Inside, the house had the penetrating cold of a long-empty dwelling, but it had three rooms, and doors to separate them, and once he started to work he’d warmed up soon enough. He’d played them off each other, used one’s pain to persuade both, passed information from room to room. Having the driver there had been a help-and, for once, he hadn’t had to worry about the noise. That had been useful too.

Afterward he’d shot them in the cellar, and the driver had helped drag them back to the car. This time they wanted no traces-the Militia were investigating the first two, and there was no point in getting them all worked up with another couple of stiffs. That worried him, if the truth were told. When he’d done this kind of work before, investigations had been no more than paint jobs. The idea that this one might be more substantial-well, it made him wonder.

He reassured himself that he’d followed the orders that he’d been given, and that they were close now; that much was evident. It shouldn’t be long-the two Thieves had given them useful information. Still-messy. It wasn’t the first time he’d been involved in an irregular action, but normally, of course, there was a team, preparation and coordination, a clear aim. This time the support was almost nonexistent-they didn’t know who they could trust within the organization, so they said, and therefore the operation had been stripped down to its essential parts-the driver was the only active assistance he’d seen. They’d told him there were others acting independently, but he’d seen no signs. And there was no plan as such-they had an objective, it was true-to recover the icon, and trace it back to the leak-but everything was improvised, each step forward leading to the next, whatever it might be. That was not something he was used to either.

There was always a degree of trust and support among Comrades from the organization, a fellowship that accepted frailty and occasional excess. The organization understood all too well the pressure they placed on operatives like him and they made allowances. They looked after you, kept an eye on you, sent you for a break when it was needed, organized extra rations of vodka when you were busy, that kind of thing. Mostly he worked in the Moscow area-the Butyrka, the Lubianka, Lefertovo. He was well known in all of them. His colleagues didn’t look down on him for what he did, far from it; they understood that specialists like him were essential to their work. You could only get so far with ordinary forms of interrogation, they all knew that. For tougher cases you needed a man like him. He could take a prisoner to pieces and then put him back together again, but always as just one more step in a process. He was merely another cog in the machine and each cog relied on the others for forward momentum. It was Soviet power in action, no detail overlooked, no goal unattainable.

But it was strange that they wanted things done quietly now-it seemed a change of tactics since he’d been instructed to leave the mutilated body of the girl on that damned altar. If that hadn’t been sending someone a public message, he wasn’t sure what else it could have been. And the girl troubled him as well. Her last look was always there, lurking at the periphery of his consciousness, and only effort kept her from his thoughts.

The girl came to him now, despite his resistance, with that gentle look she’d given him just before she died, and it occurred to him, and there was a sweet dizziness to the thought, that this might not be an authorized action. That he might be out on a limb with no back-up, no protection. That if it blew up he’d be the hunted, not the hunter. It didn’t bear thinking about. He’d followed orders, trusted his superiors, that was all he’d ever needed to do. He thought of his son asleep in the next room, his blond hair curling on the pillow and hoped this was tiredness playing tricks on him-this feeling that the girl had cursed him with those soft eyes of hers.

He poured the last of the bottle into the glass and drank.

There was only a slight disturbance in the snow outside the carriage entrance when Korolev passed the next morning. On the cobblestones inside the arch, however, he spotted three discarded papirosa tubes and an empty packet of Belomorkanal, the red star on the map of the White Sea Canal clearly visible on the crumpled box. He didn’t stop to examine them, but kept on moving. It proved nothing, he reasoned. Even if someone had been there during the night, who was to say that Korolev was the target of their attention? He pulled his chin a little lower into his collar and put the matter from his thoughts.

By the time he reached Petrovka Street, work parties were already shifting the snow from the street and most of Number 38’s courtyard had been cleared by a group of pale-faced cadets wielding wide-bladed shovels who ignored him as he climbed the steps. Inside the foyer there was activity as well, workers in dirty overalls installing a freshly cast statue of Lenin where Yagoda’s had stood. You knew where you were with Vladimir Ilyich, Korolev mused as he climbed the stairs. He, at least, was unlikely to fall out of favor, being safely dead already.

Entering Room 2F, he nodded to Yasimov and was promptly bustled out of the way by a harassed-looking young woman in a white headscarf pushing in the door behind him. He smiled as she placed several envelopes and circulars on the table and then rushed out. His smile ended up being directed to the closing door.

“No manners, these young people,” he said as he placed his coat on the rack.

“No sense, anyway,” Yasimov said, pointing at a report he was writing. “Two students thought it would be amusing to give a half-bottle of vodka to the bear in Yaroslavl Market.”

“That old one on the chain? What a waste.”

“Oh, he wasn’t too old to enjoy it. He broke the chain in two, helped himself to anything that took his fancy on the nearby stalls and gave one of the students a proper chewing. Some uniforms had to shoot the poor creature. The bear, of course-they took the student to hospital. Giving vodka to a bear? How can youngsters afford such extravagance? That’s what I’d like to know.”

Korolev found an envelope addressed to him in the pile of post. It contained a short typed letter and two photographs, one of which was of Mary Smithson.

Dear Captain Korolev,

Further to our conversation yesterday, I attach the visa photographs of Citizeness Maria Ivanovna Kuznetsova (alias “Mary Smithson”) and Citizeness Lydia Ivanovna Dolina (alias “Nancy Dolan”), in order to assist you with your inquiries. It has been confirmed that Citizeness Dolina is also a cultist nun. You will, as discussed, exercise extreme discretion with any investigation relating to these persons and, if in doubt, contact myself for instructions on how to proceed.

Gregorin

(Staff Colonel)

Korolev looked at the picture of Dolan. Pretty, like the other one-dark eyes, a long neck and pale skin. There was humor in her expression, and to judge from the picture she had a cheerful disposition. Her gaze was directed to the left of the picture, as if avoiding the camera, and her dark hair was cut into an elegant bob, something that would stand out in Moscow, where only the wives of specialists or party cadres had access to the quality hairdressers. It was said that Central Committee members had to intervene personally to arrange appointments at Master Paul’s on the Arbat. If the truth be told, she didn’t look much like any nun he’d ever seen, but he presumed Gregorin’s information must be correct.

He reached for the packet of Little Star he kept in his top drawer for moments such as these. He was about to light up when the phone rang.