“He’s right,” Fausto chimed in. “You should both get out of Italy, immediately — before the Questura finds out you were involved and holds you as witnesses. In Italy, once the wheels of justice start grinding, they grind for all eternity.”
“Then, that’s your choice, Miss Winslow,” Gorodin said knowingly, “eternity or — tonight.”
Melanie studied him for a moment suspiciously.
“Are you saying you know my father?” she challenged softly. “That you’ll take me to him?”
“Impossible,” Gorodin lied, with finality. “He’s a very important man. A member of the Politburo. He doesn’t even know I exist.” Gorodin knew she’d have no chance of getting anywhere near Deschin. He also knew timing was the key to exerting biographic leverage for maximum gain. He wanted her in Moscow, stalled and desperate, so that when he was strongest and Deschin most vulnerable, he could play his card. “Besides,” he went on, burnishing the deception, “Rome is my post, Miss Winslow. Once in Moscow, you’re on your own.”
Melanie digested his comments for a moment, then glanced to Andrew.
“Why not?” he said reassuringly. “You have nothing to lose.”
She shifted her look to Gorodin and nodded.
The timing was perfect. Gorodin wouldn’t even have to deal with Zeitzev on the matter. The rezident would have his hands full trying to cover the shooting of Kovlek in Borsa’s stables, and the questions it would raise about Soviet involvement in the terrorist attack on Italy’s defense minister — just as disarmament talks were commencing.
In the few hours it took Gorodin to force march Melanie’s visa through the Embassy bureaucracy, Fausto drove Andrew and Melanie to their hotels to collect their things, then to the Embassy to pick up the documents, and lastly to the airport.
Inside the packed international terminal at Leonardo da Vinci, travelers clustered around newstands, snapping up the evening papers that had photos of the ghastly crucifixion splashed across the front pages. Others collected around television sets in the bars — watching the videotape of the stone door closing, revealing Giancarlo Borsa hanging on it. Commentators speculated on the affiliation of the terrorists, their motives, and their objectives, and waited for word on the defense minister, who had been taken to a Rome hospital in critical condition.
And as purple shadows crept across the glittering domes of the eternal city, Aeroflot INT-237 to Moscow came down the runway in a light ground fog, and climbed into the Roman sky.
Andrew sat pensively staring out the window.
“You okay, Andrew?” Melanie asked, after watching him for a few moments. She found his thoughtful gentleness calming, and was attracted to him despite the difference in their ages.
“No,” he replied in a whisper. He couldn’t get Dominica’s face out of his mind. No matter where he looked, her almond-shaped death mask seemed to be looking back with haunting vulnerability.
“Sometimes it helps to talk,” Melanie said.
“Sometimes,” he said, thinking all the talk in the world wouldn’t change the fact that he’d killed two people. Then, realizing he was being insensitive, he turned to Melanie. “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling relieved as her face replaced Dominica’s. “You’ve been through a lot today, too. Tell me about this search for your father.”
“It’s — painfully simple,” she said, choosing the words, and forcing a smile out of him. “For forty-two years, I thought I was Melanie Winslow, daughter of a New Hampshire carpenter. Then, my mother died, and I found out my father is a Russian, a government official named Aleksei Deschin.”
An anxious ripple went through Andrew, though he concealed it, and was certain she didn’t notice. Three weeks ago, his jaw would have dropped to his chest, and he would have said something like, “My father knew him. Your father is the Russian who probably had him killed.” But he had become immune to surprises, and was more calculating now. He knew Gorodin had been assigned to him because he was Theodor Churcher’s son, and had no doubt Deschin had ordered the surveillance. So he knew Gorodin had lied to Melanie, and was up to something. He decided to say nothing — for the time being, anyway.
“It’s such a strange feeling,” Melanie went on. “I mean, this man, Zachary Winslow, gave me his name, read me bedtime stories, and held me when I had nightmares. He taught me to ride horses, paid for my dance lessons, and — I mean, this wonderful man I called daddy”—she shrugged uncomprehendingly—“isn’t my father. And the man who really is — who’s my flesh and blood, my genes, my roots, my traditions, my face—turns out to be somebody I never knew. And it’s—” she paused, sensing Andrew’s distance. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to run on like that. It’s just sort of overwhelming to find out your father is someone other than you thought.”
Andrew nodded slightly, a sad irony in his eyes, and said, “I know.”
BOOK THREE
MOSCOW
“Life does not give itself to one who tries to keep all its advantages at once. I have often thought morality may perhaps consist solely in the courage of making a choice.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Weeks had passed since a cold, harsh rain blasted over the Urals from Siberia, and scrubbed the grime from Moscow streets, heralding an early spring.
Aleksei Deschin was sitting in his study in the once grand building on Proyzed Serova Street in his robe and pajamas, angrily reading KGB reports on the day’s events in Rome, when the door buzzer rang.
It was 10:17 P.M.
He peered through the security peephole, then opened the door, letting a young woman into the apartment.
Neither spoke.
He led the way to the bedroom. Then he sat on the carved walnut bed, watching her undress.
She was young, maybe twenty, twenty-two, Deschin calculated, with a taut robustness, white flesh, and pink up-turned nipples that aroused him. She was state-supplied. And like the countless others who had been dispatched into the night whenever he made the call, he’d never seen her before and would never see her again.
When she was naked, she bounded across the room, climbed onto the bed, and, kneeling between his legs, put her face close to his and tried to kiss him.
He leaned away, and, gently pushing her head down into his lap, said, “My needs are simple, and I prefer them quickly satisfied.”
She hid her disappointment. She’d expected to spend the night. It was her profession, and proud of her specialties, she was anxious to perform fully for a member of the Politburo who might recommend her.
But this was all Deschin ever wanted from any of them. Sex had long ceased to be more than a mechanical release. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been an active participant, or made love to a woman, or been with one in a way that might resemble a procreative act.
The rhythm of the blond head bobbing between his knees quickened. There was a dressing mirror opposite the bed; but with each of these young women, Deschin couldn’t help thinking, She’s somebody’s daughter, and he never watched. The surge was rising now. He began arching his back against the headboard, and as she brought him to the moment, he grabbed two handfuls of her hair, keeping her head just where he wanted it. His body was sagging back against the pillows when he thought he heard the phone ring, and when she looked up at him to ascertain if she had pleased him, it rang again. He closed his robe, and nodded wearily, and she understood and handed him the phone.