Eternal Empire (21 page)

I
n the woods, beyond a stone wall, there stood a cottage out of a fairy tale, creaking softly as it revolved beneath the trees. As it turned slowly into view, Maddy saw that a cow's skull had been nailed above the doorway. She began to move on, convincing herself that the dread she felt was only her imagination, and was genuinely startled when the door flew open to disclose the witch inside.

Maddy nearly dropped her shopping bag as the witch spun in her direction, grinning horribly, and extended a crooked finger. Hearing a chorus of squeals, she stood aside as a crowd of children rushed toward the witch, who cackled at them in Russian. Feeling strangely sick, she continued up the forest path, heading to where she would await the expected guest.

The yacht had docked in Yalta the night before. Earlier that morning, Maddy had disembarked with a number of other passengers, going past the sea terminal, which looked out on the gray, crowded beach, and continuing along an embankment lined with cypresses.

She had hoped to wander off on her own, but to her surprise, Elena had proposed that they go shopping. The night before, Tarkovsky's assistant had looked somewhat critically at the dress Maddy was planning to wear to the formal reception scheduled to take place before their arrival in Sochi. Catching up with her on the promenade, Elena had offered to help find something more suitable, and although Maddy had been tempted to decline, she had finally said yes.

They had spent an hour browsing through the boutiques near the marina, at the end of which Maddy emerged with a black number from Stella McCartney. She didn't like to think about what the dress had cost, but she had grabbed it after realizing that she was going to be late. Afterward, Maddy had said she was heading for the cathedral, guessing correctly that her companion would take no interest in this. Elena had gone back to the beach, and Maddy had hailed a taxi, managing to communicate that she wanted to see the children's park three kilometers away.

Her driver had seemed somewhat surprised by this request, and as she looked around now, she found that she couldn't blame him. The park was peaceful enough, but in the shadows under the trees, there was something unnervingly lifelike about the carved, staring figures of trolls and mythic beasts, and she was unable to shake the feeling that she was being watched.

At last, in the distance, she saw the statue she had been told to find. It was a sculpture of a dragon with four heads lying slain on the ground, a hero with a sword posing on its broad back. Standing next to the sculpture was a man with a knapsack, a faded patch visible on its flap. As Maddy drew closer, he seemed to sense her approach, and when she was still a few steps away, he turned around.

When she saw his face, it was as if the witch from the cottage had taken another form, beckoning her forward into the house, or the oven, from which she would never escape. It was Ilya Severin. “Hello, Maddy.”

Maddy said nothing. They were just a few feet apart. It had been more than two years since she had last seen his face, and he seemed slightly more gaunt than she recalled, his hair and clothes different in ways that she would notice only later. But his black eyes were the same as before.

Ilya took a step forward. Maddy drew back, her eyes still fixed on his, and in an instant, it all became clear. Ilya could be here for only one reason, and as the full meaning of his presence dawned on her at last, she found herself turning away, moving blindly up the path through the trees.

With startling suddenness, Ilya was at her side. He took her by the arm, gently but insistently, and before she could pull free, she heard him speak in her ear. “Careful. We aren't alone.”

Maddy glanced quickly around. Aside from the figure of a grinning cat perched at the edge of the footpath, she saw only a few families, none of whom were looking in her direction. “They're watching us?”

“They've always been watching you,” Ilya said. “Don't you know that by now?”

Maddy was unable to speak. She became aware that Ilya was steering her up the path, heading away from the others, and it was only as they moved deeper into the woods that she found her voice again. “Listen. I can't be a part of this. Whatever you came here to do—”

“You don't have a choice anymore.” Ilya looked from side to side as they headed for the zoo, passing a child being led on a tired pony. “I did not intend for you to become involved. I learned only a few days ago that you were on the yacht at all. But now that I am here, I will protect you.”

Maddy managed to wrench her arm free. They halted in the middle of the path. “Why should I trust you?”

“You shouldn't,” Ilya said. “Not yet. But you need to believe me when I say you're in danger. And I'm the only one who can get you out.” He began to walk again. “Tell me what they have told you so far.”

Maddy was left with no choice but to follow him through the forest. “Just that I had to get on the yacht and bring someone else on board. If I didn't, they'd reveal everything about Lermontov. Were you the one who told them?”

“I told them nothing,” Ilya said, not looking in her direction. “The last thing I wanted was to put you at risk. If they know, it's in some other way. They have been watching you for a long time.”

Something in his words told her he was telling the truth. “So why are you here?”

“It's best if you don't know.” Ilya kept his eyes straight ahead as they entered the zoo, where a mangy lion was pacing back and forth in its cage. “The safest thing is for you to ask no questions.”

They came to a halt before another enclosure, heavy with the smell of sawdust and dung, in which a bear lay with its paws crossed. A few tourists were listlessly regarding the animals nearby. “I don't care about being exposed,” Maddy said. “Not anymore. It can't be any worse than this.”

“You're wrong,” Ilya said. “If I fail to perform this task, you'll be dead. So will I.”

He said this casually, as if discussing something that had nothing to do with either of them. Looking over at him now, Maddy remembered the first time they had met, at the house of Anzor Archvadze, who had died a terrible death because he had dared, like Tarkovsky, to involve himself in the operations of this shadow world. “And what if you do it?”

“We will talk about this later.” Ilya paused. “I did not want this. I am here because I have no other choice. But I will see that these men pay for what they've done. Both to you and to me.”

Maddy heard a flicker of feeling in his voice for the first time. “Is that a promise?”

Looking at the cage, Ilya gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Yes. But that will come later.”

They fell silent. Thinking back to their first meeting, Maddy saw again that if she had never entered that house, she could have simply gone on as before, unaware that her world was built on such precarious ground. Yet the trap would always have been there, unseen, even if she had never set eyes on Ilya.

For a moment, she found herself thinking of Tarkovsky. He had trusted her in spite of her past, and now, in return, she would only betray him. Yet part of her was still bound to the Scythian, whose fate had been joined with hers in such unexpected ways. And perhaps, she thought, there might still be a way out.

Maddy spoke without turning from the bars of the cage. “What do you need?”

“Very little,” Ilya said. “We will part ways here. You will go back to the promenade and return to the
Rigden
. I will follow from a distance. And I will arrange to meet you on the yacht.”

Maddy laughed. “Well, that's great. But you can't just expect to walk on board.”

For the first time, Ilya smiled, although it did not touch his eyes. “That's exactly what I intend to do.”

L
aszlo, the bosun of the megayacht, was tired. Like most of the crew, he was young, fit, and used to hard work, but for most of the morning, he had been keeping watch over the passerelle, greeting the guests as they came and went and making sure that no one tried to sneak on board. For a while, he had flirted with one of the stewardesses, but she had been called away urgently by a passenger, so now he was alone and wondering if he could get someone else to take over.

It was shortly before noon. The megayacht was berthed in the port of Yalta, where it was the largest private vessel in sight. Like any yacht of its size, it inevitably aroused curiosity, and passersby had been coming up all day to admire the ship and shout questions. There had also been a handful of dockwalkers, the kind you saw at ports from Fort Lauderdale to Antibes, approaching to ask if there were any vacancies. The bosun had done a fair amount of dayworking himself, so he didn't begrudge them, but it did become rather tiresome after a while.

Laszlo saw another such figure walking along the quay now. The man was of average height and deeply tanned, dressed in a white polo shirt, khaki shorts, and deck shoes, with a knapsack slung over one shoulder. The bosun knew this type well, so he was not surprised when the man strolled up to the base of the passerelle and waved. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Laszlo said. He noticed that the man stopped, properly, before mounting the gangway. No matter who you were, you never boarded someone else's yacht without permission.

The man looked appreciatively at the hull. “What's the length? Four hundred?”

Laszlo had been asked this question at least ten times that day. “Four hundred and twelve.”

“Impressive.” The man set down his knapsack. “Where are you coming from?”

“Constanta,” Laszlo said. “Got in late yesterday. But we're heading out tonight.”

“A shame. One doesn't often see such a ship.” The man's accent, Laszlo noticed, was hard to place, the kind that came only from a lifetime of wandering. “A long shot, but is there any work available?”

Laszlo smiled. He had pegged the man as a dayworker at first sight. “Nothing today. Just launched last week.”

The man grinned back. “I thought so. But no harm in asking. Can I leave a card?”

“Sure,” Laszlo said. In his back pocket, he already had half a dozen cards, left by other dockwalkers over the past few hours, which he would throw away as soon as they were out to sea.

The dayworker picked up his bag and mounted the passerelle. Up close, Laszlo saw that his most striking features were his eyes, which were very dark in his tanned face, and something in their friendly but observant expression made him think that the man would have good stories to share.

“The name's Meyer,” the dayworker said, pulling a business card from his pocket. As he was writing a number on the back of the card, Laszlo caught a glimpse, for the first time, of the faded patch sewn to the flap of his bag. It was a civil red ensign. Beneath it, there was a second patch, the image of a golden dragon, rampant, with a blue anchor emblazoned on one of its wings.

Laszlo's face lit up. He gestured toward the second patch. “You were at Warsash?”

The dayworker looked up with a smile. “That's right,” Meyer said, putting his pen away. “Were you?”

“For my class two deck,” Laszlo said. “Right after the merger with Southampton.”

“I would have just missed you, then.” Meyer gave him the card. “Thought I was getting my chief's ticket. Ended up with my class three instead. Always wanted to work on a ship like this.”

Laszlo pocketed the card without looking at it. “Care to take a turn around deck?”

Meyer laughed. “I'd like that very much. You're sure the old man won't mind?”

“We'll stay out of his way,” Laszlo said, heading for the steps. “I could use a break. Come on.”

The two men went up together. On the yacht's aft deck, a few guests were seated beneath the umbrellas near the wet bar, but most had gone onshore. Tarkovsky, the bosun knew, was in the conference room in the main salon. He was meeting with the executives from Polyneft and Argo, discussing something that was rumored by the crew, who loved gossip, to be a matter of importance for all parties.

Laszlo studied the dayworker. “So where did you end up after Warsash?”

“A few things here and there,” Meyer said, turning his eyes toward the marina. “Been mostly in Majorca. Hard to find work these days. My last contract ended in Yalta, so I thought I'd try my luck here—”

He was cut off by an agitated female voice, which came from the deck behind them: “I'm sorry, but something terrible has happened.”

Laszlo turned around. It was Maddy, Tarkovsky's art consultant, who had been added to the manifest at the last minute for reasons that remained unclear. Looking at her face, which was drawn with worry, the bosun flashed on all the possible things that could go wrong. “What is it?”

“It's my shoes,” Maddy said miserably. “A pair of Louboutins. They're missing from the basket. I put them there when I came back from the beach. Now they're gone, and no one else seems to care.”

As Laszlo listened, he saw a stewardess standing a few steps away. The two of them shared a brief glance of commiseration over Maddy's shoulder. “All right. Let's see what we can do.”

He glanced over at Meyer, who seemed to sense his predicament. “I'll show myself off,” Meyer said at once. “Thanks for the tour. The next time you're here, I can buy you a drink—”

Maddy broke in again. “Look, I don't mean to be rude, but I need to find these shoes. Could we all hurry, please?”

“Yes, of course.” Laszlo followed her and the stewardess to the other end of the deck. Glancing back, he saw Meyer going down the steps to the level below. A moment later, he was out of sight.

Laszlo spent the next five minutes searching for the shoes with the stewardess, while Maddy stood by impatiently. Finally, catching a glimpse of red, he saw that the shoes had slipped down by accident behind one of the deck chairs. Taking them into her hands like a pair of lost children, Maddy thanked him effusively, then scurried away to the staircase. Laszlo watched her go, shaking his head, and returned without haste to his station by the passerelle.

Two levels above, on the main deck, Maddy headed for her own cabin, shoes in hand, her heart finally beginning to slow.

Watching the conversation with the bosun from a distance, Maddy had been struck by how relaxed Ilya had seemed. She had never seen him cast away his natural intensity like this before, although she knew that the encounter had been carefully staged. With so many résumés available online, it would not have been hard to learn something about the bosun's background, and a chemical tan and some makeup over his tattoo were all that were required to complete the picture.

She didn't know where Ilya had gone after descending from the deck, but she suspected that he had simply headed left at the foot of the stairs, instead of returning to the passerelle. This would have brought him to the bottom deck, not far from the tender bay. All in all, he had played his part admirably, which made her wonder what else about Ilya might be an illusion.

Going into the cabin, Maddy shut the door and tossed the heels into the closet among Elena's things, where she had found them in the first place. Then she pulled the phone from her purse and dialed.

After a few rings, the distorted voice answered on the other end. “You're late.”

“It doesn't matter,” Maddy said, her anger rising, as always, at the sound of that mechanical tone. “He's here. What now?”

“That's no concern of yours,” the voice said. “If he needs you, he'll tell you himself. Don't ever be late again.”

The line went dead. Maddy looked at the phone, then put it down, already filing away her rage to focus on the task before her.

Two thousand miles away, in the bedroom of her house in Knightsbridge, Asthana set her own phone aside with a sense of satisfaction.

There had been a number of possible devices to get Ilya on board, but with Maddy on the yacht, it would have been a shame not to utilize her. It was always best, Asthana had learned long ago, to use every part of the animal.

She heard a gentle knock on her bedroom door, followed by the voice of her mother. “Maya, dear? Are you all right?”

“Just a minute,” Asthana said. Rising from the edge of her bed, she switched off the phone and tucked it safely into a drawer of her bureau. Then she went over to the mirror on the wall, gazing greedily at her own reflection. She was dressed in a red bridal sari and scarf, embroidered in gold, with bracelets on her wrists, her hands done in henna, her hair and makeup exquisite.

Asthana regarded herself for a moment longer. Then she turned away from the mirror, smiling, and headed for the bedroom door. After all, it would hardly do, she thought, to be late to her own wedding.