But they had to act soon, Fyedorenko thought with sudden urgency. Anything so drastic was bound to terrify the fat sheep of the Old Guard who waited in the antechamber, like pigs at the trough. He turned away from the window and began to walk towards the bedroom, when the door opened and the two doctors came out, fatigue and a sort of lugubrious solemnity painted on their faces. They faced each other across the room, all of them swollen with a sense of their parts in this tableau. It was a historical moment and they all knew it.

“Well then—” Fyedorenko said, just to get it started.

“I regret to inform you of the death of the party secretary, Comrade—” the taller of the doctors began.

“All over is it?” Fyedorenko prompted.

“It is a great loss to all of us,” the other doctor pronounced solemnly.

“Of course, of course,” Fyedorenko said and thanked them as he guided them to the door. “Ask the others to give me a moment alone with him. We were so close you see.” His voice broke.

The doctors looked at each other in astonishment. Imagine how everyone would react when they heard of how broken up the famous stone-faced Fyedorenko was over the death of his mentor. They nodded understandingly as they stepped from the salon into the crowded antechamber to make the announcement. As they did so, the quiet murmur of conversation abruptly stopped.

Fyedorenko went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He could see the body still connected by tubes and wires to the ineffectual tools of this world. The electrocardiograph was still on, a single blip racing across the screen, endlessly repeating itself.

He glanced at the old man’s face, but it had already begun to acquire the waxy expression common to all corpses which proclaimed so clearly that whatever was human no longer inhabited that shriveled old body with its shrewd homely features. Fyedorenko wasted no time looking at the face of the man he had followed for over forty years. He had more important things to do.

He crossed over to the phone on the night stand and dialed Svetlov’s private number. He knew Svetlov would be awake and was not surprised when the receiver was picked up before the first ring was completed. Out of habit, Fyedorenko glanced at his watch. It was 3:15 a.m. He took a slight breath, because once he spoke, there was no stopping, no going back, no matter what.

“It has begun,” he said.

PART ONE

PART ONE

You should never beat a woman, not even with a flower.

—The Prophet Mohammed

Paris

Paris