“I haven’t exchanged ten words with him in over a year,” said the old man. “I doubt if he’ll tell you much.”
Iosef paused and then decided to ask a question, which well might be a bad idea, but Sergei was a talker.
“Do you think Alexi Monochov could make a bomb?”
Sergei laughed and said, “Anything from a hydrogen bomb to a shrapnel bomb the size of a pen. It’s his specialty, detonation. It was his father’s, too.”
“I won’t tell anyone you called,” the old man said. “I hope Alexi isn’t in trouble. I can’t say I like him, but he’s been through enough.”
Iosef hung up and looked down at the notes he had just taken. It looked good. It looked like a possible match. He had no trouble finding Alexi Monochov’s name on the list of those to be called if the bomber threatened another attack.
The door to the offices opened. Iosef heard footsteps and Karpo appeared at the door.
“I think we may have a good lead,” Iosef said, trying to remain calm.
“Alexi Monochov,” said Karpo before Iosef could say the name.
Karpo had sat listening to Paulinin without saying a word. Paulinin had much to say.
Karpo had, at the scientist’s insistence, sat on a wooden stool while Paulinin displayed the fragments of letter bombs on a wooden table he had cleared. The various shapes, some no more than the size of a fingernail, were back in zippered see-through plastic bags. It looked like a jigsaw puzzle.
“Fragments,” said Paulinin with satisfaction, pointing at the pieces laid out neatly in front of him. “But a piece here, a piece there, some tentative conclusions. If only the dolts who had collected all this had been more careful, but that would be asking too much …”
Paulinin paused, patted down his mat of hair, looked at Karpo, and waited. It was like a magician’s act. Paulinin had something to say, but he would say it in his own way, in his own time, knowing that Karpo would be one of the few people, perhaps the only one, to appreciate what he had done.
“Conclusions?” Karpo prompted.
“Fragments,” Paulinin repeated. “On one thin piece of metal a strange letter is stamped. At first glance it looks like random scratches. It is incomplete, but I recognized it and matched it. It is Arabic.”
Paulinin pointed to one of his exhibits. Karpo looked. There was a small piece of paper and an even smaller darkened and jagged piece of metal. No scratches were clearly visible, but Karpo had learned to trust the scientist.
“Second,” said Paulinin, “some of the more recent bombs, particularly the one you brought today, had a similar odor, a residue of chemicals. I found traces, traces so small that I needed the electron microscope when everyone was out of the lab upstairs.”
Paulinin was not supposed to use the more sophisticated equipment in the forensic laboratory almost directly above him. Normally he prided himself on what he could discover more from a small piece of dust or a charred strip of human flesh with the equipment in his cluttered laboratory. Paulinin had no friends in the forensic laboratory. They resented his success and his air of superiority, and they were more than just uncomfortable with his air of near madness. Paulinin had unkind words to say about all of them, but his favorite target was the pathologists. Paulinin frequently took bodies when autopsies were completed and discovered crucial evidence the highly respected specialists had missed.
“The trace proved to be from a plastique-style explosive that the military and even terrorists stopped using long ago,” said Paulinin. “Too volatile. More terrorists than victims died from their ignorance of the sensitive explosive. Iran still has some. Hammas uses it sometimes in Israel. They don’t care if the carrier dies. In fact, that’s the point.”
“And here? In Moscow?” asked Karpo, knowing when he had heard a cue.
“Three laboratories worked on stabilizing the explosive as long ago as the 1950s,” said Paulinin. “I made some calls. One man was working on such a stabilization using a particular aluminum alloy from Iran. The man was also working on development of nuclear weaponry. He died almost twenty years ago, radiation poisoning. I knew him slightly from conferences. He was less a fool than most.”
There was silence. Paulinin smiled, the corners of his thin mouth coming up at the corners. He looked more constipated than pleased, but Karpo had come to know the man well.
“Then he is not the one we’re looking for,” said Karpo.
“He had a son,” said Paulinin, springing his surprise. “His son is an engineer, more a technologist than a scientist. He works in the same laboratory where his father worked. I have encountered him, too, at a few conferences. He lacks his father’s skills, but …”
“And the name of this man and the laboratory?” asked Karpo.
“Alexi Monochov, Karkov Enterprises,” Paulinin said. “If he is still there.”
The man known as the Vampire was wearing his coat, as black as the rest of his clothing.
“Yes,” said Iosef, in awe when Karpo uttered the name he himself was about to speak. “Did he turn himself in?”
“No,” said Karpo.
Iosef got up and followed Karpo to the door and out into the corridor, putting his coat on as they walked.
Twenty minutes later, the two detectives were in the outer lobby of a fashionable apartment building on Chekhov Prospekt. More buildings at this level were hiring doormen, many of whom were former policemen or even former KGB agents. The pay for protecting the tenants from the rash of thieves was better than government pay, though it could be dangerous. Such doormen were always armed. Not long ago a doorman had been confronted by a gang of four children who entered at night. One of the children had an automatic weapon that looked like an old machine gun from an American gangster movie. The doorman had shot the twelve-year-old, whose weapon misfired, and the other three children had fled. The twelve-year-old had survived the wound, refused to name his partners, and boasted that they had planned to terrorize the building apartment by apartment, tearing out telephones so the police couldn’t be called and taking what they wanted. That attack, and most other attempts, failures and successes, had come at night, though daylight apartment robberies were no longer unheard of.
However, this building had no doorman on duty. Instead of ringing the bell to the Monochov apartment, Karpo took a black leather pouch out of his pocket. The rectangular pouch was about two inches wide and about a quarter of an inch thick. Karpo’s long fingers extracted two small metal tools. One was no more than a bent piece of metal; the other, the size of a small pencil, came to a sharp point. Using both tools, Karpo opened the lock within a minute.
Iosef noted the procedure as one he hoped to be able to perform in the not-too-distant future.
The inner lobby was small, tiled, empty. It was late morning. People who worked were at their jobs. People who didn’t were in their apartments or out shopping. People in buildings like this, Iosef thought as he followed Karpo to the elevator standing open before them, had the money to shop.
The Monochov apartment was on the eighth floor. The two men approached it at a normal pace. Before the end of the Soviet Union, Karpo had not carried a weapon unless he knew he was likely to run into armed resistance on a case. Now he wore a holster under his coat, and in the holster was a SIG Sauer P 226 that could deliver sixteen 9mm rounds rapid-fire with great accuracy. It was also the safest handgun. The loaded and uncocked gun put the hammer in register with the safety intercept notch, so firing was possible only when the trigger was pulled. It could not go off accidentally. Karpo had the weapon nearby all the time, on duty and off. Armed resistance roamed the streets. Iosef’s weapon, a.32 Smith amp; Wesson, was also under his coat. Karpo didn’t reach for his gun. Iosef followed his lead.
There was a knocker, silver plated and well polished, on the door. Karpo knocked. There was an immediate bustle inside and then the sound of footsteps.
“Who is it?” asked a woman.
“Police,” said Karpo. “Open the door immediately.”
The door did not open immediately.
“How do I know you’re really the police?” she asked.
