When the notebooks were in order, Karpo took a shower and ate a piece of bread and a potato, washing the food down with a large glass of Borzhomi, a mineral water that tasted a bit like iodine. By ten, after an hour of sleep made difficult by the constant ache in his left arm, he fixed the wire on his door and left his apartment. An hour later, about the time Rostnikov and his wife were getting to bed, Karpo emerged from the Novokuznekskaya metro station, walked slowly down the street to a huge Victorian mansion at number 10 Lavrushinsky Pereulok, went around to a small side door in the darkness, and let himself in with a key he’d had made.
Once inside the Tretyakov Gallery, Karpo, having visited the building many times in the daytime, moved softly in the shadows, avoiding the old guards, to a room on the second floor. There the walls were jammed with gilt-framed paintings of various sizes. Sliding around a small marble statue of a man with a spear, Karpo opened the door to a maintenance closet and eased inside. He had done this for the past five nights, knew the room well, and placed himself so that he could see out through a thin space where door and jamb failed to meet. As usual, he would stand there till nearly dawn, watching and waiting.
The building contains the world’s largest collection of Russian paintings, certainly more than five thousand. More than one and a half million visitors each year look at the iconic paintings of Andrei Rublev or the massive nineteenth-century realist paintings of Ilya Repin or the hundreds of photolike social realist paintings done during Stalin’s tenure, such as Workers at the Feskoskaya Factory in Morensk.
A week ago a director of the gallery had discovered that one of the oldest paintings in the collection was missing. This was Karpo’s case, and he had advised the gallery director to say nothing. When another painting, of a different period and in a different room, was found missing two days later, Karpo had begun his closet vigil. If there was a pattern, and the pattern held, eventually the thief would enter this room during the night, and Karpo would be there to catch him. Throughout the night, guards came and went. The room was silent but for the scuttling of something, probably a mouse, just before dawn. One of the guards paused on his rounds for a long drink from a bottle hidden in his jacket, and then light came. There had been no theft, at least not in this room.
Karpo was undiscouraged. He would simply return again tomorrow and the next night and the next, as he returned to the Moscow Book House. He had enough time to slip out unseen, get back to his room, and catch an hour of sleep before returning to the current investigation. Karpo had no great interest in the murder of an American writer, especially one as decadent as Aubrey clearly had been, but it was his duty, and he would work on the case as diligently as he worked on any other.
As Karpo allowed himself to recline on his narrow bed at seven on Friday morning, trying to find a reasonably tolerable position for his arm, Porfiry Rostnikov was entering the huge pale yellow building at 22 Lubyanka Street. The KGB headquarters stands opposite the 36-foot statue of “Iron” Felix Dzerzhinsky, who organized the Cheka for Lenin. The Cheka went through many transformations and is now the KGB, “the sword of the Revolution.” There are white curtains at the windows and shiny brass fittings on the door. Beyond the general offices and interrogation rooms are, as everyone knows, the cells.
The KGB has more than 110,000 members, including many of the most intelligent and highly motivated Russians. It seemed to be Rostnikov’s fortune, however, to deal with but one of that number each time he entered this building. After a ten-minute wait, a stiff-backed man with dark, curly hair led Rostnikov down a corridor and up a short stairway. It was a repeat of his last visit, and Rostnikov did not look forward to it. The guide knocked at the unmarked door, and a familiar raspy voice behind it said, “Come.”
Rostnikov entered alone and closed the door behind him. Yes, it was the same. Dark brown carpet, framed posters on the wall urging productivity and solidarity. Chairs with arms and dark nylon padded seats and an ancient, well-polished desk behind which sat Colonel Drozhkin, white hair, dark suit, black tie. Drozhkin examined Rostnikov critically and indicated with a gesture of his callused hand that the inspector could sit.
“Your son is back in Kiev,” said Drozhkin, starting the game.
“Yes,” said Rostnikov, gazing at his host without emotion.
“Good,” said the colonel. “Afghanistan is not a safe place for a Russian. Our losses, I will tell you confidentially, have been high.”
It was Drozhkin, Rostnikov knew, who had arranged to have Iosef sent to Afghanistan, and it was Drozhkin who, having gotten Rostnikov’s full cooperation in covering up certain details about a politically sensitive case, allowed Iosef to return to Kiev with his unit. It was Drozhkin now who was making it quite clear that he could do the same thing again.
“There is,” Drozhkin said, folding his hands in front of him on the clean desk top, “a group of fanatics, capitalist terrorists who have sought on various occasions to embarrass the Soviet Union. This pitifully small group calls itself World Liberation. It has members from several countries. It seeks to drive us into conflict with the West. It claims in its literature that once we are at war with the Western powers, both sides will be destroyed, and World Liberation will be able to take over. We have infiltrated this group in the past. We thought we had destroyed them, but a few have survived. Some of them are now in Moscow.”
There was nothing for Rostnikov to say as the gnarled colonel paused to allow him to speak. It was rare for a KGB official to reveal so much even to the police, and Rostnikov knew that much of it might not be exactly true. Rostnikov shifted his leg and nodded.
“Your dead American, Aubrey,” Drozhkin went on, “was working on a story about this group, this World Liberation. We think that his death may be related to that story and the presence of those terrorists in Moscow.”
“Why-” Rostnikov began, but Drozhkin cut him off, rising and waving a hand.
“We know where the core is,” the colonel said, straightening a poster of a grim-faced woman holding a flag against a red background, “but we want them all. We will watch that core while you continue your investigation. We are especially concerned about possible terrorist acts. There are many Western and Third World people in Moscow for this film festival. Any act of terrorism would be most unfortunate.”
“Most unfortunate,” Rostnikov repeated, thinking, unfortunate for whom?
“This is your investigation,” Drozhkin said, his back turned, his hands clasped behind him. “It is important that you not fail.”
The situation was now quite clear to Rostnikov. Dealing with terrorists was the responsibility of the KGB. Drozhkin, a survivor of several decades of purges in the intelligence and security service, had been given a most touchy assignment, to find these terrorists before they acted. As he had done in the past, Drozhkin was covering his flank. If the terrorists acted, he would somehow blame it on Rostnikov and the MVD.
“I understand,” said Rostnikov.
“We have been watching the known members of World Liberation who are presently in Moscow,” Drozhkin went on. “In fact, they are in Moscow because we chose to let them come in.”
“Moscow becomes the web of a spider,” Rostnikov said and immediately regretted it.
“If you wish,” agreed the colonel, fixing his eyes on the policeman. “I am not given to metaphor. Our watching has yielded little. If nothing comes from you in forty-eight hours, we will arrest those members we know. Your task is considerable, Comrade Inspector.”
“Considerable,” Rostnikov agreed blandly. “But we must face our daily challenges and responsibilities.”