The quantum solution, p.31
The Quantum Solution, page 31
Kusnetsov told him and cut the connection.
Fifteen minutes later he was on his way to the Kremlin. The Sovereign had many residences. A few, such as Novo-Ogaryovo and Bocharov Ruchey, his summer homes, were publicly known. Others—many others—were kept a complete secret, denied by government spokesmen. But since his sequestering, the Sovereign had kept to his luxurious apartments in the Kremlin, a fortress in which he felt safest.
The Sovereign met him at the entrance to his apartments. His blood was high, tingeing his cheeks an unhealthy crimson; he was at once excited and agitated.
“Not here,” he said to Kusnetsov in a rush, as if to forestall any further talk. “In these times there is only the one place for privacy.”
Kusnetsov nodded. “Of course.” It was what he was counting on.
The Sovereign was wearing his black-and-gold uniform, but it was rumpled, creased here and there as if he’d been living in it since the last time Kusnetsov was here. He looked a bit more bloated, his eyes yellow, feverish.
“No one followed you,” he said as they descended in the private elevator.
“Not at all,” Kusnetsov said, barely disguising his surprise.
“Good, good.” The Sovereign pursed his lips. His hands were busy brushing imaginary lint from his uniform. “One hears rumors now, dark tidings, ominous omens.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
The Sovereign shot him an evil glance. “I didn’t expect you to,” he said shortly.
The mood swings are worse, Kusnetsov observed. But full disintegration was still a ways off, and in the meantime, the Federation was balanced unsteadily on crumbling foundations. Defaults on sovereign debts were piling up, and no matter how hard the Kremlin flunkies tried to spin it the disastrous ramifications would be felt for years to come. No one but the Chinese and North Korea to buy Russian oil and gas—and North Korea had no money to speak of. The army decimated, far worse losses than anyone had the nerve to tell the Sovereign, least of all his generals, reduced to a mutinous lot. Chaos in Ukraine, the mighty Federation reduced to shooting off rockets like Hamas. Abject humiliation. The madness of the Sovereign had to stop.
The moment they took their seats, the train pulled out of the station beneath the Kremlin. No doctors, no security—no one but Kusnetsov and the Sovereign. This was how the Sovereign’s mind worked now—irrationality and paranoia were the norms.
They sat in the parlor carriage. While the train gently rocked on its rails Kusnetsov opened a topo map of Poland, which he had marked with various lines and symbols. He laid out his plans for attacking Poland in such excruciating detail he could tell the Sovereign’s eyes were about to cross.
“Yes, yes, Darko Vladimirovich, this is all quite excellent, well thought out.” The Sovereign smacked his lips. “And yet I must admit all this talk of invasions has made my throat dry.” He turned, opened the drawer on the table at his side. He withdrew the crystal decanter filled with Siberian deer antler blood, along with a pair of sparkling champagne glasses because, he said, they needed to drink more this time. The viscous ruby-red liquid filled the glasses. As before, it also filled the carriage with the fumes of the poor young animal’s torture and death.
Kusnetsov palmed the small packet he had bought from Hasan in the Chelobit’evo ghetto. Hasan had a myriad of connections, a poisonous spider sitting in the center of a worldwide web. Luckily he and Kusnetsov were fast friends of many years, having helped each other out numerous times. In this instance, Kusnetsov had taken advantage of Hasan being an importer of all manner of illegal substances. He could evade the West’s embargo mainly because most of these substances were smuggled out of China and Tibet. This particular packet was filled with a dun-colored powder so fine it dissolved in liquid almost instantaneously.
The Sovereign held his glass high. “To bringing Poland into the Federation’s fold.”
“To success,” Kusnetsov said, the only one aware of the words’ double meaning.
As the Sovereign was about to put glass to his liver-colored lips, Kusnetsov leaned forward, put his glass on the corner of the map, reached out with a forefinger, tracing it along one of the main lines he had drawn. “Now right here, I forgot to tell you…” And he embarked on another pointless and convoluted tactic the Russian advance forces needed to take.
As he spoke, the Sovereign leaned in as well, put his glass down next to Kusnetsov’s. In due course, over no longer than several seconds, the dun-colored powder blended with the deer antler blood.
Kusnetsov’s oration complete, the two men sat back and drank deeply from the glasses. This was a solemn ritual into which Kusnetsov readily immersed himself since this was the last nauseating salute to the Sovereign’s life.
The powder worked quickly, as Hasan promised it would. It was a concentrate of the leaves and unripe fruit of Physalis alkekengi, also known as the Chinese lantern, a relative of bittersweet nightshade. Within moments, the Sovereign clapped his hands to his head as the intense headache started.
With eyes made rheumy by the pain, he pointed. “You, you.” Sucked in a breath. “Of all people, you.”
Kusnetsov, stoic, blank-faced, said, “You brought this on yourself.”
The Sovereign frowned, fissures scored across his wide glistening forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s right,” Kusnetsov said softly. “And you never did.”
The Sovereign reached for him then, fingers like an animal’s claws. “I’ll … I’ll…” He groaned, his tongue protruded, lolling. This was Kusnetsov’s cue to back away. The vomiting came next, copious quantities of food, deer antler blood, bile, and lastly the Sovereign’s own blood. Kusnetsov thought of the slain deer that gave its blood only to have it end up on the expensive carpet of the Sovereign’s private train roaring through its tunnel under Moscow. What a long terrible journey—and for what?
Kusnetsov, disgusted, turned away even before the Sovereign’s dead body slid off the chair into the reeking muck. Stepping to the Sovereign’s own communications center, he first put in a call to General Zakhalin.
“It’s done,” he said. “Stand down the missile launchers and all air-to-ground weapons. Tell your company commanders to pull back—but slowly, we don’t want to give the wrong impression of a defeat. Bring them back home over the next ten days.”
His next call was to Pavel Lagunov, spokesperson for the Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly. Again, he began with the words “It’s done. Call a session for tomorrow morning. I’ll address the entire body, then you can say what you will.” His next call was to Portonov, head of the Federal Council, the assembly’s upper house.
“Can this be done, Minister?” Portonov squeaked. “Actually done?”
They’re sheep, Kusnetsov thought. They’ve all been trained by the Sovereign to be meek and to take orders from him. It will take time to recondition them. Generations of Russians have been brought up under autocrats—first the tsars, then the communists. The short-lived Glasnost was an abject failure. No Russian knew what to do with freedom. With no one to tell them what to think, what to do, they were terrified.
His final calls were to some close friends of the Sovereign and then to Maxim, at the Politburo. Fortunately, with foresight Kusnetsov had accumulated files on almost all of them, stuffed with documentation detailing their various crimes, misdemeanors, embezzlements, affairs with undesirables from Moscow’s lower depths.
“I have ordered the president, the foreign minister, all the high-ranking officials to attend what I’ve led them to believe is a Sovereign Ball,” he informed Maxim, just as he’d told the others. “They will come—even, especially, the Sovereign’s mouthpieces. They will be all together in one room. They will be dealt with.”
The Security Council was another matter entirely. They—ultra-hard-liners and Sovereign tail-waggers all—had dispersed at the first sign of trouble. He had sent FSB detachments out to run them down, but so far they’d had no luck. He’d have to watch his back extremely carefully, be on the lookout for any sign of a violent pushback.
Those important tasks completed, he went forward, stepping through the work area of the parlor carriage into the operator’s cabin.
The man’s head jerked around, his eyes opening wide. “Who are you?”
“A favored guest of the Sovereign. He’s ordering you to stop at the last station, wait there with the doors open, then take us back to where we began. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said the operator, clearly trained to take orders without asking the whys and wherefores.
But just to make sure, Kusnetsov stayed beside him as they rocketed past the second station. At length, the operator slowed the train, slid it into the third and last station. If he was surprised to see the horde of men standing on the platform, he made no remark or sign. As the train came to a halt, Kusnetsov ordered the operator to open the doors, and to remain in his cabin.
The men poured into all three carriages. They were built either like boulders or scarecrows. There were a hundred of them, two hundred, three hundred, all piling into the carriages—Kusnetsov counted. Unlike their compatriots now in control of Directorate KV, their sleeves were rolled up, showing the constellations of crude tattoos made from graphite or coal dust and urine criminals gave themselves while inside prison. Not all of them had been inside; others were either unmarked or had necks, shoulders, or biceps inked by professionals, some of them beautiful as any artwork. All of them were heavily armed.
The last to step aboard was Hasan. He was flanked by Agulov and Gulov, the heads of the two largest and most powerful Bratva, Russian crime syndicates. Gulov carried a bottle of Siberian vodka whose label Kusnetsov had never seen before.
He gripped Kusnetsov’s hand. “You’re as good as your word, my friend.” His eyes narrowed. “Is he dead?”
“As a side of beef.”
A great smile burst across Hasan’s face. “This I have to see.”
Kusnetsov extended an arm toward the living area of the parlor carriage. “Be my guest.”
Hasan moved into the carriage, and Kusnetsov gestured to the Bratva chiefs to join him on the now-empty platform. Without taking his eyes off Kusnetsov, Gulov swung the bottle against the edge of the open carriage door. The glass shattered, the vodka exploding like lava from a volcano, leaving him holding the neck and jagged bulge. He held this aloft, shaking it.
“Our friend Hasan may be joyful,” he said to Kusnetsov. “However I am anything but. If, as you claim, the Sovereign is dead, this is, of course, good.”
“Very good,” Agulov interjected.
“You, Minister, have accomplished what I never could have believed possible.”
“You managed to induce Gulov to the negotiating table,” Agulov interjected again, earning him an annoyed look from his new compatriot. “That is hardly a little thing, isn’t that right, Gulov.”
Gulov made a disgusted noise. “It was either come together or lose our businesses to the trade blockade. Iran’s stuff was top-notch but there was too little of it and we began to fight over it. Of course we did, the Chinese imports were dogshit, adulterated with sawdust and melamine, impossible to sell a second time to even the almost-gone drug-heads.”
“Well, but we were boxed into a corner with no way out,” Agulov countered. “The minister provided us with an exit.”
Gulov grunted. “But now comes the true test. Even with the Sovereign dead, even with your partners in the generals and the Duma, we have a terrible fight on our hands. The Sovereign was deeply entrenched. In death as well as in life he had many powerful friends.”
“But more powerful enemies,” Kusnetsov pointed out. “The oligarchs will return. We will prevail.”
“But the Sovereign’s Iron Curtain has come down,” Gulov said. “I doubt the oligarchs will return from their self-imposed exile anytime soon. We’re fucked, cut off economically from everyone but our untrustworthy and conniving so-called allies. For myself, I despise them all. I’d kill them if given half a chance. Counting on them for anything would be a grave mistake.”
“To say nothing of our reputations,” Agulov said, his bitterness coming to the fore, Gulov’s pessimism starting to work on him.
“We have control of the media,” Kusnetsov told them. “I’ve seen to that.”
Agulov nodded. “Understood.”
“What about social media?” Gulov asked.
“It’s all good,” Kusnetsov said. “The usual suspects are out with conflicting stories, muddying the waters. As usual.”
“Even so we are facing a civil war like no other.”
“Would you back down now after having come so far?”
“We back down from no fight,” Gulov said.
“Still, at the end of the day, we are criminals, Minister,” Agulov protested. “No one will see us as anything but.”
To this Kusnetsov replied, “Everything in Russia is mutable. Villains become heroes and vice versa; this is part of our culture, part of who we are. It’s happened over and over in our history. Why? Because we keep rewriting our history. This moment won’t be any different. Why? Because we have already begun to rewrite our history once more.”
Neither of the chiefs said a word.
Kusnetsov went back into the car, into the operator’s cabin, grabbed the trembling, ashen-faced man and began to walk him through the carriages to the other end of the train, where an identical control cubicle was awaiting him. On the way they passed the Sovereign. The operator gagged and vomited. Kusnetsov was obliged to hold him by the scruff of his collar in order to keep him upright. When they reached the last carriage, which was to become the first one, he clapped the man on his shoulder. “Get in there. Take us home.”
“H-home?” The operator stared at him, stupefied. “Where?”
“The Kremlin,” Kusnetsov said. “Where else?”
52
THE FOG OF WAR
Evan had the vague sensation of flying, then not flying, then nothing but a black hole, then flying once more. During this time she was never fully conscious. When she did finally open her eyes she found herself in her room in Tribe’s Santa Cruz de La Palma villa. For what seemed a long time she did nothing, while a troupe of doctors prodded, poked, gently manipulated her. Once she was sat up, a portable X-ray machine pushed against her chest. Later, alone, she drank copious amounts of water. The first time it came right up and she found herself on her knees in front of the toilet, head lolling. During this time her thoughts were completely with Lyudmila. In the first forty-eight hours of consciousness, she was certain that she would break, that Lyudmila’s death was the last straw, causing her to lie in bed and never get up again, no matter what cocktail of drugs Tribe’s doctors injected her with.
It was too much to think of anyone else, even—especially!—Tribe and his betrayal. She could not think of Timur, even though she had promised Lyudmila. She had not even absorbed the story of how Tribe and Timur escaped the wreck, the side of the hellish volcano.
Lyudmila’s death shattered her. She knew this and she didn’t. Her world was too small, too filled with Lyudmila and herself to admit any light into the darkness into which she had been plunged. They circled each other like blasted planets locked in a death spiral.
Outside her tiny universe, others had made attempts to talk to her, of course—first Tribe, then a neurologist, a therapist specializing in grief counseling and PTSD. She resisted all of them; she was in no mood to talk, let alone open up about what had happened. She did not even want to look at Tribe. There was no room. For one thing, she had taken Lyudmila into herself and thus filled to the brim could not countenance any intrusion. And for another she could not at the moment deal. His betrayal of his country and of her made her sick to her stomach. She did ask about Timur. She needed to be assured that he was alive and well taken care of. She told the grief counselor to talk with him. “He needs your empathy,” she recalled saying. “I’m fine.” But of course she wasn’t fine. Whatever the opposite of fine was, that was where she now lived. And there came a time when a small hesitant knock on her door announced Timur. The door swung inward and there he stood, bruised here and there but thank God physically none the worse for wear.
She left her bed, padded over to him in the striped silk pajamas Tribe had provided, and knelt before him.
“Timur,” she whispered. “I’m so happy you’re okay.”
“But Aunt Evan,” he said, eyes brimming, “you’re not.”
“Oh, honey. I’m fine. Truly fine now that you’re here.” She opened her arms, he stepped into them, and she enfolded him, she felt his heart beating against hers and she whispered in his ears, “Whatever happens, Timur, know that you are protected and that you are loved, by me and by everyone around you.”
He put his forehead against the hollow of her shoulder. “I know about my mother.”
Evan’s eyes welled up, blurring her vision. “You must miss her.”
“I don’t know.” His voice was thin, reedy, trembly. His thin shoulders shook. “I should, shouldn’t I?”
Evan had no clear answer for that except, “Honey, whatever you’re feeling—or not feeling—is okay. Nobody can or should tell you how to feel. That comes from inside you.”
“But I never knew her,” he wailed, and she held him until even his crackling energy waned and he slumped against her.
Evan sighed, kissed away his tears. “Oh, honey, none of us who loved her knew her.”
* * *
Even Ben’s repeated calls went unanswered. Ben was used to her protracted silences when in the field but that didn’t mean he had to like them. Accordingly, he got permission from his boss, Isobel Lowe, to fly out to where Evan now was, where in due course he presented himself at the front door of Marsden Tribe’s villa. He was welcomed with Tribe’s usual aplomb. Others might call his demeanor remote or distracted. For Ben it was a signifier for being spaced-out. He had never liked Tribe and he sure as hell liked him even less now that he knew it was Tribe’s own personal lawyer who had made the preemptive bid for the weaponized time crystals, taking it out of auction. However, his easy smile did not betray that secret knowledge.
