out of his as the rain quickened and the sound of the windshield wiper lulled.
The car stopped before the door to Lubyanka, KGB headquarters. The rain had slowed a bit. Rostnikov stepped out and looked back across the square at the statue of Felix Dzerzinsky, father of the Soviet secret police. Schroeder joined him, and the car pulled away.
The policeman and the KGB man walked to the door and entered. On either side of the dank entryway stood a uniformed and armed guard, who watched as the two men approached the desk in front of them. The woman behind the desk looked at Schroeder, who displayed an identification card, and then at Rostnikov, who removed his identification card and handed it to the woman. She placed the card on a thin metal plate on the corner of the desk and pressed a white button next to the plate. There was a slight hum, and the woman returned Rostnikov’s card without a word.
The rest of the journey was a familiar one to Porfiry Petrovich. Schroeder moved slowly, allowing Rostnikov to keep pace with him. Rostnikov was sure, however, that Schroeder was not slowing his pace out of concern for the policeman. Schroeder was in no hurry to get where they were going. Up one stairway, down the corridor, and then what he had suspected was confirmed. They stopped in front of a dark, heavy wooden door. Schroeder hesitated and then knocked.
The door opened and a powerful-looking giant of a man in his late thirties stepped back to let them in. The powerful man wore a dark blue suit. He was clean-shaven with hair blond and cut short, and he looked very like the last man who had opened this door for Rostnikov.
The powerful man moved across the small carpeted room furnished with three chairs against the wall, a desk with a chair, and a single photograph of Lenin on the wall. The man knocked gently at the far door, and a voice Rostnikov recognized called, “Send him in, Vadim.”
The powerful man opened the door, and Rostnikov stepped forward. Vadim Schroeder hesitated, considered entering with him, and thought better of it. The door was closed gently behind him by the powerful man when Rostnikov entered the room and found himself facing the KGB officer, Colonel Zhenya.
Zhenya was no more than forty-five, very young for one of such rank. He had moved up when his predecessor, who was not a young man, died after a long and painful illness. Zhenya, immaculate, thin, balding, and dark, wore his uniform, a uniform devoid of decoration. For an instant Rostnikov looked at the man seated behind the desk with folded hands, the barred window, the uniform, and the sparseness of the room and wondered if Zhenya had created a prison for himself.
“Sit, Rostnikov,” Zhenya said.
Rostnikov sat. The rain brushed against the window loudly and then went back to its steady drum.
Whatever Zhenya wanted, Rostnikov was sure, would not come directly or quickly. It was a game both men had played throughout their lives. Zhenya had started the game. Now he would have to make the first move.
“You interfered with a KGB operation this morning,” Zhenya said, unclasping his hands and putting a finger on a dark, thick file folder on the desk. “The Turkistani business could have had disastrous consequences as a result of your ego.”
“I will submit a complete report by morning, Comrade Colonel,” Rostnikov said. “The presence of my colleagues at the square was coincidental.”
“A fortunate coincidence,” said Zhenya with a smile that was not a smile.
“Full credit belongs to Colonel Snitkonoy,” said Rostnikov.
“Yes, I understand he will be properly rewarded for his quick thinking and the efficiency of his staff,” said Zhenya. “He had a very busy, a very productive day.”
The pause was long. The two men listened to the rain.
“Do you know why you are here, Rostnikov?” Zhenya said.
“Nahatchavanski,” said Rostnikov.
“Yes,” said Zhenya. “Nahatchavanski. That will get your colonel a promotion, more responsibility. And with that come enemies. Your colonel has long been considered a harmless buffoon. Since you have joined his staff, he has become more formidable. I doubt you have done him a service, Rostnikov.”
“I do my duty,” Rostnikov said.
“Why did you stop looking for Ivan Bulgarin?” said Zhenya.
It was time. Rostnikov’s move.
“There is no Ivan Bulgarin,” said Rostnikov.
“When did you know this?” asked Zhenya.
“I suspected from the start,” said Rostnikov. “The naked giant who entered my wife’s room and whispered a cryptic clue to corruption was well staged but a bit coincidental. The mental ward of the hospital is in a far wing. He had to wander a long distance and randomly select the room in which a policeman happened to be visiting.”
“You were not sure,” said Zhenya.
“No,” said Rostnikov. “Not then.”
“You are a suspicious man, Rostnikov.”
“One has to be to survive,” Rostnikov said with a shrug. “May I rise?”
“If you must,” said Zhenya.
Rostnikov rose slowly, bent his left leg, and rubbed the knee.
“Are you in pain, Rostnikov?”
“One learns to live with discomfort, Colonel, even pain.”
“What confirmed your suspicion?”
“Not the car you had following me,” said Rostnikov, sitting again. “That could have been for a variety of reasons, but it was on the heels of the Bulgarin incident. You made it too easy, Colonel.”
Zhenya could not keep his back from going straight at the insult, but he let nothing show on his face.
“Easy,” Zhenya repeated.
“Lukov, the Lentaka Shoe Factory manager, was too nervous,” Rostnikov went on. “But that could well have been a natural fear of the police. And then he gave up the name of Nahatchavanski too quickly, too easily. Yet that, too, could have been. The papers were too easy to find. It is difficult to believe that a man with the experience of General Nahatchavanski would allow papers that would incriminate him to be left in the files of a shoe factory.”
“Yes,” Zhenya agreed. “It was too easy, but I had no time for great subtlety. The longer you took, the more likely Nahatchavanski would discover your investigation and, possibly, trace it back to me. What other errors did my staff make? I would like to profit from this experience.”
“It was not difficult to notice the car that followed us the night we broke into the factory,” said Rostnikov. “Whoever was in that car should have made a pretense at least of searching my apartment, my office, that of my men in case they were seen.”
“Then, Inspector, why did you let us lead you along?”
“Because,” Rostnikov answered, “General Nahatchavanski is guilty.”
There were things that now were better left unsaid. Clearly, Zhenya had used Rostnikov to further his own career and rid himself of an enemy without risking an attack on a fellow KGB officer, an officer who, Rostnikov assumed, he wished to replace. And it was now clear that Rostnikov had used Zhenya to catch a high-ranking criminal within the ranks of the KGB.
“Have you considered the possibility that you may not leave this building?” asked Zhenya.
“Yes, Colonel,” Rostnikov said, looking at the window. The rain had stopped, and there was only darkness. “When I turned over to Colonel Snitkonoy the copy of the papers I had taken from the Lentaka Shoe Factory, I also gave him a report indicating the suspicions I have just related to you. The report also suggested that the apprehension of the general would not have been possible without the aid of cooperative individuals with the KGB. I named no names, for I had none, but I think it would not be difficult to determine who those cooperative individuals are. And, I suspect, if I disappear, the colonel will swiftly pursue the possibilities for my disappearance suggested by my report.”
Zhenya stood, walked to the window, and looked out, though there was nothing he could possibly have seen in the darkness. He put his hands behind his back and turned to Rostnikov.
“This is a dangerous game, Rostnikov,” Zhenya warned.
“For both of us, Colonel. You can rely upon my silence. There is nothing for me in attempting to implicate
