Snow Wolf (10 page)

"What about the Finns?"

"They want us to make a quick
decision. But if we don't grant her asylum, they sure as hell won't. As it is,
the Russian Ambassador's up their ass with a big stick."

After the Finns had endured a savage and
humiliating war with Russia thirteen years before, Massey knew they treated
their closest neighbor with caution, like a bear they didn't want to rouse to
anger. But Finland also took a delight in frustrating Moscow. They had allowed
Anna Khorev to be moved to a private hospital rather than keep her in the
special prison on Ratakatu Street, headquarters of Finnish counterintelligence.
And they had granted her temporary refugee status while the Americans made up
their minds.

"So what do you think's going to
happen?"

Canning looked across the table, a
concerned look on his face. "We don't need the kind of diplomatic trouble
this can bring, Jake. So my guess is that the Ambassador will send her back.
And there's something else you ought to know. Helsinki has an agreement with
the Russians that allows them to interview any border-crossers convicted of
serious crimes. The Soviet Embassy has already made it clear it wants to do
that. It gives them a chance to save face and exert a little pressure to try to
get the escapee to return with promises of leniency, before they really put on
the pressure at embassy Lebel. There's a senior official in town right now
who's handling it. Some guy called Romulka, from Moscow."

"KGB?"

Canning grinned. "You can bet your
ass on it."

"Damn it, the girl's been through
hell and back. She shouldn't have to go through all that."

"Maybe, but it's the law, Jake. You
know if I had my way anyone who comes over that border who's a genuine
political refugee has got my support. But rightly or wrongly she did commit
murder. And that makes it pretty difficult for us to grant her asylum."

"Doug, if we send the girl back the
Ambassador will be signing her death warrant. He may as well pull the damned
trigger himself."

Canning heard the passion in Massey's
reply and raised his eyebrows. "Hey, it sounds as if you've got a strong
personal interest in the girl, Jake."

"She's been through a hell of a
time. She deserves our help. If we send her back, we're only condoning what the
Russians do. We're saying go right ahead, punish her. There's nothing wrong
with the camps you run. Nothing wrong with killing or imprisoning millions of
people, most of them innocent." Massey shook his head firmly. "Me,
I'd have a problem going along with that."

Canning hesitated. "Jake, there's
something odd about this whole damned thing I haven't told you about but I
think you'd better know because it kind of upsets the equation. Despite the
fact that the woman's story didn't change during questioning by the Finns, one
of their more experienced SUPO officers who questioned her said in his report
he didn't believe her."

"Why not?"

"The area where she claims she was
in the penal camp, the Finnish officer knows it pretty well. He used to live
there when it used to be part of Karelia before the Russians were ceded the
territory after the war. This officer says it's impossible for the woman to
have made the journey on foot from the camp. The story she told us may make
some kind of sense but he says the terrain she's supposed to have crossed is
too hostile and even the length of time she said it took her he claims doesn't
ring true. He thinks she was left near the border by the KGB. Left there to get
over to our side as she did, for whatever reason they have in mind."

"What else does he say?"

"That the whole thing is an
elaborate setup by Moscow."

"I don't believe that."

"Moscow could be fooling us, Jake.
They've done it before. And whatever they have in mind for the girl, this whole
thing about them wanting her back could be another part of the game to make us
believe her story."

"I don't believe that either."

Canning shrugged and wiped his mouth with
his napkin. "OK, so what do you suggest?"

"Let me talk with the Ambassador
before he makes a final decision. And try to hold off letting this Romulka guy
talk to her for as long as you can. I'd like to see her again myself. Not for
another interrogation, just a friendly chat."

Canning gestured for the waiter to bring
the bill, indicating the meeting was at an end, before he looked back at
Massey.

"Any particular reason why you want
to talk with her again?"

"After what she's been through, I'd
guess she needs to talk with someone."

The private hospital was on the outskirts
of Helsinki.

It was a big old place on a hill with
high stone walls set on several dozen acres. There was a small forest of silver
birch trees and a tiny frozen lake, wooden benches set around the perimeter.

Anna Khorev was given her own private
room on the third floor. There was a view of the city and the brightly colored
timber houses that dotted Helsinki's shore and islands. A guard sat outside her
room day and night.

A table stood in a corner, a blue vase on
top filled with winter flowers, and there was a radio on a shelf by the window.
On the first day she had twiddled with the plastic dial as it spread across the
band of short-wave frequencies, listening to music and voices in a dozen
different languages from cities she had only read about: London, Vienna, Rome,
Cairo.

That afternoon one of the nurses had
helped her bathe and changed her dressing and afterwards had brought her fresh
clothes. The wound in her side was now just a dull throb, and later she had
walked in the hospital grounds. She avoided talking with the other patients on
Massey's instructions, though she desperately wanted to see the world beyond
the walls and experience freedom. But it was not to be, and she had to content
herself with small triumphs, listening to music and reading the newspapers in
English.

That first evening a doctor had come to
see her.

He was young, in his middle thirties,
with the compassionate blue eyes of a good listener. He spoke softly in
Russian, explaining that he was a psychiatrist. He asked her about her past and
she repeated what she had told Massey. The doctor seemed especially interested
in her treatment at the camp, but when he had tried to probe her about Ivan and
Sasha she had become withdrawn.

On the following day she turned on the
radio and the music that came on was soft and classical and she recognized the
strains of Dvofdk. It was music Ivan had loved and it made her think of him and
Sasha and suddenly a terrible black wave swept in and she felt utterly alone.

As she stood at the window trying to
shake off the anguish, she saw a young couple come through the hospital gates.

It was visiting time and a little girl walked
between them. She couldn't have been more than two or three and she wore a blue
coat and a red scarf. Her woollen cap was pulled down on her head and her hands
were wrapped snugly in mittens.

She stared down at the child's face for a
long time before the man swept her up in his arms and they all disappeared into
the hospital.

As she turned away from the window she
switched off the music. She went to lie on the bed and closed her eyes. The
sobbing that came then racked her body in convulsions until she felt she could
cry no more.

Sooner or later, she told herself, it
would have to stop. She couldn't live with grief forever.

On the third morning Massey came to see
her and he suggested they go for a walk down to the lake where they could talk
in private. A tree had been uprooted in a long-ago storm, its rotting tendrils
exposed, patches of moss growing on the dead roots. Massey sat beside her on a
wooden bench and lit a cigarette. Anna said, "May I have one too?"

"I didn't know you smoked."

"I don't. Not since the war. But I
think I would like one now."

Massey saw the nervousness in her face as
he lit her cigarette but he was amazed by the change in her appearance. She had
been given new clothes; a thick pale blue woollen sweater that she had tucked
into tight black ski pants. One of the staff nurses had loaned her a winter
coat that was a size too big for her and it made her look vulnerable, but there
was no denying her beauty.

She was different from any of the other
Russian women he had met. He had been one of the first Americans to reach
Berlin after the Reds had taken the city, and it was the first time he saw
female Russian soldiers. There were few beauties among them. Most had been
muscled, tough peasant women who looked like they shaved twice a day. He
guessed so would he if the Germans had been dropping shells on him for four
years.

"Have they been treating you well,
Anna?"

"Very well, thank you."

Massey looked out toward the lake and
spoke quietly. "I had a talk with Doctor Harlan. He thinks there's something
you should be aware of, Anna. It's not going to be easy for you to get over
what you've been through. He thinks you'll need time to deal with your
pain." He looked at her. "I guess what it comes down to is, no matter
what happens you have to try and forget about your husband and your child. Put
everything bad that's happened behind you. It sounds easy me saying that, but I
know it isn't." She looked at him without speaking, then said, "I
don't think I will ever forget Ivan and Sasha. The other things, maybe, but not
Ivan and Sasha."

Massey looked at her. He thought he saw
tears in the corners of her eyes. She was struggling hard to fight her
emotions, then she bit her lip and looked away. She didn't look back at him
when she spoke.

"May I ask you a question,
Massey?"

:"Sure."

"Where did you learn your
Russian?"

He knew her question was a way of
deflecting her pain and he looked at her and smiled.

:"My parents came from St.
Petersburg."

"But Massey isn't a Russian
name."

"Polish. It used to be Masensky. My
father's people originally came from Warsaw; my mother's were pure
Russian."

"But you don't like Russians?"

"What makes you say that?"

"The day you first came to see me at
the hospital. The way you looked at me. There was distrust in your eyes, even dislike."

Massey shook his head. "That's not
true, Anna. On the contrary. For the most part the Russians are a fine and
generous people. It's communism I hate. It kills everything that's noble and
good in mankind. Make no mistake, Anna, the men in the Kremlin are only
interested in one thing, and that's power. You're looking at the mirror image
of Nazism. But instead of a swastika on the flag there's a hammer and sickle
and a red star." He paused. "Anna, there's something I have to tell
you. Someone from your embassy wants to talk with you."

She looked at him and Massey saw the fear
in her eyes. "Talk about what?"

He explained what Canning had told him.
"It's only a formality but it's got to be done. Do you think you can go
through with it?"

She hesitated. "If you want me to.
When?"

"This afternoon. After that, the
American Ambassador will make his decision on your case. The Russian official,
his name is Romulka. Don't be afraid, I'll be with you all the time. Romulka's
not entitled to ask you questions about the crimes you allegedly committed, but
he will ask you to return to face trial, and he will promise you leniency. But
I guess you know that would hardly be the case."

"The doctor asked me a question this
morning. He asked if I regretted killing the men. The camp officer and the
guard at the border."

"What did you tell him?"

"I said that I could feel for their
wives and children, if they had any. But I didn't regret killing them. I wanted
to escape. What was done to me was wrong. I remember Ivan telling me something
once. Something he had read. That those to whom evil is done, do evil in
return. I only returned the evil that was done to me. It was me or them."

"Then I guess that answers it."

As Massey and Anna sat in the interview
room in the city police station, the two Russians in civilian suits stepped in
past the policeman who opened the door.

The older of the two was in his early
forties, and looked like a powerhouse of energy, tall and broad, his muscled
body straining under his suit.

A pair of cold blue eyes were set in a
brutal-looking face that was pockmarked with acne scars, and part of the man's
left ear was missing. He carried a briefcase and curtly introduced himself as
Nikita Romulka, a senior official from Moscow.

The second Russian, a young embassy aide,
sat beside him and handed him a file.

Romulka flicked it open and said,
"You are Anna Khorev."

The man barely looked at her as he spoke.

Massey nodded to Anna and she answered,
"Yes."

When the man looked up he stared at her
coldly.

"Under the terms of the
Soviet-Finnish Protocol I am here to offer you a chance to redeem yourself by
facing the serious crimes you have committed on Soviet soil. I am authorized to
inform you that should you return to Moscow your entire case will be reviewed
and resubmitted for trial and that you will be accorded the utmost leniency
that is due to every Soviet citizen. Do you understand me?"