turn out en masse to show their strength. An event that quickly collapses into chaos.’
Dobrev paused, and his eyes glazed over.
Jasmine could see the pain in his memories.
‘That’s a lot of collected anger,’ Jasmine offered. She didn’t mean to salt the wound, but she knew she needed to hear the rest of the story.
Dobrev nodded. ‘It would seem that the only thing these groups hate more than foreigners are those who don’t know how to properly hate foreigners. The Nazis feel that the supremacists and Aryans impede their cause with unprovoked violence. The supremacists and Aryans feel that the Nazis are too concerned with politics, particularly international affairs. Perhaps the only thing they agree on is that the RNU has yet to earn their respect. Insults were exchanged, and punches soon led to weapons.’
Tears welled in Dobrev’s eyes. ‘Yury was stabbed. He did not survive. His so-called friends buried him somewhere in the forests between here and there. To this day, I do not know exactly where. I’m not even sure they know where.’
Jasmine pointed toward the door. ‘That was one of Yury’s friends?’
Dobrev nodded. ‘His name is Marko Kadurik.’
He took a bottle of vodka from atop a desk in his small living room, poured himself three fingers’ worth, and downed it with one quick swig. His eyes never focused on the task. He was still consumed by the memory of his grandson.
Jasmine took a deep breath. ‘I should probably go.’
‘All right,’ Dobrev agreed.
Jasmine felt the pangs of remorse, and she wondered if she had taken her questions too far. She had assumed that Dobrev would object to her departure and beg her to stay longer. Instead, he seemed to welcome the impending solitude.
‘I will make sure you get safely to-’
‘There’s really no need,’ she said. ‘It’s early, and I saw a taxi station just down the block. I will be perfectly safe.’
‘Please, I-’
Jasmine smiled and took his hand, holding it gently in a show of affection. ‘Thank you for sharing your treasures and keepsakes. You’ll never know how much it meant to me.’
Marko Kadurik heard the conversation through the thin wall that his apartment shared with Dobrev’s. He hadn’t lived there long — less than a year — only in the months since Yury’s death. Yury had often bragged of his grandfather’s old-country regalia, and he had mentioned their value on more than one occasion. One item in particular had caught Kadurik’s interest: a gold coin. He had already broken into Dobrev’s apartment several times in search of the treasure, but he had yet to locate it.
When the woman left, he stared into the darkness of his apartment. His walls and windows were covered with RNU flags. They were emblazoned with swastikas and modified swastikas — symbols that looked like four deadly, interlocking tonfa batons.
The only illumination in the room came from the cell phone he held at his waist, his thumb dancing across the tiny keyboard. The dim backlighting of the device gave his tortured face an even more satanic glow.
A few seconds passed. The cell phone vibrated in his hand. He glanced down and saw the message clearly. His comrades-in-arms were on their way. And they were coming fast.
Kadurik smiled like a wolf when he heard the outside door of the apartment building slam shut. He peeked from behind one of the banners and looked at the street.
There she was. Walking proudly. Not knowing the fate that was about to overtake her.
His group’s leader had made it clear: Russia was for the Slavic — not the Jews, not the Muslims, not the Gypsies, and certainly not the hated Asians. He had been vehement about that. The Russian national identity must be protected from dilution by other races, liberal sympathizers, cross-breeders, mixed progeny, and temptresses — especially the exotic ones. The ones that made normally sane men, like Yury’s grandfather, dribble like senile old men.
Kadurik opened his door and grinned in anticipation.
This was going to be fun.
23
Cobb was waiting at the curb for Jasmine when she emerged from the squat apartment building on the suburban street. He was leaning against the gray UAZ Simbir that their railway partners had loaned to him — a plain but fairly powerful four-by-four that looked like a western SUV but with a more prominent snout and an overall look of Communist reserve.
Cobb had left the vehicle when things looked like they might go south. He held back as Jasmine regained control of the situation with Kadurik. Now he smiled as she approached.
He was glad to see her safe.
Jasmine looked both ways down the bleak, harshly lit, cement-enclosed street. She was relieved to see that the area was all but empty. Little wonder. The entrance to the Dobrev apartment was tucked into an unnatural pyramid with a curving wall beneath a roadway forming one side, the apartment building forming another, and the maw of a dark alley comprising the third.
In Manhattan, this would have been the butt end of the building.
In Kartmazovo, it was the grand entrance.
‘Hope I didn’t make you wait too long,’ Jasmine said with a mixture of sarcasm, relief, and pride — the pride that came from successfully pulling off a first assignment.
‘You did great in there,’ Cobb assured her. ‘I was thinking, though, we missed a golden opportunity. We should have brought one of those gold foil chocolate coins and done a switcheroo. He probably wouldn’t have noticed for years, if ever.’
She laughed at the suggestion. ‘Honestly? I was trying to think of some way to palm it. I would have felt bad, but not-’извините.'came a loud, rough voice.
‘Shit,’ Cobb whispered under his breath. He saw two uniformed patrolmen out of the corner of his eye. ‘What’d he yell?’
‘Excuse me,’ she translated.
Cognizant of the button camera on his shirt, Cobb turned toward the cops, giving Garcia a clear view of what they were dealing with: two veteran Russian patrolmen, both with square-brimmed gray caps and gray pants, one with a matching gray shirt, the other with a light blue shirt with epaulettes on his shoulders. Both had heavy, brown belts complete with handcuff holders and large, worn, leather holsters.
One was taller than the other, but both were overweight. They had buzz-cut hair, double chins, bobbed noses, and suspicious eyes. The expressions on their flushed faces were smug.
‘What can we do for you, officers?’ Jasmine asked in Russian.
Both men were taken aback by the fluent Russian coming from the mouth of the statuesque Asian. They stopped a few feet away, their surprise fading as they became bossy.
''Ваши документы' said the taller, heavier one.
‘Papers, please,’ Jasmine translated.
Cobb was already pulling his passport and visa out of his jacket pocket. She did the same from her coat. They calmly handed them over to the officers and waited, apparently unconcerned, while the two conferred.
'Не в порядке 'said the shorter one, looking up.
‘These are not in order,’ Jasmine translated, looking hopefully at Cobb. Thankfully his manner was as comforting as it was confident.
