“This here’s a white folks’ ambulance,” the driver said. “It ain’t for nigras.”

“The hell you say.”

“Don’t you sass me, boy.”

A white Rider who was already on board came back out. “You have to take everyone to the hospital,” he said to the driver. “Black and white.”

“This ain’t a nigra ambulance,” the driver said stubbornly.

“Well, we’re not going without our friends.” With that the white Riders began to leave the ambulance one by one.

The driver was taken aback. He would look foolish, George guessed, if he returned from the scene with no patients.

The older patrolman came over and said: “Better take ’em, Roy.”

“If you say so,” said the driver.

George and Maria boarded the ambulance.

As they drove away, George looked back at the bus. Nothing remained but a drift of smoke and a blackened hulk, with a row of scorched roof struts sticking up like the ribs of a martyr burned at the stake.

CHAPTER FIVE

Tanya Dvorkin left Yakutsk, Siberia—the coldest city in the world—after an early breakfast. She flew to Moscow, a distance of a little over three thousand miles, in a Tupolev Tu-16 of the Red Air Force. The cabin was configured for half a dozen military men, and the designer had not wasted time thinking of their comfort: the seats were made of pierced aluminum and there was no soundproofing. The journey took eight hours with one refueling stop. Because Moscow was six hours behind Yakutsk, Tanya arrived in time for another breakfast.

It was summer in Moscow, and she carried her heavy coat and fur hat. She took a taxi to Government House, the apartment building for Moscow’s privileged elite. She shared a flat with her mother, Anya, and her twin brother, Dmitri, always called Dimka. It was a big place, with three bedrooms, though Mother said it was spacious only by Soviet standards: the Berlin apartment she had lived in as a child, when Grandfather Grigori had been a diplomat, had been much more grand.

This morning the place was silent and empty: Mother and Dimka had both left for work already. Their coats were hanging in the hall, on nails knocked in by Tanya’s father a quarter of a century ago: Dimka’s black raincoat and Mother’s brown tweed, left at home in the warm weather. Tanya hung up her own coat beside them and put her suitcase in her bedroom. She had not expected them to be in, but all the same she felt a twinge of regret that Mother was not here to make her tea, nor Dimka to listen to her adventures in Siberia. She thought of going to see her grandparents Grigori and Katerina Peshkov, who lived on another floor in the same building, but decided she did not really have the time.

She showered and changed her clothes, then took a bus to the headquarters of TASS, the Soviet news agency. She was one of more than a thousand reporters working for the agency, but not many were flown around in air force jets. She was a rising star, able to produce lively and interesting articles that appealed to young people but nevertheless adhered to the party line. It was a mixed blessing: she was often given difficult high-profile assignments.