Mitch Silver - The Bookworm

The head of Gosteleradio started to say something but thought better of it.

A tear rolled down Lara’s left cheek, followed by another. “Everything this week has been a lie. The suicide note of Lev’s murdered friend Craig. The Americans striking oil in Alaska, that one’s a whopper. Oh, and the lie that started it all—the false prophecy of Nostradamus you wanted me to find for you.”

“Me? Don’t be absurd. That was Nikki.” A few of the nearby guests, hearing the raised voice, looked at him.

Lara said, “Tell me you’re not working for the guy in the Kremlin.”

Lowering his voice to an urgent whisper he said, “My wife and son don’t get along. Never have. If she says ‘up,’ he says ‘down.’ I wasn’t a bad husband, just a lousy referee.” He stopped and looked at her. “I can see you don’t understand.”

She grabbed him by the shirt with both hands. “No, you don’t understand.” To her shock, a tear had formed itself in her right eye and was rolling down that cheek too. “I felt something for you, Grisha. Dammit, I made love to you! I let you… in .” She was awash in tears now.

He pried her hands, gently this time, from his shirt. “Look, I have to go. The show’s starting. I have a job to do.”

To his back, as he moved off, Lara whispered, “So do I.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov stepped to the microphone. Behind him, the first image of the evening was projected upon the Kremlin walls and music from the Bolshoi Ballet’s Giselle welled up: archival footage showed his much younger self performing an effortless jeté that took him from the Tsar’s Tower all the way to the Arsenal.

“Ugrozy vzryva!”

Seven startled technicians and Pyotr Tamnov, the director in the Channel One truck, swiveled their heads as an Army major strode into their protected area.

“You heard me,” the soldier said, “there’s a bomb threat. Vacate the premises now.”

“But, the broadcast…” Tamnov began.

“Just let it run. We received a call threatening the bigwigs out there. Everybody, please… I must conduct a sweep. This will take less than ten minutes. Get something to eat, take a bathroom break, whatever. And give me your keys. No one gets back in till I’m sure it’s safe.”

As soon as the last man was out the door, Viktor locked it and un-holstered his Yarygin 9mm service pistol. If and when the authorities realized what was happening, they’d be coming through that door. Or at least trying to.

Viktor popped the DVD he and Lara had made thirty minutes earlier into the slot on the console. Finding the exact point in the prerecorded show where the graphics accompanying the fireworks display would begin, he overwrote the entire sequence, Bible and all. Fireworks, indeed.

A knock came from outside. “It’s Grigoriy Alexandrovich. Why is this door locked?”

When Viktor didn’t answer, the knock came again, louder this time. “Let me in, Pyotr. Now!”

From her vantage point in the crowd, Lara could see Gerasimov on the metal steps, banging on the door to the truck before taking out his phone and using it. Then he hurried off. Meanwhile, Baryshnikov soldiered on, intoning the words of the poet Igor Mikhailusenko as more images from the ballet swept across the walls behind him:

The young red-haired tough, off to the side in the shadows, saw Gerasimov trying to get in the truck. Something wasn’t right; the man was locked out. Nikki’s orders were clear: make sure nothing went wrong with the telecast that would expose the Bible to the world.

In the roped-off section, Lara saw him go up to the truck and try the door handle. She turned to Katrina, holding a large takeout container of coffee, and told her, “ Idti .”

Buzz Cut was taking something out of his pocket, a penknife or a pick for the lock. Lara repeated the order, more sharply this time, to her ex-roommate. “Go!”

The woman didn’t budge. “Why do I have to?”

“Because your druga , Viktor, needs you.” Lara gave her a gentle but firm shove toward the rope that separated the guests from the working area. “Now, go!”

Finally, Trina moved toward the mobile studio. Just as she was passing the production truck she suddenly tripped, spilling the coffee all over herself.

The guy was still bent over the lock. Damn, had he missed her whole act? Trina was making an enormous fuss now, bemoaning her clumsiness, even as everyone else in Red Square was engrossed in the festivities a hundred meters away.

The kid finally looked down from what he was doing and saw the woman at the foot of the steps, ineffectually dabbing at the huge stain on her dress. Could he help her? Did he have a hankie? She said something to him, and absently gripped the boy’s arm to support herself as she dealt with her outfit.

The old Damsel in Distress ploy, not as good as the Lover in Peril, but just as time-honored—would it still work in the twenty-first century? No, Alexei did nothing to help her. But wait, he did nothing to move her hand off his arm either. Then, in her frantic efforts, she managed to spill what was left of the coffee on him, too.

Edging the young man down the steps and around the side of the truck, she began dabbing at various places on his trousers, centrally located places mostly, which Alexei didn’t seem to mind at all. Finally, Katrina prevailed upon him to move off toward the portable lavatories, so she might get a wet paper towel for them both. Or something. It would buy Viktor a little more time.

Just as Alla Pugachova was following Baryshnikov to the microphone, a woman stepped in front of Lara, blocking her view. It was Tatiana Ivanova, Grisha’s meteorologist of a wife.

“Do you still have the book, Larissa Mendelova? If so, you have us over a barrel. I’m authorized to double our previous offer to you: ten million rubles.”

“Authorized by whom? Garry Kasparov? You can stop pretending, Tati, I know which side you’re on. My friend Pavel sent me your vodcast.”

A look of utter sadness flickered across the woman’s face. “He was my friend, too. In fact, he worked for me.”

Pugachova had launched into the sad tale of the artist who sold everything he had to fill the street outside his lover’s window with millions of roses, and the crowd was responding, as Russians loved to do. A million hands began clapping rhythmically out there in the Square. There was no way anyone could have a conversation, but Lara tried.

“Worked for you at the Broadcast Center?”

“Worked for me at British Intelligence. I’m a… field officer, I guess you’d call it. I wormed my way into making that video so I could… so we could…”

She looked at her wristwatch. “Look, we’re wasting time. The only reason I’m telling you this, blowing my cover, is we’re desperate to keep that Bible from falling into the wrong hands… my son’s hands. Now, how about it?”

It felt like a punch to the gut. Had Lara been wrong about absolutely everything? And everyone? To the rhythmic clapping the crowd now added foot stamping as Pugachova launched into her song of love.