his hand slide into the pocket to touch the solid metal object. He knew what it was, and he knew that a step had now been taken that would make it difficult for him to back out of this.
He cursed his own stupidity. He cursed the woman who had arranged this. He cursed World Liberation and almost cursed his mother for bringing him into a world where such a thing could happen. Then, growling at a young man who bumped into him, Bintz began the walk back to his hotel in as direct a line as possible.
Not far down the street at number 18, a man in a dark short-sleeved shirt seemed to be taking a picture of the museum that had once been the birthplace of the Romanovs. Actually, he was considering whether to report the odd behavior of the German to Chief Inspector Rostnikov. The policeman was under the impression that all Germans were a bit odd. This fat man had waddled for almost a mile past dozens of historic buildings, stopped and stared at the old monastery, and then suddenly acted as if he had been shot in the thigh.
Germans, the policeman thought, were not to be trusted. He decided to report the man’s behavior to Rostnikov immediately as he had been ordered to, even if he could make no sense of it.
In the crowd, far ahead of the detective and Bintz, the dark-eyed woman hurried toward her next appointment. It was all very dangerous, but she had no choice. She felt exhilarated.
Within fifteen minutes she was inside a department store on the New Arbat standing beside two women who were examining dolls. The dolls had blond curly hair and had been made in Hungary, imitations of their American counterparts.
“So much money,” complained the younger of the two women, biting her lower lip.
“What else is there to do with the money?” her companion said. “It’s her birthday.”
The dark-eyed one glanced across the store and picked up one of the dolls. She saw the person she was seeking, and doubt struck her. He was quite conspicuous, clearly foreign. He craned his neck and looked around the store. If he was being followed, his tail would certainly recognize this as an assignation. She wondered if she could count on him and decided she could not. He did not even pretend to look at the goods on the wooden tables but scanned the crowd anxiously.
The dark-eyed woman trailed along with the two women customers, turning her head as if taking part in their conversation. They could have been three young mothers on a shopping trip, as they moved past the tall foreigner, who looked down to check his watch. At that moment, the dark-eyed one reached over and dropped the object from her palm into his pocket. Taking a step forward, she touched the sleeve of one of the two young women and said, her voice polite, “Do you know if there is a sale on fabrics today?”
A passerby would have thought, looking in their direction, that the three women knew each other. This, in fact, was just what James Willery thought. He had felt nothing enter his pocket and did not know the object was there.
“I know of no sale,” said one of the two women.
“Nor I,” said the other.
The dark-eyed woman with the glasses thanked them, kept up the conversation briefly as they walked along, and then veered off in another direction toward a door. Only when she reached the door did she glance back at the tall Englishman who continued to look nervously around. Either he was a fine actor or he had no idea that the detonator was now in his pocket. He would find it, she was sure, when he reached for some change. That concerned her less than the bored-looking man four counters away who was pretending to examine a plastic suitcase. The man’s hands were on the suitcase, but his eyes were on the Englishman.
It didn’t matter. She had done what she could. It really didn’t matter at all if the Englishman was caught, but she hoped he would complete his assignment before that happened. Chance, while kept to a minimum, could work either for or against her. Her only hope was to control events as much as she could, have as many options for action as possible, and hope that the odds were in her favor. She had learned that the odds were usually in favor of the person who initiated action. It was far safer to act than to react.
She walked slowly from the store into the late afternoon crowds and turned in the direction of the apartment. One more night, she thought. Just one more.
Rostnikov had washed, shared a drink with Sarah from the bottle of Mukuzani No. 4 wine they had been saving, and now sat at the table looking at his trophy. Plenty of late afternoon sun came through the windows, so they had not turned on any lights.
“Shall we call Iosef?” he asked.
“We can try,” Sarah said, looking up from the book she was trying to read. “He would like to know about the trophy.”
The look they exchanged made it clear that there was more they would like to tell their son, but that, for the present at least, it would have to remain unsaid.
“I probably can’t get a call through to Kiev,” he said.
“If you don’t try, you’ll never know.”
There was no arguing with that logic. Rostnikov had already put together the packet he had been working on, had already wrapped it into a small bundle and taped it. It would be bulky in his pants pocket but it would fit. He had considered hiding it, but there was no point in that. There was no safe place. He would simply carry it in his pocket.
“I’ll try to place a call,” he said, starting to get up.
Before he could take a step, there was a knock at the door. Rostnikov and his wife looked at each other. Her eyes peered over the tops of her round glasses. The knock was urgent and authoritative. Rostnikov himself often knocked just that way.
He gestured to her and held up a hand before crossing the room and reaching for the door. He resisted the urge to touch the packet in his pocket. If he did so now, he might do it without thinking later. He opened the door and found himself facing Samsanov, the building manager, a thin, sad-faced creature.
“I must talk to you, Comrade Rostnikov,” he said seriously.
“Talk,” growled Rostnikov.
“Can I come in?” said Samsanov, nodding toward the interior of the apartment.
Rostnikov backed up to let the thin man enter and closed the door behind him. Samsanov nodded at Sarah, looked around the room and back at Rostnikov. The building manager wore a dark, worn suit and white shirt with no tie. His neck was speckled with gray hairs and made him look rather like a sorry chicken.
“You fixed the toilet and disturbed the Bulgarians,” Samsanov said, his eyes narrowing.
Rostnikov could see that the man had been drinking, perhaps building himself up for this moment.
“I did,” said Rostnikov, “and let me remind you that I am a chief inspector of the MVD and that I have given you certain tokens of good faith for you to do something about the toilet and that you failed to do so.”
Samsanov raised a placating hand as Rostnikov had hoped he would. The ploy was to start an offensive before he could be attacked.
“I have not come to complain,” Samsanov said. “I’ve come to see if we can reach an understanding.”
“Understanding?” asked Rostnikov, moving toward the building manager and looking over at Sarah.
“You seem to be good at repairing the plumbing. You know something about it,” said Samsanov softly. “People who need such repairs are willing to pay to bypass the normal procedure. I thought that you and I might-”
“That we might make a profit by illegally doing plumbing repairs,” Rostnikov said.
Samsanov looked at the door and back at Sarah.
“I’m not talking about illegal profits,” he said soothingly. “I’m talking about helping people.”
Samsanov clearly had no idea that the apartment was bugged, had not been part of it. The KGB could have used him but had chosen not to. Rostnikov’s near certainty about the apartment being bugged had been confirmed the night before when he found one of the devices and marveled at how incredibly small they had become.
The KGB was almost certainly uninterested in the petty profiteering of a building manager, but Rostnikov was amused at the possibility of telling Samsanov that he was proposing a punishable offense and that his proposal was being recorded by the KGB.
“Out,” said Rostnikov. “I have a good mind to arrest you.”
In truth, Rostnikov was not at all offended by Samsanov’s proposal. He was rather flattered, but he enjoyed acting out the scene for Sarah, who smiled, and for whoever was listening.
“I didn’t mean-” Samsanov said, moving toward the door.
“You meant,” said Rostnikov, opening the door. “Out.”
