Free Liberation Movements by Olen Steinhauer Page B

across the cover. “Here it is, comrade. I’m not going to hide my Bible anymore. Want to read?”
    Brano said nothing, only leaned back and crossed his arms over his stomach, while Gavra tilted forward, elbows on his knees.
    “We’re not here to make accusations, Zara. We’re trying to figure out what happened to Libarid.”
    Zara closed the book as Vahe stumbled into the room, grinning. There was a smudge of dirt across his forehead. When he saw the men, he stopped. “Come here,” Zara said, and he approached warily. She replaced the book in her lap with her son, wet her thumb with her tongue, and wiped his forehead clean.
    “Hey, buddy,” said Gavra, smiling, but the boy didn’t answer.
    “Comrade Terzian,” said Brano, “I asked my question because the church, as the center of the Armenian community, may have some answers for us.”
    She nodded, then squeezed her son to her breast. “Sorry. I—I’ve lost the only thing I could depend on. Libarid was the one person in my life devoted completely to me—to us —and now I’m left with only a memory. I…” She kissed the crown of Vahe’s head; he rolled his eyes. “This is no fake emotion, you see. It’s real. It makes rational thought a little difficult. No—we didn’t hear about any new Armenians. We knew about Gourgen Yanikian, of course, like everybody, but that’s America for you. America encourages people to do things like shoot each other.” She paused. “But I don’t know anyone who approved of Yanikian’s killings.”
    Then she started to cry, but her son smiled at them, as if to say, Look at her, would you?
     
     
    At the Militia station, Katja was standing by the window, alone. She looked up as they entered and said, “Any leads?”
    “No,” Brano said before Gavra could open his mouth. “And you? Any luck at the hotel?”
    She wagged a finger at him. “The desk clerk told me you’d already been there. Would you call that a lead?”
    “Perhaps,” said Brano, then went to his desk and began to dial the phone.
    Once Brano was looking in the other direction, Katja raised her eyebrows at Gavra and pointed at the door, before walking out through it.
    The old man was hunched over the mouthpiece, talking quietly to someone as Gavra followed her out.
    He found her on the front steps, smoking a cigarette. “What’s going on?”
    “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get a drink.”
    She led him to the underground parking lot and took a Militia Škoda. She drove them to a smoky café-bar on October Square. On the way, she only said, “I’m not going to talk to the old bastard. Only to you. Because I know you’ll work with me on this. Am I right?”
    “Yes,” said Gavra, unsure. “Of course.”
    They said hello to Max and Corina—the couple gave discounts to the Militia, which made their café popular with the station—and ordered palinkas. Gavra waited for the drinks, then carried them to the window table where Katja sat.
    She smiled—Katja often smiled at Gavra, and he worried that she was flirting with him. He knew she had difficulties in her marriage, and in Gavra’s experience marital troubles raised the chances he’d find himself in the embarrassing situation of fending off a female advance. Women sensed something in him that, unlike their men at home, was unthreatening.
    She hadn’t invited him out for anything like that, though. “Brano thought he trumped me by letting me go to the hotel when he’d already been. But the old comrade doesn’t quite know everything.”
    Gavra leaned closer.
    “He asked the staff if the Armenians had talked to anyone while they were there—phone calls, meetings in their rooms—and they hadn’t. But I found a very cooperative desk clerk who seemed to like me. I had him go through their records again, and he came up with this.”
    She produced a slip of paper marked
    Hotel Metropol
     
MESSAGE
TIME: 23:44
     

     
    TO: Emin Kazanjian
FROM: Cd. Martrich
     
    Gavra took it. “No