“You are sure?” asked Laurence.
“I talked to him. He pretends. He speaks of pipes and carats but his words betray him. The Russian is a thug. Besides, we have no choice. We have no cash. We have no diamonds. I cannot reach Balta. I went to the club. He has not returned. He has missed shows for three nights. He is not bringing back our money or the diamonds.”
“Then we find and kill him,” said Biko. “We go to Kiev and kill him.”
“We will, but we have no time now,” said Patrice. “We need to rescue James Harumbaki.”
“Balta will not be easy to kill,” said Laurence, adjusting his glasses.
“Everyone is easy to kill,” said Biko.
Patrice shoved the pad of paper upon which he had been pretending to make notes into his pocket and stood.
They headed for the door, Laurence in the lead. He stepped quickly onto the darkened landing on the third floor of the building. They were greeted by the pungent smell of curry, which Biko found mildly displeasing.
The stairway was narrow, barely wide enough for two people. Patrice led the way down followed by Laurence and Biko. Twenty-six steps from the ground level alcove, amid the odors of curry and the sound of distinctly Indian music, the front door below them opened.
The three men stopped. They were looking down at the two men who had confronted them in the cafe.
Fortunately for Iosef and Zelach, they were a little more prepared than the Africans. The policemen had entered the building knowing that they might well find themselves in another gun battle. The Africans, on the other hand, while always somewhat alert, were not prepared for the sight of the two policemen.
Five men reached for handguns. Iosef fired first. Zelach fired at the same instant as Laurence. Biko and Laurence were at a disadvantage. Patrice stood between them and the two men below, who were now firing up at them.
There was a door on each side of the alcove. Iosef threw himself against the one on the right, which cracked on brittle hinges, sending the detective tumbling into a darkened room. There were two more shots as Iosef righted himself and moved to the open doorway. Then, the sounds of footsteps on the stairs. Something thudding, tumbling down. And there sat Zelach, as if he were a soldier taking a break after a long march, his weapon in his lap.
Iosef decided. He stepped into the alcove and turned his weapon upward. As he did, the body of Patrice took a tumble down the final three steps, almost knocking Iosef over. There was no one else on the steps. Biko and Laurence had retreated upward. Iosef kicked the fallen man’s weapon across the floor.
“Zelach,” Iosef called, aiming his weapon first at the fallen Botswanan and then up the stairs to the darkened landing.
“Yes,” said Zelach. “I slipped. I’m not hurt.”
At times, thought Iosef fleetingly, it is not a disadvantage to be a clumsy slouch.
“The stairs,” said Iosef.
The music had stopped, but no doors opened.
“Yes,” said Zelach, who got awkwardly to his knees and took two-handed aim up the stairs. “Is he dead?”
Iosef had leaned over the fallen Patrice, looked into his eyes, and gently felt for a pulse in the man’s neck that he was unlikely to find, given the round, bleeding hole of darkness just under the fallen man’s right eye.
“He is dead.”
Unless they had barricaded themselves inside Apartment 4, where Maxim the Watchman had told them the men could be found, the Africans were gone. The question was: Where were they going?
Iosef went through the pockets of the dead man. There was a wallet with sixteen hundred euros and photographs of the dead man with an old woman and another man about the age of the dead man, whose name, Iosef now saw, was Patrice Dannay. Iosef turned the photograph over and found the people in it identified: Patrice-the dead man-Mother, and James Harumbaki, the man Iosef had seen running down the street, bleeding a trail of red.
Apartment 4 was unlocked, the door wide open. The fleeing men had paused or entered. Iosef motioned Zelach to one side of the door, just to be sure, and then he stepped inside.
The room was barracks bare, reminding him not only of the years he had spent in Afghanistan, but of the small neighborhood holding prisons of the Moscow Police.
There were six cots with a single pillow on each. All the cots were neatly made and covered with khaki blankets.
“There were only two who ran,” said Zelach.
“I think,” said Iosef, “the two who were here are now reclining in Paulinin’s laboratory. One is dead at the foot of the stairs, and another. . is unaccounted for.”
There was only the one room. It was large enough if it had only been occupied by two people, but six had lived here with only the cots and a battered wooden dining room table with six white, one-piece plastic chairs.
Iosef holstered his weapon and went to the table, on which two items sat. Zelach in turn went to each of the beds, looking under them, pulling out small treasure after small treasure-a canvas army duffel bag, plastic carry- ons, and weapons, some automatic and others not so, but just as deadly.
Iosef was attracted by the box on the table. It was dark, leather, small, and open. It was lined in dark velvet, and someone had hurriedly grabbed the contents and torn the lining from the corner. Iosef pushed the lining over and reached down to pluck something from the box.
He placed the item on the table and next to it placed a sheet of paper on which someone had made a drawing of rectangular objects lined up.
“What do you make of this?” asked Iosef.
Zelach stopped his search and shambled to the table where Iosef pointed to the small rock. Zelach looked at the rock, picked it up, and looked some more.
“A diamond?” asked Iosef.
“No,” said Zelach, “quartz.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes,” said Zelach.
“What is it worth?”
“Maybe a few rubles,” said Zelach.
“Does it look like a diamond?”
“You asked if it was a diamond.”
“Which means,” said Iosef, “I would not know a diamond from a quartz.”
“This means something?” asked Zelach.
“Maybe. Look at this.”
Iosef pointed to the sheet of paper on the table on which were three penciled drawings, all quite well done. In the lower left was a drawing of a woman who looked somewhat like a rough version of the woman in the photograph Iosef had taken from Patrice Dannay’s wallet. On the lower right was the name “James,” printed in neat blocks on the six rungs of a ladder. And in the center of the page was a series of rectangular boxes, lined up head-to-head and extending into the distance.
“What do you make of that?” asked Iosef.
Zelach looked down at the sheet, pushed out his lower lip and said, “It’s the War Memorial.”
Iosef was about to say no, he could not possibly conclude that from this minimal sketch, but he knew better and said, “The War Memorial?”
“Yes. Each grave has dirt in it from each of the countries that fought on our side against the Nazis.”
This Iosef already knew, but Zelach clearly enjoyed presenting the information.
“What do we do now?” asked Zelach.
“We call Porfiry Petrovich,” said Iosef.
