The Russian Read online

  Life, however, had other ideas, and she found that her stage was not to be at the opera house, but in a gentleman’s club in central Moscow. It was a club where, at that moment, an overweight Japanese businessman slipped American dollar bills into her thong.

  “Shake it,” he yelled, his Russian barely comprehensible.

  He was so drunk he could hardly stand, but she could tell he had money, so she shook it. The louder he yelled, the faster she went.

  Like a dog doing tricks for a biscuit.

  After her three-song set, she found him slumped over the bar, being rude to the waitress. She could smell the vodka from five feet away. She pulled up a stool and cleared her throat.

  “There you are,” she said.

  He turned and almost fell off his seat. She had to prop him up.

  “You almost made me forget where I was,” he said in his heavy accent, nodding toward the pole she’d been spinning on.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re just like a tiger,” he said, slurring the words.

  She wasn’t sure what he meant but took it as a compliment. “You like what you saw?”

  She tried to make eye contact, she always tried to look a man in the eye before locking herself in a room with him, but this man was so drunk she couldn’t get a feel for him. He stared at her, blinking slowly, and then his gaze dropped to her chest.

  “You really ought to get me in the champagne room,” she said, taking his hand.

  “The champagne room?”

  She nodded toward a set of glass steps leading to the VIP area.

  “You’re going to love it in there. I even know how to say daddy in Japanese.”

  “Japanese?” he slurred. “I’m not Japanese.”

  “What are you?”

  “I’m from China.”

  She leaned in and brushed her lips against his ear.

  “Then let me take you upstairs,” she said, getting down from her seat. “I’ll show you things they’ve never even seen in China.”

  She pressed her body against his and pulled him from the stool.

  He followed her, stumbling so badly the bouncer had to help him with the steps.

  Once in the private room, she got straight to work. She had to make as much money as possible before he passed out. There was a cordless credit card terminal, and she keyed in the five hundred dollar room fee, which went straight to the house, her three hundred dollar entertainment fee, and a two hundred dollar tip, which she split with the bouncer.

  “Come on, baby,” she cooed as he fumbled for his wallet. Only when the transaction cleared did she let him order a bottle of blue label Johnnie Walker from the waitress.

  His money bought him an hour of dancing, during which he could get away with quite a lot, but not everything. Some of the girls offered extra services, but Larissa was not one of them. She was a dancer. On that point, she was adamant.

  They could look. They could touch. She’d even sit in their lap and beg them to rescue her from her life of misery.

  “Take me home with you,” she’d coo. They loved nothing more than hearing her beg.

  But she was no whore.

  Once she had them alone, it wasn’t unusual for the men to lose control, to forget themselves, to do and say things they shouldn’t. In such situations, it was surprisingly easy to get a man to divulge secrets he was sworn to protect. Secrets that should rightly have been taken to the grave. Secrets that would cost lives if they ever got into the wrong hands.

  And Larissa gathered them up like the treasures they were. She collected them. They were the only reason she could still look at herself in the mirror without wanting to smash it.

  The club was located just blocks from the Kremlin, halfway between the infamous Lubyanka, home of the FSB, and the gigantic Stalinist tower that housed the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  It was a place powerful men gravitated to, drawn like flies to shit. They let down their guard there. They lost their money, blew their load, and most important of all, made mistakes.

  Larissa hadn’t expected much from this man. He wasn’t her usual type. He gave out information too freely, told her he was from Beijing. He looked like a company man making the most of his overseas trip. His suit was well-tailored. His watch was Patek Philippe. She watched him pour the whiskey down his gullet and wondered how long it would take before he became incomprehensible. Then he said something she hadn’t expected. He said he’d spent the day in Moscow’s tallest building.

  Her eyes widened.

  She’d heard it called that before. He wasn’t referring to one of the sleek new skyscrapers in Presnensky, where six of Europe’s eight tallest buildings now stood. He wasn’t referring to the fancy new hotels on the Garden Ring that soared above the neighboring blocks. She immediately knew he meant the nine-story, baroque, Lubyanka building, the former home of the Cheka and the KGB, the place where Russian political dissidents had been taken and tortured for over a century. There was a dark joke from Stalin’s time, that it was Moscow’s tallest building, because Siberia could be seen from its basement.

  Larissa, sitting on his lap, leaned in close and ran her lips along his neck.

  “Who did you meet there?” she whispered.

  “I met a real-life polar bear,” the man said.

  “A polar bear?”

  “They called him a polar bear. He’s a freak of nature, big as a bear and white as snow.”

  “A big man?”

  “Even his eyelashes are white,” the man said. “It doesn’t look right.”

  “And what did you discuss with this polar bear?” she said, biting the lobe of his ear.

  His answer made her blood freeze.

  Instinctively, she knew it wasn’t a trick.

  Her heart pounded in her chest. This was what she’d been waiting two years to hear.

  Real, actionable intelligence.

  The man was blackout drunk, and when he passed out a few minutes later, she slipped out of the room and made her way to the staff area. There, she locked herself in a bathroom stall and threw up.

  “Rough night?” one of the other girls said to her when she came out.

  “Something I ate,” Larissa said.

  The other girl shook her head. “Naughty girl.”

  Larissa nodded. She liked the other girls. They weren’t catty. They looked out for each other.

  Larissa got dressed and clocked out early.

  Her boss caught her on the way out. “Where are you going?” he said.

  “Got my period,” she said, brushing past. It had worked with her high school gym teacher, and it worked here.

  Her beat-up Volkswagen was in the lot behind the club, and she got in and turned the ignition. It took a few tries, the Moscow winter was very hard on engines, but eventually it fired up. She drove straight to the Leningradsky train station on Komsomolskaya Square. It was the middle of the night and there was no traffic.

  The station, all but deserted, was one of the biggest in the country. It served as the terminal for high-speed connections between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, a seven-hundred-kilometer trip the trains covered in just four hours. It was faster than flying. The station also served a number of commuter routes, and at the platform for one of these local services was a bank of coin-operated lockers.

  Larissa went to the last locker on the platform and entered a four-digit code. The door clicked open. She expected to find a pen and notebook. For two years, that was how she’d been communicating with her contact in the GRU. Instead, there was only a black shoebox. An ornate logo was embossed in silver on the lid.

  She glanced around the terminal nervously. It was deathly quiet. She’d been warned only ever to access the locker when the station was busy. She suddenly wished she’d listened.

  She reached into the locker and opened the shoebox carefully. There was blue crepe paper inside, and beneath that was a pair of baby blue Prada stilettos. She recognized them instantly and a knot of emotion
caught in her throat. Her eyes filled with tears.

  On top of the shoes was a cardboard matchbook, the kind given out at restaurants and bars, and when she saw it she knew the worst had happened.

  Tatyana was burned.

  9

  Larissa didn’t know what to do.

  Tatyana had told her this day would come, the day she would no longer have a protector, but now that it was here, she felt unprepared.

  She put the matchbook in her pocket and walked out of the station with the shoebox under her arm. Even though she’d brought her car, she walked right past it and got into one of the waiting cabs.

  “Where to?” the driver said when she failed to say anything.

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly.

  “Lady,” the driver said, “are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

  She looked at his reflection in the mirror. “I’m sorry,” she said, getting back out of the cab.

  “You need some help?” he called, but she shut the door without answering.

  Her heart pounded at a million miles an hour. For two years, her life had had a sense of order. She’d had a purpose. She’d known what she was supposed to do. It wasn’t perfect, it was hard, but she knew that if she kept showing up to work, she’d be able to gather information. And she knew that if she kept going to the locker in the train station, she’d be able to write that information in the notebook for Tatyana.

  She didn’t know what Tatyana did with the information.

  She didn’t know if it changed anything.

  But she felt she was a part of something. She was part of a resistance.

  Now, with Tatyana gone, she felt utterly alone. Utterly alone and utterly vulnerable.

  She began walking toward the Garden Ring. The wind was bitingly cold, but it helped calm her. She needed to clear her mind. She lit a cigarette with a match from the matchbook and sucked on it like her life depended on it.

  She’d only ever met Tatyana one time. It was on the street on her way home from work. That was two years ago.

  Some men had been outside the club when she got off work, and they followed her as she walked toward the metro station. She didn’t recognize them. They hadn’t been at the club. One wore a leather jacket and jeans, the other a gray coat. She still remembered their faces.

  They seemed drunk, following her down the street, catcalling and whistling. She’d increased her pace. Walking to the metro was dangerous, many of the girls took cabs, but Larissa refused to waste good money on that. She’d had a driver once who’d scared her, so she didn’t feel like she was much safer either way. That night on the deserted street, the two men following her, she’d have given anything for a cab to pull up and let her in.

  But none came.

  She could hear the men gaining on her but was afraid if she started to run, they’d chase her down. She kept walking as briskly as she could, and when she rounded the corner of a small, private park, within sight of the Bolshoi where she’d once dreamed of dancing, she panicked and broke into an all-out run. Almost immediately, the men were on top of her. One grabbed the strap of her purse and yanked it, flinging her hard against the iron fence that enclosed the park.

  She fell to the ground and when she tried to get up, the other man put his boot on the back of her head and pushed her back down. They laughed.

  Larissa looked at the concrete pavement in front of her face and took a deep breath. In that moment, her thinking became very clear. The contours of her life came into stark relief. She knew who she was, she knew what her country had become, and she understood that she had only two options. Either she fought, tooth and nail, or she surrendered.

  She clenched her fists, ready to claw out the eyes of the first man to lay hands on her, but neither of them did. They’d stopped laughing, and she turned to see why.

  A slick BMW with blacked-out windows pulled up to the curb. An expensively-dressed woman stepped out, and Larissa saw her draw a gun from a Gucci purse. She pointed it at the men. They raised their hands.

  “We were just having some fun,” one said.

  “Get away from her, or I’ll shoot your nuts off,” the woman said.

  They backed away, then turned and ran.

  The woman walked to Larissa and helped her to her feet.

  “My name is Tatyana,” she said. “Let me take you home.”

  Larissa got into the car with her and gave her the address to her apartment. Neither spoke during the drive. Larissa clenched the handle on the door and stared at Tatyana’s purse. It was black alligator skin, and the clasp was a jewel-encrusted head of a panther. Larissa thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  They arrived at the building and Tatyana double-parked in front of the door.

  “Thank you,” Larissa said, her hand on the door.

  Tatyana put her hand on Larissa’s. “Invite me up,” she said.

  Larissa was still staring at the purse. The sparkling panther. “You don’t,” she said, searching for the words, “you’re not looking to get weird, are you?”

  Tatyana laughed. “I assure you, you’re not my type.”

  Larissa was finding it hard to breathe. She was afraid she was going to burst into tears at any moment.

  She got out of the car and took deep breaths of the cold night air. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her purse, lit one, and began walking toward her building. She didn’t look back but heard Tatyana following.

  Neither spoke in the elevator, although they looked at each other, sizing each other up like two schoolgirls on their first day.

  Larissa saw Tatyana’s face in the light for the first time and her breath caught in her throat.

  “You’re…,” she said, her voice trailing off.

  “I’m what?” Tatyana said.

  Larissa shook her head. How was this possible? She felt as if she was looking in a mirror.

  The elevator stopped, and Larissa led the way to the door, although she sensed by now that Tatyana already knew the way. She dropped her keys while trying to unlock the door, and Tatyana put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Relax,” she said.

  They entered the apartment, and Larissa led the way to the small kitchen. It wasn’t a fancy apartment, and Larissa remembered feeling embarrassed. She felt like Tatyana was used to more luxurious surroundings. Her cat came out of the bedroom and rubbed against Tatyana’s legs.

  “Sorry for the mess,” she said.

  “It’s nice,” Tatyana said.

  Larissa looked at her again, then looked away. She had to force herself not to stare. She filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

  “Tea?” she said, her hand shaking from nerves.

  “You really should try to calm yourself,” Tatyana said. “You’re safe.”

  Larissa nodded. She looked into Tatyana’s eyes.

  “What is it?” Tatyana said.

  Larissa shook her head. “We could be mistaken for sisters,” she said.

  Tatyana nodded, like none of this surprised her. She sat down at the kitchen table and put her hands in front of her. “We do look alike,” she said.

  “Although I’d kill for a pair of shoes like that,” Larissa said.

  Tatyana smiled. Some of the tension lifted. Tatyana was wearing a pair of baby blue Prada pumps. She looked down at them and said, “I thought dancers made crazy money.”

  Larissa said, “How do you know where I work?”

  “I’m on your side,” Tatyana said again. “You’re safe. I promise.”

  Larissa didn’t know what to make of that. The kettle came to a boil, and she poured the hot water into the teapot. She held a teabag by the string and bobbed it up and down in the water.

  “How do you know where I work?” she said again.

  “Larissa,” Tatyana said, “believe me when I say we’re on the same side.”

  Larissa picked up the teapot and two china cups and walked to t
he table.

  “And what side is that?” she said.

  She was holding the pot of scalding tea just inches from Tatyana’s face.

  “Put the teapot down,” Tatyana said. “Please.”

  Larissa put the pot and cups on the table and said again, “What side?”

  “The side that’s tired of the way things are,” Tatyana said, pouring the tea.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Larissa said.

  “I’m talking about an Akula-class submarine that went down almost thirty years ago.”

  The blood drained from Larissa’s face. “Who are you?” she said.

  “I’m a friend.”

  “I think you should leave.”

  “Larissa, sit down.”

  “Get out.”

  Tatyana finished pouring the tea. “Do you take sugar?” she said.

  “Get out of my apartment right now,” Larissa said, her voice trembling with emotion.

  Tatyana picked up her cup and took a sip of the tea. “I’m here to give you the chance to get even,” she said.

  Larissa stared at her.

  “Please sit,” Tatyana said.

  Larissa sat down. Tatyana passed her a teacup.

  Larissa tried to pick it up, but her hands were trembling so badly she spilled it.

  “It’s all right,” Tatyana said, her voice as soft as if she was soothing a child.

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Larissa said.

  Tatyana looked at her. “Don’t you want to get even?”

  Larissa let out a laugh. “There’s no getting even in this world.”

  Tatyana nodded. “That’s what I thought,” she said. “My father was also on that submarine.”

  Larissa shook her head. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Who are you?” she said.

  Tatyana reached into her pocket and pulled out an old photograph. It was black and white and very worn. On it were two men, both in the uniforms of the Akula-class nuclear submarine Larissa’s father had died on.

  Larissa took the photograph and looked at it closely. She said, “That’s my father.”

  Tatyana nodded.

  “Where did you get this?”