Russian Roulette (17 page)

There was something else. It occurred to me that it really wasn’t so difficult to replace a piston rod. I had been reading helicopter magazines all my life and knew almost as much as if I’d actually been flying myself. I was sure that Zelin would have a spare and should have been able to fix it himself.

So what was he up to? I said nothing, but for the rest of the day, I kept my eye on him. When the new mechanic arrived that same afternoon, I made sure I was there.

• • •

He came in a green van marked MVZ Helicopters, and I saw him step out to have his passport and employment papers checked by the guards. He was a short, plump man with a mop of gray hair that sprawled over his head and several folds of fat around his chin. He was dressed in green overalls with the same initials, MVZ, on the top pocket. He had to wait while the guards searched his van—for once, their metal detectors weren’t going to help them. The back was jammed with spare parts. He didn’t seem to mind, though. He stood there smoking a cigarette, and when they finally let him through, he gave them a friendly wave and drove straight across to the helicopter pad. Arkady Zelin was waiting for him there and they spent the rest of the day working together, stripping down the engine and doing whatever it was they had to do.

It was a warm afternoon, perfect weather to be outside, and at four o’clock one of the housekeepers sent me over to the helicopter with a tray of lemonade and sandwiches. The mechanic—Rykov—came strutting toward me with a smile on his face.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“My name is Yassen, sir.”

“And what’s in these sandwiches?” He pried one open with a grimy thumb. “Ham and cheese. I see they look after you well here, Yassen. That’s very nice of you.” He was already eating, talking with his mouth full. Then he signaled to Zelin and the two of them went back to work.

I saw him a second time when I came back to pick up the tray. Once again he was pleased to see me, but I thought that Zelin was more restrained. He was quieter than I had ever known him and this was a man I knew fairly well. You cannot play cards with someone and not get a sense of the way they think. I would have said he was nervous. I wondered why he wasn’t wearing his new watch today. By now, the helicopter was almost completely reassembled. I lingered with the two men, waiting to take back the tray. And it seemed only natural to chat.

“Do you fly these?” I asked the mechanic.

“Not me,” he said. “I just take them take them apart and put them back together.”

“Is it difficult?”

“You have to know what you’re doing.”

“Wouldn’t you like to fly?”

He shook his head. “Not really.” He took out a cigarette and lit it. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a joystick between my legs. I prefer to keep my feet safely on the ground.”

“That’s enough, Yassen,” Zelin growled. “Don’t you have work to do? Go and do it.”

“Yes, Mr. Zelin.”

I picked up the tray with the dirty glasses and carried them back to the house. But I’d already discovered everything I needed to know. The mechanic knew nothing about helicopters. Even I could have told him that a Bell helicopter doesn’t have a joystick. It has a cyclic control that transmits instructions to the rotor blades. And it’s not in front of you. It’s to one side. Zelin had lied about the malfunction just as he had lied about the usual mechanic, Borodin, being sick. I was sure of it.

From that moment, I didn’t let them out of my sight. I knew I would get into trouble. There were ten pairs of shoes I was meant to polish and a whole pile of crates to be broken up down in the cellar. But there was no way I was going to disappear inside. Zelin was planning something. If Rykov wasn’t a helicopter mechanic, what was he? A thief? A spy? It didn’t matter. Zelin had brought him into the compound and had to be part of it. This was the opportunity I’d been waiting for. I could blackmail him. Suddenly I saw him with his hand on the cyclic. He could fly me out.

My biggest worry was that Ivan would return to the dacha. He’d gone into Moscow for the day, driving the new Mercedes sports car that his father had bought him for his birthday, but if he came back and saw me, chances were that he would find some task for me to do. At five o’clock there was still no sign of him, but Sharkovsky and his wife returned from a ride and I helped them down from their saddles and walked the horses around to the stable. All the gardeners were gone. There were just the usual guards, walking in pairs, unaware that anything unusual was going on.

As I got back, I heard the helicopter start up, the whine of the engine rising as the rotors picked up speed. There was no sign of Rykov, but the van with the MVZ logo was still parked close by, so I knew he couldn’t have left. I pretended to walk into the house, but at the last minute I hurried forward and ducked behind one of the cars. It was actually the Lexus that had first brought me here. If anyone found me there, I would pretend I was cleaning it.

I could see Arkady Zelin inside the cockpit, checking the controls, and suddenly the mechanic emerged from the other side of the helicopter and began to walk toward me, toward the house, carrying a sheaf of papers. If the guards had seen him, it would have looked completely natural. He had finished the job and he needed someone to sign the documentation. But he was being careful. He kept to the shadows. Nobody except me saw him go in through the back door.

I followed. I didn’t know what I was going to do because I still hadn’t worked out what was happening. All I knew was it wasn’t what it seemed.

I crept down the corridor past the service rooms—the laundry and the boot room where I had spent so many hundreds of hours, day and night, in mindless drudgery. There was nobody around and that was very unusual. The mechanic couldn’t have just walked into the house. One of the housekeepers would have challenged him and then made him wait while she went to fetch Josef or Karl. Rykov had entered only a few seconds ahead of me. He should have been here now. I felt the silence all around me. None of the lights were on. I glanced into the kitchen. There was a pot of soup or stew bubbling away on top of the hearth, but no sign of Pavel.

I was tempted to call out, but something told me to stay quiet. I continued past the pantry. The door was ajar and that too was strange, as it was always kept locked in case the dog went in. I pushed it open, and at that moment everything made sense. It should have been obvious from the start. How could I have been so slow not to see it?

The housekeeper was there, lying on the floor. I had lost count of the number of times that Nina had snapped at me, scolding me for being too slow or too clumsy, hitting me on the head whenever she got the chance. I could see the wooden spoon still tucked into her apron, but she wasn’t going to be using it. She had been shot at close range, obviously with a silencer, because I hadn’t heard the sound of the gun. She was on her back with her hands spread out, as if in surprise. There was a pool of blood around her shoulders.

Arkady Zelin had been bribed. There was no other explanation. He never had any money but suddenly he had an expensive new watch. Rykov was an assassin who had come here to kill Sharkovsky. The safest way to smuggle a gun into the compound, perhaps the only way to get past the metal detectors and X-ray machines, was to bring it in a truck packed with metal equipment. It would have been easy enough to dismantle it and to scatter the separate parts among the other machinery. And the fastest way out after he had done his work was the helicopter, which was waiting even now, with the rotors at full velocity.

My mouth was dry. My every instinct was to turn and run. I couldn’t help Sharkovsky. I didn’t even want to. If Rykov saw me, he would kill me without even thinking about it, just as he had killed Nina. But I didn’t leave. I couldn’t. This was the only chance I would ever get and I had to use it. There was a small ax hanging in the pantry. I had used it until there were blisters all over my hands, chopping kindling for the fire in Sharkovsky’s study. Making as little noise as possible and doing my best not to look at the dead woman, I unhooked it. An ax would be little use against a gun, but even so, I felt safer having some sort of weapon. I continued to the door that led into the main hall. It was half open. Hardly daring to breathe, I looked through.

I had arrived just in time for the endgame.

The hall was in shadow. The sun was setting behind the house and its last rays were unable to reach the windows. The lights were out. I could hear the shrill whine of the helicopter outside in the distance, but a curtain of silence seemed to have fallen on the house. Josef was lying on the stairs where he had been gunned down. Rykov was standing in front of me, edging forward, an automatic pistol with a silencer attached in his hand. He was creeping toward the study, his feet making no sound on the thick carpet. But even as I watched, the door of the study opened and Vladimir Sharkovsky came out dressed in a suit and tie but with his jacket off. He must have heard the disturbance, the body tumbling down the stairs, and had come out to see what was happening.

“What—?” he began.

Rykov didn’t say anything. He stepped forward and shot my employer three times, the bullets thudding into his chest and stomach so quietly that I barely heard them. The effect was catastrophic. Sharkovsky was thrown backward . . . off his feet. His head hit the carpet first. If the bullets hadn’t killed him, he would surely have broken his own neck. His legs jerked, then became still.

What did I feel at that moment? Nothing. Of course I wasn’t going to waste any tears on Sharkovsky. I was glad he was dead. But I couldn’t find it in myself to celebrate the death of another human being. I was frightened. I was still wondering how I could turn this to my advantage. Everything was happening so quickly that I didn’t have time to work out my emotions. I suppose I was in a state of shock.

And then a voice came floating out of the darkness.

“Don’t turn around. Put the gun down!”

Rykov twisted his head but saw nothing. I was hiding behind the door, out of sight. It was Karl. He had come up from the cellar. Maybe he had been looking for me, wanting someone to help him move the crates. He was behind Rykov and over to one side, edging into the hall with a gun clasped in both hands, holding it at the same level as his head.

Rykov froze. He was still holding the gun he had used to kill Sharkovsky and I wondered if he’d had time to reload. He had fired at least five bullets. Rykov couldn’t see where the order had come from, but he remained completely calm. “I will pay you one hundred thousand rubles to let me leave here,” he said. He sounded very different from the mechanic I had spoken to. His voice was younger, more cultivated.

“Who sent you?”

“Scorpia.”

The word meant nothing to me. Nor did it seem to have any significance for Karl. “Lower your gun very slowly,” he said. “Put it on the carpet where I can see it . . . in front of you.”

There was nothing Rykov could do. If he couldn’t see the bodyguard, he couldn’t kill him. He lowered the gun to the floor.

“Kick it away.”

“If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else,” Rykov said. “Do yourself a favor. You’re out of a job. Take the money and go.”

Silence. Rykov knew he had to do what he was told. He kicked the gun across the carpet. It came to a halt a few centimeters away from the dead man.

Karl stepped farther into the hall, still holding his gun in both hands. It was aimed at the back of Rykov’s neck. He glanced to the right and saw Josef lying spread-eagle on the stairs. Something flickered across his face and I had no doubt that he was going to shoot down the man who had been responsible for the death of his brother. As he moved forward, his path took him in front of the door where I was standing, and suddenly I was behind him.

“One hundred and fifty thousand rubles,” Rykov said. “More money than you will ever see in your life.”

“You have killed my brother.”

Rykov understood. There was no point in arguing. In Russia, the blood tie, particularly between brothers, is a strong one.

Karl was very close to him now, and without really thinking about it I made the decision, probably the most momentous of my life. I slipped through the door and, raising the ax, took three steps into the hall. The bodyguard heard me at the very last moment, but it was too late. Using the blunt end, I brought the ax swinging down and hit him on the back of the head. He collapsed in front of me, his arms, his legs, his entire body suddenly limp. The mechanic moved incredibly fast. He didn’t know what had happened, but he dived forward, reaching out for the gun he had just kicked away. But I was faster. Before he could reach it, I had dropped the ax and swept up Karl’s gun, and already I was aiming it straight at him, doing my best to stop my hand from shaking.

Rykov saw me and stared. He was unarmed. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. “You!” he exclaimed.

“Listen to me,” I said. “I could shoot you now. If I fire a single shot, everyone will come. You’ll never get away.”

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I want to get out of here.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. You have to help me!” I scrabbled for words. “I knew you weren’t really a mechanic. I knew you and Zelin were working together. But I didn’t say anything. It’s thanks to me that you managed to do what you came for.” I nodded at the body of Vladimir Sharkovsky.

“I will give you money—”

“I don’t want money. I want you to take me with you. I never asked to come here. I’m a prisoner. I’m their slave. All I’m asking is for you to take me as far away as you can and then to leave me. I don’t care about you or about Scorpia. I’m glad he’s dead. Do you understand? Is it a deal?”

He pretended to think . . . but only very briefly. The helicopter was still whining outside and very soon one of the guards might ask what was happening. Arkady Zelin might panic and take off without him. He didn’t have any time. “Let me get my gun,” he said. He stretched out his hand.

“No!” I tightened my grip. “We’ll leave together. It’ll be better that way for you. The guards know me and they’re less likely to ask questions.” He still seemed to be hesitating, so I added, “You do it my way or you never leave.”