Arkady was not performing well, either. Taras was deadweight that took any opportunity-the brush of a limb, a faltering step-to slide off Arkady's shoulder. Arkady stumbled, but he followed Alex's voice. Alex stopped every few steps to make sure of it. He laid out the story like a trail of tasty crumbs along a forest path. "Ivanov moved to a mansion in the city with a guardhouse. But all the bodyguards in the world won't help if your dog comes back from his run in the park with a grain or two in his hair, which he distributes around the house. I started a campaign against Timofeyev, too, but he was a secondary character. He was no Pasha Ivanov. Of course, after Ivanov was dead, Timofeyev was willing to come here, but before, the two of them had to behave as if nothing was happening, nothing to report to the militia or even NoviRus Security, where, incidentally, I flourished. I was every technician's big brother. I helped them study their correspondence courses for business degrees so they could become New Russians themselves. I found the code clerk a doctor he could take his sexual dysfunction to while I covered for him. Really, the plan took shape by itself. See, there's the school already, at the top of the hill."

To Arkady, the school was as distant as a cloud in the sky. He was impressed that he had come so far. Taras, dead or not, kept trying different ways to slither out of Arkady's arm. Alex steadied Arkady over a log, and Arkady wondered whether he could get close enough to grab one of the guns tucked in Alex's waistband, but Alex was on the march with Dymtrus again, setting an example, jollying Arkady along, keeping him entertained.

"Want to hear about the fumigator van? That was fun. Saturday mornings the tech for Ivanov's building was always hungover. I covered and saw the same images the receptionist saw in the lobby, and as soon as the van rolled into the service alley, I called on the security line and told him to read a list of the previous month's guests to me. This is not computerized. The receptionist has to physically turn away from the street, get the binder from a bottom drawer, find the day and decipher his own handwriting, with no view of the screens. I know all this because I have been watching him on the lobby monitor for weeks. The fumigator has codes for touchpads at the back door, the service elevator and Ivanov's floor, and I've promised him twelve minutes of distraction. In the middle of this, the tech comes back to replace me. I shake my head. He waits while I go on talking to the receptionist, because I'm waiting for the fumigator to get out. I can see why people turn to a life of crime; the adrenaline is incredible. I give the tech two aspirin, and he leaves for water. At the same moment the fumigator comes into the alley, faster now because he's no longer pulling a suitcase full of salt, loads the van and drives off. I thank the receptionist, hang up and then watch. He puts down the binder, looks up at the camera, checks his screens, rewinds the street and alley tapes. He sees the van and he calls in the doorman, who disappears toward the back. I feel like I'm in the lobby. We wait, the receptionist and I. The doorman returns, shaking his head, and hops in the elevator. On the monitors I can see him going from floor to floor knocking on doors, while the receptionist acts super calm, with half an eye on the camera, until the doorman returns. No problem, nothing to worry about, everything's under control. Almost there, Renko."

Arkady grunted to hold up his side of the conversation. Carrying a body through a dense wood was like passing a jack through the tines of a comb. "Karel," he said.

"Karel was the fumigator, and he did a good job. Unfortunately, he got sloppy and must have picked up a grain or two of cesium. I tried a million times to explain radioactivity to Karel, and I don't think I ever got through."

"Why would he do it?"

"I was his friend. The Woropays', too. I listened to them, to their crazy ambitions. They were just boys from the Zone, they were never going to be New Russians. We were each in our different ways getting even."

"For what?"

"Everything."

Arkady was too exhausted to plumb that. "Not everything. Tell me one thing."

"Eva."

"What about her?"

"You know." With his finger Alex drew a scar across his neck.

The thorn bush behind the school reached for Taras, and Alex held back branches so Arkady could climb the last steps to the seesaw and chairs. When Arkady caught a ghostly reflection of himself in a window, he looked away before he turned completely into Yakov.

"Don't drop him," Alex said.

"Why not? You were going to get your truck."

"No. We'll carry them back to Karel."

"Back to Karel?" To the other end of the plaza? Arkady thought.

"We're practically there," Alex said. "The climb is over. Easy from here on."

That was it, then, Arkady thought. That's why he was alive instead of dead by the swamp, so Alex could make one trip instead of three. Ever the earnest assistant, Arkady had helped by bringing two of the bodies, Taras and himself. This way there were no tire treads on the ground or blood in the truck. A gun appeared in Alex's hand. Usually the distance from the school to the fun fair was a few minutes' walk. Even at his pace, Arkady wondered, how long could he draw it out?

"You first." Alex prodded Arkady to get him moving again, this time in front.

As Arkady stumbled forward he remembered a quote by someone about a walk to the gallows focusing the mind. That wasn't true. He thought of favorite music, Irina's laugh, his mother staying in bed to read Anna Karenina one more time, pansies on a grave. He thought of how Eva had called and called again, when all he'd had to do was answer.

"Why?" Arkady asked. "What did Pasha Ivanov and Timofeyev do to justify the deaths of five people, so far? What could Pasha and Timofeyev have done that made you so insane?"

"Finally, an interesting question. The night of the accident at Chernobyl, what did Pasha and Timofeyev do? Well, you wouldn't think they could do anything; they were just two junior professors at an institute in Moscow. But they would sit up all night and drink with the old man. That's what they were doing when the call came from the Party Central Committee. The Party wanted him to go to Chernobyl to assess the situation, because he was the famous Academician Felix Gerasimov, who had more experience in nuclear disasters than anyone else, the world's number one expert. Since he was too drunk to talk, he gave the phone to Pasha."

"Where were you?"

"I was at Moscow University, sleeping soundly in my room." Recollection did slow Alex down.

"How do you know all this?"

"My father didn't write a suicide note when he died, but he sent me a letter. He said the Central Committee had wanted his advice on whether to evacuate people. Pasha acted as if he was just relaying answers from my father."

Ahead, Arkady saw Karel on the couch in front of the crazy chairs ride. His sister, Oksana, bent over him; she wore the same jogging suit. Arkady recognized her by the blue shine of her shaved head. Walking one step behind, Alex had yet to notice her.

"Pasha asked if the reactor core had been exposed. The Committee said no, because that's what the control room told them. Pasha asked if the reactor was shut down. Yes, according to Chernobyl. Well, he said, it sounded like more smoke than fire. Don't sound any alarms, just distribute iodine tablets to children and advise the locals that they might want to stay inside for a day while the fire is extinguished and investigated. What about Kiev, the Committee asked? Even more important to keep the lid on, Pasha said. Confiscate dosimeters. 'Be merciless for the common good.' Pasha and Lev were ambitious guys. They just told the Committee and my father what they wanted to believe. That was how Soviet science worked, remember? So the evacuation of Pripyat was delayed a day and the warning to Kiev delayed six days so that a million children, including our Eva, could march on an undisturbed, radioactive May Day. Pasha and my father can't take all the credit-there were plenty of other weasels and liars-but they should take some."