Sherametyevo Airport at seven in the morning. Correct?”
“Yes, but …” Iosef began.
“Then there is nothing more to say,” Rostnikov said pleasantly. “I am busy getting ready. We can talk tomorrow.”
He hung up, knowing that his son had understood, that whatever he was going to say, and Rostnikov thought he knew what it was, would be best not spoken on the phone.
Rostnikov had been followed home from Petrovka. He had been followed, in fact, by the same man he had seen in the crowd at Lermontov’s house. The man had been carrying an umbrella. When he had come home, Rostnikov had looked out the window in the kitchen alcove. Another man, also with an umbrella, was standing across the street in the shadow of a doorway.
Sarah appeared at the door of the bedroom, a book in her hand. She was still dressed, but in one of her loose-fitting, comfortable dresses, the orange one with white flowers.
“Who called?” she asked.
“Iosef,” said Nina. “He says horses can fly.”
“But I would advise them not to do so,” said Rostnikov.
Sarah was still well built, red haired and beautiful, with pale unblemished skin. Since her brain surgery five years earlier, she had lost some of the weight it had taken her years to nurture, weight Rostnikov had loved. She had gained back her hair and taken on a knowing smile. Rostnikov once told her that she looked as if she had had a long talk with death and that he had told her that she had too much life in her for him, and so he sent her back to Moscow and her husband.
“I wanted to talk to him,” Sarah said.
“Nina, you know the number?” asked Rostnikov.
“Yes,” she said.
“It is my turn,” said Laura.
“No,” said Rostnikov, wiping his neck with his now sweat-drenched towel. “I remember precisely. On Tuesday, just after dinner, I asked you to call Sasha Tkach for me. You were sitting on the chair at the table doing homework. You were wearing your jeans and a blue T-shirt. Nina was sitting on the sofa, looking at the dinosaur book. She was wearing …”
“It is difficult living with a detective,” said Laura.
“Very,” Sarah confirmed with a smile. “But it has its rewards.”
Rostnikov smiled and moved back to his bench. Dinah Washington had not waited for him. She was selling more love.
Nina dialed.
Rostnikov reset the weights on the bar and wondered briefly if the first man with the umbrella had been the one who murdered Vladimir Kinotskin. He probably had.
The two men, both bachelors, both in their mid-thirties, stood in front of the bar in the town of Brevard, North Carolina, hoping for quite different encounters.
Both men were Russians. Both spoke passable but not fluent English. The move had come abruptly. They had been summoned to the office of their commander at Star City, where they had been assigned since returning to earth from their mission on
They were not celebrities, though their names were known within the space community. Their jobs were simply to keep up with their technology studies and training in preparation for their next mission.
When they had been summoned, the two men, Misha Sorokin and Ivan Pkhalaze, who had been kept apart since their return to earth, both wondered if this was the moment when the secret they held would end their careers if not their lives.
But the meeting had gone quickly and much to their satisfaction. They were being sent to the United States, immediately, to serve as liaisons with a space-study program at the University of North Carolina, a satellite program near a town called Brevard.
Misha and Ivan had been given a crash course in English and told that the assignment was open-ended. Its conclusion would be determined by consultation with the Americans. Both men were told to be cooperative. American support and money were needed for the construction of the new space station. No mention was made of the secret the men shared. Perhaps, both thought, it has been forgotten, put away, no longer meaningful.
They were, of course, quite wrong.
Within two weeks Misha and Ivan were sharing a house near a waterfall near the small town in North Carolina. Their input, services, and expertise were seldom drawn on by the quartet of three men and a woman who came occasionally to meet with them and even more infrequently to drive them to Asheville or even as far as Chapel Hill for discussions with professors and students.
Eventually, they had been assigned a 1995 Chevrolet Celebrity, white, with a blue cloth top.
It was in Brevard that night that they first discussed what they had not discussed before.
Misha, tall, with light-brown hair and looks that often resulted in his being compared to Liam Neeson, was acknowledged to be the leader of the duo, a degreed aeronautical engineer, a voracious reader, and a man who perhaps thought too much but kept most of what he thought to himself, his primary goal in life being to survive in safety and to continue to hide his homosexuality, a homosexuality he had not engaged in for the past six years since becoming a cosmonaut. Ivan knew nothing of his fellow cosmonaut’s sexual orientation. Misha was certain, however, that Mikhail Stoltz was very well aware of it. Soon after their return from space, Stoltz had a meeting with Misha in which he made it clear without really saying so that he knew. He also made it clear that secrets could be kept for those who could keep secrets. Misha had understood and agreed.
Ivan’s solid body and dark face suggested an intellectualism which was not there but which he had learned to feign. In contrast to his fellow cosmonaut, who was now his friend, Ivan’s sexual urges were decidedly heterosexual and open. Women, however, were in short supply where the two of them had been sent, and their lack of ease with the English language did not help his pursuits.
Coltan’s Bar just outside of Brevard had a reputation that had eventually made its way to the two Russians. The reputation was that people could be met there for friendly encounters, possibly free, possibly for money. Ivan and Misha had money, a more-than-adequate amount for their needs.
Both men hoped to make contact. Both men hoped that they could do so separately and move on with discretion.
The bar was crowded and since they were wearing American casual clothes no one seemed to pay attention to the men who made their way through the noise, past a few tables, and into a booth. Both men knew they were here for sex. Ivan did not know that Misha’s idea of what that might be was quite different from his own.
“I suggest we separate,” said Misha, scanning the room as a waitress made her way to their table and a woman’s voice, over, two badly balanced speakers, sang plaintively, “if you loved me half as much as I love you …”
“Name it,” said the heavyset woman with clear skin and a body that very much suited Ivan.
She wore no uniform, just a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt with an order pad and pencil in one pocket in case she needed it.
“Name? …” asked Ivan.
“What are you drinking, eating, buying?” she said, shifting her weight to her left foot.
“Beers,” Misha said.
“Germans?” she asked.
“Germans,” Misha said.
“My name’s Hoffer,” she said. “Helga Hoffer, German.”
“A pleasant coincidence,” said Ivan. “You are married?”
“I am not,” she said, turning her eyes from the handsome one to the intense dark one, who was cute in his own way.
“You accept invitations to drink from German customers?” Ivan said.
She smiled now. Her smile was good. Her body was better.
“We don’t get Germans in here,” she said, leaning over and showing her ample breasts as she lowered her voice. “No young, good-looking ones.”
“Then it might be possible to? …” Ivan asked.
