“Now,” he said, “we wait till we catch her in the act or right after she attacks her next victim or the one after that or the one …”
He shrugged and picked up the briefcase, clicking it open so he could drop the report into it. “You know, according to Pankov, Form four five three four is supposed to be done with five printed copies and a computer-disk copy.”
“Fascinating,” she said. “Let us go.”
Inna Dalipovna saw the man and woman talking. At first it looked as if they were strangers, but the conversation kept going and for some reason the man had put away the papers he was reading.
Inna moved forward. She could see the woman’s face now from an angle.
The need surged through her, but it was different this time. The betrayal was before her eyes. She would have her moment. She would prove her love and hate. She would make him suffer. Eventually he would repent, look at her as if she were a worthwhile human being and not a pitiful overgrown child-servant. Perhaps that moment would be now.
She felt the knife in the lefthand pocket of her coat. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the handle. Her throbbing, tightly wrapped right hand was tucked in her right pocket.
Inna was close now. The two did not seem to notice her any more than the others had noticed her. Her father, Viktor, never noticed her. She had to use her knife to get his attention, to show her love and hate.
She wanted to scream but knew she was too timid.
“Father,” she wanted to shout, “look at me. Listen to me. Help me live. Help me be a person.”
It was Iosef who saw her first. She was not a particularly interesting figure-plain, cloth coat, pale face-but there was a determination in her eyes that made him feel that she might be the one. The sighting and the realization came in a fraction of a moment. The woman had only been truly visible to him when she was four or five feet away.
The knife came out. Elena’s back was turned. Iosef pushed Elena to the side and lifted the briefcase to ward off the blow he knew was coming. He was ready but not for what took place.
The woman came in a quick rush and thrust the long blade into the shoulder of Elena Timofeyeva.
Inna Dalipovna raised her hand to strike again, but Iosef reached out and grabbed her wrist. The woman tried to wrench free. She was remarkably strong, but she had only the one arm to use. Iosef brought the briefcase down hard on the woman’s left wrist.
Inna whimpered and tried to hold on to the knife. She looked down at Elena, who had slumped to the platform.
Iosef wrenched the knife from Inna’s hand and turned her around, pulling a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. The crowd was beginning to gather.
“What is happening?” asked a man.
“Cops,” said a woman. “Beating up a gypsy beggar.”
“Good,” came an old woman’s voice. “Good. The gypsies should all be sent to Roumania.”
“One of the gypsies is hurt,” said a young woman. “Look.”
“Elena,” Iosef said, holding on to the handcuffed hands of Inna Dalipovna.
“I am not hurt badly,” she said. “I do not think …”
She started to get up and found herself on her knees, looking down at the blood dripping onto the platform from her wound. She did not want to be seen like this, on her knees, about to pass out, pathetic. If there was one thing she wanted never to be, it was pathetic.
She looked up at the woman Iosef was holding, the woman who had attacked her, called her “Mother.” She looked up at the face of the woman and sensed that she was feeling the same thing, the same desire to be viewed as something other than pathetic.
After five hours of working with the small piece of metal he had pried off the handle of his chamber pot, Misha Lovski got the door to his cage open at precisely two minutes after nine in the morning. He had no way of knowing that. For him it could have been night or day. In spite of the constant sound-the speakers were now blaring his own song, “Guts in the Snow”-and ever-burning light, he was fairly certain that his jailer, his keeper, would not be coming back for some time, perhaps hours. It was difficult to be sure, but he felt that he did have time.
He pushed the cage door open slowly, listening for an alarm that would give away his escape. He heard nothing, but that proved nothing. The alarm might be two rooms or miles away. The alarm might be a silent flashing light.
Misha the Naked Cossack would write a song about his experience. It would be true. He would tell his audiences that it had happened to him. He would make them believe. They would shout, faces red in praise at his triumph. The song, which he had already been writing in his head, would be called “Cossack in a Cage.”
He recited lines softly, ignoring his own voice, his own music being piped in around him. He tiptoed in his bare feet in the direction of the door, carrying the heaviest pot, the one they gave him to use as a toilet. It was empty. His mind was full.
“Prisoner in the light,” he said, reaching for the wall to his right. “Looking for a night. Searching for the dark. Cursing at electric sun. Weapon in my hand. I should have saved the shit I made to throw right in their face. Fuck the human race.”
He inched his way along slowly.
“Face them in sun,” he whispered. “Have a little fun. Put them in the cage. Misfits in a rage. They tried to stop the Cossack, tried to make him weep, tried to make him go insane, tried to hide the truth, now they are in the booth. Strip them of their clothes. Let them hold their nose when you give them neither pot nor food, water nor repose. Play ninety decibels high. Beat out their eardrums. Watch out, Jews and Gypsies, here the Cossack comes.”
He was next to the door now. He could easily reach out and grab the knob with his left hand. Instead he simply stood. In his right he held the pot tightly. He stepped back behind the door, waiting. He could wait forever. The Naked Cossack could wait forever. And then the lights would go out and the music stop and his jailer would enter and the Cossack would strike and strike and strike. Let him die. He wanted the jailer. It was the warden he wanted more. He would find a better weapon, a more deadly weapon, and then he would kill the warden, for he knew without doubt who the warden was.
“Find the warden in his den,” he recited. “Drag his writhing carcass to the pen. Russias come and Russias go. Friends to no one. Cossack foes. What will happen no one knows, but the Cossack will survive. The Cossack like others who passed before will be there to settle the ancient score.”
He heard something. Outside the door. Soft under the music. He lifted the pot high. Lights went out. Music died. And the door slowly opened.
The name of the wounded gunman was Raoul Bronborg, a Swedish citizen. Karpo had the printout from Interpol on the desk before him along with Bronborg’s fingerprints, which had led to the message from Interpol.
Bronborg was thirty-six years old, a mercenary who had worked as a private bodyguard in Brazil, Norway, France, and Bahrain. He spoke many languages and had many names, including Antonio Barleon, Sven Istermann, and Stephan Pomier. His current name was unknown and he had given Karpo none before he went into surgery and when he emerged after it.
Bronborg answered no questions. He met Karpo’s eyes and spoke, but answered no questions. He had been given, at his own insistence, only a local anesthetic. It was clear that he wanted no drug or medication to interfere with his thoughts. Pain was preferable. Karpo understood.
“I will answer no questions,” he said in nearly perfect Russian.
“Then,” said Karpo, “I shall ask you none. I will tell you that we know who you are.”
“Interpol?”
“Yes,” said Karpo. “Interpol. You are not wanted anywhere.”
“I know,” said the man in the hospital bed.
He was the embodiment of a mercenary or bodyguard, powerful arms and chest, a determined, hard dark face of no particular ethnic distinction. He had a white scar high on his forehead, and up close Karpo could see that the man had lost just a small piece of the tip of his left earlobe.
