Snow Wolf (64 page)

Whichever way he looked at it, he was
dead.

By releasing Anna Khorev he was signing
his own death warrant. Perhaps Nadia's also.

How could he explain to Beria? How?

The man would never listen.

There had to be a way out of this-had to
be. He just couldn't see it.

How had Stanski known where he lived? How
had he known about him taking the woman out of the Lubyanka that morning?

Stanski had to have help in Moscow. And
the man was far more capable than he ever imagined.

Lukin drew a deep breath, let it out sharply.
He tried to think furiously but his head felt like a block of ice. Not
responding.

Think.

Think.

He forced himself to think hard, until
the action was like an ache in the top of his skull. A wind raged across the
hill. The icy chill gouged at his eyes, but his mind was racing now, as a plan
started to form in his head.

It was dangerous, very dangerous, but it
was his only hope. If it went wrong, he and Nadia were dead. They were dead
anyway if he released the woman. This way they stood some chance. He had to
risk it. He checked his watch. Four P.m. He had enough time to do what he
needed to do before taking Anna Khorev from the Lubyanka to the convent.

He turned and started to race back down
the hill.

Austria.

The hilly streets of the old wine town of
Grinzing in the Vienna woods were busy that Sunday afternoon, the cozy
restaurants and taverns crammed with off-duty Allied occupation troops and
Viennese couples enjoying their first spring weekend.

Gratchev stepped off the number 38 tram
and crossed the street. The snow lay thin on the ground but the air was crisp
and dry and he walked for several minutes until he reached the tavem near the
end of the town. When he was satisfied he hadn't been followed, he stepped
inside.

The place was crowded and there was a
three-man ensemble with accordions and zither playing lively Austrian folk
music as they moved through the noisy tavern. Gratchev made a face. He hated
that sort of fucking music and the sound did nothing to improve his mood.

He recognized the handsome, dark-haired
woman seated alone in a wooden booth. It had been a year since they had last
met and her slim, firm body still brought out an urge in him. She smiled when
she saw him but Gratchev didn't smile back.

He crossed over and eased his bulk into
the seat opposite. He was short and stockily built with bushy eyebrows and,
like most men used to a lifetime of wearing a military uniform, he wore his
civilian clothes uncomfortably.

The woman said, "It's good to see
you, Volya."

Gratchev looked at her and grunted.
"I wish I could say the same."

"What's it to be? Vodka?"

"These days I prefer American
bourbon. Ice and water."

The woman called the waiter and ordered
their drinks. When the waiter had gone she lit a cigarette and offered her
companion one.

Gratchev accepted the cigarette.
"What made you pick this place?"

The woman smiled. "Everybody's too
busy getting drunk to pay any attention to two old friends tawng. Besides, your
people watch the city."

"True enough. So what's this
about?"

The waiter returned with their drinks and
as the woman lit his cigarette she looked at her companion's face. It was a
livedin face. Deep lines like scars on his jaws and forehead and the narrow
Slavic eyes that were dark and unpredictable. A Russian face, no question. Deep
and brooding, but with a touch of humor, wrinkles at the corners of the man's
mouth from smiling. But he wasn't smiling now.

She said, "You got my message?"

"Would I be here if I hadn't?"
He looked at his watch dismissively. "I presume you didn't come to talk
pleasantries, Eva. I'm supposed to be at an opera matinee. It finishes at five
and I've got to be back at the base by six. I had to tell my driver I was
seeing a certain lady acquaintance. It cost me a bottle of vodka to keep his
mouth shut. And even that's compromising. So tell me why you're here."

The woman leaned forward. "I have a
favor to ask, Volya."

"I guessed as much." The
Russian put down his bourbon almost angrily. "When will you Jews ever
leave me in peace?"

"Mossad has asked very little of
you, Volya. But if you do this one thing we wipe the slate clean and we never
contact you again. Ever."

Gratchev's eyebrows rose. "That's a
promise?"

"You have my word."

Gratchev sighed. "Then it must be
important. Tell me what it is you want. More of your friends flown to
Vienna?"

The woman glanced around the room. The
tavem buzzed with conversation and music as the three musicians wandered from
table to table. No one was paying her and her companion the slightest
attention. She looked back at the Russian.

"Not this time. We need to get a man
into Moscow secretly, and back if necessary. We need you to do it and provide
him with the necessary travel papers."

Gratchev's eyes opened wide.
"Moscow? Impossible."

"Hardly. You're a colonel in the
Soviet Air Force. Such a thing would not be beyond possibility."

"I may be a colonel, but what you're
asking is dangerous and impractical. Who is this man?"

"One of our people."

"Mossad?"

"Yes. And we need it done
tonight."

The Russian blinked, then sat back and
laughed. "My darting Eva, you need to cool that pretty head of yours. It's
been frying too long in the Middle East sun."

"I'm not joking, Volya."

The Russian nervously fingered his glass.
"Then you're crazy."

The woman hesitated. "If you don't
agree to help, your file will be handed over to the Soviet Embassy in Tel Aviv
tonight."

Gratchev's face turned red and he
clutched his glass so hard the woman thought it would shatter.

"You little bitch! To think I once
loved you."

"Temper, Volya. I'm only a
messenger."

The three men with the accordions and
zither wandered over to the table, playing with beaming smiles on their faces.

Gratchev looked at them icily and said,
"Why don't you fuck off and bother someone else?"

The grins changed into a shared look of
affront, and the musicians moved on.

The woman laughed. "I see you
haven't lost your charm and diplomacy."

Gratchev snorted. "Remember how
those Kraut bastards used to play the same music near the front lines? It still
drives me crazy."

The look of anger disappeared from
Gratchev's face. His mind flashed back almost ten years. A captain, he had been
shot down over southern Poland in '43 and captured by the Germans. For four
days and nights he had been frightened and in solitary confinement, while the
Gestapo had interrogated him in the local police barracks and in the process
almost beaten him to death. On the fifth day a group of partisans attacked the
barracks to rescue one of their comrades.

Jews, mostly, who had escaped the Warsaw
uprising, they showed no mercy to the captured Gestapo, executing them on the
spot. Eva Bronski was in command. She had asked Gratchev if he wanted to join
them, and he, was grateful for the reprieve, had no difficulty saying yes. They
battled the Germans together for over a year, and he had loved her for her
courage and beauty like he had loved no other woman, not even his wife.

When the Russians had eventually pushed
south and overrun the German lines, she took Gratchev to the district Red Army
commissar and explained that he had been shot down over partisan territory. She
told the commissar that Gratchev had helped lead and organize the partisans,
and the way she told it he had been a hero, the bravest man she had ever known.
She made no mention of his capture and interrogation by the Gestapo, for that
could have cost him a prison sentence, his rank, and maybe even his life.

They said their emotional good-byes that
same day, and by the end of the war he was a wing commander, decorated by
Stalin, two years later a full colonel.

The first month he was posted to the
Soviet air base in Vienna. Three years later he was sitting in a coffee house
minding his own business when a woman sat opposite him. Gratchev's face
dropped.

Eva said, "Hello, Volya."

Before he could reply she slid an
envelope across the table and told him to open it. When he did he saw copies of
his Gestapo arrest documents, a transcript of his interrogation, with replies
by him that would have been enough to destroy him utterly.

It was simple blackmail after that. The
woman had saved him to use him. He was forced to help smuggle Jews on Soviet
Air Force flights to Vienna, bound for the new state of Israel. Not often, but
often enough to give him sleepless nights.

. Now, sitting in the tavern, Gratchev
sighed and stood up. "Walk with me."

"Where?"

"Outside, in the street."

Gratchev tossed some notes on the table
and they went outside and walked until they found a spot that overlooked the
lights of Vienna. Gratchev stopped. "You were serious? About leaving me in
peace?"

""If you do this,
definitely."

"Your man speaks Russian,
obviously."

"Obviously."

Gratchev sighed and thought for a moment.
"There's a military transporter leaving for Moscow from Vienna at six this
evening. There's a house on Mahler Strasse. Number four. I have a mistress
there. Have your man at the address at five o'clock. No later."

He looked at the woman. "So this is
the last time we meet?"

"You have my word."

He continued looking at her face almost
wistfully. He went to kiss her, then seemed to change his mind and let his hand
trace the outline of her face. "Shalom, Eva. Think of me sometimes."

"Shalom, Volya."

He turned and walked back toward the town
and the tram op.

Moments later a black Opel pulled up at
the curb and the woman climbed in. The man in the driver's seat turned around.
Branigan said, "Well?

How did it go?"

The woman nodded at Massey, sitting
beside her. "Your friend leaves tonight."

There was an expression of relief on
Branigan's face as he looked at Massey. "I guess you're in luck,
Jake."

Massey didn't reply. Branigan tapped the
driver's shoulder and the car pulled out from the curb.

Moscow.

The guard unlocked the cell door and
Lukin stepped inside.

Anna Khorev barely acknowledged him as
she sat on the edge of the wooden bed. As the door clanged shut behind him,
Lukin said, "Anna?"

She looked up at him slowly but didn't
speak. Her eyes were red from crying, her face drawn and pale. Lukin thought
she looked as if she were in a trance. What had happened in the park appeared
to have left her deeply traumatized.

He said, "Anna, I want you to listen
to what I have to say. I'm releasing you."

She looked up, a puzzled frown on her
face.

He said, "It's no trick. Something's
happened you need to know about."

He told her what had happened to his wife
and when he had finished he saw the shocked reaction but she didn't reply.

"I'm exchanging your life for hers.
That's what Stanski wants. If I don't agree he says he'll kill my wife."
When she still looked unconvinced, he said, "Anna, this is no elaborate
trick, you must believe me. You have to come with me now, there isn't much
time. Please."

"Where are you taking me?"

"A rendezvous near Moscow. The
convent of Novodevichyas far as the chief warden is concerned you're being
transferred to Lefortovo prison. But I need your cooperation. Please don't do
anything rash when we leave the building and don't speak to anyone but me. And
when we meet Stanski I want you to do something for me."

"What?"

"Persuade him not to harm my wife.
She's pregnant. Stanski can do what he wants to me, but if he harms my wife,
I'll kill him. Whatever's between Stanski and me doesn't concern her. Will you
do as I ask?"

Anna Khorev continued to look at him as
if she didn't believe what was happening. She seemed to be studying his face.

His voice had sounded dead with despair.
She must have seen the dark rings under his eyes and the tension in his body,
and he was aware how absurd the situation was; he was no longer the
interrogator, but pleading with her. He didn't know whether she hated him or
not, or if she was getting some grim satisfaction from his dilemma, but then
she nodded.

"Yes."

"Thank you." Lukin moved toward
the door. "We'd better go."

"What will happen to you?"

"Because of this? Does it matter?
Ultimately we're all dead. You and Stanski because I doubt You'll get out of
Moscow alive after Beria learns about this. And my wife and I for what I've
allowed to happen."