“A minute or so to five,” the man said with irritation, and returned to his discussion of montage.
At this point Tkach looked again at Willery, who seemed to be staring back at him though he showed no sign of recognition. It was then that Tkach had an uneasy feeling. The Englishman was not looking at him but at the Zaryadye Movie Theater. He seemed to be expecting something. As he watched, his mouth dropped open and his hand plunged into his pocket. His look was so intense that Tkach turned to the theater to see what there was to look at.
The montage man was in a state of near apoplexy in his argument when the explosion came. It was not a massive, ear-splitting sound, but the boom of a giant stomping on an enormous paper bag. The boom was followed within a breath by the shower of glass.
Tkach had been facing the theater when the first sound came. He turned and threw himself face down on the pavement, covering his head just as the rain of glass exploded behind him.
Something skittered across his back and over his arm like a sharp-clawed animal, and then he heard a tinkling and crackling like a fragile hail. He kept his head down till the sound stopped, and then he looked up.
Sitting in front of him was the montage man, a look of total bewilderment on his bloody face. At his side stood a woman in a blue dress holding her arm, which oozed blood at an alarming rate. Tkach rose, trembling, and looked around. The half-dozen or so people in the immediate vicinity of the theater were in the stage that precedes panic. They were numb; they had no idea what had happened or why. Tkach stepped over a torn movie poster that had been blown to the street and looked at Willery, who stood agape with something in his hand.
“Willery,” Tkach shouted, for now he knew that somehow, for some reason, this lunatic Englishman had set off an explosion in the theater. Tkach had hoped that his shout would paralyze Willery. Even if it did not, he knew he could catch the Englishman. What Sasha Tkach had not counted on was his own injury.
A sharp pain coursed from his shoulder down his back to his buttocks as he pushed past the dazed people. The pain was not nearly as intense as his fear that he had been mortally wounded. The irony of discovering one was to be a father on the day one was killed came to him in a sob and froze him in place.
His eyes were still on Willery, who now spotted Tkach, and suddenly seemed to recognize him. Instead of running, he began furiously pressing his thumb against the small black object in his hand as if it might make this apparition of the policeman go away.
Tkach twisted around to check his back. He couldn’t see down to his buttocks, but he could tell that he had received a long straight cut that had gone through his clothes and charted a path as if drawn with a ruler. It was ugly, but Tkach was fairly certain it wasn’t severe.
“Willery,” he called again, growing angry now at this man who had almost killed him on the day he had learned that his child Misha was to be born.
Willery saw only a figure who seemed vaguely familiar, and the figure was coming at him, looking determined and furious and calling his name. The man seemed to have emerged from the explosion-a miracle. So Willery had pushed the button again in the hope that another explosion would come and take this man away. The button had no effect, so Willery threw the little box at the man who was advancing on him. He had originally meant to wipe it clean of any fingerprints and heave it in the river, but that was forgotten.
The small box clattered to the ground in front of Tkach, stopping him just in time to prevent his being hit by a small, brown Pobeda automobile whose driver had lost control as his right front tire was punctured by a shard of glass.
Tkach instinctively put his arms to his head in the belief that the object thrown at him might explode. When there was no explosion, and the Pobeda skidded by, Tkach bent and picked up the object. Bending caused him some pain, but even in the madness of the panic-stricken screaming behind him and the skidding, crashing car to his left, he knew he had to get that little box.
“Willery!” he shouted, resuming his determined pursuit.
This time Willery turned and ran. How did it come to this? he asked himself, weeping inside, as he ran without knowing where. I’m a goddamn filmmaker. He wanted to turn to see if the wild man was chasing him, but he didn’t dare. He had done some running in school, but that was almost fifteen years ago. But fear and adrenaline prodded him forward, as he pushed past groups of people who were moving against him in the direction of the explosion.
“Stop that man!” shouted Tkach, but no one stopped the thin man with the dark glasses and jeans. His little Edwardian jacket billowed behind him as he dashed madly down Marx Prospekt.
Then a woman stepped in front of him and grabbed Willery’s arm, almost spinning him to the ground. She was enormous and insistent.
“What was that noise?” she demanded with authority.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, you Russian cow. Let me go!” he cried in English, glancing back at Tkach, who was no more than thirty yards behind.
Not understanding what he said, which was fortunate for him, she pushed him away with disapproval and stalked onward. Willery stumbled, righted himself, and plunged forward.
“Stop him!” Tkach was panting and unsure whether he should continue to expend energy shouting or preserve his strength for the pursuit of the surprisingly swift-footed Englishman. No one stopped Willery. The determined woman reached out to grab Tkach, hoping to get some coherent information about what was going on. Tkach dodged past her, though her hand brushed his shoulder and came away smeared with blood.
Later Tkach would estimate that the chase covered about a mile. In reality, it was only half of that. Tkach feared that Willery would never get tired, but as he passed the Central Exhibition Hall and entered 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution Square he found himself facing a pair of youths wearing caps and silly grins, arms linked, and clearly having drunk more than was reasonable on a Sunday afternoon. Willery tried to dash around them, but the young men, in trying to get out of his way, moved in the same direction as his charge. He hit them full speed, breaking their arm link and sending him into a triple somersault from which he rose like a circus performer. His face was bruised and he seemed to have lost his sense of direction completely. Just then a car pulled up next to him, and two men jumped out. They were very large, sober, dark men, and one was carrying a machine gun.
Exhausted and bleeding, Tkach stopped a dozen yards from the car. People all around were watching, but no one stepped forward as one of the men grabbed Willery by the arm and shoved him roughly into the back seat of the car, then pushed the door closed and turned the gun on Tkach.
There was no doubt in Tkach’s mind who these men were. Their look, their size, their command of the situation told him they were KGB.
“He’s mine,” panted Tkach, feeling that his kill was getting out of his hands and being taken by predators, vultures. He was the one who had done the tracking and chasing. If he’d had his wits about him, Sasha Tkach would never have questioned the authority of the KGB, but there was a touch of hysteria in his tone now.
The KGB man with the gun said nothing, but simply shook his head firmly and motioned with the gun for Tkach to back off. Willery was hidden inside by the dark windows of the car. Tkach wanted to say something more. He opened his mouth, but the man with the gun shook his head again, silencing him. The man opened the front door and got in, carefully watching Tkach. Then he closed the door, and the black Moscovich turned slowly and drove away.
Passersby who had stopped to watch the show now moved on past the young man with the wounded back, who stood in silent frustration and fury.
How many times can one fail? Tkach asked himself as he walked slowly back in the direction of the explosion. He would have to call Rostnikov and tell him not only that Willery had succeeded in committing an act of terrorism, but also that he had been wrenched from Tkach by the KGB. It was, at best, a sorry effort.