Valentin got out of the car quietly, normally, looking like a man who had someplace to go in the area. He crossed the street and slowly followed the woman. He remembered her cool, pale, pretty made-up face. He remembered her tall body and erect posture.
“God,” he said to himself, “I’m going to do it again, do it before I kill her.” It was the wrong thing to do. It would definitely point to the serial rapist and not to the political fanatics who had murdered the newsman, but Valentin knew that he could not control himself.
He quickened his pace, closing the distance between himself and Magda. She did not look back. There were no footsteps to be heard in the thin layer of snow on the sidewalk. He waited, following. There were hardly any people on the street. It was cold. It was late. A few cars were parked nearby, their hubcaps and windshield wipers removed for the night by their owners to keep them from being stolen. It was reasonably safe for him. Besides, he had little choice. The obsession had taken him. It had overridden his conviction that he had to murder the woman in front of him. Murder her he would, but first …
Valentin closed the distance between them to no more than six feet and then he knew. He felt it before he saw them. It was confirmed by the look of revenge on the hard, lovely face of Magda Stern, who turned suddenly to face him. Valentin stopped.
“Halt,” came a voice behind him. The voice was familiar. “Hands behind your head.”
Valentin did not think about what he did next. He closed the distance between himself and Magda Stern in three long, quick steps, moved behind her, and with one swift instinctive motion, put his left arm over her neck, pulled out the pistol, and put it to her head.
In front of him, over her shoulder, Valentin could now see Sasha Tkach and Elena Timofeyeva no more than a dozen yards away with pistols aimed at him.
“What is the point of this, Spaskov?” Elena asked him. “If you pull the trigger, we will kill you.”
“You know who I am now,” said Spaskov, the concern of the honest policeman coming to the fore. “I will not be taken in to face this woman’s charges, to stand in front of other women, to be humiliated, to have my family humiliated. It would be better to die in the street. I have nothing to lose by killing her.”
Magda Stern stood tall, making no sound, determined to give no satisfaction to the man who had attacked her and now threatened to kill her.
Both Elena and Sasha knew that Valentin Spaskov would probably not shoot Magda Stern first. His first shot would be at Sasha and then, whether Elena hesitated or fired knowing she might hit Magda, Spaskov would shoot Elena. Magda would be last.
The only one of the four people in the stalemate on the silent street wearing gloves was Magda Stern. The three police officers had no gloves so that they could more easily handle their weapons. Their hands were cold but steady.
“I need time to think,” said Valentin, pushing the woman slowly forward. “Move into the street. Give us room to pass. Don’t try to get behind me. Move now.”
“You have a wife, a beautiful child,” said Sasha. “Remember, I saw their pictures.”
“And you have a wife and two children,” said Valentin as Sasha and Elena moved into the street. “What would they do? What would they think if they found you were like me? I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you don’t give me time.”
Sasha was silent.
“You see?” said Valentin. “You have a great deal to lose.”
“You could get help,” said Elena. “We could get you psychological help. You haven’t killed anyone yet.”
“No,” said Valentin, turning Magda to face the two armed officers as he moved back toward the Moscow Television News office. “I’ll go to prison. My wife and child won’t be able to face me. Can’t you see I need time to think? How many times must I say it? Do you want to push me into doing something without having the chance to think?”
“Take your time, then,” said Elena. “Stop. Take your time. We won’t do anything as long as you don’t hurt her.”
Valentin continued to move, keeping Magda between himself and the two in the street with guns. As they approached the corner, Valentin moved himself and his captive into the street.
“I’m going to my car,” he said. “Stay back. Stay careful. I would guess that I am a better shot than either of you. I don’t want to shoot police officers. None of us wants a massacre. I just want time to decide what to do.”
“We can’t let you drive off,” said Sasha. “You know that.”
“You may have to,” said Valentin as he backed his way across the street, his arm tight around Magda’s neck. She was not cooperating, so he had to half drag her, causing his arm to tighten around her neck. Even with the increased pain and the difficulty breathing she refused to cooperate. Valentin admired her, and in spite of what was now happening, he wanted to have her. It was at this moment he knew he was surely mad.
Sasha and Elena followed, guns leveled as he moved to the car. He had left the door unlocked so he could get away quickly. Now he opened it and said, his voice shaking, not with fear but with emotion, “I am going to put her in the passenger seat. I will have to let her go, but I’ll keep the gun against her head. We are at the moment when you will have to shoot me and risk her life or let us get in.”
Valentin pushed Magda into the car. Sasha and Elena did not fire as he got in after his hostage and closed the door. But they did stand directly in front of the car, weapons at the ready, hands numb from the cold.
Spaskov did not try to start the car. He kept his weapon against Magda Stern’s head. Both Elena and Sasha realized at the same time what he was doing. The inside of the car was definitely not warm, but it was much warmer there than the outside. Soon Elena’s and Sasha’s hands would begin to lose feeling. Already the prickling sensation had begun.
Valentin looked at them through the frost-covered window. He could see their shapes in the street before him, and they could see the faint outline of Spaskov with the gun to Magda’s head.
The standoff was definitely in Spaskov’s favor. All he had to do was wait till the hands of the two who stood in front of the car were too cold to shoot.
The car was a Mercedes. Many police cars, marked and unmarked, were Mercedes, which were far more reliable than Russian-made cars. Even cold it would start quickly. He could run right into them and over them before they could react. Neither Elena nor Sasha could tell if the front window was bulletproof. It probably wasn’t, but they couldn’t be sure with the frost and shadows covering it.
Elena felt as if she were in a dream. Less than two hours ago, when Sasha called her to say he was picking her up and that Magda Stern would be leaving the Moscow Television News office at ten, she had been sitting in her aunt’s living room. The meal was over. Elena was confident that she had done a good job, not because Iosef had said so but because she knew she had. The conversation had been fine, and Anna had retired to her room to leave them alone.
Elena and Iosef had cleaned the dishes together, talking softly about work, family, his ideas and ambitions, her ideas and ambitions. The conversation had ranged from politics to books and movies, and they had discovered even more remarkable coincidences in their views, though Elena was a bit more pessimistic about the future of Russia and the world than Iosef. He attributed the difference to his experiences in the army. Almost naively, he assumed that things could probably not get much worse than that.
He had kissed her when the last pot was cleaned and the last dish put away. He had kissed her deeply and she had responded eagerly and when he had again asked her to marry him, she had been about to say “yes, yes, yes” when the phone rang and Sasha told her to come quickly.
She had expected the call, but not quite this early.
Iosef understood. He, too, was a police officer. It was another thing they had in common, that made him understand this sudden action in a way that might well be impossible for a husband or lover who was not a police officer. Iosef said he would go with her, but she had
stopped him. It wasn’t his case. It was hers and Sasha’s, and if she showed up with Iosef, Sasha would surely feel offended by not having been consulted. Elena knew that she would feel the same in his place. Iosef had kissed her again, less passionately, but a long, moist kiss nonetheless. And then he had left, telling her to thank her aunt again for having him to dinner. He didn’t tell Elena to be careful. He knew she would be as careful as the situation allowed.
Now she stood next to Sasha, absolutely unsure of what the situation allowed, and her hands were definitely stiff with the cold. She could hold the gun in one hand and try to warm the other in her pocket, but she was right-handed and a weak shot with her left hand. If either she or Sasha tried to put a hand in a pocket, Valentin Spaskov might well take that moment to act. Besides, the pocket by now was not much warmer than the air. And if the windshield was bulletproof?
Sasha’s evening had not been as dramatic or romantic as Elena’s, but it had not been at all bad. Maya was clearly pleased with him and far more affectionate than she had been in a long time because of the stand he had taken with Lydia. The baby, Illya, was definitely getting better. Pulcharia, before she had gone to bed, had sat warm and close in Sasha’s lap listening to him read “The Snow Maiden.”
Now he was here, hands freezing to his gun, facing a car that could suddenly come to life and kill him. Or the policeman with a gun in a warmer hand inside the car, who could probably shoot better than Sasha could even with warm hands, might decide to come out shooting.
There was no knowing how long the standoff would have lasted or what the result would have been had Magda Stern not made the next and decisive move. Valentin was looking ahead, thinking about what would become of his wife and child regardless of what happened and gradually coming to the horrible conclusion that he would have to kill not only the woman at his side but the two police officers as well.
Valentin felt his hand pushed forward and a terrible pain as Magda bit him, bit him hard and deep enough to draw blood. Valentin fired, but the bullet thudded into the passenger-side door. Magda opened the door and jumped out, kicking it closed behind her and rolling away into the street.
Elena and Sasha moved instantly out of the direct path of the car and fired almost at the same time. And at the same time they realized that it was difficult to shoot straight with frozen fingers and that the car window in front of them was, indeed, bulletproof. They kept firing, knowing that even a bulletproof window was, in truth, only bullet resistant. The question was, how resistant was this window?
The window cracked, forming a beautiful spider web design. Magda Stern was on her feet now, running toward the doorway of the Moscow Television News offices.
The firing stopped. Elena and Sasha were almost out of bullets, and they had not penetrated the window. But what they had accomplished was to make it impossible to see out of the window. Suddenly the driver’s side door opened.
Elena and Sasha went to the ground on their stomachs, aiming toward the open door. Lieutenant Valentin Spaskov put out his left hand and Sasha shouted, “Come out slowly. Hands high. You know what to do.”
Valentin obeyed. In his bloody right hand he still held a gun. He stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“Now,” said Elena, “drop the gun.”
Blood was dripping in the snow. Spaskov hesitated, fathered the whisper of a sigh, and said, “Tell my wife I am sorry. Tell her I love her. Tell her I couldn’t help myself. Tell her I would like her to try to understand and to raise our child without telling her what her father did.”
“Drop the gun,” Elena repeated.
It seemed for an instant that he was about to drop his weapon. Instead he quickly put the barrel of the weapon to his ear and fired. Sasha closed his eyes. Elena watched in horror.
The body of Valentin Spaskov crumpled to the sidewalk.
Sasha and Elena got up, brushing snow from their coats, and approached the body. There was no doubt that he was dead. The blood and lack of motion told them that. But beyond what they saw, they could feel death before them.
Even so, Sasha kept his gun pointed at the body of Valentin Spaskov while Elena tucked her gun into the holster in her pocket and reached down to feel for a pulse she knew would not be there.
Yevgeny had insisted on sitting in the backseat of Georgi’s heap of a car with his automatic rifle across his lap. There wasn’t much room for him back there because the springs came through on one side of the seat, leaving little space for a passenger. Usually Leonid sat in the back, but Yevgeny had insisted, making Georgi and Leonid decidedly uncomfortable.
“It’s dark,” Georgi said, looking across at the old church that the Jews had converted to a temple. “There’s no one there.”
“Five more minutes,” said Yevgeny. “Eleven o’clock. I want to get started as badly as you do. We said eleven. We wait till eleven.”
“We wait till eleven,” Georgi said with a shrug.
“You have all the tools?” asked Yevgeny.
“You asked me that,” said Georgi.
“I’m asking again,” said Yevgeny.
“All the tools. In the trunk,” said Georgi.
He knows, Leonid thought. He knows. He’s never wanted to sit back there before. He wants to keep his eyes on us. Maybe when it’s over, he’ll shoot us. Maybe I should try to get behind him when we’re inside. Hit him with one of Georgi’s tools. Kill them both. Take my chances.
“It’s eleven,” said Georgi. “Let’s go.”
“Yes,” said Leonid, trying not to sound nervous and failing. “Let’s go.”
In answer, Yevgeny got out of the car, holding his gun low in one hand, pointed toward the ground. The door squeaked as he pushed it shut and waited for Georgi and Leonid to get out.
Yevgeny stood, as the wind blew and the snow danced, facing his two partners while Georgi opened the trunk as quietly as he could and handed Leonid some tools. Georgi himself hoisted a tarnished black crowbar over his shoulder and closed the trunk.
“In back. No talking till we’re inside,” Yevgeny whispered.
Georgi led the way with Leonid almost at his side and Yevgeny several steps back. The street was, as they had all expected, quiet. It wasn’t a residential neighborhood, mostly a row of old brick three-and four-story buildings housing offices and businesses.
The snow was thick behind the building. No one had been there for weeks. Yevgeny had anticipated this and worn his boots. Georgi always wore boots. Only Leonid was in shoes and found his socks and the cuffs of his pants growing moist and cold.
There was only a dim light from a street lamp nearly a half block away, but they could see well enough to make it to the rear window. Georgi propped his crowbar against the wall and reached for the window. He tried to simply push it open, but it didn’t budge. He reached for the crowbar and wedged it under the bottom of the window. The wood was old but frozen. He had to move the bar back and forth four or five times to get it in. When it was firmly in place, Georgi began to pull the bar down slowly. The window creaked, resisted, and then began to move upward as Georgi pulled down. Ice in the corners of the window crackled, and the lock snapped much louder than any of them had expected.
They stopped for a moment and looked around. Nothing.
The window was open. Georgi placed the crowbar so that it would keep the window from falling closed as they climbed in. Georgi went first, then Leonid and finally Yevgeny, entering the most awkwardly of all because he kept his finger on the trigger of his weapon and his thigh still hurt from where the rabbi had kicked him.
Yevgeny’s shoes touched something only about two feet inside below the window. He had heard a metallic sound when the other two had climbed in, and now he caused the same noise.
Georgi reached toward Yevgeny in the almost nonexistent light. Yevgeny stumbled to his left out of the bigger man’s reach and tumbled onto his back. He rolled quickly and leveled his weapon at Georgi, who removed the crowbar from the window with one hand and brought the window down s
lowly and quietly with the other.
Yevgeny pulled his small flashlight from his pocket and shined it on the faces of his two partners. If there had been any doubt before, now there was none. This was a partnership that would end in hell. Yevgeny lowered his weapon.
Both Georgi and Leonid turned on their flashlights, bending low. There was a small platform with a podium. Behind the podium was a cabinet. On either side of the cabinet were framed documents written, Yevgeny was sure, in Hebrew. In front of the podium was the expanse of the floor. Folding chairs were piled in one corner of the room.
“They made it easy for us,” Georgi whispered, continuing to move his beam around the room. The entrance to the temple was to his right. He knew there was a small alcove there with a tiny office big enough for a table and chair.
All three men could now see the aluminum tubing that they had stepped on. The tubing ran around the room, connecting to four stoves with pipes that went out through the ceiling. The stoves were cold and so, too, was the room.
Yevgeny cradled his weapon and moved to the center of the room, shining his light across the floor, getting his bearings.
“We start in each corner and take five steps toward the center of the room,” Yevgeny said.
This was the first the other two had heard of such a plan. Either Yevgeny had a plan that they could not fathom or he had information that he had not shared with them. In fact, Yevgeny had taken Igor’s letter and discovered that Igor had not told them the precise location inside the old church, but that didn’t matter now.
“We move quietly. We work as quietly as we can. The boards should come up easily, and it should be buried no more than a foot deep. The ground will be frozen. We have no time to waste.”
The plan meant that one corner was not covered, but the odds were three to one in their favor, and if they were wrong, all three could work from the last corner. They had time if they worked quickly and hard.
Yevgeny had no hope of putting the dirt and floorboards back before they fled. Instead he planned to push over the cabinet and podium and, if they could do so quietly enough, pull at least one of the stoves from the wall and tip it over. The goal was to make this look like a desecration tied in to the killings. He had even had the foresight to bring a small can of black spray paint so he could leave a few crude swastikas on the walls. The can bulged in his jacket pocket.
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