The Matarese Circle (3 page)

Which was why so many wanted to know him. On the assumption, Nikolai suspected, that even knowing the great Yurievich would somehow transfer a touch of his immunity to them.

The lieutenant knew that was the case today and it was an uncomfortable feeling. The “guests” who were now on their way to his father’s
dacha
had practically invited themselves. One was the commander of Nikolai’s battalion in Vilnius, the other a man Nikolai did not even know. A friend of the commander from Moscow, someone the commander said could do a young lieutenant a good turn when it came to assignments. Nikolai did not care for
such enticements; he was his own man first, his father’s son second. He would make his own way; it was very important to him that he do so. But he could not refuse this particular commander, for if there was any man in the Soviet Army who deserved a touch of “immunity,” it was Colonel Janek Drigorin.

Drigorin had spoken out against the corruption that was rife in the Select Officer Corps. The resort clubs on the Black Sea paid for with misappropriated funds, the stock-houses filled with contraband, the women brought in on military aircraft against all regulations.

He was cut off by Moscow, sent to Vilnius to rot in mediocrity. Whereas Nikolai Yurievich was a twenty-one-year-old lieutenant exercising major responsibility in a minor post, Drigorin was a major military talent relegated to oblivion in a minor command. If such a man wished to spend a day with his father, Nikolai could not protest. And, after all, the colonel was a delightful person; he wondered what the other man was like.

Nikolai reached the stables and opened the large door that led to the corridor of stalls. The hinges had been oiled; the old entrance swung back without a sound. He walked down past the immaculately kept enclosures that once had held the best of breeds and tried to imagine what that Russia had been like. He could almost hear the whinnies of fiery-eyed stallions, the impatient scruffing of hooves, the snorting of hunters eager to break out for the fields.

That Russia must have been something. If you weren’t behind a mule.

He came to the end of the long corridor where there was another wide door. He opened it and walked out into the snow again. In the distance, something caught his eye; it seemed out of place.
They
seemed out of place.

Veering from the corner of a grain bin toward the edge of the forest, there were tracks in the snow. Footprints, perhaps. Yet the two servants assigned by Moscow to the
dacha
had not left the main house. And the grounds-keepers were in their barracks down the road.

On the other hand, thought Nikolai, the warmth of the morning sun could have melted the rims of any impressions in the snow; and the blinding light played tricks on the eyes. They were no doubt the tracks of some foraging
animal. The lieutenant smiled to himself at the thought of an animal from the forest looking for grain here, at this cared-for relic that was the grand
dacha
’s stables. The animals had not changed, but Russia had.

Nikolai looked at his watch; it was time to go back to the house. The guests would be arriving shortly.

Everything was going so well, Nikolai could hardly believe it. There was nothing uncomfortable at all, thanks in large measure to his father and the man from Moscow. Colonel Drigorin at first seemed ill-at-ease—the commander who had imposed himself on the well-known, or well-connected, subordinate—but Yuri Yurievich would have none of it. He welcomed his son’s superior as an anxious—if celebrated—father, interested only in furthering his son’s position. Nikolai could not help but be amused; his father was so obvious. Vodka was delivered with the fruit juice and coffee, and Nikolai kept a sharp eye out for dangling cigarettes.

The surprise and delight was the colonel’s friend from Moscow, a man named Brunov, a high-ranking party functionary in Military-Industrial Planning. Not only did Brunov and Nikolai’s father have mutual friends, it was soon apparent that they shared an irreverent attitude toward much of Moscow’s bureaucracy—which encompassed, naturally, many of those mutual friends. The laughter was not long coming, each rebel trying to outdo the other with biting comments about this commissar-with-an-echo-chamber-for-a-head and that economist-who-could-not-keep-a-ruble-in-his-pocket.

“We are wicked, Brunov!” roared Nikolai’s father, his eyes alive with laughter.

“Too true, Yurievich!” agreed the man from Moscow. “It’s a pity we’re so accurate.”

“But be careful, we’re with soldiers. They’ll report us!”

“Then I shall withhold their payrolls and you’ll design a backfiring bomb.”

Dimitri Yurievich’s laughter subsided for a brief moment. “I wish there were no need for the functioning kind.”

“And I that such large payrolls were not demanded.”

“Enough,” said Yurievich. “The groundskeepers say the hunting here is superb. My son has promised to look out
for me, and I promised to shoot the biggest game. Come now, whatever you lack we have here. Boots, furs … vodka.”

“Not while firing, father.”

“By God, you
have
taught him something,” said Yurievich, smiling at the colonel. “Incidentally, gentlemen, I won’t hear of you leaving today. You’ll stay the night, of course. Moscow is generous; there are roasts and fresh vegetables from Lenin-knows-where.…”

“And flasks of vodka, I trust.”

“Not flasks, Brunov.
Casks!
I see it in your eyes. We’ll both be on holiday. You’ll stay.”

I’ll stay,” said the man from Moscow.

Gunshots rang through the forest, vibrating in the ears. Nor were they lost on the winter birds; screeches and the snapping of wings formed a rolling coda to the echoes. Nikolai could hear excited voices as well, but they were too far away to be understandable. He turned to his father.

“We should hear the whistle within sixty seconds if they hit something,” he said, his rifle angled down at the snow.

“It’s an outrage!” replied Yurievich in mock anger. “The groundskeepers swore to me—on the side, mind you—that all the game was in this section of the woods. Near the lake. There was
nothing
over there! It’s why I insisted they go there …”

“You’re an old scoundrel,” said the son, studying his father’s weapon. “Your safety’s released. Why?”

“I thought I heard a rustle back there. I wanted to be ready.”

“With respect, my father, please put it back on. Wait until your sight matches the sound you hear before you release it.”

“With respect, my soldier, then there’d be too much to do at once.” Yurievich saw the concern in his son’s eyes. “On second thought, you’re probably right. I’d fall and cause a detonation. That’s something I know about.”

“Thank you,” said the lieutenant, suddenly turning. His father was right; there was something rustling behind them. A crack of a limb, the snap of a branch. He released the safety on his weapon.

“What is it?” asked Dimitri Yurievich, excitement in his eyes.

“
Shh
,” whispered Nikolai, peering into the shaggy corridors of white surrounding them.

He saw nothing. He snapped the safety into its locked position.

“You heard it, too, then?” asked Dimitri. “It wasn’t just this pair of fifty-five-year-old ears.”

“The snow’s heavy,” suggested his son. “Branches break under its weight. That’s what we heard.”

“Well, one thing we
didn’t
hear,” said Yurievich, “was a whistle. They didn’t hit a damn thing!”

Three more distant gun shots rang out.

“They’ve seen
something
,” said the lieutenant. “Perhaps now we’ll hear their whistle.…”

Suddenly they heard it. A sound. But it was not a whistle. It was, instead, a panicked, elongated scream, faint but distinct. Distinctly a terrible scream. It was followed by another, more hysterical.

“My
God
, what
happened?
” Yurievich grabbed his son’s arm.

“I don’t—”

The reply was cut off by a third scream, searing and terrible.

“Stay
here!
” yelled the lieutenant to his father. “I’ll go to them.”

“I’ll follow,” said Yurievich. “Go quickly, but be careful!”

Nikolai raced through the snow toward the source of the screams. They filled the woods now, less shrill, but more painful for the loss of power. The soldier used his rifle to crash his path through the heavy branches, kicking up sprays of snow. His legs ached, the cold air swelled in his lungs; his sight was obscured by tears of fatigue.

He heard the roars first, and then he saw what he most feared, what no hunter ever wanted to see.

An enormous, wild black bear, his terrifying face a mass of blood, was wreaking his vengeance on those who’d caused his wounds, clawing, ripping, slashing at his enemy.

Nikolai raised his rifle and fired until there were no more shells in the chamber.

The giant bear fell. The soldier raced to the two men; he lost what breath he had as he looked at them.

The man from Moscow was dead, his throat torn, his bloodied head barely attached to his body. Drigorin was
only just alive, and if he did not die in seconds, Nikolai knew he would reload his weapon and finish what the animal had not done. The colonel had no face; it was not there. In its place a sight that burned itself into the soldier’s mind.

How? How could it have happened?

And then the lieutenant’s eyes strayed to Drigorin’s right arm and the shock was beyond anything he could imagine.

It was half severed from his elbow, the method of surgery clear: Heavy caliber bullets.

The colonel’s firing arm had been shot off!

Nikolai ran to Brunov’s corpse; he reached down and rolled it over.

Brunov’s arm was intact, but his left hand had blown apart, only the gnarled, bloody outline of a palm left, the fingers strips of bone. His
left
hand. Nikolai Yurievich remembered the morning; the coffee and fruit juice and vodka and cigarettes.

The man from Moscow was left-handed.

Brunov and Drigorin has been rendered defenseless by someone with a gun, someone who knew what was in their path.

Nikolai stood up cautiously, the soldier in him primed, seeking an unseen enemy. And this was an enemy he wanted to find and kill with all his heart. His mind raced back to the footprints he had seen behind the stables. They were not those of a scavenging animal—though an animal’s they were—they were the tracks of an obscene killer.

Who
was
it? Above all,
why?

The lieutenant saw a flash of light. Sunlight on a weapon.

He made a move to his right, then abruptly spun to his left and lunged to the ground, rolling behind the trunk of an oak tree. He removed the empty magazine from his weapon, replacing it with a fresh one. He squinted up at the source of the light. It came from high in a pine tree.

A figure was straddling two limbs fifty feet above the ground, a rifle with a telescopic sight in his hands. The killer wore a white snow parka with a white fur hood, his face obscured behind wide, black sunglasses.

Nikolai thought he would vomit in rage and revulsion. The man was smiling, and the lieutenant knew he was smiling down at him.

Furiously, he raised his rifle. An explosion of snow blinded him, accompanied by the loud report of a high-powered rifle. A second gunshot followed; the bullet thumped into the wood above his head. He pulled back into the protection of the trunk.

Another gunshot, this one in the near distance, not from the killer in the pine tree,

“Nikolai!”

His mind burst. There was nothing left but rage. The voice that screamed his name was his father’s.

“
Nikolai!
”

Another shot. The soldier sprang up from the ground, firing his rifle into the tree and raced across the snow.

An icelike incision was made in his chest. He heard nothing and felt nothing until he knew his face was cold.

The Premier of Soviet Russia placed his hands on the long table beneath the window that looked out over the Kremlin. He leaned down and studied the photographs, the flesh of his large peasant face sagging with exhaustion, his eyes filled with anger and shock.

“Horrible,” he whispered. “That men should die like this is horrible. At least, Yurievich was spared—not his life, but such an end as this.”

Across the room, seated around another table, were two men and a woman, their faces stern, watching the Premier. In front of each was a brown file folder, and it was apparent that each was anxious to proceed with the conference. But with the Premier one did not push or intrude on his thoughts; his temper could be unleashed by such displays of impatience. The Premier was a man whose mind raced faster than anyone’s in that room, but his deliberations were nevertheless slow, the complexities considered. He was a survivor in a world where only the most astute—and subtle—survived.

Fear was a weapon he used with extraordinary skill.

He stood up, pushing the photographs away in disgust, and strode back to the conference table.

“All nuclear stations are on alert, our submarines approaching firing positions,” he said. “I want this information transmitted to all embassies. Use codes Washington has broken.”

One of the men at the table leaned forward. He was a
diplomat, older than the Premier, and obviously an associate of long standing, an ally who could speak somewhat more freely than the other two. “You take a risk I’m not sure is wise. We’re not that certain of the reaction. The American Ambassador was profoundly shocked. I know him; he wasn’t lying.”

“Then he wasn’t informed,” said the second man curtly. “Speaking for the VKR, we
are
certain. The bullets and shell casings were identified: seven millimeter—grooved for implosion. Bore markings, unmistakable. They were fired from a Browning Magnum, Grade Four. What more do you need?”

“A great deal more than that. Such a weapon is not so difficult to obtain, and I doubt an American assassin would leave his business card.”

“He might if it was the weapon he was most familiar with. We’ve found a pattern.” The VKR man turned to the middle-aged woman, whose face was chiseled granite. “Explain, if you will, Comrade Director.”