They felt like boneheads. Nobody spoke, nobody moved, they just gaped at the barrel pointed out the window.
After twenty excruciating minutes, they drew verbal straws. The taller of the two captains lost and gently inched forward, slow, limited scrapes across the cement, before he squeezed his eyes shut, uttered a loud curse, and hopped three rapid bounces. No shots were fired. No bodies bounced off the concrete. They threw caution to the wind and raced toward the base of the apartment house. They drew their guns and pounded heavily up the stairwell to the sixth floor. Puffing from exertion, they found Alex's hired sniper there, directly underneath a hallway window: a mop head rested on an overturned metal trash can, with its rusty metal pole poking out the window.
The three men stared at one another with disbelief that quickly turned into red-faced humiliation. No debate was required or entertained; agreement was quick and unanimous-this petty detail would obviously only add unnecessary clutter in their report to Tatyana Lukin. They were tired of hotel rooms. They wanted to get out and wander around this glorious city that reeked with such historical significance, to venture out and feel the soul of the German people. But they wouldn't. They agreed that it was too dangerous. It made no sense at this point to risk being picked up by Volevodz and his goons. Room service was contacted and they ate a quiet dinner in the room together.
Over dessert and a glass of wine Alex shared the details of the offer. Elena listened and withheld comment. The pros and cons were obvious. They were tired of living on the run, tired of looking over their shoulders, tired of going to bed each night and awakening each morning imagining the worst. And no matter how much Alex exercised, he was a man of restless energy and incredible intellect that needed an outlet. But the offer was humiliating, a disgrace, really. Still, the prospect of neutralizing the bad people trying to kill them had its pluses.
"What will you do if they meet your demands?" she finally asked.
"I may take it."
"Do you think Golitsin is behind the offer?"
"I seriously doubt it. I think he wants me dead."
"Then who?"
"That's the question. There are so many possibilities. I know of only one way to find out."
"So you intend to take the offer to discover who's involved," she suggested.
"That's the idea. If I say yes, I'll look for a way to smoke them out."
"Why you?" she asked, sipping from her wine. Good question.
"Partly because they're still afraid of me. That's why they want me inside and neutralized. Why else are they still working overtime to keep me away from Yeltsin? Bring me in, and they buy my silence."
"What's the other partly?"
"Golitsin has a partner. That's obvious. Somebody inside Yeltsin's inner circle, I'm nearly certain. But think about this, Elena. We know the syndicates are involved. We know Golitsin and his KGB friends are involved. And now this man Volevodz and his deputies show up."
"You think he really is with the ministry?"
"I'm sure of it. I made a call to a friend in Moscow and had him checked out. He's former KGB, but he's now exactly what he claims to be. And he is, in fact, conducting the investigation."
"So this conspiracy is quite big."
"Getting bigger by the day. It would help to know exactly who and what we're up against."
"And then?" Elena asked.
"I find another way to get to Yeltsin. I'll have names and evidence to shove in his face. If they can do this to me, Elena, they can do it to anybody. I'm sure they will. And if that happens, the damage will be immeasurable. Nobody will want to put money in Russia." She was dressed in a long tight dress with a slit that stretched all the way to her waist; it clawed even more provocatively higher when she moved. The dress was not expensive and didn't need to be; she could justify drools in kitchen rags. She entered the restaurant and wound her way through the tables, where her date for the evening awaited impatiently in a long cushioned booth in the back.
Golitsin had arrived ten minutes earlier. He was deep into his third scotch, a fine, imported blend he had acquired a taste for during his years in the KGB.
The restaurant was the most exclusive and most breathtakingly expensive in Moscow. At that moment, anyway: city hot spots fluctuated monthly, and after three weeks of endless lines, of thousand-dollar bribes to the owner for a reserved table, this place was peering at oblivion. The tables were filled with other crooks and entrepreneurs who were choking down caviar by the bushel and gulping enough champagne to float the Russian fleet. Enough cigarette smoke filled the air for an artillery duel. Beautiful women seemed to be littered around every table, hanging lustily on the arms of seriously rich men, laughing at full volume over the slightest ping of humor, generally working hard to ingratiate themselves enough to let the party last another day, another week, another month, before they were replaced by a more eager bimbo with longer legs and a louder, faster quick-draw giggle.
Long live capitalism.
"Nice place. You have good taste," Tatyana said, smiling nicely, not meaning a word of it.
Golitsin did not get up or even acknowledge the phony compliment. She slid into the booth across from him and offered a nice flash of thigh. Her blue blouse was cut precariously low-if she tripped, or stooped even one inch forward, her breasts would flop out.
"How are things in the Kremlin?" Golitsin asked.
"Tense. Always tense. Disaster always lurking around the corner."
The waiter rushed over. She ordered British gin, straight up, no water, no ice. Golitsin tipped his nearly empty glass and signaled for a refill. A small band sat in the corner, dressed as Cossacks, playing old Russian folk songs to an audience playing a new Russian game.
Golitsin informed her, "Let me tell you why we're here. I'm hearing rumors."
"What kind of rumors?"
"Bad ones for the lush."
"How bad?"
"The reactionary forces are going to take him down."
"They've been promising that for years."
"They're beyond promising. They're hiring hooligans off the streets, arming them, and preparing a showdown."
An eyebrow shot up. "How reliable are these rumors?"
"Believe them. My old KGB friends say it will happen any day."
"What about Rutskoi? He involved?" she asked in a low whisper, meaning, of course, Aleksandr Rutskoi, Yeltsin's vice president, a war hero from the Afghanistan debacle Yeltsin had taken aboard in the hope that Rutskoi could calm down the right-wing wackos and former communists who loathed Yeltsin with a passion that bordered on madness. But the marriage was ill-conceived and soured from the start. It sped bitterly downhill from there. They were very different kind of men: one malleable and political down to his underwear; the other the sort of military man who adored absolutes in everything but his own ethics. Aside from a few organs the only thing they shared in common was that they were both legendary blowhards with a bottomless lust for power. The two men now barely talked. Rutskoi schemed and plotted with his friends and allies in the Russian version of a Congress, undermining Yeltsin and his reforms at every turn. And Yeltsin worked hard to return the favor. Stealing a note from his American friends, he pushed his vice president into the shadows, and shoved him out the door every time there was a funeral anywhere in the world. "The Pallbearer," Yeltsin called him with considerable malice.