"I met him earlier," Yuri said with a nod. He reached out to shake Trishin's hand. "I'll be back in touch if I think of anything else."
When he reached the turn that would take him back toward Minsk, Shumakov glanced at his watch. Only 2:15. It was still early. Why not have a look at the Brest Fortress before heading back, he thought? It didn't take much to prod him into detouring where a historic site was concerned. Now the idea seemed even more appealing, considering the mood he was in. Since leaving Vadim Trishin's apartment, he had been troubled by a disquieting feeling, a nagging thought that he was overlooking something important. Maybe he needed to divert his mind into other channels. Then he could take a fresh look at the situation later as he drove home.
20
After Yuri Shumakov had left, Vadim Trishin retrieved a bag of fruit from his car, then headed for his small apartment to pick up a list of prospective customers he had neglected to take to work that morning. He entered the building oblivious to the two men following not far behind.
He hustled up the darkened stairway, crossed to his door and unlocked it. Taped there with all the pomp of a brass nameplate was one of his new business cards. It was a mark of the pride he had in his new status as a salesman. He went back to the kitchen alcove and placed the bag in the sink. It contained oranges and apples given him that morning by Svetlana, the dark-eyed, sensitive girl from Baku who was a secretary at the Vacuum Works. They were in love. He had done well in his sales job and would soon have enough money to ask her to marry him.
The knock at the door startled him. Had Yuri Shumakov already returned with another probing question? He was beginning to regret ever taking those photographs to Minsk.
He opened the door to find not Shumakov but two strangers. One was tall, with a bald head and a spare face. The other had fleshy jowls that sagged beneath oval-shaped lenses mounted in thin metal frames. Neither appeared capable of a smile.
"Vadim Trishin?" said the shorter man.
"Yes."
"I'm Detective Fomin. This is Sergeant Latsina. We're from the Brest Militia. We'd like to talk with you."
Trishin frowned. Plain clothes officers. "Have I done something wrong?"
"No," said Fomin. "We want to talk with you about someone else."
Trishin opened the door wider. "Come on in."
Inside Trishin's compact living room-dining room-kitchen, the detective sat in a straight-back chair across from Vadim while the Sergeant stood nearby. "You have been meeting with a man who claims to be Yuri Shumakov."
"Claims to be?" said Trishin with a look of disbelief. "He is Yuri Shumakov. I served in the army under his brother, Captain Anatoli Shumakov."
Fomin nodded. "Why did Yuri Shumakov come all the way from Minsk to visit an employee of the Brest Vacuum Works?"
What was this all about, Trishin wondered? Shumakov was a chief investigator for the prosecutor in Minsk. Why would the local militia be asking questions about him?
"His brother was killed in a military accident several years ago in Ukraine. I was there. He wanted to talk to me about it."
"If it was so long ago, why is he asking questions now?"
"Because the army never finished its investigation. He had just checked the files in Kiev and was following up on it."
"Whose army asked him to complete the investigation?"
"Nobody's army. He's doing it on his own. Look, if you're all that interested in the case, why don't you ask him about it?"
"We're asking you!" Sergeant Latsina's bark was like a warning shot aimed to assure they had his full attention.
Fomin's eyes hardened and his jowls shook, giving him the look of a bulldog ready to bite. "What did Shumakov want to know?"
Trishin had done nothing wrong. They had admitted as much. Now he was getting a bit weary of these two. He glared at the detective as he answered. "He wanted to know about a KGB inspection team. They had been at our compound just before the fatal explosion."
The two men exchanged guarded glances. "What did you tell him?" Fomin asked.
"I identified the picture of a major who was one of the KGB men. And I told him about the general in charge."
"What else?"
Trishin sat there with a thoughtful look on his face. He had work to do. He had no desire to sit there and repeat the whole conversation he'd had with the Captain's brother. "That's all he was interested in. Why is the Brest Militia concerned with Yuri Shumakov's investigation?"
"We're not at liberty to discuss that," Fomin snapped. "All we need now is for you to sign this form saying you cooperated willingly. Then we'll be out of your way."
He brought a sheet of paper and a pen over to Trishin. Unnoticed, Latsina had moved around behind the chair.
The young salesman took the pen and bent over to read the document. He saw immediately that it wasn't at all what Fomin had described. It was some kind of strange legal form. He was about to object when an arm suddenly clamped about his neck in a vise-like grip. A slender hand slammed against his face, pressing a cloth over his nose and mouth. He smelled a strong, pungent odor and tried to reach up to grab at the cloth. Fomin seized his arms. The young man attempted to put up a struggle, but now he was breathing hard from the exertion, drawing the fumes rapidly into his lungs. His arms suddenly felt rubbery and his vision became blurry. His head slumped forward.
"He's out," said Latsina, removing the cloth from Trishin's face. It had been impregnated with a powerful anesthesia-like drug developed for the KGB. Both of the "militiamen" had taken an antidote prior to entering the apartment so they would not be affected by the fumes. When the drug wore off, it would leave no detectable traces.
"Get a kitchen knife," Fomin ordered. Both men were pulling on rubber gloves. "Make it look messy. I'll upset a few things to give the appearance of a struggle."
Vadim Trishin would never be aware of whether the drug had run its course. When the pair left shortly afterward, his body lay sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood, the wooden-handled knife plunged into his back.
Yuri Shumakov managed to put the case of the mysterious explosion temporarily out of his mind as he spent the afternoon wandering through the Brest Fortress complex. He viewed battle scars left by the merciless pounding of the Nazis, trudged across the Ceremonial Square where thousands had gathered to hear eulogies to the fallen, and lingered over a wealth of historical exhibits and documentary films in the sprawling museum. But as soon as he hit the road back to Minsk, all the details he had been gathering about that fateful September afternoon in 1991 came cascading back into his consciousness.
He considered the facts as he knew them, attempting to fill in the gaps using his best deductive reasoning. He started with Major Romashchuk's involvement. Since there was little doubt that he had no longer been active in the KGB, it appeared the so-called "inspection team" was most likely a rogue operation. They had gone into the ammunition storage building with Anatoli, leaving a man outside to occupy the guard posted there. They had remained about fifteen minutes, not long enough for a genuine inspection but plenty of time to hold the soldiers inside at bay and load a supply of weapons and ammunition into the truck. Had they shot Anatoli when he tried to resist? And what of the outside guard? He must have been overpowered in some way before they loaded the truck. He was among those killed in the blast. The intruders could have used time-fused incendiary devices to set off the explosion after they had left the area.
It all made perfectly good sense and seemed to satisfy Yuri's need for pinning down the blame for his brother's death. But then he began to understand his earlier uneasiness, the disturbing feeling that he had overlooked something. He had failed to consider possible contradictions, other alternatives. The most glaring involved Vadim Trishin's concern over fallout from the previous weapons theft probe.
Yuri had blithely accepted the outcome of that investigation as an exoneration of Anatoli. But was it? Thinking back over the summary he had read in the Kiev military file, he had to admit it not so mu
ch exonerated Anatoli as declared the evidence insufficient to support charges against him. Maybe it was only a subtle difference, but it raised disquieting possibilities.
Point One: the shot through the middle of the forehead was not the sort of thing that would result from a struggle. It had more the appearance of an execution. Point Two: if you accepted the theory that the intruders were on a mission of theft, then an execution would appear more likely the result of a disagreement, or a falling-out between confederates. It would give the impression that Captain Anatoli Shumakov, previously accused of involvement in a weapons theft, had been a participant, a co-conspirator, albeit an extremely unlucky one.
Yuri rumpled his brow at such a repugnant thought. He could not, would not accept it, but he knew that to the right people, it would make just as much sense as his original thesis. To someone who had not known Anatoli except through a recitation of cold, lifeless facts on paper, it could just as easily bear the ring of truth.
By the time he arrived home around nine o'clock that evening, he was a man of badly frayed emotions. He remained convinced that he should continue to pursue his independent probe of the explosion, but with the introduction of Major Romashchuk into the equation, he had a clear duty to bring it to General Borovsky's attention. But if he did, it would quite likely lead to a blackening of Anatoli's good name and memory. That left him facing a real dilemma, personal duty versus his brother's honor. He had never shirked his responsibilities and didn't relish the prospect of doing it now. But the cords that bound him to his brother's fate had never tugged stronger.
He waved at the boys and gave Larisa a perfunctory peck on the cheek. Homework time was obviously over. Petr appeared absorbed in a sports magazine while Aleksei worked on a sleight-of-hand trick one of his friends had taught him. When it was perfected, he would try it on his father.
Larisa sat down with Yuri as he began yet another late meal. "The prodigal father returns," she said, propping her elbows on the table and leaning her chin against her cupped hands. "Petr could have used your help earlier. He had a history paper to write on the Crimean War. Was the trip worthwhile?"
"I'm not sure." A troubled frown tugged at the corners of his eyes. "It raised some questions I wasn't prepared for."
"Really? I thought questions were an investigator's meat and potatoes. What kind of questions?"
He gave her a pained expression. He couldn't very well explain his problem without getting into the matter of Major Romashchuk, and that was a subject he was forbidden to discuss except with General Borovsky. Besides, right now it was the last thing he wanted to dwell upon. "I'd rather not talk about it now, Larisa. It's been a long day and a long drive. I'm worn out."
She watched anxiously as he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. She had been warning him he wasn't indestructible, that all this overwork would catch up with him one of these days. "Do you have a headache? Can I get you something?"
"No thanks. I'm all right."
He sat and ate in silence, avoiding her gaze, and finally pushed up from the table with nearly half of his food still on the plate. All the conflicting thoughts boiling around in his mind had effectively destroyed his appetite. He had begun to wonder if this was turning into something like the Crimean War, a classic disaster.
"I think I'll go on to bed," he told her.
21
Though a good night's sleep had helped put Yuri in a better humor, he was no closer to resolving his dilemma. When General Borovsky's secretary arrived, he was told the KGB director would be attending a meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Government House most of the day. He welcomed the news like a temporary stay of execution. It would allow him a few more hours to decide how to treat this new, disturbing information concerning the elusive Major Nikolai Romashchuk.
He poured tea from the samovar in the supply room and took it to his desk. He spread out the contents of his briefcase, the copies of documents and photographs and the notes he had written and began to consider what it could all mean, in the context of that secret Russian report. He was still inclined to go with his theory about the theft and sale of weapons from Anatoli's inventory. It would indicate the former KGB men had been raising money for some illicit purpose immediately after the coup attempt. Had they intended to support a new effort at wresting control from the leaders of the dying Soviet state? That would certainly add weight to General Borovsky's current fear of a plot to undermine the CIS.
Restlessly, Shumakov got up and walked over to the narrow office window and gazed down at the street below. The traffic lanes were filled with cars and trolleys and trucks and buses. Crowds of busy people lined the sidewalk. Like the scene he watched, the pace of change was quickening. He was convinced that Belarus had a bright future, so long as her people didn't lose their progressive bearings. He was also convinced that a sinister threat lurked in the background. Some group was pursuing a different agenda, one he did not yet fully comprehend. Romashchuk was undoubtedly a part of it, possibly this General Malmudov as well. But he needed something solid that he could take to General Borovsky and the Chairman.
Hoping for a lead that might put a new spin on the case, Yuri called Oleg Kovalenko in Kiev. The chief investigator was in court, but Yuri was assured that his call would be returned that afternoon.
Then he phoned Detective Omar Khan. The gregarious Uzbek was usually a storehouse of insider gossip from both the militia and the prosecutor's office.
"Chief Investigator Shumakov, good to hear from you," said the detective. "I was surprised to learn you were off on some special case with the KGB."
"I'm just checking up on our old rivals, Khan. Perchik can't do without me, though. He called a couple of days ago about that murder case I helped you with."
"Why was he interested in that?"
"Repin wanted to talk to me about it."
"Repin? I thought I'd given that bastard more than enough." The irritation was obvious in Khan's voice.
"That's what I thought, too. Perchik reminded me that I was the one who had done the interrogation. He said Repin needed to talk to me because he likes to get every bit of evidence available."
Khan grunted. "He wants you to be excessively thorough so he won't have to raise a finger. If he could get away with it, he'd have you present his cases in court."
"Be reasonable, Khan. I don't think he would go quite that far."
"Reasonableness has nothing to do with it when you talk about Repin. A friend told me the creep is spreading a rumor that you are on Perchik's purge list."
"Purge list?"
"Supposedly the prosecutor is waiting for you to finish this KGB case, then he plans to send you packing."
After Perchik's performance two days ago, that didn't sound too far-fetched.
"Here's something else I picked up you might find interesting," Detective Khan added. "My neighbor is an army major. Last night he attended a big gathering of uniformed officers in the army and air force at Chelyuskintsev Park. General Nikolsky told them that the CIS meeting here next month would herald the military's return to glory, as he put it."
"Isn't he second in command of the armed forces? What did he mean by that?"
"Major Yasnev said it sounded like Nikolsky thinks something similar to the old Red Army will be reconstituted. He told them to get their troops prepared to do whatever they're ordered."
"That sounds ominous."
"I don't believe Yasnev expects to be ordered to do anything drastic. He just thought the army would revert to the good old days."
Yuri's voice was filled with loathing. "If existence under the Soviet Union was the good old days, I, for one, can very happily do without them."
When the caller to Brest militia headquarters said he had information regarding the murder of Vadim Trishin, he was referred to Detective Bobrov. A short, stocky man with bushy Brezhnev eyebrows, Bobrov wore a permanent look of cultivated indifference. After many years of viewing corpses done in by every method imaginable, he was virtuall
y immune to shock. But he hadn't seen a body butchered as badly as Trishin's in quite awhile. The medical examiner had counted thirty-three stab wounds. Someone had taken out a powerful grudge on this young man.
"Bobrov!" he barked into the phone.
"Are you handling the Trishin murder?" a deep male voice inquired.
"I am. Who are you?"
"I'd rather not get involved in it personally, but I thought you'd like to know what he told me a few days ago."
"Just give me your name. I'll keep it confidential."
The voice ignored him. "He said a man from Minsk had been harassing him. His name was Shumakov...Yuri, I believe. Trishin had served under his brother in the army. Apparently the brother had been killed in an accident, and he blamed Trishin for it. This Shumakov was going to Kiev, he said, to look up something about the accident at the Defense Ministry. Trishin was afraid it might really set him off."
Bobrov glanced up from the notes he had been furiously scribbling. "Look, why don't we meet somewhere and you can—"
"That's all I know. I hope it helps."
The line went dead. Bobrov's look of indifference turned to one of disgust. Damn these people who would only speak in anonymity. They might make valuable witnesses later, but there was no way to track them down. He read the notes on his pad. At least he now had a name and a motive. The homicide team could return to question the neighbors and check Trishin's belongings for information on his army service. Someone would probably get a nice junket to Kiev.
It was late afternoon when Oleg Kovalenko called. "How was your day in court?" Yuri inquired.
"Strange, my friend. Four 'not guilty' verdicts. Remember back when if you went to court it was automatic that you were guilty? Times have changed."
Yuri recalled Khan's comment about the "good old days." It was all a matter of perspective. "Well, tell me if anything has changed in the Romashchuk situation?"
Overture to Disaster (Post Cold War Political Thriller Trilogy Book 3) Page 14
