The Disposable Man (29 page)

I scurried over to where the other two were lying sprawled like sacks of coal, using any vegetation I could find as handholds against the steep slope.

“You okay? Lew—you okay?”

The old man passed his hand across his bloodied face. “I think so.”

“John? We need to get out of here.”

Rarig sat up, began to slide, and flipped over, grabbing some tufts of grass with both hands. He yelled out in pain.

“You all right?” I asked him.

“I hurt like hell.”

A couple of bullets smacked into a young tree overhead.

“It’ll get worse if we don’t move.”

“All right, all right.”

I pointed toward the valley floor. “Straight down, as fast as you can. We’ll stop when we reach better footing.”

We did as I’d suggested, in a haphazard sliding tumble, seeing the college’s distant lights across the valley, greeting the coming evening in blissful, Olympian serenity, perched on the far rise like a diorama of an era gone by. The contrast helped get me off autopilot. I looked for some landmark that might serve us once we reached bottom and found, poking above the trees, the pale shape of something that looked like a grain elevator, presumably lining the railroad tracks north of town.

A few minutes later, we reassembled amid acres of weed-choked gravel, the sound of distant gunfire almost stopped. I looked at my two companions in the coming twilight and asked them again how they were faring.

“I think I am not too bad,” Lew answered, smiling happily at this near miracle. “A stiff neck, perhaps.”

Rarig was less sanguine. He looked pale and winded, his eyes narrowed by pain. “I broke a rib or two. Hurts to breathe.” He held his right arm across his chest, as if carrying an invisible baby.

I peeled the arm back and gently prodded the area beneath it. His sudden intake of breath guided me to a single spot just below his nipple.

“There’s no deformity,” I told him. “It’s probably only a crack or a hairline fracture. Let me know if you feel like your lung’s filling up, though.”

“Swell,” he muttered. “What now?”

“Keep your fingers crossed.” I pulled Willy’s beaten radio from my pocket, turned it on, hesitated a moment, and asked, “You guys out there?”

“Hey, there,” was Willy’s laconic reply.

Sammie was less laid-back. “Jesus. You made it? How are you?
Where
are you?”

“Within striking distance of the railroad tracks north of town, east of Otter Creek. I took a visual on what looks like a grain elevator. I think we’ll head there.” I glanced at Lew and then added, “Hang on a sec.”

“Lew,” I asked him, “what’s the road closest to the tracks?”

“Exchange Street, but it connects to Route 7, so if you wish to not see all the commotion, perhaps another road might be preferable. A little farther west, there is a small covered bridge over Otter Creek, where Pulp Mill Road becomes Morgan Horse Farm Road. That is a far more discreet way of leaving town.”

I paused before keying the mike again. Twenty minutes ago, I’d told Rarig our little clandestine operation had come to an end. That ambition hadn’t changed, but I was acutely conscious of the mess we’d left behind. I was in no mood to deal with the Middlebury police, or anyone else who’d been shot at today.

I returned to the radio. “Are you both in the clear?”

“10-4.”

“With a vehicle?”

“I got mine back on its wheels,” Sammie said. “We’re in it now, laying low.”

“Good.” I gave them Lew’s directions and told them we’d meet them at the bridge in about half an hour—give or take.

It was slow going. Neither of my companions was in the prime of youth, and the longer we walked the more we all discovered just how pummeled we’d been. Rarig’s rib kept forcing him to stop and gasp for air.

In over the time I’d allotted, therefore, and after carefully pausing at both the railroad tracks and Exchange Street, which proved surprisingly busy, we limped across the small, two-way covered bridge Lew had mentioned and emerged to see Willy and Sam sitting in Sam’s dented car by the side of a small, grassy traffic circle, caught in the anemic halo of a nearby streetlamp. They were alone.

Feeling utter relief at last, not even curious why neither of them got out of the car to greet us, I escorted my two battered charges up to the back door and pulled it open.

A man with a gun was crouching in the rear seat. His accent made Lew’s sound nonexistent. “Put up hands.”

All three of us were too startled to follow orders. “What the hell?” I asked.

From behind me another voice, cultured and smooth, said, “Lieutenant Gunther, please do as he says. We don’t have time to waste.”

I turned around to face a tall, elegant man in a suit, flanked by two others, also carrying guns.

“Georgi,” Lew whispered in astonishment, half to himself.

The tall man nodded as his companions quickly frisked us. “Dimitri. It’s been a very long time.”

Corbin-Teich stiffened slightly. “It is not my name now.”

The other ignored him, addressing me with a slight bow. “I am Georgi Padzhev. You have no doubt heard of me.”

“Yeah.”

Padzhev raised his hand and signaled to someone in the darkness. An engine started up, a pair of headlights came on, and a large sedan rolled up behind Willy’s car.

Padzhev gestured to the three of us. “I think it would be a little less crowded if you joined me in this.”

I looked at him for a moment, studying his placid features. He, like Rarig and Corbin-Teich, appeared to be in his mid-seventies, but he carried himself like a man a good ten years younger.

“I take it we don’t have a choice,” I commented.

He moved to the other car and politely opened its rear door. “That is correct.”

GEORGI PADZHEV SMILED AT ME.

“Joseph Gunther—that I can recall without difficulty. Rarig and Corbin-Teich feel strange on the tongue. Dimitri, whatever possessed you to use Lew Corbin-Teich? It is so distinctly odd. I thought the idea was to come up with something out of the melting pot—something to help you disappear.”

Lew didn’t answer. Rarig glared at Padzhev and said, “Save it, Georgi. What’re we doing here?”

But Padzhev apparently needed to dominate us a bit more, which, considering we were all tied to our chairs, seemed a little superfluous. “John Rarig I like. It is not so peculiar. It looked good in that
New York Times
article—very masculine. Much better than Philip Petty. I’m assuming that was fictitious, also?”

Rarig merely sighed, seeing the futility of a response.

We were in a motel room, somewhere between Shelburne and South Burlington—the three of us plus Sam and Willy—all with our hands and feet secured with coat hangers—crude, effective, and very uncomfortable. Padzhev was flanked by two silent men with guns. A couple more were outside. A television set, its volume muted, was tuned to a local news program. Images of Middlebury, pulsating with the red and blue lights of emergency vehicles, played over and over again.

We’d driven here in three cars, including Sam’s, and had entered the room without formalities, indicating it had been rented beforehand. It was one of many cheap motels lining Route 7, which was interspersed with the shopping malls, car lots, and fast-food franchises that give the area its anonymous identity. In a state as small as Vermont, where newcomers—foreigners especially—tend to stick out, this spot was almost unique with its urban tendency to not notice or care. Padzhev had chosen well, at least for the short term.

He sat at the end of one of two beds, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped before him, looking at us contemplatively. “What are you doing here? This is a good question. Do you have any idea of what has been going on?”

“Starting with Antonov?” I asked.

He shook his head slightly. “Antonov came over here because I wanted to speak with John Rarig—an old man’s silly interest in the past, as it turned out. A folly. I meant the rest of it.”

I wanted to draw him out—have
him
paint the picture for us. Rarig, his old cold warrior juices stirred, obviously thought otherwise.

“Edvard Kyrov took advantage of that folly to get you out from behind your defenses, knowing you wouldn’t leave Antonov unavenged.”

Padzhev nodded appreciatively. “Did you hide his body to protect me, John?”

Rarig’s face hardened. “More to spare myself some grief.”

I moved to defuse the tension slightly. “He was afraid Antonov had been dumped on his front lawn as some kind of warning, or a threat,” I explained in a neutral voice.

Padzhev straightened, cupping his cheek in his palm. “There is a good deal of paranoia among people like us. It was an understandable reaction.”

He rose and began pacing the floor. “Fortunately, it served both ends. Kyrov laid his plans carefully and well. Had it not been for your unintentional meddling,” here he looked at Rarig, “I and my men would have been dead long ago, ambushed as we appeared at your inn to inquire about poor Antonov. Sad to say, that piece of good luck has not been enough. Certain elements have been conspiring simultaneously against me back in Russia, resulting in my having to confront them here, or not at all.”

“You’re talking about a showdown with Kyrov,” Rarig challenged, his eyes bright.

Padzhev stopped pacing. “Yes. If I do not face him here, I will never survive the trip back, as you said, behind my defenses. That door has been shut tight.”

I thought back to the countless conversations I’d had trying to root out this simple story—through all the complexities that had continuously blocked my way.

“So it was Kyrov who framed me?” I blurted. “To keep me out of the way and distract everyone from the Antonov case?” Despite the lies I’d been fed, I was still hoping I’d recognize the truth when I finally heard it.

Padzhev looked at me almost pitifully. “No. That was me. A couple of my men bypassed your home’s security system, placed the gem in your pocket, staged the burglary, and let your colleagues leap to conclusions, helped, I must admit, by a small donation to Henri Alonzo’s bank account, in exchange for some theatrical raving. I needed breathing room as much as Kyrov.”

He suddenly looked amused. “Although you almost upset the applecart, pulling out your gun in the middle of the street and waving it around. You scared poor Nicolai half to death.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

He studied my expression for a moment, and then asked, “Why did you do that, incidentally? He was only tailing you. It seemed like such an overreaction.”

I closed my eyes—no wonder he’d vanished without a trace. “What about the attempt on my life in Washington?” I asked.

Now he was the one looking confused. “What attempt? That would not have served me in any way.”

“Nicolai didn’t try to kill me there?”

“No. He’s never been to Washington. He was tailing you home so he could plant the brooch later.”

“Snowden arranged the hit on you,” Rarig stated flatly.

But Padzhev gave him a quizzical look. “There’s a name from the past. Why would he?”

“Stop it,” I shouted in frustration, sensing the same fruitless cycle starting over again. “What’re you going to do with us? Why’re we being held?”

Padzhev sat back down. “Yes, well, that is pertinent enough. I need your help.”

For the first time, Willy stirred. He laughed sharply and said, “Right—that’s pretty fucking likely.”

Georgi Padzhev smiled again. “It might be. Lieutenant Gunther, I gather you have a particular friend named Gail. Isn’t that correct?”

“You son of a bitch,” I said softly.

“Perhaps,” he only partially agreed. “But I need to be extremely practical at the moment. As you might imagine, I have much to lose right now, so I’m inclined to be quite ruthless. Your friend Gail hasn’t a hope of living unless you lend me a hand. That goes for all of you.”

“I don’t think so,” Willy said. “She may be his big squeeze. She means squat to me.”

Padzhev didn’t even look at him. “Quite. So, Lieutenant, do we proceed?”

“Doing what?” I asked. “I’m not in a position to help anyone do anything.”

“There you are mistaken. You have access to information, to manpower, to equipment. You also have a knowledge of the local terrain and its occupants. For outsiders like myself and my companions, those are significant assets. And it is my belief that so long as I control Ms. Zigman, you and your colleagues—regardless of any belligerent outbursts—will be of assistance.”

Sammie finally broke her long silence. “How do we know you have her?”

Padzhev nodded to one of his men, who stepped out of the room, leaving the door barely ajar. Moments later, the man I’d pulled my gun on in traffic stepped inside. In the bright light, the similarity between him and my supposed Washington mugger was vague at best. But I no longer cared. Next to him was Gail, her hands tied behind her back, her mouth covered with tape. They filled the doorway long enough for us to recognize her, and then they vanished. Only the memory of her eyes boring into mine remained.

The effect of this on me at first was too big to handle. Seeing Gail trussed up, her eyes filled with desperate appeal, I knew her panicky memories, like mine, were filled with images of past violence and impotence. It went beyond anger, frustration, or shock. Combined with the psychological beating I’d already taken, it felt like a confirmation of doom.

But only for a moment.

During the next few minutes, like the survivor of a presumed lethal fall, I began feeling the initial, choking upsurge of fear draining out of me, to be replaced by a numb single-mindedness. The legal and moral complexities that had once all but stopped me cold faded next to my need to help Gail. With one move, Georgi Padzhev had suddenly simplified my life. It occurred to me, in one of those odd asides one often makes amid crisis, that he must have been quite good at his job.

“What would you like me to do?” I asked him, surprised at the steadiness of my voice.

He smiled at his success. “I need more than just you, Lieutenant.” He eyed Sammie and Willy behind me.

Sammie didn’t hesitate. “I’m in,” she said, sounding stronger than I knew she felt.