Christopher Reich - The First Billion

“Come now, Leonid, let’s be realistic. Gavallan is one thing, but family… Katya is my only daughter. She’s strong-willed, of course, but nothing more—”

“No buts, younger brother. Remember where you live. The only family you have is the state.” Leonid stood, buttoning his jacket. “So I can tell him you’ll take care of matters? Clean things up? We don’t like to leave a mess. That hasn’t changed either.”

Kirov swallowed hard, the taste of his bile acidic, repellent. He felt tricked, massively deceived. A victim. “Yes. Tell the president to have no worries.”

“He’ll be most grateful. Good luck, and remember, you are representing the country. The president will be watching on television. Oh, I almost forgot.” Leonid reached into his jacket and handed his brother a small blue velvet box.

Opening it, Kirov saw a colonel’s polished golden oak leaves. “What’s this?”

“Message from the president. You work for us now.”

She heard it all. Not every word, but snippets here and there. Enough to piece the conversation together. Enough to grow as frightened as she’d ever been in her life.

“He’s going to kill us,” she repeated silently, as if repetition would make the certainty less ghastly. In her panic, she reverted to her journalist’s guise. There’s a word for it, she told herself. When a father kills his child… there’s a word for it. But her distress was such that she couldn’t remember what it was. Plain old “murder” fit the bill, and that was bad enough.

Kneeling inside the den, Cate kept her head tilted toward the heating vents. She had come downstairs ten minutes earlier, Boris her escort. Her father wished to speak with her, she’d been informed. Alone. But as Boris locked her in, she caught the back of her uncle Leonid charging into the living room. He was unmistakable. The blue suit. The stiff shoulders. The iron gray hair.

Her father and uncle had been estranged during her childhood. Curious as to what common bond had brought them together, she’d pressed her ear to the grate. Listening, she had forced herself not to cry out at the tales of barbarity bandied about by the two men.

The doors to the den opened.

“He is ready to see you,” said Boris, motioning to follow him across the foyer.

“Of course.”

It was moving day in Sparrow Hills. At nine o’clock, the clubhouse was a picture of commotion. The twin front doors stood open wide, the muscular growl of a supercharged V-8 flooding the entry. The snout of a black SUV pulled into view. Car doors opened and slammed. Boots slapped the pavement. A steady stream of her father’s bullies entered and exited the house, at least half sporting Uzis slung over their shoulders. Luggage was brought downstairs. Another Suburban arrived.

At last, her father emerged from the living room.

“Good morning, then,” he said, with an affable smile. “I apologize for my behavior last night. I was distraught. I hope at least that you slept well.”

It was an act. A murderous masquerade. “Fine. And you? Sleep of the innocent?”

“Always,” he replied in his soft, deathly courteous tone. “I wanted to have a last word with you before you set off.”

“I thought we covered everything last night.”

Her father stepped closer, patting her arms understandingly. “Katya, there’s so much you don’t know. So much I want to explain to you. I’m sending you with Jett to my dacha for a few days. When I return from New York, we will sit and talk. I’m not the ogre you think. I will listen to what you have to—”

“What is there to talk about? Mercury is a lie, but you’re going ahead with the deal anyway. You hold your daughter as if she were a prisoner.” She shook off his hands. “We have nothing to talk about. Not now. Not ever.”

Kirov retreated a step, a blithe smile on his lips. “I can see you’re upset. It is understandable. When I return, we can speak again. If you’ll excuse me, I must hurry. The pricing is set for four P.M. this afternoon in Manhattan. Bye-bye, Katya.”

She fixed him with an unloving stare. “Don’t you mean ‘adieu,’ Father?”

The gloves were off, the last semblance of civility fading as quickly as the Moscow skyline behind them. They rode in separate cars, Gavallan in the lead vehicle with Boris and two guards, Cate bringing up the rear with Tatiana and another two guards of her own. A glance over his shoulder earned him a twisted smile and a view of an Uzi pointed directly at his back, a taut finger laid across the trigger.

They lumbered across the Moskva River, then joined the Outer Ring Road, leaving the city along the path they’d taken the night before. Instead of turning off at Sheremetyevo, they continued north toward St. Petersburg. After that he was lost. The road markers were in Cyrillic and he couldn’t decipher a word. The highway narrowed to two lanes and all signs of the city tapered off. Potato fields spread to their left and right, bordered by elevated dirt berms—half levee, half road. Occasionally, he caught sign of a town away in the distance and wondered how, without any marked exits, one was supposed to reach them. Birch forests came and went as if moved en bloc.

Gavallan shifted in his seat, laying an arm across the backrest. It was hard to sit still. Tucked into the waistband of his undershorts was the shank he’d fashioned the night before. He had no idea how he’d use it, or even if he’d be given a chance. Pitted against an Uzi with a full clip, a handmade dagger didn’t amount to much. Whatever happened, he wouldn’t go easy.

Her name was Katya, once again, and as she drove, a gothic fantasy played in her head. She was the Czarina en route to Ekaterinburg. Anastasia, of course, on her last journey. Her fate was sealed, but she was too proud to acknowledge it. How many nights until the brigade of toughs stormed the lodge and forced her to the cellar? How long until her father’s eager band of revolutionaries signed their name to her short history?

The first intimations of disaster came at 11:06 by the digital clock on the dashboard. The driver left the highway at an exit marked “Svertloe” and took up a new course on a single-lane macadam road leading intrepidly across a meadow-grass plain. Once the preserve of boyars, or nobles, and the wealthy bourgeoisie, dachas tended to be rustic cottages located in pine forests or near lakes or mountains. Most served as weekend retreats and could be found within thirty miles of the city. But one look at this stale landscape told her that no right-thinking man would build a dacha within a hundred miles of this place.

The road began a steady climb uphill toward a pine forest. The macadam quit, replaced by hard-packed dirt. She glimpsed silver. Straining her eyes, she made out a fence. She leaned forward, knowing it was her destination. One fence became two, each ten feet high and topped with curls of barbed wire. The gate, though, was in ruins, bent and mangled, lying to one side. They entered the compound, and she looked around. There were a few log cabins, nothing quaint or rustic about them. The dacha, indeed. One more of her father’s sick jokes. The car pulled up in front of the largest building. She saw the windows and gasped. They were decorated with stout iron bars placed three inches apart.

This was where all roads led.

To Russia.

To her father.

To her death.

Gavallan spotted the ruined fence and knew it was Graf. He was alive. He had escaped. He had crashed through the fence. Right now he was in Moscow alerting the embassy. It was a matter of time before they sent out their delegates in the company of the Russian militia. His blood stirred and he grew giddy with a desperate joy.