 
### Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

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The Detektiv Kazakov Mystery Series

About the Author

Fantasy and Mystery by Karen L. Abrahamson

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Chapter 1

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Chapter 1

My parents named me Yekaterina after Our Lady. Yekaterina is my secret name, the one I wear on my heart. To everyone else I am Kadija, after the Prophet's first wife, in case the invaders find us again.

My village has no name. It sits at the base of the Tian Shan mountains like a tick on the neck of a mangy dog. It has always existed, according to the elders, though its population has waxed and waned.

In the night, in the snug warmth of the hide yurt my father's father built outside the village's mud walls, my parents whisper tales of a different day. The days when Our Lady Yekaterina reigned like a goddess in her golden palace, until the heathen Saracen raged through our country. Of how, out of the ashes of Muscovy she rose again and escaped to lead us through pestilence and famine on a march so horrible most of us died in the winters. It was her strength that flowed into our veins, her will that kept us alive and she loved us as if we were her children--until her strength ran out.

It was at her death, when all hope died and the warring captains fought for her simple robe and scepter, that my grandparents fled, for the pestilence had returned and our numbers dwindled further. My grandparents and their friends came here, to the country of Fergana, the promised land.

The tattered history textbook page caught in the wind as Detektiv Alexander Kazakov stood at the edge of the crime scene. The walls of mountains to the south and east were white today, pouring cold air into the wide Fergana Valley, and he pulled the karakul fur collar of his coat tighter around his neck. At four o'clock, the October light was faded. Winter was coming. The aspen and walnut trees had dropped their gilded leaves almost overnight and the golden geese formed V phalanxes overhead as if heavy bombers ranged south.

Again.

Except the geese were nigh on silent, just the distant haunting honking as they dared the mountain passes that kept the Chinese if not at bay, at least at a distance. The war between the Ottomans to the west and the Chinese to the east had been going on so long it was almost impossible to imagine a time without war, though the feints and attacks overhead had waned these past few years. History said that the Germans had eaten into the remains of what had once been Holy Russia until they met their allies, the Ottomans. The Anglos and Germans had joined together to overcome the small French general. But Russia was no more--as the old text book bore testament to. And the tiny democracy that was Fergana had grown out of Russia's remains prepared to hold back invaders, but the invaders didn't come.

Not yet, not yet, blew the wind.

The original Yekaterina's aspirations led to her downfall.

"And what did you aspire to that lost you your life, little one?" he said, studying the photo identification in his hand. The only answer was the rush of traffic from Suvarov Way just beyond the line of trees that blocked the broad boulevards of new Fergana.

He ducked under the police tape and trod the desiccated grass of Potemkin Park, named after the man who had been the original Yekaterina's strength until the Ottomans slew him. The park lay on the eastern edge of the city center amongst three-story walk-ups that were slowly being eaten up as New Moscow's business core grew. In warmer weather the place would be filled with young couples and with mothers besieged by flocks of children. Now it was almost empty, which accounted for the body only being spotted late this afternoon by an officer on patrol.

The girl lay naked, face up under the cold October sun with the white-clad M.E. crouched beside her. The blue sky tinged the pallor of her skin. Her eyes were milky white as if she'd been here for some time. A skein of pale hair fanned around her head and twisted around her neck. Her pale pink mouth was half open to the air as if she would drink it in. A northern girl, in police parlance, a true Russian. Not the dark-haired beauties of the area's original Kyrgyz and Uzbek tribes.

He glanced down at her ID locked in a plastic bag. Kazakov had found it in a bundle of carefully folded clothing--slim, gray skirt and a pink fluffy sweater--just inside the police tape along with the history book and a school diary schedule. No one had touched it except him. Yekaterina Weber. German-sounding name. Strange, or perhaps not given the Anglo-German Empire's arrogant citizens apparently had a God-given right to travel wherever they wanted these days. She was sixteen years old.

"What have we got?" He knelt beside the M.E., Dr. Khalil Khan.

A small brown man with a thick thatch of dark hair and black, slightly slitted eyes, Khan was a Muslim anomaly--a direct descendant of Fergana's historic people in the usually orthodox Christian government machine. He glanced up at Kazakov, then down at the I.D. The victim was lucky to have the little dark man attending. Where most government M.E.s didn't give a damn about their jobs, Khalil Khan was skilled--and he cared.

"That her?" Dr. Khan asked.

"Yekaterina Weber, yes," Kazakov said.

Khan rolled the body over on its side so Kazakov could see the deep lash marks and a puncture wound on her back. He let her slump back down on the grass and her face turned to Kazakov as if to ask him a question.

How long are you going to leave me here? How long before Our Lady Yekaterina rises again? How long before the legends come true?

This was Russia, or what remained of it. Even two hundred plus years since Yekaterina made the mistake of trying to take the Black Sea's Crimean Peninsula from the Ottomans couldn't erase all that history and yearnings of a people. But then this was a people descended mostly from soldiers, servants, and serfs. Not intelligentsia. Tales of the old hag Baba Yaga, the foolish priest, and glass slippers were still told and perhaps even believed. He'd been raised on such magical fictions. In them Baba Yaga was both the witch who ate children and their savior. A lot like the true Yekaterina. With such creatures, how and whom did one trust?

Dearest Yekaterina, he thought as he studied the girl: It could take a long time, if it happens at all.

"The lashes look like they were perimortem. Whip, most likely. Done with anger? The puncture wound probably killed her. It was most likely a knife-like instrument. She may not have died here."

Kazakov nodded. "Not enough blood on the ground. Even though the ground's not frozen, there should be some sign of a pool. So, the killing was emotionally motivated. When the whipping wasn't enough, our murderer killed her."

Dr. Khan nodded. "You're learning." He lifted her arm. "By the lack of rigor, I'd say that she'd been here a few hours at most; but it's harder to judge with the cold. It could be as long as twelve hours. You can see the process has started in the tightness of the eyelids and the jut of the jaw." He nodded down at the girl. "Funny how a smile makes all the difference." The girl in the government school ID was dressed in a pink fluffy sweater and her hair was swept back behind her ears. A broad white smile was aimed at the camera.

Khan was right. The smile made her look like a schoolgirl, ready for her future.

But in the grass, she was just another Yekaterina: past tsarina, long dead diarist, they were all just dead on this chill October morning.

§

In the cold concrete office of the New Moscow politseyshiyuchastok, the police station, Kazakov sat with the girl's schoolbook and identification open before him. The drafty room housed ten detectives, the small city's entire squad, dealing with all forms of crime from drugs to murder in the city center and old city. Other squads, housed elsewhere, dealt with crime in the suburbs, and still another specialty unit dealt with corporate crime. Seven of the room's nine other cold metal desks were unoccupied at the moment. Apparently, most cases had been solved by six o'clock today.

The two other occupied desks held Antonov and Alenin, the A and A team--partners who had worked together the past ten years. Antonov was a granite block of a man with sullen blue eyes and scowling, downturned lips that could turn themselves upright at the blackest of humor. But a frown and a black sense of humor weren't something to be held against him--Kazakov shared them, as did most detectives in New Moscow. Antonov was a fine investigator who had graduated from training a year before Kazakov--and never failed to remind Kazakov of it.

His partner, Alenin, was five years Kazakov's junior and the antithesis of Antonov's body type--tall, with an athelete's broad shoulders and lean muscle slowly gathering the weight of middle age. He had pale blue eyes and a ready smile that offset the dourness of his partner.

Kazakovsighed and inhaled the stink of cold tea and the cheap, unfiltered Ottoman cigarettes preferred by the squad and most of the country. He had quit smoking, or so he told himself, though he still kept a single cigarette in his wallet against emergencies.

"That was a deep sigh, friend," Alenin said, looking up from where he was reading a document over Antonov's shoulder. "Have you finally found a girl who will have you?" He grinned.

It was the same teasing refrain that had hounded Kazakov since he and his wife split up and he hadn't immediately taken another woman.

"I suppose you could say that," Kazakov played along. "Except this one is sixteen years old and dead of stab wounds." He met Alenin's gaze. "Who else will have her?"

"Maudlin bastard," Antonov muttered. "Let him have her, Sergei. We have other fish to fry." The big man gave a small nod to Kazakov. They had worked a few cases together long ago. There was still respect between them, though their outlook on many things had diverged.

Kazakov turned back to his evidence. He sipped his cold, sweet tea as he considered. The schoolbook was one he remembered from his own childhood, a treasured diary of one of the first generations of Russian refugees to make the lush fields of the Fergana Valley their home.

The flood of migrants had come at a price. The traditional Kyrgyz and Uzbek villagers and their animistic beliefs had at first been welcoming, but then had been pushed out by the sheer numbers of displaced people who had come east. Those villagers had taken to the higher mountains, while a Muslim minority had stayed as the desperate Russians settled around them.

The Russians had been starving and dying from the plague that descended on them after the Ottoman war destroyed all infrastructure and food sources. It was on that desperate diaspora following the Tea Road across the continent that blessed Yekaterina gave the devastated remains of her people the gift of democracy for their petty states. For a few of them, like those in Fergana, the gift had held. Yekaterina had always held that Russians were different from all others.

But why was the girl carrying this particular book? It was a two-hundred-year-old book, read to elementary school children; and Yekaterina Weber was certainly older than twelve.

And what was she doing in Potemkin Park? Less than twelve hours dead at most, Khan had said. That would mean that she'd been out before five in the morning. An unusual time for a girl that age. Most teenagers preferred to be up in late morning. And why left there and naked? It was as if the killer was making some point. He would have to wait on Khan's report to know if it was a sex crime, but the lack of clothing suggested it.

First things first.He needed to contact the family, not a job he enjoyed when the news wasn't good. Shoving himself up from his desk, he lumbered over to the small desk in the corner and slumped into the seat. The massive machine was the latest investigative tool provided to their office, courtesy of the city council.

It was a huge, gray, steel-covered block imported from the Germans, almost as tall as a man, with ugly metal on three sides and what looked like a twenty-inch television screen on the front with a keyboard in a small depression beneath the screen.

Bending to look at the keyboard, he typed in Yekaterina Weber, hit the red send button, and leaned back in the chair. It groaned under his bulk, for though he had always kept fit through his outdoor activities, he had grown lazy in his exercise these past five years since his fortieth birthday. Not for the first time today, he had the urge to smoke.

Ping.

The machine had things to tell him, like a fairy tale fish or birds that held the secret truth. He hit the blue receive button. A list of names appeared with the top name in bold, the most likely match for the requested name. The length of the list surprised him. It seemed there were more German Webers residing in Fergana than he'd realized. For a moment, like a shiver at a memory, the realization made him uncomfortable.

Some said the feeling came when someone walked over your grave.

§

The home address listed on the government database had been pulled from government school records and existed beyond the large eight-story towers of the business heart of Fergana and beyond the brightly-painted domed concrete replica of Saint Basil's Cathedral in the middle of New Moscow. Beyond the walk-up apartments encircling Potemkin Park, a new area had been planted with young trees at the curb. When the trees were grown, this area would be a paradise compared to the flat, grassland steppes of the countryside.

Neat rows of steep-roofed houses with faux-wood concrete sides were physical echoes of the dacha homes the Russian people had left behind long ago--or at least what they believed them to be. Neat, pocket-sized yards held small vegetable gardens that were now faded and tattered brown with the fall. Here and there, a last wizened tomato blushed forgotten and withered in the cool.

The Weber yard was surrounded by a hip-high concrete block fence like a halfhearted fortress in the midst of the neighborhood. The yard itself was mostly fallow though a few turnips and winter kale grew at the ends of regimented raised beds that looked newly turned. A small stool sat next to the door with a trowel and a set of gardening gloves, the gloves neatly pulled one inside the other. Everything in its place.

The porch was swept, the door newly painted, so slick and shiny red he wondered it didn't come off on his knuckles at his knock. The sounds of footfall echoed within and then the curtain stirred on the window beside the door. There was a moment of hesitation and then the door opened. A woman stood there, slim, with Yekaterina's silken blonde hair darkened slightly by the years. It was twisted back from her face into a precise figure eight. She was tall for a woman, almost five feet nine in her low, boxy heels with the buckles over the instep. She wore a slim-fitting tweed skirt and a brown cardigan--buttoned--over a crisp white blouse buttoned up to her throat.

"Yes?" Her eyes were guarded and she held the door as if she planned to slam it shut at the first sign of danger. As if she did not trust strangers.

"Detektiv Kazakov of the Fergana Politseyshiy." He showed her his identification. "You are Mrs. Weber?"

"Not Weber anymore. It is Bure. My first husband passed away and I remarried." She nodded, but her hand came up to her collar. "Is something wrong? My husband..."

Bure. The name meant something...

"May I come in?" There was something wrong with her response. The cold air of the afternoon swirled around his shoulders. She must feel it, but she seemed frozen where she stood. And no mention of her daughter. Odd.

Finally, she nodded and stepped aside. He ducked his head to enter and found himself inside...history. Wooden floors and walls gleamed as if someone regularly waxed them. The familiar scents of beetroot, tea, and a slight hint of something sweet and spicy. To one side of the door, a small parlor was dominated by a heavy, ornate couch with embroidered cushions and a high, wingback chair covered in crimson damask. A fireplace mantle was filled with old family photos in silver frames that showed Mrs. Bure and a tall, pale man who looked vaguely familiar. Others showed a younger Yekaterina in a frothy white dress that was typical of religious ceremonies, and a much younger version of the blond man with an older version of himself, and an elegant blonde-haired woman who looked strangely similar to Mrs. Bure. His father and mother, maybe.

An antique crucifix hung in a corner, and in a niche in the wall hung what looked like a gold-gilt icon of the Virgin vivid with old paint and gold. It looked old. It looked genuine. It looked like something you would see in the treasury section of the Fergana Museum. For all the middle-class outer trappings of their house, this family clearly had come from old wealth. And had brought it with them. Not a soldier, servant, or serf.

He turned to Mrs. Bure and nodded at the icon. "A lovely piece. It is old, correct?"

She gave a single nod. "It was in my husband's family--all they brought out of old Russia."

He didn't quite believe her, but nodded. "Perhaps you should have a seat. This visit, it is about your daughter."

"Yekaterina?" She perched on the edge of the overwhelming couch and, if anything, her pale skin went almost the color of her dead daughter's flesh. "You've found her, then."

"Found her?"

"My husband reported her missing two days ago."

And that was impossible because, when he entered the girl in the computer, a flag for a missing person's case would have shown against her name.

"Do you know who he spoke to?" Kazakov asked. It was not unheard of that an officer was slow in entering information in the police information system...

She shook her head and the couch seemed to consume her. "What is this about? What has happened? Is Yekaterina all right?"

Finally, she asked the right question. Stranger and stranger. Why did her concern leap so quickly to her husband when she had a missing daughter? He took a deep breath and took the liberty of sitting down in the chair. "Mrs. Bure, when was the last time you saw your daughter?"

Her gaze fell to her hands. "It was Friday at supper. We were at the table and my husband scolded her. She was acting silly--almost giddy. My husband told her to mind her table manners or she could go to her room." Mrs. Bure bit her lip almost as if she knew what was coming. "She chose her room," she whispered.

These were the times he hated his job. The disaster. The pain that would overwhelm a loved one's eyes. But there was no use in delaying. It had to be done. "Mrs. Bure. I regret to inform you, but we found your daughter's body this morning in Potemkin Park. She had been stabbed. Yekaterina is dead."

"No." She shook her head. "That cannot be."

He reached across a small coffee table and caught her hand. "I am sorry, but it was her. She had her identification."

She went statue still, her face rigid. Then she yanked her hand away and stood. "No. No. Not Yekaterina. No." She paced the floor between the mantel and the door, then stopped abruptly, still dry-eyed. "I must call my husband."

Kazakov stood. "A good idea. While you do, may I examine your daughter's room?"

She met his gaze, her lip quivering almost as if she was angry. "At the top of the stairs. The second door on the right." Then she left him for the back of the house that must be the kitchen.

Kazakov clumped up the stairs, considering. Most mothers would be in tears. Most mothers would be with him right now, sobbing about how their daughter was a good girl, demanding to know how and where and why this had happened and who would do something like this to their child. At the top of the stairs he paused to listen. Silence ticked around him in the darkened hallway, but from downstairs came the sound of harsh whispers. They rose and fell in the staccato of anger. Not grief, but fury.

§

The second room on the right had a closed door, but daylight placed long panels of light on the hall floor through the others. The first room on his left was clearly the parents'. Kazakov ducked his head inside. A double bed with quilted cover in a patchwork of shades of red. A curtained window. Built-in drawers along one wall. A wood heater against the winter cold and another orthodox icon hung on the wall. This one did not have the gold gilt of the one downstairs, but the lustrous paint said it was still old. Neat. Tidy. Well cared for.

He went down the hall to Yekaterina's room and opened the door.

The spice he'd detected at the front door caught him full in the face and he shook himself at the heady scent. It was like catching a face full of church brazier incense. Was the girl very religious? The body hadn't worn a crucifix, but there had been that photo in the white dress.

He stepped inside. A girl's room. Magazine pages of the latest shaggy-headed boyband from Anglia taped to the wall. A narrow bed with a blue bedspread under the window. A desk. A straight-backed spindle chair. A small bookcase filled with books.

Closing the door behind him, he stood there hoping to get a feel for his victim, but from the look of things, Yekaterina Weber was a typical schoolgirl. He opened the drawers of her desk but found only paper and pens--odd in itself. Didn't girls usually stuff odd sundry things into such places? There was nothing that told of Yekaterina or her friendships here.

The closet gave no more clues: a few straight-cut skirts like her mother wore. Blouses. A sweater of navy blue. No pink fluffy sweater. Nothing like that at all. As if the pink sweater next to her body was special? Perhaps something she purchased herself because it made her feel pretty, while these clothes bore the straight-laced, utilitarian stamp of being purchased by her mother?

The bookcase held novels and schoolbooks. There was a slim empty space that he would bet his paycheck had once held the slim diary of Yekaterina of the yurts. He checked each of the remaining books, but found nothing. Where were her school notebooks? The binders teenagers used? She was in school. There had to be something of that kind.

He checked under the bed, but there was nothing there, not even dust. When he stepped out of the room, her mother was waiting.

"My husband will be home in a few minutes. He would like you to wait for him."

He nodded. "She has a very neat room. Unusual in a teenager."

Her chin lifted a little. "I expect my child to have high standards."

"I see." He nodded. "Does she keep a briefcase or a school backpack? I noticed that there are no school notebooks in the room."

Mrs. Bure went still. "She had one. It was a blue courier bag--the latest fashion. We got it for her last Christmas."

"And it is not in the house?" he asked.

"If it is not in her room, then it is not here." Her closed expression did not leave room for more questions.

His footsteps sounded hollow as he went down the stairs after her and soon a black Ziln limousine pulled up at the curb. Kazakov stiffened by the parlor window as a man climbed out of the front and held the door for a passenger. Bure. Kazakov remembered now. Bure was a government functionary who was now being groomed for something greater. The newly formed Reformation Party had great things planned for him. Great enough to command a car and driver to bring him home.

Boris Bure was a man of middle height who seemed to command the hallway as soon as he entered. Perhaps it was his breadth of shoulder. Perhaps it was the rigid way he held his ramrod-straight back and white-haired head. Perhaps it was the metallic scent that came with him when he entered the room, as if he generated an electric charge. He had pale blue eyes and large white teeth that he exposed almost as a warning as he shook Kazakov's hand. Even though Bure was a good six inches shorter than Kazakov's six feet two, Bure seemed to look him eye-to-eye.

"What's this all about, then? I reported Yekaterina missing two days ago and haven't spoken to a detective since and now you arrive telling my wife her daughter is dead."

Her daughter. Not his.

Kazakov bowed his head. "I am sorry to bring this bad news. Yekaterina's body was found in Potemkin Park this afternoon. She was murdered."

Her mother's hand came to her mouth as if she finally believed. Bure did nothing as if letting the news settle in. Then he nodded.

"Terrible news. Terrible." He caught his wife in a hug. "I know how this must upset you, love." He patted her back as if she might break, but if Kazakov was waiting for emotion in Bure's voice, it wasn't there.

The man made no move to take them back into the parlor either. It was more as if he expected Kazakov to leave.

"Mr. Bure, your wife tells me that you last had dinner with Yekaterina on Friday. Can you tell me about that?"

Bure shrugged, still holding his wife. "We ate. She was being foolish. I told her she could either act like a proper lady or she could go to her room."

Kazakov nodded and made a note of Bure's statement. "Can you tell me what she was doing that was so foolish?"

Bure and his wife looked at each other.

"It was nothing. She was talking nonsense."

"What, precisely, did she say?"

Bure released his wife to turn to Kazakov. "Detektiv, do I look like a man who would remember foolishness? Now my wife has had an awful shock. I would like to tend to her. Perhaps you could leave us in peace in this time of grief."

Bure eased past Kazakov and opened the door, inviting him to leave. Kazakov had gotten as much as he was going to from this odd couple, but it was stranger still that they did not want more from him. Now he just had to determine what this oddity meant.

§

It was at two thirty the next afternoon on his way to an appointment at Yekaterina's school that his radio crackled and he was called to the second body.

This one was on the far side of New Moscow in the old Islamic quarter. Square mud-and-stucco houses leaned together around hidden central courtyards. Once the houses had been the graceful villas of the Muslim caravan merchants, for the Silk and Tea Roads had both wound through Fergana generations ago, but now each house held four or five impoverished families; it seemed the new Russian economy had no place for Muslim employees. Television antennas and clotheslines filled the flat rooftops. Narrow streets barely wide enough for a single car wound through the maze of buildings, the streets still sometimes blocked by a donkey carrying burlap bags of limes or an enterprising businessman who had spread his goods under awnings into the street.

Children scattered through the streets at the sight of his sedan. In this part of town, no police presence was a good thing--in the eyes of the residents. Kazakov came to a stop where the houses ran out and a field of grass ran away toward the mountains.

The roadside was clogged with marked police vehicles and the M.E.'s wagon. Kazakov pulled in behind them near a gathering crowd, but instead of expensive suits like Bure had worn, these men wore dusty trousers and woolen work shirts with their small, white, embroidered felt ak kalpak perched on their heads. The women wore scarves, and one ancient grandmother even wore the bright skirts and white, ornately wound elechek turban of the Kyrgyz hill tribes like a ghost out of time.

Once, these people and their Uzbek cousins had been the only people in Fergana. Now, after the influx of people and two hundred years of large families amongst the Russians, they were a minority in their own land and becoming more so every year. To the point where some whispered that they sympathized with Fergana's enemies. So far there'd been no trouble, but bad blood festered and there were even rumors of the Krygyz spying in the mountains for the Ottomans against the Chinese.

Kazakov climbed out to the sound of angry murmurs.

Police tape had been set up, roping off an area in the middle of the field. The wind off the eastern Tian Shan Mountains ripped at the tape and its metal poles. It rippled the grass in a sea of violent gold and green and whipped the clothes of the police and the onlookers. Kazakov pulled his karakul collar tighter. It was colder than normal.

Uniformed police officers kept the people at bay. Kazakov waded out into the brittle grass and it rattled and tugged against his pant legs. The earth was hard underfoot and dust rose with each footfall. At the western edge of the old town rose the five peaks of the great Yekaterina's Mountain turned golden in the setting sun.

The body lay tangled in the tall grass with the backdrop of the snow-covered Tian Shan range. His arm was outstretched as if he reached for them, and his legs were tangled as if he'd been running. He wore dark trousers and a plain white shirt--one that looked as if it had been pressed to impress someone. The red bloom of a gunshot wound burned through the center of his back.

Staying to the edge of the police line, Kazakov circled the scene. The victim was young, with that floppy hair the young men were copying from the foreign musicians. His head was turned to one side and his eyes and mouth were open. Beside him knelt Dr. Khan.

"What do we have?" Kazakov asked as he ducked under the tape and knelt beside the M.E.

"Male. Young. I'd say about eighteen. Single shot to the back. By the look of it, I'd say it was a large caliber weapon."

"A fight? A mugging?"

Khan lifted his head from examining a hand. "Nothing under his nails. No bruising of the knuckles. I'd say he was running. By his face, I'd say running for his life. Look at the path he left." He pointed.

It was true. A path of crushed grass led toward the northern edge of the old town. "Any idea who he is?"

"The ID in his wallet says his name's Manas uulu Semetai--Semetai son of Manas."

Semetai Manas, but written in the traditional name structure of the Muslim Kyrgyz. Only the most traditional of the Muslim families held names of that fashion and these were even drawn from the heroes of the great oral epic of the Kyrgyz people. Kazakov nodded, stood, and retraced the victim's path, back toward the old town's weathered, grey-strained walls.

The path led right into the maze of streets, as if the victim might have burst from them before being gunned down. Kazakov reached the narrow dirt street and stepped between the buildings. The sunlight disappeared and so did the worst of the wind, though a scuffle of dust blew around his feet.

The dryness meant that footprints were hard to distinguish. Clearly this was a well-used route because the dusty soil showed many scuff marks. There were no doors in the walls of the buildings here: the doors must give out onto the cross street. No window up above either. Windows would look into the interior courtyards. Inside these buildings were private worlds. Ones that no longer quite meshed with the modern city New Moscow had become. Piles of garbage had been set against the wall to await the irregular pickup. With a foot, he shoved aside the pile of bags and melon rinds and a bright patch of color showed even in the gloom.

Pulling gloves on, Kazakov dug through the sour-sweet rot of melon and the remains of old mutton bones--well chewed by dogs. A blue courier bag lay in the dust and muck, but a sweet spice he recognized cut through the rot. He picked up the bag by its strap and gingerly carried it back the way he'd come. Visiting Yekaterina's school would have to wait.

§

In the concrete cavern of his office, Kazakov considered his desk and the Weber case's open cardboard evidence box in the center of the top. It held the girl's clothing, including her fluffy pink sweater--probably something the girl kept for special occasions--her identification, and the schoolbook. Beside it sat the bag he had found near the other murder scene. It fit Yekaterina's mother's description of the girl's notebook bag.

At eight o'clock in the evening the office was empty, though a still-steaming cup of tea on Antonov's desk said that it hadn't been empty long. Crime didn't occur according to schedule.

Beyond the lone window across the room, night had long fallen and the wind flattened a few snowflakes against the glass. He contemplated all the things that needed to be done in this strange case.

Two young people dead, the blue bag a potential connection between them.

Hands encased in thin rubber gloves, he unzipped the bag and rummaged through it. Its contents included a carefully folded white blouse as if the girl had changed into her pink sweater before she died, suggesting that she had some place special that she was going. There were also a small jar of scented cream reminiscent of church incense and school notebooks with the name Yekaterina Weber printed carefully in the center of the inside of each cover. The outside of the covers had the flower and heart doodles and designs of a typical bored student. He could remember doing something similar himself when he was in school, except his doodles had tended more toward airplanes and guns.

Guns like the one that had killed Semetai Manas.

Just what was a school bag belonging to Yekaterina Weber doing in the old town of Fergana? What was it doing so close to a young man's dead body? Multiple murders didn't usually happen within twenty-four hours of each other. Not in New Moscow, though up in the mountains there might be more violence.

He flipped through the pages of the notebooks. Algebra. History: the destruction of an ancient country. The building of Fergana. The tiny new homeland was pressed like a leaf between the Chinese and the Ottomans who, with their sometime allies the Anglo-German, were intent on completing their conquest of China. It would fulfil the Ottomans' centuries-old ambition of dominating the world. So far Fergana had stood as a neutral space in the Great Game between the two empires. If the Ottomans were victorious, Fergana wouldn't stand a chance.

But that was tomorrow's problem. For today he needed to figure out who had killed two young people and why.

He had tried to interview the Manas family, but in the closed community of the old town, he had wasted three hours before determining that the family had abandoned their last known address. None of their neighbors would talk to him. No one would tell him where they'd gone.

He pulled out Yekaterina's old schoolbook diary found at her murder scene and thumbed through it. Why was it there? Why was her bag at the scene of the boy's murder?

The bag suggested the deaths were connected, but the classroom schedule contained only class assignments. He examined the notes on the day of her death, but there was only mention of a term paper to be researched. In the bottom right corner was a doodle of a heart next to the letter P.

He flipped through the pages again and noted the heart repeated many times, while the letter varied between, P, Y and PT. Her body had been found in Potemkin Park. A code of some kind?

He couldn't say, and turned to the history book. It contained only page after page of the old story of the past diarist Yekaterina's escape with her parents and the founding of the Ferganese homeland. It was almost a fable, a creation myth that let people remember there had been another place, another time when they had been a great and noble people under the great Tsarina Yekaterina who had given them freedom. It gave substance to their dreams and to the fables grandmothers told to their grandchildren.

Of course,a child's schoolbook didn't mention how that same Tsarina had brought destruction upon them all by waking the slumbering Ottoman empire with her armies. Or how she had kept her people enslaved as serfs until the extent of the Ottoman destruction was so great that the whole system supporting her kingdom collapsed and she was forced to take refuge with the common people. That was the uncomfortable truth of their democratic freedom that most people failed to remember.

He went to close the book but something caught his eye. The inside back cover held a simple inscription.

For Yekaterina, my heart.

Love, Semetai.

There was his connection.

That and a pink sweater that a young, infatuated girl would wear to meet her sweetheart.

A chill ran up his back in the stillness of the room. From beyond the detective office came the sounds of life in the rest of the station. But not here. Here on his desk there was only death and destruction caused by young love.

She'd been giddy, her mother had said. Foolish, in her stepfather's words. All the signs of a schoolgirl crush, an infatuation. It was the kind of thing that a father would tease a daughter about.

But an infatuation between a good Orthodox Catholic Russian girl, stepdaughter of a man on the rise in politics, and a boy named Semetai?

That would be a problem. A problem the family would want to fix.

Both families?

Manas uulu Semetai was a name steeped in tribal traditions and there was no love lost between the tribes and the Russian newcomers--not anymore.

The lashes on the girl's back before she was stabbed. Could that be a scourging by an angry family--angry that she had seduced their boy?

Had the Manas family run because they'd killed the girl? And was that why there was such strangeness in the Bure family? Had they done the same in return?

"I need to understand!" He shoved back from his desk, stood, and then stabbed the desk phone with his finger. It buzzed in his ear and then clicked as someone answered.

"Khan?"

"Yes." The calm voice of the M.E. soothed him over the phone. The M.E. would be nearing the end of his shift this evening.

"I need to talk to you. Do you have time?"

There was silence a moment and Kazakov heard the smile. "No. But you will come anyway. I will be here." He hung up.

As Kazakov pulled his coat on, the office door yanked open and Detektiv Chief Inspektor Rostoff pushed into the room. Once they had been friends. They had gone through police training together, but Rostoff had had a free ride because of his family connections. Those same connections had let him rise quickly in rank. Now his large red nose and bleary eyes tracked across the room and settled on Kazakov.

"The others are out? Good. Busy men. Always busy. I like to see that." Rostoff was a bear of a man in the old Russian style, with a heavy coat and fur hat in winter. In the fall it was just the coat that reeked of too much sweat leached into old wool. Rostoff pulled his gloves off and strode through the desks to Kazakov.

"Good man." He scanned the evidence on the desk. "A case. You are busy? Yes?" He pounded Kazakov's shoulder and then hitched a leg over the corner of a neighboring desk and sat.

Rostoff never showed his face in the detective section and certainly not at this hour. He was too busy rubbing shoulders with the bigwigs in the justice department. That he was here now was a worry.

Rostoff grinned a big yellow smile. "My dear Kazakov. Look at the hour."

Kazakov did. Eight forty p.m. He had worked later many times. The question was what or who had brought Rostoff here.

"You are a good man. You work hard, my old friend. Maybe sometimes you work too hard."

Kazakov went cold as Rostoff pointedly scanned the evidence again, then casually picked up the diary, the school schedule, and the bag and dropped them in the cardboard evidence box.

"This case, it has you worried, yes? I can tell by the look in your eyes. Would it surprise you that it has others worried, too? Maybe you should not worry so much. Maybe sometimes you should let things go. Yes?" His yellow smile broadened as he settled the box top in place. "You see? Not so difficult."

Frozen, Kazakov just looked at him. What could he do that would not bring the weight of Rostoff's sanctions down on him? What could he say? "It's a double murder. Since when do we let such things go?"

Rostoff said nothing but his thick lips curved in a semblance of a dismissive smile.

Clenching his fists, Kazakov turned his back on the other man and headed for the door.

§

Rostoff might have handed down an official decree, but that didn't mean Kazakov had to listen. It was a double murder. A murder of children. Surely to God, that meant something.

The M.E.'s offices sat in the basement of Our Lady Yekaterina Hospital. It was a large, four-story building built with a fountain and garden in the front that briefly, in the springtime, could be called beautiful. But summer brought the winds off the mountains that drank the water from the fountain and leached the trees to the color of dust. In October, the fountain was brown with leaves. In November the snow would be falling. Kazakov left his sedan in the parking lot bathed in amber streetlight and strode through the stand of half-barren, night-bound trees under the half-grown moon. The trees were the tallest in Fergana--maples, while in most of the city it was generally aspen that survived the wind and snow of the winter. The red leaves were a particular treat in a town built mainly of concrete, and he liked the way they shuffled around his feet. Almost like snow, without the cold and the shoveling.

He bypassed the hospital's well-lit main door and went down a shadowed set of concrete stairs to one side of the structure. A metal door was locked, but he knocked and the door buzzed. He pushed inside into the stomach-clenching smells of blood and guts and formaldehyde. The middle-aged receptionist nodded him through.

If Khalil Khan was busy, he had made time for Kazakov. He sat behind a small, scarred wooden desk in a small office as if he was waiting. He had two files closed before him on the desk and nodded Kazakov into the lone chair across from him. Behind Khan, the wall was lined with books.

"Tell me what I don't know," Kazakov asked.

"The boy was killed with an antique rifle. The bullet was of a type only used for some of the old Chinese makes." He looked at his hands and let the news hang in the air. "It's the kind the Kyrgyz use for hunting. They trade for them at the markets on the other side of the mountains--when the Ottomans and Chinese aren't fighting."

"Any likelihood of a Russian getting their hands on such a weapon?" Given Khan was Kyrgyz, he would have an insight into such things.

Khan pursed his lips and shrugged. "Maybe. It might be possible--from police evidence lockers perhaps--but otherwise unlikely. They aren't licensed and they're kept hidden. The Kyrgyz take their weapons seriously. These things are almost family heirlooms--reminders of a time before the Russians took over and regulated everything."

He said it carefully, no inflection in his voice. It must be difficult for a descendent of those proud tribal people to see how their world had become a Russian country.

"So, what you're saying is that Semetai Manas was likely killed by his own people."

Khan didn't say anything, only met his gaze.

"You know something," Kazakov said softly.

Khan shook his head. "Not know. At least not know-as-evidence know. But there are things in this culture, just as in yours. The sense of proper. The sense of place and the need for continuity of a people. You cannot let anything get in the way of that. Of the blood."

A sick feeling settled in the pit of Kazakov's stomach. Such pride and sense of people ran strong in Russians too. It was bred into them. It was fed by schools with books such as Yekaterina's diary and by the state in the names of hospitals and parks and streets and mountains that bore different names depending on who you spoke to.

"The girl. The lashes."

Khan nodded. "They were deep. Made with rage. There were also deep bruises on her neck and shoulders. I'd say she was throttled in anger, then held down for the lashing before she was stabbed. Whoever did it buried the hilt of the knife deep in her. The edges of the wound were deeply torn."

The air was too close, the stench of death too strong as Kazakov heaved himself up out of the chair.

"One more thing," Khan said. "She was pregnant."

Feeling momentarily drunk, Kazakov nodded. "How far along?"

"First trimester." Khan looked away at his desk and shook his head.

"Thank you."

Kazakovleft the office feeling old and useless and climbed the stairs to the parking lot.

A gust of mountain wind caught him and he staggered and thought he might be ill. Instead he turned his back on the lights illuminating Yekaterina's mountain and fumbled for the lighter and the lone cigarette he kept in his wallet. Shielding them against the wind, he lit the cigarette and inhaled the warm acrid tar only to let it out in a long belch of smoke.

The wind tore it away and the moonlight caught on the Tian Shan Mountains that loomed white but no longer so high. No longer so remote. With a sigh, he stubbed the cigarette out and headed for his car. He would need to be very careful or he could light a fire that would ignite his country. There was already too much division between Fergana's Russians and the people whose country the Russians had occupied.

War had found a new way across the mountains.
Chapter 2

It had been one month since Chief Inspektor Rostoff removed Kazakov from major crime investigations and made him the squad's errand boy. Five weeks since the evidence of that most troubling case of Yekaterina had walked out the office door in Rostoff's hands.

The morning wind came out of the west, carrying an acrid scent and a thin haze of red dust from the Ottoman deserts and the fertile Fergana Valley. It placed a veil of pink across the blue morning sky and across the six inches of snow that had fallen overnight to erase the filthy coal dust that had stained the last snowfall--or perhaps it was just the aftermath of too much vodka that placed a bloody hue over everything.

Kazakov rubbed the rough stubble of his beard and blinked up at the November sky. No, there was no such thing as too much vodka--not when he had been ordered to forget a murder case that ate at him and invaded his dreams. Instead of following orders he had tried to quietly interview school officials to continue the investigation, only to have those officials contact Rostoff. Since then, things had not gone well at work--the only good thing coming from it the fact that he had lost weight and found his muscles chopping wood at his dacha. But the tang in the air was the ozone bite of the factories that lay far down the valley sending up their thick smoke to join the dust. The pristine snow would be black soon enough. In Fergana, everything was stained.

Once his people had thought this valley was a Garden of Eden--look at what they had done to it. This morning, on top of his burgeoning resentment, the view just made him angry.

With the Tian Shan and Fergana Ranges to the east and north, and the Pamir Alay range to the south, New Moscow spread around the base of Yekaterina Mountain and besieged the remains of the old Uzbek and Kyrgyz villages and their Silk Road caravanserai that had stood here long before the Russian refugees came. At the base of Yekaterina Mountain along the Potemkin River, the new city was a pathetic sprawl of concrete copies of the glory of St. Basil's Cathedral with its paint-peeled onion domes, the lovingly maintained façade of St. Petersburg's royal palace that covered the concrete bunkers of Ferganese government, and the oozing suburbs of Anglo-German-style cottages gradually devouring the fields and ancient orchards around the city. Broad swaths of timber and minerals had been chewed from the flanks of the mountain ranges, leaving dark wounds. Even Yekaterina Mountain had felt his people's heavy hand with an amusement park bulldozed into the rock at the base of the mountain.

Instead of safeguarding the beauty of the Fergana that was, the people had dreamed only of the greatness of what they wished had been. Holy Russia.

One of the first things the refugee Russians had done when they built their new city as a memorial to the vanished greater Russian Empire was to dedicate Yekaterina Park across the Potemkin River from Potemkin Park, so that the great Tsarina was still comforted by her old lover. At the heart of Yekaterina Park stood a larger-than-life statue of the great Yekaterina, the Tsarina who had raised Russia so high, to its intellectual and military zenith, that it had nowhere to go but to plunge into darkness.

The Great Yekaterina had done that, too. And so Russia vanished and Fergana remained like a crumb left on the table of Asia. So far no one had bothered to sweep it away.

In a way, the statue in the center of the park was fitting. It had been Yekaterina's selfish need for glory that had brought about the great fall.

Sighing, he turned away from the park to the Red Veil. The brothel sat on the eastern side of the park so that the peaks of the Fergana and Tian Shan mountains hung above it like a coronation crown. That seemed somehow fitting this red-stained morning.

Unlike most of New Moscow, this house was of wood and modeled after fashionable Anglo townhouses, or so he'd been told. Its pristine white front rose up three stories, broadening as it went into faux turrets and filigree-adorned gables that crowded the roof so that it appeared to stand on an impossibly narrow base. Each window had curved lintels and each gable had arched eaves. With its low wrought iron fence, it looked like it stood on chicken legs. Its paint glowed strangely virginal considering what the place housed.

Forty years ago, someone had financed this special house and paid off the politicians and the police ever since. The corruption left him sick to his stomach with emotions burbling like an angry stew. A brothel. That was what Rostoff was after: by having Kazakov collect the department bribes he would stain Kazakov's soul, too. Control him and stop his personal investigation into the Weber and Manas murders--or so Rostoff thought.

Kazakov climbed the ten steps to the front door with a weariness that all of Fergana seemed to exude this early morning. The thickly varnished front door was the last barrier before he began what was apparently to become his regular first-of-the-month rounds. He hesitated before knocking, because this time when he stepped through this door he would become a changed man.

The boiling stew of his gut spread outward and frothed in his limbs. Rostoff was wrong if he thought he could blacken Kazskov's ethics. He would find some way around this. Some way to make the whole thing work.

This early in the morning the establishment patrons would be safely gone and Frau Zelinka, the proprietress, whom he had interviewed once before after an assault on one of her clients, would be enjoying a self-congratulatory cup of tea. Gritting his teeth, he knocked once on the thick wooden door and turned away, wishing he could take the knock back. Across the street waited the snowbound lawns and stately naked trees of the park. All the trees had been planted by hand, for once this space had been mostly grassland with a thin fringe of poplar along the river's edge. According to what he'd learned in high school, this park with its paved paths and lilac bowers was modeled after what his people had left behind. It was as if, after two hundred years had passed, the entire country still carried a ghost branded on its soul.

The door pulled open behind him. "Yes? It is you?"

The girl at the door was Chinese, or perhaps Thai, though with the expansion of the Chinese Empire, was there really much difference? She appeared very young with perfect skin--too young to be working yet--but then what did he know? She wore a simple, chaste house dress of grey silk with a high collar and long sleeves that hid her pale skin like a cloud over the moon. Likely one of Frau Zelinka's imports whose deflowering Frau Zelinka would auction off when it came time to add her to the brothel's delights. Until then the girl would do light duties around the place, serving drinks, making the patrons covetous of her. She bowed gracefully, her palms together by her face, and he noticed that perfection was not quite hers. Her left hand was a twisted, withered thing. But the naturalness of the palm-together gesture marked her upbringing as Thai.

"The mistress waits for you," she said meekly and ushered Kazakov inside after he scuffed the snow off his boots.

The place smelled of frankincense, sweet and spicy. This spoke well of Frau Zelinka's connections with the Ottoman world that she could obtain such a rarity, and of the exotic nature of her goods. But then the good Frau had been here twenty ears--long enough to forge links into both the Ottoman and the Chinese sides of the war, as well as the highest ranks of Fergana that sat like a pad of gristle between the grinding bones of the two ancient empires.

He followed the girl down a wood-paneled hallway. The rooms he passed were draped in blue and green silks and held deep cushions and rich oriental carpets like an ancient caravanserai from the days of the Silk Road. Then tea, spice, and silk traveled by camel and horse across the Tian Shan mountains and across the deserts to Constantinople and places like Paris, Rome, and Barcelona when they could still call themselves the great capitals of Europe.

The girl knocked once on a slickly painted black door and a voice spoke from within. She opened the door and a cloud of acrid-sweet smoke billowed into the hall. Ganja--technically illegal, but then the Red Veil was technically illegal, too, and Kazakov was treading a dangerous gray area.

"Detektiv Kazakov," the girl said and waved Kazakov past her into the smoky room. She closed the door behind him.

"Aah, Detektiv. I was expecting you earlier. But then you are new to this job, yes?" Frau Zilinka peered up at him from her red brocade divan, her silk kimono artfully arranged to expose one long, slim leg. Before her was a red, tufted ottoman that carried a black lacquer tray painted with Chinese dragons and peonies. It held a green celadon tea pot and two cups.

"You're lucky I'm here at all," he said.

One artfully penciled brow arched over a cool gray-green eye. "You must sit with me and tell me of the rumors in this town." She puffed on her ganja cigar and let loose with a string of smoke rings from full pink lips. Even in her fifties she was a beautiful Caucasian woman with long, silver-blonde hair. She had held onto her looks through her career, when so many others had not. Her trajectory to control of the Red Veil was well known. She had been the mistress of Fergana's previous president and a rumored advisor on matters of social and economic policy. The calculation in her gaze as she studied him said she was no fool.

She waved him to a chair beside her. "So tell me, what of your investigations?"

Kazakov remained where he was. "I have none. If I did, I wouldn't be here, would I?"

Again that slight arch of the brow. Then she puffed on her cigar as she studied him. "My, you are an angry one. But no one is angry at the Red Veil. I will not allow it. It is as simple as that." She nodded as if that ended the matter and leaned forward to pat the chair. "Come. Come. Sit. My sources tell me that it was you who led the investigation into the deaths of those children."

Kazakov stiffened. This was clearly Rostoff asking--he could almost see the detektiv inspektor's hands making her lips move. Was Rostoff truly so clumsy? Was this woman that obvious or did she just not care? Or was this some game Rostoff was playing that Kazakov couldn't yet understand? Perhaps a warning not to continue looking into the case as he was doing?

He shook his head and shrugged. "It is not my case anymore. I believe it is closed."

Frau Zelinka actually pouted. "Come, come. You disappoint me and I so hate to be disappointed. Tell me the story. The Muslim boy, the German girl? Both found one day apart. It was in all the papers along with so much speculation. Surely there is more to such a tragic tale. It is most romantic if what the papers say is true. Of course, it is a warning tale, too. You would be the right man to look into such a sad case, for I think you are a sad man, too." She shook her head. "So dedicated, or so I've been told. Chai? It must be cold outside." She nodded at the tray with the tea pot between them.

Was it as simple as that? She simply wanted to gossip? Could he learn something from this woman who had advised a president? Perhaps there was something other than money that had her doing Rostoff's bidding.

He finally nodded at the offered tea and sat on the edge of the empty chair. She leaned forward in what could only be a practiced maneuver and the folds of her kimono bodice slid open to reveal shadows and curves of creamy flesh. His groin tightened. It had been a very long time since he had been with a woman, but Rostoff was not going to learn anything from him this way.

She filled a cup and offered it to him with a smile. "Well? Tell me a story?"

"There's nothing to tell. It is over. They are dead. At whose hand I don't know."

She pouted at him. "You do not play your part in this little party, Detektiv. Always you must play your part or the pleasure drains away. There is so little pleasure in the world today."

As if this woman would know. He sipped the tea. Sweet from sugar with the mélange of spice that the body would remember and probably crave on a cold night. With a swallow the warmth began a slow flood through his limbs almost as well as vodka did. He drained the cup.

"Good." He set the cup down and stood, his coat heavy on his shoulders. "I thank you, but I would prefer to simply collect what I came for and leave. I do not play games. Unless you would like to tell me what you know." And he would not discuss a case with this woman--not even a closed one--most especially that one.

Her face stiffened, turning from the flirtatious to the stone-face business woman. "Have it your way, then. I thought perhaps I could share insights with you. I know this town and its people, Detektiv." She shook her head and slid an envelope from beneath a divan pillow and tossed it to the floor at his feet.

Before Kazakov could retrieve it, from the hallway came the sound of running feet and a flat-handed pounding on the door. "Frau! Frau Zilinka!"

It was not the voice of the Thai girl.

"Come," Frau Zelinka said. She glanced at Kazakov as the door burst open. "You may go."

A woman, presumably one of the brothel's girls, pushed into the room bringing with her a scent of lavender. She was raven haired and olive skinned, with the aquiline nose of the Mediterranean regions of the Ottoman Empire. She wore a colorful robe of patchwork wool as if she was a peasant, and her hair fell in loose curls from the ribbon she had tied it with high on her head. She had the soft look of someone newly woken--except for the fear in her eyes.

"Frau Zelinka!" Her gaze slipped to Kazakov and she stopped. "I am sorry. I am interrupting." She edged back toward the door, but Frau Zelinka waved her forward.

"Come, Maria. Detektiv Kazakov is just leaving."

Maria's eyes widened. "Detektiv!" She turned to him. "It is good you are here. I came to tell Frau Zelinka the police must be called. You see, there is a body..."

Ten minutes later, the envelope forgotten on the floor, Kazakov stood over the body as the city police cars slid into the curb outside the Red Veil. He stood shin-deep in the unseasonably deep snow in Yekaterina Park across the street from the brothel. The woman in the brothel had apparently seen the dead man from her bedroom window. Before entering the Red Veil, Kazakov had stood all of twenty feet from here, but his view had been blocked by a lone pine tree.

The dead man was a drunk by the reek of him. He wore dust-encrusted trousers and a woolen coat so full of holes and filth it appeared he'd once slept in a pig sty. He had dirty brown hair and the angular face of someone whose use of vodka had burned most of the flesh from his limbs.

Kazakov hauled up his collar against the wind. It had shifted to come off the mountains again and carried the full breath of winter. His fingers were cold even in his thick gloves.

There was something about the dead man that didn't quite work. The man's hair had the pomade of too much sweat and dirt holding it in scarecrow spikes on his head. He had at least five days' growth of grizzled beard. Both fit with the picture of the drunkard. So did the spray of broken blood vessels in the nose that had been broken a time or two in the past, but then half the men in Fergana had such noses.

No, it was something else.

He waved off the uniformed officers to set a perimeter and remained where he was, observing. The man was clearly dead. There was no need to check vitals. The deep brown bloodstain on the victim's chest said that it had happened some time ago.

"So what do we have here?" asked Dr. Khan, coming up beside Kazakov. Kazakov glanced behind him at the street, surprised that he hadn't heard the M.E.'s van arrive.

"You tell me."

The slightly built M.E. looked sideways at him. "Something here bothers you."

"I know what my eyes tell me, but something else gnaws at my brain. I am missing something." Kazakov shook his head. "Tell me what you see and I will know whether it is my imagination."

Khan scanned the earth around the body, then knelt beside it. He pulled out a notebook and began to take notes. "Male, mid-forties perhaps. Approximately a hundred and sixty pounds. Alcohol user by the facial capillary damage, but that's nothing unusual. Strong odor of alcohol."

"Where is the bottle?" Kazakov asked, looking around. "A drunkard would always have his bottle."

Like he had his hip flask tucked inside his coat pocket?

Khan glanced up at him. "Perhaps he finished it and threw it away. Or perhaps it was stolen."

"Or perhaps he never had one." Where that possibility came from, he wasn't sure. It flew in the face of all the external evidence. Besides, there wasn't a Russian male in Fergana who didn't drink. He glanced over his shoulder at the Red Veil, standing virginal white on its chicken legs in the graying snow.

Khan tilted a brow at him and tugged open the man's coat. A half-frozen, half-coagulated mass of dark blood that had been held in by the wool slopped onto the snow. Khan leaned in to examine the wound through a threadbare gray shirt.

"Knife wound by the look of it. Single blow. By the position, it got the heart or a major artery. By the amount of blood, I'd guess the artery. Poor fellow bled out."

The wind gusted and branches rattled in the dry air. Overhead clouds streamed in from the southern mountains, suggesting more snow. From the city came the rumble and blat of morning traffic. Pedestrians had appeared on the sidewalk edging the park and now a few collected like fallen leaves just beyond the yellow police tape.

"I thought you were reassigned," Khan said softly.

"Reassigned. Yes. Still in major crimes where Rostoff can keep an eye on me, but now I commit the crimes--taking bribes on behalf of the team." He shook his head bitterly, then dipped it at the Red Veil where the curtains twitched at each window. "I was visiting. One of the women claimed to see a body from her window."

He shrugged and knelt across the body from Khan. "She was apparently correct. So what is wrong with this picture of a drunk killed for his liquor?"

Khan leaned in to examine the man's face. The eyes were the color of cloudy skies, but darkness underneath the milky surface suggested they were brown. The mouth was open.

Khan frowned. "The teeth are better cared for than I would have expected. See? There is no plaque as one would expect, unless this man is much better at self-care than the usual drunk." The man's arms lay at his sides. Khan lifted one of them.

That was what had bothered Kazakov--the fact that both hands rested so neatly. There was no sign of struggle. No sign of warding off a blow.

Khan turned the hand over. "Compared to the clothes..."

"The hands are clean. So is the wrist."

"And the nails," Khan said, turning the hand back over. "Look at the nails. No grime ground into the cuticle. No stains on the nails. This man did not smoke. Nor did he live outdoors or do manual labor."

He looked up at Kazakov. "The hands look as if they have been washed and the skin cared for more than most men do. Perhaps now would be the time that a person in your position would call in another detective."

"And allow another suspicious death to be written off?" Kazakov glanced over to the uniformed officers standing smoking by their cars. "If I had not been here--if I had not been late making my stop--what would have happened?"

Khan thought a moment, the clouds overhead placing shadows under his eyes. Or perhaps it was everything he had seen in his job. It was not happy work.

He nodded. "They would have called it in as a drunk dead in a knife fight. A detective would have been assigned, but I doubt that I would have ever seen him."

"It would be the perfect way to get rid of a body--in plain sight." He met Khan's dark gaze--until Khan shook his head.

"There are those who would say that you look for trouble, old friend. Isn't that what got you into your predicament? I know it was the murder of two children. I know it catches in a man's craw." His voice faded as if he might say more but thought better of it. Instead he shook his head. "Perhaps this truly is a drunkard killed in a knife fight."

"A drunkard who bathes regularly and who practices good oral hygiene? You disappoint me, Khan."

Khan shook his head. He glanced around again as if afraid someone might be listening. "I only concern myself with your welfare... and mine. Something is happening, old friend. Something that bears keeping your head down. There are those amongst the medical staff who recommend against our friendship and there are watchers everywhere."

Watchers. Kazakov looked up again and caught the twitch of the Red Veil's curtains.

Indeed there were.
Chapter 3

There was a time twenty-two years ago when Kazakov was a newly minted police officer with a full head of hair and truth was in the air and filled his chest with every breath he breathed.

On this gray November day, seated in his battered government sedan, one of the police fleet of First Autos brought in from China five years ago, it seemed hard to believe. Now the lack of truth constricted his lungs even when he slept. Each morning he felt angry when he woke. And very alone.

The car stank of cigarette smoke from its other drivers, just as Khan's words stank of warning to let this go, even though he was unclear what this was. A man killed for some reason, his body supposed to disappear in plain sight. But it was clear that the man wasn't what he appeared. Either he'd disguised himself in a drunkard's clothing to hide, or someone had dressed him in the clothing to hide who he was.

Kazakov tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to decide which way to go. The smart thing would be to simply walk away--not just from the case, but from the whole job, but policing was the only job he had ever had and the thought of doing something else filled him with dread. Dealing with the dead was easier than dealing with the living--his marriage had proved that. And in a country and a city where investigations were sometimes closed for expediency, or where evidence was fabricated to gain a needed conviction, who would search for the truth if he left?

Clearly, Detektiv Chief Inspektor Rostoff had not intended Kazakov to go haring off investigating anything. He wanted Kazakov put in his place and close enough he could be controlled--probably the only reason Kazakov hadn't been fired for his initiative in taking forward the Weber-Manas case. Even being on the scene could warrant a reprimand for assuming control when the responsible one should be the assigned detective. If he was truly following Rostoff's rules, he would have phoned the case in and walked away himself. The way Rostoff wanted it, not the way Kazakov had been trained--not the way any police officer had been trained. But something had changed the department's practice.

So his choice was clear: investigate regardless of Rostoff's direction and take the repercussions when they came, or walk away.

In Yekaterina Park, Khan was standing by as they loaded the body onto a stretcher and wheeled it to the M.E.'s vehicle. One of the uniformed police casually stepped on his cigarette butt and left his car to pull down the police tape. So no one else was coming and they weren't even going to examine the scene more closely for evidence. He gripped the steering wheel and finally couldn't stop himself. He picked up his mobile phone because maybe there was another way.

He called dispatch and said where he was. He asked who the assigned detective was for the case.

Silence greeted him at the end of the phone. "Everyone is busy at the moment. It was only a drunkard. It has not been assigned."

Kazakov inhaled and tapped his fingers on the wheel. Here goes nothing. "I was across the street and brought to the body. It may be best to record that I was on scene. If Rostoff wishes, he can assign it to me."

"I will check," the dispatcher said and hung up.

Kazakov slumped back in his seat. It was done. He had given himself a cover for looking into the case further--at least until Rostoff came sniffing around. If he ever did. Regardless of the dispatcher's last words, in the course of a busy day there was every chance that checking with Rostoff would slip the dispatcher's mind.

For the moment, he could do his job. He climbed out of the car and trudged back up the stairs to the Red Veil. This time his chest did not feel like stones had been piled on it.

At the front door, he knocked as the first snowflakes of the day swirled around his face. The wind had chilled further and he wished that he'd brought his hat from the office. He'd left it there three days before and not reclaimed it. Each time he went into the office it slipped his mind to look for it.

The same sweet-faced Thai girl opened the door.

"I need to speak to Frau Zelinka," he said and bulled his way inside.

"I am sorry, sir. She is in her bath and not taking visitors."

For a moment, he considered simply charging in, but that was an approach best saved for another time. For now, he would be civilized, or as civilized as his job allowed him.

"Tell her that I will be interviewing her girl, Maria, and inspecting Maria's rooms. Where can I find her?"

The Thai girl's inscrutable beauty was marred by a momentary twitch of the eye that spoke of fleeting resentment. Then the moment passed like frost on a spring day. "You will stay here, please, while I advise Frau Zelinka." Then she was gone, disappearing down the hallway like a harem girl apparition in some Ottoman palace lost in space and time.

Kazakov made a point of not staying where he was put. He wandered into the room on his left. Here it was not a Silk Road caravanserai, but something more akin to the saloons portrayed in the American films that were imported from that outpost of independence from the Anglo-German Commonwealth. Bare wooden tables. A wooden bar with cheap glasses against the wall, and peanut shells and sawdust on the floor. Packs of cards sat neatly stacked on a side table and on the wall hung a pair of what looked like antique revolvers. Another one of America's exports. After achieving their independence, the Americans were being pushed to relinquish their freedom in exchange for the trade they so desperately needed to survive as a string of small city-states along the eastern seaboard of British North America. The saloons that were presented in the films were long ago replaced by Anglo-German parlors after the Americans lost their hold on the west of the North American continent. So far, according to the news, the Americans still held doggedly onto their independence.

In some ways they were Fergana's brethren, attempting democracy when democracies had fallen from fashion everywhere else. But half a world of oceans and mountains kept them from conferring on their experiences. It was said that democracy could only work for a small country. None of the large ones had allowed it.

He came out of the room as the Thai girl returned. "This way, please."

But she didn't lead him up the stairs. Instead she led him farther down the hallway where the light was dim and, by the dampening of the street noise, he suspected the night noises of the house's business were less audible to this area's occupants.

A soft knock on a narrow misted-glass door and the Thai girl pulled the door open. A cloud of warm spice-scented vapor billowed into the hall. "Frau Zelinka will speak with you."

What now? He stepped into the room and stopped just inside the door. Vapor immediately beaded his skin and hair. It coalesced on the fur on his karakul collar and brought sweat to his face. The room was white tile, poorly lit by veiled lights half-concealed in the corners. They placed a supernatural glow over the mist, and the hard tiles echoed the sound of splashing water.

"You are a difficult man to say no to, Detektiv Kazakov. Did you know that? I do not let just any man into my bath. Only the attractive ones."

He had no illusions about his attractiveness. He was a middle-aged man who, regardless of his recent weight loss, was slowly losing his shape; so what the hell did she want?

The vapors parted to reveal a large, deep copper tub filled to the brim and Frau Zelinka floating there, her face and breasts three perfect mounds in the scented water. Then she sank to the bottom and came up headfirst, sending a tidal wave of water across the floor to slop onto his shoes.

"I need to speak to Maria and any other girl with a room on the park side of the house," he said.

She waved him closer with an arm gone rosy with dewy warmth. "Are you suggesting that my girls had something to do with this horrible event?"

She peered up at him with wide dark eyes, the length and curve of her body too lush and on display in the magnifying water.

Was this a new attempt to control him through this woman?

"If I thought that, I would interview all your girls. At the moment, I simply want to know what they saw. And your doorman. You have one in the evening, I presume. I need his name to speak to him, as well."

In one perfect move, Frau Zelinka came up out of the water, liquid sheeting off her body in a shimmering spray. He took in her attractions and then looked away, committing them to memory.

"A towel," she commanded and gestured at a wooden spindle-back chair set to one side against the white tiled wall.

He complied and she wrapped the towel around her hair, then stepped out of the tub to stand naked beside him. "A hot bath is such a luxurious way to start a day."

He wouldn't know. His days started far earlier than this and at his dacha baths were a matter of heating water on the stove to pour into an aluminum wash tub.

She reached past him for an additional towel and began to pat herself dry.

"You haven't answered my question." Kazakov stood where he was, the warm scent of damp woman caught up his nose. The steam and water droplets placed a pearly glow on her skin and he was sorely tempted to touch her, but temptation was clearly what Rostoff wanted. He was less sure whether the lady actually wanted the touching. "I came to you as a courtesy. I can interview your girls whether you give permission or not."

She stopped patting herself dry to cock her head up at him from under the folds of the towel on her hair.

"You are a very attractive man, Detektiv Kazakov. I think, beyond the dark hair and square jaw, it is the intensity of your eyes--they speak of your passion, but unfortunately it is passion for your job." She tsk-tsked and wrapped the towel around her torso, once more transforming from the temptress to the business woman. "Fine. Go have your interviews, but you will regret rejecting me. Beyond the pleasures I could bring you, there is much a woman like me could do to help you at a time like this. And there is the payment I must give you."

It was as if this woman tried to swallow him down on Rostoff's behalf. Just what was Rostoff so worried about? Kazakov had, to all outward appearances, ceased his investigation into the two young people's murders. Had his surreptitious enquiries come to Rostoff's attention? After Rostoff called him on the carpet the first time, Kazakov had been very careful who he talked to and where. He had gone so far as to drink tea in the restaurant that was the favorite haunt of Yekaterina's schoolmates where he had sought information about Yekaterina, Semetai, and their families. All to no avail.

From a hook on the wall, Frau Zelinka retrieved her silken kimono and strode from the room. "Do what he asks," she commanded the waiting Thai girl before disappearing down the hall toward the rear of the house. Her apartments, Kazakov supposed. Probably as lush as the woman they housed.

He felt like an insect breaking loose of a spider's lair as he followed the Thai girl up the long flight of stairs that led to the second floor. The stairs were thickly carpeted to muffle men's heavy footfalls. The Thai girl's tread he couldn't hear at all, as if she was cast of dreams and air. That probably went for all the girls--part of the illusion Frau Zelinka spun in her house.

The stairs ended in another open lounge with couches and ottomans and more silken curtains that hid walls and ceiling. The carpet was thicker here so he could barely feel the floor, as if he'd been transported to another place, another self where clouds supported him. He could imagine the effect on a man drunk on good Fergana vodka and desire. He would be young again, virile, his tread no longer weighted down with years and unrequited longing.

Beyond the lounge another hall separated rooms at the front and rear of the house. It had pale pink wallpaper and globe wall sconce lights that burned like misty moonlight. At the third door facing the park, the Thai girl stopped. "This is Maria's room."

"Thank you. You can go now."

She shook her head no.

Fine. He knocked on the door and heard a soft, "Enter."

He pushed inside, the Thai girl coming in behind him and closing the door. A gentle scent of lavender filled the room. It reminded him of morning gardens, more soothing than the brassy spice of the brothel's madam.

The woman, Maria, lounged on a large, soft-looking bed replete with too many pillows in all shades of red and lurid purple. The colors emphasized her black hair and olive skin. She still wore the thick, multicolored robe that made him think of the biblical Joseph, but this time square, black-framed glasses perched on her nose and, along with a cigarette, she held a thick tome that she quickly slammed shut and stuffed behind her. The glasses she stripped off her nose as she sat up and swung her legs off the bed to sit elegantly with one long leg crossing the other at the knee. She waved her cigarette at him.

"You. You found the body. Who was it? Who killed him?" Her rapid, accented Russian was, for a moment, almost unintelligible.

"Yes, there was a body, but you watched from your window and saw us remove it. I would like to know what else you saw. How did you happen to see him?" He motioned to a claw-foot chair in the corner of the room. "Do you mind if I sit?"

"Sit. Sit, please." She stood up and strode to the window, tugged the curtain aside to peer out into the street, and released a stream of blue cigarette smoke that swirled around her face and shoulders.

"May I have your full name?" he asked.

"Maria. Maria di Maria." The name flowed like water from her tongue, carrying vestiges of her home language. She shook her head. "Frau Zelinka prefers us to sleep in in the morning and she does not like us to have the curtains open. It gives the idea to passersby that they can know our secrets. It suggests to patrons that secrets will escape. So we are trapped behind these curtains and blinds, but every morning I start my day by looking outside at the park and the sky." Another nervous puff of her cigarette. "The girls across the hall claim that they have the best view because they see the mountains, but I know better. I look over New Moscow and Fergana and it is a grand place. My chosen homeland."

She was trying too hard, as if to convince herself as well as him.

"How long have you been here?" he asked. Get her talking and feeling comfortable, then turn her mind to the body.

The curtain fell back over the window and she drew deeply on her cigarette. "Since I was fifteen. My family was very poor. We lived in a tiny village in Abruzza in Italia. When I was seven, there was a terrible earthquake and everyone in my family was killed. A man offered to help me and three other village girls. Eventually he brought me here, but I still remember the scent of the olive groves and the sound of my mother's voice and the way the almond trees shivered in the wind." She sighed. "Looking at the park reminds me of my childhood."

And by her tone, her freedom. Frau Zelinka's girls did not have that luxury.

"What happened this morning?"

Her robe stirred around her as she shrugged. "I woke--as always. I got up. I took my prophylactics."

Said as if her life was an endless string of such days.

She lifted the edge of her curtain again and inhaled from her cigarette, her neck gently arching like a deer's. "I came to the window, sipping tea as I usually do--I am a morning person. The other girls sleep in and are so noisy when they rise. Always laughing and telling jokes about their clients from the night before, though Frau Zelinka does not like it. I prefer the quiet of the early morning and to hold my tongue, for who is to say what would happen if something I said got back to my client." She shook her head. "I looked out and there he was--lying there."

"Describe what you saw." He sat still, with notebook out, taking down what she said.

"It was cold outside, I could tell by the frost on the window. It was a lovely lace that caught the sunlight like prisms. That meant it was harder to see the park for the glare, but I had hoped for new snow. It makes the park so clean and white. My wish had been granted, but somehow the snow was still gray, not like now with the new snow falling. There was a dark blot on the snow that I had not seen before. I looked more closely and, at first, I thought it was someone who had tripped and fallen, but he did not get up. Then I thought it might be Collin, a new client. And when he did not move after five minutes, I realized something was wrong. That was when I came to Frau Zelinka and met you."

She let the curtain fall again and turned back to him, then sought an ashtray on the bedside table and crushed her stub of cigarette. "That was what I saw."

Making a note of "Collin" to pursue, he nodded at the window. "When you looked outside, was there anyone on the street or in the park?"

She thought a moment, but then shook her head. "There rarely is in the early morning. Ordinary people don't live around here. The people who do, travel by car. There are few people from around here that travel through Yekaterina Park."

Frowning, he looked up at her. "Are you saying that the man was not from here?"

She shook her head. "I don't know, do I? I have not seen him up close."

And he would have to bring a photo of the dead man back here. "Who is Collin?" he asked.

Pulling her robe tighter around her neck, she returned to the bed and sat on the edge. "A client. A businessman with the Anglo-German embassy, I think. Leastwise he is Anglo. He boasted that his ancestors helped finance the creation of the Anglo-German Empire and the assassination of Napoleon." She shook her head. "As if the business dealings of his forefathers made him a better man."

A better-connected man, at least.

"You are well read," he said, studying her.

"For a whore, you mean?" She reached across the bed and picked up what she'd been reading. "I happen to enjoy world history. Frau Zelinka expects her girls to be educated enough to hold conversations. We are not just pretty faces and warm body parts, Detektiv."

It had not been what he meant. In Fergana's schools, there was an emphasis on his people's history--to the lack of everything else. As he'd aged and the role of Fergana as a buffer between the Chinese Kingdom of Heaven and the might of the Ottoman Empire had become more and more evident, understanding what it meant for his country required the people to better understand the world around them. Unfortunately, the education system did not agree and the children grew from the ignorance of childhood into the blindness of adulthood. He'd often wondered whether it was a conscious government decision. In response, he had become a voracious reader.

Of course, Maria di Maria was not a girl from Fergana.

"So what have you learned?" he asked.

She shot him a glance, and by the way she tipped her head, he knew she wanted another cigarette but held herself back. She must limit her smoking because she had no stains on her fingers. An interesting bundle of contradictions and strengths, this woman.

"I think that we live in difficult times, but I suppose each generation says the same."

A philosopher, then.

"I would like to bring you a photo of the dead man to look at. Perhaps you may know him."

She shrugged. "Do what you want. I will be here. Reading."

With that she returned to her window and once more peered out. What she must have seen all the years she had been here. As the Thai girl let him out of the room, he wondered what Maria di Maria chose to remember and what she chose to forget.

He interviewed five other girls who had rooms overlooking the park. None had seen anything. None were interested in what happened in the broader world. There was clothing to mend, legs and armpits to wax, hair to be upswept perfectly, and scent to choose for tonight's patrons. They were not interested in him or his questions and shortly he found himself ejected onto the Red Veil's front stairs.

A light snow swirled around him and kissed his face. He thought of Frau Zelinka's pearled flesh, but that melted into Maria's face. She'd been angry at him for putting her down as nothing but a whore, but truly his assumption made sense given the other women he'd spoken to. She was the anomaly, as much as he was for doing his job as a detective. Sighing, he went down the stairs.

He needed the photo of the dead man. Then he could interview the others that worked in the house to see if the man was known. There were the houses that surrounded the Red Veil, too. In the past, he would have had uniformed officers canvass those residents, but now if he wanted to investigate, he would have to do it himself. It would be a lot of work and difficult to hide from Rostoff, but the questioning would bring him back here.

Back to speak to Maria di Maria again.

In his car, he turned the key in the ignition and the engine sputtered to life, a mechanical effigy of his detective career. Oddly, he found himself whistling.
Chapter 4

The old brown All Auto sedan clunked and fumed down the broad avenue that ran beside Yekaterina Park, trailing a plume of exhaust behind it like ahorse's tail. Kazakov turned off at the corner onto the eastern end of Suvarov Way and joined the flow of noontime traffic until its broad four lanes shrank to two. There he turned off toward Our Lady Yekaterina Hospital. The four-story building hunkered down against the snow. Some administrator had decided that preserving parking spots was more important than the park at the hospital entrance.

Chemicals had been spread to keep the paved lot clean and the runoff had flowed over the earth around the shapely, naked maple trees and fountain at the front. Next spring the chemicals would kill the grass, and the small, graceful eden across from the hospital would join the fading glory of the rest of Fergana. He looked away, up to Yekaterina's Mountain looming over the hospital and the city. Today the swirling flakes erased both the distant mountains and the Yekaterina's five peaks that the Muslim Kyrgyz said Mohammed had prayed upon. Fergana existed in a place between--not quite safety, not quite at the heart of everything.

He sighed and inhaled the winter cold. At least ten below freezing, the way the wind stung his cheeks. Much colder than the last time he'd stood here contemplating how conflict and war crept into everything. The young Yekaterina's and Semetai Manas's mysterious deaths. Both of them murdered--executed--though why he thought in those terms he could not say. He shivered and looked again at the mountain that loomed over the city. It was not weather to be out in, even drunkards knew that.

Unless they weren't from around here. That had been Maria's suggestion. His hand went to the coat pocket that once held his smokes, but he pulled it out again. There was an autopsy report to read and a photo to obtain. Perhaps Khan would even offer him a decent cup of tea.

He went down the stairs to the morgue in the bowels of the hospital.

Inside the windowless bunker, the stink of death, decay, and air freshener seemed solidified in the faded-green walls that echoed the rapid clatter of typing. He signed himself in at the reception counter where a young woman hunched over the keys.

"Where's Darya?" he asked, nodding at the new receptionist. She was a sharp-eyed young thing with henna-dyed hair in a bob. A green sweater was buttoned over her breasts and too many bracelets jangled on her wrists.

Darya was the usual receptionist, a matronly woman of forty who had four children, an out-of-work husband and, apparently, a single florid floral dress that she had worn every time Kazakov had ever seen her.

"She quit," the girl said.

"Did she find a better job?" Because Darya had been the queen of the reception desk for far longer than Kazakov had been a police officer.

The girl shrugged. "I never met her. Now what do you want?"

He frowned. "Dr. Khan, please. About the male body brought in this morning."

The girl's lips narrowed slightly. Then she nodded. "I believe he is in his office."

She turned back to her typewriter and Kazakov pushed through the gate into the M.E.'s domain and strode down the poorly lit hall with its old wooden doors and high transoms, waiting for the typing to start behind him. It didn't until he was shutting Kamil Khan's windowed office door behind him.

Khan was seated at his desk and he looked up when Kazakov entered. The air smelled of chai spices and for a moment Kazakov was hopeful that the M.E.'s excellent tea would be forthcoming.

"You have a new receptionist, I see," he said as he slumped into the chair across the battered wooden desk from Khan. Stacks of well-worn books looked about to tumble off the shelves behind the M.E. Khan looked resigned--and exhausted--in his favorite old wood swivel chair. A half-finished cup of cardamom chai sat cooling on the desk before him.

"I tried to get Darya back. She needed this job. Why do this to her? She is at home--and devastated." He rested his fists on his desk. "They said it was time she retired."

Kazakov sighed at the news. It was not uncommon for the son or daughter of a politico to be offered a job that was taken away from a longtime employee, but Khan was clearly upset. The tea would not be offered. "Who is 'they'?"

Khan shrugged. "Who knows? Human Resources. They say there is an election coming and they need to prove that they are cost cutting. They can pay this new girl less than Darya."

"But you do not believe that."

Khan shook his head.

"To keep an eye on what happens here?" Kazakov asked softly.

Khan shook his head again, but it was more resignation than denial.

"But why? The people who come through these doors are mostly dead." Khan's lips curved sadly. "Except you, of course. But then, you have a dead career."

Kazakov managed a smile. "I thank you for that. But I already know. Tell me something I don't."

Shuffling papers on his desk, Khan avoided Kazakov's gaze. "I don't know if I can do this any longer. I also have a family to feed."

"You do your job. That is all that I ask."

"But is that what my employers want?" Khan whispered and finally looked at Kazakov. "Sometimes I fear they wish us to just go through the motions. Imaginary autopsies. Imaginary evidence to build illusions." He shook his head. "Things have changed around here and not just with Darya leaving. I come in, in the morning, and find strange men reviewing my files--not all the files, just those I have worked on. Bodies have disappeared before I could complete my reports. What is happening, Kazakov? This would not bode well for anyone in this job, but for a minority like me..."

Khalil Khan was about the most stoic, philosophical man Kazakov had ever met, but now he was clearly worried. Kazakov shook his head. "Could it be office politics? The hospital administration?"

"They would not take bodies."

"You've done nothing but your job, so you have nothing to fear. Without you, there would be few reliable medical examinations in the city and most likely the country."

"Darya did her job, too, old friend. So do you. Perhaps reliable medical examinations are no longer what's wanted--the kind that has their content controlled are already preferred." Khan sighed and then shook his head. "But there is nothing you can do about it." He took a deep breath. "I finished examining our friend from the park. As you know, there was no identification on him, but he bears very distinct marks."

He flipped open a file on his desk. On the right side was a photo of the dead man, hair still spiked with filth, features still blunted from alcohol and death. A white sheet pulled up to his naked waist. An envelope with Kazakov's name on it rested in the file.

"Photos for you and a copy of the preliminary report. I knew you'd want them."

Frowning, Kazakov picked up the envelope and pulled the file closer. "Strange. Look at his skin. His face, neck, and shoulders are far paler and pinker than his lower chest. It transitions gradually until his belly is faintly sallow looking. Usually it is the other way around."

"A good observation, but that is not all. Our drunk had other surprises beyond the fact that he had no alcohol in his stomach." Khan sat back in his old wooden desk chair, the joints squealing under him.

Kazakov scanned the file. No tattoos, which was odd given they were almost a rite of passage among the men of Fergana. Kazakov had gotten his first when he was just fifteen--an eagle under a waterfall on his biceps that his father had paid for--much to his mother's horror. He had three others on various parts of his body.

There were, however, scars on the dead man. Small ones around the nose and eyes not atypical of wounds received from fights on the street. He came to the part about the skin and stopped.

"What does this mean?" he asked, tapping the offending paragraph with his finger.

"It means that his face neck, upper torso, and legs--anything that might reasonably be exposed--had probably been subjected to a cosmetic procedure--a bleaching process of some sort." Khan produced a second photo of the body, naked on the autopsy table. The skin across the groin was darker.

Kazakov frowned. "Strange. Are you certain?"

Khan nodded. "There are procedures and creams you can use to keep the skin pale."

Kazakov sat back in his chair. "But why would someone do that? It makes no sense."

Khan huffed and pushed up from his chair. "Why indeed." He studied the books behind his chair and shook his head. "I do not like this, friend. Not at all. You read the file--the marks on the face. The ones around his eyes I checked--they are not often seen in Fergana but they are typical of cosmetic surgery found elsewhere. And then there is the nose. When I did the autopsy, I found a prosthetic."

"A prosthetic?" Kazakov felt like he'd entered a different world with a different language.

Pulling a well-worn, cloth-covered book from the stacks on his shelves, Khan thumped it onto the desk and flipped it open to a page that showed step-by-step photos of the reshaping of a nose, including the insertion of a small piece of plastic bone that made a flat nose suddenly have a high bridge.

"But why do that?" He looked up at Khan.

"A very good question and one you will not like the answer to." Khan resettled himself in his chair and the seat squeaked as if welcoming him. "Someone has gone to a great deal of work to change this man's appearance. They have whitened his skin. They have given him a nose like a Russian or Anglo-German, and they have done work on his eyes."

Kazakov waited. There was something Khan wasn't saying.

Finally, Khan sighed and tapped his face. He was a handsome enough man with the dark hair and slightly oriental eyes of the Kyrgyz. "They have removed the epicanthic folds. Once, this man had East Asian eyes."

Kazakov swallowed, his mind floundering, trying to understand the meaning. "Chinese."

The Chinese Kingdom of Heaven had expanded over southern Asia, only coming to a halt where their mountains abutted the Indian subcontinent. The Anglo-Germans held the Australian continent. The Ottomans controlled the rest of Eurasia and most of northern Africa.

Except Fergana.

He tilted his head toward the mountain ranges he couldn't see at the moment, but that had always loomed over his life. If anything, Fergana existed, on sufferance, as a free market enclave where the Chinese and Ottomans and their allies could meet and plot their subterfuge. The length and breadth of Fergana was a hotbed for spying. Even the upstart Americans had strategists here, when here was a world away from the former colony. Was this murder somehow related to all that activity?

"A spy? But why would the Chinese send such a spy to Fergana?I have never heard of such a thing. It would cost a great deal to create such a disguise. And why would a spy dress as a drunkard? That makes no sense."

"Give me a better theory," Khan said.

Kazakov thought about it. "Perhaps he was a businessman who fell on hard times. There are enough Chinese here, buying up the country. They and the Ottomans are like locusts devouring Fergana though we are a sovereign country. But that doesn't explain the need for a spy. Corporate espionage?"

Khan's eyes widened as if he was surprised at the vehemence of Kazakov's opinion. In fact, Kazakov, too, was surprised.

"The Chinese would say that they are threatened by the Ottomans and their influence here. They only seek to have their own point of view heard by our people," Khan said softly. "But then the Ottomans would likely say the same. A spy could help spread such viewpoints."

"You talk as if we know for certain that this man was Chinese. There are men in Fergana with your epicanthic fold from their Mongol ancestors. They have it removed so racial barriers are removed when they do business."

Khan just looked at him. Then he sighed. "There is more. Read the report."

Kazakov rolled his gaze heavenward. Yekaterina preserve him from pig-headed medical examiners.

"If he is a Chinese spy, what does he spy upon? Fergana has nothing--hardly a military since the Ottomans blocked the purchase of military equipment from that Anglo-German company."

Shaking his head, Khan retrieved his book and the file. "You do not usually choose to be blind. Perhaps you should think on this as you conduct your investigation--yes, I know you won't quit. When have you ever? But now I have work to attend to. There are other bodies to be buried in Fergana."

He stood behind his desk and shelved the book. The file he closed and slipped into a drawer.

Kazakov climbed to his feet and stood facing the much smaller M.E. Things had changed between them. In the past Khan had always been there, seeking the truth with him, but this time fear had shrunken the small man's frame.

"I'll try not to bother you so much, old friend. You have a family. I understand." Kazakov let himself out into the hallway and closed the door softly.

Khan's last words floated out at him through the glass transom. "Be careful, Alexander. Be very careful."

Outside, he climbed into the cold sedan. The car was old enough that its many drivers had sprung the springs in the seat. One of them poked him in the small of his back.

Contrary to the doubts he'd expressed to Khan, he believed in the evidence of the little man. Scientific evidence didn't lie--at least not Khan's. It never had and never would. At least he'd never doubted that it would until now. In future, who was to say if there were threats on Khan's family.

Not that Khan had said outright that his family had been threatened, but it was clear how he felt. Why now? There were many cases they had worked on where the outcome had not been popular with higher-ups.

His breath condensed in the car's cold interior and began to lay a frost on the inside of the windshield that masked the cold landscape of plowed snow and naked maple branches. He started the car against its protests and sat there in the cold air blasting from the air vents, waiting for heat to return.

If it was true that the dead man was Chinese, it raised so many questions. Who was he here? Who was he in China, for there were surely many kinds of spies both corporate and military. Why was he here? Why now? Why was he killed?

He needed to answer all of those questions and he barely knew where to start. He hauled Khan's envelope out of his pocket and unsealed it, pulling out three photos and a typewritten report. Along with the headshot he'd seen on the file, there was a close-up of the man's hands and one of the dead man in the park, his milky gaze peering at the sky as snow gathered on his brows and nose. The park. No one had conducted a thorough search--at least he hadn't, and the uniformed officers had torn down the police tape before anything of that kind had been done.

The car groaned from the cold when he dropped it in gear and the tires crunched over the packed ice and snow as he aimed back toward the city center.

The skyline of Fergana's capital laid dark grey stunted silhouettes across the clouds. For some reason the city hadn't grown the spires and towers of the great cities. Probably because Fergana had nothing in common with those glittering metropolises. Fergana was a backwater, an eddy, compared to Constantinople, Berlin, and London. It was less than a molecule of water compared to the vastness of the ancient Chinese capital of Nanjing and more akin to the photos he'd seen of the modest capital of Charleston that had grown up in the American south. A second-rate capital for a second-rate nation, perhaps. It was enough to give the country an inferiority complex.

And make it hold onto dreams of past glories.

Suvarov Way broadened around him as if welcoming him into the city, but at the moment the city didn't feel safe. There were spies afoot. And now one of them had died.

The sunlight was failing by the time he pulled into the curb at the side of Yekaterina Park again and climbed out of the unmarked sedan. Along the street, the lights came on and the Red Veil had already lit the amber globes flanking its door. Lights shone through the golden curtains over the windows, as Frau Zelinka's establishment readied itself for their evening patrons. But on the second floor a curtain twitched and perhaps that was a pale hand he saw.

Maria.

Of course, it could be his imagination, too.

He turned back to the park. The clouds and the failing light diminished the shadows, and lent a steely cast to the snow. Flakes had drifted into the indentation left behind by the body and his own and the uniformed police's heavy tread. Two knee indentations were all that Khan had left behind. The little M.E. was meticulous at using someone else's footprints to enter a scene.

Kazakov trudged through the snow to the body's indentation. The temperature had dropped farther and now, instead of drifting flakes, the snow had become tiny ice crystals that stung his nose and ears. Again he wished for the hat he'd left behind.

With a gloved hand, he swept away the new snow that had fallen. The snow that had been under the body was pristine except for the blotch where the blood clot had fallen out of the man's coat. Had the heavy wool simply held it all in or had the man been killed elsewhere and moved? But if moved, why here in front of the Red Veil? Surely, with all the parks in Fergana, there had to be a reason.

Like there had to be a reason for Yekaterina's body being moved, too, but that was another case. Another case, another investigation, another story.

In the deepening dusk, he waded through the snow, brushing away the new skiff that had not been present this morning. Thankfully, there was a crust on the previous layer of snow, but there was nothing to find. He reached the bushes that had shielded the body from his view from the door, straining the snow through his fingers.

And came up with a cigarette butt with a pale striped filter. Interesting. Not one of the popular brands smoked in most of Fergana.

A cast-off from the attending police this morning?

But they had stood by their vehicles smoking. He recalled how an officer had stubbed his cigarette out before approaching the body--old training apparently died hard even if the current regime didn't seem to support careful police procedures.

If not the police, then whose was it? Kamil Khan rarely smoked and would never do so at a scene--that was a line he didn't cross. And Kazakov hadn't either.

A passerby after the police had left was a possibility, but whoever it was would have had to come to the site right after he left judging by the depth of snow over his find.

Bagging the cigarette butt, he continued his search through the snow. Nothing else came to light so anything else would have to await the spring to be recovered and by then the dead man would have been forgotten. The snow dragged on his feet as he waded back to the road. The natural light was almost gone. What was left placed a cold, nacreous glow on the evening. The wind picked up, driving the ice crystal snow into his face and eyes. On the stairs to the Red Veil he stomped the snow off his shoes and brushed his pant legs clean, then climbed the measured stairs to the door again, wondering where the doorman was.

The door opened after the first knock and a whiff of sweet incense was stripped away by the wind. It was the Thai girl again, but this time dressed in traditional Thai silks of rich orange with overlong sleeves to hide her withered hand. Her hair was tied up in a thick coil at the back of her head. Makeup accented her perfect features and the demure gaze that widened just the barest of fractions when she saw him. This one was all about self control. Her mastery of it suggested that she was older than the fifteen or sixteen years that he'd credited her with.

"You should not be here," she said and tried to close the door, but he shoved inside and stood brushing his shoulders free of snow. He hauled the heavy door closed behind him.

"Tell Frau Zelinka that I wish to interview Maria and the staff."

"But...but...this is not the time."

"Go. Now. Tell her."

For an instant he thought he read fury in her black gaze, but then she turned and scurried down the hallway. Her silks whispered like ghosts in the air.

The place had changed; the room lighting had dimmed, no more than candles on tables or thickly veiled light fixtures. The sweet-scented incense lay heavy on the air and classical music rich with the zither, mandolin, and sitar played softly over hidden speakers even in the room designed like an old tavern. In this light, the rows of bottles and glassware glittered as if they were crystal. A few drinks and no one would ever notice the lesser quality. After a long day, this place offered everything a tired man would require to enjoy himself.

"Detektiv. This is most inappropriate." Frau Zilinka strode toward him down the hall, this time dressed as the diva in a low-cut, black silk evening dress that skimmed her body. Her hair was swept up in a loose pile of blonde curls that fell in a sultry disheveled tangle around her face. She wore full warpaint of kohl-lined eyes, defined high cheekbones, and vivid lipstick, reminding him of a windup doll. She stopped in front of him, her hands on her hips. "What are you doing?"

"My job. I'm investigating the death of the man in the park. I told your girl, here, that I need to speak to Maria and to the staff who worked here last night--doormen, security guards, kitchen staff who might have seen something when they left."

Her crimson mouth firmed into a line. "This is not the time. The Red Veil is open. My patrons arrive soon."

He shrugged. "Surely Maria isn't the only girl they ask for. I'll talk to her first and then to the others in between their duties."

She glanced at the Thai girl and gave an adamant head shake. "You cannot. This will not do."

"Frau. This is police business--an investigation. It cannot be stopped because someone comes whoring."

It was as if he had slapped her. Her face went rigid. Beyond her, the Thai girl's inscrutable expression was etched on her features. Frau Zelinka glanced from Kazakov to the girl once more. Did it matter what the girl thought? Or was Kazakov's demand undermining her place with her employees? Frau Zelinka's throat worked and finally she nodded. "You may interview the employees."

She turned and started back along the hallway, her shoulders square and forbidding as a mountain massif.

"And Maria? I need to speak to her first."

At that she turned and looked at him, her gaze at once furious and afraid. "Think about what you are doing, Detektiv. You bring down doom on all of us. As for Maria, she's gone."

"What? Where is she?"

Frau Zelinka raised her hands. "Who am I to say? I am not her keeper. A girl decides to leave. She is gone. Prae went to get her, and her room was empty." She nodded at the Thai girl who must be called Prae.

"Have you checked the house?"

She nodded.

"How could she have left?"

"This house is not a prison, Detektiv."

He could not quite believe her even if Maria had seemed to have accepted her life. When he'd talked to her, she's seemed settled, resigned. He scratched his head. "I want to see her room."

"Fine. Do what you want. Just stay away from the patrons and me. I shall be busy." Frau Zelinka waved him away and disappeared down her darkened hallway.

Prae led him back up the stairs where the hallway was filled with the bustle of women and the battle of competing perfumes. The subtle silk wallpaper held graceful images of Chinese courtesans, or perhaps they were houri--the not so virginal companions of dead Islamic warriors. The women he saw emulated that look: beautiful, demure, lush as any man could desire. But there was no Maria with her dark horn-rimmed glasses. He opened the door to her room and turned back to the hallway of women.

"Has anybody seen Maria?" he asked no one in particular. No one did more than shake their head and turn away.

But one girl held his gaze for the barest of moments before turning to another doorway.

She was young--barely sixteen by the look of her milky, perfect skin, but he suspected she was at least two years older. She had straight, pale hair that hung in a heavy silken curtain around bare shoulders and deep blue eyes rimmed with thick blonde lashes. A simple blue sheath dress ended just above her slim knees and he was reminded of an image in a magazine he had seen when he was a boy. It was of a young woman picking sunflowers in the paradise of green fields that once was Fergana. As an adult, he had seen the iconic image again only to realize that it was an advertisement for cheek-by-jowl houses in subdivisions that had plowed under the very fields the young beauty had walked in.

He shook his head and fought back the sense of déjà vu.

"You," he said and motioned her closer.

She looked away as if to leave, but he abandoned Prae and went to her. "What do you know of Maria?"

"N-nothing." She shook her head. "She is gone."

"When did she leave?"

The girl shook her head again. "I-I don't know. I saw her this afternoon. She took a call."

"When was this?"

"Perhaps one o'clock?"

"Did she say who it was who called? Did she seem upset?"

"I--I don't know. I hardly knew her. She kept to herself." The girl backed up a step and he realized he was looming over her.

He pulled back and considered. The girl looked almost shaken. "Where did she take this call?"

"She--she was in the washroom. We both were. We each have a mobile phone so that our patrons may call us and tell us about their fantasies so that we can prepare."

"So Maria had a mobile phone."

A nod.

"Where would she keep this phone?"

"The rules are that the phone is to be with you always when the Red Veil is not open," the little blonde told him.

He thanked her and was about to turn away, then stopped and pulled out Khan's envelope. He pulled out the photo of the dead man's face. "Do you recognize this man?"

The girl's blue gaze widened and she looked up at him. "Is it important?"

"Do you recognize him or not?"

She looked back at the photo and swallowed, apparently not liking what she saw. "I'm not sure. There was a patron. An Anglo. I don't remember his name."

Kazakov pondered her. She was at least trying.

"Could the name have been Collin?" he asked, taking a stab in the dark.

"That's it! Collin. How did you know?" And she smiled with such pure pleasure he wanted to keep making her smile. He imagined any man would.

"A guess," he said. "May I have your name?"

"Katya. Katya Faber, but here they call me Yekaterina. Now may I go? I have a patron coming in less than an hour."

He let her go and stood motionless in the flow of women in the hallway. Prae tapped a toe by Maria di Maria's door. Yekaterina. The name kept following him like a flock of crows. A murder, to be exact. This girl even looked something like Yekaterina Weber.

A shiver ran up his back as he turned back to Maria's room and followed Prae inside.

Though it looked much as he recalled, the lavender scent he remembered was faint as praise in his job. The same bed and heaped pillows were somehow lurid without playing off of Maria's olive coloring, the curtain hanging limp over the window somehow more muffling without Maria's honest liveliness twitching it aside. That was it. In this house of veils, she was the one person who had seemed to show herself. A woman with olive skin and horn-rimmed glasses. A woman who set aside the game of her employment in her off-hours. Someone who looked outward instead of in and who had the bravery to say something.

He crossed to the bed. The red spread had been straightened so it no longer showed the imprint of her lounging body. No sign of the book or the ashtray on the bedside table, either. Or the tatty woolen robe. He pulled open the top drawer of the two-drawer bedside table and found the tools of her trade: condoms of all types and sizes, heated oils, dildos, anal beads, handcuffs, alkyl nitrite and other things he didn't recognize. On the top of the sexual aids lay the ashtray--cleaned and washed, likely ready for her customers. No sign of the book or the glasses.

He pulled open the lower drawer and found soft ropes and silken scarves suitable for restraints that would not leave a mark. Nothing more.

Against one wall stood a carved, Persian armoire with an intricate, inlaid wood design of a couple copulating in a verdant green pleasure garden. He pulled the doors open revealing straps and harness he hadn't expected from a woman like Maria even if she was a working girl.

A single drawer lay at the armoire's base.

He pulled it open, releasing a whiff of Maria's lavender and the scent of tobacco. The old robe was stuffed inside unfolded--something his brief meeting with Maria left him unable to imagine her doing. The book he found stuffed underneath along with a pair of plain white underwear, threadbare jeans, and a well-worn, blue t-shirt--the latter two like favorite old friends.

He stood up, his knees creaking, and considered what he'd found and more importantly what was missing.

"Bring Katya Faber here," he said.

Prae hesitated.

"Now."

She went, apparently well trained in taking orders, and soon returned with a protesting Katya in tow.

"My patron is downstairs waiting," Katya said and yanked away from Prae. "He does not like to wait."

"I am sure he will wait a little longer for the likes of you," Kazakov said. His comment seemed to mollify her.

"When Maria was discovered missing, you came into her room, didn't you?" he asked and held her with his gaze.

Her gaze darted to Prae, to the open armoire, and then the closed hall doorway. Finally, she nodded. "I did not believe she was gone."

"And when you entered, what did you see?"

"Her bed was a mess. Her things on the floor."

He nodded. "Did you clean up her things?"

She shook her fine blonde head. "I looked around and left."

He studied her lean lines, the lovely face, so much like Yekaterina Weber except for the hunger in this woman's eyes. "What did you take," he asked softly.

Her eyes grew round as if shocked, but her mouth had tightened. "I took nothing. I am not a thief."

"But why would you be a thief? Maria was gone, her things left behind. What did you take from her abandoned belongings?"

Sighing, her shoulders slumped. "It was not so much. I was her friend. The others would have taken far more. I will show you."

She led him out into the hallway with Prae trailing behind, suddenly gone quiet, the globe wall sconces had dimmed to amber that placed a misty light on the wallpaper as if they walked through a mystical land. From downstairs the volume of music had increased and there was the low rumble of male voices and bursts of women's forced laughter.

Katya's door led to a room much like Maria's--a broad bed, an armoire, a bedside table, a chair--but there the similarity ended, for the room was decorated in misty blues and turquoises that brought out the color of Katya's dress and eyes so she seemed to be a creature moving under water. On the wall was a tapestry of a white castle on a hilltop and a man riding toward it on a white charger right out of a fairy tale. The original decoration of the room or her own addition?

She pulled open the armoire and pulled open the drawer. "Here."

She handed him a carton of cigarettes, not the usual kind one found in local stores. No, these were a brand imported from, of all places, America, and expensive enough that only the wealthiest could afford them.

"An expensive habit. How could she afford them?" he asked.

Katya shook her head.

He gave her a hard look from the tops of his eyes. "Come, Katya. She told you they came from a patron, didn't she? She shared them with you. That was why you went into her room--to retrieve them. They were almost the only thing of value."

Her shoulders slumped and she hung her head. "How do you know these things? Yes, she showed me her treasure. She was so pleased. Why would she leave them behind? Why would she leave this?" She turned back to the drawer and produced a phone, much like Kazakov's, six inches long, two inches thick, and broad enough to fill his palm.

The phone each girl was to carry at all times.

"Why would she not take it with her?" she asked, her voice almost plaintive.

"A very good question," he said softly. He pulled plastic bags from his pocket and bagged the phone and the cigarettes, Katkya watching his movements closely. "This is evidence, but when we find Maria, I'll see about returning the cigarettes to you."

She shook her head. "I don't want them. They're Maria's. I'd rather have her back, instead."

He nodded as he wrote the date, time, and provenance on each bag. "Thank you for your help. I suggest that you tell no one what you've told me." He turned to Prae. "That goes for you, too."

He led Prae back to Maria's room. "Someone searched this room before me. Who was it?"

"I do not know." She shook her head but he wasn't having her denial.

"Yes, you do. You are the hands of Frau Zelinka. You do her bidding. If you didn't search the room yourself, you escorted them here."

The Thai girl kept her gaze averted as if looking away would make his question disappear. When she looked back at him he caught the flash of anger, so she was not the meek little thing he had thought. Frau Zelinka's tool was what she was, not some poor girl traded into servitude.

"So it was you." He looked down at the phone and the cigarettes. "What were you looking for?"

"I say nothing to you." Emotion flared in her eyes and was swiftly smoothed away. "You should leave. You cause only trouble."

"If that's how you want to play it, fine. I want the doorman next. I'll interview him right here." He pulled the chair from Maria's wall and settled himself to wait, knowing that having a police officer on the same floor as the pleasure rooms was bad enough. Interviewing the staff in the middle of the busiest time of the day on that floor was absolutely something to be avoided at all costs.

He leaned back in the chair. "I'm waiting."

"Bastard!" she swore, and in a shimmer of red silk she stormed out of the room. Either she was bringing back the doorman or something would happen. Presumably Rostoff would be called. The Detektiv Chief would not be happy and shit had a bad habit of running downhill straight into Kazakov's lap. He was going to pay, but there was no help for it.

While he waited, he pulled out the bagged items he'd collected. A phone that should not have been left behind. The question was whether she left it behind on her own, or she was taken. The bag of cigarettes he opened and tore open one pack to tap out a single cigarette. The filter was uncommon, a light tan with fine brown lines running up toward the end.

He picked up the other baggie of the filter collected from Yekaterina Park. It, too, was tan and had fine brown lines running its length. He recalled another case where similar filters were evidence and they came from an Ottoman brand that cost at least twice what most Ferganese smokers paid for their habit. Oddly, there was no sign of lipstick on the filter and he could not imagine any woman of the Red Veil stepping out of the house without lipstick on.

He went to the window to peer down into the street. Darkness had fallen and the unseasonable snow was thickly falling, misting everything caught in the yellow glow of the streetlights. Across Yekaterina Park and the river, and beyond the concrete three-story apartment buildings on the other side, in the distance glowed the tragic beauty of the concrete replica of St. Basil's Cathedral. The original, in what had once been Moscow, had been turned into a mosque that had burned down fifty years ago. It proved that nothing was eternal. In the darkness of Yekaterina Park, he sought the spot where a body had been found that might be a Chinese spy named Collin. By the shadows of the trees he thought it might be--there. A greater darkness detached itself from a tree and stepped out of the shadow.

Kazakov froze where he was and allowed the curtain to droop to mask his presence, but still allow him to peer out.

The lone figure appeared to study the front entrance of the Red Veil. Then, through the snow, the figure's head tilted upward and the pale oval of a face was revealed and steadied as if it not only sought and found Maria's window, but the figure went still as if it knew he was here.

Through the snow, he recognized the movement.

Maria.
Chapter 5

By the time he thundered down the stairs two at a time, shoved past Prae and the once missing and now apparently found doorman, and ran out the front entrance, the figure in Yekaterina Park was gone--if it had ever been there at all. He ran down the front stairs and into the street, wading through the new snow and into the park toward the place he'd thought he'd last seen her.

No one was there.

Deflated, he turned back to the Red Veil and felt the exhaustion of defeat. The door was firmly closed and he could imagine that it would not open for him again. At least not tonight. So much for the interviews he's planned. The figure could almost have been planned as a means to interrupt his investigation. As he searched the snow for footprints, a sleek limousine purred up to the curb in front of the Red Veil. He stopped what he was doing long enough to watch the passengers disembark. Two large, swarthy men climbed out swathed in thicker furs than any respectable Fergenese would wear in this weather. After all, New Moscow's winters were never as cold or snow-filled as those in the old cities of holy Russia he'd read about. Surviving the usually much milder and drier Ferganese winters was a matter of pride, but these men--they clearly came from a warmer climate.

The third man wore a wool coat similar to Kazakov's, but it had a more expensive cut given the way it hung perfectly from the man's broad shoulders. The man stepped up on the Red Veil's first stair and turned back to his companions. The streetlight caught in his white hair and he grinned at the other men, exposing a set of large, overly-white teeth.

Kazakov slunk back into the shadows, his heart suddenly pounding. He knew the man had pale blue eyes and an assertive air that verged on rudeness. Boris Bure stopped whatever he was saying and peered across the street almost as if he sensed Kazakov's gaze. Could he see Kazakov in the shadows? Would he think Kazakov was here on the matter of Bure's dead daughter? Then Bure turned and led the two men inside as if whatever Kazakov saw didn't matter.

The falling snow stung Kazakov's cheeks and nose. Pings of energy surged through his limbs. Flakes froze in his lashes and the tangle of brown hair on his head before he remembered to move. Yekaterina Weber's stepfather was here and it was as if all of Kazakov's synapses fired at once. He closed his eyes. It suggested that Bure's marriage to Yekaterina's mother was not the happy protective one they had tried to convey. What did that mean for the daughter before she died?

He shook his head. The fact that Boris Bure was a patron of the Red Veil didn't mean anything, even though a tightness in his gut suggested that it did. The task was to determine what.

He wiped the snow off his brow and let the electric charge fill him. The weight he'd been carrying suddenly lifted as he headed for his car. Had Bure noticed it? Had he just not cared, or did he think that most police were on the take?

Boris Bure. If he was a patron of the Red Veil, Kazakov would bet his pension that Maria knew him. He wondered what she knew, what she could tell him that might help him in the Yekaterina case.

When he climbed inside the First Auto sedan, thesnow-covered windows were frosted golden by the streetlights. He turned the engine on and the wipers parted the snow layer so that he could see his way ahead. He guided the car toward home even though he wanted to slam the car through the snow and set out on the search for Maria.

But there was too much going on here. Too much he didn't understand. He needed to spend this gift of energy wisely--assessing what he had and then planning, rather than plunging into dangerous waters.

Then he would find out where a woman named Maria would be hiding.

§

He lived in a small dacha his father had left him that sat outside the city limits, though the city was now stretching in his direction. The house was small--a summer cottage, really, built of low walls of rough logs and stone that had been pulled from the land the house had been built on. The result was a low, stone-walled and slate-roofed building that looked part of the landscape. When Kazakov was a child, his father had brought the family here often and a young Alexander had walked the hills and fished in the clear stream out of the mountains. In those days the tribal Kyrgyz had still occasionally camped by the stream that ran through one end of the property and Alexander had come to know them and marvel at their horsemanship and how they lived with their herds just as they had done for a thousand years.

Now they came less often or not at all and those who came were poor relations of what he'd seen as young man. The herds were diminished due to government taxation, and the young people were drawn like flies to the heap of New Moscow.

The isolated log and stone house amongst the copse of walnut trees became his permanent home at the end of his marriage--a retreat where he could momentarily forget the world around him.

Before he reached the turn to the dacha, he turned off into an overgrown, narrow lane through the naked aspen, walnut, and snow-laden pines, following a soft glow of lantern light that glimmered through the forest. He pulled to a stop before an ancient dacha that looked more like it was part of the forest floor than a house. The builder of the house had long ago built up soil and stone around the house's walls so that the light through the windows appeared to gleam out of a mound of earth. The snow was a white veil across the darkness as Kazakov climbed out of the sedan, carrying a small shopping bag.

He waded up the snow-covered stairs and knocked at the low, wooden door.

"Just a minute. Just a minute." Agafya Ryabkov pulled the door open and looked up at him with eternal suspicion on her face. "What do you want?"

Kazakov held up the bag. "I went to the store and picked you up some things."

She still blocked the door to him. Her memory was clearly getting worse.

"Remember? You said that if I was near a store, you could use some more flour and tea? And I brought you a bottle of vodka as well."

"Vodka." Her small black eyes gleamed. "I didn't ask for vodka. I won't pay you for things I didn't ask for."

He smiled down at her. She hadn't actually asked for anything, but this was the only way he could check on her. She was the fiercest woman he'd ever known, a tiny Kyrgyz woman dressed in thick, felted skirt and leggings, with a dowager's hump and the last few strands of her fine gray hair braided and wound around the crown of her head. Through some chance of fortune or fate, she had done the unthinkable and fallen in love with a Russian. The two had married against their parents' wishes and they had spent their lives here together, scraping a life out of their gardens and Joseph's hunting skills. Joseph had died five years past and Agafya had become more reclusive with each passing year since then. Still, Kazakov tried to look out for her.

"Shall I help you put these things away?" He held up the bag again and finally she relented, allowing him to duck through the doorway into the snug one-room cabin that was her home. He toed off his boots and then unloaded the bag onto the scrubbed top of the board table her husband had built for her. Flour. Tea. A few apples. A bunch of twisted winter kale. A package of sausage. The clear bottle of vodka.

Her bird gaze pecked amongst the items and landed on the bottle. Her expression made it clear that she wanted it, but the cost was the issue. She shuffled over to a desk on one wall and pulled a small purse out of the top drawer, digging through the contents. She pulled out coin after coin; little enough, but all she had. Kazakov had been subsidizing her grocery bill since her husband died.

"Enough." He waved her purse away and picked up a few coins. "There was a sale today. And the vodka--consider it a gift."

She eyed him as if she would argue, but then seemed to think better of it. Her creased face managed a gap-toothed smile. "My Joseph said you were a good boy. I suppose I should listen to him."

Kazakov took the compliment with a smile and glanced around the room. Wood was stacked near the woodstove and the place was warm. "The water is still running?"

He had made sure its insulation was adequate earlier this fall, before the first snow.

"It runs."

"Then I will leave you to your evening, but one of these days I am going to come over and ask you to sing for me. Okay?"

The suspicion in her eyes slowly faded. Singing the old songs was something she loved and it was something he loved to hear. The old tribal songs reminded him of his childhood--a time when the world still seemed good and pure.

She nodded and Kazakov let himself out as Agafya began humming to herself as she sorted through the groceries. He had no idea what she usually survived on. The woman was mainly sinew and bone from what he could tell. But for a few days at least he could take comfort in her having adequate food.

He climbed into the sedan and returned to the road for the short distance to the turn to his home.

The dirt lane into the dacha wound through the darkness under the shelter of poplar, aspen, and blue spruce. The lane ended in the clearing where the house stood like a hunkered old man against the snow. He could imagine that the rest of Fergana did not exist. Or perhaps that was his wishful thinking. Through the thin layer of snow, the tires crunched on the hidden stones and potholes as he pulled the car to a stop at the rear of the house. Technically the government vehicle should not come home with him, but on the scale of infractions he'd engaged in today, it was small change.

He turned the vehicle off and stepped out into silence except for the ticking of the cooling engine. The snow fell heavier here at the slightly higher elevation. The dacha was situated on a slight bluff in the hills to the east of New Moscow so that the lights of the city spread across the plain in the distance and placed a glow on the lowering clouds through the barren walnut trees. Once it had seemed like he was the only person in the world out here. Now, as the wealthy of Fergana sought retreats from the summer heat of the city, they and the rest of the world threatened his and Agafya's small bastions of comfort.

He waded through the six inches of new snow and up the three steps to the porch of the small house. Inside, it was cold and dark and smelled of garlic and wood smoke, and the cedar shavings in his cat's litter box. He fumbled matches and lit a lantern, then lit the iron stove in the corner for heat. The dacha was one room, the walls rough stone and timbers decorated in the corner kitchen with wooden shelves that seemed to grow directly from the walls. The kitchen table sat near the door and two small windows flanked the door and reflected the lantern light back at him. During the day they let in the sun. He tugged their flowered curtains closed.

Koshka, his rebellious female black cat, stood and stretched and leapt down from her favorite perch to butt his leg for a head scratch and a leg rub in the hopes of dinner as he settled onto a chair at the scarred wooden table and pulled off his boots. He slid his feet into worn leather slippers as he slipped off his coat and his chest holster and hung them on a wood peg set into a timber by the door. His cell phone he tossed on the small kitchen table. A tattered burgundy sweater completed his ensemble against the chill in the room.

The rest of the room was functional and Spartan. An old battered couch with sprung springs in faded burgundy against one wall; the small, square kitchen table and four chairs that his father had made in the center of the room by the door, the top smoothed by years of use; a bed against the back wall.

Once there had been two beds, but he had removed one and replaced it with a second wooden table that served as a desk beside the woodstove. Above the desk, the wall was filled with everything he knew and suspected about the Weber-Manas murder. A single shelf above the bed held the vacant spot where Koshka usually laid, and a small, heavily-insulated flap door at the rear of the kitchen provided the little cat with the opportunity to go out hunting whenever she pleased. It also meant that he frequently found small dead gifts she had brought for him.

He put a kettle on the stove to boil and filled a tea bulb with loose tea, then fed Koshka before settling at the desk in his old wooden chair to stare up at the evidence wall. He was not supposed to have any of it, but he'd had the foresight early in the case to make copies of most of the documents before Rostoff had confiscated everything and, in the month since the murders, he'd learned a lot more about Yekaterina Weber and Semetai Manas. Quietly, he'd spoken to Yekaterina's friends, first at the restaurant and then catching them alone. He had stayed away from Yekaterina's funeral so as not to arouse Boris Bure's ire and to keep news of his questions from Rostoff.

Yekaterina had been a first-class student with a passion for music and song. She had met Semetai through a music conference that had brought together Russian, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek students from across New Moscow and beyond--the only time such an inclusive conference had been held.

Plans to annualize the event had been canceled after the murders.

Her girlfriends said the romance was a secret at first, but had bloomed so bright that everyone noticed and Yekaterina came to a point where she didn't care. She hadn't even cared that her parents knew and that the scandal had been a point of serious contention, but for the girl in the pink fluffy sweater in the picture on his wall, this had been important enough to stand up to her parents. Her best friend had revealed that there had been terrible fights and that Yekaterina had come to school with bruises. Of course, given the prominence of her family, no one had done anything.

The kettle whistled and he stumbled up out of his chair and poured hot water into his teapot. Three cubes of sugar in his chipped china cup awaited until he poured the deep brown liquid. Slowly the sugar cubes melted away and he stirred, took a sip, and sighed. It was not quite the smoky flavored water from the new-fangled samovars that had been imported from the Crimea, but it was his old standard--better than vodka for thinking, too.

Semetai Manas had been in his final year at the Muslim high school that lay at the edge of the old part of the city. Once the old town had been the only town, a sprawling ancient city that had gone by a different name and had resisted the brutalization of the most recent despot in a region where too many successive empires had risen and fallen. When the Russians arrived, they found a proud people in a city of gardens who had taken pity on the survivors who had lost their homeland to war.

That welcome had long ago worn away under the friction of a Russian people determined to remake their new country in the image of the old. Very quickly the Russian immigrants had built businesses that only served Russians. At first it had been because what they served only appealed to the Russians. Gradually it changed to exclude those local people who had not assumed Russian ways and then to where it was now--non-Russians excluded because of their race.

Except for a few stubborn souls like Khalil Khan who had been too good at their profession to be turned away.

Had falling in love with a Russian girl been so heinous it required Semetai's death?

Kazakov shook his head. To a traditional family of a culture that had lost so much, what could be worse than falling in love with a Russian girl?

But then Agafya and Joseph had done it. As a result, they had spent most of their married life hidden here in the forested foothills.

Seduction? Clearly Semetai had slept with her given her pregnancy--unless the girl had a secret lover and none of her friends had reported any suspicion of such a thing. Fathers were known to do terrible things to the youngster who deflowered their daughters prior to marriage. But Boris Bure was not the girl's father. Why kill the girl, too?

Kazakov leaned back in his chair. Yekaterina and Semetai were questions that he could not answer and there was another murder to solve. What had led to the death of a man who might be a Chinese spy who had gone by the Anglo name of Collin?

Kazakov sipped his tea feeling, oddly, the absence of his ex-wife though she was seven years gone and apparently happily married to a businessman of substance and successfully climbing her way up the government communications ladder.

This place needed a woman to make it complete, but Annushka had never been happy here. Too far from her friends in the city, she'd said when they first got married and he'd brought her to his favorite place. They'd gotten an apartment in the city and she'd never come back, though Kazakov had--more frequently as the marriage failed. In the divorce, his name and the dacha were the only things he'd retained as his own.

Scanning the low beams of the ceiling, he supposed the dacha was a good place to hide from the world. The original Russian dacha had been gifts from the original Yekaterina to her favored nobles. Now they were mainly escapes.

Had Maria di Maria escaped somewhere similar?

He thought of her warming those long-fingered hands of hers by a fire like his. The light would catch in her raven hair and her eyes would glimmer. But a foreign girl who worked in the Red Veil would not have many allies. If she had some knowledge of Collin's death and it involved the Red Veil, and if she had truly left on her own and not been taken, then he doubted she would have somewhere like this to hide. She would not trust anyone she knew from the Red Veil. She could not afford to. She either knew something about the murder or someone thought she did and she'd been smart enough to go to ground.

And the fact that she had run would tell whoever had come for her that she did, indeed, know something.

"Derr 'mo!" he sat up straight and barked his knees on the support under the table. What was he thinking! He was an idiot! His brain had turned off when he thought he'd been shocked awake by the presence of Boris Bure at the Red Veil. Boris Bure was not the issue at the moment, though Kazakov had taken an instant dislike to the man. Maria di Maria was out there alone and there was no question that they--whoever they were--would be looking for her.

He should have done more to find her--followed what he thought were her tracks in the snow.

Quickly he set the teapot and cup in the sink and then dampened the fire to slow the flame. He hauled on his boots, holster, and coat again, grabbed his phone, and stepped out into the cold night. The snow fell more thickly now, the wind hauling it off the mountains in thick, driving white flakes. Already his footsteps from the car to the door were half filled and the dark tree branches sagged under the weight as he trundled around the house to the car. Winter had come far earlier this year and was bringing far more snow than usual.

The old sedan roared to life and he aimed the vehicle toward the dark space between the trees that was all that he could see of the lane in the blindness of the snow glare in headlights. The tires squeaked on the snow. The undercarriage grated until he reached the partial shelter of the trees. He picked up speed, still berating himself as a fool and idiot. The woman had nowhere to go.Why else would she make sure he saw her? Why else be so circumspect when he questioned her, other than she knew something and she could not let Prae know. The Thai woman was quickly becoming something far more than what she seemed, but that should not surprise him. Nothing in this case was what it seemed.

He came out of the trees into drifts of snow blowing across the road. The wind came from the mountains to the southeast and seemed intent on drifting the snow over the road and erasing the scars on Fergana. There were legends whispered in the old town that said the hills were full of the ghosts of all those displaced by the Russians, and that one day Kurmanjan Datka, the legendary female leader who had led her people to freedom from the brutal Kokand khanate, would rise to lead them to take back their land. Most Russians took it as old men's wishful thinking. These days Kazakov found himself not so sure. At least the Kyrgyz were looking forward--unlike their Russian brethren.

By the time he had driven the long road downhill and arrived at the end of the long line of houses that had spread like mushrooms up into the hills, the snow fell heavier and seemed to form a wall around them, as if intent on keeping more people out of the hills. He eased the gas pedal down and made better time, sliding around the corners down toward central New Moscow and the five hidden peaks of Yekaterina Mountain.

The stucco and glass apartment blocks rose out of the swirl of snow like mounds of dirty gray boulders. He skirted the narrow roads that ran into the remains of the old oasis town and came onto the broad back of Suvarov Way that ran north-south along the river.

Maria was smart, that was clear. Both from her reading material and the fact that she had known to get clear of the Red Veil. Perhaps even leaving her phone behind was good, because he'd heard rumors that the government had the technology to track a person through their mobile. He pulled his out of his pocket and considered. Surely no one would be tracking him--at least not yet--and if they were, it would mean that he'd fallen into a case far bigger than he'd thought.

Deep enough it could involve a Chinese man altered to look like something else?

He shivered though the little sedan's heater pumped out more exhaust-stained warmth.

So where would a smart woman go in the city? She dared not go to the train station. That would surely be watched. So would the buses. A hotel? She might have the money, but even that might be chancy given the need to show ID when she registered. Initially she might have stayed in the park, thinking that they could connect there, but he had gone inside too quickly and then there had been the limousine and Bure, so if she'd been there she'd had no chance to connect.

If a connection was what she'd been seeking.

He slowed the sedan. Why had she left? If she was looking to connect with him, why hadn't she stayed? Did she suspect that he was not her friend? Either way, if he was her and with the snow falling in an unfriendly city, he wouldn't have hung around.

Now that he considered, there was only one place in all of New Moscow that she might go to ground with some sense that she might not be found. He slowed the car and checked the rear view mirror. There were no other cars about at this hour.

He turned the car around and cruised back the way he'd come, turning off Suvarov into the narrow streets of the old city.

The old city was named that for a reason. It had been there two hundred and fifty years ago when Fergana was established and its presence stretched millennia farther back. It had stood waiting for them like an Eden when the weak, the ill, and the exhausted had staggered out of the northern mountains into Fergana. The yurt-dwelling nomads who had taken in too many refugees had brought them here and deposited them, probably glad to be rid of so many extra mouths and so many angry young men. It had probably looked the same then, with its stone and mud walls, high windows, and lonely doors that gave onto the street. Its stout walls, like egg shells, holding the life inside.

He had been inside a house or two and they had always surprised him with the light and tile and garden-filled courtyard even though what had once been a stately family home now was a ghetto of three, four, and sometimes five or six families crowded into apartments that had once been single bedrooms. With the arrival of the Russians and the diminishment of the Silk Road, the fortunes of the trading families who had lived here had faded.

There was a tea house he knew of that might help him. Men met there in the evenings to drink their tea and their vodka. He'd arrested men there a time or two. He drove slowly through the winding, narrow streets that pressed in at the vehicle and finally parked the car and climbed out. Ahead the street became too narrow.

Snow swirled into his face, but the wind was less here. Flakes melted on his hair and water ran down his scalp as he paused, then pulled his phone from his pocket and tossed it under the seat of the car. If they could track his phone this far, well, tracking him in the maze of streets that made up the old city would still be daunting, especially in this weather. Head down against the flakes, he struck out through the ankle-deep snow.

The Blue Corner Tea House sat a junction of five streets, each no wider than two donkey carts could comfortably pass. Where the streets met, they formed a small community square where a trickling fountain on one wall provided water for the local houses. The Blue Corner Tea House filled one odd-angled building that stuck out into the square. During the day in the summer, a bright striped awning spread shade to small tables, but at night the awning was furled and a sturdy blue door marked the entrance. The scent of burning charcoal and wood filled the chill air.

Kazakov pushed inside into firelight, dragging snow and a gust of cold into wood-fire warmth. He stomped his feet at the door and knocked the snow off his shoulders, then looked up into silence. Twenty men in worn trousers and woolen work shirts with small white embroidered skull caps perched on their heads sat on three-legged stools around small wooden tables in the narrow room. The place had blue-washed walls that gleamed like clear water and would give a sense of cool in the hot summers. Benches sat along the walls covered in woven and felted pillows in faded colors. The men all looked at him, their expressions unfriendly. The owner, he knew from a previous case, was a bull of a man with a thick dark beard. He stood at the back of the place beside the fireplace stacking cheap glasses beside a large teapot on a table beside the fire. A blackened kettle hung in the hearth.

Ignoring the men at the tables, Kazakov crossed to the owner and pulled out his badge.

The owner waved his identification away.

"I know who you are. I remember." He turned away to adjust the wood on the small fire. Low conversation started behind them as the owner straightened. "What do you want?" He mumbled something unintelligible in Kyrgyz under his breath.

"I'm investigating the death of Semetai Manas," Kazakov said, stretching the truth slightly.

The room went still behind him.

The bullish owner turreted back to him. "The case is closed with no suspects. That is what the family has been told. The police have moved on."

And the family had moved away was what his investigation had told him at the time. Kazakov stepped in closer.

"Is there somewhere else we can speak?" He nodded at the other men. They eyed him closely and he wished that he'd not said what he had. If there were Chinese men who looked western, how easy would it be to have spies in a place like the Blue Corner?

The bullish man must have read his urgency. He wiped his hands and tossed his rag on the counter before leading Kazakov through a narrow, unpainted door at the rear of the room. Kazakov found himself in a storeroom that might have been a hallway, for at the far end a curtain held back electric lights and the noise of a distant radio.

"I repeat. What do you want?" The bullish man seemed to fill the space, and though Kazakov was a big man, the bearded owner towered over him. He must have Uzbek blood in his ancestry. They were bigger men than the more slightly built Kygyz.

"And I repeat, I am looking into Semetai Manas's murder. It is unofficial. My superior has closed the case, but I believe the culprit may still be identified and caught."

The man's black eyes bored into Kazakov, but Kazakov held his ground. Finally, the man nodded. "I am Dasten Abdulin. I am Semetai's uncle."

"His uncle." Kazakov considered the unlikely coincidence.

Abdulin shrugged. "His father and I were friends, as were our parents before us and their parents before them."

An uncle, not by blood but by the extended clan connections of his people. Kazakov nodded.

"His death broke his mother's heart. It killed his father. Semetai was a good boy--the first in his family to be accepted into the university. How can I help?"

"Thank you." Kazokov studied the man. "May I ask why did you not come forward when I was asking questions before the case was closed?"

Dastan Abdulin's gaze dropped to the floor. "Perhaps consider the situation. We are Muslim. We were certain we would be accused of the death. It has happened before. Always we are blamed."

It was a truth Kazakov could not deny. He nodded. "Then what has changed now?"

Abdulin shrugged. "Time, perhaps. You are the first person who has shown any interest in Semetai's death."

And that was probably the truth as well, though Kazakov had mentioned Semetai Manas only as a ruse to get information about the woman. Kazakov checked over his shoulder. The door was closed. He had stretched the truth to get this far. Now he would stretch if further. "I am looking for a woman. She has information that I believe will help to solve Semetai's murder."

It was a very slim chance, one he did not quite believe in himself.

But Dastan Abdulin's apparent willingness to help suggested that Kazakov might have to reconsider his first suspicion that Semetai Manas's family had murdered the boy because of his involvement with Yekaterina Weber.

"The woman is on the run," said Kazakov. "She has no friends or family in the city. I thought that, given she does not trust the authorities, she might have come to the old city."

Abdulin's dark gaze was unreadable. He began to straighten canned food on a shelf. "Why would I know if such a one came to the Islamic part of town? I am not an Imam or one of your psychics."

"Aah, but many people pass through your doors and if they do not speak directly to you, they speak within your hearing. If something odd happened, you would know of it."

Abdulin's beard rose and fell as if he swallowed. "Perhaps that is true, but why would I tell such as you? If such a girl existed, would she not be afraid of police?"

"I'm trying to save this woman's life. I believe she ran from someone. I don't know who. I think she knows that if they find her, they will kill her."

The bullish man turned to him then. "Then perhaps it is best if she is not found by anyone."

Kazakov had to nod. "There is that. But I thought that she may wish to help bring a killer to justice. Perhaps--perhaps you might know a way to get a message to her, to tell her that I will help her. Tell her my name and that I, too, like to look beyond curtains."

The beard rose and fell once more. Then the café owner shrugged. "If there were such a woman, it would be interesting to know what she thought. But then, I have no way of knowing."

Kazakov dug in his pockets and pulled out his battered hand-stitched wallet. From this he extracted a card. "If you should come across anyone who has seen her, perhaps you could pass along my contact information." He reached into his breast pocket and came out with a pen and scratched out his office number, replacing it with his mobile phone number. "She should not identify herself. Tell her to say she is my cousin, visiting from out of town. Do you understand?"

The owner nodded. "I understand you are a man with a vast imagination. Some would say you must be drunk. I think you are a lost soul blown in by the storm and now I must send you out again."

He reached across Kazakov's shoulder and shoved open the door to the Blue Corner. The place was empty now; only one man remained, wiping a table with Abdulin's cloth.

Kazakov preceded the owner out of the storeroom. "My apologies for interrupting your business," he said.

The owner cocked an ear to the rising sound of the wind and shrugged. "There is a storm settling over us. It is best for a man to be home."

With no other ideas of where Maria would take cover, Kazakov drove once around New Moscow, skirting Saint Basil's domed cathedral, the behemoth government buildings, and the ramshackle structures that made up the ancient open-air market--all darkened in the night snow--then took Dastan Abdulin's advice and returned through the deepening snow to the dacha. He hoped Maria had truly found shelter from the storm.

The sedan, for all its age and battered fenders, had the weight to plow its way back to its resting place behind the dwelling. Kazakov stumbled out and through the snow, stamping his feet up the half-covered front stairs and inside to warmth, where snow fell off his boots, hair, and shoulders to puddle on the floor by the door. He once more lit the lantern and divested himself of coat, mobile phone, and weapon. Koshka uncurled and stretched her lean length on the bed before leaping down and padding across to him. She sniffed disdainfully at the melt water and mewed up at him.

"You've been fed, cat. I haven't forgotten." But out of habit he found the tin and spooned a little more into her dish. The room filled with happy cat licks.

Fortunately, the fire that he had banked still had embers. He hung his coat on its peg, then stirred the embers to life and added more wood. When the flames caught and crackled, he reheated his half-finished tea on the top of the woodstove and settled back in his desk chair.

He had learned nothing for certain, but he had left a message for Maria. Hopefully it would get to her. He placed his mobile on the center of his desk and closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, dark men trudged through the darkness and the snow to take the message to her. At least he hoped that they were taking her the message.

They could just as well be going to kill her.
Chapter 6

It was a Baba Yaga dream like one he once had as a child. He was small and searching for something in a darkened forest. He had come upon a small house in the woods and the building was built of odd angles and danced on chicken legs in its yard. When he knocked at the door, a misshapen crone answered. She lay across her iron stove and when he asked for her help to find what was lost, she only laughed. It was shrill and biting and sent him stumbling back into the forest, her laughter taunting him.

Kazakov woke with a start to a shrilling sound and the undeniable sense that he had forgotten something. He stumbled up from his desk into the lantern-lit dacha, upsetting Koshka, who had been curled in his lap, into a squalling fur ball onto the plank floor. Not a forest, the dacha. He was at home. The fire had burned low--he'd forgotten to dampen the flue--and the room was cold. On his desk was a stone-cold cup of tea and the infernal, squawking, mobile phone.

He grabbed it up. "Hello?"

For a moment, he felt like he was asking the question across worlds, as if he'd be answered by Yekaterina Weber or the great tsarina herself.

"Kazakov?"

He settled back into the chair, recognizing the voice and looking at the phone. Khalil Khan almost never phoned him.

"Yes?" he answered.

"Where are you?" the M.E. asked. His voice was as cool as Kazakov had ever heard it--as if this was the coldest of professional calls.

"At home, of course." He checked the small alarm clock on a shelf above the bed. "It's the middle of night." Three o'clock the clock said.

"I just got the results of some of the tests on our body. I thought you might want to come down and see."

Kazakov stood and staggered to the window, both of his legs half asleep with pins and needles. Through the frost on the windows outside, in the darkness, the snow was still falling. He couldn't see his front stairs anymore. "I'm not a hundred percent certain that's possible at the moment."

There was silence on the phone a moment, then: "If it is possible, you should make it happen."

The line clicked and went dead from Khan's end and Kazakov swore. He set the phone down and worked his neck, stiff from sleeping in the chair, then went to the sink and shocked himself awake with a palm full of cold water in his face. Koshka was awake and threading his legs for breakfast. He scooped her up.

"You will have to wait just like I must." He stroked her soft black fur and settled her on the floor where she head-butted him once and then paced over to the bed, leapt up to her shelf, and curled up on her cushion to stare at him with disapproval. Such were the females in his life. Not one had approved of him in the long run.

He was tired enough he would have liked to join her on the bed, but instead he gulped down his cold tea, shuddered at the taste, then rebuilt the fire and dampened the flue. He pulled on his coat, a patchy, old, black fur hat, his boots, and his gloves; blew out the lantern; and stepped outside.

Cold slammed into him as he waded into the pine-scented night. He wrestled the dacha door closed against the snow that sifted in when the door was opened. A foot of snow covered his stairs and he used the shovel he kept beside the door to clear them and then a pathway around the side of the house to the vehicle. Fortunately, the shelter of the house had kept the worst of the blowing snow off the sedan, but it still looked like a snowdrift under six inches of snow. He used his arm to brush it off and then climbed in and started the engine. Back outside, he shoveled the route across the dacha's clearing to the trees, tossed the shovel in the back seat, and climbed in.

The heavy old sedan rumbled over the snow and as he picked up speed under the trees, its tires thumped from the shape they'd frozen into. Luckily, the snow had lessened and provided only a lace curtain as he passed Agafya Ryabkov's lane and came around a curve to the open and the view of the lights of New Moscow.

Thirty minutes later the sedan sent up almost blinding clouds of snow as it bulldozed its way through the silent streets. On Suvarov he saw his first sign of life--a lone plow futilely trying to clear the major thoroughfare. Typical Fergana--prepared to only scrape futilely at the surface. At times, he thought the entire country was no more than a patina of Russia layered onto something far older. Now the patina was wearing off, leaving a vacuum in its place. Fergana could never be the Russia that was, just as there would never be another tsarina or another Yekaterina clad in a pink fluffy sweater and the hope of her youth.

There was only Fergana, but what Fergana was had never been determined. It was an agglomeration of people with a Russian overlay and something rotten at the heart of it.

The fact that only he seemed to care about the deaths of the two young people and now the death of the spy seemed to prove it.

The hospital parking lot had not yet been plowed, and parked cars had become abandoned snowdrifts caught in the amber lights of the lot. Khan's M.E. van sat pulled to the side of the building with a cleared front window and conspicuously less snow on its rooftop. Kazakov pulled the sedan in behind the van and climbed out into the amber-stained snow and waded to the stairs and down to the M.E.'s reception office. He stepped inside to the perennial stink of chemical air freshener and formaldehyde, pulled his threadbare hat off, and stomped off the snow.

The blue fluorescent glow of the lights flickered over pale green walls and the brown vinyl tile floor. The reception desk was empty, but that was normal at this hour and frankly, the last thing he needed was someone keeping track of his movements. The hallway leading back to the exam rooms was dimly lit. There was no sound, no movement except the fetid circulating air.

"Khan?" he called softly. There was no answer.

He headed toward the M.E.'s office and heard voices. Light spilled out the transom above Khan's barely open door. He eased along the hall and kept to the shadows while he peeked into the room. Khan at his desk, a person hunched in a heavy man's coat and hat sitting across from him, both now silent.

What the hell was Khan up to? The M.E. didn't look happy--at all. Did he have another late-night visitor, or was this something more? Kazakov had two choices: go in and find out, or ease away from the door and let Khan think that he hadn't been able to make it through the snow.

One way was a coward's way--the way the unsuccessful hero acted in a fairy tale. One way he'd be walking away from the case just like Rostoff would want him to--if Rostoff even knew about the dead body in the park. He pushed open the door and stepped inside into the scent of warm wool and--lavender?

Khan looked up, startled, as Kazakov crossed to the desk and Khan's companion.

Maria di Maria looked up at him, her brown eyes gone the color of honey in the blue fluorescent light.

"Detektiv Kazakov," she said and bowed her head.

"How?" He turned to Khan with his question. Khan did not look happy to see him even if the M.E. had called him.

Khan pushed up from his desk chair. "How does not matter. You are here. Let's just say that a friend of a friend of a friend asked me to bring her here and get in touch with you." He held up his hand before Kazakov could speak. "I don't wish to know anything. There is a file here on my desk that you may wish to read. Now I am going home. Please ensure the door is locked when you leave and don't ask for my help again."

Khan stalked toward the office door where he pulled on a heavy coat and a traditional tall Kygyz fur hat that Kzakov had never seen him wear before.

"I didn't ask for you to be involved," Kazakov said.

"And for that my wife and children thank you, but I fear it may already be too late."

Kazakov crossed to him. "What's going on, Khan? We've worked well together all these years. You're the one man I trust."

Khan met his gaze, then sadly shook his head. "The world changes, old friend. Everything does, and you seem to be the only one who does not see it." He pulled the door open and left, trudging down the hall toward the entrance.

Kazakov watched him go. He knew the world changed; he just wondered what it was changing into and how to make sure the change was for the better. He turned sadly back to Maria, who was still sitting.

Not better when he lost a friend.

"He's a worthy man. How did you get to him?"

Her faint, enchanting scent stuck in his nose reminding him of something sweet, perhaps from the happier times of his childhood. He hooked his hip over the side of the desk. She had stuffed her hair inside the hat so that, with her height, until you saw her face, she might almost pass as a man.

"I went to the old Islamic town. Given what I had learned inside the Red Veil, I thought that place might be safer. An old woman took pity on me because of the snow and she took me to her son. Apparently, word of a foreigner in their midst travels quickly. The next thing I knew I was bundled into a black van and transported here to wait for you." She brushed a nonexistent hair back off her face with an elegant white hand.

She smiled up at him, lighting those honey eyes like sunlight through a brown bottle.

"You waited for me at Yekaterina Park."

The smile brightened. "I did. But you left me there." Her gaze met his matter-of-factly.

"You disappeared. I couldn't find you."

He shook his head and rounded the desk, its bulk more comfortable between them though her hands looked so soft. He settled into Khan's chair.

"Why did you leave the Red Veil?" he asked, lacing his fingers before him on the file Khan had left. He would look at it later.

She blew out a sigh. "After you left, Frau Zelinka called me downstairs to find out what you'd wanted. I told her what I'd told you--almost nothing at all, I'm sorry to say." Her hands shook and she looked like she wanted to smoke. "You see, there was more to it. I am sure I know who the dead man was."

She lifted her chin like a smoker and met his gaze. "I mentioned him this morning--yesterday morning--the one called Collin. Collin Archer he said his name was. He had been to visit me three times in the past three months. Before that, for about six months he had come once a month. He was about five feet ten and slim, with the broken veins of a drinker--which is odd given every time he came to see me he only drank water. He was a nicer man than most. He liked to talk about the world and actually made me use the book knowledge that I had instead of simply being someone to fuck."

She looked at him sideways--to see if he was shocked at her language? Still not beyond a whore's games, then.

"Collin visited the night before last. He seemed distracted when we were together. I'd seen him talking to Prae when I came down the stairs to him. At the time, I thought she only offered him refreshments. Now I am not so sure. You see, after we were done it was quite late." She eyed him again as if for a reaction. "The house was quiet and I let him out of my room. He said I need not escort him down the stairs--it made him feel ungentlemanly forcing a lady out of her boudoir."

She smiled and brushed again at that absent hair. He found himself wondering once more what her hand would feel like on his skin.

"I stayed in the room but then realized that he had left a scarf behind. I left my room and went to the stairs but something made me stop--a thump, a gurgle--I can't be sure, but all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I tiptoed back to my room. I thought that was the end of it, but after you left, Prae came back to my room. She went to my window and looked out. She asked me, "How could you know if it was Collin?" and suddenly I felt like it was a warning. I thought of what I'd heard the night before and I was sure. I knew I had to get out of there or I was going to disappear or at least be found dead somewhere. So I ran."

Her faint perfume overlaid the dry heat of the building's radiator. He leaned back in the chair and swiveled it sideways but watched carefully from the side. "That does not seem like a lot to throw your--career--away? Barely a suspicion, really. I don't understand why you would fear for your life."

She went still as if she'd joined the ranks of cadavers in this dead place. Then she stood up abruptly. "I thank you for coming, detektiv. I am sorry to have wasted your time."

Stiff shouldered, she swung out the office door and marched toward the exit. He scrambled out of the chair and sprinted to catch up. He caught her hand. Her skin was softer than he'd imagined. "I don't doubt your story, Maria." He stopped her from pulling away. "I just don't understand why he would be killed in the Red Veil. Can you explain it to me?"

"Why should I? You are just like all the rest. All the men who think they're better than me."

He released her hand and stepped away. "It may surprise you, but that is not how I feel at all. You--puzzle me--and I am a man who lives always with puzzles. I think there must be other things happening at the Red Veil that have concerned you, for you are an intelligent woman. I need to know everything." He thought for a moment of the tingling that had filled him when he'd spotted Boris Bure on the stairs to the Red Veil. "There may be a link between the Red Veil and a pair of murders that I have been ordered not to investigate. I want to know why. I want to know whether Collin Archer's murder is somehow connected."

Her lovely face frowned as she crossed her arms over her chest and looked him up and down. "Then perhaps we can help each other to understand what happened--to Collin and to your other victims." Turning on her heel, she returned to the office. "I will help you."

He settled behind the desk again and pulled Khan's original manila envelope from his coat breast pocket and pulled out the photo of the dead man. "Is this Collin?" he asked as he slid the photo across to her on the desktop.

She did not touch it, simply leaned forward from the edge of her chair to study the face in the image. "It is him. Strange how the lack of life leaves a man... empty. Soulless. Something that was, will never be again." She touched the photo then, gently, as if it was a fragile flower. "I remember when I was a child. Abruzza--the destroyed village--she looked the same way."

Sighing, she sat back in her chair. "Of course, better like this than a living man without a soul. I have known a few of those. It is the empty eyes that betray them."

She glanced at him as if checking. She looked sad and tired, but there were too many things he had to know. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was almost six in the morning. The M.E.'s staff would be arriving soon. Khalil Khan would return as well, and Kazakov knew the M.E. would not appreciate finding Kazakov still here.

"I need you to tell me everything you know about Collin Archer, but not here. We need to get you some place that they won't look for you." He stood up and flipped open the file on Khan's desk, scanning down past the things he already knew. But the file was not the originals; Khan had copied everything for him as if he knew they might not have such a chance again. Thank you, old friend. You've taken risk enough.

He flipped the file closed and, with it in hand, led Maria to the morgue entrance, opened the door, and peered out into the gray of early dawn. The snow had stopped falling but the clouds streaming overhead from the Tian Shan and Fergana Mountains said that more was on the way, even though they had already received more than they usually received in November. Nodding at her to follow, he flipped the lock on the door and waded out into the snow, leading her to the car. Their path was clear in the snow and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Whoever arrived would see that someone had been here when no one should have been. He held the passenger door for Maria and then made a point of walking over their path a few times to make it less obvious how many people had been here. Then he climbed in beside Maria and started the car.

For an old beast of a vehicle, the engine roared to life and he only needed to rock the sedan once to get it plowing through the snowdrift that had settled around it. They crunched and rumbled out of the parking lot and into the street. They were the only traffic, which was a concern, for anyone with two eyes could follow them. He needed to get them amongst other vehicles so that their trail would be, if not lost, at least less clear.

"Tell me about Collin Archer," he asked as he steered slowly toward downtown New Moscow seeking more traffic. The architecture grew more modern, the bungalow-style housing and Islamic quarter abandoned in showy glass and steel that surrounded the huge plaza where the ornate eight-hundred-foot-long façade of the Winter Palace was pasted on a vast bunker of government offices. Facing it was the garish façade of Saint Basil's cathedral. Like Maria's comment about Collin's body, the cadaver of the ancient palace and church now seemed soulless, the originals long ago remade by the defiling Ottomans.

"He was--a cold man. Many who came to me were. It was as if the sex were obligatory or a physical expression of power. He was strange, both pale and not. He did not like to take off his clothes, preferring to take me from behind while still dressed."

He glanced at her and she sat stone-faced as gradually traffic increased on half-plowed roads. He drove them around until he was satisfied they weren't being followed and then turned them toward the hills. Did he dare take Maria back to his dacha or should he find another place? At the moment, he could not think of an alternative that could provide as much safety. Besides, he needed Maria close so that he could mine her information. He turned onto Suvarov toward home.

"He often spoke of England--its green fields and tall trees and how he missed them. He was good at languages, too. He spoke English and German and Russian and once we were passing Prae and she was talking to another Thai girl. I don't know what they were saying, but I think Collin did for he shook his head as if he knew what they were talking about."

"What was he wearing the last time you saw him?" he asked as the central part of the city was left behind.

"Dark gray wool trousers--expensive looking. A camel-colored Kashmir sweater. A scarf to match and his coat was navy wool, cut closer to the body than most men's. It made him look taller, I think. I think that was important to him."

Frowning, she looked out the window as they left the downtown, skirted the Islamic old city, and entered the wilderness of suburban sprawl. "Where are we going?"

"Some place safe," Kazakov said, keeping his eyes on the road, for the unplowed snow made the driving treacherous. "What more can you remember about the man?"

She thought for a few minutes. "He was a loner. He never came with friends, unlike the others from the Anglo-German Embassy. The others often asked for English girls--I guess they missed home--but he never did. When other English were at the Red Veil, he wanted nothing to do with them." She frowned. "When I think of it now, it is strange. It didn't feel so at the time. Perhaps my memory fails me."

She turned to him. "Perhaps I am unreliable?"

At that he did glance at her serious face. "Somehow, I doubt it." He looked back to the road. The houses were ending and ahead the world was a field of white turned gray by the heavy clouds. On the slopes above them the land undulated with narrow stream channels. There, hidden among the trees above one such channel, was his home. But the road through the field of white was cut by a set of deep ruts. Someone had driven this way before him. Beyond Agafya Ryabkov's place and his dacha, there were few other hardy souls who lived up here all year. Most of those homes were owned by wealthy people who had winterized larger, more expensive homes than his. Perhaps they had driven into town for work early this morning.

His uneasiness turned to concern when he reached his turn and the tire tracks turned ahead of him. He slowed to a stop.

"What is the problem?" Maria asked.

Kazakov inhaled. "I'm not sure whether there is a problem or not, but someone is here." He put the vehicle in park. "Stay here."

Cautiously, he climbed out of the car. The snow sifted down around him. The cold froze his cheeks and he was thankful that he'd thought to bring his old hat.

Keeping to the edge of the trees, he followed the tracks up his laneway. The snow lay less deep under the trees and the other tire tracks were clear, as was the black police sedan sitting by his front door.

He stood there, considering. Rostoff took kickbacks from the New Moscow brothels, but Kazakov couldn't believe that the man he knew would countenance murder. Though Kazakov had a sinking feeling about the evidence displayed in the dacha, police weren't going to hurt Maria. In fact, depending on who was here, they might be of assistance in protecting a witness.

Still... He would proceed with caution. Besides, where else was there to go?

He returned to the car and climbed in. "There are police at my house. I suspect that they will want to talk about another case--one that does not involve you. Stay out of any conversation about it. Depending on the situation they may be able to help us, but when we arrive we will say that you are my mother's sister's daughter. Her name is Alina and she comes from Kokand. Do you understand? Do not talk unless they ask you a question."

Maria cocked a brow at him. "Will that not be suspicious if I don't talk? A normal woman would chatter about her cousin, would she not?"

"This isn't a game, Maria."

She shook her head. "I am not playing one."

He dropped the sedan in gear and drove up the lane to park behind the house. Maria pushed open her door and climbed out, rubbing at the makeup on her face until most of it was smudged as if she'd slept with it on--perhaps on a bus.

Kazakov retrieved the shovel from the sedan and led the way around the house, a smile pasted on his face.

"It is beautiful here, after the snow," Maria/Alina said brightly as they stomped up the steps to the door. "So lovely on the trees. We have not so many in Kokand. So wide open, you know?"

Kazakov nodded and steeled himself as he pushed open the door. "So who is it who disturbs us on such a fine day?" he said, trying to be stern but friendly.

The single person in the room stood with his back to the door. Chief Inspector Rostoff apparently studied Kazakov's evidence wall. When he turned to them, Rostoff's flushed face was far from smiling.
Chapter 7

Kazakov's heart sank as Rostoff's furious scowl chilled the dacha even though the man had taken the time to stir a fire to life. In the columns of morning light through the frosty windows, Koshka crouched in the bed's furthest corner, her pupils dilated, fur fuzzed, and tail twitching unhappily--about as happy as Kazakov felt.

"Rostoff." Kazakov tipped his head hello and removed his hat. "To what do I owe this visit?" He made a show of helping Maria/Alina out of her coat and removed his own. Rostoff still wore his and his heavy fur hat. "You recall my cousin Alina from Kokand? She's here for a visit. I was just in town picking her up. The roads are not good, eh?" He shook his head.

Rostoff looked from one to the other, his heavy features going through permutations of fury at the fact that someone else was here and he could not simply explode at Kazakov.

Rostoff bowed his head in polite greeting. "Madam--it could not be Miss?"

Maria/Alina played her part and actually laughed. "Please. It is Miss because no one will have a strong woman these days." She shook her head. "Come. We will have tea. Take off your coat. This one must be a better host." She sniffed womanly disdain in Kazakov's direction.

Rostoff glanced at the evidence on the wall. "I think not. I must be on my way. I was simply looking for a pencil and paper to leave Detektiv Kazakov a note to call me, but now the note is delivered in person." He shuffled heavy-footed toward the door. "Join me a moment, Detektiv." He held open the door and motioned Kazakov outside.

Obediently, Kazakov stepped out onto the stair. Rostoff pulled the door closed behind them with a nod to Maria/Alina. Then he caught Kazakov's shoulder and shoved him against the wall. Snow from the roof sifted down over both of them as Rostoff glared.

Kazakov waited for Rostoff's fist, but instead of punching Kazakov, Rostoff hauled him in close by the collar.

"What the hell are you doing?" Rostoff growled. "You were told that investigation was over. You were given a task that surely even you could not fuck up, and then I learn that you have taken it upon yourself to waste resources investigating a drunkard's death. What am I to do with you, Kazakov? Tell me and convince me, because otherwise I know what I am sorely tempted to do." He let the threat hang chillingly undefined in the air.

"I thought I was a police detective. I was doing my job." Kazakov stiffened, holding his anger in check. This was no time to end up on charges for attacking a senior officer, though he was sorely tempted.

"Yes. Yes. A body. I know." Rostoff waved his words away as if they meant nothing. "I cannot afford a problem right now," Rostoff continued. "Nor can you. Least of all you. There is an election coming and there are people who do not want trouble. Do you understand? If you want to keep your job, keep your dacha, keep that 'cousin' of yours, I suggest you reconsider your actions. Do you understand?"

"So, to be clear, you are ordering me not to do my job."

Rostoff's face darkened. He leaned in close. "You listen to me, Detektiv. I am all that stands between you and being tossed out on your ass. Do you understand? Keep me happy and you just might have a job tomorrow."

Kazakov met his glare like he would the glare of a suspect. Rostoff had placed too many questions in his head. He waited until Rostoff finally released him and brushed snow off of his coat before starting down the stairs. Kazakov watched him to the car, assessing Rostoff's actions. This corrupt mu′dak, this ass hole, was the source of the problems. Rostoff was the reason Yekaterina's and Semetai'sdeaths went unsolved, just like countless other cases--because no one in the squad gave a damn anymore.

But Rostoff had said that because of the election he could not afford the problem posed by Kazakov. That suggested something more was going on and that someone else was pulling strings... Like Bure?

Rostoff circled his car and opened the door. Over the roof he peered back at Kazakov in his shirtsleeves in the freezing cold. "I expect that material from your wall in a box on my desk this afternoon along with your collections from the brothels."

His gaze carried an earnestness Kazakov couldn't quite believe. Their friendship had ended years before.

"Understand, Alexander," Rostoff said softly. "I am risking things to do you a favor. The alternative is not good for your health--or mine. Now get inside, old friend. You'll catch your death of cold out here like that."

Rostoff seemed to diminish a little. Then he shook his head and slipped into the car. It purred to life, then shouldered its way through the snow in the yard right over Kazakov's garden plot hidden under the snow. Rostoff's vehicle disappeared down the lane beneath the arbor of trees.

The rumble of the car's engine gradually faded, leaving the silence and the thump of snow falling off branches from deep in the trees. Usually, on winter days like this, he enjoyed the silence and the peace of his dacha. Feeling the sting of the cold on his skin, he blew a breath out as he turned to the door.

What the hell had that been all about? For a moment Rostoff had looked like a beaten man. Kazakov pushed inside into the warmth of Rostoff's fire and Maria's scent of lavender.

The way Rostoff had acted in the place, Kazakov wondered how many times the man had visited before while Kazakov was away. He looked around his home and nothing looked the same, just as Rostoff had changed during their conversation. The old tingling sensation burbled again in his gut. Something big was happening, but what?

Maria sat on the couch, Koshka at her feet sniffing her hand. It was a peaceful scene. One he could grow to like, but there was no sense of peace in the dacha anymore--only defilement.

"That is done," he said simply and went to the evidence on the wall. The photo of Yekaterina in her pink sweater stared, pleading, out at him. He tugged it from the small tack on the wall and the tack--like his dignity--tumbled to the floor down behind his desk.

"Are you okay?" Maria asked.

What could he say? That he'd failed and they'd found him out--whoever they were? That he was an old fool for ever thinking that he could go behind the backs of men like Rostoff or Bure to do what was right? That the investigation was over? But then why should Maria care about it at all? It had nothing to do with her--unless it did.

He looked down at Yekaterina's face. She had been so young. As young as the Yekaterina who had written her diary, exposing her heart on the page. This Yekaterina had exposed her heart to Semetai Manas and someone had killed her for it.

"Who is she?" Maria asked, coming up beside him. "She affects you so."

He sighed. "Just a schoolgirl who died. Someone left her body in Potemkin Park, naked and beaten."And yet her clothes had been folded and left beside her as if someone had cared about her. He nodded at the school photo of a smiling, handsome, dark-haired Semetai and pulled it loose from the wall. "She loved this boy. He was from the old town. Muslim. Someone killed him, too. He was shot as he ran from the town and no one is saying anything--not her parents, and his parents left town."

"And you are determined to find who killed them just as you want to find the Collin's killer. I think you are a good man, Detektiv Kazakov." One hand clasped his arm as she handed him a cup of newly brewed tea with milk. Steam curled up over its rim, carrying the heavy, earthy scent of oolong tea. "Drink this. It will warm you up and give you energy. I put three sugars in it."

Three sugars--his regular amount. How could she know that? He sipped and nodded. "Thank you. But it seems that the case must truly close--according to Rostoff and whoever gives him orders. He wants the evidence in his office--and probably destroyed."

He began pulling the papers off his wall and Maria helped him. Autopsy reports. Witness statements, scene photos. Photos of the bodies. He pulled open his desk drawer and withdrew his working file complete with the information he had quietly been gathering about the families. The Manas family had been merchants and well to do by the standards of those who lived in the old city. The import business had been handed down through generations and had stood the test of time and of the influx of Chinese traders who seemed to be muscling out much of their competition. The disappearance of the Manas family had left a void in the import sector that was quickly being filled by various Chinese newcomers. It had also left a number of the Muslim truckers and laborers out of work. Though it had only been a month since the family left, a few of the truckers had banded together to try to recreate the company, but their lack of acumen made their success doubtful.

On the other hand, the Weber-Bure family had gone on almost as if Yekaterina's death had not happened. Yes, there had been a funeral and the news had carried Boris and Natania Bure's sorrow in its broadcasts. After all, Boris Bure was becoming more and more of a public figure. He would run for the fledgling Reformation Party in the spring election. According to the neighbors, the already reclusive Natania Bure had not been seen since the funeral, but Boris Bure--well, aside from time off to attend the funeral and the subsequent reception, Boris Bure had proven himself a dedicated public servant and had not missed another day of work or electioneering. And now Kazakov had seen him at the Red Veil.

Kazakov glanced at Maria, who was peering over his shoulder at the file. He flipped it closed and tapped Yekaterina's photo. "You may know her stepfather--Boris Bure?"

Her eyes widened slightly and she returned to the couch to perch on its edge. She clutched her tea cup in both hands as she sipped. Finally, she nodded. "I know him--I've seen him. He was--is--an important man. Frau Zelinka always makes sure that he gets what he wants--and then cleans up after him. He is not kind to women. I was fortunate that I was not his type--it was usually the pale northern girls he preferred."

Kazakov leaned on the desk and watched her. She was a lovely, graceful woman, with a swan neck and long slim limbs that belied her curves. Her long dark hair flowed across the shoulders of the simple woolen workman's shirt she wore tucked into the waist of sturdy workmen's trousers. Her long feet were enclosed in thick, hand-knit socks and she'd worn thick-soled boots. Either she'd been prepared to run for a long while or someone had helped outfit her.

Still, unfortunately, he didn't quite trust her.

"How often did he come to the Red Veil?" he asked.

She thought a moment, her head tilting as if she would shake a memory loose. "It was about once a month. Then lately he has come more frequently--about once a week, I think."

"How long has he been coming once a week?"

She thought a few minutes. "I think about three months."

So before his stepdaughter died. His visits to a brothel were not because of Yekaterina's death.

"And how long had he been coming to the Red Veil before that?" Years, most likely. Men who liked brothels were long-term patrons and a man who came weekly was definitely a long-term patron.

"Nine months. I am fairly sure. I remember the first time I saw him. It was my birthday and he was such a good-looking man that I joked that he was my birthday present. Of course, he didn't take me." She smiled up at him.

He thought about the information. Maria had told him that Collin Archer had also been coming to the Red Veil for about nine months. Was it simply coincidence that Bure showed up at the same time? Simply chance that Bure was there just after another body was found? Kazakov thought about the man's ice-blue eyes and the hardness behind them. Was his willingness to find a connection between the two cases only because he did not like the man?

"Did Bure and Collin Archer ever meet? Were they at the Red Veil at the same time?"

She studied the dacha ceiling, the old wood beams complete with cobwebs that, as usual, he had neglected to sweep away for some time.

"I don't think they ever spoke in my presence. I remember being with Collin one night when Bure swaggered in." She glanced up at Kazakov. "Sorry. I did not care for Bure by then. He had already beaten three girls.

"Collin and I were having a drink and he had just stood up to visit the men's room. Bure swanned in and acted like he was a king. Collin sat down as if he'd forgotten his need to relieve himself."

As if perhaps Collin was meeting someone but dared not with Bure present?

"Who else was there, do you remember?" he asked.

"I recall there were two other girls and their dates in the room. They were Leskov and Polunin. Leskov is a businessman."

"In railways, yes. I know. And Polunin is a bureaucrat in charge of what passes for security in Fergana. Important men." With a possible spy at the next table with them.

"And Prae had just come to check that everything was fine in the room. But she only stuck her head in and left again."

"Was this before or after Bure came in?"

Maria frowned. "Before, I think. Is it important?"

Sighing, he shook his head. "I'm not certain. But there is something there." And it filled him with disquiet. Something was clearly wrong and Bure was somehow involved in all of it. It might seem tenuous, but the two cases were somehow connected by more than his imagination.

He set down his cup and scooped the documents and photos into a file, then headed for his coat. "You stay here. There is somewhere I must go. I should be back in a few hours."

§

By midmorning, New Moscow's few plows had been hard at work and traffic was moving in the city again. Kazakov's sedan plowed down as far as the houses and then had clear sailing--almost as clear as the wisps of clouds in the blue sky. They were fools' clouds, there to fool the unwary into thinking the storm was over, when really they were harbingers of things to come.

He glanced down at the file and the photos. Rostoff could have them. He would make his own archive--again. At the old town he pulled off and found a printer's shop on a side street that he'd recalled from a prior counterfeiting case.

He walked in to the sound of a bell overhead and the scent of ink and dusty paper. The place was poorly lit in the front, but a beam of light came from the backroom. Someone scuffed their feet, presumably in reaction to the sound of the bell. Then a thin, short man in a long-sleeved, white shirt and black trousers came into the shop.

"May I help you?" he asked. His white shirt had blue-stained cuffs that matched the blue skull cap he wore.

"I need the use of your photocopier."

The thin man pursed his lips and then shook his head. "I know you--polizia. Don't think I don't know your tricks. I let you in and then you plant evidence so that you can arrest me later."

Kazakov closed his eyes. He'd heard tell of such tactics when the department was under scrutiny for too few successful arrests and prosecutions. For a moment he wondered if such had been the case with the old counterfeiting file.

"Is your photocopier available or not? It may help solve the murder of Semetai Manas."

There. He knew that exposing his purpose could be dangerous, but in the old city he had to think that such information might also lead people to help him. The elderly printer's gaze narrowed, his lips thinning to a line.

"I do not want to see what you are doing," the printer said, looking Kazakov up and down. "I was there when the police came. I remember you, now. You--you are the one who is friends with Khalil."

The printer's knowledge surprised Kazakov a little. To be known as a friend was an honor amongst these people. Nodding, he held up the file. "I am--at least I try to be. Please help."

The printer nodded him back behind the counter and into the brightly lit back room. The printer left Kazakov to quickly copy the documents. When it was done, the little man refused Kazakov's money.

"Just find those who killed the boy. Please. The old town. It is not like it used to be. Now people are afraid. There are things happening." He looked over his shoulder in a motion Kazakov recognized as something he did himself--looking to the mountains.

"Things have changed," Kazakov said.

The little man nodded. "Many of us have family who did not settle when the Russians came. They make their livelihood with their herds and bringing goods over the mountains. But many families should have traded this year before returning to their winter places in the lower mountains. So far, they have not come and the passes are closing. There are whispers that something is stirring. People are worried that the war between the Chinese and Ottomans is returning and this time Fergana will no longer be a buffer."

Kazakov checked his watch and looked to the door. Tribal legends and rumors of war were not, at the moment, his problem. "Listen, I have other business to attend to and I must get these files to the man who demands them. But if people would be willing to talk to me about Semetai Manas, I would be willing to speak with them. Ask around. Tell them I will check back here at about noon tomorrow. Will that work?"

Meeting Kazakov's gaze, the little man nodded. "If this hurts these people, I will find men to kill you. It is too long we have allowed your people to take, take, take from us and our families."

Kazakov bowed his head. "We have all lost something. For your people it was your land. For us? I fear Baba Yaga has swallowed our soul. Thank you, friend. I will be here tomorrow."

He left in the milky sunlight of late morning, the wispy clouds having joined hands to form a haze over the sun. The temperature had fallen, too, and the wind came from the eastern mountains. It smelled of snow and he wondered again what had brought this unseasonable winter upon them. It was as if the world was intent in weighing them under.

In the car, he realized that he was hungry. It was many hours since he'd had tea the night before. At the edge of the old city he availed himself of a small restaurant run by a proprietor who looked like he might be of mixed Russian and Kyrgyz blood. Kazakov ordered a thick noodle soup that came mixed with minced carrots and potatoes and small chunks of lamb redolent with grease. He slurped it up under the less-than-friendly gaze of the proprietor whose lunchtime trade vanished as soon as Kazakov walked in. With the soup came a round of what Russian's insultingly called tribesmen's shingles--flat bread baked on the side of a brick oven with succulent, chewy crust that he soaked in his soup broth. When he was done, he paid and tipped the owner handsomely for his trouble before returning outside to the snow and wind. With his belly full, he no longer felt quite so cold.

He steered the old police sedan back to the Red Veil's location and climbed out. Sighing, he trudged up the stairs and knocked on the red door dreading more of Frau Zelinka's games. Instead, Prae must have seen him coming, for when the door yanked open she held a small tray of engraved silver.

"Frau Zelinka says I must give this to you, but I am not to let you in."

On the small silver tray rested the same brown envelope he had avoided in Frau Zelinka's boudoir. Even through his leather gloves, his fingers felt soiled when he picked it up and silently slid it into his pocket. Rostoff's retirement plan burned like a hot coal against his chest, and there were other establishments in the area to visit. He turned and returned back down the stairs, waiting for the sound of the door closing behind him. It came when he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Head down against the wind for his old hat's patchy fur allowed in the cold, he made the rounds of three lesser brothels. At each he casually asked about Frau Zelinka and the Red Veil and learned that she had long been feared for her connections to the country's most powerful men. She had apparently had a meteoric rise from whore to brothel owner that no one could fully explain except that she had quickly filled the void when the brothel's previous owner had died under mysterious circumstances. None of these other brothels served the upper echelons of government or foreign embassies like the Veil. At each one he asked a follow-up question: "Have you lost many customers to the Veil over the years?"

Two owners handed over their envelopes of cash with a shake of the head. The third, a thin, wizened woman named Zelda, narrowed her gaze at him. She had penciled eyebrows so rigidly arched that she seemed eternally surprised.

"Is this about him, then? Bure?" She sat beside a small, scroll-topped desk in a room of dark wood paneling that drank in the light from the small lamp above the desk. Through the dim light, shadows veiled paintings of naked men and women on the walls.

"Bure? What are you talking about?"

The woman's gaze turned cagey, the light catching the angles of her face to show her age. "You know who I'm talking about. Boris Bure. That bastard had that bitch Zelinka steal my girl Katya. I'd just brought her in when Bure decided he was too big for us and started going to the Veil. The next thing I know, two men are here. They drop a few thousand dollars on my desk and then bundle her off. I know it was Bure behind it. He always liked the youngest girls."

It took a moment to process this information. Then he frowned at the woman. "How long had Bure been coming here?"

The woman's smile was yellowed from too many years of strong tea and tobacco. "What is this information worth to you? You want the dirt on Bure? I have photos."

Kazakov shook his head. "If you had photos, you would have used them by now." And if he paid her, he had no doubt she'd probably sell that fact to Bure himself.

"A pity." She shook her head. "I always wanted to pull him down a peg. He thought he was so much better than us--a descendent of the great Yekaterina, no less." She looked up at him. "Well? What are you waiting for? You've got your money for the month. You stay here too long and that bitch Zelinka will have her lads after me again."

She turned back to her desk as if he wasn't even there. The envelopes in his pocket were heavy--just what did Rostoff charge for protection?

The weight of Kazakov's new knowledge was heavier. Katya. The young blonde girl who'd taken Maria's cigarettes.

The one who reminded him of Yekaterina.

Instead of returning to the sedan, he stood on the sidewalk outside the brothel feeling sick to his stomach and looked up the street. The Red Veil stood like a central jewel in a tiara of graceful houses that curved along the street edging the park. To either side of the Veil, some of the buildings had been turned into offices when families objected to the Red Veil in their midst. Kazakov trudged up the street toward them. He would have liked to have finished his interviews at the Red Veil but that was apparently beyond him given Rostoff's words.

The Detektiv Chief Inspektor would surely have a stronger reaction if he knew what Kazakov was about to do. He came to the house just past the Veil and climbed the stairs. There were no signs or brass placards indicating this was a business, so it must still be a personal home. The small alcove by the door was framed with white pillars that gleamed against the building's gray stone. White sills framed the windows and graceful lace curtains masked what lay inside.

He knocked on the door and soon heard crisp footsteps. The door opened to reveal a woman in a blue, silk suit with lushly embroidered lapels that reminded him of a sari's veil over her broad shoulders. The woman herself had high Slavic cheekbones and rich golden hair that had been tamed into a tight coil behind her head. The white blouse she wore open at the collar to expose a plunging décolletage left no doubts as to her lusher attributes.

"Yes? May I help you?" Her bright blue gaze met his, but it was guarded.

He introduced himself and produced his badge. "I am investigating the man found dead in the park yesterday morning. I wanted to ask whether those who live here saw or heard anything."

"I am sorry. I am the housekeeper. I come in only in the morning." She went to swing the door closed, but Kazakov got his hand in the doorway. There was no way this woman was a housekeeper.

"And the owner, those who live here?"

She shook her head, those precious gold locks bouncing on her head. "Mr. Enver is not here."

"Enver?" he asked?

"Enver Pasha." She nodded.

For a moment he didn't know what to say. For someone named Enver Pasha--clearly an Ottoman name and with an honorary title most often used for military and political dignitaries--to own a house next door to a brothel was unusual on so many levels. "And who is Mr. Enver?"

This time she gave an impatient toss of her head. "Mr. Enver is a businessman from Constantinople."

Interesting. "What kind of business is he in?"

"Why all these questions? He is not here. Ask them of him when he is back."

He bowed his head respectfully, for this woman would certainly report this meeting to her employer and the Ottomans were known to be quick to take offence. "When do you expect his return?"

Her sigh was deep as she looked back toward the depths of the house. "I don't know. It could be a few days or a few weeks. He is in the mountains. He goes there for the waters."

Odd, given the "waters" would be freezing.

The woman checked over her shoulder again as if someone or something was waiting.

"Mr. Enver lives here alone?"

She nodded. "Except when he has guests, yes."

"And you are here alone, now?"

Her lips pressed into a line. "I said I was. I am. I have work to attend to."

Kazakov held up his hands to placate her. "Then one last question. When did Mr. Enver leave for the mountains?"

Another deep sigh. "It was yesterday. Yesterday very early in the morning. He had not expected to go, but something called him away."

So it was not just a trip for the waters. He thanked her and the door thudded closed behind him as he started down the stairs. At the street he looked up at the house and a curtain stirred. She was watching him leave, and if he was any judge of character, she would be on the phone to her employer soon.

Why he was bothered by the conversation he wasn't sure, but something didn't sit right, beyond the fact that Enver Pasha had apparently left home just after the time Collin Archer was killed--at least according to Khan's estimate of time of death. Had he seen something and, like Maria, decided it was time to run? Could Enver Pasha feel himself at risk even if he was Ottoman? Kazakov added interviewing Enver Pasha to his list of things to do.

He checked at the homes on the other side of the Red Veil but no one had seen anything or, if they had, they weren't telling. Not unexpected when an establishment like the Red Veil had the influence to make any troublesome neighbor simply go away.

He waded through the snow to the place Collin Archer's body had been found and looked up at the Red Veil and Enver Pasha's house beside it. The two were built close together, and the way their eaves and dormers reached across their upper stories, they appeared to lean toward each other. Like sisters. Or perhaps they had been built by the same builder. He looked from the houses back to the spot where he stood and back to the houses again. Odd. He'd thought Archer was found in front of the Red Veil, but now that he considered the curve of the street, the body's position could just as easily be in front of Enver Pasha's house.

Considering what this might mean--to incriminate the Ottoman? Intimidate him?--he returned to the sedan. Either reason could lead Enver Pasha to leave the city. Of course, so could responsibility for the murder.

Kazakov headed to the low, bunker-style, politseyshiy headquarters. It was only three stories compared to the steel and concrete towers that had sprung up around it. The square that it faced housed a twice-life-sized statue of the original Yekaterina clad in a long, ornate dress and fur cloak, an extra shawl around her torso. The statue's hair was spun around her shoulders by a harsh wind as she held up a lantern and peered eastward--presumably through snow. That was what the great tsarina was beloved for--leading her people through the wilderness like Moses. But instead of desert, it was the frozen wastes of Siberia. Like Moses, she had died before she arrived in the promised land.

The stories told how she had shared her shawl and coat with women and children, and it was that generosity that had killed her with pneumonia--but not before the people promised to do her will and find safety.

He chuckled. As if there was safety for anyone trapped as Fergana was between the Chinese anvil and the Ottoman hammer.

He parked the car in the police garage and, original Weber/Manas file in hand, strode into the building. The front reception was a cavernous space of glass complaint kiosks along the rear wall that were staffed by junior officers. It was an onerous task, one every officer had to endure. He had hated his time there, preferring to be on the streets where the real police work was. Except it had turned out that wasn't the case. Not in Fergana.

Once through the reception area, the place was a warren of offices connected by hallways and elevators that led up to the officers' floor and down to cells in the basement. The one unique place in the building was on this floor--the central dispatch filled the center of the building with its radio equipment that reached out to all police in Fergana.

This afternoon most of the kiosks were empty and one harried looking uniformed female officer dealt with a lineup ten citizens deep. The air was chill and smelled of wet wool as he nodded at the people in line and crossed to a lone door at one side of the room. He knocked and was permitted into the hallway that ran in front of the dispatch center next to the bank of elevators and a stairwell. The duty officer, a dour older Russian uniformed officer named Tsitnikov, with the bulbous nose of the heavy drinker, looked him up and down.

"Haven't seen you in a while, Kazakov." His voice rumbled down deep in his throat and he stood close enough for Kazakov to smell the vodka Tsitnikov had sneaked at his break.

"I've been busy," Kazakov went to step past him.

Tsitnikov stepped sideways to block his path. "So I've been hearing."

Kazakov was tall and solidly built even if the years had shifted his weight slightly earthward, but Tsitnikov was bulkier.

Kazakov met his gaze mildly, assessing the other man's challenge. "Then you'll know I've got better things to do than argue with a glorified doorman." He shoved past the bigger man and stepped into the open elevator. The doors slid closed and he exhaled. Prisoners had been beaten in enclosed spaces like this. He would not put it past it happening to officers who stepped out of line. In the past, he had been viewed as an asset because of the cases he cleared. Besides, his clearance rates, and those of officers like Antonov and Alenin, took the heat off the others to perform.

But something had changed with the Weber/Manas case.

The elevator doors slid open on the third-floor detective squad room. A stink of harsh cigarette smoke, wet wool, and cold tea slapped him in the face. He stepped out of the elevator and the room went almost as quiet as the Blue Corner café had been. Eight officers sat or leaned on desks, tea cups in hand, cigarettes at their lips. One man, Pavel Chelomeyev--the youngest man on the squad, who had once aided Kazakov on a difficult murder case when Chelomeyev's partner Sherkov was ill--actually resumed typing as Kazakov wound through the sea of desks to his own. Detektivs Razin and Pogolin nodded hello. Might as well reclaim his hat while he was here. It didn't look as though the snow was going to stop any time soon.

The top of his desk was clear, as he usually left it, except for a single piece of paper that sat in the center. On it was a crude drawing of a bullet.A warning or a request--either way, something to rid the squad of a problem. He felt the heat of the gazes of the other officers in the squad. Were they all in on it? Someone snickered. Probably Sherkov--he had always been a weaselly khu i--a dick. Young Chelomeyev studiously typed out a report. The kid had shown promise. It was a shame he was partnered as he was.

Kazakov slid the paper off into the waste bin beside his desk. Razin and Pogolin looked away as if they'd rather not see.

Antonov looked up from the file he'd been reading, possibly catching a glimpse of the image. He heaved himself up. "Fuck. What fucking imbecile thought that was a joke? The man's just been trying to do his job."

Unaccustomed to feeling gratitude, Kazakov retreated to the break room.

"This is not the Fergana it once was--nor the police force I joined," Antonov said softly from the doorway.

"You think I don't know that?" Kazakov said as he poured himself a cup of steaming black tea.

Antonov shrugged. "I think you fail to see what it means for you. We all must do what's best for Fergana. You've been a good officer, Kazakov..."

The unspoken "but" seemed to hang in the air. Kazakov added three sugars and tasted, but the cup was as bitter as the situation. He abandoned it on the counter.

Was he out of date? Out of touch? An anachronism in the police force? Was Antonov, who was his senior, suggesting he quit--or worse, retire?

"I am what I was hired to be all those years ago," he allowed.

"A self-righteous, pig-headed, asshole?"

Kazakov smiled remembering days when they had laughed together. "Not going to change any time soon. Consider it part of my charm." He pushed past Antonov back into the room.

Across the desks, Alenin leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, as if a disinterested observer to the scene.

Kazakov turned to Chelomeyev, young, blond, ambitious, and trying his best to fit into the office. "Is Rostoff in?"

The baby-faced detektiv nodded. "I--I think he waits for you."

Kazakov nodded and dug in his desk's bottom drawer for his hat. He'd left it there the last time he was here.

The lynx and ermine hat with the earflaps wasn't there. Frowning, he looked up at the officers who had once been--if not his friends, at least his police comrades. Most were studiously looking anywhere but at him. Even Antonov, but then perhaps someone even older than Kazakov had to work to fit in.

Just how far had he fallen out of favor? If this was any indication, it was very far indeed.

He shoved the drawer closed with his foot and headed for Rostoff's office.

It lay beyond the elevator and down the hall in the direction of officer territory. He nodded once at Rostoff's secretary, Dabria Smirnova, a smooth-skinned officer as pale as Arctic ice whose uniform could not conceal her copious other charms, and knocked on Rostoff's door. She shook her head slightly: Rostoff was in his usual foul mood.

"Come," Rostoff's rough voice sounded through the door.

Kazakov shoved the door open and blue smoke met him. This was not the typical harsh smoke of local cigarettes. No, these--these were similar to those Maria smoked. He closed the door behind him.

"What took you so long?" Rostoff growled.

"I brought the file as you requested. And I brought the envelopes you asked me to pick up." He said it clearly, for there was every possibility their conversation would be recorded and used against him.

Rostoff's office was the only one delegated to the detective squad and though it did not sit anywhere close to a corner of the building--those offices being reserved for the Chief of Police and the senior officers--it still had the much sought-after view of the haunting statue of Yekaterina. Did it inspire Rostoff? Encourage him to care? Judging by the photos filling the white office walls--all of Rostoff shaking hands with various dignitaries--the only thing Rostoff cared for was himself.

Behind a desk of smooth dark wood, the man himself leaned back in a high-backed, black leather chair. A cup of tea in a fine china cup and saucer with golden edges sat steaming on his desk. A small version of the new-fangled electric samovar sat on a table in the corner, its sides glazed in china covered in scenes of the Russian diaspora. The machine was likely made somewhere in the Ottoman empire, but the irony was obviously lost on Rostoff.

Kazakov crossed to the desk and deposited the file and the envelopes.

"Open them," Rostoff ordered.

Kazakov flipped open the file. Yekaterina Weber and her pink sweater gazed up at him with her beseeching smile.

"Not the file, idiot. The envelopes."

Kazakov shook his head and stepped back from the desk. "You asked me to pick them up. You asked me to bring them to you. I will not touch what is inside those envelopes."

Rostoff's fleshy face reddened. He grabbed the edge of his desk. "And just what do you think is inside these envelopes?"

Lord, let him out of here. He did not want to play these games of cat and mouse. At forty-five, surely he was too old. He deserved respect--not that garbage on his desk.

He steeled himself, but the question was asked. Now his task was not to incriminate himself. "I do not know for sure. I believe there is money extorted from illicit businesses in New Moscow in exchange for police protection. But given I believe that the higher echelons of the police force arranged such a thing, I do not wish to know for sure, because I cannot countenance such a thing."

Rostoff's ruddy face darkened and a vein stood out on his forehead. Finally he gave a nod and Kazakov turned and left. He pulled the door shut behind him, but not before he heard the shatter of china. He would bet the china cup no longer existed. He left the building after checking for any messages and went down to the garage to leave the keys to the sedan and reclaim his own vehicle--a five-year-old Perseus import, a German brand manufactured in Tashkent. He'd bought the vehicle because he liked its sleek lines and had appreciated the fact it was four-wheel drive. He climbed into the black cloth interior and inhaled. A faint scent of cigarette and vodka lay on the air and the hairs of the back of his neck stood on end. He neither smoked nor drank in the Perseus.

He scanned the front and back seat. There was nothing to see. Plain black seats. Floormats mostly bare. He liked the car enough that he had taken great care to keep it clean.

Someone else had been here. Searching his vehicle?

At least they would not have found anything.

But someone wanted to know what he was doing. Rostoff? But the man already had a good idea what Kazakov was doing and didn't give a damn as long as Kazakov left the Weber case alone and picked up Rostoff's payments. So who? Whoever it was had access to the police parking garage.

So there might be another player in the mix, but either way he preferred the Perseus.

He started the vehicle and it purred like a contented Kochka. Satisfied, he backed out of his parking spot and drove out to the street. The streetlights came on in the dusk that came ever earlier each day. It was four o'clock.

The wind grabbed the few falling flakes and whipped them into a frenzy in the fading light. It was going to be a miserable night. He turned the car toward Suvarov Way and followed the road to the edge of the city as the heavy clouds drained the light from the sky. The snow turned to huge flakes that clogged headlights and windshield wipers, forcing him to stop twice to clear them.

When he reached the edge of the housing sprawl, the road that rose upward toward the foothills had disappeared and so had the light, so he drove forward into a swirling tunnel that had no beginning or end.

The Perseus's heater churned out heat that dried his woolen coat and melted the snow he'd brought in on his boots. The wind buffeted the large car and howled over the hood, so he was surprised when the wail suddenly stopped. He peered out the window and realized he'd reached the trees on the mountain slopes and they blocked the worst of the wind. Ragged flakes still swirled into his windscreen.

The snowdrifts had to be almost headlight high and the tires strained to keep contact with the dirt road. It was an unusual amount of snow. An inky void marked the turn to Agafya Ryabkov's dacha. The Perseus plowed past and he squinted to make out the turn to his house. The car's rear end slewed sideways when he turned.

The snow lessened under the awning of barren branches and he followed the ghostly line of hoary walnut trunks, here and there pine branches bowed almost to the ground. Ahead a faint light through the dacha windows glowed like a beacon and he touched the accelerator just before the Perseus entered the clearing so that the car had enough momentum to take him up and around the house to the semi-shelter behind.

When he turned off the engine, the metal ticked around him as the cold stole the warmth. He climbed out into frigid wind and stinging flakes and, with his collar up and head down, he waded to the front stairs and the door.

He stepped into the aroma of onions and garlic and was immediately transported years past to the days when Annushka cooked for him--before her betrayal. Before she left him.

Maria sat on a chair at the table, an open book in front of her--probably his. She still wore her men's work shirt and trousers, but she'd braided her hair at the back of her head and had washed off her makeup so she looked like she could be anyone's wife--or a cousin--certainly not a high-priced whore.

She smiled up at him, but he looked away and took off his coat, plucking the copied file information from his coat pocket. The thought was unkind, but he resented the reminder of who and what he'd lost. Once, he'd thought he'd have a family, but like much in Fergana, it had been an empty dream.

"I started dinner," she said.

He nodded and hung his coat and gun holster on their peg.

"I didn't know when you'd be back, so I didn't finish cooking it."

That was unusual. Annushka had always cooked the meal and become furious when he wasn't there to eat it as and when she had planned. Another nod as he crossed to his desk and thumped his newly copied file on the top. He flipped it open and Yekaterina, no longer on glossy photographic paper, started up at him. Perhaps it was fitting that the paper was dull. Apparently so was her memory to those who should remember--her family.

"I thought you had to turn those in," she said, coming up beside him. He could smell the fragrance of her newly washed skin. It was a memory he hadn't realized he yearned for.

"I did. I made copies."

Her perfectly arched brows rose. "Clever of you, but isn't that breaking the rules?"

"Probably." He considered what Rostoff would do if he found out what Kazakov had done. But regardless of all the instructions to the contrary, he was going to continue his investigation. This was a case that needed solving. He stabbed a tack through the photo of Yekaterina and tacked it back to the log wall. The rest of it followed. Let the rest of the world see it.

Maria started to help him, but he stopped her from handling the papers. For all intents and purposes, she was no more than another source of evidence. She had no right to touch the remains of Yekaterina and Semetai. Hell, she wasn't even Russian.

And just where had that bigotry come from?

She stepped back to watch him, then went to the kitchen. "I'll finish dinner."

"Don't do it for me. I'm not hungry." But his growling stomach called him a liar and he wondered what had brought this mood and such ugly thoughts into his head.

Still, pots clanked and spoons clattered. Beef that he'd had in the cold box sent a luscious scent into the air as he pondered the evidence.

How could the deaths of two teenagers on opposite sides of town relate to the death of a Chinese spy at a park in the city center? The only connection he could see between them was Yekaterina's stepfather.

He opened Khan's envelope and flipped the file open. All he'd had time to review was the photo. He pulled the small sheaf of documents free and spread them on his desk. Copies of the autopsy report and photo. X-rays. Lab test results.

He sat down to read, tuning out whatever Maria was doing in the kitchen.

Collin Archer had been a healthy male of about thirty-five to forty, contrary to the older countenance of his face. He had been of good health, though his skeleton showed slight signs of rickets--a common enough childhood condition in poorer families in China, from what Khan said in the report. Differences in hip geometry confirmed the suspicion of Asian ancestry--probably Chinese.

So in addition to the scarring from cosmetic surgery and the skin bleaching that covered his limbs and most of his chest and torso, there were skeletal differences that would be impossible to alter. Collin Archer was most definitely not born with the name that went with his renovated face.

He scanned through the rest of the report, but stopped when he came to the last paragraph. On the man's left hip, a small, unnatural flap of skin had been found that created a small pouch about an inch wide and three inches long.

Kazakov sat back in his chair, ignoring the wonderful aromas and the sound of his piecemeal china clattering.

A pouch like that was no accident. It was perfect for transporting something small and very, very precious. Once upon a time, traders from the east had risked their lives to bring out silkworm larva and the mulberry bush upon which they fed. Others had risked everything to bring out the source of spices and the seed. All had passed through the Fergana valley on their way to the west.

So what was so precious these days?

"You look very deep in thought, but dinner is ready."

Maria stood over him, an old blue dishcloth tucked into her trouser waist band. She brushed a stray hair off her face with a floury hand leaving a charming, pale streak on her cheek. Beyond her, Koshka was happily lapping up milk with her evening meal of crunchies. Clearly the cat and the woman had bonded.

"Milk is not good for cats. You should not have fed it to her." He stood and confiscated the little black cat's treasure. She mewed piteously at him. "Look what you've done!" he said and rounded on Maria. "She never begged before." Which wasn't exactly true.

"Perhaps because she did not know there was something better," she said stone-faced. "What is the matter with you? You are sour as old milk and have been since you returned. I had thought you a decent sort."

Was he sour? He felt it--sour and angry with everything curdled inside him in frustration at this case. Why was that? He'd had difficult cases before--and why take it out on Maria and Koshka? He glanced at her, for it was about the longest speech she had made aside from answering his questions.

"I'm no longer used to having people in my space. I don't like it." He ended lamely, even to his ears.

She settled her hands on her hips so much like his ex-wife he had to look away. "It was you who brought me here--to a place of safety and peace, I thought. Do whatever you want, but I am having dinner while it's hot."

She turned and left him and he heard the grate of china and the clatter of cutlery as he looked back at the file. Just why was he being this way? Maria had done nothing but make him a meal. Frustration was part of it, but only part. It was as if the whole world was getting under his skin--the job, the people. The damnable investigation that had no leads and made no sense. Why was he so damned determined to investigate in the face of this? Especially when everyone and everything seemed determined to discourage him. Even Antonov suggested that Kazakov should consider changing.

Changing into what was the question.

He had no idea. All he knew was that a girl in a pink fluffy sweater stared out at him whenever he closed his eyes. Her beseeching gaze seemed to suck him in so that he saw back through her to other Yekaterinas--all pleading for things to be different. A country saved. A people preserved. A life not lost in vain.

It all sat like a heavy weight on his shoulders, but there was nothing more that he could do at the moment. The snow held him here, and in truth he wasn't quite sure where to go with his investigation other than keeping his appointment at the printer's shop tomorrow.

He shoved back from the desk and went to the table--so different than Annushka would have done. Annushka had always been in a hurry. Food was slapped on the table so that they could quickly eat and she could get back to her studies. She had been working on her graduate degree in business communications and had finished it just before their relationship had finally shattered. From what he'd heard, along with a new husband she had completed further studies at a university in Nanjing and was now a senior official in the government communications office. It felt odd to even think of her after so many years. Maria had stirred the memories up in him.

He was not sure that he liked it.

Maria's table didn't have the jar of cutlery in the center that Annushka had preferred. Instead two place settings were set complete with dishcloths folded like napkins beside each place. In the center of the table, one bowl held mashed potatoes and another a steaming savory meat gravy that made his mouth water.

She took his plate and spooned potatoes onto it, then ladled the meat and gravy over. The room was filled with the spice of dill, garlic, and paprika. She handed him his plate and filled her own, then produced a rich red wine that he recognized as one that he had squirreled in the cupboard in another epoch when Annushka had just left. She poured two glasses, then sat looking at him.

"A blessing? Do you know one? It is your home."

A blessing? When was the last time he had something to bless? He shook his head and she bowed hers and spoke swiftly in what must be her native language, then looked shyly up at him. "I thanked God for bringing you to find me. I truly did not know what I was going to do."

A charming woman. Almost too much so, like a trap for his feelings. Nodding, he forked up a mouthful and tasted the bouquet of onions and spices overlaid on the light char of the strips of meat, in the smoothness of the gravy that mixed perfectly with the smoothly mashed potatoes. Another forkful found its way to his mouth before he even knew he had done it.

He felt her watching him and finally met her gaze. "Good. Very good, in fact. And I apologize for being sour as old milk. How did you do this? There was almost nothing in the house."

Maria shrugged. "I snooped and poked into all your secret corners and this is what I found."

Snooping was not something he needed in his home, though apparently he should get used to it given Rostoff's presence this morning.

She held up her hand at his alarm and smiled again. "Don't fret. I kept my snooping to the kitchen and your library." She waved at his low bookshelves beside the door and by the bed. "It was a pleasure to cook and a pleasure to read something Frau Zelinka did not require to stimulate conversation with our patrons."

"Apparently I had forgotten my secret supplies," he said and sipped the red wine rich with tannins and berry. He looked at the bottle and went still. It had been bought years before at a small winery in the foothills of the mountains on the way to a resort where he and Annushka had celebrated their honeymoon and later tried to save their marriage. The bottle had been packed away against another, bigger celebration that would never come.

It was sad, and yet Maria was the first woman who had come here since Annushka. Perhaps it was time.

He raised his glass. "To the cook." He clinked her glass and drank of the full-bodied memories.

"To saviors and safety. Thank you for bringing me here," she said and reached across to touch his wrist with her free hand.

It was the lightest of touches, barely a glance, but an electroshock ran through him and he yanked his hand back. She might be attractive, but the last thing he needed was a woman in his life and all the drama she would bring. This woman least of all.

Maria had gone still and watchful as if his reaction surprised her and she was not used to being surprised when her livelihood depended on reading men. Her gaze grew sad--and resigned. For her or for him?

"Collin Archer," he said. "When you were with him, did you ever notice anything odd about him physically?"

She sipped her wine and shook her head. "As I told you before, he did not take his clothes off. It was strange, but not the oddest thing I've dealt with."

Picking up her fork, she began eating again, gaze averted as if she sensed things had changed between them again.

"Did he have regular appointments?"

She shook her head. "I would know perhaps an hour or two ahead. Sometimes it would be difficult if I was with another patron. He always insisted on me, though. Sometimes he would change his time a little. Sometimes they would reschedule my other appointment with another girl."

He thought about it. Clearly it was important that Archer be with Maria. The question was why. Or else this woman was not the innocent she claimed to be. Had she not truly run, but been sent to spy on him and his investigations? Telling him these things could be a strategic way to gain his trust. To gain insight into what he was doing with Manas/Weber case?

"Tell me about the Red Veil."

Her brow rose. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything. How it works. Who does what? How do the girls come here? Everything. What is a day like?"

She chewed her food slowly as she thought. Then she nodded. "The girls come from all over Europe and Asia. There is even one who claims to be from America, but I believe she is Ottoman Greek and has just put on an act. That is part of Frau Zelinka's fame, that she has drawn girls from so far and wide. In fact, many of us were not drawn, we were sold. It is a hard life in many corners of the world. Wars, disasters, poverty. Frau Zelinka's chosen business takes advantage and we are brought here. When we are very young, they teach us things like the ancient courtesans were taught, so that when we enter the business we can properly please a man. We are taught how to dress, how to smile, how to touch, what to say." She shrugged. "It is a business. Our comforts and our bodies are our trade. We learn it well or we do not stay--sold again, to a lesser house far from Fergana. Frau Zelinka does not like her failures waving at her from the street."

Kazakov dipped his head, feeling guilt that such slavery existed. While slavery remained embedded in Ottoman and Chinese cultures, the Ferganese preferred not to think it existed in their past, even though the serfdom that had supported the great Yekaterina's world had been nothing more than a different form of slavery. And here Maria described how it existed in Fergana today and it was likely that many of the self-righteous politicians were patrons of the very girls who lacked freedom. So much for Ferganese pride at their enlightenment.

But that was not the issue--or at least not the issue now.

"Does she take older girls as well?" Kazakov thought about how the girl named Katya had been forcibly "bought" from her brothel for a patron who had shifted to the Red Veil.

Maria shook her head as she took another bite of food.

"Odd. I was told today that Katya was brought to the Red Veil at the request of a patron."

Putting down her fork, Maria looked at him. She nodded. "That is true. But she was only thirteen when she was brought in."

With her makeup on, Kazakov had thought Katya was sixteen. This new information said she was at most fourteen and more likely still thirteen and yet she was working. Rented out to any man who wanted her--like Boris Bure.

He no longer felt hungry, yet what was the difference between thirteen and sixteen? Yes, Katya was no more than a child, but all these women had been that young once and were still enslaved today. It was not right. He scrubbed his face, the stubble of his beard making him feel far too old to be suddenly questioning everything about his society.

"It is not so bad--our life. I began at fourteen. The man was gentle--Frau Zelinka makes sure of it. She keeps us safe."

He looked up and Maria must have read the revulsion and pity on his face. And she was justifying Frau Zelinka's use of children?

"You--this Katya--you were children. That is not right."

She sat back in her chair. "There are 'children' married with children of their own in some parts of the world, Detektiv. Some in these very mountains."

It was true, but that did not make the enslavement and prostitution of children and women right. "And yet you did not feel safe remaining there."

Sighing, she abandoned her food and sipped her wine while he ate in silence. "The youngsters bring us water and tidy our rooms. They sometimes watch what happens through closed-circuit television so they know what to expect, and Frau Zelinka will bring in a trusted patron to break them in. After all, she will, by that time, have invested greatly in us," she ended sadly.

"And who 'broke in' Katya?" The words tasted vile in his mouth.

She frowned over her wine glass, the lantern light flickering over her lovely features and catching in the darkness of her lashes. "I am not sure. It would have happened before she joined the Red Veil. When she came, Katya was happy--giddy even--like a schoolgirl. Her heroic, blonde, first patron had brought her a present. She went on about him endlessly."

Kazakov stiffened. Boris Bure. It had to be. Madam Zelda at Katya's original brothel had said Bure had had Katya taken to the Red Veil. But the description of Katya as giddy reminded him too much of the description of Yekaterina Weber before she died. It sent a shiver up his spine.

"Tell me how the Red Veil operates."

She drained her glass and refilled both his and hers, then nursed hers again, her elbows resting on the table. "The mornings are easy. There are no patrons until eleven o'clock, so we can relax. We bathe. Some do exercises. A few go out for a walk. Some practice musical instruments or paint and some even garden in the back of the house. We are normal women with normal interests. The mornings are the time for that. There are also fittings--Frau Zelinka has clothing brought in for us that fits the fantasies of her patrons. Sometimes they must be resized. There is breakfast from the main kitchen, usually eggs--and tea, of course. And doctor's visits--we must, at all costs, be healthy. At eleven we are all dressed and ready. Lunchtime patrons arrive and are served a meal and perhaps given a massage or whatever they need to relax to get through the rest of the day. And the sex of course. And in the evening there is more of the same, though massages are less and sex is more and it is a light dinner that is served. Behind it all there are the cooks and cleaners and the workmen who unload shipments and who do repairs, but most of them have their lives elsewhere and serve Frau Zelinka for a wage."

Shrugging, she sat back as if she'd done her job, but it still didn't tell him what he needed to know.

Kazakov looked down at his near-empty plate. With his fork tines he had shredded the remaining potatoes into futile tic-tac-toe designs--a game where nobody wins. "So as a patron I arrive in my Ziln at the front stairs of the Red Veil. What happens?"

She pursed her full lips. "I suppose if the place is open, Sergei, the doorman, greets you and ushers you up the stairs. He would also make sure the stairs are free of snow. He will hold the door for you and usher you into the arms of whoever is assigned to answer the door."

"So it is not Frau Zelinka who welcomes patrons?"

Maria shook her head. "Almost never unless it is a very prestigious client. Usually it is Prae."

"Never you?"

She smiled. "I have not the talent. As you have seen, I can be abrupt and pushy sometimes. That is not the face that Frau Zelinksi wants for the Red Veil. Besides, I am not exotic enough. Nearly as plain as a Russian girl. So that honor goes to the others."

He thought of Collin Archer going into the Red Veil. "Do you know who greeted Collin Archer when he visited?"

She shook her head. "This last time it was Prae, but I can't recall the other times."

And it was something he doubted could be checked.

"So I have come in the door. What do they do besides closing the door behind me?"

She frowned. "I don't understand. What does this have to do with Collin Archer's death?"

"It is important that I understand all the people he could have come in contact with." He would not say more than that.

Her expression firmed. "His coat and hat would be taken and hung away. The same girl on the door would lead him into the dining room where waiters would bring in the food, but his date would serve him and sit with him through the meal. He might also arrange for a single dining room, but Collin never did. I think he liked to see everyone around."

For a spy, that made sense.

"After the meal they could adjourn to the parlor where there was music and they could enjoy a smoke. Some of the men might speak together, but Collin rarely did. Usually we retired up to my rooms."

"And when you got there?"

She looked him squarely in the eye and her expression hardened. "We fucked, or course. You want to know the position?"

He ignored her barb. "Did he have rituals? Did he give you gifts or things to give to anyone else? What did you talk about?"

She shoved away from the table so hard the dishes clattered, and she crossed to the window to peer out into the darkness and snow.

"Why do you treat me like--like a criminal? I've told you everything I know. He would come in. He would have me over the edge of the bed with our clothes still on as if he was in a hurry to get it over with. Then he would sit on the bed and smoke and talk about history. That is all I know." She crossed to the package of cigarettes he had returned to her and dug out a smoke with shaky fingers.

"Did Collin ever say who he worked for?" he asked.

She glanced at him and shook her head. "I've no idea." She lit the cigarette with shaky fingers and inhaled. Held and then released a blue tendril of smoke that rose up to circle the ceiling.

"Why does this upset you so much?" he asked from his chair.

"I have no idea about that either," she said, looking away to the reflective window. "Or perhaps I do and I do not like the reason."
Chapter 8

Kazakov lay awake too long, the plank floor too hard under his shoulder, even with a blanket under him and another pulled over top. Initially, he had tried to sleep on the sofa, but the piece of furniture had been too short and uncomfortable for his length, so he'd shifted to the floor and stretched out. But now the sounds of another person were too loud in the dacha. A sigh. A breath. The soft, rhythmic thump of the wind bumping a tree branch against the wall that could just as easily be Maria's heartbeat. Or the stump and groan of Baba Yaga. The dacha was almost the perfect image of the old crone's lair--a small house in the forest just waiting for some young nobleman or a foolish princess with raven hair. Both would fall into her clutches and only the wisest, with the help of magic, would escape her dungeons. The odd thing with Baba Yaga was that, according to the old stories, the old witch could sometimes be an ally, help bring the prince and the princess together, or help them escape evil pursuers.

An enigma, that's what the old woman was. No matter how well you knew her, you didn't.

Just like Yekaterina--all of them.

He groaned and rolled over onto his back, beat his pillow into a new shape, and pulled the blanket around his shoulders. The floor was the coldest part of the house, though he had laid out close to the wood-burning stove. But hours had passed and the huge log he had placed in the burner to hold the fire overnight had long since settled into ash and embers that would sputter and glow until morning. He should get up to feed the stove, but did not want to disturb Maria.

"You have not slept at all, have you?" Maria's soft voice came from his bed.

Blankets rustled and then a slim white shape clad in his shapeless t-shirt stood over him in the darkness.

"Come to bed. It is cold on the floor and it is not fair that I steal sleep from you." She caught his hand and again there was that tingle that threatened to awaken feelings long locked away in a dungeon like Baba Yaga's prisoners. Attraction to a woman was not something he had room for in his life. They needed too much of him that was already consumed by his job. Attraction to this woman was even less acceptable. She was a witness. She was a victim.

She was a whore.

He could already hear Rostoff and Antonov laughing.

"I'm fine here." He tugged his hand away, pulled the blanket higher. He didn't want her and her lavender fragrant hair or her smooth skin. He'd given up that kind of pleasure long ago. Annushka had burned the desire out of him.

"You will not be able to think if you are tired, and you must be able to think if you are to solve this thing." She stood with her hands on her hips above him. "Take the bed for what remains of the night. I have slept. I will doze on the sofa."

She stripped the blanket off of him and curled up on the small sofa as he came up off the floor protesting in his skivvies and t-shirt. She waved him away.

His bed was there and the need for sleep weighed heavy on him.

"Fine." He stumbled to the bed.

He climbed in to be confronted by the cocoon of her warmth and her lavender scenting the sheets.

He lay like a board on his side, his back to her, but still felt her gaze on him through the darkness. The dark fall of her hair like a wave. The graceful way she moved. He could picture it even when his back was turned.

"Eto piz'dets," he muttered. This was so fucked up. He wanted her, but he should not. He could probably have her with just the flick of a finger, but he would focus on the case and solving it. He knew so little about this Collin Archer.

The man was an enigma, too. Kazakov knew nothing of his life. Where did he live? Where did he work? What was he doing in Fergana--at least on the surface. If he could identify the surface, perhaps he could peel it back to find out what was underneath. He needed to go into the office to gain access to the computer. He should have done it yesterday, but the extortion money had burned in his pocket and he had wanted to get back to Maria.

It was like this woman and Yekaterina had destroyed his mind, his logic. It was the first rule of investigation: know your victim and you will be that much closer to finding the killer. Instead of gaining that knowledge, he'd spent yesterday copying files and collecting bribes.

He groaned and rolled over to find Maria standing over him. Her white skin seemed to glow through the t-shirt. She sat down on the bedside and stroked his hair back from his forehead, stroked his cheek and leaned down and kissed him there.

Her gentle touch froze him. He couldn't move. Wanted to move. Wanted to tell her to get the hell away from him. He did not need distractions. Was that why she was here? To distract him?

But he had brought her here.

Had that somehow been a trick, too?

"Is this what they teach you?" he said harshly and felt her wince.

"Yes. It is," she said with a grace he would not have thought possible. "We bring comfort and relief. Now close your eyes. Sleep."

Her hand stroked his head as his mother had done, so many years ago it was almost a legend. He obeyed and his breath escaped him in a long sigh. The bed shifted under him and her long slim shape stretched beside him. Her hand stroked his head, his shoulder, his back. Her lavender scent filled his lungs with her presence.

The image of young Yekaterina stroking Manas's hair came into his head. They were on a blanket spread on a vivid green lawn. Walnut tree shadows dappled their skin as they lay side-by-side facing each other. They were talking--about love, about leaving, but something else, too. Though Yekaterina's touch was soothing, there was a rapid beat to her heart. Yekaterina was afraid.

So was he.

§

Kazakov woke with a start, as if he just now remembered to breathe. The dim, pale light of morning sneaked past the floral curtains covering the dacha windows. Koshka's furry form lay warm behind his knees, while Maria pressed her warmth against the front of him. She lay outside the bed covers, with his thin blanket pulled over top. One bare shoulder had goosebumps while he was toasty warm.

He needed to get up. Let her have the covers, the bed. He had things to do this morning, not the least of which was visiting the printer's shop again.

He first tried to shift Koshka and the black cat mewed in protest and refused to budge. He shoved her out of the way and slid away from Maria toward the wall.

She moaned and rolled over, snaking one long, smooth arm over him. Her face was too close, her breath too hot in his face. He eased away, intent on climbing out over her.

But she tugged him in closer and her eyes flashed open. She smiled. "Good morning, Detektiv."

Then she kissed him.

It was a shockingly sweet, chaste kiss--to start. But it lingered and morning breath dissolved in desire. Her lips and tongue played over his mouth and he couldn't move. No. He wanted it, was hungry for it. Starving.

His hands snaked up and caught her hair, her head, and he kissed her back. His hands sleeked her hair, her shoulder, her breast.

What the hell was he doing? She was distracting him again! This was exactly what Rostoff would want in order to compromise him! He shoved her away and rolled off the bed, leaving her huddled in sheets and blankets. He should be starving for answers to this case. That was where he should be focused.

She looked up at him, her hair and gaze tangled with sleep. "You do not need to stop. I would have welcomed you."

"Would you? As payment? Or a job? I keep you safe, you pay me in kind? Or perhaps there is another reason for you being here that you've not told me? Perhaps someone else pays you?"

She blinked as if he'd struck her, the sleepy languor faded away. "I wanted to be with you. You are kind, but oh, so lonely. I wanted to take the loneliness away--at least for a little while. Is that so bad?"

He snorted.

"I do not kiss just anyone."

"Aah. The myth of the whore who keeps her kisses sacred." He stepped into the water closet that occupied a small shed he'd added to one end of the kitchen for Annushka when she complained about using the dacha's outhouse. The unheated room also held a metal tub he could haul into the kitchen for his weekly bath. Sometime in the future, he really should build a proper bathroom. Back in the kitchen he doused his face and brushed his teeth in the kitchen sink, then pulled on the trousers and shirt that he'd hung on the back of a kitchen chair last night. He pulled clean socks from a bin under the bed and pulled on his boots, gun holster, jacket, coat, and old fur hat. "I have work to do. I'll be back."

He shoved out the door into--cold.

Sometime last night the snow had stopped and the sky had cleared, leaving a scraped-clean bowl of blue overhead. His breath steamed in the air. His cheeks, nose, and ears stung. There was no wind and the trees around the clearing were a lace of black limbs and glistening white, the boughs weighed almost to breaking with their load of snow. In the silence, a cr-r-a-ac-ck in the forest said a branch had given way under the load. A trace of smoke and the smell of burning wood filled the clearing from the dacha's chimney, telling him that Maria had risen and stirred the fire to life. Her choice. She could read or do whatever women do. She was safe and she owed him nothing.

It was a bad idea bringing her here, but what was done, was done.

With some regret he left a trail in the pristine snow and climbed into the frigid vehicle to turn the key. The engine complained and then roared to life. He climbed out and scraped the windshield clear, then eased the resistant clutch into gear and backed out, surprised the vehicle could handle snow deep enough that he really should shovel. He aimed for the tunnel through the trees that marked the lane and the Perseus rumbled forward. In the rear view mirror, Maria stood at a frosted window.

Was that how she lived her life? Always looking out, hopeful?

He hated to tell her, but there was nothing better outside.

Perhaps there was no such thing as freedom.

§

The drive in was uneventful, the roads mostly unplowed this early in the morning, though a lone behemoth plow prowled the main street sending up a huge stream of snow onto the sidewalks. No one would care. Anyone who was anyone drove.

At the police station he drove around the block until he found a side street that hadn't been cleared. He pulled into the curb, regardless of the fact that he would likely find the Perseus covered in snow upon his return. Clearing snow was preferable to once more finding his vehicle searched or tampered with. He waded through the frigid morning, his ears and nose freezing regardless of the old hat he wore. He was going to have to replace his missing one.

At the station, it was as he suspected--no one was in the detective squad room at this hour. It was too early. Only the aroma of old cigarettes and cold tea from the unwashed cups on the desks greeted him. He left his coat on his desk and went to the data machine in the corner. There he prepared a search for Collin Archer and fed it into the machine.

He sat back waiting, keeping an ear open for the sound of voices approaching as the machine's lights flashed. No one came. The green light blinked and the screen lit up. He stabbed for a printout and the busy rat-a-tat of the keys filled the room. Then the page fell down into the basket for his collection.

He returned to his desk and started reading.

Collin Archer. Age forty-one, so Khan had been right that he was younger than his face. Arrived in Fergana six months ago on a business visa. His documents said he was an executive for the Anglo-German company, AngloTec, and had an apartment in a quiet part of the city.

Kazakov frowned. AngloTec had arrived in Fergana with much fanfare four years before. They had planned to build a large factory that would specialize in miniaturized communications equipment--going head-to-head with Ankara, the largest Ottoman company, and with ShenZhen out of China. The factory had gone up quickly, most of it built in pieces in Europe and then carried by train across Eurasia because, the news reports had said, the Anglo-German consortium that owned AngoTec had been concerned about building quality in a backwater like Fergana. It had caused a firestorm of resentment, but that hadn't stopped Fergana's best and brightest from flocking to the relatively well-paying job opportunities at the company.

If Archer was an executive for the company, why hadn't he been reported missing? It didn't make sense for the disappearance of an important man to go unremarked. Were the Anglos aware they had a spy in their midst? And spying on what? Corporate espionage? That would make sense. Neither Ankara nor ShenZhen would be happy about the competition.

He frowned. Perhaps he was wrong to think that there was a link between Archer's death and that of the two teenagers.

What did he have to pin them together other than Boris Bure's presence at the Red Veil?

He needed to know more about Bure, too. But running a name like Bure on the police computer was likely to set off a few alarms somewhere. For all the democracy that the original Yekaterina had bestowed on them, the rumblings of war between the two empires and awareness that Fergana was awash in spies meant that the government was keeping a closer watch on everyone these days.

Was that why Maria was with him? Sent to keep track of him? Did she have a phone he hadn't seen? He hadn't searched her or her belongings.

A part of him resented his suspicions, for there was no question that something about Maria attracted him. He could still feel the smoothness of her skin, could taste her lips and smell her infernal lavender scent as if those transitory sensations were branded on him.

He grabbed his cup with a three-day sludge of tea at the bottom and went into the kitchen to run a glass of water. Cleanse his mouth. Find something to eat and bury her taste. But her lavender scent was on his skin, his face, his hands. He washed again, in the office washroom, but her scent didn't come off. He washed again. And again.

But apparently only time would rub her off. That and getting her out of his house.

The folded Archer printout in his pocket, he headed out the door and outside. The three-story main library was only three blocks away. His karakul collar up against the cold, he waded through the heavy snow, stepping into the street where it was plowed until he reached the library.

At eight thirty in the morning the place was still closed, so he retreated to a café with a lone sad-faced waitress, six small metal tables and chairs, and a grease-spattered kitchen. On the wall hung a painting of the original Yekaterina's palace gaudily painted to fit the painter's vision. Fireworks darkened the sky behind the building--or perhaps it was cannon fire.

As the lone patron, he listened as the radio droned on with news stories about the mounting tension between the Ottoman regime and the Chinese Empire. Both were saber rattling again and demanding that the other reduce their strategic build-up of arms along the border between the two powerhouse nations. The Union of American Nations, a coterie of small states from South and Central America along with the United States, had joined with the Anglo-German Empire to urge calmer heads to the table. Of course, Fergana sat in the middle of this hot spot, armies crowding her borders, but a point of calm reason between the two fractious nations like the eye of a growing typhoon. The international community was suggesting mediation.

A further story spoke of government corruption in the lease of mineral rights in the Fergana mountains. The opposition party was screaming that the president should step down. Pundits were interviewed about the heir apparent to replace him. They mentioned Boris Bure and the Reformation Party.

In other news, two children were rescued from a collapsed well in Kokand. In America, the latest president of the eastern seaboard country refused to give into Anglo-German pressure to stop slavery and more sabers were rattling on that continent over Anglo-German North America refusing to return runaway slaves. The Anglo-German empire had demanded that independent African states cease their human traffic, though Ottoman North Africa still continued shipments. The Anglo-German navy had had skirmishes with the Ottomans when they tried to cut off shipments. As a result, America was implementing a government breeding program to "produce superior workers to support domestic industry."

Kazakov shuddered and let the drone of the announcer sweep over him. The shipment of human cargo. Wasn't that what had brought Maria here, too? For all the self-righteous posturing of the Anglo-Germans, slavery was happening right in their own backyard. It must not have been easy for Maria and the others like her. Perhaps she had tried to thank him in the only way she knew how.

Perhaps he had been too hard.

Considering this, he sipped sweet milk tea and feasted on a simple breakfast of heavy rye bread, fresh butter, and piping hot sausage that leaked warm grease into the bread. The sausage popped with each bite and the bread required good teeth, just as this case required much thinking. He needed to visit AngloTec Industries to gain further insight into Collin Archer. Perhaps the man was on holidays so he had not been missed. He needed to visit Archer's apartment, too.

Beyond the frosted front windows, the city slowly woke, cars droning down the plowed street while shop owners arrived and slowly shoveled a trail through the snowbanks that the plows had created.

He nursed his meal and his tea until nine thirty and then paid his bill before shoving out the door. Across the street, the library had just opened and he headed to the entrance, following behind another patron, a woman, bundled against the cold. He pushed inside behind her as she pulled her scarf from her hair. Blonde. Slim.

Then he caught her profile. Natania Bure stood in front of him, unaware of who had followed her in the door.

He hung back with the draft by the door, surprised that she could be here.

Logic said he should leave her alone. Bure had the power to make Kazakov's life hell for bothering Bure's wife. But a coincidence like this was too good to be ignored. It was as if the universe had brought her to him. It was his chance to talk to her again. To gain a better understanding of what had happened within the family and perhaps of who had killed Yekaterina. Instead of heading to the periodicals section, he hung back and followed her inside.

Natania Bure opened her coat and threaded through the lines of book shelves as if she knew exactly where she was going. Though she had a book bag in her hand, she neither returned a book nor picked anything up from the shelves. At the rear of the library she settled at one of the tables, pulled a magazine out of her bag, and began to read. Her face, never fleshy, looked gaunter than when he'd last seen her and, though she had not been a big woman before, now her sweater set hung from her shoulders and her no-nonsense black boots were scuffed. Even her tightly coiffed hair seemed to have loosened, letting fly-away hair escape around her face.

The past month had not been kind to Natania Bure.

Kazakov picked up a random book from a shelf and found a chair where he could pretend to read while watching. For fifteen minutes the woman neither looked up nor checked her watch as if she was waiting. No, this was more the look of a woman who was, for a few minutes at least, escaping into a place that was purely hers. Interesting. Perhaps her home life was not the perfect place she attempted to present to the world.

When he finally decided that no one was joining her, he sauntered over, stood across the table, and waited.

Three beats of his heart and she raised her gaze to his. Her eyes widened and her lips moved.

"You," she mouthed, but her voice was silent. She closed her magazine.

"Mrs. Bure," he said, keeping his voice pleasant. "Such a pleasant chance this is. How have you been?"

Her mouth moved again and finally words came out. "How do you expect after the loss of a child?"

Now, finally, she sounded more like a bereaved mother. He looked down at the table and chair between them. "Do you mind?" he asked as he pulled out the chair and slid in to face her. "I expect you must miss Yekaterina terribly. She was, after all, your only child. I am still sorry for your loss."

As she met his sympathetic gaze her fingers white-knuckled her magazine into a cylinder as if he was a fly she would smash.

"What do you want?" she asked. "My daughter is dead."

"I know," he said. "And I don't go through a day without thinking of Yekaterina. I wake at night wishing I'd found the culprit. Don't you wonder who did it? Don't you wish he was caught?"

Her gaze slid away from him down to the magazine and she made a show of flattening it out on the table. A simple magazine of Russian crafts. A typical magazine found in many Russian homes.

Finally she nodded. "Every day."

It was what he'd hoped to hear and he leaned forward. "Then help me. Talk to me and tell me what you know. What happened that last night at home? What was going on between her and Semetai Manas? What do you know about the murdered boy?"

It was wrong--wrong to inundate her with so many questions, but it was as if a flood gate opened and the questions spewed through the spillway of his mouth to crash over Natania Bure. Her gaze, tentative at first, turned frightened and she looked around as if seeking rescue.

Then she folded the magazine again and stuffed it into her bag. "I can't speak to you. I need to go."

Kazakov caught himself. "Why can't you speak to me? Has someone told you not to?"

She hesitated and looked at him. Shook her head and buckled the book bag closed.

"You know I'm still searching for her killer. I will find the truth for you."

The bookbag slammed onto the tabletop, and she leaned forward, her face skeletal, her expression as ferocious as a mother protecting her child. "Don't. Just don't. There are some truths that should not see the light of the world. Do you understand? Don't help me. God help me, don't look any further--not if you truly care for Yekaterina."

She yanked on her coat and he knew he only had a moment. One more question. One more chance.

"Have you ever met a man named Collin Archer?" he asked, watching her face for signs.

Hat and bookbag in hand, she glanced at him one last time. "Do not follow me again, Detektiv."

Then she was gone--almost running toward the door.

Kazakov sank back in his chair. He had not meant for it to go like that. He certainly hadn't meant to spook her or cause more pain. He should have spent time enquiring as to her health and welfare. He should have asked her about crafts she enjoyed--anything to build rapport. Instead he had done what even the most rookie investigator knew not to do--he had gone for the jugular and elicited a reaction. Clearly her daughter's death caused Natania Bure significant concern. He did not understand what had her too afraid to help find her daughter's murderer. It made no sense. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. But he had the answer at least to his final question. He'd seen the flare of recognition in her gaze.

He'd found a connection between the cases.

When he left Natania's table, he returned to the front of the library and the quiet bustle of kiosks opening and the calming scent of dust and old paper. He inhaled the scent that had been so much of his childhood. His father had never had time for a child after Kazakov's mother had died. So Kazakov spent his free hours here or with books borrowed from the library, burying himself in fairy tales as a child and in adventure fiction as he got older. Even at the dacha he had often preferred to read rather than accompany his father when hunting.

He went through the archway to the newspaper archive section. Gradually the Fergana State Library was following the example of the great libraries of Europe and Asia by saving the newpapers electronically to reduce the space they took, but in Fergana--often a late adopter of new technology--they were just at the beginning of the process.

The newsprint archive was a separate room at one end of the huge block building. The room was a cavernous hall under low ceilings with flickering fluorescent lighting, filled with long rows of shelves hung with yellowing copies of newspapers like so many parchment bodies. He found the librarian, an ancient, wizened man with bent back and head almost devoid of hair save for dense sproutings out of both ears and a ring of gossamer white around the back and sides of his skull. He wore a dusty-looking, green cardigan and shiny, baggy gray trousers.

"I'm looking for articles on a company called AngloTec," Kazakov said."Can you tell me where I might find them?"

For all his age, the librarian's gaze was particularly sharp. "Anything in particular?"

"No." Kazakov shook his head. "I'd like to look at everything."

The librarian pursed his lips. "That's a lot of reading."

Kazakov considered the man. There was something about him that was vaguely familiar. "I'm looking for articles that give me some insight into the company and in particular for information about its executive team."

The librarian thought a moment. "Take a seat. I will be right back."

He shuffled off into the dusty rows of yellowing paper and the reek of printer's ink and Kazakov settled into an old straight-backed chair at a scarred table. Soon the librarian shuffled back, his dragging feet on the concrete floors sounding like he walked though old leaves. He dumped a heavy pile of yellow newspaper sheaves on the table.

"Start with these. If you narrow your search, ask."

He walked away, his work done, and settled behind a desk in the corner. He picked up a book, but slowly his head began to nod, his chin slipping lower until is hit his chest. The fluorescent lights glimmered on his smooth head.

Kazakov turned back to the stack of papers and began flipping through. In a paper dating back about five years, he found the first excited announcement that AngloTec was building its factory. It was a government press release speaking of the many jobs the corporation would provide to Fergana's economy and how the brain-drain to the world's scientific hubs of Constantinople, Nanjing, London, and Berlin would stop.

He flipped through more papers. More announcements. More background on AngloTec as a foremost research center and producer of domestic and military technology. Status reports on the selection of the factory site. Then came the big announcement of the ground breaking. There was an artist's rendition of what the factory park would look like--a spacious, low slung building surrounded by mature leafed trees and actual parks for the neighboring town to use. This was followed, about a year ago, by a front-page article about the grand opening. It included photos of the people attending the ribbon cutting.

There, smiling up at him from the middle of the group of dignitaries, was Collin Archer, looking far different than the corpse in the morgue. Two men over stood another familiar figure. Boris Bure glared at the camera over a crescent of too-large, bared teeth.

Kazakov sat back. So Archer had obviously been in Fergana before receiving the visa that brought him here six months ago. Interesting. How long had he been traveling to Fergana and for how long had AngloTec had a Chinese spy working for them? Did they know? Was that what his murder was about?

The photo also confirmed what Natania Bure had revealed. Bure and Archer knew each other. The question was how well and for what purpose. Of course, at an event like this there would be many people in attendance, swirling around, trying to catch the opportunity for brief conversations with important men. Bure could have been there in that capacity--or as the up-and-comer that others wanted to know and be noticed by. Bure didn't have to know Archer--simply be aware of him. A photo like this didn't mean they were friends, just that they might have met each other. But there had been Natania's reaction. That would seem to indicate more.

And there was the Red Veil connection. Coincidence?

He set the newspaper article aside to copy and kept reading. There was nothing else there.

Easing his back, he realized he'd been there two hours already. He went to the librarian's desk, and the old man stirred as if he was an automaton with a movement sensor like those found in the cheap dioramas of the Russian Museum. He blinked up at Kazakov as if he didn't know him, but then his rheumy gaze cleared.

"Yes? You found what you wanted?"

Kazakov laid the newspaper with the photo on the desk. "I have found something, but I don't know what. What can you find me about these men? Do they know each other beyond this event?" He tapped the group photo without singling out either Archer or Bure, but the old librarian's eyes widened.

"I--I'll see what I can find." He rose, his knees crackling, and shuffled off again, his trouser bottoms dragging as he disappeared into the rows of paper.

Kazakov made a photocopy of the photo and set the newspapers aside for filing. The old man's shuffle slowly returned and he appeared carrying an armload of newspapers that looked precariously close to toppling. Kazakov hurried to help him.

After depositing his gleanings on the scarred table, the librarian dusted off his clothing and looked over his shoulder as Kazakov settled back in his chair. The old man leaned in and flipped the top newspaper open to a business page that provided an executive profile. Collin Archer smiled out from a photo that was clearly professionally done outside of Fergana, for it showed the blurred background of an Anglo garden behind him. "Here he is. There are similar articles on all but one of the others."

The librarian leaned in close enough that the dusty scent of unwashed old skin filled Kazakov's nose. "Have a care. The other one is not anyone's friend."

Then the old man was gone, shuffling to his desk again as if nothing had been said.

Kazakov looked from the paper to the old man. Was he right to think the old man was talking of Bure? Surely he was a known entity? A government executive become politician. His biography should be on file; the media would demand it. And with the rumors of grooming for political roles, wouldn't that be doubly important?

He read through the ten-month-old article on Archer. Born of an old Anglo family in a place named Devon, schooled at a place called Oxford. He had graduated with a degree in science and had a higher degree in technology before being recruited away by a headhunter from AngloTec. At least that was the story the newspaper told. An eligible bachelor, patron of the arts, skilled marksman and horseman and practitioner of the ancient art of fencing, he had purchased a penthouse apartment in downtown New Moscow. The quote from Archer said the usual pap about being impressed with the lovely city of New Moscow and its historic past.

Kazakov flipped through the papers. There were small articles here and there that mentioned Collin Archer and similar profiles of the other men in the photo. All except Bure. There were mentions of Bure's presence at gallery openings or during government announcements. There was nothing placing them together or even running in the same circles until he came to an article in a newspaper dated six months ago that the old librarian had marked with a dog-eared page corner.

The sports page showed photos of a charity polo event, a mass of horses and riders slashing mallets at a dying goat as the game had originally been played. Beneath the photo, the article talked about the charity--an event to fund ongoing conferences that would bring together gifted musical students from across New Moscow. The article said nothing more of the event, but listed the players. Because of their last names, two names stood out together at the top of the list: Collin Archer and Boris Bure. They both played for the same team funded by AngloTec. He scanned down the list and noted another name he'd heard before: Enver Pasha, the Red Veil's neighbor.

Kazakov sat back in his chair, feeling breathless. Was this event related to the conference where Yekaterina and Semetai met? He glanced at the old man who once more appeared to doze in his chair. There was more going on there, Kazakov was sure, but what would an Ottoman functionary, a Chinese spy, and a Ferganese government official have in common aside from polo? Could Yekaterina Weber and Semetai Manas have even been there? He could imagine that potential patrons might want to meet some of the students they would be helping. Could the two youngsters have seen or heard something that led to their deaths?

He left the reviewed newspapers on the table and photocopied the sports article, then approached the old man.

Again, those rheumy eyes flashed open, the intelligence unmasked in calculation.

Kazakov placed the sports article before the old man. "This event. Was there anything more reported? Perhaps from the arts and culture side of things?"

"Arts and culture? Perhaps a small piece. Let me check." The old librarian stood slowly and shuffled off, but this time Kazakov followed. The old man led down a canyon of head-high wooden racks hung with yellowed newspaper. With each step down the canyon, the yellowing of the paper increased as if they stepped back in time itself.

The librarian stopped and riffled through the papers hung on the left side of the canyon. Then he harrumphed in satisfaction and slid a sheaf of newspaper off the wall. When he turned his eyes widened as if surprised to see Kazakov beside him. "You should not be here. Only staff can remove the papers."

Kazakov nodded. "But as you see, I haven't touched them." He looked at the papers in the old man's hands.

"Arts and culture," the old man said, his face oddly noncommittal like a suspect only admitting what he knew the police already knew.

Kazakov sighed, because nothing was ever easy.

"Is there anything else about that event? Something not in the sports or arts and culture sections?"

A twinkle seemed to catch in the old man's gaze as if he was a teacher pleased with a bright pupil. "In fact, I think there is." He turned back to the wall of papers and pulled another newspaper section loose, then stepped past Kazakov to lead him back to the reading table. He set the papers down and left Kazakov to read again.

Settling back into a chair, Kazakov flipped the paper open.

The arts and culture article was small, most likely overwhelmed by the much larger article about the marriage of the daughter of Fergana's president. There were photos of flowers and women in flowing dresses that framed around a small article about the charity event. The two paragraphs told about the event being held at a nearby polo field and of the many dignitaries attending along with a sampling of youth musicians as ambassadors for the program. Over twenty thousand dollars was raised for next year's conference.

If young people were there, there was a good chance Yekaterina and Semetai were, too. It was something he could likely check. He set the article aside and pulled the other section to him. It was the news section.

Frowning, he scanned the first page and flipped it open. Nothing on the second page either. He flipped the pages and finally found what he was looking for sandwiched between advertisements for a new model First Auto and one for modern apartment homes in a new building located at the base of Yekaterina Mountain. They were calling the complex Yekaterina Gate.

The article, dating back to last spring, was six paragraphs long and detailed an altercation that occurred at the reception held in the evening of the charity polo event between adult attendees and an uninvited "tribal" youth. The police were called, but the youth left before they arrived. Apparently one of the guests had his nose bloodied. The youth was being sought for assault.

Kazakov sat back in his chair wondering just whose nose was bloodied. An uninvited tribal youth. He'd bet money on it being Semetai. Events like this probably wouldn't include a Muslim youth on their guest list, but he could see Semetai showing up anyway if it gave him a chance to be with Yekaterina. Hell, she probably encouraged him. So, would the altercation have been with Boris Bure? If so, what did that have to do with Collin Archer?

Damn it, this raised more questions than answers!

He shoved up from the table and leaned on the snoozing librarian's desk. "Thank you for your time. Your suggestion was appreciated. May I ask, just how do you come to your conclusions about the items I will need? It seems a momentous task to remember everything."

The librarian's thin lips quivered into a grin. He tapped the side of his head with a bone-thin finger. "Old man. Long memories, and mine is particularly long. That is why they allow me to keep my job until the electronic filing is done. No one has a memory longer than mine." He cocked his head. "There are things from the past that remain unwritten, but people remember. I remember." He cocked his head. "Like I remember you, Alexander Kazakov. I remember your mother, too."

Kazakov stumbled back a step. "You know me?"

The old man smiled sadly, revealing the stubs of broken teeth. "Once I lived beside you, but you were very young. You used to play outside on a swing. Your mother would push you."

The swing was a hazy memory of air past his cheeks, green swaying overhead, and his mother's laughter as she held him on her lap. It had been--over thirty-five years? Forty? The years were like mist over the memory, but there was no wizened man next door there, though he might remember a young friend and his parents. Maybe.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't remember. How could you know it was me?"

"I remember the name. I have followed your police career in the newspaper." The librarian waved his answer away as if he didn't matter.

"May I have your name? I am at a disadvantage."

The old man thought a moment. "Your parents knew me as Artyom Shepovalov. These days I am simply Old Man--meant in the most affectionate way, of course." He shrugged in his chair. "Now you had best be on your way. There are those who would not be happy at where you are looking."

Kazakov leaned in over the desk. "You say things like that--what do you know? Tell me?"

Shepovalov shook his head. "I've said enough. These are an old man's words. An old man's suspicions. At my age you have time to fully read all these articles and remember them. You can put pieces of what is said and unsaid together. But they are only suspicions nurtured over the years. It takes a young man like you to prove anything. Unfortunately, few young men come asking." He stood up and shuffled to the table to reclaim Kazakov's detritus and disappeared back into the stacks, his fading footsteps putting Kazakov in mind of a mythical creature dragging itself away from Baba Yaga into the western deserts to die.

He took his papers and his suspicions and returned out to the street. He was surprised that the day had swallowed the morning and noontime was here, filling the streets with fur-clad people hurrying to midday meals. The wind had died, but the temperature had dropped precipitously so that his breath seemed to freeze before it could be exhaled and ears and nose were painful. Gloved hands over his ears and his collar up, the soft fur protecting his neck, he hurried down the now-shoveled path on the sidewalk back to his car. Inside, he sat shivering with the heater turned on full. It was no time to be outside. It was a wonder the Perseus started. The rubber tires thumped as he drove, the rubber already frozen flat on one side as he headed for the printer's shop in the old town for his appointed meeting.

Again, he did not chance parking near the shop but parked outside the narrow streets of the Islamic quarter and trudged inside on foot, following ragged trails through the heavy snow. There were no plowed streets here, only the occasional doorway or shop entrance where the worst of the snow had been cleared away.

The printer's shop was one such place, its cleared doorway masking how many might have passed this way. Kazakov climbed the single stone stair and stepped inside into blessed warmth. Somewhere unseen a wood-burning stove was working, its natural warmth far more pleasing than the electric heat that chugged out of the vents in the squad room or the newspaper archive. The small silver bell jingled over his head and the same proprietor stuck his head through the curtain from the rear of the shop.

"You came. In this snow, I thought you might not." He stepped through the curtain and came to the door, checking outside before locking it and turning the open sign to closed. "Come. This way. There are others waiting."

He led Kazakov through the curtain into a storeroom and, like the Blue Corner, beyond the storeroom into modest living quarters.

The room was a kitchen with a low ceiling and a soot-blackened clay hearth against one wall. A great black kettle hung from an iron hook over the fire in the hearth and wood shelves were set into stucco walls. They stepped through another curtain and he found himself in a sitting room with worn carpets over the floor and low seating platforms built along the walls, now covered in faded embroidered cushions. Age-silvered beams held up the ceiling and an electric heater sat against one wall, humming out its warmth. Seven men and five women sat on opposite sides of the room, the men dressed in workmen's stout trousers and woolen shirts, the women in a variety of dress--four in house dresses and one younger woman in trousers. All the women wore headscarves and the men had the small white taqiyah perched on their heads. They all watched him with silent dark eyes as the shop owner produced a chair from somewhere and placed it on the floor in the center of the room as if a detective would not deign to sit with them in their customary way.

"For you," he said and motioned Kazakov to the chair.

"Thank you, but I've no need for such a thing." He shifted the chair next to the wall and awkwardly settled cross-legged to the floor. It was a long time since had done such a thing, though as a lad he had sat with the tribal visitors near the dacha many times. His heavy coat spread around him and formed an uncomfortable lump under his bum.

"Thank you for inviting me," he said to his host. He looked around the room. "And for coming today. I am Detektiv Alexander Kazakov with the New Moscow Politseyshiy, the police department. I appreciate your trust in me."

"He investigates Semetai's death," said his host.

Kazakov nodded and scanned the waiting faces. "What can you tell me of Semetai Manas, the young man?"

The men looked at each other, apparently each waiting for someone else to start.

"He was a good boy. The best. But he fell in love--with that girl!" spat the younger woman in trousers.

Kazakov looked at her mildly, encouraging.

"I am his aunt. I should know. He looked up to me because I have found a way to walk in both your world and ours. He was smart. He was funny. He was devout to the faith."

Her words were the typical litany of the bereaved and not particularly helpful. "Devout enough that he fell in love with a Russian girl."

"He thought she had connections that could help him," one of the other women said, her hair hidden under a floral scarf, her dress so faded he could almost not make out the floral design.

"No," said a thin woman who huddled in the middle of the five as if she was ill. "He loved her. Do not speak ill of the dead. I may not have approved, but my boy loved her. She loved him back. She even came to my home and she was a charming girl--always willing to help. He was devoted to her."

She had large, faded brown eyes that pooled with tears and Kazakov inhaled. Semetai's missing mother was here in the room.

"I miss him," the woman said. "But she would mourn him, too."

The line of men nodded.

"I knew Semetai. He was my friend," said a young man with dark hair and eyes who looked to be of an age with the dead youth. He looked to the shop proprietor, who nodded. "He cared for Yekaterina very much. He spoke of marriage."

There was a tsking amongst the women.

"He did!" the youngster said. "When they were together, he was truly happy. He could see a future for himself." He shook his head bitterly. "Not like most of us."

The youth fell silent and so did the others. Kazakov hauled his notebook and pen from his coat pocket. "Semetai's body was found in a field outside of the old quarter. Yekaterina was found dead in Potemkin Park. What can you tell me about that?"

More looks and an uneasiness stirred through them as if they were stalks of grass in the wind.

"He was supposed to be home," volunteered the thin woman who was Manas's mother. "He had gone to see Yekaterina. He was upset about something but would not discuss it. Always he went to see her. I suppose you can talk to the one who has stolen your heart, but he was supposed to be home by then. He was always home on time." She shook her head and swallowed--to hold back more tears, Kazakov supposed.

"I heard a shout." A man who had not spoken previously lifted large, grease-blackened hand off his lap as if to wave his story into being. "It was closing time. I own a mechanic shop at the edge of the new city. I heard a shout and then footsteps running. It is usually quiet at that hour so something made me go to the window. Three men ran past, into the old city."

Kazakov made a note of it. "Tell me more, please."

The man's trousers were stained with grease, his shirt as well, and yet both bore the creases of fresh laundering. His face was newly shaven and his hair neatly combed. This was apparently an important meeting.

"They came from the direction of the new city. Perhaps down Peter Street. They looked as if they pursued someone, but I did not see who. They entered the street at the end of my block and I did not see them again, for I closed my shop and went home. I did not think of it again until I heard what had happened."

"Did you tell the police?" Kazakov asked and received a shake of the man's head.

"What did they look like?" Kazakov tried again.

The big man stirred uneasily. "They wore black coats and fur hats..."

He paused, and Kazakov nodded encouragement.

The man closed his eyes. "They wore black coats and fur hats like ofitser politsii."

The room went silent and Kazakov felt thirteen sets of eyes on him. He exhaled and nodded. "All of them?"

The man nodded. "At least two."

"Were they Russian, too?"

The man nodded. "I think so."

Kazakov straightened to ease his back and reevaluated what he'd previously thought. He'd concluded that the community had probably killed the son. He'd thought that they had rejected Semetai because of Yekaterina and her parents had killed the girl for the same reason. Natania Bure's plea not to investigate fit with that story. What the hell was going on and what did it mean?

"Can you tell me anything distinctive about these men?"

The man shook his head. "I saw them only for an instant as they ran past and then only from the back."

"Did they see you?"

The man frowned. "I--I don't think so."

That was something. "Good. Do not speak to anyone else about this."

Kazakov looked around the room. "There are other voices here. What do you know? Help me find Semetai's killer. Please."

"We saw them," one of the other women said. She was older, with strands of steel-gray hair straying out from under her kerchief. She clutched the hand of the woman next to her, a young woman, not much more than a girl but already clad in drab colors and, peeking out from her scarf, her rich chestnut hair had gone dull. The younger woman swallowed, nodded.

"Tell me what happened?"

The younger girl's knuckles were white where she gripped the older woman's fingers. "We were coming home from visiting friends. It was time to make dinner for my husband."

She lifted her chin as if she took power from the fact that she was married so young. Some of the Muslim families held to older, tribal ways and believed that their daughters were best married at sixteen. Once it had been younger, but laws had been passed limiting the age.

"We came around a corner and Semetai crashed into us. Mother fell. I was pushed against the wall. He looked at me as if he did not see me, then turned and ran. I never saw him again. I helped mother stand, but three men came around the corner. One produced a badge and said they were seeking a criminal. They asked if we had seen anyone. We both said 'no,' but I don't think they believed us. We went right home and only later heard that Semetai had been killed."

Kazakov wrote it down. "Can you describe these men?"

The girl looked at her hand intertwined with her mother's. "Big, like you. Two had brown hair. One had much lighter hair. One had big teeth. One man had a gun drawn. After they left us, we hurried home. We are afraid to go outside again, for they know what we look like."

The men nodded.

The print shop owner nodded, too. "There are strangers in the old town. I have seen them myself. They dress in workmen's clothing and drink tea in our tearooms, but they are not of us. They come from the city." He lifted his chin and it was if all of New Moscow was a foreign land to them.

"I am afraid to speak to my friends in public," said the young man who had spoken earlier. "These newcomers watch us and they are everywhere. My brother worked for a time across the mountains in China and he said it was like that there--watching, always watching. I told him he should not stay there, but he said there is work."

He shook his head.

"You are police. Who are these men?" asked the old woman.

All eyes turned to Kazakov as he shook his head. "I wish I knew."

But his mind was racing. Watchers infiltrating the town. That was news to him. And men with badges pursuing Semetai Manas. Men dressed much like him. Could the police be involved? He thought of Rostoff's determination that Kazakov not investigate. It made too much troubling sense and meant that he was going to have to be very careful, indeed.

"Did anyone see Semetai Manas again?" he asked.

Again, the troubled stirring. No one said a word until finally the shopkeeper rose and crossed to the oldest grandfather present. The man's face was wizened with the squint lines that came of years in the mountains peering into the distant, glaring snows. He wore the same trousers and work shirt as the others but puddled around him was a thick fur coat and beside him sat one of the tall, traditional fur hats worn by the tribal people. A mark across his brow showed where the hat usually sat.

"You must tell him what you saw."

"I must do nothing. I do not trust his kind." He shook his head. "He asks much and tells nothing, like all his kind."

Did he mean police, or Russians? Probably both. It was a sad insight.

"What do you want to know?" Kazakov asked and the old man turned a gaze on him faded almost white. Blind?

"Who would do that to our Semetai? What kind of men would kill a harmless boy who loved only music and a girl?" the old man asked.

"The answer is that I do not know. But I've learned that Semetai may have been involved in an altercation at a charity polo game, does anyone know anything about this?"

"Polo?" asked Semetai's mother. "Why would my boy have gone to a Russian polo game? This is not kok boru. Not a true Kyrgyz game." She set her jaw firmly against any such possibility.

Kazakov nodded. "But this game was modeled after the old game." The barbaric game, but he dared not show what he thought. "It was raising money to host another student music conference like the one where Semetai and Yekaterina met. Perhaps he was invited to attend? Or not?"

He scanned the men and women on both sides of the room, but the place had gone stony with silence.

"I am not trying to blame Semetai for anything. I simply need to know whether it was him that became involved in an altercation. Whatever happened, if something did, it could be the reason Semetai was killed."

There was only more silence so, clearly, he was not going to gain those answers here. He needed to change the direction of his enquiries or he was going to get nothing more from this group.

"You have given me much information that I did not know." He sighed. "When Semetai died, I found Yekaterina's school bag in the alley. She had been found earlier the day before. I don't know who killed her, either, but at the time, the condition of her body and the way Semetai was found suggested that they may have been killed by their families. It was plausible given how horrified people were that they were seeing each other."

The old woman hissed. The mother covered her face. The men started talking over each other until the print shop owner waved everyone to silence. "You see how important it was for us to meet with him? He could actually accuse one of us of killing our own if we did not talk to him. They would use our silence to say we hide our guilt from them."

Kazakov shook his head. "That is not the only problem. In the police department--it seems there is not to be an investigation. All my evidence was taken."

"By whom?" the print shop owner asked, his role as a leader in the old city becoming clearer by the moment.

"I don't know where the direction comes from," Kazakov said placing his hands on his knees. "Rostoff, my boss, took the file away from me and was not pleased when he discovered that I investigated on my own. But there may be other parties, other forces at work." He would not tell them of Collin Archer's death.

On impulse he pulled out the newspaper article photocopies he had made this morning and spread them on the floor in front of him. "Do you recognize any of these men?"

The men passed the photos around, then handed them to the women to inspect. The young girl and her mother both hissed when the photocopies came into their hands.

"This one. I remember this one," the old woman said holding the photo of the plant opening close to her face.

"Which one, Mama? Let me see." The younger woman eased the photo from her mother's clutch and studied the image. Finally she nodded. "It is him." She leaned forward, tapping the image, and Kazakov took it from her, checking where she'd touched.

Collin Archer peered out at him. Only then did Kazakovnotice that, like Boris Bure, the dead man had predatory, overlarge teeth.
Chapter 9

The dusk of a short winter day had gathered by the time he crept out of the old city to his vehicle. The community information had been a lot to take in and it filled him with concern on many levels, not least of which was the trust they had placed in him. How had he been so wrong as to think that they could have killed their own? But then killers lurked in unexpected places. A jilted fiancee's father, a long-time friend suddenly jealous over a scholarship, an unsuccessful businessman seeking revenge on a successful one. In each case you found the motivation, the emotion, and you would find the killer. Usually it was someone close to the dead person. This time, aside from the two young people being lovers, he was not so sure. What if he failed to find Semetai's and Yekaterina's killers? What if these people did not like the results?

Walking through the winter streets, he felt as if he burrowed through darkness like some worm or mole. But it was always like that in winter. The shorter days took their toll on people. In the west there was a line of clear sky far out over the lowlands of the eastern Ottoman Empire and it allowed the horizon to burn while New Moscow and the mountains were buried under the threat of clouds burdened with more snow. He opened the Perseus's door and sniffed the air. Just the scent of his wool and the soap he used greeted him, so it seemed that no one else had been there. He climbed in, started the engine, and cruised past Potemkin Park to the far side of the city.

Collin Archer's apartment sat in an area of New Moscow plentiful with gardens.

In the summer.

At this time of year, the open plantings that were maintained by community gardeners were usually dry stalks in winter-burned earth. Today they were buried under the drifting snow, with only the sad remains of sunflowers and cold-blackened tomato plants poking through. Interspersed with the lifeless gardens were the stone outcroppings of the buildings. Most were expensive stone-and-wood homes that hunkered down around twin ten-story towers of glass and steel that had been heralded as New Moscow's most modern living environments. Collin Archer's building had a view over the rooftops of the old city to the crags of Yekaterina's Mountain.

He parked the Perseus in the lone visitor's parking stall--apparently anyone worth talking to already lived here--and went to the well-lit main door. Inside, white marble-tiled floors gleamed under a thick Bukhara carpet of reds and blues. Dark blue couches faced an electric fireplace that demarked a visitor waiting area away from the elevators. An aging security officer in a crisply pressed blue uniform sat at a white-tiled desk near the door. He watched Kazakov try the locked entry, but buzzed him in after Kazakov pressed his badge to the glass.

Kazakov made his request to access Archer's apartment.

The security officer shook his head. He was about ten years Kazakov's senior, with a balding head and shoulders sloped as if he bore the weight of Yekaterina's Mountain on his back."Mr. Archer left instructions that no one is to go in without him."

Kazakov sighed. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Mr. Archer will not be coming back. Mr. Archer is dead. I am investigating his death. Now let me in or I will be forced to obtain a court order and the culprit will have time to escape." He was being more than a little melodramatic given he had no chance of obtaining such an order.

The old fellow hesitated, but then produced a set of keys. "I'll--I'll go up with you. See you don't disturb anything."

Which was exactly what Kazakov intended to do. He smiled. "And who will watch the door for you? I would hate for this to cause you a problem."

The old man stopped and looked to the door. Clearly, opening it for people and checking them in was an important part of the job.

"When was the last time you saw Mr. Archer?" Kazakov asked.

The older man frowned. "Three nights ago. I think. He goes out every Wednesday night. I think he has a regular date."

Kazakov filed that bit of information away. It fit with Archer attending the Red Veil at least one night a month. Where he was the other Wednesday nights was anyone's guess.

"Has anyone else been to see Mr. Archer in the past three days?"

The guard's open gaze grew shuttered. "Not that I can recall."

Of course, recollection could be a selective thing.

"Perhaps you could try a little harder. Did Mr. Archer have visitors?"

The aging guard's lips firmed, but his gaze turned pleading. "You have to understand. I am paid to have discretion. I tell stories and I lose my job."

"Just tell me whether someone was here these past three days?"

"I'm sorry. No." The guard shook his head.

Kazakov slipped the keys from the old man's fingers. "Then I will take that as a yes. I will not cause any harm. Now which apartment is it?"

The old security man's gaze flipped from the building entry to the keys to the bank of elevators beyond the fireplace. Then he sighed and nodded and sank down on his chair. "I guess a man can't be everywhere. And you are the police. It's apartment 9B. A nice view from up there."

Kazakov took the elevator up the nine floors--not quite to the top, but damn close--and stepped out into a vestibule of thick pile carpet the gold of old wheat and paler velvet wallpaper. The heat was on high and so dry that he felt as if he had fallen into a silo of chaff. The walls to either side were blank, but there were two doors facing him with plain gold lettering: 9A and 9B. There were no other apartments on the floor.

Fewer chances of witnesses?

He used his borrowed keys and let himself inside Collin Archer's apartment.

The first thing he noticed in the darkness was cold. He toggled on electric lights and found himself in another foyer. This one gave onto a dining room to his right with high coffered ceilings and burgundy walls with ornate white crown moldings. A dark wood table complete with candelabra gleamed in a chandelier's light.

He abandoned the foyer and ventured into the other room, a grand parlor complete with huge windows that overlooked the gleaming lights of New Moscow skirting around the five-peaked mountain. The windows radiated cold. For all the heaters in the elevator foyer, they could not compete with this colder than normal winter. Kazakov held his hand over a heating vent. Cold. Apparently, Collin Archer depended upon the ambient heat of the building to heat the place. Or turned everything off when he left to go out.

The room held two large, pale gray, leather sofas facing each other over a large glass coffee table that bore a simple, low, square vase and the twisted limbs of a bonsai. On the room's three other walls hung artwork. Kazakov frowned. He might not know art, but this looked like the real thing, not the usual kitschy painting of Saint Basil's Cathedral or dreamscape images of Russia remembered. These were minimalist depictions of mountains and birds, but instead of Chinese karsk landscapes of steep-sided limestone mountains, these had a bucolic Anglo flavor to them with brief blue strokes of rivers winding between sweeps of green fields. Still, there was something of the oriental in them. He leaned in to read the artist's signature. A. Bruce. Could be from anywhere. Perhaps the artist simply mimicked the ancient Chinese style. After all, the Anglo-Germans were in league with the American states trying to broker a peace between the two empires.

Kazakov smiled at the similarity of style. Collin Archer had had his features transformed, but not his taste. Perhaps he wasn't a very good spy at all. Odd, given the painstaking changes that had been made to his body. What made more sense was that as a pseudo-Anglo-German he chose this style for a reason. Perhaps it was in vogue in that Empire. He seemed to recall seeing something about cross-cultural art being in vogue. It was something else to check.

Shelves and drawers were built in under the paintings and he set about his search. The drawers were mostly empty. When he finished his cursory look, he eased his back. Collin Archer might have rented this place, he might have resided here, but this room might as well be empty. It was for show, nothing more. Even the framed photos on the low shelves were no more than framed copies of the newspaper article photos he'd already seen. Nothing from the life he'd claimed back home in Devon.

A closed door at one end of the room gave onto a large, modern kitchen with dark grey concrete counters and red appliances. Black cupboards made him feel as if he was in Baba Yaga's lair about to brew up a strange concoction. The air even smelled funny. He checked the fridge--almost empty except for a half-empty carton of eggs and a wilted head of lettuce. The cupboards carried almost nothing--an unopened box of rice, a single pot and frying pan. A set of four plates and bowls and a matching amount of cutlery. If Collin Archer planned to entertain, he clearly planned to have the event catered. No junk drawer. No takeout menus. No nothing. The place had the gutted feeling of a fish--as if someone had been here before him.To remove anything of importance? It seemed the old guardian of the building entrance had not only fibbed about someone's attendance, but had also been a bit disingenuous about not allowing anyone into the apartment.

The garbage bin contained the remains of a dinner of noodles and rice and vegetables in a dark spicy sauce--all now covered in a blue frosting of mold. The mess was the source of the odor in the room. Three days the security guard had said. Perhaps it was longer, age doing what it did to an old man's memory. So where had Collin Archer been?

He returned to the living room and spotted an obvious panel designed like a secret hiding place set into the far wall opposite the kitchen. Such things had been all the rage in Fergana about seven years ago when someone had taken the country's unspoken fear of invasion and made it fashionable. The panel opened with slight pressure of his fingertips to reveal a bedroom. The room had the same opulence as the dining room, with white coffered ceiling, ornate navy-blue walls and, against the far wall, a large, white, four-poster bed draped in navy bedding. This room had a slightly different air--a scent as if a person lived here. Pheromones. The scent of unwashed clothing and old skin sloughed off in bedding. A dresser sat under another cold window, but the heating vents were on here and, so far, able to hold off the cold.

Drawers revealed the dead man's clothing. Underwear. Socks. A white t-shirt. A black t-shirt. White shorts and polo shirt suitable for racket sports.

He found the closet and bathroom behind another supposedly secret panel. Large bathroom with tub, shower, and a vanity that contained cold medicine and a bottle of lotion that tingled on Kazakov's fingers when he tried some. Skin bleach? It was a reasonable possibility. But the sheer lack of anything else said this was a very careful man. Or someone had helped him along.

In the closet, the impression was reinforced with freshly laundered clothing all held in individual plastic coating. Nothing in pockets--he checked. No boxes on the shelves. Even the shoes had had their soles cleaned. All of the clothing bore labels Kazakov recognized as coming from Anglo-German designers.

Perhaps that was odd in and of itself. Most people were not careful about only purchasing items manufactured at home, and with trade across the globe, more and more designer clothing could be made anywhere in the world.

Frustrated, he returned to the living room. The man had left no sign of his existence beyond a body, a few newspaper clippings, and a woman's statement.

He was wasting his time here. He was sure of it. And he was fairly certain that Archer's office would be just as carefully devoid of the man. But there was another place Archer had spent his time.

Kazakov returned to the bedroom closet, dug to the back, and pulled out a sterile plastic-wrapped package of white breeches and polo shirt. Embroidered on the breast pocket was the name: AngloTec Polo Club.

He tossed the clothes back into the closet and headed out the door. In the downstairs lobby, he returned the keys to the crafty old security guard.

In all of New Moscow there were only three polo clubs. He knew that much. One had its stable and clubhouse to the south in the foothills. The other two shared facilities and were located westward out of the city toward Kokand. He remembered reading about it in the newspaper, because the second club was patronized by AngloTec.

He checked his watch. Six thirty. All those businessmen had to exercise their string of polo ponies some time.

He started his car and headed west.

Outside the sprawling city, the houses died away and the land flattened out. In summer, it would hold rolling fields of wheat and corn. Fergana's many irrigation canals had been dug to steal water from the Potemkin River. In exchange, the farms offered up vegetables and sweet Dunhuan melons in the long summer days. Now the silent fields were dark, reflecting moonlight that filtered through a spectral layer of clouds. Here and there lay the huddled, low-slung shapes of houses and farm buildings amid the fields.

He reached the stables, only a short drive off the highway, just after seven. White-fenced fields were empty, but a large, covered arena leaked light through large windows placed above metal siding. Stables made sloped rooflines off the sides of the arena like the full skirts of a tribal Kyrgyz woman.

The parking lot was full of expensive Ziln, Bosphorus, and Autowunder vehicles as he pulled the Perseus into a space among them. His trusty vehicle looked like an ill-bred Kyrgyz mount amongst sleek racehorses. Any one of the imported vehicles could have bought and sold his dacha ten times over. He climbed out onto the well-cleared lot and hunched toward the nearest stable. The large sliding barn door had a smaller human-sized door in the middle with a bright amber light overhead. He opened the door and stepped through.

Quiet and warm were his first two impressions. The air lay still and pungent with hay, leather, and horse manure. Along the length of the long breezeway between two rows of stalls, three horses were tied and men were working over them with brushes. The two men working on the horse closest to him glanced in his direction. They were young and fit, clad in breeches, puffy down jackets, and high black boots.

Feeling out of his depth--he had never had occasion to get comfortable with horses except for the small mountain breeds of the tribesmen who had visited the dacha woods--and bulky beyond belief in his long wool coat, he approached the first animal and its handlers.

"Detektiv Alexander Kazakov, New Moscow Police. I am conducting an investigation. Can you point me to whoever is responsible for this place?" He left out the nature of the investigation in the belief that in an environment like this the news would travel like wildfire, thus potentially ruining witness testimony.

"Y-ees," said one of the young men brushing the horse as if he doubted his own ability to provide the information. He carefully brushed out the animal's mane. "What's this about?" His Russian was stilted, but whether Anglo or German, Kazakov couldn't tell.

He was young, broad-shouldered, and blond, and by the gleam that remained on his clothing under the horse dust, he came from the money now infiltrating New Moscow's wealthiest families.

"It is a police matter. Now the directions, please?"

The young man waved him toward a door in an alcove and Kazakov left them whispering as they brushed the horse. Beyond the door he stumped up a flight of stairs and found himself in a heated lounge, complete with wet bar and leather-clad tables and chairs. On one wall hung a painting of an English countryside with horses and riders galloping, painted in an almost oriental style. Lounging in one of the swivel chairs nearest to a broad expanse of window overlooking the arena sat a woman also clad in a pair of those ubiquitous boots and breeches and a down vest over a heavy knit multicolored sweater.

She glanced over her shoulder and smoothed a palm over chestnut, shoulder-length hair. By the fairness of her skin, Kazakov expected freckles and as he approached her, he wasn't disappointed.

"So? She asked from her chair, her attention back on the arena where a horse and rider were going around in circles. She didn't even shift the long legs that were stretched out before her. "What do you want? Police, correct?"

Her accent was thickly Anglo--a transplant, then. Possibly brought in to help introduce the Anglo version of polo.

Kazakov introduced himself and she already looked bored. "That is an unusual painting," he said. "I'm not familiar with the style."

She rolled her eyes slightly. "It's Neuvo-Briton--the latest thing a few years back. A blend of Anglo and our Asian friends' styles. Made popular by the painter Henry Chow, if you must know. That's one of his. What of it?"

Kazakov studied the painting. So perhaps Collin Archer had been reflecting Anglo-German tastes. He turned back to her. "Just interested. It's an interesting style given its heavy Chinese influence."

She held him steady with her gaze. "I guess that was the point."

Time to change the subject. "I need to talk to you about an AngloTec rider."

She glanced at him, an arched brow awaiting the answer to the obvious question.

"Collin Archer?" he asked.

She sighed and sat up, her heels pulled into a prim position on the floor. "So how is dear Archer? We haven't seen him for a few days. His ponies miss him. So do the bookies."

She turned back to the arena and appeared to study a second man working a horse in a circle on the end of two long lines.

Damn it, he needed her attention. "Well, he won't be here for either horses or bookies again."

She blinked three times as if processing that information. Then she swung her chair around to face him.

"Tell me about him," he asked, hooking a chair forward to sit down facing her. He pulled out his notebook. "Your name?"

"Charlotte Newcomb. I'm married to Brett Newcomb, the Anglo attaché to the Ambassador."

As opposed to the German attaché who would also be attached to the Amabassador. Though the Anglo-German Empire had a single royal family, the two cultures were distinct enough that care had to be taken to retain the uneasy peace of the Anglo-German alliance even after two hundred years of being one empire.

"And what is your role at this polo club?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Manager, I suppose, though the mysoginist club members barely acknowledge even that. I make sure the feed for the horses is here and arrange the matches--that sort of thing."

Kazakov nodded and noted it down.

"So, you said Collin Archer won't be back. What's happened to him?" She shook her head. "Something bad, I'm thinking--given you're here."

He studied her from the tops of his eyes. "He's dead."

Charlotte Newcomb showed almost no reaction. Then she sighed and nodded. "How did he die?"

There was no way Kazakov was providing the details. "Let's just say that there were unusual circumstances. So, what can you tell me about Collin Archer?" He held his pen poised as she rolled her head on her neck.

"Unusual circumstances. Why doesn't that surprise me," she said with a hint of laughter. Then she turned serious. "Well... regardless of what he told everyone, he was a very poor horseman and a not much better gambler." She shook her head and leaned forward as if warming to the subject. "Collin never did have much affinity for the animals. He's got good ponies--the best money could buy or train, actually--but unlike the other riders, he never did the work himself and seemed to expect horses to just be like a vehicle: you climb behind the wheel and they go where you tell them." She shook her head.

"Anyway, Collin Archer was one of those men I like to call a Golden Eagle--not good for much except swooping in and taking the credit. You know eagles are very much carrion birds, don't you? He'd swan in here and spend time flirting or talking, let others ride his horses, and then swan in again when a game was on. Don't get me wrong. He could ride. But it was more like he went through the motions, not that he was passionate about it."

"You don't sound like you cared for him very much."

Charlotte shrugged. "What difference would it make if I did? I'm just one of the follow-along crowd. I might ride dressage horses, but in this stable it counts for nothing." She lifted her chin at the horse in the ring. "They're doing it all wrong. The way they're working him, the horse is learning to drop his shoulder and fall onto his forehand. Not what you want in any horse, but god forbid I should say anything."

"The people around here don't like your advice?"

She smiled sweetly but there was a touch of acid in her gaze. "They are men in a man's world. Who am I but the wife of somebody, even if I own this barn?"

Surprised, he looked down at his notes. "You said you were the manager..."

She shrugged again. "To them that is all I can ever be, even if I'm also the money behind the operation."

Her bitterness was so harsh that he chose to ignore it. "You mentioned bookies before. What did you mean?"

She leaned back in her chair, appraising him. "So is this where we get to the heart of the matter? Collin Archer. He had a gambling problem. Perhaps that's what caused his--what did you call it?--the unusual circumstances of his death?"

He leaned back, too. "Tell me about this gambling. What do you know?"

She appeared to consider for a moment and then rolled her gaze heavenward. "What don't I? Archer and his buddies were deep into gambling. They even tried to rig a polo match until I caught them. I told them that if they ever bet on a polo match, they were out of the club and the stable, no matter how much they paid in dues. I would not stand for it. I do not like scandal. So as far as I know, Collin took his gambling elsewhere."

"Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to do Collin Archer harm?"

Her steady gaze glittered at him. "Aside from me, Detektiv?"

He cocked a brow in question and she looked away. "Let us just say that he was no gentleman. He might be of good Anglo stock, but there was something about him. He might speak the right words, have the right accent, but there was something very--wrong--about him. Don't get me wrong, it was nothing major--just many little things like how he would fold a coat, or expect me and others to answer to him. I mentioned it to my husband, but he told me I just didn't like the guy. Maybe that was the case, I don't know. I suppose that sort of attitude could come from the nobility, but I never heard that about Collin. I used to tell Brett that I thought he was a psychopath--absolutely no concept of anything other than what he wanted, and what he wanted was money and influence. He was always trying to sidle up beside the right person at the wrong time, but I guess some people are like that. Made for very awkward social situations from time to time."

She shifted uneasily in her chair while Kazakov simply watched her.

"The last rumor I heard was that he had lost big on a football match and his bookies were demanding payment." She shrugged. "Sometimes you reap what you sow, Detektiv."

"Do you know who these bookies might be?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Someone in New Moscow, I suppose. I'd heard he'd already had to trade favors in lieu of interest on what he owed. Something about someone's nephew getting a job beyond his competence level. I think there may be a lot of that thing in Fergana. But then I suspect you would know that, Detektiv." She spoke as if she suspected as much of him.

He noted the information down, but frankly it didn't sit right with him. Why would a spy go out of his way to be noticed--and for all the wrong reasons? It made no sense--and yet--who would ever suspect someone with Collin Archer's personality of being more than a difficult to deal with foreign company hack? If Collin Archer was a spy, he was either the most incompetent or the most brilliant spy he'd ever heard of.

Not that he'd heard of many.

But clearly Charlotte Newcomb did not know who the bookies were, or she took pleasure in not telling. Which meant he had little more to go on. He was going to have to track down the bookies through standard police procedures.

He thought about Collin Archer and how much he didn't know about him.

"There was a charity polo match of the old-fashioned kind. It was held to raise money for a youth musical conference. Were you involved in that?"

She grimaced as if the whole event had been distasteful. "Live goats." She shuddered. "I organized the event at the request of my husband and some politicians. They thought it would provide a marquee event that would provide good press for AngloTec and the government. Embracing culture and all that."

Kazakov again made a note. "What happened during the event?" He left it open for her interpretation of what was important to report on.

She shrugged. "We hosted the event. It was well attended by Fergana's well-heeled. The game was held with a reception afterward with food and music and much schmoozing." Another lift of the shoulder as if it was nothing. Clearly Charlotte Newcomb was well trained in the art of leaving much unsaid.

"There were newspaper articles about the event..." he said and held her gaze until she shifted in her seat and looked away.

"There was one small problem. One of our guests had words with one of the caterers--or at least we thought the young man was one of the catering staff. It turns out he was uninvited and was trying to cause problems. The police were called, but the young man disappeared before they arrived. That was all there was to it."

Kazakov nodded. "Tell me, if this was to benefit student musicians, surely some of the musicians must have been in attendance."

"Definitely. There was a chamber orchestra. They were not that good, but then they had been drawn from a number of schools."

Including Yekaterina Weber, most likely. "And can you tell me which guest this unknown youth troubled?"

Charlotte Newcomb looked puzzled. "What does this have to do with Collin Archer?"

"Please. Just answer the question." He held his breath.

"Why, it was Boris Bure. We had to work very hard to convince the press to leave that little fact out of their articles." She grew thoughtful. "Come to think of it, it was Collin who helped make that possible and he also came to Boris's rescue."

Kazakov was writing as fast as he could. "Why would he do that, do you think?"

"I--I'm not sure." And for a woman as certain as Charlotte Newcomb, that was something. "Perhaps Archer was simply currying favors--again. But I seem to recall that Boris and Collin might have been talking when the young man interrupted. They were off to one side, in a small garden that grows next to the polo field and reception area. I suppose Collin was the only one around to help Boris." Another shrug as if it didn't matter.

But it mattered to Kazakov. In those circumstances, he could see young Semetai Manas trying to make contact. He could have followed the two men into the garden in order to talk to Boris Bure when the two men were finished their conversation. Had he heard something he shouldn't have or was it simply that he had tried to speak to Bure about his stepdaughter? Obviously, Charlotte Newcomb would know nothing of that. He decided to change the direction of enquiry, but the familiar tingling in his chest said that he was onto something. He just needed to learn more about that day.

"These places." He encompassed the arena and stables in his wave. "There must be some place that the riders maintain their possessions."

She sat up. "You mean their lockers?"

He nodded. "That might be it. But it may not be, too. Lockers tend to be small." Too small for a spy who would need to have access to equipment. "Did Collin have any other place that was his own within the complex? A place he could store things in private?"

She started to laugh and it was both amused and annoyed. "A space? A small space, he asked for. The least of spaces--where a man could relax together with his friends, he said. It was a card club! A damned card club!" She leapt to her feet and paced around the carpeted room, her booted feet thumping hollowly on the floor.

Then she turned to him. "Come with me."

She grabbed a knee-length shearling jacket that would cost about half a year of Kazakov's pay and ran down the stairs from the viewing room to the stables, then threw open the door to outside and marched into the night, Kazakov at her heels.

Outside, she strode across the snowy parking lot to a large truck and trailer parked to one side. The stable lights reflected in its darkened windows and on the chrome grill work. The truck was commercial grade, made for hauling large loads over long distances--the same type that hauled cargo up and over the mountain passes between China and Fergana, but the trailer was custom made--a large horse-hauling van with a large living space up front.

Charlotte stormed up to the living quarters stairs, fished a key ring from somewhere on her person, and threw open the door.

"There!" she said turning to him. "If he had anything stored privately, it would be here. And if you want his locker, I will be here for another hour." Then she stomped back down the stairs and away across the silent parking lot to the arena.
Chapter 10

Kazakov's breath steamed around him as he turned back to the open door above the three retractable iron stairs that led up to the trailer entrance. Grabbing hold of the side of the door, he hiked himself up into inky darkness. There were few windows and the open door provided only a narrow alley of light. His eyes adjusted gradually and his fingers fumbled on the wall until he found a small switch. He toggled it on and a low hum filled the room. Then a soft flickering glow began from a single overhead light and a whiff of heat came from somewhere down by his feet. The place had a generator. Very nice. And expensive.

He closed the door behind him as the light increased and steadied.

The room was about ten feet long by seven feet wide. Cupboards filled the upper walls above a half-sized sink, electric oven, and a single cooktop gas burner. Low, cushioned, bench seating around three sides of a small table sat beneath a shuttered window opposite the door. Two small doors gave off toward the rear of the trailer. He checked one and it gave onto the length of the horse area. The other door gave onto a tiny bathroom with toilet and shower. In the main room's heat, the dusty-sweet scent of horse sweat slowly permeated the air.

It was clearly the change and lounge room used by the riders when away at a match. What had Collin Archer turned it into?

He began with the cupboards.

The uppers revealed packs of playing cards and dice and opened and sealed bottles of vodka, imported Anglo whiskey, German beer, and even a bottle of sake. Cartons of Anglo crisps, jars of pickles, and tins of something called herring and sardines filled the rest of the upper cupboards. The fridge contained delicacies of cheese and sausages he had only seen in specialty shops catering to expatriate shoppers. Everything looked reasonably fresh, as if it had been replaced only recently. It certainly looked like the lair of an Anglo gentleman who liked his comforts of home. Or else it was a perfect place to make other Anglo gentlemen feel at home, and those who were not Anglo feel like they had stepped into a rarified world of plentiful exotic food. A place of comfort. A place among friends.

He crouched down and went through the lower cupboards. They smelled of astringent and antiseptic. Large bottles of strange brown liquid sloshed when he shifted them. Tins of hoof unguent, sprays to enhance the shine of a horse's coat. A plastic workman's rack filled with brushes and other paraphernalia he couldn't identify. Long strips of bandages. Hair tonic. Boot black.

And exactly nothing that told him anything more than he already knew about Collin Archer.

He sat back on his heels as the humming cut out. The room had reached a temperature that he no longer needed his coat. He stood, removed it, and placed it on a hook by the door.

The bench seating had thick cushion backs and seats. He pulled off each one, unzipping the faded cover--this was clearly a well-used trailer--and felt inside the dense foam. Nothing in the side cushions, but when he unzipped the larger cushion from the back of the bench seat, he found a line of small slits in the foam just big enough to slip two fingers inside.

There was nothing in the three exposed by the zipper.

Simply an imperfection of the foam, or something cut more recently? He pulled the slipcover right off and laid the foam wedge across the table to check each slit. On the second to last one, his fingers hit something. He pulled his fingers out and parted the foam to peer inside.

Buried in the foam was something small, about an inch wide, that looked like tan-colored plastic.

Wishing for a camera to document the evidence, he dug the plastic piece out onto the table.

Not quite an inch wide and about two inches long, the small plastic rectangle was cut by a seam around the waist. He couldn't tease the two pieces of plastic apart with his fingernails and finally picked the rectangle up and pulled the two ends. It came apart in his hands, one piece clearly a protective lid for what he had uncovered.

It was a small metal prong that reminded him of an electric plug, but he couldn't think of anything small enough to plug it into. It wasn't shaped like a normal three-prong plug, either. This had two plugs on one side, so close together as to almost be one and delicate enough looking he could probably bend them off with a finger. The third prong sat at the other side of the end of the plastic and was a simple small metal rod or wire.

Replacing the lid on the rectangle, he pulled out a plastic bag and placed the contraption inside. Then he kept searching. There was nothing further in the cushion. He pulled the cover back on and placed the evidence bag in his pocket just as the door pulled open, letting in a blast of cold air and the young man he'd spoken to when he'd first arrived at the stable. The young man entered as his blue eyes scanned the room.

"I figured it would be messier," he said in an atrocious German accent.

Kazakov arched a brow at him.

"You know. You're searching old Collin's secret hideaway, aren't you? A cop doing his job?"

Kazakov slowly nodded, not quite sure what to make of the man. Friend of Archer's? An ally? Of Archer or Kazakov?

The young men grinned, revealing crooked white teeth in his otherwise handsome face. "When Charlotte came storming back I figured she probably wouldn't have showed ya the tricks of this place." He shook his head. "Charlotte. She's had a hard-on for Collin ever since he turned her down when he first arrived. She likes to have her way with each of us and then toss us aside. I think it makes her feel better. But Collin wasn't having none and she resented him for it. Couldn't stand a man with morals greater than her own, I guess." He lounged companionably against the closed door and looked around the room.

"So just what's happened to Collin and what are you looking for?"

It was unusual for people to be so easily forthcoming. If Collin Archer was truly a spy, would he not try to ingratiate himself and fit in? But then perhaps he had--with the men.

"What can you tell me about Collin?" Kazakov asked.

The young man shrugged. "Damn good polo player when you can get him on the ponies--or maybe it's the expensive horseflesh that makes him look good. Either way he was a good man to have on your team."

"And beyond polo?"

Another shrug. "I didn't really know him. Quiet sort of bloke except when it came to the gambling. He's pretty serious about that. Made for quite a few good parties." He grinned his crooked grin. "A lot of money changed hands a time or two because he wasn't that good at it--the gambling I mean. He's into me for a few pounds. A few of the others, too. But he provided the liquor and the food and that's too good a deal to turn down, isn't it?"

Kazakov patted the cushion back, sat down and pulled out his notebook. "Tell me about these parties."

The young man settled across the table from him. "What's there to tell? We get together and play cards and get soused."

"Who is we?"

"Well, me of course."

"And your name is?"

"Richard Spencer. I'm assistant to the Anglo-German Ambassador."

Kazakov scribbled.

"And then there's Henry Scott, he's in the foreign trade department. And George Kinsey. He's in security--top secret stuff, you know." Another crooked grin. "Rodney Swift. He's in communications. He comes in from time to time. A few others, but we're the main ones."

"And what do you talk about at these parties?"

The young man leaned back in his seat. "I don't know. Women, of course. The damned snow in winter. In summer, the heat and dust. What we miss from back home--you cannot get a decent beefsteak here--or shepherd's pie or clotted cream." He shook his head as if it pained him. "Work, at times. The horses or the last game or football, of course. Who cheats the worst--usually that's Collin!" Another disarming grin.

Kazakov thought for a moment. If he had been Collin Archer, getting a few fools together talking about their work would be a good way to learn the Anglo-German position on matters of trade and foreign policy, but the Anglo-Germans weren't the Chinese enemy. That was the Ottoman Empire. Why would such a carefully prepared spy be wasted on these people and why was he dead?

"Did Collin Archer have any enemies?"

The young man's gaze narrowed and his grin disappeared. A calculation came into his eyes that said he was no fool. "You said 'did'. Why are you asking me all this? Has something happen to Collin?"

Kazakov met his gaze. "Answer the question first."

Richard Spenser shook his head. "Like I said, he keeps more to himself. None of us knows him that well. We didn't exactly run in the same circles back home, but he's a fun enough bloke to be with. Aside from Charlotte, I never saw him have words with anyone."

"Collin Archer's body was found three days agoin Yekaterina Park."

"Jeezus." Richard Spenser looked stunned. "Robbed? He always did like to show that bank roll of his..."

"It did not appear to be a robbery." Kazakov looked at his notes and made a note of bank roll and question mark. "What did Collin Archer usually wear?"

"Out here? Boots and breeches mostly. Like the rest of us. He had a few nice pieces, though. That navy coat of his was Saville Row, and he had a few fine suits. Mostly his things were bought here--when he had the money, and that was usually when he'd won a pot or a bet or something."

"Can you think of anything Collin was involved in that would make him a target?"

"A target? Are you talking premeditated murder?"

Kazakov didn't say anything and Richard Spencer seemed to collapse back into his seat.

He rubbed his face and looked apologetically up at Kazakov. "First time this has ever happened to me. I came out here for a bit of a lark." He waved around the trailer. "But then I came to Fergana for a bit of a lark, too, didn't I? Jeezus."

He leaned forward. "Listen, I didn't know Collin that well, like I said. He wasn't exactly a cuddly bloke. But I will say that the past month or so he's seemed a bit on edge. I thought it was just the heebie-jeebies that come after you've lived in this hole of a country for a few months, but maybe he was expecting something to happen. I guess something did."

Making a show of checking his watch, Richard Spenser slid out of the bench seat.

Kazakov stopped him with a raised hand. "I expect you were at the charity polo match along with the others?"

Richard Spenser looked like a man who had just missed his escape. "Yeesss. I was there. A good match, too, though I'm not too partial to the live goat thing." He shuddered. "What of it?"

Kazakov held his gaze, then glanced at his notes and up again. "There was an altercation at the reception. What can you tell me about it?"

Cautiously, Spenser slid back into his seat. "There was nothing to tell, really. Some guy crashed the event and got into an argument with one of the guests. Collin intervened, I guess. He had scraped-up knuckles and a mark on his cheek."

"Where did this altercation occur?"

Spenser shrugged. "I was told in the garden. Odd, because at that time of year, it gets cold outside in the evening. I guess people wanted a break from the crowd. Some privacy, so to speak."

Which meshed with Kazakov's thinking.

"Do you know who the party crasher was? Could you describe him?"

"It was a kid, actually. I caught a glimpse of him leaving when everyone else was running toward the noise of the altercation. I'd hung back to get another drink when this young guy scurries across the room and out the door. Dark-haired kid. Looked young, too. He looked mighty angry." Spenser brightened. "Could he be the killer?"

Kazakov maintained a noncommittal expression. "One more question: what's your understanding of what the altercation was about?"

Spenser shifted in his seat as if the question made him uncomfortable. He shook his head. "You've got to understand. I wasn't there so I don't know for sure, but I've heard a couple of stories. One is that the kid was dating someone's daughter when it wasn't approved. You know how fathers can be." He shrugged as if that was all he had to say, but Kazakov wasn't going to let him off that easy.

"And the other story?"

Spenser blinked as if he didn't like being caught, but he grinned his bright grin and shrugged. "Rumors, old son. Simply rumors, but I've heard it said that the gardens are a place of private conversations and the kid might have been eavesdropping."

Kazakov held Spenser with his gaze. Was this truth or fabrication? The clarity of Spenser's gaze said it was either the truth or he was the consummate liar. Kazakov wasn't sure which to believe.

Spenser took the opportunity to scramble up. "I'd best be going. I've got an early day tomorrow. Oh. And if you're searching this place, check the walls. Charlotte had it fitted with a number of 'secret' panels for stowing extra gear when we were traveling. Sometimes it's not good to have everything out for customs to see when you're crossing borders."

"Pardon me?" Kazakov wasn't sure what he'd just heard.

"Like here, see?" Richard Spencer pressed a panel in the wall by the door. The panel of wood sprang open to expose an empty bit of shelving. "Sometimes the border crossings confiscate some of the horse medications. They're expensive, so Charlotte had this done."

Kazakov eyed the space and realized that he had a lot more searching to do. "How often do you travel outside of Fergana?" he asked.

Richard Spencer frowned. "Last year it was eight or ten times all over the eastern Ottoman and once down into the Moghul South. The last trip was just a few weeks back. It was a hell of a trip at this time of year. I swear I won't do it again over those roads. But then, I survived, didn't I? This year Charlotte's talking about traveling as far as Bagdad and Damascus and maybe up into Constantinople itself. A hell of trip to tell my grandkids about." Another of those crooked grins and he checked his watch again, nodded, and ducked out the door into the night.

It was a lot of information to take in. Kazakov let it sift into his brain and then took rapid notes. So there was the possibility that Semetai had overheard something. Something important enough it could warrant his death? But if that was the case, why was Semetai allowed to live all these months since the eavesdropping occurred? And a Chinese spy on trips through the Ottoman empire. Was Archer actually spying on the Ottomans? That gave a number of motives for his death. It might also explain his odd actions and attitudes in Fergana. He wasn't spying on Fergana--he was using it as an axis hub while he spied on the Ottomans. But his body was found perilously close to the home of a high-ranking Ottoman, Enver Pasha. He could not see any Ottoman doing that purposely.

Those thoughts in mind, he stood and inspected the cubbyhole that Richard Spencer had shown him. It was a narrow space between the inner and outer walls of the transport. This one held shelves that still carried a few bottles. The labels were for horse medications. He opened the bottles one by one and the pungent astringent odor set him back a pace. The shelf ran ten inches to either side of the opening. That was a lot of storage, but there was still three feet of space between the secret cupboard and the floor.

He pressed the paneling below the opening, but nothing happened, then went around the room pressing any exposed panel. Four more cupboards sprang open, all of them set comfortingly at chest height and all equally as disappointingly empty.

Something about this wasn't right. Charlotte or whoever had installed the hidden cabinets had left the better amount of the wall's potential storage untapped. Why just build the cabinets in the top part of the wall?

He went to the first cabinet by the door and examined the bottom shelf. Solid wood by the look of it. He ran his fingers along the shelf inside the left of the cupboard. There was nothing. On the right his fingernail caught in a small protrusion of wood. He pressed it and there was still nothing, but then he pressed it again and leaned on the shelf.

Click.

The shelf dropped away, exposing a dark, empty space that appeared to run to the floor. He grabbed a flashlight from his pocket and exposed a space perfect for storing contraband. He'd bet good money that Charlotte Newcomb smuggled more than horse drugs in this trailer.

He repeated his discovery in each of the other cabinets. Of course, it was the last one that wasn't empty. Slid into the narrow dark space was something wrapped in a muffling cloth. To hide it or to protect it? He reached in and pulled it out. Heavier than it looked for the size. Not square, the item was about twelve inches long by nine inches across and two inches deep when he set it on the table. The muffling cloth was not a cloth at all, but butter-soft leather that he unwrapped to expose something rectangular and metal.

The metal was burnished on the top and sides and it looked like it was made of two pieces fitted one on the top of the other and connected by a hinge. On the side of the lower portion were a series of holes, one pattern like it would accept three prongs. He pulled the baggie with the small rectangle out of his pocket. Could it be?

He retrieved the small, pronged rectangle from the baggie and pulled off the top to try the exposed prongs in the hole pattern. The small prongs slid right in as if made to do so.

So the two items were meant to be together, though for what purpose he wasn't sure. Gingerly he separated the top from the bottom of the larger metal rectangle. It swung upward to expose a tray of lettered keys and, on the upper half, a blank black screen.

"Derr`mo," he swore softly. He knew what it was, though he had never seen anything like it before. The screen and keys were too similar to the new German-made data machine at his office, but this was incredibly small. So small he could not believe that it could actually do something useful.

Beyond the keys, a small round button sat just below the screen. He pressed it and the box began to hum. A machine. It was a machine, like the one that held the police and government database.

A database. The machine itself must be worth a fortune, but what did it carry? Secret information? And the small rectangle that he had found hidden separately. What did it do?

The screen swirled to life with red Chinese characters and too many dots, dashes, and slashes to make any sense at all. It was clear that he wasn't going to make any further discoveries here. He clicked the top down and pulled the small rectangle from its side, reinstalling it in the baggy and then rewrapping the data machine in the leather.

He scanned the transport one more time. Charlotte Newcomb had built an almost perfect vehicle for smuggling. Had she known what she'd done? But if she had, why would she have led him right to this evidence? No, Charlotte smuggled for her own purposes. Collin Archer had just taken advantage and no one had been the wiser because Collin Archer was regarded as a bit of a fool.

In a way, it was a more brilliant disguise than the facial reconstruction.

He left the stable in the dark with the small data machine placed like a bomb on the Perseus's seat beside him, the small slotted rectangle in his pocket, and too many questions. There was no question that along with the information that proved the connection between Semetai Manas and Collin Archer, he'd found something important. And there was no question that if the owners of these items knew what he'd found, they'd want them back. Hell, this was most likely what they'd been looking for in Archer's apartment.

The night-bound highway stretched before him, the traffic limited to the huge transports carrying cargo to and from New Moscow. Their headlights filled the highway with a ghostly blue glow that left him half blind after they passed by. His eyelids were heavy. It had been a long few days with very little sleep. The Perseus's heater churned out comforting warmth, but couldn't erase the chill he felt. Just what did the death of a smuggling spy have to do with the deaths of Yekaterina and Semetai? What had the teenagers gotten involved with that got them killed? What had they known?

He might have thought he had it all wrong, but the fact that Collin Archer had been identified as one of the people in pursuit of Semetai and that a prior connection was known--well, that proved the connection between the cases. This box might tell him why three people had died.

A part of him felt the quiver of excitement that always came with an important clue, but it was tempered with frustration. What did he know about data machines? He'd barely managed to turn the thing on and it appeared that everything was in Mandarin or some other dialect. And if he couldn't access whatever was on the machine, he had exactly nothing at all.

Maybe Rostoff had been right that this was a case he should leave alone.

He shook himself. That had to be fatigue talking. All cases came with difficulties.

Like the dog kept within a walled garden for too long, if he just kept scratching at the walls, eventually they would be gone.

He headed for home to sleep and think, driving the snowy roads to bypass New Moscow up into the hills. His headlights caught on the unmarked lane leading to Agafya Ryabkov's home--he would need to bring her more supplies in the next few days--and then he turned into the ruts left behind from the Perseus's wheels in the driveway up to his home. A welcoming light gleamed from the dacha window when he came out into the clearing.

Carrying the leather-wrapped machine, he went into the dacha, his feet sounding hollow on the newly swept stairs. A whiff of lavender greeted him at the door along with the luscious scent of leftovers from the day before. His mouth watered. A lit lantern sat on the counter beside the woodstove, a covered plate beside it. Maria lay cocooned, asleep in his covers, Koshka curled in close to her breast.

One hand was curled close to her chin like a child. Framed by her mane of dark hair, her face held a radiant peace the likes of which he'd never seen. Annushka had always slept with arms and legs flailing, just as she lived her life.

Sighing at the thought of another night on the floor, he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the peg. He sat down to pull off his boots and then checked the fire, added a log, and straightened. It was while he was wolfing down the cold remains of the delicious beef and potatoes that he realized Maria's eyes were open. So were Koshka's. Both sets seemed to study him.

"Thanks for the food," he said around another forkful.

Maria pushed up on one elbow. "So? Have you found out anything?"

He shrugged and shifted the extra blankets and pillow, which had spent the day in a folded pile on the couch, onto the floor next to the now-ticking woodstove. By the rumble in the chimney, the fire was building in heat. Soon the dacha would be warm and he might stand a chance at sleep.

"I found this." He patted the machine he'd placed on his desk.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Damned if I know. A data machine of some kind. I believe Collin Archer had hidden it at the stable where he kept his polo ponies."

She sat up farther. "What does it say?"

He shrugged again. "All the answers to all the questions that have plagued mankind--or nothing at all. I've no idea."

He hung his holster and weapon off the back of a chair and shucked his shirt and trousers before using the water closet. Then he washed his face in the sink and went to climb between the blankets.

"Don't!" In a flash Maria was off the bed and beside him. She caught his wrist and looked up at him. "You've had a very long day. You need your bed."

She stood too close, her sleep-warmed lavender scent flooding him, her skin golden in the lantern light.

"I--I will sleep on the couch," she continued. "It is fine. Definitely long enough for me."

She released his arm and scooped up the blankets before smoothing them into a bed on the couch. She plopped down and slid her legs beneath the coverings. "See? It is long enough." She had to curl her legs up tightly to fit.

"Get up," he said. There was no way he would sleep in the bed and leave her contorted on the couch. That wasn't the way he'd been raised.

She burrowed into the blankets until he caught her wrist and dragged her up. She staggered against him and he caught her shoulders to steady her.

Soft--her skin would be soft. He could tell even through the old t-shirt. The flickering lantern light placed a mist in her eyes as she met his gaze. Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

Sweet and soft and filled with longing. When she pulled away she laid her head on his chest. "When you did not come back for so long, I was worried that something had happened to you."

His hands came around her back almost as if they belonged to a separate person. Her waist was so trim. Her body warm in his arms. He rested his chin on the top of her head and wondered what he was doing. Blood stirred in his limbs. It was a long time since he had felt like this--alive. Potent.

"I need to sleep," he said, but led her to the bed. She climbed in and, after dousing the lantern, he climbed in beside her, pulling her in close. The scent and texture of another living being suddenly important.

She did not try to turn their arrangement into a sexual encounter. She simply curled into him, as if she'd understood something from the night before.

He fell asleep almost immediately and was lost in a lavender-scented forest where a chicken-legged house danced in a circle and a wicked, misshapen crone laughed and laughed.

He woke to the dacha ticking around him. It was still dark outside and by the hush in the air, more snow was falling. He sat up. Something had woken him beyond evil dreams. He slid out of bed to Maria's protesting murmurs and went to the door. Pulled it slightly open and cold air froze his face. Snow sifted in over his bare feet. It was the predawn darkness, the deepest of the night when the whole world seemed to gather itself in preparation for the leap into day. Usually this far out from the city there was absolute quiet, but the throaty rumble of at least two approaching vehicle engines broke the stillness.

He closed the door and turned back to the bed. "Get up. You have two minutes to get up and dressed. Move!"

He pulled on his shirt and trousers, a handmade sweater of thick brown wool Annushka had bought for him years before, and his shoulder holster. Then he pulled on his coat and his old fur hat.

Maria gazed confusedly up at him from the bed. Sleep still half held her.

He grabbed her and hauled her out of the covers. "There are people coming for us just as they came for Collin. Don't ask me how I know. Now get dressed."

He'd been a damned fool bringing the machine here. Someone at the stable had reported that he was there. Someone had reported he had removed something. Charlotte Newcombe? Richard Spencer? But Spencer had all but handed him the data machine. And they were Anglo-German. Why would they come after him? He needed time to think. Time to assess everything he had learned, but events seemed to conspire against him.

Maria was up and had her stout trousers and shirt pulled on. She pulled on her coat while he thrust his feet into his boots and tossed hers to her. Yanking open the door and carrying the data machine, he hauled her out into the night and stopped. The engines were closer. Almost to his lane. Dragging Maria behind him he set off for the lane, following the Perseus's tire prints.

He just had to pray that the enemy would drive up the lane and make it harder to follow their tracks. In the darkness, it was just possible he and Maria might get away.

They were halfway down the lane when vehicle engines slowed. His eyes had adjusted to the snow and the night and he could now see shapes and contours. He floundered through snow off of the lane and into the forest and down the hill. Maria came after him. "Who are they?"

He shook his head.

"Why are they here?"

"For you. For me. For us both. They want to tie up loose ends."

By the sound, the vehicles had turned into the laneway. If he was lucky they'd drive right to the house and make his and Maria's tracks less clear.

Whoever these people were, he'd bet that they wanted to get in, get the job done, and get out. They wouldn't like having to search. If he and Maria could stay disappeared, they might be safe.

A glance over his shoulder showed something shiny moving through the trees, though there were no headlights. He waited a moment but a second vehicle didn't pass up the driveway.They were going for the house but they had stationed one vehicle at his driveway entrance to block escape that way.

He turned back to his trail and waded through the snow, making a path for Maria. If the men searched, they'd find his and Maria's trail. And then they would come for them.

He stopped and pulled Maria in close. "Listen. I have to stop them from finding our trail. Straight through the woods that way," he pointed. "There is another dacha. It is owned by an old woman who lives there. Her name is Agafya Ryabkov and she is a loner and suspicious. I bring her groceries. Go to her house and explain. She will, hopefully, take you in. Stay there until I come for you."

Her eyes caught whatever light there was as she peered up at him. "I'm sorry. I've brought you only trouble since I've known you."

"No." He shook his head. "You've brought me--I don't know what--but I feel--" Like what? A foolish old man? Like he had found an inkling of life again? "I feel like you've shaken me out of a long bleak winter." He caught her shoulders and leaned down to kiss her. Sweet lips again and he realized he was hungry for kisses and so much more. Annushka was the past. Maria might hold the future.

He pulled back and, praying he wasn't placing her in more danger, handed her the data machine. He pointed again. "That way. Go. I will try to stop them."

She looked as if about to protest, but he shoved her in the right direction and then headed uphill, circling back toward the dacha.
Chapter 11

The snow thankfully was only part way up his shins in most places and closer in around the trees there was even less. Snow still sifted softly down and masked all sounds. The air smelled of ice and pine pitch as he slid through the night shadows to come at his dacha from the rear.

They must have arrived by now. Perhaps they'd even discovered that their quarry was gone. If they'd found his and Maria's trail, the two of them were doomed. Down slope, through the trees, he made out the greater light of the clearing and the dark bulk of his home. Flashes of light against the snow said that someone or someones were searching the area. So they'd been inside and realized they were too late.

From inside the dacha came a crash as if someone else was relieving their frustration. A snarling yowl expressed Koshka's opinion. Hopefully the little black cat would get away.

A door slammed and voices reached him through the trees. The flickering lights of four flashlights fanned out from the house. They'd seen the Perseus. They knew he and Maria were on the run, and on foot.

Four against one. Not great, but they would be blinded by their lights and he--was not. That had to be worth something. That and the fact they had yet to discover his and Maria's trail. He hoped.

Loosing his weapon in his holster, he slid closer to the clearing as the men struggled through the deeper snow in the open. Their breath made huge clouds as they puffed through drifts.

The closest man's flashlight tracked back and forth across the snow. Kazakov stayed immobile in a stand of trees and let the man blunder closer. He was tall and lean and by his stance, experienced with weapons. He gripped a pistol in the hand not holding the flashlight. The tracker entered the trees and came even with Kazakov's hiding place but still didn't see him. Then his flashlight found the deep trench of Kazakov's footprints. He stopped, inspecting the trail, and Kazakov stepped out from the trees. The man had time to look up as Kazakov clocked him on the temple with his pistol. He went down, heavily and hard, and Kazakov relieved him of his weapon.

Three to one. Better odds, but still not good.

He used the man's belt to bind his hands to a tree, checked his face with the flashlight, and stopped. Sergei Alenin from the squad. What the hell?

Kazakov flicked off the light and looked back at the cabin. Was Rostoff there? It was almost a sure thing that Antonov, Alenin's partner, was. He thought of Antonov's suggestion that Kazakov should change and felt sick to his stomach.

The fact it was Kazakov's brother officers meant so many things that he could not fathom. Right now, all he could concern himself with was living through the night. He straightened and set off following another bobbing light.

This one was down lower, on the north side of the dacha. Kazakov wallowed through the snow, trying to stay silent, but he found himself puffing, his breath great gouts of steam. He had to be careful. If it was Antonov, the burly detective was powerful--a man you wanted at your back in a fight. He was also deadly accurate with his weapon, scoring top of the heap in their annual weapons qualifying. Incapacitating Antonov's partner would only make him angry, but surely Antonov and Kazakov's history together had to mean something. If Antonov was his enemy, would he have tried to warn Kazakov off at the office?

A lesser man might not--but Antonov--he would try to do the right thing first.

Kazakov eased carefully through the trees. Their branches were heavy with snow. If he knocked one, the snow would cascade down, alerting the searcher to his presence.

The man was searching the snow along the tree line, but just as Kazakov came even with him, he straightened. "Sergei! I don't think they came this way. I'm not finding any sign."

Antonov. Kazakov held his breath. The detective's voice carried, his short, hulking form visible through the trees.

"Sergei?"

Antonov turned uphill, in the direction Kazakov had come. "Sergei!"

He stopped and listened, then swore under his breath. His hand snaked inside his coat and came out armed with a pistol. Then he turned and cautiously followed the tree edge around the dacha. He'd find his friend's tracks soon enough and now he was on watch. That would make Kazakov's task more difficult.

Kazakov turned back the way he'd come, following his path back through the snow and praying he could beat Antonov back to Alenin's body. But the snow was still heavy and now he was going uphill and his path was longer than Antonov's because it wound back through the trees.

The bobbing flashlight Kazakov had been tracking suddenly dropped to the ground. Although there was no outcry--Antonov was far to cagey to alert an adversary to his whereabouts--Kazakov knew that he had lost the race.

He crept forward. By the glow, Antonov had set the flashlight down in the snow and was on his knees examining his partner. If he was doing that, there was a good chance that he had holstered his weapon. From behind, and with an element of surprise and his greater height, Kazakov could probably take him. Silence was certainly better than using his weapon; the gunshot would bring everyone running.

One step forward. Another. Kazakov edged behind Antonov as he checked Alenin's pulse and released his bonds.

Bent under branches, Kazakov gathered himself to leap. The snow shifted under him, sending him sideways against a branch. The frozen tree limb cracked like a gunshot.

Kazakov threw himself. Antonov leapt up, whirled, fumbling for his weapon.

Kazakov slammed into Antonov's side, grabbing for the pistol. It went off and the sound burned a hole in the silence. Something hot slammed through his side, stealing his breath and his limbs went weak.

The pistol swung toward him again. He slammed his fist into Antonov's face. The pistol wavered and he grabbed its hot metal. Grabbed Antonov's thick gun hand, jerked and twisted, and felt-heard something break. Antonov roared.

Tearing the pistol from Antonov's hand, Kazakov tossed it away. He slammed his fist into Antonov's face again. Again. Again. Antonov slumped under him and went still. Panting, Kazakov stood over him.

Shouts came from downhill. Two flashlights bobbed up the lane. Kazakov stepped free of Antonov's body, turned, and ran.

Into the trees, his breath burning his lungs and something burning his side. The night was very cold and he knew he needed help but there was none to be had. They'd mount a search for him, so he had to keep going. It would work in his favor, actually. It would lure them away from Maria and Agafya Ryabkov's dacha. He headed farther uphill toward the mountains.

It was the pain that finally stopped him--that and the now knee-deep snow. He doubled over beside a tree where a large eagle owl sat in a crook of a branch. The bird took flight silently as he tried to listen to the pursuit over his ragged gasps for breath. Night was lifting its dark wings from the sky, leaving only the feathers of darkness under the trees.

His breath steamed around him. Steam came off his side and a crust of frozen red had formed down the side of his coat. He unbuttoned the coat to inspect the damage and inhaled the reek of iron.

Blood and sweat soaked his sweater and the top of his trousers. When he shifted, more blood seeped out of a deep hole in his side. His shirt and sweater were packed into it. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it other than seek help.

Or get caught. He legs felt weak enough that he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep going.

His breath slowed and he focused on listening. The wind rustled in the tree tops and sent snow sliding and thumping down from branches. Above him the eagle owl cried, but otherwise there was only the sound of his heartbeat and of blood pounding in his ears.

In this silence, he would hear any pursuers' voices. Had they actually given up? Not particularly efficient of them.

But then maybe they thought he'd die out of here of his wounds. Or maybe they hadn't come for him...

Maria.

Swearing, he started down the hill, following his blood-spotted trail back the way he'd come. The breeze picked up, sifting snow off the trees down over his head and shoulders, freezing his face and dusting his clothing. He finally reached the spot where the pursuit had apparently stopped. Three men had been here, by the different treads on the boots. Most likely two who he had seen around the dacha and another from the second vehicle. They had either decided he wasn't worth the effort to pursue further or something had drawn them back.

And if there had been four men in the first vehicle, he doubted that there was only one in the second.

He reached the dacha when it was still early morning.The weak winter sun angled across the snow revealing the pattern of many footprints. There were no strange vehicles present and no sign of his attackers. The Perseus was still there, but someone had stabbed both front tires. It wasn't going anywhere soon.

There was no smoke from the dacha's chimney, but that didn't mean no one was waiting. Carefully, he approached from the rear past the Perseus. There were no windows here for anyone to see him. Close by the walls he stopped to listen, but there were none of the soft thumps and bumps that came with footfall in the dacha. Perhaps it was uninhabited, or perhaps whoever waited was perfectly quiet. It was possible, if an unusual skill.

From the rear of the house he skirted down the side to one of the windows that flanked the front door. He eased up on the first step and leaned up to peer through the window corner--pulled back.

From what he could see, no one was there. He pulled out his pistol and peered around the clearing. If someone was here, surely they would have finished him off by now. He crept up the stairs and yanked open the door. Then sidestepped inside to keep his profile small. No one was there.

The place had been tossed, all his evidence torn from the wall. The photocopy of Yekaterina lay on the floor beneath the woodstove. He had to believe the rest of his evidence was burned. From the darkness under the bed came a plaintive mew and Koshka pushed a black nose out to him.

"I know. I know. I am worried for Maria, too." He needed to be away after her, but he had to take care of his wound or he'd be no good for anyone. He just had to pray that she'd made it to safety and that the men had not found her trail.

He didn't want to think about the fact that they'd turned back without finishing him off.

He went to the sink and washed his hands, then roughly pulled off his coat and stripped off off his blood-soaked clothing.

The wound oozed red. A slightly larger wound on his back showed where the bullet had gone right through. It had cut through the extra flesh he had gained from too many years of sausages and good brown bread since Annushka had left off cooking for him, but the bullet seemed to have missed anything vital. He would live but it hurt like hell. A cleansing with alcohol had him swearing and knocking back a long pull of vodka straight from the bottle. Then he found a bandage from his first aid kit and covered the wound. It still hurt, but it was the best he could do and at least he'd stopped the worst of the bleeding. He hoped. What was going on inside his flesh he had no idea.

He straightened and groaned at the tug of torn flesh, but dug in drawers for clean clothing and pulled them on. The others were ruined.

His coat he rinsed in the sink and watched the blood swirl red down the drain. He wrung it out as best he could and pulled the coat back on. Feet back in his boots, he fed Koshka her tinned food and put out the bag of kibble for free choice, gave her a pat, and went out to fix the Perseus. Thankfully, he had enough spares in the lean-to on the back of the dacha. An hour and a half later and sweating profusely in the cold, he had four intact tires. He climbed in and collapsed, shivering, back in his seat. A trickle of warmth down his side said the bleeding had started again, but there was no help for it. He had to make sure Maria was safe. The Perseus's engine roared to life. Time to collect Maria and find somewhere else else to hide. Koshka would fend for herself and if he didn't come back, the little cat could escape out her cat door and feed on mice. She'd been a feral when she came to him. The cat door had been a compromise to keep her with him.

He rumbled cautiously down the lane to the road. The plow had finally passed by, leaving a huge drift blocking his lane. He drove the Perseus right through it and headed down to Agafya Ryabkov's turn-off. Instead of plowing through the drifted-in driveway, he parked the Perseus at the side of the road and hiked in, ignoring the pain at every movement. There were no tracks in the driveway, so that was good. Antonov and company hadn't paid a visit to Agafya's place so Maria should be waiting.

In the clearing, the place looked immensely peaceful, the stone and log walls gone honey-colored in the sun. A spiral of blue smoke rose straight up from the chimney. The wind had died down. Thankfully, there was no sign that anyone else had been here this morning, but then the snowfall last night had most likely helped to fill in Maria's tracks.

He climbed the stairs and knocked, closing his eyes at the thought of seeing Maria again.

"Who is it?" Agafya's querulous voice came through the stout door.

"It's me, Kazakov. I've come for Maria."

There was silence a moment. "There's no Maria here."

The old woman had to be hiding her.

"Agafya Ryabkov, this is Alexander Kazakov, your neighbor. Maria is my friend. I sent her here last night for safety. Surely she came."

The door opened an inch and the old woman peered out, eyes glittering. "When I say there's no Maria here, I mean it. What were you thinking, sending a stranger to my house?"

What indeed. By the suspicion on her face, even if Maria had come there was every chance the old woman would have turned her away. His heart started pounding. If Maria wasn't here, where was she?

"Did someone knock on your door last night?" He turned from her to scan the yard and saw the truth. Only his footprints crossed the pristine layer of new snow. What he'd thought of as good news at the lack of faint indentations in the snow was actually a scarier truth: Maria hadn't come here.

He looked back at Agafya. "If a woman comes named Maria, please take her in and keep her safe. I will be back for her."

He plunged down her stairs and back to the road, climbed back into the Perseus, and reversed back to his lane.

Had she gotten misdirected in the dark? Was she still walking, exhausted, through the forest? In this cold that was dangerous.

Fighting the pain stitching his side, he followed the Perseus's track up the lane and found the place where he and Maria had set out through the trees. There were three sets of boot prints over theirs.

He swore. He never should have left her alone.

Dreading what he would find, he pushed on through the woods, the sunlight placing bright bands of light and shadow over his vision. His breath steamed. His vision misted. His side throbbed and his legs wobbled. He needed to rest. He needed to eat, but he kept going until he reached the spot where his path branched off. A pair of tracks overlaid his.

He'd been lucky, because he'd had no idea someone was in pursuit. If they had come upon him while he was hunting Alenin and Antonov, he could have ended up with more than a bullet through his side.

A single large set of prints followed Maria's trail.

He followed, noting how Maria's strides had lengthened, though they were still not as long as her pursuer's strides. She knew she was being followed and she was trying to escape. Then her path split, one of her tracks clearly heading for the road, while the other went forward. The snow around the forward path indicated that she had backtracked and turned aside to the road.

Kazakov stopped. What the hell had she done?

He followed the forward track and then backtracked as she had done. What had she seen that would make her do this?

He stood at the spot where she'd turned aside. The snow was deep here. Had she thought the road would give her more speed? If so, why the few strides ahead and then backtrack? She could have just turned toward the road.

In the panic of last night for her to do this spoke of either great confusion or purpose. Cautiously, he retraced her forward path to the turn back point. There had to be some reason. Something that had turned her back last night.

A gunshot? The sound would have carried but surely concern for him wouldn't have turned her around to face the man chasing her. He stopped in the tiny clearing where she had reversed her direction and turned around, studying her footprints to get a sense of her actions. In the sunlight and shadows there were so many prints it was almost as if she was masking her tracks, laying confusion upon confusion as if she didn't know what to do.

But most of the tracks congregated on one side of the clearing. To hide intent there?

He scanned the brush but there was no sign of a hidden track continuing. He turned back to the clearing. Or were the heavy tracks to draw attention away from elsewhere. He crossed the clearing and peered into the brush.

No trail showed, but only visible because of the angle of the sun was a rectangular slot in the snow. He reached in a gloved hand and pulled out the data machine. His legs gave and he thumped down in the snow.

"Aah, Maria." He bowed his head. She'd known this was important so she'd wasted time hiding the damn thing, thereby risking herself.

He staggered up, feeling suddenly exhausted, and retraced his steps back to where her path cut to the road. He followed, dreading finding her body in the snow.

Through the trees he followed the signs. Maria's stride was a staggering stumble and half fall against the trees as she tried to outrun the man behind her. A snow angel where she'd fallen. A tree cleared of snow where she'd bumped it.

And then the trees parted and the plowed road appeared, but on this side of the drift were the signs of what had happened. A flurry of flattened snow and deep indentations that caught the sun and shadows. Someone had been pushed into the snow in a caricature of a snow angel, on either side the indentation of knees.

There was blood in the snow where the angel's head had been.
Chapter 12

With the pain radiating out from his side, the world was a distant concept that he could not quite grasp as he steered the Perseus down the slope from the mountains. Maria had been captured and Antonov and Alenin were part of it, though he could not fathom why. He would make them tell him where she was.

The open steppe, the houses that devoured the open fields, played across his windscreen like the latest movie. It was there, but not really. All a dream. All a dream just like Fergana was a dream. The dream of a people and New Moscow was his nightmare, because Maria had been taken and he'd promised to protect her.

And failed. He'd failed in so much in his life. Failed to live up to his father's expectations by being too bookish, even though he had joined the police force. Failed his marriage. Failed to find Yekaterina and Semetai's killer. He could not fail in this.

Beside him in the still freezing vehicle, even though the hot breath of the heater filled his face, lay the damnable data machine still wrapped in its protective leather. What was protecting Maria?

She had given herself for this machine and it was not a good trade.

The streets of New Moscow were filled with sunlight glinting like knife blades on snow. Antonov and Alenin. They would know where Maria was being held. The concrete streets filled with a film of dark snow. Frost covered the edges of the Perseus's windshield as he pulled into the curb as close to the police station as he dared.

He sat for a moment, inhaling the stale scent of wet wool and old blood and preparing himself for the confrontation. Then he secreted the data machine under the front seat and stuffed his emergency blanket in after it. Opening the door, he climbed out. It took a moment to steady himself on the side of the Perseus. His legs were watery. His feet too many thousand feet below him.

But his pistol was in his pocket and he knew where he was going. He struck out around the vehicle and down the sidewalk. The ten steps up to the station's front door were a cliff face he scaled. Through the doors, he focused on not staggering across to the secure inner door. The officer on guard recognized him and let him in so that he could reach the elevator. When he faced forward before the doors closed, there were too many people looking at him.

The doors slid closed and he slumped against the wall as the elevator lifted him to the third floor. When the door dinged open, he straightened and stepped into the squad room.

Old tea and sweat and a little bit of iron fear scented the air as he scanned those present. Crew-cut Pavel Chelomeyev and Sherepov, his trainer and partner, looked up from their desks by the wall. They stopped their discussion. Then Detektivs Razin and Pogolin stepped out of the coffee room. Both stopped dead when they saw him.

"Jeezus, Kazakov," Chelomeyev said. "What the hell happened? That looks like blood."

"Are you okay?" Razin asked.

Kazakov looked down at himself. The bandage job he had done was clearly insufficient. Fresh blood gleamed wetly through the thickness of his black wool coat. He felt dizzy for a moment and braced a leg against a desk.

"Where're Antonov and Alenin?" His voice was a rough growl.

"Out on a case at Yekaterina Park," Chelomeyev said.

Kazakov felt his heart miss a beat. He turned to leave.

"Kazakov! Wait! Let me call you a doctor!"Chelomeyev called.

Kazakov stabbed the elevator door and it slid open. Chelomeyev came after him, but the door thankfully slid closed.

Down the three floors and he squared his shoulders. He knew he wasn't thinking straight but he had to get to Yekaterina Park. Something about the location filled him with ill-ease. He shook himself. He had to find and confront Antonov and Alenin. Demand that they tell him where Maria was. Do whatever was necessary to get Maria released. He'd trade the damned data machine if it would do the trick.

The walk to the Perseus was miles farther than he'd thought. He climbed in and slumped behind the wheel, wishing he could just go to sleep. But Maria needed him. He started the vehicle and pulled out into traffic so abruptly that brakes squealed and horns blared at him. He steered the Perseus through traffic far faster than he should, turning onto the quiet streets that fronted the park and the Red Veil. Red and blue lights flashed at the end of the treed park. The coroner was there and uniformed police. He accelerated down past the false quiet of the Red Veil and came to a stop on top of the curb behind the coroner's van.

Antonov and Alenin. He staggered out of the Perseus, feeling drunk with rage, betrayal, and pain. Where were they? The wind off the mountains rattled tree branches together like bones. Two uniformed officers stood aside smoking, much as they had when Collin Archer's body had been found. Khalil Khan stood beside the cloth-covered body, making notes on a clipboard.

In his heart he knew it would be Maria.

He lurched over to Khan. "What happened?"

He leaned down to shift the cloth, but Khan knocked his hand away.

Khan looked him up and down. "What happened to you?"

Kazakov waved the question away. "Who is it? Is it a woman?" By the size of the body, it looked like it.

Khan must have read the fear Kazakov felt. The M.E. hesitated.

"Where's Antonov? Alenin?" Kazakov demanded.

"I don't know." Khan shook his head, his gaze apparently held by Kazakov's bloody clothing. "They left when I arrived."

Kazakov looked down at the tarp-covered body and thought he might be sick.

No Antonov or Alenin to be found. None to be confronted. Kazakov felt his strength unraveling. He glanced down at the body. Another to be added to the rolls of Yekaterina Park's dead. The tsarina who had left a trail of bodies across Asia was still doing so here.

"What have you got?" he asked softly, fighting back his fear and urgency. He carefully erased his emotions from his face and nodded at the carefully shrouded figure in the snow.

"Woman. Maybe thirty. Beaten to death."

His knees threatened to give way and he staggered. Khan caught his arm.

"I need to see," Kazakov said, bracing himself.

Khan frowned. "It is not--pretty."

Swallowing, Kazakov nodded and Khan bent to twitch the tarp off the face.

Maria.

Kazakov groaned and felt the tears well. He dug at his eyes with finger and thumb because he should not feel this ball of tangled emotion clotting his chest. He barely knew her and yet he knew her too well, her sun-kissed olive flesh gone gray in the snow and battered with bruises. The flesh was split on her brow, blood pooled in her gaze. Her refined nose was twisted sideways from a horrible blow. Her sweet lips mashed and pulped.

He started to fall, but Khan caught him. "What the hell's going on, Detektiv?" His hand slid Kazakov's coat open and slipped inside, then pulled out again, full of blood. "Allah save us." He scanned their surroundings. "You need a hospital."

Kazakov shook his head.

Khan's mouth pressed into an unhappy line. "Then at least let me look at your wound. I'll drive you to the hospital."

Kazakov shook his head again. He was not leaving his vehicle here. If he went with Khan, it would only be for a bandage and then he would continue his search for his two fellow officers. He turned toward the Perseus and staggered, only Khan's quick steadying hand stopping him from falling.

"You can't possibly drive yourself."

"I can drive." It was a promise. An oath for Maria. But could he really? He felt like collapsing. His legs felt weak. And a terrible anger surged through him, heating his blood. Antonov and Alenin. They would pay for Maria five-fold.

Khan resignedly guided him back to the Perseus. "I shouldn't let you do this. I should be calling you an ambulance. Now listen: you will follow me to the hospital, do you understand? You will follow me and we will deal with your wound."

"And her. Maria." Kazakov looked back at the body. Leaving her here, so close to the Red Veil had to be a message. But why, when they could have used her as a trading point to get the data machine. Unless--did they not know he had found it? Or did they know and was this a warning of what would happen to him if he did not return it? But return it to who? The Chinese embassy?

"You knew her?" Khan asked.

Khan pulled the vehicle's door opened and tsked at the bloody seat. Kazakov slid inside and lay his head back. "Her name is Maria di Maria. She was a witness in the Collin Archer case. I was protecting her until they came for us last night."

"Is that when you were shot?"

Not opening his eyes Kazakov nodded. It was so tempting to sleep. So tempting to just curl up in a ball and admit defeat.

"There was evidence taken from this crime scene," said Khan. "There was evidence of a fight and the perpetrator left something behind this time--unlike Collin Archer."

Kazakov opened his eyes and sat up. "Like what?"

Khan shook his head. "A hat like the one you're wearing, except far newer." He slammed the Perseus's door shut and rapped on the roof. Attendants were already carrying Maria's body to the wagon and Khan climbed into the coroner's van. It pulled out and Kazakov started the Perseus, wincing as the vehicle thunked down off the curb. Overhead a film of cloud was dampening the sun, and the mountains were fading into a gray distance. All except Yekaterina's mountain.

The Perseus's cab filled with a sound like engines and he scanned the sky, just as he had done so many times in his life, for signs the final battle had begun. There was nothing there, but something was coming. He knew it as surely as he knew Baba Yaga would likely figure in a Russian fairy tale. He accelerated down the snowy street to catch up, and Yekaterina Park, the scene of so much death, fell behind.

If Antonov and Alenin thought that leaving Kazakov's hat at the scene would stop him, they didn't understand who they were dealing with. He would put things right with Antonov and Alenin in his own final battle. But first he needed Khan's help--and not the way the little M.E. thought.

Traffic increased as he careened unsteadily through the roundabouts onto and then off of Suvarov until he found himself at Our Lady Yekaterina Hospital. He sat in the parking lot, resting his forehead against his hands on the wheel. His hands shook. His legs felt weak. But he had no time for such things. He pulled the data machine out from under the seat, shoved the Perseus door open, and stepped out into the shuddering cold. Khan stood waiting by the stairs down to the morgue. Kazakov limped over and refused Khan's help down and inside.

The receptionist's eyes were black sparks that took in too much of him. By the downturn of her lips, there wasn't much she approved of.

"There are calls for you," she said to Khan, as if to remind him he had duties beyond his troublesome companion.

Khan collected the slips and then led Kazakov down the hall to his office. Inside, Khan slid off his heavy winter coat and pulled on his white physician's coat. He looked neat and tidy, his darker skin counterpoint to the white of the cloth.

"Care to tell me what the hell's going on? Why are people shooting at you?"

Kazakov only slumped in a chair and winced. When he looked up, Khan was studying him.

Finally, the M.E. sighed. "Let me look at your wound."

"Not why I'm here." Kazakov leaned forward and placed the leather-wrapped data machine on Khan's desk. "I need your help with this."

Khan shook his head. "We'll get to that. You're gray as a hospital sheet, and believe me, gray is not your color. By the look of your coat, you're bleeding and you've been bleeding for a while."

Kazakov looked down at his side, and damnation, there was more blood seeping through the thick wool. "But I bandaged it."

"Not good enough, it would seem. Now stand up and let me see how bad it is."

"Most doctors would provide a me with a place to lie down," Kazakov mumbled.

"Most doctors don't work with living patients in the morgue." Khan grabbed Kazakov's arm and proved himself surprisingly strong, hauling Kazakov up out of the chair. He groaned and leaned on the desk as Khan helped him remove his coat.

"So, what has that thing on my desk got to do with you being shot?" Khan asked as he studied Kazakov's bloody shirt and trousers. He hauled the shirt up and found the blood-soaked bandage. Tsked. When Kazakov didn't answer, Khan met Kazakov's gaze. "By the look of this, you need an emergency physician, not the coroner. Yet."

"I'm not going anywhere where I might be reported. They would have finished me if they could have found me. They probably thought I bled to death in the mountains--until I kindly informed them otherwise by going into the office." He shook his head at his stupidity.

"So instead you came to my crime scene to die? Am I supposed to be flattered?" Khan shook his head. "As if my situation isn't already tenuous enough. There are parties in the hospital administration who do not trust a Muslim doctor--even for the dead."

Kazakov steadied himself on the desk because the room was spinning. "I didn't come looking for you. I was looking for Antonov and Alenin."

He saw understanding flare in Khan's dark eyes.

"And now she is dead and I will find them. I need your help with that." He tilted his head at the desk. "I came for that, not the kindness of your medical help." Yet he held still for Khan's examination.

"And yet without medical help you are not going to be able to do anything about anything else." Khan shook his head. "Stay here."

He left the office and returned after ten minutes with a basin of warm water, a pail, and a stack of bandages. "Sorry I took so long. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to find bandages in the medical examiner's office. Now sit on the desk and take the shirt off."

Kazakov did as bid and out of the pail Khan produced a set of scissors and expertly cut free the sodden bandage. The wound was ugly in the fluorescent light, pulsing with blood with each movement and each breath.

Khan inspected it and the wound in Kazakov's back. "A through and through gunshot."

"Pistol." Kazakov said through clenched teeth. Even the air's touch hurt.

"You washed it?"

"Tried to. Used some vodka to disinfect it."

Khan frowned. "Not too effective."

"It was good vodka."

Khan looked up at him and actually grinned. "Well, this is going to hurt like hell, because we don't normally need local anesthetics in this department. I suggest you prepare yourself."

"You're enjoying this just a little too much."

Khan swabbed away the worst of the blood to inspect the wound, then used a squeeze bottle to spray clear water. Pain shot through Kazakov's side and up to the top of his head. He gripped the corner of the desk and clenched his teeth as Khan applied fiery antiseptic and then poked and prodded. He pulled strands of dark sweater wool from inside the opening.

"Better to do this now than close the wound and let it fester," Khan said as Kazakov groaned.

"It doesn't feel any better knowing that."

"There. Done. Just consider yourself damned lucky that the bullet didn't do anything but notch your love handles." Khan threaded a circular needle and did quick, neat sutures to close the wounds on Kazakov's front and back. Each small stitch sent a sharp blade of pain through Kazakov's head. The wound burned as Khan smacked white bandages on and wrapped them around Kazakov's waist to hold them. "No more gun battles and no revenge for a few days. You need to rest."

He went around his desk and pulled out an ancient prescription pad. Grimaced. "Not too much use for such a thing here, but it comes with the coat."

He wrote something indecipherable and then tore the page off the pad and handed it to Kazakov. "Antibiotics. I suggest you take them." Then he let his gaze drop to the leather-wrapped rectangle on his desk. "Now, what's this?"

Kazakov heaved himself unsteadily off the corner of the desk to pull on his blood-stained shirt and slump in the chair across from Khan.

"I'm not sure what to do with that. I figured you had more experience." He dipped his head at the data machine console in the corner of the room. "You know how to use that far better than I do. I thought maybe you could figure out what this is."

Kazakov reached forward, intending to uncover the machine, but the sutures pulled too tight and stopped him.

Khan waved him away and unfolded the leather. When he was done, the metal carapace of the machine gleamed dully in the middle of his desk.

"What is it?"

"Open it and see. The top is hinged at the back."

Khan found the edge of the top and lifted it open. His brown gaze widened and he glanced at Kazakov, then bent over the machine. "Are you telling me this is a data machine?"

"You tell me. You're the expert. I can barely key in a name in the squad room. There's a button at the top that seems to turn it on."

Khan gingerly pushed the button and a low hum filled the room. "Allah protect us," he swore softly as the screen flickered on and placed a green glow on Khan's skin.

He touched a pair of keys, and the machine beeped. Khan jerked back.

"It's clearly a machine, but I know nothing about its workings. I can do queries on my office machine, but that's because I was taught how. You need someone with far more skill than me. A programmer, I think they are called."

Kazakov slumped in his chair. "Listen, that woman in the park. She gave her life to protect this evidence. I need to find out why it's so important, and hopefully that information will lead me to whoever killed its owner and Maria. If you can't help me, who can?"

Khan steepled his long fingers and thought for a moment. "There are men in the government..."

"No government. They may be involved. And no AngloTec either."

"You suspect them also?" Khan said.

It was so hard to know. Kazakov shook his head. "Them. The Chinese. The Ottomans. Any of them could have had reason to kill Collin Archer--and others."

Khan went still, his gaze assessing. "This is still about the girl, isn't it? That Yekaterina Weber. And the Manas boy?"

Kazakov looked away uneasily, scanning the various government policy bulletins pinned to the bulletin board by the office door.

"No. Yes. Maybe. I don't know. Perhaps."

Again, the barest inkling of a smile crossed Khan's lips. "You and your definitive answers. I think I've missed you, old friend. Even if you bring problems like a plague of locusts."

Kazakov sighed. "Part of my charm. So, can you help me?"

Khan placed his hands palm down on either side of the offending machine as if he was a psychic conducting a reading. "I can make a suggestion, but you may not like it."

He waited for Kazakov's nod before continuing.

"A few months ago, I was at a conference and at lunch I was seated beside a fellow from the United States of America embassy. We got to talking about changes in our work and he was very excited about technology. He had worked for a time with the Anglo-Germans as a data programmer, but had since returned to his home in a place called Charleston to work with a large research firm. Apparently, the Americans are presenting themselves as a hotbed of technological development. He is here as part of the delegation making overtures to our government about building closer alliances. He may have the expertise to help you."

An American. One of those who approved of slavery.

Kazakov sighed. It had been eight hours since Maria disappeared and probably not much less since she died and yet it felt like years. The weight of his failure weighed his shoulders down. Was agreeing to deal with such a man simply one more failure and erosion of his morals?

"How long will it take to set up a meeting?" he asked wearily.

Khan picked up his phone and dug in his top desk drawer for a card before dialing the number.

Someone must have answered almost immediately.

"This is Khalil Khan. We spoke not long ago." He nodded. "The pleasure is mutual. It was an enjoyable meal." His gaze met Kazakov's and there was calculation there. "I--I have a friend here who you simply must meet. He's brought me a toy that is, I think, unique. Interested?" He nodded and mmh-hmmed a few times. "We are at my office at the hospital. Where should we meet?"

Kazakov looked up. "The library. The tables at the back of the first floor. It is public there." And yet quiet. The same area that Natani Bure had frequented.

Khan relayed the location "We will see you in a little while."

He hung up and turned to Kazakov. "He will meet us there in twenty minutes."

Kazakov looked at his watch. "There are people out there laughing because they think they have silenced everyone. I need to show them they are wrong."

Khan steepled his fingers under his chin. "Revenge does not look good on you, friend. It is a demon that has plagued my people for a thousand years and yet we have not learned the lesson. Revenge eats you from within and leaves a living carcass behind. Is that what you want?"

"A living carcass--isn't that all that's left of Fergana? We all walk and talk, but really, we live in a purgatory dreaming of a great past and what might have been. We're nothing more than a façade in this country and our enemies know it and take advantage. Hell, from what you say, even those upstart Americans come here to feed on us."

"Or make us greater. You do not know."

It was a bare fifteen minutes before Kazakov found himself and Khan seated at a table in a corner of the library's first floor. They had taken Kazakov's Perseus with Kazakov driving, though Khan had clutched the door handle the entire way. The library was busy enough on the main floor, with patrons coming and going, but at the rear, an area usually preferred by students after school, the time of day had the place largely empty. It was good because anyone paying too much attention to their impromptu meeting could easily be identified.

Promptly five minutes later, Khan stood at the approach of a man unlike anyone Kazakov had seen before. Kazakov considered what it meant that Khan could get such a quick response from this almost stranger. What did that tell him about his old friend?

The stranger was tall like Kazakov, at least six feet two, but with a ramrod straight back that made him seem taller. So did the tall, wide-brimmed hat he wore that held a layer of snow on its gently curled felt brim. A coat much like Kazakov's minus the blood, and a pair of pointy-toed boots that had been tooled in opulent curls and leaf patterns completed the ensemble. Not exactly the sort of thing that would work well in the snow and cold of Fergana, but the man probably didn't plan to be in the country that long.

"Eric. Welcome." Khan held out his hand and the two men shook. "I'd like you to meet my friend, Detektiv Alexander Kazakov of the Fergana police. Kazakov, this is Eric Clinton of the American Embassy." Kazakov lumbered to his feet and swayed. "Eric, Kazakov has brought me a little problem that I thought you might be more adept at solving." He tapped the machine on the table beside him.

Clinton coolly looked Kazakov up and down; his blue gaze clearly registered Kazakov's bloodied wool coat, but the expression smoothed swiftly away again. Here was a man who guarded his reaction like a lesser man might protect his gold.

"You will please pardon my condition. There are people who are less than happy with my investigations," Kazakov said and sat down heavily again.

Eric Clinton had a ruddy, outdoorsman's face shaved smooth--as opposed to the usual five o'clock shadow most Russian men sported. He shook Kazakov's hand with an impressive grip, made more impressive by the rough work calluses on his fingers and palms. Then the newcomer went around the table to Khan's side. He stopped dead when he saw the screen Khan had exposed in the data machine.

"Holy hell. What is that?" He shook his head. "No. I know what it is. I've heard of them, but I've never seen one. Where the hell did you get it?"

His Russian came out with a nasal twang that made much of what he said almost indecipherable.

Khan waved him in Kazakov's direction and Eric Clinton looked at him expectantly.

"It was found hidden amongst a murder victim's belongings." Not quite true, but it gave a flavor of where it had been located.

"Do you mind?" Clinton eased into Khan's chair and pulled the little machine closer, scanning the screen as if the chicken scratch of Chinese figures, hashtags, and numbers meant something. He leaned over the keys tentatively pecking, then picking up speed.

Kazakov heaved himself up and around the table to peer over Clinton's shoulder. Then the dark screen cleared to light blue with a list written in another language.

"What is it?" Kazakov asked as he leaned closer to scan down the unfamiliar writing.

"A menu of records."

"What language?" he asked.

"English," Khan and Clinton said in unison.

Clinton whistled. "There's a hell of a lot here." He glanced up at Kazakov. "Who did you say this murder victim was?"

He clicked on one of the names and the screen shimmered and changed.

It held copies of letters. Clinton leaned in close and then swore. The letter was in Russian, correspondence between the small Fergana defense department and the department of agriculture regarding the lease of a large tract of prime farm land for an installation. It discussed how to go about shifting the large population of Kyrgyz farmers and referenced negotiations between Fergana's government and the Ottomans.

"What's an installation?" Khan asked.

Clinton sat back in his chair. "I'd say probably weapons. It sounds like someone in your government is finally choosing sides. Shit." He shook his head. "We were hoping Fergana might be interested in forming an alliance of independent nations."

"One department of government does not necessarily speak for all Fergana," Khan said softly.

Clinton looked back at the data machine and closed that file to open another. This one had documentation filled with Chinese characters. Clinton closed the file and looked up at Kazakov with the file menu still on screen.

"It looks like your boy's been very busy. Ottoman information. Chinese, too. Just who was this guy?"

Kazakovstopped scanning the menu, his attention caught by one word closer to the screen bottom.

"Open that one." He pointed.

"Bure?" Clinton tapped on the keys and suddenly the screen changed again.

An image of a newspaper article filled the screen. It was a headline article.

Tragic Accident Kills Leading Family.

Kazakov remembered the event, if not the article. It was part of the Boris Bure mystique. Bure and his family had been traveling back from a holiday in the Tian Shan mountains when their car left the road. When their vehicle was finally discovered, the driver, mother, father, and two sisters were dead. Seventeen year old Bure was gone and had apparently wandered off into the mountains.

Clinton scrolled down and a second article came up, this one screaming that Bure had been found after four long weeks in the mountains--further story to follow.

Clinton kept scrolling down through an interview with Bure talking about his miraculous winter survival in only city clothing, to the next article.

It wasn't a headline, but the typical type of article you would find inside the paper and below the fold.

Prestigious School Student Questioned in Rape.

The article was brief and named no names, but said that a senior student at New Moscow's premier education center was being interviewed as a suspect in the rape of an eleven-year-old female student from nearby Education Center #5. The girl was still in hospital due to emotional and physical trauma.

There was nothing else in the record but the date--approximately thirty years ago.

Clinton looked up at him again. "This means something to you."

A statement not a question, but Kazakov nodded.

"So, who was your victim?"

Kazakov glanced at Khan, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. He had already trusted this stranger with so much.

It was telling as well that Khan knew this Eric Clinton well enough to judge.

But who else was there? The evidence was too broad and too vague and yet something he had seen niggled in the back of his brain.

Biting back a groan from the pain, he returned to his chair across the table and sank down. The first floor of the library was quiet with just a few voices coming from students who had taken possession of the far corner and the drone of the check-out kiosks out front. "When we first found him, we thought he was simply a homeless man. Investigation indicated that his name was Collin Archer, but he may have been far more than a manager at AngloTec."

Clinton ran his fingers around the rim of the small machine. "A spy, you mean. This is the data machine of a spy."

Kazakov nodded and checked over his shoulder. "He also had this. Can you tell us what it is?" He hauled out the small plastic stick and placed it on the desk in its baggie. Let it carry the answer to Maria's murder--to all the murders.

Collin eyed it. "What is it?"

"No idea."

Clinton picked up the bag. "You ever seen anything like this?" he said to Khan.

The M.E. shook his head thoughtfully, but then hid gaze brightened. "May I see it?"

Clinton gave it to him and Khan turned the device over in his hands. "I'm almost sure of it..." He looked at Kazakov. "If you read my report, you saw the bit about the odd flap of skin I found on the victim."

"It was on Archer's left side--a small flap of skin about two inches long and an inch wide," Kazakov said.

Khan nodded and held up the small rectangle in the bag. "I think it just might fit, don't you?" He shook his head. "If we were still at my office we could check."

Kazakov and Clinton bent closer to look at the device. It was virtually the same size as the small flap of skin.

"But what is this thing?" Clinton took the baggy back to examine the device.

"It fits into the side of the data machine," Kazakov said.

"What?" Clinton and Khan rounded on him. Kazakov nodded and wished for his bed. His knees felt like rubber and his vision was like murky glass.

"When I found it, I realized it had prongs that fit into a socket on the side of the machine."

Khan pulled the small device from the baggie and Clinton plugged the little device in.

The screen shivered. The machine beeped and then the screen went dark again.

Clinton's fingers danced over the keys once more and this time a different list came up. Two items, both with names that meant nothing to Kazakov. He shook his head but Clinton sat back, satisfied, then leaned forward and touched another key.

The screen cleared again, this time bringing up a new list of items.

"Your device carries other information." He tapped the little rectangular device. "With this kind of technology, your man could have been transferring intelligence to his associates almost unnoticed. It wouldn't take much. A drop in a coat pocket. A handshake. A hug. The information could exchange hands. By the look of this list, a lot of it, too."

"Or a man could transport such a device across borders in the flap of skin and then place it in his coat pocket for someone else to retrieve," Kazakov said, realizing that he had the information he needed.

"I'm going to leave this with you to keep safe," he said, heaving himself up and heading for the entrance beyond the bookshelves.

"What are you doing? You're in no condition to be going anywhere." Khan came around the table as if to stop him. "Besides, you're my ride."

Kazakov shook his head. "Clinton will have to get you back to the hospital. I'm going to arrest Archer's killer."
Chapter 13

The Perseus's seat was sticky with old blood as he pulled into the curb in the late afternoon, but that couldn't be helped. At least Khan's bandage held--or Kazakov thought it did, but he wasn't going to check. Pain throbbed like a fist grinding into his side and the vehicle's heated cab smelled like iron and old meat.

All too bad. So was the cold that ate into his hands and feet and sent shivers through him even though the Perseus's heater chugged warmth.

Across the street the Red Veil sat peacefully, its white façade glowing in the growing dusk and the swirl of the new dusting of snow. Soon the lights in the lower windows would come on and the Ziln limousines would begin to arrive for the evening. The streetlights flicked on in the gathering gloom and he should do what he had come for while he still had the momentum of arrival.

It had come to him as they discussed the small data holder. According to Maria, Archer had shown no interest in sex, but he had gone through the motions as if it was an expectation. But what he had done at each visit was spend time in the dining room listening to the other patrons talking. Those people might change, but there was a constant in his visits beyond his trysts with Maria, who was perfect for him because she was not prone to gossip like the other girls. What better place to pass off his data than a place where it was automatic that all patrons relinquish their coat?

He climbed out of the Perseus and felt his stitches pull. At least the pain had died down to a throbbing ache like a vice crushing his side. Better than the screaming pain it had been. Thankfully, his legs felt solid enough--for the moment.

Unfortunately, his coat and clothing were still crusty with dried blood, but that wasn't going to stop him from what needed to be done. He just wished he knew how Archer's spying linked back to Semetai and Yekaterina's deaths. Was Bure perhaps an unwitting source of the information Archer was trading? Did something in Bure's past allow him to be blackmailed? If Semetai had overheard an exchange of information...

He started up the Red Veil's daunting flight of stairs using the railing as support. By the time he reached the red door he was puffing and he took a moment, peering out into the growing dark where the swirl of flakes was becoming a white veil across the park. The Red Veil and the White--both masked so much darkness. He used the knocker once on the door and once more it pulled open revealing the delicate oriental flower with the secret smile: Prae.

Her eyes widened as she recognized him and then the smile faded away, but not the secrets. Her gaze still held those. Gone were the offer to take his coat and the gentle subservient bow of the head.

"What do you want?" she said. "Frau Zelinka is indisposed."

He stepped past her into the hall, though she tried to block his way. She was dressed in demure scarlet silk with a collar high around her neck and a bodice and skirt that sheathed her body like a blade. Her black hair was coiled in ropes high on her head.

"And if I asked to see Maria, would she be indisposed, too? How about Collin Archer, Prae?"

Her gaze flickered for a moment, but then her chin lifted. "Frau Zelinka doesn't want to talk to you."

He grinned down at her. "Amazingly, this time I want to talk to you, Prae. You see, I know what's been going on here. I know what Collin Archer was."

"He was a patron. That is all."

"Not all, Prae. He was a spy and a courier. He brought the data to you and you took it from his pocket each time he came and probably passed it to someone else each time."

Her impassive expression turned to a glare. "I don't have time for this. Clients are coming."

Kazakov grabbed her arm and dragged her into the parlor just off the foyer. It was an opulent room rich with burgundy and dark blue carpets and brocade furniture. Gossamer burgundy veils concealed the corners and oriental incense conveyed the sense that he had stepped into another time and place. An idealized Silk Road, perhaps. A man could imagine himself as Marco Polo, a man of the cold western world experiencing the pleasures of the east for the first time.

"You will tell me who you work for. Who ordered Archer's death? I know he was a spy. I suspect he double-crossed you."

She jerked away. "You know nothing!"

"So tell me." He crossed his arms, but blocked her escape from the room.

"I'll tell you nothing."

Behind him the front door burst open. Kazakov spun around. The unwelcome figures of Antonov and Alenin zeroed in on Kazakov as he fumbled for his weapon. Loss of blood slowed him down. They beat him to their guns and advanced into the room. He should have known. Should have expected. And there was nothing he could do. Barring using Prae as a human shield, they were two and he was one and they were ready for him. Slowly he raised his hands.

Prae stepped past him to Antonov's side.

"Good. You're here." Her voice changed, becoming stronger, and sharp edged. "I told you to get rid of him, and yet he shows up here. What do I pay you for? Do you know what jeopardy everything is in?"

From a simpering apprentice whore, her expression changed and he realized just how wrong he had been. "You run the Red Veil. Frau Zelinka--she's your front, your puppet!"

She turned a haughty expression on him. "That slut's only good for enticing fools like you and Rostoff. Let him think we are just a whorehouse paying our bribes. I have the business sense. I have the loyalty. Unlike that hún dàn, Archer, after all the money spent on him."

"He betrayed you."

"All the years of building a web of connections across Asia and he planned to sell out to them--the Ottomans." Her hands curled into fists. "He became too much like the Anglo-Germans."

"It was you who made him look like them, sound like them."

"Think like them, too, apparently. Duplicitous bastard. I should have known when I saw him with Enver Pasha."

"So you had Archer killed. Maybe by your friends, here." He nodded at his fellow detectives, wondering how they had fallen so far. Was it only the money? He'd never have thought it possible of Antonov, who now stirred uneasily where he stood.

She just looked at him. "I am not a fool, Detektiv. I might play one, but I will not provide an admission to you."

She looked at Antonov and Alenin, nodded, and ducked around Kazakov to disappear down the hallway. Both detectives were stone-faced. Then Antonov nodded. Alenin remained inscrutable.

"Alexander Kazakov," Antonov said, but his voice hitched as if he did not like his predicament. "You are under arrest for the murder of a prostitute named Maria di Maria."

"You expect me to simply surrender to you due to some trumped up evidence?" Kazakov asked. He doubted whether he'd ever see the station. It was far more likely that these two would drive him to some quiet spot and take care of a problem.

"Strong evidence." Anontov said, with something akin to regret in his voice. "A fur hat with your name in it left at the scene."

"Of course. Get rid of me officially and you don't need to kill me. Anything I say will be discredited and you can bury me in Fergana's darkest prison. Tell me, just how long have you been working for the Chinese?"

Antonov wouldn't meet his gaze.

"At least we're doing something to help our country. I don't do everything they want. Just the things that will help Fergana resist the bastard Ottomans," Alenin said. "But then you wouldn't understand something as great as taking a stand. Of doing what's necessary to help the greater good. Some people just have to die, sometimes. But you're too bloody impressed with your own reputation as the detective who solves everything. You just couldn't leave well enough alone--even after Antonov warned you."

A swirl of evidence coalesced in Kazakov's brain and he swayed for a moment at what it meant. "You were there. You were the two men with Archer who chased down Semetai Manas. You helped kill him."

Antonov shrugged. "Archer wasn't sure if the kid overheard anything, but then months later he started making threats to important people. Seems he was determined to marry the girl. We couldn't afford to have information leaking out. And then there was the fact that he killed the girl."

Kazakov staggered. It couldn't be true. Semetai had loved Yekaterina. There was no reason to kill her.

Unless there was.

All the figures of the investigation swirled around him and his legs felt weak trying to wade through them.

Antonov caught his shoulder and shoved him into the veil-draped wall. "Sorry, old friend."

Alenin patted him down and confiscated his pistol.

Then Antonov grabbed his hands and twisted them behind his back. From the hallway beyond the parlor came the sound of voices swirling down from the upstairs. Prae must be holding them there until the situation was dealt with and Kazakov was gone. Metal cuffs imprisoned his wrists and he was shoved out of the room and out of the door.

"You should have listened," Antonov murmured.

Kazakov almost fell down the long flight of stairs, but his captors must have taken pity on him. Somehow his wobbly legs got him to the street.

They shoved him in the back of a police vehicle and climbed in. The engine roared to life as he pondered Semetai Manas and what could make him take the life of Yekaterina. The lad had loved her enough to abandon his family's traditional ways. It didn't make sense. But then nothing made sense in this case. Nothing was as it seemed.

A woozy sense of disorientation flowed over him as the car cruised through the streets. It was like a circus parade and he was the prize lion caged for all to see. Surprisingly, instead of taking him to a quiet spot for execution, they pulled into the politseyshiy garage, parked, and hauled him out of the vehicle and up the elevator, half dragging him into the squad room. It was surprisingly busy, with two witnesses giving statements at desks and detectives pecking at their typewriters. Young Pavel Chelomeyev froze as he exited the coffee room, two cups of coffee in his hands.

All discussion stopped and all eyes followed him as he was guided through the desks and shoved into an interview room. The door slammed shut behind him and he was alone. He collapsed into a hard wooden chair at the table bolted to the floor in the center of the room. The air tasted of old sweat and stale fear and he knew that a camera was on him. He closed his eyes, visualizing the evidence he had hung on his wall at the dacha, trying to put the pieces together into a new pattern. How did it go?

Yekaterina and Semetai's photos were at the top, their families off to the side. Semetai's parents, his father looking fierce in a traditional fur hat, his mother faded, eyes downcast. On the other side, Boris and Natania Bure. Beneath the photos of the young people had been Collin Archer's death photo. He had been, if not responsible, then closely involved with Semetai's death. Kazakov had considered that he might have been involved in Yekaterina's death too. Somehow that would have been fitting--a spy for the Ottomans and Chinese destroying the latest in a long string of Yekaterinas.

But it didn't fit now. Not if Alenin's off-hand comment had been true.

His memory scanned down the rest of the wall. The Red Veil and Frau Zelinka and Prae. He knew who had killed Collin Archer, or at least who had had him killed. Also at the Red Veil were Maria--killed for what they thought she knew about Archer's death--and the other girls including pale Katya--almost the image of Yekaterina...

It was like he was swimming in Yekaterinas. A tsarina who had destroyed a nation through her greed. A girl's notebook that survived a time of great strife and rose above the ashes. A schoolgirl dead in a park bearing her name and a whore whose face was almost the same.

Too many, and yet. And yet. There was something almost there. Almost aware in his brain. He almost had the connection.

The interview door burst open and Antonov and Alenin came in bearing a large paper evidence bag and a file that they dumped on the table. Antonov slumped into the chair opposite Kazakov while Alenin released Kazakov's hands and then retreated, scowling, to slouch his lanky frame against the wall. Classic interview. Good cop, bad cop.

Kazakov filed away the tingling sensation of almost awareness and returned Antonov's fierce regard. It was classic step one: intimidate the suspect. The only problem was that Kazakov had almost as many years on the other side of the table. The fact he sat here today didn't matter at all. He crossed his arms, waiting.

Like a staring contest where the winner was the one who didn't blink, the power here was in silence. Let the Double A team break the silence first.

Finally, Antonov stirred and flipped open the file, appearing to scan its meager contents. "You know why you are here."

"Enlighten me," Kazakov said.

Antonov didn't look up from the file. "A woman's body was found in the snow in Yekaterina Park. Evidence suggests that you knew her. More evidence suggests that you killed her. Tell us what happened."

"Aren't you supposed to ask me if I would like an advocate present for the interview? Is that right not enshrined in Fergana's constitution?" He asked it mildly, as a training officer would ask a recruit. These two knew better and just chose to forget, though their version of the interview would doubtlessly state that such an advocate had been offered and declined.

"Why would Semetai Manas kill Yekaterina Weber," Kazakov asked. "Everybody says that he loved her. He was risking everything by going against his faith to be with her."

"This isn't about the death of some teenaged slut. This is about the woman in the park," Alenin said.

And the woman in the park was a whore. But why consider the girl a slut? She was in love, yes. In love with a Muslim boy and that would not be popular.

And she was pregnant.

Kazakov straightened as Alenin roused himself from his slouch and crossed to the desk. "Don't play silly bugger with us, Kazakov. We've got the evidence we need. We have your hat at the scene where her body was found and I'll bet forensics will find her fingerprints all over your house."

Kazakov only half-heard the evidence. Surely his theory couldn't be right, but there were the newspaper articles. There was the fact that Boris Bure was even now being groomed to assume leadership of the Reformation Party. How it was all linked to the Red Veil he wasn't sure, but something was there.

"Dammit, Kazakov, we asked you a question!" Antonov pounded his fist on the table and Kazakov started. The clue connections faded, but hung around like wispy chimney smoke vapors amongst the blue trees of winter.

He blinked at his interrogators. "Repeat the question, please."

"Tell us how you came to kill Maria di Maria," Antonov repeated.

Kazakov shook his head. "I wish an advocate to be present."

"Then tell us what you know of this?" Alenin upended the paper evidence bag and out tumbled a furred winter hat Kazakov recognized. The ermine and lynx fur he had chosen himself, matched so the red tipped hairs caught the light. He knew inside would be his name, carefully embroidered by the wife of the tribal man who had crafted the hat.

He glanced up at Antonov and sensed Alenin's leer. They thought they had him. He sat back with his arms crossed and winced as his side burned. "There is more evidence than this and it will not convict me."

"Evidence can disappear, friend. Now tell us what you know," Alenin said, his mouth a grim line.

"I want an advocate."

Antonov leaned over the desk but his expression made Kazakov wonder whether the man's heart was in it. "Tell us how it happened. Was the whore your lover? Was there a lover's spat?"

Kazakov's fingers curled to fists. "I want an advocate."

Antonov glanced up at his partner. "I told you he would not play this game." He leaned over the desk. "Be careful or you will leave us few choices, friend."

Alenin rounded the desk to loom over Kazakov. "All right. We'll call an advocate. In the meantime, we can move you down to cells. There's a lot that can happen in transit."

His breath smelled of a meal of sausage and garlic and Kazakov's empty stomach curdled. There was likely a beating in store for him and there was nothing he could do about it. But as long as he was alive, there was a chance he could come through this. There was a chance he could bring the right people to justice.

Alenin hauled him to his feet and Kazakov realized he needed the help. The damned wound had hurt him more than he thought, but he kept his head up as he was pushed out into the squad room. Again, all eyes were on him. Most were neutral. Some resentful of a comrade who would allegedly kill a woman. Pavel Chelomeyev, actually met his gaze and nodded as if he knew the truth of Kazakov's situation. For the youngster's sake, Kazakov hoped he didn't try to intervene.

Beyond the squad room, they took him to the back stairwell that led down to the cells. Prisoners had fallen down these stairs. Some had even broken their necks. Tales of those misadventures that he'd chosen not to believe in the past now took on an additional menace. How many other suspects had been innocent men who had fallen prey to the swirling currents of foreign interference? How many of his comrades were bought and paid for by the Chinese or Ottomans?

He couldn't think of one he would trust--at least not fully.

He started down the stairs gripping the stair railing.

"You move like an old man, Kazakov. Don't tell me a little flesh wound has you off your game," Antonov said.

Kazakov tried to move a little faster. Two steps down to the landing. Then two hands found his shoulders and shoved. He stumbled down to the landing, flailing for balance as the hands once more found his back. Another stairway welled ahead.

His fingertips grazed the railing, but missed. He flailed again, slamming down on his shoulder halfway down the staircase. Something cracked as he bumped down the stairs. As momentum sent his hips up over his head, he covered his skull, his neck. Over. Over. Slamming to a stop on his back at the next landing.

Sharp pain in his shoulder. His wound screamed. He groaned and rolled to get up, but a boot found his wounded side and the world came apart.

"That's enough," Antonov growled.

He opened his eyes against the pain as strong hands heaved him up. He tried to get his feet under him, but they didn't want to work.

"Looks like the `khu i has just about had it." They dragged him down the last flight of stairs and down the short hall to the basement booking room.

The world swung around him, colored by pain and the knowledge that something was horribly wrong. Yekaterina, Semetai, Collin Archer, Maria. Something about the names. Something about how they fit together. Too many lies and too many truths.

He slumped against the counter as they emptied his pockets. Once upon a time there was something he'd had in his pockets. Something important, but he couldn't recall what. They took it all and half-shoved, half-dragged him down a gray concrete corridor to a cell. The solid door clanged opened with a squeal and they shoved him forward. He staggered in, going to his knees beside a metal cot. The cell door clanged shut.
Chapter 14

Kazakov lay his battered forehead against the cool metal cot. The cell's chill air smelled of urine and old blood--perhaps his. There was no blanket and the gritty floor radiated cold. For a toilet there was a bucket in the corner--thankfully emptied. Four bare walls. No window. One metal door--locked. Not a particularly helpful situation except it confirmed everything he'd suspected about Antonov and Alenin. They were in this far too deep to ever get out again and they were going to make sure he wasn't around to cause any problems. Fatal accidents in cells were not unheard of and an enquiry after such a death might be easier to rig than an outright murder investigation. They were cleaning up loose ends--just with more subtlety than he would have expected of them.

The beating he'd endured was but an overture. He would never make it to trial. Antonov and Alenin and a woman named Prae would undoubtedly see to it. For a moment he mourned the Antonov he'd known. They might not have been good friends, but there had always been respect between them.

Groaning, he crawled up onto the metal cot and rolled onto his back. The bolt heads from the supporting bars dug into his shoulders. He tried moving the shoulder that had been injured in his fall down the stairs. It hurt like hell, but probably wasn't broken. Torn tissue, then. That was something to be thankful for, at least. His nose, unfortunately, was full of blood.

A cell like this was supposed to have a mattress, but he doubted that he would ever see one. The single light bulb in its mesh cage glared down at him, the light catching on ceiling cobwebs and the flyblown concrete. Lower down, previous occupants had scrawled their epithets and burdens. He wondered what bodily fluid had been used to create the ink.

He closed his eyes against his surroundings and thought of princes trapped in Baba Yaga's basement dungeons. Not that he was a prince. Not that this was a fairy tale. No one was coming out of this and living happily ever after.

He'd been close, so close. The exciting tingle of pursuit was still sparking in the back of his mind. He just needed to put all the facts together and some place to take them. He doubted Rostoff or the brass would be interested.

On the other hand, the tingle in his brain could just be the result of a blow to his head. With his good hand, he gingerly felt the huge goose egg growing on the back of his skull.

The case of Collin Archer was surely solved, his death due to his duplicity toward his Chinese masters. The only question possibly outstanding was just who had held the knife. He'd bet good money the knife wielder was Antonov or Alenin. Was it Rostoff or Prae who gave the orders? The difficulty was proving it. The same went for solving Maria's murder. He had only circumstantial evidence--the fact that the two men had come after him, the fact that Maria had been alive when he last saw her and far away from Yekaterina Park. Of course, it was exactly the same kind of circumstantial evidence that Antonov and Alenin were using to rid themselves of the Kazakov "problem."

His word against theirs.

But it was the case of Yekaterina and Semetai that still made no sense. Regardless of Antonov's comments, there was no way the boy would have killed the girl he loved.

Her body had been so pale and still on the dead October grass. So ripe for the future that she had been robbed of. From the walls of his memory, her dead face peered out at him, the evidence pinned around her. The autopsy report. The lines linking her to her strangely unconcerned mother, her cold, self-important, politically connected stepfather. They'd acted like it was Yekaterina's fault that she was dead. A foolish girl at the dinner table and then she was murdered. Whatever had led to the fight at her last meal wasn't going to be revealed, beyond the fact that it had something to do with Semetai. And then there was Natania Bure's plea, don't look any further--not if you truly care for Yekaterina.

There had been pain in those words and fear in Natania's gaze. But why? Sighing, he closed his eyes.

Layers of Yekaterinas. Tsarina, diarist, victim. Even the girl Katya at the Red Veil. Katya was only a shortcut for the seemingly omnipresent name. Katya who had been bought for the Red Veil at a patron's request and who had been Boris Bure's favorite.

Kazakov sat up, and winced. He swung his legs over the side of the cot. Katya with the gossamer blonde hair and the looks of a sixteen-year-old.

"Holy mother of God. Eto piz`dets." What he was thinking was so fucked up.

He had to be wrong; and even if he was right, there was no way to prove it. Everyone involved had been too careful and very, very smart. As if Bure himself was protected by a patron who would, if it was true that the boy killed the girl, take care of the boy who could tell what he knew. The same patron then killed the spy to destroy any link between the two.

He scrubbed at his temple and winced. He had to be making this up. It was too farfetched. He could not believe Semetai would kill Yekaterina.

His shoulder throbbed and that arm felt weak. Blood soaked his shirt and bandages. He was bleeding again and who knew how long it would be before he received any medical attention. His wound hadn't even been mentioned at admission. He pressed his hand over the blood and applied pressure.

Hours passed. At least it felt like it. It was hard to tell with no daylight or watch to portion out the time. Voices rose from other cells. Prisoners swore. Prisoners yelled. Footfalls and jingled keys passed by his door, but no one stopped. No one even paused. Hell, no one but his enemies even knew he was here. Somewhere a metal door much like his clanged open and there was a shout, the muffled sounds of a fight, and then the sounds of heavy feet and something being dragged.

He staggered up and limped to the door. That would likely be him in an hour, a day, a week. Whenever they thought his resolve might be weakest.

He slammed the door with his fists and grabbed the handle.

Locked, of course. He slammed the door with his palm one more time and retreated to his cot. Beating his fists against the walls would solve nothing and waste his precious energy. He sat down to wait.

Long past the clang of the meal cart that seemed to have forgotten him. Long past the footsteps and the jiggle of the locks as the guard did his rounds, Kazakov sat and waited. Beyond the door the cells had quieted, leaving him in silence with the graffiti curses.

He lay back with his forearm over his eyes and must have dozed off--to wake to the sound of footfall in the hall. A single tread, so not Antonov and Alenin--they never went too far from each other. He sat up, listening as the footfall came to a stop. Then keys jingled softly and he was on his feet, ready.

The lock clicked and the door swung outward in the hand of Pavel Chelomeyev. The youngster looked pale with high points of color in his cheeks. His white shock of hair fell almost into his eyes and his shoulder holster bulged with a pistol. Their eyes met and Chelomeyev's gaze widened.

"Mother of God, what did they do?" he asked, scanning Kazakov's bloodied face and torso, and then checked over his shoulder.

Kazakov shoved past him into the hall. To hell with what he looked like.

"What you'd expect. Why are you here?" A trick? A ruse? A setup to get him out where he could be dealt with as an escaped prisoner? He could see Antonov and Alenin doing something like that. The question was whether Chelomeyev was knowingly part of it.

Chelomeyev shook his head. "I--I saw what they did. Your hat. I saw them take it from your drawer a few days ago. A joke, I thought. Until suddenly it is evidence against you." He swallowed. "I see you work. I see you solve cases far more than anyone else. I--I would like to learn from you."

His young face was so earnest, Kazakov had to look away. Was it really possible for someone in this place, in this job, to have hope and faith? Kazakov had lost his long ago.

"Not a good idea if you want to live--or succeed. Besides, you have a partner." But he took advantage and started down the hall between the line of locked doors to the open door to the guard room. He stopped, Chelomeyev crowding up behind him.

In the guardroom, the guard lay collapsed over his desk, eyes closed, blood on his temple. Papers from the desk were scattered over the floor.

"What the hell have you done?" Kazakov demanded as he crossed to the guard and checked his pulse. Steady. Slow.

"I hit him with my gun. I hope it wasn't too hard."

Kazakov glanced back at the youngster. "You shouldn't have hit him at all. You shouldn't be here. Don't you understand that this is a career-destroying move? I'm a prisoner. You're aiding and abetting my escape. You'll end up dead like me, or leastwise your career will." He rifled the guard's pockets for keys and went to the effects lockers, checked the list and unlocked his locker to pull out his bloody belongings. He pulled on his shoulder holster, his coat, and boots. His gun and mobile phone were gone.

He glanced back at Chelomeyev. "Let me see your gun."

The young detective freed his weapon, opened it, and handed it to Kazakov.

"I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to trust that you were smart enough that our friend here didn't see it was you who hit him."

Chelomeyev nodded.

"Good."Kazakov checked the gun, flipped it closed, and stepped toward Chelomeyev. "Remember that when you wake up and you still have a job." He clocked the gun across Chelomeyev's temple. The young detective crumpled, but Kazakov caught him and eased him to the floor with an apology. It was for the kid's own good. If this wasn't a setup, he could claim he came down for a visit and met the same fate as the guard after someone unknown freed Kazakov. He was, after all, now a criminal. If this was a setup, then the kid got what was coming to him.

Stuffing Chelomeyev's weapon in his own holster, he pulled on his coat and headed for the door, but the sight of the guard's desk phone stopped him.

Risk a call to Khan from here? If they knew about Kazakov's investigation and had seen the evidence that he'd collected, they'd know that Khan had evidence, too.

He picked up the phone and dialed through to Khan's cell; the phone purred lightly in his hand, but Khan didn't answer. After fifteen rings he thumped the phone down, wondering what to do as he hauled his crusted coat on, stuffed his pockets with his car keys, and prayed that the Perseus was still on the street by the Red Veil. He headed to the rear door that led into the police garage.

Large and poorly lit, the broad, concrete space worked to his advantage. So did the fact that at this hour of the night many of the uniformed officers had their vehicles parked in the city's quiet corners so they could catch a few hours of sleep.

He walked briskly through the marked vehicles to the sedans used by the detective squad. In his effects were the keys to the sedan he'd abandoned for the Perseus. It seemed like a lifetime ago. The vehicle fit him like an old tired glove, but the engine started and the vehicle slid out of its parking stall and cruised out of the garage without a hitch.

Snow was falling softly as if this was a holy night. October was behind them. November was almost gone, and Christmas lights twinkled in the windows of a few of the downtown shops. Their glow and the hush of the snow gave the night a feel as if this time, this space, existed somewhere outside of the Fergana he knew. This was as Fergana might be, pristine and clean and sacred. The holy mother Russia people dreamed of.

A fairy tale, and it was all a lie.

The streets were quiet as he reached Yekaterina Park and cautiously cruised past the Red Veil. Even the brothel's lights were out except one that glowed near what must be the lower floor rear door, as if all of Fergana was sated except one ravenous soul. He knew whose light it was, but Prae would keep until he had Khan and his American friend safe. Besides, a light like that was a perfect lure for a man seeking revenge. A perfect lure for a trap.

He cruised by and slowed past the Perseus, inspecting the snow. By the lack of imprints around his vehicle, no one had been near it since he left it there. He pulled the sedan to the curb. Though the police sedan might have about equal chance of being spotted by the police once they realized he had escaped, the Perseus was far superior in the snow. If he needed to escape New Moscow, the Perseus would be the better vehicle. He climbed into the trusty Perseus and the engine caught with a grinding start. Even in the cold, the vehicle reeked of old blood. Thankfully the blood on the seat had either frozen or dried, but he doubted if he would ever get the Perseus back to its once pristine condition.

The Perseus chugged through the snow like a workhorse and he wound through New Moscow past the gaudy lit domes of Saint Basil's and the faux frontage of Yekaterina's old palace, lit up by spotlights through twisted walnut trees so the shadows and the walls were contorted.

Somewhere, his country had gone wrong. Perhaps it was being surrounded by superpowers, but the inferiority complex of his country was clear in every one of its attempts at grandeur. Gradually the number of streetlights lessened until they finally relinquished the streets to the night and he entered the honest darkness of the gray mud-daub buildings of the old city.

He didn't know where Khalil Khan lived, though it was certainly on record somewhere. Khan had kept his roots and his home life private even after all the years they'd known each other. Though Khan was a friend, the man hadn't trusted him with a home phone number. But then, Kazakov hadn't invited Khan to the dacha, either.

For a moment he wondered why, but the answer was obvious. There was a divide of faith in Fergana and though Kazakov wasn't a religious man, somehow he'd come to obey those edicts. He sighed at the realization.

He stopped and parked when the streets narrowed, and climbed out into the silent night. This far into the old city, the lights and traffic noise of the new city didn't penetrate. The snow was a silent veil of white, the occasional house light a glowing beacon and the shadows a welcoming shield. He set off trudging through the snow until he reached the glass front of the narrow print shop and knocked on the door.

The rap sounded like thunder in the quiet street, but it couldn't be helped. He felt exposed and kept checking over his shoulder. Finally, a dim light appeared inside the shop as if someone had shifted the curtain from the back storeroom to expose light from the living area. Movement stirred the shadows inside the shop and then a face appeared briefly beyond the glass.

A lock clicked and the shopkeeper's narrow face peered out at him. "What do you want?"

He was clad in a knee-length sleeping shirt as he checked the street behind Kazakov.

"I need your help to reach a friend. They're after us for what we know. I have to warn him."

The shopkeeper checked the street again and finally nodded. "Come. Come."

He stepped back and Kazakov ducked inside. The warm scents of paper and ink were welcome after the cold. The sounds of life reached him from deeper inside the house and for a moment he regretted his lack of family.

Maria.

He sagged and the shopkeeper caught his arm. "You're injured more than bruises and blood on your face."

Kazakov shook his head. The shop's darkness hid his bloody side. "It doesn't matter. I need to warn Khalil Khan that they may be coming for him. I need you to contact him."

The shopkeeper went still.

"I know you don't fully trust me, but you trusted me enough to help me gather evidence from those who saw what happened to Semetai. Now two of his killers are after me and probably Khan. Phone Khan and tell him I'm here with a warning. Let him decide whether to talk to me."

Finally, the shopkeeper hustled to the phone on the wall behind the shop's counter. He didn't have to look Khan's number up as he dialed. The phone must have rung for a long time on the other end, but finally the shopkeeper spoke softly to someone--in Arabic, the holy language of the Koran.

Then he held out the phone. "He will speak with you."

Kazakov took the phone. "Khan?"

"What is it? Have you looked at the hour?"

"They came after me, Khan. They arrested me at the Red Veil. They took me in, but I escaped. It might be a setup so they can kill me on sight--an escaped prisoner. I think you're on their hit list, too. They know your evidence on Maria's death wouldn't convict me. They know you have evidence on the Archer death and Semetai and Yekaterina's, too. If they get rid of us, they'll have gotten rid of anyone who could cause trouble."

Khan paused at the end of the line.

"Listen, old friend. They won't stop at you. Your whole family is likely to disappear, too."

Kazakov heard soft voices in the background at Khan's end.

Khan came back on the line. "My wife says there's someone knocking on the door."

"Shit." Kazakov thought a moment. "Your friend, Eric Clinton. Call him. I'm on my way."

Kazakov hung up and swung to the shopkeeper. "I need you to take me to Khan's house."

The man shook his head. "I would need his permission to do that."

"We don't have time. There are people there now and there's a very good chance they are there to kill him."

The man read Kazakov's face. Then his refusal faded. "Let me get my coat."

He ran through the curtain to the storage area and the rest of the house. Kazakov heard shouts. A woman's answer. Then the man came back with a coat buttoned over his sleeping wear, his feet deep in knee-high boots, one of the ancient tribal rifles in his arms. He handed Kazakov a damp cloth for his face.

"Follow me," he ordered as he yanked open the door and plunged out into the night.

Kazakov followed, yanking the door shut behind him as he wiped his face clear of the worst blood. Then he hurried to catch up as the other man loped down the street. The snow was deeper here, for the wind had difficulty blowing the snow into drifts. Its depth was uneven from the passage of many feet, and the new snow masked the treachery. His feet slipped. He almost fell and twisted his side so the pain punched through him. The shopkeeper kept on going. He didn't look back. Then another armed man joined him. And another.

A third man, unarmed, arrived and slid to Kazakov's side. He was young and tall and Kazakov recognized him as Semetai's friend who had provided evidence at the group interview.

"You are hurt?" he asked.

"The bastards shot me last night. They killed a woman who could have given evidence against them."

The young man's expression hardened. "They will pay, these men. There are many coming."

Many coming. Somehow the shopkeeper had called for reinforcements. But if all they had were the antique weapons of their forefathers, this could be a bloodbath against the firepower of Antonov and Alenin's modern pistols.

"We have to catch up to the others and make a plan. There'll be too many killed otherwise."

The young man's brow rose. "Too many of them? They have things to pay for."

Kazakov looked forward and realized that the shopkeeper and the others had disappeared and there were no more footprints to follow. He stopped dead realizing that he had missed the place where the others had turned.

"What the hell is this? This is my fight and my investigation! Now where the hell are the others? Where's Khan's home?"

The boom of a rifle report negated any need for an answer. The sound echoed off the maze of flat-sided buildings making it difficult to get his bearings.

More shots, these the sharp bark of modern pistols. A man's scream of mortal pain.

"Idiots! They told you to keep me away, didn't they?" He grabbed the young man by the scruff of the neck.

"Ye-es," the youngster said.

"Well, you better damn well get me there or they'll all be dead. Or are you going to make me waste time backtracking for their trail?"

The young man hesitated, then nodded. "This way."

He set off at a run down a side street that wouldn't even pass as an ally in the new parts of the city. Cracked, gray-brown walls showed marks where weather had washed away the stucco. More shots came from ahead and Kazakov stayed on the young man's heels. The effort cost him. By the time they slowed at a corner, Kazakov was panting. He'd allowed his fitness to wane before this and with the wound, this was almost beyond him. Chasing down alleys was a young man's game.

More shots and something thudded into a wall across from them. Kazakov stopped the young man from stepping beyond the corner.

"Where from here? Where's Khan's house? Is that where the others were going?"

"Khan's house is down that street. He has the whole house. The front is his medical clinic. You can't miss it because of the sign."

Kazakov studied his face. He was smooth-cheeked, dark-eyed, and handsome like Semetai had been. "What's your name, son."

"Adilet. Adilet Sultanbek, sir."

"Well, Adilet Sultanbek, you will stay here. This is no place for an unarmed youth. Do you understand? There are men beyond that corner who will kill you. They use real bullets that kill a man, even one named for justice, do you understand?"

Adilet looked away, perhaps surprised that someone not Kyrgyz understood the meaning behind his name. Kazakov grabbed him by the collar. "You listen to me. I've had to look into the dead faces of too many young people who thought death couldn't catch them. I've got news for you. Death comes to us all. For some sooner than later. Semetai greeted him. So can you."

That seemed to shake the young man's bravado a little. Kazakov released him and went to the corner. There was a pause in the shooting.

He knelt and poked his head around the corner. A shot pinged off the wall next to his head and he threw himself backward, but not before he'd seen two bodies in the street. Both appeared to be Kyrgyz men. The fools had run right into the firefight.

"Adilet, is there another way in to Khan's house?"

He looked over his shoulder. The damn kid was gone.

"Derr`mo!" He scrambled up, his side radiating piercing blades of pain. The damn kid hadn't listened to a word he'd said.

Adilet's footprints were clear in the snow, though the falling flakes would erase them. The prints led back the way they'd come and then turned at the next corner. That had to be the way closer. The gunfire started again.

Kazakov set off at a limping run, the snow tangling his feet as he reached the end of the next block. He skidded to a stop and knelt to peer around the corner.

Two men stood at the end of the block facing out into a small square. Adilet hugged the wall behind them. From somewhere a light illuminated the front of a building with a single doorway, above which hung a small sign with Arabic writing and the image of a stethoscope underneath. There were no windows. Outside of his long hours as an M.E., Khan was also a doctor for his people. The little M.E. was far more than he seemed. He had bucked tradition and turned the single door that led to the usually immensely private living space into a public entrance for a community medical clinic.

But the door to the doctor's office hung loose on its hinges and something--a desk perhaps--had been thrown up as a barricade.

The men from the old town had the attackers pinned down for the moment, but that didn't mean that the attackers hadn't killed Khan and his family.

Kazakov pulled Chelomeyev's pistol out of his holster. The thing looked impressive with its blue-black steel, but was too heavy in the barrel to be a truly good weapon. He checked the chambers--thankfully loaded, but he had only six shots to do whatever it was he was going to do. Not get into a shooting match, that was certain. Not when his wound would impact his aim and not with a sharpshooter like Antonov.

He edged along the wall until he could see into the square.

More bodies that he hadn't seen from the other angle. The man across from him glanced back. It was the copy shop owner and his face was angry.

"How many have you lost?" Kazakov asked.

"Five, at least. Two were able to crawl back to cover in that doorway." He nodded at a doorway that gave onto the oddly-shaped common area. At one side, an ice-bound fountain still trickled water for the local women. In this weather, it would soon be frozen solid.

Kazakov nodded. They needed to get help to those men and the other fallen, if they lived. They needed this ended.

He held up his hand to the Kyrgyz men.

"Antonov! Alenin! I know it's you. Come out with your hands up and you just might live through this." He just had to pray that they had already used a large portion of their ammunition.

"Kazakov! I should have known." Antonov's grating voice carried across the square, but there was no sign of movement beyond the shop barrier. "We've got your little friend. His family, too. Give yourself up and we might let his family go free--at least the little boy."

"I don't believe you. Khan had the chance to barricade the door. He and his family are safe and you're trapped."

There was a disturbance in the medical office and then a scream, a shriek, and suddenly a small boy was swung over the barricade by his feet.

"That look safe to you? Now get your ass in here and let's have this out."

Sight of the child brought shouts from the armed men outside. The print shop owner turned and grabbed Kazakov's arm. He hauled Kazakov forward. "You go. You save the boy."

Kazakov yanked loose and fell back a step. "Hold on. Hold on a moment."

There had to be something he could do. The fact the child was still alive was a wonder. If they already had Khan, they would have killed him and the rest of his family. No, something had gone wrong. Somehow Khan's family had been caught, but probably not Khan. He said as much to the men he was with and scanned his surroundings seeking an answer.

The building walls had barely a crack between what had been ancient homes of these people. The building walls were blank slates except where the antique stucco had fallen away revealing old mud, straw and animal hair. The streets were narrow and cobbled, and looking up it was as if the structures leaned together so that they loomed over him. "Make a difference," the ancient walls seemed to say.

"If you can."

So much destruction they had seen. From Ghengis Khan and Timur through to the Russians.

The night sky was gauzy with snow and cloud.

"How can I get into these houses?" He asked, patting the wall beside him.

"Why?" demanded the shopkeeper, no longer so friendly. He'd seen too many of his friends fall.

"If I can get to the roof, there's a chance I can reach Khan's house. If I can reach Khan's house, then I'm betting Khan will let us in through the roof. But I don't think we have much time. The threat to his children is too imminent. He'll give himself up to save them."

The shopkeeper met his gaze and Kazakov nodded.

"He's my friend. I know him. His family is everything, but he would try to hang on. He knows we're coming." But did he? Khan had as much as told him to get out of his life--that he could not take the risk of having Kazakov as an associate, let alone a friend. And yet the man had been there for him, had even brought in the American.

The shopkeeper jerked his head back down the street. "Adelit, take him. We'll provide cover when you are ready."

Sighing, Adilet led Kazakov back the way they'd come, but turned aside to knock at a stout wooden door. Adelit shouted something in his own language and soon the door swung open. Adelit slid inside, speaking quickly to the man who had answered. When Kazakov entered the dark passage beyond the door, their greeter gave him the once-over and shook his head.

"You don't look fit for anything, let alone what you propose." He was a slim man, as all of these tribal men seemed slim and just newly parted from small rugged horses who would gallop them across the mountain steppes. He had a rugged face that had seen wind and rain and snow glare, and his mouth was filled with absences of teeth that he exposed in a grin.

"I guess we'll see," said Kazakov, "But if you want Khalil Khan as a neighbor, you'd best let me try."

The man nodded and hurried down the arched-roof passage and out into a courtyard of snow-covered paving stone. Broad balconies shielded doorways and windows from the snow on the first and second floor. On one side, near a single glowing window, a stairwell led up to the second floor, coming out even with the top of a leafless pomegranate tree. Kazakov crossed the courtyard snow, his boot prints defiling the pristine nighttime white. He climbed the stairs and spotted a rickety wooden ladder that led to the roof.

Not waiting for Adelit, he made the climb, feeling the frozen wood sway and creak under his weight. A trapdoor blocked his way at the top, but he shoved it open and climbed out.

A gust of wind surprised him and sent him stumbling sideways. He caught himself against a wooden lean-to that would provide shade in the summer. Between the low walls that edged the rooftop, lines were strung and hung with wash. The women would beat them free of the frozen wash water in the morning.

Ducking under the clotheslines, he reached the side of the house that overlooked the street and fountain. Keeping low to minimize being seen, he took a chance and peered down.

The bodies still lay in the street. The print shopkeeper and his man still stood sentry on the side street. From this height, he spotted three more groups of men guarding other paths of escape. There was no way Antonov and Alenin were getting out of this alive.

Unless they had a hostage.

That was why they hadn't killed Khan's family. They were caught, but they still had a card to play. Let them continue to think that.

The other side of the roof gave onto the street that separated this building from Khan's house and clinic. It was a long way down to the snow-covered street where another body lay. A span of seven feet separated the two buildings. From the ground, the distance between the rooftops had been deceptive.

Well, there was no help for it.

"What do you think?" Adelit asked from behind him. "It is far, is it not?"

"Not so far." When Kazakov was younger he would have made the jump in a heartbeat, without thinking. Now, as a man in his forties, it was no longer so simple. He took off his coat, for the weight would make the leap more difficult. "Hold onto this for me and stay here."

He tucked Chelomeyev's weapon in the waistband of his trousers and walked back as far as the clotheslines would allow. It was barely fifteen feet. Barely far enough for him to break into a run and then there was the low wall to clear.

Ignoring Adelit, he paced it out, then did a few painful jumping jacks to get the blood running. It was already running down his side.

It was time.

One. Two. Three.

He had that many strides before he drove himself up off the rooftop, up over the wall, up into open air, arms reaching, body straining.

He soared up over the street, but already knew it wasn't enough. The blood loss had sapped him of his strength. Already he started to fall.

His reaching hands caught the edge of Khan's rooftop, scrabbled there, and managed to cling as his body slammed into the stucco side. Oomph and the air went out of him. All the muscles in his hurt shoulder screamed.

His feet scrabbled for purchase where none existed. If he could just grab the other side of the roof wall, he could pull himself up. He scrabbled with his feet again and found the barest crack in the stucco with one booted foot. He kicked it and kicked again and heard stucco falling, then hiked himself up, daring to release one finger hold to grab the other side of the wall.

His foot slipped. He slammed into the building again. This wasn't going to work. It wasn't going to work because his shoulder was too injured and he'd lost too much blood. He was going lose his hold and fall and die just as surely as if Antonov and Alenin had killed him. Already his hands were freezing and the wind stripped all warmth from him.

He shook himself. That was the kind of thinking that ended empires, it was not the kind of thinking that the original Yekaterina had when she tried for greatness beyond anything ever seen in a woman. It might have resulted in a country dreaming of past splendor, but Russian blood ran in his veins. That was worth something. For Yekaterina, he was a fighter.

Ignoring the tearing pain in his shoulder, his feet scrabbled again and caught something firmer. He threw himself up just as his foothold broke free, and caught his torso across the roof edge. The roof edge wall cut into his wound.

The pain pulsed through him and he couldn't breathe. He kicked and rolled onto the roof to stare up at the heaving clouds. When he could breathe again, he hauled himself to his feet and waved back at the moon that was Adelit's face and checked for his weapon. Still there.

He hurried to the trap door on the roof and tugged on the worn wood handle. The door didn't budge.

"Derr`mo!"

He knelt beside the door and tried it again. No movement.

He knocked softly, then harder, pausing to press his ear to the edge of the opening. Maybe there was a sound but it was hard to tell in the wind and with his teeth chattering in the cold.

He knocked again, softly. "Khan. It's Khazakov. Let me in."

Then he stepped back, weapon drawn in case he'd been wrong.
Chapter 15

The night was cold, the wind off the mountains stiff so that Kazakov's bloody shirt and trousers blew around him like flags and he was freezing as the stinging snow swirled around him on the flat roof. The distant lights of New Moscow were a glow through the haze of flakes like an imagined world. There were clotheslines here, too, but most were empty. What remained of the wash looked like medical bandages that ran a long, ragged beard through the wind. A small shack leaned on one corner of the roof and the floor seemed to slope underfoot as if the roof had sunk in past rains.

The slick sound of a well-oiled bolt came through the trap door and Kazakov tensed with the pistol ready. The trap door lifted a few inches exposing only inky blackness beyond. Kazakov lunged forward and caught the edge of the door, yanking it back so it fell into the snow. From within the blackness, he faced the well-oiled steel of another antique rifle.

"Kazakov?" Khan's voice was a hoarse whisper.

"Khan." He came around the edge of the trapdoor and peered down at his friend. Khan's normally solemn face was grave and pale as the night was dark around him. Even the darkness couldn't hide the huge circles bruising Khan's eyes.

"They've got Anfisa and the children. I won't give myself up until they release them."

"I know, old friend. I know." Kazakov stuck the gun back in his waistband and climbed down through the trap door into a warm room that smelled of--old wool and spice. In the almost total dark at the base of the ladder he caught Khan's shoulders and felt the little M.E. shiver. "So now we free them, yes?"

Khan nodded. He wore a glowing white night shirt shoved into a pair of hastily pulled on trousers. Kazakov's vision adjusted enough to make out Khan's usually neat hair standing up wildly around his head. Fear and gratitude warred on his face. Finally, he composed himself and looked Kazakov up and down. "And you? Your wound? How did you get here?"

Kazakov shrugged. "I ran. I jumped."

Khan frowned and pulled Kazakov's shirt open, then glanced up at him. "You abuse my work."

"And you're in my way if you want to free your family." Kazakov tugged his shirt closed. "Show me where they are."

He buttoned his shirt as he followed Khan out onto a balcony that ran around the house's interior courtyard. Khan tugged him back against the wall. "They can see movement unless we are in the deepest shadows. I think one keeps watch here and one guards the front of the house. He nearly caught me once, but I shot back and may have caught him."

"Then you've made my job easier for me." Kazakov looked down at Khan's ancient weapon and gained a new respect for the M.E. But then, there was a reason the old weapons were treasured by the tribal families. He'd just never thought of Khan as connected that way.

"Describe the layout," Kazakov asked.

"The stairs are there," Khan pointed beyond the bare branches of an apricot tree that grew up from the courtyard. By the low humps in the snow, the courtyard was likely a garden of potted plants in the summer. A low, boxy structure stood in one corner of the courtyard just outside of the balcony cover. "The bedrooms are all up here. The parlor is there." Khan pointed to one side. "Kitchen is at the rear of the house, of course. The clinic used to be a prayer room." He pointed at a doorway masked in balcony shadows that would have a clear view of the stairs down from where he stood.

Kazakov nodded. "Is there any other way down?"

Khan hesitated. "There is an old stairway that leads to the kitchen, but that brings you out below us, directly into their line of sight."

Not a good option, but then neither was going down those courtyard stairs. If he was younger he might chance a leap off the balcony, but he wasn't younger and he'd already reopened his wound.

"All right. I want you to give me ten minutes to get down the kitchen stairs and into position below. In the meantime, I want you to go up to the roof and tell Adelit to signal the men out front to start shooting. Then get back here as fast as you can and cover me. We'll split their attention and just maybe have a chance to take them."

Agreeing, Khan told him where to find the stairs to the kitchen and then faded back into the shadows toward the roof ladder. Kazakov followed the balcony and found the door to a small storeroom. He slipped inside into darkness and the smell of cedar and had to feel his way past shelves to a low, servant's door at the rear. He pushed it open, its hinges creaking, and found himself looking into a pit of more darkness.

No windows. No lights that he dared flick on. Only velvet darkness ready to swallow him down. He slid one foot forward, feeling like he was stepping into an abyss, until his foot found the stair. He stepped down and kept his hand on the wall, feeling each step and counting. Twenty steps in the dark with the only sound his breathing. He came out into a space that smelled of cooked beef and noodles and, faintly, of turmeric and saffron. It was lighter here, from an open-air cooking area at the rear that in the summer would hold a cooking fire. Gradually his eyes adjusted enough to make out the bulk of a modern stove and fridge. So perhaps the cooking fire was not needed. Neat shelves lined the walls.

Carefully, he edged between the stove and butcher-block counters to the hallway that led to the courtyard. His feet whispered on tile. His fingers traced the wall--smoother than anything in the dacha--and with his other hand he drew out Chelomeyev's gun.

Still in the shadows, he peered across the courtyard. The clinic door was open, the window beside the door closed and curtained so no one could see inside. There was no light in the clinic and he could only assume that, like him, either Antonov or Alenin were in the shadows keeping watch. His money was on Alenin given Antonov's sharpshooter skills would be put to test fighting off Khan's friends outside and if, as Khan had suggested, Alenin had been shot, he would be very, very angry and on guard.

Kazakov edged forward until he was almost to the courtyard. The good thing was that as far as Antonov and Alenin knew, Khan was here alone with an inferior weapon. Kazakov tested the weight of Chelomeyev's gun once more. For all intents and purposes, they might be right.

He waited, contenting himself with breathing, with keeping watch for movement inside the clinic doorway. There was no way Antonov or Alenin would let their hostages near any escape route. These men were killers, but with police training. That meant they would be careful--and thorough. Maria's poor battered body proved that at least one of them could also be cruel. Even traitorous Collin Archer had been killed more cleanly. But then Maria had betrayed her mistress by abandoning everything in that life. Archer had simply had pretentions of grandeur--had thought he was good enough to play one power against the other as if he was a game master. A gambler to the end.

From the balcony above him came the soft fall of footsteps. Khan was back. Kazakov took a deep breath. It was beginning.

From the street, beyond the stout house walls, came the sound of shooting. The city men were firing at the front door. Answering, muffled shots came from inside the clinic and Kazakov tensed, praying that he wasn't hearing the deaths of the hostages. More shots came from overhead, blasting plaster off the wall by the clinic's courtyard door and window.

Something moved in the inky clinic shadows. A gun barrel appeared, aimed at Khan's position. Kazakov used the wall to brace himself and aimed at the darkness beyond the shadows. If Alenin was shooting in proper police style, his body would there as he steadied his pistol.

Kazakov fired. Chelomeyev's pistol bucked sideways in his hand.

A shout came from the clinic and the pistol disappeared. Kazakov leapt out of the shadows, zigzagging across the courtyard, leaping the heaps of snow that he was pretty sure were summer flower pots as Khan's gunfire hopefully kept Alenin pinned down.

He made it up the one step to the roofed porch that encircled the courtyard and shaded the ground floor rooms and the clinic door from the summer sun.

A gun barrel flash sent him leaping sideways, but the bullet slammed him into the snow five feet sideways from the door. Pain seared through his chest and beat consciousness away in white-hot waves. He fought for breath and clung to awareness.

Maria. Khan. The cold. The gun.

Somehow, he still held it. He opened his eyes and looked into the door's shadows--right into the barrel of Alenin's gun. The crew-cut blond towered above him, his finger already tightening on the trigger.

"You have a bad habit of living," Alenin said, but time distorted his voice as if a tape had been slowed.

It was over. He was done.

Kazakov blinked up at him trying to understand. Had Alenin taken out Khan? Had Antonov killed off the attacking men?

Taking aim, Alenin stepped out of the doorway's shelter, but he was still hidden from Khan's view from the balcony above. He used his boot on Kazakov's bloody side. White heat exploded in his brain and then turned to blackness. Kazakov fell through the pain, fighting for consciousness, the gun lost from his hand.

"Hey!" The shout echoed in the courtyard.

Alenin's head snapped up as someone tackled him. Kazakov rolled away, fighting nausea, and stumbled up as Alenin whirled and took a shot. A double report echoed forever in the courtyard.

Alenin sagged. He looked at Kazakov in surprise, a Hindu third eye blooming in his forehead before his knees gave. He crashed to the snow.

Kazakov staggered to Alenin's gun and dug Chelomeyev's from the snow. His chest was on fire. His gasps came with a red mist that froze in the air. Someone called his name.

In the snow beside Alenin lay the Kygyz youth, Adelit, his blood blooming in the snow from the hole in his throat. His hands flopped as he tried to stop the bleeding. His lower body didn't move. Then Khan was there, kneeling in the snow, fighting to staunch the wound.

Kazakov went to help him, but the sounds of gunfire from the clinic turned him around.

He stepped through the clinic door.

The dark space echoed with the violence of the battle taking place at the front of the clinic and the stink of cordite. Antonov apparently hadn't noticed the silence from the rear of the place.

Kazakov picked his way through a storeroom and office, past doors marked as exam rooms. Through one of the doors came the sound of sobbing. Life. But not in front of him. From the front of the clinic came the raining sound of death. Bullets slamming into the walls. The report of Antonov's weapon. How many rounds had he and his partner brought? They had apparently come prepared, if not expecting their own deaths.

"Alenin! What's happening! Did you get him?" Antonov called in a pause in the barrage.

Kazakov came to the end of the hallway. Beyond was a single room with a desk--now thrown on its side to barricade the door--and a tangle of chairs meant for waiting clients. On the walls, tattered bits of paper fluttered in the cold wind--all that remained of health message posters. Silhouetted at the edge of the now open door crouched the squat form of Antonov.

"Afraid not," Kazakov said, leaning against the wall because his legs were shaking. "Put the gun down, Antonov. Give yourself up."

Antonov didn't move. His hand flexed over his gun. "Or what, Kazakov? You shoot me? An honorable man like you? I don't think so."

He turned slowly, his gun still gripped in his hand and he smiled when he caught sight of Kazakov. "You don't look so good, old friend. If this is a stand off, I think I can out-stand you."

Kazakov nodded. "Probably. One last chance, Antonov. Put the gun down. You were a good cop once. I don't want to kill you."

Antonov's hand swept up. Kazakov pulled the trigger.

The bullet found Antonov dead center. He slammed back against the desk in the doorway, looking down at the hot bloom on his chest. A blast of bullets caught him from the street. He danced back into the clinic on already dead feet and collapsed to the floor in front of Kazakov.

Alenin's gun slipped from Kazakov's hand. The white-hot pain of his chest was spreading again. This time the bullet hadn't gone right through. This time it had hit something and the damn wall shifted away from him, leaving him without support.

Leaving him falling.
Chapter 16

The wind was cold and dry out of the eastern mountain ranges. It swirled flakes around Kazakov's shoulders. This late in December there was always more snow blowing in, smothering the earth, the city, and Fergana's hopes and dreams, but this year the snows had come earlier. At least that was how it seemed, standing in the graveyard above the cleared plot that marked the spot where Maria di Maria was buried.

It was on a hillside that faced west, toward Yekaterina's Mountain, not that the sullen clouds allowed any sense of direction. There was only swirling snow, but his hope was that in the spring the distances to the west might be revealed and Maria's spirit might see her way across the far-flung Ottoman deserts, past the crumbling might of Constantinople, and on to the remains of her small village in the Anglo-German province of Italia. It was the least he could do for her. She had been good-hearted and trusting and kind and he had allowed her to die. Another lost soul just like the Russian remains who dwelt in Fergana these days. He realized that now. They were all ghosts, figments of a past that was gone and that clung too closely to a fairy tale.

Kazakov shook his head, the nap of his latest lynx fur hat caressing his cheek in the wind. "We're all trapped, Maria. But you have gotten free. Perhaps I envy you that."

"Talking to the dead? I thought that was my job." The slight figure of Khalil Khan appeared out of the snow behind him. The small M.E. was swathed in a heavy wool coat that reached below his knees to tall black boots and a hat much like Kazakov's except black with golden tips. Mink, perhaps, or ermine. He came up beside Kazakov.

Kazakov sighed. "I suppose I was. Since I got out of the hospital, coming here has become a habit. Perhaps it's one I'll continue."

Khan shook his head. "I didn't save your life to let you spend it with the dead. You need to laugh. You need to find joy again."

Kazakov remembered a fleeting touch of soft skin, the warmth of Maria's mouth and body. Perhaps he'd almost found it.

And lost it again.

"I suppose I can't find that sort of thing standing in a graveyard, can I? It's just--I feel that I owe her. Not only did she trust me enough to come to me with evidence, she died to keep the evidence from falling into Chinese hands. And the Ottomans."

"And our American friends thank you--and her--for it. The evidence on that computer has changed the dynamics of Central Asian politics I think. At least Eric thinks so. The deals the Ottomans were brokering with Fergana seem to have fallen aside and we're officially back to neutrality. Again."

Kazakov gave Khan a sideways glance. "You know a lot more of politics than I ever heard you speak before. It's an interest you've hidden."

Khan looked at his hands and shrugged. Perhaps he hadn't meant to let that fact slip, or perhaps he was putting Kazakov on notice. Khan had secrets just like all of them.

The M.E. looked out into the snow toward Yekaterina Mountain. "Did you know that we call it Suleiman's Throne?" He lifted his chin at the five peaks almost masked in the snowfall. "It is said that Mohammed prayed there. Babur, too. It is not well known, but of vast importance as a symbol of my people."

Kazakov hadn't known. "And we renamed it for you."

Khan shook his head. "For yourselves, perhaps. For us it is still the same."

That was the thing. Fergana was built on memories and stories layered over top of reality. Perhaps that was where his people had gone wrong.

At the base of the hill, the snow appeared to lessen and the abstract puzzle of New Moscow's towers and the domes of Saint Basil were momentarily visible, like a dream.

"I did that DNA testing you suggested. I got the results today. I thought you'd want to know," Khan said.

Kazakov nodded as he watched the forms of New Moscow blow away in the wind and snow. More flakes caught in the lettering on Maria's new headstone. Maria di Maria. Daughter of Italia. Gone but not forgotten. He didn't know her birth date and could only guess at her age, but in the end that didn't matter.

"So? Did it tell us anything?"

Khan was silent a moment. "The father of her child was not Semetai Manas."

"Bure," Kazakov said.

Khan nodded again. "How did you figure it?"

Kazakov sighed, thinking of girls in pink sweaters and undying love between a traditional Muslim boy and a Christian girl.

"It was a lot of things that came together. The story about the young girl who was assaulted by a school boy in Bure's file. The fact that a young, blonde prostitute was bought by the Red Veil because he liked her. The way the mother and Bure reacted when Yekaterina died and the horror the mother felt about me investigating further." He shook his head. Natania Bure had been her daughter's Baba Yaga--sometimes good, sometimes bad, living in a small house that might as well have danced on chicken legs for all the safety it provided her daughter. But then, perhaps unknowingly, each person was a Baba Yaga to somebody. He thought of Maria.

"I should have seen it sooner," he said. "Maybe I would have, if I'd been able to continue the investigation in the open. Antonov and Alenin didn't lie when they said Semetai killed her. He loved her, but then she told him she was pregnant with her stepfather's child. How could a boy raised in a traditional Muslim home deal with that? He'd risked everything to love her and then he's told that. He killed her, probably in abhorrence at the child she carried and then they killed him for fear of what he knew. Perhaps he actually threatened Bure somehow. So Collin Archer killed him to protect Boris Bure but then somehow Archer's people found out about his duplicity. Or maybe they couldn't take a chance on him being arrested for Semetai's death. Two cases, except they weren't. Did the Americans get the police to take action? Did Prae get arrested?"

Khan shook his head as another gust of wind found them and Kazakov raised his collar against the cold. He was still recovering from the gunshot wounds after losing a kidney. He'd been offered a pension and Rostoff encouraged retirement, but Kazakov wasn't sure that was what he wanted. What did he know about retiring?

"From what I heard, they went to the Red Veil but the woman was already gone--back to China probably. Frau Zelinka has been arrested, but I don't know what they'll charge her with. From what I hear, she's cooperating as much as a madam might be expected."

Kazakov eased his side and leaned on his cane--temporarily, he hoped. Overhead the clouds were thickening and dusk was gathering around the flakes. Another day ending, with holy Russia like a fairy tale heroine, lost in the deepening Siberian snows.

"And Bure?" he asked wondering again why Prae needed to protect him. Because he was a favored patron, or was it something more?

Khan shrugged. "What can I say? We could cause him some trouble with the news of his stepdaughter's pregnancy, but there are too many people paid to smooth that bit of trouble away."

As they already had.

"There's something about him. Something that doesn't fly right. Why would the Chinese care if Bure rises or falls?"

"Old friend, that is an investigation that could blow up in your face," Khan said softly into the wind.

Kazakov swirled the tip of his cane in the snow. He was tired of the implement; would be glad when it was gone, but for now it was the one solid leg he had. "You have your family to protect. I have nothing to lose."

He set off down the hill, feeling his way through the white forest of snow. When he looked back, Khan was no longer there.

Kazakov went on alone.
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The Detektiv Kazakov Mystery Series

Set in an alternate history Russia, the series is introduces Detektiv Alexander Kazakov, a loner detective committed to finding the truth for the dead and murdered. The series takes place in a world where Catherine the Great's conquest of the Crimea woke the slumbering Ottoman Empire and brought the great Khans down upon Moscow. Two hundred years later the remains of the Russian population dream of Russia's past glories, while their new country of Fergana lays like the gristle in a joint between the rumblings of the Ottoman and Chinese Empires. The death of a young Russian girl sets Kazakov on a series of investigations that have implications for the entire world.

Books in the Series:

After Yekaterina

Mareson's Arrow (Coming July 2018)

The Tsarina's Mask (Coming September 2018)
About the Author

Karen L. Abrahamson is the author of literary, mystery, romantic and fantasy fiction including the highly regarded Cartographer fantasy series. She is a well-traveled writer who has explored cultures and countries around the world but British Columbia, Canada is her favorite place to come back to. She lives on the west coast of Canada with two Bengal cats that aren't quite as well traveled as she is.

When she isn't writing she can be found with a camera and backpack in fabulous locations around the world.

To find out more about her and her writing, visit www.karenlabrahamson.com
Fantasy and Mystery by Karen L. Abrahamson

Mystery (Writing as K.L. Abrahamson)

Through Dark Water

After Yekaterina

Fantasy Mystery

Aung and Yamin Series

Death By Effigy (Guardbridge Books)

A Death in Passing

Death in Umber

Fantasy

The Cartographer Universe (in chronological order)

The Warden of Power

Impossible

The Cartographer's Daughter

The American Geological Survey Series:

Afterburn

Aftershock

Aftermath

Afterimage

Terra Incognita

Terra Infirma

Terra Nueva

Other Fantasy Novels

Ice Dragon

Emberstone

Mutable Things

The Crystal Courtesan
Copyright

Electronic edition published by Twisted Root Publishing March 2018. After Yekaterina Copyright © 2018 by Karen L. Abrahamson.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-927753-67-5

Cover design by Twisted Root Publishing

Cover image: © artfotoss|DepositPhotos.com

For more information about Twisted Root Publishing, please visit our website at <http://www.twistedrootpublishing.com>.
Sneak Preview

Mareson's Arrow

Chapter 1

"Deep in a forest filled with snow an old couple lived. The snow was so deep that the old man could not hunt on his weak legs and so he and his wife would starve. As a result, the old couple decided to slaughter their mare to have food for the winter.

"A raven at the window overheard their plan and flew to the stable to warn the mare. "You'd best break down your stall and jump the fence before the deed is done," the raven said.

"And so, the mare did, escaping deep into the forest. She wandered for maybe a long time or maybe it was short, for who can say how far was far in these distant times. She came to a cloak thrown across the snow and found upon it a dead man of the east. She took a bite out of his right knee and then of his left, and found herself pregnant.

"When the mare gave birth, she named her son Ivan Mareson. He grew into a handsome lad and when he was old enough to be on his own she told him to make himself a bow and arrow and every night stick the arrow into the earth. That way she would know that he was alive. If he did not stick the arrow into the earth she would come looking for his bones."

Old Mrs. Ryabkov words seemed to hum in the warm dacha air as she stopped her recitation of the old Russian folktale. She peered at New Moscow Police Detektiv Alexander Kazakov from the tops of her eyes across the worn wooden table her long-dead husband had made. Her bird eyes glittered in the light from the single candle between them and so did the half-empty bottle of vodka and the cracked edges of the old china bowls that had held their supper. Her old cabin's stone walls were lost in shadows. So were the cobwebs amongst the rafters of the low-ceilinged structure and the neatly made up narrow cot against the rear wall. Agafya Ryabkov's dacha was small, built like a part of the earth, so that Agafya, her house and her story seemed to have grown out of the dust and rock of this country. But instead of the usual dusty scent of the herbs drying amongst the rafters, the single, low-ceilinged room smelled of the warm scent of the kutia in their bowls. Kazakov had made the traditional Russian Christmas Eve honeyed porridge this afternoon, but the rich poppy seeds, berries and nuts that he'd included seemed inappropriate to enjoy alone, so he'd brought it through the snow to her house. Oddly, he hadn't wanted to spend this evening alone even though he normally preferred to be on his own.

"Continue, please," he said to her, awaiting her spin on the miraculous tale of the mare's son who had wonderful adventures and who died and was raised from the dead many times. It was a story of resurrection that was near and dear to the hearts of the exiled Russian people in their adopted homeland of Fergana. It was as if they expected Holy Mother Russia to rise the same way. It was not something he had expected his ancient Kyrgyz neighbor to choose. But then he had learned to always let the storyteller choose the story and the way of telling. An artist always chose a first story they could tell with confidence. Later, with coaxing, the storyteller would tell the tale that touched her soul. You could always tell by the emotion in their voice. It was the same with witnesses.

Or suspects, for that matter.

Agafya set her spoon down and sat back in her chair. It was one of two that her Russian husband had carved. The chairs, the table, the stone house and his bird-eyed wife, all that he left behind him when he died.

She gave a single, stubborn, shake of her head. "It was my husband's tale. Or that of his people--not mine. I thought I could tell it, but..." Agafya's Kyrgyz heritage shone through in more than her diminutive size and her attitude. She still wore the felted embroidered skirts and leggings of her girlhood. What remained of her fine grey hair was wound around her head and her black gaze glittered with old suspicions. "What is it to you? What do you want here?"

Kazakov eased his stiff side and shoulder--the penance he paid for being shot twice and thrown down a set of stairs--and straightened. He nodded at the table. "It's January 7th\--Christmas Eve, remember. I brought the kutia to celebrate."

Lips tightening over her teeth she shook her head. "Pah on your Christmas.. " She shoved the bowl away. "This is not what I cook."

Kazakov tried a smile. The January 7th date was the Christmas of the Russian Orthodox Christian faith that had not spurned the Julian calendar as most of the world had. Of course, Agafya was not Christian of any stripe, but Muslim.

"But the Kutia's good, yes? My mother made it this way. I've spent years trying to recreate her recipe."

Agafya shook her head and took a long drink of the cup of vodka he'd poured her. "I am not your mother." She looked away. "I want to be alone."

Kazakov sighed. Agafya Ryabkov was a fierce woman, perhaps the strongest he'd ever met, save for the one he'd lost most recently. Agafya had always been the perfect neighbor, asking for nothing and barely tolerating when Kazakov came checking that she was safe and well. He knew when her limited tolerance for visitors was surpassed.

He pushed himself up from the table. "All right. I thought it would be good to share Christmas Eve with a friend, but I will leave you to your peace."

As he pulled on his muffling, wool great coat and heavy boots, she stood and shuffled to the old woodstove where he'd put the pot of kutia to keep it warm. He held up his hand. "Keep it and enjoy the kutia. I'll pick up the pot in a few days." For regardless of what she'd said, she'd polished off her bowl in record time. The old woman was made of twigs and skin and he had no idea how she survived. He'd been bringing her groceries for years.

Thankfully, she didn't argue, but continued fussing around the cabin. He pulled on his lynx fur hat and tugged up his collar. "Thank you for the hospitality, Agayfa. It was good to hear the old tales again."

She only harrumphed, so he grabbed his cane and let himself out, closing the door behind him.

Black night greeted him and cold. January in Fergana was usually chill, but it was in the mountain foothills like this that winter truly came and this year more than most years. The air was still, except for a few flakes that tumbled down. Even the smoke from Agayfa's chimney rose straight up for a hundred feet before swirling into calligraphy against the stars. The new moon was only a sliver and the air carried the scent of wood smoke and pine from the surrounding forest. To the east a passing cloud picked up the amber glow of New Moscow's streetlights.

This far away he could almost imagine the city slumbering and at peace, but he knew better. Under the white covering of recent snow was the scurrying of rats--both in animal and human form. Rats with guns who had left him minus one kidney and, at forty-five, needing to help himself with a cane like an old man. He hoped it was only temporary.

He limped down Agafya's stairs to the trail his arrival had laboriously cut in the snow. The tip of his cane fought him as he lumbered across the clearing that during the summer would hold Agafya's small garden, and down the treed driveway towards the road. Halfway down the driveway, where the snow was heavier, waited his trusty Perseus vehicle. He'd parked here for he hadn't been certain whether even the Perseus could navigate through the heavy snow around Agafya's home.

He sank into the driver's seat and realized that he was sweating. Since when had a two-hundred-meter walk stolen all his strength? The answer was simple: since the shooting in late November and the surgery that had left him convalescing. He had done nothing to keep in shape, instead diving deep into reading--folk tales that glossed over the horror of too much killing and that left him trying to determine the stories' purpose; mysteries that left him ready to toss the book across the room; histories that were determined to present the victors in the best light possible and to vilify those on the losing side.

Fictions all of them.

In response, he'd turned back to the news and non-fiction, but even those he'd come to suspect were not the truth.

He turned the Perseus' ignition and the engine roared. Through the frosted windscreen a white world was revealed in the headlight beams. Truth, it seemed, was in short supply these days. Even the shooting deaths of two police officers who had been responsible for Kazakov's injuries hadn't been reported accurately. But then, who in the New Moscow police force was going to damn two of their own?

Apparently, no one.

Perseus in gear, he carefully backed out of Agafya's driveway, following the tire tracks in his rear taillight's glare. At the road the vehicle bumped over the snowplow's most recent drift and onto the narrow road, before starting uphill.

The drive to his dacha was not quite half a mile along from Agafya's. His next nearest neighbor was over a mile farther on and he liked it that way. He guided the Perseus into his drive and under the sheltering dark pines and pale naked poplars, but something about the driveway wasn't right.

The snow clearly showed the tracks of his departure and the half-filled ruts of his comings and goings prior to the most recent snow. But now another set of tire tracks, wider than the Perseus's, followed the upward slope of the driveways and obscured his tracks in places.

He slowed the vehicle and felt his heart beat a little faster. The last time strangers had come to his dacha uninvited had been the first time he'd been shot. The last time a friend had come to the dacha was well back in November just after he'd been released from the hospital. No one had visited in December and that was just fine.

Back up and leave whoever was waiting for him or see who it was? He wasn't in the same situation as he'd been in November, working a case that technically wasn't his and another that he'd clearly been ordered to leave alone. Now he wasn't involved in anything.

Technically.

So. He might as well see who had disturbed his isolation.

He eased his foot off the brake and the Perseus chugged up the slope into the clearing around his dacha. A blocky, black sedan sat waiting, its windows fogged with frost as if whoever waited had chosen to wait in the car.

Interesting. Such a vehicle was the choice of the New Moscow police department.

Jaw clenched, Kazakov drove the Perseus past the unknown sedan. He parked in the shelter behind the dacha and then climbed out. The cold stung his cheeks. The heavy timbers of the dacha's walls were pitch black in the night, but overhead a thin trail of smoke rose from the chimney, so the fire he'd left banked was still burning.

He pulled himself up to his full six feet two and almost set the cane away, but there was too good a chance that without it, he'd fall. His strength might be better than it was, but he wasn't a young man anymore. He picked his way around the house and the sedan's driver-side door clicked open.

Out stepped a tall, thin, baby-faced blonde man who looked as if he should still be living with his mother, but who was, in fact, the youngest member of the New Moscow detective squad. Pavel Chelomeyev was the son of a senior member of the New Moscow police, which was most likely why he had been promoted to detective when most recruits were still taking notes for their training officers. He'd been partnered with one of the hard-case detectives on the squad, though he had worked with Kazakov a time or two in the past. One could argue that Chelomeyev was also responsible for Kazakov being alive today.

"Kazakov!" Chelomeyev's strong baritone was always a surprise, more so when it echoed back from the thick line of trees. He stood swathed in a thick wool coat down over his knees and black fur hat that seemed ungodly large for his scarf-wrapped neck.

Kazakov only nodded and hooked his head at the dacha, then thumped up the four snow-covered stairs to his front door. He stepped inside and Chelomeyev crowded in behind him while he lit a kerosene lamp. Koshka, Kazakov's rebellious female black cat, twined around his legs. The single-room log cabin was comfortably warm and quite adequate for Kazakov on his own or perhaps with another, smaller, person. The place had no electricity and had been built by his father when Kazakov was a boy. After his mother died they had spent many summers here. After his father died and Kazakov's disastrous marriage ended, the dacha was the only thing Kazakov had held onto. He'd moved in then, and had no plans to move out again, though he was considering installing a complete bathroom to replace the water closet attached to the kitchen.

At the moment, however, the place did not feel big enough for both Kazakov and Chelomeyev as they removed their coats and hats in the small area between the woodstove that stood against one wall and the table that filled the center of the room. Another, narrow table stood against the wall beyond the woodstove and served as Kazakov's desk. A small kitchen filled one corner and a narrow bed sat opposite the desk. A small couch filled the final rear wall. It didn't leave a lot of room for someone whose arms were as long as Chelomeyev's. As usual, Koshka mewed plaintively for food though she had been given her dinner only a few hours before.

"Go on with you." Kazakov used the side of his boot to gently send Koshka on her way as he hung his coat and hat on a peg by the door. In disgust, Koshka leapt up to the shelf above his bed to curl up and hold him in a disapproving glare.

Kazakov turned back to the young detective in his neat grey suit and expensive tie who was trying to figure out what to do with his coat. Kazakov wasn't going to help him. He might have invited the young detective in, but that didn't mean that he'd told the youngster to make himself at home. Chelomeyev settled for folding the garment over the back of one of the two spindle chairs at the table.

"Why are you here?" Kazakov asked, dispensing with any of the niceties. This was home. If he wanted guests, he'd invite them, but Chelomeyev wasn't on the very short list of people Kazakov would consider inviting. No one from the police department was, but at least Chelomeyev was polite enough to wait in the car rather than invade the cabin to wait for him.

Chelomeyev looked back at his coat, perhaps rethinking the garment's removal. "I--I thought I would check up on you. It has been almost two months. Surely you will be coming back to work soon."

Arching a brow at the younger man, Kazakov went to his kitchen and retrieved a bottle of vodka and a single glass, then thought better of it and grabbed a second glass. "You expect me to believe that?"

He thumped the bottle and glasses on the table and studied the younger man. Chelomeyev sidled uneasily where he stood--nervousness--not a good thing in a detective.

"You want something, then." He lifted his chin at the chair. "Sit. Have a Christmas drink with me."

Obedient as a school boy, Chelomeyev sat. Kazakov swallowed a smile. The youngster still had some growing up to do. A shame his father hadn't allowed him to do it the way every other officer matured into the job.

"How long were you waiting?" Kazakov asked as he poured two tumblers and set the bottle down. The sweet glow from his meal with Agafya had worn off, but then Chelomeyev was an unwelcome intrusion of the real world.

"About an hour."

Odd how he felt so resentful when he should be appreciating the youngster's patience in waiting--and waiting in the cold, at that. But Kazakov had been waiting for someone from the police force to come to try to change his mind ever since he'd refused the offer of early retirement from Detektiv Chief Inspector Rostoff. He drained his vodka back and poured himself another as Chelomeyev sipped. The slow sweet warmth crept from his belly to his heart and then his arms.

"So?" Kazakov asked leaning back in his chair. "How are you? I won't ask about the department because I know it will be fucked up as usual." He eyed his tumbler, but limited himself to matching Chelomeyev sip for sip waiting as the youngster found his courage. Clearly it had not been an easy choice to come here. His father would not approve and neither would Rostoff nor the other detectives. "Where is Sherepov?" Sherepov being Chelomeyev's surly partner.

The young detective set down his glass and drew in a deep breath. He shoved back from his chair and stood to pace around in the cramped room. Kazakov watched him and took another gulp of vodka, certain he wasn't going to like anything that caused Chelomeyev such consternation. Chelomeyev's movement stirred the kerosene lamp shadows so the room seemed to expand and contort as if they were inside the old witch Baba Yaga's chicken-legged house with miraculous adventures awaiting beyond its confines. He knew better--unlike Ivan Mareson from Agafya Ryabkov's recent telling, there was no one to put him fully back together again when the bullets came flying. He still ached where his one kidney was missing.

"I've been involved in these investigations," Chelomeyev began. From where he stood in the shadows he looked eternally young, like a tragic figure lost beyond the mythic River Styx who wished to come home.

He shook his head, his bright blonde head of hair shifting on his forehead. "I don't know what to do. Sherepov is off on sick leave and one of these is my first murder investigation on my own--like you." He gave Kazakov a proud, but hopeful glance. Kazakov was the only detective in the department who worked alone, whether because he distrusted his co-workers or they distrusted him, he no longer cared. Clearly, Chelomeyev had come to him as a last resort. Asking for help would be a sign of weakness. Asking Kazakov for help would damn the young detective in the eyes of the squad.

And just like that, the illusion of safety in the comfortable light and shadow of his dacha disappeared and became only shadows, the outside world intruding.

He shivered. A piercing knife blade cut through his side and he hissed out through his teeth. Did he want any part of this after all that had happened? He took another gulp of vodka, emptying the glass, and poured again.

But this was Chelomeyev and Kazakov owed him.

"What is the problem?"

Chelomeyev returned to his chair and leaned across the table. "Rostoff has told me to close the files. There is not enough evidence, he says. But my gut tells me that there is something there." He shook his head, his expression both pained and hopeful. "No one believes me, just like they never believed you."

Kazakov closed his eyes against that look. He had seen something similar in Maria's gaze before she died. He did not like the guilt. "Your superior officer has told you to close the file. To do anything else is a poor career move. Think about it. Your father would not be happy."

"You say that now, but listen to the cases--the facts as I know them."

A rustle of fabric and Kazakov opened his eyes. From somewhere Chelomeyev had produced two manila envelopes from inside his woolen greatcoat. From outside the dacha came the sound of the wind stirring in the eaves as if something else was trying to come in--or draw him out. Chelomeyev slid the top envelope across the table to him.

For a moment he almost pushed it away. The lantern light gleamed beckoningly on his tumbler of vodka. Then he tipped the envelope contents onto the table. Police investigation evidence that should be in a police file in the department, not here in his dacha. On top was a photo of a body splayed over strewn documents. Male. In his fifties, though he looked trim and fit. The body wore an expensive-looking blue suit and white shirt, both covered in blood, but what likely killed him was the gaping second mouth in his neck. Blood blackened the edge of a Bokhara carpet, and the hardwood floor under him, but through it you could see the expensive haircut, the manicured hands.

The man was clearly somebody.

"Messy," Kazakov said.

"His name is Grigori Ivanov. He runs--or ran--an import-export business in New Moscow specializing in tobacco products and in particular expensive American brands. He was found in his home office like this last Monday morning by the housekeeper who comes in three times a week. He was alone in the house," Chelomeyev said.

Kazakov slid the photo aside to look at the M.E.'s report underneath. Numerous bruises on the body, but the M.E. confirmed his assessment of the mortal wound. According to the report the neck wound would have required considerable strength, but the bruising indicated a beating that could have slowed the victim down. The document was signed neatly with the familiar signature of Khalil Khan, the lone Kyrgyz M.E. in the country and possibly its only Kyrgyz doctor.

Kazakov glanced back at the photo. Physical strength, and also a strong stomach.

He closed his eyes again feeling the old awareness of his country creep back into his soul--something he had been trying to avoid for the past month. Fergana was his people's second chance after the Ottomans drove Yekaterina the Great out of Moscow. After escaping eastward into Siberia, followed by a long diaspora, they had found the tribal Kyrgyz people welcoming and had settled here--only to do to the Kyrgyz what had been done to the Russians by breeding more quickly, taking the land and then simply by excluding the Kyrgyz from the opportunities of modern Ferganese society. The Kyrgyz might still have the ancestral connection to their traditional lands, but they no longer owned it. It made Agafya's bitterness understandable.

He glanced back at the photo. "What about the wife?" he asked. "A bloody death usually speaks of a crime of passion. It would not be so difficult to slit a throat once the victim is down."

"Not this woman. And she was out of town visiting friends." Chelomeyev frowned. "How did you know there was a wife?

Kazakov tapped the photo. "Rings. Not all men wear them, but this man does. It suggests the marriage was important to him--and the wife. You've checked her alibi of course." He glanced up at Chelomeyev who nodded and leaned across the table.

His long pale fingers sorted through the documents to a statement. "Hers."

Kazakov's hand itched for his vodka glass. If he was to get involved in a case, it would be a case of his choosing--one that still haunted him.

The statement of Svetlana Ivanova was brief. She was out of town for the weekend with a friend and then her return was delayed for twenty-four hours due to road conditions in the mountains. She last spoke to her husband the day before she left. She had phoned him at work to tell him that she had decided to accompany her friend, Olga Gruenwald, on a ski trip to the mountains. Her husband had complained a little about her going without him, but he was busy dealing with some crisis or another at work and--as usual--had chosen work over her.

He glanced up at Chelomeyev. "Her words?"

The young detective nodded. "As close to verbatim as I could capture."

Kazakov turned thoughtfully back to the papers. The phrasing suggested the wife was less than happy in her marriage. But if the case was that obvious, why was Chelomeyev here? Had someone sent him? Someone intent on ensnaring Kazakov in a case again? But surely Chelomeyev wouldn't do such a thing given how much the young detective had risked to help Kazakov on his last case. On the other hand, perhaps this was his penance to save his career...

Kazakov kept reading. The wife and her friend had left on Thursday afternoon and traveled by automobile for the four-hour trip to her friends' dacha in the small mountain village of Biysk, named after another town long lost to the Ottomans. They went to ski and enjoy the clear air and the natural mineral baths. She returned on Tuesday, the day after the body was discovered and was shaken and worried that someone might come after her, too. She could think of no one who would want to harm her husband. He was a well-regarded member of the community. He and she were involved in charity work together. It made no sense.

"And does it make no sense?" Kazakov asked.

Chelomeyev shrugged as if it didn't matter--never a good gesture on a detective, and yet he was here.

"Her alibi is strong. Her friend and her friend's employer both confirm her presence at the dacha. It would be impossible for her to get back down the mountain over the weekend, because they truly were snowed in."

Nodding, Kazakov pawed through the papers.

"A mistress?"

"If there was, they were unusually discrete. His office knew of no one."

There had to be something. There was always something. And the death wounds spoke of ferociousness and high emotion that led to the killing. Or the killer was a psychopath.

He read through the wife's friend, Olga Gruenwald's, statement that confirmed the Svetlana Ivanova's alibi and stopped dead half way through, the sudden surge of memories almost overwhelming.

Quickly, he fanned out the other papers across the table and found what he had hoped to find: a photo that likely confirmed Svetlana Ivanova's presence in the mountains. In the photo two women stood arm-in-arm swathed in thick fur coats, their heads encased in matching fur hats that tipped toward each other as fast friends were likely to do. Clearly the wind was blowing for their cheeks were rosy, their furs were blown flat on one side of their bodies, their long hair catching on their faces.

One woman was dark haired and lean featured, but even swathed in the furs, he could tell she had curves in all the right places, though her body was thin. The other woman was blonde with high Slavic cheekbones and bright, intelligent blue eyes. He knew they were intelligent because he knew her--or at least had met her while investigating his previous case. The case that had killed Maria. The case that had resulted in him being shot.

He reached for his glass and drank, holding himself to a sip when he wanted to drain the glass.

"Her." He tapped his finger on the photo. "Let me guess. That is the friend, Olga Gruenwald, yes?"

When Chelomeyev nodded, Kazakov leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes fighting back the nausea and the vodka burn twisting his gut. He had spent the past month telling himself that he had done all that he could about Maria's death, including identifying the murderers, and yet there was something more. Something that connected her death to a rising star politico named Boris Bure. During the investigation a name had come up, but he had never had the chance to investigate further. The name involved was Olga Gruenwald's employer.

There was something here. He knew there was. Olga Gruenwald's employer was a man named Enver Pasha, an Ottoman businessman, a representative of one of the two most powerful empires in the world and one of the empires that sandwiched in the small Russian country of Fergana. The only reason Fergana hadn't already been swallowed up by the Ottoman Empire was because the Chinese Empire of the Sun was pressed right up against Fergana's eastern border and would take aggression against Fergana as aggression against their empire. Fergana was the gristle buffer grinding between the two massive entities and both China and the Ottomans were apt to meddle in Ferganese affairs.

Enver Pasha had been a person of interest in his previous case, both as a possible instigator of a murder, and as a possible target.

Solving the case had killed the woman Kazakov might have loved and left him minus a kidney. He eased his side and looked back at the papers on the table. And now here was Enver Pasha again, like an ill wind.

Chelomeyev's pale face hung like a moon in the shadows of the dacha. Outside the wind had sent a loose shingle tap-tap-tapping like a mad woman trying to get in.

If he was going back to work, this was a good case to sink his teeth into. If he was returning to active duty, then he could partner with Chelomeyev until Sherepov returned, or until he preferred to work on his own.

If he was going back to work.

The trouble was, he wanted the freedom to conduct an investigation that the police department's senior management would never countenance, not investigate a simple murder even if it might give him grounds to access people he otherwise might not have a right to.

He inhaled and the muscles in his side sent a sharp stab right through his heart. No. He wasn't ready yet to make a decision. His injuries were still healing.

When he could breathe again he shuffled Chelomeyev's papers back into a pile and stood, leaning heavily on his cane to limp over to his bedside.

"I can't help you. I don't want to be dragged into a case like this." He sank down onto his bed and would not meet Chelomeyev's gaze. "I'm sorry. I'm not ready to return to work."

Chelomeyev shuffled the papers back into the envelope and shoved back from the table. Without a word, he hauled on his coat and hat and, with the envelopes, went to the door. "I just wanted your opinion of where to start. All my leads have led to dead ends so far."

Kazakov chanced a look in Chelomeyev's direction and caught the disappointed gleam in the young man's gaze. Another hero shot to hell. The lad lived in Fergana, he should get used to it.

"It was good to see you, Pavel," Kazakov said and suddenly he didn't want to send the young man empty-handed out into the cold. But it was too late. Chelomeyev opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.

Kazakov lumbered to his feet and across the room to catch the door before it was fully closed. He hurriedly hauled on boots and stepped outside into the wind and swirl of new flakes as Chelomeyev headed down the stairs.

"Pavel."

The young man swung back to him, the light of the kerosene lantern through the dacha window catching on his brow and cheekbone.

"All I can suggest is to look into Enver Pasha. It was the one thing I neglected to do in the Weber-Manas case. There might be something."

Chelomeyev frowned and then nodded, before turning back to his vehicle. He opened the door and slid inside.

"And--and for God's sake be very careful," Kazakov called, but the door thunked shut so Kazakov wasn't sure that Chelomeyev had even heard.

He stood in the swirl of snow and the wind and watched as the red taillights disappeared down his driveway. Then came the silence of his life--except for the wind off the eastern mountains.

He went inside and poured himself another tumbler of vodka.

To read more of Mareson's Arrow, pre-order the book at your favorite on-line retailer by clicking HERE, or

watch for it's release July 31, 2018
Romance, Mystery and Fantasy

from Twisted Root Publishing

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