The Matarese Circle (51 page)

Maletkin spoke with mounting intensity. “I
swear
to you such a thing never occurred to me!”

You really are a damn fool
, thought Taleniekov. “Four o’clock then, comrade.”

Vasili approached the staircase of the building four doors down the block from Lodzia’s flat. He had glanced up at her windows; her lights were on. She was home.

He climbed the steps slowly, as a tired man might, returning to an uninviting home after putting in unwanted, unpaid-for over-time behind a never-ending conveyor belt in the cause of some new economic plan no one understood. He opened the glass door and went inside the small vestibule.

Instantly, he straightened up, the brief performance over; there was no hesitation now. He opened the inner door, walked to the basement staircase, and descended into the filthy environs of the connecting cellars. He passed the door in which he had placed the dead Englishman, vodka poured down the throat, wrists slashed with a razor. He pulled out his lighter, ignited it, and pushed the door back.

The Englishman was gone. Not only was he gone but there were no signs of blood; everything had been scrubbed clean.

Taleniekov’s body went rigid, his thoughts suspended in
shock.
Something terrible had happened. He had been wrong.

So wrong!

Yet he had been
sure.
The soldiers of the Matarese were expendable, but the last thing they would do would be to return to a scene of violence. The possibilities of a trap were too great; the Matarese would not,
could
not, take that risk!

But they had, the target worth the gamble. What had he
done?

Lodzia!

He left the door ajar and started walking rapidly, through the connecting cellars, the Graz-Burya in his hand, his steps silent, his eyes and ears primed.

He reached Lodzia’s building and started up the steps to the ground-level foyer. He pulled the door back slowly and listened; there was a burst of laughter from the staircase above. A high-pitched female voice, joined seconds later by the laughter of a man.

Vasili put the Graz-Burya in his pocket, stepped inside around the railing, and walked unsteadily up the steps after the couple. They approached the second-floor landing, diagonally across from Lodzia’s door. Taleniekov spoke, a foolish grin on his face.

“Would you young people do a middle-aged lover a favor? I’m afraid I had that one vodka too many.”

The couple turned, smiling as one. “What’s the problem, friend?” the young man asked.

“My friend is the problem,” said Taleniekov, gesturing at Lodzia’s door. “I was to meet her after the performance at the Kirov. I’m afraid I was delayed by an old army comrade. I think she’s angry as hell. Please knock for me; if she hears my voice she probably won’t let me in.” Vasili grinned again, his thoughts in opposition to his smile. The conceivable sacrifice of the young and the attractive grew more painful as one got older.

“It’s the least we can do for a soldier,” said the girl, laughing brightly. “Go on, husband-mine, do your bit for the military.”

“Why not?” The young man shrugged and walked to Lodzia’s door. Taleniekov crossed beyond it, his back to the wall, his right hand again in his pocket. The husband knocked.

There was no sound from within. He glanced over at Vasili, who nodded, indicating another try. The young man knocked again, now louder, more insistent. Again there was only silence from inside.

“Perhaps she’s still waiting for you at the Kirov,” said the girl.

“Then again,” added the young man, smiling, “perhaps she found your old army comrade and they’re both avoiding you.”

Taleniekov tried to smile back but could not. He knew only too well what he might find behind the door. “I’ll wait here,” he said. “Thank you very much.”

The husband seemed to realize he had been facetious at the wrong moment “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, taking his wife’s arm.

“Good luck,” said the girl awkwardly. They both walked rapidly up the staircase.

Vasili waited until he heard the sound of a door closing two stories above. He took his automatic from his pocket and reached for the knob in front of him, afraid to find out that it was not locked.

It was not and his fear mounted. He pushed the door open, stepped inside, and closed it. What he saw sent pain through his chest; he knew a greater pain would follow shortly. The room was a shambles, chairs, tables, and lamps overturned; books and cushions were strewn on the floor, articles of clothing lying in disarray. The scene was created to depict a violent struggle, but it was false, overdone—as such constructed scenes were usually overdone. There had been no struggle, but there had been something else. There had been an interrogation based in torture.

The bedroom door was open; he walked toward it, knowing the greater pain would come in seconds, sharp bolts of anguish. He went inside and looked at her. She was on the bed, her clothes torn from her body, the positioning of her legs indicating rape, the act if it was done, done only for the purposes of an autopsy, undoubtedly performed after she had died. Her face was battered, lips and eyes swollen, teeth broken. Streaks of blood had flowed down her cheeks leaving abstract patterns of deep red on her light skin.

Taleniekov turned away, a terrible passivity sweeping
over him. He had felt it many times before; he wanted only to kill. He would kill.

And then he was touched, so deeply that his eyes filled suddenly with tears and he could not breathe. Lodzia Kronescha had not broken; she had not revealed to the animal who had operated on her that her lover from the days of Riga was due after midnight. She had done more than keep the secret, far more. She had sent the animal off in another direction. What she must have
gone
through!

He had not loved in more than half a lifetime; he loved now and it was too late.

Too late? Oh, God!

 … 
where is the problem?

 … 
that I’m wrong. In which case I will have killed us both.

Yanov Mikovsky.

If a follow-up soldier had been sent by the Matarese to Lodzia Kronescha, another surely would have been sent to seek out the scholar.

Vasili raced into the sitting room, to the telephone that had carefully not been disturbed. It did not matter whether or not the line was tapped; he would learn what he had to learn in seconds, be away seconds later before anyone intercepting him could send men to the
dom vashen.

He dialed Mikovsky’s number. The phone was picked up immediately … too quickly for an old man.

“Yes?” The voice was muffled, unclear.

“Dr. Mikovsky, please.”

“Yes?” repeated the male voice. It was not the scholar’s.

“I’m an associate of Comrade Mikovsky and it’s urgent that I speak with him. I know he wasn’t feeling well earlier; does he need medical attention? We’ll send it right away, of course.”

“
No
.” The man spoke too swiftly. “Who is calling please?”

Taleniekov forced a casual laugh. “It’s only his office neighbor, Comrade Rydukov. Tell him I’ve found the book he was looking for … no, let me tell him myself.”

Silence.

“Yes?” It was Mikovsky; they had let him get on the line.

“Are you all right? Are those men friends?”

“
Run, Vasili! Get away! They are
—”

A deafening explosion burst over the line. Taleniekov held the telephone in his hand, staring at it. He stood for a moment, allowing sharp bolts of pain to sear through his chest. He loved two people in Leningrad and he had killed them both.

No, that was not true. The Matarese had killed them. And now he would kill in return. Kill … and kill … and
kill.

He went into a telephone booth on the Nevesky Prospeckt and dialed the Europeiskaya Hotel. There would be no small talk; there was no time to waste on insignificant men. He had to get across Lake Vainikala, into Helsinki, reach the Corsican woman in Paris, and send the word to Scofield. He was on his way to Essen, for the secret of the Voroshins was there and animals were loose, killing to prevent that secret from being revealed. He wanted them now … so badly … these élite soldiers of the Matarese. They were all dead men in his hands.

“Yes, yes what is it?” were the rushed, breathless words of the traitor from Vyborg.

“Get out of there at once,” commanded Taleniekov. “Drive to the Moskva Station. I’ll meet you at the curb in front of the first entrance.”

“
Now?
It is barely two o’clock! You said—”

“Forget what I said, do as I
say.
Did you make the arrangements with the Finns?”

“A simple telephone call.”

“Did you
make
it?”

“It can be done in a minute.”

“Do it. Be at the Moskva in fifteen.”

The drive north was made in silence broken only by Maletkin’s intermittent whining over the events of the past twenty-four hours. He was a man dealing in things so far beyond his depth that even his treachery had a rancid, shallow quality about it.

They drove through Vyborg, past Selzneva, toward the border. Vasili recognized the snowbanked road he had walked down from the edge of the frozen lake; soon they would reach the fork in the road where he had first observed
the traitor beside him. It had been dawn then; soon it would be dawn again. And so much had happened, so much learned.

He was exhausted. He had had no sleep, and he needed it badly. He knew better than to try to function while his mind resisted thought: he would get to Helsinki and sleep for as long as his body and his faculties would permit, then make his arrangements. To Essen.

But there was a final arrangement to be made now, before he left his beloved Russia
for
his Russia.

“In less than a minute we’ll reach the rendezvous at the lake,” Maletkin said. “You’ll be met by a Finn along the path to the water’s edge. Everything’s arranged. Now,
comrade
, I’ve carried out my end of the bargain, you deliver yours. Who is the other informer at Vyborg?”

“You don’t need his name. You just need his rank. He’s the only man in your sector who can give you orders, your sole superior. First in command at Vyborg.”

“
What?
He’s a tyrant, a fanatic!”

“What better cover? Drop in to see him … privately. You’ll know what to say.”

“Yes,” agreed Maletkin, his eyes on fire, slowing the car down as they approached a break in the snowbank. “Yes, I think I will know what to say.… Here’s the path.”

“And here is your gun,” said Taleniekov, handing the traitor his weapon, minus its firing pin.

“Oh? Yes, thank you,” replied Maletkin, not listening, his thoughts on power unimagined only seconds ago.

Vasili got out of the car. “Goodbye,” he said closing the door.

As he rounded the trunk of the automobile toward the path, he heard the sound of Maletkin’s window being rolled down.

“It’s
incredible
,” said the traitor, gratitude in his voice. “
Thank
you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The window was rolled up. The roar of the engine joined the screaming whine of the tires as they spun on the snow. The car sped forward; Maletkin would waste no time getting back to Vyborg.

To his execution.

Taleniekov entered the path that would take him to
an escort, to Helsinki, to Essen. He began whistling softly; the tune was “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

The gentle-looking man in the rumpled clothes and the high-necked cotton sweater clamped a violin case between his knees and thanked the Finn Air stewardess for the container of tea. If anyone on board were inclined to guess the musician’s age, he’d probably say somewhere between fifty-five and sixty, possibly a little older. Those sitting farther away would start at sixty-plus and add that he was probably older than that.

Yet with the exception of streaks of white brushed into his hair he had used no cosmetics. Taleniekov had learned years ago that the muscles of the face and body conveyed age and infirmity far better than powders and liquid plastics. The trick was to set the muscles in the desired position of abnormal stress, then go about one’s business as normally as possible, overcoming the discomfort by fighting it, as older people fight the strain of age and cripples do the best they can with their deformities.

Essen. He had been to the black jewel of the Ruhr twice, neither trip recorded for they were sensitive assignments involving industrial espionage—operations Moscow did not care to have noted anywhere. Therefore, the Matarese had no information that could help it in Essen. No contacts to keep under surveillance, no friends to seek out and trap, nothing. No Yanov Mikovsky, no … Lodzia Kronescha.

Essen. Where could he begin? The scholar had been right: he was looking for a fifty-year-old ghost, a hidden absorption of one man and his family into a vast industrial complex during a period of world chaos. Legal documents going back more than half a century would be out of reach—if they had ever existed in the first place. And even if they had, and were available, they would be so obscured that it could take weeks to trace money and identities—in the tracing, his own exposure guaranteed.

Too, the court records in Essen had to be among the most gargantuan and complicated anywhere. Where was the man who could make his way through such a maze? Where was the time to do it?

There
was
a man, a patent attorney, who would no doubt throw up his hands at the thought of trying to find the name of a single Russian entering Essen fifty years ago. But he
was
a lawyer; he was a place to start. If he was alive, and if he was willing to talk with a long-ago embarrassment. Vasili had not thought of the man in years. Heinrich Kassel had been a thirty-five-year-old junior partner in a firm that did legal work for many of Essen’s prominent companies. The KGB dossier on him had depicted a man often at odds with his superiors, a man who championed extremely liberal causes—some so objectionable to his employers they had threatened to fire him. But he was too good; no superior cared to be responsible for his dismissal.