“Wait,” said Alek, holding out his hand.
“What? It came from that way.”
“Why don’t we go that way?” asked Alek.
He was pointing in the opposite direction.
“Yes,” said Bogdan.
“If Kolokov gets back, we tell him we escaped from the police.”
“Yes, that is what happened,” said Bogdan, already believing the lie.
“Two of them,” said Detective Jan Pendowski as he sat feeding seeds to big, ugly, gray-black crows from a bench on Venetsiansky Island in Hydropark.
They could hear the balls bouncing on the tables in the Ping-Pong area beyond a mesh fence a few dozen yards away. On nice days like this in Kiev, Jan liked to come out and watch the college girls bouncing under their thin shirts as they swatted at the balls.
“Two,” said Oxana.
She sat next to him touching a fingernail to her lower lip, where she sensed an imperfection in her makeup. As much as Jan liked looking at the young girls, Oxana Balakona liked to be looked at by males of all ages as they walked by. She had become a model because it had been what she always wanted to be: admired, looked at, wanted.
“A man and woman,” said Jan. “Moscow detectives. They are looking for you.”
Oxana turned to face him as he hurled a handful of seeds at a bird near his feet. The bird retreated, not sure if it was being attacked or rewarded.
“Me?”
“It appears that the woman who gave you the diamonds has been murdered.”
He had her full attention now, but he did not look her way. The Ping-Pong balls and the laughter of girls beyond the fence was all-powerful.
“Murdered,” she repeated.
It struck Jan, and not for the first time, that while Oxana was clever, she was not terribly smart. She frequently repeated whatever he said as if she were mulling it over or using it as a question.
“The diamonds,” he said. “They are here looking for them. We must get them to Paris quickly. The two Moscow detectives will find you here. It will not take them long. I’ll guide them in a long search for wild ducks but they will find you if you are here, and going back to Moscow does not strike me as a viable option. They will find you even more easily there.”
“So, Paris quickly,” she said, deciding to stare down a boy of no more than seventeen who couldn’t help openly and longingly examining her.
“I have something to tell you,” she said. “Something that is amazingly lucky.”
“See that one?” he asked, pointing at a bird slightly smaller than the other dozen or so that circled before him on the ground, scurrying out of each other’s way. “Lost an eye. A fight, or disease.”
“Disease,” said Oxana. “A fashion editor at Paris Match wants me to go to Paris with her tomorrow or the next day for a fashion layout. Perfect cover.”
“How did she find you, this fashion editor?”
“An agency here.”
“She came all the way to Kiev just to find you?”
“She was here anyway,” said Oxana. “And why would not a fashion editor come here for me? I am one of the very best.”
“I know,” he said. “I have my own experience of that.”
She allowed herself a small smile.
“I think I should like to meet this famous editor,” Jan went on, digging into the small white paper bag on his lap for the last of the seeds. “Before we send you off with her and the diamonds.”
“It can be arranged,” said Oxana.
“I have the Moscow detectives today. I shall run them to every corner of Kiev and back. What is the name of your editor?”
“Rochelle Tanquay,” she said. “She gave me a card. Here.”
Oxana reached into her small, quite fashionable red leather purse and handed it to him. On it was the name of the woman in gold script and a cell phone number.
“Call her,” he said. “Set up a time. Late night at Eric’s Bar.”
“What do I tell her?”
“That you want her to meet your fiancé, your handsome Ukrainian police detective. What does your Rochelle look like?”
“Pretty,” said Oxana.
“Better than ugly,” he said. “Call.”
She took a sky blue ultra-thin cell phone from her purse and punched in the number on the card Jan held up for her.
Four rings and then, “Hello.”
“It’s Oxana.”
“Yes. Can you leave tomorrow evening? The photographer will be available most of next week, and then he has to go to Bahrain.”
“Of course. Can we get together tonight for drinks?”
“I’ve got a dinner meeting,” said Rochelle. “It will have to be late.”
“Late is fine. Do you know Eric’s Bar, across the street from the Kinotheater Kiev on Chervonarmiyska Street?”
“I’ll find it. What time?”
“What time?” Oxana repeated looking at Jan.
He held up ten fingers and then another one.
“Eleven?”
“Eleven,” said Rochelle.
“I’ll bring my fiancé,” said Oxana. “He’s a policeman. He would very much like to meet you.”
Jan nodded yes.
“Perfect,” said Rochelle. “Eleven at Eric’s Bar. I look forward to it.”
The call ended, and Oxana returned the phone to her purse as Jan crumpled the empty white bag and dropped it into the metal trash container to his right. He got up. So did she.
Balta watched them walk down the path together. He was reclining on a blanket under a tree about fifty yards away. In front of him was a gathering of six old men watching two other old men playing chess on a park bench. They provided near perfect cover.
Balta decided to follow the man with Oxana. At the moment he looked like someone for whom he should have some concern. Balta had no doubt that he could handle the man if it were necessary or if it would help get the diamonds. And he felt that this just might be the case.
He welcomed the challenge.
The street was almost empty. The few people James Harumbaki passed were drunken men and a woman who clutched her purse as he approached from behind her. She looked over her shoulder, saw this black man with his mouth open panting behind her, and pressed herself against the wall, searching inside her oversized bag for the knife her husband had given her for things like this.
James saw the fear in her eyes and simply kept running, losing blood from the stub of his finger, leaving a red trail as he bled through the cloth napkin he had snatched from the table in the bar.
It was not easy to will the world back into submission. He tried as he trod on, no longer running, not looking back over his shoulder. There was no need.
Even with his loss of blood, the out-of-shape Russians were no match for the lean, athletic Botswanan. Still, he could hear someone coming behind him. James had no idea where he was running. His thought now was to get out of sight of his pursuer, hide until daylight, hope that he could stop the bleeding, and perhaps even get back to Patrice and the others and reunite with his missing finger.
His run was now a slow shuffle. He chanced a glance over his left shoulder. There came a large man.
The man was jogging steadily. He was not one of the three Russians who had taken him prisoner, killed his friends, and cut off his finger. This man was fully clothed and determined, and definitely not out for a jog.
James willed himself to hurry. His body did not respond. He turned and spread his legs to meet the man who was coming. Maybe he could surprise the man, kick him between the legs, break his collarbone with a blow to the neck. The options were not good, but at least there were options.
The man was closing. Far behind him, in the light from a street lamp, was another man, a slouching creature who reminded James less of a man at this distance than of a monster.
The pursuer closed in now.
Then there was the sound of a car behind the man. James saw headlights coming closer. The car screeched as it changed gears. James headed for the sidewalk.