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“OH, MY SWEET GIRL! Come in, come in.” Madame Krupina ushered Linnéa, Alyona, and Zakhar into the exclusive spa herself and reached for Linnéa. Linnéa seemed to wilt in her arms.
Linnéa had patronized Madame’s spa many times in the past decade. She was well-known to the staff and proprietress—as was Petroff and his lofty position in the government. Madame would spare no expense, no preferential treatment for Linnéa’s benefit.
Linnéa moaned. “Ah, my head . . .”
“Why, what have they done to you, darling girl!”
“A wicked headache, dear Nadezhda . . . I can scarcely see or walk. Please help me.”
Madame Krupina’s reproachful glare seared Zakhar and Alyona where they stood. She addressed a male attendant. “Get these two out of my sight.”
“Wait—it is my job to remain near Miss Olander,” Zakhar protested. “Vassili Aleksandrovich demands it.”
“And did he demand that you permit Miss Olander to come to this dreadful state? I think not!” She pointed with her chin. “No men are allowed in the women’s bathing area. You will wait with the other servants.” She jerked her chin again. “Go on! Get them away from me. Disgraceful!”
To another attendant, she commanded, “See to Miss Olander’s things.”
That attendant picked up Linnéa’s purse and the spa bag Alyona had prepared at Linnéa’s instruction.
Madame returned her attention to Linnéa. “Now, let us get you into a hot bath to soak away your troubles, shall we?”
“Oh, yes. Please.”
Under Madame’s watchful eye, Linnéa was helped into a hot tub in a private room where the air was heated, heavy with moisture, and fragrant with healing herbs—lavender, rosemary, eucalyptus. After she had soaked for twenty minutes in the hottest water she could bear, an attendant assisted her from the pool and into a tepid shower.
When the attendant had rinsed and toweled Linnéa off, wrapping her in an enormous, preheated Turkish bath sheet, Madame returned.
She said softly, “I have two masseuses standing by, Miss Olander. Galina is an expert in deep tissue massage and reflexology. But perhaps the source of your pain requires a softer touch? Runa comes to us from your home country. Her specialty is gentle Swedish massage. Tell me which you prefer.”
Linnéa’s head wobbled, and the attendant was quick to help her sit.
“I think . . . I think, darling Nadezhda, that I must rest quietly first. Perhaps a nap?”
“Surely. Galina! Runa! Prepare a room for Miss Olander’s particular use. She will require a comfortable bed and absolute quiet.” She pointed for the attendants to precede them from the room.
As the women grabbed Linnéa’s things and fled to do Madame’s bidding, Madame leaned close to Linnéa. “What do you need of me?”
“An exit. Quickly. Then for you to stall them until I return.”
It was true that Linnéa had patronized Madame’s spa many times in the past decade. It was also true that the woman had been in Marstead’s pay even longer, providing another avenue for Linnéa to pass information to her superiors.
Madame had noted bruising on Linnéa’s body before, and she saw the blood in Linnéa’s left eye today. The older woman’s fingers caressed Linnéa’s temple where her foundation could not hide the bruises.
When Linnéa flinched, Madame murmured, “I shall do all I can.”
She led her to the room Galina and Runa had prepared, then shooed them away, locking the door after them.
Immediately, Linnéa rummaged through the spa bag, pulling out clothes. She dressed in dark slacks, a thigh-length top with side pockets, and shoes she could run in. She took up her handbag.
“Which way out?”
Madame put a finger to her lips. “Give me a moment.”
While she was gone, Linnéa withdrew the key and claim check from the compartment at the bottom of her handbag. She slipped both into her bra.
She also fished out an envelope. Her delaying tactic. Slid it under the pillow.
Good as her word, Madame returned in less than a minute. “Follow me.”
Madame had cleared the way to an alley exit off the laundry room by sending the laundress to restock the linen closets throughout the spa. Madame fumbled with the three deadbolts on the door, snapping them open.
“I will leave the door unlocked against your return but knock first before you enter. I will instruct the laundress to fetch me at your knock, and I will, again, send her away before I let you in—in this way, you will not be seen either coming or going.”
Madame put her hand on Linnéa’s arm. “How long will you be gone, my dear?”
“At least two hours.”
“Two hours! Will that insufferable lout wait so long?”
“If he questions how long I am gone, say the massage made me drowsy, that I am sleeping off the headache. You must keep him at bay, even if I am delayed. Can you do it?”
“Da, if I must,” but she looked uncertain.
“If you run out of options, and he discovers that I am gone? Then you must convince him I left while you thought me sleeping.”
“I can do that—but do not let it come to that, eh?”
“I . . . won’t.”
Linnéa’s lie caught in her throat. Madame Krupina had been nothing but good to her, and now she was leaving her to shoulder Zakhar’s—and Petroff’s—wrath.
The older woman sighed. “So. You are leaving that animal, Petroff? And you must sneak away? Without your . . . employer’s permission?”
Linnéa didn’t answer.
Madame shook her head. “Then, I wish you well, my dear. I will give you as much time as I can manage.”
“Thank you for everything, Nadezhda.”
They embraced, and Linnéa wiped her eyes.
Wrapping a bland scarf about her head to veil her hair, Linnéa slipped out into the alley. Following the exit strategy Linnéa and Christor had devised two years ago, she set off down the alley and stopped not far from the corner.
The section of the city where Madame Krupina’s Spa resided was older, of a classic period in St. Petersburg’s history. Many of the structures were constructed of brick or quarried stone. The building on the corner was of the latter—and where the corner building abutted its neighbor, Linnéa’s fingers scrabbled for a loose stone at knee height.
The stone scraped on its surrounding stones and resisted her efforts as she grappled with it. When she was finally able to grasp it with both hands, she heaved the stone out of its place and set it on the ground. Then she reached inside the space where the stone had been. Her fingers found a cloth bag, thick and bulky, large enough to fill both her hands. She had to tug and pull at it, too, before it came out of the hole. When it came loose, she glanced up and down the alley, then stuffed it into her purse. She picked up the stone and pushed it back into its place in the wall.
Her next stop was two blocks away, a pawn shop—what in Russia is called a “lombard house.” Lombards and “lombard banking” were relics of an early century’s Christian prohibition against usury, that is, charging fellow Christians interest on loans. The original lombard houses took collateral against a cash loan. That had changed. Today’s lombards were tantamount to loan sharks, charging stiff interest rates and showing no mercy over late payments.
Linnéa and Christor’s plan had required a lombard shop whose owner was willing to do more than offer loans, an owner who—for a not-so-insignificant fee—would store a trunk indefinitely and keep his trap shut about it. Christor had approached an owner, one Fyodor Dudnik, who had been in business fifteen years but whose venture had never risen above “middling.” For a cash gift up front and the promise of an anonymous cash fee received through the mail each month, Dudnik had agreed to store the trunk.
Linnéa slipped into the shop. It was not a thriving enterprise. The only other customer was at the service counter toward the back. Linnéa wandered behind some tall shelves that screened her from view. She tugged at the Velcro closure in her purse and removed the HK. She had chambered a round in her office. Now, she slipped the ready weapon into her right pocket. Then she withdrew the claim check and key from her bra and put the key deep into her left pocket.
When the customer had concluded his business and exited the shop, she approached the counter. Dudnik’s rheumy gaze was lackluster. Bored.
“How may I help you, miss?”
Linnéa placed the claim check on the counter. “I would like to redeem this item, please.”
The man pulled eyeglasses down from his head and studied the number. She saw the moment he comprehended which “item” she was calling for and what its departure meant. No more monthly cash envelopes.
His mouth turned down and hardened.
“You will continue to receive the same payment for six months,” Linnéa murmured, “in consideration of your service . . . and discretion.”
His downturned lips grimaced. “How can I be sure of this?”
Linnéa withdrew her wallet and counted out five sizable bills.
He reached for the money then shifted his bleary eyes back to her. “The trunk must contain something valuable.”
“You are a judicious man, Mr. Dudnik, a pragmatist, I think. I am certain you have examined the trunk. It contains nothing remarkable, does it?” Linnéa presumed the owner had searched the chest for contraband or valuables. No one in their right mind would pay so much or so long for insignificant, worthless content.
He looked her up and down, appraising her. “Still . . . might be of note to the authorities.”
“As I said, we will continue to pay you for another six months. I ask you, will the authorities do the same?”
The man was stubborn. “Maybe I ask them and find out.”
Linnéa drew the gun from her pocket. Raised its blue barrel waist height and pointed it at Dudnik’s flabby belly. “And maybe they will find that you were killed during a robbery.”
His hands twitched and Linnéa shook her head. “Nyet. A bad idea, my friend. Bring out your weapon—slowly, slowly—and place it on the counter.”
He dragged out a heavy, antiquated revolver—likely a remnant of World War II, what the Russians dubbed the Great Patriotic War—and, with a clunk, dropped it where Linnéa pointed.
She picked it up, stuffed it into her pocket, then addressed him with a knowing smile. “Really, Mr. Dudnik, why should we argue at the end of such a successful arrangement when I am willing to sweeten our bargain?”
She inclined her head toward the handbag hanging off her left arm. “You see my bag? Italian. Bottega Veneta. Worth thousands of rubles. I will leave it—and the trunk—with you after I have taken what I came for.”
She shrugged. “Or, I will take whatever I wish, including what is in your register, and you will not care, because you will be dead. Your choice—whichever you prefer.” She smiled again. “I think you know which deal is best, hmm?”
“Da, da.” Dudnik gestured behind him. “Come with me.”
“You will lock the shop door first.”
Under her supervision, he lumbered to the front of the store, locked the door, and turned over the sign.
“Give me the key, please. You will get it back when I depart.”
He grumbled but complied.
“Now. You go ahead of me, and I will follow,” Linnéa instructed.
He led her to a storage room in the back of the shop, an interior room with a stout, reinforced door and an impressive lock.
“Bring the trunk out here to me.”
He did her bidding, unlocking the storage room and dragging a rusty hand truck inside. Linnéa heard him grunting as he shifted boxes about and loaded something on the hand truck. Minutes later, he maneuvered a Victorian dome-top steamer trunk through the door and let the hand truck down.
Linnéa backed about six feet away where the floor had open space. “Over here, please.”
He wheeled the trunk to where she indicated and slid the hand truck out from under it. Linnéa gestured with her gun.
“Now, Mr. Dudnik. Into the storage room with you.”
His eyes widened. “No! Please—if you lock me in, I will die there! No one but me works in my shop. No one will hear me, even if I scream!”
“I don’t intend to lock you in—unless I need to. Unless, let us say, you refuse to give me your word.”
“My word?”
Linnéa thought it likely that no one had taken Dudnik at his word for many years.
Shifting the gun to her left hand, she used her right hand to unsnap the clasp of her watch—a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet watch. She set the ornate timepiece on the trunk and backed away. “Three hours. Three hours by this watch. Give me your word that you will wait three hours before exiting the room.”
“Stay in the room three hours?”
“Yes. I will have someone observing from afar. If you leave your shop before the three hours elapse, you will never again receive an envelope of cash. If you abide by our agreement, six more payments. What do you say?”
He nodded and reached for the watch. “And I may keep it?”
Linnéa could see him evaluating and pricing it. Her mouth twitched. As if I’d return in three hours and ask for it back? Not likely.
“You drive a hard bargain, sir. Yes, you may keep the watch—the watch, the handbag, and the trunk. But I give you a warning. Keep the watch out of sight for a year or more.”
She considered him before lowering her chin in a confiding manner. “You see, Mr. Dudnik, some men like to control their women, yes? First, they slap and beat them. Call them vile names. Afterward, they shower them with gifts such as this. Such men are wealthy. Powerful. Connected.” She narrowed her eyes. “Quite ruthless.”
He licked his lips. “Just so. You are running away. Running away from a monster. I understand.” He glanced at her. Shrugged. “I can sympathize.”
She nodded. “Thank you. Yes, a monster. He will be hunting me, and if the monster were to find in your possession such a distinctive bauble—a gift from him, you understand—he would be very displeased with you. Why, he would think you helped me, and that would not end well for you.”
“I-I see. As you say, I will keep it hidden. Perhaps I will send it out of the country to sell.”
“A wise notion, Mr. Dudnik.” She waved him into the room. “It will take me thirty minutes or more to assemble what I need from the trunk. Do not doubt me. If you open the door while I am still here, I will shoot you.”
She sighed and added as an afterthought, “Cheaper for me, you know. And what is it they say? Dead men tell no tales? So—get in there and give me no reason to change my mind.”
He went in and closed the door behind him. She heard the handle latch and turned her attention to the trunk.
“You will not lock me in? I have your word?” his fearful voice called from beyond the walls. Only seconds had passed.
“Try the door, Mr. Dudnik—this one time only.”
He eased it open and peeked around its edge. “Da. Okay. I believe you.”
After he had again shut himself inside the storage room, Linnéa wheeled the hand truck out of her way. She withdrew the key from her bra, used it to unlock the trunk, and lifted the lid.
Inside she found a puzzle of Christor’s making and grinned.
Planning Linnéa’s escape contingency had been an exercise in creativity Christor had reveled in. They had hammered out the plan, honing and simplifying the details, whenever Linnéa had been able to connect her laptop to broadband service and text in private chat rooms or speak over their secret VoIP connections.
At first sight, the trunk contained a lunatic’s dismembered bicycle. Wheels, handlebars, seat, fenders, springs, odd lengths of fabricated metal. Some folded paper, a paper sack of bits and pieces, screws and washers. A second sack held small tools.
Linnéa unloaded everything from the trunk and dumped the contents of both sacks on the floor. She selected a short pry bar and used it to pull the trunk apart from the inside. Its walls and floor gave way and revealed a wealth of sundry items the pawn shop owner had not imagined were hidden within. Even so, the totality of the trunk’s contents, spread around her, would make little sense to the uninformed.
Linnéa chuckled under her breath. Well done, Christor!
With all the pieces—and a sheet of instructions—before her, Linnéa began to assemble them. Some parts were calculated distraction. She tossed those back into the trunk to get them out of her way and kept working.
Twenty minutes into her hasty assembly, she finished. She tossed the tools, leftover bits, and Dudnik’s heavy gun into the trunk, too. The instructions she set aside.
Then she stripped off her clothes and dressed in the garb she’d found wrapped in plastic garbage bags within the trunk’s fake floor. It wasn’t easy putting them on. A layered, bulky bodysuit. The shoes and their padded stockings hitched to a girdle hanging from the bodysuit. A dingy, flowing housedress. A tent-like, calf-length coat that buttoned up the front to her chin.
She opened a jar the size of her palm, tore the freshness wrapper from its neck, dug her fingers into the gel within, and smoothed a thin layer over her face and neck.
While the gel was drying, Linnéa emptied her designer handbag onto the floor and sorted through its bits and pieces. She set aside gun, magazines, CD-ROM case, padded mailers, and the thick cloth bag she’d plucked from the hole behind the stone wall in the alley.
She tugged at the bag’s drawstring and dumped out its contents. Three passports. A single driver’s license and credit card belonging to one of the passports. Four bundles of cash in various denominations and currencies—rubles, kronor, pounds, and dollars. A coin purse half-filled with Russian kopecks and rubles.
Nodding her relief, she selected the Russian money and the Russian ID. She put the other IDs, cash, and envelope back into the cloth bag. Next, she piled her shoes and clothes into the garbage bag that had held her present clothing. She tossed the sheet of instructions and everything left over from her purse into the garbage bag with her clothes.
The compact HK and its spare magazine stared at her from the floor. She had intended to tuck it deep into the cleavage of her bra, but later? When she boarded an airline? It would be less likely to be noticed if it were in the padded compartment of her Italian handbag.
I promised the shop owner my handbag but, as it turns out, I will need it again.
“Mr. Dudnik?”
His worried voice came back at once. “Da?”
“I apologize, but I cannot leave the handbag after all.”
He was quite amicable. “Da, da, is not a problem, not a problem,” he insisted, the fear that she might also change her mind about locking him into the storage room bleeding through.
She laughed under her breath, removed two fifty-ruble bills from her supply of Russian cash, and laid them on the trunk. “I’m leaving a little compensation on the trunk.”
“Very thoughtful but quite unnecessary, I assure you,” he replied.
Still chuckling softly, she placed the designer handbag into her contraption, piled the garbage bag on top of the handbag, and spread a small blanket over both. She scooped the items she’d decided to retain from her handbag into a worn fabric sack with a generous shoulder strap. Closed the jar of gel and added it to the sack. Strung the sack across her shoulders. Pulled her hair back and fastened it into a tight bun. Wound a thick, ugly scarf about her head and tied it under her chin. Fit an uncomfortable “appliance” into her mouth and ran her tongue over its unaccustomed contours. Drew on a pair of stained, ragged gloves.
Exhaled.
Ready.
She wheeled her assembled contrivance to the entrance of the pawn shop. Unlocked the door, pushed the contraption outside, locked the door behind her, and dropped the key through the letter slot.
Down the sidewalk she ambled, pushing the contraption before her, stooping over its handle, sometimes mumbling to the sack of garbage she’d tucked under the musty blanket within it, occasionally muttering to herself, a threadbare fabric sack bumping against her side.
She wandered without aim down the street, crossing at the intersection, turning at the next corner, discovering an alley. Down the alley she roamed, stopping at the rubbish bins behind shops, restaurants, and businesses, exchanging bits of her garbage for select bits of theirs, eventually returning to the street.
Along the way she passed a postal box. She paused, fumbled about in the sack, and retrieved two padded mailers. She let them drop into the postal box and continued on her way, unhurried, blending into the backdrop of the city.
An hour and a half and nine blocks later, she reached the outskirts of the more “touristy” part of the city. She wandered along the Fontanka River Embankment. When she crossed to the other side, the traffic and walkways grew crowded with visitors and sightseers coming and going from Mikhailovsky Castle and Mikhailovsky Garden, the State Hermitage Museum—formerly The Menshikov Palace, winter home of Catherine the Great—and other attractions.
She moved slowly on, curving northward, noting that she had exhausted the two hours Madame Krupina had promised her. Soon—perhaps already—Zakhar would insist on seeing Linnéa.
Ah, but you will never see Linnéa again, Zakhar. I know you will browbeat Madame and call Vassili Aleksandrovich. He will rage and order you to ask his FSB “friends” to search for Linnéa, but she will never be found.
She no longer exists.
Outside the western boundary of Mikhailovsky Garden, she drew near one of St. Petersburg’s most iconic sites, Cathedral of the Savior on Spilled Blood. It stood on the Griboyedov Channel Embankment, a grand edifice, its spires and onion towers built upon the hallowed ground where Emperor Alexander II had been assassinated by political nihilists. Alexander’s son had erected the church on the very spot where his father had fallen. It, too, was now a museum, another tourist attraction.
Ah, the tourists.
They stared, nudged their companions, and shared smiles. Some took pictures of the hunched, elderly Russian babushka—the affectionate Russian term for grandmother. Even in the warm, late summer, the impoverished peasant woman wore the traditional bulky headscarf from which the term “babushka” was drawn.
Her red, wrinkled forehead furrowed and frowned. Her mouthful of stained, crooked teeth mumbled nonsense. She was a relic of the past, her mind mired there still. Her gnarled hands, clad in stained gloves, grasped the handle of a faded, moth-eaten pram—perhaps the same conveyance in which she had once walked infant grandchildren. Swollen legs appeared beneath her ugly, worn coat, and bloated feet overran the once-black shoes—shoes now scuffed and run down in the heels—as she shuffled along and continued her ponderous journey. Some sympathetic visitors to the city tossed coins into her pram.
The babushka did not notice.
She lumbered on, unhurried, following the Palace Embankment, crossing the Neva by the Liteyny Bridge, block by laborious block, moving toward the Finlyandskiy Railway Station. At the station, the old woman’s trembling fingers paid out, a single coin at a time, the fare to Moscow. Two station workers assisted her painful climb aboard a car to a seat with enough space ahead of it to accommodate her battered pram.
A passenger sitting across the aisle attempted to speak kindly to her, but the old woman became agitated and worked herself into a frenzy, shouting nonsense and gesticulating wildly. Around her, passengers averted their eyes and pulled in on themselves.
After her outburst, she was left alone, the city and then the fields flashing by as the train left St. Petersburg and journeyed four hours southeast to Moscow. Eventually, the old woman lapsed into silence, then leaned against the window and dozed. She would sleep until the train reached its destination.
That day, the woman known as Linnéa Olander disappeared from Madame Krupina’s Spa, leaving no trace behind. She missed the train to Tallinn on which her company had booked her and, later, the ferry to Stockholm. Both Marstead and Petroff sent their agents to scour the streets of St. Petersburg and watch the train stations and airport and the roads in and out of the city—but to no avail.
They guarded the border crossings out of Russia and sought her on both public and private transportation. Not one of them believed she would flee, not to safety, but deeper into the heart of Russia. Not one of them thought to scour the streets of Moscow.
Thoresen Homestead
Northwest of RiverBend, Nebraska
KARI MICHAELS THORESEN drew a plate of pancakes from the oven where they were warming and plopped it on the table beside a plate of scrambled eggs, another of bacon, and a bowl of fruit.
“Robbie! Shannon! Breakfast!”
“Coming!”
As the kids slid into their seats, Søren put down his paper. Kari took her seat and the four of them joined hands.
Søren prayed, “Lord, we are grateful for this food and for every blessing you give us. Please be with Max as he begins his day, help Grandma Polly and Grandpa Gene, and be with Aunt Laynie to keep her safe. Amen.”
A chorus of “amens” echoed him. Søren and nine-year-old Robbie plowed into the food like there was no tomorrow. At age eleven, Shannon was already overly concerned about becoming “fat,” and generally ate only eggs and fruit for breakfast. This morning she stared at her plate without picking up her fork.
Kari noticed. “What’s the matter, Shannon?”
Shannon looked up. “I was just thinking about Aunt Laynie, Mama. Why doesn’t she ever write or call? Why doesn’t she come visit? Doesn’t she love us anymore?”
Søren and Kari exchanged glances. It was not the first time Shannon had asked those or other probing questions. Answering them would not become easier as the children grew and began thinking for themselves—particularly Shannon, whose sensitive nature seemed to perceive when something was amiss. Kari had decided it was time to give Shannon a glimpse into the truth about her aunt.
Kari made sure she had Shannon’s attention. “Aunt Laynie’s work is difficult and requires discretion, Shannon. It’s also not something we can ever discuss outside our family. That is why we don’t talk about her to anyone.”
Shannon’s eyes widened as she took in Kari’s meaning.
Robbie, his mouth filled with pancake, asked, “What’s dis-dis-discretion?”
“It means wisdom, Son,” Søren murmured. “It means we keep it to ourselves.”
“Okay.” Robbie turned back to his plate.
But Shannon watched Kari put a finger to her lips.
“Later,” Kari promised. “Right now, you need to finish your breakfast, so we can have our Bible time before you catch the bus.”
Shannon nodded and picked up her fork.
Five minutes later, the kids carried their plates to the kitchen and stacked them on the counter to make room for their Bibles. Søren read aloud from 2 Corinthians 11. When he got to verse 26, something in Kari’s spirit moved.
I have been constantly on the move.
I have been in danger from rivers,
in danger from bandits,
in danger from my fellow Jews,
in danger from Gentiles;
in danger in the city,
in danger in the country,
in danger at sea;
and in danger from false believers.
I have labored and toiled
and have often gone without sleep;
I have known hunger and thirst
and have often gone without food;
I have been cold and naked.
The word, “danger,” repeated eight times, seemed to resonate within her. After the kids had run out the door and up the slope to catch their school bus, Kari—who usually tore into kitchen cleanup so she could get to her own work—sat still and quiet, a puzzled look creasing her brow.
Søren was already up, ready to get back to his fields, when he realized she hadn’t moved. “What is it, Kari? Thinking about Laynie?”
“Yes, but . . . something is bothering me.”
“Oh?”
“Søren, I think Laynie is in danger. I think the Holy Spirit is warning me, asking me to cover Laynie in prayer.”
“Kari, because we haven’t heard from Laynie in years, I’m more inclined to think we’ll never see her again or even know what became of her. However, I’m not going to trivialize this warning. We’ve both seen God perform miracles in response to our prayers.”
“So, you’ll pray with me?”
“Absolutely.”
He sat next to Kari and took her hand. “Lord, Kari and I come to you right now concerning Laynie. You know where she is and what is happening. You see her, Father, right now. We ask that you help her. Cover her with your sheltering wings and bring her safely home to us—just as you once brought Kari safely home to her family.
“We ask these things in Jesus’ mighty and powerful name—Jesus, the name above all names. Amen.”
