Counterplay

even the scars from the burns on his face did not subtract from the overall attractiveness of Yvgeny. Careful, old girl, Marlene cautioned herself, keep thinking this way and you’ll be fantasizing about a Marlene sandwich.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Vladimir said.

“Uh, they aren’t worth that much,” she replied, wondering if the old man’s sly smile meant he’d read her mind.

A chessboard was set up on the coffee table in front of the couch. When Yvgeny noticed Karp’s attention drawn to it, he asked, “Do you play?”

Karp shook his head. “Not really. Or perhaps I should say ‘horribly,’ a real amateur…a sort of ‘last man standing’ strategy that would get me whipped by either one of my sons.”

“Ah, but so very American,” Yvgeny said, picking up a silver cigar box and opening it to offer one to Karp, who declined, and to Marlene, who accepted. “The subtleties don’t interest you, you’d rather…how do you say it…‘slug it out.’ Always rushing in where the proverbial angels fear to tread.”

“Are you saying Americans are fools?” Karp asked with a smile. He knew his cousin was trying to bait him and he was willing to rise to it for the time being.

“Perhaps,” Yvgeny said. “Or maybe just naive, a sort of innocent belief in yourselves. But there must be something to it that allowed the United States to become the most powerful nation ever on the planet, more powerful than even the old Soviet Union. Maybe it is your bigger-than-life mythology…good guys in white hats always beating the bad guys in black hats…you don’t believe you can lose, and so you don’t lose. You are always so reluctant to start a fight-or, more importantly in today’s world, to strike first-even though you know you are being threatened. It is almost as though you cannot fight back until pushed nearly to the brink of not being able to fight at all.”

“How do you mean?”

“Your history is replete with examples of what I am talking about. The easiest is, of course, American reluctance to enter World War Two. If the Japanese had not been so stupid as to attack and waken the sleeping giant, you would have probably not started fighting until it was too late…your allies already gone down in flames, and you would have been standing alone against the darkness. It is the same now with this so-called War on Terrorism. You have been attacked-repeatedly-and yet you treat each incident as if it were some sort of separate crime, instead of an act of war. You worry about such things as ‘profiling’ young Muslim men because of your sense of fair play and not wanting to discriminate, yet it is young male Muslim extremists who are intent on murdering all of us. You have the power to obliterate entire regions where you know your enemy is hiding, yet you send in your troops to do the slow, dirty work-and to die-because you don’t want to risk harming ‘innocent’ civilians.”

“Is that so bad?” Karp asked.

“Only if you want to survive,” Yvgeny countered. “For one thing, those citizens are probably not so innocent if they are lending support, recruits, and a base of operations to your enemies. You cannot fight this war the way you are going about it, not if you want to win it. You are simply not killing them fast enough, or enough of them, to discourage the rest, even in Iraq. But you are reluctant to bring the full force of your military power down on their heads because it would look like you are the bully, and Americans hate bullies.”

Yvgeny shook his head. “Once again, you will wait until you are pushed to the brink, before you will act as you did against the Japanese and Germans in World War Two, brutally, ruthlessly, and accepting nothing except unconditional surrender or death. The problem is that when you wait too long, you start at a disadvantage, which will cost more lives than it otherwise might have-innocent lives as the terrorists kill until finally you say ‘enough’ and do what it takes to put a stop to it. But this time, if you wait too long, you might not win at all, your culture-all Western culture-could be wiped out except what is allowed according to the whims of a despotic religious leader, a Caliph. Even now it will be difficult to turn the tide. I know these people; I fought them in Chechnya and Afghanistan. It is nothing for them to lose their lives.”

Karp’s eyes had widened at the mention of the Caliph and again at Chechnya. He would have liked his cousin’s take on the issue, but Yvgeny reached out and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Come, let us go eat,” Yvgeny said. “This is not the time for political discussions. I am sorry to have climbed up onto my soap stand.”

“Box…soapbox,” Karp said. “It’s an expression.”

“Yes, soapbox-an interesting concept; you’ll have to tell me the derivation of it sometime,” Yvgeny said. “But I shouldn’t have given such a speech. Besides, what effect can an American district attorney and a Russian…ah… businessman have on such enormous affairs of state?”

“You never know,” Karp said. “It’s why we have a First Amendment protecting free speech and a free press. Without discussion and debate-whether between two people or among two million-we will indeed be lost.”

“Well said, cousin,” Yvgeny laughed. “Spoken like a true American.”

Dinner was soon served in the formal dining room, a collection of dark teak, leather, brass, and crystal that could have been brought piecemeal out of Tsarist Russia with its portraits of ancient nobility, tapestries, and Greek Orthodox icons of varying sizes on the walls. Even the meal was Russian-several courses consisting mainly of pelmeni, which were small balls of minced meat covered with pastry, shashlik, a seasoned and broiled lamb dish, potato vareniki and mushrooms in sour cream sauce, all of it accompanied by a powerful red rkatsiteli wine from Anapa. “That’s a famous wine-producing resort area on the Black Sea,” said Vladimir, who had enjoyed pointing out where each dish and wine had come from in Russia, as well as giving a bit of the history of either the course or the region. His tales were accented by a young man playing the balalaika in the background.

The wine kept flowing and none of them were feeling any pain by the time they rose from the dinner table and retired to the library. The room was another tribute to Russian dramatics with its enormous fireplace in which a roaring blaze had been laid, and row upon row of books from floor to ceiling, some of which could be reached only by rolling ladders. Again Marlene sat down on a couch next to Vladimir, while Karp sank into an overstuffed leather chair next to her.

Yvgeny poured a round of cognac for each and then passed his cigar box. Karp was going to turn him down again, but saw that Marlene had already cut the tip off of another and was happily puffing away with Vladimir, so he decided what the hell and followed suit.

“Thank you for your wonderful company this evening,” Vladimir said, toasting the others. “Still, I realize that it comes at some danger for your political aspirations. I apologize for asking you to come here, but I cannot travel to Manhattan to see you-there are too many people watching you and your family, not all of them well intentioned, but I’m sure you know that. We made sure that you were not followed here; my men were waiting when you came over the bridge and would have intercepted any intruders. The cab driver was also one of my people, and he will take you home.”

Karp, who was feeling a little light-headed after just two puffs and a sip of cognac, waved off the apology. “We should have done this sooner, Uncle Vladimir,” he said. “Marlene’s right: families need to touch base.”

The old man smiled. “Yes, Karchovski or Karp, we are the same blood. Which is why I felt the need to talk to you tonight, but mostly have you listen to my son, Yvgeny. It involves Andrew Kane, which is why I thought it important enough to discuss it face-to-face and away from prying eyes and ears…. Anyway, the first part of this, I can fill you in on. Quite simply, you have probably noticed a large influx of money into your opponent’s campaign coffers. This sooka-pardon my Russian, Marlene-this Rachman has…what is the expression?…hitched her wagon to a dark star. The money behind her campaign is coming from people and businesses with ties to Mr. Kane.”

“Are you sure about that?” Karp asked, sitting up and trying to clear his head.

“Yes,” the old man replied. “I confess to have taken some amateurish interest in your campaign-not to interfere, mind you-and was perusing the campaign contribution public records on the computer and noticed first the influx of money, and then a trend of who it was coming from. Some of it is from members of the social elite, as well as law firms and businesses who had ties to Kane’s former election campaign; some is being generated among a more secretive group of people whose names you might not recognize unless you travel in certain ‘less desirable’ circles more attuned to Mr. Kane’s illegal activities.”

Vladimir leaned forward and pushed a sheaf of papers that had been lying on the coffee table toward Marlene, who picked them up and began looking through them. “I’ve highlighted some of the more interesting contributors,” he said.