“Others were killed by the same strange illness,” Fiona pointed out tersely.
“Among them, an innocent little boy who did not share your husband’s bad habits.”
“Really?” the other woman asked casually. “An otherwise healthy child?”
Smith nodded, doing his best to hide his own dislike for this cold, remarkably selfish, woman.
“How odd,” Madame Zakarova said, with yet another emotionally detached shrug. She sighed languidly. “Well, then, I suppose I must do my best to help you, regardless of the inconvenience to myself.”
Patiently, more patiently than he would have supposed was possible.
Smith led her through the same set of health-related questions he had already asked the Voronovs. As before, Fiona carefully took down her answers, maddeningly incomplete though they were.
At last, when the old woman began to show unmistakable signs that her own limited patience was wearing thin, Jon decided it was time to shift his line of questioning to their chief area of interest?the European Center for Population Research and its DNA sampling around Moscow.
“Thank you for your time, Madame Zarkova. You have been extremely helpful,” Smith lied, sitting back in his chair and beginning to gather up his papers. But then he stopped and sat forward again. “Oh, there is just one other small matter.”
“Yes?”
“Our records show that you and your husband participated in a major DNA survey last year,” Smith said casually, mentally crossing his fingers. “Is that correct?”
“The big genetic study?” The older woman sniffed quietly. “Oh, yes.
Swabbing out our mouths for perfect strangers in the name of science. A disgusting ritual, if you ask my opinion. But Aleksandr was very excited about the whole grotesque process.” She shook her head in contempt. “My husband was a fool. He actually believed that this so-called Slavic Genesis project would prove one of his own silly pet theories ?that we Russians are the pinnacle of European racial and ethnic evolutionary development.”
Jon forced himself to smile noncommittally, hiding his own elation. He was now sure that the}’ had uncovered an important part of the origins of this deadly disease.
After he and Fiona Devin finished talking to the Voronovs that morning, they had gone back to their Zamoskvoreche District safe house. Then, while he reviewed his notes and made the careful phone calls necessary to arrange this interview, Fiona had spent several hours on-line digging up whatever she could about the ECPR and its Slavic Genesis project. Since it was too risky for her to contact her regular news sources, the detailed information they needed was hard to come by. Nevertheless, two important pieces of the puzzle had become clear.
First, although Slavic Genesis was a very large, expensive, and ambitious scientific undertaking, its researchers had collected DNA from just one thousand of the roughly nine million people living in the greater Moscow region.
For the purposes of evaluating historical shifts in Slavic populations, this sample size was sufficient ?especially when comhined with the thousands upon thousands of other samples taken in other countries in Eastern Europe and across the former Soviet republics. But it also meant that this link between seven-year-old Mikhail Voronov and seventy-five-year-old Aleksandr Zakarov was more than the blind operation of random chance. The odds against such a coincidence were something on the order of eightv-one million to one.
Second, Konstantin Malkovic’s name had popped up vet again. Corporalions and foundations that he controlled provided a substantial share of the ECPR’s funding. Few specifics of the Center’s budget were in the public domain, but Fiona was fairly sure that the billionaire’s money was directly un-derwriting the Slavic Cenesis project.
Smith grimaced. One potential connection to Konstantin Malkovic, the ambulance from the Saint Cyril Medical Center, might be dismissed as a fluke. Two could not. Malkovic was involved in this conspiracy, along with his pal in the Kremlin, Viktor Dudarev.
In the woods outside the dacha, Oleg Kirov lay propped up behind a log halt-buried in the snow, keeping a careful eye on the deeply rutted track that led up from the nearest country lane. Surplus army-issue night vision goggles turned the surrounding darkness into green-tinted monochromatic day.
Twenty or so meters behind him, covered in branches and boughs to break up its sharp, boxy silhouette, lay the squat bulk of his CAZ Hunter, a vehicle that was the rough Russian equivalent of the American Jeep Wrangler.
Kirov had driven to the Zakarov dacha ahead of Smith and Fiona Devin.
His first task had been to quickly scout the area for signs of possible danger.
His second had been to establish this hidden observation post, concealing himself in a spot where he could keep an eve on the most likely approach to the dacha while Jon and Fiona asked their questions. The sides of his mouth turned down. He hoped they would hurry.
The broad-shouldered Russian shivered, chilled to the bone despite the protection offered by his heavy winter coat, hat, and gloves. The temperature, already below zero, was falling fast as the night wore on.
He understood his friends’ need to confirm the information the Voronovs had given them, but he had deep misgivings about coming so far outside Moscow. Here in this harsh and forbidding landscape, they were all terribly exposed. There were no convenient crowds to mingle with. There were no handy Metro stations or packed department stores to duck into for evasion and escape. There were just the trees and the snow and a few winding roads that were completely empty once the sun went down.
Sighing, the Russian focused his gaze on the ear parked next to the front door. Madame Zakarova kept her Mercedes in a heated garage attached to the house. Her infrequent guests were forced to make do with a small patch of icy gravel. Nothing seemed to be stirring near the dark blue Volga sedan he had obtained for the two Americans.
Then, suddenly, Kirov stiffened. He heard powerful engines echoing among the trees. The sounds were still some distance away, but the) were unmistakably drawing nearer. He rose higher to get a better look and then dropped flat, reaching into his pocket in a tearing hurry.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Smith’s cell phone rang suddenly.
“Excuse me,” he told the widow. He flipped the phone open. “Yes?”
It was Kirov. “You’ve got to leave, Jon. Now!” the Russian said urgently.
“Two unmarked cars just turned off the main road. They’re heading straight for the dacha. Go now! Out the back!”
“We’re on our way,” Smith said grimly. He shut the phone and stood up, grabbing his winter coat in the same motion. He felt the bulge of the 9mm Makarov pistol concealed in one of the pockets. For a moment, Jon was tempted to make a stand here in the house, fighting from cover instead of fleeing out into the open. But then he shoved the idea away. With the widow and her servants inside, he could not risk provoking a gun battle. If bullets started flying, too many innocents could easily be hurt or killed.
“Trouble?” Fiona asked quickly, in English. She rose at the same time, already gathering up her coat and gloves.
“We’ve got company,” he murmured in the same language. “We’re abandoning the car and bugging out. Oleg will meet us outside.”
Pale and tense, she nodded her understanding.
The older Russian woman looked up at them in confusion. “Your questions are finished? You are going?”
Smith nodded. “Yes, Madame Zakarova, we’re going. Right now.” Ignoring the widow’s startled protests, he steered Fiona out of the sitting room and into the dacha’s wide central passage. There, they ran into a stout, middle-aged maid carrying a trav with the tea and small cakes her mistress had grudgingly offered when they first arrived. “Where’s the back door?” Jon demanded.
Startled, the maid nodded her head down the hallway to their left, back the way she had just come. “It’s
