Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

Chapter Eight

Igor Yaklovev, Director of the Office of Special Investigation, former KGB colleague of Vladimir Putin, a man who plotted his destiny carefully and with great ambition, sat in his favorite chair in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt, watching television.

On the table in front of him sat his nightly glass of brandy atop a plain white porcelain coaster.

The Yak lived alone. He had once had a wife. She had proved to be a constant nuisance. She was gone. He did not miss her.

He checked his watch. In less than an hour, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov would be on the Trans-Siberian Express. That trip was the most important item on the director’s list. It was not that finding the son of Nikoli Lovski was not important. Handled correctly, it could be the key to a formidable base of support when Igor Yaklovev decided it was only minimally risky to call in his markers and make his next move up.

The Yak was not interested in sex. The Yak was not interested in money; nor was he interested in posterity or popularity. Life was brief. To make it interesting, he had decided early to play a game, not terribly different from a board game like Risk or Monopoly. He would slowly, patiently, acquire power, as much power as possible. His goal was to become the most powerful man in Russia without the public having any idea of his existence. Once he had achieved his goal, the game would be over. He would exercise his power, dictate policy to politicians, soldiers, the media, enjoy the fruits of having won.

Igor Yaklovev did not think a great deal about why he had taken this path in life. He was sure that it had something to do with his ineffectual father, who struggled, took orders, worked in a government automobile factory, and died young without a complaint. His mother had accepted whatever fate the government chose to give her or not give her.

Igor had chosen the Communist Party to escape the same fate as his parents. He had never been convinced of the ideology, but it was open to manipulation. He had seen that as a very young man. And he had come far, savoring briefly the fall of each opponent in his path, opponents who were usually too preening or stupid to realize that they were engaged in a game. The Yak had never looked back at the bodies of those who had fallen.

He did, however, at this moment, look at the body on the television news show. In front of a videotape of the draped white form on the metro platform, a serious white-haired man at the news desk in the television studio said that the dead man was the latest victim of the Phantom of the Underground.

Russian media elevated major violent criminals to a new level by giving them names. The Yak did not think that “Phantom of the Underground” was particularly inventive, but that did not matter. What did matter was that this case belonged to his department and that the office was getting publicity. Publicity was fine as long as the Yak’s name was not mentioned and the criminals being sought were caught or killed quickly.

He turned up the volume with his remote control as a route map of the Moscow metro appeared on the screen. Each station where an attack had occurred was on the purple line, except for the most recent. Each station where an attack had been was marked with a large red circle.

The face of Toomas Vana appeared on the screen. He looked vaguely familiar, a serious, middle-aged man in a suit, a business type, nothing out of the ordinary except that he was an important engineer working for the gas company.

The videotape of the subway platform returned to the screen as the newscaster prattled on about the police not issuing a statement and the public in panic.

A grizzled, nearly toothless man in a workman’s shirt and jacket, wearing a cap, looked to his left offscreen. A handheld microphone was under his chin.

“I’m afraid, yes. I admit it. This crazy person could be anyone. She could jump off a train I am going to get on and do what she did to him.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the sheet-covered body being looked at by a wild-haired man in an out-of-date police-department coat.

The frightened man had nothing to fear, the Yak thought. He does not fit the profile. The killer had better taste in men.

“They should have policemen all over every metro station,” the grizzled man sputtered, now warmed up, living his few minutes of minimal fame. “They should have soldiers. They should be searching women for knives.”

While that, the Yak knew, would not be possible given the volume and flow of traffic on the metro system, the man’s comments did give Yaklovev an idea. Perhaps the latest attack was not by the same woman, by the Phantom of the Underground. Perhaps this latest one was a copycat, and Toomas Vana was a particular target. Or perhaps she was simply a second madwoman taking advantage of a door that the Phantom had opened. Such things had happened before.

Rudolf Bortkovich, the Kursk schoolteacher, had confessed to forty-two murders of young men and women when he was caught, but he steadfastly denied four others that clearly fit his mode of operation. He was convicted of all the murders, but the police and the KGB had known that those four had been committed by a copycat. When Bortkovich was caught, the killings ended. His copycat had lost his cover and was now walking the streets.

The man leaning over the body, which was now only partly covered by the sheet, turned his head. Paulinin. Iosef and Elena were not in the picture, but the Yak knew they were nearby. Paulinin was a nearly private treasure but he could become an anvil if he talked to the media. The Yak was reasonably sure that would not be allowed to happen.

The next news item came on. A heavy snow was falling in Moscow. A weather map appeared. Igor Yaklovev pushed the red button on his remote and the image on the screen disappeared with a snap.

There would be reports on his desk in the morning on both the disappearance of Misha Lovski and the metro murders. He would have to wait for Porfiry Petrovich’s progress report. It might be days before it came. No matter. Igor Yaklovev was a very patient man.

He finished his brandy, carried his glass into the kitchen, washed, rinsed, and dried it, and placed it carefully back in the cabinet over the sink.

It was still relatively early. The Yak required and wanted no more than five or six hours of sleep. Sleep was a necessary inconvenience.

He moved to his bedroom, picked up a small pile of folders from his desk in the corner, and moved to his bed. He propped up the pillows, put on his reading glasses, placed the first file, which bore a large, red stamp of SECRET, on his lap and opened it to the cover page which read: Preliminary Psychiatric Evaluation of Senior Detective Inspector Emil Karpo.

Porfiry Petrovich sat next to his wife on the bed. Galina and the girls were asleep in the living room. When he left, he would move as quietly as his telltale leg would allow him and hope that he woke none of them.

The small television set was on, on the low dresser, but there was no sound. Sarah, had, since her illness, found it difficult to fall asleep. She often watched television quietly while her husband slept. Neither the light from the screen nor the sound kept him from falling into a deep sleep within a minute or two of his deciding that the day had ended.

Sarah wore the nightgown, the blue one, Porfiry Petrovich had bought her for her last birthday. Porfiry was fully dressed, leg attached, sitting on the end of the bed as they spoke.

“Your appointment is at two,” he said.

“I know,” Sarah answered, smiling at him. “I am feeling fine. Don’t feel guilty.”

While Sarah would never bar her husband from one of her medical appointments, she sometimes preferred that he not be there, particularly if she was not feeling well and thought that the news might not be good. She preferred to be the one telling him.

“I will call you from wherever we are,” he said. “You are sure you feel well?”

“Very well,” she said, touching his cheek with her warm palm.

He did not believe her but he smiled back and said, “Good.”

“Iosef and Elena will be here tomorrow night if they do not have to work,” Sarah said.

“I know.”

“And Galina and the girls are here.”

“I know.”

“Porfiry Petrovich, I will be fine.”

“I know,” he said, taking her hand and glancing at the metro map on the screen.

Something about it struck him. Sarah could feel the change in his hand. He did not get up to turn up the volume. The red circles on the screen fascinated him.

“What?” she asked.

“A minute,” he said, rising awkwardly and moving to the telephone, his eyes still on the television screen.

He dialed and waited. It rang nine times before he hung up. He tried another number. The answer came in three rings.

“Have I awakened you, Anna Timofeyeva?” he asked. “It is Rostnikov.”

“You have not awakened me,” his former boss in the procurator general’s office said. “I go to bed late. I get up late.”

“Is Elena home?” he asked.

“She just arrived. I will get her.”

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Considering that I have survived three heart attacks and have begun having long conversations with Bakunin, I am surprisingly well.”

Bakunin was Anna Timofeyevas cat.

“I will come to visit when I get back. I have an assignment.”

“That would be nice. How is Sarah?”

“She is right here. I will let you speak to her after I talk to Elena.”

There was a pause and Elena Timofeyeva’s voice came on. “Chief Inspector,” she said to the man who was scheduled to soon be her father-in-law. “You want a report on the metro attacks.”

“No,” he said. “Unless you have caught the woman.”

“No, but we think she is attacking men who remind her of her father. A little girl who witnessed tonight’s attack heard her address the man as ‘Father’ before she stabbed him. Paulinin is working on a report. It will be ready in the morning.”

“Do you know why she has moved to another line for her attacks?”

“No,” she said.

“I think I may know,” he said.

“Why?” asked Elena.

“She ran out of K’s on the purple line,” he said. “She has moved to another station beginning with the letter K on another line. It might be a good idea to concentrate on metro stations whose names begin with the letter K.”

“But why would she? …Yes, she is mad.”

“She has a reason, but you may well not find it till you find her.”

“I’ll call Iosef right away,” Elena said.

“Don’t hang up,” Rostnikov said. “Your aunt wants to talk to Sarah.”

Rostnikov handed the phone to his wife and pointed to his watch. It was time to go.

“Anna,” Sarah said, accepting her husband’s kiss.

He picked up his suitcase and moved to the door with a wave. Behind him he could hear Sarah talking about wedding plans. Something in Sarah’s voice suggested that there might be a problem, but he did not have time to find out what it was.

He closed the bedroom door behind him and walked as slowly and quietly across the room as he could.

The snow was soft and deep and still falling and falling. Plows were grinding down the major streets, sometimes in military tandem, leaving narrow white ridges between them. Taxis and buses moved slowly behind the plows.

In the light from the late-night street lamps, people lifted their legs high walking through the drifts on sidewalks which would not be swept and shoveled till morning.

Through their windows those who had not gone to bed, and some who should have but could not bring themselves to, watched the thick snow that covered hard asphalt and cracked concrete, that decorated drab buildings and added a holiday touch to the niches and roofs.

Parked cars wore white snow caps that came to a peak, and trees became festive with whipped-cream leaves.

It was an annual event, a silent, private celebration to welcome the first real snow.

For some, the snow meant protection, real or imagined, from street drunks, rattling cars, shouting couples. Crime dropped in the winter, though not as much as those who considered the snow their protection might think.

For some, the snow was simply clean, simple. A single hue that glistened with the lights of night and billowed with the gray-cloud glow of day. Life was complex on dry streets or in the rain. Danger could come from anywhere. It was no different in any large city of the world. But in Moscow, people, many people, said a silent prayer asking for respite from the storm, the isolation of the white hills.

The ice rinks in the parks would be cleared for hockey and skating. Hills would be evened down for sledding. Cross-country skiers would move quickly past trees and venture onto streets and, it would be agreed, people were in a far better mood than they were in the summer heat.

The people of Moscow did not mind bundling up, covering their heads, wearing boots, wrapping scarves around their faces, seeing their breath before their eyes.

There was magic in the winter. There was hope.

And there were also delays like those of the buses and cabs moving carefully to avoid a skid and crash.

Inna Dalipovna was late because she walked home from the metro station. She did not want to get to another station and move to a platform where she might be recognized. She was afraid her father would get to the apartment before her and be disappointed because his dinner was not ready. She needn’t have worried. Viktor Dalipovna was later than his daughter. A meeting had gone on too long, but he couldn’t avoid it. And then he could find no cab at the cab stop and there were huge crowds on the metro. While Inna felt protected by the snow, Viktor was annoyed.

Misha Lovski had no idea it was snowing.

Porfiry Petrovich had seen the snow coming and had, in the name of his director, ordered a car from the motor pool and a police driver. For a short time, it looked as if he would not be able to find a car or driver. The cars were all out dealing with traffic accidents and dangerous street corners. He had finally reached a man in the motor pool who owed him a favor. The man agreed to drive Rostnikov himself.

Once in the car, the going had been slow. He picked up Sasha Tkach half an hour late and it began to seem genuinely possible that they might miss the train. The driver was skilled and willing to take risks. There was no choice. Even when they were less than a mile from the station and Sasha might well make better time walking, there was no possibility of Rostnikov being able to walk through snow.

Rostnikov and Sasha sat silently, Porfiry Petrovich in front with the driver, Sasha in back. They all watched the snow. The driver checked his dashboard clock from time to time. He was determined to meet the challenge.

Ten minutes before the train was due to depart, the unmarked police car pulled into the broad drop-off area in Komsomolskaya Square in front of the train station. He maneuvered through cars, hotel vans, tourist coaches, green cabs and yellow cabs to get the policemen to the doors of the station.

Lights filtered through the snow. The dark top of the station with two windows over the arch looked like the hood of an ancient hangman.

Five minutes later, Sasha Tkach and Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov waited in line to board the Trans-Siberian Express. There were five people ahead of them, a couple and their small child, a boy. The father was wrestling two suitcases up the steps of the train. Behind him, trying to protect her son from the frustrated flailing of her husband, the woman held the boy’s hand and led him cautiously up the steps. Directly in front of Sasha and Porfiry Petrovich were two old men talking in English. Finally, Rostnikov climbed the metal steps with a minimum of awkwardness and the help of his left arm. The right was occupied with his suitcase.

If they had to go all the way to Vladivostok, it would be seven days, six nights, more than four thousand miles. It could be a long trip.