The Domino Game (47 page)

Nikolai swung his attention back to Hartman and the man beside him while the medics worked on his arm. He noticed the familiarity. The attentiveness. Followed the looks swung back to the house and across in his direction; the questions and nods of response. They finished up their conversation and the man in the suit stepped away, working his cell phone as Hartman came back towards the ambulance. He waited until the medics were finished then called them aside; exchanged a few words with them and they moved away. He watched them go then turned and stepped across to Nikolai, looking down at the bandaged arm.

“They say the burns are pretty bad. They want to get you to a hospital.”

“Later,” Nikolai said, bluntly.

Hartman considered a moment then gave a nod. Cast a glance back at the house.

“I owe you one.” He let out a heavy breath and sank to the lowered step at the back of the ambulance taking a seat beside Nikolai. His daughter was coming towards them across the lawn. She pulled up a few paces short, looking between Nikolai and her father. Hartman watched her with a grim smile. Shrugged his brows and swung his gaze back to the younger man beside him.

“Meet Kelly, my daughter. Kel, this is Nikolai Aven. I think I told you, we met once in Moscow. A long time ago.”

The woman’s eyes moved to Nikolai and narrowed, questioning.

Hartman nodded towards the two medics standing together on the grass. “They’ve said we can use their office. You want to talk?”

Nikolai watched him. Nodded slowly. Hartman read the response and nodded himself. Dipped his head across to the suited man still working his phone as he paced the grass.

“Local police. A friend. I’ve filled him in on what I know. He’ll keep the lid on everything ‘till the FBI get here. So…” he turned to Nikolai again. “Where do we start?”

Nikolai’s eyes worked Hartman’s. A good question. Where did they start? “Why?” he said, finally.

Hartman heaved a sigh and fell back against the door. His hair was singed, Nikolai noticed, patches of burnt skin blistering his forehead, scalp and hands. His clothes were filthy with the stain of smoke and smeared charcoal. Despite all of that the corner of his mouth lifted in a tight smile. “That’s the easy one. They wanted me dead.”

Nikolai shifted. “Who wanted you dead?”

“Who do you think?”

He blinked. “Ivankov?”

Hartman nodded. “And his friends.” Nikolai’s brow pinched at the answer. “Look,” Hartman continued, “this probably isn’t the time to go into detail but I want you to know something, Nikolai.” He measured the other man’s gaze. “I give you my word, I did everything I could to get you and your family out of Russia.” He sat silent for a long moment allowing Nikolai to make his own judgment. Finally his eyes fell to his hands, folded in his lap. “I know what happened to you, Nikolai. Not all of it, but enough.” He pulled a long breath and lifted his head. “It shouldn’t have. But it did. I was set to go – set to bring you out – but they pulled my authority. Someone blocked the path.” Nikolai’s gaze moved aside. Doubtful. “But you were there! That night in Mira. I saw you.”

Hartman’s gaze cut to his daughter and back again. “I was there because I tried anyway. On my own account. But I was too late.” His head swung slowly. “After that there was nothing I could do.”

Nikolai frowned, his brain working the explanation. “Who blocked you?”

Hartman cut around the question. “It’s complicated, Nikolai. Ivankov had connections, you know that. One of them – I found out later – was our ambassador. A man by the name of Malcolm Powell. Someone back here must have alerted Powell to what was planned and somehow he managed to manipulate the political strings to kill it.” He paused a moment. “After that I quit.” He looked up, meeting Nikolai’s gaze. “Came back here and started over, trying to make a difference.” He caught the question in Nikolai’s gaze. “So what do I do? I sound alarms, that’s what I do. Every month or so I climb up the tallest tower I can find and start ringing a bell, hoping the hell someone may be listening.” He saw the confusion in Nikolai’s eyes and smiled. ‘Sorry. I’m being melodramatic. I’ve become an expert on Russian crime. Russian crime and American corruption.”

For the first time his daughter spoke.

“My father is due to testify before a Senate committee tomorrow.” Nikolai swung his gaze to the woman standing before him. “He’s spent years working on the connection between Powell and Ivankov. Now he’s finally got all the evidence he needs to sink them.”

“Had.” Hartman exhaled. They stared at him. He took a breath and nodded between them to the smoldering remains of the house. An expression of disbelief unfolded across Kelly’s face. Her father shrugged. “The file cabinets are supposed to be fireproof, but with what I saw down there I wouldn’t want to stake my life on the guarantee. I got the safe open but then I heard the guy behind me, so what was in there’s gone for sure.” He looked at his daughter with a grimace of resignation. “Split-second choice, Kel. You have to make them.”

Kelly’s jaw fell open. “Jesus Christ!” she whispered.

Hartman let go a breath. “I’ve got the report backed up to my attorney’s server, he looked at the house again. “But the original material was in there. I don’t need it all but some of it is critical. Without some of the originals to back up testimony their lawyers will have a field day. They’ll tear me to shreds.”

Kelly let go a heavy sigh of frustration and turned aside.

“The woman.” Nikolai shifted the subject. “Who was she?”

Hartman took a breath. Cut a glance towards his daughter. “Someone I thought I knew.” He left it at that.

Nikolai nodded slowly, his thoughts turning inwards. “And they were going to make it look as if I had done it. As if I had killed you.”

“That’s the way it looks,” Hartman nodded.

“The man on the floor?”

Hartman’s expression fell somber, his gaze tracking back to his daughter. She took a deep breath.

“He was with me. I’d known him a week. He told me his name was Alex Bukovsky.” Her lips trembled for an instant. She pressed them tight and turned away, shaking her head. “Someone must have sent him. He seemed to understand what was going to happen. We should have been here earlier but we were held up, then when we arrived…” she tossed her head. “There was no one around but the front door was open.” She cast a glance towards her father. “It’s always locked. He always keeps it locked: that’s when I knew something was wrong. Then suddenly Alex had this gun – I still don’t know where it came from – and he was pushing me back outside and telling me to stay there.” Her voice turned brittle as she replayed the events in her mind. “But I didn’t! I didn’t listen. I followed him.” Her fingers clenched into fists and her eyes pressed shut, reality finally setting in. Hartman reached for her and pulled her towards him, closing an arm around her waist, finishing for her.

“I recognized him as soon as he came through the doorway.”

Kelly pressed away, staring at her father, forcing back her sobs. “You knew him?”

Hartman’s head lifted and lowered in silent response. “From Moscow. The night it happened.” His gaze swung back to Nikolai. “Your friend Vari arranged a driver. We were going to take you out through Kiev. It was the same man.”

Nikolai stared at him a moment. Tossed his head. “Vari? Vari Vlasenko sent him?”

Hartman blew out a breath. “I don’t know who sent him but I’m telling you, it was the same guy. I recognized him and he recognized me. He came down the stairs and round the corner with the gun in his hand, ready for something.” He looked up at his daughter, his voice exhausted now, soft with resignation. “Don’t blame yourself, Kel. He didn’t have a chance.”

She closed her hand in a fist, pounding it against her father’s shoulder, her voice angry, taut with guilt. “You don’t know that!”

She turned to Nikolai, her cheeks stained with tears.

“I should have done what he told me but I didn’t. It all happened so fast, I didn’t understand. I followed him back through the house and down the staircase. Then I came around the corner and I saw Gina with her gun and I screamed and Alex looked back at me and that was when she shot him.” She stopped abruptly her lips pressed tight together, her eyes tearing with pain. Hartman pulled her back to him again, cradling her head against his shoulder, his voice measured and soft at her ear.

“Trust me, Kel. I’ve been there before. It would have happened anyway.” He held her close for a long minute, rocking her against him, waiting for her tears to subside.

Nikolai watched them. Looked between them. Father and daughter. And with that thought his dazed mind flew awake.

Larisa!

Larisa, waiting for him back in the apartment at Brighton Beach with Katrina and Sergei. Sergei who, but for circumstance, would have led him here tonight!

He swung aside and bounced to his feet, his right hand thrusting into his pocket. Hartman’s daughter drew back, startled by the sudden movement, her father freezing where he sat.

“What the hell is it?”

Nikolai’s fingers closed around the car keys, hauling them free. “My daughter.”

Hartman’s head swung aside, his brow twisted in confusion. “Your daughter?”

“There’s no time.” Nikolai was already starting to move. Hartman came to his feet beside him, grabbing his wrist, his expression surrendering no ground.

Nikolai felt the panic closing on his chest. His eyes snapped back to Hartman’s. “You don’t understand. They killed my wife. Took my daughter. Now I have her back.” Hartman’s eyes grappled to comprehend. “The tapes,” Nikolai shouted. “You remember the tapes? Vari helped me. We traded the tapes for her. For Larisa. Now she’s here with me… With them!” His head spun around, searching for the car. “There’s no time to explain.” He found it and swung back again, pulling his arm free from Hartman’s grasp, his eyes ablaze. “If they were going to kill me, what were they going to do to her?”

Now Hartman understood. “Where is she?”

Nikolai tossed his head. “It’s too complicated. I have to go.” He started to turn but Hartman had his wrist again.

“You can’t. The FBI are on their way. They’ll need to talk to you.”

Nikolai’s grasp closed like a vice around the other man’s hand, wrenching it free, thrusting it aside. “They can wait.” Then Hartman’s daughter was between them, pressing her father back, her voice level and determined. Surprisingly strong.

“Dad! Let him go.”

Hartman paused, his eyes tracking between them, his brain working the options, snapping to its decision. “Where can I reach you? Where will you be?”

A look of confusion trailed across Nikolai’s face. Kelly saw it. Read it in an instant and took a step aside her expression taut. Resolute.

“He’ll be with me, Dad,” she said staring at her father.

Nikolai spun towards her. She turned to meet him, holding his gaze.

“That’s the deal,” she said, unmoving. “Take it or leave it. You go, I go too.”

37

When they got
to the car she stopped.

“Whose is it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s stolen.”

She tossed back her hair, her face closing in a quick grimace. “Great. All we need.” She held out her hand. “I’ll drive. I live here, remember. I know the short cuts.”

Nikolai shot a glance at the keys, nodded abruptly and slammed them into her palm. She slid into the leather and buckled the belt. Two people dead. Her father’s house burnt to the ground. Driving a stolen car without a license. What the hell! She found the ignition and cranked it, stepped on the gas and the car fishtailed across the grass, scattering back a hail of stone as its tires bit the gravel. A third police cruiser was angled partway across the entry at the bottom of the drive. The officer beside it saw them coming and stepped into their path, raising his hand. Kelly hit the brakes and skidded the car to a stop, searching for the button and rolling down her window. The cop came forward, leaning down to the sill.

“Sorry, ma’am. No one’s allowed to leave.”

“It’s okay. We’re cleared to go.” Kelly made a smile. Tossed her head across her shoulder. “Just call your guys up the hill.”

The officer eyed her cautiously then stepped aside, leaning into his car, reaching for the radio. As he did she hit the gas, swerving around the parked cruiser, throwing the Jaguar sideways into the road, correcting then accelerating hard again. In the side mirror she could see the man’s startled expression, the radio cord stretched in his hand. Outside the gates, along the shoulder, a caravan of other vehicles had gathered, spectators milling around, peering up the drive between the trees. They leapt aside as the Jaguar blazed past, Kelly’s eyes flickering down to the gearshift, her right hand dragging it back from drive and holding it in first, the power surging as she hit the floor. Nikolai looked across at her. Reached for his seat belt and locked it into place. At the first intersection they passed a television van with a rooftop dish heading in the other direction. They flew past it, Kelly hitting the washers, sweeping dust and ash from the windshield. She stared ahead through the sweep of the wipers. She flicked a glance at Nikolai

“Where are we headed?”

Nikolai swung his gaze towards her through the darkened cabin.

“You know a place called Brighton Beach?”

She steered through a bend. “Sure. Brighton Beach. Should have guessed. Hold tight!”

There wasn’t a lot Larisa remembered about her mother.

There was her smile, of course. The way the corners of her lips lifted and her cheeks rose above them and her dark eyes gleamed, but there was always something else behind her eyes. Something Larisa had recognized as distant and strained and sad even before she understood the meaning of the words. As if she was lost. As if they were both lost, but as if her mother was always trying, for her sake, to pretend they weren’t.

It made sense now.

She sat cross-legged on her mattress on the floor, thinking about it, working her fingers through the box of wooden tiles at her side. Katrina had found some old games and given them to her in the hope they would amuse her. Except for this one, none did. It was her turn. It was always her turn, that was the problem. There was no fun in playing alone, and for as long as she could remember that was how she had been. Alone.

She lifted one of the pieces, studying its markings then looked aside for a match in the pattern of tiles laid out on the floor. Her mother had taught her this game, sitting on the floor beside her, patiently explaining the rules, playing with and for her to begin with until she had it worked out and could do it herself. Then sometimes, when she would falter, unsure of what to do next, her mother would reach across and take her hand and look into her eyes and say to her:
You know the rules, my darling. What you have to do now is trust your instinct. Never forget that. Your instinct is your very best
friend.

At the age she had been then she wasn’t even sure what her
instinct
was. But she understood now.

It was what had warned her about Uncle Vitaly. And it was her instinct, more than anything else, that had reassured her that the stranger who had come for her in the hotel in Moscow was really her father… apart from the fact that he remembered Boris of course. She smiled at the worn old bear propped against her pillow.

Katrina and Sergei had both gone out. Katrina had told her not to worry, that they would be back soon – an hour at most – and now Larisa’s instinct was whispering to her again.
Don’t wait, Larisa,
it was saying.
It’s dangerous here. Do what your father said. Take the bag and go to the big wheel and wait for him. You can trust him just as you can trust
me.

Her eyes shifted to the bag on the chair, her teeth tugging at her lip.

Fine for you to say, she answered in her head. But what if he doesn’t come? I’ve only just found him. What if I lose him again? What happens to me
then?

Her instinct paused a moment before it replied.

What will happen will happen,
it said. You have to
trust.

She looked down at the pattern of domino tiles, accepting the inevitable. Once again her instinct had won.

She took her father s pillow and a bundle of clothes from her case and rolled them beneath her sheet, standing back to study her work, then moving forward again, adjusting the pile until she was satisfied. She plucked Boris from the pillow, found a scrap of paper and a pen, scribbled a hurried note, tucked it inside Boris’s worn red vest and propped him back on her father’s mattress. Then she left, making her way quietly through the empty house.

The front door was locked. From the outside.

She thought about that a moment then made her way back along the hall to the bathroom, to the window on the side wall where she had seen the metal stairs. She climbed up on the toilet seat and worked at the sash until it opened just enough for her to squeeze through, then reached down to collect the bag and wriggled her way outside, lowering herself down to the metal landing.

She was in a U-shaped light well at the back of the building, sheer brick walls rising around her on three sides, a maze of metal stairways, like the one on which she now stood, zigging and zagging their way between the windows, thrusting upwards to the roof. She edged across to the railing and peered down into the gloom. It was dark, but not completely. Below her light spilled onto some of the landings throwing crazy prison-bar patterns back against the walls. She could hear the sound of televisions playing and music and voices, and the smell of cooking rose through the air sending a sudden sharp pang through her stomach. It was hours, she suddenly realized, since she’d had anything at all to eat. She went back to the window and eased it down, then turned back to the landing, tip-toeing her way cautiously across to the rust-flaked steps.

The man behind watched as his partner slid the key into the lock. He looked aside, checking the landing, making sure, then he nodded silently and the man with the key turned it and pushed the door inwards, standing back to let him pass. As he did his right hand moved beneath his jacket, pulling the black Beretta free, his left moving automatically to the elongated barrel, testing the silencer’s fix. He nodded again and the man with the key followed him into the hall, easing the door shut behind him. The first man paused to look around and listen.

No movement. No sound.

He stepped forward into the living room and turned right to the corridor, leaving the other man behind him at the door.

He worked from the diagram drawn in his memory. Two bedrooms. One at the end; the other to the right, a thin slice of light seeping out from beneath its door onto the cheap green nylon carpet.

He reached the door and stopped. Lowered his left hand to the knob, turned it and pressed it inwards slowly, his gaze tracing the space opened up by its arc. Two mattresses, side by side on the floor. One empty – apart from an old teddy bear sitting at its corner – the sheet of the other drawn up across the form beneath. He hesitated a moment, chewing his lip. He had never killed a child before. But then, there were a lot of things he had once upon a time imagined he could never have done. He lifted his right arm slowly, tipped his wrist down a fraction and pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Each dull spit, resonating in his brain as the weapon bucked in his hand. The huddled form under the sheet convulsed as the bullets drove home then fell back and lay still beneath its cover. He stared for a moment at the scorched ragged holes where the bullets had ripped through the faded cotton. It surprised him that there was no blood but that made it easier. Easier to forget. Cleaning up the mess wasn’t part of his contract. Sergei would have to see to that. His hand rose to the wall, his fingers trailing across the light switch, turning it off.

“How old is she?”

Nikolai turned towards the woman at the wheel.

Kelly flung him a glance. “Your daughter?”

For a moment he had to think. ‘Twelve. Almost thirteen.”

Hartman’s daughter smiled. ‘That’s a nice age.” They were speeding south on Highway 87, the sky in the distance alight with the city’s glow. “And her name is Larisa?”

He had only said it once. It surprised him that she remembered. “Yes. Her name is Larisa,” he repeated quietly.

They left another mile behind in silence. Kelly was holding the speed twenty above the limit, winding the big sedan confidently in and out of the flow.

Nikolai searched for something to say. “You drive well.”

The glow from the dash caught the lift of her cheeks. ‘Thanks. To tell you the truth I don’t drive at all.” She hooked a look towards him. “I’m not allowed to. I’ve lost my license twice already for speeding. If the cops pick me up now I’m gone.” She gave a wry smile. “The fact that it’s a stolen car probably won’t help, either.” She swung her gaze back to the road. Let another minute pass.

“My father is a good man, Nikolai.”

He looked at her. Saw her lips roll together.

“What he told you tonight is the truth. The only reason he let you down back in Russia is because his own people double-crossed him.” She drew a breath. “I know it means nothing compared with what you must have been through, but it’s haunted him ever since. He’s made a lot of enemies trying to do what he thinks is right because of that.” She pulled a breath. “Tonight was the fourth time they’ve tried to kill him.”

Nikolai swung aside, staring. “Ivankov?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s just been him. There are plenty of others he’s upset. Two occasions he’s tried to pass off as accidents. I always had my doubts but not any longer. This was the worst. You saw that for yourself.” She shook her head again, her voice incredulous. “I just don’t
believe
these people.” Nikolai’s mouth lifted in a bitter smile. Not
you
people.
These
people. At least she acknowledged the difference. He sighed. Fell back against the seat.

“It takes a Russian to understand a Russian.”

They were on a straight stretch of highway. Nothing in front. The speedometer needle rose steadily towards the top of the dial. Kelly turned and stared at him.

“What the fuck kind of excuse is being Russian?”

His eyes met hers. “No kind of excuse. Just a reality. A fact. The way things are. You can take from a people only for so long. In the end some of them will rebel. Not all, but some. One day they begin to question why someone else should have so much more than they do and then they work out that there is no reason. No reason at all. So they start studying the people who have more, then after a while they work out how they got it and it occurs to them that all they have to do is copy the formula. Just do the same thing. In the end it’s all just a game. Whoever is the most ruthless wins. Then the game starts to catch on and pretty soon everyone is playing it.”

Kelly shot him a querulous glance. He took it in. Turned to her slowly.

“You don’t have to be Russian. This man, Malcolm Powell. Is he Russian?”

She held his gaze for a moment as the comprehension settled. When she turned back to the windshield she thought of her father. The evidence against Powell and Ivankov destroyed in the ruins of his house.

“And so now they win again,” she breathed.

A quiet smile creased Nikolai’s face. “Maybe,” he said. “And maybe not.”

At least it wasn’t as hot now that the sun had gone down.

Larisa made her way along the crowded street, past the shopfronts and the doorways and the restaurants and the clubs with their flashing, pulsing lights and the muscled men in black T-shirts who hung around their entrances. A train rolled by on the elevated track overhead, startling her, the pavement shaking, the carriages rattling above her as it passed. She had come this way with her father just a few days before but now, when she looked around her, everything seemed foreign. Perhaps it was because it was night. People towering above her. Weaving around her. Strange, questioning faces glancing down as they passed, their features distorted in the sea of colored light. She moved on, trying to ignore them, searching the skyline instead, looking for the big wheel, finding it, then losing it as she tracked around the obstacles in her path. A hundred yards on she saw it again, ahead and to the left in the distance, its lights swooping around in a giant arc. She fixed it in her sights, her legs moving faster, determined this time not to let it go.

She was on unfamiliar territory now, beyond the point where she and her father had turned off towards the beach. It was darker here. There were fewer shops and fewer people and the pavement was narrower, lined tight with parked cars, girls in high heels and short tight dresses standing around in doorways, grinning men propped against fenders, swigging from beer cans and bottles wrapped in brown paper bags. Someone called out to her and she felt a hand touch her shoulder. She shivered and pulled away, locking her fingers around the strap of the bag, pressing it tight beneath her arm, quickening her pace then breaking into a run, racing towards the light ahead.