FEARLESS FINN'S MURDEROUS ADVENTURE (36 page)

“I did. I’ll pass that on to Anna. You tell Nataliya she’s very welcome.”

“Talk to you soon buddy…and
buona fortuna
…good luck!” I said, before I hung up.

How about that? Fucking Fearless Finn Flynn, four thousand five hundred miles away in the goddamn Soviet Union, knows more about the woman sitting next to me than I do! How come I didn’t know my gal was crying tears of joy? Maybe it’s an Irish thing – second sight – or some shit like that.

It looks like he just might pull this thing off. We need to get things moving from this end; it’s time to hustle. Nakita Sylvina, soon to be my new daughter, will be here in Sea Ranch in two or three weeks!

“Gerry, my little Nakita Sylvina is going to a proper school, and with the good Lord’s blessing she will be with us soon. I am so happy…so happy I had to cry!”

“I know sweetheart, but don’t scare me like that again.
Merda
…shit, I thought there was a problem.”

“I am sorry my love. I could not think after I heard the good news.”

“It’s OK. But listen, we’re gonna need your birth certificates. You don’t have yours here with you, do you?”

“No Gerry, I do not have my birth certificate with me. When I left home how could I imagine I would meet a man like you, fall in love and get married?
Никогда не мог я представить себе такое
…never could I imagine such a thing!”

“Nataliya, we’ve got to get it together. They’ll be back before we know it. Could Finn and Anna pick up the birth certificates? We gotta have them for you and Nakita if I’m gonna get you into the States…legit. So think sweetie, think.”

“Yes, yes, my mamma keeps every little piece of paper. She has my birth certificate, and Nakita Sylvina’s. Poor Nakita Sylvina, there is no father’s name on hers.”

“Don’t worry about that. We can add my name, eh? Next time they call we’ll tell them to make sure to bring the birth certificates. OK.”

MOSCOW

On my way
out of Theatre Apartments a revolting, unshaven man wearing a wrongly buttoned porter’s uniform stopped me. He looked at me through glazed eyes, gave me a toothless grin, and asked if I am really the niece of Galina Maksimovna.

“Didn’t she tell you I am? Why wouldn’t I be?” I snapped. I haven’t exactly told him a lie, I haven’t told a lie at all, in fact. Satisfied that my honesty is still intact, I left him to his bad breath and his bad attitude. I walked out the front door…whistling.

My identification papers would just make the porter suspicious. Galina Maksimovna’s lie saves me having to register – which would confirm his suspicions. People in Murmansk carry the same identification as citizens of Moscow, and I only have my fake Finnish passport.

I walked out to Ulitsa Bol’shaya Dmitrovka and squashed into a crowded tram. I’m standing between a granddad with a sack stinking of urine on his knee, and a young couple arguing about why he won’t eat with her mother.

———

I can’t believe how well things are going. Unlike Mac, I’m not always one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Anna knows we’re under pressure to be back in Hong Kong in a few weeks. But when I told her that we need a passport-sized photograph of Nakita Sylvina – that’s a few years old – she wasn’t amused.

“OK, no problem Finn. All the children at Nakita Sylvina’s school have photo identification with passport-sized photos. I’ll just take hers. And tonight I’ll tell Galina Maksimovna that I, a total stranger, have come to take her only granddaughter away.”

Jaysus, it’s no wonder Anna’s being sarcastic. It’s all very well for me to be making promises, but she’s the one who has to keep them.

Hopefully we won’t technically be snatching Nakita Sylvina, or taking her against her grandmother’s will. But even if the child’s disappearance isn’t reported, the Soviet authorities are likely to consider it abduction. It’s unlikely they’d bother tracking her down, but if there’s any hint that a subversive organisation is involved it would encourage them to try…if only to embarrass the West.

———

Why did Galina Maksimovna lie to the porter? I think she wants to keep my rent money, but Finn thinks there might be more to it than a little ‘self-enterprise’ on her part, as he calls it.

Anyway, I told Finn she was absolutely delighted when I offered to walk Nakita Sylvina to school and collect her again at five. But I am not delighted at having to steal the child’s school identification.

It’s seven fifteen a.m., I better get going. I knocked on Galina Maksimovna’s door.

“Be sure to hold her hand all the way to the school gate, and give her over to the supervisor….Here, you’ll need this note from me. Thank you little one from the frozen north. Take good care of my precious Nakita Sylvina, won’t you?” said Galina Maksimovna as I took Nakita’s hand.

The sour-faced battle axe at the gate read the note. She told Nakita Sylvina to hurry inside and then she handed the note back to me.

“You must be here at four thirty this afternoon. The boilers will be shut off early to save fuel,” she snarled.

———

When we met for coffee this morning Anna handed me a passport-sized photograph of a very pretty, blonde-haired girl with slightly Slavic features and blue-green eyes. Anna told me she needed a handwritten note from Galina Maksimovna just to deliver the child to school yesterday. Jaysus…there’s an example of Soviet bureaucracy.

Then Anna dropped the bombshell. “When I brought Nakita Sylvina home from school yesterday afternoon I asked Galina Maksimovna if I might talk to her in private, away from small ears. She told Nakita Sylvina to take her homework and go to my room. Then I came straight out with it and told Mrs. Maksimovna why I’m in Moscow. She threw her hands over her face and thanked God over and over. When she lowered her hands there were no tears….Her face looked ten years younger. Galina Maksimovna said, ‘When you turned up in your fine clothes I just knew you were sent by God and are the answer to my prayers. Even when you told me the silly story about working on a film I was so happy! I’ve been praying for months that Nataliya Yelena would finally send for Nakita Sylvina, so that she can grow up away from here.’”

I’m shocked…and I thought I’d become unshockable. Still, when I asked Anna if she’d explained the real reason we need to take the woman’s granddaughter away, she shook her head.

“How could I? How could I shatter this poor woman’s illusions about her daughter? What mother wants to learn that her daughter stays alive only so long as she gives herself to strange men for money?”

Anna has a point, but Mrs. Maksimovna might be in danger once the Russian thugs come looking for Nakita Sylvina. If Uncle Sui makes a direct approach to his friends in Moscow they might be able to help…at least I hope they’ll be able to.

I used Brother Leader Gaddafi’s satellite phone to ring Gerry’s house but there was no answer. I have to get a message to Uncle Sui to ask for protection for Mrs. Maksimovna once we’ve left with her granddaughter – and preferably without her knowing.

I rang Mac and, using our
amadán
code, filled him in on the situation in Moscow. We went through the travel options, and we discounted taking a train to Vladivostok and a ferry to Japan; it would be too difficult to get out of Japan without the help of the Yakuza. So it has to be the train through Russia and China to Kowloon. “Contact your secretary why don’t you, and ask her to get hold of Gerry,” suggested Mac, before he hung up.

Maybe Moscow’s freezing air isn’t letting enough oxygen through to my brain; I should’ve thought of phoning Sui-Lin meself. She answered the office phone after two rings – first in Cantonese, and then in English – and she told me Gerry and Nataliya are staying at the Island Shangri La. “Good luck Mister Finn, good luck,” she said, before I cut the call.

It sounds like Gerry’s told Sui-Lin what we’re up to in Moscow…and he’s not staying in his own home. I can understand the decision to tell Sui-Lin, almost, but the switch from home to hotel sets alarm bells ringing.

Do the Russians in Macau know what we’re doing in Moscow? Jaysus! This could put Anna in danger.

———

It’s lonely in my room at Theatre Apartments; I want to spend the night with Finn. I’ll give the letters and photograph from Nataliya Yelena to Galina Maksimovna before I go to the hotel. At least she’ll have something to show Nakita Sylvina when she talks to her about leaving Moscow with me and Finn.

Galina Maksimovna has a job on her hands to convince a young girl to give up her home, her school, her friends – even her language – to move to who knows where. Hong Kong? Lantau Island? Lamma? Macau? America? Canada? All the places Finn’s mentioned! Who knows where…?

I took a tram to Ulitsa Varvarka, then a taxi to Hotel Katarina on Shlyuzovaya Embankment.

When I opened the door to Finn’s room he was speaking on his satellite telephone; he waved me over. “It’s Gerry on the line…there may be a problem,” he whispered in my ear.

I grabbed a piece of hotel notepaper from the bedside locker, tore off the top that had ‘Hotel Katarina’ printed across it, and wrote in big letters ‘IS NATALIYA THERE?’. Finn nodded his head. ‘CAN I SPEAK TO GERRY?’ I wrote.

Finn handed me the phone. I told Gerry everything that’s happened, and that I’m going to ask Finn to loan me his satellite telephone – it’s more secure than the American satellite phone Mac gave me – so that I can call Nataliya when I’m with her mother and daughter. Then I asked to speak with Nataliya.

“Thanks for everything Anna. And listen, about last time…I’m real sorry for yelling at you. Anyway, just a minute, I’ll get Nataliya.”

Nataliya came on the phone and spoke to me in Russian. “One of the horrible men who used to tie me up and rape me in Macau recognised me in Hong Kong, and then he spoke to Gerry.”

Hearing that made me feel sad for Nataliya Yelena. “I’m so sorry Nataliya…but don’t forget that Gerry already knows what you were forced to do, and he still asked you to be his wife,” I said in Russian.

That seemed to help, and she definitely cheered up when I told her about the telephone call I want to arrange. She thanked me from the bottom of her heart.

———

I’d been talking to Gerry for ten minutes when I heard someone opening the door. I thought it was the maid coming to tidy up, but I’m pleased to see it’s Anna. She sat next to me on the bed and started writing notes. I feel so proud seeing her tear off the letter heading. Anna’s a fast learner…I always knew she’s a smart girl.

Gerry told me he needs the girls’ birth certificates, and he said he’ll ask Uncle Sui about the help in Moscow. He didn’t say why they’re staying at a hotel.

“Do you mind that I’ve told Sui-Lin what you’re up to? She’ll help…if you want her to,” he said.

“I might be able to use Sui-Lin’s help…depending how things go,” I replied…but I’m surprised that he’s told anyone who isn’t directly involved.

———

Anna was asleep when I went out this morning. I left a note taped to her pillow saying I’ll be back before midday.

I used the local mobile to ring our private taxi driver. He collected me outside the hotel within ten minutes and drove me to the Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal. The driver waited outside while I joined a long queue of travellers looking for information about the TSR trains.

When it was my turn to be helped the girl behind the counter asked if I’m English. “No, I’m Irish…from the Republic of Ireland,” I told her. She gave me a beaming freckle-faced smile, and vouchers for complimentary full breakfasts on the Moscow to Perm sector part of the journey. “
Go raibh maith agat
…that’s thanks in Irish,” I said, which sent her into a fit of girly giggles.

In France, Sweden, Germany and Holland people always warmed to me once they found out I’m Irish, not English. I don’t know what the Brits did to irritate so many people. I suppose demanding tea ‘like Mum makes’, baked beans on toast,
Coronation Street
or
EastEnders
, and vomiting in the street after a few pints of strong beer probably doesn’t ingratiate them with the locals. Happily, with a few exceptions, the Irish traveller hasn't gained the British reputation…not yet anyway.

I left the TSR office with a handful of brochures in English; my head is buzzing with times, dates, alternative times, stop durations and
en route
sectors. But thanks to a fan of the Irish, I have the information I need – plus free breakfasts.

Now I need to change more money, so I asked the taxi driver to take me to a foreign exchange bank. I showed them my Finnish passport and changed US dollars into small denominations of Russian roubles and Chinese renminbi. Parting with US dollars, or any big notes, is a sure way to draw attention – and that’s the last thing we need on our journey back to Hong Kong.

———

When Finn left the room I was pretending to be asleep. His note says he’ll be back by midday, so I have just three hours to get my hair done, my nails manicured, and, hopefully, a body massage. The hotel has a beauty parlour, but I decided to take a taxi to GUM; I saw a Swedish beauty salon there during my compulsory shopping spree….

I just made it back from my beauty treatments, and I was checking my hair in the bathroom mirror when Finn opened the door and entered the room very quietly. He’s tip-toeing around – he must think the pillows under the covers are me still in bed.