by Mark Terry
A few seconds later Derek tried to haul himself up again. This time his strength eluded him. His fingers were so cold he could barely move them, let alone feel anything. His teeth chattered uncontrollably and his muscles cramped. Gathering his strength, he tried to pull himself up onto the ice flow, but slid backwards, strength ebbing.
Turning his head, he saw he was drifting further into the center of the river. Clinging to the ice flow, Derek struggled to think, to hold onto the last bit of consciousness.
He pushed himself away and started swimming toward shore. A slow-moving ice flow bumped into him. Using it for leverage, he pushed off with his legs. Another flow hit him hard. Floundering, he swallowed rank, oily water and choked, coughing and flailing at the water.
Struggling harder, he splashed his way toward the edge. He struck solid ice and realized he was at the riverbank. Glancing up, he wondered how he would ever climb to the top of the embankment. He tried to find a handhold, but the bricks were smooth and coated with ice. Weak, struggling to breathe, he slipped back into the water. Floundering up again, he spied a bridge fifty feet away. He began to pull himself along the cement. His legs were numb, useless. The air was stringent, tearing at any exposed skin.
A great lethargy washed over him. All he wanted to do was let go, close his eyes and sleep. Let go, let it all go…
He heard the voice of his father, Derek! Derek, wake up! You have to wake up.
Derek forced his eyes open. The bridge was only twenty feet away. It looked like he could…
He stumbled, fell again, staggering into deep water, sinking in over his head. He came up coughing and choking. His lungs worked, but no air seemed to come in. His brain was slowing down…
His father’s voice in his head: Try for the bridge. Go! You don’t have much time!
Lunging forward, he jammed his fingers into a crack in the cement bricks. They were so numb he couldn’t feel a thing, but saw blood ooze from his fingernails. A bridge arched over the river. Out of reach, but if he could get a couple feet higher…
Derek pulled himself up and collapsed onto the understructure of the bridge. His entire body shook uncontrollably.
Don’t rest, Derek, the voice in his head said, his father’s voice. Keep moving. After a moment he crawled toward the arch.
He didn’t remember much of the rest of it. Somehow he crawled close enough to the road surface to pull himself over onto the walkway. He vaguely remembered the voice of his father, urging him on, sometimes shouting at him, angry at him, pushing him, but always there.
Staggering down the road, hunched over, car horns wailed, but Derek remembered very little else until he collapsed in front of the door of Yekaterina and Eduard Belov’s apartment. He had just enough energy left to pound a fist on the door before he blacked out.
Konstantin dropped the car off at the garage to have the window fixed, annoyed not so much that Stillwater had broken it, but that the American agent had managed to outsmart him. It was the FSB’s car, but explaining how the window was broken would involve filing a report and he’d rather get it fixed quietly and move on. His regular mechanic, Gregor Yavich, a big bear of a man with curly red hair and a splotchy weathered complexion, came out of his office in grease-stained coveralls, a cigar clenched between his teeth. “What the fuck happened?”
“Just fix it.”
“Bill to you or FSB?”
“Me.”
“Huh. One of those stories, my friend?”
“Da. You have a loaner?”
“For you?” Gregor held his arms wide. “My favorite spy? Of course. You want an Audi? Or Volkswagen?”
“Audi.”
Gregor laughed. “Of course you do. Ha! This city. You see that Internet video of the shooting? I was looking up the weather—cold, as usual. When will spring come, my friend? Anyway, a video of a shooting. Right here in the city. Unbelievable. It just got posted a little while ago, but it’s everywhere.”
Konstantin shook his head, not really all that interested. The Internet was a headache. You couldn’t control it. Everybody had a phone with a camera or video camera on it, they record something and promptly sent it to YouTube. They record a crime, they don’t send it to the cops, they post it on the Internet hoping to get famous. Madness.
“Come on, you’ve got to see this. Somebody looking out their window over Gorky Park, some guy chasing another guy, shooting at him. The guy jumps right into the river.”
Gregor led him into his neat office. Despite Gregor’s grimy appearance, his office could have been that of an accountant. The furniture was inexpensive—Gregor said it was impossible not to get it covered with grease or oil, so he kept the furniture cheap and hired a woman to come in and clean it every night—but the computer equipment was expensive, the filing cabinets squared away, family photos on the wall. Gregor and his round wife Sasha and their six—six!—children.
The sight of all those children always made Konstantin’s stomach cramp.
“I’m in a hurry, Gregor—”
“Not long. Hang on. You’ll like this. Besides, you should know about this, right? Keeping the streets of Moscow safe? Defense of the Homeland, da?”
Konstantin controlled his sigh. “Show it to me,” knowing that Gregor wouldn’t give him the keys to the Audi until he did.
Gregor played with the computer mouse, a click here, a click there. A moment later a video appeared, grainy, but clear. Looking down onto the Moscow River. A man in jeans and a leather jacket, running along the river. Another man, dressed in black. Gun raised. The figure in the leather jacket jumping over the railing into the frozen river, out of sight of the phone’s video.
Konstantin knew that Stillwater had been intending to visit Lev Khournikova. He knew that Lev lived in Frunzenskaya across from Gorky Park. This was not a coincidence.
“Can you make it bigger?” Konstantin demanded.
“Amazing, da? Wonder what happened to the poor bastard. Jump into the river like that. When will they find the body, uh? Come spring?”
Konstantin watched the short video two more times. “Is there some way to find out who made this video?”
A few clicks here and there and Gregor shrugged. “VadyaT. That’s all it says. I’d think you government guys could find that out.”
Konstantin was sure they could. He leaned on Gregor to give him the keys to the Audi A8 and headed over to Frunzenskaya.
Raisa Belov opened the door and saw the American, Derek Stillwater, collapsed before her door, soaking wet, exposed skin white. His body shook, but he did not appear to be conscious. Little Lev stood at her hip, staring wide-eyed.
What had happened? Did he fall in the river? Who was this mad man?
But she knew. She knew he was the biological father of Lev, although she did not know what he wanted.
She knelt next to him and held her hand against his cheek. It was cold, his skin pale. She shook him. “Wake up!”
The man didn’t stop shivering, but his eyes opened slightly. She grabbed his coat and yanked on him, urging him to get up. He groaned. She pulled harder. The man rolled over and struggled to his hands and knees.
Icy water dripped off him into the hallway’s hardwood floor. Raisa had been a nurse for the European Medical Center Group in Moscow for twenty-five years. She was not shy about what she needed to do. She caught him by the shoulder and pulled him upright. Once he was on his knees, she slapped him hard across the face. “Wake up! Wake up! On your feet!”
He might not have understood her words, but he understood her tone. He staggered to his feet. She liked this man’s strength. She liked his toughness.
“Come with me,” she ordered, and led him into the apartment.
In the bathroom Raisa peeled him from his soaked clothing. Several things struck her. He was a strong, fit man. Around his neck he wore beads, a steel four-leaf clover on a chain, and a medallion of a saint. She did not understand the writing on the medal, but it had an image of a man tied to a tree and shot with arro
ws.
And she noticed the scars. Multiple surgical scars on his knee. A major surgical scar on his chest and what looked like the puckered scar of a bullet wound in his back. And there were others, what looked like knife scars, perhaps even other more minor bullet wounds.
She grabbed his arm and helped him into the bathtub where he collapsed, curled into a fetal position and shivered. She turned on the water, carefully adjusting the temperature. He groaned.
Raisa grabbed his arms and positioned him so his arms rested on the edge of the tub. He glared at her and she laughed despite herself. She knew what she was doing, though, and urged him to bend his legs so they were mostly out of the water.
Soaking towels in the warm water, she covered his torso. He groaned again.
“Don’t drown,” she said, and stepped out of the room.
10
Derek remembered very little, but he remembered the feeling of the warm water. It felt like he was scalding at first, and every time he tried to slip his arms or legs into the water the bitch pulled them out.
But slowly he started feeling better. Well, he thought, I’m feeling less like I’m in death’s waiting room. Better is all a matter of degree.
He lost track of time. Turning his head, he saw Lev standing in the doorway, the stuffed Shrek clutched in his hands. Their eyes met. Lev did not look away, unblinking.
“Hi,” Derek said.
The little boy said something in Russian and held up the Shrek.
“Yes, Shrek,” Derek said. “I hope you like him.”
“Shek.”
Derek smiled. He tapped his chest. “Derek.”
Lev cocked his head.
Pointing at Lev, Derek said, “Lev.” Then he tapped his chest again. “Derek.”
Lev pointed at him. “Dork.”
He had to laugh. “Yes, I suppose so. Derek.”
“Dork.”
“Close enough.”
Derek heard a knock at the outer door to the apartment. He wondered who it would be, if it was going to be an ambulance or Erica Kirov or the cops. At the moment he wasn’t sure he cared who it was. He was feeling a little better, but he wasn’t sure he could get out of the tub.
A moment later he found out. Erica Kirov stood in the doorway. She carried his backpack.
She said, “Do you need to go to the hospital?”
Appraising his condition, Derek considered. “I think I’m going to live.”
“How long have you been in Russia?” Erica asked. “Twenty-four hours? And look at all the trouble you bring with you.”
Derek struggled upright, reaching for a towel. “I didn’t bring it with me. It found me here. Now, a little bit of privacy, please.”
Konstantin stood alongside the Moscow River, studying the gray water and the white ice flows. Across the river was Gorky Park, the Buran test space shuttle now an amusement park ride, just down from roller coasters and other rides. Traffic behind him was sparse, but picking up as the afternoon slid by.
He did not see Derek Stillwater’s body. He did not see an assassin all dressed in black.
The only police presence he saw was a parked white and blue Lada with the red, white and blue flashers on the roof. It was parked in front of a ten-story apartment building, part of Frunzenskaya.
Had this been where the video had been taken? Had the figure been Stillwater? Who was the gunman, the man in black?
Looking around further, he was convinced—this was close to where it had happened. But he saw nothing.
Two cops came out of the apartment building, shaking their heads as they both reached for cigarettes. Konstantin walked over, showing them identification.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
The two cops, both big men, both dark haired with thick, jowly features, looked puzzled. “Somebody reported a shooting. There was a video of it. Damned fool put it up on the fucking Internet before calling us. We got here, nothing. No body, nobody in the water, nothing. We got a statement. We’ll see if a body turns up when winter breaks.” The speaker’s partner laughed, a nasty laugh. Konstantin didn’t laugh with them, but he understood.
“Did you get the video?”
They shrugged. “She uploaded it to the ‘net and deleted it off her phone.”
“Name?”
“Yana Bondarchuk. She’s in 518.”
Konstantin took down their names and identification numbers, then went up to speak with Yana Bondarchuk. She was in her twenties, pretty in a pale way, with lank blond hair, thin features, wearing faded blue jeans and a black T-shirt with What? written in Cyrillic in bright red letters. Yana Bondarchuk was a freelance website designer and she wasn’t happy to have an FSB agent in her apartment, especially only minutes after the local militia had left.
“I told them everything,” she complained. Konstantin noticed her feet were bare, her toenails painted pink. He guessed Yana’s age to be about twenty-five, although she could have passed for about sixteen.
“Well, tell me,” he said.
She flopped down onto a leather sofa. “I was working. I glanced out the window and I saw this guy walking down the road, a red backpack over his shoulder. He was hitching and this car pulled up. I wasn’t paying that much attention. Then I saw the guy throw his backpack at the car and take off running. That was pretty weird, so I stood up and watched. The guy in the car pulled to the curb, got out and started chasing him. They crossed the bridge—”
“The pedestrian bridge?”
“Yeah.”
Konstantin knew it well. Yellow steel and glass, it was hot even in the winter and an incinerator in the summer.
“I lost sight of them.”
“But the gunman was definitely chasing the other man?”
“Absolutely. They disappeared into the park and I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“You could have called the police.”
“But I wasn’t sure what was going on.”
Konstantin didn’t chastise her, although he wanted to. “So then what?”
“I waited. I figured the guy would come back for his car, one way or the other.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“BMW. Black. Tinted windows.”
“Get the license number?” he asked casually.
“No. Wrong angle.”
“Then what?”
“A couple minutes went by. I was going to make a call, when I saw them come out of the woods on the other side of the river. The guy in black, the one with the gun, cut off the other guy and started shooting.”
Konstantin stood up and looked out the window. It was a long ways away. “And you recorded it.”
“With my phone. Yes. That’s why it’s so bad. Shitty resolution and it was on the other side of the river.”
“What happened to the man who jumped in the river?”
Yana shrugged. “I don’t know. He landed on an ice flow, then he fell in. Then I saw him swimming, then I lost track of him. I … I assume he drowned.”
“And you posted it to the Internet and called the police.”
“Y-yes.”
“And then what?”
“That’s it.”
“After the one man jumped in the river, what did the other man, the one with the gun, what did he do?”
“He stood there a long time, then he jogged to the bridge and back to his car and drove away.”
“And you didn’t get his license plate?”
“No.”
“Did you see what he looked like?”
Yana looked nervous, refusing to meet his gaze with her pale blue eyes. She brushed a lock of blonde hair away from her face. “Not really.”
“How old?”
She shrugged. “Thirties, maybe forties. He was never that close.”
“What color hair?”
“Dark. Black.”
“Beard?”
“No.”
“Build?”
She shrugged again. “He looked strong. Athletic, you know, but not bu
lky. Like a soccer player, maybe, not a weight lifter. Something like that. But he moved kind of quick for an old guy. So did the guy who went in the water.”
“Could you describe the guy who went in the water?”
“No. Just jeans and a leather jacket and the backpack. He wore a hat, like a baseball cap.”
“But the shooter…”
“I took his picture!” she blurted out.
Konstantin blinked. “With the video on your phone?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. With the camera. When he came back on this side of the river, when he was getting into his car.”
“Did you delete it?”
Her hand fluttered near her chest. “Um, no. I did the video, but I, I forgot to delete the photo.”
Konstantin stared at her. “Did you tell the two militia about that?”
Her pale skin flushed a light shade of pink.
No, of course not.
“Show me,” he said.
She led him to her computer and brought up the image. It was not a great picture, but it was far better than the images on the video had been. “Make me a copy,” he said.
“Uh, I can print it out and I can save it to a flash drive.”
Konstantin nodded. “Do it, Ms. Bondarchuk. And if you ever see this man, run. Just as fast as you can.”
Derek dressed in dry clothes, layering up because he still felt chilled. Examining his backpack, he saw a bullet hole. Sorting through his belongings, he discovered two sets of underwear, a pair of jeans, and a shirt had a neat hole through them. His favorite pair of jeans, too.
Well, better a bullet hole in the jeans when they were in the backpack than when he was wearing them, he supposed.
He checked his phone to see if it still worked. It was in a waterproof case, but the case wasn’t designed for swims in a frozen river. To his relief and surprise it powered up and seemed to work fine. Score one, Derek thought. Feeling moderately more human, he repacked his clothing and joined Erica and Raisa in the living room, where the two women were chatting in Russian. Lev was playing with Shrek. Raisa said something to Derek. Erica translated, “You need something hot to drink. Tea or coffee?”
