The firebird affair

“I really have to meet this man,” I said.

“Hmm. I’ll check it out.”

Two days later, Joseph summoned me. “I’ve made a few inquiries,” he said. “Rashidov lives in Sherabad, about thirty kilometers from the Afghan border.” He quit the KGB job in Moscow in December 1991, Joseph went on. Not a moment too soon, just as all non-Russians were purged from security organizations. Returned to the newly-minted Uzbek state security service, which was basically the old Uzbek KGB minus the Russians. But Tashkent distrusted Moscow-based Uzbeks. So Rashidov ended up as regional inspector for the southern border district--as far away as possible from Tashkent. “Now I really wonder how much he knows,” Joseph inquired.

I said, “No harm in meeting him?”

“I guess not.” He shook his head as if wondering to what a flimsy straw I’d cling to to keep my quest going.

“Volkov knows him?”

“Keep Volkov out. He’s good for some things, but this is not one of them.”

“Oh, I see.”

Joseph said, “Another thing, old man. The Uzbek visa. The place is in real turmoil. They don’t want any journalists.”

“I’d go as a tourist.”

“They don’t want tourists either.”

Joseph stood up and started walking around the garden room, reviewing his potted plants. “Uzbekistan is under martial law, for all practical purposes. A slow-burning civil war is under way. Karimov is an old apparatchik. His troops are fighting IMU guerillas. A real mess.”

I said without thinking, “I could apply for a transit visa?”

“Get real, starik! Transit to where?”

“Could your contacts put me in touch with him?”

“It wouldn’t work, starik, honest to God,” said Joseph, wagging a cautionary finger. “You’d attract unwelcome attention in a place like Sherabad. I had some slight connection to Rashidov. He’s been a client. I know he keeps a very low profile.”

“What else can I do?”

“Frankly, not much.”

A long silence followed. I wanted to say that there must be a way—there’s always a way—but somehow I felt that was a wrong thing to say right then.

Joseph said, “Let’s swim.”

After doing a few laps, he waited for me in the shallow end. “You know,” he said, “my high school physics teacher used to say that sometimes you have to violate reason to grasp the truth. He was explaining Einstein and why parallel lines in reality aren’t parallel.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” I said.

He looked at me in amazement. “It means that there must be a way,” he laughed. “You just haven’t found it.”
After we swam and had beer and sandwiches for lunch, Joseph said, “There’s one possible solution, but you probably won’t like it.”

“Try me.”

This was Joseph like a conjurer with a deck of cards, warning of the risk involved in what he was about to suggest.

“Fly to Dushanbe. The Tajik visa’s no problem. Then sneak across into Uzbekistan. It’s risky, but it’s doable.”

“I don’t mind the risk.”

“Hold on.” He pinched the cigarette between his fingertips and studied it as though it held an answer. “If you run into a government ambush, you end up dead. Not likely to happen, but you have to consider it.”

I thought of Rick. I could imagine him saying, So you decided to punt on the third down, eh? Put in those terms, I realize now, it wasn’t a choice.

“What are the odds?” I said.

“One hundred to one, I’d say. There are people who could take you to Sherabad, I think. Then take you back to Dushanbe.”

“You know these people?”

“They are smugglers or IMU supporters, what you’d call shady characters.” Joseph’s voice had a rasp in it. He lit another cigarette and gave me a long and skeptical look. “You can’t remain squeaky clean and get this done, starik. Know what I’m saying?”

My stomach sank. I found myself in a deeply pessimistic frame of mind about his proposal. I said, “What‘s IMU?”

“Stands for Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They want an Islamic state. In Uzbekistan and in Tajikistan.”

I recalled Amanda’s claim that Joseph’s customers were drug dealers and gun-runners. Joseph himself had said several times that he never asked his customers how they made their money. He was merely transferring their money to their accounts in Cyprus or Zurich.

“We’re talking about people on the wrong side of the law, aren’t we?”

“You might say that, yes.” Joseph spread his hands as if expressing a measure of humility. “But some consider them patriots. Supporting a noble cause.”

I felt awkward under the frankness of Joseph’s gaze. He was revealing his baser metal, I thought, showing his imperfections.

Something in the back of my mind said that the right thing was to forget I had ever heard Joseph’s suggestion. Hadn’t I already accomplished most of what I’d set out to do? Professor Voronov was alive and well and not negotiating with Al Qaeda. I now knew how Emily died; Churkin knew as much as there was to know about it.

But the lure of revenge was overpowering. Over the past weeks, Hector had morphed in my mind into the ultimate prize, perhaps because he remained the only clearly unambiguous target in a world of evil shadows. Bringing Hector to justice meant exacting retribution, settling accounts. What would happen if I fail? All I could do is try hardest. I was now at a decisive point. Either cut my losses and return home. Or go for the jugular.

I felt my spine straightening as I said to myself, go for the jugular. I considered a few practical objections in my mind, but somehow was unwilling to consider the moral ones. Once again, I can now see in retrospect, success was still the supreme value in my world.

Joseph said, “Your editors may not like this idea… I mean, the characters helping you…”

“I don’t intend to ask their permission,” I said. A part of me knew I was doing something wrong, that you can’t navigate unscathed between expediency and principles. But far stronger inner voices said this was necessary and justified; there was no turning away or turning back.

“You could present it as enterprise reporting,” Joseph said. “Traveling and talking to Muslim terrorists who supply weapons and food to the Taliban on the other side of the border. You know what I’m saying.”

“No. Better just do it.”

“What does that mean,” Joseph said.

“I’m going to do it period.”

“And what then? Aren’t you burning both the bridges and the boats?”

“If worse comes to worst, I may not have a job when I get back. I don’t give a shit.” I was more than ready to bolt at that moment. “You know these characters?”

“I know some. I also know people who use their services. Now, if you’re not comfortable doing it, don’t do it.”

“I want to do it,” I said firmly. My life was no longer in my complete control because my obsession with Hector had turned it into something beyond my free will. I had to try. How do I know it’s impossible before I tried it. Besides, there was no one around to ask if there was another way—only my conscience; and my conscience said this was not the time to indulge my scruples.

“Okay,” said Joseph. “I’ll see what I can do.” He was tipping his chair on its rear legs, trying to keep his balance.

“What other problems are there?”

The talk went on for another hour, but the rest was postscript. Engrossed in details, I relaxed.

“You might need a bit of cash,” Joseph said.

“How much?”

“I’ll find out,” Joseph said and stopped abruptly as if checking himself. “Listen, forget it. I’ll handle that.”

“Absolutely not,” I said, as if to assuage my mounting guilt that he was about to violate another major principle. “I have money.”

“Let’s say I’m repaying an old debt. After this I don’t owe you anything.”

I walked up to the front of the line. The air was humid; heat of the day stored up in the asphalt and concrete was coming off now. The mention of the Russia Fund dinner worked like a magic wand: the path opened up. The door attendant led me past a menacing bouncer whose hands cupped over his balls and through golden drop curtains into an oasis of Oriental splendor and luxury that was the Noah’s Ark.

Stone carvings, wall paintings, tall brass ashtrays, and copper engraved panels provided dramatic touches to the interior.

An overly dignified maitre d’ guided me through the crowded dining room. Guests talked and laughed. Champagne glasses clinked. A balalaika group played. The regular Armenian band, the maitre d’ said, had a night off.

I was ushered into a separate banquet room in the back of the restaurant. It was full of older mostly pudgy men in tuxedos and tall younger women with bare shoulders and cleavages, and they were laughing a good deal and talking in high, excited voices. In the middle was a long table covered with white linen tablecloths, starched blue napkins the size of a flag, and place cards with a gilded rim. A large poinsettia plant sat in the middle. A side table was laid with food: lobsters on packed ice, a large salmon garnished with cucumbers and gherkins, a selection of cold meats, a pyramid of fresh fruits, and a selection of cheeses.

I had half expected that Scarna would provide me with an entrée to influential contacts. A couple of former high KGB officers were members of the Russia Fund board. But when I saw his flushed face, it was obvious that Scarna had already had a couple of vodka slugs too many and that the party had already turned into a daunting drinking binge.

“Todd Martin,” Scarna cried, spreading his arms like a welcoming maitre d’.

Ben Morgan, his white jacket setting off a golf-course tan, put his arm around my shoulder. “This town’s hopping, don’t you think. Quite a change from the old days.”

The former ambassador looked extravagantly healthy for his age, except his lower lip was slightly discolored. With his creased face, gray hair he let grow longer around the ears, and silver sideburns, he had a Biblical presence, like Charlton Heston about to part the Red Sea.

An unfamiliar scent assailed me while exchanging cheek kisses with Linda Jelinek, wife of Morgan’s former economic counselor Mel Jelinek, a stylish man with a wide face and a finely trimmed horseshoe beard.

“Glad to see a familiar face,” Linda Jelinek said. She took my hand and held it tight. In her forties, five-six, with a narrow graceful figure and curly shoulder-length hair, Linda had a perfectly aligned face and wide greenish eyes.

“I always said Mel’s a lucky man,” I flattered her and feigned flirtatious banter. “Not too shabby, not too shabby at all,” I said, my eyes darting to her exposed leg.

She acknowledged the compliments with a wave of her hand. “Oh, knock it off, Todd.”

The chatter and bonhomie were proceeding agreeably. There was a mood of euphoria in the room. The Russia Fund must have had a very good year, I figured. Watching the faces of the Americans, I suddenly grasped why Hector was Holz’s permanent, irksome concern. For all I knew, Hector might be one of the guests at this festive dinner. On second thought, I concluded that was unlikely because it would suggest the kind of recklessness that was inconsistent with what little I knew about his career.

An elderly Russian in a black suit, his pre-tied bow tie moving around like a magnetic needle, called the guests to the table. I was seated between Linda to my right and a bald Russian to my left.

“Quite a party you got going here,” I said turning to Linda.

“They claim to be working,” she arched her eyebrow.

“All work no play,” I laughed.

She leaned over and whispered, “Did you notice that the locals now bring their mistresses to official functions.”

“Oh yeah?”

“The lady in Prada sitting across the table,” she whispered in my ear. “The one with a heart-shaped face. She’s sizing you up as a potential conquest.”

I sneaked a furtive glance at the rather attractive brunette in a sleeveless lavender dress and a very thick gold necklace. “C’mon now,” I said, “you’re kidding.”

She leaned over again. “But be careful. Her escort is a former deputy prime minister.” She made a quick head bob in the direction of a stocky moon-faced man with a double chin and a reddish blond mustache who was in a deep conversation with Morgan. “That fat pig’s after anything without a Y chromosome.”

“God, this takes me back,” I said under my breath. “I remember when he was an up-and-coming Pravda journalist. I always thought he was KGB.”

“Well,” she said again lowering her voice to a whisper, “he’s one of Morgan’s key fixers. The other one on his right is certainly KGB. Used to be the resident in Delhi.”

“They all love the free market,” I said.

“Yeah,” she nodded sadly. “This is a capitalist’s wet dream: capitalism completely off the leash, and you got a license to rub out competitors.” Her puzzled frown suggested she wasn’t sure what to think about her bleak assessment of human nature. “They’re all making money. Lots of it. But I’m not sure I understand what Mel means when he tells me his Russian colleagues are worth their weight in gold. I look at them and wonder why.”

“Yeah,” I said. My attention was drawn by a middle-aged man in a charcoal grey suit, whose eyes were too big for his face and made him look like a space alien. He was snatching drinks from passing waiters and downing them as if he was in some crazy competition.

“All this is so dreary,” Linda said when I discreetly pointed out the space alien. Then she added with a bored sigh, “I must talk to the guy on my right. He’s a board member and a business partner of Chuck Norris, if you can believe it.”

“You mean the Walker Texas Ranger character?”

”Yes. His series airs nightly on one of the local channels. Norris has invested in a hotel and a casino here, and some other things.”

I felt my saliva glands trickle into action when the waiters brought the first course. I loved blini with Sevruga caviar and white truffle butter and I enthusiastically washed them down with freezing vodka.

“Bottoms up,” Scarna cried from the other side of the table. He and Mel Jelinek, whose eyes looked distinctly glazed, continued pumping vodka into their bloodstreams.

“Your hubby’s getting happy,” I said to Linda.

She nodded disapprovingly. “Always the same. The next thing is gypsy music.”

The main course was a surprise: a dish favored by Czar Alexander I and named Pate Alexandre in his honor, according to the maitre d’; it consisted of two layers of filet of sole with a layer of salmon in between, all baked in a crust and served with a special sauce and vegetable medley.

An army of waiters, all in white gloves, poured wine in the biggest cut crystal glasses I’d ever seen.

As Linda had predicted, the gypsy musicians suddenly materialized—one violinist and one harmonica player. They played Ochi Chornie. Guests whooped.

Morgan gamely demanded attention at the end of the song and delivered a short address, slurring his words. Glasses were emptied and again refilled. Then red wine was served with cheese selections. Morgan’s garrulous Russian counterpart, looking buff and tough, raised a toast to the Fund and Russian-American cooperation. His speech was three times as long as Morgan’s.

The noise level gradually rose. The two gypsy musicians named Yasha and Pasha slowly moved around the table, and several Russians stuck large-denomination banknotes in their pockets. One spat on a banknote and stuck it on the forehead of Yasha the harmonica player. Raucous cheers followed.

Scarna took a one hundred dollar bill and tried to attach it in the same fashion to the forehead of Pasha the violinist.

The Russians whooped.

“Fun in the land of pandemic gloom,” Linda whispered derisively in my ear.

This is a waste of time, I thought. I had to cut my losses and leave at the first opportunity. I turned to my bald neighbor on the left, who was holding his glass to the light, appraising the color of the red. He was a lean man who oddly had a second chin tugging at his first. His nose was as narrow as a rudder and had dark pouches under his icy blue eyes.

“Not bad, not bad,” the bald Russian said, and took another swallow of wine. “I’m Boris, by the way,” he said and leaned over to take a closer look at my place card, although I thought he was only pretending. “I know your name. You used to work here, a long time ago.”

“Yes.”

He also mentioned the name of my former KGB contact, Sasha Ivanov. “I remember Sasha talking about your unfortunate problem in the Caucasus. I used to work with Sasha. That’s before I went into the private sector.” He leaned back and glanced at the ceiling as he exhaled smoke.

I thought, Maybe I’ve struck gold here. “I should have never taken that trip,” I said.

He shook his head. “Bloody fighting in the Caucasus… inter-communal massacres and unreason… the kind of stuff worthy a Pulitzer. You must have read Hajji Murat?”

I was annoyed. The man understood my state of mind before I left on that trip. In fact I had read Tolstoy’s story before leaving Moscow. I said, irritably, “I never really understood why I was detained.”

“Your cryptonym was Samson.” He made little whistling sounds between his teeth.

I felt flustered. “My cryptonym? I didn’t know I had a cryptonym. Samson?”

“You had long hair and long sideburns, I guess. Sounds childish now, I know, but it was standard operating procedure in those days. Anyway, we had to keep you in the Caucasus for a few days after your wife’s death. The order came from the top.”

“So you swiped my press card?”

“Locals had to create a pretext for holding you.”

“And the bag of hashish?”

“Nah. Overzealous local yahoos. The Foreign Ministry apologized formally for the mistake, as you know.” Boris paused, and reached for a toothpick. “Sasha was deeply embarrassed, I can tell you. But this is what happens when you inflate the enemy’s fiendish wickedness and simultaneously exaggerate your own virtue. Thank God, those days are gone. We’ve moved on. Nobody’s interested in the past.”

“Yeah.”

Waiters served Grand Marnier soufflés followed by French and Armenian cognac. Boris knocked back his cognac.

“What brings you here this time?”

“I’m researching a book.”

“Why?”

“Something to do, I suppose.”

“Yeah. The last days of the Soviet Union, to be more exact.”

“Nobody reads books anymore!” The toothpick moved from one side of the mouth to the other. “You’d do much better joining your pals here, Morgan, Scarna, and others. They have contacts here like nobody’s business.” He winked.

“Thanks for the tip.”

I changed the subject. “Where’s Sasha Ivanov now?”

“Ahhh. He’s a big man. Very big. Deputy Director of the FSB.” This was the now independent foreign intelligence part of the former KGB.

I thought of Volkov wiping off imaginary sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand to indicate his great efforts to locate Ivanov. So Volkov had lied. Why?

I said, “I’d like to see him.” A thought crossed my mind that Ivanov could be useful. He was in a position to look at the files—if they existed. I was in that fortunate position that I knew him before he became really important.

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Why not?”

Boris managed a brief, tight laugh. “At his level there are no private contacts.” Turning his hand into a blade, he sliced air for emphasis. “Some things never change, Mr. Martin. It’s the same in Washington, isn’t it?”

“Good point,” I said.

“In this city,” Boris went on, “everybody is watching everybody else, storing info for future use against one another. And the higher you fly, the more people keep track of everything you do. As they say, everyone has a skeleton in his closest, but even skeletons here have their own skeletons.” He chuckled.

“Sounds like Washington.”

“Exactly!”

We laughed. “Next time I see Sasha, I’ll tell him how I ran into you at Noah’s Ark,” he said. “Who would have thought…”

I decided to leave quietly, certain that my absence would go unnoticed. I slapped Boris on the back. I cocked my eyebrow and smiled goodbye to Linda and left.

Outside, it was a warm Moscow night. St. Basil’s was basking in the all-night floodlights, ruby stars glowed atop the Kremlin spires. But breaking the mystery of the vast cobblestone square was a four-story-high Pepsi banner covering the façade of the military museum.

31
Two days later, I picked up my room key and the desk clerk handed me a couple of messages. One from Kevin Page simply said: CALL ME. Another one, tucked in a letter, was a short written note:

“Hon: I have just been summoned by my editor. Rushing to catch the six-thirty Air France to Paris. I’m supposed to do photographs for an art book. Miss you. I’ll see you in DC. Kisses, Amanda xxx”

I read the note one more time, then slumped down in a deep armchair in the lobby and rubbed my temples. Gone. Without forewarning. Amanda had mentioned that her work often demanded quick and sudden moves, but I had no recollection of her mentioning an art book assignment.

I walked over to the bar and ordered a glass of brandy.

A lovely young blonde sitting at the bar alone asked me to buy her a drink. But there was an air of superiority about her that suggested money was of no concern to her, that in fact she was doing me a favor to accept a glass of vodka tonic. I was watching her narrow-hipped big-breasted figure gliding away to the ladies room when Maxim the bartender leaned over and whispered, “If you’re interested, the rest rooms are down that corridor. Her name is Sonia. She’ll be waiting for you.”

“Thanks,” I said and finished my brandy. Then I went up to my room and started pacing around.

Driven by a prickling sense of anxiety, I could not sit still or read anything. Without warning, a memory of Amanda came back: of her interminably long legs, of her firm breasts and the lovely curve of her throat. Then, moments before I left her last night, she had stood by the window, staring at the ground with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Now I remembered, retroactively, the look in her eyes when she raised her gaze to meet mine. I imagined seeing signs of sadness and cynicism in that look.

I wrote her name on a piece of paper several times without thinking. How I loved her vitality, her energy, the way she always said yes. Obviously, whatever it was between us was deeper than I thought.

Lying on the bed like a corpse and lost in the world of the present moment, I was unable to summon the will to do anything. Couldn’t even find the strength to sort out my bundles of weird memories. I mustn’t go to sleep, I said to myself. She might call.

Later I sat and stared at the phone even though I knew that was stupid. I thought about Jennifer, who could never be caught off guard, who knew what to say to whom and when to say it, who was always in control. My God. Things between Jennifer and me had to be brought to an end, I thought. Regardless of whether I ever saw Amanda again.