“But he knows something that will identify him,” Svetlana said.
“The bag,” said Rostnikov. “Whoever is carrying the bag with the money when we reach the station is our assassin.”
“What is he doing?” asked Sasha. “He is not going to turn over the money.”
“He wants the person with the valuable prize to identify himself,” said Svetlana. “Then he will take whatever it is he has and keep the money.”
“Kill him on the train or the platform?” asked Sasha.
“Possibly,” she said. “Maybe he will wait, follow him. Once he knows who the bearer is by sight… but he will probably kill him or her immediately.”
“Why?” asked Sasha.
“Because of him,” said Rostnikov, looking at the dead man. “The train will be in a panic when the body is discovered. He will want to get everything done quickly. At least that is what I would do.”
“And I,” agreed Svetlana.
“So, what do we do?” asked Rostnikov.
“Watch to see who gets off with the suitcase,” said Sasha. “Stop him.”
“Armed killer on a train platform,” said Rostnikov. “I think it would be better to catch him before we get to the station.”
“How?” asked Svetlana. “We are not even sure what the suitcase looks like.”
Rostnikov looked down at the body again. It showed no sign of becoming one with the universe. He got back up slowly.
“So how do we find him?” asked Sasha.
“We get the suitcase, inform him that we have it, and wait here for him to come and claim it,” Rostnikov answered.
“And where is it?” Svetlana asked.
“A little boy is sitting on it at the end of the last car we came through,” said Rostnikov.
Sasha and Svetlana looked at each other.
“The duffel bag the little boy is sitting on belonged to Cherkasov. It was on that shelf,” said Rostnikov. “Cherkasov took a pair of pajamas and a robe out of it. My guess is that under the pajamas and robe was and still is a great deal of money. He was hiding it in plain sight. Our killer took it and has persuaded or paid the boy’s parents to take it off the train when we stop. Your killer will get off carrying nothing, drawing no suspicion. He will pick up the bag from the little boy and wait for the person he intends to get the package from.”
“You cannot be sure of this,” Svetlana said.
“I cannot,” Rostnikov agreed. “But that family had no duffel bag when we saw. them board the train. In any case, it is easy to find out. I will go talk to the happy family. You two wait here.”
Rostnikov left the compartment and slowly made his way through the car and into the next one where the three people sat.
“My name is Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov,” he said to the man and woman. He had his wallet out and showed them his identification card. “Someone has asked your boy to carry that bag off the train.”
The couple said nothing.
“He told you not to tell anyone. I understand. He paid you already?”
“Yes,” the woman said.
“Olga,” the husband warned.
“I do not want trouble with the police,” the woman said. “Do we have to give, you the money he paid us?”
“No,” said Rostnikov. “Keep what he gave you. In fact, I will add this to it.”
He took several bills from his pocket and handed them to the woman, who gave them to the man.
“I take the bag and you go find the man who gave it to you. Find him and tell him that it was taken by the man with the bad leg.”
“And we are in no trouble?” the man asked warily.
“None,” said Rostnikov. “You are heroes of the new Russian Confederacy. If you wish to give me your address, I will send you a medal.”
“I have four medals,” the man said. “Worthless. Bata,” he said to the boy. “Go find the man. Tell him the man with the bad leg took the bag.”
The boy got quickly to his feet, not sure of which direction to go.
“That way,” said Rostnikov, pointing, and the boy hurried away.
Rostnikov picked up the duffel bag and moved back to the car where one dead person and two live ones waited for him.
Chapter Six
Before the crocus cloaked the steppe
Before the tadpoles and the nests
Jack Frost screamed, his voice so hoarse
The signalmen were blown off course
They passed Attila on his horse
Passed the Visigoths and the Norse
Villages with Viking forts
And knew not where they were
The Kolomenskaya, Kashirskaya, and Kantemirovskaya stops were in a row on the Gorkovsko-Zamoskvoretskaya Line, the green line. Iosef had spent the first two hours of his morning moving from one of these stations to the other, getting off, standing on the platform, pretending to be absorbed in a report in his hands. The report was a six-page memo from the Yak’s sweaty assistant, Pankov, on proper procedures and terminology for filling out case reports.
Iosef had chosen his attire carefully, duplicating, as best he could, what Toomas Vana had been wearing when he was murdered. Iosef even carried Toomas Vana’s briefcase. At each stop he positioned himself near a post or pillar in the same position witnesses had said Vana had been standing.
The odds of the woman’s next attack coming at one of these three K stations were, according to Paulinin, three to one against. However, if she were to appear, he was making himself the ideal target.
Now he stood against a post at the Kashirskaya station. Nine o’clock in the morning. Traffic moderate at this station outside the central ring of the Koltsyevaya line. No one appeared to notice him. No woman fitting the description appeared.
Elena had agreed to the plan on one condition, that she accompany Iosef to each stop at a discreet distance and watch the crowd for anyone who might be the woman they sought. They had been at this for two hours and had not once made eye contact with each other.
A number of women in the crowds rushing to work or shopping or who-knows-where generally fit the description, but the only one who had come very close to Iosef had been wearing thick glasses and appeared to be searching for someone in the crowd. She was also carrying a heavy black-plastic shopping bag in her right hand, the hand Paulinin said had been seriously sprained or possibly broken.
Elena, hands plunged into the pockets of her coat, kept checking her watch to give the impression that she was in a hurry. The act had begun to bore her, but she kept it up, watching Iosef without staring.
He really did look the part: tall, good-looking, wearing his best suit, his only suit other than the one in which he sometimes worked. Over his suit he wore a serious black coat he had borrowed from a friend. All of the previous victims had been about ten years older than Iosef. So Iosef had touched his temples with gray and brushed his hair straight back.
Their discussion early in the morning over coffee and rolls had been a reprise of their discussions of the day before.
“We cannot be sure we will see her in time if she moves quickly,” Elena had said.
“We will both be watching,” he said.
“But…”
“Her right hand is probably useless,” he said. “She will have to attack with her left. She should not be difficult to stop and, unlike the others, remember, I will be ready.”
“Porfiry Petrovich would not approve if he were here,” she said.
“We can ask him what he would have done when he returns,” said Iosef, “but we may be able to save a life or two before we wait for my father’s opinion.”
He was determined, stubborn. She knew that, had known it from the first time they had met. She too was stubborn. Kindred diverse spirits on this issue and many more positive ones.
She watched. People passed. Trains roared in, stopped, doors slid open, people moved in and out. The smell of bodies, food. Coughing, talking, echoes in the tunnels off of the ceiling.