even more remarkable coincidences in their views, though Elena was a bit more pessimistic about the future of Russia and the world than Iosef. He attributed the difference to his experiences in the army. Almost naively, he assumed that things could probably not get much worse than that.
He had kissed her when the last pot was cleaned and the last dish put away. He had kissed her deeply and she had responded eagerly and when he had again asked her to marry him, she had been about to say “yes, yes, yes” when the phone rang and Sasha told her to come quickly.
She had expected the call, but not quite this early.
Iosef understood. He, too, was a police officer. It was another thing they had in common, that made him understand this sudden action in a way that might well be impossible for a husband or lover who was not a police officer. Iosef said he would go with her, but she had stopped him. It wasn’t his case. It was hers and Sasha’s, and if she showed up with Iosef, Sasha would surely feel offended by not having been consulted. Elena knew that she would feel the same in his place. Iosef had kissed her again, less passionately, but a long, moist kiss nonetheless. And then he had left, telling her to thank her aunt again for having him to dinner. He didn’t tell Elena to be careful. He knew she would be as careful as the situation allowed.
Now she stood next to Sasha, absolutely unsure of what the situation allowed, and her hands were definitely stiff with the cold. She could hold the gun in one hand and try to warm the other in her pocket, but she was right- handed and a weak shot with her left hand. If either she or Sasha tried to put a hand in a pocket, Valentin Spaskov might well take that moment to act. Besides, the pocket by now was not much warmer than the air. And if the windshield was bulletproof?
Sasha’s evening had not been as dramatic or romantic as Elena’s, but it had not been at all bad. Maya was clearly pleased with him and far more affectionate than she had been in a long time because of the stand he had taken with Lydia. The baby, Illya, was definitely getting better. Pulcharia, before she had gone to bed, had sat warm and close in Sasha’s lap listening to him read “The Snow Maiden.”
Now he was here, hands freezing to his gun, facing a car that could suddenly come to life and kill him. Or the policeman with a gun in a warmer hand inside the car, who could probably shoot better than Sasha could even with warm hands, might decide to come out shooting.
There was no knowing how long the standoff would have lasted or what the result would have been had Magda Stern not made the next and decisive move. Valentin was looking ahead, thinking about what would become of his wife and child regardless of what happened and gradually coming to the horrible conclusion that he would have to kill not only the woman at his side but the two police officers as well.
Valentin felt his hand pushed forward and a terrible pain as Magda bit him, bit him hard and deep enough to draw blood. Valentin fired, but the bullet thudded into the passenger-side door. Magda opened the door and jumped out, kicking it closed behind her and rolling away into the street.
Elena and Sasha moved instantly out of the direct path of the car and fired almost at the same time. And at the same time they realized that it was difficult to shoot straight with frozen fingers and that the car window in front of them was, indeed, bulletproof. They kept firing, knowing that even a bulletproof window was, in truth, only bullet resistant. The question was, how resistant was this window?
The window cracked, forming a beautiful spider web design. Magda Stern was on her feet now, running toward the doorway of the Moscow Television News offices.
The firing stopped. Elena and Sasha were almost out of bullets, and they had not penetrated the window. But what they had accomplished was to make it impossible to see out of the window. Suddenly the driver’s side door opened.
Elena and Sasha went to the ground on their stomachs, aiming toward the open door. Lieutenant Valentin Spaskov put out his left hand and Sasha shouted, “Come out slowly. Hands high. You know what to do.”
Valentin obeyed. In his bloody right hand he still held a gun. He stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“Now,” said Elena, “drop the gun.”
Blood was dripping in the snow. Spaskov hesitated, fathered the whisper of a sigh, and said, “Tell my wife I am sorry. Tell her I love her. Tell her I couldn’t help myself. Tell her I would like her to try to understand and to raise our child without telling her what her father did.”
“Drop the gun,” Elena repeated.
It seemed for an instant that he was about to drop his weapon. Instead he quickly put the barrel of the weapon to his ear and fired. Sasha closed his eyes. Elena watched in horror.
The body of Valentin Spaskov crumpled to the sidewalk.
Sasha and Elena got up, brushing snow from their coats, and approached the body. There was no doubt that he was dead. The blood and lack of motion told them that. But beyond what they saw, they could feel death before them.
Even so, Sasha kept his gun pointed at the body of Valentin Spaskov while Elena tucked her gun into the holster in her pocket and reached down to feel for a pulse she knew would not be there.
Yevgeny had insisted on sitting in the backseat of Georgi’s heap of a car with his automatic rifle across his lap. There wasn’t much room for him back there because the springs came through on one side of the seat, leaving little space for a passenger. Usually Leonid sat in the back, but Yevgeny had insisted, making Georgi and Leonid decidedly uncomfortable.
“It’s dark,” Georgi said, looking across at the old church that the Jews had converted to a temple. “There’s no one there.”
“Five more minutes,” said Yevgeny. “Eleven o’clock. I want to get started as badly as you do. We said eleven. We wait till eleven.”
“We wait till eleven,” Georgi said with a shrug.
“You have all the tools?” asked Yevgeny.
“You asked me that,” said Georgi.
“I’m asking again,” said Yevgeny.
“All the tools. In the trunk,” said Georgi.
“It’s eleven,” said Georgi. “Let’s go.”
“Yes,” said Leonid, trying not to sound nervous and failing. “Let’s go.”
In answer, Yevgeny got out of the car, holding his gun low in one hand, pointed toward the ground. The door squeaked as he pushed it shut and waited for Georgi and Leonid to get out.
Yevgeny stood, as the wind blew and the snow danced, facing his two partners while Georgi opened the trunk as quietly as he could and handed Leonid some tools. Georgi himself hoisted a tarnished black crowbar over his shoulder and closed the trunk.
“In back. No talking till we’re inside,” Yevgeny whispered.
Georgi led the way with Leonid almost at his side and Yevgeny several steps back. The street was, as they had all expected, quiet. It wasn’t a residential neighborhood, mostly a row of old brick three-and four-story buildings housing offices and businesses.
The snow was thick behind the building. No one had been there for weeks. Yevgeny had anticipated this and worn his boots. Georgi always wore boots. Only Leonid was in shoes and found his socks and the cuffs of his pants growing moist and cold.
There was only a dim light from a street lamp nearly a half block away, but they could see well enough to make it to the rear window. Georgi propped his crowbar against the wall and reached for the window. He tried to simply push it open, but it didn’t budge. He reached for the crowbar and wedged it under the bottom of the window. The wood was old but frozen. He had to move the bar back and forth four or five times to get it in. When it was firmly in place, Georgi began to pull the bar down slowly. The window creaked, resisted, and then began to move upward as Georgi pulled down. Ice in the corners of the window crackled, and the lock snapped much louder than any of them had expected.
They stopped for a moment and looked around. Nothing.
The window was open. Georgi placed the crowbar so that it would keep the window from falling closed as they climbed in. Georgi went first, then Leonid and finally Yevgeny, entering the most awkwardly of all because he
