instrument and held it up to the light. The object was small-tiny actually-a piece of metal with a determined clot of blood clinging to it.
He dropped the bit of metal into a kidney-shaped porcelain receptacle.
“What is it?” asked the Canadian. “It was in me. I have a right to know.”
“He does not know yet what it is,” said the old Russian.
“Let us know when you find out,” said the Canadian.
“I will,” Paulinin promised, “but before I examine it, I must probe the surfaces and recesses of your bodies for more treasures.”
“We will not stop you,” said the old man.
“I am certain you will not,” said Paulinin, turning his attention and gleaming instruments on the old man.
“It is good to have a spotter who knows what he is doing,” said Viktor Panin.
He was lying on his back on the bench in the well-equipped weight room. His hands were heavily chalked. Over his blue sweatshorts and a matching cutoff shirt that revealed his taut, full muscles, Viktor wore a leather harness pulled tightly to guard against hernia.
Rostnikov, wearing a full long-sleeved gray sweatsuit, stood at the head of the bench. The bar, with massive black disks weighing more than four hundred pounds, rested in the cradle of the matching upright thick round steel bars that straddled the bench. It was unlikely that Rostnikov, even with a rush of adrenaline, could hold the weight should Panin begin to falter, an eventuality that was quite unlikely.
“A spotter one can count on,” said Panin, “gives one confidence.”
Panin was looking up at the bar, gauging it, his strength, and his resolve, not seeing Porfiry Petrovich beyond that bar.
He placed both palms against the bar and worked his fingers around it. Rostnikov understood the meditative moment, the merging of hands, fingers, arms, body, mind, and the weight of iron-solid iron.
Viktor Panin closed his eyes, clearing his mind, took a deep breath, held it, and pushed upward, lifting the bar from the cradle and slowly bringing the crushing weight down toward his body. He stopped just short of his chest and exhaled. Then he lifted again, his arms steady, locking over his head.
Rostnikov had not seen anything quite like this before, though he had experienced something like the much younger man was feeling. It was a universal experience that Porfiry Petrovich was certain all who reached a certain level of truly heavy weights must feel.
Instead of resting the bar back on the cradles, Viktor Panin took another deep breath and brought the bar to his chest once more, still without a quiver in his arms. Then he slowly pushed the bar back to a locked arm position, exhaled, and placed the bar on the cradles.
“I’ve never done two repetitions with this much weight before,” Panin said between short breaths, sitting upon the bench. “Your understanding inspires me, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. Your turn now. I’ll change the weights.”
Viktor Panin got off the bench.
Rostnikov chalked his hands, beginning his necessary ritual of appeasing and praising his plastic and metal leg as he laid back on the bench.
“How much weight?” Viktor asked, moving to the bar.
“I think I will try this weight.”
Viktor touched Porfiry Petrovich’s arm.
“Good,” the young man said.
“You have inspired me,” said Rostnikov.
“Trust me.”
“I will,” said Rostnikov.
This the detective said knowing that Viktor could slip at a crucial moment, letting the four hundred pounds of steel drop, crushing Porfiry Petrovich’s chest.
This the detective said knowing that he was putting his trust in a man who was still, in spite of an alibi for one of the two murders, a distinct suspect as diamond thief, smuggler, murderer, and keeper of the secret of the ghost girl.
Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, Chief Inspector in the Moscow Police Office of Special Investigations, had seen far stronger alibis crumble to dust.
Viktor Panin looked down at him, a smile of encouragement and confidence on the perspiring face of the younger man.
“When you are ready, Porfiry Petrovich.”
Rostnikov closed his eyes and imagined the fleeting voice of Dinah Washington singing the first words of “What A Difference A Day Makes.”
There were two days remaining until the Yak’s deadline and the possible end of the Office of Special Investigations.
Chapter Fifteen
Six-year-old Pulcharia Tkach stood next to the sofa holding her four-year-old brother’s hand. They were dressed in their school clothes, she in a blue blouse and skirt and knee-length white socks, he in a brown shirt and trousers that were slipping. Maya stood behind them protectively. The scene looked posed. It was posed.
Sasha was immediately depressed. He smiled as broadly and sincerely as he could and stepped forward to embrace his children.
Pulcharia looked up at her mother to be sure it was all right to hug her father. Maya smiled. Pulcharia let go of her brother’s hand and rushed into the arms of Sasha, who bent to take her in. He could instantly feel the rapid beating of her heart against his chest, and, at least for an instant, his depression was replaced by a deep, painful sadness.
“Who is he?” asked Sasha’s son, looking up at his mother.
“Your father,” Maya said.
“I have a bug bite on my leg,” Pulcharia said, still hugging.
“Where?” asked Sasha, reluctantly putting her down so she could show him.
He looked at her as she rolled down the sock on her left leg. She looked painfully like her mother.
“Here.”
She pointed at a red bump.
“It itches,” she said.
“Who?” the little boy insisted, now pulling at his mother’s skirt.
“Your father,” Maya repeated patiently.
“Oh. What does a father do?”
“What have you put on it?” Sasha asked his daughter.
“Mother put something on it that Erik gave her,” said Pulcharia.
The Swede. Sasha could not stop himself from looking at his wife. Did her lips tighten? Yes.
“Erik is a sweet dish,” said the boy, turning in a circle.
“Swedish,” Pulcharia corrected.
“Your father cannot stay,” said Maya. “He has to work, and you must go to school.”
“School is cruel,” the little boy said, continuing to turn. “I have a new name.”
“What is that?” asked Sasha.
“Taras. Taras. Taras.”
The boy spun around madly.
“It is a Ukrainian name,” Maya said. “He will get over it.”
“He need not on my account,” said Sasha.
