Coercion (36 page)

Alex liked riding in
Vasily’s jeep much more than under it.  He told him as much.  Provocation was part of the plan.  Fortunately, a weak ego was not one of Vasily’s shortcomings.  Unfortunately, Alex was fading fast.  Feigning cheerful indifference under these circumstances was draining a tank already on empty. 
Just a few minutes more
…

Alex had been watching the jeep’s mirrors as best he could, and was relatively sure that
Vasily’s goons were not behind them.  He had taken a few extra turns to help make sure, and to time his arrival just right.  Twice Alex thought he heard a distant helicopter, but if Vasily was being that cautious there wasn’t a thing Alex could do about it, so he put that concern out of his mind.

Alex knew that
Vasily had no intention of living up to their agreement to set him free.  He would have been mad to think otherwise, but that was one conclusion he wanted Vasily to make.  Anything that encouraged Vasily to drop his guard would help.  Truth be told, Alex suspected that if this did not work, madness would descend.  For all his tricks and mind games, this week had piled on more than a mind should ever have to bear.

Alex spotted the path he and Anna had used walking home from church.  “Turn left here.”

He was gambling big that Vasily wasn’t a churchgoer.  It was a comfortable wager.  Alex had Vasily pegged as a man full of confidence but devoid of faith.

“Park in front of the church.”

Vasily circled the building once and then parked on the side.  After looking around to convince himself that this wasn’t a setup, he said, “Let’s go.”

Alex held up his cuffed hands for
Vasily to unlock them.

“Not a chance,”
Vasily said, draping a coat over them.

“How will I cross myself?”

“If you’ve come here for last rights, Alex, you’re a bit early.”

“Actually, I was hoping to convert you.”

“You’re getting closer to meeting your god with each minute you keep me from my list.  If it isn’t here, Alex, I will take you straight to the radiation chamber.”

“Never fear,
Vasily, salvation lies within.” 

Their footfalls echoed
prophetically off the stone walls as the two made their way through the dark church toward the warm glow of beeswax candles.  Golden icons reflected their flickering light back from the altar, giving Alex the feeling that he was walking into a Rembrandt.  Which would it be,
The Raising of Lazarus
, or
The Sacrifice of Isaac?

As he walked, Alex fought back the pain with the determination of a wounded soldier in a battle not yet ended.  Unfortunately, he knew that
mere endurance would not be enough.  He had to remain witty and flippant. 
How do you
—   His eye caught the icon of Christ, nailed hand and foot and bleeding from the side, and Alex knew that he would find a way.

As they reached the base of the pulpit, Alex
stopped in his tracks.  He forced himself to don an admiring expression and then turned to face Vasily.  “You know, Vasily, all jokes aside, before we part company, I really should congratulate you.  You’re the only man who was ever able to catch me.  Back in my CIA days, I could dance around KGB agents all night long and they would never detect a beat.  But you, you’re different.  I can see why nobody ever caught you.  You’re always two moves ahead, aren’t you?”

“Two moves
is for school girls, Alex.  I work decades ahead.”

“Decades!  Decades … wow.  Yes, I can see that.  Faking that radiation leak was a brilliant move.  As an investigator, I have to applaud you for that one.  Who would ever suspect that someone would intentionally kill
his own people with a radiation machine in order to simulate an accident?  The answer, obviously, is no one.  I suppose with the Chernobyl embarrassment fresh on everyone’s mind, you rightly figured the government would be quick to cover up.  Brilliant, Vasily, truly brilliant.  But tell me, doesn’t it keep you up late at night?  Sending those twenty-five villagers to a horrible death has to be hard to live with?”

“You Americans are so weak.  History’s great leaders have always been willing to sacrifice the
proletariat when there was need.  Generals all the more so.  Stalin made his share of mistakes, but he got one thing right: the peasants are expendable.”

Alex wanted to vomit
and collapse, but instead he maintained a look of astonished admiration on his face.  “I suppose you’re right.  Now that I think about it, it’s practically part of the job description.”

“Damn right it is.  I took the worthless men of this village and turned them into something great.  So what if they suffered a little from radiation.  Their pain was short lived, but their sacrifice will service generations to come.  They will go down in history as martyrs, as founders of the great new nation of Russia.  Without me, they would have died anonymously, having lived flaccid lives devoid of meaning or purpose.”

“Yes, but—”

“Can’t you see that what I’m doing here is so much more important than anything they could have ever hoped to accomplish?”

“Yes, but—”

“No more buts, Alex.  My papers, if you please.”

“Of course.”  Alex turned deliberately, mounted the pulpit and stood before the Bible.  Looking down on The General Alex smiled and said, “Tell me about your relationship with Elena Popova?”

“Elena Popova?  I don’t know an Elena Popova.”

“It’s been a while.  Think back to your time in Geneva.”  Alex felt his stomach shrink as he saw recognition dawn.

“Okay.  I remember her now.  I knew her thirty years ago and haven’t seen her since.  I know she defected, but that was after our relationship ended.  I was back in Siberia before she even met the American.”

“It was thirty three years to be exact.  And I’m not accusing you of defecting, Vasily.  I’m accusing you of something altogether different.  You see, thirty-three years ago, Elena Popova became my mother.”

Vasily
stared blankly for a moment, and then his jaw dropped.

“I’d love to discuss
the chapters of your life at length, Vasily.  Would also like to explain the acoustics of this ancient church, but I fear we won’t have the chance.  Look’s like they’re going to demand the first and last word.”  Alex threw a glance over Vasily’s shoulder.

Vasily
turned to find himself flanked by a fiery-eyed congregation and its ashen-faced priest.

“They heard every word you said. Every sick, arrogant, radioactive word.”

Vasily did not turn back to face Alex. The surging crowd demanded his full and unwavering attention. They were armed only with the candles in their hands and the fire in their hearts, but that was clearly going to be enough.

Alex watched as
Vasily’s mind tried to catch up to the remarkable reversal of circumstance, but before he could get there, they were on him.

He did not fight. He hardly moved at all. He just surrendered to their blows like a haystack to a hurricane.

Their eyes locked for a moment as Vasily looked up from the ground. Then the crowd enveloped him.

That flicker in time was all it took for Alex to see that his father recognized the truth. The truth about what he had done. The truth about
who he had become. The truth about their relationship.

As the ancient icon of Christ looked down from above, the villagers picked at
Vasily’s body like a pack of vulturous demons sent from Hell to twist and torment his flesh.  They burned him with beeswax candles, pummeled him with wrinkled fists, and kicked him until they could kick no more. 

It was Biblical. 

It was animal. 

It was his father.

Anna felt miserable.  Not only had they caught Alex because of her,
but he had endured days of torture before finally giving her up.  She, on the other hand, had betrayed him to Victor in a matter of minutes with nothing but the threat of violence.  Anna was disgusted with herself, and it was only going to get worse.

Victor’s driver was taking them directly from the helipad to the church to retrieve the list she had hidden there.  Once th
e list was in his hand, Victor would be assured his victory.  Then he would deliver her to Vasily, and Anna would be conscripted to defeat.  Anna did not know what Vasily had planned for her, but her best guess was—

Anna threw her face between her legs and vomited on the floor of the car.  Some sloshed back onto Victor’s shoe, and she braced herself for the tooth-jarring slap
she expected in reprisal.  None came.  Instead, Victor just handed her his handkerchief and turned to look out the window.  He seemed preoccupied.

It was then that Anna realized that Victor had not actually done anything to harm her.  He had burned the dacha, and so thereafter she had taken him at his word, but words were all that had come, words and images.  Was he just a brilliant actor, a professional who had mastered his craft, or did he really have a heart of stone? 

Anna stole a glance at her watch.  It was almost eight thirty.  The weekly memorial service would be over now, and soon everyone would leave.  Anna did not expect any help from the parishioners, but she was desperate for the sight of a friendly face.  She also wanted someone to catch sight of her so that she wouldn’t vanish without a trace.  Her poor mother would be going out of her mind by now, having returned from the market to find the dacha burned down and her daughter missing.  Anna knew her mother would get through it—life in Stalin’s shadow had taught her to be tough—but news that her daughter was alive would be balm for her soul.

As she stared out at the snowy landscape whizzing by, a terrible thought struck her.  What if something had happened to the list?  What if a
janitor or priest had discovered it and thrown it away?  Would Victor believe her when she told him ‘I left it here,’ or would he need convincing?  She shuddered at the thought of what that might entail.  He had left little to her imagination.

At last, the car stopped
before the church.  Anna closed her eyes. 
Please
... 

“Let’s go,” Victor said, pulling her out his side of the car.  When she stood up, he grabbed her by the hair on the back of her neck and pulled her face to within an inch of his.  “If you try to run, if you speak to anyone, I’ll use the pliers to rip your nose right off your face.  Understood?”

Whether Victor was acting or not, Anna was too frightened to speak.  She nodded her head feebly.

“Good.  Now, take me to the list.”

As they approached the portal, Anna understood that something unusual was going on.  There was enough commotion within the ever-silent nave to penetrate the massive oak doors.  Victor did not seem to notice.  He pulled the big iron knob as if he was starting a mower and pushed her inside.

Anna had trouble making sense of the sight that confronted her eyes.  The parishioners were mauling around in front of the altar like angry ants on a contested mound.  It was like someone had emptied a sack of gold dust on the floor, and everyone was struggling to get his share … except for the screaming.

Victor pulled Anna off to the side of the nave so he could safely appraise the situation while their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting.  It appeared as though some poor wretch was at the center of the row, and Anna could not help thinking of the stonings that played a part in the history of her religion.  Then she and Victor saw it at once, and the sight induced a palpable shock.  The poor wretch was Vasily Karpov. 
They were beating him to a pulp.  What had happened?

Victor’s hand dropped from the back of her neck, and for a moment the two of them continued to stand there, stunned and staring.  Then Victor
clenched another fist full of her hair and began to drag her back toward the door.  As her head twisted, Anna’s eyes came to rest on another figure.  Standing up in the pulpit, as though presiding over the scene, was Alex.

Alex snapped out of the spell to the sound of someone screaming his name.  He shifted his gaze toward the source of the scream and found that the unbelievable scene was now positively surreal.  By what Alex could only assume was yet another act of God, the man who had killed his brother a month before and half a world away was miraculously there before him now, holding the woman Alex loved. 

Jason looked up and they locked eyes.  Then Jason resumed dragging Anna from the church by her long auburn hair.

Alex leapt down from the pulpit and began racing toward the front of the church, ignoring the pain in his feet and the fact that his hands were still cuffed.  If Jason had a gun, the fight would be over before it began, but Alex was willing to take that chance.  After six days of torture, he would
not endure one second more.

It flashed across his mind as he closed the gap that the man he now pursued with a bloodlust in his eyes was his half brother.  In fact, the two men in that
church were the only direct blood relations he had left.  Alex had not found the energy to analyze that news while in captivity—it was one hurdle too many for his already overtaxed mind—and there was no time to start now.

As Alex rushed at his nemesis from the front of the church, the doors crashed open in the back and a team of soldiers flooded into the nave.  Alex’s heart sank even as his legs pumped.  He would not even get an unfair fight. 

The shocking sight of the soldiers caused Jason to slacken his grip.  Anna seized the opportunity to bite his arm.  As Jason recoiled, Anna kneed him in the stomach and then lunged back—right into a stone pillar.  Jason recovered quickly and drew back his arm to punch her, but before he could release the blow two soldiers picked him up and threw him to the stone floor.

Alex was not sure if they
planned to arrest him as well, but he knew that there was no sense in trying to run.  He looped his cuffed hands around Anna and pulled her body to his. Anna hugged him back so tightly that it would have been painful even under normal circumstances, but after a week at the Karpov Hilton, her affection was agonizing.  He didn’t mind.  He tired to run his fingers through her hair but the handcuffs hindered his tender gesture.

A third voice chimed in unexpectedly from behind.  “Let me give you a hand with those.”

Alex and Anna banged foreheads as they turned to face the speaker.  Before them was a thin, elderly man with a crinkled face and a monkish fringe.

“
Hello, Alex.  So nice to meet you at last.”

Alex recognized the distinctive timbre of the diplomat’s voice before
placing the famous face.  For better or worse, he knew it was all over now.  “Minister Sugurov?”