“I understand,” said Rostnikov.
“There is a long and twisted road between understanding and action, Porfiry Petrovich,” said the colonel. “Have I ever attempted to temper or thwart your investigations?”
“No,” Rostnikov admitted.
“Have I supported your findings and those of our staff when I have believed them?”
“Yes.”
“Have I not allowed our office, at your request, to assume responsibility for the investigation of the … how do they say it in America?”
“Serial killer,” Rostnikov said.
“Ah, yes, serial killer. Serial killer.” Colonel Snitkonoy tested the sound and seemed to find it acceptable. “The risk of failure is great.”
“But the rewards of success are many,” said Rostnikov.
“I grow weary of your epigrams, Porfiry Petrovich. You are reading too many American novels.”
“Perhaps,” said Rostnikov.
“Then there is nothing more to say,” said the colonel.
And nothing more had been said. The colonel shook Rostnikov’s hand and departed, and Rostnikov painfully and slowly rose from the chair in which his crippled leg had gone stiff and rebellious with pain. The leg had been mangled by a Nazi tank in the battle of Rostov when Porfiry Petrovich was a boy soldier. A determined, half-crazed, and shell-shocked doctor had saved the leg, though any dermatologist or brain surgeon could have seen that the leg demanded amputation. And so, for more than thirty-five years, Rostnikov had dragged his left leg as if it were a ball and chain.
Now, cramped in a small seat of an Aeroflot plane on its way to Havana, Rostnikov put aside the American mystery novel he had been reading and tried once more to find a position that would not cause him extreme pain. He failed. He glanced at his deputy inspector, Elena Timofeyeva, who had spent the first twelve hours of the flight to Cuba going over her Spanish language book, taking notes, and occasionally closing her eyes. The flight was only scheduled for twelve hours and ten minutes. There were still “several hours” to go till landing in Havana, according to the stewardess, who answered any questions-whether about arrival time, or about food, or drink, or the lack of paper in the toilet-with a depth of surliness usually encountered only in government food store clerks.
The flight had started badly. When Rostnikov had offered Elena the window seat, a one-minute struggle involving feminism, power, and confession had ensued.
“I will be quite comfortable on the aisle,” she had said as people squeezed past them down the narrow aisle.
“I prefer the aisle,” Rostnikov responded, pressing himself against the arm of the seat.
She gave him a look of grudging acceptance, suggesting that he was yet another man going through the motions of being polite and domineering.
“I would tell Emil Karpo the same thing,” Rostnikov said as she eased into her seat. “I prefer the aisle. I like to be able to move about.”
She had nodded, not believing him but recognizing the authority of the inspector who had given her the honor of going with him to Cuba. Her eyes met his and said, “This is to be a trip in which I am patronized. I can see it in our first exchange.”
Elena did not feel completely comfortable in her new position as the only female in the Special Investigation Office of the MVD. She wanted, and made it known that she wanted, no special treatment. She worked hard, put in extra hours, tried to cooperate with the men in the office even when they were wrong. She was rewarded by being ignored or patronized.
Elena was a pretty, slightly plump young woman of almost thirty-one. She had clear skin, blue eyes, and remarkably even large, white teeth. Her dark hair was straight, cut efficiently short. Though confident of her skills, she was aware that she had been given her position largely through the influence of her aunt, Anna, with whom she lived in Moscow. Anna Timofeyeva had been Deputy Procurator General for all of Moscow, and Rostnikov had been her principal investigator till Anna’s heart attack and forced retirement. Following a series of clashes with the KGB, Rostnikov had been transferred to the Office of Special Affairs, a dead-end ceremonial closet run by Colonel Snitkonoy.
Rostnikov and the investigators he had brought with him from the Procurator General’s office, Sasha Tkach and Emil Karpo, were then singled out by the KGB for several impossible investigations, investigations designed to embarrass the Wolfhound and his staff. But Rostnikov had managed to escape embarrassment in each of these investigations, and, when the Soviet Union and Gorbachev had collapsed, the Special Affairs Office, having no political power or identity, emerged as one of the few untainted investigative offices in Russia.
As he stood in the aisle of the Aeroflot plane observing his young aide, Porfiry Petrovich wondered if he had made the right choice in selecting Elena Timofeyeva to accompany him to Cuba. In fact, he had had no choice. Karpo could not be pulled from the serial murders and the death of the Kazakhstani minister. Tkach had made it clear that he did not want to leave Moscow. Besides, Elena could speak Spanish.
“Elena Timofeyeva,” Rostnikov said softly, letting his eyes meet those of the portly dark man in the row behind them who was paying unabashed attention, “I do not enjoy airplanes. I do not like to look out of windows and be reminded of space, time, and the frailties of human technology, particularly Soviet technology. I prefer to lose myself in books and sleep when it will come. I also like to wander the aisles to keep my leg from going stiff. It would be a favor to me if you take the window seat. Therefore, in this case, it is not I who would be doing you a favor but you who would be doing me one.”
With disbelief and reluctance, Elena consented, and Porfiry Petrovich sank gratefully into his too-narrow seat, wondering how he had become a policeman when in fact he had the heart of a priest.
But Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, named by his father for Dostoyevsky’s prosecutor in Crime and Punishment, knew he had been fated to be a policeman from the moment of his birth. Though his parents never urged him to pursue such a career, the literary designation represented a destiny that had been planted in his soul, something which Russians were now permitted once more to possess.
There were a few other Russians and an oasis or two of Ukrainians, Estonians, and Lithuanians on the flight. Rostnikov had checked the boarding list with airport security. All of the passengers looked reasonably uncomfortable. Only the Cubans, or those Rostnikov assumed were Cubans, seemed to take the long flight, terrible food, and metallic noises of impending doom in stride.
Rostnikov had brought four American paperback mysteries, two 87th Precinct novels by his favorite, Ed McBain, and one each by Donald Westlake and Susan Dunlap. He had never read a mystery by a woman, so he read the Dunlap first and enjoyed it. When he finished the Dunlap novel halfway through the flight of agony, he elected to read one of the McBains, a novel he had read before called Kiss.
It was then that they flew into turbulence that bounced the plane and made the wings rattle. Rostnikov put down his book and looked at the madmen and madwomen who surrounded him, seemingly unconcerned that they were flying over the dark ocean in a massive metal can operated by the airline with the worst safety record in the history of aviation.
He clutched his tattered paperback to his chest with hands of steel, felt the metal buckle of the seat dig into his stomach with each bounce, and thought of his wife.
Sarah, in spite of a few relapses, was recovering well from surgery almost a year ago. She was working again, at the music shop, and she seemed to have more energy than before. Porfiry Petrovich was sure the increased energy was a result of the two little girls. Ludmilla, ten, and Elmira, six, were the granddaughters of a woman who had been convicted of murdering the manager of State Store #31 during a spontaneous food riot. Rostnikov and Sarah had taken the girls in. Though quiet and frightened, Ludmilla and Elmira also seemed to be intelligent, and they wanted very much to please.