The Life We Lead: Ascending (3 page)

Next came planting the guns. First he had to
plant a tranquilizer gun that he could get to with his hands
potentially bound. He decided to plant it under the chair next to
the window.

The 9 mm pistol was tougher. It was his
preferred weapon, but he would only have eight shots if the thing
didn’t jam, and he didn’t know how many visitors to expect. He
decided to keep it on him but hid an extra clip and cartridge of
darts in the room under the dresser.

That should do it for now, until we see
who and what come,
he thought.

He made his way upstairs after setting a door
tripper to room nine that would appear innocent enough, but would
tell him if someone entered the room while he was gone.

Forty minutes later, when he and a somewhat
better looking Daen set off to meet Petior, James noticed he had a
tail again. The boy had apparently been waiting outside the
hotel.

Poor kid, having to wait in the cold all
that time.

James had a soft spot for kids who weren’t in
the best of economic situations.

“Bryan, we have a tail,” he said loud enough
for Daen to hear him over the gust of wind. “Boy about ten, shabby
coat, gloves, mismatched shoes, about seventy-five feet behind us.
This is part of what I was talking about earlier. Right now, no
play,” he said as they walked.

“Follow,” Daen replied, and he and James were
on the same page. They went on with their business as if the kid
wasn’t there.

After a few more steps, Daen spoke, “And that
one at ten o’clock?”

Daen was rather skilled himself. If he
wasn’t, he wouldn’t have been a member of the group.

James looked up. “No change,” James answered
with a fake laugh, as if Daen had something funny.

They walked the rest of the block to the bar,
where they found Petior waiting.

“My Ameri`can friends! Ha ha, come drink!” he
said even before the door was closed.

James quickly gave the bartender a look with
a slight tilt of his head as if to say, “Same arrangement as last
night.” The bartender nodded.

“Man, I can’t have it. Not after last night,”
said Daen, looking decidedly green.

“One drink with your friends,” said Petior.
“What are you, how you say, walking punsy?” to which he laughed
very loud.

Daen whispered to James, “What did he just
call me?”

“Either a pansy or a pussy, but either way,
it was funny.” James crossed to the bar, picked up the drink the
bartender pushed at him, clanged glasses with Petior, and slugged
his water down.

“Whatever, man,” was all Daen could muster.
He drank with his eyes closed and gave a slight shiver, managing to
keep it down.

It was apparent that Petior was about to
order another round, but James cut him off by placing cash on the
counter to cover the bill twice over, saying, “Petior, we are very
hungry and looking forward to tasting some excellent food tonight
and don’t want to spoil it with too much vodka first. Shall we
go?”

“Da, da, good point making, da, let us go
now,” said Petior, but James was slightly distracted. Something was
coming. His stomach was swinging as though he were on a roller
coaster. The sensation was stronger tonight and again felt like
something about the bar.

His eyes scanned the room and did a fast head
count. Seven customers, his party, the barman, and the plain
waitress. The layout hadn’t changed; nothing was out of place. This
wasn’t it, not yet, but he was on full alert.

James bet it had something to do with the
kids tailing him. He’d felt this same feeling last night, but it
had been too early and could have been jet lag.

He hadn’t yet mastered these little warnings
he got and wasn’t particularly keen for them to continue,
especially when some were false alarms. Tonight, he was conscious
enough not to let it show that anything was concerning him.

Walking toward the door, he smiled and
clasped Petior with his left hand and Daen with his right. Upon
exiting, the first thing James looked for was a kid. He saw a girl
and quickly realized the kids were using a complex relay system
with disguises and all.

This girl was about nine or ten and appeared
to be wearing boys’ clothes, but at least she wore newer looking
shoes and a coat free of holes. Her hair was rather short and
sticking out everywhere from under her hat. As they walked,
following Petior to the restaurant, it was evident she was new to
this. She tried to mask it by begging along the way, which made her
have to run to catch up every time she asked for money.

They walked only a few blocks, but it seemed
much longer. They kept making odd turns here and there. When they
stopped and Petior knocked on an old wooden door, James wondered
where they were. Nothing marked this place as a restaurant.

“What are we doing here?” Daen’s voice was
muffled again behind his coat collar.

“This is the place,” Petior answered. “We go
in back. Only special VIP use this entrance.” The Russian pushed
out his chest as if to boast.

A voice came from inside, speaking in
Russian.

Petior answered, and the door opened.

James was clueless. “You catch that?” he
whispered as Petior walked inside.

“No.” Daen walked over the threshold, a
puzzled look on his face.

James looked back as he pulled the door
closed and saw the girl turning the corner, no doubt heading back
to report their location. At least she wasn’t standing in the cold
waiting for them.

They walked through a storeroom filled with
potatoes that looked like it also served as an office. This
connected to a short dingy hallway that opened to a kitchen area.
The kitchen looked like an odd assortment of modern equipment meets
the eighteenth century. A large kettle was boiling over an open
fire near a huge stainless steel counter and matching refrigerator
with a large extension cord powering it. Old graters sat next to a
food processor and espresso machine.

“You see here the plates and new machines?”
said Petior. “I get these for them and they do me favor in return.
Food is very good, too!” He said this louder than was needed, and
the two women in the kitchen smiled, with the older giving Petior a
wink.

The man who had let them in led them to a
hall with two additional doors and a staircase. They went up the
stairs and entered what appeared to be a private parlor, which was
the second door on the right.

The room consisted of a large fireplace that
took up almost a whole wall, a ragged sofa with beautiful hand
woven coverings, and a table with four chairs. Candle brackets lit
the room, though based on the outlets and light bulb in the center
of the ceiling, electricity was available. Two small windows on
each side of the sofa let in extra light.

The man produced a tablecloth from a cabinet
in the hall and gestured for them to sit.

“I will get the best food, da?” said
Petior.

“Sure, man, that would be great,” said
Daen.

Petior stepped with the man into the hallway
and began to order the dinner in Russian.

“No vodka!” Daen called out.

“Baaaa,” came Petior’s reply.

Daen looked at James for support, but James
was already chiming in. “Petior, please just water for
tonight.”

More grumbles followed by laughter from the
hallway.

“What did he say?” asked James.

“Missed it, but probably saying how we
‘Ameri`cans’ can’t hang with them drinking. After yesterday, he’s
right,” Daen said with a frown, embarrassed to admit it.

James smiled. Walking toward the windows, he
noticed that the floor creaked with each step, like the old
Buddhist temples that used creaky floors as an alarm system against
intruders. Peering into the street, he noticed the windows in the
adjacent building made a mirror effect. His eyes fell to the
outside windowsill of his own window.

There was a marking there. Two downward
slanted lines parallel to each other. They looked like scratches,
except they were burned into the wood. The top line had a small
hook toward its highest end while the bottom had a larger blunt
circular end at its bottom. Crossing the two in the center was a
single vertical line. For some reason, this looked familiar.

James turned to call Daen over, but Petior
was back and beckoning him to join them at the table.

“Friends, tonight you will have good Russian
food from good Russian people. They bring the best for you at no
charge.” Petior was clearly pleased at this arrangement.

“We certainly appreciate that, but we can
pay. We’re grateful to you for just bringing us here ...” began
James, but Petior would not allow it.

“You have paid enough. You bought all drinks
last night and then today. It is my turn to return favor with my
friends,” said Petior in a humble voice.

James knew it would be offensive to refuse,
so he said, “Thank you, my friend.”

Daen said the same in Russian, which made
Petior laugh.

“How does black man speak the motherland
tongue so good?” he inquired.

“What? A black man can’t speak Russian?” Daen
pretended to be insulted. In fact, he thought racism was funny
because it was so ridiculous. “It isn’t too interesting a story,
I’m afraid to say, man,” he went on. “When I was in high school, my
momma had a friend who was a professor. She said I should take
Russian in high school because I needed to take a second language
for college anyhow. If I took Russian, I would qualify for some
scholarships without much competition, since most people don’t take
Russian. Especially since I was taking it as a minority. So momma
made me take four years of it.”

Daen laughed. “They were right,” he
confirmed. “I got a nice scholarship, and now I’m minoring in
Russian. My professor laughs and says I’d blend into Russia if only
I matched the snow.”

They all laughed at this and clinked glasses.
Daen and James had water, and as usual, Petior drank vodka.

As the meal courses began, dinner was
full of laughter, discussion, and excellently prepared food. Daen
was obviously starting to feel better and had begun exchanging
jokes with Petior in Russian.

“That is much more funny hearing the way you
tell it, Bryan,” said Petior, a huge grin on his face. “I will need
to remember to tell your version with the pig instead of the fat
waitress; is much better.”

“I think you translated something wrong,
Bryan,” said James, grinning at his friend.

Petior attempted to correct the Russian where
Daen went wrong because pig means just pig and the slang did not
translate, which led to more laughter.

“Hello, Petior,” came a man’s voice in
Russian from the hallway that sounded slightly out of breath. A
short, round man with a head full of white hair entered the room,
walking slightly forward on his right side, as if he’d had a
shoulder dislocated too many times. His face was lined, though he
was probably only in his fifties.

“This is my friend Roman. He is owner and our
host,” Petior explained as everyone shook hands.

“Dinner was very good,” James began, but he
soon realized Roman, given his expression, did not speak English
fluently, if at all.

Daen immediately jumped in and expressed
their gratitude.

Roman stared at Daen as though he’d never met
someone like him in his entire life, then leaned in and whispered
something to Petior.

“Excuse for a moment please, friends,” Petior
said as he followed Roman into the hallway. As they walked away,
Roman pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. Petior
took it and closed the door behind them.

“I wonder if that’s the bill. I thought
Petior said this meal was covered. Should we offer some money?”
asked James trusting Daen to know more about Russian customs.

“Nah, man, he’d take it as an insult.
Besides, that was a normal sized sheet of paper. When was the last
time your bill for food was that big? Nah, just be cool and it
will be good.”

Petior opened the door and walked back in.
“We are done here now?” he asked. “May go for drink?”

“Dinner was great, man, but I don’t think I’m
up for a night of drinking,” Daen immediately responded.

“Thank you, Petior. Tonight was very nice,
but I’m with Bryan. An early night’s in order,” James agreed.

“You are sure?” Petior said with a slight
frown. “It is good, tonight. I hope before you leave we can do
again.”

A few minutes later, the three were back in
the cold, snowy streets of Moscow. They parted ways after
tentatively planning to see each other at the bar one more
time.

As James and Daen turned a snowy corner,
heading back toward their hotel, Daen muttered, “Seems we have a
short stack behind us again.”

“The girl, yeah. A boy took off the moment we
stepped outside. He was watching from the alley across the way.”
James began to explain the day’s events, including the room below
them and how he’d set it up.

“We may see some activity,” he concluded,
“but I’m not sure to what level. I wouldn’t put it past them to
have kids doing a lot of the work, or even to be waiting for us
back at the room.”

While Daen digested this, James added, “You
go in and up to the room. Check the monitors and signal me in the
hallway fifty seconds after we shake hands. One jump is all clear
to enter that room; we aren’t being watched. Two means come
up.”

“Okay,” replied Daen.

The hotel looked unwatched as they approached
and entered. They said good night to each other, shook hands, and
James turned to the front desk to make sure no messages had come
in. In reality, this was just an excuse to waste the fifty seconds
before entering the hallway.

“Hi, any messages for Stephen Lewis?” he
asked the clerk.

The man flipped a piece of paper and peered
down.