they won't be easy to match. Your friend says she has no criminal record in Germany and there are no prints on you at all.'

  'What about you?'

  'I wiped the pistol and the clips, and I didn't use my own gun.'

  'That's not what I meant. What about you?'

  Peter drove for a while before he said, 'There's an official review every time you use a firearm. I don't want to explain why I shot four men that I didn't formally identify and warn. Through a wall? They could have been four visitors asking directions, collecting for Greenpeace or Mother Teresa.'

  There was dust on Peter's fingers. He wiped them on his shirt.

  'I don't necessarily want to explain how I was helping my grandfather. This is a Russian gang war. I'm not going to let it turn into a public scandal about him.'

  'If they do trace this to me, Federov knows your name,' Arkady said.

  'With the coup, I think the consulate in Munich has more on its mind than me or you.'

  On the police band, a dispatcher ordered ambulances to Friedrichstrasse. The urgency of the voice contrasted to the calm of the Tiergarten, the park's rounded massing of shadow under morning stars.

  Peter said, 'You've lied to me from the start, but I have to admit that I've found out more from your lies than the lies I've heard before. What is it about you, I wonder? I still expect the truth.'

  Arkady said, 'If we go to Savigny Platz, I might be able to show it to you.'

  While Arkady sat on an arbour bench, his back tightened. He needed aspirin or nicotine, but he had no pills and didn't indulge the telltale glow of a cigarette because the hedges around him stayed dark as the sky slowly lightened to grey. From the bench he couldn't see Peter and Irina, parked a block away. He could see the lights of the gallery, which looked as if they had burned through the night.

  In Moscow, under the same roof of clouds, tanks were rolling through the streets. Was it a military putsch? Was the Party reclaiming its role as the vanguard of the people? Had the work of national salvation begun in earnest, with both hands? Just as the Party had protected Prague, Budapest and East Berlin before? There should at least be a rumble of distant thunder.

  Except on Friedrichstrasse, the Germans seemed to have slept soundly through the night. German television had closed its eyes at the accustomed time. Arkady assumed that the planners of the coup would, at the minimum, detain a round thousand of the leading reformers, take control of Soviet television and radio, close the airports and telephone lines. He had no doubt that City Prosecutor Rodionov deplored the necessity of a coup, but, as every Russian knew, grim tasks were best done quickly. What Arkady did not understand was why Max and Gubenko had rushed back. How could an international flight land if the airports were closed? This would be a good time to listen to Radio Liberty. He wondered what Stas was saying.

  A fine sprinkling of rain arrived. Then the rustling of unseen birds in the hedges, like the excitement of extras in the wings. Over the hedges spread the window lights of e
arly risers, a sea sound of traffic, the browsing of street cleaners.

  The two/two time of high heels passed on the other side of the hedge. Rita came into view, in matching poppy-red raincoat and hat, walking briskly between the garden squares that made up the plaza, right hand in her pocket. Arkady had seen her at least start to sign a dinner bill; he knew she was right-handed. When she unlocked the ground-floor door, she kept her hand in the pocket and looked back at the street before she entered.

  Ten minutes later an armed guard came out, yawned and stretched and went off with loggy steps in the opposite direction.

  After another ten minutes, the gallery lights went out. Rita reappeared, locked the door and started back across the Plaza, holding a canvas bag by the handles with her left hand.

  Arkady caught up with her on the bag side in the middle of the plaza and said, 'That's no way to treat a five-million-dollar painting.'

  She was startled enough to stop. He appreciated the purity of her first reaction, which was fury. The contents of the bag were wrapped in plastic. 'I hope that's waterproof,' he said.

  When Rita started walking again, he grabbed a handle of the bag. 'I'll shout for the police,' she said.

  'Shout. I think the life of the German police is incredibly boring – at least it would be without Russians. The police would love to hear a story about you and Rudy Rosen, though the details might not help your business much. So Max and Borya left you all alone?'

  Arkady liked Rita's resilience. She was used to dealing with men. A softer, more reasonable expression came over her face. 'I'm not going to wait around for Chechens to show up.' She offered a neutral smile. 'Can we talk out of the rain?'

  He thought of slipping into an arbour, but Rita led him across the street to patio tables sheltered by an awning. It was the same restaurant as in the videotape, and she went to the same table at which she had raised her glass and said, 'I love you.' The inside of the restaurant was black. They had the patio and plaza to themselves.

  Despite the early hour, Rita's face was made up in a mask that was ferocious and exotic. The red raincoat she wore had an oily quality that went well with her lips. Arkady unzipped her coat.

  Rita asked, 'Why did you do that?'

  'Let's say that you're an attractive woman.'

  They sat, each with a hand on the bag under the table. Because her coat was open, the pockets hung straight down, out of her immediate reach.

  Arkady asked, 'Do you remember a Russian girl called Rita?'

  Margarita said, 'I remember her well. A hard-working girl. One thing she learned was that she could always do business with the militia.'

  'And Borya.'

  'The Long Pond people protected the girls in the hotel. Borya was a friend.'

  'But to make real money Rita had to get out of Russia. She married a Jew.'

  'No crime.'

  'You didn't get to Israel.'

  Margarita held up her right hand to show her long nails. 'Do you see these building a kibbutz in the desert?'

  'And Borya followed.'

  'Borya had a perfectly legal proposition. He needed someone to help him recruit girls to come and work in Germany, and he needed someone to watch over them while they were here. I had experience.'

  'There's more to it than that. Borya bought papers that created a Boris Benz, which was convenient when he went searching for a foreign partner in Moscow. This way he could be both. When you married Boris Benz, that enabled you to stay here, too.'

  'Borya and I have a special relationship.'

  'And if the wrong person called, you could play his maid and say that Herr Benz was holidaying in Spain.'

  'A good whore is a good mimic.'

  'Do you think the Boris Benz identity was a good idea? It was a weak point. Too much depended on it.'

  'It worked fine until you came along.'

  Arkady looked around at the empty tables without taking his hand from the bag. 'You made a videotape here and sent it to Rudy. Why?'

  'Identification. Rudy and I had never met. I didn't want to give him a name.'

  'He wasn't a bad character.'

  'He was helping you. After Rodionov told us, it was just a matter of how to get rid of Rudy to the best effect. He knew about the painting. We let him think if he got it authenticated he could make his own sale. I gave him a slightly different painting. Borya said that if there was a big enough explosion we could get rid of Rudy and give Rodionov a reason to wipe out the Chechens, both at the same time.'

  'Did you think Borya was going to stay here at some point and become Boris Benz for good?'

  'Where would you rather be, Moscow or Berlin?'

  'So in the videotape when you said, "I love you," you were saying it to Borya.'

  'We were happy here.'

  'And you were willing to do things for Borya that his wife never would, like going back to Moscow and delivering a fire bomb to Rudy. I had to ask myself why an obviously well-to-do tourist would stay somewhere as shabby and far out of the city as the Soyuz Hotel. The answer was that it was the hotel closest to the black market and the shortest ride with a fire bomb that didn't have a timer. You were brave, taking a chance you wouldn't blow up too. That's love.'

  Rita wet her lips. 'You're so good at questions, could I ask you one?'

  'Go ahead.'

  'Why don't you ask about Irina?'

  'Like what?'

  Rita leaned forward as if she were whispering in a crowd. 'What Irina got out of it. Do you think Max paid for her clothes and all her little gifts because she made good conversation? Ask yourself what she was willing to do for him.'

  Arkady felt his skin start to heat.

  'They were together for years,' Rita said. 'Practically man and wife, like Borya and me. I don't know what she's telling you now. I'm just saying what she's doing for you she did for him. Any woman would.'

  His ears burned. A hot meridian spread across his face. 'What are you really trying to say?'

  Rita's head rested sympathetically to one side. 'It sounds as if she hasn't told you everything. I've known men like you all my life. Somebody has to be a goddess, and everyone else is a whore. Irina slept with Max. He bragged what she would do.' Rita invited him to lean towards her and lowered her voice even more. 'I'll tell you and you can compare.'

  As soon as he felt tension on the handle ease, Arkady lifted the canvas bag. 'Shoot now and you'll put a hole through the painting. I don't think it's insured for that,' he said.

  'You prick.'

  Arkady grabbed the pistol when she brought it over the table. It was Borya's .22. He bent her wrist and twisted the gun free.

  'You fuck,' Rita said.

  Borya had betrayed her, run to Moscow and abandoned her with this puny gun. Arkady removed the rounds from the breech and clip and tossed the empty pistol in her lap. 'I love you, too,' he said.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  * * *

  At an airport souvenir shop, Arkady bought a beer tray and a cotton shawl embroidered with the rats of Hamelin. In a lavatory cubicle, he covered the painting in the shawl, wrapped the tray in bubble plastic, put it in Rita's canvas bag, and then rejoined Peter and Irina in a corner of the transit lounge.

  Arkady said, 'Think of all the paintings and manuscripts confiscated from artists and writers and poets for seventy years, hidden away by the Ministry of the Interior and the KGB. Nothing is thrown away. Poets may get a bullet in the back of the head, but the poem is stuffed in a box and buried in a cellar. Then, at a magical moment, when Russia joins the rest of the world, all that evidence becomes valuable assets.'

  'But they can't sell it,' Irina said. 'Art more than fifty years old cannot legally be taken from the Soviet Union.'

  'But it can be smuggled out,' Peter suggested.

  Arkady said, 'Bribes will do. Armoured tanks, trains and crude oil have been moved across the border. To bring a painting out is relatively easy.'

  'Even so,' Irina said, 'the sale isn't valid if Russian law is broke
n. Collectors and museums don't like to be involved in international disputes. Rita couldn't sell Red Square if it came from Russia.'

  Peter said, 'Maybe it's a fake from Germany. There were fantastic forgers in East Berlin, all out of work now. Has this painting really been examined?'

  Irina said, 'Completely. It's been dated, X-rayed and analysed. It even has Malevich's thumbprint.'

  'All of that can be faked,' Peter said.

  'Yes,' Irina admitted, 'but it's a curious thing about fakes. They can be the best forgeries on earth, with the correct wood, paints and technique, but they don't look right.'

  Peter cleared his throat. 'This is becoming spiritual.'

  Irina said, 'It's like knowing people. After a while you learn the fake from the real. A painting is an artist's idea, and ideas can't be forged.'

  'How valuable did you say the painting is?' Peter asked.

  'Perhaps five million dollars. That's not much here,' Arkady said, 'but in Russia it's four hundred million rubles.'

  'Unless it's fake,' Peter pointed out.

  Arkady said, ' Red Square is real and it's from Russia.'

  'But they found it in a Knauer crate,' Irina said.

  Arkady said, 'The crate is fake.'

  'The crate?' Peter sat up. Arkady could see him mentally rearranging. 'I hadn't thought from that direction before.'

  Arkady said, 'Remember, Benz wasn't interested in the art your grandfather stole. He had his own. He was interested in the crates your grandfather built – with Knauer carpenters, if you remember.'

  'That's good,' Peter said appreciatively. 'That's very good.'

  Arkady laid the shawl on Peter's knees. Peter sat up straighter. 'What are you doing?'

  'The cultural atmosphere is a little unsettled in Moscow right now.'

  'I don't want it.'

  'You're the only person I can leave it with,' Arkady said.

  'How do you know I won't disappear with it?'