Titov said, “You can count on it. Hey, it just occurred to me, Bernard…You’re skinnier than I am. Let me get…”
He went to the van and opened up a suitcase, took out a pair of jeans and said, “Put these on over your pants. You’ll be less cool.”
Sokolov did that. Edouard said, “We should go,” and Titov and Sokolov shook hands and Sokolov said, “I will see you at home, I hope.”
“I will find you when I get there,” Titov said. And he thought,????? ??? ?? ????????????,which literally meant, “when a crawfish whistles on a mountain” or, not so literally, “in a pig’s eye.”
A minute later, the sled had disappeared into the trees, headed for the frozen-over Pigeon River, and Canada.
Titov was looking at a long drive. He sat in the van, looking out in the now empty darkness, then sighed, and turned it around.
35
Sherwood hadn’t quite become intolerable, though he was getting close. Pacing, muttering to himself, speculating that Titov had made fools of them, was probably on his way to Moscow…
Lucas tried to reassure him: “Shut the fuck up.”
Sherwood had managed to frighten three sheriffs and two police chiefs to the point that they would have done anything he asked. What he’d asked was that the sheriffs and police chiefs take credit for spotting and tracking the Russians out of Menomonie to Hayward, where they’d isolated, and with help from the Marshals Service, killed Abramova. The northern Wisconsin law enforcement community was happy to fall on that sword.
The Sawyer County sheriff gave an ill-attended and somewhat confusing press conference to that effect, and Abramova’s death was a one-day, one-night sensation, falling off by the second day.
That said, they hadn’t heard from Titov, and the FBI had gotten on Sherwood’s case about shooting Abramova. Not that they objected, but they were unhappy that they hadn’t been notified, in triplicate. Mallard had spoken directly to the director of the CIA, and told Lucas, “I think that asshole was yawning while was I talking.”
“That’s possible, Louis, since you people have been walking around with sticks up your butts,” Lucas said. He was sitting at the kitchen table with Weather and Sherwood, and with the phone on speaker. “The CIA is trying to do something important, while the FBI tries to take credit for something they didn’t do. Get over it.”
Mallard said, “Let me give the phone to Jane for a minute.”
Chase came on and said, “Fuck you, Lucas,” and hung up.
Made Lucas, Weather, and Sherwood laugh, and Lucas told Sherwood, “I don’t think you need to worry. If Titov comes through, you’ll hand the connection off to the FBI anyway, the counter-intel group. When it all comes out in the end, they’ll be there to get the credit.”
“Everyone who counts will know what happened. I don’t need to have it in the newspapers,” Sherwood said. “But where in the hell is Titov? Did he ditch us?”
“I don’t think so,” Lucas said. “He wants the American dollars, and that house out west. He’ll show.”
“I swear to God, if he doesn’t come through, I’ll find him and go to his front door and shoot him myself.”
“You don’t do that, remember?” Lucas said. “You’ve been pissing and moaning for two days now. Stop. Relax. If it doesn’t work out…”
“If it doesn’t work out, what?” Sherwood asked.
“I’m just a humble marshal, so, I’ll be okay,” Lucas said. “You, on the other hand, after the promises you’ve made, will probably be screwed. Looking at an assignment in…Canada. Or maybe Iceland.”
“I didn’t make any promises…”
“Some were certainly implied,” Lucas said, sticking the fork in.
“For Christ’s sake, where is he?”
• • •
Titov had drivenmost of the way back to the Twin Cities and then had pulled in to a motel, and spent a day talking with Kuznetsov, searching the Internet, and watching TV for reports on Abramova, trying to figure out exactly how secure he might be.
By the second day, he decided he was good.
Oddly, the near collapse of the American mainstream media was a help. No newspaper or television reporters had gone to Hayward to question the cops and poke holes in the stories, because there weren’t enough reporters to go around.
Sherwood stopped whining the next morning when Titov called Lucas and arranged to meet that afternoon at a Cinnabon store at Mall of America. Asked why the mall, he said it was one of the few places in the Twin Cities that he knew about, and besides, he liked cinnamon rolls. “If the CIA decides to kill me, I’d like to go with a cinnamon roll in my mouth.”
