Jason Overstreet - Beneath the Darkest Sky

Moscow, Russia

April 1935

AMBASSADOR BULLITT HAD BEEN OUT OF THE COUNTRY FOR SIX months but had finally returned in time for the enormous party to be held at Spaso House. It would be called the Spring Festival, and every important person in Moscow had been invited.

With the party still nearly two weeks away, as it was to be held on April 24, I was waiting in the office that I shared with Bobby at the chancery. For some reason he was running late. We were due to meet a very important man at the Kremlin, one Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov. He held the title of Premier. I was to attend the meeting only to interpret for Bobby, of course. But I was excited to see the Kremlin.

I was still spending half of my days at Spaso House, but that would soon be ending, as the ballroom construction was finished and ready to host guests. Yet, Bullitt wanted me around until the very last Russian worker finished doing touch-up work. I still hadn’t had my meeting with him, so I hadn’t told him what I’d seen nearly four months earlier in Sergei, the caretaker’s, basement apartment. It had shocked the living hell out of me.

After I’d secured the ring of ten keys from a passed-out Sergei, his wife knocked out on his lap, I’d headed straight for his apartment, past the still-packed house of guests and down the stairway toward the basement. His door had three separate locks on it. It took me a while to find the correct ones for each, but I’d managed.

I opened the heavy door and flipped the light switch on, only to find what looked like a normal, small living room—a couch, table and chairs, a lamp, bookshelves, etcetera. It was very clean and appeared to have wooden floors throughout. Closing the door behind me, I made my way through and entered a short hallway, the end of which was part of the underground back wall of the mansion. Flipping on its lights, I noticed a bedroom on the left and a large toilet room on the right.

Continuing down the hallway, I found a small closet on the left, a kitchen on the right. That was all there was to the place—a living room, kitchen, bedroom, closet, and toilet room. I began to fear my quest to find something mysterious would be met with nothing but grave disappointment.

I flipped all of the light switches on and entered the bedroom first. Searching every inch of it, including under and behind the bed and dresser, I found nothing—same with the hallway closet and toilet room. I even tried to move the tub, but it was mounted. I walked to the kitchen and began opening cabinets and trying to move the stove, which was mounted, too. The back wall of the mansion was behind it. I opened its four doors to find nothing. Then I fiddled with the burners and panel on top. No luck. I opened the refrigerator and tilted it to see if a small hatch might be under. Only wooden floor.

Reentering the living room, I began moving furniture around, lifting rugs, and looking behind framed art and pictures on the wall, including a large one of Stalin. I looked up at the low ceiling for grooves that might suggest a hatch of some sort, as the ceiling was made of square black tiles with braille-looking shamrock designs on them. I walked the entire place again, looking up this time to see if one of the tile’s borders might appear different. No such luck.

I sat on Sergei’s bed, thinking. I was blank. Then I thought of an oddity. Why is the green stove so large? It was big enough for a family of eight.

I reentered the kitchen and began examining the big green thing. It had two front oven doors and two smaller ones for grilling below. I opened them all and looked inside, pressing my hand at the back walls. A normal stove.

I headed back toward the toilet room and actually decided to relieve myself of all the champagne I’d had. As I stood there listening to water hit water, I heard a tinkering sound coming from the back hallway. Cutting off my stream, I headed down and stopped at the kitchen entry. The tinkering was louder. I approached the stove and realized the sound was emanating from it. As if it were a door, the entire appliance began to move, its back right side pushing away from the wall. The back left side was on a hinge.

I turned and headed for the bedroom. God forbid this was where the intruder was heading, but I slid under the bed and waited. I could hear footsteps passing, heading toward the living room. The footsteps continued back toward the end of the hallway. The sound of something sliding could be heard, then the sound of feet stepping up.

I slid out from under the bed and crawled to the doorway. Peeking left, I could see a small boy standing beside one of the dining chairs at the end of the hallway. Next to it, a wooden ladder extended up through the open ceiling where they’d removed two tiles. The boy picked up what looked like a toaster. Two arms reached down and the boy stepped up a few rungs, handing over the device. He turned toward me, still looking down at the floor, however, and I suddenly realized he wasn’t a boy. He was a grown man, but a dwarf, beard and all. Picking up a few tools, he climbed up and disappeared, too.

I stayed there listening for what must have been twenty minutes. I wasn’t about to move yet. Time stood still. Finally I heard movement and saw legs climbing back down the ladder. Again I slid under the bed and listened to the commotion.

A few minutes later I heard the stove close and silence returned. I waited a good five minutes before sliding out and heading for the stove. I positioned myself on the right side of it near the back and tried to see how the entire appliance was mounted. It hadn’t been connected to the floor but rather the wall. Running my hand along the space at the back, I felt a lever. Playing ever so slightly with it, I realized it was designed to be pushed down.

I decided to wait a few more minutes. I contemplated waiting for another day to explore the secret passageway, but I realized this would likely be my only opportunity. I couldn’t help myself. I realized at this moment, some eleven years removed from my having escaped Harlem, how much I got a rush from these types of dangerous situations.

Pushing down on the lever until it clicked, I pulled the stove and it glided open as smoothly as a car door. A square opening in the wall was maybe thirty by thirty inches, and it was dark inside. Pushing it shut again, I began searching the kitchen drawers and cabinets for a flashlight, finding several in the one next to the sink. I pulled the stove open and entered. Before closing it, I made note of the other lever on the tunnel side.

Pointing the light straight ahead, I began walking. There was nothing complicated about the dirt tunnel. It was seven feet high and three feet wide, but it seemed to go on forever, ramping slightly downward.

After at least a hundred yards of walking, I came to the tunnel’s end where a ladder was positioned. I pointed the flashlight up through a vertical tunnel that extended some ten feet higher. The base of the seventeen-foot ladder touched the ground at my feet and reached all the way up to a hatch.

I was intrigued but realized it was likely just an entry to the tunnel. Maybe it opened onto the street, or maybe it opened into someone’s house. Whatever the case, I couldn’t risk what might be on the other side. What I wanted to see was above the tile ceiling in Sergei’s apartment.

I headed back and reentered the kitchen, closing the stove behind me. Grabbing a chair from the dining table in the living room, I carried it down the hall and positioned it below the secret tiles. I stepped up and pushed at one of the black squares, sliding it to the side before doing the same to the adjacent one. Feeling around for the tip of a ladder, I grabbed it and pulled. Made of very light wood, it easily slid down to the floor.