“Your sixth sense at work?”
“Maybe,” said an unsmiling Colter, eyeing the sea of faces.
What is he seeing? wondered Wolf. Is he on someone’s list?
Colter nodded at two florid-faced, red-nosed policemen in dark jackets and the familiar saucer hats. The pair hovered in the background, their eyes on the Americans. A subtle reminder of the state’s omnipresence, the officers shadowed Wolf and Colter from a discreet distance. Hustling crowds of Muscovites flowed down the stairs, momentarily distracting the policemen. An amused Wolf watched four baffled Japanese tourists stop the cops to ask directions. The inability to understand each other didn’t seem to matter. Ushered aboard the next train, the grateful foursome was sent on their way with a smile and a wave. Colter used the distraction to urge Wolf that they make a break for the surface and flag a taxi.
In the cab, Wolf said, “What the hell was that all about?”
“Maybe my overactive imagination,” confessed Colter. “Still…”
Wolf momentarily shelved his curiosity about Colter’s actions. “In any case,” he said, “my money says that Japanese crew will be on the train for at least a week. Plus, we got to screw with the cops’ heads.”
“Always a plus in my book,” said Colter.
He and Colter got back to the hotel without mishap. At dinner with the NASA engineers, the two former SEALs swapped stories about their day. Wolf’s tale about the Japanese tourists in the subway—sans Colter’s suspicion about the cops—prompted laughter. With dinner out of the way, the city’s nightlife beckoned. Colter had an idea but he needed backup. Knowing Wolf’s taste for adventure, it was easy to talk him into a walk on Moscow’s wild side.
Chapter 3
Colter’s surprise came in the shape of a dull gray, four-door Lada hatchback pulling up to the Holiday Inn’s entrance. He called to Wolf. “Our chariot has arrived.”
Wolf peered outside. “I dunno about this. Looks like one of those gypsy cabs we were warned about.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” said Colter, taking Wolf by the elbow. “Trust me. I’ll introduce you to the driver.”
The man at the Lada’s wheel, a barrel-chested fireplug with a gray brush cut and a salt-and-pepper broom mustache, got out and engulfed Colter in an iron bear hug. “Dan, I never see you for such a long time. How are you, my American friend? How you have been all these years?”
“Good, Semyon, now that you are here. Meet my brother in arms.”
Released from the Russian’s grasp, Colter introduced Wolf. “Meet Semyon Arkadyevich Kozuch, a destroyer man. Semyon Arkadyevich, this is Commander Tom Wolf.”
No bear hug, but a crushing handshake for Wolf.
“Privet, Tom Wolf. Ah, another warrior like my friend, eh?”
Kozuch gestured to the little car. “Come. We will make a night of it. I have a cousin who has a small club called Zorro. You will like it, I think. Music, girls, the finest vodka. Let us go. You will enjoy yourself. We will tell stories, maybe lie to each other and make toasts, yes? And there is someone special I want you to meet tonight, okay? Did I mention girls?”
Wolf, throwing a leery glance at Colter, squeezed in the rear seat. Colter took the passenger side.
Kozuch barreled down Moscow’s streets like a NASCAR dropout as Wolf listened to Colter explain their friendship. “Semyon Arkadyevich was captain third rank—”
The Russian interrupted. “Is equivalent to your navy’s lieutenant commander. But I am now retired, a man of leisure as you are, I see.”
Colter continued. “He served on the Admiral Kutsov, an Udaloy-class destroyer.”
“My country’s answer to your Arleigh Burke-class.” Kozuch took a hard right, throwing Wolf across the seat. “But not so comfortable, eh.”
“True, but you could fuel it with diesel or vodka,” said Colter.
“Yes, correct. Very good memory for such an old man.” Roaring with laughter at his joke, the Russian tailgated a limo, then swerved past.
Over his shoulder, Colter said, “He was an anti-submarine officer. Served with the Northern Fleet until retirement.”
“Ah, retirement. Such a story. Hard times, my friends,” said Kozuch. “Little money. I have a navy pension, but is not enough. Now I help my wife’s brother. A catering company. I am a capitalist.” More laughter. “My wife expects great things from me. Unfortunately, great expensive things.”
The three men laughed in unison.
“We met in Malta,” Colter explained. “We entertained the Kutsov’s captain and officers in our wardroom. The next night they hosted us. Semyon and I became friends and stayed in contact over the years.”
Ignoring the street ahead, Kozuch glanced back at Wolf. “Yes, our big bosses wanted us to stay in touch. To spy on each other. To ask each other questions about our jobs, you know? They were such fools to ask this.”
Colter laughed. “We never worked very hard at it. But we stayed friends.”
“True. I miss those days. Such fun we had, eh? Now I bring cakes to spoiled children and their rich parents. But life is good, yes?”
Another hard turn and Kozuch eased down a narrow street of ornate three-story, nineteenth-century stone buildings. Mid-block, a garish blue neon sign—Zorro—pulsed over an arched recessed entry. Kozuch turned into a fenced lot between two buildings across from the nightclub. Filled with expensive cars bathed in the light of a single large bulb on a pole, the lot boasted a guard’s shack. Kozuch and the Americans got out. Muted music from the club drifted across the street.
A sullen youth in overalls and a fur cap with drooping earflaps and a face to match sauntered over, his hand out. Surrendering the keys to the Lada, Kozuch playfully punched the attendant’s shoulder. Firing Russian at him, he gestured to Wolf and Colter. “My friends, this is Artur, my cousin’s boy. He is big man in charge.”
Kozuch spoke rapidly in Russian, then turned to Wolf, whispering, “I tell him you are American. Navy men like me. He is impressed. Maybe you give him some dollars when we leave, eh? You know, just a little something for watching the car.”
“Of course, Semyon Arkadyevich. My pleasure.” Wolf’s smile produced a grin from Artur, who got behind the wheel and pulled to the end of the lot.
“Come, my friends,” said Kozuch. “Maybe we meet my cousin. He likes Americans.” Slapping Wolf on the back, Kozuch laughed as they crossed the street. “He likes the dollar, too. Okay, we go inside.”
Chapter 4
Dressed in leather thug couture, a wrestler type from central casting, complete with knobby ears and flat nose, manned the club’s door. Shaking hands and bantering with the big man, Kozuch held the door for Wolf and Colter. A mix of keyboard, sax, guitars, drums, and horns blasted from an entry hall of brick. A hole-in-the-wall cloakroom between two tiny bathrooms took up one side of the hall, lurid movie posters on the opposite wall. A skinny, gum-snapping, orange-haired waif traded the trio’s coats for numbered tags.
Bracing against a wall, Wolf and Colter let Kozuch lead the way through the hallway into a world unlike anything they had expected. An ear-splitting raucous, circus-cum-bacchanal. Hard on Kozuch’s heels, Wolf and Colter skirted the edge of a dance floor filled beyond capacity—a Moscow fire marshal’s nightmare. A long, mirrored bar took up one entire wall opposite a round stage. Gorgeous women, longhaired, long-legged, mini-skirted or poured into miniscule sequined shorts, floated by like perfumed gazelles with glossy lips. On the crowd’s margins, vacuous doe-eyed girls wearing plunging halter-tops or sleeveless satin blouses gyrated in glittering platform shoes or shiny thigh-high leather boots. Faun-like males in feathered masks pranced by in leather vests, skimpy loincloths, and neon tennis shoes.
“All very kinky,” yelled Colter in Wolf’s ear.
“Your kind of crowd, Dawg.”
Entwined with their partners—muscular males or sultry girls—a sea of dancers swayed to the hard-working band’s hypnotic rhythms. On stage, a voluptuous brunette wearing a red Cossack militar
y great coat saluted and flashed the crowd, revealing breasts and silver G-string to roaring applause.
No stranger to the world’s fleshpots in his younger days, Wolf suddenly felt ancient in the midst of the debauchery. “Makes those San Diego titty bars seem kinda tame, doesn’t it?”
Colter said, “I think we’ve stumbled into a porno movie shoot.”
Ahead of them, Kozuch bellowed over his shoulder, ordering the two former SEALs to follow him to a private booth on the club’s carpeted mezzanine. Overlooking the dance floor, the coveted spots were furnished with soft leather couches patrolled by smiling, scantily clad servers with big hair.
Settling back, the trio caught their breath. A willowy waitress wearing a gauzy robe and little else strolled by. Pulled into Kozuch’s lap, she was smothered in kisses and sent on her way with a drink order. Above them, a pair of nude women gyrated on a gilded catwalk suspended over the dancers.
“So, boys, what do you think?” shouted Kozuch.
“I think we’re overdressed,” said Wolf, prompting a laugh.
When their drinks arrived, Kozuch raised his glass. “Na zdorovye!”
The three toasted each other, emptying the fiery vodka in one gulp, then did it again. While Colter and Kozuch traded stories, Wolf signaled a statuesque blonde wearing strategically placed sequins and ordered mineral water to pace himself. Kozuch called for yet another round and Wolf felt obligated to join him. After the third shot, he pretended to drink. For the next half-hour the Russian downed shot after shot of Stolichnaya.
In the midst of yet another flurry of toasts, four unsmiling bouncer types came up the stairs and hovered over Kozuch, interrupting him mid-toast.
Uneasy, Wolf showed a neutral face and eyed the quartet, thinking, Ex-military, likely Spetsnaz. The biggest of the four, a brute with massive arms and no neck, bent low, his thick lips to Kozuch’s ear. The pensioned sailor listened, nodding, his face pale. Helped from the couch by the burly messenger, Kozuch’s eyes signaled Wolf and Colter not to interfere.
“Duty calls, my friends,” said Kozuch, his tone less jocular than usual. “I have business with an old acquaintance. Shouldn’t be long.”
Before he left, Kozuch rattled off a parting drink order in Russian and followed the first two guard dogs down the stairs, the second pair on his heels. Partygoers on the steps read the body language of the men and parted without being told. Kozuch and his escort disappeared in the crowd.
Wolf leaned toward Colter. “What was that all about?”
Colter shook his head. “Didn’t look good from where I was sitting. Don’t think he wanted to leave, but my guess is he had no choice.”
Left on their own, the Americans nursed their drinks, killing time. Wolf waved off a topless trolling server wearing a smile and a thong made of blinking blue LED lights.
“That’s gotta hurt,” said Colter, eyeing her costume.
They both laughed, Kozuch’s dilemma momentarily forgotten. To Wolf’s amusement, a disheveled drunken Tatar, egged on by companions in an adjacent alcove, stumbled after the server wearing the lights.
“It’s going to be a long night,” Wolf yelled to his fellow SEAL.
“Hey, I thought I was jaded,” said Colter. “Thought I had seen it all. But this is not the Moscow I knew. Is this what getting old feels like?”
Wolf shrugged, his thoughts returning to Kozuch’s dilemma.
Thirty minutes passed. Kozuch had not returned. Wolf turned apologetic. “I really thought we were going to some café to hear balalaika folk music and drink vodka in a quiet corner. I had no idea we’d end up here.”
Colter downed what vodka was left in his shot glass. “You are such a bad liar, Wolfman. You’re a party animal. Admit it.”
“Okay, so I’m a party animal. But this is getting out of hand. When Kozuch shows tell him we can’t make a night of it. Maybe we can get a taxi.”
“Hell, Wolfman, I don’t even know where we are, do you?”
“Not sure. East of the river, maybe. Ask Kozuch when he gets back.”
Colter said, “Don’t bother. From the look on his face when those gorillas showed, I think my sailor friend is in deep shit. This place has ‘mafiya’ written all over it. We’re on our own, Wolfman.”
Before Wolf could answer, another waitress, tall, long blond hair pinned in thick braids, leaned over the low table, her face inches from his. She made a show of collecting the empty glasses. His conversation with Colter on hold, Wolf shamelessly focused on her décolletage barely concealed by a white diaphanous gown. She spoke in a hurried voice without looking at him.
“You must leave immediately, Commander Wolf.”
Chapter 5
Incredulous at the beautiful woman’s warning, Wolf said, “Excuse me. Do I know you?”
She fussed with the glasses, a cloth in her left hand, tray in her right. “They have taken Semyon. They will soon come for you.”
Wolf leaned in. “Who are you?”
“I am Yana. No time to explain. Do as I ask. Please. Leave now.”
“But how—”
“Do you know Donskoy Monastery? It is not far from Gorky Park.”
Colter said, “Yes, I know it.”
“Good. My sister Katrina comes to your hotel tomorrow. Go with her. I will meet you. Trust me.”
Wolf hesitated. “Look, lady—”
“Artur will take you to hotel,” she added. “He is waiting. You must go. NOW!”
The woman balanced the tray on a curvaceous hip and backed from the couch, nervous blue eyes darting around the mezzanine. She made a deliberate show of teasing the drunken Tatars next door. The burly men pawed at her but she laughed at their clumsiness and moved on to the next group before abandoning her tray and going down a back stairway.
Wolf stared after her. ‘What the hell…who…what about Kozuch?”
Colter grabbed his friend’s elbow. “What about him? Did you hear what the lady said? I’m definitely not liking the vibe, Wolfman. I say we take her advice and get the hell out while we can still walk and talk. Sort it out later.”
“You’re spooking me, Dawg, but you could be right.”
“You could always hold your liquor better than me,” said Colter, “but are you okay?”
Wolf said, “I’ll be fine. The fresh air will do me good. Better phone Kozuch tomorrow and explain what happened.”
“Somehow I don’t think he’s going to pick up the phone.”
“Who were those guys?”
“Gotta go, Wolfman. C’mon!”
The two went down the stairs just as the woman on stage tossed her Cossack coat and whirled, sans G-string, in a spotlight. The mesmerized crowd went wild. Backs to the wall, a sobering Wolf followed Colter around the dance floor toward the entry. The two SEALs demanded their coats, tipped with dollars, and headed for the door, Colter in the lead.
Outside, past the hulking doorkeeper, they found Artur as promised: at the wheel of the warming Lada in the middle of the lot.
“Oh, great, we get the gray pumpkin,” shouted Colter.
Given the moment, he and Wolf would have preferred a Mercedes or a Porsche, but the little sedan would have to do. The Americans scrambled in. Accelerating from the slushy lot, Artur drove with his uncle’s fatalism. He knew the city well and got them safely to the hotel after a tense forty-minute ride. Stopping mid-block on Lesnaya Street, not far from the inn’s entrance, he let them out.
Peeling off five twenties, Wolf closed Artur’s fist over the bills. “Spasiba, Artur. Appreciate it. More than you know.”
“Da, nezashto. Dosvidanya.”
“Dosvidanya,” echoed Wolf.
Colter and Wolf stood in the cold, watching the little car until its taillights disappeared. A sleepy uniformed doorman held the hotel’s door for them. The lobby was deserted. Not a night for the stairs, the two opted for the elevator.
While waiting for the lift, Wolf eyed the hotel doorman. “Nice outfit. Whadaya think, Dawg? How does he compare to
the Cossack lady?”
“Doesn’t even come close,” said Colter. “I was ready to marry her.”
Saying not another word until they were behind their room’s locked door, Colter ran the shower to cover their voices. Fueled by adrenaline, they sat on the tub’s edge comparing notes on their bizarre evening and narrow escape.
“Am I paranoid?” said Wolf. “I thought the Cold War was over. Any clue who those players were tonight?”
Colter nodded. “Vory. The mob. The club was full of them. Welcome to the new Russia.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
“Instinct.”
“Man, you’re full of surprises.”
They hit the sack. Feeling naked without a weapon, Wolf jammed a chair under the doorknob and slept with a hotel letter opener in hand.
Chapter 6
In the morning, Colter awakened first to take a call from the front desk—something about an arranged tour of historic Moscow, said the concierge. As requested, the agency had sent a guide. She was waiting for them in the lobby.
“Ah, could this be our savior from last night?” said Wolf as they exited the elevator.
“Hard to tell,” whispered Colter. “Too many clothes.”
He and Colter crossed the lobby and shook hands with a blonde who bore more than a passing resemblance to the woman they had met on the Zorro’s mezzanine. Their visitor
wore wool slacks, fur-lined boots, and a heavy coat with a tour badge clipped to the collar. Over her left shoulder she carried a canvas bag of maps and tourist guides.
“I don’t believe I got your name last night,” said Wolf.
“I am Katrina,” she said. “We did not meet last night. You are referring to my sister, Yana. It was she who spoke to you. She is two years older and more beautiful.”
Colter shook his head. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that. And may I say your English is excellent.”
Their visitor said, “Thank you for your compliment, sir.”
An awkward silence followed. Glancing around the lobby uneasily, she said, “Is possible to talk in more private place, yes?”
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