school. The reason I’ve asked you in tonight, besides wanting to meet you, is because I need you to bring Juli Popovics in for questioning tomorrow. It might be routine, or it could be serious. We’ll know tomorrow.”
Komarov leaned back in his chair. “Because you and Nikolskaia were involved in the case from the beginning…”
Komarov paused, giving Pavel a chance to volunteer information.
“From the beginning?”
“Yes. While at the PK office in Pripyat, you and Nikolskaia brought the Horvath cousin, one Andrew Zukor, to my attention.
He’s been given the code name Gypsy Moth. However, this is in question because the Gypsy Moth might be someone else.”
“Who?”
“According to information transmitted from the First Chief Directorate in Moscow, Detective Lazlo Horvath may be the Gypsy Moth. Someone has been passing Chernobyl information to foreign intelligence for years. Efforts to measure Soviet plutonium production using clandestine air sampling have gone on for decades…
You look puzzled. You have heard of these programs?”
“Plutonium… yes.”
“Good, Pavel. Then you should not be surprised to learn Detective Horvath, his brother, and Juli Popovics may have formed a triumvirate. Ukrainians bent on destroying their republic. But perhaps I’ve revealed too much. I want you to concentrate on the assignment at hand. You will bring Juli Popovics into this office for questioning tomorrow. If necessary, you will use force. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Major. I… we understand. Should we do it in the morning?”
“At exactly nine o’clock. And you will return back here at ten. If it is a routine matter, we’ll question her briefly, and you can return her to Visenka. If it is not routine…”
“You really think it involves the Chernobyl explosion?” asked Pavel.
“I do,” said Komarov. “But remember, at this point evidence remains circumstantial. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
Komarov stood, and this prompted Pavel to stand.
“Oh,” said Komarov. “One more thing. If this is conspiracy, the parties involved might become desperate. I spoke with Detective Horvath today, and he seems an aggressive type. If he tries to get in your way, we’ll be certain of conspiracy and of his involvement in it. You have weapons. If it becomes necessary, I expect you to use them.”
Komarov turned his back to Pavel and looked out the window.
He raised his voice. “Make note of this, Pavel. Juli Popovics must be picked up in Visenka at exactly nine tomorrow morning and be in this office at exactly ten. Timing is critical. If you fail, there are other agents who would like to have the luxury of bringing their wives with them to Kiev. You are lucky, Pavel, to have followed a suspect in this case. Otherwise you and your partner would be in serious trouble. Nine o’clock in Visenka, and ten o’clock here. There will be no mistakes! Am I understood?”
“Yes, Major,” said Pavel in a feeble voice.
“You may go.”
Komarov stayed at the window as his office door closed gently behind him. The lights of the city dazzled. Tuesday was almost over.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, a day he had awaited since the Sherbitsky affair, was near. Tomorrow the Chernobyl affair would blossom like a spring flower, and by summer, medals would be pinned on his chest where the knife in his pocket felt like the pressure of a woman’s breast.
Outside Komarov’s office, Pavel felt dizzy. He paused, hoping the major would call him back to say the final statement had been a joke to keep him alert. The mention of Moscow’s First Chief Directorate and plutonium production had upset him because he didn’t know what Komarov was talking about. He didn’t want to know secrets.
All he wanted was a job in Kiev, maybe back in a PK office. And the comment about Nikolai not being married…
A bearded, foreign-looking man sitting in a chair outside Komarov’s office stared at Pavel. “How, now,” said the man.
“What?”
“What, when, where, why,” said the man in a singsong voice.
“All good questions if they evoke images for the poet’s muse.”
Pavel walked out the door of the anteroom, taking his confusion with him. Tomorrow at ten, he and Nikolai would be here again with Juli Popovics. If not, they might end up at a committee hearing for abandoning their posts.
21
Wednesday, May 7, 1986. While driving the streets of Kiev at seven thirty in the morning, Lazlo noticed a subtle change. Instead of the usual straight-ahead or downtrodden look of pedestrians, he saw sideways glances, a few looking his way, perhaps recognizing an un-marked militia Zhiguli. Ten days had passed since the Chernobyl explosion. By now, shortwave receivers were down from closet shelves and attics, with wire antennas strung across living rooms.
Literally and figuratively, Chernobyl was in the air in Kiev.
A half hour ago, he had been rudely awakened by a call from Deputy Chief Investigator Lysenko and told to meet with Chief Investigator Chkalov promptly at eight for another morning meeting.
He wondered if Major Komarov was back looking for scapegoats.
The usual morning pastry vendors along Khreshchatik were absent, and several people climbing up from the metro wore handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses. It was an insane world.
He had been asleep just over an hour when Lysenko called. He’d been within a familiar nightmare, the Gypsy deserter already shot in the face, yet pleading with him not to shoot. He could collapse any moment, run the Zhiguli into the curb. “Look here!” those on the sidewalk would scream. “It’s the radiation in the air! We’re all going to die!”
Yesterday he had spent several hours in Visenka with Juli. He had been too tired to talk and napped after lunch. In the afternoon, when it was time to go on duty, Juli had awakened him with a kiss.
It had not been a dream. Juli was real. Everything around him was actually happening, despite the sensation of floating he felt as he drove through Kiev.
He stopped at a cafe and gulped two cups of strong tea. Back in the car, he turned several corners and circled back on the van following him. As he passed the van and sped to militia headquarters, he rolled down the window.
“Your foot is still in your mother!” he shouted in Hungarian.
The driver, a round-faced, pudgy young man, simply frowned.
Chkalov was alone in his office and avoided looking directly at him.
He was like one of the pedestrians walking down the sidewalk. Even though Komarov was not here, Lazlo smelled a setup. At the last meeting, Komarov had mentioned his cousin, Andrew Zukor. Even he wondered if Zukor’s visit last summer had been for the purpose of speaking with Mihaly about Chernobyl.
Chkalov finally looked at Lazlo. “Many of us are going without sleep these days. I’ll get to the point, Detective Horvath. It has to do with you deserting your post without notifying the officer in charge.”
“I was in charge.”
“Regulations specify you were supposed to notify the officer in charge here at the office before you left your post. You could have radioed instead of abandoning your men.”
He thought, Should I have wiped their asses, too? But he said, “I left an officer in charge.”
“Detective Horvath. Leaving an officer in charge without notifying the officer in charge at the office is not the way it’s done.”
