On the third dive, he got both legs against the car and opened the door a crack. That was enough. As water leaked in, pressure equalized, faster by the second. He held on because he wasn’t going up and down again. As the door opened, water flowed in with a rush, Arkady with it. He swam blindly onto the front seat, then climbed into the back, where Jaak was starting to float.

The door shut with the suction of the water. Eyes still closed, Arkady located the inside latch, but the door wouldn’t budge and he couldn’t get decent purchase for his feet with Jaak bobbing every which way around him. What a tight, well-made car, Arkady thought. He rolled down the window, and as the car filled up, the door eased open and he kicked himself out, towing Jaak behind him.

He crawled over the lip of the pit and pulled the detective by the arms up onto the yard. Jaak didn’t look too bad—wet, eyes wide, curly hair matted like a lamb’s—but he was too cold and uncooperative, without a pulse at the wrist or neck, and his irises could have been glass. Arkady tried the breath of life, lifting Jaak’s arms and then beating life into his chest until a raindrop exploded in the center of Jaak’s eye and he didn’t blink. Without trying, Arkady’s hand found a small entry wound at the back of Jaak’s skull. No exit wound. Small caliber; the slug probably just bounced around the brain.

The pig bobbed to the crowded surface of the pit. No, this head was smaller, ears shorter, followed by the surfacing X-form of outstretched limbs. Arkady realized that his problem getting out of the car had been because there were two bodies, not one, in the backseat. What a regular fishing hole, this pit! With the hoe he pulled the body close and dragged it up beside Jaak. It was an older man, not Korean or Chechen, the features slack and dirty but familiar. Killed the same way, a hole in the back of the skull that the tip of his little finger fit into. A black mourning band on the left sleeve was how Arkady recognized him. It was Penyagin.

What was the chief of Criminal Investigation doing with Jaak? Why was Penyagin at the Lenin’s Path Collective Farm? If it was a payoff, since when did generals collect in person? Arkady resisted the temptation to kick him back into the pit. Instead, he peeled open Penyagin’s jacket to remove the dead man’s internal passport, Ministry pass and Party card. Inside the vinyl book that held the card a list of phone numbers was pressed against the image of Lenin’s damp cheek.