The Woods by Harlan Coben Page B

view, but the walls had this thick wallpaper, tapestry-like, in a color that probably had some fancy name like "Merlot" but looked to me like blood.
    Sosh's face lit up when he saw me. He spread his hands wide. One of my most vivid childhood memories was the size of those hands. They were still huge. He had grayed over the years, but even now, when I calculated that he was probably in his early seventies, you still felt the size and power and something approaching awe.
    I stopped outside the elevator.
    "What," he said to me, "you too old for a hug now?"
    We both stepped toward each other. The embrace was, per his Russian background, a true bear hug. Strength emanated from him. His forearms were still thick coils. He pulled me close, and I felt as though he could simply tighten his grip and snap my spine.
    After a few seconds, Sosh grabbed my arms near the biceps and held me at arm's length so he could take a good look. "Your father," he said, his voice thick with more than accent this time. "You look just like your father."
    Sosh had arrived from the Soviet Union not long after we did. He worked for In Tourist, the Soviet tour company, in their Manhattan office. His job was to help facilitate American tourists who wished to visit Moscow and what was then called Leningrad.
    That was a long time ago. Since the fall of the Soviet government, he dabbled in that murky enterprise people labeled "import-export." I never knew what that meant exactly, but it had paid for this penthouse.
    Sosh looked at me another moment or two. He wore a white shirt buttoned low enough to see the V-neck undershirt. A huge tuft of gray chest hair jutted out. I waited. This would not take long. Uncle Sosh was not one for casual talk.
    As if reading my mind, Sosh looked me hard in the eye and said, "I have been getting calls." "From?" "Old friends." I waited. "From the old country," he said. "I'm not sure I follow." "People have been asking questions." "Sosh? "Yes?"
    "On the phone you were worried about being overheard. Are you worried about that here?" "No. Here it is completely safe. I have the room swept weekly." "Great, then how about stopping with the cryptic and telling me what you're talking about?" He smiled. He liked that. "There are people. Americans. They are in Moscow and throwing money around and asking questions." I nodded to myself. "Questions about what?" "About your father." "What kind of questions?" "You remember the old rumors?"
    "You're kidding me." But he wasn’t. And in a weird way, it made sense. The First Skeleton. I should have guessed. I remembered the rumors, of course. They had nearly destroyed my family.
    My sister and I were born in what was then called the Soviet Union during what was then called the Cold War. My father had been a medical doctor but lost his license on charges of incompetence trumped up because he was Jewish. That was how it was in those days.
    At the same time, a reform synagogue here in the United States- Skokie, Illinois, to be more specific, was working hard on behalf of Soviet Jewry. During the midseventies, Soviet Jewry was something of a cause celebre in American temples getting Jews out of the Soviet Union.
    We got lucky. They got us out.
    For a long time we were heralded in our new land as heroes. My father spoke passionately at Friday night services about the plight of the Soviet Jew. Kids wore buttons in support. Money was donated. But about a year into our stay, my father and the head rabbi had a falling out, and suddenly there were whispers that my father had gotten out of the Soviet Union because he was actually KGB, that he wasn't even Jewish, that it was all a ruse. The charges were pathetic and contradictory and false and now, well, more than twenty-five years old.
    I shook my head. "So they're trying to prove that my father was KGB?"
    "Yes."
    Frigid' Jenrette. I got it, I guessed. I was something of a public figure now. The charges, even if ultimately proven false, would be damaging. I