“He was involved in espionage?”
“Good a word as any,” he replied, trying to hide the shame he felt. “I’ve been trying to get my hands on some documents that can turn it around — and your father has them.”
Melanie looked at him in disbelief.
“It’s important, Melanie,” Andrew went on fervently. “There’s a lot at stake. People have put their lives on the line to help me.”
“You’re asking me to risk my life?”
“I’m asking you to take your father to dinner — to the ballet, anywhere. Keep him busy for an evening, so he and his KGB watchdogs won’t get in my way.”
“Andrew — I just told you he won’t see me.”
“He will once he hears your voice.”
She shook no. “I still wouldn’t help you.”
“Why the hell not?!”
“I had a run-in with the KGB.”
“You’re kidding—”
“I wish I were. They threatened to arrest me. They still might,” she replied, her voice cracking. “I can’t take any chances. I’m afraid.”
Andrew was suddenly hearing the snap and squeak of surgical rubber, and imagined Melanie being strip-searched by the pig-eyed policewoman, or more likely her pig-eyed brother. He shuddered at the thought. “I can’t say I blame you,” he said, softening his tone.
She smiled, and leveled a tender gaze at him. “I like you, Andrew. I might even love you,” she said, thinking of the many times she’d sworn that she would never, ever again, utter those words to a man, and of her long-standing decision to avoid love affairs, to keep her emotions walled in, as a way of insuring she’d never get hurt again.
Andrew didn’t react to the remark. He didn’t know how. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had said they loved him.
“I’m not sure what made me say that,” Melanie continued, amazed that having done so, having allowed the wall to crack, she was now letting it crumble. “I mean, we hardly even know each other, not to mention I’ve got fifteen years on you.”
“Fourteen,” Andrew said with a warm smile.
“I guess, if I’m honest with myself,” Melanie went on, “it’s because lately — I’ve had feelings that I haven’t had in years.” She said the last part slowly, cautiously, then paused, and shrugged vulnerably before adding, “But I don’t want to end up in Siberia, and I don’t want to die. I’ve gotten along without my father all these years. I’ll manage somehow.”
She planted a light kiss on his lips, swept the travel bag off the bed, and left the room.
Andrew let out a long breath, and sat down on the bed to collect his thoughts. His concentration was broken by applause from the television, where “Let’s Go Girls!" — a popular Soviet game show — was in progress. Three zaftig women from a dairy collective had been competing in a milking contest, and the winner had just raised her pail in triumph.
Melanie checked out of the Berlin, and took a taxi to Sheremetyevo Airport.
Andrew left Melanie’s room, went to a street corner phone box, and called Deschin’s dacha. There was no answer. He made a beeline for the Zhiguli.
A few minutes later, a Volga pulled up in front of the Hotel Berlin. Pasha got out, hurried inside, and discovered Melanie had checked out.
She was at Sheremetyvo, in the check in line for the late evening flight to London with a connection to JFK, thinking about her father, and Andrew, and having second thoughts about leaving, when she heard a voice.
“Miss Winslow—”
Melanie turned. A chill went through her when she saw Pasha approaching. She was going to be arrested by the KGB and thrown into one of those horrible prisons! And for what? She hadn’t done anything! Lucinda Bartlett’s words rang in her head: “Subject to their laws! Embassy could do little to help you!” She started backing away, terrified; then, panicking, she turned and ran through the terminal toward the street.
Pasha pursued her outside to the arrivals loop.
A black Volga roared forward and screeched to a stop next to her, blocking her way. The front passenger door popped open.
Pasha caught up with Melanie and bear-hugged her toward it. She was trying to knee him in the groin when Gorodin’s hands came from within the car and pulled her inside. Melanie whirled blindly, pummeling him, struggling to get free. Gorodin parried the blows, got hold of her wrists, and held them tightly until she recognized him.
“Gorodin!” she exclaimed.
“Your father wants to see you,” he said, relaxing his grip when she stopped struggling.
Pasha tossed her travel bag into the backseat and got in next to her.
Gorodin tromped on the accelerator.
The Volga lurched forward and roared into the night.
Andrew had the Zhiguli’s gas pedal to the floor, heading down the M2 highway for Zhukova village. The paved ribbon led to a gravel road that snaked through the estate country southwest of Moscow. A low stone wall told him he was nearing Deschin’s estate. He killed the headlights and engine, coasting for about a quarter mile before pulling off the road into a grove of cottonwoods. The Zhiguli rolled to a stop behind a dense thicket of brambles that concealed it.
He slipped out of the car, went to the trunk, and removed the jack— bumper type with shoe that ratchets on a long, notched square tube. The L-shaped tire iron that doubled as a ratchet handle was affixed to the tube. Next, he unclipped the shoulder strap from the snap rings of his suitcase, and hooked one of the fasteners into each end of the tube, making a sling. After closing the trunk, he put an arm through the makeshift sling and, carrying the jack against his back like a rifle, hurried off in the darkness. The wind blew in halfhearted gusts as he came to a rise that overlooked Deschin’s dacha.
The eighteenth-century czarist mansion was surrounded by cotton-woods, and sprawled across a swale in the rolling landscape. A fieldstone and wood facade rose in tiers beneath a steeply sloped snow roof that had deep overhangs and numerous dormers.
The ground level was comprised of two main wings: residential— dining room, library, and study — on the left; and maintainence— kitchen, servants’ quarters, garages, and storage facilities — on the right. Long corridors branched off from a two-story entrance hall connecting them. Sleeping quarters were on a second level that spanned the lower wings.
The windows were dark, and neither cars nor guards were visible as Andrew approached.
The way in — the way around the alarm system — was via the roof. But as his father had warned, the overhangs and steep slope made it inaccessible from the ground. Churcher had also told him of the big trees, and now Andrew was hurrying toward a cottonwood off to the right side of the dacha.
The huge main trunk split into three smaller ones. Andrew climbed up into the crotch, and shinnied up the trunk closest to the dacha. One of the limbs branched off and extended well over the roof. Andrew straddled it for a moment, catching his breath, then he grasped it with both hands and humped forward toward the dacha. He paused to snap off some twigs that were in his way, and saw headlights through the trees in the distance.
Two cars were winding along the approach road.
Andrew froze as Deschin’s Chaika and a KGB Volga drove through the entrance and stopped on a graveled parking area in front of the dacha.
Deschin got out carrying the mailing tube that contained the roll of Kira drawings. He and Uzykin were joined by the two KGB guards who were in the Volga. Deschin gave them brief instructions, then he and Uzykin went to the dacha. Deschin tapped out a code on the keypad next to the door, deactivating the alarm system, and they entered.