by P A Duncan
“About what?”
“Call me, and I’ll come wherever you want.”
“I appreciate that, but no need. Alexei could wake any minute.”
“Remember, whenever you need me.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
“I told you not to do that.”
Terrell hung up, and Mai stood in the kitchen, phone at her ear until the beeping shook her back to reality. She took her tea to the family room. Everything was in its place, all normal. The memory rushed in, and she pushed it away, her legs quivering from adrenaline, at last, leaving her system. She sat on the sofa, clutching the mug of tea with both hands until everything evened out.
Right when she said she would, Olga returned, wearing different clothes from when she’d left.
“It is accomplished,” she said.
Mai nodded, and Olga stared at her long enough to prompt Mai to say, in Russian, “If you think of blackmailing me, you won’t live to complete the thought.” Mai thought she saw something akin to approval in Olga’s cool gaze. “However, you’ll see a two thousand dollar a month raise, effectively immediately.”
Olga shrugged and said, “Whatever you do, Maiya, it is for the good.” She went downstairs to her apartment.
For the good. She had to think of it that way because regret could hold no quarter here. She set the empty mug aside, curled on the sofa, and gave into her fatigue.
Alexei woke with a painkiller hangover and stretched to get his blood moving. The jolt of pain in his right arm made him decide no more shots. Olga used a needle as if she were in her interrogation room. Mai wielded one as if she were vaccinating a horse.
In the bathroom, he dispelled his hangover with some cold water to his face. He stripped and took a shower. Amazing how lying in bed most of the day made you reek. His new scars were vivid. He was a scarred, old man who’d wakened in an empty bed with a slight inclination to make love. He hoped the inclination would return later.
He dressed, his stomach grumbling with hunger. At least that appetite had returned. In a pair of jeans and a polo shirt, he headed downstairs to find something to eat.
Mai slept on the sofa in the family room. Now, if she’d been upstairs when he woke…
She wore different clothes from earlier. Her hair was braided, something she did after taking a shower, but it hadn’t been braided this morning. She went for a run, he told himself. He went to the garage anyway to check the mileage on the Suburban. Only a few miles more than when she’d brought him home from Bethesda. The mileage on his Jaguar hadn’t moved.
He reentered the house and went into the office. Her gun was stowed in its usual place, but he checked the bullets in the magazine. Full, including the extra one in the chamber. That meant nothing; guns could be reloaded. He sniffed the Beretta’s barrel and decided her weapon hadn’t been fired or cleaned recently.
That meant nothing either.
He reloaded her gun and put it away, unable to shake his uneasiness. He sat at his desk and turned on the television in the office, flipping through channels until he found CNN. A breaking news story unnerved him further. He pressed record on the remote and stopped it when the news segment ended.
Why was he so uneasy? The pain drugs?
No, the answer was simpler. He hadn’t pushed Mai to focus on turning John Carroll because of the strain on their marriage, the personal entanglement he’d tried to avoid when they became partners, when he denied he cared for her. He’d bragged she was one of the best operatives he’d ever encountered. Over the years, though, he’d watched her lose principle after principle and had done nothing about it. Because it made her a better operative.
He left the office, video cassette in hand, to find Mai awake. She frowned at him.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” she said, “not working.”
“I wasn’t working, and I’m not an invalid.” That came out harsher than he’d intended. He softened his voice and added, “I’m fine. Look at this.” He turned on the family room’s TV/video player, put the cassette in, and pressed play. He watched Mai’s face as she listened to the report about Hollis Fitzgerald’s apparent suicide.
“What do you think of that?” he asked.
“He didn’t adjust well to retirement,” Mai said. “Why did you record that?”
“I came downstairs and saw you in different clothes. My first thought was you’d been with Terrell.”
“With Terrell as in having sex with him?” When he didn’t answer, she stood and came to him, her hand warm on his arm. “Alyosha, I know you’re still concerned about the impotence, but we both know it’s temporary. Why would I go to Terrell?”
Because she had once before and almost had another time, but he didn’t voice that. “It was the first thing that entered my mind,” he said. “It didn’t feel good.”
“I’d be pretty immature to go for a revenge fuck so long after the fact. That doesn’t explain why you wanted me to watch that.”
“Was that Terrell’s work?” he asked.
“How would I know?”
He held her eyes with his. “Is the FBI going to come here?”
“Whatever for?”
Alexei found, to his dismay, he couldn’t read her, couldn’t tell whether or not she’d lied. Drop it, he told himself.
“I was the one who suggested he eat his gun,” Alexei said.
“You know the statistics,” Mai replied. “Suicide is a top cause of death for retired cops.”
Her detached tone finally registered with him, and he took her hands in his.
“Mai, this mission almost killed me. It’s robbed you of your soul. Why did we ever go down that road?”
“A bit late for hindsight, Alexei.”
“With Fitzgerald dead, is it over?”
“Why should I explain what you already know? Carroll wasn’t alone. Patriot City’s network is still out there. We can’t ignore that.”
“It’s the FBI’s problem, not ours. I’ve remembered more about that morning. The FBI sketch of John Doe number two. That was Elijah.”
“Yes, I told them as much.”
The memory, fuzzy before, came to him with clarity. Elijah. Motioning him closer to the truck, and the gunshot…
“Elijah was there at the building,” Alexei said. “That’s what has been at the edge of my memory. Now, it came back to me. He got out of the truck after Carroll walked away. He was beside the truck when it blew. I know because we saw each other, and I made sure he died. If they were to find his head, they’d see I’m still a good shot. Right between the eyes. Elijah is dead. Lewis is dead. They’ve got Parker, Duval, and Carroll. It’s over.”
“What about Patriot City’s network?”
“Without Elijah, the network has no cohesion. It’s over.”
She tried to pry her hands from his. He held on.
“Elijah wasn’t the only self-proclaimed prophet among the extremists,” she said.
“And, as I said, they’re the FBI’s problem. Let them handle the mess they helped to make.”
His legs took that moment to shake because he’d stood too long. He released Mai and sat on the couch. She sat beside him, her hands on his face.
“Alexei, you shouldn’t be out of bed. You’re feverish. Did you take your antibiotics?”
“Yes. I’m hungry and tired of being in bed alone.”
“I’ll fix you something to eat.” She frowned at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“The thought of your fixing me something to eat.”
“I may not have learned the important information from John Carroll, but I did learn how to warm canned soup.”
“Mai, this house has no canned soup.”
“Frozen leftovers, then. I’m sure the principle is the same.”
She started to rise, but he stopped her. “No matter what,” he said, “I love you.”
She smiled at him, her eyes alight with emotion at last.
63
The Gravity
of Reality
Olga Lubova looked at the clock and cocked an eyebrow at Natalia when she came into the kitchen.
“What?” Natalia said. “It’s after ten a.m. on a weekend. I need my sleep. Where’s Mums and Popi?”
Olga smiled. “In bedroom with door closed.”
“Way to go, Popi.”
“Da, sexual tension was too much.”
“Ew! I don’t want to think about that.”
The teenager fixed herself a bowl of cereal and settled at the eat-in counter, her eye on the coffee pot. She thought about sneaking a cup, but Olga didn’t leave. When Natalia put her dishes in the washer, she saw it was after 1030.
“Shouldn’t we, like, check on them?” she asked.
“Go right ahead.”
“Ah, no. I walked in on them when I was, like, ten. That alone will put me off sex until I’m forty.”
“Alexei will be glad to know that. No more looking into convents in Ukraine.”
Sated, sweating, Mai’s arms and legs around him, Alexei’s heart raced, and it felt good, as good as every place where their bodies met.
“That,” Mai panted, “was intense.”
“Ochen’ intensivnyy,” he murmured, little breath left for more words, much less English.
“Are you all right?”
“I’ve had sex with a beautiful woman, who moaned my name and God’s in the same breath. Definitely all right.”
Her laughter vibrated against his chest. “I hope only you, God, and I heard that.”
Alexei looked at the clock. “It’s after ten thirty. They’ve guessed.”
He gazed at her face, seeing real emotion. Even better was her satisfied smile. The past two years receded, and the future came into sharp focus.
“If we shower together,” he said, “anything might happen.”
“You’ll faint because no blood will be getting above your waist. Save it for later.”
“I was hoping to get that God and Alexei thing echoing off the shower walls.”
She laughed again, something he’d heard little of in a long time.
Natalia rolled her eyes when Mai and Alexei came into the family room, but she also smiled. Alexei winked at his granddaughter and said to Mai, “Dushenka, I’m starved. How about you?”
“Ravenous.”
They exchanged a long kiss. Natalia smiled again but said, “Oh, gross. Please, I’m, like, going to hurl my breakfast.”
He and Mai parted, laughing, and he noted another smile from Natalia as they fixed each other coffee and bagels. Alexei wanted to let everyone know the fact they’d had sex meant he was better. Not one hundred percent, but better.
Natalia turned her attention back to the television. Alexei glanced that way to check on what she watched. A CNN special report. Something made the hair on the back of his neck prickle. He kept his voice normal when he asked, “What’s that you’re watching?”
“Some funeral at Arlington Cemetery,” Natalia replied. “Some high-level FBI guy committed suicide.”
The prickling became gooseflesh. A camera focused on the man’s family, his wife and daughter.
“Damn, I mean, darn. His daughter’s, like, my age. She’s sobbing her guts out. How could he do something like that to his daughter? I mean, like, she’ll never get to have dinner with him again. He won’t be there when she graduates or gets—”
Alexei had heard her, as if from a distance, aware Mai had stopped moving about the kitchen, her attention now on the television. “Natalia, change the channel!” he ordered in a near-shout.
Natalia jumped. “God, Popi, you scared me to—”
“Change the damned channel.” Alexei felt blood draining from his head. No. Not now. Now he could not be weak.
Natalia reached for the remote, muttering, “I guess once wasn’t enough. What’s the big deal? The guy was a jerk for doing that to his family.” Natalia jumped again when Alexei snatched the remote from her hand and shut off the television. “God, I thought fucking put people in a good mood.”
A coffee cup shattered on the kitchen floor, making both Natalia and Alexei freeze for the span of a heartbeat.
“Mums?” Natalia asked, and sucked in a breath.
Alexei found the strength to turn his head to look at Mai, her expression made fear sweat seep down the back of his neck. He swayed, and Natalia put out an arm to steady him. Mai was a flash, moving quickly past them both, past Alexei’s outstretched hand; yet, to Alexei, it felt as if he could only move in slow motion.
Mai went into the office. The lights came on to show she’d locked the door.
“Popi… What’s wrong? You’re all pale.” Natalia’s hand tightened on his arm. “Popi?”
Alexei wrenched himself free, staggered to the office door, and punched in the door code. He went inside, and the door closed, locking behind him.
Natalia sat, stunned, for a second, maybe two, before she ran to the door, pressed the buzzer, and rattled the handle. No one answered. She went to the top of the basement stairs and screamed Olga’s name.
Alexei Bukharin confronted the private hell he’d created when he taught a nineteen-year-old how to kill. Mai sat at her desk, Beretta at her right temple. When her eyes met his, a stranger looked at him. Her hand didn’t waver.
“Go away,” she said.
“Put the gun down and let’s talk.”
“Alexei, leave and let this end. Please.”
He pulled his desk drawer open and took his gun out. He stood in front of her and put his gun to his head. “We’ll go together. I always wanted that,” he said. “On three?”
“No.”
“After the way we made love this morning, better than it’s been in a long time, I won’t live without you. Let’s finish this, like you said. Finish going down the same path you tried to keep John Carroll from. You promised to be there for him. What about your word?”
“Do you understand what I’ve done?”
“Of course. Natalia’s gone to get Olga by now. Olga knows the code to the door. Natalia will find us both.”
“How can you do that to her?”
“I’ll use anyone and anything to stop you. Pull the trigger. You’ll have enough life left in you to hear me do the same.”
Resolve left her eyes, and the hand with the gun dropped to her side. Alexei grabbed it from her and locked both guns in the weapons locker, reminding himself to change that combination. He went back to her and hauled her to her feet; she sagged like dead weight, and he almost didn’t have the strength to hold them both upright.
“You shouldn’t have stopped me,” she said. “You know what I did. You shouldn’t have stopped me.”
“Dushenka, forget what you did and tell me what you need. I’ll give it to you.”
What she said shocked him more than finding her with a gun at her head.
She asked for help.
64
Change of Scenery
Arlington, Virginia
When Edwin Terrell entered his dark condo, he knew he wasn’t alone.
“Don’t go for your gun,” said Alexei Bukharin.
The light on the end table came on. Bukharin sat on the sofa, holding a gun on him. Olga Lubova stood behind her former student.
“Lubova,” Terrell said, “uglier than ever.”
“Miss America compared to you.”
Terrell kicked the front door closed.
“Olga will remove your weapons,” Bukharin said.
Terrell’s and Olga’s eyes locked and stayed that way while she took both his guns and his knife. She stepped back, out of his reach.
“You have a funny way of visiting, old friend,” Terrell said.
“This isn’t a social call.”
“Well, tell me what’s wrong before you shoot me.”
“You cleaned a wet job for Mai.”
“No way.”
“Don’t lie. Did she pay your going rate?”
“She didn’t pay me anything.”
“Bec
ause she fucked you?”
“That’s over and done with a long time ago. You know that.”
“Obviously, I don’t because I had to ask.”
“I helped her because she asked.”
“Fitzgerald was your friend.”
“Also, a long time ago. You and Mai are more than that.”
“Mai is more to you than that. I don’t enter into the equation.”
“And I owed her more.”
“And you owed me nothing?”
Terrell shrugged and said, “What one asks for comes from both.”
“I had nothing to do with this.”
“Yeah, I know. She asked me for something important to her. That’s all I needed to know.”
Bukharin holstered his gun. “I can’t argue with logic. You should have contacted me.”
“It wasn’t that long ago you told me to mind my own business. What could either of us have done to stop her? Alexei, you knew this day would come. Hell, now that the day has come, you have the perfect operative.”
“Cynicism doesn’t reassure me,” Bukharin said.
“She’s killed before.”
“In self-defense.”
Terrell studied the man he’d known close to thirty years. Bukharin was exhausted and something more. Fuck, he was grieving.
“Relax,” Terrell said, “she lost her nerve. I did him.”
“She’s told me the truth.”
“Sometimes you have to take things into your own hands. You’ve done that before.”
“I can deal with it.”
The grief was palpable now, and Terrell’s stomach lurched. “Oh God. Is she all right?”
“Physically, yes. She’s in our mental health unit in Bethesda, under a suicide watch because I found her with her gun to her head.”
Terrell’s legs felt like noodles. He looked away, jaw twitching. “That I didn’t foresee. I’m sorry.”
“A little late for that.”
“And inadequate.”
“Do you love her?” Bukharin asked him.
