Black Wolf, page 7
“Russian food can be heavy,” he said, patting his belly. “So many Westerners find they need these. If your pockets are ever searched, no one will think twice.” He palmed the piece and ran his hand across a section of the wooden railing about waist-high. “And wouldn’t you know, it marks just like chalk.”
When he removed his hand, there was a thin, barely visible white line on the painted wood. He popped the remainder into his mouth. “And unlike a piece of chalk, the evidence can be eaten comfortably after use.”
He blotted his forehead with the edge of his silk scarf. “I’m too fat. It makes me sweat like a peasant, which is, in essence, what I am.” He laughed and made a gesture that Melvina should join him.
“We can’t be seen to be looking too serious,” he resumed quietly. “The Russians get nervous when Americans stop showing their teeth.” He reached out with his thumb and gently swiped away the white mark, as though chasing away a fly.
They stepped from the gazebo and again walked through the park.
“If you need to get in touch with me, make a mark where I’ve shown you. Do it around five o’clock in the evening. The KGB day shift is supposed to go until six o’clock, when the evening thugs take over. But in the Soviet Union you get paid whether you work or not, so they usually give up around four in the afternoon to drink some vodka before going home to the wife.”
He slowed his pace as they approached the Planeta. “You might want to make it a habit to visit the gazebo daily, even if you’re not trying to signal to me. Bring a book.” His lips curled playfully under his mustache. “Something Russian. Crime and Punishment, perhaps. Turn your back to the windows of the hotel as though you’re admiring the river. A boring thing done regularly becomes boring for the watcher as well.”
“How will you know when to check for the mark?” Mel asked.
“It won’t be me checking. But you’ve already met the messenger.” He paused for a moment. “He’s here patrolling the park five nights a week, Monday through Friday. He’s my contact within the militsiya.”
Mel gave him a questioning look.
“Alexi Ilich Yurov.”
“Yes,” she said. “He introduced himself to me.” She would certainly remember the young uniformed militsiya who had smiled at her, and had lingered over her hand, before escorting Dan and Julie to the procurator’s office.
“If you’ve left the mark on a weekday night,” he said, “I’ll meet you here the next morning at six. We’ll have to come up with something different for a weekend.” He winked and kissed her cheeks, Russian-style, as though saying goodbye. He put both hands on her shoulders and leaned closer. “If we’re lucky, the Russians will think we’re having an affair.”
Mel blinked a few times, not sure if he was being playfully serious or seriously playful. But, as instructed, she smiled as though in on the joke.
“One last thing,” William said, handing her a business card. “If it’s a true emergency, call me on this number. When I answer, say you’re dying for some more caviar. I’ll come by the hotel with a car to pick you up within one half hour.”
He gave a friendly wave to the hotel doorman and said for the benefit of the man’s ears, “Thanks for the pleasant walk, Melvina. I hope I haven’t bored you too much. Your colleagues should be back anytime now.”
She watched him turn and walk to the end of the hotel’s driveway. Before long he’d disappeared onto a small side street.
Chapter 6
Friday, August 3, 1990
Mel got off the elevator on Ben’s floor and hurried down the hallway toward his room. Dan and Julie had brought him back by eleven o’clock. She’d been waiting in the lobby for them, and, at first glance, Ben had looked tired, but certainly not as downtrodden as she imagined he’d be had he spent the night with the military police or the KGB. Dan had instructed him to get cleaned up, and they were to meet in an hour for lunch before going to the ministry and then back to the Heat and Mass Transfer Institute.
Mel had wanted to catch him before he rejoined the others. The growing guilt she felt over knowing the truth of his arrest made her want an unfiltered account of his night, and to offer any support she could. As she approached Ben’s hall monitor, she noticed that the woman was making a note in her ledger, no doubt recording Mel’s arrival. She was younger than Mel’s dejournaya, but she had the same suspicious demeanor. Mel wondered if there was a special Soviet course that trained them in disapproving stares, or if the women, and they were always women, all started out that way.
She knocked and the door quickly opened. Ben had already dressed in fresh slacks but was still barefoot and in a white undershirt. The monitor, who had an unobstructed view, made a disapproving noise.
Ben waved to her in an exaggerated way. “Spaciba,” he called out, and then muttered under his breath, “you old cow.”
Mel followed Ben into the bathroom, still steamy from his shower, and waited for him to turn on both the sink and the bath faucets before she perched on the side of the tub. Ben closed the door and sat on the lid of the toilet, rubbing a hand over his face in a tired gesture. He was deceptively slender, but with the muscled physique of a dedicated gym-goer. He was an attractive man, made all the more appealing by his self-effacing, easygoing manner. And, Mel thought, by the fact that he’d be the last one to recognize his own good looks. Unlike their colleague Dan.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
He looked up at her with a strained smile. “Actually, it wasn’t too bad. I played poker with the procurator’s deputy and some of his executive staff until two o’clock in the morning, drinking vodka and eating sardines. They got to practice their English and I got to fleece them out of a whole lot of rubles.”
“Wow, that turned out better than my night,” Mel teased with relief. “What happened at the bar?”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “I got set up, is what. I was minding my own business, getting pleasantly plastered. You know, on the vodka William was talking about.”
Melvina nodded, hoping she wouldn’t reveal her guilt at the mention of William’s name.
“This woman kept coming over to me, trying to start a conversation. I’d have to be blind not to see she was a working girl. I didn’t want to be rude, but I tried to ignore her. Finally, she sits next to me, puts her hand on my thigh, and slides it all the way up. Before I could move, there were two policemen behind me, breathing down my neck. They frog-marched me out while ignoring all the Germans practically getting lap dances from the other girls.”
“I’m really sorry, Ben,” Mel said. “That’s so unfair.”
“Dan told me it’ll make a good story.” He paused, his expression downcast, his usually cheerful demeanor subdued.
Mel wanted to reach out, to take his hand. But the intimacy of the gesture gave her pause. The times she’d been alone with Ben she’d felt comfortable, as with a good friend. But with forced close contact, loneliness, and stress—combined with his tight-fitting T-shirt and the steamy bathroom—for the first time she felt that their relationship could easily tip into dangerous territory. For one moment, she imagined another time, another place, where they might enjoy something more intimate. Ben was kind, he was intelligent. But he was also vulnerable in a way that the rest of them were not.
“He’s right,” she said instead, giving him a brief pat on the arm. “This’ll blow over. I’m sure Dan will downplay the incident in his reports. And besides, Byelorussia wants our money too much.”
“You know,” Ben said, raising his head to look at her, “I’ve never been arrested before. If I’d been arrested in the States for soliciting a prostitute, a white prostitute, it’d be because I’m Black. But here, I got the feeling that was irrelevant. My Blackness was a novelty, but not a crime. I just happened to be the one they made an example of.”
Mel blinked. “Why would they want to make an example of you?”
“The guys last night made a lot of CIA jokes. They suspect we’re all Agency. I think it was a warning. To let us know they know.”
Mel shook her head. “Christ, we can’t turn around here without being watched.”
“Ah,” he said, “there’s being watched. And being watched. You know, the deputy actually asked me why I’d want to work for a government that had instituted slavery. When I told him Uncle Sam had paid for my college education, he said that was because I’d given four years of my life to the military. The guy knew I’d served. That was not on the bio the State Department sent to the Byelorussian government.”
A bead of sweat glistened along his hairline, and he grabbed a towel and blotted his face. Mel had been warned that the Soviets had access to information on the Agency’s employees. Still, having it confirmed sent chills up her spine, despite the room’s heat.
“I’ll let you finish dressing,” she said, getting up to go.
He followed her back to the door. “You want to hear the best joke of the night? From the procurator himself. You know why the CIA and the KGB are alike? Because a CIA agent can stand in front of the White House and yell, ‘I hate President Bush.’ And a Russian agent can stand in front of the Kremlin yelling, ‘I hate President Bush too.’”
Mel smiled, squeezed his arm, and walked out into the hallway. She got into the elevator and, before the doors closed, watched the hall monitor busily make another note.
On her own floor again, Mel was retrieving her key when she heard a door opening down the hall. She looked up in time to see Maksim slipping out of a room a few doors from her own. He was tugging at the zipper of his pants and then smoothing his hair. Catching her eye, he grinned obscenely. Before she could get her own room open, he walked past her, near enough for her to smell the aftershave and rancid sweat from his body.
He said, in English, “I make you smile—”
She faced him so abruptly that it threw him off-balance. “Come close to me again and I’ll break your nose.”
She was already angry on Ben’s behalf, and Maksim’s reflexive recoiling gave her a fierce satisfaction. He scowled and shook his finger at her as he would at a naughty schoolgirl. He walked down the hall and into the elevator, where he turned to stare at her, unblinking, until the doors closed.
Lunch was uneventful but quiet without Dan’s usual banter. Ben’s arrest had put him on edge, and he kept giving their minder—sitting alone, as usual, at a table nearby—dark looks. When the group had finished, Dan picked up the newspaper he’d been reading, a Washington Post that was a week old. As they exited he dropped it on the minder’s table, saying, “Here, something to practice your English on, Comrade.”
Anton and Elena were waiting outside in the van. Elena asked stiffly, and without turning around in her seat, if they’d had a comfortable evening. There was no doubt that she’d heard about Ben’s arrest.
Dan barked a cynical laugh. Ben gave an exasperated sigh, and they finished the drive to the Ministry of Finance in silence.
Minister Ivanov greeted them solemnly, as he’d done the day before. Again, the group was escorted into his office by Katya, still wearing her emerald-green skirt, but today she’d paired it with a tight-fitting cotton sweater in a brilliant shade of coral. It perfectly matched the lipstick Mel had given her. Mel tried a smile, but Katya frowned and avoided eye contact, quickly returning to her desk.
In the minister’s office they continued their back-and-forth over the terms offered by the US team, with Ivanov giving the same tired excuse that the central Soviet government still demanded “oversight” for any joint venture. Mel dutifully took notes, the pauses for translation helping her to keep up.
“You must understand,” Ivanov said at last, “that we are still tied to Moscow. Three-quarters of our people still identify as Soviet citizens, not Byelorussians, even though we have officially announced our sovereignty—”
“And Gorbachev is still your president, I know, I know,” Dan said, Julie translating. “But it may not always be so.”
Ivanov stirred uneasily, pulling himself straighter in his chair.
Dan smiled sympathetically and continued. “Right now, Gorbachev is being squeezed between the hard-line politburo and the emerging independent republics. You may be having your own elections within a year or two.”
Ivanov shook his head. “This is pointless conjecture,” he said forcefully. “I have been tasked with facilitating your fact-finding mission. But nothing can be finalized without approval from Moscow.”
Dan held up his hands and then gestured for Ben to continue, drilling down into the details of how, when, and where the American funds could be applied.
While Ben was talking, Dan motioned discreetly at Mel.
“Mel,” he said, barely looking at her. “Would you go find us some tea? I think we’re going to be here for a while.”
Mel blinked, looking around at the impassive faces of Ivanov’s team, and then nodded reluctantly. She rose and slipped out of the room, feeling Elena’s eyes boring into the back of her head. But even for Elena, an errand for tea was too menial. She didn’t bother to follow Mel back to reception.
Closing the door behind her, Mel allowed herself a fleeting smile. The ruse had worked. Earlier at lunch, Dan had encouraged her to try engaging Katya again. Who knew what details, no matter how seemingly innocuous, about ministry operations, or the minister himself, she might have overheard. There might not be time to cultivate her as an official asset, but a few encouraging words, along with a bottle of hard-to-obtain scotch, or chocolate bars, might provide useful information.
Mel crossed to the oversized desk and waited for Katya to look up. The receptionist took her time finishing a note. Mel noticed that her smoky eye makeup looked uneven, as though it had been blurred with sweat, or tears, and hastily reapplied, and she felt a pang of concern.
Mel put on a hopeful expression. “Katya, would it be possible to get some tea?”
Katya shrugged, keeping her gaze lowered. “It may not be possible.”
Mel leaned forward. “Could we find out?”
Katya gave a long sigh but picked up the receiver of the heavy Bakelite phone and barked a few quick words. “Someone will bring a cart.” She set the receiver down sharply.
“So, how are you?” Mel asked after a pause. When Katya didn’t respond, she said, “That lipstick looks really good with your sweater.”
Katya’s eyes flicked nervously to the minister’s closed door, and then she turned her gaze to Mel. “I’m sorry, but I am very busy just now.”
Someone must have spoken to her yesterday, after their bathroom chat. There were dark circles under Katya’s eyes, making the flesh look bruised and tender. This was the double-edged sword of recruiting assets and allies within the everyday Soviet populace: they would take the brunt of the reprisals.
“Oh, I totally understand. Well, anyway—” Mel pulled a chocolate bar out of her jacket pocket and placed it on the desk. She’d sampled enough Soviet chocolates to know they were overly sweet and chalky. And curiously, sold almost exclusively alongside vodka and beer. Russia’s three staples. “I thought you might like one of these. I’ve got more than I can eat.” She pulled playfully at the waistband of her slacks. “My pants are getting too tight.”
Katya stared at the glossy foil wrapper, her frown finally giving way to a slight curling of the lips. “Spaciba,” she said finally, slipping the bar into a drawer. She glanced briefly at the minister’s door again and whispered coyly, “I heard about your colleague. At the Planeta Mir.”
Mel laughed quietly and made a face. “Wow, news travels fast. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“Hmm,” Katya hummed with mock seriousness. “It happens often with men. This kind of misunderstanding.”
They grinned at each other for a few beats.
“You know,” Mel said, leaning closer, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you told me yesterday. About the missing women. What do you think is going on?”
Katya frowned and looked away. “We should not talk about this here.”
The handle of the minister’s door rattled and Elena peered out, her expression suspicious.
Mel nodded politely and said, “We’re just waiting for the tea cart.”
Elena made a dismissive noise and spoke a few hurried words to Katya in Russian. Mel understood enough to know that it was a warning: Mind your own business.
After the door had closed again, Mel stage-whispered to Katya, “She’s like the barber Ivan Yakovlevich’s nagging wife.”
Katya’s eyes widened. “You’ve read Gogol?”
“In English, of course. ‘The Nose’ is one of my favorites.”
“Most Westerners only know Tolstoy. Too much tragedy. I like Ray Bradbury best.”
Now Mel was the one surprised. “You like science fiction?”
Katya smiled cynically. “Censors allow us to read it because they believe it is too impossible to be real. Therefore, too crazy to be dangerous.”
The outer door opened and an older woman rolled a cart into the room. On top was an elaborate silver tea service that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Tsarist palace. The woman exchanged a few words with Katya, who pointed her toward the minister’s office.
“Well, I better get back,” Mel said. She began walking away and then quickly turned. “Are you sure you won’t have lunch with me? Or tea? I’d love to see more of Minsk, and,” she said, lowering her voice, “get away from my boss for a bit.”
The older woman had opened the minister’s door, revealing Ivanov. He glowered out at Mel from behind his desk, until his gaze fell on Katya. It stayed there until the cart had passed into the office.
As soon as the door had closed, Katya looked at Mel and whispered fiercely, “Yes, I would like to meet with you. I will leave word at Planeta.”
