Black Knight in Red Square (14 page)

Atop the desk he could see that he was right. He peeled back the wallpaper behind the books, revealing a depression in the plaster. A series of numbers had been written on the plaster. Karpo read and then reread them. He closed his eyes and repeated the numbers until he was certain he had memorized them.

He replaced the wallpaper and had just climbed down when the dour-faced KGB man burst through the door.

“Who are you?” he demanded angrily.

Calmly, Karpo removed his identification and showed it to the officer, who waved it away.

“The guards at the door made a mistake,” he said, his eyes scanning Karpo, “no one but KGB is to enter here for now. You will have to leave.”

“As you say,” Karpo agreed.

“One of my men will have to search you to be sure you have taken nothing,” the man challenged.

“As you say,” Karpo agreed.

The examination took three minutes, conducted by one of the men who had been going through the rubble in the other room. Karpo thought it was a good examination and was quite pleased with their efficiency.

“I shall speak to your superiors about this, Comrade Karpo,” the man said, throwing his cigarette into a corner.

“Of course,” said Karpo. Perhaps he should have given the numbers to the KGB man, but that, Karpo knew, would mean that he could not pursue the lead, and he was involved in a murder investigation. This man was not in his immediate chain of command. The decision to turn the number over would have to be Rostnikov's. It didn't matter; judging from the thoroughness of their body search, the KGB men would soon find the number without any help from him.

Karpo was escorted from the building. Both MVD guards avoided looking at him and stood at strict attention as he left. He didn't look at them either. His mind was already working on the numbers and what they might mean. An idea had already begun to form. Interpreting the numbers would require no great imagination. This was not some inventive code. He was sure that, like the terrorists who conceived it, it was something naive.

Instead of returning to Petrovka, Karpo went back to his apartment where he sat at his own small desk and wrote the numbers on a sheet of paper. It took him less than twenty minutes to figure it out.

The first number was 87. The second was 2. The third was 65. The last number was 81. The 81 was, perhaps, the current year. The other numbers referred to something easily obtained, checked, used. But why numbers? The conclusion was startling even for Karpo. The numbers had not simply been hidden there. They had been left there to be found, perhaps by the police. The crudeness of the hiding place was not the act of a naive terrorist, as he had thought, but of someone who feared, perhaps even expected, betrayal. It was supposed to look like someone's idea of a good hiding place.

So, thought Karpo, whom did the terrorists fear would betray them? The answer was obvious: the dark-eyed woman. This series of numbers might well lead him to her. If the numbers were a clue to her whereabouts, it would not be too hard to follow. And then it came to Karpo.

He reached for his phone book. Few in Moscow own such books, but for a police officer it was an important tool. He turned to page 87, found the second column and ran his finger down to the sixty-fifth entry.

Thirty minutes later, he stood in front of the door to an apartment near the Sadova Samotchnaya, the Stalin-built ring road known as Sad Sam Street. He kept his right hand on his gun and knocked with his left. There was no answer, but he had expected none. If he understood the woman, there was no chance that she would still be there. She would anticipate the possibility of betrayal. If the World Liberation cadre knew she was here, she would make it her business not to be here if things went wrong, as they most certainly had.

Opening the door was no problem. The corridor was dark, but the lock was old and easily opened. No neighbor stuck a curious head out. It was early, and most people were at work.

The sight of the dark room caught Karpo off guard, for while the layout was different, the furnishings were startlingly like his own. It was like a mockery of his own convictions.

The room officially belonged to S. Y. Ivonova. Karpo had learned that S. Y. Ivonova was an engineer on assignment in the Urals, but someone had been using Ivonova's room, with or without consent. The visitor had made the room his or her own. Karpo was sure it was the woman.

He did not know how long it would take the KGB to find the numbers and figure them out, but he felt that he must have at least an hour or two. He had no intention of taking any chances, however. He would be out in fifteen minutes. As it turned out, luck was with him. Whoever had been here had not picked up his or her belongings and might come back, but Karpo was confident that the woman had fled, knowing danger was near, for another hiding place without taking the risk of returning to this one. Whether she simply did not trust the people who knew of this room or whether something else had happened did not matter. She was gone.

It took Karpo no more than three minutes to find what he was looking for. There was so little in the room that it was easy.

He found the sheets of paper exactly where he himself would have put them, tucked into a book on a shelf that held several dozen books. He carried the sheets carefully in a newspaper so he would not obscure any fingerprints, though he now respected the woman enough to believe she would have wiped everything clean each time she left the little room. But she had made a mistake. She had not memorized these sheets. He had no idea why, but now he had a lead.

Three hours later, after being sure that there were no prints on the paper and having made his own copies, he handed them across the desk to Chief Inspector Rostnikov in a neatly numbered departmental folder.

The first sheet in the folder was a map of Moscow with fifteen small circles in ink. Most of the circles were in the center of the city, a few were to the north or east or west. There was nothing in the south. In the same ink at the bottom was scrawled, in English, “Choose one.”

“You've examined this?” said Rostnikov, rubbing his head.

“I have,” said Karpo.

Rostnikov handed the sheet to Tkach.

“And?” Rostnikov prodded.

“I don't know yet, but I am—” began Karpo.

“The film festival,” Tkach said, staring at the map. “These are the locations of the theaters showing entries.”

Rostnikov reached over impatiently and took the map back. It told him nothing, so he returned it to Tkach. “What theaters are they?” he asked.

“I don't know them all,” said Tkach. “I'll find out. But this one is the State Central Concert Hall. This is the Young Pioneer Palace on Lenin Hills, where the children's films are shown. Here is the Rossyia, the Zaryadye, the Udarnik, the Mir. The others I don't know for certain.”

“ ‘Choose one,' ” Rostnikov groaned. He looked at Karpo who remained calm.

In addition to the ache in his arm, Karpo felt a migraine coming on. He should excuse himself and take a pill, but he knew he would not do so. He would work through the pain, welcome it even, and prove that he could function in spite of the weakness of the flesh.

“She means to bomb one of these theaters,” said Karpo, “or release a gas inside it or shoot a great many people.”

Rostnikov nodded in agreement. It was logical, but something disturbed him. “She is so smart, so careful, so clever,” he said, looking at his two assistants, “and yet she leaves this. Can you account for it?”

“She mocks us,” said Karpo. “She is confident that she will succeed and we will fail. It is her pride.”

“Maybe she simply made a mistake,” said Tkach. “She didn't know we would find her room, and she simply didn't have time to clear it out.”

“And maybe,” sighed Rostnikov, “she wishes to be caught.”

His eyes went to the two men, but neither responded. Tkach squirmed slightly. Such psychological conjecture was officially frowned upon, but Porfiry Petrovich was given to such thinking and marveled at the twists and turns and the devious self-destructiveness of the human mind.

“She wants to succeed, as Emil says, and fail at the same time,” Rostnikov mused.

“Then she is mad,” said Tkach.

“No,” said Rostnikov, “she is human. Let us hope that we are quick enough and clever enough to take advantage of her perverse desire to be caught before her will to succeed does indeed result in her success.”

“That will not happen,” Karpo said, with such conviction that the other two stared at him. There had been more emotion in that response than either of them had ever heard from Karpo.

The ringing of the phone interrupted the moment, and Rostnikov picked it up.

“We are most busy,” he told the officer taking calls.

“It is Colonel Drozhkin,” the young man answered.

Rostnikov sighed. “Put him through.”

He looked across the desk at Karpo and Tkach and made a decision. He reached into a drawer, pulled out a tiny tape recorder, and attached a small suction cup to the receiver, under the curious eyes of the other men. Then he turned on the unit and took the call.

“Inspector,” came Drozhkin's serpentine voice. He spoke slowly and evenly and with more than the hint of threat.

“Yes, Colonel,” Rostnikov replied calmly.

“One of your people violated security this morning,” said the colonel. “An Inspector Emil Karpo.”

“He is here in the office with me,” said Rostnikov.

Tkach, not knowing whom the call was from or about, looked up, trying to control the ever present below-the-surface fear of the unseen authority. Karpo gave no reaction.

“We have reason to believe that he discovered something vital to the investigation of World Liberation activities and potential terrorism,” said Drozhkin.

Drozhkin was not letting on whether the KGB had found the numbers and made its way to the apartment, and Rostnikov would be most careful not to give any information away.

“He was following my orders, Colonel,” said Rostnikov. “He found nothing of great importance. Your men did not give him time to search. Had he discovered anything, we would have informed you immediately.”

It was clear now to Karpo who the subject of the conversation was, but it was not clear to him why Rostnikov was lying to the KGB. Rostnikov was far too clever to be caught in a lie, and yet here he was taking a chance that could endanger his career.

Drozhkin's pause lasted so long that Rostnikov thought he had hung up quietly or the connection had been broken.

“You are treading down a dangerous path, Inspector,” he said finally.

“It is the nature of existence to recognize and face random disaster that might come our way,” said Rostnikov. “We are but the servants of the state and must not let our individuality stand in the way of the good of the Soviet people.”

“Irony is a dangerous weapon,” hissed Drozhkin. “It has no handle. You hold it by the blade, and with one slip you can become its victim.”

“Irony is based on an understanding between two people,” Rostnikov countered, bewildering Tkach, who could not imagine the other end of this bizarre conversation. “If someone perceives irony, he does so on the assumption that the person presenting that irony intended it to be so read. For myself, Comrade Colonel, I lack the wit and education to indulge in irony.”

“When this investigation is at an end, Comrade Inspector, you and I shall have a talk.” There was no mistaking the threat now, but that was just what Rostnikov wanted.

“I always look forward to meeting with you, Comrade Colonel,” he said.

“You have made progress on the case?” Drozhkin went on.

“A little,” admitted Rostnikov.

“For your sake, let us hope you make a great deal of progress. There can be only one or two World Liberation members left in Moscow, and they are your murderers,” said Drozhkin.

“Yes,” agreed Rostnikov. “That seems likely. I will keep you informed, Colonel.”

They hung up, and Rostnikov turned off the tape recorder and dropped the tape into his pocket. Then he took the second sheet of paper from the folder Karpo had brought. It was another map of Moscow, and it needed no interpretation. The names of national monuments were circled, and the tomb of Lenin in the heart of Red Square was clearly marked.

“In time, I will turn these maps over to Colonel Drozhkin of the KGB,” Rostnikov said. “He will, I hope, provide guards for every location circled on both maps. Meanwhile, Tkach, you will be responsible for watching the Englishman, Willery. I will stay with the German, and you, Karpo, will continue your pursuit of this woman. Thanks to the KGB, she has been deprived of her terrorist connections. She has resorted to recruiting amateurs, and they are, as we know, most unpredictable. Tkach, you can work with Kirslov in shifts. Questions?”

Both Karpo and Tkach had many questions, but neither dared ask them. They got up and left the office quietly. When they were gone, Rostnikov pulled out the tape and looked at it, thinking a moment, then returned it to his pocket and got up. He had to move quickly.

On the sixth floor, he made copies of the two maps. He then walked directly to the office of Anna Timofeyeva. If someone stopped him, he would say that the procurator had asked him to get some papers from her office and bring them to her at the hospital, which was true. No one stopped him. A clerk pushing a cartful of folders ignored him. It took him only a few minutes, with the portrait of Lenin staring down at him from behind Anna Timofeyeva's desk to get what he wanted and leave. If someone stopped and searched him now, he would be hard put to find an explanation, but he had already worked out a story that might stand up. However, there was very little chance that a chief inspector would be questioned inside Petrovka.

He was back in his office within three minutes and out the front door only shortly after that, his worn briefcase bumping against his thigh. By now Drozhkin most certainly had someone watching him. That didn't matter. When the time came, he would lose the follower, but it wasn't time yet. The Volga was waiting at the curb. The driver was unfamiliar, and Rostnikov decided he was probably KGB, though he wore a police uniform.