by Talia Carner
“Who sent you? Your government? The C.I.A.? Your boyfriends?”
“Aren’t you the host who invited us?”
“Don’t play with me.” He banged the table with his fist. “Some women’s organization came asking for you. Dykes, all of them. Who selected each of you? Answer me! I want to know about the conspiracy behind all this.”
“I see.” She was on familiar grounds again. “Women can’t help other women unless there’s some conspiracy? Whether you understand it or not, volunteerism is an American ideal.” She walked toward Olga. This time the bodyguard didn’t stop her.
“American ideal is dollars.”
Brooke ignored him and gently touched the Russian woman’s clammy cheek. “Olga?”
Olga’s hooded eyes opened to reveal unfocused irises. With effort, they came to rest on Brooke. In a split moment of clarity, an understanding passed between them. The two of them were in this together, undeterred.
Sidorov spoke behind Brooke’s back. “Either she talks or you talk, or our little friend Svetlana will. But you are the best person to tell me the name of the client you’re snooping around for.”
Brooke rose from her crouching position. “You’re wrong. There’s no such client.”
“Well, let’s find out.” His finger beckoned the bodyguard who picked up the bottle and approached Olga. “She’s still thirsty.”
“Don’t you touch her!”
From behind the desk, Sidorov brought up a vodka bottle—this one filled with clear liquid—and two tiny glasses. Unhurriedly, he filled them, slid one toward Brooke, and placed the other on the back of his hand. Brooke made no move to take the glass. As she had seen him do at dinner a couple of nights before, Sidorov tipped the glass to his mouth and gulped the contents. “To Russian–American friendship.” Then, slowly, deliberately, he pulled an envelope from his inside pocket. “What will the new management at NHB think about this?”
Brooke’s scalp tightened with shock. She recognized the envelope. That goddamned letter from Seattle, lost at customs. Her nude photos. She felt as vulnerable as if she were standing unclothed in front of him.
Sidorov stretched forward as if to hand it to her. “Here.”
She stepped forward and reached for the envelope, but he quickly withdrew it. His raucous laugh, guttural, insolent, was punctuated by snorting. Her cheeks burned.
“Come and get it.” He waved the envelope. The expression of pleasure on his face was like Sushi’s when toying with a bug.
Brooke’s mouth felt full of ashes. She crossed her arms. “What do you want?”
“Now we’re talking.” He wiped his eyes, then refilled his glass. “First, tell me what you’ve been sniffing around for in Moscow. Second, you could help our business interests in New York. You know, some financial transactions you could handle for us.”
“Laundering your money? You’re delusional.” Belgorov had been right about Sidorov’s recruitment tactics. For a split second, through the blood pounding in her temples, she wavered. What if she pretended to agree as long as he gave her the letter back?
Too dangerous. He’d find her anywhere. And while he wanted her sober now to discuss his business, when she refused to reveal the results of the investigation—or confirm it if he’d got it out of Olga—his bodyguard would force that concocted drink down her throat. And there was every chance he would also discover her Star of David, tucked under her blouse.
Sidorov put the envelope back into his breast pocket and tapped on it.
Without warning, Brooke rushed out of the room. The bodyguard didn’t come after her, but rather than feeling relief, she was rattled by Sidorov’s confidence. What had she done? What hubris had led her to employ guerrilla tactics in an enemy territory? If only she could wrap things up, reach Belgorov, and get the hell out of this cursed country.
But she couldn’t just leave Olga upstairs. They might poison her to death.
Following the smell of food, Brooke raced from the main floor down a flight of stairs leading to the basement dining room. She burst in and noticed the crowd was just sitting down.
She caught Amanda’s eye and ran to her. “This is an emergency,” she whispered. “Gather the others and come up to the fourteenth floor. On the double.”
“Why?” Amanda asked. “What’s going on?”
“Please. I need you all to come now.”
Nearby, Russians who might have noticed her frantic state pretended not to see; they’d been trained over a lifetime to mind their own business.
She ran toward the elevators again, Amanda and some of the others at her heels.
When she entered Olga’s office, Sidorov and his bodyguard were gone. Olga was lying face down on the floor. Desk drawers had been pulled out, a bookcase was tipped forward, and files and papers were strewn everywhere. Olga’s samovar table lay on its side with its legs thrust out, like bloated roadkill. Behind her, Brooke heard gasps and shocked murmurings from Amanda and the others.
She knelt beside Olga. A puddle of vomit gelled next to her mouth and stuck to the ends of her mussed hair. She was unconscious but her pulse was accelerated. “Water,” Brooke called out. “And please make strong coffee.”
Amanda handed her a wet cloth napkin. She turned Olga over and began to clean her up.
“My God! Look at that!” Amanda cried.
On Olga’s upper thigh was an ugly welt, the size of a quarter. A foot away lay Sidorov’s half-smoked cigar. “Lucky they didn’t kidnap her to finish the job,” Brooke said as she removed Olga’s shoes and tucked a soft, crocheted pillow behind her head.
“Who?” Amanda asked.
“Sidorov.”
“Sidorov?” Amanda stammered. “How do you know?”
“He was here ten minutes ago. In this room.” Brooke wanted to cry. This was a nightmare, and Sidorov was not done with them yet.
From the samovar came the hissing sound of boiling water. The scent of coffee rose behind Brooke.
“I don’t get it. What’s happening, Brooke?”
“You’d be safer not knowing.”
“It certainly looks like you are not safe here,” Amanda said. “You should leave as soon as the airport opens.”
“I can’t desert Olga and Svetlana.”
“Svetlana? What does she have to do with this? Brooke, I’m afraid that you are over your head in something.” Amanda lowered her voice. “Is the rest of the group safe from whatever you’re not telling me?”
“If I were you I’d question Sidorov’s agenda in inviting us all.”
“Why? You need to level with me.”
“I really shouldn’t.”
“I’ll set up a meeting with Sidorov to guarantee our safety in the presence of some heads of American companies,” Amanda said.
“Good. When?”
“As soon as possible. We’re leaving the symposium now, anyway. We’ve been cut out of the agenda. Those bureaucrats hijacked our time slots with their nonsense.”
TWO HOURS LATER, a cough ravaged Olga’s chest. When the fit was over, she rubbed her eyes and opened them. She looked around her office. “What happened?” Her hand felt the couch on which she was lying, then traveled to her thigh, now bandaged. She groaned. “My symposium?”
“Some leaders of women’s organizations took over and continued with the program,” Brooke said. “How do you feel?” She handed Olga a coffee mug and two tablets of Tylenol.
“Where is my Dukat?”
Brooke pulled a cigarette out of a packet, put it between Olga’s lips, and lit it. “Where did you hide the folder?”
Olga inhaled and tapped the back of the couch. “There’s a zipper.”
Brooke crouched. “It’s still closed.”
“Call Viktor, please,” Olga said, and dictated his office phone number. Brooke dialed and handed her the receiver. Olga said only a few words in Russian, then handed the receiver back to Brooke, who hung up.
“Olga,” Brooke said. “Next time you won’t be so luc
ky. We need help.” She paused. “There must be some sort of enforcement somewhere.”
“Sure.” Olga said in a rare moment of sarcasm. “Yeltsin made a big announcement about a division set up to handle mafia crimes. But—” She coughed.
“Let me guess: There’s no listed phone number.”
“No one believes it even exists.” Olga sipped her coffee. “I know people in high places who can help.”
“Make sure they get to Sidorov tonight.”
Thirty minutes later, Viktor arrived. His face looked flustered. Brooke decided to let his wife do the explaining. She supported Olga’s left side, Viktor the right, and they took the elevator down.
Chapter Forty-two
ON THE NINTH floor of Hotel Moscow, Brooke found Svetlana waiting on the couch right outside her room. She looked miserable.
Brooke sat down beside her. The deserted sitting area seemed safer than her own room. “Did you return the files?”
Svetlana nodded, staring at a handkerchief crumpled in her other hand, then broke into a sob. “This has been the worst week of my life.”
Brooke patted her shoulder as an idea blossomed in her mind, exquisite in its simplicity. “Are you as fluent in German as you are in English?”
Svetlana nodded. “But I haven’t met any German women yet.”
“I’m sure they’ll like you as much as American women do.” Brooke smiled. “How would you like to live in Germany?”
Svetlana raised her wet eyes. “How is it possible? I could never afford the tickets—”
“Don’t worry about that. The important question is, would you like a job in my firm’s Frankfurt office?”
“Would I?” Svetlana’s voice was laced with awe. “All my life I’ve dreamed of taking Natasha to a safe place where there are beautiful things, beautiful people . . .”
“Yes, you’ll be safe there.” Brooke smiled. “The boss is my friend. You’re hardworking and smart, and he’ll be delighted to have you.” She paused to consider any administrative hurdles, but none seemed to come to mind. Russia no longer stopped its people from traveling, Germany didn’t require a tourist visa, and Hoffenbach could take care of everything else later. “We’ll leave tomorrow. Do you have a passport? I heard that all Russians have passports.”
“Those are internal ones. They didn’t want to issue me an international travel permit during Soviet times because of uh, a character flaw. But as soon as perestroika started, I applied for a passport, just as a test, and got it!”
“What character flaw?” Brooke softened her tone. “I must know; I’ll be vouching for you.”
Hanging her head, Svetlana murmured, “When I was fourteen, I was raped by five men.”
God Almighty. “I’m so sorry. But how is that your character flaw?”
“The judge said I should have fought them off. Even my lawyer agreed that I needed to be reeducated. My father’s punishment for raising such a daughter was to be reprimanded in front of the entire factory, and then they fired him anyway. He left my mother, saying she should have raised me better. Even my cousins stopped talking to me; they didn’t want people to think that they were immoral too.” Svetlana’s face contorted in pain. “I ruined my family.”
“Svetlana, that was Soviet injustice. So unfair! They blamed the victim and let the perpetrators get off scot free. You did nothing wrong.” Flashes of her own “character flaw” crossed Brooke’s mind. That was a failing the new partners at NHB—if they found out—wouldn’t take lightly. Nor would her clients. “Where is your mother now?”
“There was a man in St. Petersburg who had an apartment, so she married him.”
Brooke hugged Svetlana. “You’re a terrific person, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“You understand because of your own character flaw.”
“Me?”
“Your Jewish gene,” Svetlana said in a tone as if this fact was obvious. “But you are a very good Jewess.”
“Svetlana, please. It’s not a gene—and certainly not a flaw. In fact, I’m proud to be Jewish.” This wasn’t the time to reeducate her. “Go home to your daughter and pack.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
How about by stopping to be an anti-Semite? Brooke touched her shoulder. “Don’t say good-bye to anyone. Not even to people you absolutely trust. You’ll call them from Frankfurt later this week. Okay?”
Having solved one problem, Brooke’s worry dropped one notch. At the elevator she asked, “By the way, have you talked to anyone about our investigation?”
Svetlana shook her head. “Not with any Russian.”
“Not any Russian? Any other nationality?”
“Jenny. I asked her advice.”
Christ. Brooke pressed her palm on the wall by the elevator, and a protruding screw stabbed her. Jenny. The image of that Betty Boop flirting with Sidorov the night of the banquet loomed behind her eyes.
Svetlana added, “She told me to go for it. She gave me the courage—”
“Don’t discuss anything with anyone—Jenny included—until after we leave. Promise me? Don’t even tell your deputy director at the factory,” Brooke said in a tight voice. It was too late to be angry with Svetlana, or even with Jenny. She just wanted it all to be behind her.
After Svetlana left, Brooke placed the call to Hoffenbach from the floor matron’s room. “I expect to be on the Lufthansa flight tomorrow,” she told him. “I need two more tickets. Put them in my name. I’ll give out the identities when we check in.” She paused. “Please meet me when we land, and can you please have a typed job description for a secretary who’s fluent in German, Russian, and English?”
“I’m sure we can use those skills,” he said, a smile in his voice.
Back in her room, Brooke showered and put on her jeans. She lit one of Amanda’s candles, sat on the bed, and looped her legs in a lotus position. Within the hour, Norcress would give Olga the article she could use as the bargaining chip in her negotiation with Sidorov. Tomorrow, Svetlana and her daughter would start a new life in Frankfurt, away from danger. All was as good as it could be for the moment, except for the envelope in Sidorov’s hands. There was nothing she could do about that; she wouldn’t compound yet another monumental mistake in her life by being sucked into Sidorov’s laundering machine.
DINNER WOULD HAVE fit right in at the gulag before an execution, Brooke thought as she munched on a sliced cucumber. A long evening stretched ahead. “Curfew is at seven o’clock,” Aleksandr said. “Afterward, the army will shoot anyone in the street. I’ll see you in the morning.” On his way to the exit, he clutched his portfolio to his chest as if his prized leather possession would stop bullets.
“I have a travel Scrabble. Are you up for a game?” Amanda asked.
They settled in the ninth floor sitting area. At the end of the corridor, in spite of the curfew, moved shadows of loitering clients. Other than having glimpsed the girls at the doors to their rooms, Brooke hadn’t encountered any in the elevator or elsewhere in the hotel, and now wondered if it was due to their different schedules, or whether the girls were being kept prisoner.
She was about to ask Amanda what she thought when Jenny showed up. She hugged Brooke like a long-lost relative, and started chattering about the day’s failed symposium. Brooke’s resentment of her melted. Annoying as Jenny was, she had no evil intentions; she couldn’t have known not to trust their important host.
Seated on the sofa across from Amanda and Jenny, Brooke surveyed the seven Scrabble letters she’d picked. Focusing on trying to score the highest points was a good distraction from her worries. At that moment, Olga must be in the midst of negotiating for her life.
“I’ve got a bottle of Champagne in my room. Shall I get it?” Jenny had barely finished her question when her smile froze.
Brooke’s head snapped around. Six militiamen in camouflage fatigues poured out of the elevator, their Kalashnikov assault rifles cocked and aimed at the women. Seconds later, the oth
er two elevators opened, and a dozen more militiamen spilled out.
The Scrabble tiles dropped from Brooke’s fingers. This was surely a mistake. It might be sorted out later—perhaps after one of these loaded Kalashnikovs went off.
With unexpected agility, Jenny vaulted over the back of the couch, pulling Amanda with her, and they disappeared behind the elevator bank. “Brooke, move it!” Amanda called out from behind the shelter. “Brooke!”
But Brooke was frozen in her seat. The large coffee table had prevented her from running after her friends and now she was staring into the barrel of a gun and feeling her eyes round with fear.
A loud bang jolted her. It was a door slamming down the corridor, not a gunshot. Amanda and Jenny must be safe in Jenny’s room. Her own room was right behind the couch on which she was sitting. Shaken out of her stupor, Brooke sprinted.
Reaching the door, she fumbled with her skeleton key. She had never mastered fitting it in on the first try, and now soldiers in heavy boots filled the corridor, the rough wool of their uniforms brushing her arm. Why didn’t they stop her? Pictures from her parents’ lives ran through her mind as vivid as if she had lived them. Her fingers shook so much, she couldn’t line up the long key. A dozen more soldiers streamed in from a fire stairwell. In the narrow hallway, their uniforms reeked of smoke and sweat.
Through the drumming of her heartbeat, she heard the saving click. The door opened. She darted inside, but just as she was about to slam the door behind her, a gun jammed in the opening. If she resisted, the soldier might pull the trigger. Panting, she let go and leaned against the inside wall abutting the door.
The soldier stepped inside, scanned the room, and threw Brooke a suspicious stare. His eyes inspected the length of her body, from the bottom upward, then down again, stopping at her chest. Brooke cringed.
To her relief, a voice shouted from the corridor and, looking once more around the room, the soldier left. Brooke locked the door and put her ear to it. A new terror, alien from the one she’d felt earlier, clutched at her. She strained to listen, afraid of hearing a machine gun blasting. Realizing that bullets could shatter the door, she moved deeper into the room.