by Talia Carner
The phone rang. Its trilling sound was otherworldly. Brooke lifted the receiver but refrained from saying “Hello.”
“Are you okay?” Amanda asked. “Are you there?”
“What’s all this about?” Brooke whispered.
“It looks like a military unit is taking over the hotel.”
“Whose side are they on?”
“Beats me. The civil war must be spreading.”
“It’s supposed to have ended.” Brooke pulled the phone with her as she peeked out the window. “The soldiers are out in front, thick as cockroaches.”
“I’ll come join you as soon as I can leave Jenny’s room,” Amanda said.
“Don’t you dare!” Through the whisper, Brooke heard her voice getting shrill. “These revolutionaries hate Americans. They might shoot you.”
“You may be right,” Amanda said, and Brooke was surprised that for once, her friend accepted the severity of the situation. “I’ve tried calling Judd,” she added.
He would know what men with Kalashnikovs were doing at Hotel Moscow. Right now Brooke would accept any available help. Yet what if the soldiers had come for him?
After hanging up with Amanda, Brooke dialed the embassy number. The line was dead. She sat down to gather her thoughts.
A faint tap-tap on the door brought her back. She waited until it was repeated. “Who’s there?” she asked.
“Aleksandr.”
Aleksandr had left the hotel more than an hour ago. How had he dodged curfew and then returned? Brooke opened the door.
For once, Aleksandr’s face was tense. The pallid illumination of the overhead light bulb cast shadows across his high forehead. “Were you one of the three out there?” he asked.
“You mean one of the Scrabble players?”
He nodded.
“What about it?”
“You’re in trouble. The militia wants to arrest and interrogate you.”
“Whatever for? What have I done?”
“You’ve insulted the militia.”
“Insulted? Like I insulted the silly receptionist?”
“The soldiers are here to protect you, yes? When you ran away, you showed distrust.”
Protect her against Sidorov? “I distrust people pointing assault rifles at me.” Brooke’s body shook with rage. “This is insane! What was I supposed to do?”
“Honest people would stay in place. Russians don’t run away like rabbits. They would look down, like this.” He demonstrated a submissive bowed head. “They’d sit still until the soldiers tell them they could get up.”
“Sure,” she replied with sarcasm in her voice. She remembered the two men locked in the Jetway with her, their passive submission. “This is a hotel. And we aren’t Russians. I don’t believe for one minute that three women playing Scrabble insulted the mighty Russian militia.” Suddenly she realized something she had missed. “The soldiers don’t know who the three of us are. You weren’t even sure I was one of them.”
“They saw a woman with brown hair enter this room. They say two others escaped behind the elevator, right? Who were they?”
Brooke blinked. “You don’t expect me to tell you that, do you?”
Aleksandr cleared his throat. “Jenny, she’s—er—talking to the soldiers.”
“What are you saying?”
“She didn’t insult the militia. She opened a bottle of Champagne for them.”
“Her methods are hard to emulate.” But Brooke was relieved that Aleksandr didn’t know that Jenny had fled, too.
Crimson spread over Aleksandr’s face. “Do you have anything to give them?” he asked. “Vodka, maybe?”
Was he suggesting that Brooke, too, should flirt with the soldiers? She shook her head, then recalled that Amanda had brought back from the symposium one of their boxes of chocolates. She retrieved it and handed it to Aleksandr.
“I’ll try to negotiate with them,” he said. “Otherwise they’ll throw you in jail for three days.”
“Jail for three days?” Brooke regarded Aleksandr. “First they wanted to interrogate me. Now it’s jail? How do you know that? Who exactly said it?”
He looked down at the tips of his shoes.
In her head, Brooke examined the facts. When there had been no armed soldiers, he was petrified of the chef, kowtowed to the maître d’, and coddled that silly front-desk clerk. Now, in a miraculous transformation, this wimp had turned brave enough to deal with over thirty militiamen carrying automatic weapons. What was going on here? One thing for sure: she couldn’t—shouldn’t—trust him.
She yanked the box of chocolate out of his hands. “Don’t negotiate anything for me. Is that clear?”
Chapter Forty-three
AN HOUR LATER, nothing had happened. Brooke’s nerves were on edge as she continued to listen for heavy footsteps outside, so much like those nights in her childhood in Brooklyn when she had believed that the Nazis might come anytime.
She packed her carry-on bag just in case she was dragged to jail—or she needed to escape.
To her relief, Amanda returned. She reported that some soldiers were still on their floor and the adjacent ones. “They haven’t harassed us.”
“They’re after me—according to Aleksandr.” Brooke gave Amanda an account of their conversation. “
“Brooke, it makes no sense.”
“You’re looking for logic in a place where none exists.” Brooke paced around the faded carpet. “Multiply that by ten when Aleksandr’s in the picture. I must get out of here.”
“It’s curfew time. Where would you go? Anyway, the soldiers may have forgotten all about you.”
“What if they haven’t? Would you take that chance?” Brooke stepped to the window and confirmed that the soldiers were still in front. “There must be more to this. What did this militia come to protect us from?”
Amanda scratched her head. “What are you driving at?”
“I may not know the problem, but I know the solution. Dollars. These soldiers want money.” She pulled some American bills out of her money belt. In one pocket of her jeans she placed several tens, and in the other fives. She rolled five one-hundred-dollar bills under the strap of her watch. She snapped her suitcase shut and shoved her coat and purse into her travel bag, then secured the bungee cord on the wheels. “I’m out of here.”
“Don’t risk it. Please. Maybe there’s another explanation. At least wait until you hear what Aleksandr finds out.”
Brooke’s stomach tightened. “Right now I am sure of two things: One, that Aleksandr will screw up. And two, that I must take care of myself before he does.” She hitched her bag over her shoulder and rolled her suitcase to the vestibule.
“Where will you go?” Amanda asked.
“Anywhere but here.” A commotion in the corridor halted Brooke. She listened. Shouts, orders, heavy footfalls. Then a faint rapping on the door, followed by a little voice.
“It’s Aleksandr.”
Amanda opened the door. Next to Aleksandr stood a militiaman with decorated epaulets and medals on his chest. Past them, some johns were facing the wall, their arms raised. Soldiers pointed guns at their backs, while others emptied their pockets. Two young women in tiny Spandex dresses protested as they, too, were shoved against the wall.
Amanda clutched Brooke’s arm to hold her back. “Aleksandr, what are these soldiers doing at the hotel?”
He entered with the officer and closed the door behind him, then addressed Brooke. “The officer wants to know what you’re hiding.”
“Hiding? As in counterfeit rubles?” Brooke asked.
He shrugged. “I’m only translating what he asked.”
“For Christ’s sake. You could have answered that I was your guest on a business trip.” She opened her palm and showed the officer money. She gestured toward the street outside the window. “Tell him to escort me out of the hotel.” Once she was far enough from the hotel, she would stop a private car. An enterprising driver might even take her to his home
where she could use the phone to call Belgorov.
“It’s curfew. You can’t go out.”
“Right now I’m safer in the streets than here.” The officer’s eyes were glued to her money. Brooke handed him the bills and gestured with her head. “Let’s go.” Ignoring Aleksandr, she lifted the handle of her rolling cart.
“I’m sorry.” Amanda threw her arms around her neck.
Behind Brooke, the officer spoke. “He says you should walk naturally, no sudden movements,” Aleksandr told her. “His soldiers are nervous; they’ve been shot at a lot in the past two days. They might shoot you.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying all along, but you’ve denied it.”
“Don’t go to a hotel, though,” he added.
“Why not?” Amanda asked.
“The army is looking for foreigners tonight.”
“Why?” Brooke asked.
“Parliament sympathizers. You know, criminals who came from the Republics. They stay in hotels.”
“Can’t they tell Soviet out-of-towners from Americans?” Amanda asked.
“Do I look like I came from one of the Republics?” Brooke asked.
“No, they know you’re American. Though Mr. Kornblum, he looks Georgian.”
Goose bumps crawled up Brooke’s arms. “Mr. Kornblum isn’t here. How do they know what he looks like?”
Aleksandr stared at his shoes. The officer picked up Brooke’s suitcase, then opened the door for her.
The corridor was teeming with soldiers.
“I’ll drive you.” Aleksandr followed her to the elevator.
Where did he think she was going? “It’s almost nine o’clock, way past curfew time. Did you forget that you’ll be shot in the streets?” Brooke sidled closer to the officer, who pressed the elevator call button. He flashed her a polite smile, revealing the absence of several teeth, then waved and walked away before the elevator arrived.
“You don’t know your way around,” Aleksandr persisted.
Brooke enunciated each word. “Please get lost, okay?”
He blushed, and for a split second she even pitied him. “Sorry. You did your best, but I don’t want your help,” she said. “Thank you, and good-bye.”
Just then, the elevator door opened. Inside, three more militiamen stood with their automatic weapons at the ready. Brooke glanced down the corridor in search of the officer she had bribed, but he had disappeared. She regretted having five bills ready, when perhaps one hundred dollars would have sufficed.
One of the soldiers held the elevator door open. Aleksandr stepped in and motioned with his hand for her to come. She bristled, but got in.
The elevator door swooshed closed. “Passport,” a soldier demanded. There was a tuft of fine peach fuzz over his upper lip. Brooke tucked three five-dollar bills into her passport before handing it to him, then handed each of the other soldiers an additional five-dollar bill.
“Okay. Dah.” The soldier gave her the passport back as the elevator doors opened to the lobby. The place was crawling with more military. To Brooke’s surprise, the soldier who had checked her passport lifted her suitcase and helped her out of the building. Bribing the militia had gotten her more service than tipping the hotel staff ever had. She noticed Aleksandr watching her being accompanied out.
Several camouflaged armored vehicles were parked in front of the hotel, and more soldiers scrutinized her with hungry eyes. Brooke kept her head high, walking as briskly as she could while wheeling her suitcase with one hand and pulling the overstuffed carrier with the other. Adrenaline rushed in her veins.
In spite of the curfew, the soldiers let her pass. She quickened her steps as much as her luggage would allow. Her arms and shoulders already hurt, and her heart had been in overdrive for almost two hours. She scanned the street for a passing private car, recalling her apprehension on her first day in Moscow that stopped her from getting into a car with a driver who didn’t speak English. Now, compared to the mayhem in the hotel, a stranger seemed like a rescuer.
“Brooke,” she heard behind her, and turned around.
Judd was walking toward her, smiling, as if nothing was going on.
“Thank God,” Brooke breathed, pushing aside her distrust of him. At least he was an American—and right now the least of all evils.
His eyes took in her luggage. “Where are you going?”
“Away. Anywhere. Don’t go in the hotel. They’re looking for you.”
“Me? Who’s looking for me?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe Aleksandr, maybe the militia—”
“Hold on a minute. What are you talking about? What’s with this schlepping of your luggage?”
“I’m running as far away as I can get before I’m stopped by flying bullets which, Aleksandr insists, target those defying curfew.”
“Tonight’s curfew begins at eleven.”
“It does? When was it changed?”
“It’s been in the news since noon.”
The skin around her mouth felt taut. “Aleksandr distinctly said seven o’clock.”
“Calm down.” Judd touched her elbow. “Nothing’s going to happen to you.” He lifted her suitcase and led her another block.
She gave him a synopsis of recent events. “I’ve tried calling the embassy. There was no answer.”
“They’ve been hiding in the basement for three days without a change of underwear. Today a skeleton staff finally started working again. If I drove you over there, someone will put you up for the night at the Radisson Slavyanskaya, which is where I’m planning to go.”
His perfect pronunciation of the hotel’s Russian name no longer surprised her. “What about the search for foreigners that Aleksandr mentioned?”
“That has nothing to do with you or me. Forget everything Aleksandr’s told you.”
“Wiser words have never been uttered.”
He smiled, took out a car key, and opened the door to a Zhiguli. He placed her suitcase in the back next to a gym bag. Drained even of her curiosity, Brooke slid onto the tattered vinyl passenger seat. The car reeked of cigarette smoke.
“Sorry about the ambiance. My Bentley is in the shop.” Judd rummaged through his gym bag and produced an airline-size brandy bottle. “You look like you could use this.” He turned the ignition key and shifted gears.
The drink stung then numbed the cut on her tongue as it traveled down to her stomach. It melted into something pleasant and warm. “I’d like to check on Olga first,” Brooke said, giving him the Russian’s address.
“You still haven’t told me what happened at the conference.”
“It’s a long story.”
During the twenty-minute ride to Olga’s home, Brooke answered his questions regarding the most recent events at the hotel. She wondered whether any of the women had told him about what they’d seen at Olga’s office. “I’ve known all along that this hotel was a disaster waiting to happen,” Brooke said. “Even so, I was unprepared. Not even Kafka would have believed my story.”
“Yeltsin’s brought in ten to fifteen thousand men, and they’re as unpredictable as they are greedy. These troops don’t report to anyone.”
“What were they doing at Hotel Moscow?”
“Just what that officer told you: looking for parliament sympathizers. After Yeltsin suppressed the uprising around the parliament, thousands of the deputies’ supporters dispersed. They can stay in only cheap Soviet hotels.”
She hadn’t made the connection when Norcress had mentioned it that morning. “Like Hotel Moscow?”
“Yup. Yeltsin is worried that these supporters might start further disturbances. He’s rounding them up.”
“Wasn’t it obvious that I was an American and not a parliament sympathizer? Why was I intimidated?”
“A simple case of extortion.” But the pulsating vein in Judd’s temple, the one she had noticed before, made her suspect he thought there was more to it.
Chapter Forty-four
THEY DROVE A few blocks
past a boulevard edging a wide lawn, behind which stood an imposing building. Though its facade was illuminated, its windows were dark.
“Moscow University,” Judd said.
“There’s no one here,” Brooke said. “In my Berkeley days, students demonstrated against Vietnam. You’d think that with all that’s going on, students would raise their collective indignation.”
“Not if they stand to lose their spots. No freedom of expression here, remember?”
Judd slowed down by a plaza with scattered ornate lampposts, all lit. A stone balustrade was bathed in milky reflection. “Moskva River,” he said, circling close to the railing.
Rolling down the window, Brooke breathed in the cool fall air. Everything was eerily quiet. She eyed an old couple huddled on a bench, then the panoramic view of Moscow past the balustrade. “It looks so normal. Is it safe to stop?”
“Sure.”
A sense of freedom ran through Brooke as she yawned and stretched outside the car. Just minutes earlier, she had believed she was escaping for her life. She wrapped her coat over her arm. Judd followed her as they walked the few yards to the marble parapet and leaned on it, keeping the car and her luggage in sight.
“That long line of lights is the Kremlin wall.” Judd’s finger moved to the left. “We could see the parliament building if they had electricity.”
A couple of late-pecking pigeons flitted nearby, hoping for a handout. A young man ambled past, settled on a bench under a lamppost, and retrieved a book out of his khaki canvas bag. An occasional Volga or Zhiguli passed by. It was strange to be so close to the threat at Hotel Moscow, yet so remote.
A gunshot brought Brooke out of her lull. She straightened.
“It’s at least a mile away,” Judd said calmly. “The water surface carried the sound. We’re overlooking downtown.” He looked at her. “Want to leave?”
Brooke shook her head. In the black ink of the river, the city lights flickered and danced. Her hand traced the lines of the marble balustrade. It was smooth and cold, richer than stone.
She straightened and put on her coat. “Talk.”
He broke a twig off a nearby bush. “What about?”