Murder in Moscow (18 page)

“Do you mind if I ask where we are?” I asked.

“Moscow,” the man in the front passenger seat said, chuckling. I didn’t break a smile; it wasn’t funny to me.

My door was opened, and the two men escorted me into a small foyer, where one of them pressed a button that sounded a faint buzz from somewhere inside. He didn’t give it a single push. Instead, he seemed to tap out a code—two short bursts, a prolonged buzz, then three. short ones. A metallic clang signaled that the interior door had been released. One of the men opened it, and we stepped into a larger space with a staircase.

“Up!” I was told.

I slowly climbed the stairs, one of my captors in front of me, one behind. Three flights up, the man ahead of me went to a door and knocked, using his knuckles to tap out the same code he’d used downstairs. The door opened just far enough to extend the security chain.

The man said something in Russian.

A woman’s voice replied.

The chain was released, and the door opened all the way. The men stepped back to allow me to enter. Facing me from inside the apartment was a slender young woman with loose blond hair framing a nicely sculptured face. She wore tight black leather pants slung low on her hips, black high heels with a painted toenail protruding through an opening in front of each shoe, and a form-fitting yellow sweater that stopped short of covering her belly button. She was without makeup.

“Mrs. Fletcher,” she said.

“Ms. Kozhina,” I said.

“Welcome. Please come in. We have much to talk about.”

The door closed behind me; the men evidently weren’t invited to the party.

“Please, come in,” Alexandra said, gesturing toward the living room.

I hesitated. I was still shaken—and angry—at what had just happened.

“I am sorry for the way you have come here, but it was necessary. Please.”

The living room was spacious and nicely decorated. The wallpaper was a delicate yellow with tiny white flowers. Two large oval Oriental rugs covered a burnished wood floor. The art on the walls was contemporary. A fire smoldered in a fireplace surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

The furniture was old, the sort I would have expected to see in an Early American Maine farmhouse. A large wooden desk with a herringbone inlay stood in front of a heavily draped window. Chairs on either side of it were decidedly Hepplewhite. A massive breakfront sideboard held a dozen flickering candles in silver candlesticks of various heights. Soft classical music came from unseen speakers.

“Sit, please,” she said, indicating the other dominant piece of furniture in the room, an early Victorian sofa upholstered in heavy red-and-yellow raised fabric.

I decided to go with the flow, as the saying goes. I didn’t have any choice. After I was seated, she asked, “Vodka? Wine—red? white? Or maybe a soft drink. Coca-Cola? Tea?”

“Tea would be fine.”

“One moment, please.”

She disappeared through a door leading, I assumed, to the kitchen, leaving me alone.

Was there a way out?

The men undoubtedly waited in the hallway.

I got u
^p
and parted the drapes. There were windows, but no fire escape. Besides, although I try to keep myself in fairly good shape, I wasn’t keen on making that sort of dramatic escape.

Thoughts of bolting were purely academic, however, because Ms. Kozhina reappeared carrying a tray on which a teapot, a single cup, and sugar and cream rested. She placed it on the desk.

“That was quick,” I said.

“I had already made it,” she said. “I thought you might be a tea drinker.”

“Your English is better in person than on the phone,” I said.

She smiled. “It is sometimes better for people to not know how well you speak their language.”

“Oh? Better in what way?”

She replied by pouring tea into my cup. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Neither, thank you.”

She handed the cup to me, poured herself a glass of vodka, sat next to me on the couch, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her bare feet beneath her. She raised her glass. “To the pleasure of meeting the famous Jessica Fletcher.”

The gesture took me aback. It was as though I’d been invited to a party by a friend of long standing, a social event. In reality, I’d been tricked into meeting her, and was physically abducted on her behalf.

I did not return the toast. Instead, I said, “Your writers’ group seems to be running late.”

“There is such a group, you know,” she said, sipping.

“But it isn’t meeting tonight.”

“No. That was what you call... a white lie, yes?”

“A bigger lie than that, Ms. Kozhina.”

We said nothing to each other for a minute. I used that silent time to more closely observe her. She was a beautiful young woman. Her face, especially her green eyes, exuded sensuality and intelligence. At the same time, there was a lurking cunning that was off-putting.

I broke the silence. “Why was it necessary to forcibly bring me here, switch cars so that we couldn’t be followed? Why didn’t you simply invite me to your apartment—for tea?”

She sighed, got up, and refilled her glass. “Mrs. Fletcher, you come from a country in which things are taken for granted. It is not so here in Russia.”

“I thought you enjoy more freedom now than when you were a Communist country.”

“On paper, yes. But there are those who would like to see us go back to that Communist system.”

“You have the note Dimitri sent?” she asked.

“Yes. I should tell you that I read it.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Perhaps if you had not, your treatment this night would not have been necessary.”

“I’m not sure I follow. What’s wrong with having read a lover’s note, aside from the impropriety of it?”

Her mouth formed into a small smile. “The note, please.”

I opened my handbag, removed the envelope, and handed it to her. She read the note, her lips silently forming the words. When she had finished, she lowered the note to her lap, turned to me, and said, “Unfortunate.”

“What’s unfortunate?”

“That someone like you should be asked to carry this to me.”

“It made sense at the time,” I said. “Your friend, Mr. Rublev, said you were a writer who enjoyed my books. Since I was coming to Russia on a trade mission, it was logical for me to look you up and deliver the note. Now, of course, I realize I should have told your friend to find another messenger service.”

She went to the window and peeped through the drapes. Turning, she said, “It is time to go.”

“Go where?”

“You will see when we get there.”

“Ms. Kozhina, I don’t intend to move from this couch until I have some answers.”

“In due time.”

“No. ‘Due time’ is now. Right now.”

She sighed and said, “You wish to deliver to me the message from your officials.”

I suppose shock was written all over my face because she followed up with, “Do not be surprised at the things we know, Mrs. Fletcher. There are no secrets in Russia. Only confusion about what to do with what we know.”

“Since you already know what I was supposed to convey to you,” I said, “allow me to say it.”

“Then be quick. We must leave.”

“My government—”

No, I thought. I musn’t talk as though I were functioning in some official capacity. I started over.

“Ms. Kozhina, as you know, I am a writer. I’m not affiliated with any government organization. My only intention was to deliver a note to you from a friend, and to give a talk to your writers’ group. When some officials involved with the trade mission learned that I had planned to see you, they asked me to deliver another message, quite different and aside from what’s contained in the note.”

She listened impassively, leaning against her desk, arms folded across her chest, eyes trained on me.

“I’ve been told that you are an important figure in the Communist movement to overthrow the democratic government of President Yeltsin. I’ve been told that there is the possibility that you might consider betraying your group by providing information from inside it to—I don’t know who would receive that information. Someone in my government perhaps. Someone in President Yeltsin’s government. It doesn’t matter to me. Because you are supposedly an admirer of mine, they—whoever they are—felt you might be more inclined to listen to me than to one of their own.”

She said nothing.

“I was told to say to you that there are many ways you would be compensated. I don’t know what they are, but I was assured—and I am to assure you—that they will make it worth your while to cooperate with them.”

When she continued to maintain her silence, I added, “But since you knew what it was I intended to say, you’ve undoubtedly already made up your mind whether to accept their offer.”

“I would offer more tea, but there is not time.”

“I don’t care about tea, Ms. Kozhina. You refuse to respond to what I’ve said?”

“Mrs. Fletcher, you simply do not understand what is at stake here. Please, we must go.”

“I’m going nowhere,” I said, hoping my voice reflected conviction.

“One thing I did not think you were, Mrs. Fletcher, was a foolish woman. I can call them.” She pointed to the door.

I drew a deep breath and said, “There is no reason for me to go with you. I know nothing more than what I’ve already said. I’ve delivered the message. Your response to it doesn’t concern me. I also remind you, Ms. Kozhina, that I am here as an official guest of the Russian and American governments. I’m sure the friends I was with when your people so rudely abducted me have gone to the authorities, and that a manhunt is already under way.”

Provided, of course, that Vaughan and Olga hadn’t been detained, too.

She ignored my warning, slipped on a powder blue windbreaker with Los ANGELES DODGERS emblazoned across the back, and went to the door. She turned, a hand on her hip. “Your choice, Mrs. Fletcher. A pleasant trip to our next destination—or an unpleasant one.”

Her logic wasn’t lost on me. I reluctantly stood, took a final look around her living room, and followed her into the hallway, where the two men lounged against the wall. We looked at each other; more accurately, I glared at them. We walked past them, down the stairs, and out to the courtyard. The smaller car in which I’d been brought to the building wasn’t there. Instead, the limo driven by Ivan stood at the ready.

We entered the passenger compartment. To my surprise, the men did not join us.

My heart tripped. Aside from Ivan, I was now alone with Alexandra Kozhina. I knew I could never have overcome the two men. But the odds had evened a little. Two women. Granted, she was considerably younger. But with a combination of luck, prudent thinking, and determination, I could possibly extricate myself from the situation. The key was to stay alert to any opportunity.

Ms. Kozhina spent the first few minutes peering through the limo’s darkened glass. I could see that we were moving into a busy part of Moscow, and strained to identify landmarks. It wasn’t long before I saw the lights of the Hotel Savoy, my hotel. Were we going there?

We passed it.

The Kremlin was the next familiar sight; we passed that, too.

“Do you mind telling me where we’re going?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

“My apartment,” Alexandra said.

“Didn’t we just leave your apartment?”

“No. That was a ... How do you say it? ... a safe house.”

We came to a stop in front of a low building, a shop of sorts on the ground floor—I didn’t know what sort of shop it was because I couldn’t translate the Russian sign. Ms. Kozhina led me from the limo, while Ivan stayed behind the wheel.

Was this my chance to bolt?

Alexandra looked at me as though she knew exactly what I was thinking. I heard the limo door shut. Ivan now stood next to me.

Since leaving the so-called safe house, fear had been mitigated by curiosity. I’m a naturally curious person, which I suppose all writers are, for better or for worse. It’s usually held me in good stead, although there have been times—and my good friend, Dr. Seth Hazlitt, often chides me for it—that my curiosity has led me into trouble.

I’d agreed to deliver the note to Alexandra Kozhina from Dimitri Rublev because I was curious to meet a Russian writer on a personal basis, outside the official structure of the trade mission.

Curiosity was what led me to agree to deliver a clandestine message to Ms. Kozhina on behalf of certain officials of my government. How else could I explain my decision?

Now, standing in front of Ms. Kozhina’s apartment building, I was—yes, cursedly
—curious
to see what was next.

Alexandra opened a door next to the shop, exposing a short flight of stairs. At the top was a landing on which four doors faced. She inserted a key in one, opened it, and said, “Please. Come in.”

Her apartment was considerably smaller and less handsomely furnished than the safe house. It consisted of one main room, off which there was a Pullman kitchen, and an open door leading to a cubicle of a bathroom. One window allowed the intermittent flash of neon from outside to provide bursts of light in the room.

I took the only chair in the room while she punched a button on an answering machine. The deep, gruff voice of a man speaking Russian came through the tiny speaker. Alexandra listened impassively.

The next man on the incoming message tape spoke English. “Your eyes are like stars in the night.”

She glanced at me.

Where had I heard that line before?