Coates said, "General Kulikov and I have much in common in our understanding of the Spetsnaz."
Her silvery laugh provided grace notes to cheers from the nearby children's soccer game. She seemed quite charmed by the detective. And the detective seemed polite and subdued, far from his normal whoopee-cushion self.
She said, "The Red Army consists of five armed services, one of which is the Land Services. One of the Land Services' units is the Spetsnaz, diversionary airborne troops who are parachuted behind the enemy lines to destroy headquarters, forward command posts, and communications centers. They are a highly trained elite. Most Russian boxers, marksmen, and wrestlers who appear in the Olympics as amateurs are actually active Spetsnaz soldiers, though if you ask a Spetsnaz he'll say he's been trained at the Central Army Sports Club or Moscow's Dynamo Sports Club."
"The cheaters," Gray said genially. "Small wonder the Soviet Union collapsed."
She gave him the swiftest of glances. "General Kulikov and I drove sixty-five miles south of Moscow to the city of Kolomna, near the confluence of the Moskva and Oka rivers."
"Kolomna was sacked four times by the Tatars," Gray injected.
This time she turned her head slowly to Gray, as if reluctant to make the effort.
He said, "I studied Moskva River Basin history at Stanford. For a while I was thinking of majoring in it."
"I read your file," she corrected him sternly. "You never attended Stanford."
"I meant Oregon State."
He absolutely could not get her to crack a smile in his direction.
She shifted on the bench, turning more to Pete Coates, dismissing Gray once again. "The sniper school was another five miles beyond Kolomna. The 1st Spetsnaz Long Range Reconnaissance Regiment operates the school, but shortages in army appropriations after the breakup have closed it temporarily, Kulikov and I were told by its commander, a Spetsnaz colonel who claimed to have enough funds to run a desk but not much more."
"The colonel gave you the information?" Coates asked.
"He had never been a sniper, just a paper pusher. But a number of the school's instructors still lived nearby, too poor to move away. We spoke with three of them at their club, a clapboard hovel with a plank table in the center and a gravel floor. They were noncommissioned officers in their fifties."
"They don't sound like they'd be a fount of information," Coates said.
"General Kulikov ordered them to speak candidly to me about a sniper whose signature was a red shell. One of the instructors replied, 'The Red October plant,' as if that should mean anything to me. They seemed hurt when I drew a blank on the Red October plant."
"It's the most famous sniper duel in history," Gray said.
"Once I apologized for my ignorance, they quickly filled me in. Victor Trusov was with the 284th Division at Stalingrad in 1942, where in a three-day duel in the no-man's-land between Mamaev Hill and the Red October plant he killed a German—"
"It was Major Erwin König," Gray interrupted.
"… a German who was the finest sharpshooter in the Reich and who had been brought to Stalingrad specifically to kill the Russian sniper."
Gray added, "Trusov was named a Hero of the Soviet Union for his eighty-two kills."
"Russian grade schoolers are taught to recite Trusov's story," she said. "But what is omitted from their lessons — and something few Russians, even Russian soldiers, know — is that Trusov left a red shell at his firing sites. Apparently" — she looked directly at Gray—"leaving something like a red shell was considered vulgar braggadocio that the masses could live without."
"Trusov must be seventy-five or eighty years old," Coates said. "Could an old guy be our killer?"
With the angles of her face set with professional pride, she announced, "We can ask him."
Gray and Coates leaned forward in unison as if by some signal.
"He's a mile and a half from here at the Russian consulate."
The detective yanked the telephone from his pocket. "Christ, is he in custody?"
"He lost his leg to gangrene about ten years ago," she said. "He's in a wheelchair and he's recovering from heart surgery that he had two weeks ago. And I've just talked to the Russian Consul General. He is more than willing to help, probably on orders from the Kremlin, and has promised that Mr. Trusov won't go anywhere. We're free to interview him."
Gray remarked, "Doesn't sound like our man, red shell or no."
"You asked me to find a Russian sniper who left a red shell," she said in a strychnine voice. "I have done so."
"What's this old fellow doing at the Russian consulate?" Coates asked.
"A Hero of the Soviet Union, or Hero of Russia as it is now called, is treated regally. Trusov came to the United States for surgery at Columbia Medical Center, then he was given a room in the consulate to recover. The consulate has even hired a nurse for him."
They rose to their feet. Two children on BMX bikes swerved around them.
Coates said, "Let's go talk to him."
"I need to check into my hotel and at least wash my contact lenses. Can I meet you there in an hour?"
Coates nodded. "Adrian, you walk south and I'll go north with Owen until the trees open up, then I'll take off in another direction. We'll meet at the consulate."
"Skulking around?" she said. "That's the kind of thing we in my Moscow office did before the Soviet Union broke up."
Coates said, "Standing next to Owen out in the open might result in your own personal breakup."
Perhaps unwilling to concede she had not thought of the danger, she only dipped her chin before starting south along the path. "I'll see you in an hour."
After she had rounded an ash tree and disappeared from sight, Gray said, "You've just seen the perfect example of why I don't like people knowing about my experience in Vietnam. They conclude I'm loathsome without getting to know me. Adrian What's-Her-Name acted like I was an ogre."
Coates smiled. "It could be your looks."
"Working with that woman is going to be like having a boil on my butt."
"You can tolerate her for a day or two, then she'll be on a plane back to Moscow."
"I don't like being called a goof on a bench." Gray started north along the path.
Coates followed. "You know, other than Anna Renthal, I've never seen you interact with a woman."
"So?"
"You're not very good at it."
The Assistant Consul General pushed open a door on the Russian consulate's third floor. He was wearing a herringbone sports coat with the cuffs two inches above his wrist bones. His hair was slicked back with an oil or pomade, so his forehead seemed two-thirds of his face.
"Please go right in," the assistant said in heavily accented English, sounding as if he had a mouthful of pebbles. "I'll return in fifteen minutes."
Adrian Wade asked, "You aren't going to insist on being present for the interview?"
The assistant shrugged. "This room is bugged. I'll listen while I eat my sandwich in the radio room." He smiled. "Or I might tune in Rush Limbaugh."
She shook her head. "Sometimes I long for the good old days."
Gray followed Coates and Adrian Wade into the room. His first impression was that it was a storehouse for old furniture. Antique pieces cluttered the room, seeming to overflow the purple Kashan rug to spill into the corners and wash up against the walls. The furnishings were opulent and overbearing, too rich and florid for a single room. Along just one wall were an ebonized wood dressing table inlaid with satinwood, a burr walnut scriptor on a carved and turned stand, and a walnut cabinet inlaid with enamel plaques of birds. Crowding the rug were a Victorian papier-mâché pedestal table, several Berlin woolwork stools, and a dozen Queen Anne and Georgian chairs, not one matching another. Haphazardly placed among all the rest were assorted fern stands, a lowboy, a long horse dressing glass, a globe that showed the Ottoman Empire and other vanished entities, and a leaded glass china display case. A clock with an ormolu case sat on a walnut mantel. The fireplace was blocked by a needlework fire screen mounted on a tripod foot.