“Do you know where and when it’s taking place?”
“This week. I’m not sure about the exact schedule. As for the venue, it was some place called the Rainbow Hotel… or the Rainbow Resort — something like that. I can’t remember.”
That mere half-chance gave Sokolov a spike of emotions that left him exhilarated.
“Thank you for your help, Holy Father.”
“What I’ve done is not much in the way of help, I’m afraid. But I will be praying for God to shine His light on your path. Mind that you may not even find Weinstock at that event of his. It really is a shot in the dark.”
Sokolov bowed in appreciation and prepared to leave. There was nothing else to learn here.
Asiyah had been listening intently to their conversation, not uttering a word until that moment.
“There is one thing I need to ask you about,” she told Ilia. “In case we do find Weinstock.”
“Yes?” The lines on his forehead deepened as he gave her his full attention.
“What does he look like?”
8
I know about the convention,” Asiyah said when they returned to the Land Rover. “What the Metropolitan said is true. Alexandrov mentioned it over dinner aboard the Olympia.”
Sokolov was disoriented. “How could it be?”
“Alexandrov was annoyed that real opposition was making its presence known. He said that he could ban a rally, crack down on the media, but he couldn’t take away people’s privacy. He was forceless to stop anyone from meeting for discussion. I remember that bit clearly, because my father then joked that Alexandrov should bust them on charges of extremism, for being extremely low-key. Free Action is real, Gene, plotting something behind the scenes.”
Sokolov had already engaged the GPS navigator mounted on the Defender’s dashboard. Consulting it, he discovered that the establishment which Ilia had mentioned was in fact called the Rainbow Country Club, located twenty kilometers north of Moscow, isolated on the riverbank of the Moskva River. From the map, he followed the link to the club’s homepage using the built-in web browser. Over the wireless connection, it popped up instantly. Sokolov tapped EVENTS on the touchscreen.
“There,” he said. “We’ve got it. The event held by Free Action is listed. It’s referred to as a conference on political science, booked for the whole week. Started two days ago.”
“Thank goodness,” Asiyah said. “But today we may already be too late. Or far too early.”
“We have only one way to find that out.”
“Right. Let’s go.”
Sergiev Posad was left behind. Sokolov followed the course forty kilometers to the southwest plotted by the navigator.
He did not want to think about failure. He had fought the odds through sheer determination when everyone but his teammates had given up. But he wasn’t leading his friends on a mission now. Throwing himself at the unknown, he was taking Asiyah with him. His responsibility for her was even greater.
Yet, his gut feeling told him that Weinstock would show up at the event. After the left-wing parties crumbled in Russia, mostly down to their own failures, the democrats have been trying to regroup. But their internal squabbles always prevented them from challenging for the Kremlin, or even the Duma. No matter how delusional, the liberals always believed they could mount another challenge. So Weinstock would be taking this gathering very seriously. He needed it to gain momentum throughout the country. If you can’t go to the people, make the people come to you, and listen to what you have to say.
Asiyah switched to the web browser, going over the description of the Rainbow Country Club.
“Damn, even I didn’t always have such luxury,” she laughed. “Just listen what they’ve got there. A luxury spa and saunas, tennis courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and a nightclub — that’s the boring stuff. What I’m really impressed with is the hunting lodge, a skeet-shooting range, a nine-hole golf course, and a horse-riding school.”
“Sounds like a great place to visit in any case.”
The navigator’s female-sounding voice announced an imminent exit from the highway, and Sokolov followed the directions. A minute later, the road wound through a village that boasted picturesque cottages, restaurants, plazas, and manicured lawns stretching along either side of the smooth pavement. For years, Moscow’s suburbia had relished the influx of cash that turned crumbling villages into stylish towns of glamor and exuberance, basking in their vicinity to the capital. Beyond the village, which was no more than a blip in the landscape, the straight rural road continued to cut through the fields and forests surrounding it once again.
Looming ahead, where the road curved, was a high fence.
Sokolov slowed the Land Rover down, creeping along the concrete wall revetted with stone. According to the map, it was their destination. But the wall simply ran on without end. Puzzled, Sokolov peered ahead to see a large wooden sign indicating a drive in. The Rainbow Country Club.
“Is this it?” Asiyah asked.
“Should be. Matches the picture on the web, too.”
The gate was a mock-up of a medieval drawbridge, right down to a miniature moat under it. There was no security in attendance, but the lack of human presence was made up for by an abundance of surveillance cameras. As Sokolov drove deeper inside the grounds, the masonry of the fence quickly disappeared from view, the area within apparently limitless. What surprised Sokolov most was the fact that he had never known about a resort that took up acres of land, including a sizable chunk of pine forest and the riverfront.
The Rainbow Country Club was a testament to Moscow’s burgeoning workaholism and its rewards. Small businesses and large enterprises adopted Western management techniques eagerly. The most popular of those was expanding a corporate culture and unity among the employees beyond working hours. It was the common belief of Russian HR managers that teamwork had to be built by means of the company staff sharing weekends together, strengthening congenial ties through barbecues and pool parties. The practice caught on well; after all, collectivism remained a tradition.
Like many other countryside resorts dotted around Moscow, the Rainbow Club possessed all the prerequisites of successful stress relief. Located on the riverbank of the Moskva, lost behind dense greenery, it was a retreat from the hectic urban bustle.
The quiet natural surroundings seemingly belonged to a different planet altogether, yet at only twenty kilometers north of the city limits, it was an unbeatable choice from a logistical point of view.
More often than not, business facilities at such resorts were the most crowded. The managers could never detach themselves from their jobs, and the resorts essentially turned to variations of offices in colorful settings, the weekends differing from weekdays only by the view outside, much longer hours, and the midnight cocktails with the boss.
For the purposes of Free Action, the venue was perfect. It could accommodate every visiting member and allow them to hold their meetings in complete privacy. By all appearances, it was just another corporate group on a get-together picnic. They could stage lectures and seminars, watch motivational videos, receive instructions and duffel bags full of untraceable cash. Then these activists would go back to their towns across the country, to use the new directives and resources and bring in more supporters. Boys and girls who are susceptible to indoctrination. And no one would ever have a clue about what was going on covertly behind these walls.
Ingenious.
Going past private bungalows, the tennis courts and the swimming pool, Sokolov parked the Land Rover in front of the hotel building. Its facade was designed to resemble a romantic castle — conic spires, towers that were too compact to intimidate, stone tiles colored in pastel beige. A lavish fountain was spewing jets of water before the entrance. Flowers bloomed along the sidewalks.