The rather large man sat on the bed, reading a brochure. This seemed an odd thing to do, given that there was a smaller man on the bed next to him, lying faceup, struggling to breathe.
The brochure was all about the Winter Ice Festival in St. Petersburg. It explained to visitors the history behind the commemorative Ice Palace that was being constructed in the square near the Mars Field. In 1740, the Empress Anna Ivanovna, Ruler of All the Russias, decreed that a palace was to be constructed in her capital of St. Petersburg. But this was to be a very special palace; a palace made entirely of ice! Complete with miniature rooms, furniture, statues-even a royal bedchamber with bed. All made of ice! And when it was finished, its first occupants were nearly also its first victims. Displeased with the conduct of one of her ministers, the empress had forced him to marry a female serf in that very ice palace, and then demanded that they spend their wedding night on that bed of ice. They both nearly froze to death!
The large man snorted, as though amused at such a deadly caprice. Meanwhile, the struggles of the man on the bed had grown considerably weaker, his breath now coming in sharp, infrequent gasps.
The large man sighed, stood up, walked to the window. His round head and rounded shoulders made him seem bearlike. He was dressed in a nondescript blue nylon leisure suit and white sneakers. His only distinguishing feature, other than his bulk, was a streak of white in otherwise dark brown hair.
Beyond the window, the modern St. Petersburg skyline was still beautiful. One could see all the way down Nevsky Prospekt to the dual snakes of lights lining the Neva River. During the day, from this vantage, one could make out the Winter Palace, sometimes even the Peter and Paul Fortress across the Neva.
The bearlike man stepped over to the bed, lowered his bulky frame onto it, which made the mattress bounce-as well as the now-quiet body lying across it, which now looked merely passed-out drunk; an impression reinforced by the near-empty bottle of Koskova vodka on the nightstand. The heavyset man reached into his pocket, took out a pair of latex gloves, slipped them with some effort over his thick hands. Then he reached over and took the vodka bottle and the half-full glass next to it. He stood, walked with them into the bathroom, where he poured the remaining vodka from both down the sink. He used a washcloth to wipe them clean, then, holding the bottle and glass gingerly, walked back into the room and set them carefully back on the nightstand.
He surveyed the room: a suitcase on top of the dresser, a small valise leaning against the closet.
He went through the suitcase first. Finding nothing of interest, he indifferently repacked the clothes, set the suitcase where he'd found it.
Taking the valise to the bed, he unzipped it. Tucked in a pocket was a Russian passport. The name there was just as it should be.
Fyodor Ivanovich Myorkin.
Behind the passport were press credentials in Fyodor's name from Svobodniye Rossia Novosti, the Free Russia News.
He found the journalist's notebook, flipped it open. It was filled with notes from Fyodor's visit that day to the Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Sankt-Peterburga, the Central State Archives of St. Petersburg, housed in its squat, Soviet-style blockhouse on Varfolomeevskaia.
He nodded, satisfied, and pocketed the notebook. He was about to zip the valise closed when he noticed a letter, tucked down inside a pocket. He extracted the envelope, pulled out the single page, careful not to wrinkle it.
It was handwritten in Russian. He scanned the text quickly. It was from an American academic doing work on the Holodnaya Voyna, the Cold War. The academic wrote that he'd read some of Myorkin's earlier articles exposing secrets of Soviet policies; then he asked politely if Myorkin had ever, in his own research, come across any references to something called Borba s tenyu?
The man read the contents again, his lips moving as he read, committing the important parts to memory. He was about to tuck the letter back into its envelope when he thought to check the signature at the bottom of the letter and find out who this Americanski was, writing to the late Mr. Myorkin.
Jeremy Fletcher, it read.
He repeated the name to himself. Then he replaced the letter in the valise, glanced about the room once more, and, with a last nod to the peaceful Fyodor on the bed, he opened the door, checked the hallway, and left.