Except for the onion domes, minarets, and other flourishes on the house, it could have been a fallow farm somewhere in the middle of Iowa. The stream gurgled, birdsong drifted to her on the gentle breeze, and she could smell the rich black earth.
The place was idyllic, like something out of a fairy tale, but extremely dangerous. People had died here, or orders to go out and kill had come from this place. It had a bloody history that hung thick on the summer air.
“Dawbrih y dyen,” an old man at the front door said.
“Good afternoon,” Pete said. “General Didenko?”
“Yes, that’s me,” he said, smiling. He wore a baggy old sweater despite the heat, corduroy trousers, and felt slippers. His white hair was thin, and he stood with a stoop. He looked like he had been ill for a long time and had lost a lot of weight.
“My name is Donna Graves; I’m writing a book.”
“Intriguing. May I ask the subject?”
“Kirk McGarvey, who was the director of the CIA.”
“I know the name, of course, but I don’t think I can be much help to you. I’m retired now, and I never had any dealings with the man — at least none that were direct. Nevertheless, you have traveled a long way to see me. Won’t you sit and have a glass of wine?”
He brought out a bottle of Valpolicella and two glasses, and they sat on ratty old wicker chairs on the porch. Close up, he stank, maybe of cow manure, or at least she hoped that’s what it was. He poured the wine with a shaking hand.
“It’s pleasant here,” Pete said.
“Unless the wind comes from Petushki, and then we smell the factories. In the old days, we thought the air tasted sweet. Money was being made. Progress. But now it is pollution. I don’t imagine that a man such as McGarvey would take kindly to a book about his exploits.”
“Let’s talk about General Baranov. You succeeded him after McGarvey killed him in Berlin.”
Didenko nodded. “I would have thought that operation was still classified.”
“I have my sources. But you must have inherited one of his shooters — a man by the name of Arkady Kurshin.”
“Indeed I did, but I only ever talked to him by telephone. I never met him in person.”
“McGarvey killed him too. First his control and then him. How did you feel about it?”
“About McGarvey, or about Arkasha’s death?”
“Both.”
“McGarvey was beyond my reach — the chairman of the First Chief Directorate explained that to me in no uncertain terms. As for poor Arkasha, it had been his destiny from the very beginning to die violently.”
“How about now?”
Didenko was puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“The First Chief Directorate is gone; perhaps you have thought about revenge.”
“I’m an old man, Ms. Graves. And even if I did think about revenge, I don’t have the resources.”
“There must be an old-boy network. Someone you could call.”
Didenko drank his wine. “Are you a sensationalist? Are you writing a serious book, or will it be a story for the tabloids?”
“I’m extremely serious, General.”
“I can’t open the archives at Lubyanka Square for you, nor would I if I had the power, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m only asking for your memories.”
“I think more than that,” Didenko said. “But I give you my assurances that I have no feelings of anger or regret that would lead me to take revenge.”
“But there must be those who would,” Pete pressed.
Didenko threw his head back and laughed. “A great many of them, I suspect,” he said at length.
10
McGarvey, dressed for the casino in black tie and patent leather shoes, presented himself to the maître d’ at the Hôtel de Paris’s Michelin three-star Le Louis XV.
“Will monsieur be dining alone this evening?” the haughty Frenchman asked.
“Unfortunately, yes, but perhaps my luck will change for the better at the casino.”
The maître d’ led him to a table in a corner next to a tall, ornately draped window that rose to arches just below the ceiling adorned in gold leaf like nearly every other surface. It had been years since he had been here last, but nothing had changed; the large room half-filled with well-dressed diners was a fantasy from the Grand Siècle at Versailles. All the clocks were stopped at twelve, because in this restaurant, time was of no importance.
A waiter in a white shirt and a spotlessly white apron well below his knees came to take McGarvey’s drink order, while another brought a bottle of still water and poured a glass, and a third brought a small, crusty baguette and butter.
McGarvey ordered a Hermitage Réaux 65, which was an expensive vintage cognac, and when the first waiter was a gone, a fourth brought a menu that McGarvey declined.
“May I offer monsieur a few suggestions?”
“No, nor will I be rushed,” Mac said, not bothering to keep his voice low. “First, I will have a drink or two. Then, caviar, a shrimp ceviche as long as it isn’t drowned, Mediterranean sea bass with fennel, radicchio, and citrus fruit.” The fish was an Alain Ducasse specialty. “If the bass is overcooked, I will send it back.”
The waiter was a professional; he didn’t miss a beat, but word would get out about the crude American. “Very good, monsieur. Shall I send a sommelier?”
“Krug. Tell your man to be sharp with the vintage. I won’t drink vinegar.”
“I understand,” the waiter said, and he left.
“They’ll remember you,” Otto said softly in his ear.
“That’s the point,” Mac mumbled as if he were talking to himself. No one paid any attention to him.
His cognac came, and he drained the snifter before the waiter had a chance to get five feet away. “Another,” he called out.
The waiter nodded. “Yes, sir.” “Is anyone nearby?” Otto asked.
“I’m by myself in a corner. They had a hunch I was going to be trouble.”
“Pete is on her way to Paris already.”
“How’d it go?”
“She didn’t get much except that Didenko agreed that there were a great many who’d like to take a go at you. He wasn’t one of them.”
“What was the upshot?”
“Didenko is an old man, definitely out to pasture. If it was anyone from Kurshin’s camp who came for help, he probably didn’t get much.”
“He can’t be that old. He was playing a head game with her.”
“She thought as much. But Didenko will get back to whoever is stalking you, no doubt with her photograph. He’ll know that you’re onto him already. Might give him pause.”
The waiter was coming with his cognac. “I’ll be throwing money around at the casino in about an hour. Drunk.”
“You’re not armed.”
“No,” McGarvey said. The casino’s security systems at the entries were capable of detecting weapons.
“Watch yourself, Mac,” Otto said.
The waiter set the snifter down, and this time, he hesitated before leaving. McGarvey tossed the drink back.
“Would monsieur care for another?”
“No. I want my wine now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Salopard,” Mac said under his breath as the waiter walked away. It was gutter French for bastard.
The champagne came a couple of minutes later, and McGarvey feigned impatience as the sommelier opened it and poured a glass. As with the cognac, Mac drank the wine in one piece and held his glass out for more. The wine master obliged and then bucketed the bottle and walked off.
Two couples at the nearest table noticed what was happening and glanced over at him. McGarvey glared at them, and they turned away. The maître d’ was on the phone at his station, but when Mac looked at him, he didn’t turn away.