in the West and other countries, why was the Kremlin so insistent that its own top civilian scientists continue their research?
There was a short, uncomfortable silence.
“I brought copies of my case notes as you requested,” Vedenskaya told Smith at last. She prodded the heavy winter coat bundled beside her on the seat. “They’re there, hidden inside a selection of old medical journals. I will give them to you after we leave. It is too public here.”
“Thank you, Elena,” Smith said gravely, with genuine gratitude. He looked sidelong at her. “But what about the blood or tissue specimens taken from the victims? Is there any way you could smuggle samples of those out to us?”
“It would be impossible,” she answered shortly. “Your friends Petrenko and Kiryanov saw to that. All biological specimens are now kept under strict lock and key. No one can obtain them without a signature and signed forms from the Ministry authorizing specific experiments or tests.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Fiona asked at last. “Anything at all?”
Vedenskaya hesitated briefly, looked sideways to make sure no one else was in earshot, and then answered in a lower voice, one that could barely be heard over the loud clatter of dishes and conversation from the rest of the restaurant.
“I heard a rumor, a rumor that greatly disturbed me ? “
The two Americans stayed silent, waiting for her to go on.
The Russian woman sighed. “One of the hospital orderlies, a man who had spent main years as a political prisoner in a labor camp, claimed that he saw that madman Wulf Renke examining one of the dying patients.”
Startled, Smith sat up straighten “Renke?” he muttered in disbelief.
“Wulf Renke? Who is he?” Fiona asked.
“An Fast German scientist. Basically, a biological weapons expert with a verv ugh’ reputation for coming up with new and especially nasty ways to kill people,” Smith told her. He shook his head. “But it couldn’t have been him.
Not really. That bastard has been dead for years.”
“So it is said,” Vedenskaya said softly. “But this orderly knew the German well … painfull} well. While a prisoner, he was forced to witness a series of vicious experiments Renke conducted on other inmates at his camp.”
“Where is this man now?” Fiona pressed her. “Can we talk to him?”
“Only if von can summon the spirits of the dead,” the gray-haired woman told her curtly. “Unfortunately, he fell beneath the wheels of a tram ?shortly after he began telling the story of what he had seen in the hospital.”
“He fell? Or was he pushed?” Smith wondered grimly.
Vedenskaya shrugged. “They say he was drunk when it happened. For all I know, that could be true. Almost all Russians are drunk at one time or another.” She smiled bitterly through the smoke curling from her cigarette and then tapped her empty vodka glass with a single, tobacco-stained finger.
Outside, the snow flurries were coming down harder now, beginning to cover the heaped mounds of older, smog-blackened snow and ice. Fresh flakes dusted the streets and parked cars, steadily accumulating in a layer of white powder that sparkled faintly under the street lamps and in the wavering beams of passing cars.
Still fastening his thick parka, a young-looking man with a long, slightly crooked nose left the Kafe Karetny Dvor. He stood motionless for a moment, waiting for a break in the evening traffic, and then crossed the street at an angle. Once there, he walked rapidly east along Povarskaya Street, brushing through throngs of pedestrians hurrying along the pavement beneath bobbing umbrellas. Most were loaded down with purchases made during an evening’s shopping among the Arbat District’s trendy boutiques and galleries. He carried his own furled umbrella cradled casually under one arm.
A couple of hundred meters up the street, he paused to light a cigarette, standing right next to a large black luxury sedan idling along the curb. Instantly, the car’s rear side window slid silently down, revealing little of the darkened interior.
“Vedenskaya is still inside the restaurant,” the young man muttered.
“And she is with the two Americans?” a voice from inside the sedan asked quietly.
“Yes. I’ve left one of my men in there to keep an eye on them. He’ll report the moment they get up to leave. From the look of things, I’d say that will be soon.”
“Your team is ready?”
The young man nodded. He took a deep drag on his cigarette. The tip glowed bright red in the darkness. “Perfectly ready.”
Erich Brandt leaned forward slightlv, just far enough so that a tiny bit of light from the street lamps fell across the harsh lines of his square-jawed face.
“Good.” His icy gray eyes gleamed briefly. “Then let us hope Colonel Smith and his friends have enjoyed their meal. After all, it will be their last.”
Chapter Seventeen
Smith held the door open for Fiona Devin and Elena Vedenskaya and then followed them out of the Kafe Karetnv Dvor. After the warmth inside the Azeri restaurant, the freezing night air cut deep, biting through every layer of his
clothing. He gritted his teeth to stop them from chattering and hunched his shoulders, grateful at least for his thick wool coat.
Together they walked a short distance up Povorskaya Street and then stopped in a small huddle on the sidewalk to make their farewells. Other pedestrians edged around them, hurrying onward toward their homes or errands. Occasionally, cars drove past on the street, rumbling by in a procession of bright headlights mixed in with the occasional blare of an angrily honked horn and the faint crunch of studded tires rolling over fresh drifts of new- fallen snow.
“This is for you, Jonathan,” Vedenskaya murmured, reaching into the recesses of her coat and pulling out a thick plastic binder. “Use the information it contains wisely.”
Silently, Smith took the binder and opened it. It was full of dog-eared medical journals, some in English, others in Russian and German. He flipped open the cover of one, a months-old copy of The Lancet. Neatly folded inside were several pages crowded with Cyrillic typescript, evidently a selection of the gray-haired Russian scientist’s case notes. He looked up with a quick, grateful nod, knowing how much she was risking by smuggling these out to him. “Thanks. I’ll make sure this data gets to the right people.”
“That is good. With luck, lives can still be saved.” She looked fiercely at Fiona Devin. “You remember our agreement?”
“I do,” Fiona told her quietlv. “No names will be used in any news article 1
write. Dr. Vedenskaya. Of that vou may be sure.”
The other woman nodded back, this time with an austere smile. “In that case, I shall wish vou well ? “
Suddenly she reeled forward, almost knocked off her feet by a man who crashed straight into her from behind. He had been walking too fast, striding with his head well down and his collar turned up against the falling snow. She only saved herself from falling by grabbing Smith’s arm. Angrily, she let go and whirled around. “You there! Watch where you’re going, why don’t you?”
Abashed, the man ?young, with a slightly crooked nose ?stepped back quickly, “lzvinite! Excuse me!” he muttered. Grinning foolishly, he retrieved the umbrella he had dropped in the collision and reeled off down the street, walking now with exaggerated care.
Vedenskava sniffed, disgusted. “Drunk!” she said. “And this early in the evening! Bah. Alcohol is our national curse. Fven the voung poison themselves.”
“Are you all right?” Smith asked.
Still tight-lipped with anger, she nodded. “Yes. Though I think the lout must have poked me in the leg with that damned umbrella of his,” she said, rubbing at the back of her left thigh. Then she shrugged. “But it’s nothing
