“What happened to transporting him in a cold storage unit?” Mark asked in Russian.
A man from the Georgian customs department observed, clipboard in hand, as a hospital orderly began to seal up the zinc casket.
“Oh, but that was not a possibility,” replied the hospital administrator, in Georgian. She was dark-haired, maybe fifty, and wore an unobtrusive gold cross necklace. She smiled at Mark with a practiced sympathy reminiscent of an undertaker.
“It was a possibility yesterday.” When Mark had spoken with Kaufman, they’d agreed that Bowlan’s body should be preserved as it was at the time of death, so that an effective forensic autopsy could be performed back in the States.
“The body cannot be transported internationally if it has not been embalmed. If you were told otherwise, I apologize.”
“I was told otherwise.” Mark turned to Keal. “Did you know anything about this?”
“Yeah. When I spoke to the coroner yesterday we talked about the cold storage option. He said he’d look into it.”
“He must be packed in such a way that the airlines and receiving country will ship him as cargo. Now if you please, I have some forms you’ll need to sign.”
“What did you do with his blood?” demanded Mark, still in Russian.
“Sir?”
“The blood you took out of his body.”
Mark was no expert, but thought it was safe to assume that pumping Larry full of toxic chemicals would shoot to hell any chance of the CIA being able to perform accurate toxicology tests back in the States.
“I took nothing out of his body.”
“The coroner, then.”
“I’m sure it was properly and respectfully disposed of, sir.” The administrator produced a sheet of paper that certified the body had been embalmed, and then a Georgian death certificate, and then something she called a sanitary epidemic certificate. She handed the papers to Keal. “The customs authorities at the airport will need to view these before they will issue an exit permit.” Gesturing to the customs official who was now watching the hospital orderly seal up the outer wooden casket, she said, “And he should be able to give you his report shortly, which you will also need.”
“May I?” Mark took the forms and read that the official cause of death was a heart attack. “I was told some tests were performed. Before he was embalmed. May I see the lab results?”
“Certainly you may request a copy of the physician’s report of death.”
“Meaning the autopsy results.”
“Yes, but if you are not the next of kin…”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Keal.
“I’d rather see them now.”
Keal asked the administrator if that was possible. It wasn’t.
“I also have received police authorization to release the body,” said the administrator. She produced three pieces of paper that had been stapled together and marked up with a multitude of official-looking stamps and signatures.
“What police?”
“The regional police here in Tbilisi. They reviewed the autopsy report and lab tests. To insure that the cause of death was a natural one.”
“And they are satisfied that it was?”
“They would not have provided the clearance necessary to release the body had they not been.”
Keal and Mark were met at Tbilisi International Airport by a perky first-year employee of the State Department who was on her way to Madison, Wisconsin, to attend her brother’s wedding. She’d reluctantly agreed to accompany Larry on a Turkish Airlines cargo flight to Chicago. There, she was to transfer him to a funeral director who would bring him to Cleveland, Ohio, and stick him in cold storage until the CIA arranged for an autopsy. Eventually the body would be cremated and the remains delivered to Larry’s mother.
Mark had spoken to Larry’s mother the night before. The call hadn’t been the emotional disaster that he’d been afraid of, but only because it turned out that his mom, who was confined to a nursing home in Ohio, was senile.
I’m a friend of Larry’s, Mrs. Bowlan. And I’m so sorry, so very sorry, to have to tell you that your son has died.
Larry? How is Larry?
After the handover at the cargo terminal, Keal dropped Mark off at the main passenger terminal.
“No word yet on that name I gave you?” Mark asked.
“No. I can look into it when I get back if you like.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“What’s your number?”
Mark gave Keal a Bishkek number for an automated answering service that would digitize the message and forward it to an e-mail account. “If I don’t pick up, just leave a message.”
“Got it.”
They shook hands. As Keal walked away, Mark reflected that even in a nation like Georgia — which had never fully embraced Soviet-style inefficiency and had only been too happy to get rid of it at the first opportunity — navigating the bureaucracy usually took some doing. It was true, the Georgians had recently done a fine job of ridding many of their institutions of corruption, particularly the police, but even so, the bum’s-rush speed with which Larry’s death had been investigated, the body embalmed, and then released — in the hospital parking lot! — only served to reinforce Mark’s belief that Larry had been murdered.
And probably by the Russians. They were the only players, other than the Georgians themselves, who had the resources to manipulate so many layers of Georgian bureaucracy so quickly.
The only question now was what, if anything, he was going to do about it.
12
When the phone rang and no caller ID showed up, Daria was pretty sure it was Mark. He’d taken to using a top-of-the-line iPad Mini to route phone calls over the Internet, because such calls were harder to trace and intercept. They also didn’t show any caller ID.
She picked up.
“Hey, how’re my gals?”
Daria smiled. It was good to hear his voice. “We’re fine. Lila, say hello to Daddy.” She let Lila stare blankly at the phone for few seconds, then put it back to her ear. “She told me to tell you she misses you.”
“How’s the diaper rash?”
When they’d spoken earlier in the day, Daria had mentioned that she’d taken a long walk around a nearby park, with Lila riding on her chest in a BabyBjörn carrier. Although still a little sore from the delivery, she was eager to get back to her normal weight — she was sick of maternity clothes and dying to wear a normal pair of jeans — and besides, she hadn’t wanted to deal with lugging the stroller down the steep narrow steps that led up to their apartment. She’d also just been restless, and the walk had felt good. All the bouncing around on her chest, though, combined with a wet diaper, had resulted in Lila developing a bit of a rash.
“Not worse,” she said. “Oh, and her umbilical cord fell off.”
She wished Mark had been there for that milestone.
“Wow, already.”
“It was time. Her belly button’s a little red. I swabbed it with alcohol, but it didn’t seem to hurt her.”
“Good to hear.”
“How are things on your end?”
“I’m out of here.”
“That was quick.” Daria hadn’t anticipated that Mark would return for at least another day.
“Larry’s on a plane to Chicago. Things went faster than I thought they would.”
“Well, that’s good news. I guess. Is it?”
“No direct flights to Bishkek tonight, but I was able to get a seat on a flight to Almaty. I’ll just cab it from Almaty to Bishkek early tomorrow. It’ll be faster that way.”