Andrew was straddling the limb, thinking fast — thinking that he’d continue to the roof, hide behind the dormers until morning, and make his move after Deschin and the guards left. He watched warily as one moved off across the grounds at an easy patrol pace. Then, his eyes darted to the other, who went to a stone fireplace at the rear of the house and began tossing in kindling from a woodpile next to it.
This was no time for a cookout, Andrew reasoned, and Deschin sure didn’t come all the way out here to burn garbage. Damn! he thought as it dawned on him, the son of a bitch is going to burn the drawings!.
There’d be no waiting till morning, now. Unarmed, and one against six, Andrew decided that stealth rather than direct confrontation was still his best chance, and he resumed his journey.
He was about halfway to the dacha when he reached a network of thick branches that blocked his way. He pulled a leg back over the limb, and turned sideways onto his stomach. Then, hands grasping the limb like a fat gymnastics bar, he eased over headfirst until he was hanging beneath it, about twenty-five feet above the ground, and began working his way hand over hand toward the roof. He’d traveled a short distance when he spotted the patrolling guard approaching on a course that would take him between the tree and the dacha — right beneath Andrew.
Andrew adjusted the position of his hands, and swung his legs up around the limb to lessen the strain on his arms and minimize his profile.
The movement dislodged a large piece of bark.
Andrew craned his neck, and watched the curved, jagged-edged square wafting toward the ground.
It was headed right for the guard, right for a three-point landing on his head. But a little gust of wind altered its course slightly. And it fell behind him — within a millimeter of grazing the back of his raincoat — as he strolled directly beneath Andrew.
It hit the ground with a little click.
The guard paused in midstride, cocked his head curiously, and turned around.
Andrew was hanging directly above him—like a skewered pig at a Texas barbecue, he thought, hoping it wasn’t a precursor of things to come.
That’s when the guard noticed the headlights of an approaching car and, instead of looking up, started walking toward the entrance gate.
Andrew sighed, relieved. He swung his legs down from the limb, and continued hand over hand toward the dacha. He was soon hanging above it, his feet about four feet from the roof. He had planned to just drop onto it. But the house was occupied now, and he didn’t want to make a thud when he landed. He realized that the limb and up-sloping roof were at converging angles, which meant the distance between them would diminish as he moved outward. So, he kept going — the limb bending slightly under his weight, the roof rising toward him — and finally, the waffled tips of his Reeboks scraped against the slate surface below. He inched a little farther, and let go, landing silently in a crouch.
The car that had gotten the guard’s attention pulled through the gate and crunched to a stop on the gravel next to the other vehicles.
Andrew had made his way to the center of the dacha’s roof, behind two sharply peaked dormers that concealed him. His eyes widened in amazement when first Gorodin, and then Melanie, got out of the Volga, and were ushered into the dacha by the guard.
Pasha drove off in the Volga.
The guard resumed his rounds.
Andrew crawled around to the front of one of the dormers. Two small French windows were set into the recessed facade. He slipped the blade of a pocketknife between the overlapping frames. The latch had been painted over, and it took three tries before he broke the bond and it flicked open. Despite his father’s assurances that only ground floor doors and windows were alarmed, Andrew opened these with apprehension, expecting to hear the piercing shriek at any moment. But his anxiety was unfounded.
Next, he unslung the jack and set it on the roof. It wasn’t part of his plan to get into the dacha, but into a locked room inside it. Placed horizontally across the door at lock level, the jack would easily bow the jambs the one half to three quarters of an inch necessary to expose the deadbolt, allowing the door to be opened. But now that the house was occupied, there’d be no using the jack, not with its noisey ratchet; once inside, he’d have to improvise. Andrew left the jack behind, and climbed into the attic without incident.
Gorodin showed Melanie to a guest room on the second level and put her suitcase on the bed. She went to a mirror, took a brush from her purse, and began running it through her hair. En route from the airport, he had informed her of Deschin’s stake in the current political scene, and she was thinking about that now, thinking about her father becoming the Soviet Premier.
“Ready?” Gorodin asked.
She straightened her clothing, and took a moment to compose herself. “Yes,” she said nervously.
“Remember,” Gorodin warned, “Pasha and I are your father’s friends. We share his secret. But officially, you’re a representative from an American dance company, meeting the minister to arrange a tour.”
Melanie nodded, and followed Gorodin from the room.
The guard at the stone fireplace behind the house thought he had a fair-sized blaze going. But only the paper he had stuffed beneath the wood was burning, and it soon went out. He was trying to relight it when the patrolling guard arrived.
“Give me a hand with this,” the inept fire-maker said. “The minister will be out here any minute.”
“I doubt it,” the other replied. He broke into a salacious grin, adding, “And so would you, comrade, if you’d seen what just arrived.”
“Ah, he’s starting a little fire of his own.”
“Precisely. I can’t imagine he’ll be interested in yours until she leaves.”
It was a natural conclusion. The state-supplied women were dispatched here as well as to the Moscow apartment. And the guards had seen many arrive.
Gorodin showed Melanie into a large study, shutting the big wooden doors behind him as he left.
The room was ringed with chestnut wainscoting, and covered in dark floral-patterned paper. Bulky thirties furniture, and heavy draperies, gave it the gloomy feeling of Deschin’s Moscow apartment.
He was sitting in a big square armchair that swallowed him. A cigarette burned in his left hand. Smoke rose into the light that came from a reading lamp. The glow grazed the side of his face, leaving his features obscured, and sent a bold shadow across the floor in front of him.
Melanie remained where Gorodin had left her, and stood unmoving until Deschin broke the electrifying stillness.
“Sit down,” he said in a strong voice, gesturing to a chair opposite his.
Melanie smiled demurely, and sat on the edge of the cushion. Her eyes hid behind the rise of her cheekbones, flicking nervous glances at him.
“I hope I didn’t embarrass you the other day,” she said awkwardly, in a dry voice.
Deschin neither reacted nor replied, staring at her impassively for a long moment. “You couldn’t,” he finally said. “I didn’t know who you were.”
“And I was so sure that you’d gotten my letter, and were rejecting me,” she said with a nervous laugh.
“It came this afternoon,” he said.
“Oh—”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing,” she replied defensively, unnerved by his manner. “I don’t want anything.”
“Why did you come here?”
“I was curious about you. I wanted to know what you were like.”
“Then, that’s what you want.”
“I guess so. Yes.”