Free The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer Page A

the sofa Dzubenko sat on. In fact, the whole lower floor of this two-story farmhouse outside Frauenfeld, not far from the highway, had been fitted with that Swedish company’s functional furniture. Around the house lay acres of cold, flat field, empty save for four Company guards with infrared binoculars. Upstairs, in a room the size of a closet, Drummond was watching them through video monitors. By morning, he would have a transcription of the whole conversation, with English translation.
    “So, Marko. I hear you’ve got a story about the Chinese for us.”
    The Ukrainian stared at the black television and shrugged. “They tell you about all the hot Kiev information? Man, you can worry about the Chinese all you want, but it’s the Kievskaya Rus’ you should really worry about.”
    “Trust me, we are worried. But I’m here about the Chinese. You want to tell me how a man like you learns of a secret Chinese plot?”
    Dzubenko glared at him, as if his word couldn’t be doubted, but said, “Biggest intelligence organization on the planet, so what do you think? Guoanbu. The motherfuckers are all over Kiev now. It’s getting like Chinatown. They know how important we are, how we’re positioned. Russian fuckers on one side, European Union on the other—it all rubs.”
    “Friction.”
    “Exactly,” he said, using his cigarette to point at Milo. “I’ve got respect for them—don’t get me wrong. They spend money on their people, place them all over the world. They’re
smart
. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it when they take over my hometown and myhard-ass bosses start treating them like princesses they’ve got boners for. Know what I mean?”
    Milo didn’t, not exactly—he hadn’t been in the Ukraine since the nineties, and the Guoanbu hadn’t gained a foothold there yet—but he could imagine. “Look, I’m just surprised the Chinese shared their secrets with a Ukrainian second lieutenant.”
    “It wasn’t like that,” said Dzubenko. “It was at a party. On Grushevskogo Street.”
    “The Chinese embassy.”
    “Of course.”
    “What for?”
    “What?”
    “Why was there a party?”
    “Oh! Chinese New Year. They’ve got their own, you know.”
    “So do Ukrainians. What date?”
    “Beginning of the month. February 7.”
    “And they invited an SSU second lieutenant?”
    Dzubenko frowned at his cigarette and chewed the inside of his mouth. “You’re trying to get a rise out of me, but it’s not going to work. I’m sure of the rightness of my position.”
    “I’m just trying to understand, Marko.”
    “It was my boss. Lutsenko. Bogdan Lutsenko. He’s a colonel—you can check on that in your files. He was invited, and he asked if I wanted to come along. I said,
Why not?
But I didn’t know, did I?”
    “Didn’t know what?”
    “How it would make me sick to my stomach, being there. And that Xin Zhu would be there soaking up all the attention.”
    “Xin Zhu?”
    “Guoanbu,” Dzubenko told him. “Don’t know his rank, but it must be high up. He’s a fat fucker. Big as a cow. Carries himself like some fucking sheik. Half his entourage were slant-eyes, the other half were my bosses, laughing at all his jokes.”
    “What kinds of jokes?”
    “Russian jokes. China’s full of those jokes, I guess. It didn’t hurt that he told them in excellent Russian. Plays on words, thatsort of thing. Had them in stitches. You know what it looked like to me?”
    “What?”
    “Like the defeated fawning over their new masters. That’s what it looked like to me. So I went out on the terrace and started smoking, waiting to go home. I got through two cigarettes before he came out to join me.”
    “He?”
    “Xin Fucking Zhu.”
    Milo allowed an expression of surprise to slip into his features. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
    “I am not. He brings his fat ass outside. It’s cold, you know, but he’s still sweating. Glowing from all the attention. That’s why he came out—inside, he’d