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taras_olekseiThe handwriting was familiar.
That was the thing that seemed the strangest to him, the detail that felt out of place.
Taras knew it from numerous old case files he'd gone through back in Leningrad, neat, organized notes, all written in an elegant hand.
Liadov's writing was distinct, artfully slanted. Not quite regular, but easy enough to read.
It was out of context here, in the darkened office, as he looked through Liadov's notes by penlight. Papers with Liadov's writing belonged in the records room back in the MVD building in Leningrad, testaments to a bygone era.
Except they really did belong here, he supposed, in Liadov's makeshift field office, in the Soviet army base they all now called their temporary home.
The office had not been hard to find, nor to break into.
Taras left the desk and its contents untouched, preferring to study things like the arrangement of objects, how Liadov kept things organized. What the man had brought with him in terms of personal items. How he had decorated, if at all.
He didn't know what compelled him to find out more about Liadov. Maybe because he didn't understand the story Ilarion had told him. Maybe because he didn't understand Liadov at all.
Taras swept the penlight over the desk again, then caught a slight noise from the office door.
He froze.
The sound of a key in the lock.
That was the thing that seemed the strangest to him, the detail that felt out of place.
Taras knew it from numerous old case files he'd gone through back in Leningrad, neat, organized notes, all written in an elegant hand.
Liadov's writing was distinct, artfully slanted. Not quite regular, but easy enough to read.
It was out of context here, in the darkened office, as he looked through Liadov's notes by penlight. Papers with Liadov's writing belonged in the records room back in the MVD building in Leningrad, testaments to a bygone era.
Except they really did belong here, he supposed, in Liadov's makeshift field office, in the Soviet army base they all now called their temporary home.
The office had not been hard to find, nor to break into.
Taras left the desk and its contents untouched, preferring to study things like the arrangement of objects, how Liadov kept things organized. What the man had brought with him in terms of personal items. How he had decorated, if at all.
He didn't know what compelled him to find out more about Liadov. Maybe because he didn't understand the story Ilarion had told him. Maybe because he didn't understand Liadov at all.
Taras swept the penlight over the desk again, then caught a slight noise from the office door.
He froze.
The sound of a key in the lock.
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Date: 2008-10-10 11:32 pm (UTC)"Tell me who you live with, and I will tell you who you are. That axiom is as apt today as it was when it was coined. You, comrade Oleksei, are the very reasonable litmus by which I judge my beloved old friend's intentions. And here you are, again, in my office, intruding on time-honored agency decorum and intending no good."
He did not lean forward to counter Oleksei's invasion of his territorial space, but merely looked at him with sleepless eyes.
"You ask how I come to my assumption? You are my basis for assumption. His choice of association is telling, especially when taken with all that I know of his ruthlessness, and how far that is capable of extending."
Liadov paused, tilting his head.
"All that can be as it may. Still, none of it beckons the questions that I think are most intriguing, Mr. Oleksei, and indulge me if you will-"
Nika drew a breath, crossing his arms and fixing Oleksei with a mildly piercing glance.
"First: why do you care about the particulars of my relationship with Ilarion Isaev, and, more to the point, if Isaev didn't send you to rummage through my possessions like an overgrown raccoon, what could your motive possibly be?"