Then she listened to these individual Swiss people advise her. Work from hiding for a while, please. It could be done. Until they knew what had happened, and knew it wouldn’t happen to her too.
Can I live near Utoquai? Can I still go out swimming?
Probably not a good idea. It was well known she was a member of that swim club. Perhaps if she wanted very much to swim in the lake, they could go down the lakeshore and visit a private house, dive in from there.
Mary sighed. She saw immediately that her swimming was a social activity, that going out into the cold water was unpleasant enough to be a ritual that had to be shared by other sufferers to turn it pleasant. That and the shower and meal afterward, the kafi fertig. As with Tatiana, so many times. Their little ritual. She had been such a beauty, such a power.
Now Mary’s eyes were burning, now she was furious. Her Swiss helpers were standing around looking uncomfortable. Other people’s grief so awkward. One of the women officers sat down next to her, put a hand on her arm. She began to weep like a faucet.
When she stopped, she said, Get me Badim, please.
He was out of the office.
Get him on the phone! Now. And I’ll need to be able to confer with him, even when I’m hiding.
So she would agree to hide?
Yes. But in Zurich only. Same safe house she was in now would be best.
They nodded uneasily. If you were to stay in it all the time, for a while, maybe.
She agreed to that. Then she thought of Frank. Oh hell, she said. Fuck.
She asked for a phone, they gave her one. She called him.
He picked up. “I’m sorry your friend was killed,” he said immediately. “I heard about it on the news. I hope you’re being careful.”
“I am. Thank you. Did you find out anything from the doctors yet?”
“Well … They’re still working on it.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“They’re still working on it!”
As in, they found something wrong but I don’t want to tell you now, when you’re upset. Meaning it was bad.
“Tell me now,” she said furiously, “or I’ll think it’s worse than it is.”
He laughed.
“What!” she said, alarmed. He was laughing at the idea of there being something worse than what it was. “What is it!”
There was a silence. “Something in my head,” he said at last. “As always. But this time it’s visible on a scan. Some kind of tumor. They don’t know what kind yet. Could be benign.”
“Damn,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. Briefly he blew air between his lips. “Oh well. It was always going to be something.”
After another silence, she said, “I have to go into hiding for a while.”
“Good. Hide.”
“But I want to see you.”
An even longer silence. She thought maybe he didn’t approve. That he was letting her contemplate how strange she had become.
“We can talk like this,” he said.
“When will you know more?” she asked.
“I go back tomorrow.”
“All right. Good luck. I’ll stay in touch. I’ll come see you when I can.”
“Stay safe,” he told her. “If you aren’t safe, I don’t want to see you.”
“Did you get Badim for me?” she asked her minders.
They nodded. She handed them the phone and they tapped at it.
Badim came on the line. Mary stood and left her minders, went into her office, shut the door.
“Can you talk?” she asked him.
“Yes.”
“And is this phone private, do you think?”
“Yes.”
“So— who killed her?”
“We don’t know.”
She said angrily, “What good is your fucking black wing if it can’t figure out stuff like this?”
He let a silence stretch out, to make her hear how pointless and stupid her question was.
“I loved her too,” he said. “We all loved her.”
“I know.”
After a grim pause, both of them lost in their own worlds, he said, “I’ll tell you what I think, although most of it is obvious, stuff you probably already know. I think she was killed by Russians. Russia is really opaque at the top, but they’ve been making some bold moves lately, and I mean by that some good moves. Really important moves, both in the open and in the black. I think it’s very likely Tatiana was part of those. She kept a lot of contacts there. So, whenever a government changes direction like that, it leaves some people behind. They’re on the wrong side of the change, they’re scared, they get angry. If some of those people who got caught on the wrong side thought that Tatiana was part of the change, maybe even directing it, then killing her could stop the turn, or at least exact a cost for it.”
“Revenge.”
“Yes, but also maybe an attempt to reverse the change. Serve as a warning to the people Tatiana was working with, and so on.”
“All right. So that must mean just a few suspects.”
“A few thousand.”
“A few groups, I mean.”
“A few dozen groups. Russia has been a kleptocracy for a long time. The people who got rich after the fall of the Soviet Union, their kids have always felt like they ruled the world. So now it’s as fractured and complex as anywhere else.”
“Even at the top?”
“Especially at the top. This is a fight for how Russia operates.”
Mary sighed. “None of this will ever end.”
“That’s true.”
She thought about it for a while. “Listen, I’m not going to hide. I won’t be forced into hiding by this sort of thing.”
“It’s dangerous right now.”
“Are you in hiding?”
“Yes. I’ve got our whole team secured right now.”
“But if it was a Russian matter, like you say, then they won’t care about us.”
“Maybe.”
“I want to face up to them. To all of them, to everyone like them. Listen, this year’s COP meeting was
