Yuri jammed his fists against his hips. His voice rose a few decibels. "Petr, apologize for what you just said about your brother."
The boy had his mother's good looks and his father's streak of stubbornness. "I'm sorry you're an idiot, Aleksei," he said with mock sweetness.
Yuri fought to keep the stern look on his face, remembering similar spats with Anatoli when they were growing up. After a bit of judicious mediation, he managed to get the two boys — Petr was now seventeen, Aleksei fourteen — back on speaking terms. An ardent hug and a kiss finally returned the warmth to Larisa's eyes.
"Don't forget the big soccer game on Sunday, Dad," Petr reminded him. "We're playing the Cyclers. They're sponsored by the Minsk Motorcycle Factory and they're currently number one. I think we can beat them."
"That's the spirit," Yuri replied. The boy had the right outlook. He might fool his father yet.
He had missed Petr's last big game. He vowed not to miss this one. He recalled how a few years back he had often found time to take the boys fishing. An expert with knives, he taught them how to fillet fish and prepare it for cooking. Wouldn't it be great, he mused, to possess some kind of magic that could transport them back to that simpler time? Since his promotion to chief investigator, the work had relentlessly piled up like a mid-winter snow. Sergei Perchik was not a great believer in leisure. The former prosecutor had sponsored outings for employees and their families. During those relaxed gatherings, Yuri had demonstrated his knife-wielding prowess, acting as unofficial butcher, whether the meal involved fish or fowl or some variety of four-legged beast. His colleagues had jokingly dubbed him "the Butcher of Minsk."
Larisa sat across the table as he ate his boiled dumplings with sour cream, washed down with hot tea from the samovar. There had been little time to discuss the trip before he left. Now she was eager to learn the particulars.
"Why is the Minsk prosecutor sending investigators off to a place like Kiev?"
"Just a follow-up on the old KGB case," he said, giving her the same story he had used with Oleg Kovalenko. Then he deftly changed the subject. "But wait till you hear what I learned about that accident, the one that killed Anatoli."
As he told Larisa what he had read in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's file on the incident, withholding only the part about the chemical agents, she was pleased that he appeared to have finally come to terms with that tragic event. Now maybe he could put it behind him and move on to other things. But when he mentioned his skepticism about the accidental nature of Anatoli's head wound and the odd coincidence of the KGB team having left just before the explosion, she stared at him with eyes narrowed.
"You're getting paranoid, Yuri. Surely you're not suggesting the KGB had something to do with—"
"Don't count them out," he cut her off. "I've had enough experience with those people to know they were capable of anything."
"Why on earth would they want to kill Anatoli?"
He shrugged. "I have no idea."
"Or blow up an army ammunition dump?"
Why would they? It was rather far-fetched when you stopped to think about it. To his knowledge, Anatoli had never been involved in anything that could have concerned the Committee for State Security, unless it was that weapons theft case. But the investigation had ruled him innocent of that affair. Four other soldiers in the building at the time of the blast had been killed, yet none of them suffered a bullet wound like his brother. Still, the idea that the KGB would deliberately destroy an army ammunition bunker made absolutely no sense, particularly when it housed highly toxic chemical weapons with the potential for causing a major disaster.
"All right," he acknowledged, "maybe I'm grasping at straws. But with what I know now, I'm more than ever determined to learn the full story. I won't rest until I know who's responsible for my brother's death. I have one more angle to check out."
"What's that?"
"Vadim Trishin. I want to know what he remembers about that KGB team."
Larisa turned back from the samovar. There was a slight edge to her voice, a hint of irritation. "Are you going down to see him
"I shouldn't be gone long," he said, catching the disapproval in her tone. The long hours he put in on a normal day kept him away from home far too much. He knew he needed to spend more time with his sons, not to mention his wife. But…
"I'm due a little time off. When I talk to General Borovsky tomorrow, I'll ask him if it's all right to take a day off for a little jaunt to Brest."
She put down her tea and gave him a perplexed frown. "Why do you have to ask him? I thought you were working as a liaison for Prosecutor Perchik?"
Damn it, he thought, why did he have to have such a bright woman for a wife? It was a stupid slip on his part.
"I am. But since I'm working out of the General's office, I thought I should clear it with him."
He hoped that would be enough to satisfy her, though he should have known better. Larisa was never easily satisfied when it came to anything with a hint of mystery. She had always been plagued by a lively curiosity. He knew he was not an accomplished liar, and she could tell from the expression on his face that there was more here than he cared to admit. She had always taken a genuine interest in Yuri's work, closely following his career, often discussing difficult cases with him.
Larisa was proud of the work he did. At the same time, he realized she harbored a bit of resentment at being saddled with all the household responsibilities and more than her share of supervision of the boys. She worked fulltime too. Her job was not so demanding from a time standpoint, which put her at home well before her husband. That meant she was usually the first to deal with problems of the children. Whenever she brought up the subject, Yuri invariably invoked the image of her mother, a staunch advocate of the age old custom that decreed housekeeping and children were responsibilities of a wife and mother.
Olga Georgevna was a dumpy, gray-haired babushka who loved to cook and keep house and spoiled her grandsons whenever she was around. A widow, she lived with her son Grigori. But Larisa, in contrast to her mother, had religiously exercised and watched her diet and managed to maintain a trim figure, with just enough excess to accentuate the curves. Yuri found her equally as attractive now as when they were first married.
Late that evening, as darkness spread over their bedroom like a soft black coverlet, Larisa snuggled up against him and laid an arm suggestively across his chest. "Did you miss me while you were gone?" she whispered.
"Of course," he said.
Yuri had been mentally sifting through the facts he had found in that disturbing file on the explosion. But he pushed everything to the back of his mind and turned to take in the full essence of this soft, warm woman whose presence had suddenly demanded his full attention. There was a natural attraction between them that, despite occasional disagreements, remained as untarnished as a freshly cut rose. He kissed her gently.
"Tell me something."
"I love you," he said. "What else?"
"What are you really doing at the KGB office for General Borovsky?"
Yuri stiffened.
"It must be something important," she said, her fingers playing over his chest, "or Sergei Perchik would never have let you go."
"Who said I was doing anything for Borovsky?"
She gave a slight snicker. "You did, silly. Not in so many words. But I know you. You don't kowtow to people. You wouldn't be asking Borovsky about taking off unless you were working for him."
He couldn't see her face in the darkness, but he knew she must be grinning. He hadn't lied to her, but he hadn't been forthcoming either. "Look, Larisa, I can't tell you what it's about, but I'm really on loan to General Borovsky. Chairman Latishev requested my help on a matter and Prosecutor Perchik agreed."