by Derek Haas
According to Adromatov’s report, which Clay was reading over as the plane chugged along, Nelson had been carefully building a case that Russia and Iran were exchanging more than oil, that hard-liners and throwbacks within the Russian government were engaged in providing weapons to Iran that could proliferate throughout the Middle East. It wasn’t groundbreaking intelligence; the US had routinely received similar reports from other officers since the mid-nineties.
Clay tried to read between the lines, a skill honed over his fifteen-year intelligence career. More often than not, the real gems were to be found in what was left out of intelligence reports. But there was nothing in this dossier on Nelson that leapt out at him as extraordinary. Nothing to point to why Nelson had gone missing. Nothing to point to why the Director would personally involve himself.
If Nelson had been compromised and arrested, the Russian government would have made a big political show of it, the way they had with Cecil Roots in 2001. They would have wanted to embarrass Washington. Catching a low-level spook gathering moderately sensitive information has more utility as a political showpiece than anything else.
Between the lines. That was where the truth lay. So what had Nelson stumbled upon that was more than moderately sensitive, perhaps even outside the range of his mission? And why would the Director send in Clay? Why would the left hand not want to know what the right hand had to do to get Nelson back?
He read every page in the dossier twice more before touchdown.
Clay rode the bus from Pulkovo Airport to the city center. As always, it was numbingly cold in St. Petersburg, and there was a pervasive smell Clay always thought of as distinctly Russian. It was a mixture of charcoal and tobacco and wool, and it was as ubiquitous as the wind. The more time you spent in the country, the more your awareness of it dulled, but when you returned after an absence, it greeted you like an addled relative, at once welcoming and repellent. Clay breathed it in and headed past St. Isaac’s Cathedral toward the river.
A gold-and-black Volga pulled up to where he stood. Clay looked into the driver’s window, smiled, and climbed into the passenger’s seat. Adromatov steered the car back into traffic, casting sidelong glances in Clay’s direction. His expression was pleasant, though hard to gauge beneath the beard.
“Welcome back to Leningrad.”
Clay smiled. “You’re gonna get arrested for calling it that.”
“Pssh. Half this city was happier before the wall came down. They worked without thinking. They were just as poor, but vodka was cheaper and their apartments were paid for.”
With that, he tipped a flask to his lips and smiled broadly.
“They weren’t free to—”
“To the working class, freedom is overrated.”
“You sound like a revolutionary.”
“The days of mass revolt died with the advent of the subsonic jet engine. Wildfires are now easily contained.”
“Tell that to the Republic of Georgia.”
Adromatov chortled. “I don’t have to. Vladimir Putin did a long time ago.”
He took another tug and waved the flask in the air as if he were erasing a blackboard. The car lurched toward the curb, then realigned.
“Enough. Discussing the shortcomings of the Russian people makes my mind atrophy. Let’s get to more pressing matters.”
“Blake Nelson.”
“Yes. You should have received my report.”
“What’s not in the report?”
Adromatov’s large face broadened as he smiled. “I remembered you, Austin Clay, but now I remember you. What’s not in the report? That’s it, then, isn’t it?”
“That’s it.”
Adromatov paused for a moment, his eyes intent on the city street. His massive chest rose and fell with his breathing. “A woman. A woman is not in the report.”
Clay started to open his mouth, but Adromatov waved him down with the flask. “I already know your two questions. Who is she, and why did I keep her out of the official file?”
It was Clay’s turn to smile.
“The truth is, I don’t know if she exists. I certainly would not commit ink to what is no more than a rumor.”
“Then tell me the rumor and leave the ink in the pen.”
The Russian laughed, and the baritone sound reminded Clay of a department store Santa. “Yes. The rumor, then. We have a bit of a drive before we reach our destination, and as you know, Russians don’t talk conversationally, they give speeches. So I will give you the speech, or—how do you say it? Tell you the story? Yes, I will tell you the story of this girl.
“Do you know the name Alexi Benidrov?”
Clay searched his memory but came up blank and shrugged.
“Why would you know it? Alexi Benidrov is a midlevel bureaucrat serving as a minister under Igor Zechin.”
“That name I know.”
“Yes. Deputy Prime Minister of Defense. Well, Benidrov was a man who used other men’s backs as though they were rungs in a ladder, yes? He destroyed careers and trampled anyone who stood in his way as he rose inside the Defense Ministry. He was ruthless and cunning, and as you might expect, became a favorite of President Sobyanin.”
“A man carved in his own image.”
“Precisely.”
“And yet you keep referring to Benidrov in the past tense.”
Adromatov laughed again, and this time, his whole body shook. Like a bowl full of jelly, Clay thought.
“Yes, past tense. Let a man tell his story the proper way, with the gruesome details spared for the grand finale, yes? Americans just love to get everything right out front and forgo the surprise.”
Clay nodded and the Russian continued, absently watching the road. Somehow, the Volga avoided careening into any number of trucks and sedans.
“So Benidrov finds his way into the Defense Ministry, and his eye is on Zechin’s post. He is careful in everything while inside the Kremlin—careful to flatter whoever needs flattering, careful to crush whoever needs crushing—all without splattering any blood on his hands. As he becomes more and more relevant in the ministry, he is entrusted with more and more, let’s say, sensitive state materials, yes? Weapons deals, oil-for-cash deals, nuclear armament information, proliferation, too? Yes? And as I say, he’s careful, because the cost of being unstable is…” Adromatov drew his finger across his throat, crossed his eyes, and stuck out his tongue. Then he pointed his finger in the air. “Except Alexi Benidrov is not as careful as I have described.
“Yes, careful at work, in public. But at home? You see, Benidrov had a baby girl and a baby boy—twins, yes? His wife was weak from the pregnancy and her health failed and became…what is this word? Chronic? Yes? Because of this, Benidrov started to employ nurse care….”
“Nannies.”
“What is this?”
“A nanny. A full-time babysitter.”
“Yes, precisely. A nanny. And Benidrov liked to hire Hungarian women. They speak no Russian, they can’t know his business, they stay out of his way, they keep to themselves in uneducated oblivion. He can work late; his wife is infirm, after all, but the twins are looked after, and this continues for some time. The agency sends over various Hungarian women, and I don’t have to tell you that these ladies are built like blocks of cement, all broad shoulders and thick faces and arms like bags of flour. Benidrov barely notices them, this succession of Hungarian cattle—just enough to mutter a curt hello and a kiss-kiss to the little darlings and he’s on his way.
“In the meantime, the pressure is building for him at work as he climbs closer to the top echelon of the Kremlin, and like a kettle of tea, he needs to release steam or he’ll explode.
“Enter Marika Csontos, a breathtaking eighteen-year-old beauty with—according to accounts—a perfect pair of pouty lips and a face that radiated innocence. I mean, after the parade of bovine babysitters marching through that house, any girl with youth and a figure would have allure, yes? So maybe she was a great beauty, maybe she wasn’t, but th
e story is better for it. Anyway, Benidrov takes notice, this we know.
“And here he is, a top deputy minister with no one to whom he can pour out his secrets as that pressure builds, no one who can listen and understand and nod encouragement and withhold judgment…except…here’s the cream in the pie…except this Hungarian girl who speaks no Russian and can’t understand a word he says. This is like an angel from heaven, a gift from the Almighty…someone up there recognized his unique problem and said, ‘Here’s the solution, my child.’ Benidrov tells her everything. I mean everything. Who, what, where, when…all the state secrets, everything he’s working on, everything. It’s as if he’s using her as his living journal.”
Adromatov grinned, as satisfied with his story as if he’d just devoured a hearty meal. “Can you see where this is going?”
“Marika could speak Russian.”
“Yes! Precisely! Russian and Hungarian. She lied to the hiring agency because she needed the work. So she pretended not to understand a word he said, all the while hearing and retaining it all.”
Outside, the city turned industrial as they crossed the Tuchkov Bridge and moved inland.
“So what happened?”
“Pah. I wish I had an ending. Maybe it has yet to be told. But here are the only facts I know. A deputy minister named Benidrov was found dead in his office in the Kremlin, apparently a suicide, but as you know, ‘apparently’ is relative in the Russian government. A young Hungarian girl named Marika Csontos did work as his nanny for a month, until she vanished two weeks prior to Benidrov’s last day on earth.”
“Vanished?”
“Like a specter in the mists of a moor.” Adromatov waggled his finger and mimicked the hollow howl of a ghost, then burst into his now-familiar chortle. “No one knows where she went or why or how. But the story I’ve told you is the story that arose from the ashes of Deputy Minister Benidrov’s death, and that is why I’m relating it to you. And yet as to how much of the story is fact and how much is fancy, I can scarcely offer an opinion. Russians love their folktales, and this has the ring of the Brothers Grimm all over it. It even has a moral: Don’t spill state secrets to anyone or it will be your neck in a rope!”
Clay nodded. “Nelson believed it.”
“You are astute, Austin Clay. Very astute. I bet it would have been difficult to be your parents on Christmas morning. You had already figured out all the presents under the tree just by the size of the box.”
Clay’s mouth disappeared into a thin line. “I wouldn’t know.”
Adromatov swallowed and frowned for just a moment, sure he had made a gaffe, though unsure how it had happened when things had been going so well. Like a ship correcting its course, he deftly pulled the conversation back on track. “Yes, Nelson confided in me that he believed the story and he wanted to pursue finding this girl, this Marika Csontos. I counseled him to forget it, that it was a fool’s task and he had more important concerns on which to focus his attention. I believe he ignored my advice and spent the last several months doing his best to find the missing Marika. If he located her, I don’t know it. He disappeared from a train traveling between Perm and Omsk.”
“There’s something between Perm and Omsk?”
“Ha. Miles and miles of forest and beet fields.”
“Don’t forget cabbage.”
“How could I?” Adromatov was delighted that his gaffe didn’t seem to be casting any lingering shadows over his time with the agent. He told himself not to bring up anything involving Clay’s childhood, however innocently or indirectly.
“The train he was on exploded and derailed.”
“I read about that in your report. A freight train.”
Adromatov shrugged. “Not uncommon for a spy to travel this way.”
Their car pulled up to a blocky, windowless building that looked like so many other Iron Curtain–era edifices in Russia: sexless and stale. Adromatov turned the key and silenced the Volga’s whine.
“Nelson’s office.”
“The Russians already pick it over?”
“The one he uses as a front in downtown St. Petersburg, yes. But they don’t know about this one.”
Clay liked Adromatov. He wore the spook life as comfortably as broken-in shoes and managed to do it without its seeming like an illusion, a façade. The Russian actually enjoyed it, and Clay wondered if maybe they shared the same secret, the same antidote to fear. Clay was a good spy because he never rattled. And he never rattled because he simply didn’t care whether he lived or died.
Chapter Two
HE AWOKE not in a jail cell, nor a bunker, nor a hospital bed, but convalescing in a posh hotel suite. He had been drugged; his cotton mouth and throbbing headache made that clear. He turned his head and saw onion domes out the window, an elevated view of the Kremlin. A glass of water awaited his lips on a stand next to the bed. He knew he shouldn’t drink it…had no idea what was in it…but his thirst overwhelmed him. He emptied the glass in two gulps.
His left leg had been operated upon and was in a cast from his hip to his ankle. Pain emanated from a spot behind his thigh every time his muscles contracted or expanded, which meant always.
He tried to remember what had happened after he’d spilled out of the burning train car—running, trees, gunshots, falling—but the images were fuzzy, the way the world had warped when he tried on his father’s glasses as a little boy. He knew the essentials, though: he’d been tricked, trapped, shot, and captured. What would come next? Torture? Then why was he in this hotel room?
He thought about trying to get out of bed. Could he? Pain shot through his leg as he tensed just to make the effort to roll it over to the edge of the bed. Nausea made the room swim in front of his eyes, and words somehow spoke inside his brain…
Quit. Just quit and wait.
…but he swept that exhortation aside. The human brain was a wondrous thing, and somehow the concept of mettle, of indomitability, of valor, had arisen when people had tuned out the brain’s warnings. He could make his legs do this.
Sweat popped out on his forehead, and it evaporated just as quickly, like water sprayed on a hot pan. He suppressed a scream as his legs finally did as they were told and swung out and over the edge of the bed. He was in a seated position, and he rested a moment with one hand on the wooden headboard.
Nelson took a few quick breaths, building up oxygen in his lungs for the effort, and then pushed up with his hand. He put all of his weight on his right leg, using the casted left only for balance. A new wave of vertigo hit him, but he held the position until it passed. Could he get to the bathroom? The window?
He did neither and was standing there stupidly when he heard clapping behind him.
A fat-faced man with a shaggy white beard spoke in Russian. “Awake and upright, I see. Good, good.”
Nelson started to talk, then just fell backward onto the bed.
The Russian clucked his tongue. “Too much too soon, Mr. Nelson. There’s no need to overexert yourself. Where could you possibly go?”
Nelson answered in English. “I won’t belittle you by saying there’s been a misunderstanding.”
In his peripheral vision, he could vaguely see the Russian smile.
“I assume negotiations have begun.”
“To the contrary,” the man said in husky English. “Why don’t we just talk for a bit first?”
The smile widened and the man approached the bed, staring down at Nelson the way a father gazes down on a baby in a crib—but that wasn’t right. The stare was more like the look of an exterminator who finally catches a rat in his trap.
“I need to use the—” But Nelson didn’t get the words out before the smiling man pushed down with the palms of both hands on his cast.
He might have screamed, but the blackness rose quickly to cover him.
Michael Adams parked his Range Rover on the street and rose from the driver’s seat. He looked over the field and saw the team with the lime-green uniforms, the fierce name MER
MAIDS printed on the front. They were just getting into their starting positions; the referee hadn’t yet blown his whistle, and he could see both of his daughters, Kate and Grace, set in their positions on either side of the ball at the center line. They were a year and a half apart, eight and seven, but Michael had requested they play on the same team to avoid doubling the drives to soccer fields every Saturday.
He nodded at a couple he recognized but whose names he couldn’t remember, climbed the stands, and sat down next to his wife. She leaned in for a kiss and took his hand just as the whistle sounded and the game began.
“Let’s go, Kate and Grace!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, and both girls looked up and beamed.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“I’m just glad you made it at all. This is a nice surprise.” He’d first met his wife, Laura, in college when they were both nineteen and she drew eyes in any crowd. Twenty-six years later, she still did.
“They got you working this weekend, Michael?” The question came from a guy who lived five houses over from theirs on Las Palmas in Hancock Park. What was his name? Chris? Craig?
Laura turned and answered for him, smiling. “They have him working every weekend.”
“I’m not complaining,” Michael added. “It’s good to be busy.” He didn’t feel that way at all, but it seemed necessary to say.
On the field, the Mermaids were successfully attacking but couldn’t seem to put the ball in the net. Michael stopped for a moment and thought, When did they get good? It seemed like yesterday when they would cluster in circles around the ball until it would suddenly shoot out from the pack like an escaping animal. Now they were passing, moving, setting up plays. And his daughters seemed to be leading the charge.
Laura leaned her head on his shoulder. “The girls have next Thursday and Friday off.”
“Why?”
“Teacher work days or something like that.”
“I swear they have more days out of school than they do in.”
His daughters went to a pricy private school near Beverly Hills. He wouldn’t have minded their going to the public school down the street, but the subject was nonnegotiable. He might run some things at his office, but Laura ran the house. He had learned to say “Yes, dear” a long time ago, and if he had to be honest, he was happy to do so.
