"It is not that simple," Sokolov said, making a fist for another assault on the table.

  His hand started down but was intercepted by Rostnikov's fingers which caught the fist as if it were a falling ball. Rostnikov had a spoon full of soup in his other hand. Not a drop spilled.

  "No," said Rostnikov releasing Sokolov's fist. The investigator for the Deputy Procurator staggered back holding his aching fist.

  "You attacked me," he shouted. "As God is my witness, you attacked me,"

  "God is not considered a very reliable witness in a Soviet court, Comrade," said Rostnikov. "And I'm rather surprised that you, an officer of the court, would invoke the name of God. I might have to put that in my reports, though it is an invocation I encounter with surprising frequency."

  With a combination of fear and face-saving front, Sokolov pulled himself together as he backed toward the door and muttered that things would be quite different when they returned to Moscow.

  "Let us hope so, Comrade," Rostnikov said, finishing the last of his soup by scouring his bowl with the remainder of the loaf of bread. "I'll be over at the People's Hall for the hearing as soon as I get my boots on."

  The killer paced back and forth across the room glancing from time to time at the window, trying to decide what to do. The hearing had been a disaster.

  The People's Hall had been set up by Famfanoff complete with chairs and a table behind which Rostnikov could sit like a judge conducting the hearing. To the left of Rostnikov the man from the Procurator's Office, Sokolov, sat brooding throughout, his hands folded except when his left hand moved up to stroke his mustache. To the right of Rostnikov sat the ghost, the pale unblinking creature with the straight back who examined everyone, seemed to register everything. They looked like a comic version of the jury in the Pudovkin movie, Mother. Famfanoff had served as warder of the court, hovering warningly over those who might shout, giving stern looks to those who coughed or whispered.

  Samsonov had protested, shouted, screamed, claimed that he was being railroaded to cover his daughter's murder. He had shouted that the western press would be incensed, that glasnost would be dealt a serious blow.

  Rostnikov had sat there without the slightest hint of emotion, his eyes focused far off, though they occasionally scanned the faces in the hall and fell frequently on that of the killer.

  When Rostnikov repeated that the primary evidence against Samsonov was the testimony of an Evenk shaman, Samsonov had to be restrained by Famfanoff who, surprisingly, found enough strength within his abused body to control the furious doctor.

  The entire hearing had lasted no more than an hour. There were no speeches and very little evidence.

  The hearing had closed with Rostnikov's announcement that he was holding Samsonov for removal to Moscow for possible prosecution, that Famfanoff would keep the doctor under guard in a spare room volunteered by the commanding officer of the weather station. He further announced that no phone calls would be permitted for the next twenty-four hours.

  The situation was a disaster. The killer's mission would be ruined if Samsonov were brought to Moscow, tried and convicted or even refused the right to leave the country. The ultimate irony of the situation was that the killer knew Samsonov to be completely innocent of the crime.

  Something had to be done and very quickly.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  By the end of the day Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov would hear two confessions, watch someone die, conspire against the government and nearly meet his death for the second time since his arrival in Tumsk. At the moment, however, he stood over the bed of Sergei Mirasnikov who drank the dark liquid Kurmu had left for him.

  Liana Mirasnikov held the cup in her shaking hands and the old man, who was already looking much better, complained constantly that she was trying to drown him.

  "How are you feeling, Sergei Mirasnikov?" Rostnikov asked.

  "Hungry," gurgled the old man. "Hungry and stiff in the arms."

  "Good signs," said Rostnikov.

  "Good signs," repeated Mirasnikov sarcastically after another sip from the cup. "If I died you would feel guilty the rest of your life because I got shot instead of you. So you feel relieved because it looks like I might live. Am I right or am I right?"

  "You are right," Rostnikov agreed.

  That seemed to satisfy the old man who finished off the last of the drink and gave his wife an angry look as if the taste of the liquid were her doing. She shuffled away silently and Mirasnikov, who was no longer perspiring, looked up at the Inspector.

  "I'm sick but I'm not deaf," the old man said. "I heard things that happened. I remember seeing Kurmu."

  "He didn't command a demon to kill Commissar Rutkin," said Rostnikov.

  "I know that," said Mirasnikov irritably, and then he called to his wife, "Food. I need food, old creature." And then to Rostnikov again. "And I know that Dr. Samsonov didn't kill him either. How do you like that?"

  "I am aware of that too," said Rostnikov.

  "You are… All right. All right. Lean over here and I'll tell you something you didn't know. I'll tell you who your killer of Commissars is," croaked Mirasnikov.

  And so Inspector Rostnikov leaned forward, smelling the bitter warmth of the brew on Mirasnikov's breath, and listened to the old man's whispered information, information which did not surprise him in the least.

  "So, what are you going to do?" Mirasnikov said when Rostnikov stood up. "Go. Go make your arrest. End this. Get out of my town. It may be a frozen hell here in the long winter and a bog of insects in the short summer, but no one tries to kill me when you are not around."

  "We will be going soon," said Rostnikov. "Very soon."

  The old woman came hurrying back with two plates of food, small pieces of meat cooked soft, potatoes, beans.

  "Well," grumbled Mirasnikov. "You might as well eat something before you go. Sit down."

  So Rostnikov sat and thought and ate. Immediately after the hearing, Ludmilla Samsonov, her eyes moist, holding back tears, had asked Rostnikov to please let her speak to him as soon as possible. Rostnikov had nodded his agreement uncomfortably knowing that the woman would probably plead for her husband.

  The first confession of the day came when Rostnikov returned to his room an hour later after hearing Mirasnikov's accusation. Karpo was busily preparing reports in his room. Sokolov was off somewhere, probably, thought Rostnikov, trying to talk the naval officer into letting him use the phone.

  Rostnikov wasn't surprised to find General Krasnikov standing at the window in full uniform, his coat neatly draped over his left arm.

  "I've come to confess," the general said.

  "Please take a seat, General," said Rostnikov who had left his coat, hat and boots inside the downstairs door. "I'll sit on the bed."

  "I'd prefer to stand," Krasnikov said.

  "So I have noticed," said Rostnikov sitting on the bed, feeling the twinge in his leg.

  "I killed Commissar Rutkin," the general said.

  "Yes."

  "That is all. I killed him."

  "Would you tell me why you killed him?" Rostnikov asked reaching for the pillow and hugging it to his chest.

  "He was an insulting, meddling bureaucrat," said Krasnikov.

  "If we were to murder all the insulting, meddling bureaucrats in the Soviet Union, we would have to issue new incentives for women to replenish the depleted population," Rostnikov said.

  "I killed him. This is a confession and I demand that you release Samsonov immediately," the general insisted.

  "Would you still confess if I said that we would confiscate all of your property immediately and search through Samsonov's possessions the moment you were arrested?" asked Rostnikov. "Would you like some tea? Everyone in Tumsk has been filling me with tea for two days. I'd like the opportunity to return the favor."

  "No tea," said Krasnikov. "Arrest me. I demand, as a Soviet citizen, to be arrested for murder."

  "You did not kill Commissar Rutkin," said Rostnikov, leaning over to scratch the bottoms of his feet through his thick wool socks. "I know who killed Rutkin."

  Krasnikov paused, looked at the man on the bed scratching his feet and said, "I don't believe you."

  Rostnikov shrugged.

  "Nonetheless, I know, and the killer is not you."

  He stopped scratching, started rubbing, and went on.

  "I admire your patriotism and conviction, however, Comrade General. To be willing to spend one's life in prison or possibly to be executed for one's beliefs is indeed admirable. One might guess, and mind you I am not doing so, that somewhere among the belongings of Lev or Ludmilla Samsonov is a manuscript, and that a military man who wrote that manuscript would do a great deal to get that manuscript carried to the West among the belongings of a notable dissident whose belongings are not likely to be searched carefully by a government wishing to let him leave as a sign of conciliation with the West. Does that not make sense?"

  "Perhaps," agreed Krasnikov.

  "In what form would you guess this manuscript would appear? I know it does not exist but if it did?" Rostnikov asked leaning back against the wall.

  Krasnikov looked out the window, bit his lower lip and paced the small room once, from the window to the wall and back to the window where he turned to Rostnikov who looked up at him attentively.

  "You have a son in Afghanistan?"

  "I have."

  "And you agree that the military operation there is improper for political, economic and humanitarian reasons?"

  "I do," said Rostnikov.

  "I am concerned primarily with the military error," Krasnikov said, looking as if he were about to resume pacing. "If I were to try to have a manuscript-length work carried out of the country by a departing citizen, a citizen who might not want to carry such a document, I would go through the painstaking process of actually printing one copy of the manuscript in book form and have it covered, bound and titled, probably giving it a title which an airport inspector or even a KGB officer would be likely to ignore."

  "Printing one copy of a book would be most difficult, require special printing equipment, binding equipment," said Rostnikov, his eyes never leaving his visitor.

  "It would probably take a year to do using crude equipment," said Krasnikov.

  "And the idea would be that instead of hiding the manuscript, one disguises it and puts it in plain sight," said Rostnikov. "Clever."

  "A traditional military tactic," said Krasnikov. "But it does no good if the carrier does not cross the border."

  "Perhaps a miracle will happen very soon," said Rostnikov. "Perhaps a new killer will be identified and Samsonov will be freed and urged to leave the country within the week as he was scheduled 'to do."

  Krasnikov examined the bland, flat face of the policeman and smiled.

  "Then we will have to hope for a miracle," he said.

  "Do you still wish to be arrested for murder?" Rostnikov asked.

  "There seems to be a slight hint of sun this morning," said Krasnikov. "Perhaps I won't confess today."

  The general moved to the bed and held out his right hand. Rostnikov took it.

  "Forgive me for not rising, Comrade."

  "Forgive me for underestimating you," Krasnikov responded.

  "Always a tactical error," said Rostnikov.

  "Just as Tolstoy said in his Military Strategy Through History," said Krasnikov releasing the inspector's hand.

  "A book I should read some day," said Rostnikov with a sigh.

  "Let's hope you do," said the General moving to the door. "Good morning."

  It was Rostnikov's belief that only one copy existed of Tolstoy's Military Strategy Through History and that copy had most definitely not been written by Tolstoy. The general left the room, closing the door gently behind him. Rostnikov listened to his booted feet move across the short hall and down the stairs. When the outside door closed, Rostnikov sensed rather than heard another movement in the house and then a light knock at the door.

  "Come in, Emil," he called, and Karpo entered the room dressed in black trousers, shoes, and a turtleneck sweater, and carrying a thick sheaf of papers. Rostnikov looked up. "Emil, how is it that you never need a shave?"

  "I shave frequently, Comrade Inspector," Karpo said.

  "Good," sighed Rostnikov, putting his feet on the floor and reaching out to accept Karpo's report. "I feared that you had found a way to remove facial hair but once in your life so you would not have to spend time removing it, time you could be spending at work."

  "I don't think such a procedure exists, Comrade," Karpo said seriously. "If it were not time-consuming and were reversible, it might well be a consideration. A very rough estimate would yield thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of man-hours saved in the ranks of the MVD alone."

  "You are not joking, are you, Emil? You haven't finally made a joke?" Rostnikov said with a smile as he stood.

  "Not at all," said Karpo, puzzled. "The seemingly absurd can turn out to be the eminently practical. Invention often requires the creativity of the absurd."

  "Do you ever practice such creativity, Emil?" Rostnikov stretched and looked toward the window.

  "Never, Comrade. I am not creative. I leave that to others, like you, who have a genetic or developed ability in that direction," said Karpo.

  "Perhaps you do have a sense of humor, Emil. The problem is that you don't know it. I think it is time to go catch a killer. Shall we go over it again?"

  "If you think it is necessary," Karpo said.

  "No," said Rostnikov. "Let's go."

  Three minutes later Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov left the house on the square, looked over at the People's Hall of Justice and Solidarity, glanced at the statue of Ermak and started once again up the snowy slope following in the plowed furrow that was almost refilled with drifting snow. He trudged past the weather station and moved to the door of the house of Dimitri Galich.

  "It will grow back quickly," Olga Yegeneva assured her patient.

  Sarah Rostnikov looked up at the young surgeon and nodded to show that she understood but she found it difficult to answer, to 'speak, for fear of crying. Porfiry Petrovich had always admired her dark hair with reddish highlights, her naturally curling hair which had recently developed strands of gray.

  "Most of it is still there and it can be brushed over," said Olga Yegeneva. "I told them to be most careful of that."

  Sarah looked around the small room. The room was white, rather old-fashioned. There were two other beds in the room, one empty, the other containing a sleeping woman with white hair who snored very gently. The winter sun beamed through the window making it difficult for Sarah to accept that the moment was nearing.

  "It shouldn't be sunny," she finally said with a sad smile.

  "It should," said the doctor, her eyes widening behind her round glasses. "Are you ready?"

  Sarah shrugged.

  "Why not?"

  Olga Yegeneva took her patient's right hand in both of hers and told her again what the procedure would be, that she would be given an injection which would make her drowsy, that she would be wheeled to the operating room where the anesthetic would be administered. She would fall asleep and wake up back in this room, very sleepy, very tired.

  "I will wake up back in this room," Sarah repeated.

  "You will."

  The doctor released her patient's hand and made way for a man in white who stepped to the side of Sarah's bed with a hypodermic needle in his hand.

  Sarah tried to remember the faces of her husband and son. It was suddenly very important to do so and she wanted to stop this man, call the doctor back, explain that she needed just a few minutes more, a few minutes to remember the faces. It was like catching one's breath. The doctor would understand. She would have to, but Sarah felt the sting of the needle. The panic left her and Sarah gave in, closed her eyes and smiled because the image of Porfiry Petrovich and Josef came to her clearly and both were smiling.

  Galich, smiling, clad in overalls and a flannel shirt under a thick green pullover sweater and carrying a brush in his thick right hand, ushered Rostnikov into the house.

  "You want to use the weights?" he asked, moving across the room to his worktable cluttered with bits of metal, cloth and glass. The mesh armor had been joined by a thick rusted metal spear which Galich held up for Rostnikov to see.

  "No weights today," said Rostnikov. "I have much to do."

  "Found this spear only this morning," said Galich. "Piece of good luck. It's definitely Mongol and seems to have belonged to a tribal leader. See the markings? Right here?" He brushed at them gently and went on. "Heavy, iron, but remarkably balanced."

  He hefted the weapon in his right hand, showing how well it was balanced.

  "An interesting weapon," Rostnikov agreed. "But there are more ancient ones which are also interesting."

  Rostnikov had moved to a chair near the window about fifteen feet from the table.

  "Such as?" Galich asked, working at the spear which he returned gently to the table.

  "Ice. A simple, frozen spear of ice," said Rostnikov. "Such as the one that killed Commissar Rutkin."

  "True," agreed Galich. "A spear of ice would be unreliable. It might break. But as you said at the hearing, Samsonov must have been insane with hatred."

  "You are most happy this morning," said Rostnikov. "May I ask why?"

  "Why?" Galich' repeated and reached up to brush back his wild white hair. "Perhaps the spear, perhaps something internal."

  "Does it have something to do with Samsonov being held for murder, something to do with the fact that if he is convicted he will not leave the country?"

  Galich stopped brushing, the dim gray light of the arctic circle outlining him from the window at his back.

  "I don't understand," the former priest said, the joy leaving his voice.

  "Samsonov did not kill Commissar Rutkin," said Rostnikov. "You killed Commissar Rutkin."

  "I…" Galich said with a deep laugh, pointing to his chest. "What makes you think…"

  "When Kurmu pointed at you at Mirasnikov's bedside, he identified you as the man he saw kill Commissar Rutkin.

  I'm afraid your translation was a bit inaccurate, but Mirasnikov was awake and understands the language."

 

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