Rostnikov was reasonably certain that the Yak had just told the little man behind the desk that he wanted to talk to General Misovenski
“You will be attending the wedding party of my son and Elena Timofeyeva?” Rostnikov said.
“Oh yes,” said Pankov.
Forty-six years old and Pankov had never been to a wedding, not even that of his only sister. Trina, who had married only two years earlier, had made it clear that he would not be welcome. He made Trina uneasy and nervous. He made his mother uneasy and nervous. He made everyone he knew uneasy and nervous. And now the son of a man on whom Pankov spied on a daily basis had invited him to his son’s wedding.
Pankov reached inside his pocket for his handkerchief and realized that he was not sweating.
9
Ivan Medivkin parked the small pickup truck in a dead-end alleyway alongside the old gymnasium. The trip had been somewhat painful. It had required him to drive with his knees up high, almost against his chest. His foot wanted to fall heavily on the gas pedal. It was a strain to keep it from dropping and sending the little truck into a mad dash that was certain to cause attention and possible destruction.
He had worried the last fifteen kilometers. The gas gauge had insisted that the tank was nearing empty. He could not stop for gas without being seen and remembered. He was the Giant, Ivan the Terrible, the Man Who Would Be King of the Ring, the Man Wanted by the Police for Murder.
Ivan managed to get the door open and drop his feet to the ground. Then he bent over and came out of the truck crouching. Night was coming soon. There was still a pale wash of dying sun and long gray shadows.
There was a huge green Dumpster against a wall. The top of the Dumpster was open. Things scuttled among paper and garbage, and the smell was sweetly decaying. Ivan walked behind the truck and moved to a wooden door behind a trash can. Something scuttled in that too. Ivan pushed the trash can out of the way and tried the door handle. It was not only locked; it was also held in place by decades of not being used.
The door was wood, once a thick wood, now a wood decaying from the outside in. Ivan threw his shoulder against the door. The door shot open. The ease with which he had opened the door surprised him. He fell over into the equipment storage room, breaking the fall with the palms of both hands. Then he rolled on his side and looked around the room panting from the effort and surprise. Dim twilight through the doorway covered him.
Two heavy punching bags, both with holes that would leak sawdust if they were moved, leaned against each other in a corner, suggesting, at least to Ivan, a pair of dead bodies. A cardboard box stood against a wall, a thick rope dangling from it like a snake that had died trying to escape. A stationary bicycle faced the door, its chain broken. A few feet from Ivan Medivkin lay a deflated brown leather punching bag. The punching bag seemed particularly sad, a defeated head on its side with no eyes with which to see and no body to carry it.
Ivan had spent little time training in this gym in the early days of his career. He and Klaus Agrinkov had moved to the more upscale boxing facility on a one-block street off of Kalanchevkskaya. Ivan rose and moved to the door to the gym. This door had felt frequent openings and closings. He opened the door and stepped through, closing the door behind him. He could hear voices ahead of him down the dark, narrow corridor. He followed them and came to yet another door. This one he opened slowly, cautiously.
The gym was large, a great dank-smelling place. The ring was opposite where he stood in the doorway. Two men were sparring, young men. Both were small, fast. Ivan knew that without being told. Sitting in a wooden chair outside the ring, his back to Ivan, was his manager and friend, Klaus Agrinkov.
Ivan took a step forward and stopped. From the shadows on his right and left the familiar, and not unpleasant, smell of dank sweat engulfed him. He felt a sad murmur of mourning for his damaged career.
Something emerged from the nearby shadows. Two men. One man was large, well built, though not nearly as large or well built as Ivan. The other man looked less formidable. He slouched forward and wore a look of great sadness on his face. He wore round simple glasses with reflecting glass. He turned his head toward Ivan.
That was the point at which the well-built man lifted his hand to reveal a gun pointing at Ivan.
Ivan considered turning and running back through the open door. The man with the gun might shoot, but he probably would not. Ivan began to raise his hands.
“That will not be necessary,” said the man with the gun.
“Thank you,” said Ivan.
“We have been waiting for you,” the man with the gun said.
“You knew I would come here?”
“Where else would you go?”
They met on neutral ground, the British chain Costa Coffee shop on Pushkinskaya Square. Colonel Yaklovev could not bring himself to suggest one of the new Starbucks or the Moka Loka and did not want to go to a Shokoladnitsa coffee house, where there was a slight chance he might be recognized. Yaklovev was secretly addicted to frothy flavored lattes, particularly those made at Shokoladnitsa. With Moscow’s ratio of one coffee house for every 3,187 people, however, it was not difficult to come up with a suggestion that General Misovenski did not veto.
Coffee houses were especially good places to meet in public.
They were crowded and noisy and the two men were unlikely to be recognized. Indeed, without their uniforms, they simply looked like businessmen out for a coffee break.
A few people might comment that Yaklovev looked somewhat like Lenin or that the dark Misovenski with deep-set eyes looked a little like the British actor Ian McShane.
Given the subject that they were going to discuss after having a satisfying sip of their drinks, both men felt confident that the other would not be recording the conversation. What they were about to discuss could lead to the fall of both men.
“It is good,” said the General in the gravelly voice that was familiar and forbidding to his department of 220 men and women.
The Yak put his cup down and nodded his agreement.
He did not like drinking coffee from paper or Styrofoam cups. He thought the coffee before him only minimally satisfying. To avoid the possibility of future profiling for the General’s files, the Yak had ordered a straight medium-sized black coffee.
“If Aleksandr Chenko is arrested and brought to trial,” said the Yak, “he will very likely tell the prosecutors and the court that he is related to Prime Minister Putin and that you had him in your grasp a year ago, as many as twelve murders ago, and that you let him go to protect the reputation of Prime Minister Putin.”
The Yak, with evidence provided by Emil Karpo, knew that Chenko bore no relationship to Putin. The familial tie was an invention of Chenko.
“I am listening,” said the General, offended by the lack of political subtlety being shown by this man he outranked.
“I have that evidence, or at least a copy of it, in my possession,” said the Yak as a young and pretty girl with long black hair bumped into their table. The girl said, “Oops,” and moved her coffee cup away before it spilled on either man.
“And what do you propose?” asked Misovenski.
“If Chenko does not make it to trial, perhaps does not even make it to arrest, my office will be given credit for catching the worst serial killer in the history of Russia, and neither your office nor mine will have to embarrass Prime Minister Putin. You can simply issue brief congratulations to the Office of Special Investigations. My name need not be mentioned. The case will be closed. We can both control the flow of information about Chenko, perhaps even manufacture a suitable biography.”