State Of The Union

After lighting a candle, Ivanova sat down by herself on one of the long pews in the center and closed her eyes. At first, Harvath thought maybe she had come to pray, but as she repeatedly stole furtive glances at her watch, he realized what she was really doing was killing time. Either someone was coming to meet her, or something else was going on.

Harvath watched as a stream of worshippers and tourists moved through the church, each guided by their own calling, but none of them tried to make contact with Ivanova. After an hour had passed, she glanced at her watch one final time and then stood up and walked slowly to the exit.

By the time she emerged, Harvath was already secreted on the edge of the small esplanade waiting for her. When she hailed a nearby cab, Harvath quickly followed suit, telling the driver in his somewhat passable Russian, “slyedooytyeh ta jensh-cheena.”Follow that woman.

They came to a stop in a neighborhood of run-down factories lying cheek by jowl. Up ahead, Harvath could see a line of people standing in the cold beneath a brushed aluminum sign that readbreathe.

Harvath watched as Ivanova walked to the front of the line, said something to the bouncer and was granted admittance to the club. Once she was inside, Harvath paid the fare and climbed out of the cab. He waited until the cabbie had driven away before casing the perimeter of the building and finding a place to hide his backpack. Bypassing the line just as Ivanova had done, Harvath approached the bouncer, slipped him a hundred-dollar bill and asked if it was possible to get a table.

The bouncer showed Harvath inside where a scantily clad hostess led him to a table, presented him with a menu, and wished him a pleasant evening.

Glancing around the crowded nightclub, Harvath could see that it had once been a foundry or a factory of some sort. The focal point was an enormous riveted vat with large portholes, around which the bar had been built. Harvath could see patrons with masks clasped to their faces indulging in the latest trend to sweep Russia-scented oxygen.

When the waitress arrived to take his order, Harvath was tempted to ask for a martini, but thought better of it when he realized the ice would be made from St. Petersburg’s foul-smelling, foul-tasting, pollutant-laden, giardia-infested water. Russian vodka could kill a hell of a lot, but Harvath doubted it could conquer what crawled out of local spigots. He opted for a beer instead.

By the time hisVena Porter arrived, Harvath had politely chased off three hookers. Obviously, word had quickly spread that there was a wealthy American at table number one. Knowing that it was much more difficult to hit a moving target, he left some money for his drink and got up to check out the rest of the club.

The clientele were all New Russians, sporting the latest in trendy designer fashions. While Ivanova’s outfit had seemed a bit much at the Hermitage Café, now it made complete sense. Though she was a tall gorgeous blond, there were a lot of tall gorgeous blonds here and she was proving very hard to locate. Harvath tried to put himself in her shoes. If he was going to conduct a clandestine meeting in a crowded, noisy nightclub, he’d want to position himself somewhere on the fringes of the action, someplace with the best view possible, yet concealed enough so that the meeting wouldn’t draw any undue attention.

Harvath approached the large dance floor and kept his attention on the clusters of seating areas on the other side. The DJ had just begun spinning “One Nation Under a Groove” by George Clinton and the Funkadelics when the crowd parted and Harvath caught a glimpse of Ivanova. She was sitting in a somewhat secluded booth and had just been joined by a middle-aged man in a bad suit with an even worse comb-over. He looked like he’d be more at home at a book binding convention than at a hip Russian nightclub, but whoever he was, Ivanova had gone to a lot of trouble to meet him and therefore Harvath wanted to meet him too.

He worked his way around the edge of the dance floor, trying to move through the thick crowd but as he got about halfway to the booth, something was wrong. Ivanova had disappeared.

Moments later a voice from behind said, “Why am I not surprised?” as Harvath felt something hard jabbed into his back.

“Of all the oxygen bars in all the towns in all the world-” he mumbled as he looked over his shoulder and saw Alexandra using her coat to hide the gun she was holding.

“Quiet,” she replied, turning him around. “I had a feeling I was being followed.”

“Guilty,” replied Harvath, as he tried to put on his most charming smile, “but now that I’m here, how about introducing me to your friend in the booth?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” said Ivanova as she scanned the crowded dance floor. “If I let you go, you’ll hang around and wait for him, won’t you?”