(1980) The Second Lady (13 page)

She bobbed her head and shut the door in his face.

The lights were on in her living room. She scanned the room. It rose up and down as if shaken by an earthquake. Dizzily, she started to traverse the rocking room, bumping into furniture, until she fell against the wall light switch. She snapped it off.

On rubbery legs she entered the bedroom, darkened except for the yellow lamp that illuminated the double bed. She willed herself to reach the bed. Halfway there, she halted, teetering, pushed off her pumps, unzipped her velvet gown and let it drop to the floor, managed to step over it. She tugged down on her panty hose, almost falling as she got them off. Naked, one foot in front of the other, she stepped on the small oblong throw rug not far from the bed. Her green nightgown was neatly spread on the bed. She groped for it, clutched it, with difficulty put her head through it, her arms through it, and yanked it down. A corner of the blanket was folded back. She tore at it, throwing it aside. One step. Another. She felt the edge of the mattress. She let go, and dropped like a stone into the bed.

With effort, on her back, she wriggled under the blanket, tugged the rest of it to her breasts. She forced her eyes open. There were several ceilings on a seesaw above her. The walls of the room were going round and round. She brought the bedside lamps into sight, held on them until they materialized into a single lamp. Beneath it ticked her travelling clock. It was jiggling too much too read. But then she had one glimpse of the time. Ten after something — twelve - ten after twelve, after midnight. Her cold hand fumbled for the base of the lamp, turned it off.

In the darkness, she lowered her head into the downy pillow. Delicious pillows the Russians had. She let her heavy eyelids close. From somewhere distant she heard a ringing. Maybe her phone. Maybe Andrew calling back. Andrew. She made a small effort at rising, but her shoulders, her spine, refused to help her. She gave up. To hell with the phone.

She lay motionless. She’d never in her life felt like this before. Pinned down. Helpless. Only her head felt movement. There was a pinwheel in her head. She must be terribly drunk, she told herself.

The pinwheel spun on.

A flash of clarity superseded the pinwheel. She could not be as drunk as this from what she’d been served. Had she been drugged? Should she call the ambassador? Should she call the Secret Service man outside the door? Her mind laboured for a decision, tried to hold on one, but it was slipping away.

The pinwheel was back, turning more slowly, receding, fading into a void that was filling with darkness. Her body sank and drifted into slumber. Her head blacked out and joined her body.

Billie Bradford was asleep.

The clock on the bedstand read 12.14.

Darkness.

The clock on the bedstand read 2.10.

Billie Bradford slept on, slept deeply, unconscious to the night.

She was still. The bedroom was still. Then something moved. The small throw rug, the four-foot oriental rug on the planked wooden floor beside her bed, moved. Slowly, eerily, one end of the rug began to rise, one inch, two inches, three, four, five.

The oak planks of the floor beneath the carpet, two planks, and one on either side, were rising higher. A big-knuckled hand and a sleeved arm materialized next to the rug, chunky fingers seeking the fringe of the rug, gripping it, pulling it aside to reveal the four elevated planks moving upward. The farthest of the planks had come a full twelve inches off the floor and was being lifted sideways and quietly lowered. Then quickly, silently, the other three planks, one after the other, were being pushed high, balanced, juggled to the side and set down.

The bedroom floor now had a gaping, irregular, squarish hole in it, an opening five feet in length, four feet in width.

A form, a shape, outlined in the dark, began to emerge from below. A slender male figure, black clad, pulled itself up through the hole, pushed itself to its knees, then unfolded and stood erect. Moments later, another shadowy male figure, bulkier, emerged from the hole and stood up in the darkened bedroom.

Both figures, on tiptoe, closed in on the bed, stopped, looked down at the sleeping woman. One nodded to the other. Simultaneously, as if rehearsed, both reached into their jacket pockets. One drew out a handkerchief, the other a hypodermic syringe. One nodded to the other again. In a flash of motion, the handkerchief whipped across Billie Bradford’s mouth, cutting into it. The same instant, the hollow needle of the syringe slid into the flesh of Billie’s arm. The pressure, the stab of pain, made her start, body heaving as she tried to struggle awake. Her unseeing eyes fluttered open, stared, showed terror, lost focus, began to close, eyelids drooping, closed tight, as her head sank back into the pillow. The lips worked, then relaxed. The handkerchief was knotted tighter. The hypodermic, emptied of fluid, was withdrawn.

She lay limp, totally unconscious.

The blanket was yanked off her. The two figures bent low, their arms going under her shoulders and her legs. The four arms cradled her, with ease lifted her out of the bed. The four arms carried her, the four feet treading softly, as she was hurried toward the opening in the floor.

Carefully, carefully, she was lowered into the opening. Four new arms reached up for her, accepted the transfer of the slack body, hands and feet dangling, from the ones above. Carefully, carefully, the new arms curled around her, drew her downward until the body and green nightgown disappeared from sight.

The pair of figures in the bedroom waited. Then one went to its knees, stepped into the hole, and climbed down out of view. Seconds later, the remaining figure crouched, stepped into the hole, and was gone.

The bedroom was emptied of life.

For a minute only.

The top of a head was growing out of the floor opening. The outline of a full head emerged, a full head and a female shape, pushing herself to the floor alongside, pushing herself to her knees, rising to her feet, adjusting her green nightgown, standing still, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness.

She was ready. She moved rapidly, gracefully, without wasted motion, with purpose. She lifted one of the loosened oak planks, brought it to the hole in the floor, and with great care fitted it into the opening as if she was filling in a jigsaw puzzle. She picked up the second oak plank and coaxed it into place in the floor, covering another section of the hole. Next, the third and fourth planks. The gaping hole was gone, the floor once more complete. Bending, she retrieved the oriental throw rug, flapped it out straight, and laid it down flat across the wooden floor.

She scanned the bedroom in the now familiar darkness. As far as she could see, everything was in place. Nothing amiss. In the doorway to the living room, she cocked her head toward the main double doors. Silence. The American Secret Service agent, at his monotonous post in the corridor, had not been disturbed.

Smiling to herself, she went barefooted to the bed. She studied it briefly, plumped down on the edge, swung herself on it, made herself comfortable under the crumpled blanket. Stretching herself at full length in the still warm bed, she brought the blanket to her chin, and nestled her head in the indentation in the pillow.

She peered at the illuminated travel clock.

2.26.

She put her hand out for the sleeping pill, and found it next to the glass of water. Her predecessor had not been in shape to take it. She realized she should not take it either.

Satisfied, she lay back, tried to make out the ceiling. She listened to her heart, thumping hard but steadily. She was anything but sleepy. The adrenalin still pumped through her veins, her nerve ends pulsated, her body throbbed with the

-I f\r\

excitement of danger. There was no denying that she was keyed up, and on edge, exactly as she had always been while waiting in the wings for the moment she must walk onstage. She supposed it was a good sign to feel this way, so up and alert. It usually promised a perfect performance.

But she must come down, she must relax. Sleep was necessary. Her mind rummaged through the attic of the recent past. Kiev. The evening Petrov first came backstage. Moscow. The day she was summoned to the KGB. The day she learned the true part she was to play. The day she knew she wanted Alex, and the afternoon he first entered her. And the delicious last time, too. Her mind left the realities of the past three years, vaulted high in slow motion into the future. The project over, herself a heroine of the Soviet Union, a princess among commoners, darling of the elite. Herself and Alex.

She was conscious of her head emptying, pictures of yesterday and tomorrow fading, her limbs easing. She yawned. Sleep was creeping over her. She welcomed it. She must be awake at five. The curtain would be going up.

She turned on her side.

Tomorrow. She must remember her role, her identity, her lines. She tried to remember. She could not remember a thing. But the nearness of sleep muffled panic. She would remember, she would remember. The curtain was going up. The play would begin.

Last thing remembered.

Good-bye, Vera Vavilova.

Hello, First Lady of the United States of America.

It was like climbing a steep and endless staircase, her coming out of sleep.

But Billie Bradford was awake in her head, her eyes still shut. Behind her forehead and the thin band of ache that lay there, her brain was a quagmire. Her mouth felt dry, with an aftertaste of bitterness.

Her thoughts waded through the quagmire, at last reaching a memory of last night. The banquet, the exhaustion, the drunkenness. That was it, the heavy drinking. She had a terrible hangover, and no wonder.

She kept her eyes shut, hoping that her brain would clear, that the headache would go away.

After a few minutes, lying very still, she felt the headache dull and begin to recede. Her brain freed itself from the quagmire, began to work. She was becoming alert. She recalled where she was, the day it was, where she was expected.

She was to be up at five o’clock in the morning, to depart Moscow for home.

She opened her eyes, as she turned her head on the pillow to read her bedside travel clock. The clock told her it was four. Thank God, she had not overslept. There was still an hour before the alarm would go off. She could steal another hour’s sleep.

She was about to curl up, close her eyes for more rest, when she was struck by something odd. The clock on the table next to her bed. It was different, not her trusty little travel clock encased in red leather. It was a big timepiece set in a walnut frame. How strange. Had her maid Sarah been

in and substituted another clock for her own? It made no sense. She shifted her head on the pillow, taking in her bedroom. At once with a jolt, she realized that this was not her bedroom in the Rossiya suite. This was a different bedroom, utterly different, from the flocked wallpaper to the modern furniture to the headboard posts on her bed.

She sat up confused, puzzled.

Yet, other things were familiar, the wedding band on her finger, the green nightgown, her own fluffy mules on the floor, her light wool turquoise robe across the chair.

But the room, definitely not her own.

What had happened? Had she been too drunk last night to be taken to her room, and been put to bed in Nora’s room instead?

That was possible, unlikely but possible.

Then she heard two voices, male, indistinct, reaching her from the next room. Someone, two persons, were in the living room. Probably her Secret Service agents, Oliphant and Upchurch. She determined to find out. And find out why she was in this different room.

She came off the bed, pushed her feet into her slippers, stood up holding her robe, and got into it. After tying the belt of her robe, she sought the spare comb she always kept in the deep pocket. It was there. She went over to the dresser mirror, combed out her tangled hair, pulled it back, surveyed herself. The hangover had dissipated, and she looked and felt almost human.

The buzz of voices in the next room alerted her again. Curious about the voices, still puzzled by her surroundings, she left the bedroom and went into the living room.

She did not see the persons who belonged to the voices at first. She saw only another different room, one she had not seen before, different and far more spacious and modern than the room she had occupied in the Rossiya Hotel yesterday and the two days before. Then she saw them, the owners of the voices, off to her left and slightly behind her. She was startled, because neither was one of her Secret Service protectors.

They appeared to be Russians, one familiar, one completely unfamiliar. What were they doing here? What was she doing here? She stared at them, trying to bring an explanation to the mystery. Then, from his armchair, one man noticed her, and nodded to the other, who glanced back at her.

The familiar one was her Russian interpreter for the past three days, Alex Razin. The other one, a short barrel of a man with piercing small eyes, she had never seen before. Both were on their feet now.

‘Ah, Mrs Bradford,’ the burly one said. ‘We were waiting for you to awaken.’

Billie ignored him and addressed herself to Razin. ‘What is this? What’s going on?’ Her gesture encompassed the living room. ‘How did 1 get here? I don’t understand.’

Razin stepped forward. ‘I’ll try to explain,’ he began apologetically.

The burly one raised a hand to silence him. ‘I will answer your question, Mrs Bradford … Razin, bring her some coffee.’

Obediently, Razin hastened through the dining area into the kitchen.

‘Come here,’ said the burly one as he went to the nearest of the two light beige sofas flanking the fireplace. Bewildered, she followed him. ‘I suggest you be seated,’ he said.

She meant to defy him, but sat down, drawing her robe together at the knees. The burly one remained standing over her.

He resumed speaking to her in a low, hoarse voice. ‘Understandably, you are confused.’

‘I’m more than that,’ said Billie indignantly. ‘This makes no-‘

‘No sense?’ interrupted the burly one. ‘It will, it will. Let me introduce myself. I am General Ivan Petrov. You’ve heard of me?’