“Do you know who wants to meet you?” Drozhkin said.
“No,” said Rostnikov.
“General Shakhtyor, the miner,” said Drozhkin, rising to glare angrily at Rostnikov. “Do you know who that is?”
“The name is familiar,” said Rostnikov, watching the clearly frightened face of the old man before him.
“General Shakhtyor prefers it that way, prefers to be only vaguely known,” said Drozhkin, coming out from behind his desk and approaching Rostnikov. Rostnikov was not a tall man, but Drozhkin stood several inches below him, and their eyes did not meet as the colonel stepped in front of him.
“The general is responsible for the Fifth Directorate,” said Drozhkin. “Do you know what that is? You are a great policeman. Come, do you know what that is?”
“The Fifth Chief Directorate was created by the Politburo in 1969,” said Rostnikov.
“For what purpose?” prodded Drozhkin like a schoolteacher grilling a slow student who has not done his homework.
“To deal with political problems,” he said.
“To deal with-to remove-political dissent and to institute necessary control of the Soviet people who are politically suspect. Including intellectuals, Jews, religious sects, foreigners visiting the Soviet Union. You know this, Rostnikov.”
“I’ve heard it, comrade colonel.”
“When you attempted to blackmail the KGB into letting you emigrate to the United States, I had to deal with the issue through the Fifth Directorate. And now General Shakhtyor wants to see you. I would not trade the twenty years’ difference in our ages to be in your position, Rostnikov.”
“I am relieved,” said Rostnikov. “I understand the Fifth Directorate is also interested in thought control and might actually have developed a way of exchanging old bodies for new, as they change old thoughts for new.”
“You are a fool, Rostnikov, a fool,” Drozhkin hissed, his pale face reddening.
And you, thought Rostnikov, are very frightened.
“Come on,” said Drozhkin, grabbing the solid policeman’s arm. Rostnikov let himself be turned and followed Drozhkin out of the room and down the green corridor, up a flight of stairs and deeper into the building. Drozhkin walked slowly, and Rostnikov had no difficulty keeping up with him. They said nothing to each other as they passed closed office doors. At the end of a corridor, Drozhkin stopped before a wooden door that was darker than others they had passed. He did not knock but stepped in, with Rostnikov behind him.
They were standing in a small office, which was carpeted. It seemed as if they had stepped into another world. It looked like the doctor’s reception room he had once seen in an American magazine. There was a small painting of a seascape on the wall and a new desk behind which sat a rather pretty woman in glasses wearing a brown uniform. There were three waiting chairs, covered with black leather, across from the secretary. The woman stopped her work and looked up at the clock on the wall, indicating that they were perhaps a minute or two late.
“The general is expecting us,” said Drozhkin, reaching up to touch his tie.
“The chief inspector is to go right in,” she said.
Drozhkin walked past her desk, heading for the door behind her.
“The chief inspector is to go in alone,” she said. Drozhkin stopped, hand still out, reaching toward the door.
Rostnikov glanced over at the seascape, and Drozhkin withdrew his hand and turned. From the corner of his eye Rostnikov could see the old man’s mouth tighten. Drozhkin, however, had fifty years of experience in both intimidation and humiliation, terror and compromise. He moved smoothly past Rostnikov and out the door.
“Knock” the secretary said, unsmiling. Rostnikov moved forward, recognizing that the brown carpet under his feet was appreciably thicker than that in Colonel Drozhkin’s office.
He knocked and a deep voice answered, “Come in.”
The office was at least twice the size of Drozhkin’s, though the furniture was quite similar. There was a combination safe in the corner and a large window covered with a heavy screen. The window was open, and Rostnikov could see the courtyard beyond it. All this he took in without thought. His thoughts were concentrated on the man before him. The general had his back to Rostnikov and was doing something to a glass box atop the safe. The glass box, Rostnikov could see, was covered by a metal screen.
“Chameleons,” the man said. “Do you want to take a look?”
The man’s head was turned from him. It was bald and tight over his skull. He was slightly taller than Rostnikov and wearing a freshly pressed uniform of brown. Rostnikov moved to the man’s side and looked into the aquarium. At first he could see nothing but a small cup of water and some rocks and twigs. And then one brown thickness on a twig twitched, and Rostnikov could see the chameleon blink its eyes. In a corner under the dish he then spotted the second chameleon, a bright green.
“They should be agents,” the general said, still looking down at the creatures, which were no more than five inches long. “They blend into the background, can remain immobile for hours watching a moth or cricket before they move on it, and they are very durable. I’ve seen a moth die of fear after hours of being watched by a chameleon. Then, ironically, the chameleon refuses to eat it. They eat only living creatures.”
And then, reluctantly, General Shakhtyor turned to his guest. They were about two feet apart when their eyes met. Rostnikov tried his best not to let his recognition show, but the old bald man, who looked like a bird of prey, probed his eyes, saw the recognition, nodded to himself, and stepped away.
“You want to sit?” he said, moving to a leather chair in front of the desk. There was a small table near the chair and another duplicate chair opposite the first. Rostnikov sat.
“Tea?” asked the general, his ancient eyes never leaving Rostnikov’s face. The tea sat on the small table in a very decadent-looking porcelain samovar. There were two matching cups.
“Yes, thank you,” said Rostnikov, sitting.
The general poured two cups with a steady hand and passed one to Rostnikov, who enjoyed the sudden heat on his palm.
“If your leg begins to hurt,” said the general, “feel free to rise and move.”
“Thank you,” said Rostnikov.
“They like crickets and moths best,” said Shakhtyor. “The chameleons. It is easy enough to get them in the summer, now, but in the winter they have to be obtained from our laboratory. Who knows why our laboratory breeds insects?”
He drank, the brown eyes in his tight face always on Rostnikov. Their shrewdness tested Rostnikov, but he controlled himself.
“I have two stories for you, chief inspector,” he said. “When I am through, you are to choose one.”
“Comrade-” Rostnikov began.
The general held up a bony hand and stopped him. “Indulge me,” he said. “I’m a very old man.”
Rostnikov sat back, holding his tea in two hands.
“A man named Shmuel Prensky left the village of Yekteraslav almost sixty years ago,” said the general, watching Rostnikov’s eyes. “He was a promising young Jew, but by 1932 it was becoming quite evident that there would be no place for Jews in the Soviet system, at least no place of real power. Trotsky’s death had settled that. Shmuel Prensky died. I knew him. I was at his side when it happened. It was during an attempt to quell an agricultural uprising not far from Tbilisi. So, he died.”
The old man looked at Rostnikov, who nodded to show that he was listening and understood.
“Then,” the general went on, “many years later, some friends of Prensky’s youth, who were old men, began to settle ancient scores. A lout named Mikhail Posniky, seeking revenge, came from America and killed one of the other old friends, Abraham Savitskaya. I don’t know the circumstances.”
“He was reading Izvestia in the bathtub when he was shot,” said Rostnikov.
The old man narrowed his eyes to determine if Rostnikov was risking levity, but he could not detect it with certainty. So he went on.