Ask No Mercy Page 9

  Her gaze filled with the pain and hopelessness Lazarev had seen so many times before.

  Are you seeing your whole life pass by now as you look at me so hollow-eyed? Soon your life will be over; you’re right about that. But not just yet.

  Try to spit on me now.

  “Even if you don’t talk, I’ll find out everything about you,” he said.

  She shook her head, tried to scream at him again, but it was impossible for her to form any words; she just sounded like the howling bitch she was.

  “I searched your home, Pashie. I know you’re working for a department at the university.”

  She fell silent. Her eyes burned with hate. But she showed no sign of giving up.

  “That’s where I’m going to start, and I’m going to kill everyone there, understand? I’m going to kill all the people who have ever meant anything to you.”

  Pashie tried to scream again. She kicked and twisted her upper body from one side to the other in a hopeless effort to free herself.

  Lazarev rose and went over to another shelf and took down a heavy rubber baton. He drew back his arm, rotated his hips and shoulders, and swung the baton against her stomach. The blow sent a shock wave through her body. She tried to spit the tube out of her mouth, but the barbs just dug deeper into her tongue. He hit her again, harder this time. And again. Even harder.

  Each blow made her body contract with pain, and she gasped for breath. The reflex from the blows was so strong that her forehead almost slammed into her kneecaps. It was like the reaction caused by an electric shock, impossible for the body to resist.

  After the third blow, he dropped the baton on the floor and left the room.

  19

  It had taken an unexpectedly long time to find the preschool Margarita Yushkova’s children attended. Max had sat in the backseat of a taxi that had driven around the neighborhoods surrounding St. Petersburg GSM’s headquarters, and he had had to put up with the taxi driver’s constant flipping back and forth between radio stations. When Max caught sight of the only modern preschool in the area, he told the taxi driver to wait with the meter running but out of sight of the preschool.

  The facility looked completely new. The inside was bright, painted in white, apricot, and green. Books and toys in red plastic trays lay scattered around the floor. This was obviously a place for privileged people, not one where ordinary Russian workers left their children.

  St. Petersburg GSM must have been paying Margarita Yushkova well.

  Max studied the activity in the little courtyard outside the preschool. Parents arrived, quickly picked up their children, and hurried off. After a few minutes, a woman in a red coat approached on foot. Apart from the long hair that came all the way down to her waist, she looked like any other young mother. Unlike the other parents, she came from the direction of the street where St. Petersburg GSM had its headquarters.

  Max hurried across the street.

  “Margarita?”

  The woman stopped and looked at him, drew her coat around herself more tightly.

  “Yes?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Max. I’m from Stockholm, Sweden. A good friend of mine called you about a week ago. She’s disappeared, and I’m trying to find out what’s happened to her.”

  Margarita looked over at the preschool. A young woman walked away holding a child’s hand with one hand and a cell phone in the other.

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “I haven’t even told you who she is.”

  Margarita took a few steps toward the preschool, but Max stuck out an arm. He didn’t take hold of her, but she couldn’t walk past. She looked at the arm and then at Max.

  “You have to understand that she means a great deal to me,” he said. “I found blood in her bathroom. Someone has abducted her, hurt her.”

  “That sounds horrible, but what does it have to do with me?”

  “I think she wanted to talk to you about the company you work for, St. Petersburg GSM. Her name is Pashie. Do you remember her now?”

  Max thought he saw a change in Margarita’s face: she remembered the name.

  “As I’ve said, I don’t know anything. You’ll have to excuse me now; I need to pick up my children.”

  “Margarita, I think you may be involved in organized crime.”

  Max nodded toward the preschool. “Who will take care of your children if you’re in prison?”

  “Organized crime?” said Margarita, and her cheeks reddened. “I’m an accountant!”

  “Why did Pashie call you?”

  Margarita took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  “She was interested in the financing, but I can’t talk with just anyone about such things. Surely she can understand that?”

  “So how is St. Petersburg GSM financed?”

  A car drove past at high speed very close to them, and Max turned around. When he looked toward Margarita again she was moving away from him, toward the preschool.

  Max quickly caught up with her and grabbed her arm. Her face was dark red, and she was breathing hard.

  Max held up a warning finger. Don’t scream.

  “What the hell do you want?” she hissed.

  “As I said, Pashie means a great deal to me. With your help, I might be able to figure out what happened to her.”

  He tightened his grip on her arm. “Tell me how St. Petersburg GSM is financed.”

  Margarita shook her head. She was scared now.

  “I work with accounting,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’ve never met anyone from that organization.”

  That organization? A strange way of putting it. Max assumed she meant she had never met the owners.

  “What do you talk about when you’re on a coffee break and the boss isn’t around? What do people believe?”

  “People believe they are men with power, a great deal of power. That they have acquired large fortunes.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What kind of sums are we talking about? How many rubles do normal deposits involve?”

  “The sums are in dollars.”

  “Millions of dollars?”

  “Thousands.”

  The cold in the raw air suddenly reached Max, went deep inside him.

  It was not uncommon to see large numbers of small deposits in connection with organized crime. But this seemed to be much larger than that. Max tried to get it to make sense. How much money was needed to set up a GSM network? He guessed that in Sweden you would need at least a million Swedish kronor to start with. Here, where everything was done on a larger scale, you’d probably need at least five times that much money. The small amounts she was suggesting were being deposited didn’t seem credible.

  “Thousands of dollars?”

  “Thousands of millions of dollars,” said Margarita.

  20

  Nestor Lazarev opened a heavy door and entered the university’s large entrance hall. He had told the security guards that he had stents in his arteries to keep them open, and they had allowed him to enter the area despite the fact that the red light on the metal detector had blinked.

  He paused for a moment in front of the broad granite staircase and took in what was going on around him. Young men and women ran up and down the stairs, carrying notebooks, books, plastic bottles, and lunch boxes. They bore colorful plastic bags with the logos of new Western brands—modern status symbols that had invaded Nevsky Prospekt.

  He shook his head. A lost generation.

  He walked up three flights of stairs. His movements were fluid, and his physical condition stood out compared to the young people next to him. He needed to be in good shape if he was to make the great leader’s vision a reality.

  Lazarev knocked on the door of the university head’s office and entered without waiting for a response.

  The rector looked at him from his chair behind the desk. When he realized
who had entered his office, he bolted out of his seat with an uncertain smile on his lips.

  “Mr. Chairman, what an honor!” he exclaimed, stretching out his right hand.

  But Lazarev did not take the rector’s hand. He just looked at the little man with the round stomach. The man’s scalp was bare, and patches of it were red and inflamed. Round black glasses rested on his crooked nose.

  With an apple in your mouth and a spit through your body, you’d be a perfect little pig.

  “Sit down,” the rector finally said, making a welcoming gesture toward the room.

  On a table was a silver tray on which stood a bottle of Shampanskoye, a bottle of vodka, and some crystal glasses.

  “What can I offer you?”

  “A glass of water,” said Lazarev.

  The rector hesitated for a moment.

  “Of course,” he said, hurrying toward a side door. “Katya, two water glasses with ice and a bottle of cold water, please.”

  “No ice.”

  “Never mind the ice!” the rector shouted shrilly.

  When the rector had poured two glasses and sat down, Lazarev leaned forward.

  “How are things going for the university, Levy?”

  The rector coughed and took a few sips of the water. “Very well. Admissions reach new peaks every semester.”

  “What about the liquidity? Are things working out economically?”

  Levy’s expression changed somewhat. Lazarev could sense his fear.

  “Mr. Chairman, these are difficult times. I can assure you that we always strive to achieve the best academic result and that we do the best we can with what we have.”

  Wise, Lazarev thought, not to ask straight out.

  “I understand you have a new department,” he said. “The Economics Department. How did that department come into existence?”

  “It was about time, wasn’t it?” Levy started to laugh but broke off, as Lazarev’s expression hadn’t changed at all. “Um, we are all trying to come to grips with the rules that apply to market economics.”

  Lazarev said nothing; he shifted in his chair.

  “The man who is the department chairman is a very respected gentleman—Afanasy Mishin. He was previously responsible for economic history. The department was established by means of an international exchange. With a very highly regarded institution. A world leader.”

  “From what country?” asked Lazarev.

  “Sweden.”

  Expressionlessly, Lazarev looked at Levy’s fat face. He could barely conceal his pride, the ignorant little pig.

  “From Stockholm, to be more precise,” the rector continued.

  Stockholm. It was as he had feared.

  Lazarev pulled gently on his neck, turned it to the right. When it finally cracked, he felt a little better. He had learned the hard way to control his feelings. The rage he felt was not visible; he knew this. But at one time things had been different. He had let his feelings take over, and that had nearly been his undoing. In Stockholm.

  Outside the closed door, students laughed. Levy looked nervously past Lazarev’s shoulder, toward the corridor.

  So many wars had been fought since Lazarev’s time in Stockholm, won and lost. But no war had been more personal than that one. And now the Swedish military intelligence service had infiltrated Russian society and established itself at Saint Petersburg University. Via a department of economics. By the standards of Swedish intelligence, this was undeniably pretty clever.

  “Is the university paying salaries to people working in this department?”

  The rector jerked.

  “Of course not. There is a woman who is here as part of the international exchange, but she is not paid by the university—I can assure you of that! She has an office paid for by the institute in Sweden.”

  Pashie Kovalenko. Right now she’s chewing on a plastic tube in my storage room, thought Lazarev. Everything that has anything to do with these infiltrators must disappear.

  He lifted his glass to his mouth. Was it the university’s water pipes that created the iron taste? Or was it the memory of blood? He swallowed and licked his lips.

  He would have to prevent this little disturbance from growing into anything bigger; the others in the organization could not be allowed to find out anything. If they did, it would have a catastrophic effect, especially on his own position. It was particularly important to protect the project now, when the ultimate goal was within reach.

  Strangely enough, Lazarev felt a warmth spreading within him when he thought of the task that lay before him. Once again, he had been called upon to complete his work. The thought made him feel young again.

  He pointed a long finger at the rector.

  “Levy,” he said. “Your university has been infiltrated by Swedish military intelligence. And this has happened on your watch.”

  “But Mr. Chairman!” the rector protested. “Surely you can’t be serious?”

  “Do you realize what a scandal this is? What it can mean for your career?”

  Levy stared at Lazarev with his mouth open.

  “What can I do to make things right, Mr. Chairman?”

  “The fact is that I can save you.”

  Lazarev bent to the side and took a little cuckoo clock from the pocket of his coat.

  “Take this present for Mr. Mishin’s department and put it in the room the Swedes are renting. When the bird sings at exactly two in the afternoon tomorrow, you will be sitting in one of the city’s better restaurants. Treat yourself to the fine lunch you don’t deserve.”

  The rector stared at the gift in Lazarev’s hand and then at Lazarev.

  Levy was a coward but not an idiot. He realized what Lazarev was asking him to do. And he realized he had to do it. If he didn’t, he would risk his own life or the university’s future financing. And those two things were all Levy cared about.

  The rector nodded.

  “Of course, Mr. Chairman. Your generosity is beyond . . .”

  Lazarev held up a hand. “There is one more thing.”

  The rector swallowed; his Adam’s apple rose and fell.

  “What kind of contact do you have with your former colleague? Isn’t he getting tired of running the town hall now? Time for new and bigger adventures?”

  Levy looked down at his desk. “It’s been a few years since I last spoke with the mayor, Mr. Chairman.”

  “Then I’ll give you a further gift. Before two p.m. tomorrow you will improve your relationship with him. The mayor’s right-hand man, the head of the Committee for External Relations and International Matters, is a clever young man who makes things happen.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard about him.”

  “Inform him that the university has been infiltrated by Swedish military intelligence. Also inform him that you have received several warnings from the gas company about your pipes. They’re old and worn, and an accident could happen at any time. There is a particular police inspector, Papanov, who would be an appropriate person to take on the investigation.”

  “I understand, Mr. Chairman.”

  Lazarev placed the cuckoo clock on the table in front of the rector. Then he rose.

  “I’m glad we could reach agreement in this matter.”

  The rector sat mutely, staring at the cuckoo clock.

  Lazarev paused in the doorway. “I wish you good luck training young capitalists who can lift Mother Russia from her knees.”

  Lazarev walked over to the fence in a corner of the university campus where there was a view of the canal and Kazan Cathedral. He took out his satellite phone and looked through his international contacts. Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden. There it was.

  His Swedish contact had approached the organization on his own initiative. He had a perfect background and familial situation and was now ideally positioned in Swedish society.

  To help him, Lazarev had a soldier. A good man who had walked with Lazarev through the towns of Afghanistan. Loyal, not destroyed by life outside the
fatherland.

  Lazarev dialed the number. The receiving phone rang four times before someone answered.

  “I’m listening,” said the man.

  “Good. I have further jobs that need to be carried out in Sweden.”

  21

  Margarita Yushkova’s scared look stayed with Max as he hurried up the dormitory stairs. The light was on in the lounge on his floor. Mishin was sitting there. He had made himself a cup of tea in the kitchen, and before him on the sofa lay a white padded envelope bearing a large red stamp: “Return to sender.”

  “Strebor told me that you had gone off with a helper,” said Mishin. “How did that go?”

  Max sat down on a chair across from him. He told Mishin about what they had seen in Toksovo. The mess. The destroyed documents. The blood on the bathroom mirror. Their certainty that Pashie had been kidnapped. She simply couldn’t be dead. Someone had abducted her, and he would find her.

  Mishin sat in silence for some minutes.

  “I am terribly sorry,” he said. “I have thought all kinds of thinkable and unthinkable thoughts, that she could have fallen in front of a train or been stabbed in the back by one of those crazy heroin users there are more and more of these days.”

  Mishin warmed his hands on his mug and then met Max’s gaze. He looked like a tired scientist who had gotten lost in his own theories. Laws of nature that no longer seemed applicable.

  “After a while, I felt convinced that her disappearance had something to do with her background,” he said with a tired sigh. “You can never flee from who you are.”

  Max’s heart rate rose when he heard Mishin’s resigned words. His own secret was impossible to discover. On the surface, he appeared to have his existence under complete control, but he was still trying to flee from the feeling of inferiority. From the shame.

  He didn’t know whether it was because his father had been a foster child, but Max had always felt like an outsider. Growing up, he had to be satisfied with what he had: his family and friends, the sea and the hunt. Just like Pashie, he had done his best to escape the limitations of his childhood. He had wanted to become more than a simple islander.

  Pashie’s secret was more difficult to conceal, but she did the best she could. At the same time, her shame was also her pride.