MOSCOW
MOVING THROUGH MOSCOW ALONE ON FOOT AT EIGHT in the evening, Sam was unidentifiable, a shadow, indistinguishable from the hundreds of thousands of Russians ending their workday and going home. Some were happy to go, and spoke to one another and laughed boisterously. Maybe a few had spent some time having a drink together. Others were just like Sam—tired, solitary men, getting onto buses that headed out into the distant suburbs where ordinary people lived. Sam waited until a line of them had boarded the bus and he’d seen how much they paid, and paid the same.
He had left the two cell phones in his hotel for the CIA, so he hoped the kidnappers were following the progress of their cell into and around Europe. Sam went east for as far as the bus went and then followed a few of the passengers at a distance. They entered high-rise apartment buildings collected together like the projects in big American cities.
The summer night was warm, so Sam managed to find a place to sleep outdoors at a construction site. A foundation had been dug, and there was a high pile of dirt with a tarp tied over it with several lines attached to grommets. Sam assumed that was to keep down the dust or prevent rain from turning the topsoil into a pyramid of mud. He climbed halfway up on the tarp so he wouldn’t be seen from the street and lay down. He hadn’t slept in two days and fell asleep immediately and woke only when the sun was high enough to shine on his face.
He got up and dusted himself off. As he was looking down at his clothes to be sure he had gotten them clean, he realized they were all wrong. He had bought them in Germany and Hungary and they didn’t quite look like the ones the men had been wearing on the bus the night before.
Sam climbed down and walked east, staying with streets that looked as though they might be commercial zones. As he walked, the army of ordinary people heading to work appeared and he tried to stay among them. Late in the morning he found a block-long street market. There were numerous small shops with tables in front of them, extending out across the sidewalk. He bought a flat tweed cap with a short brim like the ones American workers wore during the Depression. He had seen just a few of these on the streets of Moscow, mainly on old men, but he needed a hat to make it harder for the people who were watching for him to see his face. He bought a wool-and-polyester sport jacket in a faux herringbone tweed, because he had seen many of these. The cut was too short and too wide for him, so it made him look broader in the shoulders and a bit more muscular. He bought a pair of pants to go with the coat that had a loose cut too. The pale blue shirt he bought was an exact match with some he’d seen on the bus. His last purchases were a pair of shoes with a wide box toe that were comfortable for walking and a bag with a shoulder strap like the ones European students use to carry books. He changed into his new clothes in a curtained dressing stall. And then, as he was walking past another shop, he saw a display of used books in a bin.
Sam leafed through the piles of books, pretending to be casually browsing but actually searching desperately for something in a language other than Russian. He picked up and even pretended to leaf through many that were set in Cyrillic before he finally saw something different, a tourist’s guidebook in French. He immediately clutched it to his side and went to find the cashier.
After a few minutes of leafing through his French book, he found a map that seemed to show the area he was in. He walked away from the market, and kept walking, until he found a small urban park where he could sit on a bench and look at the maps of the Moscow area. After some study, he found that the various stations in the city had trains that went only to specific destinations. The one for Nizhny Novgorod was out of the Kursky Station, which was on the east side.
He folded down the corner of the page of his guidebook so he could easily find the map again, put the book in his shoulder bag with his extra clothes, and began to walk in the direction of the station. He walked steadily, stopping for food and drink at the sort of establishment where he could point at what he wanted and then hand someone a bill with a reasonable expectation of getting the right change.
It took him a whole day of walking to reach the right neighborhood and then he had to approach a family on the street, show them his French map, and say, “Ou est la gare Kursky?”He chose a family because it seemed safer for him than approaching either a woman, who might be afraid, or a man, who might be a cop. They pointed him in the right direction, with many friendly Russian words he couldn’t understand.
Sam made it to the Kursky Station in the evening, but it was still quite full and busy. Trains were leaving regularly for distant cities. He found a schedule board and looked up at it for a long time. To his great relief, he saw that the words were written in the Latin alphabet as well as Cyrillic. He recognized most of the names—St. Petersburg, Odessa, Vladivostok—but he couldn’t see anything that said Nizhny Novgorod. At first, he assumed that his exhaustion and his eagerness had combined to make him skip right over the name. He looked over and over, but still didn’t see it. He walked along the line of counters and cages where station employees helped customers, studying their faces. Should he try one of the women because women are naturally softhearted or would they be ready to feel irritated by his approach? The pretty ones must get asked for dates and flirted with all the time, and who knows what the others would feel?
Then he heard words in English. There was a man behind a counter who wore a uniform reminiscent of a train conductor’s. He was telling a couple who looked American that their fare was nine hundred rubles. Sam turned his head to be sure he wasn’t cutting in line in front of someone and then stood in front of the man.
The man looked at him, expecting him to speak.
Sam said, “Sir, I can’t seem to find Nizhny Novgorod on the schedule.”
“Gorky,” the man said. “The city used to be called Gorky and the railway never changed it. All Russians know that, so we don’t have any trouble. Just people from other countries.”
“Oh, thank you very much,” said Sam. He was genuinely relieved. He had imagined another day walking to some other distant station.
“I’ll help you. When would you like to go?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Very good. There is a train at 2204. Would you like a ticket?”
“Yes, please.”
“It will be nine hundred rubles. One hundred eleven U.S. dollars and fifty cents for a one-way second-class ticket or fifty-five dollars for a third-class ticket.”
“And first-class?”
“I’m sorry, but those seats are all reserved already. It’s four hundred sixty-seven miles and takes eight hours and ten minutes, so people reserve the best seats ahead of time.”
“Second-class, then.” He added, “Two tickets.” Never miss a chance to mislead,he thought. Couples are less suspicious than lone men.
“Very good, sir.”
Sam counted out two hundred forty dollars. “Thank you so much.”
The man handed him his change in rubles. “And can I see your passports?”
Sam had his passport in his coat, but it occurred to him that he didn’t want his name on the record, either for the Russian police, who would come and get him, or Poliakoff’s men, who would kill him. He patted his pockets, a look of horror on his face. “Oh, no. My wife has our passports.” He turned and craned his neck, searching for the imaginary woman. He also ascertained that the line behind him had grown to about fifteen people, many of whom were looking anxious.
“Never mind,” the man said. “Here.” He handed him two tickets. “If anyone asks on the train, just show him your passports then.”
“Thank you again.” Sam rushed off.
Sam had only twenty minutes to wait and so he went to the platforms and spotted a sign in Latin letters that spelled Gorky. He stood eagerly waiting for the chance to get on the train. He saw pairs of policemen walking up and down the platforms, occasionally stopping people to talk, sometimes even asking to see a ticket. Sam reminded himself that this was perfectly normal behavior. When he had ridden the subway in Los Angeles, there would often be pairs of sheriff’s deputies, in their khaki pants and shirts, stopping people with the same half-friendly authority: “Didn’t forget to get your ticket, did you?” The main thing was not to look furtive or frightened.