Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [57]
“Alushta is on the east coast of the Crimea,” Annika said. “It’s filled with expensive villas that overlook the Black Sea.”
“Bingo! That’s where Magnussen’s gone,” Jack said.
Annika frowned. “What? How could you possibly know that?”
“His mother was buried there.”
“I don’t see the connection.” Annika shook her head. “Maybe she was on vacation, maybe she was visiting friends.”
“In that event she would have been brought back here to be buried,” Jack said with such perfect logic that Annika was unable to contradict him.
“But a villa—”
Jack’s mind was working faster than the others could match or even imagine. “Look at this spread here. This family was wedded to money and prestige, they wouldn’t have remained here all year long. The summers are hot and unpleasant, aren’t they?”
Annika nodded, still dubious.
“Where would the Magnussens go in the summer? I’m willing to bet they own a villa in Alushta.”
“This is ridiculous, you’re not the Delphic oracle.”
“In a way he is,” Alli interjected. “Jack’s mind works differently than yours or mine, he can see things we can’t, make connections we can’t until much, much later.”
Annika stared at Alli as if she’d grown wings or had been struck by lightning. “Is this a vaudeville act between the two of you, or some idiotic sleight of hand trick?”
“Why would it be a trick?” Alli said so fiercely that Annika seemed stopped in her tracks.
“If you’ve got a better idea,” Jack said to Annika, “now would be the time to tell me.”
Annika looked away for a moment, her gaze roaming over the back of the manor house in the distance. “Seriously?” she said as she turned back to him. “You think Magnussen has gone to ground in Alushta?”
“SO WHO was he then,” the golden-haired American said, “the marksman who took a shot in the woods?”
He was not a tall man, nevertheless he was imposing, like all the American agents Kirilenko had met or had seen in surveillance photos. He was possessed of a confidence that bordered on arrogance. Kirilenko envied him or, at least, was jealous of his sense of entitlement. The world was his oyster, he moved about in it as he pleased, with an ease Kirilenko imagined only in his dreams. Kirilenko, the good silovik, who was tied to Russia as if by a chain-link leash. And he thought: I am faithful, like a dog, and the American is my master. He holds my fate in his hands—hands that do not ache in the cold, are not reddened and chapped, aged before their time. He has not seen what I’ve seen. And then with the briefest flash of contempt like heat lightning that comes and goes in one breath: What does he know of life, anyway? What can he know, he’s American.
Was it contempt Kirilenko felt for the golden-haired American or was it pity? His name was Martin, like the bird. Harry Martin. But what was his real name? Likely Kirilenko would never know.
“Harry Martin,” the American had introduced himself when they first met, “from Latrobe, Pennsylvania.” And when Kirilenko had looked at him blankly, he’d added, “You know, the home of Arnold Palmer, surely you’ve heard of the legendary golfer.”
Kirilenko just barely stopped himself from laughing in Harry Martin’s face. God in heaven! While Russians were struggling to survive, Americans were playing golf.
The two men sat side by side now in the backseat of Kirilenko’s car, drinking hot coffee from a thermos one of Kirilenko’s men had fetched.
“So who was he then?” Harry Martin repeated. “Any theories?”
They appeared to be two old friends chatting about something inconsequential, a sports match, perhaps, or the prospects of a favorite soccer team.
“I don’t deal in speculation, only facts,” Kirilenko said with a good deal less irritation than he felt. It wouldn’t do to rub the American the wrong way, he had too many powerful friends who, with one phone call, could seriously impact Kirilenko’s career, not to say his life. Just knowing this caused him a level of stress he found intolerable. Harry Martin was like an itch he couldn’t