Rasputin's Bastards

THE IDIOT

While the yacht followed its escort of Romanian-piloted Zodiacs, Alexei ran through what seemed like dozens of schemes for killing Holden Gibson. A push, a squeeze, with his Asp, a sharp tap!, in any one of five places on Holden’s body. Or more simply, a bullet.

None of them satisfied him. There were too many witnesses about, and too many of those witnesses were carrying guns.

And in any case, he had more to think about than Gibson’s impending doom. The presence of Romanians, for instance. Were these the same Romanians with whom Mrs. Kontos-Wu was planning her rendezvous? It seemed at once the most likely and unthinkable prospect.

Which led to another obligation — one that would almost certainly override his pledge to kill Holden Gibson. If these were the same Romanians as had abducted Mrs. Kontos-Wu, Alexei would have to deal with them too, and extricate Mrs. Kontos-Wu from whatever trouble she’d found with them.

And then there were the children on board Ming Lei 3 — were they the ones that Gibson intended to lock in his children’s brig? Was he buying them from the Romanians in some kind of child slavery deal? They knew how to mix a drink and bring a blanket when it was cold — that was certainly a selling point — but, fingering his tender scalp, Alexei wondered if Gibson knew what he was getting into.

Some of the others in the lounge had gotten up and were milling around, so Alexei joined them. He stepped around the projection TV, and squinted out the windscreen. There was something up ahead — the yacht’s prow obscured any direct view, but Alexei could make out peripheral activity on the water — a distant churning. Nearer, he saw their escort was beginning to fan out on either side of the yacht, and he felt the motor throttling down under his feet. The deck lurched as the motor yacht slowed down.

Holden strode across the room and stopped beside Alexei, near enough to strangle. “So what are we meeting here? Where’s their Goddamn boat?”

Alexei peered ahead at the water, which was boiling like a soup. He’d seen water like that before.

“Underwater,” said Alexei softly.

Holden didn’t seem to have heard Alexei. His face began to redden. “This is not good,” he hissed, and he glared down at Alexei. “You watch my back, Russkie.”

“Do not worry,” said Alexei, and meant it: Holden’s worrying just made him a more difficult target. “But tell me who it is you are meeting?”

Holden snorted. “None of your business,” he said.

Alexei stood and walked to the fore section of the lounge. Ahead, the churning water boiled and broke as the conning tower surfaced.

Alexei leaned against the railing below the windscreen. “Shit,” he whispered.

“That’s a submarine!” said Holden.

“Yes,” said Alexei. It was a Soviet Project 641 Attack Submarine. Diesel-electric powered, and too noisy by half, which was why the Soviet navy had decommissioned the last of them in the late 1980s. He didn’t see any point in sharing that insight with Holden just now though.

“A submarine!” Holden cupped his hands together and shook them like he was rolling dice. “Shit and hell, shit and hell.”

The sky overhead was a flat grey, and the light it threw added not a hint of colour to the black gleam of the submarine’s hull as it followed the tower into the air. Water fell from it in sheets, making froth that festered like infection along the length of its hull. The motor yacht pitched noticeably on the displaced ocean, and Alexei noticed with a chill that there were no markings on the submarine — at least none above the water line. Holden’s crew lined the edge of the lounge, gaping. Evidently they weren’t expecting this any more than Alexei was.

Or Holden. He grabbed Alexei’s shoulder. “You better tell me what’s going on,” he said.

Alexei shrugged — in so doing extricating himself from Holden’s grip.

“How should I know?” he said. “You won’t even tell me what you’re up to.”

“I’m going to buy some children,” he said. “Haven’t you worked that out for yourself?”

Alexei opened his mouth and closed it again. Did Holden know that he’d found the smuggler’s hold? He dismissed the thought quickly, though. Holden was on a different tack.

“Even if they own a submarine, which I wouldn’t have thought possible, why have they got it doing this kind of work?” Holden’s face was reddening again. “It’s like putting up a fucking flag — look at us, Mister U.S. spy satellite! We’re selling children off the shore of the fuckin’ United States! They could kick off a fuckin’ nuclear war!”

Much more of this, and my troubles are over, thought Alexei. He’ll give himself a coronary.

“You are purchasing children?” he asked innocently. “Do you buy them for fucking, or just to change your linen when you jerk yourself off?”

Alexei had hoped to push Holden that little bit farther — if not to a heart attack, then at least toward some further indiscretion. But the words had the opposite effect. Holden’s face drained of red and he regarded Alexei calmly.

“I’ll kill you, you keep talking like that — you know that?” he said. “Remember whose boat you’re on.”

Holden jammed his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker and turned away from Alexei, watching the submarine rise. Which was good. Alexei wasn’t sure how the old man would have interpreted his smile if he’d seen it.

The Zodiacs were wheeling back around now, making sharp smacks as they crossed the waves made by the surfacing submarine. Behind them, the door to the lounge swung open. Alexei turned and saw two of the Romanians from the bridge. Both had their AKMs slung over their shoulders. One of them caught Alexei’s eye and motioned him over. Holden, preoccupied an instant longer than Alexei by the spectacle of the unanticipated submarine, hurried to catch up.

“You come with us,” said one of the Romanians. He pointed at Holden, and then at Alexei. “You also, heh?”

“And her,” said Holden. He pointed to Heather. “And him.” He pointed to James. “And—”

“Enough,” said the other Romanian. “She may come also. But no more than that.”

“Fine.” Holden patted Heather — on the shoulder this time, but it might as well have been her ass to Alexei — and moved to follow the Romanians. Alexei gripped the asp in his pocket and followed them all onto the deck.

The submarine’s captain was a slight woman, with black hair cropped short and eyes wide as a fawn’s. Alexei thought two things about the captain: first, he recognized her from somewhere — where, he couldn’t say, but familiarity stuck in him nonetheless. And second, to his eye, she was no older than twenty. She would not have been born when this submarine was taken from service.

Alexei shivered. The submarine was growing nearer the bow as the Zodiac turned once more towards it. The young woman who behaved like the submarine’s commander was looking out at the Zodiac now, her arms crossed, black hair blowing in the ocean wind while her crewmen stood still around her.

God, he recognized her from somewhere. But where? The memory was locked from Alexei.

The Zodiac’s outboard throttled back, and Holden sat back, folded his hands conspicuously on his gut. Alexei met Heather’s eye, and he shrugged. What do you want me to do?

Alexei had been a great many places in the service of the People, and arrived in those places by many conveyances; but none of those involved spending any time at all on a 641 Attack Submarine. Standing on the deck now as it pitched in the gentle ocean swells, the first thing that struck him about it was its narrowness. Two wrong steps to either side and Alexei would be sliding down the submarine’s slick black hull and into the ice-water sea.

The same, he realized sickly, could be said for Holden Gibson, who wandered dangerously near both edges of the deck in the space of just a single step. Alexei added the possibility to his growing archive of M.O.s.

But it was not to be. The young captain had disappeared below for the moment. But a pair of the Nike-wearing crewmen stood in too-easy reach, and three more watched them from the conning tower. One of those held a submachine gun, its barrel balanced against the bulkhead. Even Heather knew enough to stop sending her kill-him-kill-him-now looks Alexei’s way.

“Now I don’t want either of you to say anything to fuck this up,” said Holden under his breath. “This is very fucking delicate work coming up and I want you to remember that.”

Alexei opened his mouth to say that he would be sure to remember that, but Holden held up his hand to shut him up.

“Not anything,” he repeated.

Heather nodded obediently, and Alexei did the same. For that instant, he was sure the two shared the same thought: If there is a fuck-up here, it will be Holden’s — not ours.

Alexei looked back at Holden’s motor yacht. It was distant enough to appear quite small, but even with the crappy visibility, Alexei could make out details: the dingy on the aft-deck, the bridge, the steel cable railings. He could see some figures against that railing.

“Hey!”

All three of them turned to the voice at the top of the conning tower. It was high-pitched enough to come from a girl, and first Alexei thought it was the young girl they’d seen before. But it wasn’t. It was a little black-haired boy — or rather his head, sticking up over the top of the tower like he was standing on his toes. He couldn’t have been more than six years old. He was waving at them.

Holden squinted up at him, shading his eyes as though it were a sunny day, and waved back. His mouth twisted into something that it only took Alexei a second to recognize as a warm smile.

“Hey there yourself, big guy!” he shouted back. “Watchya doin’ way up there?”

The boy giggled, and Alexei shivered. It was as though, with the boy’s arrival, a different man came to inhabit Holden Gibson’s skin: a happy grandfather who always brought the best presents for birthdays, and delivered funny bedtime stories on cue. Alexei shouldn’t have been surprised — Holden had done well by his junior kindergarten magazine cult, and he couldn’t have done it being thick-thumbed with the kids. Alexei half-expected Holden to offer the boy a candy bar next.

It wasn’t necessary, though. The boy was in Holden’s spell. “Funny man!” he shouted in Russian, and disappeared. But he was only gone for a moment, while he scrambled down the ladder rungs at the back of the conning tower. He reemerged at the tower’s base, running full tilt along the narrow deck towards them. He was going so fast that Alexei worried the kid would slip off the side of the submarine. Of course, he didn’t slip or fall or even falter — even when he tangled his way through the crowd of adult crewmen and nearly knocked one of them off as a result.

Kids never get enough credit, Alexei thought. They’re smarter and faster and stronger than any of us are willing to admit.

Which, he supposed, is why adults like Holden Gibson find them so very useful.

Holden bent to his knees and threw his arms open to catch the kid just an instant before collision. The kid fell against Holden’s chest and Holden’s arms dropped around him in an enthusiastic bear hug. “Funny man,” said the kid again.

Holden picked the kid up and turned to face Alexei and Heather. Alexei expected to see a glint of calculation in Holden’s eye, but there was none of that — there was only the dumb cheer that new grandfathers get in the maternity ward. Just to look at him, Alexei couldn’t imagine Holden Gibson ever having presided over a gang of whipped boys and girls scamming their way across North America. He would have blown his bankroll buying them all presents.

Heather elbowed Alexei — at first, he thought, to bring him back to reality. But she was pointing, past Holden and back to the conning tower.

“Shit,” said Alexei.

The tower base was surrounded by children.

Alexei hadn’t even looked away from it when Holden turned; he’d just focused on Holden. For an instant. His peripheral vision should have spotted movement on the ladder; he should have seen these kids coming down.

And they should still be coming down. It had only been an instant.

“Hey!”

Alexei started. He was slumped, Heather’s shoulder jammed into his armpit holding him upright. His feet were tangled underneath him, barely supporting his weight. Heather repeated herself, sotto voce: “Hey. Are you okay?”

Alexei shook his head, straightened his feet and stood up. He didn’t let go of Heather, though. He’d blacked out — and couldn’t even remember having done so. It was a miracle he hadn’t slid off the submarine and drowned in the ocean.

“Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“I think you got a concussion,” said Heather.

“Maybe,” said Alexei. He was distracted, though. The children had moved again since he’d last looked. They were crowded around Holden, who had by now adopted the combined mannerisms of a department store Santa Claus and a rock star. He beamed across the upturned faces of the children — taking each in individually, his smile broadening progressively until his gaze rose to meet Heather’s.

“Yup,” he shouted, “Thirteen of them. Just like she promised. Now let’s get the fuck off this tin can and back to civilization!”

They returned to the motor yacht in a convoy of two Zodiacs — one with Heather and eight of the children, and a second with Holden and the remaining five kids. Once again, Alexei found that he had an opportunity to fulfill the bargain he’d made with Heather, and kill Holden Gibson.

All right, thought Alexei. This is it. Even with less than half the kids on board, the Zodiac was overcrowded. And for that, there was only one Romanian on board with them, and he was operating the outboard. The children sat in moon-faced silence around him, and Holden and Alexei were at the front.

He gripped the asp in his pocket and sidled close to Holden. He would take the asp in his right fist so that only an inch of the metal would extend out. With his left hand, he would encircle Holden’s immense head, and with sudden force smash the asp into his temple. Holden would die quickly — more quickly than he deserved — and with luck, Alexei could guide his body over the side before the murder had even registered. If necessary, he’d deal with the Romanian afterwards. And the children, thought Alexei, should only thank him.

Alexei glanced at Holden — intending to meet his eye, draw the old man close enough to kill. But Holden wasn’t biting. He was frowning, and looking at the horizon.

“What now?” he said.

Alexei looked — and his heart leaped.

A second motor yacht was bearing down on them. It must have been occluded by the conning tower of the submarine as it approached, because it was quite near — not more than 200 metres off, sending up white water as it rode across the Atlantic swells. It throttled back and turned as they watched, and as it turned, Alexei could read the words on its stern:

Ming Lei 3.

Amar Shadak’s yacht.

Crawling with Romanians.

Where Mrs. Kontos-Wu was presumably still being held.

Alexei let go of the asp. The plan for killing Holden Gibson would have to be put on hold once more. Alexei needed to figure out a way back to the yacht. And there was only one way for that. He took his hands out of his pockets, rubbed them together for one last grasp at warmth before plunging, and prepared to roll off the side of the Zodiac himself.

He was stopped by a tiny hand on his arm. He looked down — it was one of the smaller ones, a little oval-faced girl of maybe three. She stared solemnly at him and shook her head.

“Don’t go there,” she said in perfect Russian. “She’s gone.”

It was no more than a second later that the plume of water arose in front of the submarine, and a second after that, that Alexei understood what that plume signified.

He put his left arm — the one that seconds ago would have helped kill Holden Gibson — over the old man’s shoulder, and pulled him to the floor of the Zodiac along with the little girl. The other children were already down.

“What the fuck?” said Gibson again.

Ming Lei 3 exploded as the torpedo struck home. The explosion was, by any definition, spectacular: it sent a jet of water into the sky and a fireball flecked with debris across the water. There was even a shockwave that roared past the Zodiac like a gale and nearly flipped it over. When it passed, there were only fragments of Ming Lei 3 — visible for seconds, before they vanished beneath the waves.

A moment later, the submarine followed.

Alexei slumped against the rubber gunwale of the Zodiac and screwed his eyes shut. His misery grew by an order of magnitude. For he had failed at two things today: killing Holden Gibson — and protecting Mrs. Kontos-Wu.