Rostnikov’s Vacation

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “There is nothing to be gained from her death, as there was nothing to be gained from your suicide,” said Karpo.

  “Something must have a resolution,” said Sasha. “Something this day must conclude without confusion, without …”He could not find the word, but the woman did.

  “Ambiguity,” she said.

  “She will not tell you,” said Karpo, “because she is the mother of Yakov Krivonos, as the computer told us. Since the man we seek was shot, it was possible that Krivonos would bring him to his mother for treatment. Doctor, you will sit while we search your house and wait. You will sit now, in that chair.”

  She moved to the chair and sat.

  “Sasha,” he said, “you will please put your weapon away and search this house.”

  Tkach put his gun away, looked at the woman, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  “What is wrong with that young man?” the woman asked when Tkach had departed.

  “He is brooding, Dr. Agulgan,” answered Karpo. “I do not know the details, nor are they relevant to your situation.”

  “They are if he shoots me,” she said.

  “He will control himself,” Karpo assured her.

  “How do you know? He is a brooding Russian.”

  “And you are not Russian?”

  She shrugged and went silent.

  “Your son and the man called Jerold plan to commit murder,” Karpo said, standing erect and facing the seated woman. “You know that.”

  “Your partner planned to murder me a moment ago,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Karpo.

  “You want me to help a murderer find my son,” she said.

  “I want you to do so, but I do not expect it,” said Karpo.

  “What do you expect?” she asked.

  “I expect nothing,” he said.

  The door opened, and Sasha Tkach came in holding a framed photograph in his hand.

  The woman adjusted her glasses and looked at him defiantly, but she did not speak.

  “Your son?” Tkach asked.

  Karpo moved forward to take the photograph from Tkach, who held it at his side. Karpo looked down at the framed photograph, at the face of Yakov Krivonos as he had been perhaps ten years earlier.

  The woman was sitting erect, her mouth a very thin line drawn tight. Karpo handed her the photograph, which she put gently into her lap.

  “The man called Jerold will get your son killed,” Karpo said.

  “And if you catch him, you will kill him,” she said. “I see no difference other than if I tell you where they are I betray my son.”

  “We will not kill your son if we can do otherwise,” said Karpo.

  The woman tore her eyes from the young man and looked at the ghostly figure before her. Their eyes met again, but this time there was no duel. She clutched the photograph to her chest and whispered, “I believe you.”

  “Do you know where they are?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I heard them … yes.”

  “Will you tell us?”

  “Nothing is simple,” she said.

  “Nothing is simple,” Karpo repeated, and though Tkach said nothing, he agreed.

  Set well back in Soviet Square on Gorky Street stands the Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, which contains more than six thousand manuscripts of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and over thirty thousand documents of Lenin. Party members, politicians, and scholars who come to the building are greeted before they enter by a red granite statue of Lenin dedicated in 1938. On the outer wall of the institute is a panel with paintings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin and the bold inscription “Forward, to the Victory of Communism.”

  In front of Lenin, blocking his view of Gorky Street and the Moscow Soviet of Working People’s Deputies, stands a four-story-high statue of Prince Yuri Dolgoruki seated triumphantly upon his horse. The prince is credited with founding Moscow more than eight hundred years ago.

  The Moscow Soviet of Working People’s Deputies is, as Moscow official buildings go, not terribly impressive. Built originally in 1782 as a one-story residence for the governor-general of Moscow, it was added to and rebuilt before and after the war with the Germans, complete with porticos and a balcony from which Lenin frequently addressed crowds on the street and in Soviet Square. In this building in 1917, the Revolutionary Military Council met and directed the October armed uprising in Moscow. Inside the Moscow Soviet can be found the banner of the city of Moscow. The banner bears two Orders of Lenin, the Gold Star of the Hero City, and the Order of the October Revolution.

  Lenin’s name is permanently on the roll of deputies of the Moscow Soviet, who, until perestroika, were the Communist party members responsible for running the city’s services. Each of the Soviet states has its own Soviet. It is from this one in Moscow that the newly elected officials governed, and it was in Soviet Square, in front of the statue of Prince Yuri Dolgoruki, that Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian Soviet, and Mikhail Gorbachev, premier of the Soviet Union, would, with many other officials, generals, and party officers, be gathering in a few hours to speak at the fiftieth-anniversary celebration of the first defeat of Hitler’s army in the city.

  From the square in front of Prince Dolgoruki’s statue, on a wooden platform that had been erected over the past two days, the speakers would be able to point to the granite in the large archways between numbers 9 and 11 on Gorky Street, granite that the Nazis had brought in from Finland to erect a victory memorial.

  And Yakov Krivonos had what was undoubtedly the best seat for the coming festivities. He was seated in an almost empty room at the top of the Moscow Soviet facing Gorky Street. Access to the building had been as easy as Jerold had said it would be. Yakov had shown his photograph and identification as Yakov Shechedrin to the guard at the door, adjusted his glasses with great seriousness, and had been allowed to pass carrying his rather large briefcase. Ironically, it was Jerold who had an instant of difficulty getting in and might not have made it if the line of deputies had not been a long one behind him.

  “Are you unwell, Comrade?” a uniform guard had asked a dark-suited, beard-trimmed, and quite pale Jerold.

  “American flu,” said Jerold.

  “Yes, I’m short two men today because of it,” said the guard. “My aunt says to wrap garlic around your neck and eat a clove of it twice a day.”

  “My mother says the same,” said Jerold. “It can’t hurt to try.”

  And with that Jerold had passed into the building. He did not join Yakov till they were on the second floor, up the stairs to the left. Even then they did not walk together. They acted as if they were busy assistants headed for bureaucratic tasks in preparation for the day’s events. It wasn’t till they went into the stairwell door at the end of the corridor and closed the door behind them that they faced each other and spoke.

  “You don’t look very well, Jerold,” Yakov said. “Very pale.”

  And, Jerold thought, you may look well, Yakov, but you are the one who is dying. May you not die too soon and may you not die too late.

  “I will be fine,” said Jerold, stepping past him and leading the way upward.

  Yakov laughed and followed him.

  “Can I take these glasses off now?” he asked.

  Jerold nodded, and Yakóv removed the glasses and put them in the pocket of his suit.

  “I’m getting that American flu,” Yakov said. “Stomach pains. Started yesterday. Worse today. I need more pills.”

  “When we are finished,” said Jerold.

  “I need more pills,” Yakov said emphatically.

  “When we get to the room,” Jerold agreed.

  They went through a door on the fourth level. It was dark, but Jerold didn’t hesitate. Because of his wound, he moved slowly, but Yakov could see that he knew where he was going, around a pile of dusty stacked chairs and to a narrow door in the corner. He opened it and entered, with Yakov right behind.

  They climbed aga
in, slowly, holding the dusty handrail of the steep, narrow stairway. And then Yakov heard a door open above him, and light came down the stairway shaft. He followed Jerold up through the door and closed it.

  The room was not small, about the size of the apartment from which he had thrown Carla through the window. There were ancient wooden file cabinets, six of them, lined up in one corner. Three wooden chairs sat at random places, facing nothing in particular. On the wall was a faded mural depicting factory workers marching, according to the bright lettering, to greater productivity for the Revolution. Leading the march was a woman with glasses.

  “She looks like my mother,” said Yakov, putting down his briefcase on one of the chairs and opening it to reveal the parts of his rifle.

  Jerold had sat in one of the other chairs. He looked back at the mural and thought the woman looked nothing like Yakov’s mother, but he said, “Yes, quite a bit.”

  “Exactly like her,” Yakov said.

  “When you get the gun assembled, open me window,” Jerold said.

  “Pills,” answered Yakov.

  Timing now was everything. Jerold was greatly weakened by his wound. His loss of blood and the weakness, he knew, might be affecting his judgment, but there was no time to rest. He reached into his inner jacket pocket, removed the bottle, and took out two pills. He handed diem to the waiting Yakov, who took them solemnly, gulping them down dry, and walked to the window.

  “They are gathering already,” he said.

  “Try the window,” said Jerold, putting the bottle away and enjoying the luxury of closing his eyes for an instant.

  Yakov opened the window. It neither stuck nor made a sound. The window behaved perfectly, as Jerold knew it would.

  “Look, Mother, top of the world,” Yakov said with a chuckle.

  Jerold was growing less confident of Yakov’s behavior. He checked his watch. Still two hours to go. He had pills of his own to take for the pain and to keep him alert, but he would wait till he absolutely needed them, for the pills tended to cloud his judgment.

  Yakov moved back to continue assembling the compact rifle.

  “By day after tomorrow I’ll be in Las Vegas,” said Yakov as he worked.

  By tomorrow, thought Jerold, you will be dead, but he said, “The day after tomorrow.”

  “Get a faster plane,” Yakov said, holding up the assembled weapon. “The CIA can get whatever it wants.”

  “I’ve told you. I’m not with the CIA,” said Jerold.

  “Of course not,” said Yakov. “You’re just a Soviet citizen with good connections. You know what I want to do in Las Vegas?”

  “Yes,” said Jerold.

  Yakov moved to the window.

  “Don’t go to the window with the gun,” Jerold warned. “Not yet.”

  “No,” said Yakov. “I don’t mean the girls with the feathers. I want them, yes. The girls with the feathers. But I want to go to the top of that big hotel-casino in the pictures. I want to stand on top of it and look down at the lights in the night. I want to spread my arms and have them turn into wings so I can leap over the edge. Maybe I can do it with one of those hang gliders.”

  “Maybe,” said Jerold.

  “And I will meet Madonna,” he said seriously, turning to the seated Jerold.

  “You will meet Madonna,” said Jerold.

  “And she will be very grateful for what I have done,” he said.

  “Very grateful,” said Jerold.

  “You think I’m a fool, don’t you?” asked Yakov.

  “I know you are not a fool,” said Jerold. “You would not have been chosen for this assignment if you were a fool.”

  “Your Lee Harvey Oswald was not a fool, either,” said Yakov. “Will I be as famous in America as he is in the Soviet Union?”

  “Yes,” said Jerold, feeling quite weak but trying not to show it.

  Yakov moved back to the window and looked down.

  “Top of the world,” he said.

  TWELVE

  CONSIDERING HIS RANK AND the visibility of his public office, the Gray Wolfhound lived in a very modest two-story house off the Outer Ring Road, twenty minutes by car and driver from his office in Petrovka. It would have taken little more than a word or a hint to have someone ousted from a large apartment in the city, but the Wolfhound wanted none of it.

  Colonel Snitkonoy enjoyed entertaining visiting dignitaries in his home, liked to show the almost Spartan nature of his existence to foreigners. The colonel harbored a dream, which he shared on occasion with the two members of his household, a dream of this modest house being turned into a small birthplace museum.

  The two members of the colonel’s household with whom this dream was shared were his retired adjutant, a quiet, devoted, and very stupid man named Golovin, who firmly believed that the colonel was the most brilliant military officer in the long history of all the Russias, and a housekeeper, Lena, who was not in the least bit stupid and was quite sure that when the colonel moved or died the house would be leveled and replaced with a massive apartment building or offices.

  Each morning, seven days each week, except when he had an early-morning engagement or had to catch a flight out of Moscow, a car and driver would be parked and waiting at five-thirty in front of the modest house. The car that waited was also modest, a Zhiguli of recent vintage, not one of the large Volgas or even a foreign car, which he could afford and to which both Golovin and Lena said he was entitled.

  This morning, Colonel Snitkonoy was slightly annoyed. He would be attending the ceremony in Soviet Square, and it was especially important that his dress uniform be spotless, his ribbons even, his hat without crease or blemish. He had drunk his morning coffee with care, eaten his English toast with caution, finished his glass of Turkish orange juice with dignity, and discovered a speck of something oily on his knee with concealed horror.

  This speck had forced the Wolfhound to completely change his uniform and to be ten minutes late going through the front door, where Golovin on cloudy mornings like this stood ready with an umbrella to walk with the colonel to the waiting car, should the threatening rain start.

  But this proved to be a morning like no other morning. Golovin stood inside the door with the umbrella, but he did not open either door or umbrella. Instead, he said, “You have a visitor.”

  The Wolfhound stopped, waited.

  “He said it was urgent. Inspector Rostnikov. I put him in your office. I asked him not to touch anything. I hope that was acceptable. He said—”

  “Tell the driver I will be out shortly,” said the Wolfhound, going to a door just off of the entranceway. When Golovin was out the front door, the colonel entered his office.

  Rostnikov was seated in the large wooden chair across from the desk. His leg, the one he had injured as a boy in the war, was propped up on a wooden block the colonel kept before the chair as a footrest. The block had a history that the colonel enjoyed relating to his guests, but this was neither the time nor the guest. Rostnikov wore a jacket and no tie. He needed a shave and looked quite tired.

  “Would you like a coffee, Porfiry Petrovich?” asked the colonel.

  “That would be pleasant,” said Rostnikov, and the colonel moved to the door, where he ordered the now-waiting Golovin to bring coffee.

  The colonel turned back into the room in anticipation. Rostnikov had never come to his house before. He had never been invited to his house. Even when Rostnikov had brought him the information that resulted in the dismissal of a high-ranking KGB officer just a few months ago, the information and evidence had been brought to the colonel’s office.

  That information had resulted in Colonel Snitkonoy’s being taken far more seriously than he had been before, which was both a good and a bad thing.

  “You are supposed to be on vacation in Yalta, Inspector,” the Gray Wolfhound said, moving to his desk. He leaned against the desk and folded his arms in front of him.

  “Why was I sent on vacation, Colonel?”

  Rostnikov asked
the question gently, casually, and he would have liked to present it more carefully, in the natural context of a conversation, but there was no time.

  “An order came to all departments indicating those senior officers who were overdue for vacation and who must take them immediately,” said the colonel.

  “And would you remember the names on the list?” asked Rostnikov. “I mean, remember them if you saw them.”

  “Yes,” said the colonel. “I would remember all of those within the MVD and—Where is this leading, Inspector? I have an important ceremony to attend.”

  Rostnikov shifted his weight, reached into his pocket, came up with Vasilievich’s notebook, and handed it to the Wolfhound as Golovin knocked at the door.

  “Come in,” called the colonel, looking down at the book. “Put it on the desk.”

  Golovin looked concerned but said nothing as he put down the tray containing two cups and a steaming pot. Golovin departed quickly, closing the door behind him.

  “Page six,” said Rostnikov. “May I help myself?”

  “Please,” said the Wolfhound, turning the pages of the notebook while Rostnikov reached over to pour himself coffee.

  “These are the names, not all of them, but many of them,” he said, looking away from the book at Rostnikov.

  “Now look at pages nine through twelve,” Rostnikov said, lifting the cup to his lips.

  “Where did you get this notebook?”

  “It belonged to a GRU inspector named Vasilievich. He was murdered in Yalta two days ago. The men who murdered him were hired by an American who was himself hired by a Soviet. The American returned to the United States yesterday before he could be properly detained.”

  “I see,” said the colonel wisely, though he saw nothing at all, and then on the tenth page he saw more names, names that he recognized, including that of both Gorbachev and Yeltsin, but the one that caught the colonel’s eye immediately was his own name. He looked away from the notebook again at Rostnikov, who put his coffee cup down on the tray.

  “Vasilievich was convinced that a conspiracy existed, a conspiracy engineered among high-ranking officers in the police and intelligence services,” said Rostnikov. “The conspiracy required removing from Moscow and other key cities the senior investigators who might possibly uncover the conspiracy.”