Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

MORGAN THOMSON was waiting for them. He had opened the glass doors to the library and when he saw them approaching, said with a sweep of his hand, “Let’s take a walk.”

There was a Japanese-style footpath made of slate-colored stepping stones, each slightly different yet related to one another, that led down to the pond and the moon bridge. As they neared the water Paull could see flashes of black, white, silver, and orangey-gold beneath the surface as the ornamental carp swam into the sunlight and out. Much to his surprise Benson took out a handful of dry food and sprinkled it on the surface. The greedy carp rose, their mouths open and gasping to suck in the food.

Assuming the professorial demeanor he so adored Thomson said, “Believe it or not this accord is going to consolidate President Yukin’s power both inside and outside Russia.”

At once Paull thought back to his conversation with Edward Carson in the limo on the day they had buried Lloyd Berns. Carson had voiced consternation that Brandt was trying to push through the accord despite the president’s unease. Paull assumed an expression of bland attention.

Thomson’s hands were clasped behind his back, his head tilted slightly upward as if he were sniffing the air for eavesdroppers, or clues to their ultimate fate. “As you no doubt know, since Yukin has been in power the government’s ownership of companies comprising the Russian stock market has ballooned from twenty-five percent to forty percent.”

“If that isn’t totalitarianism,” Benson said, staring down at the swarming carp, “I don’t know what is.”

“He has also made a mockery of the state governors’ races,” Thomson continued as if Benson hadn’t spoken. “No one can get on a slate unless expressly endorsed by Yukin.”

“Or his lord high executioner, Oriel Jovovich Batchuk,” Benson said without apparent irony.

Thomson shrugged. “It amounts to the same thing. Batchuk is deputy prime minister, he’s thrown in his lot with Yukin, he rises and falls on the strength of Yukin’s power. But in a sense Miles is correct: In his own right Batchuk is a formidable opponent.”

“A fucking latter-day Stalin,” Benson said. “There’s so much blood on his hands they say he lives in an abattoir.”

“Very funny,” Paull said.

“He’s a Russian,” Benson said levelly, “so who the hell knows, it might be true.”

“He’s a clever bastard, this Batchuk.” Thomson’s eyes met Paull’s. “More clever, even, than Iosif Vissarionovich.” He meant Stalin.

“Where is this all leading?” Paull asked.

“An excellent question.” Thomson began to move, and the other two men followed him as he mounted the moon bridge. At the apex of the arc he stopped and, placing his forearms on the railing, stared down into the depths of the pond. “General Brandt has made some sort of private deal with President Yukin, the details of which we have no idea, but I can tell you unequivocally that the moment we discovered the fact we severed all ties with him. Nevertheless, Brandt is out there operating on his own, taking the law into his own hands, and we have no way of stopping him.”

“BATCHUK IS in charge of Trinadtsat ,” Kharkishvili said to Jack, “which is a secret cadre—”

“I know what Trinadtsat is,” Jack said.

“You surprise me at every turn, Mr. McClure, you really do.” Kharkishvili’s eyebrows arched. “But possibly you don’t know this: Trinadtsat was created by Batchuk for one reason—a secret discovery of an enormous deposit of uranium—possibly one of the largest in the world—in northeastern Ukraine, very near the Russian border. Add to this the fact that the Kremlin has determined Russia’s owninground supply of uranium is far smaller than had been thought, and you have a major crisis in the making.

“What is crucial to understanding why the current situation has become a crisis is that Russia is firmly committed to nuclear power,” Kharkishvili continued. “We—that is, the members of AURA—were and are just as firmly committed to keeping the nuclear power industry in private hands in order to mitigate the Kremlin’s expansionist plans. We fought Yukin as long as we could, but he consolidated his power too quickly and too well. With Batchuk’s help he got inside our defenses, accused us of fiscal malfeasance or, in cases when that didn’t work or wasn’t for some reason sufficient, outright treason. He seized our companies and would have sent us to Siberia if we hadn’t been warned and fled here to Ukraine.”

Heavy weather had blown in off the Black Sea, and rain was beating at the windowpanes as Jack, Annika, and Alli sat at an enormous gleaming wood table in the vast dining room of Mikal Magnussen’s manor house. Four members of AURA sat at the table, big-shouldered men with guileful eyes but a singular lack of delicacy. Between them lay platters of food and cut-crystal flasks of vodka, slivovitz, and soda water, a feast for more than a dozen, but not one was eating.

“Now the worst has happened,” Kharkishvili continued. “With us gone, Yukin has nationalized the uranium consortium, just as he did with Gazprom. Yukin has come to the same conclusion we did almost a decade ago, that Russia’s dependence on foreign oil—especially Iran’s—puts it at a strategic disadvantage. That’s why he’s agreed to this U.S.-Russian accord. He doesn’t mind making concessions as far as his traditional business ties with Iran as long as he has a steady supply of uranium.”

“But without the huge Ukraine uranium strike he won’t have it.”

They all turned as a man entered the room. He was darkly handsome with the rough-hewn features of a Sean Connery or a Clive Owen. His hair was shot through with gray, the color of his eyes, as if he’d trekked through a snowstorm to arrive here. And, who knew, there may have been a number of metaphorical snowstorms in his past.

He turned to Jack. “I’m Mikal Magnussen, I apologize for not being available when you arrived.” He paused now, waiting while an aide appeared at Kharkishvili’s side and whispered briefly in his ear. Kharkishvili shot Annika an involuntary glance, which was so quick, so circumspect, it was possible that only Jack noticed it.

“So Yukin means to steal it,” Magnussen said, “using soldiers who are Trinadtsat personnel.”

“It’s my understanding that it takes a decade to get a uranium mine up and running,” Jack said. “I don’t understand how an incursion into Ukrainian territory is going to accomplish anything.”

“Ah, well, here’s the true genius of Batchuk’s plan.” This from Malenko, another of the dissident oligarchs. Burly and bald, making him look like a tenpin, he had the prominent jaw of a carnivore and tiny ears absurdly low on his skull. “The troops will be sent in under the guise of aiding Ukraine, but once they’re in the area they won’t leave. Instead, they’ll set up a perimeter so that Russian tanks can roll in across the border.”

“It’ll be a fucking mini-Czech,” Glazkov, another oligarch, said, referring to the Soviet Union’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, “except the Russians will stop at the border to the uranium discovery.”

“They can’t just invade Ukraine on any pretext,” Jack said.

“They will, just as they did in Georgia, where their troops are still deployed,” Kharkishvili said.

“The economic situation in Ukraine, particularly the east, is dire, so much so that riots have broken out in several cities and are gaining momentum throughout the country.” Magnussen had talked to the table, but remained standing. “Experience tells me that Yukin will use this economic crisis to doubtless claim his troops are there to protect both Russian and Ukrainian interests.”