truth was. We needed to tie the whole thing together. Powers far above me decided that the story about Austin taking a lover would work. We’d tell the world your wife had an affair with Austin and that she shot him dead out of jealousy. Anna came to the precinct and acted out of revenge. It squared with the facts. There were photos of your wife at the murder scene. We doctored some photos so that we had images of your wife meeting Austin in his apartment, cutting out Elena and replacing her with images of Raisa. Those photos were rushed. Take a look at them closely: the proportions are out of line. Osip Feinstein’s store was burnt down, with him inside it, the Soviet punishment for betraying them. There were small-scale riots. There were civil-rights marches but nothing of consequence and certainly no revolution. In the end, the majority believed the murders were the result of a tragic romance. Only the Negroes doubted it, and even then, most didn’t care. The whole thing worked out so well I couldn’t believe the FBI wanted me to quit. They claimed I should have acted to stop the murder of Jesse Austin.
Yates shook his head. It was clear that he was troubled not by the murder, nor by the death of three people, but by the fact that he’d lost his job. He was a villain convinced he was a hero.
As Nara finished the translation, Yates warned them:
– There’s nothing you can do. It’s history no one cares about. No one will believe you. No newspaper will publish it. There’s no evidence. If you try and cause problems my government will kick you both out the country. I’ve got nothing else to say. If you expected an apology, you’ve wasted your time. The affair cost me my job, a job I loved and a job I was good at, so I paid my dues too. Now, we’re done talking. If you don’t get out of my house right now I’ll make the phone call and have you both sent back to that hell-hole Afghanistan.
Leo gripped hold of one of the biographies on the table. As Yates moved within range he swung it, striking him across the jaw, knocking the former agent to the floor. Moving at speed, he took the gun from his pocket, kneeling on his chest, pinning him down and saying in Russian:
– I’ve done worse things than kill a man like you.
Leo looked up at a terrified Nara, saying in Dari:
– Translate for me.
– Leo!
– Translate!
He turned back to face Yates.
– My wife didn’t die instantly. It took twenty minutes. She died from loss of blood. Maybe Anna Austin did shoot her by mistake but you let her die, didn’t you? Maybe you were worried Raisa would tell the world Anna Austin tried to shoot you? My wife was lying on the floor, desperate for help – you saw an opportunity, didn’t you?
Leo struck Yates across the face with the gun, splitting his lip.
– Answer me!
Yates spat blood, listening to Nara as she translated. He was calm, saying:
– No matter what you do to me your wife will always be remembered as a whore.
Hearing the translation, Leo cocked the gun, saying in English:
– Tell me how she died.
Yates didn’t answer. Leo moved the gun to the exact position where Raisa had been shot, the barrel pressing against Yates’s stomach.
– Tell me.
Yates shook his head. Leo pulled the trigger.
Same Day
Nara dropped to floor beside Yates, moving to help. Leo stopped her, saying:
– He’s been shot in the same place as my wife was shot. It took her twenty minutes to die. Tell him that he might have that long. But he’s older and the bullet was fired at point-blank range. In all likelihood, he has less time.
Nara translated, stumbling over the words. Leo continued, calmly:
– In this soundproofed room no one will have heard the shot. The only way he’s going to survive is if I show him the mercy he failed to show my wife. I’ll consider doing that if he tells me the truth.
Nara translated, pleading with Yates to speak. Leo directed his Russian at Yates as though he could understand.
– When Anna Austin fired at you, you fired back, not another officer. You shot and killed her, didn’t you? And once she was dead you realized the trouble you were suddenly in. You’d visited Jesse Austin that same day. He was dead. And now you’d shot his wife. You saw my injured wife as an opportunity: she was injured, seriously, but she wasn’t going to die, not if you’d sought help. The cover-up wasn’t your superior’s idea. It was your idea. But in order for your plan to work my wife needed to die. Isn’t that right?
Yates squeezed his lips tight, refusing to speak. He tried to stem the bleeding, putting pressure on the wound, ignoring the questions. Leo pulled Yates’s hand away: keeping the wound exposed, blood continuing to flow, saying in Russian:
– Did you do that to my wife? Did you pull her hand away? You let her bleed?
Yates’s brow overed with sweat, his body shaking. Leo said:
– You delayed calling the ambulance?
Nara translated, no longer stumbling over the words, levelling the accusation at him. She wanted an answer too. Yates said nothing.
Leo didn’t raise his voice, speaking as though addressing a child:
– Yates, you’re running out of time. If you don’t answer I will watch you die as you watched my wife. I will consider the events before me a replay of what happened in New York, and I don’t need you to speak in order to understand that night. I’m prepared to watch, like this, as you bleed to death.
Yates was the master of reading people’s weaknesses and could surely see that there was no uncertainty in Leo.
– You stayed with her, didn’t you? For twenty minutes, making sure of her death? You came up with the idea of tying the murders together, claiming that Anna killed Raisa, that it was an act of revenge, but not against you.
Yates sat up, regarding his bloody shirt, red all the way up to his chest, spreading out across the patchwork carpet. Leo said in English:
– Speak to me.
Finally, Yates reacted. He nodded. Leo grabbed his face.
– Not good enough. I want to hear you speak. Tell me: did you let her die?
Yates’s teeth were bloody. He said:
– Yes, I let her die.
Leo’s voice was almost a whisper.
– My wife spent the last moments of her life with you. Describe them for me.
Yates had turned ghostly pale. He shut his eyes. Leo slapped him across the face, forcing him to respond. Yates opened his mouth but didn’t speak. Leo said:
– Her last minutes. I want to know.
Yates tried to touch the bullet wound but Leo kept a grip on his hand.
– You don’t have much time.
Yates spoke. His words sounded like a man struggling to keep afloat, snatched breaths, panicking.
– I told her there was an ambulance on its way. She didn’t believe me. She knew I was lying. She tried to call out for help. Once she realized there was no help she became peaceful. Her breathing was slow. I thought it was going to take a few minutes but almost fifteen minutes passed. There was a lot of blood. I thought she was ready to die.
He shook his head.
– She began to speak. Very quietly, like she was praying. I thought it had to be Russian. But she was
