V
ÄNSKÄ SMELLED OF
American cologne and French cigarettes.
“You are Mr Tamm?” he asked.
Tamm
was Estonian for
oak
. They both knew it was not a real name.
Aleks nodded. They shook hands cordially, lightly. The distaste between them was thicker than the smell of spent airplane fuel in the air.
“I understand you have something to sell,” Vänskä said.
Some
thing
, Aleks thought. This was how this man thought of the children, of Anna and Marya, as if they were objects, some sort of commodity. He wanted to kill him right there and then.
Vänskä reached inside his coat, extracted a pack of Gitanes, put one between his lips. He then took out a gold lighter, lit the cigarette, drew on it deeply. All quite dramatic and unimpressive. All leading up to a discussion of money.
“There are many expenses on my end,” Vänskä began, as expected.
Aleks just nodded, remained silent.
“I have traveled a good distance to be here, and there are a number of people – highly placed people – who must be paid.” At this, Mikko Vänskä removed his sunglasses. His face was bone-pale, with dark smudges beneath his eyes. He was a drug addict. Aleks surmised meth.
“What is your profession?” Vänskä asked.
“I am a farrier,” Aleks replied. While it was true that he shod his own horses, there was something in the tone of his reply that told Vänskä it was not exactly the truth. The man ran his hand through his greasy white hair. He looked out over the lake, then back.
“You do not have a child to sell at all, do you?”
Aleks just stared at the man. It was answer enough.
Vänskä nodded. He smiled, crushed out his cigarette with the toe of his boot. He used the movement to slide back the hem of his coat. The move was not lost on Aleks.
“Do you know who I am?” Vänskä asked.
“I do.”
The man shifted his weight. Aleks relaxed his massive shoulder muscles, poised to strike. “And yet you waste my time. You do not do this with Mikko Vänskä. Tallinn is
my
city. You will learn this.”
Aleks knew it was pointless trying to finesse men like Vänskä. They looked at him as if he were some sort of rube, a provincial from south-eastern Estonia. “Let us just say it is a tragic character flaw.”
Mikko laughed, a raspy sound that echoed among the trees. “I am going to leave now,” he said. “But not until you pay me for my time. And my time is very expensive.”
“I think not.”
Vänskä looked up. It was clear he did not hear this sentiment often. Before he could make a move or a reply, Aleks had the man off his feet, face down on the muddy earth, the air punched from his lungs. An instant later Aleks had the man’s weapon removed from the holster at the small of his back. It was an expensive SIG P210. He continued to pat him down, found nothing else. He lifted the dazed Vänskä back up to his feet.
“The question now is, my Finnish friend,” Aleks began, his face just a few inches from Vänskä’s, “do you know who
I
am?”
A tic in the man’s lower lip betrayed his fear. He remained silent as he caught his breath.
“I am Koschei,” Aleks said.
The man smirked, then realized that Aleks was serious, and probably insane. This made him twice as dangerous.
“This is a myth,” Vänskä said. “Koschei the Deathless. A tale for children and old women.”
Aleks lifted the SIG, chambered a round. He handed it back to Vänskä. Vänskä took it in a snap, leveled it at Aleks, his hands shaking. “Fuck you,
vittu
! You do not come to Tallinn and talk this way to me. You do not lay your fucking
hands
on me.”
Aleks shrugged, took a backward step. “Then you have no choice but to shoot me. I understand.”
“
What
?”
Aleks slapped Vänskä across the face. Hard. So hard the man stumbled back a few steps. His lower lip began to bleed. Hands trembling violently now, Vänskä cocked the weapon.
Again Aleks slapped the man; this time a rotted tooth flew from Vänskä’s mouth. Vänskä put the gun to Aleks’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
Instead of a loud report, there was only the small, impotent echo of metal on metal. The weapon had jammed.
For a moment, Tallinn fell silent. No traffic, no airplanes. Just the sound of the water lapping onto the shore of Lake Ülemiste.
With lightning speed, Aleks lashed out with his left hand, striking the man just beneath the solar plexus. Vänskä dropped the weapon, clutched his heaving stomach. A gush of yellow vomit flew from his mouth. Aleks picked up the SIG and threw it into the lake.
When Vänskä caught his breath, Aleks slipped the Barhydt out of its sheath, opened it to its fearsome length. Vänskä’s eyes bulged at the sight. Aleks touched a finger to the perfect steel. It seemed to disappear in the blackness of the night.
“You should know this about me, Mikko Vänskä. I am a man who asks a question just one time. I will ask you a question. You will tell me the truth. Then we will part company.”
Vänskä tried to stand tall. His shaking knees prevented this. He remained silent.
“Four years ago, just before Easter, you brokered the illegal adoption of two newborn Estonian girls,” Aleks said. “The girls were stolen from their mother’s bed in Ida-Viru County. All this I know to be true. Who was your contact on the other end?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Aleks brought the knife up with a movement so fast it seemed a mere distortion of air. At first, Vänskä did not know what happened. A second later, it was all too clear. The man in front of him had slit open his left eye. Vänskä fell to his knees, blood gushing between his fingers, his shrieks echoing across the ancient hills. Aleks knelt, covered the man’s mouth. The snarl of another jet soon covered the screams.
“A man can live with just one eye, yes?” Aleks asked when the roar had trailed to silence. “He cannot live without his heart.” Aleks held the tip of the blade over the man’s chest.
“A man,” he said. His breath came in small, wet gasps. His face was spider-webbed with blood. “His name is Harkov. Viktor Harkov.”
“A Russian?”
Vänskä nodded.
“He is in Russia?”
The man shook his head. Blood flicked from the open wound. “He is in New York City.”
The United States
, Aleks thought. He had never imagined this. Anna and Marya were now American children. It would take a lot to undo this. And getting them out presented a whole new set of problems. “New York City is a big place,” Aleks said. “Where is he in this city?”
For a moment it appeared as if Vänskä was going to go into shock. Aleks cracked an ammonia capsule beneath his nose. The man choked, took a deep breath. “He is in a place called Queens, New York City.”
Queens
, Aleks thought. He knew someone in New York City, a man named Konstantine Udenko, a man with whom he had served in the federal army. Konstantine would help him find this Viktor Harkov.
For a moment Aleks studied Vänskä’s face, or what was visible beneath the gloss of fresh blood. He believed him. He had little choice. He put his gloved hands under the man’s chin, stared into his remaining eye. “You told me what I needed to know, and I now consider you to be a wise and honorable man. I am going to let you live.” Aleks brought his face close. “But I want you to tell your associates of me, of this man from Kolossova who is to be taken seriously, a man who cannot be killed. You will do this?”
Another slow nod.
“Good.” Aleks helped the man to his feet. The man was heavy, and offered no aid, but Aleks’s arms and back were powerful. He handled him with ease. “Which is the nearest hospital?”
Vänskä hesitated. He had not expected this. “West Tallinn Central. On Ravi Street.”
“I have a car,” Aleks said. He pointed to the crest of the hill. “Just around the bend. I will take you. Do you know the way?”
“Yes.”
“Can you walk?”
The man took a few moments, found his center. “I . . . I think so.”
Aleks glanced over Vänskä’s shoulder. He saw the moon reflecting off the glassy surface of Lake ülemiste. He recalled the way the Narva River shimmered on warm summer nights in his youth, glimpsed from the window of his stifling stone room in the orphanage, how he had always wondered what lay at either end.
He thought about his little girls, about this man in front of him. The wrath ignited within him as . . .
. . . the acrid smell of burning flesh hangs over Grozny, a damp, red blanket of death. In this hellish moment, as death rattles around him, he feels his destiny, the centuries he has lived, the centuries yet to come. He sees the farmhouse at the top of the hill. He hears the cries of the dying animals and . . .
. . . the man’s arrogant words.
You have something to sell?
Aleks turned. In one nimble motion, he spun 360 degrees, the torque of the movement, combined with his strong legs and back muscles – as well as the exquisite steel of the Barhydt – caught Mikko Vänskä just below his jaw, nearly severing his head from his body. The arterial spray launched nearly ten feet as the man chicken-stepped. Aleks then plunged the knife deep into the man’s groin, bringing it up with great strength. He pulled it out and finished with a lateral slash forming a T. Vänskä’s bowels spilled into the night, pink and black and foul as the man himself. He was dead before he hit the ground. Steam rose from the ropy entrails.
Aleks took a moment, closed his eyes, sensing the man’s soul on its journey. He always gave this moment its due. In the distance, in the silent canopies of the forest, a murder of crows stirred, awaiting its moment.
Ten minutes later Aleks walked to his car, and drove back to the center of the city. Tallinn was coming alive, and he would take full advantage of its charms.
Harkov
, he thought.
Viktor Harkov of Queens, New York City.
I will meet you very soon.
T
HE NEXT MORNING
Aleks awoke early, showered, dressed casually. He had rolled Mikko Vänskä into a large canvas tarpaulin, weighted his body with stones, and sank him in Lake ülemiste. It would only be days before the man floated to the surface, but by then Aleks would be long gone.
Over breakfast, he logged onto the Internet and began to plan his week. He purchased an e-ticket to New York. He made arrangements for lodging in New York, and arranged to ship what he could not bring with him – including the Barhydt, and more than one hundred thousand US dollars in cash – via International FedEx. He returned to his room, packed everything into a FedEx box, and dropped it off with the concierge.
He may not have been at home in the city, but he availed himself of every progress, every advancement. Laptops, cellphones, wi-fi, online banking.
Over his final cup of coffee he searched the web for Viktor Harkov. He found him with ease. Viktor Harkov, Esq., was the owner of a firm called People’s Legal Services. He printed off the information at the hotel’s business center, making sure he erased all files and the cache from the hotel’s computer. He slipped the data into his carry-on bag.
During a layover in London’s Heathrow Airport Terminal Five – while luxuriating in the British Airways Terraces lounge, the area set aside for those traveling business class – Aleks allowed himself a massage in the Elemis spa.
Three hours later he sat in the section of the lounge overlooking his gate, a tumbler of Johnnie Walker Black in hand. He glanced down, saw Elena’s face swim up from the depths of the clear amber liquid. He recalled the first time he saw her, standing in the grove where he had seen the grey wolf, already an
ennustaja
of her village at the age of seven.
He wondered: would Anna and Marya look like Elena? Would they have the same beguiling blue eyes, the same milky skin?
He reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat. He took out the three crystal vials held on an exquisite gold chain. One of the vials was filled with blood. Two were empty. He slipped the chain around his neck.
Three girls,
Aleks thought
. The legend of Koschei and the prince’s sisters. Anna, Marya, and Olga. When all their blood was at long last his, they would live forever.
He looked out the window at the lights of Heathrow’s runways. Cities, he thought. How he hated them, and all that they have spawned. Now he was heading to the most important city in the world.
An hour later he settled into his seat on the plane, the power within him beginning to grow.
S
HE WAS PETITE
and pretty, with a generous mouth and slender, boyish hips. She wore a stiff white blouse, navy skirt. She seemed to be in her late thirties, although her hands suggested she might be older.
“Can I get you something?”
They had been airborne for two hours, served a gourmet meal. The crew had dimmed the lights.
Aleks looked around the Club World cabin of the large, powerful Boeing 747-400. He knew all too well about societal divisions in life. The small group who had stood in a separate, fast-moving line at Heathrow, the select few who had been welcomed aboard with a warm towel and glass of champagne, looked at each other with an understanding that they were all in this together, a cut above those who traveled coach, chosen all.
Aleks glanced back at the woman. She was not a flight attendant. She was a fellow passenger. “I’m sorry?”
She pointed over her shoulder, spoke in a hushed voice. “From the kitchen. Club World passengers have access to the galley, you know. Would you like some juice, or a glass of wine?” She held up her own empty glass.
What a world, Aleks thought. Your own kitchen on a plane. “I’m fine, thank you.”
The woman eyed the seat next to Aleks. Business class had individual seats, side by side, facing in opposite directions. The seats flattened into beds, and could be fashioned into dozens of positions. The seat next to Aleks was unoccupied. The woman clearly wanted to sit and chat for a while.