Arkadin drove through the hills of rural Nakhimovskiy district, lush even in winter. He passed checkered farmland, bounded by low forested areas. The sky was lightening, the dark, rain-laden clouds already disappearing, replaced by high cumulus that glowed like embers in the sunlight that broke through everywhere. A golden sheen covered the acres of vineyards as he approached the Sevastopol Winery. At this time of year there were no leaves or fruit, of course, but the twisted, stunted boles, like the trunks of elephants, bore a life of their own that gave the vineyard a certain mystery, a mythic aspect, as if these sleeping vines needed only the spell of a wizard to come awake.
A burly woman named Yetnikova introduced herself as Oleg Ivanovich Shumenko’s immediate supervisor-there was, apparently, no end to the tiers of supervisors in the winery. She had shoulders as wide as Arkadin’s, a red, round, vodka face with features as curiously small as those of a doll. She wore her hair tied up in a peasant babushka, but she was all bristling business.
When she demanded to know Arkadin’s business, he whipped out one of many false credentials he carried. This one identified him as a colonel in the SBU, the Security Service of Ukraine. Upon seeing the SBU card, Yetnikova wilted like an unwatered plant and showed him where to find Shumenko.
Arkadin, following her direction, went down corridor after corridor. He opened each door he came to, peering inside offices, utility closets, storerooms, and the like, apologizing to the occupants as he did so.
Shumenko was working in the fermentation room when Arkadin found him. He was a reed-thin man, much younger than Arkadin had imagined-no more than thirty or so. He had thick hair the color of goldenrod that stood up from his scalp like a series of cockscombs. Music spilled out from a portable player-a British band, the Cure. Arkadin had heard the song many times in Moscow clubs, but it seemed startling here in the hind end of the Crimea.
Shumenko stood on a catwalk four yards in the air, bent over a stainless-steel apparatus as large as a blue whale. He seemed to be sniffing something, possibly the latest batch of champagne he was concocting. Rather than turn down the music, Shumenko gestured for Arkadin to join him.
Without hesitation Arkadin mounted the vertical ladder, climbed swiftly up to the catwalk. The yeasty, slightly sweet odors of fermentation tickled his nostrils, causing him to rub the end of his nose vigorously to stave off a sneezing fit. His practiced gaze swept the immediate vicinity taking in every last detail, no matter how minute.
“Oleg Ivanovich Shumenko?”
The reedy young man put aside a clipboard on which he was taking notes. “At your service.” He wore a badly fitting suit. He placed the pen he had been using in his breast pocket, where it joined a line of others. “And you would be?”
“A friend of Pyotr Zilber’s.”
“Never heard of him.”
But his eyes had already betrayed him. Arkadin reached out, turned up the music. “He’s heard of you, Oleg Ivanovich. In fact, you’re quite important to him.”
Shumenko plastered a simulated smile on his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“There was a grave mistake made. He needs the document back.”
Shumenko, smiling still, jammed his hands in his pockets. “Once again, I must tell you-”
Arkadin made a grab for him, but Shumenko’s right hand reappeared, gripping a GSh-18 semi-automatic that was pointed at Arkadin’s heart.
“Hmm. The sights are acceptable at best,” Arkadin said.
“Please don’t move. Whoever you are-and don’t bother to give me a name that in any case will be false-you’re no friend of Pyotr’s. He must be dead. Perhaps even by your hand.”
“But the trigger pull is relatively heavy,” Arkadin continued, as if he hadn’t been listening, “so that’ll give me an extra tenth of a second.”
“A tenth of a second is nothing.”
“It’s all I need.”
Shumenko backed up, as Arkadin wanted him to, toward the curved side of a container to keep a safer distance. “Even while I mourn Pyotr’s death I will defend our network with my life.”
He backed up farther as Arkadin took another step toward him.
“It’s a long fall from here so I suggest you turn around, climb back down the ladder, and disappear into whatever sewer you crawled out of.”
As Shumenko retreated, his right foot skidded on a bit of yeast paste Arkadin had noted earlier. Shumenko’s right knee went out from under him, the hand holding the GSh-18 raised in an instinctive gesture to help keep him from falling.
In one long stride Arkadin was inside the perimeter of his defense. He made a grab for the gun, missed. His fist struck Shumenko on the right cheek, sending the reedy man lurching back into the side of the container in the space between two protruding levers. Shumenko slashed his arm in a horizontal arc, the sight on the barrel of the GSh-18 raking across the bridge of Arkadin ’s nose, drawing blood.
Arkadin made another lunge at the semi-automatic and, bent back against the curved sheet of stainless steel, the two men grappled. Shumenko was surprisingly strong for a thin man, and he was proficient in hand-to-hand combat. He had the proper counter for every attack Arkadin threw at him. They were very close now, not a hand’s span separating them. Their limbs worked quickly, hands, elbows, forearms, even shoulders used to produce pain or, in blocking, minimize it.
Gradually, Arkadin seemed to be getting the better of his adversary, but with a double feint Shumenko managed to get the butt of the GSh-18 lodged against Arkadin’s throat. He pressed in, using leverage in an attempt to crush Arkadin’s windpipe. One of Arkadin’s hands was trapped between their bodies. With the other, he pounded Shumenko’s side, but he lacked Shumenko’s leverage, and his blows did no damage. When he tried for Shumenko’s kidney, the other man twisted his hips away, so his hand glanced off the hip bone.
Shumenko pressed his advantage, bending Arkadin over the railing, trying with the butt of his gun and his upper body to shove Arkadin off the catwalk. Ribbons of darkness flowed across Arkadin’s vision, a sign that his brain was becoming oxygen-starved. He had underestimated Shumenko, and now he was about to pay the price.
He coughed, then gagged, trying to breathe. Then he moved his free hand up against the front of Shumenko’s jacket. It would seem to Shumenko-concentrating on killing the interloper-as if Arkadin was making one last futile attempt to free his trapped hand. He was taken completely off guard when Arkadin slipped a pen out of his breast pocket, stabbed it into his left eye.
Immediately Shumenko reared back. Arkadin caught the GSh-18 as it dropped from the stricken man’s nerveless hand. As Shumenko slid to the catwalk, Arkadin grabbed him by the shirtfront, knelt to be on the same level with him.
“The document,” he said. And when Shumenko’s head began to loll, “Oleg Ivanovich, listen to me. Where is the document?”
The man’s good eye glistened, running with tears. His mouth worked. Arkadin shook him until he moaned with pain.
“Where?”
“Gone.”
Arkadin had to bend his head to hear Shumenko’s whisper over the loud music. The Cure had been replaced by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
“What d’you mean gone?”
“Down the pipeline.” Shumenko’s mouth curled in the semblance of a smile. “Not what you wanted to hear, ‘friend of Pyotr Zilber,’ is it?” He blinked tears out of his good eye. “Since this is the end of the line for you, bend closer and I’ll tell you a secret.” He licked his lips as Arkadin complied, then lunged forward and bit into the lobe of Arkadin’s right ear.
Arkadin reacted without thinking. He jammed the muzzle of the GSh-18 into Shumenko’s mouth, pulled the trigger. Almost at the same instant, he realized his mistake, said “Shit!” in six different languages.
Four