“He didn’t even stop once to piss. The man must have a bladder as big as the giant Tunguska meteor hole near Podkamennaya. I do not know if he killed the Canadian, but he definitely did not kill poor Lebedev. We are having
It was Porfiry Petrovich’s turn to smile.
“I shall arrive with a suitable appetite.”
“Igor Sturnicki, one of the two engineers on your list, was in Barnaul visiting relatives. The other engineer, Mikhail Kline, was in the hospital with a broken leg.”
“Could he walk on the leg?”
“It was and is in a cast from hip to ankle. It would be difficult to hobble to and into the mine to hide and commit a murder.”
“You are sure the leg is broken?”
“A mine truck tipped on it. He will walk with a limp when he does walk again, which may not be for a long time.”
“That leaves the rest of the council members,” said Porfiry Petrovich.
“Yes. As you see, there are three more, our Chairman Yevgeniy Zuyev. .”
Rostnikov remembered the thin, nervous man whose right eye seemed to wander while the left was fixed firmly on whatever object it was aimed toward.
“Magda Kaminskaya. .”
Who, Rostnikov recalled, was short and overweight, with a definite wheezing problem.
“And Stepan Orlov. .”
The image of a broad-shouldered man in need of a shave came to mind.
“Stepan, I’m afraid, is my candidate,” said Fyodor.
“Why?”
“By a process of elimination,” Fyodor said. “There is no one left to consider.”
“Why have I not spoken to Stepan Orlov?”
“Because he has locked himself in his laboratory and put up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.”
“He does this often?”
“I have known him to do it.”
“And what does he do in the laboratory?” asked Porfiry Petrovich.
“He is a microbiologist. He is supposed to be examining all evidence of insects, rats, and odd microbial-level life in the mines.”
“And what has he found?”
“Among other things a species of blind white rats that have survived for hundreds of years in total darkness. He is a decent enough man when he is on the trail of some living creature, but when he has nothing under the microscope or scalpel, he is a surly creature at best.”
“Anything else about him I should know before I knock at his laboratory door?”
“Only that he has enormously powerful arms and hands. We had an arm-wrestling competition last year. He finished second only to Viktor, and for a few moments it looked as if he might win.”
“So he is your choice?”
“Yes, but Yevgeniy Zuyev is still possible.”
“Orlov is your choice then?”
“Have you a better one?” Fyodor asked, wondering who he might have in mind.
Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov did, indeed, have another suspect who might be better, but could well be overlooked. Sometimes, he thought, a person who looked and talked like a murderer was actually a murderer.
“What time do you want to go into the mine?”
“After dinner would be fine,” said Porfiry Petrovich.
“Maybe we will encounter the ghost girl,” Fyodor said, shaking his head.
“That would be very satisfying.”
Fyodor reached over to take the orange peel from Porfiry Petrovich, who nodded his thanks. Rostnikov’s peel was torn into eight pieces. Fyodor had managed to do it with only two curled pieces.
“Shall we go see Stepan Orlov’s laboratory?”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov, starting to rise, his feet almost slipping on the crushed rocks.
Chapter Fourteen
Gerald St. James threw darts at the target across the room. The target was backed by a corkboard that covered almost half the wall to protect the paneling from the always-sharpened steel points. An open wooden box on his desk contained several dozen finely balanced darts, all neatly lined up.
Ellen Sten sat quietly in a firm red leather armchair near the floor-to-ceiling windows beyond which St. James could see the rooftop of DeBeers of London. She had flown in only hours before on St. James’s private Astra/Gulfstram SPX. Ellen had not slept in more than fifty hours but, thanks to an intentionally slight overdose of Provigil, she was now awake and attentive.
St. James calmly balanced a dart over his shoulder and, with a snap of the wrist, sent it noiselessly across the room and into the target. The target was his own design.
He was not interested in keeping score or hitting anything but the coin-sized black dot within a red circle the size of a baby’s face. One should not get points for coming close. One did not get points in life for coming close. Gerald St. James’s accuracy was uncanny.
Once, many years ago in Estonia, he had sat in a very damp cellar, wheezing and hiding from people who called themselves police. He had nothing to do but eat what was smuggled down to him by an old woman to whom he eventually had paid everything he owned.
In that cellar he had his knife. He kept it sharp against the jutting edges of the stone wall. For forty-one days he had thrown his knife, the knife with which he had killed the opium dealer who had tried to kill him.
That was long before he became Gerald St. James.
He had used the knife to kill the old woman. He took back the money he had given her and the bit more he found hidden in an empty grain jar in her kitchen.
Neither the boy he had been nor the man he had become ever showed anger or emotion of any kind, not that he did not feel them.
“So?” he asked, picking up another dart.
When he had exhausted his supply in the box, he would get up and retrieve the darts. He considered this the exercise his physician had prescribed for him.
“The Moscow policeman Rostnikov,” Ellen Sten said, “will discover our man in Devochka. He is capable. Our man has been careless.”
“He will not talk,” said St. James, hurling a fresh dart.
“You wish to take that chance?”
The chance was that their man would reveal how the diamonds were smuggled out of Devochka and turned over to the Botswanans in Moscow. There was no doubt now that the man who had contacted him, the Russian policeman named Yaklovev, knew about the operation, but he had no proof, no culprits to arrest and parade in court or use as chips to deal himself into a fortune. But the man had not indicated that he was interested in money. He wanted power. Others would not have believed the Russian, but St. James did. He understood. The Russian was a kindred seeker of power and approval. St. James did not intend to give him either.
Gerald St. James had carefully worked out the plan for the demise of his own network. It had outlived its usefulness and had become far too vulnerable. Devochka was only a small part of the St. James empire, a very vulnerable part. Devochka had become too elaborate. If and when it was re-established, he would see to it that it was far more simple. As it stood now, the diamonds were smuggled out of Devochka by the regularly scheduled
