'Yulia,' the boss said, shaking his head. 'No one's bringing any charges against us. What we have here is the work of a Light Magician who is not registered in Moscow and is unaware of the Treaty.'
Now that was serious . . .
'Then . . . oh!' said Yulia. 'I'm sorry, Boris Ignatievich.' 'That's okay,' the boss said, nodding again. 'It's taken us right to the heart of the matter. There's someone we've managed to miss, everyone. We've let him slip through our fingers. We have a Light One of great power wandering loose in Moscow. He doesn't know the situation here – and he's killing Dark Ones.' 'More than one?' a voice asked.
'Yes. I checked the archives. There were similar incidents three years ago, in the spring and autumn, and two years ago, in the autumn again. On each occasion there was no physical trauma, but the victims' clothes were slashed. The Day Watch investigated, but came up with nothing. Apparently they put the deaths down to some random accident ... so now one of the Dark Ones will be punished for it.'
'And one of the Light Ones too?'
'One of us too.'
Semyon cleared his throat and said softly:
'The gaps between the incidents are strange, Boris . . .'
'I don't think we know about all of them. Whoever this magician is, he has always killed Others with low-level powers, obviously there must have been some kind of weakness in their protection. It's very likely that a number of his victims were uninitiated or unknown Dark Others. Here's what I propose . . .'
The boss paused and glanced round the room before continuing:
'Analytical section – collate all available information from criminal records and try to identify similar incidents. Bear in mind that they may not have been classified as murder, more likely as deaths from unknown causes. Look into the results of autopsies, question the morgue staff. . . think for yourselves where you can get relevant information. Research group – send two or three agents to the Day Watch and request an examination of the body. Operations group – intensive street patrols. Try to find him, OK?'
'We're always on the lookout for someone,' Igor muttered. 'Boris Ignatievich, there's no way we could have overlooked a powerful magician. We just couldn't have!'
'He may not be initiated,' the boss snapped back. 'His powers manifest themselves sporadically . . .'
'In the spring and the autumn, just like any ordinary psycho . . .'
'Yes, Igor, that's exactly it. In the spring and in the autumn. And now, right after this latest killing, he must still be showing some trace of magic. That gives us a chance, if only a small one. Get on to it.'
'Boris, what exactly is our goal?' Semyon asked curiously.
Some of the agents had already started getting to their feet, but now they paused.
'Our goal is to find this Maverick before the Dark Ones do. To protect him, educate him and bring him over to our side. As usual.'
'Clear enough,' said Semyon and stood up.
'Anton and Olga, would you please remain?' the boss said brusquely and walked over to the window.
On their way out, agents glanced at us curiously, even enviously. A special assignment is always intriguing. I looked across the room, caught Olga's eye and smiled with just my mouth. She smiled back.
She looked nothing like the dirty-faced, barefoot young woman who'd drunk cognac with me in my kitchen in the middle of the winter. Now her hair was expensively cut, her complexion healthy and her eyes full of. . . no, the confidence had been there all the time, but now there was a certain flirtatious pride too.
Her sentence had been repealed. In part, at least.
'Anton, I don't like what's going on here,' the boss said without turning round.
Olga shrugged her shoulders and nodded for me to reply.
'I beg your pardon, Boris Ignatievich?'
'I don't like this protest lodged by the Day Watch.'
'Neither do I.'
'You don't understand, and I'm afraid none of the others do either . .. Olga, have you at least some inkling of what's going on?'
'It's very strange the Day Watch haven't been able to find the killer after all this time.'
'Yes. Do you remember Krakow?'
'I do, unfortunately. You think we're being set up?'
'It's possible . . .' The boss moved away from the window. 'Anton, do you think that could be it?'
'I don't entirely understand,' I mumbled.
'Anton, let's assume that we really do have a Maverick wandering round the city, a solitary killer. He's uninitiated. From time to time his powers suddenly surface ... he locates one of the Dark Ones and eliminates them. Wouldn't the Day Watch be able to find him? Unfortunately, believe me, they would. So the question is: why haven't they caught him and exposed him, when Dark Ones are dying?'
'Only insignificant ones?' I suggested.
'True. Sacrificing pawns is in the tradition . . .' the boss caught my eye and paused, '. . . in the tradition of the Watch.'
'The Watches,' I said sharply.
'The Watches,' the boss echoed wearily. 'You haven't forgotten . . . Let's think where a manoeuvre like this could be leading. An accusation of incompetence against the whole of the Night Watch? No. We're supposed to keep tabs on the activities of the Dark Ones and the observance of the Treaty by known Light Ones, not go hunting for mysterious psychos. In this case it's the Day Watch who is in the wrong.'
'Which means it must be a provocation aimed at someone in particular?'
'Exactly, Anton. Remember what Yulia said? There's only a small handful of us who could have done this. That can be proved conclusively. Let's suppose the Day Watch has decided to accuse someone of violating the Treaty. To claim that one of us – someone who knows the terms of the Treaty – is meting out summary justice on his own account.'
'But that's easy to disprove. Just find the Maverick . . .'
'And if the Dark Ones find him first, but don't bother to announce the fact?'
'What about alibis?'
'And what if the killings took place at times when someone has no alibi?'
'A tribunal, with a full-scale interrogation,' I said sombrely – having your mind turned inside out isn't a pleasant experience . . .
'A powerful magician – and these killings were committed by a powerful magician – can close off his mind even against a tribunal. Not deceive the tribunal, just close himself off from it. In any case, Anton, with a tribunal that included Dark Ones, he would have to. Otherwise our enemies would learn far too much about us. And if a magician conceals himself against investigation, it's automatically regarded as a confession of guilt. With all the consequences that would follow from such a confession – both for him and for the Watch.'
'You paint a dark picture, Boris Ignatievich,' I said. 'Very dark. Almost as dark as the one you painted for me last winter, when you briefed me in my sleep. A young boy with extraordinary Other powers, an Inferno eruption that would flatten the whole of Moscow . . .'
'I understand. But I'm not lying to you, Anton.'
'What do you expect from me?' I asked bluntly. 'This isn't really my field. Am I going to give the analysts a hand? We'll be handling everything they bring in anyway.'
'Anton, I want you to work out which one of us is under threat. Who has an alibi for all the known incidents and who doesn't.'
The boss slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and took out a disk.
'Take this . . . it's a complete record for the entire three-year period. For four of us, including me.'
I swallowed hard as I took it.
'The security codes have been removed. But you understand that no one else must see this. You have no right to copy the information. Encrypt all your calculations and procedures . . . and make the key as complex as you can.'
'I could really do with some help,' I suggested hesitantly, with a glance at Olga. But then, what kind of help could she give me? Everything she knew about computers, she'd learned from playing games like Heretic and Hexen.
'You can check my database yourself,' the boss said, after a pause. 'Use Tolik for the others. All right?'
'Then what's my assignment?' asked Olga.
'You'll cover the same ground, only by asking direct questions. Interrogating people, not to put too fine a point on it. And you'll start with me. Then the other three.'
'All right, Boris.'
'Get on to it, Anton,' the boss said with a nod. 'Start immediately. You can pass everything else on to your staff, they'll cope.'
'Maybe I could fiddle about a bit with the data?' I asked. 'If someone doesn't happen to have an alibi, I could arrange one.'
The boss shook his head.
'No. You don't understand. I don't want to set up any false alibis. I want to be absolutely sure that none of us is involved in these killings.'
'Are you serious?'
'Yes. Because nothing's impossible in this world. Anton, the good thing about our work is that I can give you an assignment like this. And you'll carry it out. Regardless of who's involved.'
There was still something bothering me, but I nodded and walked towards the door, clutching the disk. My question only took shape as I was leaving. I turned back and asked:
'Boris Ignatievich . . .'
The boss and Olga instantly moved apart.
'Boris Ignatievich, you say there are four sets of data here?'
'Yes.'
'For you, Ilya, Semyon . . .'
'And you, Anton.'
'Why?' I asked dumbly.
'During that stand-off on the roof you stayed down in the second level of the Twilight for three minutes, Anton . . . that's a third-grade power.'
'Impossible,' I said.
'It happened.'
'Boris Ignatievich, you always told me I was just an average magician!'
'Well, let's just say I need an excellent programmer more than one more field operative.'
At any other moment I would have felt proud. Offended at the same time, of course, but still proud. I'd always thought that fourth-grade magic was my ceiling, and it would be a long time before I reached it. But just at that moment everything was clouded by a clammy, repellent feeling – fear. Even though in five years of working in a quiet staff position in the Watch I'd learned not to be afraid of anything: the authorities, thugs, diseases . . .
'This was a second-degree intervention . . .'
'The boundary here's very subtle, Anton. You might be capable of more.'
'But we have more than ten third-grade magicians. Why am I a suspect?'
'Because you offended Zabulon personally. And he's quite capable of setting a trap just for Anton Gorodetsky. Or rather, adapting an old trap that was being kept in reserve.'
I left without asking any more questions.
Our lab's on the fourth floor too, but in the other wing of the building. I set off hurriedly along the corridor, nodding to people I met, but remained focused, clutching that disk tighter than a romantic young man clutches the hand of the girl he loves.
Was the boss telling the truth?
Could this really be aimed at me?