"We take computers only from the Jews," Tamara repeated.
Tkach had controlled his laughter now, and through his tears he looked at the family on the sofa, the family that thought it was acceptable to steal computers as long as the computers belonged to Jews.
"Jews have money," said the man. "They can get more computers."
"But," said Tkach, "I am a Jew."
"Then," said the man softly, "we are dead."
The man sat erect, flared his nostrils, and urged his wife and daughter to assume the dignity he sought.
"Then shoot us, Jew, as you've shot thousands before us."
The baby had grown silent in her mother's rocking arms, but the child called Alanya had turned her terrified wide eyes back on the bloody-faced madman who had invaded their apartment. This, Tkach could see in her eyes, was what she had been taught to fear, the monstrous Jew.
Tkach put his gun into his pocket and stood looking down at them.
"Give me your wallet," he said.
The man tilted his head to the side, expecting some torture, some trick, and then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and held it up.
"Throw it," said Tkach.
And the man threw it. Tkach caught it, removed the identification card, and threw the wallet back.
"You have a pencil?"
"Yes," said the man.
"Get it out."
The man reached into his pocket and came up with the yellow stub of a gnawed pencil.
Tkach gave the man a telephone number and told him to write. The man wrote the number and looked up.
"Pack your things and get out of Moscow with your family," Tkach said. "It is the same offer I gave your wife. Call your friend and tell him to get out, too.
I will keep your card, and you will tell me where you are going. If you do not inform me of where you are within ten days, I will send out a bulletin, and you will be caught and returned to me. When you call me, I will inform the local police, and they will watch you. If you commit a crime, even a small crime, we will come for you.''
The man gave a nasty, knowing grunt.
' 'You have one hour to be out of here,'' Tkach said, crossing the room to the cabinet and opening the door. "Two hours to be out of Moscow.'' "But where can we…?" Tamara began.
"Two hours," Tkach repeated. "And after the phone call to me when you get wherever you decide to go, I want to hear nothing of you or from you ever again.''
Tkach retrieved the computer, which had been placed back in its carrying case.
He lifted it in one hand and turned to face the family. There was no gratitude in the face of the bearded man, but there was something there that made Tkach sure that he would have his family at least fifty miles from Moscow within hours.
It took Sasha Tkach less than an hour to get back to the office where he had worked as Yon Mandelstem. He had washed the worst of the blood from his face in a fountain in the park, but he still looked sufficiently forbidding that no one in the Metro had come near him and no one in the office questioned him when he came through the door, strode to the corner desk, placed the computer down, and walked back through the row of desks and out the door to the stairway.
In another twenty minutes he was home, in front of his own door, hands trembling as he took out his key. He had wanted to think of something to say, something to tell Maya, but he could not plan, could not anticipate. Whatever came when he saw her would come. She would see his face and know. There was no doubt about that, but he had to see her.
He opened the door, prepared and unprepared. He imagined that he looked very much like the bearded man when the man had thought Sasha was about to shoot him.
Maya wasn't there.
His first reaction was relief. He would be able to sit, ease into the furniture, the familiarity, prepare, but he could not sit. He could wait no longer. He went back through the door and down the stairs. He had to find them.
He hurried into the street, unsure of which way to go, and then he ran toward the series of small shops two blocks away. He found them almost immediately standing in a line outside a cheese shop, though they did not see him. His need was enormous as he rushed forward and called his wife's name.
The people in line turned to him and watched as he ran forward and embraced Maya, who had turned, surprised to see him, her little smile showing concern.
Pulcharia was standing at her side, holding her mother's leg, much as the child Alanya had held her father's leg.
"Sasha?" she asked.
He found the similarity of the scenes so painful that when he tried to speak he could not. Maya stepped out of line and cupped his face in her hands. Pulcharia followed her mother and continued to cling.
"Shh, Sasha, shh," she said to him, avoiding the eyes of those in line who watched.
Whatever it was that had done this to her husband, Maya was not sure she wanted to hear it. Emil Karpo had been trying to reach Sasha for hours, had called many times. Perhaps he had talked to Sasha. Perhaps he had told her husband some awful thing.
"Is it Porfiry Petrovich?" she asked. "Has something happened to him, his wife?"
Tkach could not speak. He shook his head no.
"Is it your mother? My mother?"
Again, no.
"Are you…do you have something, something I…?"
He managed to say, "No."
"Then it can't be so terrible. Let's go home," she said, picking up Pulcharia.
"We have enough to eat for tonight."
"Yes," he said. "Let's go home."
The little man with the glass eye and neatly trimmed beard took a step toward Porfiry Petrovich on the narrow path and held out his hand. He seemed to be addressing both a nearby tree and Rostnikov when he said, "The book."
Rostnikov considered the situation-the little man with his outstretched arm, the huge, expressionless man behind him, the impossibility of retreat, and the likelihood that these were the men who had killed Georgi Vasilievich.
"We saw you pick something up under the planks of the rotunda," the little man continued as he moved forward. "Vasilievich's book."
Rostnikov stood his ground.
' 'I am an inspector in the Moscow MVD,'' said Rostnikov as the small man moved the hand at his side to his pocket and the huge man behind him took three steps forward.
"We are impressed," said the little man. "Are we impressed, Pato?"
Pato advanced four more steps toward Rostnikov in answer to the question.
The little man with the wild eye went on. "You want to see what's in my pocket?
I'll make an exchange. What's in my pocket for what's in your pocket."
"I think not," said Rostnikov.
The huge man was no more than a yard away now. He blocked the sun and sent a shadow over Porfiry Petrovich.
"He thinks not," said the little man. "Pato, he thinks not. Well, I'll show him, anyway."
The little man pulled out a little gun.
"Know what this is?" the little man said, one eye looking down at the gun, the other toward Rostnikov.
"A Pieper 6.35 mm, badly in need of oil," answered Rostnikov. "At least fifty years old. It is as likely to kill you as me if you are foolish enough to fire it."
The big man took over. He brushed past the suddenly deflated little man with the wild eye and said, "Enough."
And then the big man held out his hand, and it was a very big hand. Rostnikov looked at the hand and then the face of the man who blocked out the sun.
"No," said Rostnikov.
The big man, Pato, nodded in understanding. This was business. Pato put his hand on Rostnikov's shoulder.
"Death can be much easier than life," the little man said. "You could have given me the book and had a moment to pray before Pato broke your neck. But maybe you are not a