friend. Leonid found that there was a certain satisfaction in planning. He had never really done it before. He thought for a long time and came up with a plan that he shared with Georgi. Along with this new satisfaction came the realization that he would have to kill Georgi, not necessarily because he feared that Georgi would not follow through with the partnership but because Georgi was not smart. Georgi got drunk. It was one thing to get drunk among his working friends and blame the Jews for Russia’s problems, but he might get too drunk one night when he was rich and say something that would put them both in danger of being prosecuted, losing their wealth, and possibly even facing a firing squad. And what was to stop Georgi from killing Leonid once they were out of Russia? Leonid had never murdered anyone. Yevgeny had murdered the Jews. But somehow, sometime, he would have to kill Georgi.
Lieutenant Valentin Spaskov of Trotsky Station had many options for dealing with his problem. All of them were bad. Some were worse than others.
He had a direct order from the ministry for himself and the major to be present in one hour to have their photographs taken for the case being investigated by the Office of Special Investigation. It seemed they were not satisfied with their last visit in which almost every police officer in the district was assembled in a demeaning lineup. The police had enough to do without such nonsense. Now they wanted to come back and take photographs of everyone who was not present at that assemblage. The major was far from happy about this order from the Yak. The Yak had connections and friends, and he was smart. They would all have to comply.
Spaskov considered getting a friend who was not a police officer to pretend he was Spaskov for the photo. This might work because the major had said the pictures would be taken in Spaskov’s office. However, there was too little time to find someone, and Spaskov did not think he had a friend to whom he could tell a lie sufficient to gain his assistance. Besides, if the pictures were ever returned, the major or even Sergeant Koffeyanovich might look at them and realize that the man in the photograph was not Spaskov.
Spaskov considered a disguise of sorts, a pair of glasses from the drawer in the catch-all office on the first floor. Again, that might be awkward if anyone, including the colonel, ever saw the photograph, for Spaskov’s eyesight was perfect.
Should he slouch? Make a face? Quickly shave his mustache? Shaving his mustache would be too suspicious. There would certainly be a question or two about why he chose to shave on that day.
Should he smile with confidence? Look stern with self-assurance?
Damn. Although he had not been at the lineup, he knew they had been examined by two policemen and a tall, serious, dark, and pretty woman. Several of the officers claimed they had seen her on Moscow Television News. Others said they were just imagining it. But Spaskov knew that the ones who had claimed to see her were particularly reliable witnesses. She was the last one he had attacked. She was the one whose stubbornness had driven him to rage.
The uniform. He could get out of his uniform and put on his civilian clothes, but this was an observant woman, confident that she could identify her attacker if she saw him.
There were two real choices and a hope. The hope was that she simply might not identify him from the photograph. The night had been dark, the attack quick, her glance at him fleeting at best. The choices were to simply claim the woman was wrong if she identified Valentin. She had mistaken him for someone else. He could not possibly have done such a thing. Valentin Spaskov had risen from the ranks not through favoritism, bribes, or party connections but by his own rare honesty and bravery. He was bright. He had a wife and child and was never known to abuse either of them or consort with the women a police officer frequently encounters in his work. Many an officer actually bragged that he let some women have the choice of sex in the backseat or an arrest. Almost all chose the backseat, often with a partner joining in.
Not Lieutenant Valentin Spaskov. There was not a mark on his record. None. And he knew that if he somehow escaped this horror, he would continue to uphold the law and, when necessary, risk his life to do so, with one exception, which he was doomed to repeat over and over again. He would have to kill the woman tonight.
It would not be easy. The attacks he had made he had no control over. They had simply grown inside him till he had to rape or he would burst with a kind of madness. He attacked in a frenzy to satisfy the creature within. After each attack, it would rest for a while only to awaken and growl anew.
Valentin Spaskov remembered the assaults: following each woman, finding the right place, occasionally abandoning one possible prey for another if the situation wasn’t right. When they were over, he had only a vague recollection of the attacks, the sexual part. He had no recollection of any of the beatings.
For a long time, years, he had wondered why he was doing this. He had read files on other rapists, had even read books. He didn’t think he fit the possible profiles. Somewhere buried in his past was an event, a trauma, a series of incidents, a person these women were supposed to represent, even an idea or symbol for which they stood. Maybe in the line of duty he had suffered some damage to the brain that altered his behavior. He even considered that something may have been missing or distorted in his DNA, that he had been born with an animal lust that he had successfully controlled till he was an adult. But lust was only part of it. He knew that. If it was lust that drove him, his wife was accommodating, albeit less than interested. She readily admitted that the infrequent times when he was her lover, Valentin was gentle, thoughtful, and could be very satisfying.
It had been years now since Valentin Spaskov had first tried to understand why he did what he did. He used to hope that someday it would pass just as it had come. But now he feared that it was growing. He was increasingly convinced that he would remain a sadistic rapist.
The knock on the door was firm. Valentin looked up. His was not much of an office-dirty white walls, old chairs, and a scarred desk, a battered gray metal two-drawer filing cabinet, no window, his certificate the only thing on the wall. His wife had been so proud when he had been promoted and given this office. He had immediately put a framed photograph of his family where he could see it each day. At first he had looked at it frequently with satisfaction. But for the past several years he had been looking at it with guilt. He had reached a higher level of success than anyone in either his or his wife’s family.
Valentin picked up a file from the corner of his very neat desk, opened it, and said “Come in” as he turned his eyes to the papers before him. He had no idea what he was looking at.
The door opened. Lieutenant Valentin Spaskov did not look up.
Sasha Tkach entered the office wearing his heavy jacket, hair brushed back, cap in his pocket, and camera in his hand. Sasha remembered the man behind the desk from his first visit. Lieutenant Spaskov was older than Sasha. His uniform was neat and clean and he had a strong, handsome face.
“You do not have to explain,” Spaskov said. “The major said you were coming.”
“I’ll make this fast,” said Tkach. “Everything is preset. All I do is stand five feet away and click. The light flashes, the film advances, and I go on to more surly faces.”
“Wouldn’t you be surly?” asked Spaskov.
“Without doubt,” said Sasha, brushing back his hair and moving forward to aim the camera at Spaskov, who simply looked serious. Sasha clicked. It was over.
“What kind of film are you using?” asked Spaskov.
Sasha looked at the camera as if it might help him answer.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s a good thing to have a camera if you have a family,” said Spaskov.
“I have a family,” said Sasha.
“You have a picture of them?” asked Spaskov.
Sasha took out his wallet and opened it to a picture Porfiry Petrovich had taken when Illya was born. Maya was seated with the baby in her lap on their rapidly fraying couch. Pulcharia sat on her father’s lap, and Lydia sat next to her son, looking at him instead of the camera in spite of what Rostnikov had told her.
Spaskov retaliated with the picture on his desk of his own family: him, his wife, and their child in the park. It was an old picture. His golden-haired daughter had been no more than two at the time.
There really was nothing more to say as Sasha put his wallet away. One father and husband would trudge around wearily for the rest of the day taking pictures, and the other would go about his business upholding the law while planning a murder.
Karpo and Paulinin were met at the American embassy by Craig Hamilton, the black FBI agent whose specialty was organized crime. Karpo had worked with the man before, and they had a distinct respect for each other as professionals. Hamilton had gone far beyond his duty in helping Karpo track down the murderers of
