Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

“Alli’s fine, better than fine, in fact.”

“Well, then, it seems that being with you is the best medicine for her.” Carson was immensely grateful. Whatever flicker of jealousy he might have felt was extinguished by Jack’s revelations. His voice seemed to bore through Carson’s head like a power drill.

“Let me get this straight,” Carson said, as he stared through one of the hotel’s plate-glass windows at the snow piling up in Red Square, “you’re telling me that General Brandt has some kind of private deal with Yukin regarding a uranium strike in northeast Ukraine?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“But what about Alizarin Global?”

There was a pause before Jack’s voice buzzed in his ear. “I never heard of Alizarin Global.”

“Neither did I until ten minutes ago when Dennis Paull called.” A young woman was struggling across the vast expanse of Red Square, bent forward into the wind. Carson was happy he wasn’t outside, but at this moment that was about all he was happy about. “It’s some kind of multitentacled conglomerate that has employed both Benson and Thomson. They, in turn, hired Brandt to help them make a deal with Gazprom. According to what they told Dennis, Brandt has made this side deal with Yukin. They fired him the moment they found out, but he’s ignored their communications. He’s acting in his own interest, not theirs. They’re convinced he’s gone insane.”

“Edward, I suppose I don’t have to point out that we’re talking about your political enemies here. What makes Paull think he can trust them?”

“He doesn’t, not really. But, concerned about intelligence leaks, he’s been immersed in a sub-rosa investigation of everyone in my inner circle, during the course of which he found evidence that Alizarin did, indeed, fund Brandt’s winter trips to Moscow. Now Brandt is so out of control he authorized a sanction on you. Naturally, I canceled it the moment I got off the phone with Dennis.”

“Is anyone left in the field?”

“No,” Carson assured him, “all the agents have been successfully recalled.”

There was a short silence while, Carson supposed, Jack absorbed the shocking news. At length, he said, “I can see how I’d be a threat to him, but what I can’t understand is how he’d know it. How would Brandt have knowledge of where you sent me and what I’ve been doing?”

“A good question,” Carson said. “I think you’d better find the answer.”

“I’m trying to do just that,” Jack assured him. “What about the accord?”

“From what you’ve just told me there doesn’t seem to be an easy way out of signing it, Jack,” Carson said bleakly. “If I refuse to sign it, or even move to postpone the ceremony after Yukin has bent over backward to meet all our demands, I’ll not only look foolish, but I’ll destroy whatever political capital I’ve gained during the run-up to the signing.

“No, unless you can come up with another solution, the signing will commence at eight tomorrow evening.”

JACK, PUTTING away his cell phone, was running the multiple vectors of the information the president had given him. Much of the information seemed contradictory or an outright lie. He didn’t for a moment think that Benson and Thomson had anyone’s best interest in mind except theirs. According to the president they didn’t want the accord with Yukin signed. It was their contention that both the accord and its chief architect, General Brandt, were a danger to the country, but were they telling the truth? From the damning evidence that Paull had discovered it seemed they were telling the truth about Brandt. Were they then lying about the danger inherent in the accord? He already knew from Kharkishvili the likelihood of events if it was signed tomorrow. If he was to find a way out of this damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t conundrum he had less than twenty-four hours to do it.

His musings were interrupted by Kharkishvili striding purposefully toward him.

“Mr. McClure, I’m glad I caught you. I’ve received some alarming news.”

At once Jack’s mind sprang backward to the aide bending over Kharkishvili, whispering in his ear, and that strange, circumspect look Kharkishvili had given Annika.

“Annika’s uncle Gourdjiev has shot one of AURA’s members, a dissident oligarch and a friend of mine by the name of Riet Medanovich Boronyov.”

“I find that difficult to believe,” Jack said. “What on earth would cause him to murder one of your people?”

“I have no idea,” Kharkishvili confessed. “Nevertheless, he shot Boronyov in front of two of Batchuk’s men and gave the body over to them, this was confirmed by an eyewitness.” Kharkishvili appeared genuinely distraught. “This is a disaster, because Boronyov was one of the dissidents who, as far as Batchuk and Trinadtsat were concerned, were dead. We made certain of that. Now Batchuk knows better, and it’s a fair bet he’ll check on the others who were supposed to be dead, all of us here, me included.”

Now Jack gleaned another piece of the puzzle: Like Annika, Dyadya Gourdjiev was a part of AURA, but if so why had he killed a man who their enemies already thought was dead?

“Perhaps Boronyov was a double agent,” Jack said, “secretly working for Batchuk.”

Kharkishvili shook his head emphatically. “Impossible. We met as young strivers, I ate Sunday dinner with him and his family, we shared business deals.”

“All of which proves nothing,” Jack pointed out, “except that he was a perfect candidate for a double.” He’d already thought of the reason this could not be true, but before he had a chance to speak, Kharkishvili shook his head even more vigorously.

“No, I fear it’s Gourdjiev who’s the traitor. He and Batchuk have a long history together, longer, closer even than the one I had with Boronyov. For years, he has pretended to be Batchuk’s friend, but what if that was also a ruse, what if they’re actual allies, working hand in hand?”

“There is, or was, no double inside AURA,” Jack said with authority. “If Batchuk knew you were alive all the time you’d all be dead by now, there would be no AURA to oppose him and Yukin.”

“And yet Gourdjiev must be in league with Batchuk now,” Kharkishvili said. “There is no other explanation for his action.”

“You don’t like Dyadya Gourdjiev, do you?”

“What?”

Jack could see that Kharkishvili’s annoyance was masking both shock and consternation, and he knew that he had hit on something vital. “You don’t like Gourdjiev and I’d like to know why.”

“So would I.”

The two men turned to see Annika, who had come up silently behind them and was now standing with her feet slightly apart, arms crossed over her breasts, between Kharkishvili and the relative sanctuary of the dining room.

GENERAL BRANDT, sitting in an arcade off Red Square that had an unobstructed view of the brooding walls and towers of the Kremlin, wondered what it would be like to be all energy. Watching the snow falling in endless curtains he tried to imagine the world from a snow-flake’s point of view: the pure cold, the clean symmetrical design, the absolute quiet. Who wouldn’t want that time to think undisturbed by civilization’s anxieties, tensions, and clumsy attempts at manipulation. The urge to maintain control was unknown in a snowflake’s world, and it was better off for it.

Every hour of every day control was slipping away from him. He could no longer bench press twice his weight, his arthritic left knee made it impossible for him to run a mile a day as he had for decades since he was thirteen, his hair was becoming fine as well as thin, he could no longer eat chili dogs or Tabasco without suffering the consequences, and there were nights when he gazed at young girls with the detached wistfulness of an old man. There was no doubt about it, his body was deteriorating at an alarming rate, coming apart at the seams, as it were, and more and more he found that he no longer wanted to be a part of it or, more accurately, in it. How much easier it would be to be pure energy, not to have to worry about his rotting flesh, which continued to betray him at every turn.