campfires, beer cans, mound of skulls, piles of soil. Zhenya was on the field at the edge of the beam’s reach, halfway to the trees. He had his hood up and in his black anorak he would have been invisible except for the reflective trim on his backpack. The reflection got weaker and weaker.
It occurred to Arkady that when he had so abruptly left Moscow for Tver, Zhenya may have felt abandoned. All the conversations on the phone about monsters may have been a boy hanging on for an invitation that was never issued. Arkady hadn’t even said when he was coming back. And when Zhenya came to Tver was he appreciated or treated like excess baggage? Valuable insights but a little late.
At night the pines were a solid wall rising from the field, and though the rain eased up the boughs dripped and with every step Arkady sank ankle-deep in damp needles. He followed winks of yellow light to a lamp set in the center of the stand, a clearing five meters across where Urman dug like a stoker while Zhenya sifted. The detective was stripped to the waist and looked like a muscular Buddha except for his shoulder holster and gun. He had already dug a fair-sized hole.
“Any luck?” Arkady asked.
“Not yet,” Urman said. “But things will go a lot faster now that I have a partner.”
Zhenya kept his face a blank. Arkady noticed Urman’s shirt and leather coat neatly folded on a tree root next to Zhenya’s backpack.
Arkady asked, “Zhenya, have you ever noticed how much a pine forest smells like a car freshener?”
Zhenya shrugged, not in a mood for humor.
Arkady asked Urman, “Where is your partner?”
“Nikolai is going to get the Americans back. I’ll dig up the right remains and we’ll tape for television.”
“The Americans are gone. In fact, so is Isakov.”
“He’ll be back and then he’ll get them back.”
“What do you think, Zhenya?”
“Like Marat says, if we find the right remains…”
Urman said, “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, Renko, there are a lot of bodies here. It’s a mass grave.”
A grave where the dead came up for air, Arkady thought. A skull, half-submerged, stared up from the dirt. In the glow of the lamp leg bones resembled candlesticks.
“It’s also a minefield,” Arkady said. “I don’t see a metal detector or a probe.”
“We don’t have time for all that. Anyway, there’s nothing left to blow here.”
“You just didn’t find it.”
“You’re trying to scare the kid.”
“Maybe he shouldn’t be here. I’ll stay. If you want, I’ll dig for you.”
“I’m going to give you a shovel to swing at my head?”
“Whatever you want, as long as Zhenya goes back.”
“He doesn’t want to go.”
Arkady lost patience. “There’s no reason to be afraid of me. Granted, you killed some people, but no one particularly cares about the murders except Ginsberg and me. He’s dead and I’m in Tver, which is much the same thing. Why the urgency?”
“The people we killed were terrorists,” Urman told Zhenya.
Arkady said, “You shot them in the back and in the head. You executed them. And the ones you killed in Moscow were your fellow Black Berets.”
Urman shook his head for Zhenya’s benefit. “Poor man, that bullet really did scramble his brains. Look, Renko, now the kid’s smiling.”
It was a sickly smile.
Arkady said, “Zhenya, don’t put on your backpack, just run.”
Urman stepped out of the hole. “Why should he run and leave his chess set? And what else? Why is the backpack so heavy?” Urman reached into it and pulled out the stripped frame and barrel of a handgun. “Your gun. He brought it for your protection but there never seemed the right moment. In fact, I think that moment has come and gone.” He dropped the pieces back in.
Arkady felt the conversation gain speed. Or maybe it was that they tossed their last few words aside like unplayed cards.
“Watch this.” Urman took some casual swings with the shovel, not so much to hit Arkady as to maneuver him to the lip of the hole.
“Run,” Arkady told Zhenya.
Urman launched the shovel at Arkady’s chest like a spear, but Arkady ducked as soon as Urman set his feet, and as the shovel sailed by Arkady rose with a butt to the chin that snapped back Urman’s head. “Hit first, keep hitting.” Not bad instructions. Arkady hit Urman in the windpipe and went on pounding him until Zhenya got in between and hung onto Arkady’s arm.
“Stop fighting!”
“Zhenya, let go.”
“No more fighting,” Zhenya said.
“No more fighting.” Urman had his gun out. “Not for you, old man. This is for Tanya.” Urman hit Arkady in the face with the flat of the shovel; Arkady sucked a tooth back in and felt blood drip from his chin.
“Now you’re even,” Zhenya said.
“Not yet.” Urman motioned with his gun for Arkady to get down on his knees. “Hands in back.” He handcuffed Arkady and kicked him facedown into the hole. “This is for me.” The shovel blade came down wide of its mark, however, and Arkady heard the sound of wrestling above. Urman said, “Now you want to attack me? You want to go with him, you little creep?”
A body fell on top of Arkady. Dirt followed and the scent of pines and the warmth of blood.
Urman said, “I’ll dig you up in a couple of hours, remove the cuffs and we’ll go find a nice bog for you and your friend. That’s the plan. Otherwise, you know what I hate? Long explanations. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
Zhenya moaned but he didn’t sound conscious. He might not be until they were covered with dirt, Arkady thought. He twisted his head to breathe and gathered his knees under himself as best he could.
“Go ahead,” Urman said. “Squirm like a worm, but you’re still buried alive.”
Urman shoveled vigorously. He believed in a full spade; dirt fell in clumps.
“Not Zhenya, please,” said Arkady.
“Who’s going to miss him? I’m doing him a favor.”
Dirt showered Arkady’s head. When there was no more loose dirt Urman turned and dug new soil. Despite the dirt in his ear, Arkady heard thunder, a motorcycle winding toward the river road, and a mechanical click.
Urman stopped. He stared at three rusty pressure prongs that had been undisturbed in a bed of old needles until the last shovelful. He took a deep breath as the prongs and a canister the size of a coffee can popped out of the ground waist high, almost near enough to touch. It was packed with TNT, ball bearings, and scrap metal, and all he could say to sum up his life was “Fuck!”
25
They returned to Tver, Arkady on the motorcycle, Sofia Andreyeva and Zhenya in her car. The boy had suffered a concussion when Urman hit him and he was alert but silent. Zhenya had been forced to gather the handcuff key from what was left of Urman. A jumping mine had a lateral blast; at close range it could cut a man in half. As the temperature dropped, rain turned to snow. Zhenya clutched his backpack and stared out the window at passing streetlamps, at flakes dancing by glass, at anything rather than the images in his mind.
Arkady and Sofia Andreyeva agreed to keep the story simple: Detective Marat Urman ill-advisedly went to a hot site alone in the dark, stuck a spade into the ground, and hit a land mine. Evidence that anyone else was there had been shredded into a million pieces.
Arkady’s plan was simple too. It was time for him and Zhenya to cut their losses and treat the Tver experience
