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head.

“Prahsteetye, forgive me,” he said. “We used to have so many people answering phones and doors, making appointments.” He looked around the room in search of the departed and then turned to shake hands with both Elena and Sanchez.

“Gleb Tarasov, deputy attaché,” he said. “One of the ghosts who still walks the corridors of what was once the heart of Soviet benevolence in the Americas. Sometimes I think we have been forgotten by Moscow. Sometimes that is fine with me. Prahsteetye, forgive me again, I’m rambling.”

“No need to apologize,” said Elena.

Tarasov nodded again, considered apologizing for his apologies, caught himself in time, and turned his back on his visitors to lead them down a darkened corridor. As he walked he tucked in his shirt.

“I must confess,” Tarasov said as they passed empty desks and silent offices, “I had a bit to drink last night. Till a few hours ago. My wife is Cuban. She is partial to vodka. Second wife. First wife was partial to young men.”

He put his hand to his mouth. After padding a little farther down the corridor he removed his hand and said, “Can’t stop babbling. Can’t stop begging your pardon. I’m afraid I will be a sad source of information for you. Here we are.”

He stopped at an office door, pushed it open, and stepped inside. Sanchez and Elena followed.

Though the office was bathed in morning light through two large windows, Tarasov hit a light switch. Elena watched the deputy attaché move behind a steel desk on which a computer rested.

“Please, please,” he said, “have a seat. I can find someone for coffee if you …”

“No, thank you,” said Elena. “We won’t take much of your time.”

The two chairs in front of the desk were chrome with black leather seats and backs. Elena and Sanchez sat.

“I have not been to Moscow in five years,” Tarasov said. He had seated himself behind the desk and was looking out the window in the general direction of Moscow. “It is hell here. I hear it is worse there.”

“We have been through a great deal in a single year,” said Elena. “And there is more we must endure.”

“There is always more, young woman,” Tarasov said, rubbing his gray-stubbled chin. “There is always more to endure, more to sacrifice. More … You came about an embassy employee, the one who was arrested.”

“Igor Shemenkov,” she said, taking her notebook from the bag she had placed on the floor.

“Igor Shemenkov,” Tarasov repeated softly as he scratched the back of his right hand. “Losing his hair, shaped like an egg. Dresses badly, but at the moment who am I to talk?”

“Yes,” said Elena. She looked at Sanchez, who seemed amused.

“Let’s see,” said Tarasov, rubbing his eyes. He blinked and reached over to turn on the computer. The machine emitted a tone, chugged softly, and let out a low ping to announce that it was ready.

Tarasov’s long fingers began to dance over the keyboard as he looked at the screen in front of him. The computer clacked steadily and Tarasov was transformed-a borderline alcoholic with a hangover had become a wizard of the electronic landscape.

“Coming,” he said, eyes still on the screen. “Ask questions if you have them.”

“Whatever you have,” said Elena. “Friends, relatives, activities.”

Tarasov nodded. He reached over to hit a button on a white box without breaking his rhythm on the computer.

“Printing in the next office,” he said. “It is a long document. Seventeen pages.”

“Is that unusual?” asked Elena.

“No, many are much longer. Ask.”

“Friends,” said Sanchez.

“Acquaintances,” answered Tarasov. “None in the embassy or in his apartment in the Sierra Maestra. He does not make friends easily.”

“His job?”

“Documents processor. Coded dispatches from the embassy to Moscow and from Moscow to Cuba. Important, but routine. Takes no intellect.”

Tarasov’s fingers were no longer dancing. A single finger hit a button to scroll the open file before him.

“Work record is very good. No problems, at least not since he came to Cuba. No-”

“And before he came to Cuba?” Elena asked.

Tarasov looked up as if seeing Elena for the first time.

“Before,” he said, and turned his eyes back to the computer screen. “Twice arrested for assault following fights in Odessa. Suspected of black market activities. But that is common. Considered to be loyal, without great intellectual resources, a natural gift with computers, drinks a bit much on occasion. So did his father. So did my father and so do I for that matter.”

“What else?” asked Elena.

Tarasov looked at Sanchez and then back at Elena, who said, “Go on.”

“Shemenkov has a wife and two children in Odessa. He also has an inclination toward Cuban prostitutes. He has been warned about this many times and has been treated on four occasions for sexually transmitted diseases. Because of this inclination, Igor Shemenkov has been considered a security risk.”

Tarasov looked at Major Sanchez and so did Elena.

“He means,” said Sanchez, “that your embassy believes that Cuban prostitutes have been used to get information from embassy employees and pass it on to security forces in the Cuban government.”

“Believes?” asked Elena.

“Believes,” said Sanchez. “But I would say there is far more reason to believe such a tale than there is to pray to the saints or expect the Communists to rise again and reunite the Soviet Union.”

“Anything else?” asked Tarasov. “I have plenty of time.”

“No,” said Elena. She stood up. “Just a copy of the report.”

“Other room,” said Tarasov, standing up also.

After they had obtained the report from the printer and Tarasov had put on his shoes and accompanied them to the gate, Elena got back into the Lada with Sanchez.

“And now?” the major said.

“Back to the hotel. I’ll read the report and take it to Inspector Rostnikov.”

Sanchez did not start the car.

“A suggestion,” he said with a small smile. “We go to your room and make love.”

“No.”

“I am an accomplished lover,” he said. “And you are very inspiring.”

“No,” she said again. “You have a job to do, Major. It is not to make me uncomfortable and distract me from the investigation.”

“How do you know?” he asked, putting his right hand on the back of her seat very close to her face.

“Know?”

“That my job isn’t to make you uncomfortable and distract you from the investigation,” he said.

“I do not know and I do not care,” she said. “I wish to go to the hotel.”

“Servidor de usted,” he said, moving his hand, sitting back, and starting the car. “But it is a waste of two perfectly healthy bodies.”

Major Fernando Sanchez drove into the empty street.

TEN

Yevgeny Odom was certain that the next one would be the most satisfying yet for Kola. It would take place within the bowels of the earth, in the tunnels of life and dreams. It would take place in Yevgeny’s world, the one place they would never imagine it could happen.