somewhat since they left the warehouse area of the airport. It looked deserted, but it wasn’t — a pair of headlights appeared on the opposite shoulder. They belonged to a Toyota pickup, which revved across the pavement. The driver pulled close enough to their car that Dean could smell his breath when he rolled down the window. Joan of Arc handed him an envelope and the truck flew away. She put the car in gear immediately, continuing down the long, dark expanse. After about a minute and a half, she took a turn onto what seemed to be a dirt road; fifty yards of potholes later they whipped onto a highway, just in front of a panel truck.
“One damn truck on the road for miles and it nearly flattens us,” she said after accelerating from the squealing tires and piercing horn. “You’re bad luck, Charles Dean.”
“My friends call me Charlie,” he told her.
“I’m not your friend.”
Dean slid the knife blade back up his sleeve and brought his arm back to his lap. “What’s your name?”
“I told you. Joan of Arc.”
“You’re not much of a comedienne.”
“True. I like the meaty tragic roles.” She shifted a bit in the seat. “Lia DeFrancesca.”
“Funny, you don’t look Italian.”
“My parents are second-generation Italian-Americans. I’m adopted. No bullshit, Charlie.” She glanced at him. “Look, we have certain ways of doing things, okay?”
“Like barging into men’s rest rooms?”
“Got your attention. And I knew it was secure.”
He couldn’t tell whether she was smiling or not.
“Look, your only job here is to watch what we do,” she said. She sounded as if she was making an effort to be nice, though it fell short. “You’re just a baby-sitter. So don’t get in the way and we’ll be fine.”
Before Dean could say anything, Lia jammed on the brakes and spun the car into a one-eighty. Then she started accelerating back in the opposite direction.
“Now what?” asked Dean.
“Now we board another flight,” she said.
“Another flight?”
“They did tell you we were going to Siberia, didn’t they?” she said. “They didn’t tell you that?”
“They told me Surgut.”
She made a face. “Not exactly. In any event, we need to take a plane. We’ve already lost a lot of time.”
“What was all the business at the airport?”
“What business?”
“In the bathroom.”
“You happened into a Russian agent.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Was he tracking me?”
“We don’t think so.” Lia touched her ear. “No, we don’t think so. So what if he knows? That’s bullshit.”
“Who are you talking to?”
“God, Charlie. God.”
“Look—”
“I have a radio hookup,” she said. “I talk to the Art Room. Fuck yourself.”
“You talking to me or them?”
“Anyone who thinks it’s appropriate,” Lia told him. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Charlie. But at least you’ll learn it from the best.”
It was lucky for her, he thought, that he’d put his knife away.
7
Rubens stepped back as the sparks continued to arc above the bamboo of his cousin’s swimming pool. He saw immediately what had happened and realized the grisly consequences — the guitarist had jumped into the water still connected to his amp, freakishly electrocuting himself and the congressman in what would undoubtedly become the lead item on the evening’s news broadcasts. Rubens saw headlines and news magazines, articles and pictures, video interviews, innuendo, rumors,
It was time to leave.
As discreetly as possible, he walked through the house to the front door, down the long driveway to his car at the curb, got in, and started away. As he turned onto the main road, he thought he heard a siren in the distance. He punched the CD selector, calling up a collection of piano sonatas from Mozart.
Hours later, resting at home in his den, he put on the television. CNN greeted him with a special graphic and musical interlude, just coming back from commercial break during a half hour devoted to what it called Congressman Greene’s Unique Life. Rubens flicked the remote to MSNBC, where a pair of talking heads argued about whether guitars should be banned from poolsides. FoxNews used the occasion to roll out clips from other bizarre deaths, including one where a man had been gored by a rhino and carried for a mile, impaled on his horn.
The local television station showed a shot of police interrogating witnesses. His cousin Greta was being comforted by her husband in the background. Rubens felt a slight pang of sympathy — it was unfortunate that anyone had to be connected with such a bizarre media parade. As for Greene — well, he hadn’t been the agency’s most reliable supporter; hopefully his successor would prove more pliant.
Rubens pushed the remote again. A&E was just beginning a broadcast of
8
The word
Dean put his hand against the dash as the An-2 began banking sharply. If the Ilyushin he’d taken earlier was old, this aircraft seemed to date from the very first days of flight. It was a single-engined biplane, with portions of its exterior covered by fabric rather than metal. Its large — and loud—1,000-horsepower Shveston Ash-621R engine grumbled below Dean’s feet, the swirl of its propeller at the nose of the plane a haze before his eyes. But the An-2 was in fact a steady, extremely dependable aircraft, and while its wings harked back to an ancient era they gave the craft amazing stability and maneuverability, factors not to be taken lightly when hunkering through mountain passes such as those they had taken through the Urals. These wings also allowed the plane to land on makeshift fields, which it did now, touching down on a dirt strip that seemed too short and narrow for a game of football. Dust and grit flew in a small tornado as they turned and taxied back; as the prop feathered, the pilot, who hadn’t spoken a word on the flight, looked expectantly at Dean. Dean took this as a signal that he should get out; he undid his
