Vodka (8 page)

Sabirzhan handed the transcript back to Ozers and nodded to them both. “Well done, lads.”

Sheremetyevo Airport is drab at the best of times, let alone on a sunless morning which spat uncertain flakes of snow as though the sky were trying to get rid of a bad taste. No wonder Sharmukhamedov was so looking forward to his holiday. Ozers and Butuzov prowled the airside beyond passport control and stepped smartly through drifts of arriving passengers. The foreigners penguin-walked with suitcases dangling from both hands and griped about the lack of carts. The Russians were almost invisible under mountains of boxes daubed with stylized drawings hinting at the contents within: cheeses and cognacs from Paris, children’s bicycles
from Abu Dhabi, Japanese stereos and video recorders from Frankfurt, discount computers from Prague. These cargo mules were ordinary workers who’d left Russia a few days earlier with all the savings they could muster, and were now returning in the hope that selling long-forbidden items from distant lands of plenty would recast them as wealthy merchants—as long as they could persuade bored customs officers that their goods were for personal use only, of course. Oratory usually failed; bribery usually succeeded.

There was only one flight to Dubai that day, and twenty dollars to the check-in girl had given Lev’s men a look at the passenger manifest. There he was: Baltazar Sharmukhamedov, traveling first class. Ozers and Butuzov had then visited the customs and excise officer to whom Lev paid a handsome annual retainer in return for ensuring that vodka imported by the 21st Century Association received an uninterrupted passage, and impressed on him that the retainer also covered the loan of two customs uniforms, the requisite area passes and a spare office.

All they had to do now was recognize Sharmukhamedov, which, since he was twice the size of everyone else, shouldn’t prove too taxing. Whether Sharmukhamedov would recognize Butuzov was a different matter. It was a risk, but Sharmukhamedov didn’t seem the type to have paid much mind to a menial telephone repairman, let alone one he’d never have expected to see again. In any case, Ozers and Butuzov had been obliged to formulate their plan on the hoof and there wasn’t time to change it now.

They found Sharmukhamedov striding toward the departure gate, taking two strides for everyone else’s three. He noticed them when they were still several
yards away, fanned out subtly but unmistakably to prevent him going anywhere but backward.

“Baltazar Sharmukhamedov?” Ozers was the one who spoke; he had the less threatening face. “Customs and excise. If you’d just come with us for a second?”

“What the fuck for?” Sharmukhamedov’s eyes glowered sapphire beneath beetle brows.

“Nothing serious, of course. It’s just that your boss has asked us to pass you an, er, an
item
, for your vacation, one he didn’t want going through the security checks, and we’d prefer not to do it in public.” Ozers looked almost apologetic, even overawed, as though dealing with gangsters was a huge but daunting thrill for a lowly customs officer.

“This item’s so big that it needs two of you to tell me?”

“We’re not performing this service for charity, you understand. My colleague will take the same commission I will; he doesn’t trust me not to pocket it all.”

Butuzov gave Sharmukhamedov a you-know-how-it-is smile, and saw no recognition whatever in the nod he received back. The Tsentralnaya had their tame officials at Sheremetyevo as much as any other gang; such cooperation was only to be expected. Sharmukhamedov would not have obeyed the orders of authority, but he
would
indulge them in a situation that showed the Tsentralnaya’s dominance.

If Sharmukhamedov hadn’t already been thinking of the beaches he was going to strut upon and the women he was going to fuck, perhaps he’d have been more suspicious; a man’s reactions are always conditioned by the mood he’s in. He gestured at Ozers to lead the way.

Ozers and Butuzov ushered Sharmukhamedov into their “office.” The room was small and minimally
furnished: a table and three chairs hemmed in by olive walls, solitary window gazing disconsolately onto a row of generators. There was nothing on the table, and no closets. Sharmukhamedov was just starting to ask where this precious item was when Ozers unsheathed the truncheon from his belt and swung it in a wide arc, rising to the base of Sharmukhamedov’s skull, just below the ridge where the back of his head swelled outward. Butuzov, standing in front of the Chechen, saw Sharmukhamedov’s eyes widen in angry surprise before he pitched forward onto the table.

They draped his arms over their shoulders and carried him out, staggering under the weight. Sharmukhamedov’s head lolled back, his mouth open to the ceiling as though hoping to catch flies. At that angle, no one could see the bruise that was already spreading across the back of his naked scalp. “The vodka,” they explained to any passerby who gave them more than a glance, “it was the vodka,” and everyone nodded understandingly; it’s never too early to be dead drunk in Russia.

Sharmukhamedov was pegged out on a metal table like an animal hide left in the sun to dry, a Gulliver roped down by Lilliputians. Thick steel bands secured his ankles, knees, waist, elbows and neck; any more than the slightest movement was impossible.

Sabirzhan walked all the way around the table. Sharmukhamedov’s eyes, blazing with fury, swiveled in their sockets as they tracked Sabirzhan’s progress.

Sabirzhan stopped, tapped his finger against his mouth and rocked back on his heels, the way people do in art galleries. “The problem we have,” he said
thoughtfully, “is this. Karkadann’s home is too well defended, and trying to pick him off in traffic is too risky.” He gestured with one hand, inviting Sharmukhamedov to help him solve the puzzle; they could have been chess players, crossword fanatics. “So what we need is somewhere less secure, somewhere he’s more vulnerable. Somewhere we can isolate him. The element of surprise is crucial, you understand that, Baltazar. This has to work the first time, or not at all.” He cocked an eyebrow over the pince-nez. “Any thoughts?”

Sharmukhamedov was silent. From the moment he’d regained consciousness and realized what had happened—more specifically, who’d seized him—he knew two things: firstly, that he’d have to resist for no longer than four days, because the moment he wasn’t back from Dubai as planned Karkadann would get suspicious; and secondly, that no matter what he did or didn’t tell them, they would kill him.

Sabirzhan’s forehead prickled with sweat under his widow’s peak. “No? Perhaps this will make you more talkative.” Sabirzhan held a syringe up to the light and rubbed at Sharmukhamedov’s arm. It was as hard as an oak banister; he must have been almost as strong as Lev, the two of them together could have formed a gang all on their own. Sabirzhan found a vein and jabbed the needle in with unnecessary force. Sharmukhamedov didn’t flinch.

“Caffeine,” Sabirzhan explained. “I’ve increased the dose to take account of your size. You’d have to drink ten, fifteen cups of coffee to get the same kick. You could recite
War and Peace
in the time it’ll take to wear off.”

Hours and hours of talking: Sharmukhamedov’s fury at being suckered by such a simple trick; all the women he was going to have fucked this week; how not to cut yourself when you shaved your head every day; how he should have known that the phone engineer was a fake; all the women he’d fucked in his life, especially the one whose cervix he’d split, now,
that
was a tale; how the caffeine was making his heart flutter … An endless monologue about himself, telling Sabirzhan everything other than what he wanted to know.

Sabirzhan gave Sharmukhamedov a second injection, barbital sodium to depress his will.

“I want to wash my face,” Sharmukhamedov said.

“You can wash it in your own blood by the time I’ve finished with you.”

“Beat me all you want. I’ll give it to you so that you’ll be paying the medical bills for the rest of your life.”

“Don’t drag the cat by its tail. Come on, out with it; you’ll save us both a lot of trouble.”

“The entire collective’s fucking your last girlfriend, you know.” Sharmukhamedov laughed. “And your prick drips because a whore gave you a double-barreled bouquet; the clap
and
syphilis. Ha!”

The barbital sodium proved as ineffective as the caffeine had. Sharmukhamedov stared at the ceiling and said nothing. At some point he closed his eyes; he may even have gone to sleep. At least he wasn’t talking anymore.

Lev sat at his desk, his chair pushed back to make room for his legs.

“Give him a steam bath,” he said at length. It was prison slang for a no-holds-barred interrogation.

“Just what I’d have suggested,” said Sabirzhan. He was hopping around like a pea on a hot griddle, flushed not only with elation at the prospect of inflicting untold pain on his prisoner, but also with eagerness for Lev’s approval if he did it well.

Sharmukhamedov smiled when Sabirzhan showed him the stun gun. He’d used one many times himself, on those who wouldn’t sign contracts or who quibbled about protection money.

Sabirzhan held the barrel against Sharmukhamedov’s chest, glanced at his watch, and pulled the trigger. A terrible jerking against the restraints—one second—those sapphire eyes screwed tight shut, the first time the Chechen even looked to have felt pain—two seconds—how extraordinary, one hand was splayed open like a starfish, the other was clenched into a massive fist—three seconds and here they came, the unmistakable sounds and smells of a body involuntarily emptying itself. A lake bloomed suddenly across Sharmukhamedov’s crotch; sludge oozed from between his legs. Sabirzhan gagged on the cloying sweetness and held the stun gun aloft.

“Every time after this, Baltazar, I keep it on for a little bit longer. Three seconds, five, seven, ten. Irreparable paralysis begins to set in at ten seconds, you know?”

Tuesday, December 31, 1991

A
lice arrived at the McDonald’s on Pushkin Square ten minutes early. She’d chosen the venue deliberately; if privatizing Red October was to be the real start of Russia’s road to capitalism—capital couldn’t function without private property, after all—where better to plot its course than in the bastion of consumer capitalism itself?

Harry and Bob were already there. Even though Alice had never met either of them before, she recognized them instantly, and would have done so even if she hadn’t been sent files on them beforehand. The locals were dressed in dull, earthy colors, they were eating their hamburgers with the reverence one accords to an exotic delicacy and hard living had lined their faces with trenches of strain. Healthy of countenance and with bright windbreakers draped over the backs of their chairs, Harry and Bob were tucking in without ceremony. Oh—and Bob was black, which in Moscow was enough to single him out to a blind man.

Alice walked over to them. “Hey, guys. I’m Alice”—she adopted a jokingly girlish voice—“and I’m going to be your boss for the next few months.” She stuck out her hand. “Welcome to the lion’s den.”

They were on their feet, laughing with her, glad to have another in their gang.

“Bob Craig, Houston, Texas”—thickset in a heavy sports jacket—“great to meet you.”

“Harry Exley, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania”—like an
excited freshman—“heard so much about you, Mrs. Liddell. It’s a real honor to be working with you, I was
so
thrilled to be asked …”

“Easy!” Alice chuckled to hide her embarrassment and take the sting from her reproach. “Harry, you’re gonna have to kiss more ass than a toilet seat sees all year before this thing is out; don’t waste your butt licking on me. And the next time you call me Mrs. Liddell, I’m going to knock you into the middle of next week, understood?”

“OK.
Alice.”
Harry pushed a paper bag toward her. “We were too hungry to wait lunch for you; sorry. And the lines were awful, so we bought you a hamburger meal to save you waiting. No cheese; is that OK?”

“Cheese, no cheese—they all taste the same anyway.” Alice sat down on a plastic chair with too much yield in it to be truly comfortable and hoped she’d handled things all right. A vodka might have made her feel less awkward; sober, she was shy, and—especially when in authority—she tended to compensate by being abrasive. No matter, she thought. She’d know Bob and Harry soon enough, and then they’d forget their first impressions of her.