Dance of Death

by John Case

  Kovalenko shrugged. “Yeah, well, it’s his name on the door.”

  Burke came out of his seat like he was on springs, lunging at the FBI agent. Kovalenko shot backwards in his chair, its wheeled casters squealing across the floor. Doherty threw himself on Burke’s back, locked him into a bear hug, and dragged him away.

  Kovalenko sat in his chair with his back to the wall, breathing hard, rubbing at his arm. “That’s rich, you comin’ after me.”

  Burke looked him up and down. “Yeah,” he said. “Thinka that.”

  Twenty-two

  Dublin | April 4, 2005

  BURKE COULDN’T BELIEVE it.

  The company shut down, his passport void, the old man indicted … and all because this dick, Kovalenko, was an Ayn Rand nut with a hatred for offshore companies. The suggestion that he and Tommy were somehow in cahoots with d’Anconia, whoever d’Anconia was, was ludicrous. He could barely remember the guy. The real problem was that Kovalenko had taken an instant dislike to him. It was as simple as that.

  And as complicated.

  Burke had a way of rankling people in authority, people like Kovalenko who wore their self-importance like a badge of honor. There was something in Burke’s stance, something in his attitude, or in his eyes, that just … wound them up. It would have been funny, it would have been a gift – but it tended not to end well.

  Kovalenko was putting the screws to them because he could. The case would never come to court because, when you got right down to it, Burke had done everything by the book – no matter who the client was.

  But in the meantime, Aherne & Associates was closed and the old man was in trouble.

  Obviously, Kovalenko enjoyed rattling people’s cages – no matter who they were or what they’d done (or hadn’t done). It was just an exercise in power. Like the business with Burke’s passport. That was hardball. But it was hardball the way weenies played it.

  Day after day, Burke did everything he could to persuade the Garda that it had made a mistake. He phoned, he wrote, he bombarded Doherty and Kovalenko with e-mails. He even showed up in person to plead Aherne & Associates’ case. But none of it was of any use. He appealed to Inspector Doherty’s sense of decency, but that only seemed to confuse him. So he tried a different tack: patriotism. Surely, Irish authorities could do something to protect Irish businesses. Surely, the Irish wouldn’t let a foreign power push them around.

  Doherty listened to it all, nodded throughout, and finally shrugged. “It’s outa my hands,” he said.

  The thing was, the old man needed to work. After more than two weeks of idleness, he’d pruned all the roses, caught up on his correspondence, and played “108 holes of golf.” He was beginning to slip back into his old habits, getting bombed at the pub every night and talking, misty-eyed, about Kate.

  In the States, the FBI was taking the time to contact Burke’s friends, family, and former employers, to inquire about his political views, acquaintances, and travels abroad. Burke learned of this when his father called to congratulate him on his application for a government job.

  “What job?” Burke asked.

  His father made a sound like a siren going off – a realization siren. “Ohhhhhhh!” he exclaimed. And then, in a whisper: “Cloak and dagger, huh?”

  Since Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged loomed so large in Kovalenko’s world, Burke checked it out online. Google gave him more than a million hits. The top-listed site was a web page supported by the Ayn Rand Society, which featured photos of the author, long excerpts from her works, accounts of her philosophy, links to Amazon, and more. In essence, Rand believed that self-interest was not only natural, but the secular equivalent of the state of grace.

  It was kind of interesting – especially if you were out of a job and your passport had been revoked. Burke read biographical sketches of the author, including her sallies before the House Committee on Un-American Activities; reviews of her books; and explications of their plots. This was no ordinary author’s website, but a mansion of chat rooms, with a library of blogs and long biographies of Rand’s major characters. There was even an online dating service.

  In 1957, eighteen years before Mike Burke was born, Atlas Shrugged topped the bestseller lists. A survey attributed to the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club deemed Atlas Shrugged as the “second most influential book” for Americans – after the Bible.

  At its heart, the book was the story of good and evil, capitalism and communism, light versus dark. Its plot was at once florid, complex, and more or less interminable. It involved an improbably named heroine – the lovely Dagny – and her efforts to rescue a railroad from unfair competition, shortages, and corrupt government manipulation. Meanwhile, Dagny searched for John Galt, the legendary inventor of a paradigm-shifting motor that was said to run on static electricity gathered from the atmosphere.

  While Dagny struggled to keep the railroad going she noticed that many of the most talented CEOs of the time seemed to be leaving their jobs to “spend more time with their families” (and possessions, Burke thought). Like the corporate Atlases they were, the best and the brightest were shrugging off the burdens society had placed upon them. In effect, the movers and shakers were on strike. They were sick of the government’s interference, regulations, taxes, corruption, and incompetence.

  Francisco d’Anconia was a robber baron on a secret picket line. A Chilean copper king, he decided to keep the metal in the ground rather than submit to regulations that squeezed his profits. His long-winded defense of this decision, “Francisco’s Money Speech,” was quoted in its entirety on various sites. The essence of the speech was simple: Money is the root of all good.”

  And lots more, along the same line.

  At the end of the book, Dagny crash-lands in a wilderness canyon, a sort of Libertarian Shangri-la, where she comes upon the shrugging Atlases who have withdrawn from the world around them. Among them are Francisco d’Anconia and the mysterious John Galt, inventor of the world-transforming motor. Civilization founders in their absence.

  It reminded Burke quite a bit of his father’s blunt opinions about welfare, political correctness, and affirmative action. (No, no, and no.) In his dad’s view, the government shouldn’t be in the business of taking care of people. “Folks are lazy,” he’d insist. “They say there’s no jobs – so how come all these immigrants are working two jobs, and looking for a third?”

  But in reality, Larry Burke would have given you the shirt off his back. John Galt would have sold you sunblock.

  It was two in the morning when Burke finished reading, and shut down his computer. He didn’t get it. Whoever “d’Anconia” really was, he had to be nuts. For whatever reason, he’d chosen to travel the world as a figment of someone else’s imagination.

  Obviously, he identified with Ayn Rand’s hero. But why? And what did al-Qaeda have to do with it?

  For nearly two days, Burke stayed in his room. He watched soccer matches, tennis games, the endless droning on the Beeb about Tony Blair’s poll numbers. He ordered takeout from the Italian place around the corner, and slept a lot, dozing in front of “the box” (as the old man called it), only to wake up more tired than ever. He ignored the telephone when it rang, sinking deeper and deeper into his own lassitude. Occasionally, he wondered, What now? There was nowhere to go, and nothing for him to do. Or nothing he could do.

  What roused him from this torpor was a visit from the old man. Together, they went to the Sun, where they sat at a dark and ancient table as far from the video poker machine as they could get and still be in the pub. Before long, each of them was deep into his third pint.

  He felt like a bad influence, drinking with a man who was drinking too much. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. A little convivial oblivion.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Burke remarked, not for the first time.

  “Bastards,” the old man said. “I don’t know what to tell ya.” He took a long pull on his beer. “I went to see Harrigan
the other day.”

  Burke sat up straight. Harrigan was the firm’s soliciter. “Oh?”

  Tommy nodded. “He says ‘Hello.’”

  “Did you happen to mention the business with Kovalenko and the Garda?”

  “I did, indeed.”

  “And what did he say?” Burke asked.

  Tommy pursed his lips, then smacked them. “He said … it’s certain to cost a penny, but they don’t have a case. Not a’tall. We’ll win in the end.”

  Burke nodded thoughtfully, and sipped his drink. “Meanwhile …”

  “We might have a bit of a rough patch … in the short term.”

  Burke took a deep breath, and slammed his glass down on the table. “You know what? I’m going to Belgrade!” He said it so loud, there was a dip in the room’s noise level as people turned to look.

  “And what do you want to go there for?”

  “It’s where d’Anconia went. I’ll find the bastard and I’ll bring him back.”

  The old man’s face screwed up into a caricature of skepticism. “There’s no point! That goony bird of your’s … he already done that.”

  “What goony bird? You mean, Kovalenko?”

  “The very man! He’s already checked it out. You’ll just be wasting your time.”

  Burke shrugged. “Maybe not …” After 9/11, Burke did not hold the FBI or the CIA in awe. As everyone knew by now, two of the hijackers had roomed with an FBI informant. Others had been trained in knife fighting by a retired Delta commando in Florida. The FBI had declined to examine one of the hijackers’ computers, even after he’d been reported seeking to limit his flying lessons to steering jumbo jets in midflight (no takeoff or landing lessons required). Still other hijackers had been given visas to enter the United States even after the CIA had tracked them to a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, where plans had been discussed to put bombs aboard a dozen commercial airliners. This much Burke had read in the newspapers. Who knew what else was out there? “I’m guessing they missed something,” he said.

  The old man shrugged. Then had a second thought. “And I suppose you’ll be traveling on your driver’s license, will ya?”

  Burke shook his head, and finished his pint. Then he reached into the pocket of his battered waxed jacket, and produced an Irish passport. “Dual citizen,” he said.

  The old man cackled.

  Twenty-three

  Belgrade | April 11, 2005

  BURKE FELT LIKE a terrorist as he handed his virginal Irish passport to the man behind the glass. The Immigrations officer leafed through its pages with unconcealed boredom, then pushed it back without bothering to stamp it. With an airy gesture, he waved Burke on his way and nodded to the next person in line.

  Burke felt the thrill that little boys feel when they’ve gotten away with something, especially when the getting away defeats the machinations of a martinet like Kovalenko. Through the wonders of dual citizenship, Burke was able to travel with impunity, a citizen of Ireland and the European Union.

  Erin go bragh, he thought as he went outside to the taxi queue in front of the terminal. Soon, he was bouncing along in the back of a Zastava cab. The outskirts of the Serbian capital were like those of any other European city, an uneasy conglomeration of warehouses and farms, office buildings and apartment blocks. Heading downtown, Burke was impressed by an efflorescence of graffiti, the unfamiliar Cyrillic tags bristling with swastikas and crosshairs.

  The city itself was a surprise. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find – surly Serbs moving amid the ruins of NATO bombings, perhaps.

  Instead, he found a graceful city at the juncture of two rivers, the Sava and the Danube. There was snow on the ground, but the fresh green of spring adorned the trees. The cabdriver apologized for the weather.

  “Freak weather, this spring. Very cold. Now I am asking, where is global warming when you need it?”

  The riverfront was lined with floating bars and restaurants, the populace seemed well dressed and prosperous, the streets were clean. The taxi chuffed past graceful and beautiful buildings from another era.

  And then there was the Esplanade.

  Boxy and utilitarian, the hotel was a concrete cube entirely devoid of architectural flourish or embellishment. As without, so within: Burke’s room was a clean cell, redolent of some Serbian PineSol.

  Why did d’Anconia decide to stay at this place? According to Kovalenko he had three or four million dollars coming in. You’d think he’d be ready to splurge.

  Or maybe not. He hadn’t seemed like someone who was used to having money. He dressed well, but the clothes looked new, and Burke got the impression that he was playing a role. He was definitely rough around the edges, staring at Burke’s ruined ear and commenting on it. So maybe he was used to places like this.

  The front desk was manned by Vuk Milic, a man of about Burke’s own age. With his suit, tie, oiled hair, and earnest expression, Milic was someone Burke might have encountered at the desk of a Comfort Inn outside D.C. His English was good, if accented.

  When he was talking about room rates and checkout times, Milic was fluent and almost chatty. When the conversation turned to one of the hotel’s previous guests, a man named d’Anconia, Milic frowned. “The particulars of guests cannot be discussed,” he said, tapping his fingers on the desk. “This is not a possibility.”

  Burke folded a twenty-euro note and slid it across the desk so that it came to rest in front of the desk clerk. Milic regarded the bill with a cold eye. “You would like me to change this?”

  Burke shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t need any change.”

  The bill vanished.

  Milic began to type. After a moment, he flashed a smile, and said, “Gaspodin d’Anconia has been here from twenty-four January to second February.”

  “‘Gaspodin’?” Burke asked.

  “‘Mister.’” Milic returned his eyes to the monitor. “He rents two films for TV: La Genou de Claire, and Sorority Whores.”

  “Hunh …”

  The desk clerk was unstoppable. “Three times, he eats in restaurant, each time fish. Makes two telephone calls, long distance. One-two-three, five times he has drinks in bar. Always beer.

  Burke stared, dumbfounded. What if he’d given the guy a hundred? Admittedly, none of the information was useful, but … “Who’d he call?”

  Milic peered closely at the monitor. After a moment, he scribbled some numbers onto a three-by-five card, and handed the card to Burke.

  “That’s it,” Milic said. “There’s nothing else.”

  Burke believed him. He turned to go, then turned back again. “You know why he was in Belgrade? I mean, was he on business or –”

  “He is here for Tesla,” Milic told him.

  Burke frowned. “What’s Tesla?” He seemed to recall, there was a rock band, but …

  The desk clerk was looking almost hurt. “Nikola Tesla,” he said. “The inventor. He is Serb.”

  Jackpot, Burke thought. “So he was meeting this inventor?”

  Milic snorted in derision, and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Tesla is dead, maybe fifty years.”

  “Oh,” Burke said, the enthusiasm draining from his voice.

  “Your friend –”

  Burke started to correct him, but thought better of it.

  “–he’s here for meetings. I don’t know the word in English. But many people come …”

  “So, it’s like a symposium,” Burke suggested.

  The desk clerk shrugged. Then he cocked his head and peered at Burke. “You don’t know Tesla?”

  Burke looked apologetic. “I forgot,” he offered.

  Milic couldn’t believe it. “But this is the most famous Serb of all time! He is more famous than –” he looked up, as if searching the ceiling for the names of celebrated Serbs. Finally, he grinned. “More famous than Vlade Divac!”

  “Really!”

  “Yes! Is true. He’s inventing electricity!”

  “I thought that w
as Edison,” Burke suggested.

  The desk clerk scoffed. “This is what you Americans say. But Tesla, he invents one kind of electricity, Edison invents the other, not-so-good kind. Then, Tesla is inventing many, many things. Twentieth century! This is his invention.”

  Burke laughed.

  The desk clerk scowled. “Your friend, he knows about Tesla.”

  “Does he?” Burke asked.

  “Yes, he gives speech! At the symphony.”

  Burke didn’t know what he meant. Then he understood. “Symposium.”

  “Yes! First, he studies at the Institute –”

  “What institute?”

  “Am I talking to wall?” Milic demanded, as if Burke were a student with attention deficit disorder. “Tesla Institute! After this, he goes to symphony, and gives speech!”

  They were interrupted. First one guest, then another, came to request their keys. No card keys here. These were in the old European style, big keys attached to metal eggs so heavy that only the rare guest would be tempted to take his key along.

  “So this symposium,” Burke asked. “Where was it?”

  But the spell was broken. Either the twenty euros had been used up, or Milic had decided that he’d said enough. He averted his eyes and began stacking some papers into a little pile. “More, I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe in the cafe, someone knows.” He shrugged. “Also there is the possibility of Ivo.”

  “What’s Ivo?”

  “Doorman. He is back tomorrow.”

  The bar was empty except for two women perched on stools at a tall table. A girl with spiky hair and bad skin stood behind the counter, rinsing glasses. She did not remember anyone named d’Anconia or, for that matter, an American by any other name. “I’m here in the day,” she told Burke. “Tooti, she’s coming at seven. You could try her.”

  Burke said he would, then asked if there was an Internet cafe in the neighborhood.

  She lit a cigarette and gave him directions.

  The Web was fantastic. He’d arrived at the Sava Cafe with nothing more than a name. And now, barely an hour later, he knew enough about Nikola Tesla – thanks to Google and the Wikipedia – to pass a third-grade Serbian science class.