Klamkin first drove to the Arkush telephone exchange, a small white stone building on the road back to Moscow. The exchange handled all calls from the region. It took Klamkin no more than five minutes to destroy the new cable into the building. There was no way, he was sure, that it could be repaired till the next day, at the earliest.
Getting to Moscow was not easy. The roads were in need of repair. Buses blocked the lanes and wrecks slowed down traffic, but Klamkin had no choice. He had to be patient. When he finally arrived in Moscow, he called the office of the Gray Wolfhound, identified himself as a representative of the new minister of the interior, and demanded to know where Colonel Snitkonoy was.
Pankov held out for seven whole seconds.
Klamkin caught up with Colonel Lunacharski just as he was about to enter the elevator to the Seventh Heaven Restaurant in the TV Tower.
After listening to Klamkin’s report, Lunacharski took the roughly written sheets the Frog handed him and read them quickly. A trio of Japanese businessmen moved past him as he read.
Lunacharski was clad in a conservative gray suit and blue tie. He carried a very slim briefcase that he opened a crack so that he could drop the report into it. “Good,” he said. “Very good. Go back to my office. I’ll be there when I am finished here.”
Satisfied, Klamkin the Frog walked back into the cold Moscow darkness.
Since Colonel Lunacharski had arrived almost an hour before the scheduled meeting with the Wolfhound, he had plenty of time to call the general, give a full report, and still be more than half an hour early. He announced himself to the maître d’, giving his full title. The maître d’, a dour old man with a white mustache, was unimpressed. He led Lunacharski across the slowly rotating floor to a table near the broad window, where Colonel Snitkonoy was sipping a glass of mineral water.
“Ah, Colonel,” said the Wolfhound, rising to his full height and extending his hand to the man who stood nearly a full foot below him, “you are early.”
“I was nearby,” said Lunacharski, shaking the extended hand and sitting down quickly.
“As was I,” said Colonel Snitkonoy. “As was I.”
The Wolfhound had chosen to come in full uniform minus the medals. It was clear that other diners recognized him and pointed him out to their companions. Colonel Snitkonoy succeeded in appearing oblivious to the attention. “May I recommend the Strogonoff,” he said. “One of their better dishes, though recently a bit deficient in beef.”
“I’ll have bread and some soup,” said Lunacharski.
The opening of this dinner meeting had been a decided defeat for Lunacharski, but the entrée, he was sure, would be his to savor.
“You know General Piortnonov?” asked the Wolfhound. “Special Political Branch?”
“By name only,” said Lunacharski.
“Old friend,” said Snitkonoy. “Haven’t seen him for several years, though I understand he is back in Moscow.”
“So I understand,” said Lunacharski.
“If you happen to run into him …” said the Wolfhound.
“I will give him your regards,” said Lunacharski, accepting a glass of sparkling mineral water from an elderly waiter and reaching down for his briefcase. “I really do not have much time, Colonel. I am here to offer you some assistance.”
“In these trying times it is reassuring that there are those who wish to offer assistance,” said the Wolfhound, smiling sadly.
“I have information on two cases which have been assigned to your department,” Lunacharski said. He removed two envelopes from the briefcase and placed them on the table. “I have already passed the information on to my superiors.”
Snitkonoy nodded and looked out the window. “There, look, the Cosmos Pavilion. Impressive. The sun against its dome.”
“Very impressive,” said Colonel Lunacharski without looking. “The first case involves the death of the priest in Arkush. We have evidence to identify the killer. I have the authority, should you agree, to turn this over to your office. You will have full credit for the discovery, but you will sign a report which is now being prepared in the office of General Karsnikov indicating that I was the source of the information which led you to the arrest and apprehension.”
“Vadim Petrov,” said the Gray Wolfhound. The restaurant floor slowly rotated away from the Cosmos, and the tip of the Vostok space rocket appeared above the roof of the Mechanization and Electrification Agriculture Pavilion.
Colonel Lunacharski placed his hands in his lap.
“Petrov was an ardent party member who detested the Church and feared its renewed position in a besieged Soviet Union,” explained the Wolfhound. “Poor man killed the nun and then, when confronted, confessed to two of my men and committed suicide.”
“When did you get this information?”
“Oh, an hour ago, maybe two. The phone lines are down in Arkush. There is speculation that it is the work of angry Marxists,” said the Wolfhound. “One of my men, Inspector Karpo, brought me the news by motorcycle. I filed a report immediately with Secretary Panyushkin in President Yeltsin’s office.”
“Then we will simply forget my offer,” said Lunacharski.
“A very generous offer,” said the Wolfhound as the elderly waiter approached with two plates of food. “I know you are not hungry. Please forgive me, but I took the liberty of ordering the Strogonoff. It is my treat. I hope you will try it.”
“With pleasure,” said Lunacharski as the waiter placed the steaming plate before him.
“You said, Colonel, that you have information on two cases?”
“The other is a bit more delicate,” said Lunacharski, unsure of how to avoid eating any of the pungent creamed meat before him. “It involves the daughter of a Syrian diplomat.”
“The Durahaman girl.” On the horizon Snitkonoy just barely caught a glimpse of the sculpture of the
“The case involves the murder of a Russian citizen by a known Russian criminal,” said Lunacharski. “However, the criminal was hired by the Syrian oil minister to murder his daughter’s Jewish lover. This information has also been passed on to the general.”
“The Syrian did not hire Leonid Dovnik to murder Grisha Zalinsky,” said the Wolfhound, abandoning his examination of the Moscow panorama and turning to his meal. “Dovnik was hired by the girl, Amira Durahaman. Strogonoff is a bit off I think, don’t you?”
Lunacharski looked down at his food, which he had not touched.
“No matter,” said the Wolfhound with a sigh. “It is edible. The girl, according to Dovnik, who is now in our custody, wanted to get away from her father and her boyfriend so she could run away with a married British businessman. The boyfriend threatened to tell her father, and the girl paid a woman named Tatyana to have Zalinsky killed. We have reason to believe that the Tatyana woman was murdered by the Syrian in an attempt to cover up his daughter’s crime.”
“Then we can use the information about the girl to get the father to-”
“I’m afraid not,” said Colonel Snitkonoy. “The father has insisted that the girl be tried by a Russian court. He claims that Dovnik’s story is a lie. Since the woman Tatyana cannot be found to confirm the tale and Dovnik is a known criminal … Well. We have interviewed the girl at the Syrian embassy and she claims that she knows nothing about the murder. Lovely girl, I understand. Quite innocent looking. She suggests that Dovnik and the Tatyana woman did it all in the hope of extorting money from her father. The father claims he has a tape of a phone call made by this Tatyana, offering to find the daughter for a fee. We are now in the process of compiling a detailed account of her whereabouts while she was missing. She went from Zalinsky to Chesney and then moved in with a man named Arbanik who we suspect may be an Israeli agent. It seems the girl is attracted to the enemy, whether to provoke her father or … but who can say. Though our information is not complete, Interpol has sent us a preliminary report documenting that when she was fifteen years old a similar situation, including the accidental
