Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

“The terrible moments become less so as the present dissolves the past into memory.”

“Yes, that’s it exactly.” She moved even closer to him, her smooth, aromatic skin brushing against his. “This is how we survive. The terror dissolves like dreams when we wake up and go about our daily routine.”

“I wish Alli felt that way, but I know she doesn’t.”

Another silence consumed them. Apart from the hiss of an occasional vehicle passing by outside, there were no street sounds, not even a dog’s querulous bark.

After a time, she sighed. “I’m tired.”

“Go to sleep, Annika.”

“Put your hand on me. I want to feel you, I want to be connected . . .”

Reaching out, he cupped his hand over the tender ridge of her hip, soft as silk. She stirred languorously, and his hand slid to the top of her thigh, hard-muscled and powerful. He could feel his heart beating slowly. It felt good to be near her, their warmth mingling. The soughing of her breath came to him like wind in the trees or distant birds calling to one another.

“There’s no time for us now,” she whispered, but she might already have been asleep.

TWELVE

“IT’S CALLED a sulitsa or, less commonly, dzheridom ,” Bogdan Boyer said. He was the antiques dealer Dr. Sosymenko had recommended. His shop was in Gorodetskogo, near the Maidan Metro stop, though they had driven from the apartment, after dying Alli’s hair dirty blond and wolfing down a hasty breakfast, because it wasn’t conveniently located near the Metro.

Boyer, a small man with the pinched, avid face and busy hands of an inveterate collector, turned the murder weapon over and over under a large magnifying glass with an illuminated fluorescent ring. He sat scrunched on a high stool, much as Bob Cratchit must have sat hunched over his ink-stained desk in his dismal little cell, as Charles Dickens described his tanklike workspace.

“The sulitsa is one of what’s known collectively as splitting weapons, because—see here, how the point is diamond-shaped, beautifully functional—they were forged to pierce armor,” Boyer said, warming to the task Annika had given him.

“This is a missile spear, though it was also used for close-to stabbing, hence it’s nickname, ‘the lunger.’ Weapons like this one and the much larger boar-spear, which had a spade-shaped point, were used by Russian soldiers as far back as 1378 in a fierce battle in Ryazansk along the Vozhe. The Russian Cossacks, the mounted regiments, used these splitting weapons to defeat the invading Tatar army.”

He looked up at Annika. “It’s interesting, but I can’t give you much for it. Apart from a collector here or there and possibly a museum, there’s no market for these things. Besides, it’s incomplete.”

“Incomplete?” Jack said. He was keeping an eye on Alli, who was rummaging through the bowels of the overcrowded, overheated shop. “What do you mean?”

“Typically, sulitsa came in threes, packed in an elaeagnus , a small cured leather quiver that sat against the left hip.” He shook his head. “Without its brothers—or sisters—” He grinned at Annika “—it’s worth next to nothing.”

“I’m not interested in selling it,” Annika said. “I want to know who its owner is.”

Boyer frowned. “That might be difficult.”

He picked up his phone and made several calls. While he did so, Jack went to find Alli, who had disappeared behind a glass case filled with copper teapots and kettles. He found her examining a sheet of paper—no computer printouts here. The sheet was a written list of shipments that had either gone out over the past several days or were about to be packed and shipped. Beside each item was a name. She pointed wordlessly to the name “M. Magnussen,” and his address written just below an item labeled, “Three sulitsa (a set) in original elaeagnus , ca. 1885, prov. J. Lach.” FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY was noted in red.

Seeing that he was having difficulty reading the list, Alli beckoned him to bend down so that she could whisper the notation as well as the name and address of the intended recipient in his ear.

Jack had her put the paper back where she’d found it, then he took her hand and led her back to the front of the store.

Boyer was just putting down the receiver. He smiled insincerely. “I’m afraid I’ve had no luck.”

“No matter,” Jack said. “Thank you for your time.” He took the murder weapon and turned to Annika. “In any event, we’re late for your appointment. Dr. Sosymenko has to change your dressing.”

Annika played along smoothly, though she must have been as taken by surprise as was Boyer. “Oh, yes, I got so engrossed here I forgot all about it. Come along, darling,” she said and, taking Alli’s hand, walked out the door with Jack right behind her.

“What was that all about?” she said when they were out on the street.

“In the car,” Jack said. “Now!”

He flipped Annika the keys and she slid behind the wheel while he got in beside her and Alli climbed into the backseat.

As she started up and pulled out into traffic, she said, “Do we have a destination or should I drive in circles for a while?”

“Drive in circles,” Jack said, staring intently at the off-side mirror.

“That was a joke, Jack.”

“I know, but I want to make sure we’re not being followed.”

“Okay,” she said, turning right at the first stoplight, “I give up.”

“Alli found a bill of lading in the back of the shop for a set of those sulitsa complete in their quiver about to be delivered to a client by the name of M. Magnussen.”

Annika nodded. “Which means Boyer was lying to us.”

“So who the hell was he calling?” Jack said.

“The SBU or the cops?” Annika ventured.

“Or maybe this Magnussen, who asked him to be on the lookout for anyone coming around with a spare lung sticker.”

“You’re thinking he’s the killer,” Alli said, hunched forward, her face between them.

“That’s right, you heard Boyer, a single sulitsa is worthless. Magnussen ordered a new set of sulitsa because he used one from his original set to kill Rochev’s mistress.”

“But why would anyone use one of those things to commit murder?” Alli asked.

“D’you think the police would know what they’re looking at?” Annika made another right. “It would simply confuse them.”

“Except,” Jack said, “if someone else other than the police found the body. Someone smart enough—”

“—or interested enough,” Annika cut in.

“Yes,” Jack continued, “to pursue the investigation.”

“Which is why,” Alli said, “he gave Boyer instructions to call him if anyone came in inquiring about it.”

“By the way,” Jack interrupted, “see that dark sedan two cars back? We are being followed.”

Annika proved herself as adept as Jack at flushing tails and getting rid of them, which was, he thought, one advantage of her being trained by the FSB. On the other hand, he couldn’t bring to mind another.

She spent the next ten minutes lulling them into thinking they hadn’t been made before she tore through a red light, leaving an angry chorus of blaring horns and squealing brakes. She made a right, then an almost immediate left, rolling down an alleyway so narrow the brick walls sheared off their side mirrors. A third of the way along, she turned off the engine, and they sat waiting. Forty seconds later the black sedan sped by the alleyway, and Annika immediately fired up the ignition, and they rolled to the far end of the alley, where she turned left.

“Where are we going?” she asked.