The Siberian Dilemma (Arkady Renko #9)

by Martin Cruz Smith

“Mikhail Kuznetsov,” he repeated, “an idealistic oligarch who spent five years in a Siberian prison for daring to criticize Putin and his cronies. He may run for president.”

given that chess was the most Russian, most intellectual of all mental contests. It rarely looked like fun, Arkady thought. He had seen pictures of Lenin, Trotsky, Gorky, and Chekhov playing chess. They never looked like they were having a good time. No wonder Russians flocked to it.

this official or unofficial?” “Tell me, why are you always the troublemaker? What do you gain from that?” Arkady broke into a smile. “As Dostoevsky said, ‘Right or wrong, it’s very pleasant to break something from time to time.’ ”

“He saw me stealing bread at a restaurant and followed me outside. He brought me food.” Arkady was reminded of Victor feeding stray cats. What if every assumption you made throughout life was wrong? Or even ten degrees off? It would add up.

suppose I think that maybe it’s a time for letting go, not holding on. Because you can’t, you know.” “All I know is you’ve packed that little bag ten times since I’ve been sitting here.”

advice is free of charge. You know, according to Chekhov, Irkutsk was, at one time, the Paris of Siberia.”

transit prison outside of Irkutsk where Makhmud would be tried and sentenced. If found guilty, he would be moved to a larger prison where, without hope, he was likely to become a different creature, one tougher and more violent than the one he had started out as.

“These are our pastel nights, our northern lights and cruel weather,” Tolya intoned. “Where ice floes break with the sound of cannons and heroes march into exile. Where troikas fly overhead and houses turn to tar black. Or do you prefer ‘ebony’?”

Makhmud was charged under Article 295 of the criminal code with trying to kill Prosecutor Zurin. He had been denied his one phone call, stripped of his private attorney, and assigned a public defender who advised him to confess. So he confessed. Did it matter? It was a given that Chechens were incorrigible murderers.

‘Souls in Transit.’ It evokes the suspension of time.”

A cell designed for four prisoners might hold twenty men with a single pail for slops. The heat, even in the dead of winter, was so stifling that men sometimes passed out on the floor. Misery had an epic quality.

Makhmud sneered from the backseat. “The idiot’s never going to write a single word. A poem cannot be suppressed. It erupts.”

Rather than eat alone, he settled into the hotel’s Irish pub. It seemed every Russian city had one. Arkady chose a booth and ordered something called a “plowman’s lunch.” He didn’t know what it was or what it hoped to be, but cheese and bread and pickled onions were involved.

As the warden led Arkady and Makhmud to the interrogation room, the prisoners in their cells were watchful and silent, turning as a group like fish in an aquarium.

Arkady Kirilovich Renko, senior investigator

Arkady and Saran wandered through a colorful maze of fish stalls selling omul, sturgeon, and salmon, all from Lake Baikal.

“The banya is out back. Temperatures should range between 150 and 175 degrees, no higher and no longer than six minutes.

Steam exploded as water was ladled onto hot stones. Barely visible, Chinese laborers sat knee to knee along pine benches. Someone slapped Arkady’s back with a small

branch of...

There were certain rituals a man needed to alleviate the rigors of life, and this was one of them. For many, this was as close to heaven as they would come. “I...

She smiled. “I like making up stories.” She had red ribbons entwined in her long braid and flashing eyes as round as silver coins. He pictured her on a troika, her single braid flying, chased by wolves.

Better to do something than nothing.” “The Siberian dilemma,”

“A fisherman is on a frozen lake. He moves around, listening all the time for the ice cracking beneath his feet, ready to jump back to thicker ice if necessary, but sometimes he’s not quick enough. The ice breaks. He falls in.” “So, what’s the dilemma?”

If he pulls himself out of the water onto the ice, he’ll freeze to death in seconds, a minute at most. If he stays in

the water, he’ll die of hypotherm...

Better to do something than nothing.

“The lesson is it’s better to take action than be passive,” said Arkady. “Better to fight than to surrender, even if you know you’re going to die.”

your third soul I need to find. It travels the world, sometimes in dreams, sometimes not. That’s the one you’re missing,

and without it your body can’t function normally or heal itself.”

The story was that an eagle had traveled between the spirit world and the human one. There it lay with a Buryat woman, who conceived the first human shaman, from whom all other shamans were descended.

The wind picked up to announce the bear spirit’s arrival. Bolot moved in circles, treading the same loop over and again, jerking as though touching a live wire. His drumming grew louder. Bolot, with the copper bear’s face in the half-light, was now grunting and snuffling, and Arkady had the strange feeling that he was watching a man change his shape.

Not the Russia we have now but another Russia, a better Russia, a Russia committed to human rights,

I see ‘Another Russia’ as a horizontal alliance of those many, many small groups who form the underlying fabric of that civil society that the

regime suppresses but cannot eliminate.”

Will the Decembrists arise to kill the Putin, one can only hope for an eruption!

Every interaction was weighted with a demand, an order, a calculation, well hidden behind his undeniable charisma. Arkady wondered if Kuznetsov ever just was, at work or at home. Probably not, which helped explain why Kuznetsov was a billionaire running for president

“Don’t you worry that Kuznetsov will finger you for the murder of Benz and Georgy?” “If he does that, people will know that he was behind it.” That wouldn’t stop Kuznetsov. He could stand in Red Square with a megaphone and admit it all and he still wouldn’t go to jail.

Trump

dilemma, and Zhenya had the word for it: “Zugzwang,” a chess term meaning that any possible move would be fatal.