This was it. Rostnikov wanted to get up, take the five paces across the roof, and hurl the withered old man over the edge of the roof to the street below. Instead he picked up the tea, willed his thick hands to be steady, and sipped. The tea was no longer hot, but he drank it all, knowing that Drozhkin's eyes were on him.
'The decision was not mine,' Drozhkin said. 'I suggested that he remain in Kiev, within the Soviet Union, but there are others above me. And considering recent events in Kiev, it may be that Afghanistan is not the worst place he could be.'
Still Rostnikov said nothing. Josef was his and Sarah's only son. This threat had hung over them since Rostnikov had first run afoul of the KGB. Posting his son to the dangers of Afghanistan was a challenge, a test on which not only Josef's but also his and Sarah's lives were at stake. Rostnikov had one other piece of information about a KGB department head, a piece of information he knew he could never use. He also knew that he was now being tested to see if he were foolish enough to even hint that he might make use of such a secret. The KGB, through this dying old man, had raised the stakes, used Josef as the pawn, and Rostnikov had no choice but to back down.
'If my son is needed in Afghanistan, or any other place where the Soviet Union might be called, I am sure he will be honored to be chosen, as my wife and I will be honored to have him serve.'
It was Drozhkin's turn to say nothing. He watched Rostnikov drink his tea, met his eyes. He saw neither fear nor hatred in the eyes of the burly inspector before him, but Drozhkin had survived by distrusting the evidence of his own eyes.
'That is all,' Drozhkin said. 'I must rest now.'
Rostnikov put down his cup carefully, resisting the urge to drop it and apologize. He stood up quite slowly.
'I hope you feel better, Comrade,' he said to the old man, 'and that the doctors make your final days as comfortable as you deserve.'
There was no derision in Rostnikov's tone, nothing but apparent concern. Drozhkin knew better and approved. Some small token of rebellion or anger was necessary. Drozhkin would not accept complete capitulation by Rostnikov. Rostnikov, however, understood the same thing and had quickly calculated the level of affront and the delivery essential to create the proper impression. They were both experts at the game.
'This hospital has all the best,' Drozhkin said, nodding over his shoulder. 'There's not a piece of equipment in here manufactured in the Soviet Union, not one piece. American, Japanese, Swedish. Even the doctors are imported. Romanians, Poles, even a Frenchman. I get the best of attention here, which means I'll live a few days longer than I would have and I'll not die in agony. I accept what must be.'
'As do I,' said Rostnikov with a slight bow of his head.
When Rostnikov hit the lobby of the hospital he did not look at the two KGB men. He did not look at the two heads on the desk. He did not look at the old woman being led through the door by two men in white. Rostnikov put down his head and limped across the floor and out the front door. On the street he breathed deeply and looked around. Nothing had changed. Of course not, nothing but his life. He would have to go home later, have to tell Sarah, have to live in fear for his son, have to do his job, have to control his frustration, his anger. And then he remembered the circus, the Old Moscow Circus. His father had taken him to the Old Circus on Tvetnoi Boulevard when he was a boy. He remembered the lights outside, the two prancing horses above the entrance, the smell of animals. Then he remembered taking Josef to the New Circus on Vernadsky Prospekt, the new round building of steel and glass topped with multicolored pennants waving through a shower of searchlights. And inside… Yes, he decided, it was definitely time to get to the circus.
Sasha Tkach got off the train at the Universitet Metro Station almost an hour to the minute before Rostnikov would come to the same station. Rostnikov would walk one block down Vernadsky Prospekt in the direction of the Moscow River and find himself in front of the New Circus. Sasha, however, went up the escalator, left the station, and moved down Lomonosov Prospekt in the direction of the new building of Moscow State University. This massive building, completed in 1953, with its tall, thirty-two-story central spire, looked like a cathedral, standing high above any other building in the Lenin Hills area. Atop the spire was a golden star set in ears of wheat. On the flanking eighteen- and twelve-story buildings alongside the central structure were a giant clock, a thermometer, and a barometer that students, faculty, workers, and visitors could glance up at as they moved down the long pathway, the Walk of Fame, to the central building, a pathway decorated with inspirational busts of Russian scientists and scholars.
The university covered forty blocks with research facilities. There were botanical gardens, a sports stadium and a huge park. There was a fine arts assembly hall that could seat 1,500, a student club, 19 lecture theaters, 140 auditoriums, dozens of teaching and research laboratories, the Museum of Earth Sciences, a swimming pool, sports facilities, and 6,000 rooms for students.
To be a student at Moscow State University. Tkach knew as he hurried in the direction of the spite, was to be admitted to the elite. The trick was to do well enough to make it to the university, to pass the lots, to have the connections in the Party, to say the right things, be in the right places. The attrition rate of students entering the university was very small. The reasons were both simple and not so simple. First, the students who got in were selected carefully, though politically. They were good, well suited for the education they would receive. Second, the future of the faculty was dependent on how well students performed.
Students were protected once they entered to insure that they would succeed and reflect well on their departments, their teachers, the university. Students at Moscow State University and the other major Soviet universities were well treated and had comfortable rooms, good food, and access to cultural and leisure opportunities that were paralleled only by the politically elite in the Communist Party.
Sasha Tkach knew all this as he hurried down the street, clutching a briefcase filled not with lecture notes and textbooks but with his lunch and a war novel. He saw real students pass him, felt resentment and fear that someone, perhaps the dark, short-haired girl then in front of him, would stop and say, 'That is no student. That is a fraud, an undereducated fraud.'
On Lomonosov Prospekt, behind the university, he saw the bookstall. It looked ordinary enough, a large table in front of a fairly large white trailer in need of a painting. Sasha shifted his briefcase from his sweating right hand to his left, pushed his hair out of his eyes, and made his way through the small crowd to the table. Information on the bookstall as a possible outlet for black market video equipment had come from a small-scale dealer in black market records, Tsimion Gaidar, who claimed to have traded a supply of Beatles records for a videotape machine through the bookstall. Gaidar's information was suspect, since he was trying to save himself from black market charges and the KGB. In addition, Gaidar had been known in the past to try to turn in anyone in his acquaintance, including his own brother, to escape prosecution.
However, Deputy Procurator Khabolov had decided that Sasha's mission was worth a try.
Sasha gently elbowed his way next to a man in a blue hooded sweatshirt. The man was wearing a cap and looked like a cab driver, but he could have been a professor or just a maintenance worker at the university. The rest of the crowd was a bit easier for Sasha to placestudents, smiling more than most Muscovites, smiling as if they had a secret for success.
Tkach asked the small woman behind the table if she had anything for children. The woman, a dumpy, dour creature wearing a dark dress too warm for the weather, nodded, meaning that he should go farther down the table, and Sasha muscled and apologized his way along to follow her. The books were all covered by glass to prevent theft. Each customer had to ask- to examine any of the books, guides, or maps, and the woman kept a careful eye on all to whom she granted the right to touch the precious pages.
'That one,' Sasha said, pointing at a thin book of Lermontov fairy tales with a colorful cover. The dour woman nodded, gently pulled the book from under the glass, and handed it to Sasha. A customer farther along the table called to the woman, who paused to examine Sasha, decided to take a chance on leaving the book with him, and shuffled over to the caller.
Tkach, clutching his briefcase, flipped through the pages but looked over them at the trailer. A pretty but unsmiling little girl of about eight years stood next to the trailer. She was dressed for school, her dress short for the summer, her dark hair tied with two yellow bows. She stood on one leg, swinging her other leg back and forth. She was looking at Sasha and the book. He held it up toward her. The girl glanced at the woman dealing with another customer and quickly shook her head no at Sasha, who nodded. Sasha pointed down at a series of books under the glass. To each one the girl shook her head no while checking to be sure the woman did not see her. As he pointed to the fifth book, the girl gave a small but emphatic nod of yes.
