“No matter who fights who, they will join neither side. Like Switzerland in Europe.”
“So our U.S. friends are completely surrounded by antagonism,” Karpov said.
“So it would seem. But what do we really care about North Amerikan countries?”
“We have internal problems you will be apprised of in New Arkhangel. If the southern countries were to act in tandem against us it would be very bad.”
“I didn’t see any unity or antagonism. But I saw a lot of spoiled people.”
“You’re becoming hardened,” Karpov said.
“Not hardened, envious. Every one of our agents-in-place lives on a grand scale compared to what my family has in Russia. Our woman in Montreal owns two automobiles!”
Grisha blinked. Karpov was a spymaster? They chartered Pravda~ for a debriefing session? It did make sense, after a fashion.
“No!” Karpov’s surprise carried clearly over the tiny earphone.
“Perhaps we should pay them less?”
“At least she provides us with accurate information. She told me there is softening about us in the western republics.”
“Didn’t you just come through California?”
“Yes. But our man in San Francisco spends all of his money on cannabis cigarettes, which makes him useless for days at a time. All he wanted to do was make love and eat.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Make love with him.”
“That is none of your
“It used to be.”
Something thumped on the table, and Grisha realized Karpov had been drinking vodka throughout the debriefing.
“Not anymore, Nikki. You’re just not my type.”
“You’d sleep with our
“He is pretty to look at, but he holds no interest for me beyond the objectives of our voyage. I am weary of men and their strutting and crowing.”
“You prefer women to sleep with, is what you mean?”
Valari stomped up the companionway. Grisha’s heart lurched as he jerked the tiny phone from his ear and hastily stuffed the wires back into their hidden compartment. She stormed past before he could shut the false molding, but she had eyes only for her anger and the passing scenery.
“That bastard is such a
“Someday I will kill him.”
“I believe he dropped out of finishing school,” Grisha said in a theatrical Californian accent. He quietly pushed the small door shut. The molding blended with the rest of the console. He wondered what she meant by
“the objectives of our voyage.”
When Valari laughed she almost looked pretty. “You’re married, aren’t you?”
The question caught him off guard.
“At the moment.”
“I’ve been out of the country for two years. What does ‘at the moment’ mean? Is it a marriage of convenience to obtain citizenship papers?”
“No. It means that at any moment she is going to leave me for another man.”
“Oh.”
Grisha made a show of checking his charts. He glanced at his watch and immediately powered up the radio.
“…move across the Alexandr Archipelago by nightfall. Thirty-knot winds increasing to forty to fifty knots by morning. Seas two to three meters. For the outside waters, Dixon Entrance to Christian Sound, smallcraft warning. Seas two to four meters. West winds forty knots increasing to fifty-five by morning—”
Grisha snapped off the radio and peered at the horizon. A dark line rapidly moved out of the west, staining the abnormal blue sky back to familiar tones.
“We’re in for some rough weather,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “Are we in any danger?”
He tried to laugh, but even to him it sounded more like a bark.
“One is always in danger in Russian Amerika, one way or another.”
“Is this one of your pithy Native American sayings?”
“It’s truth, like my boat.”
“How can a boat be truth?” she asked with more than a hint of angry sarcasm.
“How can it be a lie?”
Karpov emerged from the cabin, vodka bottle in hand. “I’m hungry.”
A gust of cold wind heeled the boat over to starboard. The temperature dropped ten degrees in as many seconds.
Karpov braced himself and stared out at the rapidly advancing weather.
“Storm?” he said in a small voice.
Grisha started to smile at their discomfort but stopped himself. It would not do to laugh at the wind.
“
Karpov hastily drank from the bottle. He peered at Valari.
“You will go below with me, now.”
She scowled back. “In the Amerikas they have the perfect expression for someone like you. Would you like to know it?”
Karpov quietly stared at her, eyes hidden in wrinkled folds of skin.
“Go fuck yourself, is what they say. I think you should do that now.”
With surprising speed he lunged forward and slapped her open-handed. Her head smacked against the bulkhead with a solid thunk and she emitted a startled yell.
“Hey!” Grisha shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Karpov turned to face him. His English had gained polish. “This is none of your concern, Captain Grigorievich. You are being well paid. You will drive the boat and mind your own business.”
Grisha clenched his teeth and said nothing. Karpov gathered Valari in one arm and hauled her down the companionway as if she were a sack of oats.
Then the storm caught them and Karpov started his last fight.
3
“Ready?”
Valari nodded sharply.
“Hup!”
They swung the stiffing body off the deck and up onto the gunwale at the stern, balancing it carefully. The memory of butchering hogs flashed through his mind.
“Okay, I’ll hold him, put the box on his chest.”
She bent over and grabbed the box tied to the corpse with a short line, sat it in the middle of Karpov’s chest.
“Push!” Grisha ordered.
The body splashed into the water and, spinning in a slow circle behind the heavy box of weapons, sank
