The Moscow Affair

by Nancy Boyarsky

  She was still wondering what to do when, to her great relief, Reinhardt reappeared, and she realized she’d been mistaken. He must have planted the diversionary device but was going to wait until later to set it off. Shortly after resuming their walk, Reinhardt tapped Nicole’s arm with his elbow and tilted his head toward a path between two sections of the bleachers. Here it is; he was signaling the way out.

  The group continued toward the rear of the square. Vlad was walking on Reinhardt’s other side, talking nonstop. Although she couldn’t understand him, Nicole could tell he was still bragging about what he’d achieved here. She wondered what hours he kept. It was already past 8:00 p.m., and he was still here. Now that she thought about it, his clothes looked as if he’d slept in them. Maybe he was here twenty-four hours a day, catching some sleep in his office when he had the chance. The parade was the next morning, and, while the square appeared almost ready, there was still work to do.

  At the end of the bleachers, Vlad stopped the group in front of a small temporary building, which turned out to be his office. The door was standing open. Perhaps he’d made sure his workers were so terrified of him that they wouldn’t dare enter without his permission.

  Vlad yawned and gave a big stretch before putting a hand on Reinhardt’s shoulder and waving him inside. Vlad then turned to Nicole and the three others and pointed to a make-shift canteen nearby, where they could get coffee and a snack. Reinhardt took Vlad aside and, gesturing toward Nicole, seemed to be explaining something. Vlad looked at Nicole, then back at Reinhardt and smiled, pointing to each of them and nodding his head approvingly. Reinhardt nodded back. Clearly, he’d told the supervisor that he and Nicole were a couple, so she’d be invited into the office, too. Sure enough, Vlad waved her in. Once they were inside, he said something to her that was clearly a question. She pointed to her throat, and Reinhardt answered for her, explaining she had laryngitis. Nicole understood the next thing Vlad said because the Russian word was the same as it was in English.

  “Vodka!” Vlad reached for a bottle on a table top. He filled three tumblers half full and handed one to Nicole, another to Reinhardt. Both men drank theirs in a single gulp. Nicole took a sip. The vodka was harsh and burned her throat. She held onto the glass, figuring she could dump the remaining vodka in the trash can next to her when the others were looking the other way. Vlad motioned Reinhardt over to his computer, eager to show it off. It had a large screen and looked brand new.

  He’d just put in his password when there was a knock at the open door. They all turned to see one of the workers standing there. He had a smile on his face and was carrying two bottles of vodka, obviously intended for his boss. Vlad got up from his chair, glanced at the bottles, then back at the man. He appeared extremely displeased—whether by the interruption or the brand of vodka was unclear. He shouted and shoved the man out of the office so he landed hard on the stone pavement, surrounded by shards of glass from the broken bottles. Nicole was thinking what a misery it would be to work for Vlad, but she’d heard that Russians respected strong men, the kind who mistreated their underlings.

  Vlad went back to his computer and typed something in. A blueprint of one of the bleachers popped up.

  While Vlad was occupied, Reinhardt reached into his pocket and started fiddling with his keys. Nicole braced herself for the explosion. It came a moment later, a huge blast that shook the ground. Vlad dashed outside. Reinhardt waited until he disappeared, then leaned close and whispered, “When you’re done with the download, wait outside for ten minutes, no more. If I’m not back, leave through the gap in the fence. A car will be along to pick you up.” He hurried out, turning in the same direction Vlad had taken.

  Nicole got the thumb drive out of her purse and went to work. Fortunately, Vlad had already put in his password, so she didn’t have to worry about that. She inserted the thumb drive into the computer. While it was downloading, she peeked outside to see what was going on. The flames and billows of smoke were coming from the row of portable toilet booths that Vlad had pointed out earlier to Reinhardt. They were at the opposite end of the square. The area near Vlad’s office was deserted. Everyone had run to put out the flames before they spread to the newly built bleachers, which were made of wood and highly flammable.

  When she turned back to the computer, the download was complete. She ejected the drive and put it in her purse. After making sure the computer was just as Vlad had left it, she went outside to wait for Reinhardt. The entire row of portable toilets was on fire, although it hadn’t spread beyond them. Men were throwing buckets of water on the flames. Instead of putting them out, the water seemed to be feeding the fire, which was burning furiously. The sound of sirens split the air as several fire trucks arrived. Men jumped off, readied their hoses, and went about spraying foam on the flames, which quickly put them out.

  Nicole checked her watch. It was time to leave. Just then, she spotted Reinhardt hurrying toward her. He gestured for her to follow, then headed back along the rows of bleachers. She had to run to keep up with his long strides.

  “We’re going back to the speaker’s stand,” he said.

  “But why?”

  “I’ve decided it would be best to wait until the police arrive so I have a chance to talk to them. After Vlad is arrested, we’ll disappear.”

  Before she could ask why Vlad would be arrested and what it had to do with them, they’d reached the grandstand. The three bomb experts were talking to several uniformed policemen and gesturing toward the entrance to the stand’s underside. Dmitri handed a cop one of the fake cinderblocks, while Ilya held out the toolbox that had been sitting in front of the pyramid of explosives.

  Moments later, three more officers arrived with Vlad close behind. He was talking in a loud voice, apparently desperate to explain something to them. Reinhardt stepped forward, flashed his credentials for the police to see, and spoke to them, pointing first at Vlad then in the direction of his office. The cops grabbed Vlad and pulled him toward it. He resisted, protesting angrily. Reinhardt and Nicole followed until they were within sight of Vlad’s office. Here Reinhardt stopped and grabbed Nicole’s arm.

  In a low voice, he said, “We’re going to wait until the police take Vlad into his office. The thumb drive left evidence on his computer implicating him in planting the explosives. It also left messages that indicate he was conspiring with others. They’ll arrest him and take his computer. Before they get around to questioning us, we’ll be gone.”

  Nicole blinked. Vlad was going to meet a horrible fate. She would have felt sorrier for him if he hadn’t been so abusive to his underlings. The reality was that someone had to be blamed for planting the explosives. Having it be a Russian was preferable to implicating the real culprits, the Ukrainian dissidents, considering what the fallout would be. It appeared that they were going to walk away from this without paying for what they’d done. They hadn’t succeeded in blowing up the parade, but they had conspired to do it, and they’d murdered Derek Swan for reasons that were still unclear.

  As the police dragged Vlad into his office, an announcement came over the loudspeakers. It must have mentioned a second bomb threat because workers ran for the exit. Reinhardt steered Nicole quickly in the opposite direction, leading her to the place where the fence had been cut. Meanwhile, more police cars were arriving, along with a truck hauling a heavy, six-wheeled vehicle with a robotic arm. This had to be Moscow’s bomb squad, although the cinder-block explosives had been rendered harmless once the toolbox with the igniting mechanism was removed.

  Nicole and Reinhardt squeezed through the hole in the fence and onto a side street. The street was blocked from the main boulevard with traffic barriers. “A van was supposed to be waiting,” Reinhardt said. He walked to the end of the street where barriers were blocking access and moved one of them aside.

  Nicole followed him. “I don’t understand,” she said. “If Vlad is being arrested, why do we have to run?”

  “The cops will want to talk t
o us. We don’t want them looking closely at our papers. It’s too big a risk they’ll figure out they’re forgeries. And they’ll quickly realize you can’t be a ministry employee if you don’t even speak Russian.” He looked up and down the street for the missing van. “We’d better take cover. They’ll be looking for us.”

  Just then the van pulled up to the curb next to them. Dmitri was at the wheel and the two others in back. As Nicole and Reinhardt were climbing in, a police car arrived at the intersection. The van started up, turned onto the main boulevard, and quickly joined the flow of traffic, but it was too late. The police must have noticed that the traffic barrier had been moved and realized the van shouldn’t have been on a street next to Red Square that had been blocked for security reasons. The van sped up with the squad car close behind. Dmitri went faster, turning corners in an attempt to lose the police. There was a loud cracking sound, and Nicole realized they’d shot out the back window. Except for Dmitri, everyone in the van ducked down in anticipation of another round of fire. At the next corner, he pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The van made a screeching turn, then another, veering down a steep driveway into an underground garage. He pressed a button on the visor and the gate to the garage closed behind him. Nicole looked back in time to catch sight of the police car passing the entrance. The police must have arrived at the last turn too late to see them enter the garage.

  Dmitri drove to the bottom level and parked. He gestured for everyone to get out and tossed a set of car keys to Reinhardt, pointing to a parking spot with a Russian-made sedan badly in need of a wash. Then Dmitri led his two companions to an old Volvo hatchback. Reinhardt and Nicole got in the small sedan and waited for Dmitri and the others to start up the ramp before following.

  As they headed away, they could hear sirens. Squad cars, fire trucks, and maybe ambulances were still arriving at the explosion site.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Are we going back to Olga’s?” Nicole said, as Reinhardt drove from the garage into the street.

  He turned to look at her. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We look out of place in that neighborhood, and the last thing we want to do is raise suspicion. Of course, a harmless old woman’s apartment could be a safe hiding place—”

  Nicole interrupted. “Who said she’s harmless? She makes a habit of helping dissidents and people in trouble with the police. That’s why she took me in. I think she may be part of some kind of underground organization.” Nicole explained how Abby, the reporter, had immediately thought of Olga as someone who’d give her a place to hide.

  “What’s Olga’s last name?” he said.

  “That’s an interesting question. Abby never told me and neither did Olga. I got the feeling she doesn’t want anyone to know. But I found a letter when I was looking through her bookshelves. It was addressed to Olga Marozova.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Olga Whitney Marozova? She’s famous! An American heiress who defected to Russia, grew disillusioned with the Communists, and became an anti-Soviet activist. She was briefly married to one of our agents, Nikolas Marozov.”

  “Marozov? Her name is Marozova.”

  “Marozova is the feminine form of Marozov. Later on, your Olga was arrested by the KGB and locked up. I had the impression she died in prison. What did the letter say? And don’t pretend you didn’t read it.”

  Nicole smiled. “You know me so well. It was a letter from a rejected suitor named Max. He didn’t sign his last name. Apparently, Olga wasn’t interested. She’s in her seventies now, I’m guessing, but she’s still attractive under that turban and all the heavy clothes she wears to bulk herself out. She did mention that she was once married to a spy. She didn’t like his constant disappearances, so she gave him an ultimatum. He could be her husband or continue working for MI6. Does that sound familiar?”

  “Nicole, I swear—”

  She started to say she’d been joking, then changed her mind. “You did go missing for all those months after you promised to join me in a week. So, how do I know—?”

  “I explained all that, and I thought you understood. But you still don’t trust me, do you?”

  “How can I? You said you were done spying, and now here you are again.”

  “That’s not fair. I only took this on because you needed my help. Besides, the agency promised to get you safely out of Russia if I did it.”

  Somewhat mollified, she said, “I know. I did ask for your help, so it’s ridiculous to criticize you for it. I do love you, and I want this to work out. But it worries me. What if you can’t find a satisfying job? What if you feel trapped and miss your old life? You’ll start to resent me. Our relationship—or our marriage, if we get that far—will fall apart.”

  “What more can I say except that I’m done with all that? You can’t imagine how much I longed for you these past months. All I want is a future with you—a normal life, a family.”

  She shrugged and looked out the window as a tear made its way down her cheek. “We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we? Anyway, back to Marozov. He couldn’t bring himself to—what do you call it—come in from the cold? So they split. Olga’s still pretty bitter about it.”

  “You know, Marozov was a legend at the agency, one of the most successful double agents we ever had.”

  Nicole took note of the admiration in his voice. He still identified with MI6. Any fool could see that. Was he really ready to make the break? Now that her doubts had surfaced again, it was hard to shake them.

  A long, uneasy silence passed before he spoke again. “The agency has several safe houses here in Moscow. I think that would be our best bet.”

  “Good,” she said. “But I want to stop at Olga’s first. I want to give her back the outfit she lent me and pick up the things I left there. I also want to thank her and say goodbye. Why don’t you drop me off a block away? I’ll get my stuff and come right back.”

  Nicole gave him Olga’s address. He pulled over to check his phone for directions and took off again.

  Starting up the stairs of the old building, she could hear loud voices from above. The dominant one was Olga’s. She was speaking Russian, but Nicole could tell the woman was angry and protesting. Meanwhile several male voices tried unsuccessfully to interrupt her tirade.

  Nicole climbed faster, thinking she might be able to help. She soon reached the point in the stairs where she could see Olga and three male visitors who looked like police detectives. They seemed to be insisting Olga let them in. The door, open just a crack, was secured with a chain lock.

  When Nicole reached the landing for Olga’s apartment, the woman’s eyes rested on her momentarily and quickly looked away. Her expression made it clear that she wasn’t going to acknowledge Nicole and didn’t want her involved in whatever was going on. Nicole continued up the stairs until she couldn’t be seen but could still hear them. The argument continued several more minutes until Olga’s door slammed shut. The men could be heard talking as they trotted down the stairs. Nicole waited a bit to be sure they were gone before she returned to Olga’s apartment and tapped lightly on the door. There was no response. She knocked louder. Nothing inside stirred. Either Olga was in the other room and couldn’t hear, or she wasn’t answering because she was afraid the men had come back.

  Nicole still had the keys to the apartment. She wasn’t going to let herself in knowing Olga was inside, refusing to answer. Instead, she slid them under the door and hurried down the stairs. Her thoughts were on Olga, hoping she was safe. That the woman had been visited by the police was a bad sign. On the other hand, they could have easily broken the chain lock if they were determined to search the apartment or arrest her, but they hadn’t. She knew Olga had another place to stay and hoped she’d go there and remain until whatever it was blew over. Most of all, she hoped that she herself hadn’t somehow brought this trouble to Olga’s door.

  Heading back to the car, Nicole realized she was never going to be able to return Olga’s lovely dress and fur jacket or get her
own things back. She didn’t care about the clothes she’d left, which weren’t even hers. But she did regret the loss of her Kate Spade bag, the only designer purse she’d ever owned.

  Reinhardt was waiting in the car just as she’d left him. After she got in, she told him what had been going on at Olga’s.

  “Don’t worry too much about Olga,” he said. “She may be in trouble, but she’s a survivor. If this is a serious threat, she’ll figure a way out. She’s a bit like you in that way. Now buckle up. I’ve found us a place to stay.”

  The safe house was in an elegant old building. From what Nicole could see in the dark, it appeared to be a classical-style mansion converted into apartments. She’d read about such buildings in her guidebook. They dated back to the nineteenth century, long before the Communists came into power. The lobby had lost whatever grandeur it might have had. In front of the bronze door of the elevator was a sign in Cyrillic.

  “Out of order,” Reinhardt translated.

  They looked up at the circular staircase with its worn carpet. Nicole was so tired, she wanted to lie down on one of the faded velvet-covered benches in the lobby. But Reinhardt took her arm, and they climbed the stairs. Their suite was on the second of three floors.

  The living room was in amazing shape compared with the rest of the building. Its décor included a huge chandelier and a large gilt-framed mirror that reflected itself over and over in an identical mirror on the opposite wall. The rest of the room featured panels of verdant landscapes that appeared to have been applied directly to the walls. The furnishings had a pink and white motif: white walls and carpeting with one pink sofa flanked by two white ones. Three white stools stood in front of the couch arrangement, each topped with a fuchsia cushion.