5

The policeman left me at my floor and pointed in the direction of Room 25 I had claimed was mine. I thanked him shaking his hand and saying how grateful I was and apologizing all the time. He soon got fed up with it, he gave me a brief cheering smile and a pack on my shoulder and went away.

I listened to the fading sound of paces and went down to the hotel's lobby. At four o'clock in the morning there was nobody, even the receptionist was absent from his place. I could call him, but I wasn't in the least interested in waking him up, on the contrary. I came up to the reception desk and opened the register log that was lying on it. I ran my finger on the lines in the last filled up. I had a very vague idea of what I was looking for. A name? An hour? A combination of both? I ran my finger on the lines and nothing drew my attention or ignited my imagination. I didn't see anything of consequence. But it didn't bother me, I knew that my eyes and brain would absorb all the necessary figures and names and elaborate it in due time, giving me often unexpected result. It's called intuition, if I'm not mistaken. So I went through the page of the day several times, then I closed the book. Now I had to leave as soon as possible.

I went out in the fresh autumn air of Moscow at four o'clock in the morning. The street, amazingly, was not desert, there were persons strolling without a scope, just to be in the middle of a great city, seeking company at any cost, just not to be alone in a flat without anybody at your side, without money and hope. Now everybody was left to himself, in a hostile world. There were a lot of drunken people, and still more of those ready to leave this world. They stood there or moved slowly along the sidewalk, they were drawn away from their suicidal thoughts only by the noise of the big city, but it was a thread that was rapidly thinning and in an hour or two there would be nothing that tied them to life. I walked sensing bodyless figures of those who had just happily parted for another worlds. The atmosphere was gruesome. I hurried away towards the Tverskaya Street and then to the right, to the brightly lit and noisy Garden Street just five hundred metres away. I had to reach my hotel where I hoped to find Lena alive. I had a very bad presentiment.

After crossing the Garden Ring I had to go another four hundred metres to get to the hotel. I made it almost running, with my heart beating faster than it was necessary just to cope with the run. I was fancying Lena lying in bed beside Hewlett, or in his arms, snuggling her body up against his, I heard her moaning with delight, his heavy breathing with his chin on her slim shoulder. Those pictures were painful, they choked me and made my heart flutter and bleed. I could do nothing to stop that pain, though I knew it was highly unprofessional. Yet I had to take measures. I stopped before entering the revolving door with bright sign "Helios" over it and took some deep breaths. Relax, pal. She's not your property. All she did was aimed at carrying out the mission. But what was her mission? To what extent was her pleasure part of her mission? Was it big enough to outweigh her sense of duty? I realized the stupidity of such questions, all of which could refer to my professional work as well. It was just an acute fit of jealousy. To stop it I had to find Lena right away, to press her to my breast, to tell her burning words of love in hot whisper while burying my face in her hair.

I took some other deep breaths.

"Are you going in?" said a voice behind my back. It brought me back to earth. I nodded without looking back and pushed the door.

In the lobby surprisingly there were persons, an elderly couple and a young man. For such an early hour it was quite unusual. They were standing at the reception desk, while the receptionist was entering their data into the computer. He looked up when I appeared and nodded to me with a faint smile. I felt for the key in my pocket.

The man behind me went to the lift without stopping by the reception. The receptionist barely cast an indifferent glance in his direction.

My room was at the first floor, so I went on foot.

Now I had to face Pavel whom I was almost certain to find awake. What was I to tell him? That everything had gone wrong, that I lost the money and the levers to regain it, and more, there were two women dead bodies with my biological traces on them? There was a little hope that something might come from tonight's work of Lena, though I had no idea what kind of help might come from that side. I was trudging upstairs and thinking about what to say to Pavel. He didn't need comfort, he needed news about what had been done to free his son. The thought of the uselessness of all my night's efforts had somehow obscured the worm that had been gnawing me since the moment I had seen Ann's dead body and heard that some woman's voice had warned the police about my direct involvement in that murder. I had tried to push that worm at the back of my conscience, but now it threaded its way on the surface and continued its subversive work. Who could that woman be? Patricia? That was my first guess as the most obvious. But why? Only to distract the attention of the police from herself? But then she was murdered too, and the police was warned by another woman's voice. Or was it the same voice?

And now what was I to do?

I walked slowly along the corridor, preparing to face Pavel's hopeful look. Now he would ask me mutely:

"What's new?" and I could only shake my head. Then his hope would turn into despair. He would ask me no other questions. Would I give him an account of what had happened during the night? Hardly. I would only deepen his sorrow.

I came up to the door and stopped with my head dropped. I had no clear plan as to what to say and had to play by ear.

"Are you going in?" said somebody behind me, I recognized the voice that had asked me the same question five minutes before. I tried to turn around when I felt something hard sticking into my back, as the voice said:

"Don't turn around. Push the door and go in." To make the command more convincing the muzzle (I was sure it was the muzzle of a gun) was pushed deeper under my right lower rib. I pushed the door, it wasn't locked and went in. My mind went blank in that moment, I acted like a robot. But it didn't last long. As I stepped into the dark room, I knew what to do.

Any normal person who gets attacked being threatened with a gun temporarily loses control of all his conscious actions, it's like a hypnotic trance induced by uncontrolled terror. Common conviction is that the attacker will kill you unless you obey his orders. This is the great mistake. If the assailant were interested in killing you he would do so without any other useless orders. If he orders you to do something else threatening you with an arm, his purpose is another than killing you, and here lies your big chance. But normal persons are too paralyzed with terror to use their chance. They haven't had an adequate training to stand up to such circumstances. They happen to be in such situation once in their lifetime, and if they have another occasion of the kind, they usually have no positive experience they could use, just because on the previous occasion they were paralyzed with terror. Total obedience is considered the best guarantee of survival. This is a mistake, unless you're dealing with a psycopath for whom your death, and possibly an excruciating one, is an end in itself. Generally, when the muzzle of a gun is pressed to your head, neck or back, and you're ordered in a gruesome whisper to do something or to follow your attacker, you're safe. You're wanted alive, I assure you.

I couldn't boast such experience neither, God preserved me from it, but I happened to find myself in something of the kind when the husband of a woman, deputy director of a large American holding, caught me in the room of his wife, half naked, without any plausible justification of my presence and condition. He wasn't supposed to be there, but husbands are known to be jealous and unpredictable fools. He took out his gun and pointed it at me. I then ran a really big risk to get shot, but the American, when his first homicidal impulse had passed, decided to punish me morally and ordered me to go out in the corridor and then further, to the lobby. I asked him humbly for permission to put something on. He only laughed sarcastically and waved me to the exit door. His laughter convinced me of his substantially peaceful mood, and as I passed by him, I hit him at the secret point on his arm that paralyzed it at once. The gun dropped, and my next blow caught him in the pit of his stomach, making him double over and crouching with pain. I remember feeling sorry for him, I helped him come to his feet, then made him sit on the sofa and gave him some whisky. When his wife came out of the bath, unaware of the happening – she, with her utmost amazement, found us peacefully talking, me with only my pants on, and him still suffering from my two blows. But I still remember also the very unpleasant feeling of being held at gunpoint, an extremely bad feeling. When I told Pavel about the episode, he laughed but was impressed and amused. He then took me to a special training session against gun and knife threat and assail where I learned a lot of new things in addition to what I knew on the subject, including practical actions.

Now I had to apply my mostly theoretical knowledge to practical life, when my life was really threatened. If I survived I would certainly give a detailed account to my instructors.

I made a small step and stopped. The man behind stuck his gun deeper into my back and pushed me forward, saying: "Go." It was the moment.

I had several options. I knew I wasn't quick and powerful enough to neutralize my attacker. Then there was always the danger, being at such at close distance – practically none – from the gun, that the attacker would pull the trigger involuntarily. His immediate regret would be small consolation to me.

I moaned, raised my left hand to my breast at the height of the heart and collapsed to my knees, stayed so for a couple of seconds and fell on my right side, giving out a second groan, a much louder one. I was faking a heart attack, and it was the most unexpected thing on my part. My assailant expected anything but a heart attack. He was prepared to counter strong resistance, even a counterattack, but not a heart attack. If he had in mind to hit me once in the room, now he had to help me to stay alive before killing me. Or he was now exempt from the heavy duty of killing me – with all the consequent risks of being found out -, because I was obviously killing myself. My face was distorted by an expression of sharp pain, I observed my attacker through my half closed eyes. He stood back in the first moment, then looked at my collapsed figure with bewildered eyes, not knowing what to do. Then he put his gun into the pocket of his overcoat and bent over me. That was his mistake. He was never taught to face situations like that. Perhaps he was to kidnap me, tying my hands and legs and putting a gag into my mouth, and then to take me to some secret prison, I didn't know. What I knew was that I had to take advantage immediately of his helpless position and neutralize him. I had a few seconds at my disposal. First I moaned again and pointed with my wide opened eyes to the ceiling, as if I had seen there something terrible. He couldn't help looking up, leaving his throat completely unprotected. My next movement was as unexpected for him as my heart attack. The blow I dealt - a direct hit to his throat with the bones of my right hand - was one of the most effective in my arsenal, and that time I put all my energy and strength into it. Something cracked in his cartilage, he gasped, choked, his eyes popped out, a sound very like the one a faucet gives out when the water supply suddenly stops, he raised both his hands to his throat and then fell on his back. In a moment I was on him. He arched his back, not so to throw me away, but rather to find some way to breathe. I had no desire nor means to save his life. The waterless faucet in his throat went on hissing. I quickly searched his pockets, took out his documents. I rose to my feet and switched on the light. Pavel was probably not in, or was laying somewhere there unconscious or dead. But first I was interested in the ID card of my attacker. Its cover itself made me mentally whistle. He was an agent of the Federal Security Bureau. He was a certain Petrov, had a grade of captain and seemingly worked for the same department where Pavel belonged. What the hell was he doing here? I stepped into the room. Pavel wasn't there, the bed was unmade, the crumpled and balled up covers were strewn on the floor.

I was observing the mess when I heard some movement behind me. My assailant was agonizing. His pharynx was obviously broken and the air was having trouble coming into his lungs. He wouldn't go on for much longer like that. Something like pity arose in me, after all I had the upper hand of him thanks to his human weakness, perhaps, because of his desire to help me. I didn't remember any more the highly unpleasant feeling of a gun muzzle under my ribs.

I took out my cell phone and called the ambulance. There was nothing I could do for him in that moment. I had been taught to hit my enemies and to defend myself, not to help my injured attackers after I hit them.