The quantum solution, p.27
The Quantum Solution, page 27
“So,” Hasan continued, returning his attention to their prisoner. “This ought to wake our sleeping beauty up.” Pushing the blade in deeper, he twisted it with a deft flick of his wrist.
Sleeping Beauty not only woke up but screamed, jerking his body so hard he almost toppled the chair over, so that Kusnetsov was obliged to slap him hard across the face to calm him down. Still, blood spattered the front of his trench coat, and his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.
Then they locked on Hasan and narrowed. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing, cockroach?”
Hasan lunged with the gravity knife but Kusnetsov grabbed his arm. “Wait,” he said.
“That’s right, cockroach, wait,” Sleeping Beauty said with a sneer.
Hasan pulled away from Kusnetsov. “Nu vse, tebe pizda.” That’s it, you’re fucking dead.
Sleeping Beauty laughed. “Potselui mou zhopy, zasranees.” Kiss my ass, shithead.
Hasan hit Sleeping Beauty on the side of the head so hard the man moaned involuntarily.
“Who are you?” Kusnetsov said. “Why were you following me?”
The man’s eyes came back into focus. He inhaled a string of saliva drooling from one corner of his mouth. “My name is Fyodor Kovalyov and I’m here under express orders from Colonel Ludovico Ferranov.”
“Why the order?”
Kovalyov shook his body back and forth. The flaps of the trench coat slipped off his thighs and Kusnetsov flipped them away, revealing the uniform underneath.
Hasan bent forward peering. “What the hell is that?”
Kusnetsov stared at the black-and-gold uniform. “New regime,” he said. And to Kovalyov, “No wonder you were tailing me.”
“Colonel Ferranov was right. You’re a degenerate, another cockroach like your Muslim pal. Look at you, rubbing shoulders with this fucking Chechen in a fucking whorehouse in this hellhole where no self-respecting Russian citizen would be caught dead.”
Still keeping Hasan physically in check, Kusnetsov said, “Who is Ferranov to give you orders to follow me?”
“Ha! Well. Colonel Ferranov is now head of SVR, soon to be head of FSB.” He cocked his head. “FSB used to belong to you, Minister Kusnetsov, if I’m not mistaken.”
“It still does.”
Kovalyov spat onto the floor. “Ja Pycckij pidaras, Kusnetsov.” You’re a loser.
At which point, the ruble dropped and Kusnetsov understood everything. His summons to the Kremlin, his very VIP afternoon with the Sovereign, was nothing more than a ruse to get him away from FSB HQ, facilitating Colonel Ferranov’s Sovereign-sanctioned purge.
“In fact, you are mistaken,” Kusnetsov growled. “Very much so.”
He knew Ferranov, but only by reputation. He had been handling GRU’s Directorate KV ever since its inception five years ago. Transfers between GRU and FSB were virtually nonexistent, but as Kusnetsov had discovered these were strange days inside the Federation. Anything, it seemed, was on the table and likely as not to be deployed. He was inside a madman’s universe and he could think of only one way to climb out. He might very well lose his life as a consequence, but what was his life now? He seemed to have been off-loaded into a particular kind of limbo, one of the Sovereign’s own design. Being in it made him feel as if an army of fire ants was crawling over his body. The present was intolerable, therefore it either changed or he swallowed the indigestible requisites of the new regime.
“It’s done, a fait accompli,” Kovalyov said. “Colonel Ferranov has already been installed. Tomorrow morning the purge will be complete. And where does that leave you, Minister? In the dark, in the cold, in your own private Siberia.”
Hasan glanced at Kusnetsov. “Is this prick telling the truth?”
“I’m afraid he is.”
“Then what’s to be done, my friend.”
Kusnetsov appeared to be staring at Kovalyov’s face but in fact his mind was very far away. “What indeed.” All at once he seemed to snap out of it. “Let him go.”
Hasan’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “What? Really?”
Kusnetsov shot him a look and Hasan nodded. He led Kovalyov out of the room to the top of the stairs. “Go on now,” he said. “Get out of here.” And promptly kicked him in the small of the back.
Down below, on the ground floor, Miryam watched the body’s ugly progress down the stairs. A burst of blood flew through the air as the head smashed into a corner wall. She smiled grimly and spat.
42
LA PALMA, CANARY ISLANDS
Blackout.
A flickering as in an old movie—scenes of childhood, of her and Bobbi holding hands, her leading Bobbi down and down into the caverns where she would leave her sister overnight. Now she was gripped by an overpowering desire to return to that night, find Bobbi, and bring her back home, trembling and shaking, whispering “Sorry, sorry, sorry” in her ear. Taking a different path, one they could have shared instead of the divergent paths they had taken—paths of lies, deceit, hatred, husbanded deep inside both of them. Until Bobbi’s death.
The earth began to weep beneath Evan. Her ears were filled with a mournful wailing, a recognition of everything lost forever rushing through her, tearing her apart from the inside out …
The stench of sulfur and hydrogen sulfide, the taste of ash in the back of her throat jerked her into consciousness. And yet she was still not fully awake; her mind was still filled with children, her and Bobbi. Her lungs were not working correctly. She longed to go back there, to change what had already been set in stone. Something deep inside her did not want to suck in this tainted air, but her autonomic nervous system insisted on continuing its work—which meant breathing in the deadly fumes.
Groaning softly, Evan rolled over onto her back. Just that simple maneuver cost her far more than it should have. She cracked open her eyes, almost immediately shut them again as the dry overheated air caused her even more pain.
That same something inside her—the will to keep on living—caused her to inch back down the slope on which she was lying, to get away from the blast-furnace heat and the caustic fumes. She knew if she didn’t she would surely perish within minutes.
She tried to remember what happened, why she was lying here on the upper slopes of the volcano, but she couldn’t quite get the images to line up or to even make sense. She groaned again as she worked her way down, sliding and slithering. Once the sole of her left boot grew so hot it caught fire and she was obliged to stamp down, to move sideways away from whatever had caused her boot to flame up.
Too soon, she had exhausted herself and lay panting in the broiling heat. Sweat evaporated as soon as it broke out on her forehead, the nape of her neck, under her arms, and between her breasts. The roof of her mouth felt seared, the back of her throat clogged so badly with ash she began to choke, could not even get out a cough to clear the passageway. She turned on her side as vomit mixed with bile erupted out of her.
But with that she felt better. She was dry as a bone, knew she needed to hydrate as soon as possible. Turning her head to the right she saw the twisted fuselage of a helo. Whose? Of course, Tribe’s. Like a shock of electricity going through her, memory leapt through the fog clouding her mind. She was in the body of the helo with Tribe, Lyudmila, Ionescu and his son, Timur. Up front, the pilot. Lyudmila had asked her to keep Timur safe. Where was he? Where was anyone?
Slowly, agonizingly she crawled toward the wreckage. She must have been thrown clear on impact, but what about the others. As she neared the helo she smelled hot metal, melted plastic, burnt rubber.
Upon reaching the wreckage, she saw that the fuselage was intact. That, surely, was a positive sign. Had it blown apart in the air or upon impact the others would be dead. Gasping, she pulled herself up on the sill of the open doorway; the door itself had been ripped off and lay about twenty feet up the slope, barely recognizable as molten lava contorted it into what might be a flower.
Inside, the helo was a wreck. The seats had been uprooted as if by a giant hand, squashed, warped, pulled apart. In the cockpit, the pilot’s body was half out of his chair, his head partially through the bulbous front. Dragging herself to a wall so she could stand up, she saw a slim figure, all its limbs broken, the back of its head a bloody pulp. Tribe? She closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness took her away from herself. When she opened them she made her way along the Perspex wall, closing in on the body. The dead man was Ionescu. A constriction in her heart gave way and she gasped. Her head ached with conflicting emotions. Despite what she had just learned about him she had found herself desperate for the dead man not to be Tribe.
Pulling herself together, she peered anxiously around the cabin. No sign of Lyudmila, Tribe, or Timur, only an unopened can of Coke on the floor amid the still-warm debris of metal shards, broken wires, shattered electronics. She bent down to fetch it and almost passed out. A ridgeline of pain rose behind her eyes and almost felled her. Swiping the can, she rose slowly, steadying herself with one hand against the Perspex. Popped open the tab and swallowed greedily. The sugar rush combined with the caffeine to shove her exhaustion into the background, though she knew she’d pay for the emotional lift later. She was past caring about things like that. Head clearing, she made her way up front across the canted floor, unsnapped the pilot’s holster, slid out his handgun—a Smith & Wesson Military and Police pistol with a polymer frame that made it light and highly maneuverable. She checked the magazine, saw that all seventeen bullets were available to her.
As she picked her way back across the cabin, she saw that the Perspex on the opposite side had been smashed to smithereens. The fuselage was steeply tilted in that direction. She made her way over until she had a clear view through.
The only thing that caught her attention was Lyudmila.
* * *
At first Evan thought that like her Lyudmila had been thrown clear of the helo, but as she clambered out, strings and smears of fresh blood made it clear that Lyudmila had crawled out of the wreckage.
Scrambling down, she reached Lyudmila, who was lying on her stomach. Kneeling beside her, Evan put a hand on her back. Immediately Lyudmila began to stir, and, sliding the S&W into her waistband, Evan gently turned her over.
Lyudmila’s eyes opened slowly; they took their time focusing. When she recognized Evan, she said, “Not to worry, darling, the pressured dressing you tied is still in place.”
An eerie night had fallen, shot through with the sinister radiance from the slowly crawling lava, the stinking gas, the bloody light of hell.
Lifting up her upper body, Evan tilted the Coke can to Lyudmila’s lips. Lyudmila drank it greedily. She wiped her lips. “What, no vodka?”
Evan was about to laugh in relief when Lyudmila’s face distorted in pain.
“It’s nothing,” Lyudmila said. “Ribs. Only hurts when I laugh.”
“This really is some shithole you’ve led me into,” Evan said.
“What I’ve been doing for the last five years.” Lyudmila took a breath, let it out. “Now comes the reckoning.” She lifted her head. “Listen, d’you hear it? That’s a helo.”
“Lyudmila, how badly are you hurt. Really.”
Lyudmila shook her head. “Quiet. They’re coming.”
Evan gripped the butt of her pistol. “Who? Who set this up?”
“Only three entities could mount an assault with this kind of military precision: the CIA, Mossad, and Major Korokova. The CIA don’t know I exist, and even if they did they’d want to pump me for intel, not kill me; Mossad knows me and leaves me strictly alone.”
“That leaves Korokova.”
“The one and only.” Lyudmila turned her head back and forth, eyes clouding with anxiety. “Where are the others?”
“Ionescu and the pilot are dead.”
“And Timur?”
“Wait. You don’t care about Ionescu? He’s crucial to the next phase of your plan, isn’t he?”
Lyudmila smiled wanly. “I really do have to stop lying, even if it’s just to you.” She started to cough as a gust of wind blew volcanic steam over their heads.
“What d’you mean?”
“I don’t care about Ionescu,” Lyudmila said. “He was nothing more than a means to an end. I made sure that everyone—especially von Kleist—believed I needed to get Ionescu out of Russia. In fact, it was Timur I needed to rescue.”
Evan’s brow furrowed. “I don’t follow.”
“My grand plan, Evan, wasn’t to try to assassinate the Sovereign—that was a pipe dream, it was never going to happen. This quantum weapon holds no interest for me. These were all ruses—diversions—to keep my real purpose secret.”
“Even from me?”
Lyudmila closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry, darling. Sorry for everything I put you through.” She sighed. “You were my most successful diversion of all.”
Evan sat back on her haunches. “So Timur…”
“I’ve been trying for five years to wrest my son away from…” She turned her head away.
All the breath left Evan; it took her a moment to recover.
“Who is his father? Not Ionescu, surely.”
“No.” Lyudmila returned her gaze to Evan. Her ice-blue eyes were clouded with opalescent tears. “His father had no time for him, you see. But he refused to give him up. Ionescu became his tutor—I made sure of this. The first step, you might say, to Timur’s freedom.”
“If not Ionescu, then who?”
“The Sovereign.”
Evan could not help an indrawn breath.
“I know. It’s fucking embarrassing. But I was a different person then. I wanted a child. I wanted to make sure he’d be protected so I went to the source of all protection in the Federation. How stupid could I have been.”
“No comment.”
Lyudmila huffed. “I told you that I was pushed out of the Politburo due to rumors of lesbian liaisons.”
“That was a lie.”
“Well, yes—and no.”
They heard the crunch of thick-soled boots. There was very little time now and Evan took out the S&W, made sure it was ready to fire.
“When I threatened to take Timur he vowed to ruin me,” Lyudmila continued. “The Sovereign had his people spread the rumor to humiliate me. To get me ostracized. By then I was too well-known for him to have me killed or disappeared. I had developed a network of powerful people. But when I wouldn’t stop trying to take my son from him, then he did call for my incarceration. That was when I used my contacts to get myself exfiltrated, when I began my exile from Russia and Timur.”
“So all of your scheming was in aid of getting him back.”
“An excruciatingly long and winding road, I know. But I was up against the Sovereign. I had to remain patient while I spun my web in as many directions as I was able. I had to keep his people off-balance, guessing—and I had to keep myself and Timur safe. Any hint that I—”
A rush of anger flamed Evan’s cheeks. “So you used me as a stalking horse.”
“I prefer to think you’re part of the plan. A key part. You were the best—the only way … You were the perfect distraction.” Lyudmila reared up, grabbing onto Evan’s now sleeveless shirt. “Do you think I don’t love you? Do you think my heart didn’t turn over every time I sent you into peril?” Her eyes grew large as moons. “But this is about my son. It’s about Timur. And now…” She gulped air, coughed against the volcano’s caustic effluents. “… now I don’t even know whether he’s dead or alive.”
Evan felt guilty that she didn’t know where Timur was, whether he had survived the crash. In Lyudmila’s eyes she recognized the demented terror of a mother whose child is lost, and despite all of the strife her friend had put her through, still her heart went out to her.
“He’s alive, I know it,” Evan said with no little force. “We’ll find him.”
Lyudmila shook Evan with unnatural strength. “I had so little time with him. He has no father—of course he doesn’t. The Sovereign thinks of him as another of his possessions, something in his rage he has denied me.” Her eyes slid away for just a moment. “And for all these years since he was a baby he’s had no mother. Only caretakers. He’s been brought up by mercenaries, you might say.”
Evan’s heart broke for her friend. She held her tightly for a long moment, feeling Lyudmila’s inner trembling.
“Promise me you’ll keep him safe,” Lyudmila whispered hoarsely.
“You’re his mother. You’ll keep him safe yourself.”
“Promise me, Evan.”
Evan had always thought of Lyudmila as beautiful—as in runway-model beautiful, which was true—but now that beauty looked hollow, blasted. Haunted. Evan felt a hitch in her breathing. “You have my word.”
“And if Korokova shoots you dead?”
“Trust me.” Evan squeezed her shoulder. “You have before.”
A powerful searchlight flicked on, just behind three figures cresting a ridge lower down from where Evan and Lyudmila crouched. They were armed to the teeth, their heads covered in gas masks to protect them from the noxious gases. They looked like giant blister beetles, filled with venom.
They unslung their weapons. Three long black fingers blacked out the dazzling light, falling across Evan and Lyudmila like cudgels.
“It is often said that the shadows of guns cause as much fear as the guns themselves,” Lyudmila whispered as if to herself. “Until now I found no reason to believe that.”
It was at this moment that Evan realized that the fire inside Lyudmila she had found familiar and comforting had gone out. In its place was a different fire, more intense, finely attuned only to her son.
43
WASHINGTON, DC
The creaking of timbers, the soft lapping of the water had lulled Zahra to sleep after Ben and the accursed An Binh had left her in the houseboat, but the nearby screeching of tires woke her with a start. She was tied to a much-worn wooden chair with cord as, apparently, the houseboat wasn’t equipped with twist ties. Rocking the chair back and forth, she went over on her side hard. The old wood of the chair splintered. Grasping a saw-toothed piece in her hand, she levered it under the cord’s knot, twisting it until the knot gave. Freed, she sawed through the knot at her ankles, scrambled to her feet.
