Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [67]
They had reached the gate. Up close, it wasn’t black but dark green, with a guard walk over double doors of wood backed with steel plates and guard towers on the sides. In front was a striped barrier to keep the curious away, but how could anyone resist? Arkady stepped over and ran his hands over the lacquer finish, still lovingly maintained. Through it the long sedans used to roll another fifty meters to the dacha, to the midnight dinners and the after-midnight writing of the lists of names, when men and women passed, even while they slept, from the living to the dead. Sometimes children were brought to the dacha to decorate a lawn party or present a bouquet, but always during the day, as if they were safe only in the sun.
This was the door of the dragon, Arkady thought. Even if the dragon was now dead, the gate should be charred black and the road should be scarred by claws. Bones should be hanging from the branches. The soldiers in greatcoats should at least have stayed on as statues. Instead, watching from the guard walk, was the solitary wide-angle eye of a security camera.
Rodionov hadn’t noticed. “Minin will—”
“Shut up,” Albov said and looked up at the lens. “Smile.” He asked Arkady, “There are other cameras on the road?”
“The entire way. The monitors are in the dacha. They’re actively watched and taped. It’s a historical area, after all.”
“Naturally. Do something about Minin,” Albov said softly to Rodionov. “We don’t want strong-arm tactics. Get the fool out of here.”
Confused but beaming with goodwill, Rodionov waved to Minin while Albov turned to Arkady with the expression of a man who keeps honest score. “We’re friends who are concerned about your well-being. We have every reason to meet you out in the open. So someone is watching a television monitor and wondering whether we’re birdwatchers or amateur historians.”
“I’m afraid Minin won’t pass as either,” Arkady said.
“Not Minin,” Albov agreed.
Rodionov stepped down the road to shoo Minin off.
“Slept?” Albov asked Arkady.
“No.”
“Eaten?”
“No.”
“It’s miserable being on the run.” He sounded sincere. He also sounded in control, as if Rodionov had been allowed to chair the meeting as long as items on the agenda were followed in order. The camera at Stalin’s gate had changed that. Albov held his cigarette to his mouth as he spoke. “The call was clever.”
“Penyagin had your phone number.”
“Then it was obvious.”
“My best ideas are obvious.”
Arkady had also called Borya, as Albov must know by now. The question was implicit: what other phone numbers had Penyagin written down?
When Rodionov returned, Albov lifted the report from the prosecutor’s pocket. “Telegram blanks,” Albov said. “He was at Central Telegraph all night.”
Rodionov glanced at the camera and muttered, “We were covering train stations, known addresses, the streets.”
“Moscow is a big city,” Arkady said in the prosecutor’s defense.
“Did you send any telegrams?” Albov asked Arkady.
“We can find out,” Rodionov pointed out.
“In a day or two,” Arkady agreed.
“He’s threatening us,” the prosecutor said.
Albov said, “With what? That’s the question. If he knows anything about Penyagin, the detective or Rosen, he’s legally bound to inform his superior, who is you, or the investigator of record, who is Minin. Otherwise, he’ll be regarded as a raving maniac. The streets are full of raving maniacs these days, so no one’s going to listen to him. He’s also obligated to follow orders. If you send him to Baku, that’s where he goes. He can stand under this camera all day long. It’s a dead end; there aren’t any floodlights, so you can pick him up tonight and tomorrow he’ll wake up in Baku. Renko, let me tell you something from experience. You don’t stop running until you’ve got something to trade. You have nothing, do you?”
“No,” Arkady admitted. “But I have other plans.”
“What other plans?”
“I was thinking of pursuing the Rosen investigation.”
Rodionov looked down the road. “Minin is in charge of that now.”
“I wouldn’t be in Minin’s way,” Arkady said.
Albov asked, “How could