Iosef and Zelach watched as men flung their arms out, casting clattering weapons in the street. There was a pause, and then more firing. Neither side had moved forward or sought cover. Then James Harambuki’s voice called out hoarsely as he pointed at Vladimir Kolokov,
“Do not kill him.”
Two of the Russians behind Kolokov lay dead in the street. The bald man was also dead, but he sat with his back against the wall of a building. His eyes were open and he seemed to be smiling. Kolokov knelt, his right arm torn, bloody, nearly severed. He was blinking furiously.
James Harumbaki took a gun from the hand of Laurence and stepped in front of Kolokov, who spit blood and with his remaining good arm fumbled for a cigarette in his shirt pocket. He could not manage it, gave up, and looked at James Harumbaki, who looked down at him.
“I came very close,” said Kolokov.
“No, you did not,” said James Harumbaki. “Those are not real diamonds. I have a question. Answer, and you live if help comes to you in time.”
“Ask,” said Kolokov.
“Who told you that we had diamonds? Who told you where to find us when you took me and the two others you tortured and killed? Lie and you die. Tell the truth and you live.”
Kolokov started an instinctive shrug but the pain was unbearable.
He was now surrounded by black faces looking down at him.
“A woman,” Kolokov said. “I never met her. I think she was English. She called me, told me where you would be, that you would have diamonds, money.”
“Where do I find this English woman?” asked James.
Kolokov shook his head.
“I do not know. I do not know her name.”
The woman, whoever she was, had wanted to disrupt James Harumbaki’s link in the chain from Siberia to Kiev, had wanted to destroy his operation and have him and his men killed. English. Gerald St. James was English, but why would he want to destroy his own operation?
“I believe you,” said James Harumbaki, looking over his shoulder with his one, partially functioning eye.
Two Africans lay dead. A third was being tended to by Biko and another man.
James Harumbaki turned back to the kneeling Russian, who smiled through his pain and said, “We had some good chess matches.”
“No, we did not,” said James Harumbaki. “You may well be the worst chess player it has been my very bad fortune to face across a board.”
And with that he held the gun up and put it to the head of Kolokov.
“You said you would not kill me.”
“I am not,” said James Harumbaki. “You are being killed by the ghosts of two good men who you tortured to death three days ago.”
There were sirens now. Both directions. The police were coming.
“Three days? Was it only three days?” Kolokov asked as the bullet tore into his forehead.
Oxana Balakona could wait no longer. She was to meet Rochelle Tanquay at the airport in three hours. Jan had stalled but she was going to his apartment to demand the diamonds. It was time. If she were going to hide and transport and trade them in Paris, she would have to have them now.
She took a taxi to his apartment. She also took a very small, flat, well polished gun in her purse. She had bought the gun for too much money from a man named Oleg, from whom she had purchased cocaine in the past.
If Jan stalled, balked, or backed out, Oxana was prepared to kill him. If she did not kill him today, she would have to at some point soon. She felt reasonably sure that she could fire the gun. She had never fired one before, certainly never killed anyone, but the diamonds were in the apartment, and the apartment was not large. She would have two hours to search for the diamonds before she had to get to the airport, where she had checked her bags the previous night.
This would be a successful day. She would make it a successful day.
The elevator in Jan Pendowski’s apartment building was working. It did not always work. Oxana took this as a good sign. She went up to the fifth floor along with a very tiny, grunting woman clutching a large stuffed cloth shopping bag to her chest.
At the door to Jan’s apartment she paused. She could not identify with certainty the sounds from within. A groan of pleasure, pain? Sex? With whom?
Oxana unzipped her small purse, looked down at her gun, and knocked.
“The woman in the photograph you took at the cafe,” said Sasha. “I know who it is.”
Elena had been following Oxana who had just gotten out of the taxi in front of the apartment building of Jan Pendowski when Sasha called on her cell phone.
“Rochelle Tanquay,” said Elena, getting out of the taxi that she had taken to follow Oxana.
“Balta,” said Sasha.
“Balta? Who is Balta?”
“A female impersonator,” said Sasha. “A very good one.”
“You go to see female impersonators?”
“Once,” he said. “I went one time. Is that really relevant?”
“What is she. . he doing here?” And then she answered her own question. “Diamonds.”
“Diamonds,” said Sasha.
“I will call you back,” Elena said.
“Where are you?”
“The apartment building of Jan Pendowski. Oxana just went in.”
“Wait. I am coming. I am not far.”
Elena closed her phone and entered the building. She had no intention of waiting for a partner who cheated on his wife and went to see female impersonators.
“The tunnels have not been properly maintained,” said Boris. “Not for thirty, forty years.”
“I take no delight in hearing that,” said Rostnikov, following the old man through the steel mesh gate that guarded the mine opening.
Emil Karpo watched as Boris closed and locked the gate behind them.
It was dark now. All three men wore yellow hard hats with mounted lights.
“You can turn your lights on now,” Boris said.
Karpo and Porfiry Petrovich reached up and hit the switch on the hard hats that Boris had given them.
“The map in my head is better than Stepan Orlov’s or that crazy old fool with the guns who thinks the Japanese are coming.”
“This time we will use Orlov’s map,” said Rostnikov, walking carefully toward an open-topped golf cart that sat in the middle of the wide tunnel. “Next time we will use yours.”
“Next time,” said Boris with a shake of his head. “I do not trust next times. You drive.”
He was looking at Emil Karpo who obliged and got into the driver’s seat. Boris got in next to him and Porfiry Petrovich sat in the back.
“Straight ahead,” said Boris. “I will tell you when to stop. Lights on.”
Karpo found the switch and turned on the single headlight, which, along with the lights from their helmet lamps, sent dancing beams ahead of them into the darkness. They started forward. Small green lights lined the ceiling of the shaft about four feet over their heads.
It was almost one in the morning, and the slow dance of head lamps and glowing green overhead lights made Rostnikov slightly sleepy. His eyes were closed when, a bit over two minutes later, Boris announced, “Here.”
