Legends

“Opium,” the bishop said, “is the key to understanding what has transpired. The opium poppy is grown in what is called the Golden Triangle—Burma, Thailand, Laos. Vietnamese drug traders transport the raw opium to the Russian naval base at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, and from there it is shipped to the Russian port of Nakhodka on the Sea of Japan. The Russian drug cartel, which was run by the one known as the Oligarkh, Tzvetan Ugor-Zhilov, until he went into hiding several years ago, processes the opium in Nakhodka and then smuggles it across Russia for distribution to markets in Europe and America. Since the late 1980s Zuzovka has served as a hub for shipping opium to northern Europe and Scandinavia. Landing strips were bulldozed onto the flatlands bordering the Neman and small planes flying at night ferried their illicit cargoes into this corner of Lithuania. To move the large quantities of opium westward, Samat Ugor-Zhilov employed runners disguised as Orthodox priests, since they are able to pass frontiers easily. When the metropolitan threatened to put a stop to this, Samat bought him off by tracking down and returning Gedymin’s bones”—the bishop’s eyes blinked mischievously—“assuming that what he brought to the church were really the bones of the sainted saint.”

“What about the Torah scrolls?”

“The metropolitan did not want to be seen having commercial dealings with sacred texts so he consigned them to Samat, who sold them to an Israeli museum and donated the proceeds, less a hefty commission, to the Orthodox church.”

“And how did you come across all this information?”

The bishop glanced up at the storks in the nest atop the bell tower. “A very large bird told me.”

Martin closed his pad and dropped it into a pocket. “It seems as if every riddle is part of another greater riddle.”

“It is like an onion,” the bishop said consolingly. “Under each layer is … another layer.”

“One last question: If you’re not sure the bones Samat brought with him are those of the sainted saint, why were the Catholics battling to bring them back to the Catholic church?”

The bishop held up one of his small pristine hands as if he were directing traffic. “Whether the bones of the sainted saint are genuine is of little consequence. The only thing that matters is that the faithful believe they are.”

That night the colonel personally drove Martin back to his Lada, still parked in front of the bakery.

“How are your ribs, Mr. Kafkor?”

“They only hurt when I laugh and there’s not much chance I’ll be laughing a lot.”

“Well, good-bye and God speed, Mr. Kafkor. I have ordered the soldiers in the jeep to escort you to the Belarus frontier.” When Martin started to protest that it wouldn’t be necessary, the colonel cut him off. “Our police discovered two bloated bodies floating in the Neman this afternoon. At first they assumed the murdered men were Catholics killed by the Orthodox, or Orthodox killed by Catholics. A specialist from Vilnius identified the long knife found on one of the corpses as a weapon popular in Chechnya, which suggests that the two dead men were Chechens.”

“Maybe they were involved in Samat’s opium cartel,” Martin ventured.

The colonel shrugged. “There may be a connection between the dead Chechens and Samat, though I doubt it had anything to do with the opium operation. Islam is not welcomed in this frontier region of Lithuania, either by the Catholics or the Orthodox. No, the only thing that could have brought Chechens here is a mission—though with them being drowned, it is impossible to speculate what it could have been. You would not have an idea?”

Martin shook his head. “It’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you.”

The following morning Martin treated himself to a good breakfast in Hrodna’s only hotel and then strolled carefully (his cracked ribs hurt if he walked too fast) along the main street, past the bulletin board posted with the regional newspaper open to photographs of the riot at Zuzovka, to the town’s central post office. He queued at the window with the emblem of a telephone over it, and wrote the number on the ledger when the clerk didn’t understand his rudimentary Russian.

“What country uses code nine seven two?” she asked.

“Israel.”

“And what city in Israel uses the area code two?”

“Jerusalem.”

The clerk noted “Jerusalem, Israel” on her work sheet and dialed the number. She motioned for Martin to pick up the telephone in the nearest booth. He heard a man’s voice on the line protesting, “This must be a mistake—I don’t know anyone in Belarus.”

“Benny, it’s me, Martin.”

“What the Christ are you doing in Belarus?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Give me the short version.”

“Even the short version’s too long to tell you on the phone. Listen, Benny, that night I spent at your house you told me about the Oligarkh living in an isolated dacha in a village a half hour from Moscow along the Moscow-Petersburg highway. You wouldn’t by any chance remember the name of the village?”

“You want to hold on, I’ll check my computer.”