Grigorovich shook his head almost imperceptibly to make clear that he thought Karpo was making a grievous political error. The major was sure that Colonel Snitkonoy saw the sympathetic movement of his head.
Pankov had simply cringed.
“Major Grigorovich, your report on illegal arms in the city,” the colonel said, and he resumed his pacing beside the conference table.
Grigorovich opened his notebook and looked down at the sheets before him. Each sheet was neatly typed with oversize letters. The major wore his glasses infrequently and never in public.
“Our best estimate is that about fifty thousand black market weapons-semiautomatic guns, pistols, canisters that spray nerve gas, handguns that shoot gas jets-are being brought into Moscow every month for distribution not just to criminals but to honest citizens who believe the police are no longer able to protect them from the beggars, the drunks, and the Gypsies. It appears that one of the most popular weapons is the AK-47. Russia manufactured and distributed them throughout the world and now they are being sold back to our people at double the price for which they were purchased from us.”
Grigorovich looked up from his notes to see what effect his report was having. The colonel was at the window looking out. Pankov was looking at the colonel. The only one looking at Grigorovich was Emil Karpo.
Colonel Snitkonoy, who had access to more accurate and disturbing reports than the one that Grigorovich had just given, was aware that violent crime involving weapons had increased by 50 percent in the past year.
“The safeguards of socialism departed with the Soviet Union,” the colonel said, still looking out of the window. “Inflation and unemployment, though temporary, have driven many to poverty and crime. Too many people now feel that they must arm themselves. … Grigorovich.”
“A gas canister can be purchased by anyone at an Arbat kiosk for eight hundred rubles, five American dollars. Firearms can be had in most bars for three hundred American dollars. The weapons come from Poland, Germany, on trains from Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, across the borders from Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. The borders are a sieve.”
“Conclusion?” said the colonel.
“More men, women,” said Grigorovich. “The borders must be controlled, the laws against possession of weapons renewed. The-”
“Major,” the colonel interrupted, “it is too late. Freedom has brought us the blessing of destruction. We now have the right to commit suicide, and where a right exists there will be people who wish to exercise it. Source, Inspector Karpo?”
“I do not know.”
“Tolstoy,” said the Wolfhound triumphantly. “Major Grigorovich, the responsibilities of our small staff grow with each day. The successful accomplishment of our duty will best be accomplished if we choose our responsibilities with caution. There is no way, outside of a return to the Communist party, to control arms, drugs, or offensive public behavior. We will leave the matter of weapons in the hands of Deputy Police Chief Sedov and hope that he and his men can perform a miracle. As for the Mafia and the gangs, we leave that slough of despond to the Ministry of the Interior gang division.”
The colonel looked up at the clock on the wall behind his desk. The clock, a gift of the Workers of the Volga Automobile Associated Works, told him it was nearly eight in the morning. The colonel stood erect, boots heel-to- heel, arms folded across his chest, and said, “Inspector Karpo, you have something to report on the murder of the young woman in the park.”
Eighteen minutes later by the clock on the wall Emil Karpo completed his report on what he now believed was at least the thirty-fifth and probably the fortieth murder by the man who was known inside Petrovka as
“Continue your investigation,” said the colonel. “If additional people are required …”
“Investigator Tkach and I will be enough for now,” Karpo said.
“Very good,” said the colonel, unfolding his arms and moving to his desk. “If that-”
“The foreign minister from Kazakhstan,” said Karpo, opening the second file in front of him.
“Yes,” said the colonel, sitting down in his large dark wooden desk chair and putting his fingertips together.
“Died of a heart attack Monday afternoon,” said Pankov quickly.
“I have reason to believe,” said Karpo, holding up the first sheet of Paulinin’s report, “that the foreign minister was murdered.”
Grigorovich shook his head again, this time in more open exasperation. Fifteen minutes later, when Emil Karpo had finished reading, Colonel Snitkonoy took the report, ordered the three men at the table to maintain absolute secrecy on this possible crime, and dismissed them.
When they were gone, Colonel Snitkonoy scratched his head. He had been suffering an overpowering itch of the scalp for more than half an hour and had resisted the pleas of his body to respond. Now he indulged and opened the file.
Rostnikov, he thought, would have handled this better. Rostnikov would have given him the information privately and said no more if he were not directed to pursue this bizarre possibility. Well, that was not quite so. Rostnikov would probably pursue it, but he would do so with some sense of discretion. Karpo was a dangerous man. All zealots were dangerous.
Karpo was a Communist. When others had taken the opportunity to renounce and abandon, Karpo had quietly insisted on retaining his Party identity and membership. At first this had seemed an act of near suicide, but recently, as food and jobs disappeared and Yeltsin began to appear in more and more devastating cartoons hung up for sale along the Arbat, Colonel Snitkonoy had begun to wonder if he should not keep his portrait of Lenin handy.
Now, in these explosive times, a bomb had been placed in the colonel’s hands, a bomb that could well destroy him. The implications of this murder, if it was a murder, were inescapable. Even if no one in the government or bureaucracy had murdered the minister, someone had certainly acted to conceal the cause of his death.
The colonel laid the file neatly before him on the empty desk, smoothed his hair, and reached for the phone.
Though there were many who considered Colonel Snitkonoy a buffoon who had been propelled to significance by a combination of impressive bearing, very good luck, and a highly professional though eccentric staff, there were few who doubted his professional integrity. It was one thing to survive by avoiding missions that ran high risks to one’s career. It was quite another thing to shirk responsibility when it was placed in one’s lap. He would have to bring Karpo’s report on the dead foreign minister to the attention of his superiors.
While the phone rang, the Wolfhound had only one major regret: that Rostnikov was not in Moscow so the whole thing could be dumped in his more ample lap.
SIX
Elena Timofeyeva found Rostnikov in a white plastic chair next to a white plastic table at the side of the pool of the El Presidente Hotel. The sun was low and a cool breeze wafted in from the Caribbean Sea a few hundred yards beyond the hotel. There were six similar tables around the pool in which no one swam. One table was empty. At the other tables sat small groups: a couple, a family that might have been Germans, a quartet of men between forty and sixty arguing in English and Spanish. And seated alone, a bottle of beer before him and a magazine in his hands, sat Povlevich, the thin KGB man whom Rostnikov had pointed out to Elena on the plane.
After Jaime and Abel had sheepishly dropped Elena at her hotel, she had rushed to her room, washed her
