She came to a place where the trees to her left thinned enough to provide a vantage point for the village. Alexandra, after her brief burst of energy, had slumped in her seat and gone to sleep.
Easing her door open and closed, Galina walked past the branches until she could see the small harbor in all its simple splendor. She counted twelve fishing trawlers, their nets off-loaded, apparently replaced by boxes and bikes and suitcases glowing golden in the day’s dying light.
Three sailboats sat moored a few hundred feet away in what appeared to be a protected inlet. Beautiful vessels. The two sloops and ketch ranged in size from about ten to twenty meters. Peering closely, she saw a small gathering on the ketch, the largest of the three. She thought fishermen, desperate to flee with their families, might be more likely to help her than yacht owners who appeared to be riding out the crisis in party mode.
The water here also had risen almost to the docks, making them look unusually low next to the boats.
As she looked at the sun setting across the dark waters of the Black Sea, she realized that not too many years ago she could have sailed straight out from the Russian coastline to escape the country’s territorial waters. Not now, not since Russia had annexed Crimea, laying even greater claim to the Sevastopol naval base. Now Russian territorial waters had many zigs and zags, which complicated navigation to international waters.
After checking on Alexandra, she hurried back to surveil the town and port, pleased with her viewpoint. Ten minutes passed before there was any sign of life below. Then four men walked out of a small building, not much bigger than a shed. She caught only a glimpse of small rugs inside, but enough to realize they’d been offering their sunset prayer. The sight elated her and gave her hope.
She watched them keenly as they checked their boats, each studying the height of their hulls. A man raised two fingers. She thought he was flashing the peace sign until he called to the others: “Two days. And then we have to leave.” He shrugged and shook his head.
Two days, that’s a long time to sit and wait with a sick girl. Too long, Galina decided at once. But she might persuade one of them to leave sooner. In the morning, when the men had their morning coffee and rolls in their bellies, she would find out just what PP’s money could buy. She would don her big dark glasses and a headscarf, but if she were recognized, she might also find out if it were true that the enemy of your enemy could be your friend.
Oleg had enjoyed his respite in Voronezh. Once he closed and locked the door to the room in the monastery and pushed the young woman onto the bed, the women’s tongues started wagging, if not the way he would have preferred with the novitiate, certainly in a manner that made him comfortable with the progress of their tête-à-tête.
He determined very quickly, for instance, that Galina and cancer kid had stayed at the monastery, now occupied by nuns. He thought the monks of old would turn over in their dusty graves if they knew all those menstrual cycles were churning within their once-sacred stone walls. Who could blame them? It made Oleg shudder, and he knew he was a man of the world, not of cloistered celibate living.
But he hadn’t been able to confirm the car Galina had been driving until he’d taken special measures. They’d balked, naturally, when he asked, even when he cupped his hand around the novitiate’s soft neck and shook her like the proverbial rag doll. And when she still wouldn’t say, he’d squeezed harder and lifted her hem to the horror of that dried-up old nun, who started saying, “Peugeot, Mercedes, Toyota” in such a frightened voice that he knew she would have said anything that might have stopped him from throttling the young woman. But why would he want to stop? How silly. Her flesh was so soft, so yielding, and he could feel her neck cords tightening — just like his pants.
“You really don’t know, do you?” he asked the nun.
“No, no. I’m so sorry.”
“So you lied to me. ‘Peugeot, Mercedes, Toyota.’” He pushed the novitiate’s face into a pillow, as though to smother her, but then released her, saying, “Don’t move or I’ll kill you.”
“You,” he turned to the nun, “I have a special treat for.”
He pulled out his knife and used it like an index finger across his own lips to indicate his sincere desire for silence. He even said “please” without making a sound, mouthing the request, modeling the behavior he was demanding of them in his most persuasive manner.
Then he pressed the blade against the nun’s lips, surprisingly succulent up close, puffy enough to part deliciously with just a tiny bit of pressure. The thinnest line of blood swelled appreciatively, exciting him immensely. The line became drips and dribbles that spilled down her chin, leaving a nice fat track.
He spoke, keeping the blade in place. But he wasn’t a cruel man; he refrained from slicing through to her gum. Instead, he just wiggled it slightly when she tried to back away. But there’s always a wall. “Don’t you know that?” he said to her. Of course, she had no idea what he was thinking. She just shook her head. But that stopped very quickly with the red blade back in place.
“Are you absolutely sure you could not see her car, even though you still have eyes?”
He knew she’d seen it, felt it in his very fiber. She might not know the make of the car but she’d seen it. He saw the truth in her eyes. He’d cut them out if he had to.
“Silver,” she gulped. “Like those cars for camping.”
Remembering all that fear now as he drove to Sochi made him laugh because only a nun wouldn’t have known enough to call it an SUV.
But that still made no sense. What would Galina be doing with—
Oleg shook his head in wonder. What was it, a month or two ago when he’d heard PP talking to Dmitri as if moron boy were actually intelligent enough to make sense of anything more complicated than his shoelaces? PP had been telling Oleg’s hulking younger brother about a new car Porsche was making.
As Oleg drove swiftly away from the monastery, he called a Moscow-area Porsche dealership. Yes, the Macan was available in silver.
He speed-dialed PP, who did not deign to pick up, so Oleg spoke slowly into the answering machine: “You bought that Porsche SUV, didn’t you, PP? And then you loaned it to Galina, didn’t you, PP? Silver. Isn’t it, PP? And that means you are aiding and abetting a known terrorist, aren’t you—”
PP picked up as Oleg presumed he would.
“What are you talking about?” PP demanded.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You loaned Galina a new car and told no one, even though you knew she and her kid are wanted for murder. You didn’t even tell me, and I was there.”
“You would have found nothing here.”
“I would not have found your new Porsche, that’s for sure. I will turn you in, PP. I’m much more important now. I have influence. You don’t.” It felt immensely satisfying to state the obvious, force it right into the old bastard’s face.
PP didn’t respond. Oleg relished the silence, the power of a father cowed by the strength of his son.
“Tongue-tied, PP?”
“I know nothing of what you think she’s done. Nothing. I doubt she’s even done it, whatever you think it is.”
“She murdered a war hero and police sergeant. It’s on the news. You know what she did. The medical examiner says he was murdered. The police say by her. Don’t try to pretend that you don’t know what she did. And do not try to protect her. You have many enemies, PP, none so powerful or important as I. So simply tell me yes or no about the car and give me the plate number.”