Duel of Assassins (22 page)

Taras didn’t like chatty seatmates on airplanes. But Pavel
Starkov, his KGB chaperone on the two-hour flight from Moscow to the Crimea,
not only didn’t speak. The young lieutenant colonel didn’t smile, fidget, visit
the toilet or read. In fact, for the first hour he scarcely seemed to blink his
blond-lashed eyes. Maybe the ramrod-stiff bastard wasn’t human. Maybe the
organs of security and the Academy of Sciences had somehow interwoven their
fantasies and synthesized the perfect state-run automaton. But if that were so,
Taras thought, why did they have to pattern him so blatantly after old Aryan
stereotypes, housing his photo-sensors behind Alpine-blue glass beads, and his
cranial circuitry in a crewcut, Gothic skull?

But finally, somewhere over the Ukraine, Starkov spoke,
pitching his voice barely above the drone of the Aeroflot Tu-134’s twin
turbofans:

“Excuse me, Major.”

Taras turned, saw a tiny cardboard box in Starkov’s square
pink palm. “What’s that?”

“It’s for you. From Chairman Biryukov.”

Marcus opened the lid, took out the fire-ring, looked an
inquiry.

“Earlier today,” Starkov continued, “we showed this ring to
several of our resident psychics. People who are able, or claim they are able,
to tune into ‘vibrations’ from crime scenes, murder weapons, and especially
what they call ‘familiar objects.’ You know what I’m talking about?”

“Sure,” Taras said. “Spoon-benders, card-readers,
ball-gazers. I didn’t know you guys were still giving office space to them.”

“My exact sentiments, Major. Spoon-benders, I will remember
this. In regard to this ring, all they came up with was psychological garbage.
‘This man is running from himself.’ ‘He takes long walks and had an unhappy
childhood.’ Something of that sort. Not one dared to guess his current
whereabouts.”

“And Biryukov thought maybe I could do better?” Taras held
the bulky steel ring to his forehead, closed his eyes. “Hello, Cowboy, where
are you? Talk to me, old buddy. Are you running from yourself, like they say?
Taking long walks? Why is it you never talked to me about your unhappy
childhood?... Sorry, Colonel, he’s not coming through. Maybe it’s the altitude,
too much cosmic ray interference or something.”

Starkov showed his teeth; Taras took it for a smile. “In any
case, you may keep the ring as a souvenir. We have no further use for it. Also
these.” From his coat pocket Starkov produced a packet of five gel-flame
capsules. “However, I suggest you not load the incendiaries while we’re in the
air. We don’t want to violate Ministry of Aviation rules.”

“What about your Makarov?” Taras pointed to the checkered
butt of a shoulder-holstered pistol momentarily visible under the flap of
Starkov’s suit coat. Taras’ own .45 automatic was packed away in his luggage.

“Most observant, Major.” The KGB officer tugged at his
lapels, sealing the offending aperture.          

“It’s nothing. Thank your boss for the thoughtful gift. And
assure him I’ll use it with discretion.” Taras pocketed the capsules, slid the
ring onto his index finger, a tolerable fit. The only clear “vibration” he
picked up from it was one of plain ugliness. He could imagine it on Marcus, but
on his own hand it seemed a grotesquerie. But then, Taras didn’t take to
jewelry. He had once worn a paratrooper ring; he’d given it to a merchant in
Peshawar the day he defected. He twisted the fire-ring, smiling at the idea of
stodgy, bear-faced Biryukov consulting with psychic “sensitives.”

It was full dark when they touched down at Simferopol, the
principal Crimean airport. Rather than take the regular Aeroflot helicopter
into Yalta, and then drive three kilometers west to Oreanda, Arensky and
Starkov were shuttled with their bags to the military section of the airport,
where an Mi-2 light helicopter was waiting to fly them directly to the
presidential compound.

They had the eight-place cabin to themselves as the pilot
lifted into the night for the twenty-minute flight over the coastal mountains.
Presently, peering through the cockpit canopy, they got their first glimpse of
the Black Sea—a velvety dark wall dead ahead. Moments later they were looking
down on a necklace of sparkling lights—the port of Yalta, sheltered by an
amphitheater of forested mountains.

The Mi-2 now swung southwestward along the Crimean shore,
skimming over illuminated, geometrical gardens and courtyards that surrounded
an Italianate marble edifice, impressive even from the air.

“In case you’re looking for the helipad, Major,” the pilot’s
voice came over their headsets, “that’s not where we’re going. The presidential
estate is a couple of hills ahead. That’s the Livadia Palace down there, summer
residence of Nicholas II and site of the 1945 Yalta Conference. I’d give you
more of a spiel, but right now, if you’ll both excuse me, I’d better get our
final clearance to land before we get shot out of the sky.”

Taras had toured the area as a Young Pioneer, and was
familiar with many of the sanatoria scattered over the dark mountainsides. They
were above Oreanda now, site of several more spas terracing the steep slopes,
including the sprawling Nizhnaya Oreanda complex. Then, on a thrusting clifftop
ahead, he picked out the lights of a small minaret. As they hovered nearer, the
needling tower, tipped with a spotlighted Soviet flag, rose slowly above a
palisade of dark cypresses to reveal itself situated atop the white gleam of a
miniature Moorish palace, complete with minidomes and crenellated battlements.
This, Taras knew, was their destination—Kichkine, which in Arabic meant 
“little one,” though it was environed by several, much smaller guest dachas,
also in Moorish style. Taras could see why Rybkin, and Brezhnev before him, had
fancied the retreat; though an even more exotic structure lay farther along the
rocky coast in Miskhor—the little fantasy castle known as the Swallow’s Nest,
Lastochkino
Gnezdo
, on Cape Ay-Todor.

In a moment they were down and taken in hand by a distinguished
looking, gray-haired colonel of the KGB Guards Directorate—the Ninth, the only
branch permitted to carry guns in the proximity of Soviet leaders. A signal
exception was being made in the case of Arensky and Starkov. “For as long as
you’re here,” said the colonel, whose name was Pasholikov, “we have been
instructed to regard you as officers of our personal protection squad.”

Pasholikov conducted them on a brief tour of the compound,
passing without comment the lovely Moorish guest pavilions, the floodlit
gardens and grounds, edged with palms and pines, cypresses and magnolias,
leading to lily ponds, a tennis court, a swimming pool. Rather, he directed
their attention to the various intrusion-defense features.

Taras was suitably impressed with the perimeter security, at
least on the landward side. The compound was massively, yet discreetly
fortified, with guard towers hidden among the tall, thick-trunked Crimean
pines; tripwires, microwave “fences,” seismic and magnetic sensors; radar,
thermal-imaging and multi-camera TV surveillance; and a series of vehicle
barriers that Pasholikov boasted would stop anything short of a tank. All of
this, he emphasized, was manned and monitored by an elite detachment of Ninth
Directorate guards.

When the circuit was completed, Taras paused by the dark,
splendid sweep of sea frontage, peered through a copse of junipers down a
hundred meters of sheer bluffs to waves creaming in the faint moonlight. He
savored the salt tang, the surf murmur. Taras had been eleven when he was chosen
for his thirty-day summer “shift” at the Artek Young Pioneer Camp east of
Yalta. He had not been back to the area since. But how, he wondered, could he
have ever forgotten that caressive, velvet breeze of the Crimea—air so
restorative that sanatoria patients were regularly taken outdoors to sleep?

But there was something else in the air besides southern
balm. He had an eerie sense of Marcus—as though his old comrade were here
tonight, or had been here recently, or would be soon. It was almost a voice,
and very like the kind Taras had learned to listen to during their heliops
against the
mujahideen
in Afghanistan. But that had been long years ago.
This was probably just self-delusion, stimulated by all the nonsense about
picking up “vibrations” from Marcus’ ring. The most likely danger here was of
Taras’ turning into a spoon-bender himself. Still, the feeling wouldn’t go
away, and it bothered him.

He turned to Pasholikov, gesturing seaward. “Colonel, what
about your southern flank, if I may call it that? It looks rather exposed.”

The colonel chuckled, then pointed to a moving silhouette a
few meters away. The shape came nearer, became a uniformed KGB guard speaking
into a transceiver, his submachine gun unslung and in hand. He saluted
Pasholikov as he passed. In addition to the manned observation posts and
gateside sentries, armed men roamed throughout the grounds and along the
cliffside pathways.

“I mean in addition to your small army,” Taras said. “If you
could just summarize.”

“How comprehensive a summary do you wish, Major? For
instance, shall I explain the operation of our Voyska PVO network?”

“No, leave out your air defenses. What about from the
ocean?”

“You saw the coastal radar and sonar displays in the command
post. We track every approaching vessel, every plane. The nearest ship, as I
recall, was that Lectra-class trawler, which has been poking along the southern
coast for some old sunken English man-of-war for the last couple weeks. But
there’s a Grisha-class patrol boat due along any moment. You have to keep your
eye on them, because at thirty-two knots they go by pretty quickly. We have
three that keep us company: two under naval command, from Sevastopol and
Balaklava, and one KGB Grisha II based in Yalta. It seems tranquil, but as you
see, Kichkine is a very busy place, especially when the Boss is in residence.”

“Are you satisfied, Major?” This was from Starkov.

“Just one more thing. I’d like to see Rybkin’s quarters, if
I may.”

“I’ll show you the outside. We actually walked by it a few
moments ago. But we have strict orders never to disturb Alois Maksimovich when
he’s in his workshop.”

“Workshop? Is he some kind of hobbyist? I hadn’t heard.”

“Yes. He repairs things.” Colonel Pasholikov smiled
discreetly. “It’s not generally known. But he’s actually quite good. Fixed my
mother’s old sewing machine last month. No charge.”

*

Alois Maksimovich Rybkin was indeed fixing something. He had
the entrails of a Viennese Biedermeier clock spread all over the big chest-high
workbench—gear-wheels, weights, gathering pallets. There were other benches,
other intricate surgeries in progress. Across the aisle a just-refinished wing
chair was upended, a bolt of muslin propped between its feet. He needed to cut
and tack pieces of the fabric to the inside of the frame so he could get on
with the real upholstering. Close beside it a mahogany jewelry box lay in the
jaws of a wood clamp, its regrooved rabbet joints being glued. A jolly round
doll’s head lay in the lap of its sailor-suited trunk, awaiting recapitation.
At the far end of the room a recently acquired Spanish bellows organ also
waited, well into its second century of silence. Alas, its wounds were too
grievous to merit inclusion in this quick triage; it would be, perhaps, next
year’s project.

But right now he was completely involved in the clockworks.

He was talking to himself, and lecturing the stubborn
escape-wheel tooth he was trying to straighten with the needlenose pliers in
his stubby fingers. It was exactly the way his father, old Maksim, would
converse with himself in the old converted stable-workshop in Ulyanovsk, while
the cats brushed past his legs or attacked the socks that slopped around the
ankles of the unlaced shoes, or lightly followed his heavy footsteps as he
rummaged angrily and profanely through shifting mounds of debris for a mislaid
bolt or bushing.

In fact, this
was
his father’s old workshop, removed
and trucked down from Ulyanovsk, piece by piece—everything but the spiderwebs
festooning the corners—and lovingly reassembled like a three-dimensional
puzzle, to Rybkin’s best recollection, inside the gutted interior of a little
guest dacha. Oh, he had added some new hand tools, spruced things up a little;
he could neither recreate nor tolerate the perfect chaos in which old Maksim
had flourished. But otherwise, it was uncannily the same, minus the confounded
cats. And when Alois worked in daylight, a turn of his head fetched him a
shining square of blue ocean, near enough the angle at which his father,
squinting round from his workbench, used to watch a windowful of the mighty
Volga.

The President of the Soviet Socialist Republics came here
in  times of duress, increasingly these past few years, abandoning his wife and
any guests in the main palace across the reflecting pond to wrestle with far simpler
problems than those of state. Crossing the threshold with a nod to his guards,
he would shut out the clamoring world and enter the shadowed habitat of
childhood. How vividly he could recall those endless hours he would sit by his
father—just over there, say, on that backless chair—with a little hardwood
block and whittle knife, and watch the old man work. The boy would imbibe the
fumes of the workshop —the sweet burn of lathing wood, the dizzy-making vapors
of solvents and resins, the smells of the old man himself, his powerful arms
socketing from the undershirt under the battle-stained coveralls, as, with
explosive breaths, he settled his favorite crosscut blade into a deep sawcut.

Well, little Aloysha had inevitably become his father. He,
too, was a fat old man now, though as a child he’d never thought of his father
as fat. He was even wearing a similar pair of coveralls, and the exact red
tam-o’-shanter, bestowed on his father in 1945 by an officer of the Highland
Scots in Berlin, whither Junior Lieutenant Maksim Rybkin had ridden on a T-34
battle tank with Konev’s First Ukrainian Army Group. The ancient tam’s tassel
was worn off now, the tartan quite threadbare. No matter. Madame Rybkina had
run out of adjectives to describe her husband’s workshop ensemble—
nyekulturny
,
outrageous, farcical, even pathetic. Alois Maksimovich didn’t care.