“He had changed his way of thinking about publishing,” said Vanga. “He didn’t want to write anything till he was certain. He thought he might be two years from even beginning to write. He consulted me frequently. I assured him that support for his work would continue.”
“He may have something written at his home,” said Karpo. “You will accompany us to examine his papers?”
Tayumvat nodded and said, “Vanga … Andrei Vanga? You are Andrei Vanga.”
“Yes,” said Vanga.
“I read your article on dream states among the mentally ill. Journal of Psychic Research.”
Vanga smiled.
“That was twenty years ago at least,” said the old man. “It stunk. You write stinking articles with flawed research and results, and they put you in charge of all this. What have you written since? Something better, I hope, or better nothing at all.”
“I’ve been busy keeping this facility alive, raising money, finding …”
“You burned out,” said Tayumvat.
“No,” Vanga shot back. “In fact, I am almost ready to present a new and, I believe, major report on my research.”
“I hope it’s better than the last one,” said Tayumvat.
“I believe it is,” said Vanga. “Shall we go?”
“You are going?” asked the old man.
“He is going,” said Karpo.
“Then see to it that he stays out of my way and touches nothing,” said Tayumvat, turning toward the door. “Let’s go. Time is something I, Tikon, will not knowingly waste.”
They had barely opened the door when Nadia Spectorski appeared, arms folded over her white lab coat. “I would like a few minutes of Akardy’s time,” she said.
“I must …” Zelach began, feeling the panic he had anticipated.
“We have been told to cooperate with your research,” Karpo said. “Zelach will stay, Nadia Spectorski.”
Tayumvat, who had been walking slowly in front of them down the corridor, turned and looked at her. “Spectorski? Image projection?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Don’t trust the English,” he said. “They find what they want to find. You find what you want to find. You rely too much on the English in your articles. To know someone can play card tricks is not to know how they play these tricks, and the real question is, When is a trick not a trick?”
“I agree,” she said as Zelach stood listening, hoping that they would return with evidence from the dead man’s apartment that Nadia was the murderer.
“Then write better articles,” said Tayumvat, resuming his walk down the hall.
That had been an hour ago. They had been driven in the unmarked car Karpo had asked the Yak to sign for.
The first impression was that the dead scientist’s apartment on Petro Street had been ransacked, but even a cursory examination by Karpo confirmed that the man had simply lived like a child. Papers were piled on the floor. Books were scattered about. Every chair was full of books and papers. The air was heavy with dust, and two open boxes of raisins sat on the table on which a computer rested.
“Stay out of my way,” the old man said, surveying the chaos. “It will go faster.”
“I would like to help,” said Vanga.
“And I would like you not to help,” said Tayumvat, pronouncing each word slowly and distinctly as if he were giving orders to a child who was being told what to do for the third time.
The old scientist started in one corner of the room, picking up books, examining them, riffling through the pages, and making comments to Karpo and Vanga.
“Unidentified Flying Objects,” he said at one point, looking at a paperback book. “I wrote about this. Carl Jung wrote about this. Do you know what I wrote?”
“That the objects were not aliens but humans from the future,” said Vanga.
Tayumvat paused and looked at Vanga. “Yes, yes,” he said. “So, I am not completely forgotten. It is common sense. The ships come in two forms, saucers and cigar-shaped objects. My conclusion …”
“… is that they come from two different periods in the future. The cigar-shaped ones are not as far advanced as the saucers,” said Vanga.
“Correct. And why do these creatures have two arms, two legs, two eyes? Because they are evolved humans. Why would creatures from some distant galaxy look like us? Answer,” he said, looking at a pile of papers, “they would not. And why do they abduct humans and examine them? Because they want to find out about their ancestors, us. And,” he continued, going through more books, papers, and journals, “why do they avoid contact with humans?”
“Because they do not wish to alter history,” said Vanga.
“No,” said Tayumvat. “Don’t you understand Einstein? Time is already determined. Even if they were to come back and destroy us all, the time that is already in motion would continue. The time they affect would go on separately. If I can figure this, out, they can.”
“You believe this?” asked Karpo, watching Vanga carefully.
“No, I do not believe we have visitors from the future,” said Tayumvat. “I believe, however, that if these creatures do exist, my explanation is infinitely better than the theory of alien visitors. My great-grandson has one of those T-shirts, hideous, black with white letters. It says, Star Trek Is Right. What’s this?”
The old man was examining a notebook with the spirals on top. Vanga took a step toward him. Karpo held out a hand to stop him. Vanga stopped.
“Notes about people whose dreams have been scientifically proved to foretell the future,” said Tayumvat, flipping through the pages. “Interesting, the future foretold is not necessarily their own.”
“Yes,” said Vanga. “He was working with me on such a project.”
“All anecdotal,” said the old man, flipping quickly.
“We have hard research results,” said Vanga.
“I’d be interesting in seeing it,” said Tikon Tayumvat, with undisguised skepticism.
“I’ll be ready to publish soon,” he said.
“And the dead man? …”
“Bolskanov,” Karpo supplied.
“Bolskanov,” Tayumvat continued. “Your publication will include his name as co-author?”
Vanga had not considered this. He looked at the old man and then at Karpo. “He just did some of the research, under my direction. He has done none of the writing. Of course I will give him credit. I will dedicate the paper to him.”
“Let’s ask him for his side of this tale, which I have heard all too often,” said the old man, turning his back on Vanga now and continuing his search. “Oh, yes. This Bolskanov is dead. He cannot speak for himself. But perhaps I can speak for him.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Vanga with great indignation.
“That it is convenient for you that the man is dead.”
“And you are suggesting that I killed him because I wanted to steal his work?”
“I had not considered it quite that way,” said the old man, turning again to face Vanga, “but it makes sense. It is a hypothesis. And what do you do with a reasonable hypothesis? You test it. We will test your hypothesis.”
“Inspector, I do not wish to stand here and be insulted,” Vanga said to Karpo, who stood close by his side.
“Then you may leave,” said Karpo.
“Or,” said Tayumvat, flipping through another book of notes which had been on top of a teetering pile, “you may sit.”
“But I can’t leave. I may be needed. I can check the computer.”
Vanga moved to the computer. Leaning forward he slipped the disk he had brought with him into the hard drive, hoping neither of the other two men had seen him. It was a desperate act but one he could not avoid.
“Do not turn that on,” Karpo commanded, taking Vanga’s arm.
Vanga straightened up immediately. “Yes, if you wish. I won’t turn it on. But … I just want to help.”
Tayumvat dropped the notebook in his hand on the floor and wove through
the debris toward the desk. “Yes,” he said. “By all means. If this is so important to our friend, let us open it now.”
Karpo guided Vanga a few steps back while the old man sat and turned on the computer. The black screen went blue and then a series of icons began to appear, but the appearance was brief. The icons began to lose their clarity and fade.
“A virus,” said Tayumvat. “It is destroying all the information, all the files on the hard disk.”
“Can you stop it?”
“No. What is this? What is this?”
He moved the mouse to the words put away, and the disk Vanga had inserted popped out. Tayumvat reached for it.
“Don’t touch it,” said Karpo.
The old man’s hand stopped inches from the protruding disk.
“It’s not a booby trap,” Tayumvat said.
“But it may have fingerprints,” said Karpo.
Vanga had not really considered that.
Ivan Laminski drove the tan Mustang down the bumpy dirt road in the direction he had been given by the shopkeeper Podgorny. Next to Ivan sat the younger Moscow detective. Ivan wanted to talk, but it was clear that the man next to him did not. There was nothing on the radio. They were too far from any station to be able to pick one up on the Mustang’s radio.
In the back, the one-legged older Moscow detective sat looking out the window at the fields that extended back into forever.
“In the field is standing a birch tree,” Rostnikov said. “You know that song? The birch tree song?”
“No,” said Iosef.
“I think that’s it,” said Ivan, pointing to a house in a field in front of them and to the right.
Neither detective responded. Porfiry Petrovich was thinking of birch trees. Iosef was wondering what they were searching for and why.
Ivan found a smaller road to the right that seemed to head toward the house. He took it and drove slowly. When they pulled up next to the one-story wooden house, five people were standing in wait.
“Podgorny called to tell us you were coming,” said Boris Vladovka as Iosef and Porfiry Petrovich got out of the car.
“You are friends,” said Rostnikov. “I assumed he would do so if you had a telephone.”
“There are only two telephones in our town. Podgorny has one. We have one. If people wish to call outside, they know they are welcome at either of our houses.”
Rostnikov smiled at Boris Vladovka and his wife. A handsome dark woman, whose face showed the hard life she had lived, stood to the right, her hand clasping that of a small girl, no more than three, blond hair, clear skin. All were dressed cleanly but ready for a day’s work.
“Your son?” asked Rostnikov.
“Konstantin is there,” Boris said, pointing to a tractor in the distance. “We have work to do, but I understand you want to see a farm. We are happy to show you ours.”
Ivan, the driver, got out of the car, said hello to the Vladovka family, and declined an invitation to see the farm. He had seen many farms. He had no need of another.
Iosef and Porfiry Petrovich followed the family into the house and politely moved into the large living room, which held surreal-looking paintings.
“Tsimion’s work,” explained Boris. “I don’t understand what it means. Tsimion always said that it didn’t have to be put into words, explanations. The paintings, his poems, were just there to be felt. What was it he said?”
“True meaning comes from feeling, not from words,” Boris’s wife said, looking at one small painting that suggested to Rostnikov a sky on fire.
The room was spare but comfortable, the furniture basic and wood with one old, patterned and upholstered sofa. There was a large radio on a table near the window but no television. Television stations were too far away.
They moved through the rooms and Boris explained that they had originally built two bedrooms. A third had been added. Everything was on one floor, so adding rooms was not a problem. Boris and his wife had one bedroom, which was small and neat with a free-standing wooden closet in one corner, the bed, covered by a colorful quilt, next to the window, and what Boris described as his wife’s pride, a dresser with a mirror on top. The dresser was dark wood and elaborate, covered with carved flowers and leaves.
“It is an antique,” Boris said. “Two, three hundred years old.”
“Tsimion loved it,” his wife said. “He liked to run his fingers over the flowers.”
The room of Konstantin and his wife was the same size as the first bedroom. This room was furnished with a bed, closet, and a rocking chair. A trunk stood in the corner. It was open and filled with toys. On the walls were scribble drawings of a small child. The dresser was plain and large with six drawers. A small bookcase stood next to the dresser. It was filled with children’s books.
The final bedroom was a duplicate of the other two except this had only a single-size bed. A desk stood at the window with a wooden chair before it. A dresser, almost a duplicate of the one in the last bedroom, stood in the corner. A large simple bookcase filled with books and magazines took up most of one wall.
“This was Tsimion’s room,” said Boris. “It was here if he ever wanted to return. Now it belongs to my granddaughter, Petya, my little one.”
He reached down to touch the head of the little blond girl who was clinging to his leg.
“Now,” Boris said, gently prying his granddaughter loose and guiding her toward his wife, “the barn and some of the fields. The tour, I’m afraid, is short because there really is not much to see.
“We can forgo the barn,” said Rostnikov, “and I would like to look at the fields myself. I want to know what it feels like to be alone in such a vast sea of green and yellow.”
“It feels … comforting,” said Boris solemnly. “And when there is a breeze, the vines and leaves sound as if they are talking a soft, foreign tongue.”
“I see where your son got his sense of poetry,” said Rostnikov.
“No,” said Boris. “He listened to his own silence in the darkness of the skies.”
Outside the house in which they left the family, Iosef said, “You want to go for a walk in a potato field?”
“I must,” Rostnikov said, looking around. “Wait here. I won’t be long.”
“I thought we were here to get some answers,” said Iosef, following his father’s gaze.
“We are,” said Rostnikov. “Go back inside. Ask about farming. Tell them of your life and mine, of your engagement to Elena. Talk to them of dead czars and dark, silent skies.”
“Now you are trying to be a poet.”
“It’s an infection,” said Rostnikov. “Highly communicable.”
With that, Porfiry Petrovich set off into the field.
The rows were even, but navigating them with one healthy and one independent leg was difficult. After a hundred yards, Rostnikov knew that what Boris had told him of the fields was true. There was a rustling calm. But growing potatoes was certainly not always romantic. In fact, Rostnikov was sure, such idyllic moments were probably reserved for visitors who did not have to work the fields, or men like Boris Vladovka who held on to their dreams and passed them on to their children and grandchildren.
It took Porfiry Petrovich twelve minutes to catch up to the tractor. The bearded driver saw him coming, turned off the engine, and waited as Rostnikov approached.
“Vladovka, when we have finished talking I would be very grateful for a ride back to the car.”
Rostnikov looked up at the man and shielded his eyes from the sun.
“You have a question for me?”
“Yes, several. First, I would like to know what it feels like to be weightless and alone in the darkness of outer space.”
“How would I know?” he said with a shrug, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.
“Because,” said Rostnikov, “you are not Konstantin Vladovka. He is dead and buried. You are his brother, Tsimion.”
Chapter Twelve
VALERY GRACHEV HAD NOT ARRIVED at work
today. And, Sasha and Elena quickly discovered, he was not at home. No one was at home. They had gotten the landlady to open the door to the apartment where Valery lived with his uncle. They found no film negative, but they did find books on chess, eight of them.
“You are sure this is the man?” Elena asked as they stood outside the door of the apartment.
“I don’t have to be sure,” said Sasha. “We find him, bring him in, and let the beggar woman identify him. The man in the drawing is one of the assistant editors who works for Yuri Kriskov. I saw him when I posed as the French producer.”
The only question for Sasha now was whether they would find Grachev before he decided to destroy the negative.
At this point, they did not know that they were already too late to stop him from destroying Yuri Kriskov. When they left the apartment, Grachev was already setting himself up to fire his first shot.
They had arrived in a motor-pool Lada with bad brakes. Elena, who was by far the better driver of the two, had picked up the vehicle and now was driving it to the house of Yuri Kriskov. They were no more than half a mile from their destination when the first shot was fired.
Elena stepped on the gas as more shots were fired. Sasha opened his window and saw a glint in the window of a house two streets away from the Kriskov’s. It could have been a … another shot. The object in the window caught the early-morning sun again and jerked upward.
“Let me out here, now,” said Sasha. “You go to the house.”
Elena hit the faulty brakes and the car skidded to the side of the street, almost turning back in the direction from which they had come. Sasha was out of the car before it had quite stopped. He kicked the door closed behind him and took his gun from the holster inside his unzipped jacket as he moved.
He crouched low as Elena stepped on the gas behind him and headed for the Kriskov house. There were more shots now, and he was sure they were coming from that window.
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