A Whisper to the Living

7

Pavel Petrov met Iris Templeton in the lobby of the office building not far from Red Square. He was a bit heavier than when last she had seen him, but he was still handsome and smiling. His suit, Iris could tell, was Italian and almost certainly custom-made.

“I am very glad you could come,” he said in English, taking her extended right hand and holding it in both of his. “You look as lovely as when last we met at the Trade Congress in Belgrade in 1994.”

“You have been well briefed,” she said.

Petrov shrugged and said, “I confess. Come.”

He led her across the lobby, which included a desk for two uniformed guards and a smattering of well-placed pots with plants sprouting large succulent green leaves. Somewhere a voice, probably in conversation on a telephone, echoed through the lobby and remained with them until the elevator doors closed behind Iris and Petrov.

“Are you enjoying Moscow this visit?”

“I have only been here one day and one night,” she said as the elevator slowly rose.

“And I trust you have been well treated night and day by the members of our incorruptible Office of Special Investigations?”

“Yes,” she said.

He knew. She was certain he knew she had been with Daniel Volkovich before Volkovich was murdered, certain that he knew where Olga Grinkova, otherwise known as Svetlana, was, certain that he knew that Sasha Tkach had spent the night in her room.

“Good,” he said.

The elevator doors slid open and Petrov stepped to one side to allow her to pass onto the highly polished wooden floor.

“This way,” he said, moving to her side and gesturing with his right hand toward an unmarked and unnumbered door. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass window of a reception area they saw where a young man, in a suit not quite as expensive as that worn by Petrov, looked up from behind his desk as Petrov opened the unmarked door.

She followed him into a large but not ostentatious wood-paneled office that carried the scent of forests. The desk was ancient and highly polished mahogany and the chairs a matching wood and hue.

He pointed with a palm to the left of the office, where a dark leather love seat and matching chairs faced a low glass table on which sat a pair of cups and a plate of assorted chocolates.

“I took the liberty,” he said, sitting at the sofa. “I am, I confess, addicted to chocolate. Coffee? I believe you drink coffee and not English tea?”

You not only believe it, you are certain of it, and you want me to know that you know everything about me.

“Coffee is fine,” she said, sitting.

“Black.”

“Black.”

He pressed one of the buttons of the console on his desk and said, “Are the chocolates all of the latest choices?”

He smiled at Iris, pressed another button, and folded his hands on the smooth, shiny brown surface of the desk.

“Now,” he said, smile broad and voice apologetic, “if you will turn off the tape recorder in your briefcase. I will make a statement and try to answer your questions.”

“How will I be able to provide evidence of what you say?” she asked.

“I intend to deal with you honestly, but there is always the chance that I will say something I regret,” he said. “It has happened to me before. Now, the tape recorder please.”

He held out his hand.

“You object to my taking notes?” she asked.

“Not at all.”

His hand remained out, palm up, waiting. Iris took a tape recorder from her purse, pushed the button to turn it off, and sat back.

“Next,” he said after checking to be sure the tape recorder was off and placing it within her reach. “If you will please disengage the listening device hidden somewhere on your person.”

“I don’t have one,” she said, meeting his eyes.

“Then you are a fool, and I do not believe you are a fool. No, I’ve read your work. I do not believe you are a fool. Disengage or you will leave without coffee, chocolates, and conversation, and I assure you the cookies are the best to be found in all of Moscow.”

He watched with a smile as Iris reached down her dress between her breasts and removed a small microphone taped to her skin. She held it out for him to look at, which he did. Then he took it and crushed it easily in the palm of his hand.

The door opened without a knock and Pavel Petrov dropped the microphone fragments into a polished mahogany trash basket. A tall woman in a green knit dress came to the desk and set down a tray with a fresh plate of chocolates, although Iris, on the one hand, had not touched the first plate. Pavel Petrov, on the other hand, had devoured the small confections.

“I did not have time for breakfast,” Petrov said with a nod to the woman in the green dress, who retreated out the door. “I know it is not healthy to have a breakfast of chocolate and coffee, but it is very satisfying. I shall have a generous portion of chicken for lunch to atone for this.”

Petrov held out the plate.

Iris reached for a chocolate with a glazed cherry resting precisely in the middle of its raised circular surface. The chocolate did not melt between her fingers. She placed it in her mouth and bit down, half-expecting to taste a hint of poison.

“Good, eh?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Hmm, you want to begin. All right. We will begin. Whatever answers I give to your questions will not leave this room. If they appear in print, two things will happen. First, I will bring suit against the magazine or newspaper. I will win. I have almost endless resources.”

“Then why am I-?” she began, holding her growing anger in check.

“So that your curiosity will be satisfied and you will understand.”

“You said two things would happen if I published this interview,” she said, taking a bite of chocolate, happy that her hand was steady.

“Why, I will have you killed of course,” he said.

She was certain that he meant it, but she was not at all certain that she would not try to find a publisher who would be willing to print the story.

“Did you kill Daniel Volkovich?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You yourself?”

“Yes,” he said with a smile.

“And you want to kill Olga Grinkova?”

“Certainly,” he said.

“I see,” Iris said. “You are the head of a prostitution ring?”

“Business, a prostitution business. I provide a public service. The girls and women are well paid, given excellent medical care, and treated with respect.”

“All of them all the time?” asked Iris.

Petrov shrugged and reached for a chocolate.

“No, not all of them all the time,” he said. “Loyalty is sometimes betrayed.”

“And the price is death?”

“On occasion.”

“How big is your organization?”

“At the moment, six hundred and twenty-eight prostitutes in eight cities, with a staff of one hundred and eighty-two.”

“Income?”

“Approximately three hundred and forty million euros a year,” he said, eyes wide, examining her for signs of surprise.

“Why? You are already a rich man.”

“I could not resist the opportunity to employ business techniques of the highest quality to the rental of women’s bodies. Women are the product. Beautiful women mostly. We advertise exclusively through cabdrivers, bartenders, hotel clerks, waiters, and alert office workers.”

Pavel Petrov held up the coffeepot. This time Iris accepted his offer.

They sat drinking coffee and nibbling at chocolates without saying a word until Petrov said, “Did I tell you that if you reveal anything said in this room, you will be raped before I murder you?”

“No, you did not say that.”

“Well, consider it said.”

“And you will personally. .?”

“With great pleasure,” he said. “Will that be all?”

“Yes,” she said.

Petrov handed her the tiny tape recorder. Iris dropped it into her purse and rose.

“All too brief a visit,” he said, also rising and extending his hand. She did not take it. “I like you. And for that reason I will give you a present. Olga Grinkova can live. She can go back to Lvov and continue to work for the company. As long as she remains silent about what she knows, she will live unharmed. To ensure this, I will be sure that she remains frightened. I will promise the deaths of her mother, brother, sister, and at least one cousin. You can trust me. My word is good.”

Iris believed that he would do what he said he would do. She also believed that his word was good.

“Now I would like the real reason you do this?”

He made a soft clicking sound with his tongue, looked toward the window, and said, “The reason is not as satisfying as the excitement of heading an illegal prostitution business. I have always courted danger. I need it. It is built into me. That is why I am talking to you. Do you understand?”

“Not completely,” she answered, meeting his suddenly wild-looking eyes.

She chose at that moment not to raise the issue of his also being a murderer. She could see by the man’s face that such a mention would not be a good idea.

“Yes,” she said.

Petrov’s fingers were restless in his fists. He did not look away from her face, and then, quite calmly, he said, “Would you like to take a box of chocolates with you for the police officers waiting for you in the car?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good. I will get a small box for you. It will be ready for you by the time you reach the lobby. You can tell them that whichever one of them bites into the one filled with glass wins the prize. No, I am only joking.”

“You can always turn to a life of comedy. Good-bye for now.”

Iris left him standing behind the desk. She moved slowly, deliberately, through the doors and to the elevator. She pressed the lobby button and felt nothing as the elevator descended. In the lobby, a woman behind the reception desk held up a small, neatly wrapped box. Iris took it and walked out the doors to the street, where she got into the back of the waiting car.

“Did you get it?” asked Elena, who sat behind the steering wheel.

“Yes,” said Iris.

Elena pulled away from the curb and Sasha in the front passenger seat reached back to take Iris’s purse. As they drove, he reached deep into her bag and, pushing toiletries, notebook, pills, and makeup aside, lifted the flat bottom of the bag and carefully extracted an ultra-thin recorder. He pressed a button. There was a pause and then a voice, a man’s voice singing in French.

“He recorded over your recording,” said Elena.

The man on the recorder continued to sing.

“Yves Montand,” said Sasha. “ ‘Le Temps des Cerises.’ ”

“Then Petrov wins,” said Iris. “That gloating, sadistic-”

“I know a young man,” said Elena, almost to herself.

“A man?” asked Iris.

“A boy really,” said Elena. “He does magic with electronics. Maybe he can. .”

“Worth trying,” said Sasha.

“Can it be done? Can the original recording be gotten to?”

Pavel Petrov stood by his window. He looked out at the many new central Moscow office towers as he spoke, his back to the tall woman who gathered the coffee cups and the last few chocolates on the plate and placed them on a tray.

“Christiana?” he asked, turning to look at her as she picked up the tray. “Can it be done.”

“I do not know,” she said. “I doubt it.”

“We need certainty,” he said.

Christiana Davidonya was forty-two years old and had lived through many men and many dark days. She had never experienced certainty. She did not believe in it. She believed in having options and escapes. Pavel Petrov, she knew, believed in taking risks. He lived dangerously. He loved backing himself into corners and then using his charm, cunning, and position to get out of trouble. Christiana Davidonya believed that his neurotic behavior would eventually lead to his downfall.

Daniel Volkovich had almost succeeded in making this happen. Volkovich was dead now, a victim of his own ambition.

Christiana had no desire to rise either in the ranks of the massive infrastructure of the company or within the growing reach of the prostitution ring. Her relative comfort, safety, and longevity were perfectly suited to her needs. She had spent time in jail. She did not wish to return. Ambition would lead to a cell. She was invested in Petrov’s success but feared what she believed would be his inevitable crash.

“There is no certainty the conversation was overridden,” she said, standing with the tray in her hands.

Petrov scratched his head. He trusted her far more than anyone knew, and he relied on her advice and companionship far more than he did on that of his wife, who now resided most of the year in their dacha forty kilometers outside the city.

Christiana, tall, dark hair tied back severely, was still a lovely woman. She had been one of the highest-paid prostitutes in the organization. She had her own apartment for clients who paid not only in rubles but also in dollars and euros. Pavel Petrov had slept with her many times over the years. Then he had hired her as his personal assistant. As a prostitute, Christiana had brought in a great deal of money and a mass of information about clients. Still, she was invaluable as an assistant. On the day that he had given her the job, he took her to bed to celebrate. She did not mind. In fact, she acknowledged something like love for Pavel Petrov, but love would not save him from his precarious behavior.

Christiana had dutifully and skillfully placed the button-sized receiver in Iris Templeton’s case. She had inserted it in the lining at the bottom of the case. Christiana’s skills, learned on the streets of Vilnius as a child, included picking pockets. This task had been no problem at all.

Now Petrov sat listening to Iris and the two police officers in the car. Moments ago he had leaned over and turned a dial on the small monitor that had been in his desk drawer. The conversation continued to record, but the voices no longer crackled from the tiny speaker.

“I think we shall have to kill her,” he said.

“And the two police officers?” Christiana added.

“An accident,” he said.

“Of course,” she agreed, already planning an exit from this madness and a flight, which she had long planned for, to Brazil.

She still held the full small tray.

“This is a request, not an order,” he said. “Would you like to spend the night with me?”

“Yes,” she said, and she knew that she meant it.

She would do whatever he wished her to do until the moment she could escape.

He felt the stirring between his legs and grinned.

“Yes,” he repeated.

Porfiry Petrovich stood looking down at the body of a disheveled man who was probably about sixty years old. The corpse had been covered by a tangle of branches, dirt, and long dead leaves, one of which had rested in his open mouth. Rostnikov knelt awkwardly and removed the leaf.

On Rostnikov’s left when he stood was Emil Karpo. On his right stood Paulinin, wearing a heavy coat and shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Neither Rostnikov nor Karpo was the least bit cold. Paulinin did not like leaving his subbasement laboratory even to go home.

Rostnikov had discovered the body not more than a dozen feet from one of the park’s makeshift bird feeders, which had been moved from a limb next to a nearby path.

Paulinin made a puffing sound through his pursed lips. “He has been here for a few weeks,” said Paulinin. “Like the others, his skull has been crushed from behind. I will tell you more after we get him to my laboratory, where eager hands of the medical examiner’s office are going through my notes and records.”

“What can you tell us?” asked Rostnikov.

Birds were chirping away loudly, possibly in battle. The afternoon was clear. The sun was shining.

“I can tell you his name is Julian Semeyanov. He came to Moscow from Neya. He had been a soldier, a sniper. He has a wife and two grown daughters and one grandson. He abandoned them all and came to Moscow to become a zoo worker. He became alcoholic, lost his job, and has wandered the streets for about seven years. His liver was in the last throes of existence when he was struck down. He had no more than a year to live. His favorite foods were sardines and shrimp.”

“And you got this from simply looking down at him?” asked Karpo.

“No,” Paulinin said with irritation. “I made it all up. How am I supposed to know anything till I look at him on the table? Search the area around here for evidence. Bring me whatever you find. Bone fragments. Bloody leaves. Whatever you find.”

“Yes,” said Karpo.

“He was dragged here,” said Rostnikov.

“Yes,” said Paulinin.

The dead man’s arms were at his sides, shoulders up.

“From over there near the bird feeder,” said Karpo.

“You will see to it that the body is transported to Dr. Paulinin’s laboratory,” said Rostnikov.

“Yes,” said Karpo.

Rostnikov looked down at the dead man, walked slowly to the bird feeder, and looked inside it. The feeder was full of a variety of seeds. Rostnikov reached in, picked up one round yellow seed, and placed it in his mouth. It was dry and fresh tasting. Someone was keeping the feeder full. Could that be done without noticing the dead man? Possibly. Rostnikov turned to Karpo, who was talking to Paulinin, who was now down on one knee, white rubber gloves on his hands, two fingers inserted into the open wound at the back of the dead man’s head.

“Emil Karpo,” he said. “Leave the body where it is for now. See that Dr. Paulinin gets back to his laboratory; then take a position where you cannot be seen and observe who approaches the feeder. Take photographs of anyone who approaches and follow them. Get names and addresses if you can.”

“I need this man now,” said Paulinin. “It may rain. It may snow. Every hour, every minute, he is left in the open means more information lost. How can he talk to me if you take away part of his essence?”

“It will not be long,” Rostnikov said, evenly taking a handful of seeds from the feeder and heading for the path.

“Where are you going?” asked Paulinin.

“Shopping.”

With that Rostnikov continued to walk to and down the path, eating birdseed as he limped forward.

“Inspector Karpo,” Paulinin said, probing more deeply into the wound with his fingers. “Sometimes I think your Chief Inspector is a little bit mad himself.”

Since Emil Karpo thought that the scientist he was talking to was more than a little bit mad, he said nothing.

The man stood at the side of a brackish pool of green water. He was a short, bald man of no more than fifty with a substantial belly. His face was the map of a man who had seen violence. Nose broken. Right ear curled. A faded four-inch-long white scar across his forehead. He had a large white beach towel wrapped around his nonexistent waist. Both of his hands were occupied, one with what looked like a small cucumber, the other with a cell phone.

The ride that had taken Klaus Agrinkov and Ivan Medivkin forty miles outside of Moscow had been particularly uncomfortable for Ivan. The front seat of the small red BMW forced him to ride with his knees up almost to his chest.

They had stopped before a large wooden door in the wall that surrounded the Saslov Community. The young man at the door, pink faced, hair short, wearing a cap with a Molson beer logo on it, leaned down to the window and recognized Agrinkov. Then he turned and slowly pulled back the metal bar across the doors and then pushed open the doors. Agrinkov pulled in.

“You will be safe here,” said Klaus.

“I should be in Moscow finding out who killed Lena,” said Ivan. “I should be finding him and beating him to death.”

“No, you should be here waiting to hear from me,” said Klaus as they walked up a muddy road. “I will keep the police away and try to find what I can about who killed Lena and Fedot.”

“I do not care about Fedot. He and Lena were. . I do not care who killed Fedot.”

“But,” said Klaus, stepping off the path with Ivan towering over him at his side, “it is the same person.”

“Maybe,” said Ivan.

It was then that they saw the near naked man with the large belly at the side of the green-water pool. The man kept talking on the phone and eating his cucumber as he looked up and acknowledged the arrival of the two visitors with a nod.

When they were close enough, Ivan could hear the man say into the phone, “Yes, the Archbishop will be joining us. The church will be ready.”

The man looked beyond the pool and down a small, low valley where workmen were removing lumber from a large pickup truck. A few feet from the truck a small building, clearly a church, was somewhere near completion.

“It will be perfectly safe to bring our friends in the Duma. I have to go now. Visitors.”

The near naked man put the phone down, placed the cucumber in his mouth, and held out his hand to greet Klaus and Ivan.

“Good to meet you,” the man mumbled around his cucumber.

His grip was firm, not as firm as Ivan’s but definitely among the stronger and more confident that Ivan had encountered.

“Artyom will take care of you. We are old friends,” said Klaus, reaching up to place a hand on Ivan’s shoulder.

“You will be safe here,” Artyom Gorodeyov said, hitching his towel up a little higher. “Our people have already been informed that they are not to notice you. Do you know anything about us?”

Gorodeyov motioned for the two visitors to follow him up four wooden stairs to a deck of the one-story house they approached.

Ivan knew a little about the Union of the Return and a little about Artyom Gorodeyov, and what he knew from the newspapers and television was not flattering.

“No,” said Ivan.

“We were founded twenty years ago by seven former military officers, some of whom are now in important positions in the government. We are dedicated to returning to the time when Russia was respected throughout the world, a return to the order brought by Stalin, a return to the religion of our past. An expulsion of the Jews, who have been responsible for our failures since 1917. We are a peaceful fellowship of diverse but like-minded people determined to exert our political power and raise a new generation of the young who will have direction and principles.”

There had been nothing in the diatribe that Ivan had not heard before. He barely listened to the man, who spoke without expression or enthusiasm.

“We have eight girls and eleven boys here,” he went on. The visitors were led into an office so small that there was barely room for a simple wooden desk and three chairs.

Gorodeyov took his time settling himself in behind his desk.

“No one is forced to remain here,” he said. “If they want to go, even the boys and girls, they simply say so. We call parents or relatives to pick them up. Adults can just pack up and leave after telling someone else that they no longer wish to stay. Very few, I tell you, leave us.”

“I must get back to Moscow,” Klaus said, rising. “How much. .?”

“There is no charge for staying here. If you wish to make a donation because you believe in our cause, you may do so. Please take some of our literature from the table in the front hall. You are sure you do not wish to stay for dinner? We live off of food we grow and produce ourselves. Nothing in all of Russia is fresher.”

“I must go,” said Klaus, holding out his hand.

Artyom Gorodeyov took it and Ivan said, “I am going back with you.”

“Why? So that you can be arrested for murder?” asked Klaus. “You will be recognized the moment you step out in public.”

“Everyone here is happy,” said Artyom, whose face conveyed no sense of happiness. “You are free to talk to anyone here about what they think and what they are doing. There is only one rule: obey. If you stay, obey.”

“All right,” said Ivan. “For a few days.”

Then Klaus was gone and Ivan was alone with Gorodeyov.

“Hungry?”

“Yes,” said Ivan.

“Good. We will have some soup made from our own vegetables and you will talk to me about the murder of your wife and. .”

“Fedot Babinski,” said Ivan. “His name was Fedot Babinski.”

The Volga Supermarket II was busy. It was early evening and people on their way home from work added to the people who did not go to work but prepared the evening meal for their families.

The aisles of the supermarket were wide, the shelves no more than shoulder high, so that all items could be reasonably in reach, the lights high above were brightly fluorescent, and constant chatter was indistinguishable.

Aleksandr Chenko, in a clean apron in spite of the lateness of the day and the frequent contact with meats, fruits, and vegetables, was rearranging a freestanding display of canned soups. The number of cans had slowly dwindled and the display had to be restocked and restacked.

He was lost in his work, a can in his hand, when he had a feeling that he was being watched. He turned his head and saw the policeman from the park standing in the canned fruit and vegetable aisle. There was a small package under the policeman’s arm and a look of sadness on his face.

Aleksandr went back to doing his work, stacking, building, perfecting. When he had taken all of the cans of chicken soup from the cart and was satisfied with the display he had created, he turned to Rostnikov with a smile.

“What do you think?” asked Chenko as a short, fat woman with a scarf tied tightly around her red face reached up and took down a soup can to take a critical look.

“About what?” asked Rostnikov.

“The display.”

“Very neat,” said Rostnikov. “Are you always so neat?”

“I try to be,” Chenko said as the short, fat woman reached up to place the can she examined back on the stack.

Chenko took the can down and carefully replaced it.

“You cannot do that every time someone looks at a can or buys one.”

“No, but I can try to stay one step ahead of them.”

“Them?” asked Rostnikov.

“The customers. You do not usually shop here.”

“I do not.”

Rostnikov shifted his packet to underneath his other arm.

“Is there something with which I can assist you?” asked Chenko.

“Yes, you can tell me why you do it.”

“It?” asked Chenko.

“Why you take the path through the park when it is neither on the way to or from this store from your apartment. It would be far more direct and much faster to walk along the outside walk.”

Emil Karpo had supplied Rostnikov with the address of Aleksandr Chenko.

A man with thick glasses squinted painfully at a shopping list as he pushed his cart between Chenko and the policeman. The man wore a heavy blue denim jacket with an insulated lining.

“I like to walk different ways. You have taken an interest in me,” Chenko said.

“You are a person of interest.”

Aleksandr Chenko began pushing his now-empty cart toward the back of the store.

“Why?”

“You are an interesting person,” said Rostnikov, keeping up with him.

“Me, interesting? No one ever thought I was before.”

“Do you like guava juice?”

“What? You ask some very odd questions for a policeman.”

“I have been told I am a very odd policeman.”

“I drink all kinds of juice.”

“Including guava?”

“Including guava. Has it become a crime to drink guava juice?” Chenko asked.

Rostnikov shrugged his shoulders and stopped trying to keep up with him. The policeman stopped and watched Chenko hurry away.

He told himself to resist, not to turn and look at the policeman. There would be nothing guilty in his doing so, but nonetheless. . This policeman was playing a role. He probably dealt with the guilty and the innocent in the same way, trying to make them think that he knew something when, in fact, he knew nothing. He had probably harassed several other “persons of interest” today before coming to the Volga.

Chenko turned his head and almost ran the cart into a stylishly dressed young woman pushing a small cart. The policeman was no longer behind him.

“Watch where you are going,” shouted the woman he had almost hit.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“You could have killed me,” she said loudly.

“I am sorry,” he repeated, moving on.

This policeman, this Chief Inspector Rostnikov, would be back. He probably had a checklist of people he went to trying to intimidate. The list must constantly expand. What did he expect? A mistake? A confession? That would not happen. It would not.

Guava juice? he thought. What was this business about guava juice?

It then struck Aleksandr Chenko that the policeman might be a little bit crazy.

Rostnikov sat on a bench at the edge of Bitsevsky Park looking across the street at a trio of six-story concrete apartment buildings of no distinction.

A wind was whispering through the trees behind him, and the clouds were gray and listless, moving quickly to the east.

The boy put down his school book bag and sat next to him without speaking. “What are you looking at?” asked Yuri Platkov.

Rostnikov pointed with a gloved hand to the center building.

“What is in there?” asked the boy.

“Someone I know lives there.”

“The Maniac?”

“Perhaps.”

“What will sitting here accomplish?” asked Yuri.

He was beginning to doubt whether the crate-shaped man at his side was indeed a policeman and not just another of the crazy people who had nothing to do but hang around the park and create worlds and realities where none existed. Yuri’s father had warned him of such people, but Yuri, who planned to be a writer of fiction when he grew up, was fascinated.

“So far, my sitting on park benches has resulted in my meeting you and the person who lives over there. You told me about the bird feeders that had been moved.”

“And that was helpful?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I think I will write a story about you,” said the boy, pulling his hat down lower over his ears.

“I should like to read it when it is finished.”

Rostnikov rose slowly, making sure his ersatz left leg was firmly under him.

“You are leaving?”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“Then I shall also,” the boy said, rising and slipping the bag of books over his shoulder. “You will be here tomorrow?”

“I will be somewhere tomorrow,” said Rostnikov.

“That is not an answer. Everyone is always somewhere.”

“I have known many people when they were nowhere.”

Yuri nodded, not certain whether the somber-looking man who said he was a policeman was saying something very deep or something rather stupid.

“You should go home, Yuri Platkov.”

Yuri shook his head in a slight acknowledgment of affirmation.

“And you?”

“I should cross the street.”

He called himself Tyrone. His real name was Sergei Bresnechov. He hated his real name. He hated almost everyone in addition to himself. He tolerated a few people, including his own mother, and he felt more than mild affection for the policewoman Elena Timofeyeva because she had let him go after six hours alone in a cell. She had not charged him. Besides that, she was pretty and just ample enough to meet his fantasies.

Tyrone was at best a gawky seventeen-year-old. He was somewhat pigeon chested, extremely skinny, with a frenzy of wild dark hair and a large nose on top of which was poised a pair of glasses. He wore an extremely rumpled T-shirt on the front of which was a faded photographic imprint of Gene Simmons with his tongue sticking out. Tyrone had promised the pretty policewoman with the large breasts that he would no longer hack into the files of the National Socialist Party. They had complained. They had threatened. Tyrone was a Jew. The National Socialist Party was a Hitler-loving hodgepodge of skinheads, would-be Nazis, and zombies. Tyrone’s mission had been pure sabotage. Quite illegal. He was fortunate that his case had made its way to the desk of Elena Timofeyeva, whose distaste for the National Socialist Party was admittedly stronger than her commitment to the law. The law, she had learned in her five years as a police officer, was often quite clearly wrong. She felt little guilt in circumventing a bad law. Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov served as a model for her behavior. He had once told her, “If you break the law, do so with the understanding that you believe you have done what is right and are willing to accept the consequences should you be caught.”

Tyrone did not stop hacking into the National Socialist Party’s computers. He just did so with far greater caution and discretion.

Now he sat hunched over some piece of electronic gear on the table in the small living room. The table housed two computers, all manner of electronic equipment, and a plate bearing a large sausage and lettuce sandwich. The few pieces of family furniture in the room had been exiled to a nook in the corner of the room, a nook in which all furniture faced a large television set.

“Yes, I can,” Tyrone said, picking up his sandwich and taking a great bite. “I will need time.”

“How much time?” asked Iris over his shoulder.

“Yes, how much time?” asked Sasha.

“A day, maybe two. I have to barter with an acquaintance for an oscilloscope.”

“We need it soon,” said Elena, standing at the end of the table with the filtered light through a window behind her.

Tyrone chewed and looked up at her, squinting.

Elena did not seem to notice that the boy was clearly infatuated with her. Sasha noticed.

“Tonight,” Tyrone said, still chewing. “Call or come back at nine.”

“Tell no one about this,” Elena said.

“I will not,” he said, watching her. “My mother is spending the next two days at the dacha of the man who likes to be thought of as my uncle and not my mother’s boyfriend. It is not really a dacha. It is a shack surrounded by a forest of weeds.”

“Nine, Tyrone,” Elena said. “We are counting on you. This is very important.”

She touched his shoulder and smiled, at which point Tyrone would gladly have hacked into the files of the CIA and the Kremlin offices.

“He does not know you are getting married,” Sasha said when they were back outside.

“Why would he care?” asked Elena.

“You underestimate your power to charm,” said Iris. “He did not even look at me.”

Sasha, who had been looking at Iris, averted his eyes.

“We will take you somewhere safe with Svetlana,” Elena said, quickly changing the subject.

“Is there somewhere safe in Moscow?” said Iris.

“Petrovka,” said Elena.

“The central office of the police? You think that is safe from Pavel Petrov?” asked Iris.

“Yes,” Elena lied.

“I will stay with you,” said Sasha.

“Is there a bed?” asked Iris, looking at Sasha.

“A cot,” said Elena.

It was clear to Elena that the British woman was trying to make Sasha uncomfortable. And she was succeeding. Elena had no objection to this. Sasha had spent the night in this woman’s bed. He deserved to be uncomfortable. It was a small enough consequence for having been caught.

A cell phone rang. All three of them started to reach into pocket or briefcase.

“Mine,” said Elena, taking her phone from her pocket.

The misty gray rain had begun again. While Elena talked, all three moved to the car and got in. When they were inside, Sasha behind the wheel, Elena in the rear with Iris, Elena continued her conversation, asking, “Where?. . When?. . How bad?” She paused after each query to listen to the answer. Then she said, “Thank you,” and hung up.

“Olga Grinkova has been attacked. She is in the hospital. If we hurry, she may still be alive when we get there.”