The Twelfth Department Read Online Free Page A

that had only needed a signature.
    He reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved the Walther he’d just placed there, pulling the leather strap of the holster over his shoulder and fitting the gun snugly under his armpit. He patted the gun for luck and prayed it wasn’t a murder Popov wanted to talk about. If it was, that would be the week gone. He’d be lucky if he saw Yuri at all. Still, there wasn’t any use complaining about such things. And with a bit of luck, Popov just wanted to ask them about the Gray Fox business. With a lot of luck.
    “Mitya?” Korolev asked Yasimov, standing, “Can you spare five minutes to go up to the park and tell the little ones the good news?” He handed him a five-rouble note. “Give this to Shura in case she needs it and tell her I’ll call her when I know what’s what. And kiss Yuri for me.”
    “Of course, brother. Consider him kissed.”
    “Thank you.”
    Korolev’s face must have still been showing his disappointment when, two minutes later, he and Slivka entered Popov’s office, because the first inspector looked at him kindly as he waved them toward the empty chairs in front of his desk.
    “Sit down, sit down—it mightn’t be as bad as all that.”
    “At your orders, Comrade First Inspector,” Korolev said. The seat he chose gave out a creak that was close enough to an animal’s squeal of pain to leave a moment’s awkward silence behind it.
    “Well,” Popov said and reached for his pipe, filling it with tobacco as he considered his detectives. He took his time and Korolev and Slivka, used to Popov’s ways, waited patiently. They knew he liked to think things through before he opened his mouth, and then he liked to think them through once again. And he never much liked talking unless his pipe was lit. Sure enough, once the tobacco was glowing orange and Popov’s head was surrounded with an aromatic cloud of smoke, the first inspector tapped the notepad in front of him.
    “There’s a man sitting in his apartment over in Bersenevka with a bullet in his head. It seems he didn’t put it there himself.”
    “I see,” Korolev said, concerned. Bersenevka was just across the river from the Kremlin and Popov hadn’t said the body was in a kommunalka : the shared housing that most citizens had to put up with. No, he’d said “his apartment,” and anyone who lived in that part of Moscow and had their own apartment was fortunate indeed. Fortunate and important.
    “You know the place—that new building across the river from the Kremlin. What’s it called again?”
    “You mean Leadership House,” Korolev said, fearing it could be no other. He caught Slivka looking across at him. She was fresh from the wilds of the Ukraine—well, Odessa—and new to Moscow, so Slivka probably hadn’t heard of the building before—but she was a smart girl and, to judge from her expression, was putting two and two together. She was right—Leadership House, as its name and location implied, was home to generals, important officials, senior Party members, directors of vital State concerns and the like—in short, the type of people who needed to be inside the Kremlin five minutes after the phone rang.
    “You do know the place,” Popov said, having the good grace to appear a little guilty. “Good, that makes things easier.” The first inspector considered his pipe for a moment or two. “Needless to say, it’s not somewhere I can send just any detective. It has to be someone who has experience in such…”
    Popov hesitated, as if considering how best to acknowledge the fact that Korolev had found himself handling more than one investigation involving senior Party members, foreign spies, State Security, and the like—investigations that had damned nearly left Moscow CID with one less detective on its books.
    “Well, I suppose whoever I send has to be able to deal with delicate matters. As the saying goes, Alexei Dmitriyevich—no good deed goes unpunished.