within hours.
It took Sasha Tkach less than an hour to get back to the office where he had worked as Yon Mandelstem. He had washed the worst of the blood from his face in a fountain in the park, but he still looked sufficiently forbidding that no one in the Metro had come near him and no one in the office questioned him when he came through the door, strode to the corner desk, placed the computer down, and walked back through the row of desks and out the door to the stairway.
In another twenty minutes he was home, in front of his own door, hands trembling as he took out his key. He had wanted to think of something to say, something to tell Maya, but he could not plan, could not anticipate. Whatever came when he saw her would come. She would see his face and know. There was no doubt about that, but he had to see her.
He opened the door, prepared and unprepared. He imagined that he looked very much like the bearded man when the man had thought Sasha was about to shoot him.
Maya wasn't there.
His first reaction was relief. He would be able to sit, ease into the furniture, the familiarity, prepare, but he could not sit. He could wait no longer. He went back through the door and down the stairs. He had to find them.
He hurried into the street, unsure of which way to go, and then he ran toward the series of small shops two blocks away. He found them almost immediately standing in a line outside a cheese shop, though they did not see him. His need was enormous as he rushed forward and called his wife's name.
The people in line turned to him and watched as he ran forward and embraced Maya, who had turned, surprised to see him, her little smile showing concern.
Pulcharia was standing at her side, holding her mother's leg, much as the child Alanya had held her father's leg.
'Sasha?' she asked.
He found the similarity of the scenes so painful that when he tried to speak he could not. Maya stepped out of line and cupped his face in her hands. Pulcharia followed her mother and continued to cling.
'Shh, Sasha, shh,' she said to him, avoiding the eyes of those in line who watched.
Whatever it was that had done this to her husband, Maya was not sure she wanted to hear it. Emil Karpo had been trying to reach Sasha for hours, had called many times. Perhaps he had talked to Sasha. Perhaps he had told her husband some awful thing.
'Is it Porfiry Petrovich?' she asked. 'Has something happened to him, his wife?'
Tkach could not speak. He shook his head no.
'Is it your mother? My mother?'
Again, no.
'Are you…do you have something, something I…?'
He managed to say, 'No.'
'Then it can't be so terrible. Let's go home,' she said, picking up Pulcharia.
'We have enough to eat for tonight.'
'Yes,' he said. 'Let's go home.'
The little man with the glass eye and neatly trimmed beard took a step toward Porfiry Petrovich on the narrow path and held out his hand. He seemed to be addressing both a nearby tree and Rostnikov when he said, 'The book.'
Rostnikov considered the situation-the little man with his outstretched arm, the huge, expressionless man behind him, the impossibility of retreat, and the likelihood that these were the men who had killed Georgi Vasilievich.
'We saw you pick something up under the planks of the rotunda,' the little man continued as he moved forward. 'Vasilievich's book.'
Rostnikov stood his ground.
' 'I am an inspector in the Moscow MVD,'' said Rostnikov as the small man moved the hand at his side to his pocket and the huge man behind him took three steps forward.
'We are impressed,' said the little man. 'Are we impressed, Pato?'
Pato advanced four more steps toward Rostnikov in answer to the question.
The little man with the wild eye went on. 'You want to see what's in my pocket?
I'll make an exchange. What's in my pocket for what's in your pocket.'
'I think not,' said Rostnikov.
The huge man was no more than a yard away now. He blocked the sun and sent a shadow over Porfiry Petrovich.
'He thinks not,' said the little man. 'Pato, he thinks not. Well, I'll show him, anyway.'
The little man pulled out a little gun.
'Know what this is?' the little man said, one eye looking down at the gun, the other toward Rostnikov.
'A Pieper 6.35 mm, badly in need of oil,' answered Rostnikov. 'At least fifty years old. It is as likely to kill you as me if you are foolish enough to fire it.'
The big man took over. He brushed past the suddenly deflated little man with the wild eye and said, 'Enough.'
And then the big man held out his hand, and it was a very big hand. Rostnikov looked at the hand and then the face of the man who blocked out the sun.
'No,' said Rostnikov.
The big man, Pato, nodded in understanding. This was business. Pato put his hand on Rostnikov's shoulder.
'Death can be much easier than life,' the little man said. 'You could have given me the book and had a moment to pray before Pato broke your neck. But maybe you are not a
religious man? Maybe you are not one of those new Christians who jump to religion and away from Marxist- Leninism like dirty fleas.'
The massive hand was squeezing Rostnikov's shoulder now, pushing the policeman down. Rostnikov reached up, put his hands on the wrist behind the hand, and watched the man's face break into a smile that made it quite clear he was amused by the pathetic effort by the aging little barrel of a man with a lame leg.
The smile lasted for less than the blinking of the eye of a night owl in a birch tree. Rostnikov put his good leg back to support him and wrenched the oifending arm from his shoulder. The huge man stepped back one pace, letting the sun hit Rostnikov's face. He looked at his hand and at Rostnikov. Rostnikov could see the little man, now that Pato had backed away.
'Just kill him, then, and take the book,' the little man said, looking back over his shoulder. 'Someone might come and we'd have to kill them, too.'
Pato moved forward, one hand grabbing Rostnikov's hair, the other going to Rostnikov's throat. Rostnikov drove forward off his right leg and threw his shoulder into Pato's stomach. Rostnikov was off balance for the instant he had to put his weight on his bad leg, but he was accustomed to that instant, had experienced it many times when working with his beloved weights. His right leg found the ground beneath him, and he lifted the massive Pato off the ground. The man's hand released Rostnikov's neck. The creature called Pato growled like an animal and clawed at the back of the washtub of a man for the instant before Porfiry Petrovich threw him to the ground. Pato tumbled awkwardly on his shoulder and landed on his back with a great woosh of air.
There was a crack like the breaking of a dry tree branch, and something sizzled past Rostnikov, who moved to the fallen man, who was trying to rise. He knew.
The Pieper had not exploded. The little man with one eye was firing. But he only fired once before a voice from somewhere close by very calmly called,
'Stop.'
The little man turned toward the woods, aiming his pistol but seeing nothing.
'Stop,' came the voice again. 'Put the gun down or see what it is like to try to plug a very large bullet hole in your chest with one of your scrawny little fingers.'
Pato was on one knee now, trying to catch his breath. Rostnikov took hold of his arm and helped him rise. The man swung awkwardly with his free arm and hit Rostnikov solidly in the shoulder. Rostnikov released Pato's
