Father Night, page 11
Jack said nothing because the answer was obvious.
“We are headed to Saint Petersburg, so that is good for you. Estonia, Finland are just kilometers away.” Kurin took a longer pull of his vodka. “Well, in the circus we are used to the unusual, so anything can be arranged.”
“For a price,” Annika said.
Kurin regarded her for a moment. “We’re not all mercenaries, you know.”
“Apologies,” Jack said.
Kurin fluttered a hand. “I choose not to be offended. I mean, what’s the point, yes?” He revisited his jelly jar.
“But surely you understand that we’ll be putting you in danger,” Jack said.
Kurin laughed. “My dear sir, all of us are here in the circus because we’re in love with danger.” He shrugged. “What’s a little more?”
“This kind of danger is nothing to joke about,” Dyadya Gourdjiev said. “My enemies are extremely determined.”
Kurin turned to him. “What, now you’re trying to talk me out of helping you?”
“We simply want you to be aware of the possible consequences of sheltering us,” Annika said.
Kurin spread his hands. “But you see, sheltering is what we do. Without that, what are we? A group of freaks, performing for the yokels.”
“Then it’s settled?” Annika said.
Kurin smiled, then consulted his watch. “We move out in ninety minutes precisely.”
SEVEN
CARO, STARING into Grigori’s eyes, could see intimations of both his parents. Not that she would say this to Grigori—she was convinced that his feelings for both of them were pathological. Her hands were still held by his. She allowed this because she needed him to be calm; she knew she could keep him under control—that, apart from his mother, she was possibly the one person who could. But his mother was in Switzerland, in a mountain chalet from which she rarely emerged. She had more money than she knew what to do with, but apart from her son her only passions were skiing and her dogs. Grigori had taken her to the chalet once, and Caro had been introduced to the dogs, a pair of amazing black and white brindled Bernese mountain dogs from the same litter, who acted more human than many Caro had met.
The juke was playing Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield,” its fierce beat impelling a couple of the drunks into the open space for a sloppy dance. The song reminded her of Marion Oldham, a woman of a certain age who was employing every extravagant methodology at her considerable disposal to dig her heels in against the aging process. Caro found her a refreshingly uncomplicated person. She clearly loved her son more than life itself, but was not the kind of stifling mother that love often generated. She was warm and affectionate with Caro, which, truth to tell, freaked Caro out. Something inside her seemed to shrivel at the attention; all her defenses rose up like a phalanx of spear-carrying warriors. If Marion noticed this, she gave no hint of it, allowing Caro to react as she did without query or visible judgment.
“He would be cross with me for saying this,” Marion had said, “but he loves you. You’re the one woman he has ever loved.”
Caro had not known how to respond, so she had remained silent.
When Marion smiled she looked like the carefree adolescent she must once have been. “I tell you this secret simply because it is a secret. He would never tell you himself; it’s not his way.”
Immensely grateful that Marion hadn’t asked her if she loved her son, Caro found her voice at last. “I don’t know his way.”
Marion’s smile was now tinged with sorrow. “You don’t know what he had to endure, growing up. His father … and other people…” She shook her head. “And then there was the family.”
“It must have been difficult having a father like him.”
“His father…” Marion looked briefly away. “They were meant to hate each other.”
Caro didn’t understand, but before she could form the question Marion gave a dismissive gesture. She had a more important message to impart before the interview ended.
“You never met his father. Count yourself lucky. That man was a demon. When I was around him I quite literally lost all reason, which is why, in the end, I fled. If I had stayed, he would have destroyed me.”
She looked deep into Caro’s eyes. “You do take my meaning.”
It had taken Caro a moment to work it out. What Marion was saying was that her son’s love for Caro was as toxic as Marion’s had been for Oriel.
Marion was so different from the young man holding Caro’s hands now, as if in a desperate attempt to keep her from once again fleeing, as his mother had fled his father. But history had a way of repeating itself, whether or not you wanted it to.
“Grigori,” Caro said now, her conscious mind returned to the flyblown D.C. dive, “you can have virtually anything you want.”
“And yet it’s you I want, Caro.”
She glanced furtively around. “Please.” No one was paying them the slightest attention; no one was even near them. Across the room, the barflies were half asleep. Nevertheless, they were still knocking back the booze.
“I despise the legend you chose, but all right.”
Caro sighed because they were now coming to the nub—the area she did not want to discuss, but which she knew must be discussed.
“It isn’t just me you want,” she said.
“Whatever do you mean? Epic breasts, legs for days, and a face that launched a thousand ships—”
“I hate when you do that.”
“Others wouldn’t be so bloody-minded.”
She ignored him. “You didn’t come all this way, spend time and effort tracking me down, just to hear me say that you can’t have me.”
So slowly it was almost imperceptible, he uncurled his fingers and let go of her hands. “You really are a bitch, you know that?”
“Only with you.”
“Bollocks! With every single bloody person who tries to get near you.”
She stared at him. “Are we going to make this personal now?”
“It’s always personal with us.” He failed to keep the stain of bitterness out of his voice.
“Only because you make it so,” she said quietly. Now it was she who took his hands in hers. “Let it go, Grigori.”
“I told you—”
“Let it go.”
He shook his head mutely, clearly unable to formulate a spoken reply.
“You have no other choice.”
There was a kind of desperation in his eyes that she knew could in an instant turn him deadly.
“You have me so…” He bit his lip in frustration. “I can only think of a terrible cliché to say this. The heart wants what it wants.”
“I think it’s the snake between your legs that’s doing the wanting.”
Color flamed in his cheeks as if she had actually cut through him. “Now you mock me.”
She withdrew her hands. “Let’s get back to business.”
“Business?”
“Of course. It’s always business with us, no matter how personal you try to make it. You want—”
“The notebook,” Grigori said. “Or, more accurately, what’s in it.”
“I don’t have it.”
“But you will. That’s why you’ve come back to D.C. You know where it is.”
Her expression hardened. “The notebook is like me: off-limits.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“You know me better than anyone, as you say. So you know it does.”
She did, and the certainty of it sent a chill through her because, one way or the other, one of them would not survive the endgame of their years-long struggle.
* * *
THE RINGMASTER’S car rattled and shook, causing Jack to peer out the window.
“Unfortunately,” Kurin said, “our poor train does not have the speed of the Sapsan trains, which travel as fast as two hundred kilometers per hour. It will take us eight hours to reach Saint Petersburg, so I suggest you sit back and relax as best you can.”
The Red Square Circus train had passed the Moscow city limits twenty minutes ago. Jack had sensed the sighs of relief from both Katya and Annika. Dyadya Gourdjiev was his usual sphinxlike self, expressionless, immutable, though he allowed Katya to clutch his hand in hers.
Catching the old man’s eye, Jack lifted his chin toward the door that connected the car with the rest of the train. Gourdjiev nodded and, disengaging himself, rose and walked with Jack toward the door. Jack hauled it open.
They stood on the small platform just above the cars’ coupling mechanism. Gourdjiev grasped a waist-high metal chain to protect himself from the motion of the train.
Jack put his face close to the old man’s. “Now would be a good time to tell me what’s going on. Who are your enemies and what do they really want?”
For a long time, Gourdjiev stared out across the tracks to the blurred countryside. They were traveling north by northwest, and the wind was bitter, tasting of industry and soot. At length, he said, “You know, Jack, you’re never too old to learn a bitter lesson. I thought, finally, after getting rid of Batchuk, that I had scattered my enemies to the four winds, that without him as leader they would crawl back into the shadows that had been their home.”
The train rattled, shaking as it crossed over a second set of rails that led to a siding, and Gourdjiev had to take a moment to steady himself.
“My mistake was in thinking I understood them—or perhaps it would be better to say that I misunderstood the depths of their animosity, their determination to take from me what I had spent decades amassing.”
“So the cache of illicit activity you have compiled, the favors outstanding, the quid pro quos, is real.”
“Oh, yes.” The old man nodded, but it was clear from his gaze that his mind was far away, perhaps already in Estonia or Finland, where he—all of them—would be safe. “It’s all true. It all exists.”
Jack leaned in, the better to hear and be heard over the noise. “You need to tell me where we’re headed, so I can have the plane meet us there.”
Gourdjiev shook his head. “Forget your plane, Jack. As you saw for yourself, my enemies are strong at the airports. The instant your pilot files a flight plan they will send agents to its destination.”
“Then I’ll send it to Estonia while we cross over into Finland, or vice versa, if that’s your wish. It’ll come to us later.”
A small smile appeared on the old man’s lips like fire curling tissue paper. “Every time I think you can’t surprise me again, you do. Of course you discarded the instinct to send the plane in the opposite direction in which we’re headed. They would have thought of that.”
“‘They.’” Jack took a step toward Dyadya Gourdjiev. “Tell me who you mean.”
The old man closed his eyes for a moment, his thin body swaying with the train’s movement. When he opened them, they were filled with anguish. “Oriel Jovovich Batchuk and I were friends, then frenemies. When he caused my daughter’s death, when he kidnapped Annika, we became implacable foes, bent on destroying each other.” His eyes came back into focus. “I thought that war ended with Batchuk’s death, but it seems I was wrong.”
“Batchuk fathered two children after Annika’s mother died—both sons, Grigori and Radomil.”
The old man nodded. “Annika told me how you saved her life when one of Grigori’s hit men came for her.” He passed a hand across his eyes. All of a sudden he looked his age. “I thought I knew everything about Oriel Batchuk, but, in the end, he has outfoxed me. It is as if he has returned from the grave. Apparently he trained his sons from a very early age for just such a contingency, and now this one is out for blood—my blood and Annika’s blood. From what little I have been able to glean, this vendetta is Grigori’s entire reason for being; it has taken over his life completely. Which means that all of us—you included—are in danger.”
The wind knifed through Jack, chilling him to the bone. “But surely—”
“No, no, if Grigori isn’t stopped, he will destroy all of us, of that I am absolutely certain. You yourself have been witness to his obsession.”
“What does Annika plan to do?”
“She is planning Grigori’s demise.”
“You’re allowing—?”
Gourdjiev laughed. “My ‘allowing,’ as you put it, doesn’t enter into this equation. My granddaughter is ruthless—you must know this. The bitterness in her heart was very carefully placed there by her father. It can be diminished, I’ve found, but not extinguished. He damaged her too completely. There is a part of her that is black—pitch-black. Neither you nor I have any say in the matter.”
“So she is determined to kill Grigori.”
“This is part of her mission, yes. Frankly, at this time in my life I welcome her growing power. It’s what I have wished for. I want to retire somewhere far, far away and spend the rest of my days with Katya. Having had power for so long, I no longer dream of it. I leave that now to others younger than me.”
Jack was appalled. “Is there no other way out of this sibling death match?”
“She’s a traitor in Grigori’s eyes,” Gourdjiev said. “He has every reason to kill her. You must make sure that doesn’t happen,” the old man said. “She has her assignment. I don’t want her distracted.”
Jack watched Gourdjiev for some sign of what the other part of Annika’s assignment might be, but, of course, none was forthcoming. He could ask the old man, but he knew if Gourdjiev wanted him to know he would have told him. The longer he was around this man, the less he understood his methodology. It was as if he had encountered a modern-day sorcerer. Jack suspected that Gourdjiev had no intention of dying, ever. Nothing seemed capable of killing him, least of all old age. He was as invulnerable as the keep in a fortified castle.
“I want to help,” Jack said finally. “Where is Grigori?” He could scarcely draw a breath. “Where is Annika’s half-brother?”
“I don’t know.” Gourdjiev shook his head. “That’s the worst of it. Because we have no idea what he calls himself now.” The old man’s lips gave a curl of distaste. “He hasn’t gone by the name Grigori Batchuk since he was seventeen years old.”
* * *
“IF YOU do that again,” Dick Bridges said, “I will report you to Commander Fellows.” He stared hard at Alli. “So tell me, where the hell did you disappear to?”
He had waited, coming for her during her first morning class, making a big deal out of asking for her, to maximize her embarrassment, payback for deliberately ditching him the night before.
Alli, who had no intention of telling him what had really transpired, said, “Every now and again Vera and I need to get away from Fearington and its rules and regs. We were just blowing off steam.”
Bridges sighed. “Alli, at this point in time, ‘just blowing off steam’ has the potential to get you into deep trouble. Here in Fearington you’re protected.”
“Morgan Herr infiltrated Langley Fields.”
“Langley Fields is a private school,” Bridges pointed out. “Fearington is a government facility with numerous levels of security. Two completely different animals.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Plus, you have me. I’m sworn to protect you. Let me do my job.” He stared into her eyes. “Okay?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He opened the door for her and she went back inside the classroom. Everyone was staring at her, but the professor soon got his students back on track. Afterward, Vera and Alli walked across campus to their next class.
“He’s behind us,” Vera said.
“I know.” Alli shifted her laptop from one arm to the other. “He hauled me out of class to read me the riot act. He’ll stick like glue now.”
“But you can’t let him. You can be sure Waxman won’t meet you with him around.”
“I know, I know,” Alli said. “I’ll have to think of something.” She considered for a moment, then turned to her friend. “Maybe you can help.”
* * *
THE SLOWING of the train woke Jack. His watch indicated that it was two hours yet before they were scheduled to arrive at Saint Petersburg. Looking around, he saw Annika, Gourdjiev, and Katya still asleep. Pavel Kurin, however, was nowhere in evidence. Tossing aside the blanket that had been given him, he rose, slipped on his shoes, and slid open the door. Kurin was standing on the connecting platform, a pair of field glasses to his eyes.
“What is it?” Jack said. “Why have we slowed down?”
The ringmaster tugged nervously at his mustache. “Actually, we’re making an unscheduled stop.”
“Why?”
Kurin handed him the field glasses. “See for yourself.”
Looking through them, Jack saw a siding in the distance, similar to the one they had passed when he’d been out here talking with Gourdjiev hours ago. The difference was that this siding was open and populated. He saw two cars, along with six men, their eyes on the oncoming train.
Jack handed back the field glasses. “Who are they?”
Kurin shrugged. “State police, FSB, Immigration, who knows?”
“Immigration?”
“We are a world unto ourselves,” the ringmaster said. “We shelter all kinds of refugees.” He shrugged. “But it hardly matters; whatever their affiliation, their presence is ominous.”
“We should wake the others up.”
Jack was about to open the car door when Kurin said, “This could go either way. You know that.”
“Annika and I are armed,” Jack said.
The ringmaster’s expression was grim. “That’s one of my chief worries. If any of these officials are harmed or killed, the circus will be finished.”
“I understand,” Jack said, though he had no clear sense that they could successfully emerge from this encounter without gunfire.
Inside the car, Annika was already awake and stirring. He filled her in as to why the train was stopping and asked her to rouse her father and Katya. He crossed to help Kurin take the cushions off the old love seat. Underneath was a plank of wood, worn smooth as a baby’s cheek, and the same color. Kurin knelt and inserted a tiny key into an almost invisible hole just beneath the curved arm. An instant later, the plank popped up, revealing a framework of struts and crossbeams.
