The following morning, a few blocks from the courthouse, Ilya watched flocks of children tossing basketballs and playing on swings. This park lay near the heart of the Five Points, where Swamp Angels and Daybreak Boys had once fought for control of the city, but today, the area was relatively tranquil, with the silence broken only by the quick snap of sneakers against concrete.
Ilya waited for a moment longer, then headed for the comfort station. The restroom was fashioned from rough limestone, as simple as a child’s house of blocks. Inside, it was a mildewed cave with aluminum fixtures, a perpetual stream of water trickling from the sink. Under the window stood a heavy garbage bin. Behind it, he wedged a plastic bundle containing his stun gun, knife, and penlight.
Outside, he took in a lungful of fresh air and headed for the courthouse, approaching it from the rear. The building was stately and imposing, its hexagonal lines obscured by a severe Corinthian portico. As he mounted the steps, which took him a full story above the street, he noted that the federal courthouse next door was under construction, encircled on all sides by a sidewalk shed.
Past the revolving doors, he approached a security checkpoint where marshals in blue uniforms were waving visitors through. Without being asked, he unslung his shoulder bag and set it on the conveyer belt, where it was fed into a scanner. When he walked through the metal detector, it remained silent.
One of the marshals studied the cathode display. “Any electronics in the bag?”
“Cell phone,” Ilya said. He had been asked the same question the day before. “And a radio.”
The guard did not take his eyes from the screen. Aside from the cell phone and radio, he would see nothing but a Windbreaker and a mailing tube. “The phone have a camera? If it does, you have to declare it.”
“No camera.” Ilya wondered if they would ask him about the radio, but the guard said nothing more. When his bag came out the other end of the scanner, he picked it up and slung it over his shoulder.
As he was about to proceed into the courthouse, a second guard spoke. “What brings you here today?”
Ilya found that it was easiest to tell the simple truth. “I am here to get a passport.”
Leaving the checkpoint, he entered the courthouse. It was floored with echoing marble, six wings radiating outward from a central rotunda. Above him hung mosaics of the great lawgivers of the past, giant enthroned figures of Moses, Blackmun, Hammurabi. To his right, set apart from the main entrance, stood an emergency exit. It was cordoned off by two stanchions linked with a retractable belt, but there was no guard, and the door itself was held shut with nothing but a panic bar.
The passport office, a drab hallway lined with three wooden benches, occupied one of the rotunda’s wings. On the first bench, a man in a suit, perhaps a lawyer, was speaking rapidly into a cell phone; on the second, a redhead in a greasy denim jacket was slumped against the wall, gazing down vacantly at the floor. Ilya sat on the third bench, which was otherwise empty.
A second later, the lawyer rose and moved away, still talking on his cell phone. This left only the redhead in the denim jacket, who did not seem altogether aware of his surroundings. Ilya was studying the vagrant, wondering if it might be better to find a different location, when he saw Sharkovsky and Misha walking across the polished floor of the rotunda.
Although he had come half an hour early, he had anticipated them by only a few minutes. As the two men drew closer, he observed that Sharkovsky was wearing an eye patch, and that Misha carried his satchel in one hand. When they reached the hallway outside the passport office, Sharkovsky lowered himself onto the bench. Misha sat gingerly beside him, careful of his bad leg.
A moment passed in silence. At last, Sharkovsky spoke. “I see no reason to draw out this transaction any longer than necessary, keelyer. Unless, of course, you have anything else on your mind.”
As he looked into the old man’s sole visible eye, Ilya was reminded of a crow peering sideways at its prey. “If Vasylenko is a Chekist, he will answer for it in the end. But what about the rest of the brotherhood?”
“What do you want me to say?” Sharkovsky said in Assyrian. “Chekist or thief makes no difference. Power is what counts. If you were told otherwise, it was because it was what you wanted to hear.”
Ilya felt the truth of these words as another tightening of the noose. He thought again of the cross around Vasylenko’s neck, and of the star scratched into its hidden side. “So why did he choose me?”
“He saw potential. Not every man can become what you are. It takes—” Sharkovsky paused to consider his words. “Detachment. Intelligence. And morality. There is nothing so dangerous as a deeply ethical man, once his life has been erased. And all it took was a word from him to leave you with nothing—”
Ilya’s hands grew cold, as if all the blood had withdrawn to his heart. He found that he knew precisely what the old man was going to say, as if the realization had been lurking there, just outside his circle of awareness, ever since the night of the vineyard. “What are you talking about?”
“You mean you don’t know?” Sharkovsky gave him a smile of monstrous tenderness. “You had to be on your own. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be an effective instrument. So he did what he had to do. At least they were allowed to die in their sleep. Not everyone receives the same consideration.”
Sharkovsky extended a hand for the satchel, which Misha gave to him at once. The old man turned back to Ilya, his good eye shining in its socket. “Now then. Are you ready to make the exchange?”