Stuart Kaminsky - People Who Walk In Darkness

“Yes,” she said.

“This is my compartment,” said the man through the door.

The train was picking up speed now, rumbling through the station and the train yard.

“No,” she said. “You are mistaken. I have the whole compartment.”

“This is car seven, compartment four?”

“Yes,” she said.

“That is what my ticket says. You can take a look. We will have to ask the conductor for an explanation.”

Christiana moved the three steps across the compartment and unlocked the door. The man was about her height, willowy, with a boyishly good-looking face, though he was no boy.

He wore a long black soft leather jacket, dark slacks, and a white shirt. His thin dark hair was brushed straight back. He smiled apologetically and stepped in, sliding the door closed behind him and locking it.

“I have been waiting for you to get on,” he said, motioning her back toward the window. “You almost missed the train.”

The smiling man, she was certain, was there to get the suitcase. There was no doubt about that. She would have to explain when she got back to Moscow, and Georgi would know she was telling the truth, but it would make no difference. She looked at the suitcase.

“You made the exchange. Where is the other suitcase?”

Christiana had a lifetime of being the object of violence from men. Something about her invited it. But this man was not interested in sex or the pleasure of inflicting pain. Something as cold as dry ice, as white as diamonds was in him and she was afraid.

“I do not know. A beautiful woman has it, an actress or a model, I think.

“A model, I think,” she said again feeling her left leg begin to twitch. “I think I’ve seen her before, in magazines or on television.”

“And?”

“Nothing. That’s it. Believe me.”

Now there was a knife in the hand of the man’s delicate fingers. He rolled it, spun the blade back and forth.

“You do not know any more, do you?”

The train lurched on noisily. Metal screeched on metal.

“No,” she said.

“Then, izvi’neete, I’m sorry to say that I have no use for you.”

He skipped one step forward and twisted her to him by the wrist. Before she could scream, he had a hand over her mouth and the knife blade entered her neck expertly, deeply.

“Now that did not hurt, did it?”

He was right. It had not hurt. Christiana would not have to make excuses to Georgi in Moscow now. She would be dead, and, given her life, there were worse things. She slumped forward, and the man guided her falling body into the seat. It was an almost elegant move, balletic, professional. He had not a drop of blood on his shirt, slacks, or jacket.

He wiped the knife blade on her not-quite-shabby coat, moved her gently so that her head rested on the window, picked up the suitcase, and left the compartment after putting up a DO NOT DISTURB sign. He went back to his coach seat for forty-five minutes, chatting with a young soldier before the train pulled into the first station down the line.

He said good-bye to the soldier, got off the train with the suitcase he had taken from the dead woman and one of his own. He waited for the train to pull out of the station. As it moved past, he looked up and saw the dead woman, eyes open, mouth open, and contorted against the bloody window. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and quickly aimed it at the dead woman. He clicked off two photographs. Then the train was gone.

He moved casually toward the depot to buy a ticket back to Kiev.

After leaving the Yak’s office, Rostnikov sat at his desk reading the information in the folders he had been given. The words that held the three cases together were ‘diamonds’ and ‘nine days.’

He was reasonably certain that the Yak had told him the truth about almost everything-except his motives. He was reasonably sure that in nine days the meeting would be held to determine the fate of the Office of Special Investigations.

He called his squad in, and in the cramped office he gave out the assignments. Iosef and Zelach would investigate the torture-murder of two black South Africans whose bodies were found seated in a cemetery. The dead men were both former workers in a Botswanian diamond mine. Both were suspected by Interpol of smuggling diamonds. Both, along with an unknown number of others, were known to have been in Moscow. The South African, Botswanan, and Namibian governments had asked the Russian government to watch the two men. Now they were dead. Now they were the concern of the Office of Special Investigations.

The other case involved a murdered woman found in a train compartment when it pulled into Moscow from Kiev. The woman was alone in a first-class, two-bed compartment. She was a known prostitute. She had been stabbed once. There was but one mention of diamonds in the report on Rostnikov’s desk. On a yellow Post-it the Yak had carefully printed the word ‘diamonds.’

The Office of Special Investigations did not normally delve into the murder of prostitutes. Nobody really delved into the murder of prostitutes. But this Moscow prostitute had been found murdered in the most expensive private car on a train. This prostitute, Christiana Verovona, had purchased a ticket to Kiev and another almost immediately back to Moscow.

Rostnikov gave the case to Sasha Tkach and Elena Timofeyeva.

Rostnikov said little at the meeting. There was little to say, and whatever was spoken was certainly being listened to by Pankov or the Yak. Rostnikov and the others in his squad knew where the microphones were planted in the wall here in Porfiry Petrovich’s office and in the room where all of them had their desks.

They met outside of Petrovka when they wanted privacy. They met inside Petrovka when they wanted the Yak to know what they were saying. The Yak knew that all of them were well aware of the microphones. He did not hope to suddenly hear priceless snippets of profitable information. He simply wanted them to be aware of his presence and to have all conversations of even the slightest possible consequence taped and recorded on CDs for his own protection. The Yak was very good at protecting himself.

“Questions?” asked Rostnikov.

There were many. All went unasked.

Sasha Tkach wondered for an instant if he had been selected by Rostnikov because his wife Maya had taken their young daughter and son to Kiev for an indefinite stay. Sasha, the tinge of boyish, innocent good looks now maturing into brooding handsomeness, was on official probation from his wife. Sasha was often selected for undercover work that brought him into contact with women who were available and found him willing in spite of his fragile resolve. The case promised to take him to Kiev. He wasn’t certain how he felt about that. He was certain that he would be happy to get away from his mother, Lydia, with whom he was temporarily living. Lydia was nearly deaf, a retired bureaucrat who held strong opinions on everything from Putin’s smile to the influx of Muslims in Khazakstan. She spoke loudly with a shrill voice and harbored ambitions for her son that had nothing to do with being a policeman.

Sasha was also certain that he wanted to see his children, particularly Pulcharia, who was now six. He wanted to see Maya and his son very much, but he felt that Pulcharia somehow held the key to his sense of possible salvation, since he had first seen her moments after she was born.

Kiev was not on the mind of Elena Timofeyeva who had been assigned to work with Sasha. She had babysat Sasha before. She did not look forward to doing it again. She had other things to worry about.

Elena was the only woman in the Office of Special Investigations. She had gotten the job because she was an experienced police officer, but also because her aunt was Anna Timofeyeva, the former procurator for whom Rostnikov had worked for twenty years. Now, though a sometimes troubled relationship, Elena was engaged to marry Iosef Rostnikov, who sat next to her in the cramped, hot office of her future father-in-law. Elena knew she was a healthy, plump, clear-skinned woman who would, like her aunt, mother, and the rest of the women of her family, be forever destined to battle a tendency to become significantly overweight. To overcome heredity, Elena had to live on a near-starvation diet, which made her irritable. That irritability could easily erupt if Sasha behaved irresponsibly. One thing Elena could be counted on for was a sense of loyalty and responsibility. She would do anything short of death or self-mutilation to avoid disappointing Porfiry Petrovich.