“I’m impressed,” Jack said. “How did you happen to know that?”

“I saw it as a boy,” Yuri explained. “I grew up in the Soviet Union in a city called Sverdlovsk. In the rural areas outside the city cows and sheep occasionally were infected.”

“I’ve heard of Sverdlovsk,” Jack said. “In fact, it was just today. I read that there was a leak there of anthrax from a secret bioweapons plant.”

Yuri practically gulped. He was staggered by Jack’s offhand comment. It was so totally unexpected, especially after Yuri had just been torturing himself with its recollection.

“Did you ever hear anything about that episode?” Jack asked. “Apparently there were a lot of cases and a lot of deaths.”

“I didn’t hear about anything like that,” Yuri said. He had to clear his throat.

“I’m not surprised,” Jack said. “I don’t think the Soviet government wanted anybody to know. For years they tried to say that it came from contaminated meat.”

“There were episodes of contaminated meat,” Yuri managed.

“The problem I’m talking about occurred in 1979,” Jack said. “Did you live in Sverdlovsk then?”

“I guess,” Yuri said vaguely. He was aware he was trembling. As soon as he could, Yuri broke away from Jack and hurried back to his cab. While he started the engine he looked back. Jack was putting his mask and gloves back on. At least he wasn’t out in the street trying to write down Yuri’s license number.

Putting the car in gear, Yuri drove off. His euphoria had been short-lived. Now he felt panic again. Although Jason Papparis’s death confirmed the potency of his anthrax, Yuri was concerned that a state official who related anthrax to its use as a weapon was out on site investigating the case. He had taken pains to infect someone who could have gotten the disease through occupational exposure. That fact was supposed to preclude any investigation.

Despite his distress, Yuri snapped off his off-duty light. Rush hour was a prime time for taxi work, provided the traffic didn’t bog down. Yuri needed the money. He had to work, and he picked up a fare almost immediately.

For the next hour, Yuri did short hops up and down Manhattan and back and forth across town. None of the customers bothered him too much, but the traffic did. Preoccupied and agitated, he found his patience stretched to the breaking point. After several near accidents, particularly one at Third Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street, Yuri decided to give up. When the fare climbed from the taxi at his destination, Yuri called it quits for the day. He put on his off-duty sign and headed for home in Brighton Beach. It was only a little after five P.M., his shortest day since he’d had the flu six months previously. But Yuri didn’t care. What he needed was a shot of vodka and, unfortunately, his flask was dry.

During the trip across the Brooklyn Bridge, which seemed to take forever with the bumper-to-bumper traffic, Yuri agonized over the meeting with Jack Stapleton. He couldn’t understand what was motivating the man. What worried him particularly was that Jack might find some residue from the ACME Cleaning Service letter if not the letter itself. Yuri had no idea what had become of it. His original assumption was that the letter would be thrown away like all junk mail. But now that Jack was on the scene, Yuri wasn’t so confident.