David Duffy - Last to Fold

One good thing—nobody was after me, or they hadn’t been before tonight. Somebody—Ratko Rislyakov?—was now out a hundred K. So I still had a terrified Polina and a pissed-off kidnapper/extortionist to worry about. Maybe the head of the Russian mob, too. Who already hated me more than anyone else on earth. Not a game I would have chosen to sit in on, had I had the chance to preview the other players. Like it or not, I was in it now, and I still couldn’t see enough cards to get a feel for the game. First order of business tomorrow was to introduce myself to one guy at the table I hadn’t met.

I called Bernie as I came out of the tunnel on the Manhattan side. No answer—he’d gone home after all. I left a message that I’d drop off the money later that day. I put the Valdez in its lot and stopped by the office to put the gun, bag, and BlackBerry in the safe.

The smell of marijuana hung in the air. Foos was asleep in his office-bedroom. It would take a small explosion to wake him. Pig Pen was another matter.

“Nighttime, Russky,” he said as I passed his door.

“I know, Pig Pen. Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

“Wacky weed.”

“That’s the boss, right, Pig Pen? Not you?”

Through the dark I could just make out a half-open eye with a look that said, Don’t be too sure . Great. A stoned parrot.

“Good night, Pig Pen.”

“Good night, cheapskate.”

I took some comfort in the fact that he latches on to his latest word only until someone teaches him a new one.

I drank a small glass of vodka in the kitchen while I tried to remember why Ratko’s name sounded familiar. I didn’t get very far, and the vodka didn’t help. Maybe sleep would. My watch read 3:37 as I walked home through the empty streets. It was still hot.

The Chekist coughed, put his lighter to another cigarette, and clicked PLAY. The decade-old tape, digitally transferred to a laptop, crackled to life. Poor sound quality, plenty of background hiss, but the voices were clear. Not that it mattered—he’d listened enough times over the years to memorize the contents. Still, he took some pride in the job his technicians had done wiring the dacha. Neither of them had ever known. Not that that mattered either.

A nurse stopped at his door, wrinkling her nose. He hadn’t seen her before. She frowned at him, the cigarette, and the NO SMOKING sign above his head. She started to speak, but his hard stare drew her eyes to the name on the end of the hospital bed. She gave a small shriek and scurried away. He went back to the tape.

A TV played. The disembodied voice of the news reader described the carnage in central Moscow as firefighters fought to bring the blaze at Rosnobank under control. It would take them another fifteen hours, by which time the office tower would be only a charred shell. The death toll would just miss double digits. Could’ve been much worse, the Chekist thought, not for the first time. He’d taken all the precautions he could.

Over the TV came the sounds of drawers being opened and closed, papers ruffled, the occasional curse, vodka poured into a glass. Kosokov was getting drunk while he got ready to run. He didn’t know he was already dead.

Gorbenko’s voice. “You’ll never make it, you know. They’ll have men at every border crossing. They will have anticipated this.”

“I’ll worry about making it,” Kosokov said. “If the Cheka’s as smart as everyone says it is, we’d all still be working for the Party.”

“Don’t be a fool, Anatoly Andreivich. Look what they did to your bank. They’re shutting everything down, erasing all the tracks, eliminating all the links. You’re a very big link. You and I, we’re the only two who could expose everything.”

“I’m counting on that fact to keep me alive. You made your deal, Boris. You’re on your own with it. I’ll take my chances by myself.”

“You’re crazy! The CPS can provide protection. We can bring the Cheka down. Yeltsin will have no choice but to purge the entire organization when people see what they’ve done. It’s their one big weakness. No one will have difficulty believing they murdered innocent Russians to pursue their own ends. Especially once you and I lay out the evidence. Like the Katyn massacre. There will be national outrage.”

“National outrage? Russia today? Hah! Don’t make me laugh. Neither of us will live to see it, in any event. Like I said, you made your deal. Good luck to you. I’m taking my evidence with me. My life insurance policy.”

The crash of a door thrown open. Her voice. “Tolik, I came as soon as I could. What the hell is going on? What are you doing here? Oh… Who the hell are you?”

Gorbenko said, “No names. Better that way. Call me Leo. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Tolik, what the hell is happening?”

“Look at the TV. Your fucking husband is destroying everything. You, too. You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“Lachko? What are you talking about?”

“Look.”

More TV noise for a minute, then Polina. “Jesus! That’s…”

“That’s right. The bank. Maybe you’d prefer I was there.”

“Don’t be an ass. What…”

“The Cheka, you fool, that’s what. Covering their evil tracks.” A grunt as Kosokov pushed himself to his feet.

“The fire, how did it start?” she said.

“Start? It was set. The whole building, all at once, early this morning. WHOOSH!”

“And you think the FSB…”

“Think? Think? Polya, I know.”

“But why?”

“Polya, did it ever enter that beautiful, egocentric, self-centered, narcissistic head of yours that all your success, all those big property deals you engineered, all the money we made, in reality have nothing, as in not one fucking thing, to do with you?”

“You’re drunk. This is nonsense.”

“Nonsense? Nonsense, she says. Let me explain something, something that should be obvious, if you ever stopped to think about it. We’re the Cheka’s bank, Polya. We have been since 1992. We’ve financed more operations than I can count. I kept a record. It’s all on these CDs. I knew one day they wouldn’t need us anymore, that this is what would happen. These CDs might just keep us alive. Take a look if you don’t believe me.”

Another stretch of silence, punctuated by periodic sounds from Kosokov.

Some ten years earlier, in October 1999, the Chekist was already in his car, cursing snow and Moscow traffic and berating his driver to go faster toward Kosokov’s dacha. Now, listening for the hundredth—two hundredth?—time, he had no difficulty remembering each of the participants and every piece of bad luck he stumbled over that day. He fished out another cigarette as he waited for the moment Polina learned the truth.

The tape rolled. Kosokov was pouring more vodka. Goddamned fool, the Chekist thought. You should have run. Right now. But you thought you could outsmart the Cheka. If you’d just run, maybe none of this would’ve happened.

There it was, the quick intake of breath, followed by the curse. Then, “Jesus Christ, Tolik, what the hell have you done?”

“Keep going, Polya. The best part’s at the end.”

The Chekist stopped the tape and reached for the phone. Time to move. He wasn’t in the best shape for it—he was tired, and his chest ached. The doctors said he needed another couple of days, but he had no choice. To wait was to risk everything. Fucking Kosokov. Fucking Gorbenko. Fucking Rislyakov. Fucking Polina.