"We will pay. We have some money," he said. "What are we paying for?"
She laughed, a sad variation on her familiar laugh.
"An operation," she said.
"When?"
"As soon as possible. It can wait three or four days for you to get back. She assures me that I should be fine. It doesn't look as if it is anything to worry about."
"Allow me the indulgence of worry," he said.
"I'll join you."
"I'll try to get Josef back on leave," Porfiry Petrovich said, looking around the room for something to focus on, finding a small bookcase whose technical volumes were neatly lined up. "I might be able to…"
"You can't," she said gently. "Don't waste your time trying. I know you'd like to."
"What is the doctor's name? The one who will…"
"Operate? Dr. Yegeneva. Olga Yegeneva. Remember when Josef went with that girl named Olga?"
"Yes."
"This one is nothing like her, but she is young, a child almost with big round glasses like mine, clear skin and her hair cut short. I like her."
"Maybe we can make a match," he said with a smile.
"I think she's married," Sarah said. "Who is paying for this call?"
"The navy. Don't worry."
"What is it like there?"
"Cold, dark. Peaceful on the surface. Boiling beneath. How are you feeling?"
"Surprisingly, not bad. I feared the worst for weeks and hearing it was a terrible relief. You understand?"
"Yes," he said. The room seemed a bit blurred.
"I don't know how you feel, Porfiry Petrovich. I'm never sure how you feel and I don't think you know how you feel. The irony is that you seem to understand perfectly how everyone else feels but yourself, but that is a bit deep for a phone conversation in the middle of the night from Siberia. The line is very clear."
"I think they do it by satellite or something," he said.
Silence again, a slight crackling sound on the phone. For an instant he feared that they would be cut off.
"Sarah," he said. "I love you very much."
"I know, Porfiry Petrovich. It would help if you said it a bit more often."
"I'll do that."
"Enough," she said. "Get your work done. Find whoever or whatever they sent you to find and get back. I've dusted your weights. Do they have weights for you there?"
"Yes," he said.
"Good. Stay strong. Goodbye."
"Goodbye," he said and she hung up.
He sat holding the phone for a few seconds and then put it down. Galich's vodka or empathy sent a pain through his head, a cold pain as if he had bitten into an icicle. He shuddered and picked up the phone again.
Trial, error, persistence and the use of the fact that he was a policeman got him Olga Yegeneva on the phone within six minutes.
"Dr. Yegeneva?"
"Yes." She sounded very young.
"This is Inspector Rostnikov. You have seen my wife."
It sounded awkward, formal, wasn't what he wanted to say at all.
"Yes, Inspector," she said, perhaps a bit defensively.
"You are going to operate on her. Is that correct?"
"Yes." She was growing more abrupt. He had reached her at home.
"How serious is the situation?"
"Can you call me back tomorrow, please, at the clinic," she said coolly.
"I am in Tumsk, Siberia. I don't know if or when I can get a phone or a line tomorrow."
"I see. It is serious, but it does not appear to be malignant. However, it is in a position where it is causing pressure and even if it is not malignant the longer we wait the more difficult the surgery."
"Then operate immediately," he said.
"She wants to wait for you."
"I cannot get back for at least two days, possibly three or four."
The doctor paused on the other end just as his wife had a few minutes earlier, and Rostnikov felt that he had to fill the vacuum of time and space but he did not know what to add.
"It can wait a few days, but not many," she said much more gently than she had been speaking.
"I'll get there as soon as I can," he said.
"As soon as you can. And Inspector, I really do not think that the danger is great. I cannot deny that some exists but I have done more than forty similar operations and seen quite similar cases. I believe she will be fine."
"Thank you," he said. "Forgive me for calling you at home."
"Oh, that's all right. I just got home and I was spending a few minutes with my little boy before he went to bed."
"How old is he?"
"Two years," she said.
"A good age," said Rostnikov. "Goodnight, Doctor."
"Goodnight, Inspector."
Rostnikov left the office, thanked the young officer, nodded at a sailor with very short hair and freckles who looked up at him, and went out the door of the weather station and into the night.
The path which the navy plow had made that morning had long been filled by drifting snow. He had to move down the slope slowly, carefully. He was no more than a dozen feet from the door of the house on the square when the first shot was fired. It probably would have torn off the top of his head had he not been stumbling slightly. He had stumbled more than a dozen times coming down the slope. Had he looked up and behind him there was a chance, a slight chance that he would have seen a movement in the shadows near the forest higher up the slope between the wooden houses, but he had no reason to do so.
Even as he rolled to his right and the second shot came tearing up a furrow of snow as if an animal were tunneling madly past his head, Rostnikov was aware of the irony. The leg which he had dragged behind him for more than thirty-five years had finally repaid him by saving his life.
He knew now or sensed where the shots were coming from and before the third bullet was fired he was crouching behind the statue of Ermak. A small chunk of Ermak's hand shattered, sending small shards of stone over Rostnikov's head.
The fourth shot came from further right and Rostnikov looked around knowing that he would have to make a move if someone did not come out to help him quickly. There was no thought of running. Rostnikov could not run.
It was at that point that the door of the People's Hall of Justice and Solidarity banged open and Mirasnikov, the old man Rostnikov had been watching all day, came out, his boots not fully tied, his coat not buttoned, the fur hat on a mad angle atop his head. In his hand he held an old hunting rifle.
"Where?" the old man shouted at Rostnikov.
"Up there," Rostnikov shouted back. "On the slope. By the trees. But don't step out. He'll…"
The old man stepped out, looked up toward the slope, put the rifle to his shoulder and fired three times in rapid succession before the rifle on the hill responded.
Mirasnikov tumbled back from the shot that appeared to hit him in the chest.
It had been no more than ten seconds between the time the first shot was fired and Mirasnikov had tumbled back wounded. Other doors were opening now and Rostnikov thought he saw a movement on the slope. The killer was running.
Rostnikov rose and moved as quickly as he could toward the fallen old man. The light from the open door of the People's Hall of Justice made a yellow path on which Mirasnikov lay.
"Where?" Someone behind Rostnikov shouted as the inspector knelt by the fallen man.
"On the slope by the trees," Rostnikov shouted back without looking. He had no hope or expectation that anyone would see the assailant. "How are you, old man?" he asked Mirasnikov gently.
An expanding circle of red lay on the old man's jacket just below his right shoulder.
"Did I get him?" Mirasnikov asked.
"I don't think so, but I think you saved my life."
"If I had my glasses, I would have gotten him."
"I'm sure you would. You can't lie out here. I'll take you inside."