"It"s cold in here," Maluta said. "Get some heat up."
They pulled away from the curb and he sat back in the seat. His old-fashioned suit smelled of ashes.
"I have regards for you from Uncle Vadim." He was referring to Vadim Dubas, the current head of the Communist Party in Leningrad and her late father"s brother.
"How is he?"
"Old and stubbornas always," Maluta said shortly. "He seems never to change." He shook out another Camel. Abruptly, Maluta leaned forward. He tapped Alexei on the shoulder. "I want to go to the monument. Do you know the one, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, Comrade Minister."
It was in the outskirts of Moscow, the angular steel criss-crossed almost like a modern sculpture atop its cut-stone plinth. Except that the steel was real, a portion of the four hundred miles of ant.i.tank traps and trenches erected by the remaining citizens of what Stalin dubbed "the Hero City," in the flush of their victory over the seventy-five n.a.z.i divisions that had been ma.s.sed over the hills leading to Moscow.
Alexei slowed the Chaika, pulling to the side of the highway. It was late, past eleven, and the roads were deserted. There was little or no nightlife here, or anywhere in Russia.
Maluta made no move until Alexei opened the back door. Alexei handed him a flashlight but Maluta made no comment, merely flicked it on. His shoes cracked the icy snow as he went across the verge to stand beside the monument.
Daniella, right beside him, was astonished to see tears sparkling in his eyes, "So much blood spilled here," Maluta said, his voice thick with emotion. "So much heroism. The revolutionary spirit shone like a beacon in those dark days."
He was silent for a time. The beam of light sparked like fireworks against the precise edges of the steel bars.
"The snow," Maluta said into the dark. "I love the snow, Comrade General. The snow is pure and white like the spirit of Lenin, which guides us always." He put his foot out, the toe of his shoe sc.r.a.ping away at the snow until the black earth was eventually revealed. "But the snow also covers a mult.i.tude of sins." The beam of light stayed steady on the war monument but Maluta"s gaze was fixed on Daniella, making her skin crawl. "These are still dark days, Comrade General, no less dire than they were forty-odd years ago. We are still fighting for our very existence. This is war, plain and simple."
Daniella stood very still. A pulse throbbed in the side of her head. She knew she was in the presence of a very dangerous man indeed dangerous not only for herself but for the country as a whole.
"Let me tell you something, Comrade General," he said. His voice was like acid. "In this war, you are either with me or against me. Do you understand?"
Daniella nodded, not trusting herself to speak. "Words," Maluta said. "I deal with words twenty hours a day. The more I deal with words the more I am convinced that lies are commonplace and the truth is lost to sight." He lit up a Camel, took his gaze from her. He stared meditatively at the memorial. The steel bars seemed to waver in the handheld beam of light.
The moon had gone and it had grown more chill. The air was heavy, incipient with snow. The storm that had delayed Maluta"s flight was catching up with them. Daniella pulled her sable coat closer around her. A sudden gust of wind caught her thick hair, whipping it across her face. She made no move to pull it back.
"The trouble with you, Comrade General," Maluta said after a long silence, "is that you are beautiful." He exhaled, took a bit of tobacco off his lower lip. "Because of this, you believe that you can extract anything from the men around you. You open your thighs for Anatoly Karpov and you become head of the KVR." Maluta was referring to the clandestine section of the First Chief Directorate, more commonly known as Department K, when it was referred to at all. The KVR was responsible for extraterritorial a.s.sa.s.sination and wetfieldcounter-intelligence. "You did the same for my late lamented colleague, Yuri Lantin. And, following his untimely death, you succeeded him."
Still he would not look at her. He smoked at leisure, as if they were two close friends discussing nothing more momentous than vacation plans. "On the one hand, I admire your guile. I believe you to be an ingenious woman."
He threw away the b.u.t.t. It sparked in the night, the only brief flash of color in the landscape before it died in the snow. "On the other hand, I am aware of your ambition. Acutely aware. I want you to understand that you cannot do with me what you have done with Karpov and Lantin and, I am sure, several others before them. I am immune to your beauty. I do not dream at night of your c.u.n.t."
His use of the derogatory term was deliberate. It shocked her, as it was meant to.
"Now," Maluta continued, "I want you to make your choice. Either you are with me or you are against me. You have no other options, I will tell you that much. Do you think for a moment I believed your little fantasy scenario back there? Mikhail Carelin whispering in Genachev"s ear that he should elevate me to adviser status alongside Reztsov and Carelin himself?" There it was, that unsettling rictus of a smile was back. "Oh, no, no, no, Comrade General. Even if your lovely c.u.n.t would have persuaded me to believe such nonsense, I know that you would never propose such a thing to Carelin. He would laugh in your face, Comrade Generaland your file reports that you do not care for such treatment."
Daniella was shaking. She suspected that she had seriously underestimated Maluta, and that, in fact, in taking Yuri Lantin"s place so quickly she had undone herself. She wondered whether she was prepared for the rarefied atmosphere of the Kremlin upper echelon or whether she was now truly in too deep.
She knew that she had to answer now, suspected that he would only allow her one option. "I am with you." She had had to open her mouth twice; the first time, her throat was so dry she knew only a croak would come out.
Maluta nodded. "Horosho." Good. "Now Alexei will not have to shoot you in the back of the head."
"What?" Again, he had meant to disconcert her, and he had.
His malevolent head turned toward her and she saw that awful rictus that pa.s.sed for a smile. "Yes, didn"t you know that your Alexei reports to me? All your movements, Comrade General. All of them are known to me."
Now Daniella knew that he was lying. If this was so Maluta would know that she had already begun her affair with Mikhail Carelin. She steeled herself to play his game at his own level.
Maluta was watching her face carefully. His black almond eyes glittered fiercely. "I see that you doubt my word. That is understandable." He reached inside his greatcoat, producing a small wrapped packet. He handed it over with yellowed fingers.
Daniella stared down at the packet as if it were a poisonous thing. Her pulse rate rose and she felt the tremor again in the side of her face.
Slowly, she unwrapped the thing. Holy Mother of G.o.d, she thought, staring down at the contents.
It was odd, Daniella thought, with a kind of hysterical calmness, how ungainly and almost comical two people looked when they were making love; especially when one of those people was oneself.
Shot after grainy shot of Daniella and Carelin in naked embrace, writhing, in obvious ecstasy, flushed in o.r.g.a.s.m.
Maluta took the photos from her nerveless fingers. He shuffled them like a deck of playing cards before extracting one. "This one, I think, is the best." He went through the pile. "Or perhaps this one."
"Stop it!"
He wanted that reaction and, having gotten it, obediently put the d.a.m.ning photos away. "Now," he said, "I want you to do something for me. It is a symbol that will bind us together much more securely than you and Comrade Carelin are bound in that little tete-a-tete." His voice was soft now, almost tender. "I ask this of you, Comrade General, because you have lied to me. I a.s.sume that you have done so only once, in the instance of Mikhail Carelin, but"he shrugged "who knows, there may have been other instances in the past.
"But you see I do not care about the past. Only the future." He had produced it from somewhere beyond the limits of her sight. "I want this to be an object lesson for you, Comrade General. Take off your gloves, please."
Daniella did as he bade, her mind partially numb. How, she thought, could I have misjudged him so completely? I was so certain that I had him.
He laid it into her bare chilled hand; the pistol. It had a silencer screwed onto the end of the muzzle. Daniella noticed that it was German-made, not regulation Russian army. A personal handgun, a strictly forbidden item.
"Now I want you to shoot Alexei." She heard Maluta"s voice as if in a dream. "Do it as you have been trained to carry out an execution, through the back of the head. That was, you recall, how he was to kill you."
This is a nightmare, Daniella thought. Panic and fear raced through her like a brushfire. She could not think. It was as if the reasoning part of her brain had gone to sleep. Wake up! she thought desperately. What am I to do?
"It shouldn"t be too much of a task," Maluta was saying. He was smoking again, the wind bringing the vile smoke back into her face. "After all, there is a revenge motive. He had gained your trust and, in return, was spying on you. It is only just, don"t you think, to punish such a heinous crime?"
I am in bed with a true monster, Daniella thought. Her stomach was a cold, twisted knot. She felt vertigo overcome her. She was frozen to the spot. I cannot do what he asks, she thought. I cannot.
"Why do you hesitate, Comrade General?" Maluta"s voice had returned to rasping hardness. "This indecision is a poor trait for a member of the Politburo. I shall have to report this. A serious offense. A man would never show such weakness." He pulled on his cigarette. "Perhaps I should call Alexei out here and have him kill you after all."
His eyes blazing, Oleg Maluta crunched through the brittle snow. He put his lips against her ear. The tobacco smell was a nauseating miasma undaunted even by the chill and the wind. "Do it, Comrade General. Do it now or your life is ended here, at this moment."
Daniella could not believe it herself, but her body was moving toward the car. She had no idea who was directing it; surely not she.
Inside, she saw Alexei"s eyes on her in the rearview mirror.
"What"s happened?" he whispered. "You look as white as a ghost."
Daniella saw herself lean forward, her arm lift up. She opened her lips to answer Alexei. Just before the muzzle touched the back of his head she pulled the trigger.
She was gagging when she emerged from the back of the Chaika. Her nostrils were clogged with the stench of death.
Maluta moved very quickly. He produced a clean white handkerchief and, using it, took the gun from Daniella"s hand.
"Your prints," he said, wrapping the thing with the utmost care and slipping it into his greatcoat pocket. "I want you to understand that I can have you brought up on murder charges at any time. I have no patience with liars. I would have had you killed but I need your acute mind."
Daniella turned away from him and vomited. Maluta made no move but played the flashlight beam over the rippling surface of her sable coat. The exquisite fur shone like platinum. For a time he hummed tunelessly to himself.
"You need me for what?" There was a bitter taste in her mouth that she was certain even mouthwash would not be able to take away.
"Why, to get into Shi Zilin"s mind, of course. You see, when I do my research I am quite thorough. I know that the secret to Kam Sang resides in that old man"s head. You"re going to extract it for me.
Daniella felt as if she had suddenly been struck a blow from a hammer. "That is impossible," she managed to stammer.
Maluta"s heavy eyebrows lifted. "So? In that case, Comrade General, you are ordered to terminate Shi Zilin."
Mouth dry, Daniella said, "Shi Zilin and Jake Maroc are inextricably linked."
"All right," Maluta said, "I am a reasonable man." The dry rustle of the snow, like a living thing, moving. "Kill them both."
Daniella felt an icy ball of fear turn her insides to water. "I don"t think you understand what you are asking."
His teeth came together with a clack. "Kam Sang, Shi Zilin, Jake Maroc. One, two, three. What could be simpler?"
Daniella said nothing. She could hear the rushing of her blood in her inner ears as if it were part of a spring thaw. She knew now what he was up to, knew that she could not have been subjected to a more thorough investigation had she been within the dank caverns of the Lubyanka.
"I run the China section," she said. "There are long-range operations in progress. You can"t ask me to just"
"Oh, but I can, Comrade General." Maluta took a long drag on his cigarette. He was very sure of himself. "The problem is that when one has free reign over such a powerful lever one"s mind turns to thoughts of personal use." He leaned toward her, hissing smoke into her face. "Personal ends, Comrade General, as opposed to those that will best serve the State."
That awful clacking of teeth again. "Chimera is your power, Comrade General," Maluta said, "but I know that China is your overriding obsession. I am not asking so much, am I?" His voice had turned syrupy. "After all, I could demand you reveal to me Chimera"s ident.i.ty. I could even take this a.s.set away from you." He grinned. "Then where would you be? You see? Seen in this light, it is not so much what I ask of you. To find out about Kam Sang. And to get rid of Shi Zilin and Jake Maroc."
Daniella was trembling. For years her complete control of Chimera had been the key to her rapid advancement. Without the fantastic flood of cla.s.sified information Chimera provided for her, she would never have climbed so far, so fast, in what was, quite literally, a man"s world.
In that, Maluta had been right on target. Chimera sat at the very center of the Quarry. Though Jake Maroc believed that he had killed Chimera during a confrontation at Greystoke nine months before, in fact the mole was not Henry Wunderman, Maroc"s long-time mentor. Daniella"s maneuvering had camouflaged Chimera perfectly, and had fooled everyone, even Shi Zilin.
Now her situation was desperate. She was not fooled by Maluta"s words. Unless she could find some way to deflect or forestall him, Maluta would take full control of her China operations. This is what his orders were leading to. With Shi Zilin and Jake Maroc out of the way, and with the secrets of Kam Sang in his hip pocket, Maluta would be invincible. Even Carelin"s and Reztsov"s aid would not stop him from bringing Genachev down. Russia run by this madman was unthinkable. Maluta already had so much power that if he was able to use Kam Sang to add to it, he would be able to persuade the other members of the Politburo that what he had donedestroy Genachev was in fact in the Soviet Union"s best interests. And where will that leave me? Daniella thought. Permanently under his thumb. Because once Maluta believes that he no longer can control me, he will destroy me as well.
By "the State," Daniella knew Maluta meant himself, "Are you saying that I am not fit to run the China operations?"
"Possibly." Maluta nodded, threw the glowing b.u.t.t of the cigarette far out into the night.
The rage building in her sought an outlet; she was mad with it, and so she spoke without thinking. "You talk of the State. But there is nothing of the State in you, Comrade. This is personal, pure and simple. You are generating a power play and I"m to run interference for you." She felt tears burning behind her eyelids and closed them tightly so that he wouldn"t see them. She began to pray for strength. "I"m to provide you with your silver bullet to lay Genachev low. And if, for some reason, security is breached, I will be the one they put to the stake."
"Ah, Comrade General." Maluta smiled down on her benignly. "You have pleased me in so many ways tonight. Yes, you"re quite right in your a.s.sessment." He shrugged. "But you will do as I ask, just the same, won"t you?"
Daniella nodded numbly. What choice did she have? At least he would no longer spy on her.
Companionably, he took her arm as they went back to the Chaika. "Besides," he said, more easily now, "getting rid of the Shis will be best in the long run. I do not care for the power base they are forming in Hong Kong." It had begun to snow. Together they maneuvered Alexei"s corpse into the trunk.
He handed her a chamois cloth, took one himself, and together they wiped away what little blood had seeped onto the front seat. They threw the b.l.o.o.d.y rags back into the trunk.
Maluta, looking down at the white frozen face, said, "He looks so surprised." He slammed down the trunk. "Well, I"m not surprised, really. He was quite loyal to you, Comrade General."
Daniella felt the ground give way beneath her. She made a grab for the fender of the Chaika, missed and went to her knees.
Maluta made no move to a.s.sist her. He stood over her, watching her behavior with the kind of total curiosity a scientist exhibits toward a laboratory specimen.
"Do you really think that I would be foolish enough to allow you to kill my surveillance of you? Had Alexei actually been doing what I told you he was, he"d have been far too valuable for me to waste this way.
"No, my dear Daniella. I lied to you about Alexei. In that regard he was as pure as the driven snow. You see now how it feels to be lied to." He watched with a kind of trembling intensity the tears dropping from Daniella"s eyes. They made dark indentations where they hit the snow.
"Soon," he said thickly, "I will have photos of you weeping. My surveillance of you will see to that." With his breath clouding in the cold night, he seemed to be panting.
"The day after tomorrow is your birthday," Three Oaths Tsun said. "Where would you like to go for dinner?"
"To Gaddi"s at the Peninsula," Neon Chow said immediately.
Three Oaths Tsun, standing on the just-washed deck of his junk lying to at the floating Hakka city in Aberdeen Harbor, eyed his mistress. Oh no, he thought, of course Gaddi"s. For her twenty-fourth birthday why shouldn"t she be taken to Hong Kong"s finest and most expensive restaurant.
"Gaddi"s!" he exploded. "By the Celestial Blue Dragon, if I know you at all, you"ll try to bankrupt me there!" That was not to say that one should not show reluctance, Three Oaths Tsun thought. In his seventy-one years he had learned all the tricksor so he believed of the female mind.
"I"ll do nothing of the kind," Neon Chow said, pouting deliciously. She came across the deck to him. "I"ll only be twenty-four once. Should I not be happy?" She fondled the emerald necklace he had recently given her. "Aren"t I worth Gaddi"s?" Her pout deepened. "I know, you think I"ll embarra.s.s you in such a fine place."
In fact, Three Oaths thought, nothing could be further from the truth. Whenever he took this exquisite woman out, all heads turned in their directionfemale as well as male. Neon Chow, who worked part time for the governor, could easily have been a recording or film star. The only thing that would have stopped her, he supposed, was that she was essentially a lazy creature. Neon Chow had never done an hour of hard work in her life and that was, he was quite certain, just how she liked it.
"It"s true, a tai pan of your stature cannot afford to be publicly embarra.s.sed," she went on sulkily, "so I shall rescind my request. Take me to that dirty old fishmonger"s you like so much in Causeway Bay. I suppose I deserve nothing more anyway."
Three Oaths tried not to smile. In reality, she could ask anything of him and he would gladly grant it if it was within his power. But it would do neither of them any good for him to make that manifest to her. Her powerful effect on him was similarly best kept to himself, he believed. No woman he had ever knownand in his lifetime he had known manycould move him as Neon Chow did. And when they made love he was thirty years old again, the clouds and the rain more dizzying even than when he had been in his rampant youth. Just watching her sent tremors of arousal through his sacred member.
"As it happens you are in luck," he said now. His voice betrayed none of the emotion he felt energizing him. "I phoned the place in Causeway Bay but it"s not available because of a private party." That was a blatant lie; he"d had no intention of taking her anywhere but the restaurant of her choice. "So I suppose Gaddi"s it must be after all."
"Eeeee!" Neon Chow screamed, throwing her arms around him. She ground her liquid hips against his loins, crushed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest. "How wonderful!"
Yes, Three Oaths thought, it certainly is.
"Honorable father, they are here!"
Three Oaths turned from her embrace to acknowledge his number one son"s voice. He went, limping, across the deck as Jake and Bliss came aboard. My daughter looks more beautiful now, Three Oaths thought, than she ever has. Bliss"s skin is as translucent and glowing as alabaster. It is as if she has waited all her life for Jake Maroc Shi to return to herto return to her love.
"Greetings, Zhuan," he said and, turning to Bliss, "Daughter." His face was serene; none of his inner emotion showed.
"May Bliss go below?" Jake asked. "My father has asked for the services of her healing hands."
"Certainly," Three Oaths said, leading the way. Ever since he had made the journey from Beijing to be reunited with his family, Shi Zilin had chosen to live on his brother"s junk, because, he said, "It reminds me of the old days when we ran the tears of the poppy for the foreign devil tat pan in Shanghai."
Jake and Three Oaths watched Bliss descend the companionway. Jake was aware of Neon Chow staring at him. He did not look at her or acknowledge her presence. He preferred to treat her as an object, much like the bales and crates littering the freshly swabbed deck.
He did not think about Neon Chow. In his mind she was his uncle"s responsibility. Certainly he did not consider her family. He suspected privately that she was more interested in Three Oaths"s money than she was in him. He had come across many beauties like her who had nothing more to barter with in life than their bodies. A part of life in Asia. Joss.
Below, Bliss smiled into Shi Zilin"s face and picked up his hand. She squeezed it, stroking its back with loving affection in her eyes. She kissed both his cheeks.
"Where is your pain the worst today, a-yeh?" she asked softly, and when Zilin told her, she nodded. "We"ll begin then with the Liver Meridian." She moved down, took off his shoes. "The sedating point is here"picking up one bare foot"on the sole just below the base of the middle toe. Now as I press here, imagine the energy flow moving from the opposite end of the meridian, the inner end of the collarbone, down through the ribs into the pubic region, down the inside of the leg to the knee, then down farther along the inside of the ankle bone, circling there until it reaches the point where I am pressing. Close your eyes now, a-yeh."