evening.”
JACK, PUTTING away his cell phone, was running the multiple vectors of the information the president had given him. Much of the information seemed contradictory or an outright lie. He didn’t for a moment think that Benson and Thomson had anyone’s best interest in mind except theirs. According to the president they didn’t want the accord with Yukin signed. It was their contention that both the accord and its chief architect, General Brandt, were a danger to the country, but were they telling the truth? From the damning evidence that Paull had discovered it seemed they were telling the truth about Brandt. Were they then lying about the danger inherent in the accord? He already knew from Kharkishvili the likelihood of events if it was signed tomorrow. If he was to find a way out of this damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t conundrum he had less than twenty-four hours to do it.
His musings were interrupted by Kharkishvili striding purposefully toward him.
“Mr. McClure, I’m glad I caught you. I’ve received some alarming news.”
At once Jack’s mind sprang backward to the aide bending over Kharkishvili, whispering in his ear, and that strange, circumspect look Kharkishvili had given Annika.
“Annika’s uncle Gourdjiev has shot one of AURA’s members, a dissident oligarch and a friend of mine by the name of Riet Medanovich Boronyov.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” Jack said. “What on earth would cause him to murder one of your people?”
“I have no idea,” Kharkishvili confessed. “Nevertheless, he shot Boronyov in front of two of Batchuk’s men and gave the body over to them, this was confirmed by an eyewitness.” Kharkishvili appeared genuinely distraught. “This is a disaster, because Boronyov was one of the dissidents who, as far as Batchuk and
Now Jack gleaned another piece of the puzzle: Like Annika, Dyadya Gourdjiev was a part of AURA, but if so why had he killed a man who their enemies already thought was dead?
“Perhaps Boronyov was a double agent,” Jack said, “secretly working for Batchuk.”
Kharkishvili shook his head emphatically. “Impossible. We met as young strivers, I ate Sunday dinner with him and his family, we shared business deals.”
“All of which proves nothing,” Jack pointed out, “except that he was a perfect candidate for a double.” He’d already thought of the reason this could not be true, but before he had a chance to speak, Kharkishvili shook his head even more vigorously.
“No, I fear it’s Gourdjiev who’s the traitor. He and Batchuk have a long history together, longer, closer even than the one I had with Boronyov. For years, he has pretended to be Batchuk’s friend, but what if that was also a ruse, what if they’re actual allies, working hand in hand?”
“There is, or was, no double inside AURA,” Jack said with authority. “If Batchuk knew you were alive all the time you’d all be dead by now, there would be no AURA to oppose him and Yukin.”
“And yet Gourdjiev must be in league with Batchuk now,” Kharkishvili said. “There is no other explanation for his action.”
“You don’t like Dyadya Gourdjiev, do you?”
“What?”
Jack could see that Kharkishvili’s annoyance was masking both shock and consternation, and he knew that he had hit on something vital. “You don’t like Gourdjiev and I’d like to know why.”
“So would I.”
The two men turned to see Annika, who had come up silently behind them and was now standing with her feet slightly apart, arms crossed over her breasts, between Kharkishvili and the relative sanctuary of the dining room.
GENERAL BRANDT, sitting in an arcade off Red Square that had an unobstructed view of the brooding walls and towers of the Kremlin, wondered what it would be like to be all energy. Watching the snow falling in endless curtains he tried to imagine the world from a snow-flake’s point of view: the pure cold, the clean symmetrical design, the absolute quiet. Who wouldn’t want that time to think undisturbed by civilization’s anxieties, tensions, and clumsy attempts at manipulation. The urge to maintain control was unknown in a snowflake’s world, and it was better off for it.
Every hour of every day control was slipping away from him. He could no longer bench press twice his weight, his arthritic left knee made it impossible for him to run a mile a day as he had for decades since he was thirteen, his hair was becoming fine as well as thin, he could no longer eat chili dogs or Tabasco without suffering the consequences, and there were nights when he gazed at young girls with the detached wistfulness of an old man. There was no doubt about it, his body was deteriorating at an alarming rate, coming apart at the seams, as it were, and more and more he found that he no longer wanted to be a part of it or, more accurately, in it. How much easier it would be to be pure energy, not to have to worry about his rotting flesh, which continued to betray him at every turn.
He was at a loss to say when this nihilistic worldview had come over him, perhaps he’d always had the seed of it deep inside his pragmatic, highly regimented mind. With a paranoid’s unmatched cunning he suspected the seed had started to take root the moment he retired from the military, which had been his stern father and his comforting mother for over forty years. The world outside the military seemed a strange and unpleasant place for him, until he learned to back away from it just enough so that it lapped at the fringe of his reality and nothing more. Being a talking head on TV was an excellent way to insulate himself, to remain unapproachable, solitary, hidden in plain sight. The more he appeared on TV, the more the idiot anchorpersons asked their fatuous questions, the further he receded into himself. All glory is fleeting, to paraphrase George Patton, one of Brandt’s patron saints, but that was fine because he had had enough of glory, TV had made him sick of it, or more accurately, what passed for glory in this postmodern age. Now all he craved was security, which his pension did not assure, especially because his Down’s syndrome son needed care far above and beyond what his health insurance was willing to pay. It seemed odd, not to mention unfair, that after spending his entire adult life in the service of his country he had become obsessed with money, something that in his younger days he didn’t think about at all because his housing, food, and travel expenses were all paid for by the United States Army.
He looked at his watch now as the waiter brought him a double espresso with a shot of vodka, which he drank quickly with a sharp tilt of his head like the old, grizzled Italian fisherman he’d met in Key West. He liked the Keys; it was his long-cherished dream to move to Marathon or Islamorada and fish, bask in the sun, and get stone drunk at ten in the morning whenever the hell he felt like it.
As soon as he finished his heavily fortified coffee he checked his watch again and frowned. It was past time for Yukin to call him via his encrypted line. He signaled the waiter for another double, and sat brooding, his head sunk between his bony shoulders, glowering at the spotlit facade of the Kremlin as if he could will Yukin to call him. The silence was deafening, mystifying, which required drowning in alcohol and caffeine. He downed his second drink as fast as he had the first, so fast, in fact, that the waiter hadn’t yet left the table.
“One more,” Brandt said in excellent Russian. “And bring the bottle.”
The waiter nodded and departed without comment.
And that was another thing, Brandt thought gloomily, Moscow was too fucking cold, even in April—I mean, snow, for chrissakes! This furtive spring might as well be January. Unconsciously he rubbed his palms down his thighs in an attempt to bring more circulation into them. At least the drinks had warmed his belly.
The waiter arrived at approximately the same time as his cell phone buzzed. He let it ring, his heart heavy in his chest, until the waiter had set the coffee and the bottle of vodka on the table and left.
“Yes,” he said, the cell clamped to his ear.
“Everything is sealed and delivered, it’s just wanting signing,” Yukin’s familiar voice said in his ear. “He loved that I caved on all those provisions I never wanted. You were quite correct; causing him to focus on the minutia of the accord was the way to get it done.”
The General drained half the cup in one swallow, then unscrewed the top of the bottle and poured an imprudent amount of vodka into his espresso. And right then and there he felt the intense hatred for the Russians —not just Yukin and Batchuk—he’d always felt but had suppressed for so many years, that had caused him unnumbered ulcerous bouts and sleepless nights as soon as he had been taken out of the field in order to deal with
