Eternal Empire (7 page)

O
nce a week, the inmates at Belmarsh were given a form for the prison canteen, brought around to each cell by a smiling woman in uniform. Each prisoner was allowed to spend up to twenty pounds, with the funds deducted from his personal account and the requested items left in his room later that day.

The order form, which consisted of four columns of sixty lines each, had been carefully screened for items of possible harm to others. Its first column was taken up largely by tobacco products. Other items available for purchase included batteries for personal electronics, stationery, postage stamps, and an assortment of toiletries, beverages, and salted snacks.

Ilya had filled out his own form a few days earlier, asking for a jar of coffee and a package of tea, and, in a departure from his usual order, two packs of cigarettes and a few lighters. Although he did not smoke, he did not think that the request would seem unusual, since cigarettes were the closest thing to a universal medium of exchange within the prison walls.

Separately, he had arranged for an additional item that was slightly more difficult to obtain. Several days before, he had spoken quietly with another inmate, a listener who served as a prison counselor and was granted special privileges. The next day, at association, the listener had passed him a flask, the kind that enhanced prisoners were allowed to carry.

Ilya had waited until returning to his cell to open it. When he unscrewed the top of the flask, a single whiff of the colorless liquid inside had been enough to make his eyes sting. Fortunately, he was not planning to drink it.

Now Ilya lay on his mattress, hands folded behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. All of the preliminary steps were complete, but even now, he found himself mulling over two sets of questions.

The first consisted of practical considerations, which was a realm in which he could comfortably operate. Within seconds of hearing what Vasylenko wanted, he had already come up with a list of reasons why it was impossible.

In itself, the task was not especially difficult. There were many ways to kill a man in prison. An inmate's throat could be cut with a sharpened phone card, or, as Ilya had learned from personal experience, a blade could be extracted from one of the safety razors that each prisoner was allowed. The real sticking point was how not to be caught. Ilya had looked at the problem from every angle, and although his solution wasn't perfect, it would have to do.

Yet this left him with a second set of concerns that were not so easily dismissed. He had a name but not a reason. This was an audition for a particular role, one that was rarely afforded the luxury of explanations. To prove that he was still useful, he would need to perform his task without question.

After another moment, he rose. It was early in the morning, and the light coming through the bars of his window was cold and gray. Only a short time remained before he would need to begin.

Going over to his small table, Ilya looked at the book he had left there the night before. On the open page, he had underlined a passage that he had contemplated more than once in recent months.
Russia is a sphinx,
it said.
Rejoicing, grieving, and drenched in black blood—

If Russia was a sphinx, Ilya thought, with its head in one continent and its body in another, this could only be explained by the soil from which its two halves arose. European Russia ended where the steppes began, in the unforgiving lands, outside of history, that had once been ruled by the Scythians.

But then another nation had emerged in the Dark Ages, as if out of nothing, in the wilderness between empires. Later sources would call them drinkers of blood with hideous faces, but they were more likely a pale, handsome race with blue eyes and red hair that went by the name of Khazars.

Judging from the earliest sources, the Khazars had lived much like their predecessors, a tribe of fierce horsemen and dwellers in tents. But beyond the steppes, the world was changing. Caught between Byzantium and the Arabs, this unallied nation of warriors began to contemplate a grand experiment, centered on the realization that there was a shape to history beyond the cycle of the seasons.

And yet it was never a simple matter to change one's true nature. Reflecting on what the Khazars had ultimately done, Ilya, who knew something about living with a divided soul, reminded himself that one could never entirely escape the darkness at one's heart, and that there were times when it was necessary to embrace it. Nothing of what he had endured so far would have any meaning unless he could pursue it to its conclusion. Because something was coming.

Moreover, he could not avert it from his cell. The only way to see it clearly, and to prevent it from reaching its full culmination, was to follow it as far as he could. Only then could he hope to end it entirely.

And for the sake of that possibility, he was willing to become the Scythian again.

A quarter of an hour later, at just past eight, his cell door was unlocked. Ilya emerged, his towel draped over one arm, and headed with a line of other inmates toward the end of the landing.

He arrived after most of the others, entering a room with wooden benches, a stone floor, and a row of showers. Each stall had a button that, when pressed, would release a trickle of water for thirty seconds. All were already occupied, with a noisy line of the remaining prisoners clutching towels and toiletry bags.

As usual, Ilya went past the others into an unoccupied corner of the room, as if he preferred to wait alone. From here, he could see Sasha, the prisoner who had come to his cell a few days before, standing naked in a stall at the end of the row, his red hair soapy with suds.

Ilya remained where he was, perfectly calm, waiting for the right moment. At last, seeing the flow of water over Sasha's head start to die down, he began to move along the showers, just one figure among many. When he was a few steps away from the last stall, he pulled back the towel that was draped over his arm. In his right hand, he held a measuring syringe that he had taken from the prison workroom, where it was used to inject ink into printer cartridges.

Before Sasha could reach for the shower button again, Ilya walked casually past him and pressed the syringe's plunger. A thin stream of dark liquid arced through the air and struck the other man between his sunburned shoulders. As Sasha began to turn, Ilya kept moving, pulling the towel back over his hand.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ilya saw Sasha standing in the shower, reaching back to feel where the liquid had struck his skin. Ilya continued walking out of the shower room, as if he had decided that it was too much trouble to wait, and headed along the landing to the rows of cells, moving past a pair of guards.

Back in his own cell, he went to the sink. Tossing his towel aside, he carefully rinsed out the syringe, handling it through the plastic bags that he had been given to hold his belongings during his recent transfer. Once every trace of the black fluid had been washed away, he put the syringe on the floor and stepped on it hard, reducing it to shards of plastic.

Going to the window, he tossed the remains of the syringe through the bars, a few bits at a time, so that they were lost on the ground outside, which was strewn with trash that had accumulated between the prison blocks. Then he went back to his bed, lay down, and closed his eyes.

The rest of the story Ilya heard, in fragments, from the other inmates over the course of the day. He heard how Sasha, soon after emerging from the shower, had doubled over, retching, on the bathroom floor; how he had been taken, sweating and convulsing, to the infirmary; and how, since then, there had been no news at all, although the prison was alive with rumors about what had happened.

Ilya listened attentively to the speculation, but he said nothing. Earlier that week, he had carefully emptied the bags of tea from his canteen order and stuffed them with tobacco from the packs of cigarettes. Placing them in the empty plastic coffee jar, he had performed two sets of extractions, the first with butane from the lighters to remove oils and tar, the second with alcohol.

When the solvents had evaporated, he had been left with a solution of almost pure nicotine, which would be readily absorbed through the skin. A single drop on the back of the hand would put a man in the hospital with symptoms of acute respiratory arrest, while sixty milligrams were enough to kill. With the excess solution washed down the drain, it would take days to determine the true cause of death. And by then, he hoped, it would no longer matter.

Final word came that afternoon. As Ilya sat in the association room with Vasylenko's men, another inmate came up with the latest news, which had spread through the prison like wildfire. Sasha was dead.

As the others traded tense whispers, Ilya realized that Vasylenko was looking at him. The ensuing exchange of glances lasted for only a second, but in that interval, a great deal was silently expressed.

A few minutes later, as association time ended, Ilya found himself walking alongside Vasylenko as they headed back to the spur. Ilya spoke quietly in Assyrian. “I still don't understand why.”

Vasylenko responded in a low voice. “You will find out in time. For now, let it go.”

As the
vor
said this, he slid something into Ilya's pocket, then went to rejoin the others. Ilya knew what the object was at once, but he did not try to examine it until he had returned to his cell.

Later, with the door safely closed, Ilya studied what Vasylenko had given him. It was a cell phone. And as he shut his eyes, the phone in one hand, he feared that he had never truly changed at all.

T
he Fabergé collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts was housed in the museum's lowest level, where a special exhibition had opened earlier that month. Jewelry, timepieces, and other objets d'art were displayed in niches along the walls, while at the center of the gallery, lit softly in five separate cases, stood the imperial eggs bequeathed by the estate of Lillian Thomas Pratt of Fredericksburg.

Maddy looked at the Peter the Great egg. It was just over four inches high, made of different shades of gold in rococo cage work, with diamonds and other precious stones set above scrolls and bulrushes. Four miniature watercolors on ivory completed the design, with the one facing her now depicting a hut on the banks of the Neva River, beneath the date of the founding of St. Petersburg.

Next to it was a smaller object that had originally been inside the egg itself. Each egg made for the Romanovs had been required to contain a surprise, which, in this case, consisted of a tiny sculpture raised when the top of the egg was opened. It was the bronze figure of a man on horseback, mounted on a bed of sapphire, with a snake being crushed under the horse's hooves.

The director of the museum was a small bearded man in a blue suit. “It's a replica of the equestrian statue of Peter the Great. I don't know if you know the legend behind the statue, Miss Shaw—”

Maddy smiled. “It says St. Petersburg will never fall as long as the statue remains.”

Tarkovsky, who was standing a few steps behind her, spoke quietly. “Yes. But I prefer to think of it another way. The statue, like this egg, is a reminder of what Russia was once capable of doing, and what it might do again. But only if it holds fast to its own heritage.”

“Spoken like a man who wants to get to business,” the director said. “Shall we?”

The director headed upstairs, with Maddy and Tarkovsky following him through the museum. They had arrived earlier that morning, coming by car after flying out from Washington on the oligarch's private Tupolev. For the first time since their departure, she was alone with Tarkovsky himself.

Her nervousness was only increased by the fact that she had not informed Powell of this trip. Maddy knew that Powell would not approve of her spending so much time with the oligarch, preferring that she do her work more discreetly. So far, however, Tarkovsky had kept his distance, and she still wasn't entirely sure what he thought of the argument she was about to make.

Moving through the administrative wing, they entered the director's office. Once the pleasantries were out of the way, Maddy dove in. “As you know, our mission is to preserve Russia's cultural heritage, which includes the repatriation of selected works of art. The price we're offering here is more than fair, and we're committed to restoring this egg to the position it deserves. It won't be locked away, like the Vekselberg collection, but on display at the Kremlin Armory, where it belongs.”

“Yes, I've reviewed your proposal,” the director said, leaning back comfortably in his chair. “But you understand, of course, that this collection has been here for six decades. Losing any part of it would damage the museum's stature. You can hardly expect the board to give it up without good reason.”

Maddy glanced at Tarkovsky, who remained silent. “And we respect this. But we also believe that it's in the museum's best interests to allow this egg to be returned, given the questions that have been raised about the original transaction. It was sold by the Soviet government to an unknown American buyer for four thousand rubles. After the buyer left it unclaimed at customs, it was bought by another dealer, Alexander Schaffer, who sold it to Lillian Pratt for less than seventeen thousand dollars. Today, it's worth at least twenty million.”

“None of this is under dispute,” the director said. Much of the friendliness was gone from his voice. “And your point is what, exactly?”

“This was not a legitimate sale. A priceless artifact was seized and sold at a discount, with an unexplained gap in the provenance. It's easy to see the museum as only the most recent link in a questionable chain of ownership.”

The director smiled tightly. “As it happens, I disagree. The Bolshevik government, whatever its faults, had the legal right to sell its own treasures, and even if the provenance were in question, the statute of limitations ran out decades ago. I sympathize, but you just don't have a case.”

Tarkovsky spoke for the first time. His voice was very quiet. “A determined opponent doesn't need a case. All he needs is a lawyer.”

The director turned to face the oligarch. “Excuse me. Is that some kind of threat?”

Maddy jumped in quickly. “No. It's a warning. A lawsuit over provenance would be long and damaging. If we've seen this vulnerability, so will others. But there's a second possibility that we'd like you to consider.”

As Maddy spoke, she opened the folder she had been holding throughout the conversation. “You recently completed an expansion at a cost of over one hundred million dollars, which means several million in additional operating expenses every year. In retrospect, it was the worst possible time. The state is facing a shortfall. You've already had millions slashed from your budget. And without an additional source of revenue, the situation will only get worse.”

She handed the director a copy of the document inside the folder, which was a projection of the museum's financial situation over the coming decade. He took it, frowning. “If you're suggesting that we sell our holdings to pay our operating costs, you're barking up the wrong tree. We're prohibited from selling artworks to cover anything but new acquisitions.”

“I'm aware of that,” Maddy said. “But there's one exception. A sale to cover operating costs is permissible, under standard museum guidelines, if a work is being repatriated or returned to its rightful owner.”

The director glanced up from the document. She thought she saw a hint of interest in his expression. “I'm listening.”

“It's quite simple. This is a work of art that belongs in Russia, with a provenance that renders it vulnerable to an extended legal challenge. Under the circumstances, the board of directors, as well as the public, will surely see that a sale is the only possible solution. And if the revenue happens to cover the museum's operating shortfall for the next ten years, that's simply a fortunate side effect.”

The director seemed to weigh this. Maddy could hear the ticking of the clock on the office wall as she waited for him to speak again. “If it came to that, it means that we never had this conversation.”

“Of course,” Maddy said. “We understand the need for discretion in a case like this.”

The director was silent for another moment. At last, he said, “We'll take it under due consideration. If I present your proposal to the board, I'll need to abide by their decision. It's not my choice to make.”

Maddy felt a rush of something like relief. “That's all we ask. The rest is up to you.”

Tarkovsky, for his part, said nothing. A moment later, they wrapped up the meeting, with the oligarch confining himself to a few words of thanks. Maddy thought the presentation had gone well, but when she looked over at Tarkovsky, she couldn't tell what he was thinking.

Outside, it was blindingly hot. Two town cars were waiting at the curb. In one were Elena and Orlov, the security chief; the other, which they entered now, was empty except for the driver, who would return Maddy to her hotel before taking Tarkovsky to his next round of meetings.

As the car started, Tarkovsky glanced out the window. “You did well. I've found that it's often wise to appeal to your rival's best interests.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” Maddy said. “But I still wouldn't overstate our chances.”

“I know. But this was more of a test. I've heard good things about you, and I wanted to see them for myself.” He looked at her directly for the first time. “Lermontov, in particular, always spoke of you highly—”

Maddy froze. For a moment, she was aware of nothing but the throaty murmur of the engine, and she felt for a paralyzing second how close the two of them were. “What are you talking about?”

Tarkovsky glanced away again. “I wasn't sure if you knew. In any event, I thought it best that you hear it from me. I knew Alexey Lermontov. I worked with him years ago, as part of my efforts to recover Russian art from overseas, and often visited his gallery in New York.”

Maddy found that her hands had gone cold. “I don't remember seeing you there.”

“It would have been shortly after you left. Lermontov often mentioned you. He seemed to think that you were making a mistake by trying to start your own gallery. That your true talents lay elsewhere—”

Listening, she felt something rise in her throat, and she realized that she was dangerously close to being sick. “And you never knew—”

“That he was working for state intelligence?” Tarkovsky said this nonchalantly, as if discussing something of limited interest. “I had my suspicions, of course. Especially given the friends we had in common. As you pointed out, the art world makes strange bedfellows. Your former employer and I found each other useful. Until it was no longer possible.”

Maddy fought back her growing sense of queasiness. “And when did that happen?”

Tarkovsky continued to look out the window. “If nothing else, as soon as he was no longer alive.”

A silence fell over the car. When Tarkovsky turned to her again, his voice was oddly gentle. “I know this is hard, which is why I wanted to tell you myself. I still want you to work for me. In the end, however, the choice is yours.”

He glanced away as the car slowed to a stop. Following his gaze, Maddy saw that they had pulled up at the Jefferson. When the driver came around to open her door, she gathered up her belongings and slid out, looking back once at Tarkovsky, who had remained in the car.

“Think it over,” Tarkovsky said. Then the door closed again, hiding him from sight.