by James Thayer
The detective slipped his badge case back into his coat pocket. "The general must've made some phone calls."
"Better than that. He brought in Colonel Gregor Rokossosky, who heads what was once called the KGB's Second Chief Directorate."
"Never heard of it."
"It investigates major crimes including homicide involving foreigners."
After what he thought was a respectable interlude, Gray again let his eyes settle on her, but guardedly, like a thief. At first glance Gray had mistaken her wild coloring for youth, but he now saw she had done some living. A fine pattern of lines—new and gentle lines—touched the corners of her eyes. A few strands of gray-white were lost in her black hair like shooting stars on a moonless night. Her voice had a knowing lilt and throatiness gained only with seasoning. And her manner—the way she easily crossed her legs and leaned against the seat back, the way she conversed with the police detective and, in particular, the way she had roughed up Gray—indicated she was no stripling. Late thirties, Gray guessed.
She was saying, "In the Red Army the left hand truly does not know what the right hand is doing. I think General Kulikov was being candid when he first said the army did not have a specialized sniper school. Colonel Rokossosky seconded him. But prodded from on high, I believe, they started to dig."
"You speak Russian?" Coates asked.
She hesitated, then with a glance at Gray as if he were the source of all exasperation, she asked, "Do you know anything about me?"
Coates replied, "Don Shearson recommended you highly, said you knew your way around Moscow, and that's about all."
"I have a master's degree in police science and was an FBI special agent for ten years. Then I went to work for the Foreign Service in Moscow, where I've been for eight years. Most of my work is with the Moscow police, but I've also spent time with the police commissioners and security chiefs of the independent republics. My job is to investigate crimes against United States citizens. I can't pass as a Russian, but I speak the language well enough."
A young couple on Rollerblades passed the bench. His arms were flapping but his girlfriend skated smoothly beside him, her hand on his hip as she cooed encouragement. Her clinging blue nylon exercise top was cut so low and her matching trunks so high that in most countries she would have been arrested.
"And the two Russians produced?" Coates asked.
"It took them a while, and they got tired of me always prodding, always implying I'd call ever higher in the Kremlin."
As she spoke, Adrian Wade flicked her head to rearrange her hair. The black hair jumped and rolled. Gray wondered if she was aware of the motion, one she might have been doing all her life. This shiver of her head produced a fresh angle of her chin, as if she were renewing her presence and demanding the attention due her. At some level of her consciousness she knew of her glamour and its breath-catching effect on others and was not afraid to make those conversing with her focus on it. Perhaps she traded on her appearance. With this little shake, Gray knew something about her that she had not intentionally revealed, and he was chagrined that such a trifling discovery felt like a victory.
She went on, "General Kulikov was discomfited when he called me in again to say he had found the Red Army snipers' school, something he had sworn the day before did not exist. He said the school was run by the Spetsnaz, and nodded at me meaningfully, indicating he could not have been expected to know anything about the Spetsnaz."
Coates said, "General Kulikov and I have much in common in our understanding of the Spetsnaz."
Her silvery laugh provided grace notes to cheers from the nearby children's soccer game. She seemed quite charmed by the detective. And the detective seemed polite and subdued, far from his normal whoopee-cushion self.
She said, "The Red Army consists of five armed services, one of which is the Land Services. One of the Land Services' units is the Spetsnaz, diversionary airborne troops who are parachuted behind the enemy lines to destroy headquarters, forward command posts, and communications centers. They are a highly trained elite. Most Russian boxers, marksmen, and wrestlers who appear in the Olympics as amateurs are actually active Spetsnaz soldiers, though if you ask a Spetsnaz he'll say he's been trained at the Central Army Sports Club or Moscow's Dynamo Sports Club."
"The cheaters," Gray said genially. "Small wonder the Soviet Union collapsed."
She gave him the swiftest of glances. "General Kulikov and I drove sixty-five miles south of Moscow to the city of Kolomna, near the confluence of the Moskva and Oka rivers."
"Kolomna was sacked four times by the Tatars," Gray injected.
This time she turned her head slowly to Gray, as if reluctant to make the effort.
He said, "I studied Moskva River Basin history at Stanford. For a while I was thinking of majoring in it."
"I read your file," she corrected him sternly. "You never attended Stanford."
"I meant Oregon State."
He absolutely could not get her to crack a smile in his direction.
She shifted on the bench, turning more to Pete Coates, dismissing Gray once again. "The sniper school was another five miles beyond Kolomna. The 1st Spetsnaz Long Range Reconnaissance Regiment operates the school, but shortages in army appropriations after the breakup have closed it temporarily, Kulikov and I were told by its commander, a Spetsnaz colonel who claimed to have enough funds to run a desk but not much more."
"The colonel gave you the information?" Coates asked.
"He had never been a sniper, just a paper pusher. But a number of the school's instructors still lived nearby, too poor to move away. We spoke with three of them at their club, a clapboard hovel with a plank table in the center and a gravel floor. They were noncommissioned officers in their fifties."
"They don't sound like they'd be a fount of information," Coates said.
"General Kulikov ordered them to speak candidly to me about a sniper whose signature was a red shell. One of the instructors replied, 'The Red October plant,' as if that should mean anything to me. They seemed hurt when I drew a blank on the Red October plant."
"It's the most famous sniper duel in history," Gray said.
"Once I apologized for my ignorance, they quickly filled me in. Victor Trusov was with the 284th Division at Stalingrad in 1942, where in a three-day duel in the no-man's-land between Mamaev Hill and the Red October plant he killed a German—"
"It was Major Erwin König," Gray interrupted.
" . . . a German who was the finest sharpshooter in the Reich and who had been brought to Stalingrad specifically to kill the Russian sniper."
Gray added, "Trusov was named a Hero of the Soviet Union for his eighty-two kills."
"Russian grade schoolers are taught to recite Trusov's story," she said. "But what is omitted from their lessons—and something few Russians, even Russian soldiers, know—is that Trusov left a red shell at his firing sites. Apparently"—she looked directly at Gray—"leaving something like a red shell was considered vulgar braggadocio that the masses could live without."
"Trusov must be seventy-five or eighty years old," Coates said. "Could an old guy be our killer?"
With the angles of her face set with professional pride, she announced, "We can ask him."
Gray and Coates leaned forward in unison as if by some signal.
"He's a mile and a half from here at the Russian consulate."
The detective yanked the telephone from his pocket. "Christ, is he in custody?"
"He lost his leg to gangrene about ten years ago," she said. "He's in a wheelchair and he's recovering from heart surgery that he had two weeks ago. And I've just talked to the Russian Consul General. He is more than willing to help, probably on orders from the Kremlin, and has promised that Mr. Trusov won't go anywhere. We're free to interview him."
Gray remarked, "Doesn't sound like our man, red shell or no."
"You asked me to find a Russian sniper who left a red shell," she said in a strychnine voice. "I have done so."
&n
bsp; "What's this old fellow doing at the Russian consulate?" Coates asked.
"A Hero of the Soviet Union, or Hero of Russia as it is now called, is treated regally. Trusov came to the United States for surgery at Columbia Medical Center, then he was given a room in the consulate to recover. The consulate has even hired a nurse for him."
They rose to their feet. Two children on BMX bikes swerved around them.
Coates said, "Let's go talk to him."
"I need to check into my hotel and at least wash my contact lenses. Can I meet you there in an hour?"
Coates nodded. "Adrian, you walk south and I'll go north with Owen until the trees open up, then I'll take off in another direction. We'll meet at the consulate."
"Skulking around?" she said. "That's the kind of thing we in my Moscow office did before the Soviet Union broke up."
Coates said, "Standing next to Owen out in the open might result in your own personal breakup."
Perhaps unwilling to concede she had not thought of the danger, she only dipped her chin before starting south along the path. "I'll see you in an hour."
After she had rounded an ash tree and disappeared from sight, Gray said, "You've just seen the perfect example of why I don't like people knowing about my experience in Vietnam. They conclude I'm loathsome without getting to know me. Adrian What's-Her-Name acted like I was an ogre."
Coates smiled. "It could be your looks."
"Working with that woman is going to be like having a boil on my butt."
"You can tolerate her for a day or two, then she'll be on a plane back to Moscow."
"I don't like being called a goof on a bench." Gray started north along the path.
Coates followed. "You know, other than Anna Renthal, I've never seen you interact with a woman."
"So?"
"You're not very good at it."
The Assistant Consul General pushed open a door on the Russian consulate's third floor. He was wearing a herringbone sports coat with the cuffs two inches above his wrist bones. His hair was slicked back with an oil or pomade, so his forehead seemed two-thirds of his face.
"Please go right in," the assistant said in heavily accented English, sounding as if he had a mouthful of pebbles. "I'll return in fifteen minutes."
Adrian Wade asked, "You aren't going to insist on being present for the interview?"
The assistant shrugged. "This room is bugged. I'll listen while I eat my sandwich in the radio room." He smiled. "Or I might tune in Rush Limbaugh."
She shook her head. "Sometimes I long for the good old days."
Gray followed Coates and Adrian Wade into the room. His first impression was that it was a storehouse for old furniture. Antique pieces cluttered the room, seeming to overflow the purple Kashan rug to spill into the corners and wash up against the walls. The furnishings were opulent and overbearing, too rich and florid for a single room. Along just one wall were an ebonized wood dressing table inlaid with satinwood, a burr walnut scriptor on a carved and turned stand, and a walnut cabinet inlaid with enamel plaques of birds. Crowding the rug were a Victorian papier-mâché pedestal table, several Berlin woolwork stools, and a dozen Queen Anne and Georgian chairs, not one matching another. Haphazardly placed among all the rest were assorted fern stands, a lowboy, a long horse dressing glass, a globe that showed the Ottoman Empire and other vanished entities, and a leaded glass china display case. A clock with an ormolu case sat on a walnut mantel. The fireplace was blocked by a needlework fire screen mounted on a tripod foot.
"Smells like my grandmother's attic," Gray said softly as if in the presence of the dead. He wrinkled his nose against the odors of mildew, mothballs, old dust, and, strangely, fish. Gray had showered and changed his clothes at the Westside Athletic Club, where after discovering Sam Owl's gym he had retained his membership only for shower and lunch privileges.
Amid the jumble of precious furniture was an English brass half-tester bed from the mid-nineteenth century, manufactured just after it was discovered that brass beds housed fewer bedbugs than wood. The blankets were made up in a taut four-square military manner.
"The Soviets filled their consulates and embassies with ornate furniture to impress visitors," Adrian Wade said. "It's their Potemkin complex. Notice that they are all French and English pieces with almost nothing Russian."
"I don't see anybody in here," Coates said.
Gray caught his own reflection in a wall mirror framed with gilded pinewood bellflowers. His gaze moved to a pile of yellowed rags on top of the only comfortable item in the room, a La-Z-Boy recliner. "There he is."
Rather than rags, the heap of motley ocher cloth was a man in a dowdy bathrobe and one matching slipper. His other leg ended at the edge of the chair. He was caught in a stark ray of sunlight from a window. His bald head shared the bathrobe's saffron color. His few remaining hairs hovered above him like insects. Blue veins showed under the stippled skin of his crown. His face seemed made of transparent parchment, and Gray imagined he could see through his skin to the skull. Spatulate cheekbones rose from the sunken skin of the old man's cheeks. His masterful nose was hooked and narrow, a blade that in old age had drooped almost to his lower lip. His lips were thin and bloodless and fluttered with each exhale. His eyes were closed. He was asleep.
"Did he know we were coming?" Coates asked.
The old man started and cried out, a tenor chirp. His eyes rolled open. He blinked, then chuckled, a wheeze that sounded like paper being crumpled into a wad. "Koshmar."
Adrian Wade translated. "A nightmare."
The old man said, "Nu, byvaet."
"He says, 'Well, it happens,' meaning his nightmares. Maybe he has a lot of them, given his history."
She stepped into the bath of sunlight at the foot of the recliner and introduced herself in speedy Russian. The old man's jaw sagged and the lips lifted, presenting an unsettling hollow of bad teeth. He replied in Russian and held out a bony hand that resembled a vulture's talons.
He spoke for a moment in Russian, grinning and lifting his eyebrows invitingly. She laughed and replied, also in Russian. He cackled appreciatively and rubbed his hands together.
"What'd he say?" Coates asked.
"He asked me for a date."
"And?"
"I told him a night with me would turn him into a burned-out cinder, a mere husk of his former self, and that he would spend the rest of his days drooling and weeping."
Coates looked at Gray. "Women tell me that all the time when I ask them for dates. I never tire of it."
"I was exaggerating." She smiled. "But only a little. And now Mr. Trusov and I are the best of friends."
She made introductions, switching back and forth between Russian and English. Victor Trusov's grin spread. He seemed delighted with the visit. He nodded to Gray and Coates. His eyes were milk-glass blue and quick. Gray suspected they missed nothing.
"Zakuski?"He pointed to a television table.
She translated, "Hors d'oeuvres. Someone has provided Mr. Trusov with a nice spread. This is yobla, a dried and salted fish, and this is osyotr caviar. It's not as rare as beluga, but it tastes as good. Do you like caviar, Pete?"
"Is a frog's butt watertight?" Coates dug into the tin with a blini. He sculpted the eggs onto the pancake with a finger, then jammed the entire thing into his mouth.
She lifted a blini from a plate and scooped a small portion of the black beads onto it. Gray noticed that she touched the caviar with her tongue, exploring the eggs before she bit into them as if she wanted tactile pleasure as well as the taste from the caviar. She was wearing a suit with stern lines but of a softening bachelor-button blue. On her lapel was a finely wrought silver brooch representing a bunch of grapes and curled grape leaves. A plain band of silver hung around her left wrist.
The old man spoke quickly, making small gestures with his right hand. Tiny prisms of his spit flashed in the sun on their way down to the rug.
Adrian Wade said, "He says the consulate is treating him like a nac
hestvo, one of the privileged. He's calling me kotik, a pussycat, a term of endearment."
Owen Gray stepped forward. "Tell Mr. Trusov that I've long known about his exploits and heroism, and that I'm honored to meet him."
After the translation, the old man dipped his head at Gray. His eyes moved back to Adrian. Gray suspected that as a Hero of the Soviet Union Trusov was accustomed to praise for accomplishments the flatterers knew nothing about.
Gray added, "Erwin König, Hans Diebnitz, Otto Franz."
The names needed no translations. The old man's eyebrows came up. He eyed Gray closely, hair to shoes, a professional casing. Then he said something directly to Gray.
Adrian interpreted, "Mr. Trusov says, 'We study each other, don't we?' "
Gray nodded.
"He asks, 'What did you learn from me?' "
"The hat trick."
For three glorious seconds on the rubble mound at Stalingrad, Wehrmacht Major Erwin König had thought his bullet had soared through Trusov's head. Then König was dead.
The old man waved his hand dismissively. Adrian translated, " 'A stupid trick. It has galled me ever since that someone of Major König's stature fell for it. It cheapens my accomplishment.' "
"And the over-tree shot," Gray said. "I learned that from you."
An appreciative expression settled on Trusov's face. He spoke with enthusiasm, staring intently into Gray's gray eyes.
Again Adrian rendered his words into English. ' "You probably read the German interrogation report.' "
"Yes."
" 'I was held by the SS for five days. I thought I was tough, but they broke me. I told them all I knew, everything under the sun about my history and sniping.' "
"But you got away," Gray prompted.
" 'Can you imagine being careless with a firearm around me?' " Adrian translated.
Trusov laughed, which turned into a gasping cough. After a moment he could continue, with Adrian translating, " 'One of the bucket-heads forgot himself. I took care of him and my two interrogators, goddamn them, then it took me three weeks to cross the lines.' "