Alexi had adjusted his glasses, plunged one hand in his pocket, firmly grasped the briefcase in his other hand, and looked up at the apartment, guessing when his mother would open the door, when the policemen would discover his workshop, when they would be picking up the note. Would they come running out of the building? Would they make a call or two and then begin a useless search? He didn’t guess. He waited.
For the last few days the ache in his groin had turned to real pain, not searing, screaming pain, but pain. The pain, he had been told, would grow worse. He knew what could be done to slow the process, but a cure or a remission was out of the question. Alexi was dying as his father had died, but he would not go in quiet darkness as his father had.
The policemen were inside for less than fifteen minutes. When they came out, a plastic bag in the hand of the younger, stocky one, they did not hurry. The tall, gaunt one set the pace, steady, serious. Alexi began to walk in their direction on his side of the street. He bumped into an old woman whose head was down against the wind. He did not bother to apologize. His head was down, too, but he was watching the two men and for an instant could see their faces.
The taller man was as pale as the snow, as white as his clothes were dark. The stocky young man held the clear plastic bag firmly as they moved toward the corner.
He watched the two men go down into the metro and then Alexi wandered. He could have gone to the small hotel room he had rented two days earlier, but he preferred the cold air that numbed his body, forcing him from feeling to thought.
Problems could arise. The material in his briefcase was volatile, powerful, and of only acceptable quality, though Alexi had carefully prepared the device.
He still had time to make his call, plenty of time. He stopped at a phone and was informed that Rostnikov was not in, but that he could speak to an inspector in the Office of Special Investigation. The woman who answered next identified herself as Inspector Timofeyeva and said Rostnikov might not be back that day but was expected the following day. Alexi asked if he could make an appointment. The woman asked if she could help him.
Alexi declined to tell her what it was about but did say that he had information on the bomber and that he was a State Security agent. “My superiors think that if Chief Inspector Rostnikov and I share our information on the bomber, we may prevent more injury to civilians.”
“Your name?” said Elena. “Perhaps I could take the information.”
“My name is Leo Horv,” said Alexi soberly. “I must get my information directly to Inspector Rostnikov-and only to him-as soon as possible. The fewer people who know about this, the better. There is a chance that the bomber may be getting information directly from State Security. There is also a chance that we are dealing not with an individual but with a conspiracy. If you or Inspector Rostnikov would like, I can have my superior call him back to confirm our desire to cooperate.”
“I suggest you call in the morning,” Elena said, holding back a yawn. “I’ll leave a message that you will be calling.”
“Thank you,” Alexi said, and hung up.
It had been easier than he had expected. The woman had asked few questions and seemed to have something else on her mind. The real question was whether Rostnikov would accept his story, be tempted by possible evidence from State Security and the chance of conspiracy.
Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, including Alexi Monochov, were dying, carelessly murdered, and the police could be tempted by the opportunity to catch the killers of a worthless businessman.
The briefcase in his hand was light, much lighter than one might imagine, considering it contained enough explosives to destroy at least a huge government building or a block of small houses. The case also contained a razor, a change of socks and underwear, and a notebook on which he intended to go over his plan through most of the night, making sure he anticipated all likely problems and as many unlikely ones as possible.
Alexi doubted he would eat. His appetite had begun leaving him months earlier, and now he felt hardly any need for food. He had lost weight, but not nearly as much as he had expected and nowhere near as much as his father had lost before he died.
Alexi walked through snow and cold trying to focus only on what he planned to do, trying to avoid thinking about his mother and his sister. The note would explain. What had happened to his father would explain.
He did not regret what he was about to do. Many would say that innocent people had died, but Alexi knew that there were no innocent people where he was going in the morning. There were only those who chose to ignore the horrible reality.
Alexi had no illusions. He had told Rostnikov. He would not change the determination of the people of the world to destroy themselves. But what he could do, perhaps, was make a statement, a statement so big that it could not be ignored, a statement that would ignite debate and perhaps, just perhaps, cause people to think about what they were doing.
At worst, his action would be a gesture of anger so great that it simply could not be ignored. For days it would be discussed around the world. At best, it would inspire others to action.
There was absolutely no way the world could ignore the total destruction of Petrovka, the central headquarters of the Moscow police.
EIGHT
MARIA INSPENSKAYA INSPECTED THE CARD in her hand and looked over at the man whose photograph appeared in the corner. She double-checked the data, though she knew she had made no mistakes, and placed the card in the laminating machine in the corner of the small garage.
It was cold in the garage, but Alexi didn’t care. He watched Maria, in her extrathick wool sweater, move from the photo machine, where she had taken his picture, to the printing machine and computer, and now, finally, to the laminating machine.
The entire process would take about an hour. Alexi didn’t mind. He didn’t mind the cold either, and had refused Maria Inspenskaya’s offer of tea, which she drank from a mug printed with blue letters in English. Alexi’s English was barely passable, but he knew the words on the mug were THE GRATEFUL DEAD.
Maria made strange humming sounds as she worked. She was short, probably in her fifties. Her relucent hair was brushed straight back and tied in a rubber band. Her glasses were the thickest Alexi had ever seen.
Maria was well known among criminals and businessmen who needed expert false identification. She did not advertise and she kept no samples in her garage. Were she to be caught by the police, she would claim that her only job was to make photo identification cards for pets. She had samples of those and photographs of dogs, cats, and birds tacked to the walls. In truth, Maria disliked all animals. It wasn’t just her allergies. They consumed food humans could use. They befouled the streets. They were coddled by their owners. Maria had received nothing in her life that might reasonably be called coddling.
Alexi had heard of her while eavesdropping on a conversation on Gorky Street. One man had been telling another that he could get a proper ID from a woman named Maria. He had given the other man Maria’s number, and Alexi had remembered it and written it down. That had been more than a year ago, before Alexi had made his plans. He had simply stored the information, as he had so much other data gathered in likely and unlikely places.
At first the woman had been wary, fearing that Alexi’s call might be a police trap, but finally during their phone conversation, Maria had agreed to meet Alexi at a stand-up snack bar not far from the garage.
He didn’t look like a policeman. Alexi was short, balding, sober, and willing to pay in American dollars far above the already high asking price. His willingness to pay so much for a card had worried Maria a bit, as did the kind of card he wanted, but she was convinced that she was dealing with a depressed, determined individual who was not an informer or a policeman.