“I do not,” said Karpo.
Semionov waved the fresh roll in front of Karpo. “I concluded that I had no power, but that power was essential to me. It was as important as the blood that flowed through my veins. I concluded that life is short and meaningless and that killing neither damned me nor made me feel remorse. I concluded that all that would satisfy me was power. Not women, not a big house, not food. Only power. To tell people to act and have them obey without question. There is nothing more worthwhile in life. All else is lies to keep the system working.”
“Though they could not express it so well,” said Karpo, “that is just what most of the criminals we question believe.”
“Yes,” said Semionov with a smile. “But they do not understand why they want this or how this need has pervaded human history. I understand.”
“And therefore,” said Karpo, “you are far more dangerous.”
“Precisely,” said Semionov.
They sat silently for a few moments while Semionov ate and drank and thought and looked across the table at the rigid detective.
“I’ve changed my mind about you,” said Semionov. “I think I shall have to have you killed. I think you are determined to kill me. Am I right?”
“You are right,” said Karpo.
“There are tribes, those of New Guinea, who believe that you take on the power of the warrior you kill, especially if you eat his heart and liver. Perhaps I will eat your heart and liver, though I think they will be rather bitter. Leave now. You are depressing me.”
Karpo turned and found himself facing the man who had followed him. The man was shaking his head no.
“You know what that shake means?” asked Semionov. “It means no one but Panushkin has followed you. And of this, Panushkin is certain, for it would mean his life if he were not.”
Semionov placed a gun on the table, a gun that had probably rested in his lap during their entire conversation.
Karpo slowly put his hand to the lapel of his jacket and turned it over. A metal pin about the size of a kopeck was attached to the back of the lapel.
Semionov smiled and shook his head.
“Hubris,” he said. “That feeling of power that makes you miss things. Who is on the other end of what we have been saying?”
“Does it matter?” asked Karpo.
Semionov shrugged, lit a fresh cigarette, and said, “If this is still private, we still have room to negotiate.”
“There was never room to negotiate,” said Karpo.
The door to the restaurant opened behind Karpo. The man who had followed him turned quickly, and two men came out of the darkness near the kitchen. Semionov sat patiently.
“We’ve got it,” said Craig Hamilton evenly.
The men who had come out of the darkness raised their hands above their heads. Karpo turned to face the FBI agent and six heavily armed plainclothesmen.
“Karpo,” Hamilton cried suddenly, looking past Karpo at Semionov.
Karpo’s gun was out and he turned in a crouch, aiming at Semionov and firing. The gun still sat in front of the startled gangster, who had started to reach for it when Karpo’s bullet tore into his chest.
The hands of the other gangsters went up even higher.
“He was reaching for the gun,” said Hamilton behind Karpo.
Semionov had bounced back against his chair and then slumped forward, overturning coffee, rolls, butter, and a full ashtray. Hamilton, an automatic weapon in one hand, moved forward quickly to the table and touched Semionov’s neck.
“Dead,” he said.
Karpo put his gun away under his jacket and looked at the FBI man, who said, “He was definitely going for the weapon.”
There was no surge of power for Karpo. No sense of justice. No particular feeling. A man was dead. Mathilde was dead. Karpo turned, brushed past the man who had followed him less than an hour earlier, and walked to the door of the restaurant and out into the early winter.
There were twenty-seven criminal hearings set that day for this room in the House of Justice. That meant that the hearing boards had about fifteen minutes to decide if each case should go to trial. Eleven of the cases involved murder. The early cases would be heard by a board of three judges, none of whom was professionally trained in the law. By the afternoon wear and tear reduced the number of judges to one or two. The room was barely larger than a closet.
The eighth hearing took place slightly before noon. It was held before a panel of two men and one woman. The men were both around sixty. One was stoop-shouldered and tall. The other was short and thin and sat reasonably erect. The woman was much younger, perhaps as young as thirty or thirty-five. She was wearing a suit not much different from her colleagues, who sat on each side of her. Though he could not see her clearly, Sasha thought she was good-looking, dark, and a bit too thin for his taste.
Sasha’s mouth was dry. Upon advice from the Procurator’s Office, he had dressed but not changed the bandage on his head. There was a distinct patch of blood, and it was evident to anyone who looked his way that the nice-looking young man with the bandage was having trouble focusing.
“Are you all right?” asked Zelach, who sat next to him in the hearing room full of police and the accused.
“No,” said Sasha, “but I will make it.”
Two cases were called after Sasha arrived. Both were taken care of quickly. Two resulted in the accused being turned over for trial on cases of assault and vehicle theft. The third, a girl accused of theft and prostitution, was allowed to go because there was no evidence other than the testimony of the policeman. The victim had refused to appear. In the old days the word of a policeman would have been enough. Times had changed.
The Chazovs were called forward. They were wearing identical heavy brown trousers, white shirts, and plain brown sweaters. Their hair had been cut and they stood in a row, heads up facing the woman behind the bench. Their faces were clean. Behind the three boys stood the lawyer Lermonov and Elvira Chazova, apparently pregnant and carrying a small, sleeping child in her arms.
“Witnesses?” the woman justice called, looking at the complaint that lay in front of her. Her colleagues did the same with little interest or enthusiasm.
“Two,” the man with the stooped shoulders said. “Officers Zelach and Tkach.”
“Step forward,” the woman said.
Zelach helped Sasha forward next to the three boys, who kept their eyes focused on the judges.
“Speak,” the woman said.
“May I sit?” Sasha asked.
The justice nodded, and Zelach brought a chair forward.
“Thank you. We were staking out the apartment building of the Chazov boys. We had reason to believe they had murdered and robbed a man two … no, three days ago. We also had reason to believe they had robbed and murdered others.”
The justices looked at the Chazovs and their mother and then back at the policeman.
“My partner was watching from an apartment across the street,” Sasha went on dryly. “It was midnight and I was coming to relieve him. As I was about to enter the apartment building where he was watching from the window, I was attacked by these three.” He pointed at the Chazov boys.
“You saw this?” asked the woman behind the table.
“I saw two of the boys in front of me. The other hit me with something. I turned. The boy was holding a piece of wood. It was covered with blood, my blood. Then something hit me again. I tried to turn and pull out my gun, but I went down and was unconscious for a minute or so.”
“So,” said the woman, “you did not actually see the boy hit you?”
“There was no one else there but the boy holding a piece of bloody wood.”
“And then?”
“When I opened my eyes, the boys were handcuffed around a lamppost, and I thought I heard an ambulance coming.”
“Officer Zelach, precisely what did you see and do?”
Zelach tried not to shift his weight from foot to foot as he met the eyes of the three justices behind the bench. It took a great deal of effort, but he managed. He also managed to look extremely nervous.