Lew didn’t answer. Rarig glared at Padzhev and said, “Save it, Georgi. What’re we doing here?”
But Padzhev apparently needed to dominate us a bit more, which, considering we were all tied to our chairs, seemed a little superfluous. “John Rarig I like. It is not so peculiar. It looked good in that New York Times article-very masculine. Much better than Philip Petty. I’m assuming that was fictitious, also?”
Rarig merely sighed, seeing the futility of a response.
We were in a motel room, somewhere between Shelburne and South Burlington-the three of us plus Sam and Willy-all with our hands and feet secured with coat hangers-crude, effective, and very uncomfortable. Padzhev was flanked by two silent men with guns. A couple more were outside. A television set, its volume muted, was tuned to a local news program. Images of Middlebury, pulsating with the red and blue lights of emergency vehicles, played over and over again.
We’d driven here in three cars, including Sam’s, and had entered the room without formalities, indicating it had been rented beforehand. It was one of many cheap motels lining Route 7, which was interspersed with the shopping malls, car lots, and fast-food franchises that give the area its anonymous identity. In a state as small as Vermont, where newcomers-foreigners especially-tend to stick out, this spot was almost unique with its urban tendency to not notice or care. Padzhev had chosen well, at least for the short term.
He sat at the end of one of two beds, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped before him, looking at us contemplatively. “What are you doing here? This is a good question. Do you have any idea of what has been going on?”
“Starting with Antonov?” I asked.
He shook his head slightly. “Antonov came over here because I wanted to speak with John Rarig-an old man’s silly interest in the past, as it turned out. A folly. I meant the rest of it.”
I wanted to draw him out-have him paint the picture for us. Rarig, his old cold warrior juices stirred, obviously thought otherwise.
“Edvard Kyrov took advantage of that folly to get you out from behind your defenses, knowing you wouldn’t leave Antonov unavenged.”
Padzhev nodded appreciatively. “Did you hide his body to protect me, John?”
Rarig’s face hardened. “More to spare myself some grief.”
I moved to defuse the tension slightly. “He was afraid Antonov had been dumped on his front lawn as some kind of warning, or a threat,” I explained in a neutral voice.
Padzhev straightened, cupping his cheek in his palm. “There is a good deal of paranoia among people like us. It was an understandable reaction.”
He rose and began pacing the floor. “Fortunately, it served both ends. Kyrov laid his plans carefully and well. Had it not been for your unintentional meddling,” here he looked at Rarig, “I and my men would have been dead long ago, ambushed as we appeared at your inn to inquire about poor Antonov. Sad to say, that piece of good luck has not been enough. Certain elements have been conspiring simultaneously against me back in Russia, resulting in my having to confront them here, or not at all.”
“You’re talking about a showdown with Kyrov,” Rarig challenged, his eyes bright.
Padzhev stopped pacing. “Yes. If I do not face him here, I will never survive the trip back, as you said, behind my defenses. That door has been shut tight.”
I thought back to the countless conversations I’d had trying to root out this simple story-through all the complexities that had continuously blocked my way.
“So it was Kyrov who framed me?” I blurted. “To keep me out of the way and distract everyone from the Antonov case?” Despite the lies I’d been fed, I was still hoping I’d recognize the truth when I finally heard it.
Padzhev looked at me almost pitifully. “No. That was me. A couple of my men bypassed your home’s security system, placed the gem in your pocket, staged the burglary, and let your colleagues leap to conclusions, helped, I must admit, by a small donation to Henri Alonzo’s bank account, in exchange for some theatrical raving. I needed breathing room as much as Kyrov.”
He suddenly looked amused. “Although you almost upset the applecart, pulling out your gun in the middle of the street and waving it around. You scared poor Nicolai half to death.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
He studied my expression for a moment, and then asked, “Why did you do that, incidentally? He was only tailing you. It seemed like such an overreaction.”
I closed my eyes-no wonder he’d vanished without a trace. “What about the attempt on my life in Washington?” I asked.
Now he was the one looking confused. “What attempt? That would not have served me in any way.”
“Nicolai didn’t try to kill me there?”
“No. He’s never been to Washington. He was tailing you home so he could plant the brooch later.”
“Snowden arranged the hit on you,” Rarig stated flatly.
But Padzhev gave him a quizzical look. “There’s a name from the past. Why would he?”
“Stop it,” I shouted in frustration, sensing the same fruitless cycle starting over again. “What’re you going to do with us? Why’re we being held?”
Padzhev sat back down. “Yes, well, that is pertinent enough. I need your help.”
For the first time, Willy stirred. He laughed sharply and said, “Right-that’s pretty fucking likely.”
Georgi Padzhev smiled again. “It might be. Lieutenant Gunther, I gather you have a particular friend named Gail. Isn’t that correct?”
“You son of a bitch,” I said softly.
“Perhaps,” he only partially agreed. “But I need to be extremely practical at the moment. As you might imagine, I have much to lose right now, so I’m inclined to be quite ruthless. Your friend Gail hasn’t a hope of living unless you lend me a hand. That goes for all of you.”
“I don’t think so,” Willy said. “She may be his big squeeze. She means squat to me.”
Padzhev didn’t even look at him. “Quite. So, Lieutenant, do we proceed?”
“Doing what?” I asked. “I’m not in a position to help anyone do anything.”
“There you are mistaken. You have access to information, to manpower, to equipment. You also have a knowledge of the local terrain and its occupants. For outsiders like myself and my companions, those are significant assets. And it is my belief that so long as I control Ms. Zigman, you and your colleagues-regardless of any belligerent outbursts-will be of assistance.”
Sammie finally broke her long silence. “How do we know you have her?”
Padzhev nodded to one of his men, who stepped out of the room, leaving the door barely ajar. Moments later, the man I’d pulled my gun on in traffic stepped inside. In the bright light, the similarity between him and my supposed Washington mugger was vague at best. But I no longer cared. Next to him was Gail, her hands tied behind her back, her mouth covered with tape. They filled the doorway long enough for us to recognize her, and then they vanished. Only the memory of her eyes boring into mine remained.
The effect of this on me at first was too big to handle. Seeing Gail trussed up, her eyes filled with desperate appeal, I knew her panicky memories, like mine, were filled with images of past violence and impotence. It went beyond anger, frustration, or shock. Combined with the psychological beating I’d already taken, it felt like a confirmation of doom.
But only for a moment.
During the next few minutes, like the survivor of a presumed lethal fall, I began feeling the initial, choking upsurge of fear draining out of me, to be replaced by a numb single-mindedness. The legal and moral complexities that had once all but stopped me cold faded next to my need to help Gail. With one move, Georgi Padzhev had suddenly simplified my life. It occurred to me, in one of those odd asides one often makes amid crisis, that he must have been quite good at his job.
“What would you like me to do?” I asked him, surprised at the steadiness of my voice.