The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel полностью

“You show restraint on the street,” barked Dominika to Blokhin in Russian. “We are here in undocumented alias. Back in Moscow you can kill whomever you want. But not here, not when you’re with me.” Blokhin looked at Dominika as if deciding whether to bite, then looked past her and said obozhdat, wait, and pulled open the door to a bookstore, and went in, Dominika on his heels. The store was enormous, with three floors of books on shelves and tables and people reading in overstuffed chairs, the air laced with the aroma of brewed coffee from a café on the second level. Dominika watched Blokhin scan a store directory, squinting like a Visigoth reading a milepost on the road to Rome, until he walked to the fiction section and found Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, which he looked at closely, riffling the pages.

“You have no English,” said Dominika. “How can you read it?” Blokhin looked at her blankly. “There are editions in the original Russian you could read instead,” she said.

“I want to learn English. I will teach myself,” he said, as casually as if he had declared “I will learn to bake bread.”

Blokhin’s black bat wings spread, then folded. He was lying about something, she decided; perhaps he read English. “Why this book?” said Dominika. It was quite amazing, this squat commando gripping the paperback like a pistol, determined to start reading.

“I have been told about this work. It is a great Russian novel.” Told by whom? Sitting around the Spetsnaz squad room honing bayonets, discussing Dostoyevsky? “It is about permissible murder in pursuit of a higher purpose,” said Blokhin with surprising lucidity. Something you would feel at home with, no doubt, thought Dominika. She left him gazing at the books, left the bookstore, walked to a shoe store three doors down, and began looking at strappy sandals on display. She meant to conduct a little street test: How would Blokhin react when he looked up from his books to find Dominika gone? Was he here in New York to keep tabs on her?

“Do you like this style?” asked Blokhin, suddenly behind her, making her jump. He was slipping a pair of sunglasses into his jacket pocket, and he took the sandal from her and inspected it, rubbing his dill-pickle fingers over the leather. How had he found her so quickly with hundreds of shops fifty meters from the bookstore? She’d have to double-check her status before meeting Gable tonight. Sergeant Blokhin was someone with secret skills, and not just cutting throats. A copy of his novel was in a small plastic bag.

Blokhin then declared himself hungry and insisted they go into a Korean restaurant for barbecued ribs, which he had consumed in great quantities during past joint-commando exercises in North Korea. Blokhin inhaled the gleaming ribs accompanied by mounds of vermillion kimchi, green onion and cucumber salad, and ssamjang, a spicy paste smeared on accompanying lettuce leaves.

Blowing garlic like a contented whale, Blokhin next dived into a sprawling sporting-goods store and spent an hour looking at wire saws, camp hatchets, machetes, and survival knives. His eyes said everything: he expertly appraised each item as a weapon, a killing instrument. “This is an ingenious tool,” said Blokhin, running the teeth of a wire saw lightly over his fingertips. “Loop this over a branch, pull it back and forth with these handles, and it cuts wood like a regular pila, a saw.” Ingenious indeed, thought Dominika. A throat would cut easier than a pine bough.

“You won’t be allowed on the plane with any of this stuff,” Dominika told him in Russian. “Cable the rezidentura to pouch one back for you, or two: one for Major Shlykov as well. I’m sure his trees need pruning too.” Blokhin ignored the comment and put the saw down. Dominika wanted to create just enough enmity between them so that she could feign mounting dislike and impatience, and leave the Repina reception early to rendezvous with Gable.

“It would be wise not to make an enemy of the major,” said Blokhin softly, several minutes later, back out on the street.

“Why is that?” said Dominika.

“Because then you would become my enemy,” he said, the tips of his black airfoils extending slightly behind his head, like a cobra flaring his neck hood in threat display.