Phoenix RisingFive: Double BluffWhen we headed back across the Golden Gate to Marin County on the way to Baba’s the second day afterwards, it was beginning to seem like the Jeep knew its own way north, while I was free to just take in the breathtaking sweep of ocean and hill and sparkling bay in the afternoon sunlight.
Well, I wished I was free to take it all in, anyway. But I kept catching myself watching the rear-view mirror, still not certain whether anyone was back there.
Looking over your shoulder is part of playing the ‘Great Game’. It’s one part that I’ve never really liked – although it’s not as bad as the part about not being able to trust anyone you meet. I was never much good at that. Back when we first started working together, Pete used to try to get me to change – but he gave up after a while. He said it could get me killed someday, but trusting people has saved my life more times than I can count; and so far, I’m way ahead on that game. So far.
You’re supposed to expect betrayal, and you’re also supposed to be ready to betray others when the chips are down. I was never any good at that. Pete never tried to change me there. I guess it’s one of the reasons I’ve never wanted to give up working with him. And for him.
Of course, we both know that Pete’s really lousy at that part too.“You’re getting to know your way around pretty well,” Jason remarked. “Take the next exit. And is it my own paranoia, or are you still watching for a tail?”
Mac shrugged. “I drove out to Brookhearst yesterday to scope the place out – a couple of times I wondered if I was being followed, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“It probably
was the fashion police this time.”
“I didn’t buy the shirt till afterwards,” Mac declared in an aggrieved tone. “There was a street fair going on in Corte Madera.” He glowered at Jason. “I do
not believe I’m getting this from a guy who wears orange and yellow tie-dye.”
“C’mon, Mac. Tie-dye is one thing. But
tropical flowers? Pink and purple and orange ones? Just tell me that thing has a volume control on it, or I’ll have the neighbours complaining at night.”
“Tell ‘em to get sunglasses.”
“They’re going to need blindfolds.”
φBaba’s house in Mill Valley was tiny but immaculate, tucked well back from the street and nearly invisible in the welter of colour of the garden surrounding it. The reason was immediately apparent: Tasha was elbow-deep in the beds out in front, weeding and pruning with nonchalant expertise. Raven’s daughter Willow was playing in the yard near her; she had contrived a makeshift catapult from sticks and was launching flowers into the air. Tasha was stolidly disregarding the random scatter of dead rhododendron blossoms that had accumulated around her.
“Taaasha . . . I’m out of amma-nition.”
Tasha answered without turning around. “Sweetie, you’ve deadheaded all my rhododendrons already, but I don’t suppose the neighbours will mind if you start on theirs. Or you can gather these up and recycle them. I bet the bad guys will be even more scared of recycled rhododendrons.”
“Bluejay’s here, and the man with the fire breath.”
“Fire breath – ?” Tasha looked over her shoulder. “Oh, right. Sorry, Jay – I lost track of time. Hi, Phoenix.” She rose and brushed her hands off on her overalls. She glanced at MacGyver. “Willow was really fascinated with how you did the bonfire night before last – she’s convinced you have a magical power over fire.”
“I guess she’s gonna be disappointed.”
“And I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait a bit – Baba’s got a phone consultation and there’s no knowing how long it will take.”
“Hey, no problem,” Jason replied. “Right, Mac?”
“‘Mac’?” Tasha looked from one to the other.
MacGyver held out his hand. “The name’s MacGyver. We can drop the whole ‘Phoenix’ thing, if you don’t mind.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Tasha accepted his hand. “I don’t mind a bit. I can’t stand the whole silly spirit-name business myself.”
With the atmosphere somewhat thawed, Tasha returned to her gardening. Jason settled himself on the porch, but Mac squatted down next to Willow and took a closer look at her handiwork. “Whatcha got there? Hey, that’s pretty cool. Did you make it?”
The child nodded. “These are magic flowers,” she explained solemnly. “They don’t hurt the bad guys, but it makes all the buildings fall down and then the trees all grow back.” She carefully loaded several wilted flower heads onto her catapult – a long section of flat wooden shingle balanced across a large round branch – and brought her fist down onto the firing end, launching another payload more or less in Tasha’s direction.
“Cool,” Mac declared with equal solemnity.
Willow studied him matter-of-factly. “Your hands are dirty,” she declared.
“Yeah, I know. I had to check my car engine on the way over here.” MacGyver spread out his hands, which were streaked with engine grease and dirt. “I bet I’m gonna have to wash my hands before Baba Irina lets me touch anything.”
Willow examined her own grimy hands thoughtfully. “Tasha says, be careful I don’t get a splinter.”
“You know, I bet we could do something about that. Hey, would you like to be able to shoot even farther?”
The child’s eyes gleamed and she nodded eagerly.
“You go get a fresh supply of ammunition, and I’ll see about upgrading your system.”
The shed that held Tasha’s gardening tools and supplies stood with its door open, and Mac quickly found what he had hoped for: a flat wooden paint-stirring stick amongst a collection of paint cans, brushes, and other supplies. He also picked up an old coat hanger from the floor and hurried back.
The coat hanger bent easily in his hands, and he was able to wire the stirring stick loosely to the round branch Willow was using as a fulcrum, so that he could slide it back and forth and adjust the moment arm. It was ready by the time the child returned with Tasha’s gardening hat full of more wilted flowers. She carefully loaded and fired, and chortled with glee at the improved results.
“Taaaasha! Look how far I can shoot now!”
Tasha had been watching, her face softening in spite of the rain of flowerheads peppering her. “Very impressive.”
MacGyver was showing Willow how to adjust the firing arm. “The longer lever makes the difference, see? And you can slide it back and forth like that.”
“It’s a catapult,” Willow insisted.
“Yup. And this part’s a lever.” Mac loaded a fresh supply of dead rhododendron flowers, adjusted the aim, and tapped the firing end smartly with one finger. The blossoms sailed into the air and landed in Jason’s lap.
“Aw,
thanks, Mac. You cared enough to send flowers.”
“Hey, you bet. Let me know if any buildings start falling down.”
Willow giggled. “My turn!” She selected the largest flowerhead in her fresh arsenal and once again banged her fist down on the lever, hard enough that Mac worried it might splinter after all. This time, the scarlet flower lofted over Jason’s head, and Baba Irina, materialising silently behind him at the back of the porch, caught it in her hand as if it had been a bird coming to light.
She was dressed far more sedately than she had been at the solstice festival, but while the bright Gypsy clothing was gone, the imperious manner was not. She beckoned to MacGyver. “
Zarsha. It is time for us to have coffee and talk.”
Jason hadn’t seemed surprised when Baba appeared; now he stood up with a respectful nod to her and stepped down from the porch. “So Tasha, shall we take Willow out to the park and see if we can find some wicked developers for her to terrorise?”
“Um, wait a moment . . . ” MacGyver looked from Jason to Baba.
The younger man shook his head gently, smiling. “The invitation was for you, hotshot. I’m just the native guide. You’re on your own.”
φBaba Irina’s house was as tidy on the inside as it had been outside, sparsely furnished and uncluttered. None of the furniture was new, but everything was well-tended, and the shabbiness had a quiet dignity to it. MacGyver had never seen a house with an elderly occupant that had so few knick-knacks or photos in it.
“Your garden’s so nice, I’m surprised you don’t have any flowers in here.”
“I leave the flowers to grow in peace where they are. They live longer that way. And if I must go to them to enjoy their beauty – that is good, too. Why not?” She lowered herself into an easy chair upholstered in a faded floral brocade. “Tell me, is Leningrad still as beautiful in the spring as it was when I was a little girl? It was Saint Petersburg then, of course, but no matter.”
Mac settled himself on the couch near her. “What makes you think I would know?”
“You have been there. More than once, I think. And you have been there recently. Come, will it harm anyone to make an old woman happy with news of home?”
“Hard to say who it might harm,” Mac answered slowly. “Spring was early this year. There was still hard frost at night, but the sun was warm enough in the daytime that the leaves were out on the trees early. No flowers, though. Not while I was there.”
Baba shook her head sadly. “We have flowers much earlier in this place. It is a gift I treasure every year.” Between her chair and the sofa where MacGyver sat was a low table with a beautiful coffee service laid out; it was by far the finest thing in the room. Baba leant over the table, lifted the lid from the china pot, and breathed in the scent.
“Today there will be no interruptions, and it is now time to cut the crap. You went to very much trouble to meet me – and more than trouble: you were ready to go against your heart. And you risked losing face.” She replaced the lid on the coffeepot and looked Mac directly in the eyes. “You are willing to play the fool, but only when you choose that role yourself. So. Why did you seek me out?”
After a moment’s hesitation, MacGyver drew an object out of his pocket: a complicated knotwork of coloured cords wrapped around three iron nails of an unusual style – farrier’s nails, used for shoeing horses.
“Ha!” Baba should have been annoyed, but instead she seemed almost pleased. “So that is why Volen Andreievich called in such a panic.”
“I’ll bet.” Mac tossed the charm onto the coffee table. “I counted five of them just in his office.”
“And you thought that with so many, he would not notice just one missing?”
“This one wasn’t the best-hidden – that one I figured he’d check more often. I did hope he wouldn’t spot it right away.” Mac met her eyes thoughtfully. “You haven’t scolded me for scaring an old man by stealing his
domovushka.”
“Is it a scolding you are expecting? Or praise that you know what it is?” Baba pursed her lips and shook her head reprovingly. “He has been very much more nervous lately – more . . .
dyorganyj.”
“Jumpy?”
“
Da. He thinks the KGB are after him.”
“Are they?”
“Ah, so now you believe that I do have some special knowledge?”
“No, not exactly. But you know more about Baranyev than you let on. I did some digging, and I found out that he doesn’t make a move without consulting his favourite Gypsy fortune teller. And that’s you.”
Instead of bristling, Baba merely smirked and lifted the coffeepot.
“Baba . . . ” Mac gestured for her to pause before she began pouring. “The truth is, I’m not real fond of coffee . . . and since you’re not really Roma . . . ”
The coffeepot suspended in mid-air. In a genuine Romany household, the refusal of coffee would have been a deadly insult; MacGyver waited to see what Baba’s reaction would be.
Her eyes had sparked, but her expression gave nothing else away. After an interminable moment, she finally nodded slowly.
“What makes you say this?”
“I checked your laundry hamper when I washed my hands.”
A sudden broad smile creased Baba’s wrinkled face, and she set down the coffeepot and waggled a finger at him. “You came here with the dirty hands on purpose, no?”
“Yeah, I did. I pulled over on the way and messed with my car engine to make sure.” Mac leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Baba, you have only one clothes hamper – and everything’s in it: skirts and blouses in the same wash. That’s
marime. No Roma would choose to live that way. You know a lot about the language and the culture, and you put on a good act, but you’re no more Rom than I am.”
Baba had turned back to the coffee pot. “Are you sure how much that is? But no matter.” Leaving MacGyver’s cup empty, she poured her own. After a moment, she rose to her feet, cup in hand.
“Come,
Zarsha. If coffee is not to your liking, I will make you tea. Herbal tea. Mint, from Tasha’s own garden. The earth is good to her – she has a gift in her hands. You will drink tea?”
MacGyver nodded. “I’d like that.”
The kitchen was cozier and brighter than the living room had been; the wooden table was old, scarred, and well-scrubbed. A telephone sat on it, temporarily displaced from a nearby nook; beside it lay both a pack of Tarot cards and a deck of ordinary playing cards. Several of the latter were still laid out on the table.
Mac stopped at the table and looked at the spread, picking up one: the three of spades. “This kinda threw me, you know. You were using the Tarot cards the other night to snow those two girls, but you switched to the real cards when you did my reading.”
Baba chuckled. “Is it a ‘snow job’ to give foolish little girls what they want – a taste of brighter lights ahead? At their age, the future should be full of promise. I told them no lies.”
“How about me?”
She shrugged eloquently. “What truth do you want that you do not know already? It is true that I was not born Roma. That you know. But I was still very young when I learned the true Gypsy ways. I cannot dance, I am no treat to look at, but I can put on one hell of a show for rich gullible
gadje men.”
“Men like Baranyev?”
At the stove, Baba snorted. “Men like Baranyev do not pay me for truth. They pay me to hold their hands and tell them they are good boys.”
Mac took one of the chairs at the kitchen table, idly fingering the cards, waiting. It was a long wait as Baba bustled around the kitchen.
“It was my nurse,” she spoke at last into a silence that had stretched so long that it had become somehow familiar and comfortable. “Zhana Mostovaya. She was
Ruska Roma, from a
kumpania that did not lie low enough, or rub palms hard enough . . . so much pride. So much sorrow. Zhanasha was fourteen when the Tsar’s men took her from her people to ‘civilise’ her, and gave her like a cow to my family as a servant. If she had not come to us, she would have been given in marriage to a drunk three times her age. But still she raged.”
She had refilled the kettle and was looking over a collection of jars that held assorted dried herbs. When she opened the mint, MacGyver could smell the sweet pungency from where he sat.
“She loved me – I believe that even now. And I loved her, so much. She told me I was her little sister, and taught me what she could. My parents never knew, of course. They would have turned her out if they had known. It was our secret.”
The kettle began to whistle, and Baba poured water over the filled teaball and brought it to Mac, joining him at the table. “She taught me the language, and how to read the cards and the tea leaves, and how to make the
domovushki. In the end, it has served me better than what my parents taught me. I have forgotten how to plan fine dinners, but my skills have kept a roof over our heads and food on the table for many years.
“The Tsar’s men destroyed her
familia. Stalin killed my parents. Kruschev killed my husband, his family, most of my children. If Zhanasha was not my sister when I was a little girl, she was my sister long after she was dead, when I was a widow in a strange land with fatherless children and grandchildren.” She picked up her coffee cup again and drank the black, unsweetened contents.
Mac ran a finger along the bright painted designs on his own cup. “Okay, I can understand what you’re doing with the Gypsy Queen business for Baranyev and his sort. But why put on the act for Jason and Gina and the rest? What do you get out of that?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, and he was reminded again of the bright stare of a bird. “You see that I can create the illusion. Because of this, you assume that all is illusion. Is this wisdom? But no matter. You will get what you want from me,
Zarsha.”
Mac cocked an eyebrow. “I haven’t told you what I want.”
Baba spoke with a magnificent dignity. “I will make a lucky guess.” She reached out and gathered the cards from the table in front of MacGyver. “Tonight, Volen Andreievich will send his fine car for me. It is all arranged; we spoke on the phone. He wishes me to read for him, and he needs me to bring him new charms and ask the spirits if his enemies are closing in.” Once again he watched her hands shift from slow stiffness to fluid grace as she shuffled the exposed cards from the reading back into the deck. “And me, I will need to bring my assistant. That is arranged also. You will come back at six o’clock so we have time to prepare.”
Mac had the peculiar sensation of having been swept away by an overpowering current when he hadn’t even known he was headed for deep water. “I will?”
“You have very good hands, you know. You should do well.” She presented him with the deck. “You can handle the cards, yes? Do not tell me that you lack that skill. I will call you a liar if you do.”
For an answer, Mac shuffled the deck, cut three times, fanned the cards out face-down across the table with one smooth motion of his hand, then turned over the four aces, one after another. Baba laughed and clapped.
Mac gathered the cards up again and handed them back. “You haven’t asked me what I’m doing. Or why.”
“Should I? You are hunting Baranyev. You work for the government, no?”
“Well . . . no.” Hearing himself deny it was somehow easy; the shock lay in the recognition, as he said it, that it was true.
Baba looked at him piercingly. “Who tells lies now?”
“Okay, yeah, sometimes I do. But not this time.” MacGyver had suddenly realised that he didn’t need to lie about his activities – he didn’t even need to prevaricate. For once, he could abandon the need for secrecy that had so often chafed him, especially when he had to turn to strangers for help. “Have you ever heard of the Phoenix Foundation?”
“Of course I have,” Baba snorted. “My youngest grandson went to university on a Phoenix scholarship. Now he is engineer in Arizona. He makes the desert bloom, and has forgotten every word of Russian he ever knew. But that is not your fault,
Zarsha. Do you speak Romany?”
“Uh, no.”
“
Too bad. How good is your Russian?”
“
Better than my Romany.”
“Ha!” Baba switched back to English. “Not so good. How do you manage when you are in Russia?”
MacGyver’s thoughts flashed back to Leningrad; he could almost smell the antiseptic stench of the asylum – the cloying miasma of sweat, frustration, rage and misery overlaid with chemical disinfectant and despair.
Remember, Mac. This can work if you play it cool and don’t attract any special attention. His mind filled with the memory of dashing around the ward, bouncing on the beds and spouting nonsense, praying inwardly that his unreliable accent would hold together, or that the outrageous behaviour would distract from any slips he might make. It had to have been one of the stupidest, most quixotic moves he’d ever made – even though it had worked. Sort of. It had almost been a relief to be clubbed into unconsciousness.
“Mostly I try to stick with being the strong, silent type.”
φIt was a real shock when it hit me, talking to Baba: I didn’t have to lie to her about what I was doing, who I was working for, or why. The arrangement with Ruth Collins included a confidentiality agreement, but nothing like the layers on layers of doubletalk and doublethink that can build up with the different security restrictions and controls and clearances I’ve had to juggle sometimes. The State Department and the DXS shouldn’t need to be at odds with each other, or with the CIA and the Pentagon and Interpol and so on and on . . . but it drove me nuts sometimes, the way the suits and the uniforms who live in some of the faceless corridors could play at mental turf wars.
I’d figured out long since that Pete ran a lot of interference for me there – without it, I don’t think I could’ve lasted at the DXS – but there were times when I knew they ran him ragged in turn. Need-to-know and eyes-only and top-secret and top-level clearance – sometimes the whole thing felt like a quicksand sink. Or like an endless maze with doors that locked at random . . . and for once, all the doors were open and I could get out and run.With an exasperated sigh, MacGyver shifted the phone from his right ear back to his left again and resigned himself to another wait. He was absentmindedly running his fingers through one of the shallow bowls of polished crystal pebbles Gina had sitting on half the tables in her apartment. There hadn’t been time to cross back to San Francisco and return again before the evening appointment with Baba; at Jason’s insistence, they had dropped in on the cheerfully uncomplaining Gina for the duration, giving Mac a chance to make his phone call in peace if not tranquility.
He had been expecting to hear the nasal tones of the new head of the DXS records department – already too familiar and already unwelcome – but after a shorter wait than anticipated, he heard Pete’s voice on the line instead.
“MacGyver? Is that you?”
The voice was like sweet rain after a drought. “Pete! What the heck – what are you doing in the office?”
If I’d known, I’d’ve asked for him straight off and I wouldn’ta been sitting here twiddling my thumbs for this long.“What do you think I’m doing? I’m working, of course. Some of us desk jockeys actually have regular schedules.”
“But it’s Monday afternoon. Isn’t this well after your normal tee time?” Mac mentally checked his last contact with Pete – he was sure the older man had put in his usual excessive stretch of weekend time.
Trouble doesn’t take the weekend off, Pete liked to say,
but it generally naps on Monday afternoon.“Yeah, well – things here needed attention. I cancelled.”
“Pete, you need your exercise.”
“I
told you. I had some things that needed attention.” Pete’s voice sounded brittle. “What’s up? Helen collared me and told me you were on the line.”
“Not sure if I’m on a line or on a leash. Pete, what’s goin’ on? I called Records
yesterday with an ordinary request for information on a Soviet refugee. They oughta be able to do one of those in their sleep. Instead, I had to go into a face-to-face this afternoon blind, and I
really could have used the edge.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a copy of your request on my desk . . . Irina Dmitrovna Dementieva.” Mac took some consolation in hearing Pete hesitate over the name. “You know, Mac, you didn’t give Records much to work with – you’re ‘pretty sure’ she’s ‘really’ a Soviet refugee, you don’t even know what decade she arrived in the States, you
think she was a widow with children, you’re ‘pretty sure’ that’s really her name.”
“Well, yeah, but I did give them some family information to work with, and I can fill in a few more details now . . . but that’s not the point. I can understand their not being able to pull a rabbit out of a hat overnight. But when I called this afternoon, as far as I could tell, they’ve lost the hat altogether and aren’t sure whether rabbits are allowed under current regulations.” Mac’s fingers tightened in the bowl of polished pebbles, and several spilled out over the tabletop. Gina’s cat pounced on them. “Pete, I was just talking to the head of Records, and he’s complaining that I didn’t fill out a proper written form. And without it,” Mac’s voice took on an imitation of the nasal tones, “he can’t confirm if my security clearance will permit him to release the information to me over the phone. It’s ‘most irregular’.” He flicked one of the spilled pebbles across the table, and the cat happily pounced again. “Pete, this may sound stuffy, but it’s been a
long time since I got hassled about my clearance!”
“I understand, Mac. I’m sorry. Look, as I said, I’ve got your request on my desk – I’ll make sure it’s taken care of. I’m going to be up in the Bay Area the day after tomorrow, and I’ll bring it with me, whatever they’ve managed to dig up by then.”
Mac felt the grin starting to spread over his face as he waggled his fingers at the cat. “Got a rematch with Ruth Collins? Can I get a ticket?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but yes, I’m meeting with her again.” Pete frowned at the odd sounds coming from the phone. “MacGyver? Is anything wrong? What’s going on?”
“Nothin’ – I’ve got a cat attacking my hand is all. Ow!”
φBaranyev’s car was a sleek gold Lincoln Continental with a leather interior that seemed larger than Baba’s living room; the house in Tiburon was a three-story mock Tudor surrounded by professionally manicured lawns, with a grandly curving driveway. The diamond-paned windows had opaque curtains, and Mac’s eye picked out the components of the security system: elaborate, expensive, and discreet.
The driver ushered them in through a side door from the garage; Baba clearly knew her way around, but her haughty manner made the escort seem like a guard of honour rather than a flunky keeping an eye on the hired help. MacGyver held a position a few steps behind her, carrying an extra shawl she’d handed him, feeling the peculiar invisibility of the support role wrap itself around him.
It’s a funny thing, but it sure makes my work easier: take on a menial role, begin a menial task, and no matter where you are or what you’re really doing, you might as well paint yourself to match the walls for all the notice you’ll get from anyone in authority. The higher the authority, the more invisible you get. It would really bug me if it wasn’t so useful.The house was even more opulent on the inside, with Oriental carpets, antique furniture, artwork on the walls and exotic treasures on every side table. Mac wondered what an interior designer would have made of the collection – it looked jumbled, cluttered and showy to him – but he noticed a preference for Russian and Russian-themed decoration and artwork, especially in the sections of the house where the Baranyev men apparently spent most of their time. The hallway displayed a row of framed paintings by Kandinsky and Brodsky, while the sitting room where Baba settled in, with the air of a queen preparing to hold audience, held works inspired by Stravinsky and Diaghilev on the walls and some genuine-looking ikons in a locked glass case.
Business must be good if they’ve managed all this in only a few years – and on a lab manager’s salary? Guess capitalism suits them.The thought was an uncomfortable reminder of the risk of recognition: Arvil Baranyev was unmarried, and shared the house with his father . . . and had met MacGyver only five days before, when he’d visited Brookhearst openly during the Phoenix-sponsored tour. Mac doubted that his ‘Gypsy’ disguise would hold up against a face-to-face encounter.
Baba had provided MacGyver with a walnut dye that had darkened his hair almost to black and deepened the brown of his face, neck and hands to umber. She’d given him an oversized amulet to wear and a scarf to tie around his head to keep his hair out of his eyes – he still hadn’t bothered to get it cut – but other than that, she’d seemed quite satisfied with his Western clothes. Even the gaudy flowered shirt had passed without comment.
She’d also borrowed his Swiss Army Knife. If ‘borrowed’ was the right word – it had felt more like having it confiscated.
The knife you carry in your pocket, Zarsha. You must let me have it for a little while. She had laughed to see how reluctant he was to hand it over.
Do not worry so much. You will have it back when you need it. Exactly where she had stashed it in the riot of rainbow skirts, shawls and scarves she now wore was impossible even to guess.
For now, there was no sign of the younger Baranyev, although when the senior Baranyev entered the study, expensively tailored and entirely self-assured, the sense of invisibility peeled away for a long uncomfortable moment. The older man greeted Baba graciously in Russian, after a glance towards MacGyver that only seemed cursory; Mac felt himself examined, assessed, and then dismissed, presumably filed somewhere between ‘insignificant’ and ‘vermin’.
“
Irina Dmitrovna. It is too good of you to come out again so soon and console me in my troubles. So this is the assistant you spoke of?”
“
Da. Perhaps he will become my student. He has rare gifts, and it is time I began to pass on my secrets before it is too late. We shall see.” She drew a new
domovushka from a fold of her wraps. She had brought at least three with her – Mac wasn’t sure just how many. This was the largest and most elaborate, with bright multicoloured cord knotted in elaborate patterns twining around a horseshoe. She had been carrying it wrapped in a square of bright silk; now she laid the packet on the table, unwrapped it solemnly and showed it to Baranyev, then folded the cloth again and gestured peremptorily towards MacGyver.
“
Zarsha. Your next task begins now. You will take this domovushka into our good host’s office, where he toils at his labours. When I have finished here, you will tell me how the domovoi fares in that place, and where you think the domovushka should be placed.” She turned to Baranyev. “
Will you have your man show him to your study?”
Baranyev nodded, beckoning to the driver. “Peterson, take
gospozha Dementieva’s assistant to my office,” he ordered; his English was accented, but his voice was crisp and very clear. He turned back to Baba, with MacGyver apparently already dismissed from his mind.
Mac could hardly credit the smoothness of the set-up as Peterson led him down the hallway to the study. It seemed too easy.
It
was too easy. Once they reached the study, Peterson remained in the room, leaning against the doorjamb.
Gonna be a bit hard to snoop around with that much company. So . . .MacGyver set the
domovushka down carefully on the vast, highly polished oak desk and unwrapped it. His first quick glance around the room had set his hackles on edge, but he assumed an uninterested air as he took a stance in the middle of the deep Aubusson carpet. After a moment, he raised both his arms, his hands outstretched, and began to turn slowly around in a tight circle, gazing intently off into the distance at nothing at all. As he turned, he moved his hands in long slow circles in the air.
Peterson, who had been looking bored, began to look uncomfortable instead and finally blurted out, “Man, what the hell are you doing?”
Mac halted with a start, whipping his head around and staring intently into the man’s eyes. He raised a finger to his lips. “Shhh . . . don’t you feel it? Surely you do. You must.” He spoke slowly and seriously, keeping his voice in its lower register but making no pretense at a Russian accent.
The driver started in turn. “You’re not Russian. You talk just like an American.”
MacGyver looked at him with great dignity. “Of course I’m an American. My mother was an American citizen.”
“Then what are you doing hanging out with – well – ” Mac guessed that the household staff had some unflattering nickname for Baba.
He didn’t have to pretend to be offended as he pinned Peterson down with narrowed eyes. “If you mean Madame Irina Dmitrovna – ” for once, he managed to deliver the name without stumbling – “my father did her a great service many years ago. Now she has agreed to take me as a student, if I prove worthy.”
“No kidding . . . that’s really cool, um . . . ”
Mac continued to glower at him. “The
domovoi does not like this room. And your aura is disturbing the energy here. How long since this room was purified?”
“Man, I don’t know . . . uh, don’t take this wrong, but do you, like, need me to be here? I’ve got some stuff I ought to be doing out in the garage . . . ”
Mac made a dismissive gesture and returned to his slow circling. Once Peterson had beaten his retreat, Mac hurried to the door and closed it firmly. He knew he didn’t have much time, and he needed time to make sense of what the study held. He’d never seen anything quite like it, and the implications made his blood ice over.
φMacGyver had dialed the first five digits of the DXS night desk number when he changed his mind, disconnected, and dialed a different number. It was answered on the third ring, although he could hear nothing at first except clattering. In the delay before the voice came on, he could easily imagine the startled fumbling for a phone that didn’t ring very often, especially late at night.
“Willis? It’s MacGyver. I had a feeling you’d still be at work, even this late.”
“Hey, Mac. What do you mean, late? It’s not all that late, is it? Oh. I hadn’t noticed. But hell, it’s not all that much past midnight.”
“Think you could fit in a research job for me? I don’t know if you have to ask Ruth to approve it first . . . ” Mac realised that he had no idea how much leeway he had to make demands on the Phoenix Foundation’s resources.
“Not a problem, Mac – they give me a lot of autonomy in prioritising my workload. Besides, I just sent a job to the mainframe and it’ll be a while running. Is this part of your Brookhearst investigation? What do you need?”
“I need you to research some phone numbers for me. First off, I need a check on a list of country codes – I recognise a lot of them but I’ve gotta be sure.” Mac spread out the sheet of notes he’d made in the Baranyev study and went through the list, giving Willis time to write them down. He noticed that Willis didn’t need to look most of them up.
“Yeah, that’s Bulgaria . . . thought so. The next one’s Cyprus, right? Hong Kong, uh-huh . . . Dubai? Are you sure? And Buenos Aires, huh? The next five are all in the USSR, but I need to know which cities. Czechoslovakia – it’s not like I could miss that one – Romania, Iran, Switzerland – right, Zürich, I know. And Budapest. But double-check me on the last three. Yeah, I’m not surprised. Cayman Islands.”
“Sounds like a real rogues’ gallery, Mac. I can find out where the numbers go – that’s a piece of cake – but where the hell did they come from?”
“It’s the programmed autodial list from the computer set-up in the Baranyev study.”
Willis whistled.
“Here’s the tricky part,” Mac continued. “My bet is that there are more computers on the other end of every phone number on that list. And every one of ‘em will be monitoring incoming calls, so we can’t just phone them to check and then hang up. They’ll notice. And that would
not be good.”
“Huh! Yeah, I see what you mean . . . don’t worry, I’ve got a couple of ideas. I’ll check it out for you. Do you want me to get you the specs for the Brookhearst mainframe?”
Mac briefly wondered just what kind of insider contacts Willis had, to be so certain of getting that kind of information.
Maybe I’ll ask some other time. “Don’t bother. Baranyev’s computers didn’t include a remote terminal for the mainframe. Everything he’s got is standing separate from the lab computers.”
“Whoa, Mac. Did I hear you right? And you did say ‘computers’, as in ‘more than one’?”
“That’s right. Baranyev had the fanciest computer set-up I’ve
ever seen in a private home – including mine! It must’ve cost a mint. He had a videotex machine, too – it looked like a Minitel with a lot of custom stuff added on.”
Willis whistled again. “How much do you want me to tell Ruth?”
“Hold off on that till I’ve had a chance to do some more checking. I’m gonna be visiting Brookhearst again tomorrow night, but unofficially.”
“You got it. I should have some results for you by morning – and don’t worry about the monitoring; wherever the other computers are, they won’t know we’ve been anywhere near.” Mac swore he could hear mental gears whirring into overdrive. “You said this was their private home, right? How about if I dig out the details of their phone records? Might find out something useful there.”
“You might not find anything at all.”
“Well, that’s useful too, isn’t it?”
Mac grinned, feeling a wave of delight in spite of the ugly feeling that still lingered in his stomach every time he thought of that insidious electronic spiderweb in Baranyev’s office. “Willis, remind me not to get on your bad side, okay?”
Now we know where Mac got that lurid shirt... heh!
