Read Tatiana: An Arkady Renko Novel (Arkady Renko Novels) for Free Online

opened the doors. This was Tatiana’s last view, bleaker than Arkady had anticipated, far from the glass towers of millionaires. Even with the doors folded, there was only room on the balcony for two people. A plaque on the rail said, PLEASE DO NOT PLACE OBJECTS ON LEDGE . Good idea, Arkady thought. In the corner of the balcony lay an ashtray and a shriveled geranium in a pot.
    He returned to the living room, crushing a shoe box of tapes on the floor, and picked up a tape recorder. He expected dead batteries. Instead he heard the stutter of machine-gun fire anda woman’s voice say, “Both sides have the same weapons. That’s because our Soviet soldiers have traded their weapons for vodka. Here in Afghanistan, vodka is the great equalizer.” Arkady tried another tape. “The sirens that you hear are ambulances taking children to a hospital already overflowing with casualties, over two hundred so far. It’s now clear there was no rescue plan. The prime minister has yet to visit the scene.” And a third. “The bomb went off during rush hour in the metro. Bodies and body parts are everywhere. We’re trying to move closer but some tunnels are so filled with black smoke it’s impossible to breathe or see.” History rushed by.
    He put in a new cassette. At first he thought it was blank and then he picked up her low, soft voice. “People ask me is it worth it.”
    A pause, but he knew that Tatiana was there on the other side of the tape. He could hear her breathing.

5
    The next morning, Arkady felt curiously well. Part of it was Vicodin and part a sense that he had come into direct contact with Tatiana Petrovna and had an idea where to begin. Sergei Obolensky had been one of the few men who put up a fight outside Tatiana’s apartment building. He had been Tatiana’s closest friend on the magazine Now .
    “It’s more like Now and Then, ” Obolensky said. “We pulled our latest issue so we could rethink our policy on investigative journalism. Maybe we’ll have to put in a horoscope instead of investigation. Maybe we’ll print only horoscopes. I’m not going to make the magazine’s staff risk their lives. Personally, I’ve decided I’m too old to die. It’s very simple when you’re young and you don’t have a family and financial obligations. At my age, it’s a mess. No story is worth that.” Obolensky rubbed the bruises on his shaved head. “Nothing compared to a punctured lung.” Hebrought a bottle of vodka and two glasses from a desk drawer. “I normally don’t drink in the middle of the day, but as we are two survivors of the Battle of the Bullhorn, I must salute you.”
    “A battle?” Arkady thought that was a little exaggerated.
    One wall of Obolensky’s office was covered with citations from news organizations and schools of journalism around the world. Two photographs were of Obolensky and Tatiana Petrovna accepting awards. A leather sofa was worn flat. A dead ficus haunted a corner. Obolensky’s desk was half hidden by a computer and manuscripts and books that overflowed the shelves. All in all, pretty much the professional disorder that Arkady expected in an editor’s office.
    “What happened after Anya and I left?” he asked. “Did you get your cameras and cell phones back?”
    “After the captain confiscated all the film and memory cards. The captain had his fun. He advised us not to make an issue of the beating because then they would really dish it out. ‘Dish it out’? What does that mean? What’s left after murder? For the meantime he cited us for unlawful assembly and libeling the office of the president. Not a word about the attack on us. I’m responsible for my people. I don’t want their blood on my hands.”
    “Did you lodge a complaint with a prosecutor?”
    “What would be the point? Prosecutors, investigators, militia, they’re all thieves, present company excepted.” Only two glasses of vodka, and Obolensky was becoming emotional. “Renko, you and I know that