“You stupid fucking whore,” he said and took a step and slipped on a blue fox fur. He took a second step.
He grasped her bloody right hand. “Get on your knees.”
She was stunned; she could not speak or move; terror had turned to a sleepy stupor. She was like an animal suddenly shaken to death in the jaws of a lion; in the moment before death, sleep and calm overwhelm. Her hand had no strength left in it.
The second man filled the aisle behind them; Antonio raised his hand.
Kulak fired twice and the shots were muffled by the furs so that the clerks in the back room did not hear them.
Each bullet kicked into Antonio’s outstretched back; the first broke his spine and killed him and the second lodged in his right lung.
Antonio was off-balance and fell back and Kulak fired a third time, sending the bullet surging into his skull. Antonio’s eyes widened; he turned, the locked knife tearing into furs; he fell against a shelf above the furs and sent a case of glass angels and gargoyles crashing to the floor. He fell in the broken glass. The pieces were around him like flakes of ice; shards of glass cut the flesh of his dead body.
Rita said nothing. She stood and stared at the body and the furs and the broken angels. Silence after the shattering glass.
Kulak stepped into the aisle between the rows of furs and stepped over the body. He took Rita’s bloody hand and wiped at it with a handkerchief.
“This is not so great,” he said gruffly. “It is a little cut.”
“He was going to kill me,” she said without emotion; her face was pale and her voice was quiet.
“Yes. Do you know why?”
“I don’t know,” she said, staring at the handkerchief wrapped around her hand. “He was on an airplane—”
“Yes. You came from Paris this morning.”
She paused and her eyes widened and she looked at Kulak for the first time. “Who are you?”
“I am the police, madam. I am Chief Inspector Kulak.”
“I don’t—”
“Please, don’t say anything now. Come out of this place. I will take you to a place where we can sit down and talk.”
“I’m a tourist—”
Kulak’s cold eyes narrowed. “Madam, you are a journalist. At least, you say this. You are also a spy, too, I think. I know this one now; this is the one who killed Natali. I wish I could have cut him and skinned him the way he cut her. The way he would have cut you.”
“I’m on vacation, I—”
“You are lying to me, madam, but I expect that. I do not want murder in Helsinki. I do not want you… people here. Am I clear? But now I must examine you, myself. First, we will take you to the hospital for your little cut and then we will go to the police headquarters for a talk. You and me, madam.”
“But, I—” and she could say nothing. Devereaux would come and she would be gone. She would extricate herself from the police station eventually but everything depended on timing, Devereaux had said.
For the second time that morning, she thought of the dead man and Devereaux in twin thoughts. No, she would not believe he could betray her; he had saved her life.
But then she understood suddenly. It was what he had meant in Virginia three years ago when he would not accept her because he could not offer her this world of betrayal and shadows. Every thought was suspect now; every alliance was temporary; every truth was only a reformed lie. No matter what they vowed in words, no matter what they gave to each other, there would always be the nagging edge of doubt about him, like an infection that lasts for years, that never kills but slowly poisons every good thing.
One P.M. Melted snow ran down the gutters outside the plaza. Devereaux stood across the way from the Alko store in the shadow of a building full of shops that sold everything from coffee to Marimekko prints.
Something had gone wrong at the rendezvous. The store was filled with policemen. Devereaux had turned away from Stockmann’s and spent the next nervous hour waiting across the wide avenue from the store for any glimpse of her. She had emerged at eleven with Kulak. He had not followed her. They would meet again, later, in the hotel. The fallback position was routine but he had not thought they would need it.
A large man with glittering, arrogant eyes entered the Alko state store at precisely one-ten and emerged ninety seconds later with a bottle wrapped in brown paper. He looked around him and opened the wrapper and removed a precious bottle of Finlandia vodka.
He placed the vodka on the walk next to the door of the store and then walked away.
An amazed derelict who, moments before, had pressed his eyes against the window of the Alko store like a child viewing a Christmas window, gaped at the bottle standing naked on the walkway. He looked after the departing stranger and then at the bottle and then looked all around him.
Without a further moment of hesitation, he crossed the walk, snatched up the bottle and shoved it in his pocket. He hurried away with shambling steps.
Devereaux followed the large man who had purchased the vodka as a signal. It was Tartakoff.
Tartakoff crossed through the bus terminal parking lot and then went into the terminal itself and then out again across the street and down the block to the train station. He descended the stairs outside the red granite station building to the underground plaza.
Devereaux followed loosely behind. He kept looking around him, not so much concerned at losing Tartakoff but at being followed himself. But no one seemed to take more interest in him than in anyone else. He felt the cold grip of the .357 Colt Python in the pocket of his drab brown wool overcoat. He had worn sweaters mostly in Helsinki through the long winter’s wait and today wore a brown turtleneck sweater that was really too warm for the afternoon. But Devereaux was not discomforted by the warmth; it seemed he had been cold too long to ever be too warm.
Tartakoff took a turn toward the department-store entrance in the underground mall. The corridor was not crowded but it was populated and Tartakoff had arranged it long before as the prime meeting site, so it could not be changed. He turned and saw Devereaux approach him. He was smiling.
“You did not meet me yesterday; I thought you had gone,” Tartakoff said in his heavy accent.
“Do you have the prisoner?”
“So. He was important to you after all.”
“Do you have him?”
“He is safe.”
Devereaux stared coldly at the other man. Something was wrong, something had been wrong from the beginning. Why were there policemen today in Stockmann’s?
“There’s no time for games,” Devereaux said.
“It was not a game to me,” Tartakoff replied with disdain. “It is you, Messenger, who put off this contact for too long.”
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“That could mean inside the Soviet Union as well.”
Tartakoff shook his head. “Here. In Helsinki now. We are ready. We were ready yesterday.”
Yes, Devereaux thought. You were ready yesterday and you had the luxury of waiting. You are not terrified, Tartakoff. It is I who should be afraid.
“Everything has been arranged,” Devereaux said slowly. “We will separate the two of you—”
“No.”
“Yes,” Devereaux said in a flat, calm voice while his eyes tried to probe the reactions of the other man. “It is the only way. The old man will go to Stockholm. Silja Line tonight. You are going to fly to New York directly this afternoon by Finnair. You have an hour.”
“No,” Tartakoff said suddenly, backing up. “This is too soon. It does not suit me.”
“Too soon?” Devereaux felt the trigger beneath his index finger. He had chosen the coat because of the unusual size of the pockets and the fact that they were not covered with flaps. The pistol could be removed very quickly and replaced just as quickly.