There was a perceptible quickening of the breath on the other end.
'The wolf lives in a red forest with his wife, a human who wants to escape. He doesn't know whether he wants to eat her or keep her, but he does know he'll eat anyone who tries to help her. In fact, the forest is littered with the bones of those who have tried and failed. I wanted your advice on whether I should try. What do you think? Take your time. Consider every possibility, like a chess game. When you know, call me. In the meantime, be good.'
He hung up.
Liverpool wore red uniforms, Chelsea white. Zurin called and Arkady didn't answer. Something was right in front of him, dangling and shining like a mirror ball, but every time he reached out, it disappeared. Or skipped along like that Icelandic sprite you could see only from the corner of your eye.
Vanko had said Alex made lots of money. In the belly of the beast, Alex had said. Exactly what beast? Arkady wondered.
Arkady opened his file. On the NoviRus employment application were an Internet site, e-mail address, phone and fax numbers.
Arkady called the phone number, and a woman's musical voice said, 'Welcome to NoviRus. How may I direct your call?'
'Interpreting and translation.'
'Legal, international or security?'
'Security.' He never would have guessed.
'Hold, please.'
Arkady held until a brusque male voice answered, 'Security.'
'I'm calling Alex Gerasimov.'
A pause to punch in the name. 'You want the accident section.'
'That's right.'
'Hold.'
A Liverpool forward scored on a breakaway, the gift of a bad pass that left the Chelsea goalie naked. Soccer had been Arkady's sport, and goalie had been his position. A goalie's life balanced between anxiety and agony. Once in a while, though, there was the unexpected, undeserved save.
'Accident.' A second male voice was not nearly so military.
'Alex Gerasimov?'
'No. He's not on duty for another two weeks.'
'Doing interpreting and translation?'
'That's right.'
'For the accident section?'
'Yes.'
'He was going to explain everything to me.'
'Sorry, Alex is not here. I'm Yegor.'
A good sign; a man who offered his name invited conversation.
'I apologize for bothering you, Yegor, but Alex was going to tell me about the job.'
Arkady heard a rustle like a newspaper being put down.
'You're interested?'
'Very.'
'You talked to the people in Employment?'
'Yes, but you know how it is with them, they never give you an honest picture. Alex was going to.'
'I can do that.'
Yegor explained that NoviRus offered physical security to Russian and foreign clients in the usual form of bodyguards and cars. For foreign clients, they provided standby interpreters who could go to the scene of a traffic accident or an incident involving police or any emergency where their presence could alleviate a dangerous or costly misunderstanding, often with prostitutes, for which there was a discretionary fund. Interpreters were expected to be university-educated, well dressed and fluent in two foreign languages. They worked a twenty- four-hour shift every three days and were paid a handsome ten dollars an hour, perfect for part-time work. What the people in Employment didn't tell applicants was that the twenty-four-hour shift was spent either racing around Moscow, from one scene of confusion to the next, or going nowhere at all, which meant a day and a night in a basement room not much larger than a closet, with three cots, a coatrack and a minibar. The interpreters had been promised real quarters, but they were still stuck like an afterthought behind Surveillance, which, by virtue of all the screens it monitored, had a quarter of the floor.
'Alex made it sound better than that,' Arkady said.
'Alex has the run of the place. He's been here awhile. He knows everyone, and he's in and out of everywhere.'
'Ten dollars an hour?' Arkady figured this was about five times what a senior investigator made. 'That covers a lot of sins. Were you on duty the day Pasha Ivanov died?'
'No.'
'But Alex was, wasn't he?'
'Yeah. Who did you say you were?'
Arkady hung up. The game was getting interesting. With a minute to go, Chelsea was a man down but pressing for a tie and getting corner kick after corner kick to try for a header. The goalie tugged on his gloves and stationed himself one long diagonal step in front of the goalmouth. Campbell had come out of the bathroom to watch. Red and white uniforms elbowed for position as the ball rose from the corner and curled toward the goal. Players milled, thrust themselves up by their elbows and achingly stretched. The goalie committed, diving into the mass, hands high to intercept. Moving swiftly for a drunk, the professor crossed to the videotape and pressed Stop. The players hung in midair.
'I can't see it. I won't watch it one more time. It's agony aforesaid, the turning of the thumbscrews, the inevitable lop. They can freeze for fookin' eternity for all I care. Who cares? Do y'know what happens? Do y'know?' Exhausted, Campbell dropped on his bed and passed out.
No, Arkady thought, he didn't know. By now Bobby Hoffman could be halfway to Cyprus or Malta. Anton was either menacing someone or buying matching luggage with Galina. It was even getting dark enough for Arkady to stir.
Arkady's mobile phone rang. Eva. He was about to answer when an image of her and Alex came flooding back. The sight of Eva pressed against the bureau. The sound of perfume bottles rolling to the floor. Arkady remembered her eyes, the look of a drowning woman who embraces the whirlpool. He still couldn't answer.
Another call. From Bela. Arkady took this one because he could use good news, but Bela said, 'We're at the power station, at the sarcophagus. We were headed to the checkpoint when the fat one changed his mind.'
'Why did you go to the power station? Why did you agree?'
Bela's voice got small. 'He offered so much money.'
Arkady covered the first few kilometers on dirt roads through black villages to see whether anyone was following him before taking the motorcycle onto the highway. Ozhogin would focus on the route south to Kiev, not to the center of the Zone. There was no avoiding the checkpoint outside the power station, but Arkady was waved through. He had become a familiar figure, the eccentric investigator who haunted Pripyat. Usually he rode by the station entrance. This time, he killed his headlight and swung in. In the twilight were faint indications of towers and high-tension wires. The power station's main office was a four-story building as white as a ghost. Arkady remembered that the complex had been designed for a total of eight reactors, the largest in the world. A digital clock over the main door read 20:48.
A Uralmoto motorcycle was not a quiet machine, and Arkady half expected to see a flashlight's beam or hear the challenge of a guard. Buses he saw, but no cars or vans. He crossed the parking lot to a row of what might have been laboratories and saw enough radiation posters and advisory signs to persuade him to turn on his headlight again. He U-turned at a dead end of dump bins overflowing with bags marked toxic waste, ignored a sign that said authorized personnel ONLY, as any Russian would anywhere, and followed a wire fence crowned with razor wire. More fences and wire led him right and left up to a sign that said do not enter-report TO GUARD
