The Traitor's Story (26 page)

History

He got them a good cabin on the overnight ferry to Stockholm, and left her only to go to the onboard shop to buy something to eat. He didn’t want to risk taking her to the restaurant. It was unlikely any of Karasek’s people would have joined enough dots to follow them this far, but he also knew how many operations fell through as a result of last-minute complacency.

The boat rolled a little, kneading the waves, but she was used to it now, and sat cross-legged on the bed, eating, happy. When she’d finished she said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Harry said you will leave your job.” He nodded. “What will you do?”

He shrugged. “I like history. I might write a history book.”

She smiled broadly and said, “I like history, too.”

“Well, who knows, maybe it’ll be translated into Russian.”

“No, I learn English.” He nodded again, not doubting it, still amazed by how she’d come on in this last week.

“What happened to your parents?”

“My father died when I was very small. I don’t remember. And my mother, three years ago. She was hit by a car.” She relayed the information blankly, as if recounting the plot of a novel.

“I’m sorry to hear that. And you didn’t have any other relatives?”

“My mother’s, er . . . mother and father?”

“Your grandparents?”

“Yes, they were dead. And my other grandparents, from my father, they didn’t want to take me. They’re old.” Again, there was no self-pity, no search for sympathy, just a basic relation of the facts.

“Aren’t you curious, about what will happen to you now, about the man I’m taking you to?”

She smiled. “You said he’s a good man.”

“He is,” said Finn, though he couldn’t tell her much more than that because he didn’t know how Alex would choose to help, whether by placing her with someone back in Russia or sending her to a boarding school. There would be no more orphanages, that was all he knew. “His name is Aleksandr Naumenko.”

She looked wide-eyed for a moment and laughed, saying, “I’ve . . . I know from the TV, from the news.”

“Yes, that’s him.”

“He’s very rich.”

“And very powerful. The man who took you from Russia, he won’t be able to harm you now.”

Finn looked at his watch, calculating how many hours it would be until Karasek was ambushed in Kaliningrad. And yet instinctively, he couldn’t help but imagine that Karasek would walk away from Sparrowhawk, the way he’d so far walked away from every other attempt to bring him down. If that were the case, then Katerina really would need to rely on Alex’s protection, at least for a while.

“May I read to you?” He looked at her, puzzled. “Harry said it’s good for practice my pronunciation.”

“Okay, what are you reading?”

“An English crime story. It’s very good.” She reached into her bag and pulled the book free.

Finn looked at the cover and said, “
Murder on the Orient Express
.” It was oddly appropriate, but he had to wonder if Harry had picked it up somewhere specifically for Katerina, or if it had been in his own collection. He’d ask him about it when he got back.

“Do you know it?”

“I read it a long time ago, but I’d like to hear you read it.”

She read to him for about an hour, occasionally asking for guidance on how to pronounce some word or other. Occasionally he corrected her, too, but for the most part he just listened, enjoying the lilting delivery, the nostalgia of a story so long-known that it seemed to speak of his own childhood.

When she went to bed, changing in the bathroom into a pair of pajamas Harry had bought for her, he kept on only the light by the desk. And for hours, he kept reading the book from where she’d left off, sinking back into the story, lulled by the rolling of the ship, the occasional strained clanks from down on the vehicle deck.

He stayed in the chair all night, dozing for short periods but never really sleeping. Once or twice, Katerina seemed troubled in her sleep, acting out bad dreams, but she didn’t wake.

Despite the early promise of a rough crossing, the sea settled as the night wore on, and by the time dawn seeped across the horizon, the sea was flat and the sky cloudless. He showered and dressed, and when he came out of the bathroom he saw that she was awake.

She smiled. “The sea made me sleep.”

“Good,” he said, understanding what she meant. “I’ll go and get us some breakfast.”

By the time he came back, she was in the bathroom. She came out dressed but with her hair still damp.

“Do you want to dry your hair?”

“It’s okay.” She looked bedraggled and childlike again.

After breakfast she looked out of the window. The sun was in the sky now, and the first of the islands were appearing in the distance. She looked back at Finn, her eyes full of excitement.

“May we go outside?”

He weighed the very slight risk of Karasek having someone aboard against the fact that they were now on the long approach into Stockholm, within reach of safety.

“Okay, but you need to put more clothes on—it’ll be cold.”

She laughed, even as she went into her bag for another sweater, and said, “I’m from Russia.”

She had a point.

He took her up onto the large open deck on the top of the boat, and despite the sharp wind pummeling it, there were plenty of other passengers who’d been tempted out. Finn scanned their faces, but there was no one to raise his suspicions.

Katerina was mesmerized by the procession of small islands—some within shouting distance of the boat—with their brightly painted wooden houses and jetties, and the blue and yellow of Swedish flags fluttering. A couple of times, he asked her if she was warm enough, but it appeared she didn’t feel the cold, so wrapped up was she in the beauty of this bright new country.

Only as the boat came alongside the dock did she turn away from the railing and look at him, accepting that the time had come to go back to the cabin. Other passengers were already massing near the exits, and he decided it was better for them to let the crowds disperse a little.

So they sat for a while when they got back to the cabin, and Katerina
said to him, “I’m . . .” She couldn’t think of the word, and demonstrated by holding her hand out and shaking it as if trembling.

“Nervous?”

“Nervous,” she said, trying out the word. Then she nodded. “Yes. A little.”

After all she had been through.

“That’s natural. This is something new, and you’ll have a new life, but you’ll soon get used to it.”

“Will I see you again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not.”

She nodded, accepting the fact for what it was, and he was hardly surprised, given the losses she’d known and the stoicism with which she’d faced them.

Once the boat had docked and they’d disembarked, they took a taxi to the Vasa Museum. It was a large, modern warehouse of a building from the outside, and though Finn had heard of it, he’d never quite taken onboard what it was. He knew its only exhibit was a salvaged ship, the
Vasa
, but no more than that.

As they stepped into the vast hall, he stopped, awestruck by the sight of the seventeenth-century warship housed there, its masts rising up into the subdued light, people on the tiered floors that surrounded it, looking at the ship from different levels. It was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.

Katerina seemed equally stunned, and spoke in Russian before saying, “It’s wonderful.”

Finn nodded, then saw Valentin from the corner of his eye, standing guard near the doors. He was smiling, waiting for Finn to notice him, and Finn walked over now and shook his hand.

“Good to see you, Valentin.”

“You too, Mr. Harrington. It’s amazing, no?”

“Stunning.” Valentin nodded toward where Alex was standing, looking up at the towering, dark hull. Finn nodded, too, and said, “I’ll leave the bags with you.”

“Of course.”

He returned to Katerina then and said, “You can look around if you want to. I’ll be talking to that man over there.”

She looked in Alex’s direction and said, “That’s him?” She was peering, wanting to match the man she could see with the man she’d seen on television. The pale-gray suit and open-necked shirt, the short hair, the slight tan—all were familiar enough. Finn thought he always looked more trim and physically fitter in person than he did on TV.

“That’s him.” He pointed. “Look, there are different floors. You can go down and look underneath the ship or go all the way to the top.”

She said, “I can go?”

“Yes.” She nodded and walked away—unsure at first, then swept up in the drama of the ship itself.

Finn approached Alex, who turned before he got there and embraced him, saying, “Finn, isn’t this the most extraordinary thing you’ve seen?”

Finn looked up the vertiginous side of the ship and said, “It’s quite overwhelming.”

Alex held his arms out as if displaying something he’d just bought. “Sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 and lay undisturbed on the bottom of Stockholm harbor until 1961. One man believed it was there, found it, salvaged it intact. Such an inspiring story.”

“Incredible,” said Finn, and he knew now that his earlier comment to Katerina had been the truth—he would write a history book, whether it was published or not.

“So, let’s talk,” said Alex. “That was the girl, you just came in with?”

“Yeah, her name’s Katerina. She’s thirteen. She’s an orphan. Karasek trafficked her to Tallinn—you probably heard what happened after that.”

“Will she need to see a doctor?”

“No. Luckily for her, Karasek wanted her for himself, so she hasn’t been raped.”

Alex shook his head in disbelief. For all the things he’d done in his life, there were still things that filled him with as much horror as anyone else.

Then he smiled and waved his hand at the room as he said, “My daughter is in here somewhere—she’s fourteen now . . .”

“Really? I remember her being so small.”

Alex laughed. “Wait until you have your own children, Finn—it’s an even bigger shock. But it’s good, they can be companions until we decide what to do with the girl.”

“Thank you for doing this, Alex.”

“This was nothing. What you did was something. Now, do you want to know what happens to her? Is it wise for you to know, if Karasek wants the girl so much?”

Finn immediately saw how important it was that this be the end of it, that the girl had to be able to move on with her life, that there had to be no thread leading back through the maze to him and to Karasek and to everything else that had happened in Tallinn.

“Karasek himself might not be a problem, but you’re right, it’s probably best we never speak of this again. I know you’ll do the right thing for her, that’s all that matters to me.”

Alex nodded, deep in thought for a moment before he said, “Karasek
could
still be a problem. I hear something happened in Kaliningrad last night, and it didn’t go well. People were killed, but Karasek wasn’t there.”

Finn wondered what that would mean for him, not least the alarming possibility that he wouldn’t be able to go back to Tallinn, not for any length of time. And he was probably marked as a traitor now, which made it worse, particularly if the operation had failed totally and claimed casualties in the process.

“Do you know who was killed?”

“Not names. Some of our people, for sure.” He studied Finn’s face. “This news is bad news for you?”

“You could say that.”

Alex seemed grave with concern himself, but then he looked over Finn’s shoulder and smiled. Katerina was walking slowly toward them, looking up at the ship. She saw Finn and he smiled, and she looked questioningly, asking if it was okay for her to approach.

Finn introduced her to Alex, who smiled broadly and spoke to her in Russian. Whatever he said, she answered with enthusiasm, and after a moment Finn realized they were talking about the museum.

Alex’s daughter came over, also now on the verge of becoming a beautiful young woman, no trace of the child Finn remembered. She clearly didn’t remember him at all but greeted him politely and then, after an introduction, entered into an excitable conversation with Katerina in Russian.

Alex smiled indulgently but then said something to Katerina, who turned to Finn in response, her smile fading as she said, “You’re leaving?”

He nodded. “Mr. Naumenko will look after you, make sure you’re okay.”

She looked surprised, as if she hadn’t expected him to leave immediately. Urgently, she said, “Thank you, for everything, all the . . .” She looked about her, unable to find the words, her eyes glistening. She put her arms around him, hugging him so tightly that he feared she might not let go again.

When she did loosen her arms, he took her by the shoulders and looked her in the face, then wiped away her tears and said, “Katerina, saving you last week, killing that man, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.” She smiled, nodding, still sad. “Now, remember to look out for my book.”

She laughed a little, and he stepped back and shook Alex’s hand. “Thanks, Alex, for everything. I’ll be in touch.”

“I’ll walk with you to the door.”

Finn nodded and said, “Bye, Katerina.”

“Goodbye, Finn.”

They left the girls together and walked toward the door. Finn tried not to look back, but when he did, he was relieved to see the girls heading for the steps up to the next floor, arm in arm.

Then Alex said, “When do you plan to go back?”

“Tonight’s ferry.”

“I think you should go sooner. Go to the airport, get the first available flight.” Something in his tone made Finn stop walking. Alex looked at him. “It could be nothing, but . . .”

“What is it, Alex?”

“Your girlfriend.”

Finn felt his heart lurch. “What’s happened to her?”

“Nothing, it’s not that. A faction in Moscow likes to make life difficult for me—it’s not a problem because my influence and power is one level higher. But your girlfriend, Finn, she was the source of the story about us.”

“But she didn’t even know I was in business with you.”

As he said it, he thought of Louisa talking about her, thought of the CIA following them, claiming it was Sofi’s colleague they were interested in, thought of everything about the way she’d behaved in the weeks since he’d announced he was quitting.