The Black Sun (33 page)

“I’ll talk to Carter, see what he says,” Bailey said, already knowing what the answer would be. So far, aside from his being an associate of Blondi’s, they had nothing on Kirk. Certainly not enough to warrant sending in an extra team. “I guess this is really about Blondi, anyway.” He shrugged. “That’s who they sent me here for.”

“We’ve got eyeballs on Viktor’s place,” Strange reassured him. “If any of them leave, we’ll know about it.”

“That’s right,” Cunningham said eagerly. “First chance we get, we’ll move in. Believe me,

Blondi

won’t

see

us

coming.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

REKI FONTANKI EMBANKMENT, ST. PETERSBURG

January 10—6:18 p.m.

The throbbing in Tom’s shoulder had woken him eventu-ally—a dull, stabbing pain that every movement, every breath, seemed to irritate still further. Checking his watch, he realized that he’d slept through the day, the painkillers and exhaustion finally catching up with him.

He pulled the black satin bedsheets aside and sat up, noticing an untouched tray of food at the foot of the bed. There were no mirrors, no chandeliers, and, thankfully, no leopard skin in this room, although the ceiling had been painted black with the major constellations highlighted in gold leaf. He wondered whether Viktor had taken pity on him and deliberately placed him in a more subdued room. Subdued by her standards, at least.

Giving up on tying his shoelaces, he found his way past several armed guards who were patrolling the wide, par-quet-floored corridors as if it were a government facility, and entered the dining room where Archie and Dominique were sitting at a massive ebony dining table.

“Tom!” Dominique exclaimed as she saw him. “How are you

feeling?” “Fine. What about you two?”

284 james twining

“Great, except that Viktor won’t let us leave the house,” Archie said with a resigned shrug. “We can’t even use the phone.”

“The good news is, the food’s great.” Dominique grinned. “Want something?”

“Don’t listen to her, she’s actually enjoying this,” said Archie.

“Well, it makes a change,” said Dominique. “Besides—”

Viktor chose that moment to stride into the room wearing beige combat trousers and a tight-fitting black top. A nickel-plated Sig Sauer was tucked into the small of her back.

“You’re better.” It was a statement rather than a question.

“Much.”

“Good. Because we found someone . . .”

There was a scuffle in the doorway as two of her men frog-marched a hooded and handcuffed figure into the room at gunpoint.

“He showed up at your hotel, asking questions. Said he knew you. I just wanted to check before I had him disappear.”

She reached up and snatched the hood off the man’s head. Turnbull stood blinking at them, disoriented, a piece of tape plastered over his mouth.

Archie got up and walked over to him, his eyes narrowed as if scrutinizing Turnbull’s face in minute detail.

“No, never seen him before,” he sniffed eventually, sitting back down. “He must be one of them.”

“Take him down to the cellar,” Viktor ordered.

At this, Turnbull’s eyes widened and he began to struggle frantically, the tape muffling his shouts.

“It’s okay,” Tom said with a smile. “That’s Archie’s idea of a joke. He’s with us.”

“Oh.” Viktor, looking slightly disappointed, indicated with a wave that her men should remove the gag.

“Very funny,” Turnbull said angrily as soon as he could speak. His lank black hair had tumbled down over his flushed and sweating face. He said something in Russian to one of Viktor’s men. Viktor nodded her consent, and the handcuffs were whipped off. the black sun 285

“Serves you right for snooping around,” Archie shot back.

“I wasn’t snooping.” Turnbull rubbed his wrists, his skin pink and sore. “Kirk told me you were staying there. He knew I was coming.”

“Did you?” Archie asked Tom with surprise. “What for?”

“Presumably because, unlike you, he is mindful of the fact that I’m the one who got you involved in this. We’re meant to be working together, remember?”

“Together?” Archie gave a short laugh. “You weren’t the one getting shot at last night.”

“That was you?” Turnbull gasped. “It’s all over the news. What happened?”

“We’re not sure,” said Tom. “Someone latched on to us in Zurich. Next thing we know

. . .”

“You think it’s Renwick?”

“No.” Tom quickly briefed Turnbull on the events of the previous afternoon, including his encounter with Renwick in the Catherine Palace. “If Renwick wanted me dead, he could have done it there and then.”

“So Renwick knows about the Amber Room?”

“The Amber Room?” Viktor stepped forward, her voice eager. “Is that what this is all about?”

“Maybe,” Tom said slowly, silently cursing Turnbull’s indiscretion.

“But it’s just a myth.”

“What do you know about it?” Archie challenged her.

“Viktor—the old Viktor—told me all about it.”

“Why, what was his interest?”

“He was obsessed with the war. I’ve got a room downstairs full of his old maps and uniforms and flags. He even had an old Enigma machine restored so that he could use it to send messages to one of his American contacts for fun. But the Amber Room—it’s just a legend.”

“So what do you call this?”

Archie handed her the fragment of amber they had recovered from the satchel in Völz’s vault. She gazed at it suspiciously, but when she next spoke, her voice sounded uncertain for

almost

the

first

time

since

they

had

met.

286 james twining

“It can’t be . . . it’s impossible.”

“You’re probably right. But, to be sure, we need to find that painting.”

“And judging from the attention we’ve been getting, we must be looking in the right place,” said Archie.

“Then maybe I can help, after all,” Viktor conceded.

“The British government doesn’t work with gangsters.” Turnbull snorted dimissively.

“The British government, like all governments, works with whoever can get the job done,” Tom corrected him. “Unless you just want to call it a day?”

Turnbull was silent, clearly considering his options, before turning to Viktor. “How can you help?” he asked.

“The deputy curator at the Hermitage, Boris Kristenko. He’s into me for a bit of money. A gambling debt that he can’t seem to shake. He’ll play along.”

“Are you sure?”

“We just need to squeeze him.”

“Nobody gets hurt,” Tom warned.

“Do you want the information or not?”

“Not like that.”

“I’m just talking about applying a little pressure.”

“What sort of pressure?” Tom asked warily.

“The sort which is most effective in getting people to cooperate. Fear and greed.”

“The fear being that he has to pay you back or face the consequences?”

“And the greed being that, if he helps us, I’ll pay him for his trouble. Fifty thousand should do the trick.”

Tom nodded his agreement. “How come you didn’t mention this last night?”

“Because last night we’d just met. Now, we’re old friends.” She smiled. “Besides, last night,

you

hadn’t

mentioned

the

Amber

Room.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

GRIBOYEDOVA CANAL, ST. PETERSBURG

January 10—7:05 p.m.

It was a short drive to Greshniki, or Sinners, a four-story gay club on the Griboyedova Canal. According to Viktor’s informants, Kristenko was in the habit of stopping by for a drink here on his way home.

The club opened at six. Though posters at the door promised all-night male striptease, it really got going only after ten. Then the naked dancers would mix with the crowd, handing out paint and brushes, and offering their bodies as a canvas. Telephone numbers were the most commonly drawn items.

The place was still quiet when Tom and Viktor made their way up to the first-floor bar to wait for Kristenko. She ordered a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses, then filled them both to the brim.

“
Nazdorovje
,” she said, clinking glasses with him. No sooner had she downed the shot than she poured herself another. Tom did the same.

The room was deserted as they sat together in silence, waiting. Looking around, Tom saw that everything from the carpet to the walls, ceiling, and furniture was black. The only

color

came

from

a

UV

light,

hidden

behind

the

shelves

288 james twining

where the spirits were displayed, so that it shone purple through the different colored liquids each bottle contained.

Viktor’s voice suddenly broke into Tom’s thoughts. “Who’s Harry?”

“What?” Tom’s voice registered his surprise at this unexpected question. Did Viktor know Renwick?

“Harry. When I looked in on you last night, you were talking in your sleep. Something about Harry. You seemed angry.”

“He’s someone I used to know,” Tom said dismissively, not wanting to relive whatever it was he had been dreaming about. “He’s no one.”

There was a long silence.

“You know, I think maybe we’re alike, you and me.”

The memory of how she had executed the waiter surfaced in Tom’s mind, prompting an immediate and forceful response. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said.

A pause.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“You’re angry, like me. I can see it in your eyes. I heard it in your voice when you were dreaming.”

“Am I?” Another pause. “Angry about what?”

She shrugged. “I’d say you’ve been hurt. A betrayal, perhaps. Someone you thought you could trust. Now you’ve lost the ability to care about most things, most people— but yourself, especially. You’re bitter. Every day is a struggle. You hate yourself without knowing why. You live inside yourself.”

“Once maybe,” Tom said slowly, surprised at her intuition. “But less so now. Since I stopped.”

“You can’t suddenly change who you are.”

“Are you talking about me or you?”

“I know why I hate myself.” She seemed not to have heard him. “I’ve become like Viktor. Become the very thing that I once despised. The irony is that I’m trapped. I’m even more of a prisoner now than I was when he was alive. At the first sign of weakness, someone will make a move against me and I’ll be the one they fish out of the Neva. And nobody

will

care.”

the black sun 289

Tom thought back to the leopard skin and the chandeliers and the black ceilings of her house and wondered whether she had thought that, like some sort of primitive headhunting tribe, she would somehow absorb Viktor’s strength and ruthlessness if she kept his name and his home. To some degree the totem had clearly worked, protecting her vulnerability. But for the first time he sensed that this second skin was only an imperfect fit for her slender shoulders.

“What did you expect?” Tom ventured. “That you could run this sort of operation and have a normal life?” She smiled ruefully. “The choices that we make have consequences. I should know—I’ve made some bad decisions, and suffered for them. But you can always get out. I used to think that you couldn’t, but you can. It’s never too late.”

“It’s not that easy,” she said with a shake of her head. “They’d never let me go.”

“Then don’t tell them.”

“I’ve saved enough money to live several lives. I could leave tomorrow. But how do you know when it’s the right time?”

“You just know,” said Tom.

A pause.

“You know, I’m only telling you this because you saved my life yesterday.” There was a shift in her tone, as if she felt the need to justify this rare moment of honesty.

“I was saving myself and my friends too.”

“In the car, maybe. But up there on the bridge? You could have let me fall. No one would have known.”

“I would have known,” Tom said. “That’s not who I am.”

Another pause.

“By the way, it’s Katya.”

“What is?”

“My name. Katya Nikolaevna. That’s who I am.”

She held out her hand. Taking it in his, Tom kissed it theatrically. She laughed and snatched it away from his lips.

“You should do that more often,” he said.

“What?”

“Laugh.”

Her face fell immediately, and Tom sensed that she was even now wishing she hadn’t let

her

guard

down

quite

so

far.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

7:21 p.m.

Kristenko walked in a few moments later, a slight, wiry man with steel glasses that magnified his large brown eyes, giving them a look of perpetual surprise. He looked to be in his late thirties, and had clearly tried to disguise the thinning of his fine blond hair by brushing it across his head, although here and there his scalp showed through. He wore a ratty old tweed jacket over a creased polyester shirt, and his shoes looked in need of a polish. Tom guessed that he lived alone.

The curator didn’t look the violent type, yet his left eye was yellow and puffy, his top lip split on one side. Tom flashed Viktor a reproachful glance, but she responded with a shrug as if to say she had no idea how he’d received his bruises. Somehow, Tom doubted that.

Kristenko ordered a beer and a vodka, downing the shot immediately and chasing it down with a mouthful of Russian lager. The combination seemed to calm his nerves. He sighed, sat on a bar stool, and nodded slowly to himself before looking along the bar in their direction.

“
Zdravstvuite
,” he greeted Tom. “
Zdravstvuite
, Boris Ivanovich,” Viktor replied coldly, stepping between the two men.