Gorov shivered at the thought of young Nikki entrusted to the care of physicians who had been trained in medical schools that were no more modern or better equipped than the hospitals in which they subsequently labored. Surely every patient in the world prayed that his children would enjoy good health, but in the new Russia as in the old empire that it replaced, a beloved child’s hospitalization was a cause not merely for concern but alarm, if not quiet panic.
“You weren’t notified,’ said Okudzhava, absentmindedly rubbing his facial wart with the tip of his index finger, “because you were on a highly classified mission. Besides, the situation didn’t seem all that critical.”
“But it wasn’t either mononucleosis or influenza?” Gorov asked.
“No. Then there was some thought that rheumatic fever might be to blame.”
Having lived so long with the pressure of being a commanding officer in the submarine service, having learned never to appear troubled either by the periodic mechanical difficulties of his boat or by the hostile power of the sea, Nikita Gorov managed to maintain a surface calm even as his mind churned with images of little Nikki suffering and frightened in a cockroach-ridden hospital. “But it wasn’t rheumatic fever.”
“No,” Okudzhava said, still fingering his wart, looking not at Gorov but at the back of the driver’s head. “And then there was a brief remission of the symptoms. He seemed in the best of health for four days. When the symptoms returned, new diagnostic tests were begun. And then … eight days ago, they discovered he has a cancerous brain tumor.”
“Cancer,” Gorov said thickly.
“The tumor is too large to be operable, far too advanced for radiation treatments. When it became clear that Nikolai’s condition was rapidly deteriorating, we broke your radio silence and called you back. It was the humane thing to do, even if it risked compromising your mission.” He paused and finally looked at Gorov. “In the old days, of course, no such risk would have been taken, but these are better times,” Okudzhava added with such patent insincerity that he might as well have been wearing the hammer and sickle, emblem of his true allegiance, on his chest.
Gorov didn’t give a damn about Boris Okudzhava’s nostalgia for the bloody past. He didn’t give a damn about democracy, about the future, about himself—only about his Nikki. A cold sweat had sprung up along the back of his neck, as if Death had lightly touched him with icy fingers while on its way to or from the boy’s bedside.
“Can’t you drive faster?” he demanded of the young officer behind the wheel.
“We’ll be there soon,” Okudzhava assured him.
“He’s only eight years old,” Gorov said more to himself than to either of the men with whom he shared the car.
Neither replied.
Gorov saw the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror, regarding him with what might have been pity. “How long does he have to live?” he asked, though he almost preferred not to be answered.
Okudzhava hesitated. Then: “He could go at any time.”
Since he had read that decoded message in his quarters aboard the Ilya Pogodin thirty-seven hours ago, Gorov had known that Nikki must be dying. The Admiralty was not cruel, but on the other hand it would not have interrupted an important espionage mission on the Mediterranean route unless the situation was quite hopeless. He had carefully prepared himself for this news.
At the hospital, the elevators were out of order. Boris Okudzhava led Gorov to the service stairs, which were dirty and poorly lighted. Flies buzzed at the small, dust opaqued windows at each landing.
Gorov climbed to the seventh floor. He paused twice when it seemed that his knees might buckle, then each time hurried upward again after only a brief hesitation.
Nikki was in an eight-patient ward with four other dying children, in a small bed under stained and tattered sheet. No EKG monitor or other equipment surrounded him. Deemed incurable, he had been brought to a terminal ward to suffer through the last of his time in this world. The government was still in charge of the medical system, and its resources were stretched to the limit, which meant that doctors triaged the ill and injured according to a ruthless standard of treatability. No heroic effort was made to save the patient if there was less than a fifty percent chance that he would recover.