Too many unanswered questions, Yuri thought disconsolately. Had he run into the same dead end as the investigators in Moscow?
Early the next morning, Yuri sat in a small, undistinguished cafe beyond Kreschatik Street with a view of the towering St. Vladimir Monument, a bronze statue that looked down benignly on a hilly, wooded park. He and Oleg Kovalenko listened to a crusty old detective named Voronin as the three of them sipped glasses of black tea into which jelly had been spooned and stirred. A short, stocky man, Voronin had a booming voice that made you think of a small hound with a deep, throaty bark. He had dealt with the seamier side of life for so long that he tended to consider it more the normal thing than respectability.
"Yeah, me, a guy who's listened to every damned alibi ever invented, and I believed him. I must have lost my touch. Maybe it's time I put in for retirement."
"No, no, not and leave us at the mercy of this new bunch of young radicals," Chief Investigator Kovalenko objected. "I've tangled with too many youthful militia officers who insist on doing things in unorthodox ways. Hell, they don't even know to come in out of the rain. They would insist it was 'communing with nature.'"
Voronin shrugged. Built like a small bull, all shoulders and no neck, he was also endowed with the bull's menacing air. In combination with a quick fist, it made him a formidable inquisitor. But at the moment he seemed bent only on self-flagellation.
"I shouldn't have been taken in. But I'll give the bastard credit. He was as convincing a liar as I've ever run across."
"He said he was on holiday?" Shumakov inquired.
Voronin nodded. "Claimed he was a security consultant. Worked for an industrial firm in Moscow owned by Germans. When we checked that out, it was a lie, too. Said he had collected a big bonus and headed to Budapest to try his luck."
The waitress brought a refill of hot tea and Shumakov smiled. Ah, the wonders of privatization. He had to pinch himself at times to be sure it was real after years of enduring the sullen, often grudging service in state-run restaurants. He looked across at Voronin. "Any idea who the person was who got him released?"
"The jailer provided a good description, but we haven't been able to identify him yet. He had on a militia captain's uniform and seemed to know his way around. Either he was local or had local help."
Yuri took a cautious sip of tea. "Has anybody reported a stolen uniform?"
"You've got to be kidding!" blurted Voronin. "That would be nearly as bad as admitting somebody stole your weapon."
Shumakov frowned. In other words, the degree of honesty was dependent upon how its result might reflect on you personally. Better to forego the crime than undergo the derision. So much for the fantasy of the honest cop.
"At least we wound up with Romashchuk's cash," said Kovalenko, smiling. "Whatever scheme he had in mind will have to wait."
Shumakov knew that outcome would remain to be seen.
The transition from Soviet republic to independent state had brought efforts to improve the criminal justice system, but in Chief Investigator Yuri Shumakov's view, they had moved at the pace of a lava flow. Although Chairman Latishev was a dedicated reformer, too many of the troops down the line were holdovers from the repressive old regime of the past. They wore their new allegiance like an ill-fitting suit. Nobody was interested in reform if it meant a loss of power and perks.
Inevitably, a man of ambition attracted petty jealousies, but most of Yuri's colleagues viewed him as a tireless worker possessed of an inquisitive mind. Indeed, he was considered a highly capable investigator, a possible candidate for promotion to the position of prosecutor. But there was another less obvious side to him. Only a few close friends were aware that besides a forward-looking mind, he possessed a soul steadfastly attuned to the past. He was a closet history buff. For Yuri Shumakov, nothing was more stimulating than the intriguing twists and turns of history. Likely it was an extension of his fascination with the role of the criminal investigator, which was a constant exercise in discovery.
Kiev excited his imagination. Sometimes called "the Mother of Russian cities," this was where it had all begun. With Oleg Kovalenko tied up in court most of the day, Yuri seized the opportunity to explore Pecherskaya Lavra, the Monastery of the Caves (founded in 1051), the city's most historic landmark, a marvel of tombs and underground churches. Steeped in Communist Party dogma from early childhood, Yuri had understandably rejected the God of his mother's faith, but over the years he had learned a healthy respect for the moral precepts of her religion. He came to realize that it beat hell out of the pragmatic moralism of the clenched fist, the old might makes right dictum of the now-discredited communists.
Yuri became so absorbed in the history he was uncovering that he emerged into the daylight with barely enough time to get back to meet his friend at four o'clock. It had been one of those days for a harried Oleg Kovalenko. He shook his head wearily as they entered his office.
"Too damned many people still think in the old ways," he said as he dropped heavily into the chair behind his desk. "I'm convinced that old Bolsheviks will never change."
"True. They still believe the state should run everything and tell everybody what to think and what to do," Yuri said. "I doubt if most of those characters have had an original idea in years."
"Well, one of my old friends in the Defense Ministry gave two of them something to think about today."
"How's that?"
"We had a case involving the theft of a military vehicle. The culprits were two diehard communists, ex-soldiers. Their defense was that we couldn't prosecute them for stealing the truck because it didn't belong to us in the first place. We illegally took it from the Red Army, to hear them tell it. The prosecutor put Colonel Ivan Oskin on the stand and he ripped them apart. Wound up saying they represented the kind of flawed thinking that got us into the Afghanistan fiasco."
Mention of that bloody and useless campaign darkened Yuri's face. "My younger brother went through hell in Afghanistan," he said. "But he survived. Then somebody in the glorious Soviet Army screwed up, got him killed in an explosion. It was in an exercise down toward Nikolayev back in ninety-one."
"You never mentioned that before," said Kovalenko. "An explosion?"
Something his friend had said a moment before stuck in Yuri's mind. It recalled former Private First Class Vadim Trishin's remark about the accident report. He cocked his head to one side. "You say this Colonel Oskin is an old friend?"
"Goes back to my army days. That was a long time ago."
"And he's in the Defense Ministry?"
"Right."
Yuri explained about the abortive investigation of the explosion and his unsuccessful attempts to learn something about it from Moscow. He added that he had heard the file was ultimately sent to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
"Do you think Colonel Oskin might have access to the report? I'd give anything to get a look at it."
Kovalenko pulled the telephone across his desk and looked up a number. "We'll damn sure find out."
14
The Hungarian passport identified the neatly dressed man as Laszlo Horthy. Unlike his experience in Minsk, he was not using his real name of Nikolai Romashchuk. He carried a letter of credit from a high official at a major international bank in New York. It had been passed to him by an American contact during a brief stopover at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The letter called him a businessman from Budapest and requested that he be given all possible assistance. He was ushered into the Lima banker's office by a pretty secretary, a mestizo, of Indian and Spanish ancestry, with long black hair and dark, twinkling eyes.