Archer came down the staircase with the same walk I had seen that first day back on Princeton Street. I’d been with her almost constantly since, but even though she always moved with an easy grace, this was different. Catlike. She was a woman who was used to being noticed to the exclusion of anyone else in a room, and down deep, she not only knew how to maximize it but she craved it as well.
She’d borrowed a dress from the London shop of Rudolfo Sanci, the designer who had launched her career in Europe, and there was no other word for it but imperial. Shoulderless black silk with aquamarine accents complemented by matching aquamarine Jimmy Choos. She’d also discovered a collection of jewelry in the house that I didn’t know existed and selected a flat platinum neck chain with a single strawberry-sized aquamarine on a slide at her throat. On her wrists, she wore a pair of three-inch-wide mock French cuffs in solid platinum, each set with a single, large aquamarine where the cuff link would be.
Even Mallory was taken by her entrance. “My goodness, Ms. Cayne, you are likely to be spirited off to Saint Petersburg to live at Catherine Palace.”
She smiled. “Only if I can order executions.” She eyed my tux and said, “You clean up pretty well yourself.”
I had elected to drive rather than call for a car. I hung my jacket on the hook in the back, and Archer settled into the Bentley’s passenger seat. She rummaged around in the glove box until she found a Sinatra CD, and as we drove toward the city, we listened to the Chairman of the Board do what no one else has ever done as well.
The “small dinner” turned out to be, like many things Russian, deliberately misstated. The line of cars outside my grandfather’s former home paralyzed traffic for blocks, and as we waited our turn at the valet, we watched the arriving guests disembark under the brightly lit portico. Not surprisingly, most were members of the new Russian elite—young politicians, oligarchs and wealthy ex-pats hovered over by bodyguards and sporting arm decorations of overdressed, overly obvious women.
“Nice-looking crowd,” mused Archer. “Sort of a thug and moll ball.”
Just then, one of London’s leading bookmakers got out of a vintage Rolls with a tall, trashy-looking brunette wearing way too much makeup, several million dollars’ worth of diamonds and, of all things, a tiara.
“Oh, look,” said Archer, “the queen. Jesus, if Rudolfo were here, he’d ask for his dress back.”
When we finally made our way up the red carpeted stairs, past the guards and into the home’s foyer, the place was full, and the guests were milling about to background music provided by a string quartet.
Many in the crowd recognized one or both of us, but no one approached. “Ever get tired of being resented by every woman in the room?” I asked.
“Never. But it pisses the hell out of me when they give equal time to my date.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
She elbowed me and hit my bad rib. Time to put away the rapier wit.
My grandfather had built and disposed of the mansion long before I was born, so I’d never been inside. I’d heard, however, that the Yugoslavs had replaced the original décor with Rococo Extreme. Serbin evidently liked the look, because there was enough gilt on the mirrors, murals on the ceilings and overblown chandeliers to satisfy even the most subtlety-challenged Parisian pretender.
But what the place gave away in ostentation, it more than compensated for in art. I remember Bert’s telling me that Russian painting takes some getting used to. That Nikitin, Levitskii, and, later, Briullov were so heavy-handed that their work feels like it’s being sledgehammered through your eyeballs. In his opinion, only Vrubel and the lone, consensus female master, Bashkirtseva, possessed as fine a hand as any of the more well-known Western Europeans.
However, as ponderous as the majority of Serbin’s paintings were, and as unsophisticated a viewer as I am, the cumulative effect was nothing short of august. More interesting was how, since Russian law explicitly prohibited the export of any artwork older than fifty years, the colonel had managed to assemble a collection rivaling the Hermitage’s.
The tuxedoed and gowned guests were ushering themselves along the walls, commenting on the masterpieces while pairs of white-coated, white-gloved waiters pushed vodka and caviar carts among them. The decanters were set in hollowed-out blocks of ice marked with small labels. I ordered two glasses of Siberia, which the server made great theatre out of pouring into silver-stemmed Operetta flutes. I passed on the cut-crystal bowl of caviar also imbedded in ice, but Archer wolfed down several toast points heaped with Beluga. “No lunch,” she said with her mouth full. “Why not you?”
“It would feel like I was cheating on Wandie.”
“How very droll. I must be in England.”
We were in a drawing room admiring a Bakst canvas when an accented voice behind us said, “It’s a fake.”
We turned to find Konstantin Serbin smiling at us. “Not one of Tiziano’s. My insurer introduced me to this fellow. I’m fascinated at the services you capitalists dream up.” He extended his hand. “I’m delighted to meet you, Mr. Black. It’s always a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a fellow soldier.”
He was smooth in a Moscow sort of way. Tanned and expertly tailored in a suit cut to complement his thick chest and five-foot-seven height. His speech was also impeccable and his manners perfect, but there was the split-second hesitation of an autodidact as he ran through his mental checklist.
“My congratulations on your successful departure from the Watergate. The note was a particularly nice touch…not to mention a bit awkward, since I’d asked a favor of an old friend.”
I bowed ever so slightly. “Glad to be of service.”
“I was much more disappointed to learn that Mr. Bruzzi is no longer with us. I’m told it was his heart.”
“You were misinformed. His heart was the last to go.”
He allowed himself a moment, discarded what he’d intended to say and turned to Archer. “I’m sure you’ve been told this many times, Ms. Cayne, but your photographs do not do you justice.”
She took his hand. “Neither do yours, Konstantin. You’re much shorter.”
I saw his eyes harden. “Now I understand why one of my fellow citizens decided to retire you.” Without warning, Serbin reached up and pushed Archer’s hair away from her bad eye. “Russian men are not so amused.”
The motion had been so sudden that she went rigid. I didn’t. I clamped my hand down on his wrist and pulled him toward me. He stumbled slightly, and I felt his powerful frame tense as we locked eyes. I knew my size was of no consequence. The only issue was whether he was prepared to let me break his arm when he made his move. We stood that way for an uncomfortable moment, then he relaxed. I waited just slightly longer and released my grip.
He turned to Archer and smiled tightly. “Excuse my manners, Ms. Cayne. It is sometimes easier to take off the uniform than the privilege.”
“Oh, do please call me Archer. After one murders a family member, I think first names should be de rigueur, don’t you?”
Serbin allowed himself a smile. “What I think, Ms. Cayne, is that if you keep score only by clever remarks, you’re not really in the game.”
He and Archer held each other’s eyes, then he turned back to me. “I’m told my home used to be your grandfather’s. Why don’t I give you a short tour?”
The three of us walked while the colonel pointed out the finer points of Yugoslav interior design and commented on his paintings. As we progressed, my initial impression of his collection changed. Comparing it to the Hermitage implied differences. In Serbin’s case, some of what used to hang in St. Petersburg now hung in Belgravia. As Bert Rixon would be the first to tell you, I’m no one’s art muse, so if I recognized them, a slug could have.
Half an hour later, we found ourselves on a stairway leading to the third floor. At the top, a pair of thickly built Mongolian security men in too-tight suits parted to let us pass. We turned right and walked to the end of the hallway, where an ornately carved black ironwood door added an impression of security and menace to the already heavy décor. Serbin took out a skeleton key and inserted it into the old lock. The click of the dead bolt was loud, and the door creaked open, very Vincent Price-like. I felt Archer’s hand go into mine.
The colonel entered and was swallowed by the dark. Seconds later, the soft radiance of museum-quality lighting revealed a thick-carpeted, mahogany-paneled gallery. “I believe,” said Serbin, “this is what you came to see.”
I knew it was going to be the Tretiakov Collection, but there was nothing familiar about how being physically in its presence affected me. Often, when someone’s death touches us, we try to imagine his last moments. Though I had never known any of these men, as I came face-to-face with their paintings, I could suddenly see each one seated before his canvas, feel his final rush of creativity. I watched his hand execute his last stroke and put down his brush. Saw him look over his shoulder one last time as he was led away to have his unique light extinguished forever.
And then I understood. Kim was in that room with me, and she was revealing what I would never have been able to see for myself. I can’t explain how I knew, but I knew.
Not all of the paintings were masterpieces. As talented as these painters had been, they had become dissidents first and artists second. But each, even the lesser works, radiated an unmistakable energy and life.
I felt Archer let go of my hand. She followed the paintings around the room. I glanced at Serbin. He stifled a yawn. He’d already grown indifferent. It was a familiar affliction. People who acquire simply because they can, or to keep others from having something, lack a basic building block of humanity. A core. The colonel appreciated nothing. A priceless diamond or a rusty car had the same meaning. If someone else wanted it, all that mattered was that he had it, and they didn’t.
Archer stood in front of Offering of the Babushkas. At four feet square, it was larger than the others, and now exquisitely framed and perfectly lighted, its detail came fully to life, colors surging off the canvas. Most haunting was the stricken look on the face of Illya’s mother. It had been present in the photograph, of course, but now if you looked closely, her lip even seemed to tremble.
As Archer stared at the painting, Serbin said to her, “Pavlova Mikhailovna Orlov. Royally born, then married a Jew. Who can understand the foolishness of women who bring dishonor to themselves and suffering to their children?”
I braced myself for what was coming, but Archer surprised me. “Have you ever loved anyone, Colonel? Besides yourself, that is?”
Serbin seemed amused. “I love as all Russian men do, with passion…and frequently.”
“That is not what I meant.”
He looked at her with a cold smile. “It is exactly what I meant, Ms. Cayne. The difference is that I am never given over to things I do not control.”
A faint chime rang somewhere in the hall, and the colonel clapped his hands once as if placing a final punctuation on the exchange. “If we’re finished here, let us join my other guests.”
As we returned downstairs, Konstantin Serbin was enveloped by people vying for his attention. Before he was swept away, he instructed one of his security people to escort us to dinner.
“Thank you, but we’re leaving,” I said.
Archer interrupted, “No, we’re not.”
“Excellent,” said Serbin. “We’ll chat again later. I’ll be most interested to hear what you think of the entertainment. It’s something particularly fascinating.”
When he was gone, Archer looked at me. “Can you feel the evil in this place? It’s like decay, clinging to everything. I can even taste it.”
I put my hands on either side of her face. She tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t let her. “I know what you’re thinking, but this is out of your league.”
“Killing a president was supposed to be out of Oswald’s league.”
“Yes, but he had an unsuspecting target. This one bites, and usually first. I’d stop you before he had to.” I reached down and took her clutch purse. She held on at first, then let go. I opened the bag and found what I expected—the small, beat-up handgun Guinevere keeps in a drawer next to the stove. I shook my head. “I’ve seen her breaking walnuts with this. I’m not even sure it fires.”
“It does,” she said. “A little to the left and not very far, but that won’t matter if it’s jammed in his gut.”
I shook my head, slipped the gun in my jacket pocket, then handed her back her purse. “So what’s it going to be?”
“Well, I didn’t get all trussed up for some maitre d’ with a bad hairpiece. And I haven’t met the queen yet.” We started walking, and she added, “Besides, you didn’t check me for poison.”
The grand hall had been set with long tables heaped with seafood delicacies from around the world. Every conceivable shellfish, sushi, salmon and roe was represented, accented by trays of layered accoutrements more sculpture than cuisine. Along the four walls, wide carving stations offered mountainous cuts of meat and game, and wandering among the crowd were servers in full Cossack regalia wielding swords of Russian shish kabob.
To keep Givenchy, Dior and Rudolfo free of splashing sauces and purees, each guest had been assigned a white-coated attendant to walk ahead and heap designated food onto oversized white china plates emblazoned with Serbin’s Cyrillic monogram, KC. After a few moments of watching the milling horde Belushi themselves through the buffet, Archer remarked none too quietly, “Pearls before swine.”
We passed on the attendants and handled our own plates. Sufficiently loaded down with gourmet excess and glasses of Chateau Margaux 2000, we gravitated to the library and seated ourselves with a pair of vacuous Czech sisters displaying multiple facial piercings and no discernable English skills. Accompanying them were a former nuclear missile commander from Vladivostok and a biological weapons scientist once employed by the KGB’s Research Institute. I knew the institute because it had been a Delta target in the event of U.S. land operations against the Soviets. Small talk was not this group’s forte, so Archer and I listened as the Russians debated the merits of blowing up cities versus depopulating them. It didn’t take a scorecard to realize neither was retired.
When we excused ourselves for coffee, Archer looked at me with the kind of horror you sometimes see in rookie cops after their first gruesome homicide. “Did I miss something? Maybe a late Halloween?”
“Your stomach’s full now, so why don’t we make a quiet exit.”
“Jesus Christ, I can’t get away from this place fast enough. Promise me we’ll take a shower as soon as we get home.”
Suddenly, without warning, the lights went out. There were some nervous whispers, and I thought there had been a power failure. I remembered the direction of the front door and took Archer’s arm. Frankly, it was a fitting end to the evening.
I was stopped by the sound of distant drums. Faint, then louder as they seemed to be approaching from all directions. Then, almost directly over me, a dark figure dropped on a wire from the ceiling. There was a burst of fire, and four flaming sabers appeared in his hands. The crowd gasped…then started applauding as the man began juggling the swords, throwing them higher with each catch.
From the illumination of the flames, I could see he was dressed head to foot in a black body stocking. Only his eyes and hands remained uncovered, and though he was slenderly built, his forearms and biceps rippled through the fabric.
The audience was mesmerized, Archer included. I scanned the entrances to the room and saw more body-stockinged figures coming from all directions, the ones in the lead pounding on some kind of tribal drums strapped over their shoulders. Behind them came bearers, carrying long coffin-shaped boxes high over their heads. Abruptly, half a dozen of the shapes—women, from their movement—raced forward and lit torches from the juggler’s fire, then ran back to their processions.
The room danced in light, and the boxes became more visible. They were bronze with two long poles attached at the top for transport. The drums got louder, and the room began to reverberate. The crowd parted to let the columns through, then closed in tight around them.
Now able to see the front door, I noticed that the Mongolian security men who had been on duty when we arrived were gone. In their place were more body-stocking-clad figures.
I reached forward and grabbed Archer’s arm. She let out a sharp cry. “That hurts.”
I didn’t have time for explanations. I wrenched her backward, and she came stumbling toward me. “Take off your shoes,” I said.
“What? What for?”
I put my arm around her waist and picked her up, knocking her shoes off with my foot. Then I dropped her, grabbed her hand and ran toward the grand staircase.
“Goddamn, Rail, those fucking shoes cost more than I made on my last job.”
“They made your feet look big. Now shut up and run.”
An adrenaline rage kicked in, and she would have passed me on the landing if I hadn’t had hold of her.
The security we had seen on the third floor earlier was also now gone, and we continued up one more floor to what had been my grandfather’s private living space. The access gates I remembered from the photographs in my father’s office had been taken down, replaced by a bust of Lenin opposite one of Yeltsin. But which way was the master bedroom? I gambled and plunged down the hallway to my left.
Just then, I heard automatic gunfire slamming into the ceiling and walls downstairs. Screams erupted and running feet hit the stairway. There were more gunshots, and bodies fell.
Archer stopped. “My God, what’s happening?”
“What part of ‘shut up and run’ don’t you understand?”
Then a chandelier fell somewhere…a woman’s scream began and ended…and Archer got back with the program. I got lucky. The room I was looking for had been turned into an overdone study, but I recognized the walk-in marble fireplace from the twin carved elephants holding up the mantel. Apparently, someone had decided my grandfather’s Indian proclivities went well with Louis XIV. I pulled Archer inside and locked the door.
She was on the edge of hysteria, only a few seconds from losing it. I needed her lucid and mobile, and I had no time to talk her down, so I pulled her close and covered her mouth with my palm while I clasped her nose with my thumb and forefinger. In her hyperventilated state, she went into oxygen deficit almost immediately, and her eyes began to bulge. Fear of suffocation gets the brain’s attention over everything else, and she locked eyes with me and began pounding on my chest and kicking me with her bare feet. But I held my hand in place until I felt her starting to go out.
As soon as I let her breathe again, she started coughing and swearing and took a wild swing at me. “Welcome back,” I said as I grabbed her fist. “Now pay attention, we’ve only got a few minutes before they begin sweeping the place.”
“How are we going to get out of here?” Her voice was trembling, but she was focused on the right question.
I walked to the large bay window along the back wall. “When my grandfather was a kid, he had to jump three stories to escape a boarding school fire. He lived the rest of his life in mortal fear of burning to death.” I pointed outside. “The first private residence fire escape in Belgravia.”
The window was painted shut, so I grabbed a $100,000 chair and threw it through the glass. My adrenaline must have been pumping as well, because it went far enough to hit the next building. I went out first and was reaching up to help Archer when she suddenly froze, a look of stark terror on her face. I turned. Standing on the first steel landing below us were two body-stocking figures aiming Kalashnikovs directly at our faces.
One motioned me to join him, and as I complied, his partner retreated down a few steps out of range. These were pros, so I complied slowly and without comment.
As soon as we were both on the landing, the man with the rifle quickly climbed past me and was in the house in seconds. The remaining gunman indicated I was to do the same.
Archer and I walked down the grand staircase ahead of the gunmen. As we made the last turn, I put my arm around her. I had a pretty good idea what we were going to see, and I didn’t know how she’d react.
The lights were back on, and there were two men’s bodies on the stairs, badly mangled after being shot from behind with 7.62 rounds. I couldn’t be sure, but one looked like the bookmaker. The fallen chandelier had spread glass in a wide circle across the inlaid marble floor, and Archer sucked in her breath and leaned into me when she saw the pair of shapely legs sticking out from under it, one foot still wearing a high heel.
Other corpses weren’t immediately apparent, but the scene in front of us was its own spectacle. The hundred or so partiers had been made to lie facedown and were spread across the wide foyer and into the grand hall. Dozens of black body-stockinged men with assault rifles walked among them, kicking anyone who moved. Some of the women were crying, a few of the men too.
Four men stood over Konstantin Serbin. He turned his head slightly, and we made eye contact. Then one of the intruders hit him with a rifle, and he looked away.
It was then that I smelled gasoline and saw figures taking ten-liter cans out of one of the coffin-shaped boxes and lining them against a wall. That made my decision easy. I’d rather be shot.
I was about to whisper to Archer that we were going to run for it when a man in a white dinner jacket bolted to his feet and rushed one of the intruders. He managed to wrestle the man’s rifle away before he was cut down in a hail of bullets. A second burst then cut down the guard who had allowed his weapon to be taken.
Everyone was distracted, and I squeezed Archer’s hand, hoping she’d understand. She squeezed back, and I nodded toward the front door. It was still twenty feet away over broken glass with a pair of armed men guarding it. But it was now or never.
I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket and gripped Guinevere’s tiny gun. It was worthless, but it made me feel like I wasn’t completely naked. As every nerve ending poised to signal its corresponding muscle, the barrel of a Kalashnikov suddenly jammed into the back of Archer’s neck so hard, it almost knocked her down. At the same time, an accented voice inches from my right ear hissed, “Don’t.”
I turned and saw another body-stockinged man step directly in front of me. He gestured to the guards standing at the front door, and one of them inserted a key, turned it and pushed the heavy steel frame outward. I eased my hand out of my pocket. Had the voice come a hundredth of a second later, we would have died against the glass.
The man led us outside. The air was cool, and there was a misty fog blanketing the city. It was so quiet I could hear a train leaving Victoria Station. I looked for traffic, but the street was empty. Someone had made sure there would be no surprises.
I felt Archer limping, looked down and saw the blood prints from the glass-cut soles of her bare feet. And then my car appeared. It was double-parked with its lights out and its motor running. I turned, half-expecting to catch a rifle butt to the face, but instead, the man who was escorting us pointed for his partner to return to the house.
I opened the car and got Archer inside. I tried to bandage one of her feet with my handkerchief, but it was beyond inadequate. She’d have to make do until we got back to Strathmoor Hall. I stood and closed her door.
The body-stockinged man had pulled his hood off, and I could now see his face. He was handsome and dark-haired and of indeterminate ethnicity. His eyes, however, were blue, which didn’t fit the accent. And then I remembered I had seen people with this characteristic before.
“I know you, don’t I?” I said.
He smiled. “I used to call you Mister.” He extended his hand. “Nice to see you again, Sergeant Black.”
I took his hand. His grip was warm and firm. No nervousness at all.
“May I ask?” I said.
“Colonel Serbin headed the Soviet pacification program in my country. The Americans had brought us food and books for our schools. Colonel Serbin had a different approach. He would position his tanks around a village, then open fire with incendiary shells. It was quite effective. Ashes are very peaceful.” He paused. “If I close my eyes, I can still hear the screams.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Every person with me lost somebody. Tonight our dead will finally sleep.”
“Then I really am sorry…sorry that it had to be you.”
I thought for a moment he was going to embrace me, but he changed his mind and extended his hand again. I put my left hand over our grip, and he did the same. Then he turned and walked back toward the house.
I got in the Bentley, half-expecting to find Archer in shock and needing a hospital. Instead, she reached over and took my hand. I put the car in gear. When we reached the front of my grandfather’s former home, muzzle flashes were visible through the white-draped windows, and there was a sudden rush of flame inside the front door.
Archer put down her window, stuck her head into the cold and yelled, “For the record, Colonel, the entertainment was fucking grand. Just fucking grand.”