An Affair of Deceit (19 page)

“He is a good boy,” the old woman explained in terse English. “He gives us what we need.”

“I can see that,” Riley answered as he looked around the small but clean kitchen in which they sat. And from what he could tell, the woman did have what she needed: a safe place to live; ample, fresh food; running water; and indoor plumbing.

The amenities were more than many other terrorist madmen allotted their servants, but then Kral wasn’t a terrorist to these people; he was the cousin or uncle or nephew who rescued them from a repressive regime and brought them to a peaceful town where they could live and work in peace.

“How are you related to him?” Riley asked.

She shrugged. “
Sestřenice
.”

He glanced down at the phrasebook he carried. “You’re his cousin?”

“
Ano
,” she confirmed.

“His parents. They live here too?”

The woman scowled. “No English.”

She’d understood it well enough before that question. He’d struck a nerve. “I’m sorry. I speak almost no Czech. Let’s see.” He checked his phrasebook again to verify how to ask where Kral’s parents were. “
Kde je Lukas matky a otce?
”

It earned him another dark scowl. She waved a meaty hand. “Gone.”

Riley nodded seriously, trying to puzzle out whether she meant that Kral’s parents were dead, gone from the town, or if she was ordering him and Abigail to leave. Hard to know, but with her hard, dark eyes boring into him, he knew this woman wasn’t happy to be discussing Kral’s family life.

“Does he have a brother?” Abigail interjected.

Riley suppressed an urge to elbow her in the ribs.

Kral’s cousin’s scowl deepened in a fierce, teeth-baring warning. “He has no brother.”

“Are you sure?” Abigail pressed.

“He has no brother. You leave now!”

They did as ordered, with Riley apologizing as Abigail stormed out.

“You have to let me handle these people,” he said as they stood together in the shade of a building.

“You can’t let them push you around, Riley. That woman knows something.”

“She probably does. But she’s not going to tell you if she doesn’t trust you.”

“She has no right to keep evidence from the authorities.”

“What authorities? The CIA? They don’t care about our acronyms. We have very little authority over here. Or are you going to be the one who straps an old lady to an interrogation chair?”

“Would it be better if she were a younger lady?” She glared at him before she marched away to the next house.

He reminded himself not to mention CIA interrogation techniques. Rightly, she remained upset that she’d been strapped down and interrogated in Arles.

Bright Aegean-blue paint coated the next door, although it was chipped and splintered. He knocked, doing his best to keep Abigail behind him this time.

The wrinkled woman who opened the door was short, stocky, and had a look of deep suspicion on her timeworn face. What most took Riley aback were her luminous, pale blue eyes.

The woman said nothing as she stood barring the entrance with one hand on the doorknob.

“
Dobrý den
,” Riley said, a common Czech greeting.

“
Dobrý den
,” she responded cautiously.

“
Jmenuji se James Riley. Toto je Slečna Abigail Mason,
” he said as introduction.

The old woman nodded, staring past him at Abigail. Riley supposed she’d not had much opportunity to see a person of Asian ancestry in this locked-down village of hers.

“
Mluvím jen trochu česky. Mluvíte anglicky?
” Riley explained that he only understood a bit of Czech, and asked if she spoke English.

“What do you want?” she asked in sharp English, her eyes radiant even in the dim light.

“I’d like to learn more about your town.”

She cocked her head to one side. “This place? Why?”

“It’s very interesting to me.”

“You are the people who invaded yesterday, no?”

“Yes.” Riley couldn’t deny it. “We mean you no harm.”

“That is what they all say,” she said, but she swung open the door and gestured in vague welcome. “I am Beta. Come, come. I make tea.”

Riley grabbed Abigail’s hand as they followed the old woman into her home. Beta wobbled to the center of the room and fussed
with a red enamel teakettle atop a woodstove. Riley took stock of his surroundings. Dried herbs hung in bunches around a window. Hundreds of glass and ceramic canisters lined the wooden shelves that bordered every wall.

To Riley’s eyes, it looked like Beta was some sort of traditional healer.

He sat down with Abigail at a worn wooden table near the large black stove.

“You want to know about Lukas, yes?” Beta asked, not looking up from her kettle.

“Yes,” Riley admitted, grabbing Abigail’s hand again under the table, willing her to let him ask the questions. “How are you related to him?”

“I am his
prateta
. Teta Beta, he calls me.” Kral’s great-aunt smiled broadly, revealing a mouthful of clean but badly misaligned teeth. “How are you and Slečna Abigail related?”

Riley glanced at Abigail, who was stone-faced. “We’re not related.”

“Then what are you?”

It was a very direct question, and as much as Riley wanted to avoid it, he sensed that Teta Beta was savvy enough to demand answer for answer.

“We are friends,” he said.

Abigail’s hand became rigid in his.

“You knew Lukas Kral when he was a child, then?” Riley asked.

“Oh yes! Such a happy little boy, so much joy. He was the light of his mother’s eye.”

“Is his mother still living?”

“No.” Beta looked away.

“Is his father?” Abigail asked.

“No. So many questions! Drink your tea.” She placed two rough-hewn ceramic mugs on the table. He lifted one to his nose and smelled lemon. Considering how unlikely it was that this
woman would want to poison him, he drank, and was rewarded by the delicious depth of the drink.

“
Děkuji
, Teta Beta,” he thanked her as she sat opposite him. He waited until she’d sipped her mug before asking his next question.

“When did you last see your homeland?”

“Many years. Almost twenty.”

“You must miss it.”

“Of course. Have you been there?”

“Yes, several years ago,” Riley said. “I travel often, but there is so much in the world to see, it’s hard to go to the same place twice.”

“The world is big, yes.” The old healer smiled at Riley. “But you will never appreciate it if you are always running from one place to the next.”

“How do you like France?” Riley asked, veering the conversation back to her.

She shrugged. “Good dirt. Easy to grow things.”

“Were you a healer in Czechoslovakia as well?” he asked. “It would have been hard under the Communists.”

“The Communists were not all bad.”

“Then why are you hiding out here?” Abigail asked.

Beta’s small eyes narrowed into slits. “We do not hide. We
live
. We are safe. What more do we need?”

“Freedom. Independence. The ability to pursue goals that don’t fit in with Lukas Kral’s master plan,” Abigail argued.

“You do not understand Lukas. He is a good boy.”

“He may have been once, Teta Beta, but he’s a monster now.”

“He is no monster. He does not hurt anyone.”

Abigail opened her mouth to answer, but Riley interrupted. “You must be very close to Lukas.”

“As close as one can be. He keeps to himself.”

“What troubles him?” Riley asked.

“When the Russians came back, you see…” Beta looked away.

“In 1968?” Riley prodded. “They came back with tanks and put down the revolution?”

“You cannot understand.” She shook her head firmly. “The Russians saved us from the Germans. Then they turned on us when we wanted more freedom. It is the story of European history, over and over again. Nothing changes. That is why I like it here. We are left alone. Lukas makes sure of it.”

“Lukas would have been a young boy in 1968,” Riley said. “What happened to him?”

Beta’s pale blue eyes flashed back to his. “We had no choice. When his parents died, the Russians took him away to a, how do you call it? A place for children with no family?”

“An orphanage,” Abigail offered.

“Yes, mostly,” Beta agreed. “It was a good school. They had better education than what we could have given them.”

“Given whom?”

“Given Lukas.” Beta stood and brushed her hands on her skirt. “You like more tea?”

“Yes,
prosím
,” Riley said aloud before turning to Abigail to whisper, “You can’t push her.”

“She said ‘they had better education than what we could have given them,’” she hissed back. “
They. Them
. Plural. There is more than one child in her story.”

“Maybe she’ll say it in another way. Let me lead.”

Beta returned to the table, teakettle in hand. She gave Abigail an indulgent smile. “Your father, he has met your young man? He approves?”

“There’s nothing to approve,” Abigail mumbled, but then she turned to him. “You haven’t met my father, have you?”

Riley was surprised to realize that he’d never told her. “Once, back in the States, we were called in to the same meeting. He was formidable.”

Abigail held his stare, her expression blank.

“They have met, and you just now find out?” Beta clucked. “You should be speaking to your father more often, Slečna Abigail.”

“I’d rather not discuss my personal life.”

Beta settled back on her chair and placed her hands into her lap. “You do not wish to speak to me of your family. I understand. This is just business, yes? No need for personal.”

The not-too-subtle message was that they’d offended her. Riley tried to reengage her with a smile. “Teta Beta, I’m sorry. I was enjoying hearing you speak about Lukas’s childhood.”

Beta sniffed, but she didn’t continue her tale.

Riley opened his mouth, but Abigail spoke first.

“I’m not trying to be rude or dismissive, Teta Beta. But my father,” Abigail began, haltingly, “I don’t know much about him. I haven’t seen him in a very long time.”

“Ah, I see. And it hurts you to speak of him?”

Abigail’s jaw tightened. “It’s more that there’s nothing to speak of.”

“I’m so sorry.” Beta’s hand slid across the table to clutch Abigail’s fist.

Her cheeks reddened. “My father…he’s the real reason we’re here. He’s missing. He was last seen with Lukas, and now we don’t know where they are. But we think my father may be being held against his will. We’re only trying to figure out why.”

Beta’s expression clouded. “If your father is as formidable as your friend says, he will be fine.”

“It’s not just him we’re concerned about,” Riley added. “Lukas has weapons, bad ones, and we do not know how he intends to use them.”

“He will sell them, as he always does.” Beta’s face was hard. “Lukas does not commit violence.”

“No, he gets other people to do it for him.” Abigail pulled her hand away. “You can’t really think that he’s still a harmless little boy?”

“There is nothing I can do about it,” Beta replied, her lips tight.

“You’re not powerless,” Riley interjected. “You can help us. All we know about him we’ve learned from his crimes. We know little else about the man. It could make a difference.”

Beta stared at him for a full minute. Then she nodded firmly, stood, and walked to the window. She pushed her herbs aside and pulled the pane down softly, closing the window.

“No one can hear this, you understand?” she said quietly as she walked back to the table and sat. “Lukas has become, how do you say? Not right in the head. He is fearful and angry, and he does not trust anyone, not even his family.”

“Why?” Riley asked.

She sighed. “It is all because of what they did to him in that place, that orphanage. It was a good school, but they taught him things a boy should not know. When he grew up, he worked for them. I do not know what he did, but it was not good things.”

“KGB,” Abigail murmured.

“Yes, Slečna Abigail. Soviet security agency. KGB. Lukas was KGB.” Beta spit the letters out like they were poison. “He was a smart boy, and they squeezed him dry.”

“Why did he leave the KGB?” Riley asked.

“KGB left
him
. He believed their propaganda, lived with them as brothers, and when we won our independence in 1989, the Soviet dogs crawled back to Russia. They left Lukas with nothing, so now he does what he was trained to do. Bad things, sometimes, but it is all he knows.”

Riley knew something about this. “Couldn’t he have gone to Russia when Czechoslovakia declared its independence?”

“Bah! Russia.” Beta nearly spit on the floor. “You want to talk about violence? No. Russia is no place for anyone. Lukas stayed in Czechoslovakia and built his empire. The new capitalism made him money, and sometimes I think his way was no worse than any other. There are so many criminals in Czech Republic
now, all taking advantage of new system.” She sighed. “I am glad to be here.”

“When did you move here, exactly? Can you remember?”

“Of course I remember. It was 1995.”

“Did everyone come?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“What about his brother? Is he here?”

“Brother? Lukas has no brother. No sister.”

“There was no one he grew up with? No cousin?”

“Cousin.” Beta nodded slowly, as though the movement pained her. “There was one. And yes, they were close. Very close. They lived together for many years before the Russians came back. And they were sent away together to that KGB orphanage. But the cousin, he did not come back. I never saw him again.”

“What was his cousin’s name?” Riley asked.

Beta smiled softly. “Petr.”