People Who Walk In Darkness

Chapter Two

“What do you know of diamonds, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov?”

They were seated in the office of Igor “the Yak” Yaklovev, Director of the Office of Special Investigations. Compared to the offices of other departments and bureaus in the central police headquarters on Petrovka Street, the Yak’s was modest. It had a small conference table with eight chairs near the door, and a desk rumored to have belonged to Lavretiy Pavlovich Beria, chief of the Soviet police under Stalin. When Stalin died, his successors executed Beria, and his office furniture, like that of many of his colleagues, was divided by the grabbing hands of middle-level apparatchiks.

“They are mostly white when cut. They are valuable as jewels and for industrial use. We have diamond mines in Siberia,” Rostnikov answered.

“That’s all?”

Rostnikov shrugged. The two men looked at each other over the desk. The Yak was lean, fit, and reported to occasionally engage in martial arts exercises with Vladimir Putin, with whom he had served in the old KGB in St. Petersburg. He was well aware that he was called “the Yak” behind his back. He did not mind. The wild yak can weigh more than 2,000 pounds and survive in extreme cold. It is wary and fast.

Behind the Yak, and on the wall just above his head, was a modest black-and-white photograph of Putin almost smiling. When the Yak had been appointed to head the Office of Special Investigations, it had not been considered a prize for an ambitious man. The Office was part of the 15th investigative division of the Investigative Directorate. The Directorate was itself a unit of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Division. The Office of Special Investigations was at the very bottom of the Moscow police force. The Office had been created solely as a receptacle in which to dump unsolvable and politically sensitive cases filled with a high likelihood of failure. The Office’s first director, Colonel Ivan Snitkonoy, whom the Yak considered a pompous, uniformed ass, had seemed blissfully unaware that he had been dumped into a job whose present and future promised only oblivion. But something had changed. And the change had come with the man who sat across the desk, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov.

Rostnikov had been demoted from the procurator’s office to life under Snitkonoy, the Gray Wolfhound. Rostnikov had brought his own team, all of whom, like Rostnikov, had left after Procurator Anna Timofeyeva had her second heart attack and was forced to retire-along with the protective cloak, which she had provided the far too inquisitive Rostnikov.

Like Yaklovev, Rostnikov had a nickname: the Washtub. He was squat, compact, and heavy, with a dour Russian peasant face. He seldom smiled broadly. His voice was a soft, bearlike growl, but not a frightening one.

At the moment, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov was not thinking of diamonds, but of his left leg, which was made not of flesh, blood, and bone, but of metal, plastic, and wood. His other left leg, the one that had been replaced, the shriveled one he had dragged behind him since his childhood, was floating in a very large jar in the second level below the ground floor of Petrovka, in Paulinin’s laboratory. Paulinin, agreed by the detectives of Petrovka to be a forensic genius and a lunatic, who talked to the corpses he worked on and far preferred their company to that of the living.

As the Yak continued to talk of diamonds, slowly coming to the point where Rostnikov would have to pay attention, the Chief Inspector was trying to decide on an issue of great importance. Should he take the shoe off of his left foot before climbing into bed each night, or simply leave it on when he removed the leg? Since getting the leg, he had been taking the shoe off, but what was the point? His wife Sarah told him simply to be comfortable. The bed was large. It made no difference to her.

Rostnikov considered bringing up the question to the Yak, but knew he would not. The Yak’s mind was on diamonds, and he had no sense of humor or irony and little curiosity. All of these attributes contributed to Rostnikov’s appreciation of the man. Anything the Yak said converted to how his words might be exchanged for political, economic, or social advantage. Rostnikov, however, always considered the irony of human existence, engaged in uncertain acts of humor, and was eternally curious about everything from whether a man should take the shoe off of his artificial leg when he went to sleep to who might kill a drunken policeman in an alleyway, not that anyone had recently killed a drunken policeman in an alleyway.

This train of thought reminded him that Russia, even with the passing of Communism, was still among the three countries in the world with the highest rate of alcoholism.

“You will learn,” said the Yak leaning forward, folding his hands on his desk and meeting his Chief Inspector’s eyes with a practiced, unblinking look that caused at least a drying of the mouth in everyone-everyone except Rostnikov.

Rostnikov blinked, adjusted his leg, and looked back at the Yak. Rostnikov nodded. He was not sure whether the Yak was issuing an order about diamonds or warning him that he was going to be in a situation in which his survival might be at stake when the lesson came. Rostnikov pursed his lips and nodded his head as if he knew what the Yak was talking about. And then the connection came.

“You are going to Siberia, to a diamond mine where a man, a Canadian geologist, died two days ago. You will determine if he was murdered. If he was, you are to tell me who killed him.”

“When am I leaving?”

“Tonight. There is a supply load of medication for the mining town, Devochka, leaving at nine by plane. You will be on it.”

“I will take Karpo.”

“Take whomever you wish. Pankov will arrange for a car to pick you and Karpo up at your home and get you to the plane.”

Pankov was the sweaty, frightened little man who sat at a desk outside of Yaklovev’s office, listened at the doorway when he considered it safe to do so, and did what he was told with nervous dispatch and an impressive number of contacts who owed him for small favors.

Rostnikov nodded again, considering the oddity of the name Devochka, a man’s name that meant “little girl.” Why had it come into being and why had a mining town in Siberia been given such a name?

Rostnikov started to rise, no mean trick for a box of a man with an artificial leg. The Yak held up a hand to let him know that the conversation had not ended. Rostnikov eased himself back into the chair and looked at Yaklovev. Was the Yak enjoying his Chief Investigator’s discomfort? Perhaps.

The two men had an uneasy and mutually beneficial alliance. The Yak protected Porfiry Petrovich, and the small band of investigators working under him, from political pressure on the outcomes of their investigations. He protected them well and with keen sincerity. In return, each success by Rostnikov was another potential step upward for the Yak. Except at the moment, he did not want to step upward. He gathered information, evidence, tapes, confessions, and indiscretions and locked them away in a safe hidden in his apartment.

Thanks to Rostnikov, when the time was right, the contents of that safe would secure Igor Yaklovev’s future, a future that would move the Yak far above his present office.

Rostnikov knew all this. It was the way of the world.

In a system in which the old laws had been thrown out and new ones still not fully defined, Rostnikov addressed puzzles, found the answers to questions, met people, and, when possible, engaged in the dispensation of justice, something the courts did only on occasion.

His was a fragile and questionable pursuit, but one he had accepted and in which he did well enough to survive.

“Your lesson,” said the Yak, handing Rostnikov a file folder.

Rostnikov took it.

“Devochka is one of the oldest diamond mines in Siberia. It dates back to 1887 when the Tsar ordered the exploration of Siberia for precious metals. It is estimated that as many as 40,000 people died looking for jewels in the ground that could be polished to fit into the rings, tiaras, bracelets, and precious little jewel boxes and precise gleaming eggs of the nobility. Aside from those who supervised, most of the workers were convicts, criminals, and political prisoners. They died, as many as twenty-five a day at the site of Devochka, where they began to mine. And then the mine was abandoned for lack of success after four fruitless years, but remained a prison camp.”

The Yak pointed at the report.

“The mine was and is not the most productive and profitable. The rocks containing the tiny gems are reluctant to give up their treasure.”

Rostnikov didn’t ask the Yak why he was telling him what must surely be in the report. He knew the Director well enough to know that there was a point-not historical, but very much in the present, and possibly the future.

“The mine has always been the bastard stepchild of Siberian diamond mines, almost closed when Stalin ordered new exploration for Siberian diamonds in 1957. Geologists and a new generation of convicts, political and criminal, died in the digging in numbers greater than those who had died at the mine in the service of the Tsar. Diamond pipes, veins of diamonds, were discovered. New mining machines were brought in, modern techniques employed, but Devochka kept steadily producing in a small stream. It was and is a mine and a town passed by time, its residents a congregation of generations of criminals and outcasts.”

And then Rostnikov knew why the Yak was telling him about the diamonds. He looked at the man as he spoke and saw a dreamy glaze in his eyes as if he were looking somewhere at something that didn’t exist. It was the first time Rostnikov had ever seen a hint of imagination in the Yak, and it had been brought on by a vision of diamonds or what diamonds could give him.

The Yak went silent. Moments passed. Rostnikov spoke.

“I see.”

But what I see is not what you are seeing, Rostnikov thought. You want me to deliver to you the key to control a crumbling diamond mine and the possibility that one more vein will be struck and bleed.

Rostnikov started to rise.

“Wait,” said the Yak, coming out of his reverie.

He turned his head not to see if Rostnikov had noticed his weakness. The Yak was certain that he had. The question was how he would handle this instant.

Rostnikov pretended not to have noticed.

“We are taking on two other cases related to this investigation. Assign who you will to them and have those doing the investigation report to you and only you. You, in turn, will keep me informed on a daily basis.”

“From Siberia?”

“From Siberia. The connection of sorts between the cases,” said the Yak, “is not a coincidence.”

Two more folders appeared in the Yak’s right hand. He passed them to Rostnikov.

“The cases must be resolved in nine days,” said the Yak, “one week from Tuesday.”

Rostnikov looked for a sign in the man’s eyes or the movement of his fingers. There was none.

“You know who General Mihail Frankovich is?”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

Frankovich was Director of the Division of Murder in the Investigative Directorate. The joke in Petrovka was that Frankovich was well qualified for the job because he was reported to have murdered at least two suspects who had refused to confess. Frankovich was not of the KGB old-boy network. He had risen from the ranks in the Army as his father had done before him.

“General Frankovich would like to incorporate the Office of Special Investigations into the Division of Murder,” said the Yak. “We have been too successful. This office has moved, at least in the eyes of some, from being a dark hole to being a small diamond.”

Rostnikov nodded.

“Nine days from now there will be a meeting of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Commission,” the Yak went on, carefully watching the emotionless face of his Chief Inspector. “General Frankovich will bid to take over this Office. It is possible he will succeed, unless. .”

“You present evidence of a success so great that the General will have to withhold his bid,” said Rostnikov.

“Precisely,” said the Yak. “I do not intend for the Office of Special Investigations to be lost.”

That was not exactly the truth. The Yak’s plan was far more bold. He had prepared for it over the past four years, gathering information about the failures of the Division of Murder and the weaknesses of General Frankovich. The Yak had his own plan to take over the Division of Murder, employing concise reports of failure and private documents that might uncharitably but accurately be labeled blackmail.

“Frankovich has his own loyal staff,” the Yak continued. “It is unlikely he would retain the personnel now working in this Office. You and your detectives would be reassigned, as would I. You understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good. You have provided for me in the past, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. It is vital that you do so once more.”

The Yak had delivered what the Americans called “a pep talk.” It lacked the emotion one might expect at halftime from the coach of the Dynamo Soccer Team. The Yak may have felt emotion, but he was incapable of conveying it. Besides, Rostnikov didn’t need a pep talk.

While he did not know what the Yak’s plan was this time, he knew it was more than simple survival. One did not survive in Russia at the Yak’s level, particularly in the police hierarchy, just by protecting one’s rear. One had to tear a painful, bloody chunk out of the rear of the enemy as well.

While he did not welcome the prospect of losing his job, Porfiry Petrovich did not mind having a deadline, a clock ticking over his shoulder. He knew he had a tendency to sit back and listen rather than advance. He was a man of great curiosity. He was not in the least ambitious, which was one of the reasons Yaklovev trusted him, or came as close to trusting him as the Yak was capable of.

“That’s all,” said the Yak.

He was rubbing the thumb and a finger of each hand together as if he were about to count a stack of money. The movement was small. It didn’t escape Rostnikov.

Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov rose with difficulty, tucked the three file folders under his arm, and looked at the Yak. Their eyes met. There was a warning in the eyes of the man behind the desk under the photograph of Vladimir Putin. Rostnikov was to ask no more questions.

When Rostnikov had moved slowly across the room and out the door, Yaklovev removed from his desk drawer a more detailed copy of the reports he had given his Chief Inspector.

There were many things in the reports he had not mentioned, though he had included the tale of the ghost girl. It was part of the peasant fabric of lore that built up around every small town and most of the large ones throughout Russia. Russians could be ignorant and superstitious. It was one of the many weaknesses in the national psyche that a careful, ambitious man could exploit.

“I am of mixed minds about what I want you to do. Are you listening? You don’t look as if you are listening.”

The lean black man didn’t answer and didn’t look at Vladimir Kolokov. He stared straight ahead to the single dirty window in the concrete basement.

Kolokov was a man of average size and build, neither thin, nor fat, nor athletic. His hair was a mop of brown-yellow, his face a forty-three-year-old mask of indifference.

Kolokov was smoking an American cigarette. He had offered one to George Umbaway. George had refused.

Two of the other three Russians in the room were also smoking. The two lounged against the wall where George, were he to turn his eyes but slightly, would be looking directly at them. There was nothing of interest about the two men except that they might be called upon to kill George and his companions in another room. It was the fourth man who did frighten George. The man, Pau Montez, was the youngest of the quartet. He was lean and muscular, his neck thick. His head was shaved and he wore a permanent smile. Pau’s grandfather had fled Spain for a welcoming Russia when the Loyalists were defeated. Though desperately in need of volunteers, they had been happy to see the sadistic young man depart. This newest member of the Montez family seemed to have inherited that homicidal streak.

“You cannot stop your heart from beating,” said Kolokov, reaching down to place his right hand on George Umbaway’s chest. “It is a lie detector.”

Kolokov turned his head slightly to the right as if listening in the air for a heartbeat. Smoke curled into Kolokov’s eyes. He squinted.

“Remarkable. You might have a heart attack before I can get your answer. What is your answer, by the way? You’ve forgotten my question. Who supplies you with the diamonds, and when and where are you getting another delivery?”

George willed his heart to slow down. He was sweating even though it was cold in the room. He thought about his wife, Marie-Marie, and his children. For no reason he wondered, not for the first time, why his wife’s left arm had been refusing to function. She would need to be sent to England for evaluation and possible surgery. George trusted neither white nor black doctors in South Africa or Namibia or Botswana.

“What do I do with a man like this?” Vladimir said with exasperation, looking at the Spaniard for an answer he was certain he would not receive.

The Spaniard smiled.

“Alek, Bogdan?”

The two men in the corner stopped talking when they were addressed. The younger of the two, Alek, looked at the older for an answer and got none.

Kolokov shook his head.

“Then I will have to rely on my own resources. I want the information you have, the answers to my questions, but I am of two minds. I also want to torture you. I want to see the extent to which a man, or woman, will undergo agony before they are broken. I must admit that I’ve never had the opportunity to torture a black man before. I understand that black people have a very low level of tolerance for. .”

“Just do it, Vlady,” Bogdan called out.

Kolokov spun around and flung his cigarette toward the man. Bogdan held up a protective arm and the perfectly flung missile bounced to the floor. Kolokov pointed a finger at the man and said, “Do not tell me what to do, ever. Suggest. Do not tell me.”

“But you. .,” Alek began and changed his mind.

The Spaniard was smiling more broadly, enjoying the exchange.

“You have made up my mind, African,” said Kolokov, fishing a fresh cigarette from his shirt pocket and lighting it as he moved to a table against the wall where George could see something white next to a cardboard box.

Kolokov’s voice had risen.

Now George could see what was on the table and became truly afraid.

Kolokov turned back to George, adjusted the sleeves of his white surgical jacket, and said, “I wear this to keep the blood from my clothes, my body. And also, between us, it makes me feel like a doctor or a scientist doing important research, which, in a way, I am. If I am ever caught, I can give them vivid reports on the effectiveness of each session. All right, George, here is what we are going to do. It was a method used on my father by the NKVD. He survived. You may. He didn’t have the option of giving information or confessing to anything. They just wanted to torture him. Maybe it was a slow day. Are you hungry?”

Now George turned his eyes to the man who was either mad or pretending to be to frighten him.

“We’re going to feed you. We are going to put a feeding tube down your nose. Wait, I’ll show you.”

Kolokov moved to the cardboard box on the table and pulled out a coil of plastic tubing.

“I think it’s too thick,” Kolokov said with a sigh. “But it will have to do. When it was done to my father, blood gushed from his nose, but they kept pushing until the cartilage cracked. He couldn’t scream, not with the pipe in his throat. And breathing was. . you can imagine. He remembered wheezing until the pipe was in his stomach. Then they. . am I boring you?”

Kolokov leaned forward so that his eyes were looking directly into those of his prisoner.

“You should listen. It is interesting. Watch.”

He retrieved a screw-top jar from the cardboard box. It was filled with a thick liquid.

“Looks like shit, right? Don’t worry. It’s not. It is a healthy, if perhaps somewhat rancid, thick broth rich in carbohydrates and proteins. You’ll be a healthy man if you survive.”

Kolokov held the jar in front of George’s face. The liquid in it was a murky brown with small pieces of something languidly floating in it.

“We will hold you down for half an hour so the food will be absorbed and can’t be vomited. Then we will remove the tube. Then you get another chance to talk. And if you don’t, we repeat the feeding for as many days as it takes and, according to my father, who went for ten days before falling into a coma, it is more painful each time the pipe goes down the raw passages. I’ve always wanted to see what my father suffered. I may finally be getting my chance. And if you die, we still have your two friends to feed. I would like to be extremely wealthy, rich from diamonds, but I’ll gladly accept the alternate option of torture and, who knows, I may get both.”

Kolokov held the tubing and a funnel in one hand and the bottle in the other. The Spaniard crossed his arms. George knew which option he wanted.

In the company of madmen, one’s best refuge is to go mad oneself.

“Well?” asked the Russian.

There was no doubt what Vladimir Kolokov wanted. George was not about to grant it to him, even if it meant death. George was shaking now. He could not help it. He was shaking too much to speak but he did make a gesture with his head that left no doubt of his response.

He shook his head no and tilted it back. Kolokov looked disappointed.

Oxana Balakona stood near a wall in the North Station of the Kiev Railroad Station. In her right hand was a small suitcase, plain, faux leather, black. People hurried past her-more than 170,000 passengers came through the station every day-but she was not unnoticed.

Oxana was a model-a beautiful, thin, dark model in demand as a mannequin for sultry clothes, a sly smile on her red lips.

Women glanced at her. Most men, even the old ones who only harbored the memory of a libido, stared at Oxana as they moved by.

Train arrivals and departures were announced by a calm baritone voice. Children cried and whined.

Oxana was aware of the attention she brought, but at the moment it was of no interest to her. In fact, her looks were a threat to the reason she was here.

She checked the large, modern, metal clock at the second level of the open area.

The woman was late.

And then Christiana Verovona appeared, as unimpressive as Oxana was striking. Christiana was about Oxana’s age, no more than twenty-five, but she looked at least ten years older. Oxana had a fair description and an old photograph of the woman, but that was not how she recognized her.

Christiana Verovona was carrying a suitcase exactly like the one in Oxana’s hand.

No time to waste. Oxana hurried through the crowd on the polished gray-on-charcoal colored floor toward the bizarre lobby display next to which the other woman stood. The display was encircled by a knee-high polished stone wall topped by a low fence of clear plastic tethered to low posts. In the center of the circle were four fifteen-foot-high palm trees whose trunks were made of see-through plastic and whose fronds at the top were bright green plastic.

The beautiful woman under the palm trees saw Christiana coming now. Christiana had simply been told that someone would appear by the palm trees, place a duplicate suitcase next to hers, take Christiana’s suitcase, and walk away.

Christiana, who had come from Moscow, was not totally without the virtue of good looks, but they had been squandered. It made no difference to Oxana who made the exchange, saying only, “Have a nice trip back to Moscow.”

“Yes,” said Christiana.

And then the woman who had taken Christiana’s suitcase was gone. Christiana looked up at the clock. She would have to hurry. The new suitcase was about as heavy as the one she had exchanged. She picked it up and hurried toward the long, high-ceilinged, broad walkway that led to the trains.

Christiana had only a flicker of hope that she would succeed. Not that anything had gone wrong or appeared as if it might go wrong. She told herself, as she hurried through the crowd of jostling people going in both directions, that all would be fine. Georgi had told her that it would be fine and she wanted to believe him, wanted to deliver the suitcase, be handed the money, more money than she had ever made in a year. Then she wanted to go to her room and lie down and sleep curled up facing the wall.

She held out her ticket showing it to anyone who wore a uniform. Finding the right train was easy, but her car was far down the track. The train was making loud noises as if it were about to leave without her. She held the handle of the suitcase with two hands now and tried to run. The suitcase bounced against her knees, drumming as she walked.

Christiana was in no shape for running.

Money. Think of the money. She would put all of it away. Well, almost all of it. She would go off somewhere for a while and give up the drugs. Georgi would not try to stop her. He really didn’t need her anymore, which was good.

She saw a conductor still far down the train looking toward her.

She thought of the beautiful dark woman with whom she had switched bags. Was she doing it for the money? She must be. If Christiana looked like her, she wouldn’t be running down a train platform with a suitcase assaulting her. What if it came open? It could. Christiana had not packed it.

Almost there.

She had given up the vodka. It hadn’t been so bad. She still had the heroin and the pills. One step at a time. All she needed was a little time away.

The conductor was motioning for her to hurry. She tried.

And then she thought about Alaya. She did not mean to, did not want to. Alaya was gone. Christiana did not know where. Georgi had convinced her that he could not afford to raise a child. She was a prostitute, a prostitute who, with the help of a smile and well-applied makeup, could still bring in a reasonable price. And so she had handed over Alaya after being told the infant was headed for the home of a rich candy importer. Georgi had kept all the money. Christiana had not wanted any.

Christiana showed the conductor her ticket.

“Compartment four,” he said.

She climbed up the steps and into the train car pulling the suitcase behind her. It was painfully heavy now. The muscles in each arm were knotted and aching.

Georgi was definitely not bad, not a pimp like so many of the others. He had linked her up with businessmen, some from Moscow, some from as far as Argentina, and quite a few from China. He did not care about the tips they left her. And most of them were kind. She did her best to please. Georgi was more interested in gambling and business deals than sex. She was now, and for months had been, companionship, nothing more. The few dollars she brought in were meaningless.

All the seats on both sides of the aisle were full. The train lurched forward. She tried to hold the suitcase high, failed, and apologized when she grazed the shoulder of a dark, fat man with a thin, trim beard. She found the compartment, slid the door open, pushed the lock, and stood for a few seconds catching her breath. Christiana put the suitcase on the seat and looked around. The train rattled forward, heading back to Moscow.

Georgi would be at the station to meet her. Everything would be fine.

A knock.

“Yes?” she asked.

“The door is locked,” came the voice of a man, an almost musical tenor.

“Yes,” she said.

“This is my compartment,” said the man through the door.

The train was picking up speed now, rumbling through the station and the train yard.

“No,” she said. “You are mistaken. I have the whole compartment.”

“This is car seven, compartment four?”

“Yes,” she said.

“That is what my ticket says. You can take a look. We will have to ask the conductor for an explanation.”

Christiana moved the three steps across the compartment and unlocked the door. The man was about her height, willowy, with a boyishly good-looking face, though he was no boy.

He wore a long black soft leather jacket, dark slacks, and a white shirt. His thin dark hair was brushed straight back. He smiled apologetically and stepped in, sliding the door closed behind him and locking it.

“I have been waiting for you to get on,” he said, motioning her back toward the window. “You almost missed the train.”

The smiling man, she was certain, was there to get the suitcase. There was no doubt about that. She would have to explain when she got back to Moscow, and Georgi would know she was telling the truth, but it would make no difference. She looked at the suitcase.

“You made the exchange. Where is the other suitcase?”

Christiana had a lifetime of being the object of violence from men. Something about her invited it. But this man was not interested in sex or the pleasure of inflicting pain. Something as cold as dry ice, as white as diamonds was in him and she was afraid.

“I do not know. A beautiful woman has it, an actress or a model, I think.

“A model, I think,” she said again feeling her left leg begin to twitch. “I think I’ve seen her before, in magazines or on television.”

“And?”

“Nothing. That’s it. Believe me.”

Now there was a knife in the hand of the man’s delicate fingers. He rolled it, spun the blade back and forth.

“You do not know any more, do you?”

The train lurched on noisily. Metal screeched on metal.

“No,” she said.

“Then, izvi’neete, I’m sorry to say that I have no use for you.”

He skipped one step forward and twisted her to him by the wrist. Before she could scream, he had a hand over her mouth and the knife blade entered her neck expertly, deeply.

“Now that did not hurt, did it?”

He was right. It had not hurt. Christiana would not have to make excuses to Georgi in Moscow now. She would be dead, and, given her life, there were worse things. She slumped forward, and the man guided her falling body into the seat. It was an almost elegant move, balletic, professional. He had not a drop of blood on his shirt, slacks, or jacket.

He wiped the knife blade on her not-quite-shabby coat, moved her gently so that her head rested on the window, picked up the suitcase, and left the compartment after putting up a DO NOT DISTURB sign. He went back to his coach seat for forty-five minutes, chatting with a young soldier before the train pulled into the first station down the line.

He said good-bye to the soldier, got off the train with the suitcase he had taken from the dead woman and one of his own. He waited for the train to pull out of the station. As it moved past, he looked up and saw the dead woman, eyes open, mouth open, and contorted against the bloody window. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and quickly aimed it at the dead woman. He clicked off two photographs. Then the train was gone.

He moved casually toward the depot to buy a ticket back to Kiev.

After leaving the Yak’s office, Rostnikov sat at his desk reading the information in the folders he had been given. The words that held the three cases together were ‘diamonds’ and ‘nine days.’

He was reasonably certain that the Yak had told him the truth about almost everything-except his motives. He was reasonably sure that in nine days the meeting would be held to determine the fate of the Office of Special Investigations.

He called his squad in, and in the cramped office he gave out the assignments. Iosef and Zelach would investigate the torture-murder of two black South Africans whose bodies were found seated in a cemetery. The dead men were both former workers in a Botswanian diamond mine. Both were suspected by Interpol of smuggling diamonds. Both, along with an unknown number of others, were known to have been in Moscow. The South African, Botswanan, and Namibian governments had asked the Russian government to watch the two men. Now they were dead. Now they were the concern of the Office of Special Investigations.

The other case involved a murdered woman found in a train compartment when it pulled into Moscow from Kiev. The woman was alone in a first-class, two-bed compartment. She was a known prostitute. She had been stabbed once. There was but one mention of diamonds in the report on Rostnikov’s desk. On a yellow Post-it the Yak had carefully printed the word ‘diamonds.’

The Office of Special Investigations did not normally delve into the murder of prostitutes. Nobody really delved into the murder of prostitutes. But this Moscow prostitute had been found murdered in the most expensive private car on a train. This prostitute, Christiana Verovona, had purchased a ticket to Kiev and another almost immediately back to Moscow.

Rostnikov gave the case to Sasha Tkach and Elena Timofeyeva.

Rostnikov said little at the meeting. There was little to say, and whatever was spoken was certainly being listened to by Pankov or the Yak. Rostnikov and the others in his squad knew where the microphones were planted in the wall here in Porfiry Petrovich’s office and in the room where all of them had their desks.

They met outside of Petrovka when they wanted privacy. They met inside Petrovka when they wanted the Yak to know what they were saying. The Yak knew that all of them were well aware of the microphones. He did not hope to suddenly hear priceless snippets of profitable information. He simply wanted them to be aware of his presence and to have all conversations of even the slightest possible consequence taped and recorded on CDs for his own protection. The Yak was very good at protecting himself.

“Questions?” asked Rostnikov.

There were many. All went unasked.

Sasha Tkach wondered for an instant if he had been selected by Rostnikov because his wife Maya had taken their young daughter and son to Kiev for an indefinite stay. Sasha, the tinge of boyish, innocent good looks now maturing into brooding handsomeness, was on official probation from his wife. Sasha was often selected for undercover work that brought him into contact with women who were available and found him willing in spite of his fragile resolve. The case promised to take him to Kiev. He wasn’t certain how he felt about that. He was certain that he would be happy to get away from his mother, Lydia, with whom he was temporarily living. Lydia was nearly deaf, a retired bureaucrat who held strong opinions on everything from Putin’s smile to the influx of Muslims in Khazakstan. She spoke loudly with a shrill voice and harbored ambitions for her son that had nothing to do with being a policeman.

Sasha was also certain that he wanted to see his children, particularly Pulcharia, who was now six. He wanted to see Maya and his son very much, but he felt that Pulcharia somehow held the key to his sense of possible salvation, since he had first seen her moments after she was born.

Kiev was not on the mind of Elena Timofeyeva who had been assigned to work with Sasha. She had babysat Sasha before. She did not look forward to doing it again. She had other things to worry about.

Elena was the only woman in the Office of Special Investigations. She had gotten the job because she was an experienced police officer, but also because her aunt was Anna Timofeyeva, the former procurator for whom Rostnikov had worked for twenty years. Now, though a sometimes troubled relationship, Elena was engaged to marry Iosef Rostnikov, who sat next to her in the cramped, hot office of her future father-in-law. Elena knew she was a healthy, plump, clear-skinned woman who would, like her aunt, mother, and the rest of the women of her family, be forever destined to battle a tendency to become significantly overweight. To overcome heredity, Elena had to live on a near-starvation diet, which made her irritable. That irritability could easily erupt if Sasha behaved irresponsibly. One thing Elena could be counted on for was a sense of loyalty and responsibility. She would do anything short of death or self-mutilation to avoid disappointing Porfiry Petrovich.

Iosef and Zelach, on the other hand, were a perfect pair of investigators. The hulking Zelach, who lived with his mother though he was forty-three years old, was devoid of imagination. He had the kind of slouching body on which no clothing ever looked right-no clothing except for the policeman’s uniform he no longer wore.

Iosef, who’d had a brief career as a playwright, had an abundance of imagination. And all clothing seemed to have been designed for his tall, solid body.

Iosef was given to irony. Zelach did not recognize it when he heard or encountered it. Zelach’s bland courage was recognized and appreciated, as were his occasional revelations, which delighted Iosef. Over the past three years, Iosef had discovered that Zelach’s eclectic talents included tested ESP abilities, a talent for kicking a soccer ball long distances, and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Russian, Lithuanian, and German heavy metal bands.

“You will report daily to me or to Emil Karpo,” said Rostnikov. “We, in turn, will dutifully report to Director Yaklovev. Should you require funding for your investigation, I’m certain that the always-cooperative Pankov will supply it instantly.”

The last, as they all knew, had been said for the benefit of Pankov, who was or would be listening to their conversation.

“One more thing,” said Rostnikov. “There is an urgency about these cases. It is necessary that closure is achieved within nine days from today.”

Only Zelach considered asking why there was a nine-day deadline, but there was a great distance between considering and asking. Zelach knew enough not to ask.

“And,” said Rostnikov, “there is nothing more.”

That ended the meeting.