“So it seems. But the case could never be proven in the courts. You see, he is very, very good. He covered his tracks expertly. I can see why Roman Navrozov hired him. But if you are looking for a psychohistory, Nicholas, you might be interested to know that when Zhukov was a boy his father died in a coal-mining accident.”
“Also buried alive?”
“Maybe ‘drowned’ is more accurate. The father worked in an underground mine, and when some of the miners accidentally dug into an abandoned shaft that was filled with water, the tunnels were flooded. Thirty-seven miners drowned.”
“How old was Zhukov?”
“Nine or ten. You can imagine how traumatic this must have been for the families. Especially for the young children who were left fatherless.”
“I don’t see a connection between some childhood trauma and-”
“His mother, Dusya, told our interviewer years ago that her son’s chief complaint at the time was that he never saw it happen. She says that was when she first realized that Dragomir wasn’t like the other little boys.”
Suddenly I didn’t feel sleepy. “He’s not doing this for the money, is he?”
“I’m sure the money will come in handy for his escape and buying new identities and such. But no, I imagine he took this job because it offered him a rare opportunity. I’m just guessing, of course.”
“Opportunity?”
“To watch someone drown before his eyes.”
81.
Alexa sang as loud as she could: songs she liked to dance to, songs she loved listening to. Or just scraps of songs, when she couldn’t remember the rest.
Anything to keep her mind off where she was.
Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” She tried to remember the French lyrics near the end of the song. Something about revenge. That distracted her briefly. Then “Poker Face.” She sang so loud she was almost yelling. But that one was too easy. She imagined being Lady Gaga herself and wearing a skintight outfit made entirely of duct tape.
Black Eyed Peas next. “Imma Be” worked for a little while. She moved on to Ludacris: lots of lyrics there to try to remember. Too many. She tried MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” for a while but that was too hard and she soon gave up.
When she stopped, bored with it and discouraged, her throat hurting, she remembered where she was, and she began to shudder uncontrollably again. It felt like something was raking her nerve endings. She felt chills deep down, her entire body cringing. The way the mere thought of rubbing Styrofoam against cardboard set her teeth on edge.
But the physiological reaction was nothing compared to the deep horror that came over her now, the cold black cloud of fear, as it had done over and over again throughout this nightmare. That realization that there really was something worse than death, and this was it.
She screamed, long and loud, and it became a hopeless sob. She felt her tears scald her cheeks.
She screamed, clawed at the lining of her coffin. Her fingertips hit a hard square object mounted on the lid, and she knew it had to be the video camera.
She could feel the tiny lens and she put her thumb on it.
Held it there for a while.
Now he couldn’t see her.
She had the power to blind the Owl.
She held her thumb over the lens until her hand began to tremble.
Then the Owl’s voice bleated through the speakers and she jumped. “If you are playing a joke, Alexa, this is not a very good idea.”
She didn’t reply. Why should she? She didn’t have to answer him.
Then she thought of something so monumental that her heart began racing from excitement instead of terror.
She could rip the damned camera off its mounting.
She could blind the Owl forever.
Without his camera, he had no power over her!
Grabbing the camera’s casing, she tugged, wiggling it back and forth like a loose tooth to dislodge it from its mounting.
This was genius. The videocam was the key to his whole plot. This was how he made his demands, using her, coaching her, having her recite his bizarre demands over video so Dad would totally freak out.
So she’d get rid of it.
Cut off his access to her, his surveillance. Cripple his scheme, where he couldn’t do anything about it.
Without the video, the Owl’s plan couldn’t work. No camera, no ransom.
Tear down the camera, he’d get desperate. He’d have to improvise.
He’d have to dig her up.
He’d have to fix his damned camera, because that was the key to the whole thing.
Why the hell had it taken her so long to figure this out?
She felt a little warm pulse of pleasure. Her father, who probably did love her after all but totally didn’t respect her, would be proud of her now, wouldn’t he? He’d be amazed at her cleverness, her resourcefulness. He’d say, “My Lexie, you got the saichel, you got the head of a Marcus.”
She gripped the little metal box so hard her whole arm shook. She tugged at it, twisted it, and finally she felt something start to give way.
A tiny piece of something dropped onto her face. She felt it with her left hand. A little metal screw. Must be part of the mounting.
She was doing it. She was ripping out the Owl’s eyes.
She smiled to herself, crazy with triumph, felt the camera thing began to wobble ever so slightly.
A sudden blare: “Another bad idea.”
She didn’t reply.
Of course he didn’t want her to rip the damned thing down. Of course he didn’t want that.
“You know, Alexa, I am your only means of communication with the world,” the voice said. Not angry, but patient.
She gritted her teeth and kept twisting, hand shaking with exertion, the sharp metal corners cutting into her palm.
“If you disable the camera,” the Owl said, “you will be cut off from the rest of the world, you know.”
She stopped twisting for a moment.
“They will think you have died,” the voice said. “Why else would the video stream stop, yes?”
Her hand was frozen in a grip just above her face. A few more minutes of this and she’d be able to snap off the other screws or posts or whatever it was that kept the camera stuck to the lid of the…
“Maybe your father will cry. Maybe he feels relief. But at least he knows this is over. There’s nothing he can do. He never wanted to give us what we ask anyway, and now he thinks, I don’t need to do this. What is the point, yes? His daughter is dead.”
She said, in a guttural animal growl, “He’ll know you failed.”
“He will give up. Believe me. Or don’t believe me. I don’t care.”
The muscles in her forearm and wrist were aching. She had to lower her hand.
“Yes,” said the Owl. “You prefer to get out of this box, isn’t that right?”
She began to sob.
“Yes,” he said again. “This camera is your only hope of getting out of there alive.”
82.
As badly as I needed sleep, I needed to talk to Diana Madigan even more, to tell her what I’d found out.
Six in the morning. She was an early riser. Odds were she was awake and having coffee and reading e-mail or whatever FBI agents do before they go to work in the morning, those who aren’t married and don’t have kids.
So instead of going straight home, I drove a few minutes out of my way, looped around to the South End, down Columbus Avenue and a left up Pembroke Street.
Her apartment lights were on.
“HOW ABOUT coffee?” she said warily.
“I think I’m past the point of no return,” I said. “Any more caffeine’s just going to put me into a coma.”
“Ice water, then?”
I nodded. I sat on her couch, and she sat on the chair next to it. Exactly where we’d sat last time. She was wearing a white T-shirt and sweatpants and was barefoot.