kept his finger on the trigger of his weapon and his thigh still hurt from where the rabbi had kicked him.
Yevgeny’s shoes touched something only about two feet inside below the window. He had heard a metallic sound when the other two had climbed in, and now he caused the same noise.
Georgi reached toward Yevgeny in the almost nonexistent light. Yevgeny stumbled to his left out of the bigger man’s reach and tumbled onto his back. He rolled quickly and leveled his weapon at Georgi, who removed the crowbar from the window with one hand and brought the window down slowly and quietly with the other.
Yevgeny pulled his small flashlight from his pocket and shined it on the faces of his two partners. If there had been any doubt before, now there was none. This was a partnership that would end in hell. Yevgeny lowered his weapon.
Both Georgi and Leonid turned on their flashlights, bending low. There was a small platform with a podium. Behind the podium was a cabinet. On either side of the cabinet were framed documents written, Yevgeny was sure, in Hebrew. In front of the podium was the expanse of the floor. Folding chairs were piled in one corner of the room.
“They made it easy for us,” Georgi whispered, continuing to move his beam around the room. The entrance to the temple was to his right. He knew there was a small alcove there with a tiny office big enough for a table and chair.
All three men could now see the aluminum tubing that they had stepped on. The tubing ran around the room, connecting to four stoves with pipes that went out through the ceiling. The stoves were cold and so, too, was the room.
Yevgeny cradled his weapon and moved to the center of the room, shining his light across the floor, getting his bearings.
“We start in each corner and take five steps toward the center of the room,” Yevgeny said.
This was the first the other two had heard of such a plan. Either Yevgeny had a plan that they could not fathom or he had information that he had not shared with them. In fact, Yevgeny had taken Igor’s letter and discovered that Igor had not told them the precise location inside the old church, but that didn’t matter now.
“We move quietly. We work as quietly as we can. The boards should come up easily, and it should be buried no more than a foot deep. The ground will be frozen. We have no time to waste.”
The plan meant that one corner was not covered, but the odds were three to one in their favor, and if they were wrong, all three could work from the last corner. They had time if they worked quickly and hard.
Yevgeny had no hope of putting the dirt and floorboards back before they fled. Instead he planned to push over the cabinet and podium and, if they could do so quietly enough, pull at least one of the stoves from the wall and tip it over. The goal was to make this look like a desecration tied in to the killings. He had even had the foresight to bring a small can of black spray paint so he could leave a few crude swastikas on the walls. The can bulged in his jacket pocket.
Yevgeny took a long iron bar from Leonid, who backed away from him. Then they all retreated to separate corners and began to pace off toward the center of the room. They placed their small flashlights on the floor, the beams crossing one another. Yevgeny put his weapon on the floor at his side, where he could reach it quickly. The men were now separated by about ten feet.
Yevgeny reached down to find a space between the boards at his feet into which he could insert the steel bar. His fingers touched the wood beneath him and he pulled at it hard. The board came up easily, suddenly hitting him across the cheek.
He dropped the board and went to one knee for his weapon. In the light that shone up from the floor, the faces of Leonid and Georgi looked ghostly pale, sunken holes for eyes, dark, upward shadows in skeleton grins.
Each of them had found the same thing. The boards beneath them had simply come up with a slight pull. It was Georgi who picked up his flashlight first and shined it at the ground under the board he had placed at his side.
“Someone’s been here,” Georgi said. “Someone’s been digging here.”
“And here,” said Leonid.
Yevgeny turned his light downward and said nothing. The other two were right.
“How did you know where to start digging, five paces from the corner?” asked Georgi, hoisting his crowbar like a baseball bat.
“Igor had a letter,” said Yevgeny, trying to think.
“One of us came here and got it,” said Georgi.
“Yes,” said Yevgeny as Georgi stepped forward and Leonid stepped back.
“No,” came a new voice.
The three men threw the beams of their lights across the walls and into the corners and then toward the alcove as overhead ceiling lights came on and two men stepped into view. One was the rabbi who had beaten them in the street. The other was the policeman, the Washtub, Rostnikov, holding something in his arms. Whatever it was, was covered by a white cloth.
“This is what you are looking for,” said Rostnikov, pulling the cloth away to reveal a tarnished stone- encrusted figure of a dog or wolf. Even after a century under the earth, the creature was magnificent. “When it is expertly cleaned and restored, it will go to either the Hermitage, from which it was stolen, or to the Kremlin Museum. You have murdered for nothing. You do not even have the excuse of murdering for hatred, simply greed.”
“Put it down and back away,” said Yevgeny, aiming his weapon at the two men.
Rostnikov didn’t move.
“How many are outside waiting?” Yevgeny asked.
“None,” said Rostnikov.
“Leonid,” said Yevgeny.
Leonid went to the window and looked out cautiously, half expecting a bullet through his forehead. He rushed across the room and did the same on the street side.
“I don’t see anyone,” Leonid said.
“You can’t be that stupid,” said Yevgeny.
“Thank you,” said Rostnikov, still holding the golden wolf.
“Georgi,” Yevgeny said, “when I shoot, you take the wolf. Leave the tools here. We go through the front door. Leonid, you turn off the lights and close the door.”
There was nothing more to say. Yevgeny pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He pulled again. Nothing.
“We found the gun while you were at work this morning,” said Rostnikov. “Behind a panel in the ceiling of the bathroom down the hall from your room. We disarmed it.”
“You knew before you came to the laundry,” said Yevgeny.
Rostnikov shrugged.
“You wanted to catch us here,” Yevgeny went on.
Belinsky could take no more. He strode across the floor, pushed Yevgeny’s gun to the side, and slapped the young man with the back of his right hand. Yevgeny’s head spun to the side. A tooth spat from his open mouth. The young man staggered back, dropping his gun, stunned, mouth bloody. The rabbi slapped him five more times and said, “One for each of the men you murdered.”
“I don’t think we’ll need guns, will we?” asked Rostnikov.
Georgi took another step forward past the rabbi, hoisting his crowbar high. Once past the smaller man he advanced on Rostnikov, who still held the wolf and blocked the doorway.
“Give it to me or I’ll break your head,” Georgi threatened.
“That will be a problem,” said Rostnikov. “I don’t think you can hold it in one arm. It is quite heavy and if you use both arms, you will have to put the crowbar down. It is a dilemma.”
Yevgeny was on the floor, using his sleeve in an effort to stop the blood from his nose and mouth. Leonid had backed against the wall and sagged to a sitting position on the aluminum tunnel.
“Now,” demanded Georgi. “Leonid, come.”
Leonid paid no attention.
When Georgi, crowbar upraised, stood directly before Rostnikov, the inspector dropped the wolf. It landed
