with the soft pop of a champagne cork.
A dud.
When Arkady looked up, Zhenya was gone, except for his laugh.
24
A steady drizzle could not dampen the spirits of the camp. Although digging was canceled for the rest of the day, no one was leaving because every crew had brought vodka and beer, sausage and bread, fatback and cheese. Besides, twenty remains had successfully been brought in for examination, enough for the pathologist to, once she was done, declare all the victims Russian.
In the visitors tent Arkady listened to Wiley praise Isakov.
“An officer who carries home his wounded men? This is exactly the image people respond to. That tape is being edited in the studio as we speak. It’s still only four in the afternoon. If the pathologist gets her act together, you’ll make two news cycles as the lead story.”
“What if the bodies aren’t Russian?” Isakov asked.
“They found Russian helmets.”
“What if they aren’t?”
Wiley glanced at Lydia, who was occupied signing autographs for admirers at the front of the tent. The cameraman named Yura was on a cell phone to Grisha’s wife.
“If they’re German?” Wiley dropped his voice. “Admittedly, it won’t be nearly as good, but the rescue of Grisha will still sell you.”
“Is that what I want to be, sold?”
“With all your heart and soul,” Pacheco said. “You crossed that river the day we were hired.”
“Nothing like this was mentioned then.”
“Nikolai, you’re suffering preelection nerves. Relax. This dig is going to put you over the top.”
“They’re right,” Urman said.
“We’re just lucky we brought two cameramen.” Pacheco raised a glass of brandy. “To Grisha.”
“Anyway,” Wiley said, “you needed something like this. Your numbers were starting to flatten out.”
“Maybe they should,” Isakov said. “What do I know about politics?”
“You don’t have to. You’ll be told what to do.”
“I will be informed?”
“That’s it.” Pacheco said. “It’s not a difficult job unless you make it one.”
“You’ll get plenty of advice,” said Wiley.
“And immunity, don’t forget,” Arkady said. “That has to be a plus.”
Yura finished his call. “So, you play chess?” he asked Zhenya.
Zhenya nodded.
“Why don’t we have a game while we wait? You can be white.”
“D four.”
“That’s it?”
“D four.”
Yura frowned. “Just a second. I thought you had a chessboard in your backpack.”
“Do you need one?” Zhenya asked.
Arkady took Zhenya for a stroll.
Despite the rain a good many Diggers tended portable grills. Camping was camping. In their tents crews sang wartime songs overflowing with vodka and nostalgia. A line formed at a laboratory carboy of grain alcohol decorated with slices of lemon. It was a bonding experience for fathers and sons.
“Yura was trying to be friendly,” Arkady said. “You could have played on the board.”
“It would have been a waste of time.”
“He might have surprised you. Grandmaster Platonov was here during the war playing the troops. He played anyone.”
“Like who?”
“Soldiers, officers. He said he had some good games.”
“With who?”
For Arkady Zhenya’s smirk was maddening.
“Anyone,” he ended feebly.
They bumped into Big Rudi walking with his ear cocked.
“Can you hear him coming?” he asked Arkady.
A distant cannonade rose and fell.
“I think that’s thunder,” Arkady said.
“Then where is the lightning?”
“It’s too far away to see.”
“Aha! In other words, you assume it.”
“I’m guessing,” Arkady admitted. “Wouldn’t you like to get out of the rain?”
“Granddad won’t go.” Rudi approached with a beer in hand. “He’s set in his mind. And he’s not the only one.”
Arkady looked down along the tents and saw other figures standing like sentries in the rain. He thought that between the patriotism and grain alcohol Stalin was bound to make an appearance.
There was a great bustle at the examination tent, where the presenter Lydia was suddenly illuminated by television lights. She was joined by an older woman with sharp eyes and a sardonic smile. Arkady recognized his real estate agent, Sofia Andreyeva. He remembered how she had admitted to being a doctor and warned him not to be her patient. She changed to a clean lab coat while the Diggers packed together around the tent, boys on father’s shoulders, cell phones set on video and held as high as a homecoming salute to heroes finally rescued from the grip of the earth! Let it rain. Every face was bright with zeal. Arkady joined Wiley and Pacheco at the back of the crowd. Zhenya found a chair to stand on. Urman cleared the way to the front for Isakov.
Wiley told Arkady, “At the end of most campaigns I ask myself what opportunity I missed. What could I have done that I didn’t do? But this is like breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. You should be happy too. Now that Nikolai has immunity he’s certainly going to lay off you.”
Arkady decided that Wiley was stupider than he looked.
“Can everyone hear me? Good. I am Doctor Sofia Andreyeva Poninski, pathologist emeritus at Tver Central Hospital. I was requested to attend this mass exhumation and offer an opinion as to the identity of bodies found. Not necessarily individually but as a group. I could carry out an examination in much greater detail in the morgue, but I am informed that you need a conclusion here and now. Very well.
“I examined twenty remains, more or less. I say ‘more or less’ because it is obvious many of the so-called bodies are a mix of bones from two or three or even four different skeletal remains. This, of course, is one of the hazards of amateurs’ attempting a task best left to forensic technicians. So, I can offer you only gross observations of mishandled remains.
“First, that all twenty pelvic bones I examined were male.
“Second, by the density of their bones and wear on teeth enamel, that their ages at the time of death ranged from approximately twenty to seventy years of age.
“Third, that by variations in bone density some were active and athletic, some sedentary.
“Fourth, that the skeletons as offered suffered no wounds apart from a single shot to the back of the head. It’s possible there were flesh wounds that did not involve trauma to the bones. The absence of trauma also indicates that the victims were not subjected to physical abuse. In twelve instances there are signs of charring of the cranium consistent with execution at contact or very short range, and also consistent with execution one victim at a time, rather than a writhing mass. Which indicates that the deceased were shot at one site and transported here. The location of the fatal shots-twelve degrees below the cranial equator, in other words, below and to the right of
