David Duffy - Last to Fold

“Perhaps you will achieve ex-Chekist status. You certainly appear to be trying.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence. Come in. Drink?”

“I’ll join you, if you’re having.”

“The first one’s purely medicinal.”

He followed me inside, leaving his messenger bag by the door. “I have the information you requested. I thought I’d come by. I don’t like phones.”

“You and every other Russian.”

“Another Cheka legacy.”

“Can’t argue.” I got the bottle from the freezer and poured two glasses. We took stools on opposite sides of the counter.

“Your health,” he said. “Looks like you need it.”

“Can’t argue that either. What did you find?”

“Your information was good, in part. Someone did shoot out a window at CPS headquarters Saturday morning. It was Tiron’s office. But, as I told you, Tiron wasn’t there. No one was hurt.”

“That’s good news. Thank you.”

He looked at me over the glass. “Good news—to a point. Whoever fired the shot almost certainly knew the window he was shooting at.”

“One more point beyond dispute.”

“There’s more. The slug was from a Dragunov SVDS. An assassin’s weapon. Cheka assassin.”

“I know. They were sending a message. I’ve read Ibansk.”

He gave me a sheepish look as he put down his cup. “We all do what we have to do. The light of day—maybe I should say dusk—is one of the few defenses we have left in Russia.”

“I’m not questioning motives, but I’ll be more careful what I tell you from here on. You’d better be careful, too. The Cheka will be looking into who’s feeding Ivanov, if it’s not already.”

“Of course. Ivanov goes to great lengths… well, you can imagine.”

“He—I’m assuming he—lives a lot more dangerously than most.”

“I won’t comment on your assumption. As to living dangerously, it’s no more risky now than it was in Soviet times.”

“One more thing I can’t disagree with. How well do you know him, Tiron, I mean?”

“We came into the CPS in the same class, and we’ve worked together closely on some things. A good man. When did you last see him?”

“Many years ago. But… his father and I were close, so when I heard the news…”

“Of course. I’d still be happy to give him a message.”

I thought about that a moment. Trust may be the most difficult thing a spy comes to grips with. Iakov taught me that. The working premise, of course, is trust no one, but the need to get things done chips away at that. You make judgments, recognize some will be mistakes, hope you don’t make too many. The man looking at me from his one good eye seemed like a good bet. At the same time, he was holding back. Then again, in his shoes, wouldn’t I do the same? Circles within circles. At some point you make a call.

“You and Ivanov are correct. The man with the gun was indeed a Cheka marksman. He was operating under orders from Vasily Barsukov. He was in the car with the shooter.”

Petrovin put down the glass, and his eye narrowed. “Jesus, that’s bold, even for the Cheka.”

“To state the obvious, it would be smart for Tiron to lie low for a while.”

“I’ll tell him, most certainly. But… May I ask how this involves you?”

“The Barsukovs are applying pressure. Not just to Tiron.”

He nodded and smiled. “We all know that. I must ask again—why does this involve you?”

“Lachko looks for whomever he can squeeze. Any connection is enough for him. I’m sorry to say, he knows me very well.” I hoped that would get him off the subject.

“What’s he want?”

“The database and code that run Ratko’s laundry. He thinks I know how to find them.”

“Do you?”

“Maybe.”

“You going to give them to him?”

“I don’t have them yet. If I get them, I’ll try to make a deal. That’s what he’d expect me to do.”

The eye narrowed again. “What kind of deal?”

“Depends on the cards I’m holding. Lots of interests to be taken into account.”

“Including Tiron’s?”

“Including Tiron’s.”

He smiled again. I returned it, which made my jaw ache. “Perhaps you’d like to play a card or two.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Rad Rislyakov.”

He watched me while he sipped his vodka. I sat still. If I didn’t move anything, most of the pain receded to a low-level throb.

“Vodka’s excellent,” Petrovin said after a while. “Tastes like home.”

“Help yourself.”

I slid over the bottle, and he poured.

“What caused you to join the Cheka?”

How much did I want to tell him? I thought—very briefly—about the truth, but as so often I pulled back to the sanitized version of my life story. No sense of liberation with a fellow Russian, even one who would barely remember the Soviet years. “I had a difficult childhood, no parents, lived in orphanages. My only skill was languages. That got the Cheka’s attention, and I didn’t think twice. They offered a way out… a way forward, something better even if I didn’t know what it was. Don’t put too much weight on the hard luck story, though. I also said there’s honor in serving one’s country. I meant that, too.”

“If you had it to do over, would you do different?”

I reflected on that. I knew the answer, but the question still demanded consideration. “I’ve never met anyone who’s been offered that chance, so I don’t spend much time thinking about it. Regret, remorse—sugar-coated poisons. You get dealt five cards in life, maybe seven, depending on the game. Sometimes you get to draw three more. You play them the best you can. I realized a long time ago, the goal is not so much to win but to avoid having to fold unnecessarily. Stay in the game. Make the other guy go out first. The only honest answer I can give you is, no, I wouldn’t make changes. No guarantee that whatever changes I made would lead to a better set of cards.”

“You might not look like you do this afternoon,” he said with a smile.

“I look like hell, true, but I haven’t folded yet.”

“You’re making me rethink my lifelong Chekist stereotype. Do you have family?”

I thought again for a while before I said, “No. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t step over a line. I couldn’t help thinking you’d make a good father.”

“That’s quite a compliment, especially for a would-be ex-Chekist.”

He nodded and went silent again. He was trying to make up his mind about something, and it wasn’t easy for him. Best thing I could do was stay out of the way. I poured a little more vodka and sipped slowly.

“Suppose I dealt your life-hand a wild card, the kind that could change everything you believe, every assumption you’ve made?”

“That would be some card. Guess I’d have to see it.”

“It will also make you immediately and desirably expendable, in the eyes of your former colleagues.”

“At least one of them already feels that way. Will I have to fold my hand?”

“Based on what you’ve told me, I don’t think so. Although it could well cause you to play differently from here on.”

“All right, I’m game. But tell me something first. How did you lose your eye?”

“You remember Andrei Kozlov?”

“Of the Central Bank?”

“That’s right. I was with him when he was assassinated in 2006. I was collateral damage—or maybe they just missed, in my case. We were working together at the time.”

“And you believe the Cheka was responsible?”

“Who else?”

“The jury said it was the former chairman of VIP Bank, if I remember correctly. Kozlov had suspended his license.”

His voice took on a hard edge, bordering on bitter. “We both know two things. There is no rule of law in Russia, and nothing has happened since the fall of the Yeltsin government that wasn’t cleared in Lubyanka.”