She turned in circles, uncertain what to do or where to go. The telephone on the wall rang. Maria answered it.
“May I speak to Ariana?” the voice said.
“I’m afraid you have the wrong number,” she replied. Then, like the dash she had drawn in the check mark’s stem, she added a phrase she had hoped she’d never have to use. “What number are you calling?” It, too, signified her need of immediate exfiltration.
“Sorry to disturb,” her handler said, hanging up.
She didn’t have much time. She would need to leave immediately. She could take nothing with her but the clothes on her back. She’d give Stanislav to the couple in the apartment down the hall.
Helge . . . Her conscience would not allow her to leave Helge to die. She had compromised so much of her moral fiber she no longer believed she was a good person at heart. To leave Helge to die would be to fall further into the depraved sewer, perhaps too deep to ever again be free. She expected she would pay for her depravity, if not in this life then when she reached the gates of heaven, but maybe, just maybe, God would show some mercy if she risked her own life to save Helge.
She reached for the notepad on the counter to leave Helge a message to call her immediately when he returned home. The pad was not on the counter where they regularly kept it. Nor was the ballpoint pen. She searched the kitchen counter and the table, did not find it, then turned to the living room. The pad and pen rested on the side table, beside Helge’s glass of vodka.
She hurried to it, angled the top page beneath the lamp, and detected the faint etchings of the ballpoint pen, though she was unable to read the written words. This was a problem she had encountered before. Back in the kitchen, she rummaged inside the drawer by the phone and found a pencil. She lightly shaded the etched letters, seeing them form, faint but decipherable.
V . . .
Vr . . .
Vrat . . .
Vratar’—the Goaltender.
She pulled out her phone and punched in the name, obtaining the address for a bar near Moscow State University. She had never heard of it. She doubted Helge had. He had plenty of local bars at which to drink. This, she knew from experience, had Sokalov written all over it. Lure his prey someplace he was not known, would not be remembered.
She pulled up the Moscow Metro app on her phone as she moved back down the hall to the front door. The destination would require that she change cars twice and travel five Metro stops. She grabbed her pen with the cyanide capsule from her bag and rushed out the door with Stanislav. She dropped him at the neighbors’ who had a child who loved Stanislav and came over often to see him, then hurried back toward the elevators.
She would not make her dead drop. She would miss her chance at freedom.
So be it. Better to die this way than to burn in eternal hell.
23
Ramenki District
Moscow Oblast, Russia
Helge Kulikov thought it magnanimous for Dmitry Sokalov to call and suggest they speak in private about Maria’s infidelity. Sokalov said the delicate information was inappropriate for discussion over the telephone and better discussed in person. Could they meet?
Helge wished he had not drunk so much. He wished he had eaten something. The walk to the Metro station helped sober him, but the subway car had been hot and muggy, like all of Moscow, and he had struggled to stay awake. Back above ground, the two-block walk to the Goaltender, the bar where Sokalov asked to meet, again revived him.
As Helge approached the bar, he wiped the sweat dripping down his face and frowned. He had expected a significantly higher caliber establishment, one befitting the deputy director’s status. The Goaltender was more of a ryumochnaya—the small basement bars in Moscow that served cheap alcohol and cheaper food. It seemed beneath the man, though the deputy director had told Helge over the phone that he wanted to be discreet. The Goaltender, tucked into a forested enclave at the end of a dead-end road, was certainly discreet.
“It has an assortment of football paraphernalia I thought someone with your extended résumé might find appealing,” Sokalov had said. Helge hoped only that it had the type of vodka he had drunk in the deputy director’s office. He didn’t drink Stoli often. Helge stepped into the bar and took a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The interior also disappointed. In the entry, young people sporadically populated the dozen or so upright tables, and the music played at too high a volume. The aroma of alcohol and fried food permeated the air.
Helge’s eyes adjusted, but he did not see Sokalov. He walked through the entry to an interior room with traditional tables and seating. Sokalov sat at a table in a corner. The deputy director was certainly being discreet. He wore a dark jacket and a ball cap pulled low on his brow, which seemed not in keeping with the pompous man Helge had met at Lubyanka functions.