The Domino Game (10 page)

He hesitated. Not long enough, he hoped, for her to notice. Pushed a smile as if she could see it and hoped it would show in his response. He closed his eyes.

“Kel, I don’t know what to say.” He did know what to say. What he wanted to say was
Stop! Don’t do this, Kelly! It won’t work!
He could see it as plainly as he’d heard the words before she’d spoken them, but how many fathers would have the guts or the stupidity to say those words at a moment like this. “Honey… honey, I’m so happy for you. For both of you.”

He heard his daughter’s sigh of relief. “Oh Dad. Thank you.” Heard what she hadn’t said. I know you don’t have much time for him, Dad. I know how much this must disappoint you. I’m sorry. I love you. But I love him, too and I really want to do this and I just love you so much more for understanding and
accepting.

That was the way he and Kelly were. They didn’t need to talk to communicate. He pushed the smile again.

“So, when’s it going to be?” From the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of movement on the screen of his computer.

“We’re thinking winter. Dave’s family are scattered all over; they’ll need some warning. Is early December going to be okay for you?

“Fine. December’s fine.” Jack Hartman’s eyes were fixed on the blinking icon.
Receiving Mail.
“Honey, anytime will be fine. I’ll make it fine, you know that.” The blue measuring bar gathered pace along its track.

“Thank you, Dad.” The way she said it: more unspoken words. Then a different tone. A kind of schoolgirl exuberance. “Dave’s right here. He’d like to say hello.”

The measuring bar ran its length and vanished and the computer chimed. Two lines of decoded black text flicked up at the top of the screen.

Sender: Thomas J. Gaines

Subject: Exfiltration Authorization Request - Aven, Nikolai.

“Sure. Put him on.” Hartman reached for the mouse. Ran the pointer across the text, as David Rengard’s voice came on the line.

“Good morning, sir.” David Rengard. Old New York money and manners and breeding. Upper West Side with vacations at Rhode Island. The kind of guy who checked his image in storefront windows. He and Kelly had been going together for – what was it – a year? Hartman had hoped for better. Hoped she’d wake up and move on, but she hadn’t.

His finger hovered above the mouse. He bit his lip. Another premonition. This didn’t feel right. “Dave.” Another forced smile. “Kelly’s told me the good news.” So what if it was a cliché. “I’m really pleased for you.”

“Thank you, sir. I’m going to make her happy, I promise.”

“I know you will, Dave.” No you’re not. You’re going to break her heart and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it because that’s something she has to work through all by herself. Hartman’s eyes tripped back to the monitor. “Listen, Dave. I’m sorry, but I have a situation here. I’m going to have to go. Can you put Kelly back on the line for a minute?”

A pause. A blank, offhand tone. “Sure.” Maybe Dave could read between the lines as well.

“Daddy?”

“Here, Kel.” He took a breath. Lowered his finger and clicked on the line of text. The four-paragraph message trickled down the screen like raindrops on a window but Hartman didn’t notice. All he could see was the heading.

AUTHORIZATION DENIED.

Then the door to his office opened and Malcolm Powell was standing there, dressed in a dinner suit, looking like he’d just been hauled out of a party, his features squeezed with barely controlled rage.

“I’ve just been speaking to Washington, Jack. I thought you and I had an understanding.” He noticed the telephone pressed to Hartman’s ear and lowered his voice. “Whoever that is, get rid of them. We need to talk.”

“Dad…” Kelly’s tone was cautious, like a blind person suddenly aware of a third presence in a room. “Who is that?”

Hartman broke away from the Ambassador’s gaze and let his eyes trail back to the monitor.

AUTHORIZATION DENIED.

What the fuck was this? What were they talking about? The material Aven had brought them was exactly what they had discussed. Exactly what Gaines and the DDO wanted.

His thoughts tracked to Nikolai Aven sitting out there somewhere with his wife and daughter, hanging on his call, and he felt the stone cold shiver that always told him when an operation was about to turn to shit. Anger welled in his gut but he held it in, making sure his face gave away nothing. He looked up again, his eyes settling on Powell, tripped the receiver closer to his lips and spoke into it in a calm, measured voice.

“I’m sorry, Kel, something’s come up. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

9

Two cases. That
had been Hartman’s instruction. Anything that wouldn’t fit in two cases had to stay.

So how did you fit three fives into two suitcases?

It sounded like one of those stupid jokes… how many Poles does it take to change a light bulb?

From where he lay on the bed Nikolai could see them, set together beside the door, in the exact same spot where Gilmanov’s surprise package had laid waiting for him last night.

Natalia murmured in her sleep and nestled closer to him. He turned aside and looked at her, running his fingers gently through her hair.

She had remained remarkably calm as he had explained it all to her.

She’d sat opposite him at the dining table, taking it all in, her fingers steepled to her lips, her intelligent, dark eyes searching his as he spoke. Then, when he had finished – when he had told her everything – she looked down, sitting quietly in her own world, coming to terms with the reality of their situation. Finally she raised her head and stared at him.

At first he was afraid to look back at her – more afraid of the rage he might find in her eyes than he had been of anything else that had happened in the last twelve hours – but he needn’t have been. There was no anger there. None of the recrimination he deserved for having somehow blindly led his family into this labyrinth of horrors. Just a resolute equanimity.

After that she began asking questions and testing the answers, suggesting options that perhaps he may not have considered, but he had of course. In those moments when he’d had the time to think – in the tunnels of the Metro, making his way from Revolution Square to his rendezvous with Hartman, even walking up the darkened stairway to the apartment – he’d considered and reconsidered them all.

When she realized that, she sighed. “Be careful what you wish for,” she murmured.

His eyes questioned her.

“My grandmother used to tell me that.” She repeated the words.
“You must be careful what you wish for, Natalia.
I always wished we could visit America one day. I just never thought it would happen like this.”

Then she forced a smile, rose from her chair and calmly set about preparing dinner.

While they had been talking, Larisa had been playing quietly with her toys on the living room floor. Now they sat down together as a family and while they were eating Natalia explained to their daughter how tomorrow they would all be going on an exciting trip. That she must go to sleep quickly tonight since they would be leaving early and it was going to be a very big day.

Nikolai watched, marveling at the way his wife and daughter seemed able to communicate as equals in a world where age had no definition. Larisa serious and attentive, halfway an adult; and Natalia tonight, despite everything, still light-hearted and playful, halfway a child.

When dinner was finished they went off down the hall together, Larisa clutching her mother’s hand and skipping at her side, demanding to know why Boris couldn’t have a bath, where they were going, and whether Raisa could come with them. Nikolai watched with a smile he couldn’t help, then started clearing the dishes. Part way through the task it occurred to him that there was actually no need for what he was doing. If they were never returning, what did clean dishes matter? But then his sense of order rejected the proposition and he continued on as if this were just any other night. As if their world would be the same tomorrow.

He finished and flicked off the kitchen fight. Along the hall Natalia was backing quietly from Larisa’s room, pulling the door softly closed behind her. She turned and slipped off her shoes, hooking them in her fingers and tiptoeing back along the carpet runner. When she reached him she put the shoes aside and took his hand in their place, pressing her fingers into his palm. Her eyes were luminous with a strange intensity. Nikolai stared into them, letting himself be drawn into their liquid darkness, then she was leading him. Clasping his hand and drawing him with her along the hall as she edged slowly backwards towards their room.

They made love with a frantic energy. One way first, then another and another, their bodies driven together by a desperate passion until finally Natalia shuddered and froze above him, letting out a fractured cry. He let go then, bursting into her with an intensity he had never before experienced and she cried over and over as he did, moving with him, taking it all and then collapsing into his arms.

They had lain like that in silence, wrapped in each other for what seemed like an eternity but wasn’t nearly long enough, until at last she had stirred and opened her eyes, leaned up to kiss him without smiling and then slipped away, leaving him alone, staring at the bedside clock, wondering when Hartman was going to call.

From along the hall he heard the sound of the shower and smelled the fresh fragrance of peach-scented shampoo. A few minutes later she returned, her body wrapped in a toweling robe, her skin glowing, her thick dark hair combed back, still wet and gleaming. She looked at him and smiled in a way he would always remember then went to the wardrobe, took down their bags from the top shelf, laid them out on the bed and began to pack.

“You just don’t understand, do you Jack?”

Malcolm Powell closed the door firmly behind him and sank into one of Hartman’s visitors’ chairs, loosening his black tie. Hartman eyed him, considering responses, trying to work out what role Powell was playing in whatever was going on. He took a breath.

“With all due respect, Mr Ambassador –” he started, but Powell cut him off, slicing through his protest with a slash of his hand through the air.

“Spare me the
due respect
crap, Jack. You have no respect for me so don’t insult me with the pretense.” Powell sat perfectly still, staring at him, his presence dominating the room. Despite the implied authority of his own position behind the desk, Hartman recognized that the axis of power had shifted to the chair opposite. The Ambassador leaned forward.

“What the hell did you think you were trying to pull with this
Aven
thing?”

That was what Powell’s outburst was about. Hartman’s eyes flickered to the computer screen, to the email response from Langley he still hadn’t had a chance to read… How come Powell was wired in to something that should have been strictly four walls within the Company? And how was it that he’d been brought into the loop on whatever was going on, even before Hartman himself?

As if reading his thoughts Powell nodded at the computer. “I presume you’ve received instructions.”

Hartman’s eyes narrowed. Any previous allowance of deference was stripped from his tone. “I don’t know what the fuck I’ve received. I haven’t had the fucking time to read it!”

Powell held his ground. “Then I suggest you do, Jack. I’ll wait.”

Hartman glared back at him then turned away to the screen, his eyes tracking the text.

Sender: Thomas J. Gaines

Subject: Exfiltration Authorization Request – Aven, Nikolai.

The bold type:

AUTHORIZATION DENIED.

Then the text below:

This matter referred to Dept. of State in response to Administration directive that all RUS issues of potential political sensitivity be reviewed there prior action. In response, Company advised that POLITICAL ISSUES at stake here override potential benefits of support for subject, Aven, and proposed exfiltration. You are instructed to hand all material in your possession re this matter to FBI Legal Attaché, Moscow, for liaison with FSB and Interior
Ministry.

What fucking POLITICAL
ISSUES?

Hartman swerved back from the screen to face Powell. “I assume you know what’s going on here, so maybe you’d like to explain it to me?”

Their eyes locked across the desk. Eventually the Ambassador blinked.

“It’s ten years since you were last here, right?”

Powell leaned forward, not waiting for an answer.

“You’re pretending it’s the same place. It’s not, Jack. I’ve tried to explain that to you. You were here, what? Four years? So you think you know it all, but the time you put in then doesn’t mean squat because you know what, Jack? You were on another planet. When did you leave, ‘85? Perestroika didn’t even start until ‘86. You have no conception of this place now. The war of ideology is over. The Russians aren’t a political threat to us any longer. The risk, now, is that the goddamned place may implode!” Powell paused a second for emphasis. “The country’s an economic basket case. There are people starving out there, Jack, and they’ll steal and sell
anything
to survive. What we’ve got to do is help them through the upheaval. Encourage them. Keep the right people on side. Make sure no one tries to sell a nuclear missile, or worse, to someone we wouldn’t want owning it.

“This is all about alliances, Jack. Political alliances.” Powell attempted a smile. “We need the right people working with us, here.” He paused, his expression turning back to serious. “There’s a price we have to pay for that, and you know what it is? It means cutting those people some slack. Doing them some favors.”

Hartman listened with incredulity. It occurred to him that anyone overhearing this conversation a decade ago would have thought Powell was CIA, all twists and turns and expediency and compromise and rationalization. Maybe this
was
a different planet.

“You know what the goal is here, Jack?” Powell’s voice drew him back. “The goal is to build a strong market economy as quickly as possible. The faster we do that, the sooner we’ll be able to cut back on the billions of dollars of aid we’re having to pour into the place just to help them keep their heads above water. If we can get this country on its feet and tap them into our way of thinking then we’ve solved the problem. Any threat is neutralized for good and our bonus is that we end up with a huge new market of some hundred and fifty million people for everything American. You get it, Jack? Is it coming through?”

Hartman’s brow furrowed in disbelief. What was this? Did Powell want to sew another star on the flag? Russia the fifty- second fucking state! He glanced back at the response from Langley, still floating on the screen:

This matter referred to Dept. of State in response to Administration directive that all RUS issues of potential political sensitivity be reviewed there prior
action.

Administration directive.
This wasn’t just Powell! His head began turning slowly from side to side. Small movements at first, the arcs getting longer and bolder the more time he gave himself to think. He looked back again, meeting Powell’s gaze. He was probably going to lose his pension for this, but what the fuck! He leaned forward, dragging the power back to his side of the desk.

“You know what, Mr Ambassador? You’re fucking crazy!”

A flush of color rose in Powell’s cheeks but Hartman ignored it. He replayed Powell’s theme.

“So how long have you been here? A year? Two? Well let me tell you, pal, you don’t know squat about these people. What was it you said?
“If we can tap them into our way of thinking
…
”
I don’t know whether that’s your line or whether it came from one of your pals back in Washington. I don’t know who sold the goods to whom, but neither do I give a monkey’s fuck, because it’s absolute crap! These people are fucking
Russians,
pal. They’ve been around for over a thousand years.” He stared at the Ambassador, measuring his discomfort, deciding to go for broke. “In case you can’t count, that’s seven hundred years longer than we have. Underestimate that at your fucking peril!”

Hartman tossed his hands apart, “Don’t get me wrong. They’re nice people. I like them. But you give them an inch and they’ll take everything you flicking own. You start cutting deals with them like you’re suggesting…” He drew a breath, casting round for an analogy. Found one that suited and gave a grim smile. “You ever see that movie
Alien?”

To his surprise, Powell gave an involuntary nod.

Hartman pushed his chair back and got to his feet. Stepped around the desk and stood above the seated figure in the dinner suit. “Well think of that creature that gets inside you and starts growing in your gut, because that’s what happens when you start cutting deals with these people,
Mr Ambassador
.” He snared a breath. “You remember that.” He stepped away, returning to the desk, stacking papers, opening drawers, continuing to speak without bothering to look up.

“As surprising as it may seem,
Mr Ambassador,
they’re not all corrupt. This Aven guy is trying to do the right thing. That’s the kind of person we need on our side, but thanks to your interference you know what’s going to happen to him?” He stopped and looked up. “Yeah, you know, don’t you?” he threw the line away derisively. “You know and you don’t give a shit.”

Powell drew himself together. He climbed to his feet and took a step forward, grabbing the edge of Hartman’s desk in both his hands. His voice was brittle with anger.

“Listen to me, Hartman. No one talks to me like that. Least of all someone who works under me!”