talk?”
“Mm, yes.” Panin, having taken a mouthful, puts his glass down. “Do you have any clues to its whereabouts?”
“Have what?” I ask cautiously.
“The teapot.”
“Tea—” I take another mouthful of ESB. “Pot?” There was something about a teapot in those letters, wasn’t there? Something Choudhury said in the meeting, maybe?
“It’s missing.” Panin sounds impatient. “Your people have lost it, yes?”
I decide to play dumb. “If any teapots have gone missing, I suppose Facilities would be the people who’d deal with that . . . Why do you ask?”
“You English!” For a moment, Panin looks exasperated, then he quickly pulls a lid over it. “The teapot is missing,” he repeats, as if to a very slow pupil. “It has been missing since last week. Everyone is looking for it, us, you, the opposition . . . ! You were its last keepers. Please, I implore you, find it? For all our sakes, find it before the wrong people get their hands on it and
Committed to paper, this dialogue might sound comical: but coming from Panin’s mouth, in his soft, clipped diction, it is anything but.
I shiver. “Ungern Sternberg’s teapot didn’t get misplaced by accident,” I hazard.
Panin’s response takes me by surprise: “Idiot!” He leans back in disgust, raises his glass, and takes a deep and disrespectful swig. “You are fishing, now.”
Bother, I’ve been rumbled. “’Fraid so. Let me level with you? I know it’s missing, but that’s all I know. But I’ll tell you what, if you can tell me what happened in Amsterdam last Wednesday and why it followed my wife home on Thursday I would be very grateful.”
“Amster—” Panin shuts his mouth with a click. “Your wife is unhurt, I hope?” he asks, all nervous solicitude.
“Shaken.” But not stirred. “The—intruder—was attributed to your people, did you know that?”
“Not unexpected.” Panin makes a gesture of dismissal with one hand. “They do that, you know. To muddy the waters.”
“Who? The opposition?”
Panin gives me that look again, the look you might give to the friendly but stupid puppy that’s just widdled on the carpet for the third time that day. “Tell me, Mr. Howard, what do
I sigh. “Not much, it seems. I have been seconded to a committee that’s trying to work out why you folks are currently running up an eBay reputation score like there’s no tomorrow. I am trying to deal with an unpleasant domestic situation, namely work following my wife home. My boss is out of the office, and I’m trying to pick up the pieces. If you thought you could shake me down for useful information, I’m afraid you picked the wrong spy. I could tell you more than you could possibly want to know about the structured cabling requirements for our new headquarter building’s fourth subbasement, but when it comes to missing teapots, nobody put me on the flash priority classified briefing list.”
“I see.” Panin looks gloomy. “Well, Mr. Howard, many would not believe you—but I do. So, here is my card.” He passes me a plain white business card—unprinted on either side, but pressed from a very high grade of linen weave. It makes my fingertips tingle. “Should you have anything to discuss, call me.”
I slide it into my breast pocket. “Thanks.”
“As for the teapot, it was never the same after Ungern Sternberg retrieved it from the Bogd Khan’s altar.”
He’s studying my face. I do my best not to twitch. I’ve heard those names before. “I’ll keep my eyes open for it,” I reassure him.
“I’m sure you will,” he says gravely. “After all, it would be in everyone’s best interests for the teapot to return to its rightful office.” He drains his beer glass. “I will see you around, I am sure,” he says, rising.
“Bye.” I raise my glass to his back as he turns towards the door, shoulders hunched.
CLASSIFIED: S76/47 ANNEX A
Dear Mother,
Salutations from Urga! I greet you as Khan Sternberg, Outstanding Prosperous-State Hero of Mongolia, first warlord and general of the Living Buddha and Emperor of Mongolia, His Holiness Bogd Djebtsung Damba Hutuktu! Great events, bloody battle, heroic struggle, and glorious victory have contrived to elevate me to the threshold of my destiny, as inheritor of the empire of Genghis Khan. It is spring in Mongolia, and already I have purged this land of Bolsheviks, terrorists, and subhumans; soon my armies will commence their march on St. Petersburg, to restore the blessed Prince Michael to his rightful throne and to cleanse Mother Russia of the depravity of revolution and the filthy degenerates who have turned their back on the holy Tsar.
(Once I have restored the Tsar I consider it my duty to retake those lands that have been stolen from the Empire, including our homeland. I trust you will think kindly of me for raising the yoke of anarchist tyranny from the necks of the true aristocracy of Estonia when I come to purify the Baltic lands and restore the just weight of monarchy to the upstart Poles.)
The conquest of Urga presented me with a considerable challenge, and I shall describe it for you. Urga lies in a valley between hills, along the banks of the Tula river. When I laid siege to it, the river was frozen; but the degenerate Chinese occupiers had constructed trenches, barricades and barbed wire defenses around Upper Maimaichen . . .
[
Now
When we stormed the palace of the Bogd Khan to take the Living Buddha from his Chinese captors, the fighting was fierce: after liberating His Holiness my men executed a tactical withdrawal. But once his excellency was safe, when I ordered the main attack on the Chinese host occupying the city, I detailed a reliable man—my ensign Evgenie Burdokovskii, who the men call Teapot—to secure the treasury against looters. It is a sad fact that Reds and wreckers are everywhere and in these degenerate times the swine I have to work with—rejects and deserters of the once-great army—are as likely to turn to banditry and crime as to bend the neck before my righteous authority. Burdokovskii is a stout fellow, a cossack: powerful and broad-chested, with a little curly blond head and a narrow forehead. He always does what I ask of him, which is a blessing, and if there is one man I would trust to stand guard on a treasure-house for me, it is he.
During the occupation, Teapot set his sixteen men to stand guard with bayonets fixed outside the great hall where the treasures and gifts of five hundred lamaseries are kept. It is a remarkable place, a museum of wonders unknown in all of Europe. There is a library with shelves devoted to manuscripts in a myriad of languages, and there are chests full of amber from the shores of the Northern Sea, carved walrus and ivory tusks, rings with sapphires and rubies from China and India, rough diamonds the size of your fingertip, bags of golden thread filled with pearls, and side-rooms filled with cases containing statues of the Living Buddha made from every precious material under the sun.
Now Teapot is among the most obedient of my officers, but in the course of restoring order to the city and chasing the remaining enemy rabble out into the wilderness it was some days before I could return with the Bogd Khan to inspect his treasures. In that time I am afraid to say that he disgraced himself. Teapot did not steal the Buddha’s treasures, else I would have hanged him as high as any other wretch; but he idly looked through the library, and I fear what he did may turn out for the worse in the long run.
There are, as you can imagine, scrolls and books unnumbered in there, and they include the most remarkable works of sorcery and prophecy imaginable. All the numerous punishments of hell that are reserved for souls who indulge in the sins of the flesh are documented and indeed illustrated in the finest, one might almost say pornographic, detail. It was to these works that Teapot allowed his salacious imagination to draw him.
It is not clear exactly when Teapot found the scroll, but two days after the fall of the palace his sergeant was dismayed to come upon him lying on the floor of the library, crying inarticulately and clutching a crumpled fragment of scripture in his chubby hands. According to the other witnesses, who I have questioned diligently, Teapot showed other signs of distress: bleeding from the eyes, moaning, and clutching his belly.
They put him to bed in the hospital supervised by Dr. Klingenberg, who was minded to euthanize Teapot to
