The Final Fabergé (29 page)

There was an announcement that the air ahead was choppy and the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign was turned on. Oxby tightened the belt around Yakov, did the same for himself, then settled against the pillow he tucked against the window. He tried to sleep, but it became quickly obvious that today was one of the tomorrows he must pass through before he would be able to switch off the memory of room 411.

Three hours out of Tashkent and they were still over the flat deserts of Kazakhstan. High-level clouds obscured the ground, but had the sky remained clear he might have glimpsed the dying Aral Sea and more endless stretches of a treeless plateau.

He stared at the steel blue sky, and allowed snippets from the past
two weeks to come into his head and tumble over each other in an incoherent rush. He finished the chore of recording everything that had transpired in Tashkent. Another chapter, and a tragic one, in a book he never thought he could write. Absently, he removed a piece of paper from the back of his notebook. He unfolded it and looked at three numbers, the same numbers he had copied from the note written by Fabergé's head workmaster. He had stared at the slip of paper many times, though he knew the numbers as well as his own birthdate.

“Two eleven nine,” he said with intense concentration, as if demanding his brain to find a meaning for the numbers. After several minutes he put the paper back into the notepad, then slipped it and his pen into his shirt pocket.

Kip Forbes's name popped into his mind. He owed him a letter and would write from Petersburg. He would say that he had new evidence, though circumstantial, that Fabergé had indeed created an Imperial egg, one that had not been registered. He would tell Kip that his next step was to find proof that such an egg had indeed been produced. Then find it.

But there were forces that had shown a fierce determination to stop him from finding the egg. And they played a rough game. For keeps.

W
hen Viktor failed to report on Wednesday, June 10, and again on the 11th, the Estonian alerted Oleg Deryabin, who spent the greater part of a morning on the phone recruiting old contacts from Naval Intelligence and the KGB to commence a manhunt that was to reach from Petersburg to Moscow to Tashkent. An odd clash of networks intertwined; department chiefs in the Ministry of Internal Affairs spoke over secure telephone lines with crime bosses in their limousines. Then at noon on June 13, a fax was received in the communications center of New Century. A brief message stated that the body of Viktor Lysenko had been identified by a doctor in the military hospital in Tashkent, and further, while the body had been kept under refrigeration for three days, it was necessary that it be claimed immediately, or it would be buried in a public cemetery.

“Get his goddamned body back here,” screamed Deryabin. “If you have to pay someone off, pay the son of a bitch. I want Viktor's body in this city in twenty-four hours.”

It was, by the strictest measurement of Deryabin's tangled personality, an act of compassion.

At 1:00 P.M. the same day, the Estonian told Galina Lysenko that her husband was dead. She took the news, initially, with an eerily emotionless detachment.

“How did he die?” she asked.

“We have no details. It could have been an accident.”

“Viktor didn't have accidents,” Galina said through lips that barely parted.

Trivimi replied, “He was due for one. Acting too bold at times. I'm
afraid he didn't think it was a dangerous mission. He impressed me as being overconfident.”

“Viktor was the best there could be,” she said, angrily brushing away the tears that suddenly erupted, crumbling her resolve not to show a weakness.

“That may be, but it doesn't change the fact that he is dead.”

“He would be alive if Oleg had sent me along with him.”

“I advise you not to make a war with Oleg. He, too, is angry.”

“Oleg is angry?” she said contemptuously. “Oleg only cares because he has lost someone to do his dirty work.”

The Estonian let the comment pass. He had called Galina to his small office; a room without a desk, the space filled with several chairs, a table, and communications gear. The walls were bare and there were no windows.

“Where is his body?” Galina demanded, her voice resolute, though she could not will away the tears. “I want to know how he died.”

“You will see him tomorrow.”

“Why was Viktor sent to kill the father of the man Akimov was with in New York?”

“Because Vasily Karsalov knew too much.” The answer came from Oleg Deryabin, who had come into the room and was standing behind Galina.

Galina wheeled and glared at Deryabin. “We were a team. You should have sent me with him.”

Deryabin approached her. “You were a team in New York, but failed to carry out your assignment promptly.” His head nodded, the damned smile twisted into a smirk. “Or without causing messy complications. Now it seems Viktor made another mistake. And paid for it.”

“Did you know how many people were protecting Karsalov? It was you who made the mistake.”

“I know about mistakes. About lack of preparation.” Deryabin drew himself up, aware that he was barely the same height as Galina. “He was not your equal. Not even close.” He studied her, his bent little smile now frozen, his eyes ranging over her until they found her breasts heaving against her blouse. He took hold of her arms and tightened his grip.

She could no longer hold back the flood of tears. “You bastard! You don't know how he died.” She tried to pull away from him. “It wasn't an accident. He was killed, and I want to know who killed him.”

“We'll know tomorrow.”

Then he tried to draw her closer to him, and as he did, she exploded. She squirmed and twisted, then pulled free. She flailed out, striking Deryabin with surprising strength. Deryabin tried to restrain her but Galina's superbly conditioned body wriggled free and she pushed away from him with an immense burst of strength. She struck Deryabin's chest with one hand and lashed out at him with the other, her fingers curled and rigid. Her hand crashed against his ear, then she dragged her nails over the soft flesh of his cheek, creating four perfect rows of blood across his face and down onto his neck.

“Shalava!”
Deryabin shouted, calling her a bitch and slut, adding fuel to her rage. He ran his hand across the cuts, feeling the blood. When she came at him again, Deryabin did not err a second time. He struck her face with the flat of his hand, his blood rubbing off on her cheeks. He struck again, and again, hard slaps that put a cut beside her mouth. Her tears dissolved the dark lines penciled around her eyes, making a dark slurry that mixed with streaks of blood, transforming her face into a tragic opera mask. She cowered and retreated from Deryabin.

Slowly she straightened and gathered her poise. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The two stared menacingly at each other, their mouths open, heavily sucking in air.

Then, and surprisingly, Galina called him by his familiar name.

“Oleshka,” she began in a quavering voice. “I called you a bastard, because that is what you have become.” She was shaking badly, but her eyes never strayed from Deryabin's. “I will stay with you, but only if you promise to help me have revenge on whoever killed Viktor.”

“Revenge can be dangerous,” Deryabin said. He pressed a handkerchief against his cheek. “If you remember that I give the orders, you can stay with me.”

A
fter four days of rice and overcooked beef, Oxby looked forward to a simple breakfast in Yakov's kitchen; yogurt, hot cereal, and hard-as-nails bread on which he heaped a mound of strawberry preserves. Both men had slept late, proof that their Tashkent experience had taken its toll.

Oxby cleared the table and then put his notebooks on it, along with dictionaries, a
Blue Guide
to St. Petersburg, two magazine articles covering the arts highlights in the city, a detailed city map that included bus and subway routes, and, not at all incidentally, an envelope with the balance of the expense money advanced by Christopher Forbes.

“I want you to pretend,” Oxby said gravely, “that this kitchen is what we call in Scotland Yard the ‘incident room.' It is where we bring our files and case information so that a group of specialists can concentrate their activities on a major crime. Such a room has several phone lines, its own fax receivers, a computer terminal, and of course access to support facilities such as fingerprinting, forensic labs, medical examiner, Interpol databank, et cetera. Can you imagine such a room?”

“I will try,” Yakov said good-naturedly.

“You must try very hard, because I plan to pursue the investigation into the Rasputin Imperial egg, and your kitchen will be my incident room. With your permission, I shall deputize you to be my assistant and ask you to carry out certain assignments.”

Oxby leveled his gaze at Yakov. “Before you commit yourself, I must remind you of two items that may have great significance once we begin the investigation. First is this—” Oxby placed the broken
matryoshka
doll on the table. “Second—” Next to the doll he put the knife used to kill Vasily Karsalov, the weapon that also destroyed Viktor Lysenko.

“In a very short time, you have seen two men die. I can't explain why, and I have no idea who is behind it. But, obviously, someone doesn't
want us poking around. So, consider your answer carefully. Are you in this with me, or do you want out?”

“Of course I am with you. I have half my legs, but twice the desire to help.”

Oxby said, “We were a perfect team in a strange country. Here in your home city, you will be invaluable.”

Yakov nodded. “I know Petersburg as well as anyone,” he said. “I can be guide and translator. Besides, without me you will never know what is in Vasily's diary or the letters from Sasha Akimov.”

“How long will it take for you to transcribe them?”

“It will take a little study at the beginning, but not a long time.”

“Good, then. We'll shake hands on it.”

Yakov smiled and the two men shook hands vigorously.

“We are not starting with many advantages,” Oxby said. “On the table I've put our entire anemic arsenal. To that I'll add the diaries and photographs left by Vasily Karsalov. And the correspondence. Also two passports, courtesy of Viktor Lysenko.” He then pulled a single sheet of paper from the pile. “This is our assignment. You've heard it before, but it bears repeating.” In his neat hand, Oxby had printed the following:

“Vasily Karsalov said that his father gave him a Fabergé Imperial egg and we have photographs showing Vasily with his father and the egg. Leonid Baletsky told us he, too, had seen the egg. They told us about a celebration in 1963, at the time of JFK's assassination. There was gambling, and Vasily lost the egg. Baletsky stopped talking after a hundred dollars. Another hundred might get him talking again.”

“But Rasputin,” Yakov said. “Have we proved there is a connection?”

“Not directly. Though Vasily blurted out his name. We might not be able to prove that Rasputin commissioned an egg unless we find the bloody thing. I suspect it will have the usual information inscribed on it; dates and workmaster's initials. I'll wager that Fabergé added some kind of mark to indicate that Rasputin was involved.”

Oxby got to his feet. He went slowly to the middle room in the little
apartment, taking an inventory, inspecting each room, keenly noting the location of doors, windows, and electrical outlets in a way he had not previously observed. As he did, concern began to show in his eyes and the set of his mouth.