Sabotage (23 page)

“What about it?”

“The flask bears a coat of arms with a shield and sword,” she said, passing it to him. “Notice the red star in the middle, with a hammer and sickle inside it. It's the KGB insignia.”

He examined the flask.

“I doubt these were ever handed out like candy,” he said. “A keen observation, Nancy Drew. You suspect he's ex-KGB?”

“Why else would he carry it? Which leads me to my belief that his real identity would be the Russian one.”

“What's the name?”

“Vasya Kaslov,” she said.

Austin polished the vessel's silver with his shirt. “You may be right. There's something on the bottom.”

“What is it?”

“An engraving. Initials, I'd guess. V.A.K. What's the middle name on Vasya's passport?”

“Anatolievich.”

“I'd say it's a match. Let's verify with a little experiment. Can I see those passports?” She handed them over. “Have you jotted down the information from each?”

She held up a notepad. “It's all here. Where are you going?”

“To chat with the train conductor. Back in a flash.”

Austin made his way into the adjacent car and found the man wearing a black cap, gold-trimmed visor, and whistle. The conductor was leaning out between cars, fixated on the passing terrain. His badge read, “Yuri.”

“Excuse me,” Austin said.

“Hello,” the conductor replied.

“May I ask a favor … Yuri?”

“What?”

“At the last train station, someone tried to pick my pocket. He wasn't quick enough, and I scared him off. After he tried to rob me, I followed the guy and managed to swipe a few passports from his bag of stolen goodies.”

Yuri shrugged. “What you want me to do?”

“Help return the stolen IDs,” Austin said.

He fanned out the passports like a hand of cards.

“Why not do yourself?”

“I don't want anyone to think I stole them.” The conductor obviously didn't want to be bothered. “You wear the uniform,” Austin added. “Besides, the top passport looks like it might be yours.”

“Mine?”

Yuri looked at him strangely, then opened the passport to find a folded bill inside. His disinterest gave way to what looked like real concern as he slipped the bribe into his pocket.

“Sorry about thief,” he said. “I will try and return passports.”

“No need to credit the Good Samaritan who gave those to you,” Austin said. “In fact, he didn't even board the train. Understood?”

“Okay, yes,” Yuri answered.

“I'll be waiting here after you've scoured the train.”

*   *   *

Victoria had allowed herself to become mesmerized by the railcar's steady cadence, its rhythm complemented by the occasional screech of steel on steel. Austin walked in holding an imaginary pipe and magnifying glass.

“Your intuition was correct,” he said. “If our midnight assassin does carry his true identity with him, then he is indeed a Russian citizen by the name of Vasya Anatolievich Kaslov.”

“How do you know?”

“Child's play, my dear Watson.” He handed her five out of the six passports, then explained his ploy with Yuri's help. “Our man must have felt a small shock when the conductor presented him with all six passports, of which he could keep one. And so we learn from his choice which is most important to him. Not only that, but we also know where he sleeps. His car is second to last. We'll be able to follow him to his hotel. All of that for five hundred rubles.”

Victoria pressed her thumb and forefinger to her chin. “Nice sleuthing.”

“I humbly agree, but the initial hunch was yours.”

“Only because I noticed the flask, which seems even more relevant now.”

“We have yet to prove your KGB theory. Does Fyodor have any connections to the Russian government? Might he be able to search any databases for the name Vasya Kaslov?”

“I don't think so, but I'll call him and ask. He'd probably want to search for ‘Vasily,' not the nickname.”

Victoria dialed the number from her international phone. It rang a few times. When someone else picked up, she blanched.

“This is who?… You're doing what?… No, I was not aware. Who let you into his apartment?… This is a dear friend of his. He and my father—” She shook her head in disbelief. Austin leaned in closer. “I'm sorry, I couldn't understand you.… No, I don't speak Russian.… No, I don't know … I don't know how it could have happened.… Yes, I understand you are busy.… Please, continue your investigation. Bye.” She turned to Austin, shaking her head. “That was a Russian police officer. Fyodor is dead.”

He leaned toward her. “I can't believe it! How?”

“A bullet to the neck. Someone reported blood leaking under his door. The police found his body this morning.”

Austin cast a mournful look out the window, then sat beside her, placing a hand over hers. “Victoria, I'm so sorry.”

She turned away from him, resting her head against the pillow in a struggle against tears. The phone conversation had siphoned away her spirit, leaving her distant, enervated. Austin wanted to tell her it was okay to cry, she shouldn't fight the sobs, she should weep before the pent-up sorrow ate away at her—but he knew it wasn't in her nature. She was the type who refused to be pitied or to appear pathetic.

Then, something changed in her. The despondence began to evaporate. Her misty eyes dried like puddles in the midday heat, the lines of her face hardening with an unrealized objective.

“I could tell he loved you very much,” Austin said, lacing his fingers between hers and squeezing tightly.

“My dad knew him a long time. Longer than I ever did.” Her lip twitched. “Kaslov killed him. It had to have been this Vasya Kaslov.”

“Why?”

Victoria shook her head, staring with determination at nothing, her expression conjuring in Austin's mind the image of a bloody cavalry charge. “There must have been a third bug in the apartment. That's led Vasya to us. Fyodor was already dead by the time we had reached our hotel in Saint Petersburg. Vasya shot him with the same gun that nearly ended us.”

“And now we're riding a few cars ahead of the same killer…”

Victoria's nod was bleak, her words resolute. “We'll bring this Vasya Kaslov down. I'll kill him myself if I get to.”

Getting to know Victoria was like opening a set of Russian
matryoshka
dolls, Austin thought. There was always another shell to be removed, a deeper layer to be seen. He sensed newfound strength in her. If the murder of a family friend had elicited this reaction, he could only imagine how she'd behave if the victim had been her father. He admired her passion, but remained mindful that obsession could become hazardous. A certain unholy desire could be healthy, as long as it didn't jeopardize their purpose.

No words passed between them for hours. When night fell, they stretched out in their fold-down beds and slept, lulled by the rocking, bumping train car. They awoke the next morning to squeaking wheels as the train pulled into the Belgian railway station. They thanked the conductor and stepped out of their car into the cool of dawn, mingling with the crowd to remain invisible.

Austin kept his vision glued to the penultimate railcar. Having donned her leather jacket and aviators, Victoria hailed a cab while Austin watched and waited for the assassin to emerge. It would be his first good look at the man who had leveled a pistol on his chest. He expected a chill to pass over him at the sight and was surprised when none came.

There he was.

A man of average height, stepping out near the last car. Handsome, with the swarthy look of a gypsy. Broad shoulders, a sharp widow's peak in his hairline. There was something in his hand—a briefcase.

Austin followed the man outside the station, watched him flag a cab, then located Victoria, who had begun negotiating with a taxi driver. They both looked irritated, apparently at a stalemate, when Austin appeared.

“Just get in,” he said. “We've found our man.” He pointed down the road and said to the driver, a squat, bushy, ill-tempered fellow, “Follow that cab. Don't be obvious.” He turned to Victoria. “Good news.”

“Really?”

“Vasya's carrying a leather briefcase.”

“And?”

“It's your dad's.”

“How do you know?”

“I recognized the shape and color. Somewhere along the way, there was a switch. The office prowler must have given it to him.”

The news lifted Victoria from her gloom. “His laptop! It's probably still inside.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Vasya's taxi zoomed by, and their furry driver stepped on the accelerator. “Just maybe … Baldr's in there.”

“All we need is that laptop and the password. Question is, how do we get them? Vasya clearly knows what he's doing, and he won't like learning we've followed him.”

“We outfox him.”

“Not going to be easy.”

“We can take tonight to brainstorm.”

Their tires jounced on marble cobblestones, and the cab turned into a network of boulevards winding through the heart of Bruges. Austin looked out the window at a street fair, captivated by the city's preserved medieval character—moats, carriages, neo-Gothic structures, steeply sloping roofs, merchant rows. Horse stomps and exhaust pipes were heard together in a strange coincidence of the modern and the archaic. It was a town from the Middle Ages, he thought, though he knew little of its two millennia of history. Beginning as an anti-pirate fortification built by Romans near the edge of the Flemish coastal plain, Bruges would develop an important harbor for trade with Scandinavia. The city's name had come from the Old Norse word
Bryggja,
meaning “landing stage.” Ninth-century Viking raids had prompted the reinforcement of Roman military fortifications and the city's main citadel, enabling trade to continue with little fear of incursion.

Their path meandered in a labyrinthine circuit. Austin hoped the driver knew these streets well. They could easily get trapped in a maze of one-way roads and cordons that blockaded festival territory. The taxi passed the Sint-Salvator Cathedral and crossed a bridge spanning a waterway that encircled the town. Following Vasya's lead, they approached a bell tower rising from the central square. The tower was one of Bruges's most popular landmarks and attracted climbers to tackle its 366 steps. The belfry featured four minarets that pierced up toward the main carillon, housing a clock mechanism and ancient treasury. Flying buttresses supported an octagonal upper structure from which bell-ringers would peer through lancet windows, spying on the market square on one end and a courtyard on the other. Forty-seven bells were now chiming to Beethoven's Ninth.

Austin's imagination ran free as he envisioned knights on horseback galloping through the streets and reptiles slithering through the canal system; shirts and jeans of street vendors became coifs and tunics in his mind. Victoria's voice dispelled his fantasy.

“He's pulling in.”

“Where?” he asked.

“A hotel.”

Austin tapped the cabbie's shoulder. “Keep driving slowly. Don't let him know he has a tail.”

The cabdriver tapped the brakes and kept his distance, just far enough to offer a view of Vasya as he paid his driver and walked inside.

“He went to Boterhuis Hotel,” their driver said. “I saw. Boterhuis in Flemish, it mean
butter house
in English. I saw him go. Historic place.”

Austin said, “Move in a little closer.”

They crouched low in their seats so as not to rouse suspicion. Peering out the window, Victoria said, “I don't think he's spotted us. He's talking with the receptionist. She's giving him a room key…”

“Can you see any numbers?”

Her eyes narrowed behind the aviators. “No. There's too much glare, even with these on.”

“That's okay. Keep moving, driver. There's a place straight across from the Boterhuis.” He pointed to a building on the other side of the street. Over the doorway he could see the words
Hotel Navarra
. “We can track him from there. Whenever he leaves, we'll know.”

“Let's drive around the block a few more times,” Victoria suggested. “I don't want him coming back to the lobby and seeing us. Let him settle. Then we'll check into the Navarra.”

*   *   *

Their room was well suited for surveillance. Windows overlooking the street provided a perfect view of the Boterhuis. They'd pinpointed Vasya's room on the top floor and could observe his motions through a window. Not a hundred yards separated them, and they had a visual line into his room.

Her aim steady, Victoria positioned herself near the windowpanes, kneeling for comfort and drawing the curtains together to hide her face and body. She tweaked the focus on her binocular lenses and didn't leave the viewfinder. “He's talking on the phone,” she relayed as Austin brushed his teeth. “He looks calm. He's sitting on the bed.… I'm looking around the room for objects he was carrying. He travels light…” She rubbed one of the lenses for a better view. “Still talking … He seems absorbed in something.… Now he's walking over to the window…”

“Don't let him see you,” Austin said from the bathroom.

“He won't. I've pulled the drapes around me.”

“Is he still on the phone?”

“Yes, chatting with someone … He seems to be watching the traffic below, or maybe he's just staring into space. I'm looking for the—come on, it has to be there somewhere … Okay, there it is. He's hung up the phone. He's pulling out the briefcase. He's opening it, and…”

“And what?”

There was no response.

“What is it?” Austin mumbled through his toothbrush.

“Dad's laptop is definitely inside. You were right. Somewhere along the way, there was a switch. He picked it up from one of his friends.”