The Bootlegger (Isaac Bell 7)

“No! They didn’t tell me such things. I only learned afterward.”

“Where is Yuri?”

“He died in the explosion.”

“Along with forty innocents.”

She hung her head. “They don’t think the way we do. They’ve experienced terrible things we haven’t.”

“Those forty have.”

“Moscow made Yuri a ‘hero of the revolution.’ Not Marat. He didn’t do it.”

“Why do you say Zolner didn’t do it? Just because he wasn’t killed in the blast?”

“Marat would never make such a mistake. He’s too meticulous. Yuri was impetuous. He would blunder ahead. He couldn’t help himself.”

Bell looked at her and she looked away. He said, “Could Zolner have made a ‘mistake,’ deliberately?”

“Why?”

“To get rid of his watchdog.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No. Absolutely not.”

“You say no, but you’re thinking that it is possible that he killed Yuri, aren’t you?”

She was silent a long moment, then said in a bleak and empty voice. “Yuri was my friend.”

“He was a

murderer,” said Isaac Bell. “Forty times over.”

“I didn’t know he was going to do it.”

Bell made no effort to hide his disgust. “Whether you are a traitor, or a foolish young woman who—as I said generously, earlier—fell in with the ‘wrong crowd,’ will depend on your next move.”

“Betray him?”

“I will make it easy for you.”

“How?”

“I just told you. He’s already betrayed you. And your workers’ cause.”

“How?”

“You introduced him to Newtown Storms. Storms invests the enormous sums of cash that Marat Zolner earns bootlegging. Do you deny that he uses the money Storms makes in the stock market to finance his Comintern attack on our country?”

Fern Hawley returned Bell’s wintery gaze in silence.

“I am asking you privately,” said Bell. He had thought on this all afternoon. He had much bigger fish to fry than one confused spoiled brat. “Confidentially, Fern. Between you and me. All alone on your yacht in the middle of a harbor of a remote British colony.”

“Why are you protecting me?” she asked in a small voice.

“Two reasons. One, I truly do believe that you fell in with the wrong crowd.”

“What makes you believe that? You don’t know me.”