Hollis opened the small bar refrigerator. “There’s a box of Belgian chocolates and a split of French champagne.”
“Are you listening to me?”
“No.”
“Well, listen!”
“I’m listening.”
“Okay. In Moscow, our love was safe from outside reality. That’s ironic because Moscow is unreal. But now, being expelled so soon after we’ve found each other, our feelings didn’t have time to take root, and I’m afraid—”
“Did you rehearse this?”
“Yes.”
“Could you put it in the form of a short memo?”
“Stop being an idiot.”
“Do you want a chocolate or not?”
“No!” She slammed the refrigerator door shut. “Let me ask you something. Did Katherine leave you, or did she leave Moscow?”
Hollis worked on the champagne cork.
“Answer me.”
“She left Colonel Hollis, spy, in Moscow.” The cork popped, hit the ceiling, and Fred Santos rose off his seat. Hollis called through the glass partition, “Sorry, Fred!”
“Jesus, Colonel…” Santos put his hand over his heart in a theatrical gesture.
Hollis observed to Lisa, “This country makes people jumpy. Have you noticed that?” He poured the champagne into two fluted glasses and handed one to her. He said, “Not the end, but the beginning.”
“Oh… oh, I love you!” She embraced him, spilling champagne on his trench coat. Hollis kissed her. The security driver behind them beeped his horn playfully. Hollis glanced over Lisa’s shoulder and saw Alevy staring at them from the front seat of the car.
They entered the main terminal area of Sheremetyevo Airport on their way to the diplomatic wing. Alevy’s deputy, Bert Mills, said, “Please wait here a minute.”
Hollis and Lisa stood in the concourse of the large new terminal. Hollis thought that the architect’s previous experience must have been designing tractor sheds. The low ceilings were a copper-toned metal, making the whole place dark and grim, harsh, and unwelcoming.
As in all Soviet transportation terminals, there was a profound lack of services or amenities. Hollis spotted a single food kiosk under attack by at least a hundred people.
Soviet citizens coming from or heading to domestic flights pushed large crates around the grey slate floor. Hollis never understood where they stowed all that stuff. He said to Lisa, “Pan Am measures my flight bag to the last centimeter. On Aeroflot, people bring livestock. Like on that train we took. Remember?”
“I’m not likely to forget.”
“Right.” Hollis went to a currency window and dumped his rubles on the counter but held on to some loose kopeks. “American dollars, please.”
The cashier, using an abacus, converted the amount, then gave Hollis some forms to sign. He signed, and she pushed some dollars toward him, saying, “No coins.”
“Chocolate?”
“Shokolad?”
“Forget it. Da svedahnya, sweetheart.” He joined Lisa and said, “That was the last Russian I’m ever using.”
From where they stood in the concourse, Hollis could see the international arrivals area where there were crowds at passport control and larger crowds at customs. Most of the arriving people looked to be from the Third World, and there were a good number of youth groups; pilgrims on Soviet-sponsored tours, coming to Moscow to talk peace, progress, disarmament, and equality. It never ceased to amaze him how a discredited philosophy and a repressive nation still attracted idealists.
Hollis scanned the rest of the terminal. Grey-clad militia men were all over the place, and Hollis spotted a few KGB Border Guards in their green uniforms. He picked out his embassy security people strategically placed around him and Lisa. He saw one man in a brown leather car coat and tie who might have been KGB, but he couldn’t spot any others. Hollis normally wouldn’t expect any trouble in a crowded public place, but to the KGB, the entire country was their private hunting preserve. He realized that Alevy had disappeared, then he noticed that Lisa was looking a bit tense. He said to her, “Did you ever fly Aeroplop?”
She laughed. “Aeroplop? Yes, once to Leningrad on business.”
“I used to take it once a month to Leningrad. The pilots are all military. There’s not much difference between civil and military aviation in this country. Did you notice how they circled the airport at high altitudes, then dove in?”
“Yes. Scared me.”
“Me too. And I used to fly fighter-bombers. In the States, the drinking rule for pilots is twenty-four hours between bottle and throttle. Here, Aeroplop pilots aren’t allowed to drink within twenty-four feet of the aircraft.”
She laughed again. “You’re terrible. What are you going to complain about in the States?”
“The quality of winter strawberries.” Hollis glanced at his watch.
Lisa noticed and asked, “Do you think there’s something wrong?”
“No. I think we’re getting jumpy. Oh, I was going to tell you about my last Aeroplop flight. It was a Yakovlev 42, a tri-jet with huge wheels so it can land on grass and dirt. It’s actually a military transport, but when they get old, they slap an Aeroflot logo on them and put in seats. The cabin had been painted by brush, and you could see the brush marks. Anyway, the stewardesses were Miss Piggy look-alikes, and the lav had backed up—”
“That was my flight. And the cabin smelled of sewage. And my barf bag had been previously used. I’m not kidding. I collect barf bags from different airlines, and I took this one out of the seat pocket, and—”
“You collect barf bags? Disgusting.”
They were both laughing now. She said, “Only unused ones. So, anyway, I—”
Alevy came up behind them. “Okay. Everything’s set. Let’s go.”
Hollis and Lisa picked up their flight bags and followed Alevy, accompanied by the six security men. They entered a long, narrow corridor off the concourse that took them to the diplomatic wing, where Alevy’s man, Bert Mills, was waiting.
The DPL wing consisted of a front desk and a comfortable modern lounge with small conference rooms to the sides. It was not much different from a private airline club or any VIP lounge in any airport except for the presence of a smartly uniformed KGB Border Guard near the front desk and another Border Guard with a submachine gun at the rear exit door that led to the tarmac.
Their luggage, which had diplomatic seals, had already been passed through X-ray and was now piled in a coatroom near the front desk. A passport control officer arrived and stamped their passports with exit visas, then left.
Hollis, Lisa, and Alevy sat in the small lounge. An embassy security man stood near the front desk, a few feet from the KGB Border Guard. Two more security men stood near the rear entrance, keeping the Border Guard there company. Bert Mills sat on the other side of the lounge. Hollis remarked to Alevy, “Why all the firepower? One or two would have done.”
“Show of force.”
It occurred to Hollis, not for the first time, that Seth Alevy relished the fact that his lifelong game against Moscow was being played in Moscow. Hollis wondered what would become of Seth Alevy when he had to leave here.
Three Hispanic-looking men walked into the lounge, wearing red Lenin pins on the lapels of their suit jackets. They gave Hollis, Lisa, and Alevy an unfriendly look, and one of them said something in Spanish that made the other two laugh. They sat down in the adjoining club chairs.
Alevy commented, “There’s a direct Aeroflot to Havana in half an hour.”
Lisa said, “I think they said something insulting. I heard the word gringo.”