merged with the weight. When he was ready he stood erect, swept the mass of clanking balanced metal first to his chest and then, taking a step with his weak leg, skyward. When it was firmly overhead and in control, Rostnikov opened his eyes to the applause of the smiling boys.
As he brought the bar down and pressed it back up, the boys counted joyfully,
When he brought the weight back down to his chest and eased it to the mat with a satisfying clank, the boys again broke into applause. Rostnikov stepped over the bar and bowed formally to the quartet. This had been as much fun as when he had won the senior weight-lifting championship and met the great Alexiev.
When he finished the entire routine, the boys approached him as he gathered his things. They jabbered, quickly in Spanish he could not understand.
“American, Canada?” asked a thin boy.
“Russian,” answered Rostnikov.
“Ruskie, Ruskie,” the boys chanted.
They left him at the door of the building and ran back inside. He wiped himself with his drenched towel and headed down the concrete path toward the Avenida del Presidente.
Normally, Rostnikov would have sensed the attack, but conditions were not normal. The sun was hot; he was exhausted and in a country whose sounds were unfamiliar.
In front of him stood a good-looking young man with a smile on his face. The man’s legs were slightly apart and he clasped his hands in front of him like a soldier at ease. Suddenly an arm circled Rostnikov’s neck and a thin young man at his side held the point of a knife to his stomach.
“Shhh,” said the good-looking young man in front of him as the young man with the knife reached for Rostnikov’s jacket pocket. The good-looking young man had stepped forward. Now he lifted Rostnikov’s left hand and put his fingers on the wedding band.
Rostnikov took two shallow breaths. Then he threw his left hand up at the thin man’s wrist. It snapped, sending the knife flying into the air. With his left hand Rostnikov grasped the wrist of the man in front of him and pulled the man’s nose into his forehead. The nose collapsed in a crunch of bone. Then, as the grip around his neck tightened, Rostnikov tensed his neck muscles, grabbed the fingers of the man behind him, and bent the fingers back, quickly breaking three of them. Rostnikov turned and faced the startled man, who looked first at the other two, one who was howling in pain as he staggered away, and the other, whose face was a sheet of gushing blood. The man with the broken fingers turned and ran.
Rostnikov picked up the knife and turned to the confused man with the shattered nose.
“Don’t touch it,” Rostnikov said in English. “You understand?”
The man nodded dumbly.
“Good. If you know a doctor, you should go see him. Might be bone chips. But remember, don’t touch it.”
The man seemed uncertain of which way to go for an instant. Then he hurried after the other two, leaving a trail of dripping blood behind him. Rostnikov adjusted his wedding band, mopped his face with the towel, and continued his walk back to the hotel.
In Moscow, he thought, they would have had guns. In Moscow, they probably would have belonged to some extended Mafia like the Capones. They would have had backup.
It was a relief, Rostnikov decided, crossing the avenue behind an ancient Volkswagen, to be in Cuba, where some crime was still, at least for a while, in controllable infancy.
NINE
Colonel Snitkonoy was dressed in mufti. This was, as his staff knew, very unusual. His perfectly fitted dark suit had been painstakingly ironed by his housekeeper only an hour before, as had his white English shirt and serious blue-and-red-striped tie. His black shoes were military shined, and his hair had been perfectly trimmed by the same housekeeper, who had been his aide-de-camp when both were spreading Soviet dominance in the days not so long gone.
The Gray Wolfhound pulled out his antique gold pocket watch. “I have,” he said, “exactly five minutes before I must leave for my presentation on the alleged murder of the Kazakhstani foreign minister.”
“We understand,” said Karpo, who, along with Sasha Tkach, stood in front of the colonel’s desk.
“I am to meet with the Council of Deputies for Internal Security in the Kremlin,” the colonel went on.
There was a long pause while the Wolfhound sat erect in his chair facing the two detectives.
“I have your report, Emil Karpo,” he said, holding up an envelope. “I have contradictory laboratory findings. I am walking into a room of important people who want irrefutable evidence.”
And, he thought, a room in which, if this report is correct, several of the people around the table may well be parties to the murder of Foreign Minister Kumad Kustan. Some facts were quite clear. The foreign minister had been in Moscow two days before his death. An overweight, surly man with a mop of white hair that matched Yeltsin’s, he had conducted his search for Russian support in a rumpled suit. Things seemed to have gone well, so well that an announcement had been made by both the Russian foreign minister and Kustan that a new era was about to begin. Kustan died in a lounge at the Hotel Russia following a small reception, which only a dozen members of the government, both pro- and anti-Yeltsin, had attended. Security had been tight. Kustan had died. Now it seemed he might have been murdered. The murderer was likely to have been at the highest level of government. But why kill the foreign minister? To stop the agreement and embarrass Yeltsin? Or to protect Yeltsin? But why? Had the talks fallen through? It was not impossible that the murderer of the Kazakhstani foreign minister would be sitting in the room where Colonel Snitkonoy was going to make his report.
“We cannot be wrong, Emil Karpo,” said the Wolfhound, putting the report down in front of him and folding his hands on his shiny dark desk. “Have you noticed that there are few dogs in the police kennel? Food is scarce. Luxuries are few. Those who produce survive. Those who do not are eaten.”
“We are not wrong,” said Karpo.
Colonel Snitkonoy nodded. He knew he had no choice but to go to the meeting and present the evidence. He had rehearsed his presentation for forty minutes before the mirror in his bedroom. He hoped it would go well.
It would be a difficult morning. He glanced out the window. At least the sleet had stopped and the sky held a gray hope of light.
“Speak, Inspector Karpo,” the colonel said. The Vampire was one of the few people he knew who made him truly uncomfortable.
“We have developed a plan,” said Karpo, “which we believe can result in the resolution of Case 341.”
“It will require the services of the Metro Railway security forces,” said Karpo.
The Wolfhound nodded and looked at Tkach, who was doing his best to hold back a sneeze.
“It will also require one week of round-the-clock shifts by perhaps one hundred armed officers and as many as fifty decoys who will have to look as if they are approximately twenty-two years old.”
Employing self-control developed through four decades of service, Colonel Snitkonoy simply nodded for Karpo to begin.
Karpo outlined his plan and the Wolfhound listened.
Three minutes later, the colonel stood up, put the report on the Kazakhstani minister in his black Samsonite briefcase, and said, “I can ask for a day or two, perhaps three, but a week is out of the question. Can you narrow this down to a day or two with reasonable certainty that we will get 341?”
“No,” said Karpo, “but …”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said the colonel. “As for the decoys …”
“That will be our responsibility,” Karpo said.
