The Hunted

Golitsin had arrived ten minutes earlier. He was deep into his third scotch, a fine, imported blend he had acquired a taste for during his years in the KGB.

The restaurant was the most exclusive and most breathtakingly expensive in Moscow. At that moment, anyway: city hot spots fluctuated monthly, and after three weeks of endless lines, of thousand-dollar bribes to the owner for a reserved table, this place was peering at oblivion. The tables were filled with other crooks and entrepreneurs who were choking down caviar by the bushel and gulping enough champagne to float the Russian fleet. Enough cigarette smoke filled the air for an artillery duel. Beautiful women seemed to be littered around every table, hanging lustily on the arms of seriously rich men, laughing at full volume over the slightest ping of humor, generally working hard to ingratiate themselves enough to let the party last another day, another week, another month, before they were replaced by a more eager bimbo with longer legs and a louder, faster quick-draw giggle.

Long live capitalism.

"Nice place. You have good taste," Tatyana said, smiling nicely, not meaning a word of it.

Golitsin did not get up or even acknowledge the phony compliment. She slid into the booth across from him and offered a nice flash of thigh. Her blue blouse was cut precariously low-if she tripped, or stooped even one inch forward, her breasts would flop out.

"How are things in the Kremlin?" Golitsin asked.

"Tense. Always tense. Disaster always lurking around the corner."

The waiter rushed over. She ordered British gin, straight up, no water, no ice. Golitsin tipped his nearly empty glass and signaled for a refill. A small band sat in the corner, dressed as Cossacks, playing old Russian folk songs to an audience playing a new Russian game.

Golitsin informed her, "Let me tell you why we're here. I'm hearing rumors."

"What kind of rumors?"

"Bad ones for the lush."

"How bad?"

"The reactionary forces are going to take him down."

"They've been promising that for years."

"They're beyond promising. They're hiring hooligans off the streets, arming them, and preparing a showdown."

An eyebrow shot up. "How reliable are these rumors?"

"Believe them. My old KGB friends say it will happen any day."

"What about Rutskoi? He involved?" she asked in a low whisper, meaning, of course, Aleksandr Rutskoi, Yeltsin's vice president, a war hero from the Afghanistan debacle Yeltsin had taken aboard in the hope that Rutskoi could calm down the right-wing wackos and former communists who loathed Yeltsin with a passion that bordered on madness. But the marriage was ill-conceived and soured from the start. It sped bitterly downhill from there. They were very different kind of men: one malleable and political down to his underwear; the other the sort of military man who adored absolutes in everything but his own ethics. Aside from a few organs the only thing they shared in common was that they were both legendary blowhards with a bottomless lust for power. The two men now barely talked. Rutskoi schemed and plotted with his friends and allies in the Russian version of a Congress, undermining Yeltsin and his reforms at every turn. And Yeltsin worked hard to return the favor. Stealing a note from his American friends, he pushed his vice president into the shadows, and shoved him out the door every time there was a funeral anywhere in the world. "The Pallbearer," Yeltsin called him with considerable malice.

"In it up to his hips," Golitsin confirmed, finishing off his scotch.

Her gin arrived. She took a long, careful sip. "I know you hate him, but it would be bad luck for us and our plans if Yeltsin was toppled right now."

Barely paying attention, he now was looking over her shoulder at a man who had just swaggered through the entrance. Six leggy women of identical height and approximate weight and anorexic build were hanging off his arms, all with their hair died bright red, all dressed in identical red evening gowns. He thought at first he was seeing double, or triple, and it was time to cut back on the hooch. What a glorious time to be ridiculously rich and Russian.

"Maybe there's an opportunity in this for us," she suggested.

That got his attention. He shifted his rear and bent forward. "Like what?"

"Your old KGB friends now run the Ministry of Security and the security services. If there's bloodshed, they'll be Yeltsin's only hope."

"Yes, they will. What do we get in return?"