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By Root 1997 0

remove their infernal devices from the premises. Kobylinksi had authorization to destroy the Spa but once and had demonstrably already acted on that authorization. The operation could not be repeated without further orders, and if further orders were requested, questions would be asked as to whether the engineers were as efficient as Kobylinksi would like to claim: most units only need to destroy a building once for it to remain destroyed. Almost in tears, the bewildered Major finally commanded the removal of the explosives and, with parental tenderness, folded up his map into its case. With no apologies, the engineers withdrew.

That night, Valentina’s Amerikans got out of the steam bath and everyone spent a merry three hours hunting them down. Chirkov and Toulbeyev drew the Pool. The power had failed again, and they had to fall back on oil lamps, which made the business all the more unnerving. Irregular and active shadows were all around, whispering in Moldavian of hungry, unquiet creatures. Their progress was a slow spiral; first, they circled the Pool from above, casting light over the complex, but that left too many darks unprobed; then, they went in at the Deep End and moved methodically through the labyrinth, weaving between the partitions, stumbling against dissected bodies, ready to shoot hat stands in the brain. Under his breath, Toulbeyev recited a litany he claimed was a Japanese prayer against the dead: “Sanyo, sony, seiko, mitsubishi, panasonic, toshiba …”

They had to penetrate the dead center of the pool. The Amerikans were in Kozintsev’s cubicle staring at the bone-and-clay head as if it were a color television set. Rasputin was on his stand under a black protective cloth which hung like long hair. Chirkov found the combination of the Amerikans and Rasputin unnerving and, almost as a reflex, shot the skeleton in the skull. The report was loud and echoing. The skeleton came apart on the floor and, before Chirkov’s ears stopped hurting, others had come to investigate. Director Kozintsev was concerned for his precious monk and probed urgently under the cloth for damage. Valentina was annoyed by the loss of her specimen but kept her tongue still, especially when her surviving Amerikan turned nasty. The dead man barged out of the cubicle, shouldering partitions apart, wading through gurneys and tables, roaring and slavering. Tarkhanov, incongruous in a silk dressing gown, got in the way and sustained a nasty bite. Toulbeyev dealt with the Amerikan, tripping him with an ax handle, then straddling his chest and pounding a chisel into the bridge of his nose. He had not done anything to prove Valentina’s theories; for its spell in captivity, he simply seemed more decayed, not evolved. Valentina claimed the thing Chirkov had finished was a model of biological efficiency, stripped down to essentials, potentially immortal. Now, it looked like a stack of bones.

Even Kozintsev, occupied in the construction of a set of wooden arms for his reanimated favorite, was alarmed by the size of the queue. There were four distinct lines. The Amerikans shuffled constantly, stamping nerveless feet as if to keep warm. Captain Zharov set up a machine gun emplacement in the foyer, covering the now-barred front doors, although it was strictly for show until he could be supplied with ammunition belts of the same gauge as the gun. Chirkov and Toulbeyev watched the Amerikans from the balcony. The queue was orderly; when, as occasionally happened, a too-far-gone Amerikan collapsed, it was trampled under by the great moving-up as those behind advanced. Toulbeyev sighted on individual dead with binoculars and listed the treasures he could distinguish. Mobile telephones, digital watches, blue jeans, leather jackets, gold bracelets, gold teeth, ballpoint pens. The Square was a purgatory for pickpockets. As night fell, it was notable that no lights burned even in the Kremlin.

When the power came back, the emergency radio frequencies broadcast only soothing music. The meeting was more sparsely attended than usual, and Chirkov realized faces