Rodriguez’s thick lenses turned toward Sanchez. The major looked at the little man with no movement of his head and no change of expression.
“I think I go with you,” said Rodriguez. “My bladder is also a small one.”
Povlevich hardly looked up as the two men made their way through the maze of people and furniture. The trio on the platform launched into
The rest rooms were near the front of the club in an alcove of three doors, one marked with a dark cutout of a man, one with the cutout of a woman, and the third unmarked. A bored-looking man with broad shoulders and dark hair combed straight back leaned against the wall watching people enter and leave. He wore a black long-sleeved shirt with a turtleneck and black pants and shoes.
Rostnikov pushed ahead of the little journalist and went into the one-seat toilet. He put the flimsy hook into the eye screwed into the molding and moved to the commode.
Earlier he had examined the rest room and for the instant that he had been alone in the alcove, he had opened the door that was not marked. It had been dark, and he saw only that it led to a room beyond, in which he could see a faint light.
Rostnikov used the toilet, rinsed his hands in water at the small sink, and then shook them rapidly to partly dry them. There was neither soap nor towel in the rest room and the toilet paper was narrow strips of old newspaper.
He opened the door and let Rodriguez, who would have to at least make a pretense of using the toilet, enter.
“I will be just a moment,” said the little man over the wail of the black woman and a loud riff on the drum.
Rostnikov nodded.
The instant the washroom door was closed, Rostnikov went through the unmarked door, closed it, and groped into the dark for a lock or latch. There was none. His hand found a low table or cabinet. He pulled at it and full bottles rattled inside it. He got a grip with both hands and pulled hard. The cabinet reluctantly moved across the floor and Rostnikov dragged it in front of the door through which he had come.
The music beyond the door stopped. Applause. Then the flushing of a toilet.
Rostnikov looked around in search of the distant light he had seen earlier. For an instant he did not see it and then something moved and the light was there.
“This way,” a voice said in English.
Rostnikov took a step forward. His knee hit something solid.
“Wait,” came the voice, and Rostnikov could hear chain rattling against glass before the light came on, a single dangling bulb under which stood a lean, erect, young black man in jeans and a red T-shirt. The young man was eating a sandwich and seemed to be in no hurry.
“Take a bottle,” the young man said, nodding to his right.
Rostnikov looked at the boxes full of bottles that lined the room and moved to one of the boxes.
“Next one,” said the young man. “Better rum.”
Rostnikov obeyed. Out of the next box he pulled a dark brown bottle.
Someone tried the handle of the door through which Rostnikov had come. The door did not move.
“Strong,” said the young man softly, looking at the cabinet Rostnikov had moved. “Come.”
The man finished his sandwich, reached up, and turned off the light.
Colonel Snitkonoy slept in pajamas. He owned five pairs, all two-piece cotton with drawstring pants, all in muted solid colors, all made in Nigeria. The Wolfhound shaved each night before going to bed and again in the morning when he awakened. He brushed his teeth both morning and night.
He would have preferred to shave in the morning and sleep in the nude. He would have preferred to have a woman in the bed next to him. But the Wolfhound had decided long ago that he would share his life with no one lest he be vulnerable. He had also decided that he would go to bed each night fully prepared to be awakened in the core of darkness by a group of men in uniform accusing him of treachery.
Colonel Snitkonoy was a man who went through life immaculately prepared for disaster and reasonably confident that he was skillful enough to keep that disaster from taking place.
Today had been a supreme test of his skill.
As he sat in the chair of his small bedroom drinking the nightly cup of herbal tea his aide had prepared for him, the colonel went over the fifteen minutes he had spent in the Kremlin boardroom that had once been Stalin’s private sitting room.
He had entered, folder in hand, to face a dark wooden table at which sat ten weary-looking people, three of whom were women. Though the Wolfhound knew that four of the men were in the military, no one wore a uniform.
In front of each of the ten was a pile of papers, an ashtray, a coffee cup, a glass, and a carafe of water. The papers were disheveled, the ashtrays full, the coffee cups empty, and the water that remained in the carafes dusty.
There was an empty chair at the end of the table. General Karsnikov, once a bureau head in the KGB and now a military adviser, nodded to the empty seat. Colonel Snitkonoy took the chair, placed his files before him, and met the eyes of each of the ten with a sad, very small smile that he had practiced before his mirror. The smile was meant to convey the sense that he had bad news that it pained him greatly to present to these already sorely tried patriots, but that he felt was his duty to pass on for them to deal with in their greater knowledge and wisdom. Further, he wanted the smile to say that he was but their servant in this difficult situation. It was a lot to ask of a smile, but the Wolfhound was confident that he had succeeded.
General Karsnikov, a white-haired bull of a man with a too-tight collar and small round glasses, cleared his throat and looked at the colonel.
“We have read your report, Colonel Snitkonoy,” he said. “You and the Special Investigation Office are commended for your zealous efforts.”
This, the Wolfhound knew, was a bad start. Praise, especially from the man whom the Wolfhound knew would dearly love to take over the Special Investigations operation with one of his own people, meant only that condemnation was coming. It would have been better had they come at him with questions.
“I will convey the commendation of the committee to my staff,” he said.
There was a pause during which those around the table looked at the colonel, searched for something in the stacks before them, made notes, or did something of no consequence to keep from having to look at each other. These were people, as Colonel Snitkonoy well knew, with power but no consensus. The new Russia had not yet been defined. Those who ran it came mainly from the ranks of those who had run the Soviet Union before. There was little choice. To avoid complete chaos, Yeltsin had been forced to accept the hasty democratic conversion of thousands of former Party members. Among them, even in this room, were a smattering of true believers in the hope of a new Russia, believers without experience who had never participated in the apparatus. Though they were learning, the wisest of them were insecure. There were also those around the table whose uniforms and Party memberships lay neatly folded and ready in closets.
“The report presents several problems,” came a woman’s voice from the far end of the table. It was Olga Dimitkova, the youngest person in the room, an economist who along with her husband, a journalist, had stood with Yeltsin during the siege of the White House, the Parliament Building. She was thin, had short hair, and was rather pretty.
The Wolfhound dutifully opened his copy of the report.
“If what the report implies is true,” she said carefully, “it could have very severe consequences for Russia at a time when we are dependent on a sincere though fragile alliance of neighbors.”
She had prepared well and, the colonel was certain, had memorized what she was now saying. It would not be a good idea to interrupt or even imply by a nod that he had something to say. Snitkonoy folded his hands on the table and gave Olga Dimitkova his full attention.
“Our interests generally coincide with those who surround us,” she went on. “But there are tensions. There are also many Russians residing within the borders of sister states. One of those harboring a significant number of Russians is Kazakhstan. As you know, there have been ethnic conflicts throughout the former republics. Many thousands have been killed. This is perhaps inevitable as ethnic identities resurface. Were it to be thought that the foreign minister of Kazakhstan had been murdered while on a mission to Moscow the safety of several million
