An Image of Death (34 page)

A closet. Filled with women’s clothing. Arin scrambled to her feet, frowning. Whom did these belong to? Did Vlad have a woman? She hadn’t seen a trace of one: no smudged lipstick on cigarette butts, no cosmetics or perfume lying around.

She slid the hangers along the rod. Nearly twenty dresses, skirts, and tops, most of them scanty affairs with no backs or sleeves. Why were they here, locked away in a closet with no handle? As she browsed, she noticed a white tag on one of the skirts. She moved to the next outfit and noticed another. Another on the next. The clothes had never been worn.

Why did Vlad have a closet full of new women’s clothes? Unless.…She lifted off one of the hangers and held a blue and green sundress against her body. Without trying it on, she knew it would fit her perfectly. He had bought them for her.

She shivered and put the dress back. He had planned to make her his prisoner all along! The proposal about siphoning stones through the Yerevan plant was a sham. He was going to keep her here. As his harlot. His plaything. A harsh sound escaped her lips. When had he intended to show them to her? Did he believe a closet full of clothes would compensate for her loss of freedom? That she’d allow herself to be dressed in his clothes like a doll?

And what happened when he tired of her, as he surely would? For Vlad, the pursuit was the game. Once he had triumphed, his interest would wane, as it had with Mika. And Sacha. And Yudin. Then what? Would he turn Arin into a common whore, too? Or a thief? She gazed at the clothes. She had a sudden impulse to set them on fire. Exorcize the evil. Watch the flames engulf them, swallow them whole, leaving nothing but a mound of clean, smoldering ash.

She was imagining a glorious conflagration when the idea came to her. She moved back to the window and looked down. It might work. She went to the closet, ripped the clothes off their hangers, and flung them on the bed. Then she started to tie them together, knotting them as tightly as she could. Blouses, skirts, dresses, pants, even halter tops. She remembered Tomas practicing knots in HASK, the national scout movement in Armenia. She couldn’t remember which knot was the strongest. She should have paid more attention. Then again, it probably didn’t matter. The rope was only as strong as its weakest link.

Gradually, she knotted together ten, twelve, fifteen pieces of clothing into a rope about ten meters long. She pulled on the knots to test them. They seemed to be holding, but she wouldn’t know for certain until she tried it. At which point it might be too late. But she had no choice.

She crept back to the window. It was dark and quiet below. No flashlights. No guards. Nothing but the thud of surf gently buffeting the beach. If she made it, she would sprint toward the thicket and make for the highway. Someone would pick her up. Back at the hotel, she would grab her passport. Then she would leave this evil place. She knew where she would go. But first, she had to escape.

Looping the clothes rope around the leg of the bed, she knotted it firmly, stretched it across the floor, and dropped it out the window. But as she raised the window, the glass squeaked against the frame. She stopped, her heart hammering in her chest. A minute passed. Nothing happened. She allowed herself a small victory breath. Then, grabbing the rope, she crawled through the window. For the first time in her life, she prayed to God, asking Him to keep the rope in one piece just long enough.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-SIX

Mika threw her coffee cup into a trash bin and exited the coffee shop. I followed her out, wondering how to get her and Davis together. I knew she wouldn’t go to the police, but if I could get her to come back to the house, maybe Davis would meet us. But Mika refused to come back, and she wouldn’t tell me where she was staying. The best I could do was extract a promise from her to call me the next morning. I wasn’t at all sure she would follow through.

I said good-bye and headed for the parking lot in back. I was anxious to finish screening the dub of the ground-breaking ceremony and get time codes for Dolan. The lot was separated from the building by a narrow alley, puny by Chicago standards. It seemed darker than usual as I crossed it, and I noticed the halogen spotlight attached to the rear wall of the coffee shop was out. That was strange. Halogen lights were supposed to last forever.

As I got within ten feet of the Volvo, two men leaped out of the shadows and surrounded me. One was big and burly, and I knew instantly that he’d walk with a limp, just as the one sneaking around my back would be smaller with lank, greasy hair. I tried to run, but the small man grabbed me and pinned my arms. Pain arced from my wrists to my shoulders. I smelled his unwashed hair.

I struggled, but he clamped tighter. I cried out. The big one growled. The staccato sounds reminded me what a guttural language Russian was. I heard a snarl in response, and the pressure on my arms tightened so much my knees buckled. I tried to sink to the ground, hoping to somehow slip out of his grasp, but the pressure of his grip was so strong, it kept me upright.

A pair of headlights flickered past on Central. “Stop!” I screamed. “Please. Help me!” The headlights kept going.

“Shut up.” The burly man planted himself in front of me and raised his hand as if he might strike me. Even in the dim light, I saw that his pupils covered the entire surface of his eyes, giving him a dark and empty expression. A sick feeling spread through me.

“Where’s Mika?” I cried. “What have you done with her?”

He barked something to his partner, whose response was to tighten his grip even more.

“Help!” I winced and screamed again. I was desperate. “Someone! Call the police!”

A powerful blow caught me on the side of my head. I went down, my face slamming against the ground. Everything melted into dots. The dots started to spin. Then everything went black.

***

I thought I felt ice on my back as I came to. The feeling spread to my arms and legs. I opened my eyes gradually. I was lying on an expanse of hard-packed, frozen ground. I tried to wiggle my hands and feet, but they were bound, and even the slightest movement caused pain to radiate from the back of my head. I closed my eyes and started repeating the mantra I was taught in TM thirty years ago—it still helps me to relax. When most of the throbbing had eased, I cracked my eyes.

The moon, drifting in and out of stray clouds, cast wavering shafts of light over everything. As my eyes adjusted, a collection of dark, hulking shapes emerged out of the gloom. Immense, bulky machines. Bigger than cars. Some had hydraulic arms extending from their bodies. Others looked like huge shovels with giant teeth attached. One had a huge roller mechanism in front. The long arm of a crane snaked up from another. Scattered around the machines were various pipes and tubes, some iron, some concrete. All the steel made it seem colder than it was.

The night was peppered with arctic wind gusts, but a murmur of voices cut through the air. I rolled in their direction. A group of men was gathered near a trailer about thirty yards away. In addition to the two goons who’d attacked me were two other men. One was tall and slim; even in a heavy jacket, he moved with grace. The other, wearing an overcoat far too big for him, was small and chunky.

Max Gordon.

He was engaged in an intense conversation with the burly construction worker. I couldn’t understand what they were saying—they were speaking in Russian—but the man’s shoulders slumped. Gordon must have been reaming him out.

I called out, but something covered my mouth, and the noise came out as a groan. The men looked over. The tall, slim man started to gesture, but Gordon waved him off and came toward me. From my angle on the ground, his head loomed unnaturally large, giving him a queer, dwarflike appearance. The tall man followed him over.

“Good evening, Ms. Foreman,” Gordon said pleasantly.

I didn’t answer.

“I apologize for the surroundings. I would have preferred to be indoors, as, I’m sure, you would as well. Unfortunately, we had no choice.” He glanced over at the tall man, who had halved the distance between us. “My colleague here is going to take the tape off your mouth so we can conduct business. He assures me, however, that if you scream again or cry out in any way, he will kill you. Do you understand?”

I made no reply.

“Do you understand?” Gordon repeated.

I nodded.

The tall man bent down and ripped the tape off my lips. I gasped in pain. Gordon winced, but the tall man’s eyes were empty. He straightened up and barked something in Russian. Gordon hunched into his overcoat, and when he replied, I heard the tension in his voice. For some reason I remembered Dad trading in his double-breasted for a down parka last fall. I was in my sweats now. With no coat. They must have stripped it off when they brought me here. I shivered.

“It
is
cold. So let’s make this quick, shall we?” Gordon hooked his thumbs in his pockets.

I tried to lift my head to answer, but the pain forced it back down. The tall Russian pulled out a gun.

“Please, Ms. Foreman, don’t make my friend nervous,” Gordon said.

The man aimed the gun at my head. I ran my tongue around my lips. “What do you want?”

“The video of the ground-breaking ceremony. It’s the only piece of evidence connecting me to that dirty little business in the suburbs. It would be prudent for me to have it.”

Prudent indeed. “What dirty little business are you referring to?”

“Don’t prevaricate. You’re wasting time. It’s unlikely that my—my associates will be able to find the tape without your help. They have no idea where to look. You must tell me where it is and how to identify it.”

“And if I refuse?”

Gordon slid his eyes to the man with the gun. “It will not be pleasant.”

My mind worked feverishly. A VHS copy of the ground-breaking ceremony was in my VCR at home. But the original was locked up in Mac’s studio. Even if they did get hold of my copy, the original would be available for the police.

But they didn’t necessarily know that. In fact, many people don’t differentiate between originals and dubs. They don’t realize that, like CDs and computer files and diskettes, we always make copies to edit from. If Gordon had been asking for a computer file, I wouldn’t have a prayer. They’d know to demand the original. But this was video. It was worth a try. I started to tell them where to find the copy when I heard a muffled groan.

I turned toward the sound. A few yards away was a lump I’d thought was a mound of steel pipes and tubing, but now it was moving, rolling over. Mika! Like me, her hands and feet were bound, and someone had stuffed a gag in her mouth.

The man with the empty eyes backed away from me and trained his gun on her instead. With his free hand he removed the gag. I couldn’t see her face, but her body language was oddly relaxed. Not at all tense.

“
Halloa
, Vlad.”

“
Halloa
, Mika.” He pulled the slide back on his automatic.

Vlad! I remembered what she said about him killing her “Don’t…don’t hurt her,” I begged.

Vlad’s eyebrows lifted, and he spoke sharply to Gordon. When Gordon replied, Mika stiffened.

“We won’t hurt her if you tell us where the tape is,” Gordon translated.

Was he lying? Mika’s words earlier seemed to suggest he was. Still, I didn’t see that I had many choices.

“Where is it?” Gordon pressed.

“At my house. In my VCR. I was looking at it when—earlier.” I didn’t need to tell them about Mika’s visit; they probably knew anyway.

Another conference in Russian. Vlad motioned to the small man with the greasy hair. They conferred, after which the small man trotted toward the gate.

They were going for it! The greaser had almost made it to the street when Vlad called out. The man stopped abruptly. I held my breath. Vlad must have realized there had to be copies. I steeled myself. Vlad said something in Russian.

“
Da.
” The burly man rummaged in his coat and threw the other man a cell phone. The smaller man pocketed it and headed out to the street.

I let out my breath slowly. It was okay. For the moment. I tried to calculate how long it would take to retrieve the tape. At this hour with no traffic, about thirty minutes each way. I had an hour to figure out how to save my life. And Mika’s.

While we waited, Gordon stationed himself away from Vlad and started to pace. As he reversed direction and started back, a worried expression swept across his face. It deepened as he completed another pass. I got the feeling he wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up at a construction site in the middle of the night alongside criminals and murderers.

As his discomfort grew with each additional pass, a glimmer of an idea came to me. The only evidence connecting Gordon to the murder of the woman at the dentists’ was the shot of the construction worker on the ground-breaking video. And that was thin at best. The police might use it as a pretext to investigate further, but the tape itself wasn’t incriminating. All it did was illustrate a sleazy, but not necessarily criminal association between Gordon and the killer. Gordon was a shrewd man. He had to know that. According to Dad’s friend, Frank, he’d figured out how to elude criminal prosecution in the past. With good legal advice, there was no reason to think he couldn’t do it again.

But that wouldn’t free him from Vlad. Gordon needed capital; Vlad needed legitimacy. Their lives had become inextricably linked over the years. They had become a two-headed hydra, and, like the mythological monster, the destruction of one would guarantee the demise of the other. Watching Gordon now, though, I wondered whether he was prepared to go down with Vlad. He might even be hanging onto a vague hope that he would be spared, released from the web Vlad had spun.

I tried to ignore the pain and numbness spreading through my body and took a quiet breath. “You look as surprised as I am, Max.”