Mueller’s world got very small. His choices were usurped by the sudden appearance of a black Volga that emerged rapidly from a side street by the GUM department store. A second Volga entered the square farther away, its wheels skidding on the thin covering of fresh snow, swerving wildly until its driver regained control and headed for Mueller. Third and fourth cars swept in from behind St. Basil’s. Tourists and foreigners gathered at Lenin’s Tomb looked at the four vehicles that raced toward the old man with his cloth bag.
Mueller stood perfectly still. It would be a fool’s errand to run. Plainclothes officers emptied from their cars and advanced on him in a tightening circle. Fuck! It was as if they had known he would be there. Mueller considered GAMBIT, now drawing the attention of a militiaman, and in that moment, he prepared himself mentally for the diversion he knew he must create.
He sprinted toward a narrow opening in the encircling net in a hopeless bid to escape. He was easily apprehended, but he continued to put up heroic resistance, cursing the men holding his arms. He continued his indignant objections until the officer pinning his arm kneed his lower back. A second blow struck the back of his skull. His head began to spin, and he dropped to the pavement. He breathed deeply to shake off the nauseating pain and gather his thoughts. His glove was pulled off and his palm grazed with a handheld black light, revealing dim, amber fluorescence.
“Mr. Mueller.”
A pair of polished black leather boots filled Mueller’s field of vision, and he raised his eyes. As he did, he glimpsed the shapka-capped man with his cloth bag by the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky. The man passed a few more benches and turned for a second, watching the commotion. He looked toward Mueller, a quick glance to take in the scene, and then turned again, walking away, beginning to hurry.
The officer standing over Mueller was of average height with bony cheeks scarred with pockmarks, calm eyes, and a gaunt frame that made him look menacing. Mueller recognized the high-crown gray cap of a KGB lieutenant colonel. Mueller had not met the officer, but he knew the face from Moscow Station’s files. Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Talinov, first deputy to the head of the Second Chief Directorate. Mueller knew he was a brutal man who had been trained by the Soviet system to be a tool of repression. He was known to be precise and quick in his methods—like a good butcher.
Talinov removed the contents of Mueller’s cloth bag and handed them to the KGB officer at his side—the orange, the plum brandy, herring, parsley potatoes, and finally the walnut rogaliki, briefly savoring the dessert’s candied aroma. He complimented its perfection with a knowing nod.
Talinov removed the brown paper package from the bottom of the bag. He undid the twine, unfolded the paper, and looked at the contents. He presented his discovery to his prisoner like an offering.
“Dolboyob.” Fuckhead.
Talinov removed his stitched leather glove by pulling one finger at a time, until his long, delicate pianist’s hand was open to the cold. He slapped Mueller’s cheek with the glove.
“I have been looking forward to meeting you. Unfortunately, these are difficult circumstances.”
Mueller felt the slap’s sting as a prelude to a bruising night. He said what he would repeat many times, in those and similar words: “I am an American diplomat. I demand to speak with my embassy.”
2
GREENWICH VILLAGE
THE MOMENT ALEKSANDER GARIN OPENED the front door of his West Village walk-up, he knew that his wife was gone. He stood in the vestibule, attaché case in hand, and he felt the dark silence of the empty apartment. Her coat was missing, her purse not where she usually placed it, and there was an envelope pinned to the corkboard where she knew he would see it—the care of a person making sure to tie up loose ends. She had written his name in her big, loopy script.
He moved into the small living room and dropped the envelope on the round dining table. He was reluctant to open it but also eager to know what she’d written, those opposing feelings tugging at him at the same time.
It was snowing outside again. Through the casement window he could hear plows scraping the pavement on their rumbling way down the quiet street. A week earlier they had celebrated his birthday at his favorite restaurant in Little Italy, and he’d commented that the neighborhood had changed, the old places now drawing patrons from the suburbs, but they had still enjoyed the meal, sharing a bottle of Chianti, and they’d made love when they got home. It had been a brave effort to hold on to their intimacy, but when they finished, they lay apart on the bed. They fell asleep without talking.
The next day, he’d gone to work, as usual. When he left the apartment, she was at the round table writing an outline for an article she was pitching to editors, and she hadn’t looked up to say goodbye even though, as previously planned, she would be off to visit her parents in Los Angeles for the weekend. She had returned from Los Angeles on the Sunday night red-eye, missing him before he left for the office, but she’d been waiting for him in the kitchen when he got home Monday night. They had talked, and then the argument had begun. It started with a small thing, as all their arguments did, and he couldn’t remember what had taken them down the path of blame and recrimination, but once there, they were unable to stop. Heated emotion eventually exhausted them and, just before going to bed, she had said it was over.
“SOPHIE?” HE DIDN’T expect her to answer, but he thought it advisable to confirm she was gone before he read her note. He lifted it, holding it like an unwanted gift. She had written Aleksander on the envelope, addressing him as she occasionally did, but only when she was being formal, or serious, or when Alek wouldn’t get his attention. She had used Aleksander in their marriage vows, in heated arguments, and once when he’d been hit by a taxicab.
He opened the envelope. When he finished reading, he refolded the stationery and placed it back in the envelope and laid it on the table, as if that was where it belonged. He made himself a gin martini and drank half. Looking up, he happened to see his reflection in the beveled wall mirror above the breakfront. He was a little stunned, a little tired, but there was no surprise on his face and no sadness in his expression. He knew that would come later. After all, the end of a relationship was a kind of death, and sadness accompanied death. He finished the martini and made another.
Things between them had not been good for some time. His hours were long, his absences unpredictable, and his work a black box that he didn’t discuss. When they’d first met, he had laid out the reasons why he would be a terrible partner, but she had ignored his warning, believing she could change him. They had discovered the challenges of day-to-day living in the first months of marriage—lost weekends, urgent calls, and the mystery of his sudden out-of-town trips. What had seemed acceptable in the fresh blush of romance became unbearable in marriage. He believed that she cherished him, and she said she did, and there was a time when his privacy was safe from reproach. They had loved, made love, enjoyed the fullness of their feelings, and seized carefree moments. God, how he had wanted a normal life with her.
Garin turned away from the mirror. He walked to the bedroom and switched on the light. Everything was in order. The bed perfectly made, each vacation photograph squared on the wall, fluffed bed pillows arranged as she liked them. It was an odd thing, he thought, to leave the room in perfect order at the moment of her flight. There was a part of her he’d come to discover that needed predictability, order, safety. His work had none of that. When they understood this, they both knew the marriage was doomed. For a long time they refused to admit they’d made a mistake. He had known her as well as he’d known any person, but now, seeing her gone, he wasn’t sure he’d known her at all.