Free Black Knight in Red Square by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page A

the door, he didn’t recognize the man before him.
    â€œYes?” said Rostnikov, wiping his moist brow with the hem of his shirt.
    â€œI’m from upstairs,” said the thin Bulgarian.
    â€œThe toilet,” Rostnikov suddenly remembered. He had dismantled the toilet early in the morning, and the Bulgarians had been waiting for his return.
    â€œAh,” sighed Rostnikov, “I have consulted an expert, the chief plumber at the Metropole Hotel. I’ll have it fixed in a few minutes. Never fear.”
    He pushed the Bulgarian gently into the hall.
    â€œI’ll just get my tools and be right there,” he said softly, not wanting a neighbor to overhear and call the dreaded Samsanov.
    Sarah looked up at him when he closed the door. In her eyes was the unspoken question, Would this happen in Paris or Montreal or Chicago?
    Rostnikov shrugged, believing that it would, but thinking it unwise to raise the issue again.
    â€œI’ll be right back,” he said. “This will take me no more than fifteen minutes.”
    It was, in fact, nearly two hours before Rostnikov returned. There had been unforeseen complications. The tools had been inadequate, and the book he had been using was far out of date. He had eventually managed to get the pipe repaired, but he feared that the repair was temporary.
    â€œToilet is now fixed,” he told Sarah, who was sitting at the table writing a letter, probably to her sister or Iosef.
    â€œThat’s good,” she said, looking over the top of her glasses and smiling, her mind in Odessa or Kiev or San Diego.
    Rostnikov was washing at the sink when the phone rang. Sarah answered it and held it out to him.
    â€œI don’t know who it is,” she said with a shrug.
    He crossed the room and took the phone. “Rostnikov,” he said.
    â€œIn the morning,” came the man’s voice, “at precisely seven, you are to be at the office of Colonel Drozhkin.”
    Rostnikov said nothing.
    â€œDo you understand?” came the voice.
    Rostnikov recognized the man as Zhenya, Colonel Drozhkin’s assistant.
    â€œI understand,” Rostnikov said evenly. “I will be there at seven.”
    They hung up, and Rostnikov turned to his wife. “Business,” he said. “I have an appointment early in the morning.”
    That was all he said. He reread a mystery by Lawrence Block and went to bed wondering what the KGB wanted from him this time.
    In the evening right after the incident with the gang of rapists, Sasha Tkach took a bus to the Rossyia Hotel. He went through the huge glass doors and across the vast lobby whose walls were covered with film posters and blowups of movie stars, mostly Bulgarians, and advanced to the desk. He gave the name of the woman he was seeking, Monique Freneau, identified himself, and waited while the clerk at the long desk looked up the name. He couldn’t find it. Normally, the clerk would have given up, but this was a policeman with a determined look in his eyes, so the clerk tried the rosters for the other towers and eventually found the Frenchwoman’s name.
    The Hotel Rossyia is a sharp contrast to the Metropole. It is massive and new and official comments in tourist books and publicity call it “the Palace.” Muscovites, looking up at the gigantic structure on the Moskva River, refer to it as “the box.” The twelve-story hotel has thirty-two hundred rooms, nine restaurants, two of which can seat a thousand diners each, six bars, fifteen snack bars, and the world’s largest ballroom. It also houses two movie theaters for eight hundred spectators and one larger cinema hall, the Zaryadye, which can comfortably accommodate three thousand people.
    Sasha found Monique Freneau’s room with no difficulty. He knocked, and the door opened on a woman who quite dazzled him. He was sure he had seen her before. She wore a thin pink blouse made of some silky material; her jeans were