“If we catch them soon, we can still make it back to Kiev on time!” shouted Pavel.
“What should we do with Detective Horvath?”
Pavel took out his pistol. “We’ll take him with us!”
Nikolai glanced at Pavel. “Don’t wave your gun around! I’ll try to run them off the road!”
Chunks of gravel from the Zhiguli banged against the metal and glass of the Volga as Nikolai drove closer.
“Shit!” shouted Nikolai.
“What?”
“We should have radioed in!”
“Look!” shouted Pavel. “You can pass now!”
Nikolai pressed the accelerator to the floor, and the Volga moved alongside the Zhiguli.
“I’ll force them off…”
Pavel raised his pistol and pointed it at the Zhiguli.
“No!” screamed Nikolai. “Wait!”
An explosion of glass slammed Pavel sideways onto Nikolai’s lap. Nikolai braked, and as the Volga skidded to a stop, he looked down at his friend Pavel. Pavel’s eyes were open. Pavel was smiling despite blood gushing from his temple.
When the car stopped, Nikolai let go of the wheel and held Pavel’s head in his arms. The gush of blood wet Nikolai’s trousers.
“Pavel!”
Pavel did not react. After a few moments, the blood stopped gushing, but Pavel still smiled up at his friend.
“Pavel!”
Finally, recognizing the grin of death, Nikolai hugged his friend to his chest and wept.
After firing the shot, Lazlo drove on for a few seconds, but then slammed on the brakes and turned their car around. Juli saw the grief on Lazlo’s face. When they drove up, she saw the driver of the Volga holding the other man.
Lazlo picked up his gun from the seat and opened the door.
“Stay here.”
Juli stayed low, watching as Lazlo approached the Volga carefully, his pistol aimed at the driver. After Lazlo opened the door and stared inside for a few moments, he lowered his pistol and bent over.
Obviously the driver was not a fighter. Lazlo placed his hand on the driver’s shoulder and spoke to him. The driver handed two pistols out of the car butt first, and Lazlo put them into the pockets of his jacket. The driver, visibly upset, got out, and Lazlo helped the driver carry the man who’d been shot to Lazlo’s Zhiguli. The man’s arms swung limply, and there was a lot of blood. When they came closer, Juli saw the tears streaming down the driver’s cheeks.
After Juli got out of the Zhiguli, Lazlo reached inside and yanked the microphone out of the militia two-way radio. He and the driver of the Volga lowered the dead man into the Zhiguli’s passenger seat.
The driver stood to the side and looked at Juli. “He wasn’t meant for this kind of work. I told him not to point the gun. We worked in a post office. We read peoples’ mail and joked all day. We didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
The man took off his shoulder holster and handed it to Lazlo.
Lazlo took the holster and retrieved Juli’s bag from the back seat.
He motioned to the driver with his pistol.
“Get in my car and drive back to Kiev. Don’t stop anywhere.
Don’t go to a phone. Simply drive to Kiev. I’ll be watching, and if you stop anywhere… I don’t want to be forced to come after you.”
The driver shook visibly as he got into Lazlo’s Zhiguli.
After the Zhiguli drove slowly away, Lazlo threw Juli’s bag and the two shoulder holsters into the back seat of the Volga. He found an overcoat on the back seat and spread it over the bloodied front seat. Juli got in next to him.
“Sit close to me,” he said. “There’s no window on your side.”
He turned the Volga around.
“Are you going to follow him?” asked Juli.
“Only until we get to the main highway.”
“Won’t he stop and report us?”
“No. They didn’t even radio in.”
“How do you know?”
“An old Hungarian saying: When a man weeps, he’s telling the truth.”
“Are they really KGB?”
“A branch of it. Did you hear him mention the post office? They were recruited from the PK. This has been planned. They were supposed to panic, kill or be killed.”
“Why?”
Lazlo put his arm around her. “To make us as guilty as Komarov wants us to be.”
When they reached the paved highway, the Zhiguli turned north. Lazlo stopped the Volga and turned on its two-way radio. A female voice directed a numbered car to return to headquarters. No frantic calls to cross the river east of Kiev and go to Visenka.
Juli looked up to Lazlo, his profile so serious and sad. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m thinking.”
The morning sun was high and bright in the sky.
22
Daylight coming into Komarov’s window made the smoke from his cigarette into a wriggling, iridescent snake. He looked at his watch, after ten. By now the PK agents should have had Juli Popovics here for questioning. Because they were not here, he should be angry to be kept waiting, but he was content. He knew Detective Horvath would interfere with the pickup.
There were several possible outcomes. The PK agents might have injured or killed or captured Detective Horvath. Or Detective Horvath might have killed or injured them. Perhaps the van tracking Horvath was being used as a hearse. Perhaps Horvath tried to shoot it out with the PK agents and the other men following him.
The confrontation might have gone many ways, but somehow Horvath would be his, the evidence pointing to sabotage and conspiracy closer to completion. Horvath would become the Gypsy Moth with ties to the CIA. No one would know he had arranged Horvath’s visit to Visenka this morning. Horvath would have destroyed the poet’s note so as not to involve Tamara Petrov. As for the poet, his silence was guaranteed.
Earlier this morning on his way in to Kiev from Darnitsa, Komarov met the poet at their usual spot near the Monastery of the Caves. The poet wanted payment, but Komarov felt he could no longer fund the arts. The poet was careless, especially his unan-nounced visit to KGB headquarters yesterday, and Komarov found it necessary to use the knife.
The knock on Komarov’s door was heavy-handed. He expected news from Visenka. Instead, Captain Azef entered slowly and asked if he could speak about a personal matter. Azef, who normally resembled a henchman, sat across the desk, looking like a bald, stuffed bear.
“What is it you want, Captain? I’m busy with my investigation.”
“The investigation is the reason I’m here,” said Azef, looking down. “I’m concerned my position as your assistant is being taken over by Captain Brovko.”
Komarov forced back a smile at this petty jealousy. “What makes you think Captain Brovko is here to replace you?”
Azef looked up, folded his arms defiantly. “He was sent from Moscow, assigned to the Chernobyl case. Him instead of me, Major, even though I was involved from the beginning when we began observing the Horvath
