Hamilton looked at Kuzen’s body and the delicate coffee cup and saucer, which were untouched. Then he felt himself beginning to tremble. He fought against it. He had never shot anyone before, had never had reason even to draw his weapon, and now he had almost been killed. If the dead man on the floor had chosen to, he could have killed Hamilton or Karpo or both of them.
Hamilton had assumed the dead man had been there to protect Kuzen. It was clear now that the dead man had been there to be sure that Kuzen did not talk to the police.
“There’s a phone in the corner, near the window,” said Hamilton. “Our assassin may have called for backup, or the doorman may be doing that right now. I suggest we do the same.”
The FBI man was sure that he was not trembling. He was also still clutching his weapon in both hands, keeping his eyes toward the front of the apartment through which the killer had come. Karpo placed his weapon back in the holster under his jacket. He ignored Hamilton’s suggestion.
“I suggest you call the police number,” said Karpo. “They will attempt to tell you what district we are in. Armed officers will begin showing up within ten minutes of your call. Someone at the district will, by that time, have also placed a call to a member of the mafia responsible for this, if the doorman has not already done so. I am the ranking Russian officer on the scene. I suggest we search the apartment while we wait for help. When help arrives, evidence may disappear.”
“You are a cynical bastard,” said Hamilton admiringly.
“The recognition of reality in a world of political chaos is not cynicism but reason,” said Karpo.
“Do you always quote Lenin?” asked Hamilton, putting his weapon away but keeping his jacket unbuttoned.
“Do you always recognize when someone is quoting Lenin?” asked Karpo, moving toward a room that looked like an office. The door was open and a computer sat on the desk in the room.
“Not always,” said Hamilton. “But it’s impressive when I do, isn’t it?”
He paused at Kuzen’s body, touched the man’s neck for a pulse. He didn’t find one, but he hadn’t expected to. He moved to the telephone and made the call to the police for immediate backup, using Colonel Snitkonoy’s name.
“Ten-minute search,” said Hamilton, going to the front door and pushing it closed. The lock was now broken, but the door stayed closed.
“Ten minutes will be adequate,” said Karpo, who was now out of Hamilton’s sight.
Even though the man on the floor had a bullet hole in his forehead directly above his left eye, Hamilton knelt again to be sure he was dead. When he entered the office, Karpo was going through papers stashed in neat wooden cubbyholes on the table next to the desk. The walls of the room were filled with books. A stack of manila folders lay neatly on one side of the computer. On the other side were boxes of floppy disks.
“My computer skills are adequate, but not sophisticated,” Karpo said, turning on the computer. “I assume you are well trained.”
Hamilton moved behind the desk and examined the names of the files on the screen. Karpo continued a search of the contents of the envelopes and the cubbyholes.
“I doubt if he’d leave anything incriminating sitting on top of his desk,” said Hamilton.
From where he sat, he could see both of the bodies in the next room. That was the way he liked it.
Karpo examined the cubbyholes. Each was marked by a small white tab in black ink. There seemed to be no order to the slots, not alphabetical, not by subject. There were fifteen slots with labels such as RELATIVES, MARKETS, CARTOONS,CATS, CLOTHING, PENSION.
“Orderly man,” Hamilton said. “Files in order, indexed by subject, title, entry dates.”
Hamilton opened a file at random and shook his head. “No wasted words, our Kuzen. Efficient.”
In front of Karpo stood the less-than-orderly cubbyholes. He stared at them while the FBI agent hurried through the hard-disk files.
“Plenty of data here,” said Hamilton. “Take hours to go through it. Everything looks like it’s backed up and indexed on floppy. I’ll double-check. Then I suggest we look at the backups when we have more time. We’re down to seven minutes.”
“I’ll continue to look,” said Karpo, going through a stack of letters and notes from the cubbyhole marked TAXES.
“It’s your country,” said Hamilton, racing through computer files.
“It was,” said Karpo.
“We’re not going to get this done in time,” said Hamilton, lining up the backup disks and looking around the room.
“He wouldn’t leave anything lying around,” said Karpo.
“Then what are we looking for?” asked Hamilton as he switched off the computer. “There could be something on the hard disk or one of the floppies that can be opened with a code. The man was a scientist. An anal-retentive one. Look at this place. It looks as if a team of maids left five minutes ago. Except …”
They both looked at the mess of cubbyholes.
“A concession,” said Hamilton.
Karpo shook his head no.
“Then what?” asked Hamilton. He stood up and felt more comfortable because he could get his gun out quickly.
“What if the disorder of these papers and the randomness of these slots is neither disorderly nor random?” said Karpo.
“Meaning?”
“If someone touched a shelf or looked at its contents when Kuzen wasn’t here, he would come back and know it.”
“Why would he care if …?” Hamilton began, and then stopped.
“Something is hidden,” said Karpo.
He ran his fingers delicately along the wooden slats between the compartments. His touch was light, his eyes unblinking. Suddenly he stopped.
A piece of paper, the tiny corner of a newspaper or page of a book, fluttered to the table.
“Which one?” asked Hamilton.
“This,” said Karpo, pointing to the cubbyhole marked BILLS.
If someone disturbed the papers even slightly, the seemingly random bit of paper would flutter to the table. The person who had disturbed the papers could ignore it, throw it away, pocket it, or try to return it to the sheaf of papers. But return it where, between which two sheets?
“A very cautious man,” said Hamilton.
“His caution failed to save his life,” said Karpo, pulling out the stack of bills and handing half of them to the FBI agent.
Two minutes later they had examined the small pile.
“We can take them and check them,” Hamilton said, adding the bills to the pile of floppy disks.
Karpo removed the sliding bottom of the now-empty cubbyhole. The bottom was a narrow slat of wood that fit into a slot, just like the rest of the open-faced shelves. There was nothing taped to the slat of wood, nothing taped to the back of the shelf.
“Two more minutes,” Hamilton said, checking his watch.
Karpo ran his fingers around the edge of the slat of wood. When he was gently brushing one side of the slat, he stopped and examined it.
“How thin can a disk be?” he asked.
Hamilton shrugged. “Paper-thin. Why?”
“Our time is up,” Karpo said, starting to slide the slat back into the wooden cabinet. “I’ll call again. You can check the other rooms.”
“Right,” said Hamilton, moving toward the living room.
With one hand Karpo picked up the phone and dialed Petrovka. With the other he removed the slat again, found the spot he was seeking, and dug his thumbnail into the nearly paper-thin, one-inch-long slit of clay that had been painted the same color as the thin wood. He asked again for immediate support and hung up, listening for Hamilton’s footsteps in the other room. Karpo quickly removed the clay and turned the slat of wood onto one side.
