“OK, that is ironic,” Hannibal said. “Was it a fair settlement?”
“Well, I’m sure the Americans thought so. It led to a loss of face for us, and eventually to the downfall of the czar, but it saved many lives.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to negotiate a peace here, between us and the Red Mafiya, and maybe save a few lives?”
“With Roosevelt’s own island helping us, maybe.”
After covering about twenty minutes of trails, Hannibal came to a crossroads with a large tree at its center and walked into a heavy branch hanging over the road. He stopped and tucked his sunglasses into his jacket. A bench on the other side of the trail offered a comfortable resting place. He turned to face his followers. It was getting dark now, but he could still make out the maroon stain on Viktoriya’s dress below the sport coat she had wrapped around her. Behind her, Ivanovich didn’t seem to mind the chill at all. Unlike Hannibal, he was bred for this.
“This is a good place to leave the trail,” Hannibal said. “Then we just hunker down and wait for the police to search us out. This way.”
Again Hannibal led. He stepped down about a foot to the marshy land off the hard packed trail. Five steps off the path the ground became very wet. His feet sank ankle deep into the muck, but six steps later he came to a mound surrounding a tree trunk. The tree was nearly a foot thick, and he figured the mound was the top of its root ball and therefore was relatively solid. He turned to face the trail but could not see it. If he didn’t know what direction he had come in, he would never have found it. As he dropped to a seated position, he saw Ivanovich approaching, with Viktoriya in his arms.
“Her heels would have sunk into the marsh so deep she’d never have gotten free,” Ivanovich said. Hannibal decided to say nothing. Ivanovich lowered the girl onto the mound on the other side of the tree. After settling her in place he bent and kissed her very respectfully on the cheek. Then he walked around to Hannibal and held out his hand.
“What’s this?” Hannibal asked, looking up into the Russian’s ruddy face and making out a smile.
“Probably good-bye,” Ivanovich said. “I’m going to a better position to watch over you two. When the police arrive you will say, with complete honesty, that you do not know where I am. It is unlikely that we will meet again. So this is my chance to wish you well, and say that it was a pleasure to work with a man I could respect.”
Hannibal seized the offered hand in a fierce grip. “Likewise, brother. And if you ever want to find a better path, let me help you.”
“Thank you for the offer,” Ivanovich said, “but my path is set and I know what lies at its end.”
Then Aleksandr Ivanovich took two steps back and disappeared into the darkness.
Now that he was sitting still, Hannibal realized that it was getting cold. Not the cold of his youth, not Berlin-in-the-winter cold, but maybe approaching the freezing mark. It didn’t get a whole lot worse than that in what passed for winter in the District. He sat with his back against the tree and his hands on his upraised knees and wished his behind wasn’t wet from the marshy ground. But the slip of a girl behind him wasn’t whining, so he certainly wouldn’t either.
Besides, he knew it wouldn’t be long. He figured twenty minutes for Rissik to assemble a team and get on the road. Maybe a half hour to get to the island. They’d search with lights and loud hailers and that would be enough to discourage even rabid Russian mobsters. Viktoriya would support his story, as convoluted as it was. And whatever coroner had Krada would tie the bullet to a Russian mob gun. So he had a few minutes, and only a few more questions.
“Viktoriya,” he whispered.
“Yes?” There was a slight shiver in her voice. She was cold too.
“You attacked Krada for killing your parents, but you never mentioned your husband, Dani Gana.”
Silence.
“That same weird little gun Jamal killed your mother with was used to kill your husband. You knew Jamal shot Dani, didn’t you? You knew before I did.”
“Yes.” Viktoriya said. It was cold confession, but now that the door was open he could draw more out with less effort.
“How did you know?”
“Because Dani told me,” she said. “The doorbell rang and he answered it and when he opened the door, Jamal shot him. He told me when I found him in the living room. Before I called for help.”
“How did he even know where to find you?” Hannibal asked. He heard short rapid breaths, the kind that precede sobbing.
“It was my fault,” she said, almost too low to hear. “I always called Jamal when I was scared or in trouble. I didn’t know that he would…”
Hannibal fell silent as something tiny drifted past his nose. It was followed by a second speck, then a third, and then a steady falling flock of them. White flakes were landing on the back of his gloved hands and disappearing as soon as they touched him, only to be replaced by others.
“I don’t believe it. It’s snowing,” he said, although he knew it was unnecessary.
“Things happen,” Viktoriya said.
“Yeah, I know,” Hannibal replied. “It’s just that I prayed it wouldn’t rain tonight. Guess I should have been more specific.”
He heard her stifling a laugh and for some reason that made him angry. He let a few minutes pass while he watched the world grow a tiny bit brighter and examined his new information to see where it might lead. After a while he turned his head so that he could at least speak in her general direction.
“You loved Krada, didn’t you?”
A long sigh. “Yes.”
“So what was the plan, Viktoriya? You could have had his baby, but instead you went to another man. Didn’t you want to marry Krada?”
“I loved him, but I could not see myself living on a college professor’s salary.” Her voice was matter of fact, as if she was discussing stock options or the price of gasoline.
“Did you ever care for Aleksandr?”
She snorted in the darkness. “He was the solution to my problem, that’s all.”
“Your problem?” Hannibal asked. “You mean the money.”
“The mob paid him huge sums to do their dirty work. I planned to marry him. Then, after a couple of years I could divorce him, take half his money, and then live with Jamal in the manner I had become accustomed to.”
Sitting on the ground, the smell of decay in the swamp was harder to avoid. “Why didn’t you?”
“The fool was accused of killing my father,” she said after another snort. “Everybody thought it was him, hired by a rival. Dani and Uncle Boris made sure everyone thought it was him. And I couldn’t marry a man who killed my father, could I?”
“I see,” Hannibal said. “So you just had to change your target. Dani was plan B.” Hannibal thought he heard an animal approaching on the trail.
“Yes,” she said. “Plan B. Different man, but the intent was the same. Do you hate me now?”
“Hate you?” Hannibal asked. “I hardly know you. But I got to admit, I can admire your focus. You knew what you wanted and you went after it.”
“You mean Jamal.”
“I mean the life you wanted to lead,” Hannibal said. It sounded as if the animal on the trail was getting closer. “I’ll bet you understood what Dani was doing for Boris Tolstaya. Yeah, and you convinced him to steal that money. The whole idea of him going to Africa instead of you, then coming back under another name, that was all you, wasn’t it? All that so you and he could live happily ever after. Except you planned to dump him and make off with the cash, and your happily ever after was going to be with Krada. Too bad you didn’t share your plan with the professor, because he sure screwed things up for you. Now he’s probably dead. And Dani knew it would be easier if he and his fortune traveled separately, so now his mother’s got the money.”