A Cold Red Sunrise Page 4

  They entered the small reception area that looked more like a cell. There were wooden benches against the wooden walls. Four photographs of past Party heroes were on the walls, one on each. A photo of Lenin at his desk looking at the camera was slightly larger than the other three photographs.

  One of the KGB men nodded at the bench. Karpo sat, back straight, eyes apparently focused on the wall ahead while the shorter KGB man stood near him and the other walked to the inner door and knocked gently.

  “Pa-dazh-DEEk-tye, wait,” came a deep voice from within and the KGB man stepped back a bit too quickly as if the door upon which he had knocked were electrified.

  They waited, one man standing over Karpo, the other pacing the room and occasionally glancing at Karpo or the door. The pacing man’s face was square, solid, cold but beyond it Karpo, who never looked directly at him, could see the fringes of anxiety. The man wanted to get rid of his responsibility and be free of this cell of a reception room.

  Five minutes, then ten passed with none of the three speaking. And then the inner door opened and a thin, balding bespectacled man of about forty, wearing a brown suit that looked almost like a uniform, stepped out and fixed Karpo with dark blue eyes. Karpo looked up and met his eyes. Karpo’s eyes showed nothing.

  “Out, both of you, now,” the man said.

  Karpo’s escorts moved to the door. They did their best to give the impression that they were in no hurry to leave, an impression that they failed to deliver.

  When the two men were gone, the man motioned to Karpo to follow him. Emil Karpo rose and entered the inner office which continued the monastic motif of the outer office. There was an old, dark wooden desk containing nothing but a telephone, no carpeting on the clean but worn wooden floor and four wooden chairs, one behind the desk, three facing and opposite it. There was one white-curtained window and on the wall across from the desk, a painting of Lenin signing a document. Karpo felt quite comfortable in the room for it was not unlike the one in which he lived.

  “Emil Karpo,” the man said. “You may sit.”

  “If you wish,” Karpo said watching the other man adjust his glasses and move around to his chair behind the desk. They stood looking at each other, both unblinking.

  “I wish,” the man said, and Karpo sat in one of the wooden chairs. The man did not sit.

  “I am Major Zhenya,” the man said.

  Karpo nodded.

  Zhenya opened the drawer in the desk without looking down and removed a thick file.

  “This is your file, Inspector Karpo,” he said. “It is a very interesting file. There are things in it which you might find surprising, not surprising in their existence, but surprising because we know them. Would you like some examples?”

  “My wishes are clearly of no consequence,” Karpo answered, and Zhenya studied him for a sign of sarcasm but he could detect none for the simple reason that there was no sarcasm. Karpo had no use for sarcasm or imagination.

  “You are a dedicated investigator,” Zhenya said without looking at the report, “a good Party member. Recently, with your acquiescence, you were transferred from the Procurator’s Office to the Office of Special Services of Colonel Snitkonoy in the MVD to work under Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov who has also recently been transferred, a definite demotion for both of you.”

  He paused for response and Karpo met his eyes.

  “I believed that my association with Inspector Rostnikov who was out of favor would hamper my continued services to the Procurator General,” he said. “Therefore, when offered the opportunity to continue to serve under Inspector Rostnikov, even in a reduced capacity, I accepted.”

  “I see,” said Zhenya glancing down at the folder. “Are you a bit curious about why you are here?”

  “No,” said Karpo.

  Major Zhenya removed his glasses, cocked his head and looked at Karpo with disbelief but Karpo’s dead eyes met his without flinching.

  “Let us then try a few of those surprises,” said Zhenya. “Twice a month, on a Wednesday, you have an assignation with a telephone operator and part-time prostitute named Mathilde Verson. Your next such assignation will be this coming week.”

  “Prostitution has been eliminated from the Soviet Union,” said Karpo.

  “You deny this assignation?” asked Zhenya.

  “I quote official statements of the Office of the Premier,” said Karpo. “That I meet this woman is true. That our meeting is intimate is also true. That it represents a weakness I also confirm. I find that I am not completely able to deny my animalism and that I can function, do the work of the State to which I have been assigned, with greater efficiency if I allow myself this indulgence rather than fight against it.”

  “You recently had an operation on your left arm,” Zhenya went on, hiding the fact that he was annoyed by the failure of his first surprise. “An operation performed by a Jewish physician who has been excluded from the Soviet State medical service, a physician who happens to be related to the wife of the same Inspector Rostnikov.”

  “Such an operation did take place,” Karpo agreed. “The arm was injured three times in the performance of my duty, once in pursuit of a thief, the other in an explosion which caused the death of a terrorist in Red Square and the third time on a hotel roof while subduing a sniper.”

  “I’m well aware of the circumstances,” Zhenya said with a small smile to hide his frustration.

  “I was hospitalized in a State hospital and informed that I would never be able to use my left arm and hand and that I might have to consider having it removed to prevent possible atrophy and infection,” Karpo went on. “The Jewish doctor whom you mention indicated that the arm could not only be saved but could function. With great reluctance because of my faith in the State medical service I allowed the man to operate on my hand and arm and to suggest a regimen of exercise and therapy. It was my belief that the law allowed me this option. I checked legal passages on medical treatment and Article 42 of the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

  “And,” Zhenya said, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice, “I am sure you could quote those legal passages and the Constitution.”

  “The Constitution, yes,” agreed Karpo giving no indication that he recognized the sarcasm, “but not all the legal passages though I did take notes on them and have them in my room, at home.”

  “We’ve checked the room where you live, Emil Karpo,” Zhenya said walking around the desk, folding his arms and sitting back against it to look directly down at Karpo. “We’ve seen your cell, looked at the notebooks on all your cases. You live a rather ascetic life, Investigator Karpo, with, of course, the exception of your animal sojourns with Mathilde Verson.”

  “I’ll accept that as a compliment from a senior officer, Major,” Karpo said.

  “Are you trying to provoke me, Karpo?” Zhenya said, standing.

  “Not at all, Major,” Karpo said evenly.

  “You have no secrets, Karpo, no secrets from us,” he said.

  “I have no secrets to keep from you,” Karpo responded.

  “Then why the thin wire on your door, the feather which falls if someone enters your door?”

  “I’ve made enemies among certain criminals in Moscow,” said Karpo. “As you know from looking at my notebooks, I continue to seek criminals on whom the files at Petrovka have been temporarily closed. It is possible that some of them might wish to stop me. I think it best if I know when and if they have discovered my pursuit and might be waiting for me or might have placed an explosive device within my home.”

  “When you go home you will find your wire and your feather exactly where they were,” said Zhenya softly, adjusting his glasses. “If we wish to enter your room, we will do so and you will never know.”

  “Am I to gather from this, Major, that you wish something from me?” said Karpo.

  Major Zhenya did not like this situation. It had not gone as he had planned. Major Zhenya had taken over his office o
nly a few months ago after the death of his superior, Colonel Drozhkin. Major Zhenya wanted to make a quick name for himself. The KGB was at the height of its power. KGB chief Viktor M. Chebrikov had been elevated to full membership and was the first member to announce his support for Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of change. In return, the KGB was being given even more responsibility for surveillance on the performance of economic and agricultural enterprises. New KGB chiefs, younger men, had been appointed in five of the fifteen Republics of the Soviet Union. The situation could change quickly as it had in the past but Major Zhenya wished to take advantage of the moment. He wanted to be Colonel Zhenya and to remain permanently in charge of an important section of internal criminal investigation of which he was now only acting director. There were several bits of unfinished business that he might put in order and thereby impress his superiors. He was attempting to address one of them at the moment.

  “This afternoon or this evening you will be informed that you are to accompany Inspector Rostnikov to the town of Tumsk in Siberia. Do you know where Tumsk is?”

  “A small town on the Yensei above Igarka,” said Karpo. “I believe it was one of the small summer ports established by traders in the fifteenth century.”

  “You are a remarkable man,” said Zhenya.

  “Siberia is the source of great power and potential,” Karpo said.

  “You’ve been reading Soviet Life, Inspector,” Zhenya said.

  “When I can,” agreed Karpo.

  “Commissar Rutkin—and I’m sure you know his entire life story and that of his ancestors—was murdered in Tumsk under somewhat unusual circumstances. He was in Tumsk to conduct an inquiry into the death of a child, the daughter of Lev Samsonov, the dissident who is scheduled to be deported to the West in a short time. Inspector Rostnikov, you and an observer from the Procurator’s Office in Kiev will depart by plane as soon as possible to conduct an investigation.”

  “I will do my best to assist Inspector Rostnikov,” said Karpo, “and I will consider it an honor to serve the State in an investigation of this importance.”

  Zhenya shifted impatiently and leaned forward, his hands palms down on the desk.

  “You will take careful notes on the investigation, notes on Inspector Rostnikov’s handling of the entire situation. You will take these notes confidentially, in detail, including every violation, every infraction of the law and acceptable inquiry. You will call this office the moment you return from Tumsk and you will report to me directly with your notes. You understand what I am telling you?”

  “Your words are clear, Major,” said Karpo.

  “Do you have some sense of the reason?”

  “You have cause to believe that Inspector Rostnikov may operate in violation of the law,” he said.

  “He has given some cause for concern and we wish simply to check,” said Zhenya backing away, arms still folded. “You are a loyal Soviet citizen. I expect you to carry out this assignment without question.”

  Karpo was quite aware that no questions he might have would be answered and so he nodded. Loyalty also extended to Rostnikov who, Karpo knew, was a bit too independent and had come into conflict with the KGB on at least one occasion. It would do no harm to keep notes and file a report. Zhenya was quite correct and within his jurisdiction in asking for such a report and Emil Karpo had every intention of carrying out the assignment.

  “Good,” said Zhenya unfolding his arms and going around the desk. “You may leave. I’ll expect your report within an hour of your return to Moscow.”

  Karpo rose slowly as Major Zhenya reached for Karpo’s folder, put it in front of him and opened it, his eyes examining the words before him or pretending to for Karpo’s benefit.

  Less than half an hour later Emil Karpo sat in his small room, efficient handbag packed with two changes of clothing and two notebooks. He paused, checking to see if he had forgotten anything, and as he checked he found that he was troubled by his meeting with Major Zhenya. Emil Karpo would have preferred to think that the KGB was efficient, unfailing, but experience had demonstrated that this was not always so. Zhenya’s ambition had been quite evident. Ambition was personal, destructive. It hampered efficiency. It was Major Zhenya’s ambition that had prevented Karpo from catching the two youths who had been preying on visitors to the Exhibit of Economic Achievements. Had they given him but one minute more he would have had the redhead and the other one. Efficiency would have dictated that they allow him to do so. Nothing would have been lost, since they had waited for Major Zhenya even after arriving at Lubyanka. And now the duo might harm, possibly kill a Soviet citizen. It disturbed Karpo, who had changed into his black wool sweater and black pants, that the KGB should be so inefficient.

  It also disturbed Karpo to find that while the wire and the feather on his door were, indeed, back approximately where they had been, possibly even close enough to have fooled him, the KGB men who had come through his door had failed to find the single thread of his own hair which he had stretched across the lower hinge. Karpo had no doubt that someone had entered his room.

  It was at that point that a sense of loyalty to the State and concern for Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov entered into an unconscious battle deep within and unknown to Emil Karpo, who did not believe that an unconscious existed.

  FOUR

  ROSTNIKOV FINISHED HIS BENCH PRESSES, fifteen with two hundred American pounds, and with a soft grunt let the weight back onto the two padded chairs just above his head. He sat up on the flat plastic coffee table with the steel legs that he used for his lifting and began to breathe deeply as he watched Sarah set the table.

  There were many things Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov would have liked. He would have liked a real weight-lifting bench like the Americans made. He would have liked a small room where he could go to lift his weights instead of a corner of his living-dining room. He would have liked more room to store his weights instead of having to place them neatly inside the cabinet in the corner where the good dishes would be kept if he and Sarah had good dishes. He would have liked their son Josef back safely in Moscow or, at least, not in Afghanistan where he was now. And he would have liked to avoid telling Sarah about the trip to Siberia he would be taking the next morning.

  He had come through the door that evening prepared with a vague excuse for being late and with an offering in his hand to make up for his tardiness. He had clutched a bag of garden vegetables—a squash, two onions, something that might be a cucumber. A nervous man with exceptionally bad teeth had set up one of those quick-moving folding stands outside the metro station to sell some of the vegetables. Rostnikov had the good fortune to be there when the man was setting up and was standing in the line that formed even before anyone knew what the man was selling. By the time Rostnikov had filled the little sack he kept in his coat pocket, the man was almost sold out, though the line still contained about twenty-five people.

  Sarah had been late. Her latest job was in a small bookshop on Kacholav Street where, she said, she felt far more comfortable than she had working at the Melodiya Record Shop or for her cousin who sold pots and pans. Rostnikov did and did not believe her. In any case, the bookshop had been opened late to accommodate a special customer of high rank who wanted to pick up an American book.

  Sarah had explained all this after she entered the apartment wearily and greeted Rostnikov who, at the moment, had been doing one-handed seventy-pound curls while seated on the edge of the bench.

  Rostnikov had grunted as she took off her coat and he sensed her moving across the room toward him. She touched his head from behind with cool fingers and then moved toward the small kitchen into his line of vision. For an instant Rostnikov lost count of his repetitions. Sarah looked unusually tired and he sensed that something weighed upon her. Sarah was forty-six, solidly built, with a remarkably unlined face considering the life she had led. She wore round glasses. When she was listening carefully to what someone said, she would tilt her head down and look over the glasses. Her dark
hair with highlights of red was naturally curly and she kept it cut short partly, he knew, because Rostnikov had frequently admired her neck.

  She smiled back at him when she discovered the vegetables on the small table near the equally small refrigerator and then set to work on heating his chicken tabaka, which she had prepared and cooked the night before.

  “Are you having more headaches?” Rostnikov said panting from the workout, wiping his face with the moist corner of his gray sweat shirt.

  Sarah didn’t answer at first. She only shrugged, and then she muttered, “It comes. It goes. Nichevo. It’s nothing.”

  At that point, she smiled, looking at him over her glasses. In one hand she held a knife. In the other, the possible cucumber he had purchased. He thought she looked quite beautiful.

  “You should talk to your cousin Alex, the doctor,” Rostnikov said, getting up slowly to keep his left leg from complaining.

  “I’ll call him tomorrow. You want to wash up? The chicken will be ready soon.”

  He grunted and went through their small bedroom to the bathroom smelling both his own sweat and the aroma of chicken. The tiny bathroom was Rostnikov’s triumph. He had learned to repair the frequently broken toilet himself knowing that the building superintendent, whose job it was, would never get it done. He had learned to fix the almost-as-frequently functionless shower. He had begun his amateur exploits as a plumber out of a determination to triumph over adversity, but he had discovered that he enjoyed reading about conduits and pipes and plunge valves, that he enjoyed identifying the problem, locating its origin and repairing it. A few of the neighbors had even learned to come to him, though it was quite illegal to bypass the People’s plumber for the district and everyone knew that you could almost never get one of the assigned repairmen to the building and if you did you would have to pay a bribe of at least five rubles to get any decent work done, even though the repairs were supposed to be free. The neighbors figured that since Rostnikov was a policeman the normal rules of the Socialist Republic did not necessarily apply.