Black Knight in Red Square ir-2

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  She had not witnessed the explosion or Tkach’s pursuit of Willery, because the explosion had taken place one hour too early. For some reason that unreliable English dolt had detonated the bomb at five instead of six as she had instructed him.

  She was almost half a mile away when she heard the blast and looked at her watch. She had intended to remain a safe distance away until the explosion came, but this had been much too early. At five o’clock there would be no one in the damned theater. What kind of act of terrorism is it to destroy an empty theater? Had this been some attempt at cleverness on Willery’s part? She didn’t think so, for she had recognized fear in his voice and had gauged his character with confidence the two times she had observed him. He had simply fouled up, which meant that at some point, if the police or KGB did not dispose of him, she would be obligated to do it herself.

  As she headed back toward the apartment, a babushka tied firmly on her head and her glasses set firmly on her nose, she was not concerned about the whereabouts of James Willery. Even if they had him he knew nothing. She had been most careful about that. They could threaten him, torture him, do what they wished, he would have practically nothing to tell them that they did not already know.

  One thing did bother her though. The police knew that Aubrey had interviewed the Englishman, the German, and the Frenchwoman. They had told her this. Now, the Frenchwoman was dead, and if the Englishman did not get away, they might guess that he was part of a conspiracy of terror.

  She had plenty of time to get to the next site. She had originally allowed herself one hour and had told the German to detonate his bomb at seven. She would make use of the hour by preparing for her own action, which now seemed even more essential, and taking care of the young man whom she had left in a drugged sleep. She had decided to get rid of him in such a way that the police would know it was indeed she who had done this. She wanted to rub their defeat and stupidity in their faces as she had done to the police in five other countries. But her desire to show that pursuing vampire that she was not afraid led her to carelessness, for she decided to use the last of the small vial of liquid with which she had eliminated Warren Harding Aubrey. She decided to murder the arrogant young man with what she did not realize was a dose of dead and quite harmless psittacosis bacilli.

  When Tkach finally got to the phone at the hospital after being treated for his cuts, he called Rostnikov’s apartment only to discover that the chief inspector had been out the whole afternoon.

  He then called Petrovka, but Rostnikov was not there either. He talked to Emil Karpo.

  “Karpo,” he said, “the Englishman, Willery, set off a bomb at the Zaryadye. No one was killed, a few injuries, the KGB got him. Find Rostnikov and tell him.”

  Karpo hung up the phone and pushed aside the papers he had been working on.

  “She is making mistakes,” he said softly to himself and glanced down at the notes he had taken. Tkach’s call had confirmed what Karpo had already concluded. This was the day that everything would happen.

  Louise Rich of Trenton, New Jersey, had a reservation for a flight out of Sheremetyevo International Airport at midnight. Karpo had no doubt at all that Louise Rich was the dark-eyed woman. He had eliminated all other possibilities and confirmed his conclusion by discovering that Louise Rich was not in her room at the National Hotel and had not been seen there for several days, though she did call in to assure the hotel that she was well and staying with friends. She even gave her friends’ name and number. Karpo had checked on one of the numbers, and the woman who answered knew no one named Louise Rich.

  Of course, her name was not Louise Rich, but she might try to use the reservation. She would be careful and would make sure no one followed her, but it was an escape route. American tourists were not bothered much by customs, and in Madrid, her destination, American tourists were even less likely to be inspected carefully.

  She was making mistakes, but would she make enough for him to catch her or stop her from committing whatever acts of terrorism she still had planned? She was his responsibility. He took a pill to dull the pain in his arm. He was not in agony, but he could afford no distractions. He had to think like her. No, think ahead of her.

  Karpo did not give a thought to the German. Bintz was the chief inspector’s responsibility, and Rostnikov was one of the few people-perhaps the only one-whom Karpo felt was truly competent.

  Karpo’s task was to find the dark-eyed woman within the next few hours.

  FOURTEEN

  Rostonikov was well aware that he was being followed by a KGB man. This afternoon rostnikov made an effort for the first time to discover who the agent trailing him might be. Normally that would have been easy to determine, but he had to do it without making the agent suspicious. On the way to the Rossyia Hotel, he walked along the river embankment and, just before he came to the Lenin State Library, he mounted the stone stairs leading up from the embankment. He moved very slowly. His leg really gave him no choice, and he paused to lean against the metal railing at the top as if to catch his breath. At that point he saw the white Chaika sedan parked near the traffic light below him. The front door was open, and a man was looking back at him through the rear window. Of course Rostnikov could not be entirely sure, but it was enough. He took one step back and then, letting out a deep sigh, turned back to the fence and bent over to rub his thigh. It was then that he saw the man get out of the car. He was of average height, hatless, and almost bald. he was very quick. He seemed to spot Rostnikov without looking up, and instead of crossing to the steps, he moved along the embankment in the opposite direction.

  There was someone else in the car who did not get out, but Rostnikov was less concerned about that. They would only switch street men if they were reasonably sure Rostnikov had spotted him. It was almost certain that the two men knew he was a police inspector and not an enemy of the state, but the KGB was assembling a dossier on him so as to be able to apply political pressure later on. They would be most effective, but they would not suspect him of anything unusual.

  Later, he knew he would have to discover the identity of the KGB men who were watching the German, Bintz.

  As Rostnikov stood before the desk of the general manager of the Rossyia Hotel, he concluded that the task he had set for himself would not be quite as easy as he had expected.

  He had hoped the director would be harried and of average competence, but as it turned out, the man was quite shrewd. He easily juggled the frequent calls on his forty-button telephone without losing track of the discussion.

  The office was large, with wood paneling and a green carpet. It contained a conference table, a desk, and a closed-circuit television system with monitors showing the three lobbies of the massive hotel. There was also a glass case holding a portrait and a small statue of Lenin.

  “We have never done anything like this before,” the manager was saying, folding his hands on the desk and making it clear to Rostnikov that he viewed his request as a very serious one. He was a tall, sharp-featured man with steel gray hair. Rostnikov felt that the man would project the same significance to any request that disrupted the normal routine of the hotel.

  “It is very important,” Rostnikov said. He had declined a chair, hoping that he could intimidate the manager by standing over him, but when that proved useless, he had backed away and become as matter-of-fact and businesslike as he could.

  “You will have to sign a form accepting full responsibility,” the manager said after taking a call during which he did not remove his eyes from Rostnikov.

  Rostnikov nodded.

  “I will also have to call your superior to confirm that this has been approved,” the man said, reaching out to take yet another call.

  Rostnikov had not considered this possibility, and while the manager was on the phone, he looked at Lenin for help.

  “Yes,” the manager was saying into the phone, running a hand through his carefully combed hair. “If you expect that many employees. As long as we do not go over t
he one hour allotted for each. Yes, I know it is the hotel Party’s responsibility to keep up the moral level of all employees, and I am not in any way suggesting that we limit the lectures. In fact, I think the subject for this week is excellent. Let me see…” He took his eyes off Rostnikov long enough to find a blue sheet of paper on his desk. “ ‘The Ideological Struggle between Socialism and Capitalism in Today’s World-How It Can Be Stepped Up.’ I will, of course, attend if at all possible. By all means. Let us meet on Tuesday. Eleven in the morning.”

  With that the manager hung up, shaking his head.

  “We have over three thousand employees in the hotel, Chief Inspector,” he said. “Can you imagine the logistics necessary to ensure that they all have time off to attend lectures for the collective?”

  “Considerable,” said Rostnikov.

  “Considerable,” agreed the manager. “Now, I will have to call your superior.”

  “Procurator Timofeyeva,” said Rostnikov. “She is well aware of the circumstances surrounding this investigation. Unfortunately, she is in the hospital with a heart condition, and she doesn’t have a phone in her room. If you wish,” he said looking at his watch, “we have just enough time to get to the hospital, talk to her, and get back to the hotel, but we’d have to hurry.”

  The manager’s gaze looked on Rostnikov as the bank of telephone lights blinked their demand. Rostnikov was counting heavily on the man’s unwillingness to take time out from his busy job to make such a check. He might send an assistant, in which case Rostnikov would have to work something out to fool whoever was sent. He was not at all sure he would be able to fool the manager.

  “Ah,” sighed the manager, tapping his fingers on the desk. “We’ll forget about it for now, though I would like an official memo from him.”

  “Her,” corrected Rostnikov. “Comrade Timofeyeva is a woman.”

  “Her,” said the manager, bowing his head slightly to acknowledge his error. “I’ll have a statement of responsibility prepared for you to sign when you are finished. You are confident that Herr Bintz will make no complaint?”

  “He will make no complaint,” Rostnikov assured him.

  The manager reached for the phone and, before answering, looked at Rostnikov and opened his hands in a so-be-it gesture. Rostnikov nodded and turned to leave the office.

  “Yes, we have an interpreter for Gujarati,” the manager was saying into the phone, “but I’ll have to check on who it is and whether he is on duty. I’ll call you…”

  And Rostnikov was gone. He had already checked with his office and had been given a message from Ivanolva, the man who had been trailing Bintz. It was quite evident that the German was out for the afternoon. In fact, according to Ivanolva, he was at the Moskva Swimming Pool with his Intourist guide. So Rostnikov had plenty of time.

  He took the elevator up to the German’s room and entered, using the passkey the manager had given him. Although Rostnikov had taken a few trips in his life, always on police business, he was not particularly adept at packing clothes, and he was surprised at the large amount that Bintz had brought with him. The oversized shirts and four suits constituted a wardrobe far larger than Rostnikov’s, but then, Bintz was a reasonably well-known capitalist filmmaker. It took Rostnikov almost half an hour to pack everything. He had estimated that it would take much less time.

  There was no need to call the airport again. He had already called from a street phone that could not be tapped or traced. The next trick was to get the suitcases to a taxi. He did not want the KGB men to see him and get curious. But Rostnikov had thought of all of this. He had also taken the packet from his pocket and put it in one of the suitcases, hiding it among a pile of scripts and notes.

  He had investigated enough cases to know that the Soviet authorities would almost certainly not disturb the luggage of a German tourist, especially one who had been invited to the Moscow Film Festival. Actually, those leaving on Moscow flights were seldom given any trouble, which surprised many tourists. Rostnikov was also sure that Bintz would not be subjected to search in Berlin. He had checked and found that West Berlin’s customs officials were even more lax than Moscow’s. It was the British, French, and Americans whom tourists and businessmen complained most of.

  Rostnikov struggled down to the elevator with the luggage and descended to the second floor. Then he found a freight elevator just off a second-floor ballroom. The elevator was large and almost empty. The man who ran it questioned him and he showed him his police identification and told him in serious tones that he was engaged on official business that the man had best ignore.

  The man was a Muscovite and knew well how to ignore what he was told to ignore.

  “Is there a freight office?” Rostnikov asked when the elevator stopped on the ground floor in a service area behind the main ballroom.

  “There,” said the man, pointing, and Rostnikov lugged the suitcase forward, kicking a light brown leather case along the floor. He pushed the freight office door open, dropped the suitcases, and ignored the gray-capped young man at the small desk, who scowled up at him. Rostnikov fetched the leather case, then whipped out his identification before the man at the desk could speak.

  “I will have a taxi come by here within the hour for these cases,” Rostnikov said. “Watch them and tell no one they are here. If you wish to check up on me, call the hotel manager. He has been informed of this.”

  Before the man could answer, Rostnikov left the office.

  The man might call the manager. In all likelihood, however, he would prefer to remain unknown to those in power. Even if he did call, the manager would confirm Rostnikov’s mission and probably pretend he knew more about these secret doings than he actually did.

  Rostnikov found a stairway as quickly as he could, made his way up two flights, and caught the passenger elevator down to the lobby where the KGB men could pick him up again.

  Choosing a taxi required some care. Fortunately, the first one he hailed was driven by a bearded young man with a massively bored look on his face.

  “Kropotkinskaya Embankment,” Rostnikov said, settling in the back seat. “The swimming pool.”

  The driver twisted around to examine Rostnikov briefly, trying to imagine what this creature would look like in a bathing suit. And then he drove.

  “I have taken down your license number and your name,” Rostnikov said to the driver a few blocks later. He had not bothered to look back for the KGB men.

  “My number?” asked the driver.

  “I am with the police, Chief Inspector Rostnikov.” He held his identification up for the man to see in the rearview mirror.

  “What have I done?” the driver whimpered. “If this is about that girl, I didn’t know she was a-”

  “It’s not about the prostitute you front for and not about the illegal vodka under your seat,” said Rostnikov. “When you drop me, I shall pay you enough to return to the Hotel Rossyia. There you will go to the service loading dock, and pick up six pieces of luggage. The man in the freight office will know about this. You will then take the luggage to Sheremetyevo International Airport and check it through for the seven P.M. Lufthansa flight to West Berlin in the name of Wolfgang Bintz.”

  “I can’t remember all that,” the man protested.

  “I’ve written it down,” said Rostnikov. “I’ll give it to you when we get to the pool.” He did not want the men in the trailing KGB car to see him hand the driver anything but the fare. They might stop the driver and question him.

  “All right,” the driver said, sullenly pulling on his beard.

  “If you fail to do this, Rasumi,” Rostnikov said, “you will be in deep trouble and it will involve more than a few bottles of vodka or a prostitute.”

  “I’ll do it,” the young driver said quietly.

  “Fine.” Rostnikov sighed, and leaned back, and they said no more during the trip. When they arrived at the pool, Rostnikov paid him only slightly more than the trip would cost. Too high an overpayment might m
ake the man suspicious.

  When he had pulled away, Rostnikov turned toward the pool. It had been a dozen years since he had been in the pool. As a young man, he had been forbidden to swim there by his father. The pool had been built on the site of the massive Church of the Savior, and his father remembered being part of the crew that had been ordered to destroy the church in 1931. His father was not a religious man, but he did not like the Stalinist move to destroy the old and put up the new.

  “It’s too much like Mussolini in Italy,” he had said once as they walked down the street, and Rostnikov’s mother had almost cried in fear as she begged him to be quiet.

  When Rostnikov did finally go to the pool after his father died, he felt guilty that he enjoyed it. It is the largest open-air pool in all of Europe, and there are often as many as two thousand people in the water at a time.

  The water is changed three times every day by a huge filtering station, and the temperature is controlled for year-round swimming. Even on the coldest winter day, swimmers can splash about comfortably and watch the steam rising into the frigid night air.

  Rostnikov paid his fifty-kopecks admission fee and went into the changing rooms. It was crowded this warm July day, and it took him only a few minutes to find what he was looking for. A rotund man with a pleasant red face was leaving with a small freckle-faced boy who was probably his grandchild.

  “Pardon me,” said Rostnikov, stepping in front of them and smiling to keep them from panicking. The smile on the man’s face faded quickly, and his grip tightened on the little boy.

  “I’m here with my grandson,” Rostnikov said apologetically, “and I forgot my bathing suit. It was stupid, I know.” He hit his forehead with the flat of his hand. “I see that you are on your way out and I’m sure your suit would fit me. I’d be happy to pay seven rubles. I don’t want to disappoint the boy.”

  Rostnikov looked across the crowded changing room at a thin child of about six. He lifted his hand and waved to the boy, who didn’t see him.