“You are also an artist,” she said. “A plumber and an artist. Interesting combination. There is a depth to you, Ivan Pavlov.”
Rostnikov raised his eyes but not his head. She was wearing a loose, light-blue sweater and a darker skirt. She had a cup in her hand. Rostnikov could smell the coffee.
“And to you, Svetlana Britchevna,” he said, putting the finishing touches to his drawing.
“May I ask what you are drawing?”
“The sun,” he said. “For reasons I cannot explain, I have been dreaming of the sun, the fragile sun.”
“The sun is fragile?” she asked, amused.
“All life is fragile,” he said.
“And the sun is alive?”
“Sometimes I think all life is the sun. Perhaps I should consider becoming a pagan, a sun worshiper.”
“And,” she said, taking a sip of coffee, “spending hours in the nude in worship.”
“It would not be a sight that would delight the sun god,” said Rostnikov. “He might be so offended that he would strike me with skin cancer.”
“From the metaphysical to the pragmatic,” she said. “We can add poetry to your list of accomplishments, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov.”
Rostnikov showed no reaction to her having used his name. Instead, he clicked his pencil, put it in his shirt pocket, closed his notebook, put it next to him, and drank the last of his tea. Then he looked at her.
“I did not expect to surprise you,” she said. “You knew something of who I was last night.”
“Your approach was designed to alert me,” he said, folding his hands. “I wonder only at why you want me to know.”
“I work for the ministry,” she said. “Not high on the ladder, but not at the bottom either. My mission on this train is to watch a certain Pavel Cherkasov. We try to keep track of certain figures who do not like to walk in your sun.”
“Pavel Cherkasov,” Rostnikov repeated.
“My mission is considered by my superiors to be very low priority, routine. Others could have been selected ahead of me but none particularly wanted to ride the Trans-Siberian Express.”
“Why?”
“They find the trip boring and the assignment the same,” she said.
“But you do not,” said Rostnikov.
“I do not,” she said. “I have some information which the ministry provided for me and some I have picked up through my own connections and bribes from my own pocket.”
“You are ambitious,” Rostnikov said.
“Very,” she answered, her smile broadening. “One of the bribes I paid was to place you in Pavel Cherkasov’s compartment.”
“Drovny, the man with the jokes,” said Rostnikov. Rostnikov looked out the window, his eyes ahead, searching for the first light of the sun, but it was still too early, though perhaps he sensed the faintest hint of morning light. “And our discussion last night?” he asked.
“To test you,” she said.
“Did I pass your test?”
“Yes. And so did your assistant, Tkach. I tried to seduce him. I am very good at it and my information was that he was very susceptible. He did not succumb.”
“I am pleased to hear that,” said Rostnikov. “You are out of coffee. Shall I get you more?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “I have a proposal for you.”
Rostnikov sat attentively.
“I have told you who you are looking for. I can tell you where his transaction will take place. You will tell me what his mission is, and if we succeed in catching him in the act, I get credit for his apprehension.”
“And what do I get?” asked Rostnikov.
“Whatever it is Cherkasov is planning to get or give or both. We each have information the other needs. I see no point in our doing battle. Time is running short.”
“There is a long way to go,” said Rostnikov.
“Not for Cherkasov. I know about you, Rostnikov. I am willing to trust you. Tell me we have an agreement and I will tell you where and when and with whom he plans to make whatever transaction he has planned.”
“Why not simply seduce Cherkasov?” Rostnikov asked.
“He is not interested in women. His passion is bad jokes, expensive food, and high living. Well?”
Rostnikov fleetingly considered asking the woman for identification but it would be meaningless. Anything could be forged. Even if he did not believe her, he did not see that he had anything to lose. The Yak wanted the money and whatever it was Cherkasov was exchanging it for. The woman, if she was to be believed, wanted Cherkasov and the person he was dealing with. She would need something to prove her case. That could be arranged.
“We are in a temporary alliance,” he said.
“Ekaterinburg,” she said.
Fitting, thought Rostnikov. Ekaterinburg, which had been Sverdlovsk during the Soviet era, was where the Bolsheviks had taken the family of Czar Nicholas II in 1918 and killed them in a small, dank stone basement. Sverdlovsk was the name of the Bolshevik who had planned and carried out the execution of the royal Romanov family. It was also, Rostnikov knew, the birthplace of Boris Yeltsin.
“What do you know about Ekaterinburg?” she asked.
“It is on the Iset River, about a million and a half people, the capital of the Sverdlovsk Oblast region. Steelmaking, the Pittsburgh of Siberia. Industrial, turbines, ball bearings, other things. I believe there are even gold mines nearby.”
“And copper,” she said. “Titanium. It is what the Americans call a boom town since the end of the Soviet Union. America is the region’s number-one investor with one-hundred-and-fourteen million dollars. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, US West, Ford, IBM, Procter amp; Gamble. Three Lufthansa flights a day to Frankfurt.”
“Impressive,” said Rostnikov.
“It is also the murder capital of the region, possibly of all Russia, possibly the world. The Uralmash Mafia controls the city. The heads of the Ministry of Justice and the director of the Federal Security Service visited Ekaterinburg to investigate corruption, and a commission from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation convened there for almost two weeks to investigate charges that the head of the regional military, Lieutenant General Kraev, was connected to the Mafia.”
“And they discovered?”
“That he was innocent, of course. The commission did not address the contract killings.”
Rostnikov was aware that the region was a center of gang activity.
“More than one thousand twenty-five killings for the Sverdlovsk Oblast region, the most criminal region in all of Russia,” she said. “Almost ninety-six thousand major crimes. Examples: There was a contract killing last year of a thirty-year-old gang member named Lebedev. Shot ten times by an automatic pistol in the courtyard of his home on Frezerovschikov Street, eleven in the morning. Three days later there was a car bombing in a parking garage on Pekhotinstev Street. Five cars blown up. No one killed. Two days later, near the Svetly health center, a Mercedes-230 belonging to Anatoly Dmitriev, the center’s director, was blown up. He escaped.”
“Interesting,” said Rostnikov.
“More than interesting,” she said. “Crucial. One of the Uralmash killers is on this train. I believe he is following Pavel. I believe he plans to get to him before we do. We must not allow that to happen.”
“Pavel Cherkasov is a very popular man,” said Rostnikov.
“Not a result of his sense of humor,” she said.
“Who is this Uralmash killer?”
“Ah,” she said, sitting back. “I have a name, from the same source that provided me with the information about the location of the transaction. Our killer’s name is Vladimir Golk.”
“And our next big stop is …” Rostnikov began.
“Ekaterinburg,” she said. “This afternoon.”
“Of course,” said Rostnikov. “The sun is beginning to rise.”
She turned to look out the window. “Impressive,” she said.
“I think we can order breakfast now. Shall we wake Sasha and have something to eat?”