Zoya came back to bed. Volodya said: ‘When we first met, you didn’t seem to like me much.’
‘I didn’t like men,’ she replied. ‘I still don’t. Most of them are drunks and bullies and fools. It took me a while to figure out that you were different.’
‘Thanks, I think,’ he said. ‘But are men really so bad?’
‘Look around you,’ she said. ‘Look at our country.’
He reached over her and turned on the bedside radio. Even though he had disconnected the listening device behind the headboard, you couldn’t be too careful. When the radio had warmed up, a military band played a march. Satisfied that he could not be overheard, Volodya said: ‘You’re thinking of Stalin and Beria. But they won’t always be around.’
‘Do you know how my father fell from favour?’ she said.
‘No. My parents never mentioned it.’
‘There’s a reason for that.’
‘Go on.’
‘According to my mother, there was an election at my father’s factory for a deputy to attend the Moscow Soviet. A Menshevik candidate stood against the Bolshevik, and my father went to a meeting to hear him speak. He did not support the Menshevik, nor vote for him; but everyone who went to that meeting was sacked, and a few weeks later my father was arrested and taken to the Lubyanka.’
She meant the NKVD headquarters and prison in Lubyanka Square.
She went on: ‘My mother went to your father and begged him to help. He immediately went with her to the Lubyanka. They saved my father, but they saw twelve other workers shot.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Volodya said. ‘But it was Stalin—’
‘No. This was 1920. Stalin was just a Red Army commander fighting in the Soviet–Polish War. Lenin was leader.’
‘This happened under Lenin?’
‘Yes. So, you see, it’s not just Stalin and Beria.’
Volodya’s view of Communist history was badly shaken. ‘What is it, then?’
The door opened.
Volodya reached for his gun in the bedside-table drawer.
But the person who came in was a girl wearing a fur coat and, as far as he could see, nothing else.
‘Sorry, Volodya,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’
Zoya said: ‘Who the fuck is she?’
Volodya said: ‘Natasha, how did you open my door?’
‘You gave me a pass key. It opens every door in the hotel.’
‘Well, you might have knocked!’
‘Sorry. I just came to tell you the bad news.’
‘What?’
‘I went into Woody Dewar’s room, just as you told me. But I didn’t succeed.’
‘What did you do?’
‘This.’ Natasha opened her coat to show her naked body. She had a voluptuous figure and a luxuriant bush of dark pubic hair.
‘All right, I get the picture, close your coat,’ said Volodya. ‘What did he say?’
She switched to English. ‘He just said: “No.” I said: “What do you mean, no?” He said: “It’s the opposite of yes.” Then he just held the door wide open until I went out.’
‘Bugger,’ said Volodya. ‘I’ll have to think of something else.’
Chuck Dewar knew there was going to be trouble when Captain Vandermeier came into the enemy land section in the middle of the afternoon, red-faced from a beery lunch.
The intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor had expanded. Formerly called Station HYPO, it now had the grand title of Joint Intelligence Center, Pacific Ocean Area, or JICPOA.
Vandermeier had a marine sergeant in tow. ‘Hey, you two powder puffs,’ Vandermeier said. ‘You got a customer complaint here.’
The operation had grown, everyone began to specialize, and Chuck and Eddie had become experts at mapping the territory where American forces were about to land as they fought their way island by island across the Pacific.
Vandermeier said: ‘This is Sergeant Donegan.’ The marine was very tall and looked as hard as a rifle. Chuck guessed that the sexually troubled Vandermeier was smitten.
Chuck stood up: ‘Good to meet you, Sergeant. I’m Chief Petty Officer Dewar.’
