Trinity: The Koldun Code (Book 1) Read online

  Alexey smiled and said, “Well, it’s like this …” And he began to tell them about how he had decided to take on Trinity. He didn’t tell them everything; and he certainly did not mention the recent troubles. But Therese and Irina seemed very interested, and made the right sorts of responses at the right sorts of moments, and Helen could see by the expression in her mother’s eyes that her already good impression of Alexey was only growing by the minute, and it made her very glad.

  *

  But a short while later, Irina ambushed Helen when both Therese and Alexey were out of earshot in the garden. “Listen, honey. Don’t take this the wrong way. Think of it as an old woman’s paranoia, if you like – but are you sure you’re being wise?”

  Helen bristled. “What do you mean?”

  “His kind – they’re trouble. Dashing, rich young men, used to having their own way. After what happened with Simon, aren’t you the least bit worried?”

  Helen stiffened. “He’s nothing like Simon! And he’s not a kind. He’s just himself.”

  “In any case, you hardly know him. You only met him, what, a week ago? Less? No wonder your mother’s worried.”

  “She is not worried,” retorted Helen. “We’ve spoken about it, and she’s fine.”

  “That’s what she might tell you, and I know you might think I’m an interfering old bitch, but I care about you. And about Therese. And I know when she’s worried.”

  “Mam likes him,” said Helen, stubbornly.

  “Sure she likes him. Hell, I like him. He’s likeable all right.”

  “Well, then ...”

  “But look at you, Helen. You hang on his every word. You practically live in his pocket. Nobody else seems to matter.”

  “That’s not true! And Mam understands. I know she does.”

  “Sure she does. It’s what happened to her, with your father. God, you should have seen them together. Couldn’t keep their eyes and hands off each other. It was – intense. And she was so happy at the time. Everything that separated them – their culture, their experiences, their personalities – didn’t matter a damn, back then. But it ended up mattering very much, Helen. Too much.”

  “Alexey is not my father,” said Helen, fiercely. “And I’m not my mother.”

  “You are from different worlds,” said Irina. “He’s Russian. And you’re a Westerner. You speak a different language. And I don’t just mean words. It’s what’s in your head. The mind-set, it’s just not the same.”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying this, after all you’ve said about Russia, and how much you love it!”

  “Sure I do, at least most of the time, but I don’t kid myself I understand it completely. And I’m not trying to have a relationship with a guy, either. Things are complicated enough as it is. Hell’s bells, honey, I’m part Russian and I’ve lived here on and off for years and I still don’t get it sometimes.”

  “Why do we always have to get it?” snapped Helen. “Why can’t we just accept it’s different, and take it from there?”

  “All very woo-woo and mystical,” retorted Irina, “but you have to weigh up the risks.”

  “Risk is the price we pay for living! If someone told you, Irina, that this book you’re writing – the work you love so much – if someone said that it is dangerous trash and that you should give it up – what would you do?”

  Irina gave her a sharp glance. She shrugged. “Touché. I’d tell them to go to hell.”

  “I don’t want to tell you that, because I know you care about me and Mam – I know you are saying these things because of that – but please, understand. This is the most important thing that has ever happened to me and I will never turn my back on it. No matter what. Never. Ever.”

  Their eyes met, for a long moment. Irina sighed. “Hell, I can respect that. Completely. You have made your choice and you are sticking to it, come what may.” Her tone changed, became softer, apologetic. “And look, honey, I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn. Damn bad habit of mine, blurting out what I shouldn’t.” She stuck a hand out. “No hard feelings?”

  Helen took the proffered hand. “It’s okay.” And oddly enough, it was. Irina had been challenging, but that was a good thing. Unlike Mam, she thought, Irina never saw me when I was feeling bad, so she isn’t wary, she doesn’t spare me at all and that’s kind of stimulating. It was all out in the open now, with Mam, with Irina, I stood up for myself and for Alexey, I found exactly the right way to defeat her arguments, and she respects that. I know she does. It feels like the air’s been cleared between us, for good.

  Chapter 28

  This apartment was almost comically the polar opposite of Nevsky’s, Maxim thought: cheerful, colorful and cluttered with pictures – including a wall covered in icons – and memorabilia of all sorts. Behind a closed door, he heard a woman’s voice, crooning to a fretful child. It made a sudden pang go through him. How much have I lost, he thought, sadly, through my own stubbornness? I could have been happy with Marina, if I’d tried. If she’d mattered more to me than my own pride. This man might have a job I consider strange, irrelevant, fake, even. But he has a family. Something real. Something warm. Someone to care if he was hurt, or lonely. Someone to mourn him when he was gone.

  “So,” said the man he’d come to see. Josef Oberlian was a big, vigorous-looking man in his late thirties, with an Armenian accent and a steady dark gaze. “You were quite mysterious on the phone, Senior Lieutenant. To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

  Maxim pushed aside the regretful thoughts and became brisk. “I’m sorry to call so late,” he said, “but I wondered if this man had ever come to you as a client.” From his wallet, he took a newspaper photograph of Ivan Makarov and showed it to him. The Armenian glanced at the picture, then back at the policeman. He said, “This is the man from that Trinity case, yes? You are investigating his death?”

  Maxim saw no reason to deny it. “That is so.”

  “Why show me this? Why come to me?”

  “A friend of mine told me you are regarded as the best aura-reader in Moscow,” Maxim said, discreetly. Skorpia had texted him Oberlian’s details. “I know Ivan Makarov had his aura read. I also know that he only ever sought out the best, in any field of life. Therefore if he did go to an aura-reader, he would have come to you.” The Armenian inclined his head in recognition of the compliment, but said nothing. Maxim went on. “It would have been at least two, maybe even three years ago.”

  “That was a fair time ago, Senior Lieutenant! And you understand, I have had many clients before and since. Some of them are regulars. Others come only once or twice. It is not always easy to remember those.”

  Maxim looked hard at him. “But I think this man did visit you, didn’t he? You displayed no surprise when I showed you his picture.”

  “Yes. You are quite right. But I had forgotten him until I saw news of his death on TV.”

  “And yet you did not contact the police.”

  The steady gaze did not waver. “Why should I? There was nothing linking a client’s visit some years ago to that client’s suspicious death in a business scandal. He did not consult me about his work, Senior Lieutenant.”

  Maxim had to admit that was fair enough. “So, he came to visit you. What happened?”

  Instead of answering directly, the Armenian said, “Do you know how we aura-readers work, Senior Lieutenant?”

  “Not really. Please enlighten me.”

  “People come to us for various reasons – usually because they have problems of one kind or another, health problems, for example, that doctors can’t work out. Or maybe they fear they are under psychic attack of some sort, such as by energy vampires. But as well as physical or psychic problems, people can also come to an aura-reader for curiosity’s sake. Because they want to know if what they perceive of themselves is the truth. Or they want to get to know themselves better. For their spiritual advancement – or for other reasons.”

  “Mmm,” said Maxim, non-committally. “And wh
at category did Ivan Mikhailovich Makarov fall under?”

  “The man whose picture you showed me?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was definitely in the second category. Now, let me explain – a very small percentage of us can see people’s auras clearly, with the naked eye. Most of us see them only dimly, however, and need to take photographs to focus our perception.”

  “Kirlian photographs?”

  “Exactly. Anyway – I was originally of the second breed of aura-reader, with only a slight natural talent, but over the years I have greatly sharpened my … perception.” His dark eyes flicked over Maxim’s face, thoughtfully, and the policeman had the uncomfortable feeling that his aura was getting a thorough look-over. “However, I always work with photographs initially, as that puts clients at their ease. But there is another reason why I do it.”

  “And that is?”

  “It is less dangerous, Senior Lieutenant,” said Oberlian, quietly. “You see, an aura is the visible emanation of a person’s innermost being. Intensely personal, yes? But the photograph is made by an impersonal machine. It is then like an X-ray. Ultrasounds. Scans. The client does not link you, the professional aura-reader, directly with the photograph. You are merely the interpreter of it, like a doctor is of scans and X-rays and the rest. No one can blame you for what is there or not there. The machine does not have an agenda. It cannot threaten you. It cannot be a danger to you. It merely – records. With some people – it is absolutely essential they know that. That they think that without the machine, you can see – nothing. Or very little.” His eyes met Maxim’s. “Do you understand?”

  Maxim nodded.

  “This man Makarov – who by the way did not give his real name – was one of those sorts. I would have wanted him to think that I saw very little without the photograph. Do you see?”

  Maxim said, “Yes I do.”

  “In fact, his aura was very bright. And dominated by the kinds of colors that give off a certain – danger signal.”

  “Red, black, indigo, yellows,” said Maxim, promptly.

  “Ah. You must have seen a copy of his Kirlian photo.”

  “It’s come up in the investigation. What does it mean?”

  “Without the actual photograph, I can’t give a complete picture, you understand. It all depends on the shades of color and where they’re distributed. But if I may make gross generalizations: red is associated with a strong ego, passion, conviction, certainty; indigos and yellows with varying degrees of psychic abilities; and blacks with – shall we say – negative qualities. All in all, an image showing a person of a certain – formidable sort. Not one you’d want to interfere with. If you get my meaning.”

  “Yes. I’d like to see your file on Makarov’s Kirlian photos, please.”

  “No. I’m sorry – what I mean is, if a client is not a regular, I do not keep any such files, Senior Lieutenant. I destroy my notes and give all copies of the photos to the clients, including the negatives as well. Another form of insurance, you might say.”

  Maxim said, “I see. But Makarov didn’t come just once, did he?”

  For the first time, the man’s calm gaze wavered. “What?”

  “He returned a few weeks or months after he’d originally come, and asked you to be part of a new venture he was starting. Offered you a job, in short.”

  Oberlian stared. “What? He did no such thing.”

  “Are you sure? Please tell me the truth, because if you do not –”

  “I am telling the truth, Senior Lieutenant. Yes, he came back. But no, he did not come back to ask me to join any venture. If he had …”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d have said no.”

  “When did he come back?”

  “About three months after the first session.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Simply another session with the camera, Senior Lieutenant. He wanted to know if certain areas of his aura had become enhanced.”

  “The yellows and indigos, I presume? The psychic area?”

  “Yes. You are quite correct.”

  “Had they? Become enhanced, I mean?”

  “Yes. They had been paler in the first session. The shades had deepened.”

  “Can you explain that?”

  “He had been working on them.”

  “How does one do that?”

  “Mental exercises. Visualization. Meditation. Experimentation. Those are the tried and true methods. Slow, yes. But tried and true. You can even buy machines to do it, if you are impatient. And foolish.”

  “How so?”

  “I have heard many inflated claims about such machines. But none stand up to proof.”

  “What sort of machines are we talking about?”

  Oberlian shrugged. “Hand-held devices which use microwaves, electromagnetic radiation, laser or acoustic waves, or even simple electrical charges, to artificially interfere with the brain. It’s believed some such devices have been used as weaponry. But it’s claimed by those who sell them over the Internet that they can also enhance and stimulate the mind’s abilities. Psychotronic devices, they are sometimes called. The kind the Parliament banned a few years ago but which our Defence Minister not long ago mentioned as having some interest for our military. And there’s a flourishing black-market trade in them. Why, I could order one today over the Internet if I so chose.”

  “But you say none stand up to proof.”

  “That is so. These devices have been on sale for years. No doubt many people have bought them. But I have observed no corresponding rise in psychic power among the general public, and my clients present with the same mixture of abilities, or lack of them, as way back when I first started. No, Senior Lieutenant, they’re fool’s gold, sold by shysters.”

  “So you don’t think Makarov would have been using such a thing?”

  “Certainly not. Whatever else he might or might not have been, the man was clearly no fool. Besides, he told me himself he’d been using mental exercises and experimentation. There really is no substitute for good old-fashioned work and practice. Of course, if someone were one day to discover a process which did away for the need for the hard slog in the psychic realm, that would change the face of the world. Myself, though, I think such a thing will remain firmly in the domain of fiction.” He smiled. “I certainly hope so, or all of us professional psychics would be out of a job.”

  “I see. Very interesting. Did Makarov come back a third time?”

  “No. He did not. He thanked me, paid, and left with his photographs. I never saw him again. Until – I saw a report about his death on TV.”

  Maxim took out two other newspaper photos from his wallet. Galkin. Barsukov. He said, “What about these two? Did they come to see you?”

  Oberlian looked at them. “These are the other two men in the case, am I correct?”

  “You are. Well?”

  “No, Senior Lieutenant. I am certain they never came to me. But if you have found their Kirlian photos, then I will remind you that I am not the only aura-reader in Moscow.”

  “No, of course,” said Maxim. Then he added, “Is it possible to read the aura of a dead person?” He was thinking of Major Mikhail Makarov.

  Oberlian looked startled. “What?”

  “I mean – if you are given a portrait, or a photograph of them?”

  “I see. Well – it’s possible – but it is likely to be inaccurate, because it will be at second-hand.”

  “Ivan Makarov didn’t ask you the same question?”

  “No, Senior Lieutenant. He did not.”

  “I see. Well, thank you, Mr. Oberlian, you have been most helpful.”

  “May I make an observation, Senior Lieutenant?”

  “You may.”

  “Sometimes things are not what they seem to be. A man may think he knows what he’s doing – his aura may be bright, clear, powerful – but that doesn’t mean he really does know. Contrary to what many people think, an aura is not your destiny. It is not
fixed, and cannot, must not, be used to foretell the future. It should not be used as an infallible guide. It is merely a reflection of your innermost self. But even that can change.” He gestured at the wall of icons. “Only God knows everything. We humans – we are rather more limited. We see through a glass darkly. Some of us better than others, that’s all.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “I am telling you that what may seem to us to be our greatest strength may instead be our fatal weakness. You may be lured to your death by the very thing which, in your blindness, you may consider to be your chief strength.”

  *

  As he went back down in the elevator, Maxim could not get those words out of his head. The very thing which, in your blindness, you may consider to be your chief strength. What was Ivan Makarov’s strength? His passion for Trinity, of course. And that newly discovered “psychic” talent of his, which he had decided to put in Trinity’s service. Trinity, which indissolubly linked the three directors: that, and their loyalty to each other.

  But Makarov had been the company’s heart. The driving force of the triumvirate. And whatever the truth about his “psychic power”, Makarov had certainly been a powerful man. A man not to easily cross. And yet a charismatic man. A man who still, even after his death, inspired the loyalty of his subordinates. Family strengths, those. The KGB major, that fearsome old heart-devourer, had had them in spades, too. And now, it seemed, Alexey ...

  He looked at the time. It was well past eleven by now. Still, he might as well try. He took out his phone, dialed Alexey’s number. It was picked up after a few rings. Alexey said, “Hello?”

  Maxim could hear voices in the background. It sounded like the TV was on. He said, in Russian, “I’m sorry to disturb you, Alexey Ivanovich.”

  “It’s okay. Film’s just about over, anyway. Helen and I have been sitting up watching my favorite childhood film. Lev Atamanov’s The Snow Queen. What’s up?”