Hard Currency

“You will,” said the babalau.

Rostnikov was not sure how he got to his feet, whether he had stood or been lifted. The next thing he knew he was standing outside next to the big gray tree that cracked the stone walkway to the babalau’s room.

“We are here because this tree is here,” said Javier in English. “The mother of the babalau brought us to the giver of life. It is not buildings or monuments we worship, but the symbols of life we respect and draw strength from. We do not kill women for their bodies, for spite, for revenge. We do not kill. The son of a babalau who will himself be a babalau knows better than to let the animal that lives within us all out of the cage of our ribs. We do not ask you to believe as we do. We ask you to respect who we are. Our tradition will not fall when a government dies. Do you understand?”

Rostnikov reached out and touched the tree, partly to steady himself and partly to reassure himself that he was awake. The tree felt cool and reassuring in the heat of the night.

Then Rostnikov was in the back seat of the car.

“The sun will be up soon,” said Javier.

Rostnikov tried to shake off the taste of rum and the sound of imagined rain. He had something to say, but before he could say it he was on an elevator, one arm around George, the other around someone he vaguely remembered as a desk clerk at the hotel.

Then he was in his bed. He was alone. As he looked at the stains on the ceiling, he sensed that the sun was coming gently through the closed blinds and that the ghost of Maria Fernandez, which haunted this room, was whispering something he could not quite understand.

Something the babalau had said made him feel that he should take some action, but he also felt that it was too late and would be far too difficult.

Porfiry Petrovich closed his eyes. There was an image of snow, the Moscow winter snow of his childhood, and the sound of his friends, Mikhail, Ilya, Feodor, calling across the park in a language he did not know.

Later he would rise. Later he would face the killer of Maria Fernandez. Later when the snow of his dreams melted in the hot morning sun of the island.

Two floors below the room in which Rostnikov was falling asleep, Elena Timofeyeva opened her eyes and turned to look at Sanchez, who was wide awake and staring at her.

“Good morning,” he said in Russian.

“Good morning,” Elena responded in Russian.

“I must go,” he said, getting out of bed. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

Elena nodded and pulled the sheet up to cover her large breasts.

Sanchez, as her fingers had confirmed the night before, was covered with scars. His back was scarred, he had said, from beatings by a street gang. Other scars, on his legs, stomach, neck, came from encounters with drunks, petty criminals, and a pair of women who didn’t like the fact that Sanchez had stepped into their quarrel. He had told her all these things in the night. He had observed after touching her that she was very young, that the smoothness of her skin attested to her inexperience as a police officer.

Elena had accepted Sanchez’s offer to drive her back to the hotel so that she could cover for Rostnikov. At least that was what she had told herself, and Sanchez, she was now sure, had let her get away with the illusion that he was being taken in.

“He is probably in his room,” she had said. “But I would rather not wake him. He gets little sleep and when he does he sleeps soundly.”

“Perhaps the desk clerk can confirm that he returned,” Sanchez had suggested.

“I doubt it,” Elena had said. “He doesn’t check the key.”

“Still,” Sanchez had said, as they parked in front of the hotel and he stepped out.

“Does it really matter?” she asked.

“I am concerned for the safety of Chief Inspector Rostnikov. He is under my protection. You are both under my protection. When I leave you at your door, I will have to make inquiries, perhaps knock at his door. I have no choice.”

It was then that Elena had decided. When they arrived at her hotel room door she had stood for an instant, long enough to encourage him to lean over and kiss her. His kiss was soft and lingering, and his arms pulled her close to him. She had felt her breasts against his chest, his excitement between her legs.

She had invited him in.

He had been prepared, an American condom in his pocket, and he had been gentle and loving. Elena had told herself that she was doing it to protect Rostnikov, but she knew that it was also from her own desire, perhaps her own need.

There had been none of the self-absorbed frenzy of the two Russians she had gone to bed with, and none of the false concern of the American she had slept with when she was a student in Boston. Sanchez was older than any of these and he made love slowly, enjoying her growing arousal and matching it to his own.

In the middle of the night, he had awakened her for more with a hand between her legs. Or perhaps, if she wished to be honest, she had aroused him by rubbing against him as he faced away from her in sleep.

Now, with the morning, he stood by the window, his body dark and strong, his face lined and handsome.

She watched him as he dressed.

“You have the best breasts I have ever seen or tasted,” he said, smiling at her as he buttoned his shirt.

“Thank you,” she said. “What will you tell your wife?”

“I had to work all night. I have to work many nights.”

“I see,” she said.

“We have hurt no one,” he said. “And we have given pleasure to both of us. We have also satisfied a curiosity which would have caused us an agonizing sense of lost opportunity.”

He finished tying his shoes and stood to look down at her.

“Elena Timofeyeva,” he said, “I know where your chief inspector went last night.”

She said nothing. She wondered if he saw her as she saw herself-a puffy-faced creature with dull straight hair and a flat look on her face.

“I doubt if we will be able to do this again without someone finding out,” said Sanchez. “I would like to, but it would probably be best for both of us if it did not happen. We will see. If you choose, the pleasure of this night will be forever sealed within my memory.”

“Very poetic for a revolutionary,” she said, knowing her voice was a morning rasp and her accent in Spanish almost out of control.

“I am a well-read revolutionary,” he said with a sigh, moving to the bed and leaning over to kiss her.

Elena wanted to reach for him, pull him back to her, feel him beside her and then inside her. She wanted to lose herself in this man she did not know and who was almost certainly lying to her, but she did not.

She returned his kiss and let the sheet slip from her breasts. He moved his mouth to one exposed breast, tasted her nipple with his lips, and quickly left the room.

Alone, Elena felt neither guilt nor love. The moment of lust had passed and she wanted to get up and stand in the shower as long as the hot water was willing to trickle out of the corroded, ancient nozzle.

She wondered if she would tell her aunt about this when she got back to Moscow and decided that she would not if she could possibly keep herself from doing it.

As she got up she understood the feeling she did not want to face. She did not want Rostnikov to know what had happened. She did not want him to know because Rostnikov’s son, Iosef, was clearly in love with her and she felt that she might want to accept that love. If Rostnikov knew, even if he never spoke, it would be too much to bear. Her hope now was that Sanchez would be true to his vow of silence. It was a hope in which, as she stepped out of bed to the bright reality of this Havana morning, she had little faith.

The fifteen men the Gray Wolfhound had managed to pull from the Criminal Investigation Division and the Traffic Division were far fewer than Emil Karpo and Sasha Tkach needed. If Karpo was right, Tahpor would attack tonight in or near a Metro station.

Following his conversation with Yevgeny Odom, Karpo had dressed and walked the two miles to Petrovka. He had written his report and turned it in to Colonel Snitkonoy with a copy to Sasha Tkach.