Tarnished Icons

NINE

The call announcing Porfiry Petrovich’s visitor came exactly on the hour. State Security Agent Leo Horv showed his identification card at the Petrovka guard station, where the young uniformed officer with pink cold cheeks looked at it and called the lobby check-in desk. Sergeant Sismikov answered in a bored, deep voice that let the guard know that the sergeant was warm enough to be bored. Sismikov checked his appointment log and told the guard to send Agent Horv in.

Since the State Security agent wasn’t carrying anything, there was nothing to be searched. Nonetheless, Sismikov, who was the size of the Kremlin cannon, asked if Agent Horv would please pass through the metal detector.

Horv smiled and readily agreed. The machine was extremely sensitive. Still, it did not screech.

Horv made his way up the stairs, found Rostnikov’s office, and stepped in.

He hadn’t been prepared for what he saw.

The box of a man behind the desk rose awkwardly with a smile of greeting and held out his hand. Horv took it and looked at the other two men in the room. The unkempt one seated to his right wearing a blue smock examined the guest as if he were a specimen. He was introduced as Technician Paulinin, and the gaunt man in black was introduced as Inspector Karpo. The newcomer recognized him as one of the two men who had entered his apartment the day before. He had carefully removed all photographs of himself, but had she kept one somewhere? Did this blank-faced, erect man recognize him?

There was an empty seat between Paulinin and Karpo. Rostnikov, sitting awkwardly, held out his hand, palm up, to suggest that the State Security agent have a seat.

He sat and said, “I suppose you want to get straight to business. All right. I’ll tell you why I am here.”

“I think that first Citizen Paulinin would like to see the bomb,” said Rostnikov conversationally, folding his hands on the desk in front of him. “Would you like some tea, Alexi Monochov?”

Alexi sat back, trying to hide his confusion.

“I recognized your voice from our telephone conversations,” said Rostnikov, “but, even more compelling, was the fact that Inspector Karpo has been to your apartment. He has seen your photograph, an old photograph, but it is you. Your mother gave it to him. Well?”

“I’m here to …” Alexi began.

“No, I’m sorry. I was asking about the tea,” said Rostnikov.

“No tea,” said Alexi eyeing the men.

The two flanking him looked like variations of madness. Karpo sat rigidly, unblinkingly examining him. Paulinin looked as if he were suffering from some slight malady that made it difficult for him to sit still.

“Then, may we see the bomb?” asked Rostnikov. “I don’t know much about bombs, but I do know that making one with the use of almost no metal, particularly for the detonator, is quite an achievement.”

Confused, trying to regain his determination, Alexi opened his coat to reveal the deep-pocketed black nylon belt strapped to his stomach. There was only one wire coming from it. Alexi held up his hands now to show that the wire was attached to a small, polished wooden device in his hand.

Paulinin put on his glasses and scratched his chin. He asked Alexi what kind of explosive he was using.

No harm at this point. Alexi told him.

Paulinin nodded in admiration.

“Good choice,” said the scientist. “The wire. Why wasn’t that detected downstairs?”

“It contains no metal,” said Alexi. “No more questions.”

“I’m sorry, but I have one,” said Rostnikov. “Forgive me for asking, but it is my job. How do we know you really have a bomb?”

“You will find that out soon enough,” said Alexi, avoiding the examination by Paulinin with the thick glasses. This was not going at all the way he had expected. Why had Rostnikov let Alexi come up knowing that he most likely carried a bomb?

“Ah,” said Rostnikov. “You mean to …?”

“Yes,” said Alexi, trying to sound firmly resolved.

“But first you have something to say,” said Rostnikov.

“You counted on that.”

“Certainly,” said Rostnikov. “If you simply meant to set off a bomb that would destroy part-”

“All,” Alexi amended.

“-all of this building,” Rostnikov went on, “you would simply have done so without getting a false identification and going through the risk of getting caught.”

“When we finish talking,” Alexi said, his thumb on the button of the device, “we all die.”

“I would assume that would be one of the results if you detonate your bomb,” Rostnikov agreed. “But before you do so, there is something I’d like to tell you.”

Paulinin had leaned forward and Alexi turned to look at the eyes behind the spectacles of the scientist. He saw no fear. He turned to Karpo, who betrayed no emotion. Did no one in this room fear death? Alexi felt dizzy. He would have liked some water, even warm water, but there was no way he could ask. Maybe he should have accepted the tea. But it might have been drugged or even poisoned. His mouth was dry, very dry, and things were not going according to plan.

“Did I ever ask you in our phone conversations what your favorite color is?” asked Rostnikov, pushing a thick folder across the desk and nodding at Alexi to look at it.

Alexi cautiously took his free hand out of his pocket and leaned over to open the file.

“Photographs of the survivors of your bombs,” said Rostnikov.

“Gray,” said Alexi, looking at the photographs of the maimed and the blind. “My favorite color is gray.”

“There are before-and-after photographs where we could get them,” said Rostnikov. “They are in the back. My staff ran something through the computer. You would understand how it worked. I am not a man of science. If you set off your bomb and it is as powerful as Paulinin here suggests, you will kill between one hundred and two hundred people at this time of day. A little more than half will leave wives and children. The total number of children under the age of sixteen left without a father will be about one hundred and ten. Alexi Monochov, because your father died and you believe you are dying, that is not a good enough reason for what you plan to do.”

“Hundreds of thousands have died,” Alexi answered with passion, putting his free hand back in his pocket, holding up the hand with the wired plunger. “The world should be made aware of the horrors of nuclear power. It will destroy Russia. It will destroy the world. It won’t even need a bomb to do it. Do you know how Russia’s nuclear materials and weapons are stored and protected?”

“Yes,” said Paulinin.

Alexi turned, surprised by the scientist’s high-pitched voice. But Paulinin wasn’t finished.

“Nuclear storage areas are protected by young soldiers in ramshackle sheds with padlocks on their doors that can be picked in about thirty seconds or cut off in about two or three. Of course, there are a few better-protected facilities, but they, like the others, are subject to theft through attack or, more often, bribery of key guards.”

“Yes,” said Alexi.

“And you are making it better by bombing people,” said Rostnikov.

“Yes,” said Alexi with conviction. “Everyone who creates, protects, or condones nuclear development-nuclear death-should be destroyed as an example.”

“So,” said Rostnikov, leaning farther over his desk, lowering his voice, and focusing on the face of the bomber, “almost everybody deserves to join you in death.”

“Almost everybody,” said Alexi, nodding.

“But you haven’t the time to do it because you are dying,” said Rostnikov.

“That is right,” said Alexi. “I want to speak.”

Rostnikov nodded, giving the bomber his full attention.

“I have left notes with the media again, sent them out of the country. The world will know what has happened here today. I have also sent my greatest achievement in the mail to someone whose death will draw even more attention.”

“And you think this will make the world wake up and begin a program of ceasing the creation and use of nuclear weapons. …”

“Any nuclear creation is dangerous. Don’t you understand?”

Alexi tried to stop the tears beginning in the corners of his eyes. What good did it do to kill men like this? They seemed unafraid of what he was about to do, while Alexi mourned and feared the death that would come to him in minutes.

“No,” said Rostnikov. “I find it difficult to imagine that the Chinese would be swayed in any way by what you plan to do. I think the Americans would use it for propaganda to try to get us to gain more government control of storage. It would not affect the Americans at all. Of course, this is just my opinion.”

“It is worth trying,” said Alexi. “It will be the largest gesture of its kind. It may well start an international movement so powerful that governments will be unable to ignore it.”

“I doubt that,” said Rostnikov. “But, since none of us will be here to see it, we will never know. I talked to a psychiatrist about you. An American, by phone. Gave her your profile. She does this for the FBI. Would you like to know what she said?”

“No,” said Alexi, holding the wired detonator menacingly.

“Since I am about to be blown to pieces-with the exception of my left leg, which is already gone-I think it would be unreasonable of you not to allow me a few minutes to say what I wish. You’ve spoken and, given the circumstances, can speak again.”

“Talk, quickly,” said Alexi.

“Well, she says you are afraid of dying and want to show control by maiming or condemning to broken lives or even death those who might survive you. Nuclear energy is an excuse.”

“It killed my father. It is killing me,” Alexi insisted, partially rising from his chair.

“You are not dying, Alexi Monochov,” said Rostnikov. “Look at the back of the file before you. We found your appointment notes, went to the hospital where you were diagnosed, got the X rays and test results, and sent them to the Americans, who examined them. You went to incompetent doctors at an incompetent hospital.”

“As are most in Russia,” said Paulinin.

“You have an infection, Alexi,” said Rostnikov. “A prostate infection. It can be controlled with daily medication. It is not cancerous. Your life, except for the bomb strapped to your stomach, is in no impending danger.”

“You’re lying,” said Alexi, examining each of the faces around him. He could see no trace of a lie, but they were trained to deceive. His eyes scanned the desk as if it might hold some answer, but all it held was the file folder of photographs of his victims. He flipped open the file and in the back found the medical reports.

“Had the hospital continued to treat you,” said Rostnikov, “they may very well have killed you, but that is really of no consequence now. If you set off this bomb, the American psychiatrist will issue a joint statement with the director of the Institute of Psychosis here in Moscow. You will be remembered briefly as a dying lunatic who vindictively took the lives of innocent people.”

“But you will all die, too,” said Alexi. “You let me in here knowing you could die, probably would die.”

“You and your family live well,” said Rostnikov, ignoring the observation.

“What?” said Alexi, even more bewildered.

“Your father did not have much money. You do not earn much money. Your sister’s salary is more pitiful than a policeman’s, and your mother comes from a poor family.”

“What has that …?” Alexi began.

“Your father got the money by blackmailing important officials involved in corruption in nuclear production,” came the voice at Alexi’s right.

Alexi turned to the technician, the scientist who looked more mad than Alexi felt.

“Rumor, a word here and there,” said Paulinin. “Gossip in the halls of meetings of scientists. I seldom go to such things. The pompous asses there make me bilious.”

“Give us the names and tell us where the evidence is against these people,” said Rostnikov. “That will accomplish more than what you plan.”

“If I do that, my mother and sister will be reduced to poverty,” he said.

“Then,” said Rostnikov, sitting back in his chair with a deep sigh, “you are a hypocrite.”

“You are in no position to call me names,” said Alexi. “You’re twisting things.”

“I am giving you the opportunity to live and provide that life with a meaningful act against those who abuse the very creation you are willing to kill for. I am giving you the opportunity to speak out at a public trial where the criminals your father confronted can be denounced,” said Rostnikov. “Would you like to see my artificial leg?”

“What?” asked Alexi, sitting back in complete confusion.

“I’m reaching down for it,” said Rostnikov. “Don’t panic. I’m not reaching for a weapon. If it were simply a matter of shooting you and taking our chances, Inspector Karpo, to your left, would have done so minutes ago. Ah, here.”

Rostnikov put his prosthetic leg on the desk. It made a clunking sound.

“Marvel of science,” said Rostnikov, admiring the leg. “Prosthetics. They’re improving them all the time.”

“Made by people with no knowledge of human anatomy,” said Paulinin with disgust.

Alexi was in total confusion as he looked at the leg on the table before him. No one in the room seemed the least bit afraid except Alexi, who now believed that he might well not be dying.

“I don’t want to see your wooden leg,” Alexi said, staring right at the prosthesis.

“It’s not just wood,” said Rostnikov. “It has, in fact, almost no wood. It is metal and plastic. The plastic, as you can see, is made to somewhat approximate the color of human skin, but what is the point of that, I ask you? Anyone looking at it can see it is artificial. I believe in facing the truth, Alexi Monochov.”

As the bomber continued to stare in fascination, Paulinin made a gesture to Karpo. He mimed putting his hand in his pocket. Karpo’s nod was so slight that only the scientist caught it. Rostnikov’s eyes were looking at the artificial part of his anatomy.

Alexi was hypnotized by the leg before him, confused by the apparent fact that he was not going to die. This was going all wrong.

“No,” he said, sitting down. “No more talk.”

“The photograph,” Paulinin said.

“Ah, yes, the photograph,” said Rostnikov. “I think this will interest you.”

Rostnikov pulled an eight-by-ten out of his drawer and reached over his artificial leg to place the photo face-down in front of the perplexed bomber.

“You are all crazy,” said Alexi.

“You don’t include yourself?” asked Rostnikov.

“I … I … It doesn’t matter.”

Alexi took his hand out of his pocket and reached for the photograph. The next instant was a sudden shock. Something grabbed his left hand as he reached forward. Then there was pain up his right arm as it was pulled behind him.

Karpo ignored the detonator button in Alexi’s right hand and put the confused man in handcuffs behind his back while Paulinin reached into Alexi’s left pocket and came up with a small black plastic box the size of a key-chain flashlight with a black button. Paulinin smiled in triumph and unstrapped the explosives from Alexi Monochov’s body. Alexi didn’t struggle, but Karpo still pressed down, holding him in place. Paulinin continued to search Alexi and then said, “Nothing.”

Rostnikov nodded.

“I assume I may have all this for further study,” asked Paulinin, examining the explosive loot in his hands as he moved away from Alexi to his chair.

“Of course,” said Rostnikov.

“How did you know?” asked Alexi, looking at Rostnikov.

“I had no idea,” said Rostnikov. “It was Technician Paulinin. My hope was to persuade you with the truth, Alexi. You are not dying or even seriously ill. My hope was to get you to give us the names and the evidence your father had collected. That was my hope, that and your fear of dying once you knew you were not ill. That and the opportunity in open court to make whatever kind of political or environmental statement you might choose. I don’t think you would have pushed that button. But, just in case, Technician Paulinin was here to insure that you wouldn’t.”

Rostnikov turned to the scientist, who gently patted the strap-on bomb on his lap.

“First,” said Paulinin, obviously delighted with himself, “you supposedly have a wire attached to the detonator you held in your right hand. The metal detectors downstairs didn’t perceive it. They are very delicate. The police are very paranoid. But it was possible you had another means of using the detonator, though I wondered why a man with your abilities-and I don’t give out compliments easily; you may ask Inspector Karpo-a man with your abilities should have such a primitive detonation device as a simple plunger and encased wire. It was for dramatic effect, perhaps? It could have been compressed air, but that would require more pressure than that simple wire and plunger could guarantee. It would require that your detonator be so delicate that it could have gone off simply while you walked or took the bus or metro here. Second, you are left-handed. Your watch is on your right wrist. You kept your left hand in your pocket. An odd thing to do under the circumstances, unless you had something in the pocket. Conclusion: the real detonator, a remote, was in your favored hand in your pocket ready to be pressed should someone manage to grab your right hand held high with a dramatic though false detonation device.”

“You could have been wrong,” said Alexi, head down, weeping. “I had it planned.”

“Your false detonator is attached to a screw,” said Paulinin. “A plastic screw to help insure that you could get through metal detectors. The screw is attached to the pouch. I know of no detonation device that would simply be triggered by a current through a plastic screw, though there are instances-”

“Paulinin,” Rostnikov interrupted, retrieving his leg from the table. “You are better than Sherlock Holmes.”

“Who is that?” asked the scientist warily.

“It is of no importance,” said Rostnikov. “I have paid you the highest of compliments. You are free to leave with your plunder.”

Paulinin did something with his face that may have been a smile and then he left the room. When the door closed, there was silence broken only by Alexi’s sobs. Karpo stood behind the seated man, looking at Rostnikov for instruction.

Rostnikov motioned with his hand for Karpo to release Alexi. Karpo did so, though he remained standing behind the bomber.

“Give us the names of the people your father was blackmailing,” said Rostnikov. “Give us the evidence. Tell us who you sent that last bomb to. Regain your dignity. By the time the world’s media receives your letter, they will know Petrovka has not been destroyed. Your letter will go in the garbage with the other eccentric letters of the day. You’ve killed only one person to this point. If you must die, you can now do so without taking any lives and with some pride in what you have done to bring criminals to justice.”

“They are rich,” Alexi said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “These men. They are powerful. They’ll bribe their way out of trouble.”

Rostnikov shrugged. Alexi had a point.

“Perhaps,” Porfiry Petrovich said, “but this is a new Russia. No one knows what a court will do, especially in a high-profile case. Bribery might be difficult and dangerous to a judge or anyone else in the government.”

“You will take care of my mother and sister?” Alexi said, feeling the cuffs digging into his wrists.

“No,” said Rostnikov. “There is nothing I can do. We have no budget for such things. They will have to get along as best they can.”

“I expected you to lie,” said Alexi.

Rostnikov shrugged again.

“I’ll tell you,” Alexi said with a sigh. “But it may be too late to stop the bomb I delivered before I came here, my backup bomb.”

There was silence-a long silence broken only by a pair of footsteps in the hall passing the office.

“And where is this second bomb?” Rostnikov prompted.

“Probably in the hands of whoever is the director of the FBI in the American embassy,” said Alexi. “The detonation device is delicate. Even a strong vibration will set it off. The box is small and looks like it might contain a pen-and-pencil set.”

“They will catch it,” said Rostnikov. “They’ll be suspicious.”

“It was delivered by hand, by a man in uniform, me,” said Alexi. “I informed the guard at the door that it was from you. I came here directly after I delivered it and changed my clothes.”

Rostnikov reached for his phone and pulled an address book from his drawer. Rostnikov was terrible with numbers of any kind, particularly phone numbers. He had, on occasion, been known to forget his own home number. He found the American embassy number, called and asked for Agent Craig Hamilton, said it was urgent, and identified himself as he watched Alexi Monochov looking at the face-down photograph he had been reaching for when Karpo grabbed his hand.

Rostnikov stretched across the desk, holding the phone to his ear, and turned over the photograph so the handcuffed prisoner could see it.

The man in the photograph was massive. He wore a pleasant smile and a sweat suit. There was something written on the photograph.

“Alexiev,” said Rostnikov, waiting for Craig Hamilton to come on the line. “The greatest of all Olympic lifters.”

Monochov looked baffled.

“Alexiev,” said Rostnikov, shaking his head. First Paulinin didn’t know who Sherlock Holmes was and now the bomber didn’t recognize the man whom Rostnikov and almost any Russian over the age of thirty would recognize.

“I sent him no bomb,” Alexi said.

Rostnikov shook his head and then heard Craig Hamilton’s calm voice. The two men spoke in English.

“A package was delivered to your office about half an hour ago,” Rostnikov said. “You’ve obviously not opened it or you wouldn’t be answering the phone. It’s from the bomber, supposedly from me. Small, about the size of a pen-and-pencil box.”

“The nearest bomb expert we have is in Frankfurt,” said Hamilton. “The soonest we could get him here would be in ten hours. I doubt if we have ten hours. I’m evacuating the building when we hang up. If you’ve got someone who can disarm the bomb, send them over. I’ll be nearby to let them in.”

Hamilton hung up without another word and so did Rostnikov.

“Now,” he said, nodding to Karpo, who sat down and took out his black leather-covered notebook. “We will talk about corruption and evidence, and those of us who believe in the possibility of a deity will pray that we can deal with your bomb without any deaths. The Americans have no bomb expert.”

“I could tell them,” said Alexi, his voice breaking.

“I believe you could,” said Rostnikov, “but I’m not prepared to trust you. Alexi Monochov, your record leaves much to be desired.”

Rostnikov knew he could call the military bomb squad, who might or might not succeed. Their practical experience was very limited, and their record, like that of Alexi Monochov, left something to be desired.

“Paulinin and I will go,” said Karpo. “Paulinin will welcome the challenge.”

“You will die,” said Alexi Monochov simply.

“We shall see,” said Karpo.

“With the deputy inspector’s permission,” said Karpo, “I will ask Technician Paulinin.”

Rostnikov looked up at the two men. Paulinin was brilliant but emotional and definitely more than just a bit mad, but he had disarmed Monochov, and if there was such a thing as genius, Paulinin surely qualified. As for Karpo, there was no doubt that he cared little if he lived or died, but there was no chance of his panicking, and he seemed to have a rapport with Paulinin. In addition, Karpo had some experience with bombs. He had almost been killed by a terrorist bomb in Red Square four years ago. The major damage had been to his left arm, which had taken surgery and a year to heal. The incident had prompted Karpo to learn what he could about bombs.

“You have my permission,” said Rostnikov. “Emil.”

“Yes?”

“I want you back alive,” Rostnikov said.

Karpo nodded and looked down at Alexi, who was still weeping.

“You can leave Alexi with me,” said Rostnikov.

Karpo nodded and left the room.

“They will die,” said Alexi, growing a bit more calm when the door was closed.

“Let us both hope that they do not,” said Rostnikov.

The plan was breaking down. Not all district stations had a time or even a place where all the officers could be brought together. Elena and Sasha could gather officers on each shift, but that would require Magda Stern to be at each gathering. It could take days. It could take weeks. And what if he wasn’t from the adjoining districts? Maybe he was from farther out. Maybe he wasn’t even a police officer.

Magda Stern had said that not only was he in uniform but he got into a police car after attacking her. Could it have been a car disguised to look like a police car? That was possible.

As for current photographs of the officers in each district, some stations had a full set, some had a few, and some had only old ones. Elena suggested that they methodically take photographs of every officer from top to bottom, starting with Trotsky Station. If an officer was home sick, they would go to his home.

“It could take months,” said Sasha, holding his forehead. “I need aspirin.”

They were seated in Elena’s cubbyhole office. Sasha sat across from her. The desk between them was very small.

“You have another idea?” she asked.

“We are already trying my idea,” he said as Elena dug into her drawer and came up with a small, white plastic container with a red top. She handed it to Sasha, who opened it and gulped three white capsules dry. He coughed, swallowed, and managed to get them down. He returned the container to Elena. There were only two pills left.

“Do you have any other ideas?” she asked.

“You have a camera?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Film?”

“We will talk to Porfiry Petrovich about buying and processing the film,” she said, the idea taking shape as she spoke.

“By the time he gets permission for such a purchase, if he even agrees with the plan, six more women could be raped and beaten, possibly murdered.”

“I say we try,” said Elena.

“So do I,” came a voice from the open entryway to the cubicle.

Iosef Rostnikov wore slacks, a white shirt and a sweater, and held a coat over his arm. He was smiling at Elena. Sasha, head in pain but feeling perhaps a bit better, looked at Elena, who was trying to hide a smile.

With all that is happening, am I not to be spared this maudlin mating ritual? Sasha mused.

“In fact,” Iosef went on, “I’ll supply the film. Japanese. Black-and-white. 800 ISO. You won’t even need a flash.”

“Just time,” said Sasha. “Where did you get enough film for this?”

“A donation when I worked at the theater before I became a policeman,” he said, stepping into the small room. “From a man who described himself as a businessman. Foreign accent. Very good clothes. Came to see me after a show. Shook my hand. Said he liked my work. The next day a carton of film was at the theater with a Japanese camera, a Nikon. I think the man was a gangster. The camera and the film are in my closet.”

“A waste of time,” said Sasha.

“A dead end,” said Elena, looking up at Iosef with a smile.

“A red herring,” said Iosef.

“Doomed to failure,” Elena came back.

“Preposterous idea,” Iosef agreed.

“As much chance as a cooked chicken,” said Elena.

“A completely-” Iosef began, but was interrupted by Sasha, who almost shouted, “All right. We use Iosef’s film. But we are going ahead with my plan.”

“At this point,” said Elena, “we have no choice.”

“And I will add my camera to Elena’s so you can both go out at the same time,” said Iosef.

Sasha shrugged, tossing his head back, closing his eyes. Elena looked up at Iosef more guardedly than she had a moment earlier.

Elena Timofeyeva had come to work exhausted. She had taken three aspirin before she even left home. Iosef was pushing gently for marriage but pushing nonetheless.

Last night in his bed they had talked, held each other and talked. Elena had gotten up at four in the morning. Her hope had been to get into the pull-out bed in her aunt’s living room before her aunt rose. If she hurried, which she had done, she would even have time for up to two and a half hours of sleep.

However, when she had returned to the apartment she shared with Anna Timofeyeva, the former powerful deputy procurator for Moscow who was now an invalid who read and looked out windows, she was not alone in the living room. It was just after dawn and she needed that sleep, but Lydia Tkach, Sasha’s deaf, shrill mother was there, at the table, across from Anna. Anna was drinking her tea and listening. Lydia was ignoring her tea and talking.

Anna was a heavy woman given to gray dresses. She had no children, had never married; and had had only three affairs in her life, all brief, all long ago, before she was her niece’s age. Anna kept herself clean and her rapidly graying hair neatly brushed and cut short. In her aunt, who had suffered two heart attacks, one major, Elena always saw her future self. It depressed her. To marry Iosef and turn into her aunt or even her mother back in Odessa was something she preferred not to contemplate. Elena knew she had a pretty, clear-skinned face and that she was smart and intuitive, better at her job than Sasha, who had been an investigator for almost a decade. But Iosef. He was bright, creative. His mother was still a beauty. His father, Porfiry Petrovich, was no beauty, but he had a confident, resigned power and great loyalty to those who worked with him.

Bakunin, Anna Timofeyeva’s orange cat, leapt off Anna’s lap and ran to Elena, who reached down to stroke her as she greeted her aunt and the rapidly talking visitor.

Anna looked up at her niece and shared an almost undetectable look that said “I am trapped. What can I do?”

“I know I said I would not complain,” said Lydia loudly, holding up her hands. She was as frail in appearance as Anna was solid, though it was Lydia who was by far the more healthy of the pair. “And this is not technically a complaint. I leave it to Elena if this is a complaint. Who should know better than Elena what my son goes through each day? He is my only child.”

“Elena has worked all night,” said Anna. “I think she needs some rest. Elya, go into my bedroom and use my bed. Lydia and I will do our best to be quiet.”

Elena nodded her head in appreciation. Later, when she got up and before she left, she would make herself something to eat. There wasn’t much. Some tea, bread, cheese, a bloodred sausage whose origins it was best not to question. There was also half of a sad, small cabbage.

“Elena,” Lydia said, touching her bird breast with her fist somewhere in the vicinity of where people thought the human heart resided. “Tell me, before you sleep. Honestly. My grandchild, Illya, is ill. My daughter-in-law does not tell me, does not call me. My own son doesn’t call me.”

“He’s been very busy,” Elena said. “We have a serial rapist.”

“Rapists!” Lydia cried. “Murderers. Rapists. Sasha’s been wounded more than once, beaten by car thieves, lunatics. Fine, that is what he wants to do, I can’t stop him. But I should see my grandchildren when I want to. I have nothing to do anymore. No job. I can take care of them. They don’t need day care. You have to pay for day care. And the little one is sick. My daughter-in-law doesn’t like me.”

I wonder why? thought Elena in resignation as she moved back to the kitchen area to prepare an awkward sandwich with two crumbling slices of bread. Elena looked at her aunt, who was close to having enough of Lydia for the day. Lydia Tkach, Elena knew, was a very mixed blessing. When she wasn’t decrying the offenses of her son, the police, her daughter-in-law, her low pension, and the chill in her apartment down the hall or recounting with fondness the protection they all had under Communism, Lydia Tkach was surprisingly good company. She was bright, well-read, could handle a computer with great skill, played chess at the same level as Anna, and was more than willing to run small errands or just sit at the window with Anna looking at the mothers with their children in the snow of the courtyard.

But Lydia was not abiding by the rules that Anna had instituted when Sasha had approached her. A rift would surely come between Anna and Sasha’s mother. Elena hoped that her aunt could remain calm when she became inflexibly firm.

Elena was sipping her tea and listening to Lydia talk about the reunification of the Soviet Union.

“Belarus first,” she said. “Then Ukraine. My daughter-in-law is from Ukraine. Then the southern states. The Soviet Union will be reborn. A world power. Dangerous criminal gangs with machine guns will be executed. The ruble will rise. Pensions will be worth something again to you and me, Anna Timofeyeva.”

“It will not happen,” said Anna. “Communism is dead. All parties, especially the Communists and extremists, are afraid of thoughts like those you have just expressed. The new Communist Party and the Nationalists are forcing displays, false hopes.”

“You were a Communist,” said Lydia.

“I am still,” said Anna. “I believe in what we did. What I did. It failed not because it was a bankrupt idea, but because of Russian corruption, the weakness and greed of human beings who get even a small fistful of power. I worked with them. I prosecuted them. These new Communists are vultures preying on dead hopes and memories.”

“Emil Karpo says the same thing,” Elena said, slicing off a piece of cabbage that did not taste quite good but wasn’t bad enough to discard. Elena was too hungry. She was on a diet, like the Americans, but it did little. Her problem wasn’t an excess of food. There was no excess of food. Her problem was genetic.

“Emil Karpo is a madman,” Lydia said, folding her arms and looking at the two other women for contradiction.

Neither responded, though from what Elena had said, Anna was convinced that since the end of the Soviet Union and the death in the crossfire of a street battle of Mathilde Verson, Karpo had become suicidal. She had seen many like that, disillusioned, confused. Karpo was a pencil wound tight with twine. He would never actually consider suicide, but he would and had taken chances that might well be considered very dangerous and foolhardy, though Karpo was no fool.

Elena was concerned whenever she was teamed with the Vampire. He didn’t talk very much, even less than when she had first met him, before Mathilde’s death. He remained focused and knew what he was doing. She knew she could learn a great deal from him and she did, but if he was going to risk his life unnecessarily, she did not want to be with him. She didn’t want Iosef with him either, but Iosef seemed to welcome the partnership. They made a strange pair, the straight, gaunt man in black with his black hair brushed straight back from a receding hairline and the brawny, handsome, and usually smiling ex-soldier, playwright, and actor who preferred light colors and worried little about his bushy auburn hair that held just a touch of the red of his mother’s.

Whatever love was, and Elena was not at all sure, she believed she loved Iosef Rostnikov. They had made love. It had been good. He had proposed frequently. She had told him of her experiences, down to the last affair with the married Cuban police officer who probably only wanted information from her. She had been far from promiscuous in her life. The graduate student engineer in the United States. The Canadian policeman she met in Boston. Iosef responded with careful references to his experience in Afghanistan, experience he had tried to deal with as a playwright and actor, and had failed.

They had been lying in his bed, naked, on their backs, looking up at the ceiling, a small light casting steady shadows.

“I was a murderer. I murdered the innocent during the war,” he had said. “I confess, too, that I did not like the Afghans. They are surly, nomadic people who kill each other over whether Allah wants them to cut their toenails or something. It was their land, but they killed my fellow soldiers, my friends. Some of our men hated me since I was considered Jewish. I fought with them. But I killed our enemies, the Afghans-even women and children. And I will live with that and dream about it and continue to wake up nights sweating and weeping.”

“But you seem so cheerful,” Elena said.

“That is the irony,” said Iosef. “I get that from my father. I find life interesting, a moment-to-moment adventure. My guilt I save for my dreams.”

“And you can do that?” she said.

“Much of the time,” Iosef answered. “Not always. So you see, your confession, though I respect it, is pale compared to mine. You require no forgiveness. I deserve none.”

“So, do you agree, Elena?” Lydia Tkach said.

“Agree?” Elena asked, half asleep and drawn from her memory of the night with Iosef.

“That Sasha deserves an office job,” Lydia shouted. “He has a mother, a wife, and two small children, and he is always depressed.”

In fact, Elena did agree, but it did not pay to give Lydia ammunition if she were again to approach Rostnikov, whom she blamed for the dangers her son had been subjected to.

“I am going to see Rostnikov again,” Lydia said with determination, folding her hands on the table resolutely when Elena simply shrugged and took a bite of her sandwich. “Porfiry Petrovich has been promoted. Now he can do this.”

“Does Sasha want a desk job?” Anna said.

Lydia paused for a moment and then answered, “Of course. It is his responsibility. With all the crime now, why would anyone want to be a police officer?”

“Lydia,” Anna reminded her guest, “Elena is a police officer.”

“I know that,” said Lydia impatiently. “She is alone. No responsibilities. She is not depressed.”

Anna nodded once to acknowledge the statement without agreeing or disagreeing.

When Elena was finished eating and cleaning her plate and utensils, Anna said she was growing tired. The hint did not work on Lydia, who was looking off into a corner of the room considering another assault on the injustice of human existence in general and specific humans in particular.

“My mother was raped and killed,” Lydia said, still looking at the wall, her voice so uncharacteristically low that Elena almost missed the words. “I was a little girl. During the famine. Five soldiers, drunken soldiers, came to our house in the village. They were our soldiers. They raped and killed her. I was too young and scrawny to bother with. I remember one rapist was a man in a brown uniform who got down from his horse and pushed us both into the house. My father was gone, in the same army as the men who attacked my mother. My father was dead when it happened, but we didn’t find that out for a long time, my baby brother and I. I have no idea how old the killers were. I don’t even remember their faces. Afterward, I took care of my brother. A cousin of my father barely kept us from starving.”

Lydia stopped as if coming out of a dream and looked around at Anna and Elena.

“I don’t know why I told you that,” she said.

Both Anna and Elena knew.

“I’ve never told anyone before,” Lydia went on, talking almost to herself. “Not even my brother. Never my son.”

“A game of chess?” Anna asked as Baku jumped back in her lap. “Some Mozart and some very competitive chess.”

“Yes,” said Lydia.

“I’m going to get a few hours’ sleep,” said Elena.

Anna was not a music lover. She had devoted her life to her work and had seen no plays, no movies, no ballet, no opera. Such things bored her. Even the idea of them bored her, but lately she seemed to have developed at least a high level of tolerance for Elena’s collection of CDs, particularly Mozart, Bach, and Vivaldi.

So the games began. Elena knew that her aunt would enjoy the competition. Unfortunately Lydia took a long time between moves. She couldn’t play under the pressure of a timer or a clock.

Elena had gone into her aunt’s bedroom, taken off her clothes, and fallen into the bed, jarred into near consciousness from time to time by Lydia’s shouts of triumph and defeat.

And now the weary Elena sat behind her desk looking up at Iosef standing in her doorway like Alain Delon, the French actor with the deadly smile. Sasha rose, having decided there was nothing more to say, only work to do. His head felt no better.

“I’ll start making the calls to the stations,” he said.

“Be tactful,” Elena said. “We are asking for a second disruption.”

“I will be tactful,” said Sasha. “I will also evoke the specter of the displeasure of the Yak should they balk. Who knows? Perhaps we can turn a profit, sell the photographs back cheaply to each policeman when we no longer need them, split the profit three ways, and have lunch at the Metropole.”

“I don’t think so,” said Elena.

“Why does that not surprise me?” Sasha said, moving past Iosef, who patted Sasha on the shoulder.

Elena wanted to tell Sasha Tkach to call his mother, but it was really not her place to do so. She watched him return to his cubbyhole.

Elena and Iosef could hear when Sasha began his calls. Iosef sat down in the chair across the desk from Elena and said quietly, “If you do not marry me, I will go as mad as the father Karamazov.”

“I do not plan to stop being a deputy inspector,” Elena said.

“Ah,” said Iosef, leaning over. “A thin, white band of glowing hope. A condition. The door is open. I say, ‘Fine, marry me and keep working.’”

“I don’t know,” she said, brushing back her hair and looking at the desk for an answer.

“That’s better than no.”

“It’s not yes.”

They could hear Sasha in the adjoining cubicle evoking the respected name of Director Yakovlev with some officer in one of the districts. Sasha sounded decidedly weary and impatient, and he had not yet really begun.

“Come to my apartment for dinner tonight.” Iosef said. “I can’t afford to take you out more than once every few weeks on my salary.”

“We could share the bill,” Elena said, “and eat cheaply. I know some places.”

“You can’t afford it on your salary,” said Iosef with a grin.

“You come to my aunt’s apartment for dinner tomorrow tonight,” she said. “I have to work tonight.”

“Anna Timofeyeva’s apartment. I’ve known her since I was a small boy,” Iosef said with a sigh. “I remember an enormous almost bare office. Behind the desk sat a massive, stern woman who greeted me as if I were an adult being examined carefully for evidence of a crime. She frightened me.”

“And now?”

“I am not so easily frightened. What time?”

“Eight,” said Elena. “I warn you. Neither my aunt nor I are good cooks. I’m a bit better, but I make no promises … about anything.”

Iosef nodded in understanding.

“One more thing,” Elena said. “Sasha’s mother lives in our building. She tends to drop in without invitation at rather regular intervals.”

“Lydia Tkach,” Iosef said, topping his last sigh with a deeper one, the exaggerated sigh of an actor who wants you to know he is exaggerating. “Sounds as if it will be a night to remember.”