Drozhkin’s mouth went tight for an instant and then relaxed. “I’ll detain you no longer,” he said. “You may return to your investigation…and your plumbing. And please give our best to your wife.”
Ah, thought Rostnikov, rising, the final point goes to the KGB. Rostnikov was being watched even down to his little plumbing escapade. And what of the remark about Sarah, whom Drozhkin had never met? The most vulnerable aspect of Sarah was her Jewishness. Was Rostnikov’s apartment bugged? Yes, he thought, it probably is, and the KGB knows that we have talked about applying for immigration. Drozhkin is making an oblique threat.
“It has been good to talk to you again,” Drozhkin added.
Rostnikov paused at the door. “It is, as always, stimulating to talk to you, Comrade Colonel.”
The guide was waiting in the hall to escort Rostnikov from the building. He moved quickly down the hall, making it difficult for the policeman to follow him, but Rostnikov took satisfaction in the conviction that he could surely lift the man above his head and hurl him through the colonel’s door, should madness come.
All in all, Rostnikov decided, he had emerged reasonably well from the discussion. Granted, he now was in a dangerous situation, but that was part of life. He had discovered that Aubrey’s death was probably part of a terrorist plot. Growing in him was the hope and near conviction that the people Aubrey had interviewed were connected to the murder-the Frenchwoman, the Englishman, and the German. He would push them, push them hard, but first he would speak to Mrs. Aubrey to see if she could shed any light on her husband’s research on World Liberation.
The sunlight and fresh air came as a surprise to Rostnikov when he stepped back into Krov Street and crossed to the metro station in front of the Mayakovsky Museum. He dismissed the idea that he might be followed. It would be so laughably easy to keep track of him that the KGB would have no reason to follow, but the idea came nonetheless, and as he moved into the underground he considered checking. It would be easy to look back, scan the crowd, then go through the underpass, return, and watch to see which face doubled back with him. The person would be crafty, probably quite good, but Rostnikov was confident he could spot anyone following him. The problem was that the KGB would then know that he knew he was being followed. So, since it made no difference either way, Rostnikov fought back the urge to let the KGB know he was aware of their interest. Such devious thinking, thought Rostnikov, keeps the mind active.
Back at Petrovka, Rostnikov walked past the downstairs desk, grumbled something to the uniformed guard, and went up the stairs to his office. He nodded at the junior inspectors who shared desks in the outer office and went to his own cubbyhole, where he sat down at his desk, picked up the messages, and removed the small tape recorder from his pocket.
The message on top informed him that the poison which had killed Aubrey, the Japanese, and the two Russians was a bizarre extract, cultivated from bacteria that affect birds. This deadly extract causes psittacosis, a disease normally transmitted to birds and occasionally affecting human beings. The report did not puzzle Rostnikov. It confirmed his limited knowledge of small terrorist groups. Drama was very important to them. If you simply hit a victim with a bat and walk away, you generate little publicity. If you inject diseases, take hostages in public landmarks, hijack airplanes, bomb babies, the world looks at you with fear or disgust or awe. The important thing is that the world looks at you.
Yes, thought Rostnikov, and in a society like ours, the act would have to be so massive, so public, that it would be difficult or impossible to cover up. Now the only problem would be to decide what such a public display might be. Would they kidnap the president?
Rostnikov ran his finger along the scratch on his desk made last winter by a sickle, the murder weapon in the case that first brought Rostnikov in contact with Colonel Drozhkin.
In ten minutes, it would be nine o’clock, time for Tkach and Karpo to come to his office for a meeting. The ten minutes gave him just enough time to hide the tape of his conversation with Drozhkin, see Procurator Timofeyeva, and on his way shout to that blini-head Zelach to find Mrs. Aubrey.
When he entered Anna Timofeyeva’s office two floors above, he was disturbed to see how pale she looked. She was definitely ill. She had told him to report as soon as he returned to Petrovka, but he found it difficult to concentrate on his account of the interchange and nuances of the meeting at KGB headquarters. He doubted if her office was bugged, but it might be.
She sipped her tea, nodding at crucial points, her breath heaving in and out.
“Anna,” Rostnikov said, stopping in the middle of a sentence, “I must call an ambulance for you.”
“No,” she said gasping for air. “I have a pill. Give your report and leave. I’m very busy.”
The look in her eyes filled Rostnikov with a deep and sudden sadness. She was frightened, and Rostnikov suspected that she was having a heart attack.
“Overwork,” she said.
“I’m calling the police ambulance,” he said, reaching for the phone.
“Porfiry,” she gasped, pulling a brown bottle from her desk and extracting a small pill, which she put under her tongue, “they’ll carry me out on a stretcher, past everyone. I…it would be a humiliation.”
“I’ll accompany you, Comrade,” he said, taking the phone.
“I do not wish to show weakness,” she said, gritting her teeth and willing the pain to go away, but it would not.
“Our bodies are weak,” said Rostnikov, dialing. “There is only so much we can do about it. What we can do is face the inevitable with dignity.”
Through the pain, Anna Timofeyeva smiled. “You are a comforting mongrel, Porfiry Petrovich,” she said.
Rostnikov told the medical aides to hurry to the office, explaining that the procurator was probably suffering a heart seizure. He hung up, and turned to Anna Timofeyeva. He wanted to take her hand, but held back, knowing she would not want that. When Ivan Kolenko was knifed, Rostnikov had held the hand of his dying colleague, though the two had never been friends. But Kolenko was a man, and in this society where the sexes were supposedly equal, he did not have the burden of proving his strength as did Anna Timofeyeva.
They said little while they waited for the medical aides. He offered her some tea which she refused. They could hear the aides coming down the hall.
“Porfiry,” she said, softly gasping, “I must ask you a favor. If they take me to the hospital, will you go to my apartment and take care of my cat? His name is Baku.” The request took a great deal out of her.
“Of course,” he said lightly. “I am very fond of cats.” Rostnikov knew that he lied well. In truth, he detested cats almost as much as he hated dogs. No, it was those who insisted on keeping them whom he had always disliked. The animals themselves were the extension, the manifestation. For the first time, he saw in Anna Timofeyeva’s face something of the need one might have for an animal.
They said no more on the subject, and she insisted on rising and lying on the stretcher. The two young men who came for her were properly respectful of her bulk and title. As they carried her out, she raised a hand and said, “No, Rostnikov. You stay here and continue the investigation. If I survive, you can see me at the hospital with a report.”
Rostnikov smiled. This wasn’t a posture, but the real procurator coming through. The meaning of her existence was in her job, and she was not going to let her own dysfunction hold back the apprehension of enemies of the State.
“I will report to you at the hospital,” he said, stopping in the hall as the stretcher-carriers hurried away. Heads came out of offices. Murmurs were heard along the way, and Rostnikov lamented the fact that on the four flights down to the main floor Anna Timofeyeva would have to face the thing she so dreaded, the public display of her weakness.