Stuart Kaminsky - Black Knight in Red Square

By eight, Karpo was back at his desk. By noon, he had managed to locate many of the people whose names were on the list. Since tourists have to register, it was much easier to find them than it might have been in any other country. The indifference of hotel managers hampered him, though, as did the veiled hostility of a few younger people who answered the phones in homes and apartments.

But it was coming. With patience and determination, of which he had much, he was confident that by early evening he would have the name the woman was using. He might also, with luck, have a photograph of her.

Karpo considered calling Rostnikov and asking for help, but he had a hunch that time was now precious. He also admitted to himself that he did not want help. He wanted to do this by himself.

She woke from a deep sleep with a teeth-clenched cry. Never could she recall falling so deeply into sleep. It had taken an effort as great as breaking to the surface of a deep pool to come out of the dream, and when she was out and awake, the dream was gone.

“What is it?” asked the young man, blinking at seeing the woman as he had never seen her before.

She couldn’t stop a look of hatred from flickering across her face, though she did avert her dark eyes in the first dull patches of morning light and reach for her watch. It was six o’clock, but even now that she was awake, the feeling of something, someone, closing in and smothering her wouldn’t go away.

The young man’s arm went around her.

“It’s just a nightmare,” he said with a superior little laugh.

She held back the impulse to push him away, this weak creature who strutted his frail masculinity. She even toyed with the idea of killing him on the spot, but he might be useful for the rest of the day, and she didn’t want to be on the move again, not until it was necessary.

“I’ll be fine,” she forced herself to say.

“Women,” he chuckled and rolled over to his side after giving her a pat on the shoulder. He was sure that whatever he had seen on her face, that mask of stone, had been an illusion from his own dreams. He was asleep almost instantly.

She was well aware that the Russians claimed to have achieved equality of the sexes, but she was equally aware that it was a hollow claim, that women were rarely given anything but token positions of importance, that, in fact, women were expected to work at full-time jobs and to be responsible for homemaking as well, while men complained and continued to run things, just as they had done in the past. It was the same everywhere. What she had, she had taken by her own intellect and strength. She had long since decided not to take part in the world of men like this one next to her. But her motivation was not a feminist one. No, she felt far above and outside such considerations. Any “ism” was an illusion created by individuals or groups to give false meaning and direction to essentially meaningless lives. All that counted was one’s image of oneself, not what others saw. One lived only to have the satisfaction of achievement and control. It was a game she would lose, but she would not play by false rules. She would create her own rules.

She got up as quietly as she could. He stirred behind her but did not wake. She bent over her flight bag, unlocked it and found the small aspirin bottle. Silently, she removed two tablets, which were not aspirin, from the bottom of the bottle and tucked them into the pocket of her shirt. When the proper moment arrived later in the day, she would dissolve the pills in a beverage and be sure he drank it all. The dosage would probably not kill him, but would make him ill and dazed and keep him out of her way. If he was going to be killed, this one, she wanted to do it with her own hands. She wanted him to know what she was doing.

Thinking about the day and the night helped ease the feeling of liquid weight. She moved to the window, pushed the grubby curtain aside, and looked out at the city. Somewhere they were looking for her, that barrel of an inspector and the lean monk of a detective she had deceived at the Metropole.

The feeling that ran through her now was not fear, but a sensation of inevitability. Thinking about the lean one had brought on that feeling. Perhaps it had been part of her nightmare.

The phone call they’d placed to Iosef came through at six on Sunday morning. Rostnikov heard it but dimly, wondering if it was the bells of some imagined church. Sarah roused herself quickly and picked up the telephone.

“It’s Iosef,” she said, poking Rostnikov, who grunted and let go of the dream image of a large bottle of Czech pilsner beer.

“Up, I’m getting up,” he said and reached out for the phone.

“When I’m done,” she said, slapping his hand away.

Rostnikov sat up, scratched his stomach, and held one hand to his ear as he pointed to the corner where he had discovered the tiny microphone. Sarah nodded.

Rostnikov heard Sarah ask Iosef how he was, what he was doing. She told him about Rostnikov’s weight-lifting trophy.

When he saw the tear in the corner of her eye, Rostnikov reached for the phone. Sarah pulled back, then sighed deeply and gave it to him.

“Iosef,” he said.

“Father,” replied Iosef in a voice almost forgotten in the past year. The familiar tones jolted Rostnikov’s emotions. He looked at Sarah and closed his eyes. “Yes, you are well?”

“I’m well,” said Iosef. “Congratulations on your trophy.”

“It’s a fine trophy,” said Rostnikov, looking across the room to where it stood on a table near the cabinet that contained the weights. “Iosef, we would like to see you. It has been a long time. Have you applied for leave?”

“Difficult,” he said. “Those of us who have been-”

“I know,” Rostnikov stepped in. It didn’t have to be spoken. Those who had been to Afghanistan were being kept under tight security, at least for the present. “Perhaps things will change. You are well?”

“You just asked that,” Iosef laughed. “I’m well. Are you catching criminals?”

“No criminal is safe with Rostnikov in Moscow.” He laughed, too.

Sarah reached for the phone back, but he turned away to continue the conversation.

What there was to say couldn’t be said on the phone.

“Was there anything special?” Iosef asked after a brief pause.

“Special? No, nothing special. We just hadn’t heard your voice for some time,” Rostnikov went on. “The film festival is going on here. Lots of visitors, a carnival. You remember.”

“I remember,” said Iosef. “Do you remember when you took me to my first movie? Jane Powell.”

“Yes.” Rostnikov remembered. “She was almost as good as Deanna Durbin.”

“I have to go now,” said Iosef cheerily. “The officer in charge has just told me my time is up. So, good-bye and take care.”

“And you, too,” said Rostnikov. “Say good-bye to your mother.”

He handed the phone to Sarah who managed not to sob as she said good-bye. She listened to something Iosef said and then hung up.

They looked at each other for a few seconds in silence.

“I forgot to tell him Illya asked about him,” Sarah said looking at the phone.

“Put it in a letter,” he said, standing up. He looked around the room for his pants, though he always put them in the same place, draped over a wooden chair in the corner.

“You can go back to sleep for a while, Porfiry Petrovich,” Sarah said, sitting on the bed and looking up at him.

“No, I have work to do,” he said, lifting his pants from the chair and sitting down as he wondered what time his German would get out of bed to begin what might be the most important day of both their lives.

After Iosef Rostnikov hung up the phone, he walked slowly and correctly to the door of the small squad room without facing the lieutenant who sat behind the desk a few feet away. The officer, Galinarov, had listened openly and intently to Iosef’s side of the conversation with his hands folded in front of him. He had been instructed to do so, but he would have listened anyway because he did not like Rostnikov.