Part 6 (1/2)
”It's cold in here,” Maluta said. ”Get some heat up.”
They pulled away from the curb and he sat back in the seat. His old-fas.h.i.+oned suit smelled of ashes.
”I have regards for you from Uncle Vadim.” He was referring to Vadim Dubas, the current head of the Communist Party in Leningrad and her late father's brother.
”How is he?”
”Old and stubbornas always,” Maluta said shortly. ”He seems never to change.” He shook out another Camel. Abruptly, Maluta leaned forward. He tapped Alexei on the shoulder. ”I want to go to the monument. Do you know the one, Lieutenant?”
”Yes, Comrade Minister.”
It was in the outskirts of Moscow, the angular steel criss-crossed almost like a modern sculpture atop its cut-stone plinth. Except that the steel was real, a portion of the four hundred miles of ant.i.tank traps and trenches erected by the remaining citizens of what Stalin dubbed ”the Hero City,” in the flush of their victory over the seventy-five n.a.z.i divisions that had been ma.s.sed over the hills leading to Moscow.
Alexei slowed the Chaika, pulling to the side of the highway. It was late, past eleven, and the roads were deserted. There was little or no nightlife here, or anywhere in Russia.
Maluta made no move until Alexei opened the back door. Alexei handed him a flashlight but Maluta made no comment, merely flicked it on. His shoes cracked the icy snow as he went across the verge to stand beside the monument.
Daniella, right beside him, was astonished to see tears sparkling in his eyes, ”So much blood spilled here,” Maluta said, his voice thick with emotion. ”So much heroism. The revolutionary spirit shone like a beacon in those dark days.”
He was silent for a time. The beam of light sparked like fireworks against the precise edges of the steel bars.
”The snow,” Maluta said into the dark. ”I love the snow, Comrade General. The snow is pure and white like the spirit of Lenin, which guides us always.” He put his foot out, the toe of his shoe sc.r.a.ping away at the snow until the black earth was eventually revealed. ”But the snow also covers a mult.i.tude of sins.” The beam of light stayed steady on the war monument but Maluta's gaze was fixed on Daniella, making her skin crawl. ”These are still dark days, Comrade General, no less dire than they were forty-odd years ago. We are still fighting for our very existence. This is war, plain and simple.”
Daniella stood very still. A pulse throbbed in the side of her head. She knew she was in the presence of a very dangerous man indeed dangerous not only for herself but for the country as a whole.
”Let me tell you something, Comrade General,” he said. His voice was like acid. ”In this war, you are either with me or against me. Do you understand?”
Daniella nodded, not trusting herself to speak. ”Words,” Maluta said. ”I deal with words twenty hours a day. The more I deal with words the more I am convinced that lies are commonplace and the truth is lost to sight.” He lit up a Camel, took his gaze from her. He stared meditatively at the memorial. The steel bars seemed to waver in the handheld beam of light.
The moon had gone and it had grown more chill. The air was heavy, incipient with snow. The storm that had delayed Maluta's flight was catching up with them. Daniella pulled her sable coat closer around her. A sudden gust of wind caught her thick hair, whipping it across her face. She made no move to pull it back.
”The trouble with you, Comrade General,” Maluta said after a long silence, ”is that you are beautiful.” He exhaled, took a bit of tobacco off his lower lip. ”Because of this, you believe that you can extract anything from the men around you. You open your thighs for Anatoly Karpov and you become head of the KVR.” Maluta was referring to the clandestine section of the First Chief Directorate, more commonly known as Department K, when it was referred to at all. The KVR was responsible for extraterritorial a.s.sa.s.sination and wetfieldcounter-intelligence. ”You did the same for my late lamented colleague, Yuri Lantin. And, following his untimely death, you succeeded him.”
Still he would not look at her. He smoked at leisure, as if they were two close friends discussing nothing more momentous than vacation plans. ”On the one hand, I admire your guile. I believe you to be an ingenious woman.”
He threw away the b.u.t.t. It sparked in the night, the only brief flash of color in the landscape before it died in the snow. ”On the other hand, I am aware of your ambition. Acutely aware. I want you to understand that you cannot do with me what you have done with Karpov and Lantin and, I am sure, several others before them. I am immune to your beauty. I do not dream at night of your c.u.n.t.”
His use of the derogatory term was deliberate. It shocked her, as it was meant to.
”Now,” Maluta continued, ”I want you to make your choice. Either you are with me or you are against me. You have no other options, I will tell you that much. Do you think for a moment I believed your little fantasy scenario back there? Mikhail Carelin whispering in Genachev's ear that he should elevate me to adviser status alongside Reztsov and Carelin himself?” There it was, that unsettling rictus of a smile was back. ”Oh, no, no, no, Comrade General. Even if your lovely c.u.n.t would have persuaded me to believe such nonsense, I know that you would never propose such a thing to Carelin. He would laugh in your face, Comrade Generaland your file reports that you do not care for such treatment.”
Daniella was shaking. She suspected that she had seriously underestimated Maluta, and that, in fact, in taking Yuri Lantin's place so quickly she had undone herself. She wondered whether she was prepared for the rarefied atmosphere of the Kremlin upper echelon or whether she was now truly in too deep.
She knew that she had to answer now, suspected that he would only allow her one option. ”I am with you.” She had had to open her mouth twice; the first time, her throat was so dry she knew only a croak would come out.
Maluta nodded. ”Horosho.” Good. ”Now Alexei will not have to shoot you in the back of the head.”
”What?” Again, he had meant to disconcert her, and he had.
His malevolent head turned toward her and she saw that awful rictus that pa.s.sed for a smile. ”Yes, didn't you know that your Alexei reports to me? All your movements, Comrade General. All of them are known to me.”
Now Daniella knew that he was lying. If this was so Maluta would know that she had already begun her affair with Mikhail Carelin. She steeled herself to play his game at his own level.
Maluta was watching her face carefully. His black almond eyes glittered fiercely. ”I see that you doubt my word. That is understandable.” He reached inside his greatcoat, producing a small wrapped packet. He handed it over with yellowed fingers.
Daniella stared down at the packet as if it were a poisonous thing. Her pulse rate rose and she felt the tremor again in the side of her face.
Slowly, she unwrapped the thing. Holy Mother of G.o.d, she thought, staring down at the contents.
It was odd, Daniella thought, with a kind of hysterical calmness, how ungainly and almost comical two people looked when they were making love; especially when one of those people was oneself.
Shot after grainy shot of Daniella and Carelin in naked embrace, writhing, in obvious ecstasy, flushed in o.r.g.a.s.m.
Maluta took the photos from her nerveless fingers. He shuffled them like a deck of playing cards before extracting one. ”This one, I think, is the best.” He went through the pile. ”Or perhaps this one.”
”Stop it!”
He wanted that reaction and, having gotten it, obediently put the d.a.m.ning photos away. ”Now,” he said, ”I want you to do something for me. It is a symbol that will bind us together much more securely than you and Comrade Carelin are bound in that little tete-a-tete.” His voice was soft now, almost tender. ”I ask this of you, Comrade General, because you have lied to me. I a.s.sume that you have done so only once, in the instance of Mikhail Carelin, but”he shrugged ”who knows, there may have been other instances in the past.
”But you see I do not care about the past. Only the future.” He had produced it from somewhere beyond the limits of her sight. ”I want this to be an object lesson for you, Comrade General. Take off your gloves, please.”
Daniella did as he bade, her mind partially numb. How, she thought, could I have misjudged him so completely? I was so certain that I had him.
He laid it into her bare chilled hand; the pistol. It had a silencer screwed onto the end of the muzzle. Daniella noticed that it was German-made, not regulation Russian army. A personal handgun, a strictly forbidden item.
”Now I want you to shoot Alexei.” She heard Maluta's voice as if in a dream. ”Do it as you have been trained to carry out an execution, through the back of the head. That was, you recall, how he was to kill you.”
This is a nightmare, Daniella thought. Panic and fear raced through her like a brushfire. She could not think. It was as if the reasoning part of her brain had gone to sleep. Wake up! she thought desperately. What am I to do?
”It shouldn't be too much of a task,” Maluta was saying. He was smoking again, the wind bringing the vile smoke back into her face. ”After all, there is a revenge motive. He had gained your trust and, in return, was spying on you. It is only just, don't you think, to punish such a heinous crime?”
I am in bed with a true monster, Daniella thought. Her stomach was a cold, twisted knot. She felt vertigo overcome her. She was frozen to the spot. I cannot do what he asks, she thought. I cannot.
”Why do you hesitate, Comrade General?” Maluta's voice had returned to rasping hardness. ”This indecision is a poor trait for a member of the Politburo. I shall have to report this. A serious offense. A man would never show such weakness.” He pulled on his cigarette. ”Perhaps I should call Alexei out here and have him kill you after all.”
His eyes blazing, Oleg Maluta crunched through the brittle snow. He put his lips against her ear. The tobacco smell was a nauseating miasma undaunted even by the chill and the wind. ”Do it, Comrade General. Do it now or your life is ended here, at this moment.”
Daniella could not believe it herself, but her body was moving toward the car. She had no idea who was directing it; surely not she.
Inside, she saw Alexei's eyes on her in the rearview mirror.
”What's happened?” he whispered. ”You look as white as a ghost.”
Daniella saw herself lean forward, her arm lift up. She opened her lips to answer Alexei. Just before the muzzle touched the back of his head she pulled the trigger.
She was gagging when she emerged from the back of the Chaika. Her nostrils were clogged with the stench of death.
Maluta moved very quickly. He produced a clean white handkerchief and, using it, took the gun from Daniella's hand.
”Your prints,” he said, wrapping the thing with the utmost care and slipping it into his greatcoat pocket. ”I want you to understand that I can have you brought up on murder charges at any time. I have no patience with liars. I would have had you killed but I need your acute mind.”