Free Craig Kreident #2 Fallout by Doug Beason Kevin J Anderson Page B

while the customs official studied it to make sure he had not attempted to smuggle any recording devices.   His electric razor received particularly rigorous scrutiny.
    During the creaking bus ride into Moscow city center, Waterloo had seen few cars on the road.   The air was filled with smog, making the gray clouds seem even drearier.   He saw no individual houses, only massive state-built apartment complexes.   Whole sections of building fronts had fallen away, slumping into disrepair as if no one cared.  
    Vastly different from the glamour of Las Vegas. . . .
    Inside Caesar’s Palace, the Russian team wandered through the dizzying maze of lights, blinking slot machines, and video poker games.   “We play slot machines here, friend Mike,” said Nikolai Bisovka, sucking on another Marlboro.   He seemed determined to get lung cancer before he returned to his own country.   “You will pick up our tickets please?”  
    Waterloo dreaded they would scatter like wild chickens the moment they were out of his sight, but when he returned with the tickets, he was surprised to find the Russians glued to a bank of nickel slots.  
    Alexander Novikov bubbled with excitement.   “I won jackpot, friend Mike!   Jackpot!”   He rattled a plastic cup of coins, and Waterloo saw that he had collected about four dollars in nickels — the handful of coins must have seemed like a fortune.   Novikov took great pride in jingling as he walked.
    Waterloo ushered them up the lighted stairs toward the Circus Maximus auditorium.   He handed them their tickets as if they were school children, afraid they would lose their stubs or forget to go to the bathroom before the show started.   Filing dutifully to their booth, the group sat back and waved for cocktail waitresses so they could order several rounds of drinks at once.
    Waterloo tried to convince himself to enjoy the experience.   He had never seen Copperfield’s show, though the magician had been playing in Vegas for much of his long career.   He and Genny hadn’t been to shows in years.   As the foreigners spoke in Russian around him, the lights dimmed — and his thoughts drifted back to when the lights had gone out in his Moscow hotel room. . . .
    The Hotel Ukraina looked impressive, but old.   The walls of the cavernous dining room had been painted with idyllic peasant scenes, huge dancers, farmers, happy musicians.   Waterloo went with his companions to a feast of beef pot pies served steaming hot in individual crockpots.  
    A broad-hipped waitress bustled up and removed the cloth that covered a serving table to reveal an array of trinkets she had smuggled there — nesting “matrushka” dolls, painted eggs, tins of caviar, lacquered boxes.   She insisted her under-the-table prices were much better than the Americans could expect to find in the hotel store.
    Waterloo had gone to his room exhausted, anxious to be alone.   Though meant to be ostentatious, the decor unsettled him — pink walls, green curtains, a pair of chipped end tables sporting small lamps.   An empty desk, a tiny black-and-white television in a plastic case, a single hard-backed chair.
    While assuring them that there was no crime in Moscow, the senior Moscow escort had insisted they keep their room doors locked, and warned them never to wander around the hotel alone.
    Waterloo had been sitting on his bed considering this, when the power went out, cold darkness sweeping down like a Valkyrie — merely one of the frequent power outages that plagued Moscow.   On his first day in Russia, he began to count down the hours until he could return home to his own beloved country. . .
    Dry-ice fog poured along the Circus Maximus stage as spotlights stabbed across the vacant space.   Electronic rock music blared, a pulsing rhythm in time to the light show.   Near-naked dancers swept out from behind the curtains as an empty cage descended from the rafters, dangling on a chain.  
    The dancers came