“Stop him!” Tkach was panting and unsure whether he should continue to expend energy shouting or preserve his strength for the pursuit of the surprisingly swift-footed Englishman. No one stopped Willery. The determined woman reached out to grab Tkach, hoping to get some coherent information about what was going on. Tkach dodged past her, though her hand brushed his shoulder and came away smeared with blood.
Later Tkach would estimate that the chase covered about a mile. In reality, it was only half of that. Tkach feared that Willery would never get tired, but as he passed the Central Exhibition Hall and entered 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution Square he found himself facing a pair of youths wearing caps and silly grins, arms linked, and clearly having drunk more than was reasonable on a Sunday afternoon. Willery tried to dash around them, but the young men, in trying to get out of his way, moved in the same direction as his charge. He hit them full speed, breaking their arm link and sending him into a triple somersault from which he rose like a circus performer. His face was bruised and he seemed to have lost his sense of direction completely. Just then a car pulled up next to him, and two men jumped out. They were very large, sober, dark men, and one was carrying a machine gun.
Exhausted and bleeding, Tkach stopped a dozen yards from the car. People all around were watching, but no one stepped forward as one of the men grabbed Willery by the arm and shoved him roughly into the back seat of the car, then pushed the door closed and turned the gun on Tkach.
There was no doubt in Tkach’s mind who these men were. Their look, their size, their command of the situation told him they were KGB.
“He’s mine,” panted Tkach, feeling that his kill was getting out of his hands and being taken by predators, vultures. He was the one who had done the tracking and chasing. If he’d had his wits about him, Sasha Tkach would never have questioned the authority of the KGB, but there was a touch of hysteria in his tone now.
The KGB man with the gun said nothing, but simply shook his head firmly and motioned with the gun for Tkach to back off. Willery was hidden inside by the dark windows of the car. Tkach wanted to say something more. He opened his mouth, but the man with the gun shook his head again, silencing him. The man opened the front door and got in, carefully watching Tkach. Then he closed the door, and the black Moscovich turned slowly and drove away.
Passersby who had stopped to watch the show now moved on past the young man with the wounded back, who stood in silent frustration and fury.
How many times can one fail? Tkach asked himself as he walked slowly back in the direction of the explosion. He would have to call Rostnikov and tell him not only that Willery had succeeded in committing an act of terrorism, but also that he had been wrenched from Tkach by the KGB. It was, at best, a sorry effort.
Then a young woman stepped forward and suggested that he see a doctor and Tkach looked down and saw a boy of about three holding the woman’s hand. The boy seemed frightened, and he lifted his thumb to his mouth.
Tkach gave the child a pained grin. There was something to salvage in the day. He thanked the child’s mother and moved on, thinking that it was absolutely impossible to make any sense out of the ways of the world. He completely forgot, for the moment, the small black object in his pocket.
She had not witnessed the explosion or Tkach’s pursuit of Willery, because the explosion had taken place one hour too early. For some reason that unreliable English dolt had detonated the bomb at five instead of six as she had instructed him.
She was almost half a mile away when she heard the blast and looked at her watch. She had intended to remain a safe distance away until the explosion came, but this had been much too early. At five o’clock there would be no one in the damned theater. What kind of act of terrorism is it to destroy an empty theater? Had this been some attempt at cleverness on Willery’s part? She didn’t think so, for she had recognized fear in his voice and had gauged his character with confidence the two times she had observed him. He had simply fouled up, which meant that at some point, if the police or KGB did not dispose of him, she would be obligated to do it herself.
As she headed back toward the apartment, a babushka tied firmly on her head and her glasses set firmly on her nose, she was not concerned about the whereabouts of James Willery. Even if they had him he knew nothing. She had been most careful about that. They could threaten him, torture him, do what they wished, he would have practically nothing to tell them that they did not already know.
One thing did bother her though. The police knew that Aubrey had interviewed the Englishman, the German, and the Frenchwoman. They had told her this. Now, the Frenchwoman was dead, and if the Englishman did not get away, they might guess that he was part of a conspiracy of terror.
She had plenty of time to get to the next site. She had originally allowed herself one hour and had told the German to detonate his bomb at seven. She would make use of the hour by preparing for her own action, which now seemed even more essential, and taking care of the young man whom she had left in a drugged sleep. She had decided to get rid of him in such a way that the police would know it was indeed she who had done this. She wanted to rub their defeat and stupidity in their faces as she had done to the police in five other countries. But her desire to show that pursuing vampire that she was not afraid led her to carelessness, for she decided to use the last of the small vial of liquid with which she had eliminated Warren Harding Aubrey. She decided to murder the arrogant young man with what she did not realize was a dose of dead and quite harmless psittacosis bacilli.
When Tkach finally got to the phone at the hospital after being treated for his cuts, he called Rostnikov’s apartment only to discover that the chief inspector had been out the whole afternoon.
He then called Petrovka, but Rostnikov was not there either. He talked to Emil Karpo.
“Karpo,” he said, “the Englishman, Willery, set off a bomb at the Zaryadye. No one was killed, a few injuries, the KGB got him. Find Rostnikov and tell him.”
Karpo hung up the phone and pushed aside the papers he had been working on.
“She is making mistakes,” he said softly to himself and glanced down at the notes he had taken. Tkach’s call had confirmed what Karpo had already concluded. This was the day that everything would happen.
Louise Rich of Trenton, New Jersey, had a reservation for a flight out of Sheremetyevo International Airport at midnight. Karpo had no doubt at all that Louise Rich was the dark-eyed woman. He had eliminated all other possibilities and confirmed his conclusion by discovering that Louise Rich was not in her room at the National Hotel and had not been seen there for several days, though she did call in to assure the hotel that she was well and staying with friends. She even gave her friends’ name and number. Karpo had checked on one of the numbers, and the woman who answered knew no one named Louise Rich.
Of course, her name was not Louise Rich, but she might try to use the reservation. She would be careful and would make sure no one followed her, but it was an escape route. American tourists were not bothered much by customs, and in Madrid, her destination, American tourists were even less likely to be inspected carefully.
She was making mistakes, but would she make enough for him to catch her or stop her from committing whatever acts of terrorism she still had planned? She was his responsibility. He took a pill to dull the pain in his arm. He was not in agony, but he could afford no distractions. He had to think like her. No, think
Karpo did not give a thought to the German. Bintz was the chief inspector’s responsibility, and Rostnikov was one of the few people-perhaps the only one-whom Karpo felt was truly competent.
Karpo’s task was to find the dark-eyed woman within the next few hours.
FOURTEEN
Rostonikov was well aware that he was being followed by a KGB man. This afternoon rostnikov made an effort for the first time to discover who the agent trailing him might be. Normally that would have been easy to determine, but he had to do it without making the agent suspicious. On the way to the Rossyia Hotel, he walked along the river embankment and, just before he came to the Lenin State Library, he mounted the stone stairs leading up from the embankment. He moved very slowly. His leg really gave him no choice, and he paused to lean against the metal railing at the top as if to catch his breath. At that point he saw the white Chaika sedan parked near the traffic light below him. The front door was open, and a man was looking back at him through the rear window. Of course Rostnikov could not be entirely sure, but it was enough. He took one step back and then, letting
