Vandals

by Olen Steinhauer

  She followed the path, but slowly, the expensive bottle in her hand now held upside down like a club. She sniffed—the perfume grew stronger. She raised the bottle, paused at the edge of the wine rack, took a breath, and stepped forward.

  It was dim back here, the single bulb’s light diffused by the wines, but it wasn’t so dark that Rachel couldn’t make out the three figures lying on the dirt floor, three parallel lines. A man, a woman, a child—a girl.

  She rushed to the girl first, squatted and checked her pulse. She was alive. Young—maybe seven—and dozing heavily. Rachel exhaled, then checked the adults, also both alive. Drugged, though—when she pinched the woman’s arm she didn’t stir. The blood she’d seen was from the man’s head, a gash above the temple. But he would live.

  On her knees, Rachel sat back, looking down at them. Only then did she notice the noise upstairs, the stomping, either dancing or fighting, and the double bass drum wallop of some band she didn’t recognize.

  She looked back at the bodies. The family: dark-haired elementary school girl; olive-skinned, plump mother in a dress that had been ripped on the path here; and the gaunt, balding father, long nose and loose jowls. She checked the adults’ pockets before finding the telltale lump of wallet inside the man’s slacks. Assorted cash and cards, including a business card for one Margaret Fowles, assistant director of the San Francisco field office of Human Rights Watch. But the man’s name she learned from his driver’s license: Grigory Orlov.

  7

  “And that’s when you called me,” said Toby.

  “Yeah.” She watched him hang the camera on his shoulder. “You sounded like you were asleep.”

  He shook his head. “I just didn’t expect a call.”

  “I almost didn’t call.”

  “Anything not to blow that cover, huh?”

  She shrugged.

  “Well, I’m glad you did.”

  They let that sit a moment, then Rachel asked, “Did you get anything from the name?”

  He rocked his head. “I knew about Grigory Orlov already. Until he was forced out two years ago, Orlov was a CEO of MirGaz, Russia’s third-largest natural gas producer. Things had gone bad with Putin, and then came the fraud charges. He fled the country with his wife Jelena and daughter Marina. Got a place in Nob Hill.” He looked around at the high walls. “This must’ve been a vacation rental. What’s the name of Kožul’s agency?”

  “Veritude Properties. Out of Oakland.”

  “We can check on that,” he said. “Anyway, rumors around the Russian community are that Grigory Orlov’s been helping Human Rights Watch prepare a report on the government-sponsored murders of journalists in Russia. It’s supposed to come out next month.”

  “That would explain the business card.”

  He nodded, but didn’t press her to go downstairs, which she appreciated. Then she connected a few obvious dots. “You’re thinking this was a Russian hit job?”

  “I’m just telling you what I know,” he said, then wondered aloud: “But if so, then why all of this? Why bring all of you up here? Why all the partying? You want to kill someone, you do it alone. He didn’t say anything to you?”

  “Just lies,” she said. Then: “And my name.”

  “What?”

  “At the end, he said my real name.”

  “How the hell did he learn that?”

  “That’s a question.”

  Toby smiled grimly, then wandered into the next room, which was filled with a long, twenty-seater dining table and a chandelier. The bright paintings on the wall reminded her of David Hockney, and very well might have been. “What happened next?” he asked, his restless fingertips marking staccato smears on the oak surface of the table.

  “I can admit to being freaked out,” she said. “But they were okay. Drugged, yes, but each pulse was steady, and they were breathing. For the moment, they were safe, and you were on your way. I had a decision to make.” She pulled out a high-backed chair and settled at the table, rested her hands on her knees, thinking back to that moment. “To speak or not to speak? Maybe, if I said nothing, nothing would happen. We would have our little party while they slept, and then leave. Maybe that was all he’d done—knock out a family so that we could use their place for some fun.” She looked up at Toby, who was frowning. “Psychotic, yes, but maybe that was it. They wake to a trashed house—freaked out but unharmed. But then … why? Why go so far just for a little fun?” As she remembered that moment of decision in the musty basement, her mouth filled with saliva, and she swallowed. “Alternately, I go at him. Confront him. Why did you knock out a whole family? How would he react? I couldn’t imagine he’d wanted us to discover the family—he’d hidden them for a reason. He’d dragged the father down the stairs and scratched the guy’s head on the way down; that had taken a lot of effort.” She scratched her brow, thinking of that cut. “Maybe drawing attention to them would put them in harm’s way. I didn’t know.”

  “But you decided on something.”

  An involuntary smile shivered across her face. “To wait for you. But then … then I heard something that forced me to move.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Gunshots.”

  8

  Two gunshots. From somewhere outside the house. Not far.

  With a last look at the dozing family, she ran around the edge of the wine rack and up the creaking stairs. As she reached the top she heard it again: Bang. Pause. Bang.

  The hallway was empty, and in the TV room Reservoir Dogs played to an empty house while over the speakers Jimi Hendrix sang about a man named Joe who was going to shoot his old lady. On the wall, someone had spray-painted a red penis.

  Bang.

  It was from the rear of the house. She hurried through the kitchen and out the door to find all three of them standing in the gravel, laughing. Layla and Gary were aiming pistols—Layla, a Smith & Wesson M&P, Gary a Colt 9mm—out into the dark fields.

  Bang—that was Layla’s report, and in the distance a small wiry tree stirred.

  “What the fuck?” Rachel shouted.

  Peter turned to her, a smile plastered to his face. “Where have you been?”

  “I asked a question,” she told him. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “You don’t want a shot?”

  “I’m next!” Gary said, and that was when Rachel noticed in the glaring security lamps that lined the back of the house that his pupils were huge. He stumbled slightly when he stepped toward her, the Colt swinging from his fist. “Me.”

  “Whass wrong wit you?” Layla asked, her voice slurred and her irises no longer visible.

  “Come on,” Rachel said. “You’re all fucked up, and you’re going to shoot yourselves.”

  In reply, Peter walked over to Gary and took away his Colt (“Hey!” Gary protested), then raised it in Rachel’s direction. A chill shot through her, but the barrel kept rising, and when he pulled the trigger she heard an explosion of glass above her. Instinctively she rushed away from the house as pieces of window fell glittering to the gravel below.

  Peter was smiling, but his pupils, she noticed, were no bigger than they would naturally be in this hazy light. “What’s going on?” she asked him.

  “A good time.”

  “And the house?”

  He shrugged. “The Chinese aren’t moving in. Won’t even visit it. They’ll flip it in a year, and by then they’ll figure some vandals hit it.” He turned back to others. “Which is about right, yeah? We’re vandals?”

  “Yeah,” they replied. Layla pointed her Smith & Wesson at the house, and—bang—a stone chunk dropped from the roof. Laughter rippled through everyone except Rachel.

  “We’re Vandals in the best sense,” Peter went on. “The Germanic tribes that came out of Silesia in the time before Christ, and later drove south to sack Rome. That’s what we’re doing here. Sacking Rome, one temple and moneychanger at a time. We’ve come to bring down their edifices and burn their crops and kill them one b
y one and sow their cities with salt.”

  “What?” Rachel said.

  “Fuck yeah,” said Gary. “We’re Vandals.”

  “Vandals!” shouted Layla.

  Rachel was starting to feel sick. Whatever plans she’d had to wait for Toby were now gone, because at this rate someone was going to end up dead, and soon. So she said, “What’s really going on, Peter?”

  “I told you, baby. Fun.”

  “I’m not talking about this.”

  “What are you talking about, then?”

  They were all looking at her now—she finally had the attention she’d sought. But she couldn’t say it yet, couldn’t say, You’ve knocked out a family in the basement, and they aren’t Chinese. The mood was against her, and whatever drugs he’d fed them had made them stupid and malleable. She turned to focus on Layla, who, appearances to the contrary, was the smartest of the bunch.

  “Everyone,” Rachel said, “follow me.”

  9

  “So you just walked them down there,” said Toby.

  “Yes.”

  “All of them?”

  She took a breath, then nodded. “He wasn’t going to kill me if we were all together. At least, that was my logic.”

  “Okay,” Toby said, starting toward the hallway that led to the arched basement door. “Let’s go downstairs, then.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Just listen.”

  10

  As she led them down the steps, and they worked their way around the edge of the wine rack, Rachel kept an eye on them. Each one, as they filed through, fell silent, looking at the sleeping family. Rachel watched Peter’s face, for a part of her wondered if she had jumped too quickly to her conclusions, and perhaps the family would be a surprise to him as well. But no—his hardening expression made it clear that this was no surprise at all.

  “Are they dead?” Layla asked.

  “Asleep.”

  Gary rubbed his face. “Who are they?”

  “Peter?” Rachel said, turning to him.

  She could see that he was angry. Whatever he’d planned for this evening hadn’t involved this moment. He glared at her, chewing the inside of his mouth, then licked his lips and plastered on a false smile. In his right hand, the Colt swung back and forth, but he didn’t raise it. Instead, he began to speak.

  “When I came to America, six years ago, I was entranced. The enormity of your country. The bigness. Highways from one end of the continent to the other. The constant whish of planes piercing the clouds. Farms and factories and Hollywood and Silicon Valley. You maybe don’t appreciate it, but coming from where I come from, the size and industry of America took my breath away. There is an American energy that no other country can match.” He looked from face to face, finally settling on Rachel’s. “But then, after the glow had faded, I was able to see why America has all this energy. It’s built on the blood and bones of its willing slaves—because that’s what capitalism makes of the poor. It makes them willing slaves. They spend their whole lives chasing a lie: that one day they, too, will be the ones putting their boots on the necks of the poor. But this is never true, and generation after generation is crushed into the mud to keep that small, elite class of oligarchs living with their private jets and country mansions that Roman emperors would have envied.”

  “We know all this,” Rachel said, for his impromptu lecture was nothing new. “We want to know who these people are.”

  Peter held up a hand for patience. “Do you think you’re special?” he asked her, then turned to Layla and Gary, both of whom stared dumbly back at him. “Do any of you? Every generation makes the same analysis, because the facts have always been the same. Every generation gets angry—you’re not any more appalled than they were. And every time they rise up capital claims victory and all the fighters for social justice are plowed into the earth. No,” he said, shaking his head. “The one percent will never bow down to peaceful marches and angry editorials. Never in the history of the world has that happened.”

  “Who the fuck are they?” Rachel cut in, her face warm.

  Peter shot out a hand, pointing directly at her. “The good people give up because they’re human, but money isn’t human. It doesn’t get frustrated or tired or want to just lie down and take a nap. And it knows that people who work for social justice will only go so far, because they have a conscience. Money has no conscience. You know that, Layla—it killed your parents. These people here, they have no conscience. Neither did Rome, and you know who understood that? The Vandals. The boot of Rome was on their neck, and the only way to deal with it was to break that ankle, then the knee, the pelvis, and on up until they were smashing the head of Rome against a rock. Burn it down and sow the land with salt. Make sure it could never rise again.” His finger swiveled until it aimed at the family on the ground. “That,” he said, “is Rome’s ankle.”

  Gary, thoughtfully tugging at his fat mustache, said, “Yeah, but who are they?”

  “They’re Caesar. They’re Rothschilds. They’re the men behind the curtain who rig every election in this country to make sure you never win.”

  “No,” Rachel said, having heard enough. “His name is Grigory Orlov.”

  Peter met her gaze, cocked his head, then raised his Colt and fired twice into Grigory Orlov—once in the head, once in the chest. Blood exploded from his skull and shot across the dirt floor. The body convulsed. Rachel’s ears screamed. Gary stumbled back, shouting, “Fuck!” Layla jerked, her own pistol bouncing in her hand, but said nothing.

  “He’s not Grigory Orlov anymore,” Peter said. “Your turn, Layla.”

  Stunned, Layla stared at him.

  “Go on,” Peter said, his voice softer now. “All your life you’ve been working to this moment.”

  Slowly, Layla raised her pistol toward the wife, and Rachel stepped instinctively forward. “No, Layla. Give me the gun.” She held out her hand.

  “Out of my way,” Layla said, her voice suddenly less druggy and stupid. Energy was flowing back into her.

  Rachel blocked the shot with her own body. “Give it to me.”

  Layla’s face twisted, as if in pain, and then she unexpectedly screamed: “We have to do this! They can’t keep winning!”

  “You don’t even know who they are.”

  “I don’t have to! Look at this place—look! How the fuck do you think they got to live in this place?!”

  The smell of gunpowder was replaced by the stink of shit as Orlov’s body released its gasses. But Rachel tried to focus. “You don’t know anything about them, Layla. This house probably isn’t even theirs.”

  “It’s theirs,” said Peter, his voice cool and even. “These people—they get rich off the backs of people like your parents. Off of poor trash in other countries who can’t defend themselves, who die of dysentery and cancer. That’s why I brought you here, Layla. Because you understand.”

  The drugs, Rachel saw, were making it hard for Layla to think clearly, and she knew that she was losing. So she threw herself at Layla’s gun hand, knocking her to the ground. Layla reacted immediately, screaming and kicking, but unlike her, Rachel had been trained in how to disarm a suspect, and she twisted the pistol out of Layla’s grip. But not quickly enough, for Layla’s index finger clawed at the trigger, firing a bullet that exploded from the chamber and ricocheted off the stone walls. They heard a shout from behind them, and as Rachel got to her knee, the Smith & Wesson in her hand, everyone turned to see Gary sitting on the ground, gripping his stomach. Blood gushed out from between his fingers.

  Rachel scrambled over to him, found him huffing and twisting, pulling at his pierced gut. Her knees slid on the wet floor as she put her arms around his shoulders, squeezing. There was nothing she could do—the bullet had clearly sliced an artery—but she held on anyway. “Gary, Gary,” she said impotently, listening to his frantic whimpers slowly losing their edge. His wide, teary eyes started to lose their focus. Just a few feet away, Layla was on her knees, mouth agape, horrified. />
  Beyond her, still on his feet, Peter blinked rapidly, watching Gary die.

  Then he said, “Jesus Christ, Rachel. You really know how to fuck things up.”

  Rachel went cold—he’d used her real name. Or had she misheard him?

  “What?” Layla said, then turned to look back at him. “What are you saying?”

  Peter just shook his head, his expression dismal. “We have to finish it now. I’m sorry about Gary, but this has to be done.”

  “What?” said Layla.

  That was when Rachel looked down to see that Gary had passed away. She let his body slip out of her hands and reached for the gun she’d wrestled from Layla. “No, Peter. Nothing has to be finished.”

  Casually, as if it were an afterthought, he raised his Colt and fired twice again. The wife, whose name she would later learn was Jelena, jerked. Head, chest. Professional.

  “No!” Layla shouted, trying to climb to her feet. But she was unsteady; she stumbled forward into Peter’s arms.

  He caught her and held her up, almost lovingly. Rachel had no way of shooting him without putting a bullet into Layla. Peter seemed to understand this. He locked eyes with Rachel as he spoke into Layla’s ear. “One left, comrade. The littlest one. You do her. She’ll just grow up to be like them. A fat cat corporatist who’ll crush your children into the mud. Go ahead. Save us all.”

  Layla, gasping between tears, managed a single syllable: “No.”

  “Okay, then,” Peter said, and raised his pistol.

  11

  “Are you sure he said your name?” Toby asked, one hand on the basement door.

  “That’s why I told you my cover’s already blown.”

  He considered that, leaning against the door. “So you took the shot.”

  She tried to say Yes but couldn’t get enough air, so she just nodded.

  “Killed them both?”

  She pursed her dry lips, thinking back to the two shots she fired—one straight through Layla’s chest into Peter’s, then a second one right in his face. Rachel, too, had been trained to kill; she’d just never had to do it before.