“Go get the shovels from the trunk now, Roman,” he said.
After he’d taken several photos of the dead Sweet family, he wiped the blood from our faces with a wet rag.
“You can stand now,” he said.
As we got to our feet, there was no hugging or talking, for the situation was still very much fluid, our hearts and minds racing. The six of us began shoveling dirt into the pit until it was completely covered. When we were finished, we returned to the white Coupe and I removed several bags from the trunk. Inside them were their new clothes, fancy hats, and one of my suits. We quickly removed our raggedy, bloodstained zek uniforms and got properly dressed. Osip and Roman then patted us all down and checked the bags.
After they were finished, James and I hopped in the white Coupe, myself behind the wheel this time, James in back, Osip in the passenger’s seat with a loaded pistol. Roman was driving the beige Coupe behind us with the ladies sitting in the backseat. A long drive to Leningrad awaited us.
* * *
The following afternoon we pulled up to the beautiful Hotel Astoria in Leningrad. We would be spending one night here, checking in as the Robeson family, all of us sporting our new clothes and fancy hats. Before I’d left Berlin, Bobby had given me our new, fake passports. He’d had them made way back in late January before we’d ever met with Dallas Conrad, as part of my plan involved us leaving the Soviet Union disguised as the famed Paul Robeson’s family. The international Negro star was now a true hero to the Soviet people. There was no one more beloved in the country, save for Joseph Stalin.
The next morning, after James and the ladies had covered their drab faces with lots of makeup, we drove to the train station, parked the vehicles, and approached the terminal. As we stood in line and waited for our turn at the ticket counter, folks began staring at us, obviously curious to know more about the foreign-looking, well-dressed colored people.
Osip and Roman took our passports and placed them on the ticket counter. The young agent seemed to be enamored with the names he was reading, so he turned to the guard standing behind him, signaling for him to approach. Both continued reading the passports.
“Robeson?” said the guard. “Vy svyazany s Pol’ Robeson?”
“Yes,” I said in Russian. “I am related to Paul Robeson. He is my brother.” I grabbed Loretta, James, and Ginger, pulling them in close. “And this is my wife and our children.”
The guard smiled real big, holding my passport up as if it were a piece of gold.
“Can we take a photograph of you and your family?” he said. “No one here has a camera, but I can have one retrieved from the east office. It will only take five or ten minutes.”
“Well,” I said, “we don’t normally—”
“I am the Robeson family’s military host,” said Osip, chiming in. “Their tour guide! We really don’t have time. Besides, they have been constantly swarmed during their tour of the country. And if you start taking pictures of them, a huge crowd will gather and it will be chaos.” He looked at Roman. “This is my security aide. If some of your staff would like to take a quick photograph with the Robesons, we could come inside one of the administrative offices back there and organize a private session. Roman here can use his camera and send you all a picture in the mail.”
“Very good!” said the guard, he and the ticket agent smiling. “Please come around to the side door.”
Minutes later, the four of us stood in one of the back rooms, several guards and other staff members surrounding us as Roman clicked away. Of course these were pictures no one would ever see. Still, you would have thought I was Paul Robeson himself the way these Soviets were treating us, huge grins pasted on all of their faces. The reach of the famous colored American was on full display.
* * *
When we arrived in Riga later that night, we took a taxi from the station to the Riga Hotel, a destination Osip had just now learned of. We all sat in the busy lobby while Roman checked into a room.
“When we get everyone settled in the room,” said Osip to me, “you and I will go call Xavier. He and Luc are to drive here with Zorin’s family and park out front. They are to wait until nightfall.”
“It’s my plan,” I said. “I know.”
“I know,” said Osip. “I’m just going over it again. Besides, I don’t trust you. I would never trust you. You’re always scheming. We will release family members one at a time as you’ve suggested. You last! And you will be explaining this to Xavier on the phone. Yes?”
“Continue,” I said. “You’ve got it down well so far.”
“When Xavier and Luc get here, they will not know which room we are in. Besides, like you said, Roman is checking in under a name even you won’t know. Your men will wait outside in two cars with the Zorin family. I will be waiting here in the lobby with you.”
“That’s correct,” I said. “But they won’t actually be entering the large, circular driveway out front. They will be pulling up to the narrow side street at the east end of the hotel. That is where they will wait. Now, continue, Osip.”
“As soon as you see Luc enter, you’ll tell me. Then you will nod at him, signaling for him to return to the vehicles while we go back to the room. I will then take your daughter out to the cars for the first exchange. I will be bringing the mother back inside first.”
“No,” I said. “The mother is brought in last. Period! And don’t push me, motherfucker! The last thing you want to do is mess this up. All you have to do is return to Leningrad with Zorin’s family. We’re doing one at a time, but the mother goes last. You already knew this. So did Zorin. Paranoid son of a bitches! Why would any of us, on either side, try to pull some funny business at this point?”
Roman approached and signaled for us all to follow him. We made our way through the lobby and down a long hallway to room 122. Moments later, Osip accompanied me to a phone in the lobby and I called the hideout. The operator connected me. Xavier picked up and listened to my instructions, then said he’d be arriving at 9 p.m.
Osip and I returned to the room where we waited for the time to pass with the others. When it was 8:55 we returned to the lobby and sat again in one of the fine chairs atop a large golden rug, travelers hustling about with their luggage. When Luc entered I nodded at him. It was time.
Several minutes later, I found myself sitting in the room with Colonel Zorin’s father and two sisters. Roman was standing near the doorway with his pistol out. It was all playing out perfectly. When Osip returned and signaled that it was my turn, I stood, looked at the father and sisters, placed my hands in the prayer position, and wished them peace with my gesture.
As we approached the two Ford Deluxe Tudors—one green, one black—Xavier opened the door of the green one and let the mother get out from the backseat. Luc stood near the driver’s side door of the car behind us, his hand under his suit jacket, his pistol loaded and ready.
As I passed the mother, I gave her a warm smile and said, “God bless you!” Osip took her arm and led her around the corner toward the hotel entrance. His last exchange was complete.
As I got into the car and sat in the backseat next to James, I thought about Lovett. I believed he was indeed dead, but still, part of me wasn’t sure. And as Xavier began to drive, I wondered how I’d ever be able to confirm his death. I figured Bobby would help me find a way.
I turned around and watched the Riga Hotel’s lights disappear in the distance. I believed that Zorin would kill both Osip and Roman when they returned to MR4. They were too young to know how the Soviet brass operated. I also couldn’t help feeling that Colonel Zorin himself would be executed sooner than later, as Stalin seemed to know nothing but finding reasons to off his own confidants.
I turned to James and realized I needed to get him in to see a proper doctor as soon as we arrived in Brussels en route to the port in Le Havre, France. My best guess was that he was suffering from treatable asthma. But, as planned, I wasn’t about to return to Berlin for fear that Zorin might
have some men waiting for us at the station. And we needed to get out of Riga as soon as possible.
The last thing Bobby had told me was that they believed Stalin would soon be moving troops into Latvia, and the embassy believed it was only a matter of weeks, if not days, before Hitler attacked Poland. We needed to leave Europe right away. War was likely fast approaching.
“Dad,” said James, as we motored down the street.
“Yeah, son.”
“Where are we going?”
“To America, son. To the United States of America.”
READING GROUP GUIDE
BENEATH THE DARKEST SKY
Jason Overstreet
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions that follow are included to enhance your group’s reading of this book.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why do you think Prescott, an engineer by training, continues to be drawn to working for the U.S. Government?
2. Discuss the friendship between the Ellingtons and the Sweets, and give some reasons Ellington might need Prescott to work with him in Haiti.
3. All of the figures whom Prescott and Loretta meet at Moscow’s Hotel National in Chapter 6 are actual historical figures. What circumstances do you think enticed African Americans to immigrate to the Soviet Union during the first half of the twentieth century?
4. This novel presents thorough research of factual events that occurred in Stalin’s Russia. Discuss the plausibility/implausibility of the following fictional events that happened to the Sweet family given what you know of the history of the period. • A black man working for the U.S. foreign service
• Loretta’s artistic style and fame in the Soviet Union
• The way Prescott finds the bugs placed in Spaso House by the Soviets
• Incarceration of the entire Sweet family
• The Sweets’ disguise as they leave Russia
5. Loretta perhaps shows the most growth across the two novels, The Strivers’ Row Spy and Beneath the Darkest Sky. Discuss her path to becoming a famous Soviet artist.
6. Why do you think the author dedicated the novel to Lovett Fort-Whiteman? How is Lovett’s dream similar to or different from Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream?
7. In what way did Lovett Fort-Whiteman’s view of racism in America differ from that of the Communist Party’s view?
8. Discuss the political/economic reasons for Stalin’s gulag system. What event that occurred while Prescott was imprisoned did you find most egregious?
9. Thousands of Americans left the States during the Great Depression to accept jobs in the Soviet Union, an estimated 10,000 in 1931 alone. Many of them were eventually swept up in the purges and died in Stalin’s gulags. Why has this fact been virtually ignored in American history books?
10. Many expatriates living in the Soviet Union during the purges were not allowed to return home, and more than a few Americans were also imprisoned in the gulags. Why didn’t FDR exert more pressure on Stalin to protect these Americans’ rights?
11. Discuss some aspects of history that you were not aware of before reading this novel.
12. The author uses chapter juxtapositions between real time and events that have already occurred. Discuss the effectiveness of this literary device.
13. Given how this novel ends, can you predict what may lie ahead for the Sweet family?
Beneath the Darkest Sky Page 31