Tarnished Icons

THREE

Elena Timofeyeva sat at the table in Colonel Snitkonoy’s office between Porfiry Petrovich and Emil Karpo. To the right of Karpo sat Sasha Tkach, who looked decidedly tired. To Rostnikov’s left sat Akardy Zelach, who looked more than uncomfortable. The hulking, stoop-shouldered creature who was known for his loyalty but not his intellect, looked decidedly concerned. To Zelach’s left was an empty chair, and this struck Elena as most unusual. That was the place of Major Gregorovich, the second in rank in the office, the man who everyone knew disliked Rostnikov, thought the Wolfhound a fool, and leaked information to other investigative offices. Gregorovich had been responsible for particularly sensitive cases involving the military or other investigative agencies. Officially he was assigned to the office only temporarily, but the assumption was that he was there to watch the Wolfhound and, at some point in the future, as a reward for his reliable revelation of the investigations of the Office of Special Investigation to other agencies, to take over when the Wolfhound moved on or retired.

But the major was now missing from the table. Elena assumed the man must be ill, on a secret assignment, or dead. The latter possibility did not cause her distress. To the left of the empty seat sat Pankov, almost a dwarf, notebook open before him, stack of reports rising like a small fortification before him to ward off the director’s wrath. Pankov fidgeted, as always, and tugged at the too-tight collar of his familiar gray suit.

It had also not escaped Elena’s attention that a new member of the office had joined them. There was not enough room behind the table except for Major Gregorovich’s empty seat, so a chair had been placed at one end of the table next to Sasha. In the chair sat Iosef Rostnikov, Porfiry Petrovich’s son. He smiled at Elena, who resisted smoothing her hair and looking at him. Iosef, tall, broad like his father, and with a handsome face and curly dark hair, had begun to smile more like his father. For more than a year after being released from the army and serving in the purgatory of Siberia or the battleground of Afghanistan, Iosef had devoted himself to drama, antigovernment plays in little theaters, plays that Iosef often wrote and acted in. At some point, a change had come to Iosef Rostnikov. He had given up the theater and applied for the National Police which was a bit reluctant to take on the son of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, who might pass information on to his father. However, they were offered little choice. He was qualified and a directive came down from the Ministry of the Interior that he should be hired. Iosef had been on patrol with a taciturn young partner calming drunks and feuding families, rousting teenagers, taking notes on beatings and robberies, and learning what he could. The National Police had been only too happy to let the younger Rostnikov join his father in the Office of Special Investigation when the request had come through.

But something else had happened to change Iosef. He had declared one night at a party in his parents’ apartment, a party where he had been accompanied by one of the most beautiful girls Elena had ever seen, that he intended to marry Elena Timofeyeva. At first, Elena had considered it a drunken joke. But he had continued to pursue her. In the mirror each morning Elena saw a smooth-skinned, pink, and good-looking if a bit pudgy face with straight blond hair. Elena fought an endless battle to keep her weight down. She had before her the image of her aunt and her mother and was convinced that she was doomed to become a compact tank. She had, the year before, had a brief affair with a Cuban policeman while on duty with Porfiry Petrovich for an investigation in Havana. The policeman was married, and she was never quite sure whether he had been truly attracted to her or had seduced her to keep track of Rostnikov’s investigation. She had decided it was probably both.

Elena looked at the clock on the wall. It was about thirty seconds to nine. She glanced at Rostnikov, who was drawing pictures of birds in his open notebook with the word ‘colors?’ neatly printed at the bottom of the sheet.

At precisely nine the door to the office opened, and a man in a blue suit and matching striped tie stepped in. His hair was dark and cut short. His body was lean. He stood before them, hands folded in front of him. He looked at each of them. His face was rugged and clean-shaven, his most notable feature being his bushy eyebrows, which made him look just a bit like a younger, trimmer version of Leonid Brezhnev. Elena guessed his age at a little over fifty. Rostnikov looked up from his notebook, and his eyes met those of the man who had entered and now spoke.

“My name,” he said in a confident tenor, “is Igor Yakovlev. Colonel Snitkonoy has been promoted and made general. His presence was required in Saint Petersburg, where he will be head of security for the Hermitage. This is a permanent appointment. Major Gregorovich has been transferred and will be providing security for a prominent member of the congress, Citizen Zhirinovsky.”

The transfer, Elena knew, was a nightmare any sane person would dread, to be responsible for the protection of the probably mad regressive Nationalist who cried out for assassination from those he offended on a daily basis and who blamed the Jews for a long list of the ills of Russian history. The crazy Zhirinovsky was reportedly half Jewish himself.

Yakovlev looked directly at each of those around the table. Pankov clearly knew what was happening. Karpo showed no particular sign of interest. Rostnikov studied the face of the man before him. Sasha was alert and wary. Iosef had an open look of curiosity. Zelach seemed confused and looked around the table for reassurance. None came.

“I,” said Yakovlev, “am the new director of the Office of Special Investigation. I expect you to function with the efficiency you have displayed since the establishment of this office. While we give great credit for this success to Colonel Snitkonoy, I intend to function at an even higher level. I know about each of you, your strengths and weaknesses, your loyalties.”

With this he looked directly at Rostnikov.

“My background, as Inspector Rostnikov knows, was in the former KGB,” Yakovlev said. “I no longer hold any rank within State Security. I renounced such rank to accept this position when it was offered by a member of the government through the Ministry of the Interior. I see it as an opportunity. That is all you will ever hear from me regarding my background or professional life. I have no doubt that Porfiry Petrovich will give you further information about me if he so chooses or I do not order him to give no further information. I will not so order him. Questions?”

No one spoke or moved.

“You will all, including Citizen Pankov, receive a raise of ten percent effective immediately,” he said. “I expect a fifty percent greater effort from you in return. Next, these morning meetings will end. They are a waste of time you could be spending at work. We will meet infrequently as needed. Meanwhile, I am officially naming Inspector Rostnikov assistant director of this office. He will move into the office formerly occupied by Major Gregorovich. You will report to him, all of you except Pankov, who will report to me only. Chief Inspector Rostnikov will meet with me on a regular basis to report on your progress and to receive new cases that come to my desk. You will come to me directly only if I send for you. You all understand?”

A few said da while others, including Elena, nodded their heads.

“Good,” he said. “You all have work. You are all dismissed with the exception of Chief Inspector Rostnikov. Pankov has already prepared all the necessary papers for your salary increases and I have signed them. The money for these raises will come out of the office’s annual budget. The salary of the director will be reduced to cover this fiscal charge.”

Slowly, one by one, a bit dazed, they all stood up, Karpo first, followed by Sasha and Elena. Iosef looked at his father and then at Yakovlev, who hovered over Porfiry Petrovich. The new director’s hands were now folded behind his back. He continued to stand tall.

Iosef got up and a confused Zelach followed him. Pankov took up the rear and closed the door behind them. When they were gone. Yakovlev said, “Well, Washtub?”

“Well, Yak?”

Yakovlev smiled, his bushy eyebrows rising. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of glasses, which he carefully placed over nose and ears.

“I need you,” said Yakovlev.

Rostnikov shrugged.

“I need a one-legged troublemaker whose sarcasm matches Gogol’s,” the Yak said. “I need an honest man. I need the loyalty you get from those who will now be working for you. I am not simply flattering you. I need you, Porfiry Petrovich.”

“I know,” said Rostnikov. “But you are giving me more credit than I deserve.”

“I reserve the right as your superior to maintain a small pocket of doubt on all these counts.”

“It would be foolish to do otherwise,” said Rostnikov. “And you are no fool.”

“We have been on opposite sides on more than one occasion,” said Yakovlev, moving to the end of the table and taking the seat Iosef had vacated.

Rostnikov nodded. He turned his head to face the director at eye level. The turn was awkward with his artificial leg, but it was not painful. Rostnikov knew the man before him as a ruthless member of the KGB. He had served under a general who committed suicide when the coup against Gorbachev failed. The suicide had been announced officially as a heart attack. Yakovlev had not been promoted. Nor had he been dismissed or demoted. He still had his protectors. Since the fall of the Soviet Union Yakovlev had moved into the shadows till this moment. He was smart, but more important, he was khitry, cunning. Rostnikov knew he had killed on more than one occasion at the order of the now deceased general and probably others as well. There were stories of interrogation sessions conducted by the Yak in Lubyanka, sessions that the subject did not survive.

“Everyone who was at this table, with the possible exception of Pankov and Zelach,” said the Yak, “knows that the Wolfhound is a fool. He is, however, a threat to no one, and he looks good in uniform. I expect he will be a great success in Saint Petersburg and consider himself fortunate to have gotten what he considers to be a promotion.”

“You may underestimate him,” said Rostnikov.

“You contradict me?” said Yakovlev, suddenly standing. “That is precisely what I need from you. Honesty, intelligent assessments of people and situations, and loyalty. Do I have them?”

“May I expect the same from you?” said Rostnikov, putting an X through two of his birds in flight.

“Would you believe me if I simply said yes?”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “With the knowledge that a situation might well arise in the future. If that were to happen, I would hope that you would give me some advance indication that I could no longer rely on your loyalty.”

“The answer to your question,” said Yakovlev, “is yes.”

“And my answer, too, is yes,” said Rostnikov.

“And now we can get to work,” said the Yak. “I want a briefing on the murder of the four Jews last night.”

Yakovlev moved behind the desk that had a day or two ago belonged to Colonel Snitkonoy. He folded his hands before him and waited. From behind the table where he sat, Rostnikov opened the file he had brought with him.

He had been honest with Yakovlev, though he had not revealed that he had learned of his appointment four days earlier from Anna Timofeyeva, who had gotten the information from an old friend in the procurator general’s office. Anna had told no one else, not even her niece. In part her motivation was to suggest to him that he protect Elena, but she knew he would do so to the best of his ability in any case. In part it was to prepare him for a man who could not readily be trusted. It was, in fact, likely that Rostnikov was aware of the change before Colonel Snitkonoy himself.

Yakovlev, Rostnikov decided, had been reasonably honest with him. However, Anna had also suggested to Porfiry Petrovich that it had been Yak’s idea to leak the news of his appointment through the unwitting dupe in the procurator general’s office. Yakovlev would have wanted nothing unexpected from his new second in command at this meeting. He would have wanted Rostnikov to have some time to come to a conclusion about the abrupt change.

Rostnikov looked at the open file, closed it, and did what he knew Yakovlev wanted. He told him what had happened in simple terms and gave some of his ideas on how he planned to follow up.

Outside the office on the top floor of Petrovka, there came the sudden barking of dozens of dogs, the National Police dogs. With the rise in gang activity and street crime, there should have been more police, but police were expensive compared to dogs, so there were now more dogs, and they were louder when something upset them or it was time to eat. Occasionally a dog would disappear, and the rumor ran through the building that some patrol officers were taking the dogs home for food.

Rostnikov finished his presentation over the sounds of the yowling animals.

“It is my understanding that the foreign press already knows about the murder of the four Jews and the two others,” said Yakovlev. “The New York Times and CNN will have the story. It was given to their correspondents by a very angry rabbi whose phone was wired, a rabbi who is probably also an Israeli informant.”

“I have met the man,” said Rostnikov.

“I can keep some of the circumstances under cover,” said the Yak. “For a while. But an outburst of overt and violent anti-Semitism at this point in the history of our country could be a political bombshell.”

“I understand,” said Rostnikov.

“Good,” said Yakovlev. “Find me this killer or killers. Find them quickly. Do not arrest them. Find them and report to me with a concise single-page report. Find them before they kill another Jew.”

Rostnikov nodded.

There were three men in Moscow whose lives were very much involved in the report Rostnikov gave to his new director. At the moment Porfiry Petrovich began his report, the first man, who lived in one of the concrete-and-granite apartment towers built under Stalin in the 1950s, was just arriving at work. The building where the man lived was beyond the Outer Ring Circle. It took him nearly forty minutes from the Rechnoi Vokzal metro station each morning to get to Moscow and forty minutes when he left his work to go home. The man lived with his wife and seven-year-old daughter, who excelled at mathematics to the point where she was frequently singled out in her school for special honors, and the man and his wife were told that the girl had a very bright future.

He knew his assignment for the day. It seldom varied since his promotion, and he seldom had to think about what he was doing. Intelligence was not called for. Through much of that day as he worked, this man with a wife and brilliant daughter went over his plan: where he would find his next victim, when he would do it, where he would take her. From time to time, he would ask himself why he was doing this. Why had this obsession gradually come over him? He knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t stop. He knew that the pitiful whimpering of the women or their stunned silence tormented him. And he feared that with each attack he grew more violent, out of control, feeling a monstrous anger. But he could not stop. He had, he knew, been given a nickname, the Shy One, but that might well turn into a more tainted name in the future.

But now he simply planned and hoped that the thing that had taken him would pass as it had come and he would learn to live with or even forget what he had done in the past and what he planned to do this very night.

The second man was named Yevgeny Tutsolov. He lived with another young man named Leonid Sharvotz. Both men were in their late twenties. Late the night before, a third man, Georgi Radzo, who was almost fifty, had sat on a chair in the small room looking at Yevgeny silently. The older man was extremely powerful from more than twenty years of loading heavy crates onto trucks. Each day he loaded for nine hours with an hour to eat lunch. He was still loading trucks, but that should soon end. Yevgeny had sat soberly, calmly as the older man had bandaged his shoulder.

“The bullet went through,” the older man had said. “I think you will be all right. It didn’t strike anything vital and slid over the bone and out.”

Yevgeny Tutsolov had wanted to curse, but instead he shook his head and said, “The unexpected. Always the unexpected. I kill the Jews, lay them out. It all goes well and then there is this madwoman pointing a gun at me.”

“It didn’t go well,” the other young man, Leonid, said, seated forlornly on his bed. “Igor … you killed Igor.”

“It was necessary,” Georgi said. “Yevgeny had no choice.”

“The one who shot you, she didn’t get a good look at you, did she?” asked Leonid as the older man sat back to inspect the bandage he had put in place. He had seen far worse injuries on the loading dock. He nodded, satisfied with his first aid, and the wounded Yevgeny put on a clean shirt that buttoned in front. Putting it on was not particularly painful. He was sure he could work his shift the next day.

“It was dark. She was too far away. Even if she saw my face in the light from a streetlight, I’m sure she was too frightened to see clearly. If she had been closer, I might well be dead now or wounded and in the hands of the police. I don’t like counting on luck.”

Yevgeny’s luck had indeed been bad. Herding the four men down the embankment, he had cracked his knee on an unseen rock covered by snow. He had been forced to limp through the execution.

It had taken a good part of the savings of all three men to purchase the AT-9, the American 9mm semiautomatic carbine, that Yevgeny had used. The carbine had the advantage of being relatively light and small. It had also been expensive, even in today’s Moscow gun market. He had killed the first two Jews with it a week earlier, and it had handled perfectly. And he had killed the other three Jews and Igor with barely a second of panic when the weapon seemed to jam, only to come alive when Yevgeny hit the bullet cartridge firmly into place with his gloved palm.

That had been the night before. Now, in the morning, the powerful older man was at the loading dock where he worked, and the two young men were alone. The wound had throbbed slightly, and his knee had been sore enough to wake him once or twice, but the slayer of the four young men on the riverbank had managed to sleep. He dressed and prepared for his day, confident that he could hide the wound on his arm and that he would not limp.

“Will this be enough?” asked Leonid, who was tall and thin with a decidedly boyish face that had been passed down for generations in his family.

“Enough?” asked Yevgeny.

“Will the Jews go now?” the young man asked.

Yevgeny Tutsolov shrugged. He could feel the shrug in his wounded shoulder.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” he said. “They are stubborn. Jews are smart and they have learned to survive. I think it will take more. I think it will require the particularly gruesome death of the Israeli rabbi.”

“Belinsky,” said Leonid, who wanted to ask why it had been necessary to kill Igor. He wanted to ask but he was afraid. Yevgeny and Georgi had felt it necessary to kill the man who had been their partner, who had helped plan the murders, whom they had known for many years. Leonid was aware of the reasons. The reasons were good, but were they good enough?

“Belinsky,” Yevgeny confirmed. “Before we kill him, we will try a good beating. A good beating may make him less enchanted with organizing the Jews of Moscow. Killing him might make him a martyr, but I think, ultimately, we will have to kill him.”

Within two miles of where Rostnikov was giving his report to his new superior, in an upscale apartment building on Chekhov Prospekt half a block from the Rossia Cinema, another man stood before a worktable in the tiny room off his bedroom, a room he kept locked and for which he alone had a key.

Alexi Monochov lived with his mother and sister. The sister had Down’s syndrome, which was still popularly known as mongolism in Russia. Nonetheless she was able to hold down a simple job not far from the apartment, though they did not need the money.

Alexi’s father, whose name was Ivan, had secured for the family a large apartment and a steady and more than adequate income before he died. The father had worked in the Bureau of Energy. When he was told that he was dying of prostate cancer as his father had before him, Ivan had begun taking home documents that were buried in the files. He copied them. He hid the originals. Then he systematically took the copies to fourteen well-to-do government employees and businesspeople and threatened to release the documents, which would certainly send the men to prison or maybe to their deaths. Ivan had been sensible enough to demand a not unreasonable monthly amount from each of the men to be paid to his widow. The documents would be sent to the proper authorities if anything were to happen to any member of his family or if the money should stop. None of the men had any idea that any others were also being blackmailed.

In the old Soviet Union there might have been questions about the sudden solvency of Ivan’s family, but one of the men on Ivan’s list had seen to it that such questions were not asked, and in the new Russia nobody cared about where people got their money. Illegality was simply assumed.

Now, with his sister and mother out of the house shopping and his bedroom door locked, the son of Ivan selected the proper tool, a tiny eyebrow tweezer.

He worked slowly, carefully, with a certain pride in his skills and secure in the knowledge that what he was doing was right. He completed his task and left his workroom, locking the door behind him. His mother and sister had not returned. That was good. He dressed warmly, put on his boots, and left the apartment.

The nearest mail drop was two blocks away. He walked six blocks down Gorky Prospekt to Mayakovsky Square. It was there, at the Belarus railway station, that he mailed his latest letter bomb.

It took Rostnikov, with the help of his son and Elena Timofeyeva, no more than twenty minutes to move into the office that had belonged to Major Gregorovich. It was Yakovlev who had insisted on the immediate move. Rostnikov understood. Take command, make changes. Show who is in charge and how things will work.

Porfiry Petrovich’s office was directly across the hall from the room that had been divided into cubicles where the investigators of the Office of Special Investigation worked and where Rostnikov, until this morning, had himself worked.

For Rostnikov, the primary virtue of the office was the view from the window into Petrovka Street, where one could see the trees, buses, vendors, police vehicles, and pedestrians.

On the desk was a telephone, a large plastic container of plastic paper clips, a pad of paper, and a black cup filled with sharpened pencils.

The wooden desk chair was swivel mounted. Rostnikov resolved to give it a try, but he felt certain that he would eventually go back to the solid, heavy wooden chair that would play no tricks on him. On the other side of the desk were three chairs facing where he now sat.

In the corner of the room was a steel three-drawer filing cabinet that had no locks. It contained about fifty new, quite empty files and those that Rostnikov had brought with him from across the hall.

Alone in his office, Rostnikov considered removing his prosthetic leg, giving the stump a rest and a massage. But that would require pulling off his pants.

While he was considering this, the phone before him rang. He picked it up and simply said, “Rostnikov.”

“You’ve been promoted?” said the voice. “I called your old office and talked to someone named Zelach who told me. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” said Rostnikov.

In the past, during the more than a dozen calls he had received from the voice, Rostnikov had tried without success to trace the caller. The caller had used his considerable expertise to thwart such efforts, keeping his conversations brief. And Rostnikov had listened calmly, making notes, putting together scraps of information, peculiarities. He didn’t have much, but it was building.

“I’ve sent another one,” the man said.

“To whom?” asked Rostnikov.

The man laughed and said, “You have a sense of humor. That is something I like in you.”

“It pleases me that I amuse you,” said Rostnikov.

Someone knocked at the door. Rostnikov put his hand over the receiver and said, “Come in,” without raising his voice. Karpo, Sasha, and Elena entered. Karpo closed the door behind them as Rostnikov motioned for them to sit across from him.

“Are you listening?” the caller said.

“Attentively,” said Rostnikov, then he mouthed “the bomber” to the three inspectors across from him.

The calls from the bomber had begun more than four months ago. He had simply called Petrovka and asked to speak to whomever was in charge of the investigation of the punishments being mailed. Rostnikov had reported all of this to Director Yakovlev just an hour earlier. Yakovlev had shaken his head slightly, saying, “If only the members of this office know this, impress upon them the need to tell no one.”

Rostnikov had agreed. In fact, he had already done so. Now, in the coming together of black and bird in the drawing in Porfiry Petrovich’s notebook, the bomber was calling again.

“Your family is well?” asked the bomber.

“Very well,” Rostnikov said.

“And the new leg?”

“I am adjusting to it,” said Porfiry Petrovich.

In the past three years, the bomber had sent letter bombs to nine people. Since the victims, one of whom died, included some prominent scientists and even an assistant deputy minister for energy, the Ministry of the Interior had sought a quick end to the bomber, but he had proved quite difficult to catch, and word had leaked to the media that there was someone sending letter bombs in Moscow.

From their conversations, Rostnikov had concluded that the man was a great admirer of the American Unabomber and that their causes were similar. Therefore Rostnikov had enlisted the aid of the FBI agent Craig Hamilton, who was assigned, with a varying number of other Americans, to act as a consultant to combat rampant organized crime in Russia. Hamilton had supplied all the information he could obtain about the Unabomber and what had been done to apprehend him.

“I’ve decided to stop soon,” the bomber said.

“Good,” said Rostnikov, looking over at the three people across from him who listened silently.

“On one condition,” the bomber went on.

“That does not surprise me.”

“I have prepared a document citing why I have sent these bombs. The document has been sent to you personally. Don’t worry. It doesn’t contain a bomb. The document is to be read on Moscow Television News every day for a week. It can be read in five minutes.”

“I can’t guarantee the cooperation of the media,” said Rostnikov.

“Then, unfortunately, there will be more bombs.”

“Well,” said Rostnikov, “let’s talk after I receive the document. Give me a number where I can reach you.”

The bomber laughed again.

“I like you, Washtub,” he said.

Rostnikov made a note on his pad. Other officers and many habitual criminals called him the Washtub. It might mean something. It might not. The bomber was no fool. However, Rostnikov knew a great deal about the man, enough so that the bomber would have great reason to be concerned if he knew the extent of the information.

“Give my regards to your wife and the two little girls,” the bomber said.

“And give mine to your mother and sister,” said Rostnikov.

It was a risk. Rostnikov had come to the conclusion but not the certainty that the bomber had a mother and sister, that his father was dead.

The bomber hung up. Rostnikov also hung up and sat back, forgetting the swivel of the chair he was in, and almost fell backward. Sasha started to rise from his chair to help, but Rostnikov smiled and sat erect. Now he was certain about the bomber’s family. He was also certain, and had been for months, that there was a connection among all the bombing victims. They all worked in jobs or held positions involved in providing public and private energy. The victims ranged from low-level electricians to scientists to the government’s deputy director of energy.

Only once had the bomber said anything related to his choice of victims: “The madness must be stopped. Those who produce it must be stopped.” Rostnikov certainly agreed that the madness had to be stopped, but it was the bomber’s madness.

‘The list,” he said, looking at Karpo.

Karpo nodded. A long list had been compiled of people related to the production of energy or research on energy who lived in and around Moscow. Every one of the more than seven hundred had been contacted and told to be very wary of suspicious mail. They had also been given a code that was to alert them if the police believed a bomb had been sent. Each person on the list would be called, and the only thing said would be “penguin.” The National Police had agreed to give total cooperation, and within the hour twenty secretaries, officers, and maintenance workers would be making calls and saying the single word. None of the callers would have the slightest idea why they were making these calls or what they might mean. It was the responsibility of each caller to reach the people on his or her list, either at work or at home, as soon as possible.

“Alert the mail room,” Rostnikov went on. “I should be receiving a letter or package from the bomber. I doubt if it is a bomb, but …”

Karpo nodded. He would tell the mail room to put any letters or packages to Inspector Rostnikov on a separate table. They would also be told to touch the items as little as possible.

Karpo and Elena looked at Sasha Tkach.

“Yes?” asked Rostnikov.

“Emil has an idea about the Shy One,” said Sasha, who looked decidedly tired.

“The rapist began five years ago,” Karpo said. “Four years before that, a woman of sixty was attacked in the hallway of her apartment building. She was large and singularly determined. She fought off the attacker, and he fled when the door to another apartment opened. The woman called the police and reported the attack as an attempted robbery. However, the method was identical to that of the rapist.”

“Four years earlier,” said Rostnikov.

“Correct,” said Karpo.

“Conjecture?” said Rostnikov.

Conjecture was not Karpo’s strength.

“It was his first try,” said Sasha. “He failed miserably and didn’t get up the courage to try again for four years.”

“Perhaps,” said Rostnikov. “How did you find this case?”

“Computer,” said Karpo. “Cross-check of my open and closed files and the central Petrovka files. I searched for attacks on women from behind, the presence of a knife, the warning. It turned up this case.”

“How does it help us?” asked Rostnikov.

“The intended victim saw the attacker’s face,” said Elena. “At the time of the crime, she said she would never forget him.”

Rostnikov nodded. There was no need to tell them what to do, only who should do it.

“Sasha, Elena, you keep this. Emil, I need you on the bomber. You get Iosef. I’ll keep the murder of the young Jews. Zelach can help.”

The three investigators got up. Elena and Sasha wanted to discuss what had happened only this morning, what it meant. Who was Yakovlev? Why had they gotten raises? Karpo had no such questions.

“When I was a child,” said Rostnikov, leaning forward to draw a bird on a branch over the word washtub, “my favorite color was blue. Now it is red. What is your favorite color, Elena Timofeyeva?”

She was the least accustomed to such displays of curiosity by Rostnikov, who always seemed genuinely interested in the answers to questions that appeared to be of no great consequence.

“Purple,” she said.

Rostnikov looked at Sasha.

“Green,” he said.

It was Karpo’s turn.

“Black,” he said.

Rostnikov had not really expected an answer from Emil Karpo. He looked up and saw something in the man’s eyes that caused him concern.

“Thank you,” said Rostnikov. “Send in Zelach, please.”

The trio of inspectors left.

Moments later a nervous Zelach knocked at the door, waited to be told to enter, and then slouched in to stand before the desk.

“Sit,” said Rostnikov.

Zelach sat.

“How is your mother?” asked Rostnikov.

“Well,” said Zelach, “she’ll be happy to hear about the raise. It is true?”

“True,” said Rostnikov. “Director Yakovlev is a man of his word.”

He did not add that his word was often something others did not like to hear.

Zelach was forty-one, unmarried, lived with his mother, and was both loyal and far from bright. When he was told to do something, he would do it, even if it might cost him life or limb. Zelach had lost part of his eyesight in an attack by a criminal two years earlier. His recovery from that and other injuries in the attack had resulted in a long convalescence.

Zelach was dressed in worn but neat slacks, shirt, and jacket; all selected by his mother.

“Two questions, Zelach,” said Rostnikov, “and then we go to work. First, what is your favorite color?”

Zelach looked decidedly confused.

“Orange,” he said. “My mother’s is white.”

“So is my wife’s. Second question,” said Rostnikov, “How did your father die?”

Zelach looked even more puzzled.

“You know. He was shot.”

Zelach’s father was a uniformed officer. He had been shot while trying to stop a black market deal in a garage. There should have been no shooting. It was a minor crime, and the black marketeers would probably have been able to bribe their way out of any serious punishment. Still, one had panicked and a single 9mm bullet had taken the life of Zelach’s father.

“How did you feel about it?” asked Rostnikov, thinking about the bomber to whom he had just spoken.

“Feel? Sad, angry. I wanted revenge.”

“Revenge,” said Rostnikov, putting the finishing touches on his bird. “Did you ever get your revenge?”

“No,” said Zelach.

“And plainly it has not driven you mad,” said Rostnikov.

“No,” said the even more confused Zelach.

“Do you still think of revenge?”

“No,” said Zelach.

“Come,” said Rostnikov, rising with difficulty. “Later we’ll have birds to draw, colors to see. Now we catch a murderer.”