A Bride of Allah

“We can’t leave her alive! That’s bad example. Did she come by the old place?”

“No. Vakha is posted there. If she shows up, he’ll let me know.”

“Just don’t bring him here. Remember the rule? Only you can see me.”

“And the girls.”

“They don’t count. They are here today, gone tomorrow. Were it not for today’s mishap… Where could Aiza be?”

“I think she’s still with that guy.”

“Did you find out where he lives?”

“Yes.”

“Is he a cop?”

“No. A common idiot.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s reliable. Our source from the police headquarters came through.”

“That one?”

“Yeah,” Aslan smiled. “It was my idea to recruit him.”

“Show me his address on the map.”

Aslan opened a Moscow road atlas.

“He lives here, on Volgogradsky Prospekt. I wanted to go there, but you said to do nothing until I saw you.”

Fatima faltered, but finally said in a decisive tone, “No. We won’t stick our necks out at night. Too risky. We’ll go there in the morning, when everyone’s off to work.” She opened a curtain slightly and looked out the dark window. “I still hope the girl would push the button. Aiza wanted to die so badly.”

Aslan’s face spread in a greasy smile, “I tried my best.”

Fatima threw him a contemptuous look, but didn’t say anything. She found a remote control and turned on the small TV.

“Let’s hear the news. You’ll see my work, and maybe Aiza would show up, too.”

“What is she doesn’t?”

“The Russians have a saying, there’s no bad thing without a good thing. Tomorrow is September 1, the beginning of the school year. We’ll find her in the morning and send her to a school. I’ll up the dosage, and she’ll do what she must.”

“Are you still drawn to schools, teacher?”

“Why not?” Fatima lowered her voice. “I’ve discussed a school with you-know-who a while ago. And if tomorrow we – ”

“School; girls with bows,” Aslan smiled. “That would be way better than a metro station.”

Chapter 12

August 31, 9:25 PM

Sviridov

“I’ve had it! I’ve had it! I’ve had it!” Lieutenant colonel of police Sviridov clenched his fists and imagined smashing his office furniture. He wanted to turn the desk over, break down the cabinet, kick around chairs and file folders full of paper. He wanted to take out his handgun, empty it into the fire safe’s iron door and throw it at the head of the first person to enter his office. He also dreamed, fearfully, of running up to a window and throwing himself out of it. Frame breaking, glass crashing. And a long fall, hands spread, in a cloud of glistening shards.

A whole range of emotions running wild reflected on Sviridov’s exhausted face. But his body remained motionless.

Today, the Chechens reminded him of an old sin again.

He got a call from Aslan, the wheeling-dealing bastard who took a video of it all four years ago. He gave him a job to do and said he’d call back. Until the last second it seemed that the callback wouldn’t happen. The Chechen would get lost, disappear, vanish, and everyone would forget about a long-gone moment of weakness experienced by Gennady Sviridov, a normal police officer.

But the callback came. The lieutenant colonel mumbled the details of registration of a certain VAZ-2106 automobile, wiped hot sweat with a shaky hand, and released a volcano of curses that up to that point were held inside. Rage boiled on the inside, but on the outside, it manifested only as grimaces of pain, moving of lips, shaking of fists, and pieces of broken pencil on his desk.

In the adjacent offices, his colleagues were working; the lieutenant colonel didn’t want any questions from them. He was afraid of them and he was afraid of Aslan.

Gennady Sviridov convulsively pulled out a desk drawer. The plastic tray crashed onto the floor, file folders and notebooks mixed up forming a disordered pile. His hand pulled out of that pile a small burgundy day planner. Inside it, against the back cover, was a black-and-white photo. The lieutenant colonel carefully spread it on his desk.

Two young police lieutenants, uniform hats pushed back carelessly, were laughing into the camera. Pashka Borovkov and Genka Sviridov. The best friends, happy to have received their long-awaited lieutenant’s tabs.

The lieutenant colonel’s body shivered, the palm of his hand spread tears on the stubble-covered cheek. Shivers and tears have become frequent visitors in the life of an overweight forty-year-old man with thin greasy hair.

* * * * *

Twenty minutes later, Gennady Sviridov left his office. He slowly drove home in his dark-blue Volkswagen; suddenly, a yellow Mazda passed him on the right and braked abruptly in front of a red light. His foot hit the brake, his body shifted forward and leaned on the steering wheel; the policeman’s car almost clipped Mazda’s bumper.

Sviridov jumped out and yelled at the insolent driver. The bottled-up emotions came out in flares; drops of spit were landing on the tinted glass, his fist banged on the car’s roof.

A window smoothly rolled down.

“Pops, go away,” a young unshaved Caucasian snapped insolently.

Another one smirked crookedly over his shoulder.

“You sucker, do you have any idea where I can send you?” Sviridov was boiling over. His hand was checking the pockets of his plain clothes for his service ID. The insolent face of the Caucasian now represented everything that was wrong in his life.

“Well, where?” The driver got out of the Mazda, glanced around, and suddenly hit Sviridov in the face with his fist.

His nose was smashed, his head fell back; Sviridov fell.

The Mazda drove away.

Other cars carefully drove around an awkward fat man rolling on the asphalt. Drivers looked in disgust at a staggering man in dusty suit with a porous red nose.

The lieutenant colonel returned to his car and wiped his bleeding nose with a handkerchief. The bout of rage exhausted Sviridov; the “cold shower” of the beating suddenly calmed him down.