Hotel Moscow (28 page)

O
N THE NINTH
floor of Hotel Moscow, Brooke found Svetlana waiting on the couch right outside her room. She looked miserable.

Brooke sat down beside her. The deserted sitting area seemed safer than her own room. “Did you return the files?”

Svetlana nodded, staring at a handkerchief crumpled in her other hand, then broke into a sob. “This has been the worst week of my life.”

Brooke patted her shoulder as an idea blossomed in her mind, exquisite in its simplicity. “Are you as fluent in German as you are in English?”

Svetlana nodded. “But I haven’t met any German women yet.”

“I’m sure they’ll like you as much as American women do.” Brooke smiled. “How would you like to live in Germany?”

Svetlana raised her wet eyes. “How is it possible? I could never afford the tickets—”

“Don’t worry about that. The important question is, would you like a job in my firm’s Frankfurt office?”

“Would I?” Svetlana’s voice was laced with awe. “All my life I’ve dreamed of taking Natasha to a safe place where there are beautiful things, beautiful people . . .”

“Yes, you’ll be safe there.” Brooke smiled. “The boss is my friend. You’re hardworking and smart, and he’ll be delighted to have you.” She paused to consider any administrative hurdles, but none seemed to come to mind. Russia no longer stopped its people from traveling, Germany didn’t require a tourist visa, and Hoffenbach could take care of everything else later. “We’ll leave tomorrow. Do you have a passport? I heard that all Russians have passports.”

“Those are internal ones. They didn’t want to issue me an international travel permit during Soviet times because of uh, a character flaw. But as soon as
perestroika
started, I applied for a passport, just as a test, and got it!”

“What character flaw?” Brooke softened her tone. “I must know; I’ll be vouching for you.”

Hanging her head, Svetlana murmured, “When I was fourteen, I was raped by five men.”

God Almighty. “I’m so sorry. But how is that your character flaw?”

“The judge said I should have fought them off. Even my lawyer agreed that I needed to be reeducated. My father’s punishment for raising such a daughter was to be reprimanded in front of the entire factory, and then they fired him anyway. He left my mother, saying she should have raised me better. Even my
cousins stopped talking to me; they didn’t want people to think that they were immoral too.” Svetlana’s face contorted in pain. “I ruined my family.”

“Svetlana, that was Soviet injustice. So unfair! They blamed the victim and let the perpetrators get off scot free. You did nothing wrong.” Flashes of her own “character flaw” crossed Brooke’s mind. That was a failing the new partners at NHB—if they found out—wouldn’t take lightly. Nor would her clients. “Where is your mother now?”

“There was a man in St. Petersburg who had an apartment, so she married him.”

Brooke hugged Svetlana. “You’re a terrific person, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“You understand because of your own character flaw.”

“Me?”

“Your Jewish gene,” Svetlana said in a tone as if this fact was obvious. “But you are a very good Jewess.”

“Svetlana, please. It’s not a gene—and certainly not a flaw. In fact, I’m proud to be Jewish.” This wasn’t the time to reeducate her. “Go home to your daughter and pack.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

How about by stopping to be an anti-Semite?
Brooke touched her shoulder. “Don’t say good-bye to anyone. Not even to people you absolutely trust. You’ll call them from Frankfurt later this week. Okay?”

Having solved one problem, Brooke’s worry dropped one notch. At the elevator she asked, “By the way, have you talked to anyone about our investigation?”

Svetlana shook her head. “Not with any Russian.”

“Not any Russian? Any other nationality?”

“Jenny. I asked her advice.”

Christ. Brooke pressed her palm on the wall by the elevator, and a protruding screw stabbed her. Jenny. The image of that Betty Boop flirting with Sidorov the night of the banquet loomed behind her eyes.

Svetlana added, “She told me to go for it. She gave me the courage—”

“Don’t discuss anything with anyone—Jenny included—until after we leave. Promise me? Don’t even tell your deputy director at the factory,” Brooke said in a tight voice. It was too late to be angry with Svetlana, or even with Jenny. She just wanted it all to be behind her.

After Svetlana left, Brooke placed the call to Hoffenbach from the floor matron’s room. “I expect to be on the Lufthansa flight tomorrow,” she told him. “I need two more tickets. Put them in my name. I’ll give out the identities when we check in.” She paused. “Please meet me when we land, and can you please have a typed job description for a secretary who’s fluent in German, Russian, and English?”

“I’m sure we can use those skills,” he said, a smile in his voice.

Back in her room, Brooke showered and put on her jeans. She lit one of Amanda’s candles, sat on the bed, and looped her legs in a lotus position. Within the hour, Norcress would give Olga the article she could use as the bargaining chip in her negotiation with Sidorov. Tomorrow, Svetlana and her daughter would start a new life in Frankfurt, away from danger. All was as good as it could be for the moment, except for the envelope in Sidorov’s hands. There was nothing she could do about that; she wouldn’t
compound yet another monumental mistake in her life by being sucked into Sidorov’s laundering machine.

D
INNER WOULD HAVE
fit right in at the gulag before an execution, Brooke thought as she munched on a sliced cucumber. A long evening stretched ahead. “Curfew is at seven o’clock,” Aleksandr said. “Afterward, the army will shoot anyone in the street. I’ll see you in the morning.” On his way to the exit, he clutched his portfolio to his chest as if his prized leather possession would stop bullets.

“I have a travel Scrabble. Are you up for a game?” Amanda asked.

They settled in the ninth floor sitting area. At the end of the corridor, in spite of the curfew, moved shadows of loitering clients. Other than having glimpsed the girls at the doors to their rooms, Brooke hadn’t encountered any in the elevator or elsewhere in the hotel, and now wondered if it was due to their different schedules, or whether the girls were being kept prisoner.

She was about to ask Amanda what she thought when Jenny showed up. She hugged Brooke like a long-lost relative, and started chattering about the day’s failed symposium. Brooke’s resentment of her melted. Annoying as Jenny was, she had no evil intentions; she couldn’t have known not to trust their important host.

Seated on the sofa across from Amanda and Jenny, Brooke surveyed the seven Scrabble letters she’d picked. Focusing on trying to score the highest points was a good distraction from her worries. At that moment, Olga must be in the midst of negotiating for her life.

“I’ve got a bottle of Champagne in my room. Shall I get it?” Jenny had barely finished her question when her smile froze.

Brooke’s head snapped around. Six militiamen in camouflage fatigues poured out of the elevator, their Kalashnikov assault rifles cocked and aimed at the women. Seconds later, the other two elevators opened, and a dozen more militiamen spilled out.

The Scrabble tiles dropped from Brooke’s fingers. This was surely a mistake. It might be sorted out later—perhaps after one of these loaded Kalashnikovs went off.

With unexpected agility, Jenny vaulted over the back of the couch, pulling Amanda with her, and they disappeared behind the elevator bank. “Brooke, move it!” Amanda called out from behind the shelter. “Brooke!”

But Brooke was frozen in her seat. The large coffee table had prevented her from running after her friends and now she was staring into the barrel of a gun and feeling her eyes round with fear.

A loud bang jolted her. It was a door slamming down the corridor, not a gunshot. Amanda and Jenny must be safe in Jenny’s room. Her own room was right behind the couch on which she was sitting. Shaken out of her stupor, Brooke sprinted.

Reaching the door, she fumbled with her skeleton key. She had never mastered fitting it in on the first try, and now soldiers in heavy boots filled the corridor, the rough wool of their uniforms brushing her arm. Why didn’t they stop her? Pictures from her parents’ lives ran through her mind as vivid as if she had lived them. Her fingers shook so much, she couldn’t line up the long key. A dozen more soldiers streamed in from a fire
stairwell. In the narrow hallway, their uniforms reeked of smoke and sweat.

Through the drumming of her heartbeat, she heard the saving click. The door opened. She darted inside, but just as she was about to slam the door behind her, a gun jammed in the opening. If she resisted, the soldier might pull the trigger. Panting, she let go and leaned against the inside wall abutting the door.

The soldier stepped inside, scanned the room, and threw Brooke a suspicious stare. His eyes inspected the length of her body, from the bottom upward, then down again, stopping at her chest. Brooke cringed.

To her relief, a voice shouted from the corridor and, looking once more around the room, the soldier left. Brooke locked the door and put her ear to it. A new terror, alien from the one she’d felt earlier, clutched at her. She strained to listen, afraid of hearing a machine gun blasting. Realizing that bullets could shatter the door, she moved deeper into the room.

The phone rang. Its trilling sound was otherworldly. Brooke lifted the receiver but refrained from saying “Hello.”

“Are you okay?” Amanda asked. “Are you there?”

“What’s all this about?” Brooke whispered.

“It looks like a military unit is taking over the hotel.”

“Whose side are they on?”

“Beats me. The civil war must be spreading.”

“It’s supposed to have ended.” Brooke pulled the phone with her as she peeked out the window. “The soldiers are out in front, thick as cockroaches.”

“I’ll come join you as soon as I can leave Jenny’s room,” Amanda said.

“Don’t you dare!” Through the whisper, Brooke heard her voice getting shrill. “These revolutionaries hate Americans. They might shoot you.”

“You may be right,” Amanda said, and Brooke was surprised that for once, her friend accepted the severity of the situation. “I’ve tried calling Judd,” she added.

He would know what men with Kalashnikovs were doing at Hotel Moscow. Right now Brooke would accept any available help. Yet what if the soldiers had come for him?

After hanging up with Amanda, Brooke dialed the embassy number. The line was dead. She sat down to gather her thoughts.

A faint
tap-tap
on the door brought her back. She waited until it was repeated. “Who’s there?” she asked.

“Aleksandr.”

Aleksandr had left the hotel more than an hour ago. How had he dodged curfew and then returned? Brooke opened the door.

For once, Aleksandr’s face was tense. The pallid illumination of the overhead light bulb cast shadows across his high forehead. “Were you one of the three out there?” he asked.

“You mean one of the Scrabble players?”

He nodded.

“What about it?”

“You’re in trouble. The militia wants to arrest and interrogate you.”

“Whatever for? What have I done?”

“You’ve insulted the militia.”

“Insulted? Like I insulted the silly receptionist?”

“The soldiers are here to protect you, yes? When you ran away, you showed distrust.”

Protect her against Sidorov? “I distrust people pointing assault rifles at me.” Brooke’s body shook with rage. “This is insane! What was I supposed to do?”

“Honest people would stay in place. Russians don’t run away like rabbits. They would look down, like this.” He demonstrated a submissive bowed head. “They’d sit still until the soldiers tell them they could get up.”

“Sure,” she replied with sarcasm in her voice. She remembered the two men locked in the Jetway with her, their passive submission. “This is a hotel. And we aren’t Russians. I don’t believe for one minute that three women playing Scrabble insulted the mighty Russian militia.” Suddenly she realized something she had missed. “The soldiers don’t know who the three of us are. You weren’t even sure I was one of them.”

“They saw a woman with brown hair enter this room. They say two others escaped behind the elevator, right? Who were they?”

Brooke blinked. “You don’t expect me to tell you that, do you?”

Aleksandr cleared his throat. “Jenny, she’s—er—talking to the soldiers.”

“What are you saying?”

“She didn’t insult the militia. She opened a bottle of Champagne for them.”

“Her methods are hard to emulate.” But Brooke was relieved that Aleksandr didn’t know that Jenny had fled, too.

Crimson spread over Aleksandr’s face. “Do you have anything to give them?” he asked. “Vodka, maybe?”

Was he suggesting that Brooke, too, should flirt with the
soldiers? She shook her head, then recalled that Amanda had brought back from the symposium one of their boxes of chocolates. She retrieved it and handed it to Aleksandr.

“I’ll try to negotiate with them,” he said. “Otherwise they’ll throw you in jail for three days.”

“Jail for three days?” Brooke regarded Aleksandr. “First they wanted to interrogate me. Now it’s jail? How do you know that? Who exactly said it?”

He looked down at the tips of his shoes.

In her head, Brooke examined the facts. When there had been no armed soldiers, he was petrified of the chef, kowtowed to the maître d’, and coddled that silly front-desk clerk. Now, in a miraculous transformation, this wimp had turned brave enough to deal with over thirty militiamen carrying automatic weapons. What was going on here? One thing for sure: she couldn’t—shouldn’t—trust him.

She yanked the box of chocolate out of his hands. “Don’t negotiate anything for me. Is that clear?”

A
N HOUR LATER,
nothing had happened. Brooke’s nerves were on edge as she continued to listen for heavy footsteps outside, so much like those nights in her childhood in Brooklyn when she had believed that the Nazis might come anytime.

She packed her carry-on bag just in case she was dragged to jail—or she needed to escape.

To her relief, Amanda returned. She reported that some soldiers were still on their floor and the adjacent ones. “They haven’t harassed us.”

“They’re after me—according to Aleksandr.” Brooke gave Amanda an account of their conversation. “

“Brooke, it makes no sense.”

“You’re looking for logic in a place where none exists.” Brooke paced around the faded carpet. “Multiply that by ten when Aleksandr’s in the picture. I must get out of here.”

“It’s curfew time. Where would you go? Anyway, the soldiers may have forgotten all about you.”

“What if they haven’t? Would you take that chance?” Brooke stepped to the window and confirmed that the soldiers were still in front. “There must be more to this. What did this militia come to protect us from?”

Amanda scratched her head. “What are you driving at?”

“I may not know the problem, but I know the solution. Dollars. These soldiers want money.” She pulled some American bills out of her money belt. In one pocket of her jeans she placed several tens, and in the other fives. She rolled five one-hundred-dollar bills under the strap of her watch. She snapped her suitcase shut and shoved her coat and purse into her travel bag, then secured the bungee cord on the wheels. “I’m out of here.”

“Don’t risk it. Please. Maybe there’s another explanation. At least wait until you hear what Aleksandr finds out.”

Brooke’s stomach tightened. “Right now I am sure of two things: One, that Aleksandr will screw up. And two, that I must take care of myself before he does.” She hitched her bag over her shoulder and rolled her suitcase to the vestibule.

“Where will you go?” Amanda asked.

“Anywhere but here.” A commotion in the corridor halted Brooke. She listened. Shouts, orders, heavy footfalls. Then a faint rapping on the door, followed by a little voice.

“It’s Aleksandr.”

Amanda opened the door. Next to Aleksandr stood a militiaman with decorated epaulets and medals on his chest. Past them, some johns were facing the wall, their arms raised. Sol
diers pointed guns at their backs, while others emptied their pockets. Two young women in tiny Spandex dresses protested as they, too, were shoved against the wall.

Amanda clutched Brooke’s arm to hold her back. “Aleksandr, what are these soldiers doing at the hotel?”

He entered with the officer and closed the door behind him, then addressed Brooke. “The officer wants to know what you’re hiding.”

“Hiding? As in counterfeit rubles?” Brooke asked.

He shrugged. “I’m only translating what he asked.”

“For Christ’s sake. You could have answered that I was your guest on a business trip.” She opened her palm and showed the officer money. She gestured toward the street outside the window. “Tell him to escort me out of the hotel.” Once she was far enough from the hotel, she would stop a private car. An enterprising driver might even take her to his home where she could use the phone to call Belgorov.

“It’s curfew. You can’t go out.”

“Right now I’m safer in the streets than here.” The officer’s eyes were glued to her money. Brooke handed him the bills and gestured with her head. “Let’s go.” Ignoring Aleksandr, she lifted the handle of her rolling cart.

“I’m sorry.” Amanda threw her arms around her neck.

Behind Brooke, the officer spoke. “He says you should walk naturally, no sudden movements,” Aleksandr told her. “His soldiers are nervous; they’ve been shot at a lot in the past two days. They might shoot you.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along, but you’ve denied it.”

“Don’t go to a hotel, though,” he added.

“Why not?” Amanda asked.

“The army is looking for foreigners tonight.”

“Why?” Brooke asked.

“Parliament sympathizers. You know, criminals who came from the Republics. They stay in hotels.”

“Can’t they tell Soviet out-of-towners from Americans?” Amanda asked.

“Do I look like I came from one of the Republics?” Brooke asked.

“No, they know you’re American. Though Mr. Kornblum, he looks Georgian.”

Goose bumps crawled up Brooke’s arms. “Mr. Kornblum isn’t here. How do they know what he looks like?”

Aleksandr stared at his shoes. The officer picked up Brooke’s suitcase, then opened the door for her.

The corridor was teeming with soldiers.

“I’ll drive you.” Aleksandr followed her to the elevator.

Where did he think she was going? “It’s almost nine o’clock, way past curfew time. Did you forget that you’ll be shot in the streets?” Brooke sidled closer to the officer, who pressed the elevator call button. He flashed her a polite smile, revealing the absence of several teeth, then waved and walked away before the elevator arrived.

“You don’t know your way around,” Aleksandr persisted.

Brooke enunciated each word. “Please get lost, okay?”

He blushed, and for a split second she even pitied him. “Sorry. You did your best, but I don’t want your help,” she said. “Thank you, and good-bye.”

Just then, the elevator door opened. Inside, three more mili
tiamen stood with their automatic weapons at the ready. Brooke glanced down the corridor in search of the officer she had bribed, but he had disappeared. She regretted having five bills ready, when perhaps one hundred dollars would have sufficed.

One of the soldiers held the elevator door open. Aleksandr stepped in and motioned with his hand for her to come. She bristled, but got in.

The elevator door swooshed closed. “Passport,” a soldier demanded. There was a tuft of fine peach fuzz over his upper lip. Brooke tucked three five-dollar bills into her passport before handing it to him, then handed each of the other soldiers an additional five-dollar bill.

“Okay.
Dah.
” The soldier gave her the passport back as the elevator doors opened to the lobby. The place was crawling with more military. To Brooke’s surprise, the soldier who had checked her passport lifted her suitcase and helped her out of the building. Bribing the militia had gotten her more service than tipping the hotel staff ever had. She noticed Aleksandr watching her being accompanied out.

Several camouflaged armored vehicles were parked in front of the hotel, and more soldiers scrutinized her with hungry eyes. Brooke kept her head high, walking as briskly as she could while wheeling her suitcase with one hand and pulling the overstuffed carrier with the other. Adrenaline rushed in her veins.

In spite of the curfew, the soldiers let her pass. She quickened her steps as much as her luggage would allow. Her arms and shoulders already hurt, and her heart had been in overdrive for almost two hours. She scanned the street for a passing private car, recalling her apprehension on her first day in Moscow
that stopped her from getting into a car with a driver who didn’t speak English. Now, compared to the mayhem in the hotel, a stranger seemed like a rescuer.

“Brooke,” she heard behind her, and turned around.

Judd was walking toward her, smiling, as if nothing was going on.

“Thank God,” Brooke breathed, pushing aside her distrust of him. At least he was an American—and right now the least of all evils.

His eyes took in her luggage. “Where are you going?”

“Away. Anywhere. Don’t go in the hotel. They’re looking for you.”

“Me? Who’s looking for me?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe Aleksandr, maybe the militia—”

“Hold on a minute. What are you talking about? What’s with this schlepping of your luggage?”

“I’m running as far away as I can get before I’m stopped by flying bullets which, Aleksandr insists, target those defying curfew.”

“Tonight’s curfew begins at eleven.”

“It does? When was it changed?”

“It’s been in the news since noon.”

The skin around her mouth felt taut. “Aleksandr distinctly said seven o’clock.”

“Calm down.” Judd touched her elbow. “Nothing’s going to happen to you.” He lifted her suitcase and led her another block.

She gave him a synopsis of recent events. “I’ve tried calling the embassy. There was no answer.”

“They’ve been hiding in the basement for three days with
out a change of underwear. Today a skeleton staff finally started working again. If I drove you over there, someone will put you up for the night at the Radisson Slavyanskaya, which is where I’m planning to go.”

His perfect pronunciation of the hotel’s Russian name no longer surprised her. “What about the search for foreigners that Aleksandr mentioned?”

“That has nothing to do with you or me. Forget everything Aleksandr’s told you.”

“Wiser words have never been uttered.”

He smiled, took out a car key, and opened the door to a Zhiguli. He placed her suitcase in the back next to a gym bag. Drained even of her curiosity, Brooke slid onto the tattered vinyl passenger seat. The car reeked of cigarette smoke.

“Sorry about the ambiance. My Bentley is in the shop.” Judd rummaged through his gym bag and produced an airline-size brandy bottle. “You look like you could use this.” He turned the ignition key and shifted gears.

The drink stung then numbed the cut on her tongue as it traveled down to her stomach. It melted into something pleasant and warm. “I’d like to check on Olga first,” Brooke said, giving him the Russian’s address.

“You still haven’t told me what happened at the conference.”

“It’s a long story.”

During the twenty-minute ride to Olga’s home, Brooke answered his questions regarding the most recent events at the hotel. She wondered whether any of the women had told him about what they’d seen at Olga’s office. “I’ve known all along that this hotel was a disaster waiting to happen,” Brooke said. “Even
so, I was unprepared. Not even Kafka would have believed my story.”

“Yeltsin’s brought in ten to fifteen thousand men, and they’re as unpredictable as they are greedy. These troops don’t report to anyone.”

“What were they doing at Hotel Moscow?”

“Just what that officer told you: looking for parliament sympathizers. After Yeltsin suppressed the uprising around the parliament, thousands of the deputies’ supporters dispersed. They can stay in only cheap Soviet hotels.”

She hadn’t made the connection when Norcress had mentioned it that morning. “Like Hotel Moscow?”

“Yup. Yeltsin is worried that these supporters might start further disturbances. He’s rounding them up.”

“Wasn’t it obvious that I was an American and
not
a parliament sympathizer? Why was I intimidated?”

“A simple case of extortion.” But the pulsating vein in Judd’s temple, the one she had noticed before, made her suspect he thought there was more to it.