“It is even more dangerous not to,” said the man. “One more chance.” He stepped closer to Leonid. “Will you sign a confession?”
“Why do you want me to sign a confession? What difference does it make to you?”
“I think you know,” said Durahaman.
“I do not know,” said Leonid.
“Then what difference does it make to you whether you sign or not? You are a fool.”
“All right. I will sign if you give me time to write a letter to my mother, but first I have something I must tell you,” said Dovnik.
The oil minister leaned over and Dovnik whispered so softly that his voice could not be heard. The oil minister leaned even closer and then he discovered why Leonid Dovnik wanted to make him lean very close.
Leonid brought his head up suddenly, smashing it into the Syrian’s face. Durahaman staggered back, grabbed his chin, and toppled over a chair. Leonid half stood, still attached to the chair, and shuffled forward as quickly as he could toward the window. Durahaman, utterly dazed, tried to rise.
“Who is the fool?” Leonid shouted. He heard a shuffling of feet outside the door and flung himself, eyes closed, through the window. Shards of glass and splinters of wood dug into him. Cold, cold air slapped his face. As he tumbled forward he opened his eyes to watch the street rush toward him.
The fall couldn’t have been more than twenty feet, but it was vivid and complete. He was aware, as he fell, that there were people moving nearby. He tried to turn as he fell, and then he hit. The chair’s rear legs struck first, snapping and playing a two-beat as they clattered away to the accompaniment of Leonid Dovnik rolling on his side and striking his shoulder against the pavement. Something inside him cracked loudly and his head hit the ground with a melonlike thud.
He was not dead. Of that he was sure. He did not even feel badly injured, though he tasted blood on his lips and felt the electricity in his shoulder and the numbness of his fingers behind his back.
Someone helped him up, kicked the broken pieces of chair out from under him.
“He’s alive,” said a woman.
“He looks worse than I do,” said a man.
Leonid tried to focus.
“Let’s move him,” the man continued. Leonid recognized the voice. “I know you,” he said.
“The Nikolai Café,” said Elena. “Last night.”
“Tatyana’s dead,” said Leonid, gagging on his own blood. “The Arabs killed her.”
“You’ll be dead, too, if we don’t get you to the hospital,” said Sasha. “Let’s get out of-”
The door to the embassy flew open. Four men came out and hurried toward the two policemen and Leonid Dovnik, who leaned against Elena Timofeyeva.
“He fell,” said one of the men, the tallest of the group.
“We saw,” said Elena.
“We will help him back in,” said the tall man.
“I don’t think he wants to go back in,” said Sasha.
“No,” said Dovnik. His shoulder was broken, and he almost passed out.
“You are on Syrian territory,” said the tall Arab.
“I don’t think so,” said Elena. “The building is Syrian. The ground before it is not. Besides, this man is a Russian citizen.”
“He comes back in,” said the tall Syrian.
From beneath his jacket Sasha Tkach removed a definitely nonregulation Mauser C-96 and aimed it at the four men who were advancing toward him.
“Stop,” came a voice from above, and the four Arabs halted.
Sasha and Elena looked up. Durahaman stood in the broken second-story window, a thin trickle of blood in the right corner of his mouth.
“Let them go,” he said.
Sasha looked at the four men, who backed away. He did not return his weapon to the holster under his jacket.
“The man you are helping murdered the Jew, Zalinsky,” said Durahaman.
A sound came from the throat of Leonid Dovnik, and Elena thought he might be choking on his tongue. Then she realized, when the sound did not stop, that he was laughing.
“I heard him confess,” said Durahaman. “I will be happy to give a full deposition,”
And still Leonid Dovnik, who leaned heavily on Elena Timofeyeva and bled upon her coat, continued to laugh. “Come before a Russian judge and tell him who really killed Zalinsky,” he croaked. “Tell him where Tatyana is.”
“Who killed Zalinsky?” asked Sasha.
“I did, but his daughter paid us to do it.” Laughing, Leonid Dovnik tried to point at the man in the window. “She paid Tatyana. She had her Jew lover killed so she could run to England. Let him come before a Russian judge and deny it.”
Elena and Sasha looked up at the man in the window, but he made no reply and they could see from his face that the killer in the leather jacket was telling the truth.
FIFTEEN
Rostnikov sat at the table in Father Merhum’s house where the nun had been hacked to death only a day before. The room had been scrubbed clean, and the icons, those that had not been destroyed, were back on display. Where the ax had been removed from the wall a deep, black scar remained. On the small table in front of the policeman were a pot of tea, two glasses, and a plate on which rested half a loaf of dark bread and an ancient bread knife.
In the chair in which Emil Karpo had sat talking to Sister Nina, Rostnikov drew the same picture for the twentieth time in the last three days. It had not changed greatly, but there were some subtle revisions. His bed did not take up quite so much space. The table had moved closer to the wall and under the window. The rug on the floor was not quite so patterned. All in all the room looked far less exotic than he had at first remembered.
The room was finished. There was an end to it. Now he would have to move on to the next step, remembering the faces of his mother and father. Porfiry Petrovich knew that would be much more difficult. He pushed the small pad aside and looked at Emil Karpo.
“He is waiting,” said Karpo.
“Yes,” said Rostnikov with a sigh. “You want to be here?”
“No,” said Karpo.
“Then send him in.”
Karpo got up and moved toward the door.
“Emil,” Rostnikov said. “Shall we simply shoot him and say he was trying to escape?”
“You would not do that,” said Karpo.
“Would you?”
“No, I would not.”
“Because you believe in the law?”
“Because I accept the law.”
“Father Merhum and Sister Nina believed in a higher law,” said Rostnikov. “They had faith. Does the faith of those you have seen here tempt you, Emil Karpo?”
“One cannot believe what one does not believe,” said Karpo. “To pretend to do so fools everyone but oneself.”
“Very philosophical, Emil.”
“Hegel,” said Karpo, and moved to the door.
When he opened it, Vadim Petrov stepped in. He wore no hat. His ears were bright red from the afternoon wind and his hair a brambled bush.
