Three Jack McClure Missions Box Set (71 page)

Slitting open the pack, he tore the filter head off a cigarette, then lit it with a match from a pack thoughtfully provided with his purchase. He used the key card to his room to open the side door to the parking lot, went out into the chilly night. It had rained sometime while he’d been working and the concrete walkway was slick and wet; cars gleamed in the security lights. The hum of traffic from the highway was reduced to the inconstant hiss of occasionally passing cars on their way to or from mysterious errands. What were people doing up at this hour, he wondered. Whatever it was he doubted they had the weight of the world on their shoulders as he did.

The smoke, deep in his lungs, calmed him, or at least gave him the illusion that he had time to make a decision. The night was quiet, not another soul stirring in all of the Residence Inn, though as he looked up at the facade he could see lights on in several rooms, a reminder that insomnia lurked like a ghost here as everywhere.

He smoked the cigarette down to the end without coming to a decision. His mouth felt dry and stale, but he ripped off the filter on another cigarette, stuck it between his chapped lips, and lit up. With the information he had on General Brandt the road before him forked in several directions. He could inform the president, but that would surely distract him, in the process derailing the delicate negotiation process with President Yukin. He could call Jack and warn him, which again would expose his knowledge of the General’s treachery. McClure was a good friend of Edward Carson’s—they knew each other long before Paull himself met Carson. Therefore,
Jack could be counted on to inform the president ASAP even if Paull begged him not to disturb Carson until the crucial accord was signed.

As Paull walked up and down the walkway, growing colder and colder, he realized that he was on the horns of a serious moral dilemma. How could he allow Jack to remain uninformed about the sanction? How could he allow the U.S.-Russia accord to be disrupted? He had no doubt that General Brandt was insane. He had determined that his own self-interest was paramount, anyone who threatened it was to be terminated. He could call Edward and tell him what he’d discovered, but he had no solid proof and the call would only serve to muddy waters that were already fouled.

Grinding the second butt beneath his heel, he scrabbled in the pack. He was going through cigarettes as if they were Tic Tacs. Well, why not, considering the behemoth he was confronting. The fact that Jack had somehow become a clear and immediate danger to Brandt was of less concern to Paull than why Jack was threatening the General’s self-interest.

What the hell was the General up to? And then he remembered a bit of the conversation he’d had with Edward Carson in the presidential limo following Lloyd Berns’s interment. The president had complained that Brandt had been pushing to sign the accord. Why would he do that, Paull asked himself. Of course the General was one of the primary supporters of the current rapprochement with Russia. In fact, Carson had leaned heavily on the General’s advice for why to engage Russia and how. But Brandt was smarter than to advise the president to elide over minor details Carson wasn’t comfortable with, especially with the Russians.

However, his restless mind was turning over the question of paramount importance at the moment because there was a clear-cut decision to be made: To warn Jack or not to warn Jack, that was the question. And the answer hinged on morality and self-interest, one of which was clear-cut while the other was nebulous, open to interpretation
of every kind. He wasn’t like Edward, whose enduring sentimental feelings for family and friends was both a weakness and a blinder to the harsher aspects of reality. Paull understood the truth that the president refused to acknowledge: The notion of morality was a squishy subject, never more so than nowadays when there were mountains of information, factoids, and electronic data to sift through that provided a multitude of reasons for making or not making a decision. There were always extenuating circumstances, hidden explanations coming to light like corpses in a river appearing at the first spring thaw. Nowadays there were any number of ways to make a decision understandable, credible, acceptable, convincing.

All of which led him to one inescapable conclusion: He needed to pursue the inquiry into General Brandt’s sanction without informing anyone, not the president, not Jack. His own self-interest was and must remain paramount. He had no other recourse now, none at all.

“We didn’t kill Rochev’s mistress,” Jack said, waving the CCTV photos he’d found. “She was dead when we found her.”

Kirilenko, disarmed and bound to a chair with lengths of electrical flex Annika had found in a nearby utility closet, said nothing. They were in a spare office Jack had discovered, reluctantly but needfully, because they had an unconscious body that required a quiet place to rest and come around, which Kirilenko did when Annika slapped him sharply across the face. Now there was a red blotch there like a congenital wine stain. The space was a standard office with a desk, table, several wooden chairs. A filing cabinet stood against a wall. Old-fashioned venetian blinds obscured the single window.

“We went to the dacha looking for Karl Rochev,” Jack continued. “We wanted to talk with him, that’s all.”

Kirilenko, maintaining his silence, ignored Jack and Alli completely, his baleful gaze fixed on Annika leaning nonchalantly against
a wall, her arms crossed over her chest, watching him like a hawk inspecting a snake.

“When we didn’t find him there we decided to leave, and that’s when we ran into your people.”

Kirilenko continued to glare at Annika, but with a smirk that made Jack think he was privy to information vital to them.

Apparently Annika thought the same thing because she came off the wall and smashed her fist into Kirilenko’s jaw. Blood spattered onto his suit lapels and his lap.

“That’s enough,” Jack said, grabbing hold of her right arm, which she’d already cocked for another blow.

“Someone had to knock that smirk off his ugly face.”

“And you’d be just the one to do it, eh?” Kirilenko said as he spat a thick wad of pink spittle onto the bare concrete floor. “Wild, short-tempered, out of control—in sum, a classic rageaholic—all the reports were right about you.”

Annika, pulling away from Jack, lunged at him with her head. “If by that you mean I’m impossible to control then you’re damn right.”

Alli interposed herself between the two, forcing Annika to look at her, not Kirilenko, and so throttling down on her anger level. After a moment of cooling Annika put a hand on her cheek and nodded her thanks.

For the first time Kirilenko looked at Jack. “What I can’t work out is why you’re with this very dangerous creature. She’s a murderer.”

“We’re all murderers here, Kirilenko,” Annika said.

“What about the girl?”

Jack leaned in beside Annika. “Leave her out of it.”

“Too late,” Kirilenko said. “From my point of view she’s as culpable as either of you.” He jerked his head away from Annika’s bared teeth. “She’ll pay the same ultimate price you two will, that’s a promise.”

Annika stood back, hands on hips. “You see, what did I tell you? There’s only one way to deal with a man like him.”

“Yes, by all means kill me,” Kirilenko said. “It’s the only way to stop me from taking you in, or killing you for your crimes.”

“We’ve committed no crimes,” Jack said.

“That’s what they all say.” Kirilenko shook his head. “Once, just once, I’d like to be surprised, but, no, you murderers are as sadly alike as crows.”

“There has to be another way,” Jack said, ignoring him. “It’s simply a matter of finding it.”

“Good luck with that,” Annika said. “I don’t know about you but I don’t plan to be here when security comes around to check all the vacant rooms.”

Jack took her by the waist and half dragged her into the far corner.

“Let’s stop this insanity,” Kirilenko said softly, conspiratorially to Alli. “Untie me and I’ll make sure you won’t be arrested or incarcerated.”

“You’re the one who’s incarcerated,” Alli said, “and it’s you who’s trying to bargain.”

She took a step toward Kirilenko, who was grinning at her like a monkey. He seemed sure he had taken the proper measure of her.

“I won’t be incarcerated forever and when I—”

“You think I’m the weak link, that you can somehow terrify me, but I’m not afraid of you.”

“Alli,” Jack said sharply, “please put your ear to the door. If you hear anyone coming let us know.”

“You should be.” Kirilenko clacked his teeth together like a chimpanzee or a crocodile. “If you don’t listen to me I swear I’ll bite your head off.”

“Alli …,” Jack warned.

Alli, staring down Kirilenko, spat into his face, then she turned and, crossing the small room, obediently put her ear to the door.

“You asked for it,” Jack said to the Russian in a mocking voice, before turning back to speak in low tones with Annika. “You’re not going to kill him, that’s out of the question. Besides, he knows something.”

“What if he’s simply pretending he knows something?”

“What if he’s not?”

But Jack’s attention was now divided. He was watching Alli, who had come away from the door in the wake of their conversation. She had begun to walk back toward Kirilenko.

Annika, becoming aware of Jack’s growing agitation, turned to watch. “What the hell is she doing?” she said under her breath.

“Alli, get away from him,” Jack said sharply as he strode toward her.

But before he could get to her, she waggled in front of Kirilenko’s face the cell phone she’d scooped up from the corridor floor as the others were dragging his body in here.

“It’s you who should be frightened,” she said. “I have your life in my hand.”

Jack pulled her back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You missed this,” she said to Jack as she proffered the phone in the palm of her hand.

“This girl has balls,” Annika said with a laugh, “you have to give her that.”

Jack, noting the sour look on Kirilenko’s face, wondered whether Alli was onto something. He was about to pluck up the cell, when he changed his mind. “Check it out yourself,” he said. “You earned the right.”

Alli hesitated, looking as if she didn’t quite believe him. Then, seeing no contradiction in his expression, she flipped it open. She spent a few minutes scrolling through different menus before she apparently
came upon something of interest. Reversing the screen, she showed Jack and Annika the grainy photo of the three of them as they emerged from Rochev’s dacha.

“Mine is the only face identifiable,” Annika said, peering closely at the image.

Alli zoomed in on a portion of the photo. “Look at what you’re holding.”

“The
sulitsa,”
Annika breathed.

“What the hell is a
sulitsa?”
Kirilenko still had the remains of his own blood and Alli’s spittle on his cheek. “What did you use to kill Ilenya Makova?”

“At last we know her name,” Jack said, taking the phone from Alli.

“I didn’t kill her, none of us did,” Annika said. “As Jack said, we found her with this thing—this antique Cossack splitting weapon— sticking out of her—”

“I don’t believe you, Annika Dementieva.”

“—so deeply she was impaled to the mattress.”

Kirilenko moved his head from side to side. “I know you.”

“The fuck you do.”

“I know people just like you, I know you killed her.”

Jack pushed his way past a seething Annika and said to the Russian, “Listen to me because I’m only going to say this once. Annika is intent on killing you and I’m now inclined to agree with her.” He adjusted Kirilenko’s ugly tie so that the knot bit into his Adam’s apple. “Against my better instincts I’m going to give you this chance. Tell us what you know.”

“And then what?” Kirilenko said. “She’ll kill me anyway, I see the look in her eyes.”

“She won’t kill you if you answer my questions.”

Kirilenko laughed. “You think you can stop her?”

“Yes,” Jack said softly and slowly. “I do.”

The Russian peered into Jack’s face with his weary gaze. “Fuck you, Americanski. Fuck you and your entire decadent fucking country.”

Following his numerous night visits Dyadya Gourdjiev had slept uneasily until noon. He dreamt that it had been raining for days, possibly weeks, and his apartment was developing cracks in the poorly constructed ceiling, around the cheap aluminum window frames. As a result water was leaking in from so many places it was impossible to caulk or patch them all. As soon as he dammed one up, two appeared in its place.

He awoke entirely unrefreshed. As he lay staring up at the ceiling, spider-webbed with cracks, he knew what must be done. Hauling himself out of bed he padded to the bathroom and with some difficulty relieved himself. Then he shaved his cheeks pink with a straight razor, carefully brushed his hair, dressed in a neat suit and tie in the best Western style, and ate his usual breakfast of black coffee, toast, butter, and Seville orange marmalade. He chewed slowly and thoughtfully. He felt like the root of a tree, the years fallen on him like the rusty leaves of autumn. He washed the dishes and cutlery, stacked them neatly in the drainboard, dried his hands on a dish towel.

In the closet next to the front door he extracted the things he needed, including his lambswool overcoat and soft cashmere scarf in the signature Burberry plaid, which he wrapped around his neck, making certain his throat was well protected against the strong April wind. Shrugging on his coat, he opened the door, went out into the corridor, noting that the bloodstain, now a dark, almost purple brown, had not yet been cleaned up. Everything continues to slide downhill, he thought, to erode, to sicken, wither, and die.

He met no one in the elevator, but as he saw the charming widow Tanova coming in from the street with an armful of groceries, he
smiled, holding the elevator door open for her. She returned his smile, thanked him, and asked him over for tea and her homemade stollen later in the afternoon, an invitation he accepted with genuine pleasure. The widow Tanova had lived almost as long as he had, she understood the nature of life, what was important and what must be let go. She was someone he could talk with, confide in, commiserate with, mourning the losses they had suffered. Also, she had great legs—stems, as they said in the old black-and-white American films he still adored.