Sidney Sheldon - The Doomsday Conspiracy

Janus said crisply, “We are agreed on that. Our immediate problem is to keep our people calm, and avoid the spread of panic.”

“How is Commander Bellamy progressing?” The Canadian.

“He’s making excellent progress. He should be finished in the next day or two.”

Kiev, The Soviet Union

Like most of her countrywomen, Olga Romanchanko had become disenchanted with perestroika. In the beginning, all the promised changes that were going to happen in Mother Russia sounded so exciting. The winds of freedom were blowing through the streets, and the air was filled with hope. There were promises of fresh meat and vegetables in the shops, pretty dresses and real leather shoes and a hundred other wonderful things. But now, six years after it had all begun, bitter disillusion had set in. Goods were scarcer than ever. It was impossible to survive without the black market. There was a shortage of virtually everything, and prices had soared. The main streets were still filled with rytvina – huge potholes. There were protest marches in the streets, and crime was on the increase. Restrictions were more severe than ever. Perestroika and glasnost had begun to seem as empty as the promises of the politicians who promoted them.

Olga had worked at the library in Lenkomsomol Square, in the centre of Kiev, for seven years. She was thirty-two years old, and had never been outside the Soviet Union. Olga was reasonably attractive, a bit overweight, but in Russia that was not considered a disadvantage. She had been engaged twice to men who had moved away and deserted her; Dmitri, who had left for Leningrad, and Ivan, who had moved to Moscow. Olga had tried to move to Moscow to be with Ivan, but without a propiska, a Moscow residence permit, it was not possible.

As her thirty-third birthday approached, Olga was determined that she was going to see something of the world before the Iron Curtain closed around her once again. She went to the head librarian, who happened to be her aunt.

“I would like to take my vacation, now,” Olga said.

“When do you want to leave?”

“Next week.”

“Enjoy yourself.”

It was as simple as that. In the days before perestroika, taking a vacation would have meant going to the Black Sea or Samarkand or Tbilisi, or any one of a dozen other places inside the Soviet Union. But now, if she were quick about it, the whole world was open to her. Olga took an atlas from the library shelf and pored over it. There was such a big world out there! There was Africa and Asia, and North and South America … she was afraid to venture that far. Olga turned to the map of Europe. Switzerland, she thought. That’s where I’ll go.

She would never have admitted it to anyone in the world, but the main reason Switzerland appealed to her was because she had once tasted Swiss chocolate, and she had never forgotten it. She loved sweets. The candy in Russia – when one could get it – was sugarless and tasted terrible.

Her taste for chocolate was to cost Olga her life.

The journey on Aeroflot to Zurich was an exciting beginning. She had never flown before. She landed at the international airport in Zurich, filled with anticipation. There was something in the air that was different. Maybe it is the smell of real freedom, Olga thought. Her finances were strictly limited, and she had made reservations at a small, inexpensive hotel, the Leonhare, at Limmatquai 136.

Olga checked in at the reception desk. “This is my first time in Switzerland,” she confided to the clerk, in halting English. “Could you suggest some things for me to do?”

“Certainly. There is much to do here,” he told her. “Perhaps you should start with a tour of the city – I will arrange it.”

“Thank you.”

Olga found Zurich extraordinary. She was awed by the sights and sounds of the city. The people on the street were dressed in such fine clothes, and drove such expensive automobiles. It seemed to Olga that everyone in Zurich must be a millionaire. And the stores! She window-shopped along Bahnhofstrasse, the main shopping street of Zurich, and she marvelled at the incredible cornucopia of goods in the windows: there were dresses and coats and shoes and lingerie and jewellery and dishes and furniture and automobiles and books and television sets and radios and toys and pianos. There seemed to be no end to the goods for sale. And then Olga stumbled across Spriingli’s, famous for their confections and chocolates. And what chocolates! Four large store-front windows were filled with a dazzling array of them. There were huge boxes of mixed chocolates, chocolate bunnies, chocolate loaves, chocolate-covered nuts. There were chocolate-covered bananas and chocolate beans filled with liqueurs. It was a feast just to look at the display in the windows. Olga wanted to buy everything, but when she learned the prices, she settled for a small box of assorted chocolates and a large candy bar.

Over the next week, Olga visited the Zurichhorn Park and the Rietberg Museum and the Gross Miinster, the church erected in the eleventh century, and a dozen other wonderful tourist attractions. Finally, her time was running out.

The hotel clerk at the Leonhare said to her, “The Sunshine Tours Bus Company has a fine tour of the Alps. I think you might enjoy that before you leave.”

“Thank you,” Olga said. “I will try it.”

When Olga left the hotel, her first stop was to visit Spriingli’s again, and the next stop was at the office of the Sunshine Tours Bus Company, where she arranged to go on a tour. It had proved to be most exciting. The scenery was breathtaking, and in the middle of the tour they had seen the explosion of what she thought was a flying saucer, but the Canadian banker she was seated next to explained that it was merely a spectacle arranged by the Swiss government for tourists, that there were no such things as flying saucers. Olga was not completely convinced. When she returned home to Kiev she discussed it with her aunt.

“Of course there are flying saucers,” her aunt said. “They fly over Russia all the time. You should sell your story to a newspaper.”

Olga had considered doing it, but she was afraid that she would be laughed at. The Party did not like its members to get publicity, especially the kind that might subject them to ridicule. All in all, Olga decided that, Dmitri and Ivan aside, her vacation had been the highlight of her life. It was going to be difficult to settle down to work again.

The ride from the airport into the centre of Kiev took the Intourist bus one hour, driving along the newly built highway. It was Robert’s first time in Kiev, and he was impressed by the ubiquitous construction along the highway, and the large apartment buildings that seemed to be springing up everywhere. The bus pulled up in front of the Dnieper Hotel and disgorged its two dozen passengers. Robert looked at his watch. Eight p.m. The library would be closed. His business would have to wait until morning. He checked into the huge hotel, where a reservation had been made for him, had a drink at the bar and went into the austere whitewashed dining room for a dinner of caviar, cucumbers and tomatoes, followed by a potato casserole flavoured with tiny bits of meat and covered with heavy dough, all accompanied by vodka and mineral water.

His visa had been waiting for him at the hotel in Stockholm, as General Hilliard had promised. That was a quick bit of international cooperation, Robert thought. But no cooperation for me. “Naked” is the operational word.

After dinner, Robert made a few inquiries at the desk, and meandered over to Lenkomsomol Square. Kiev was a surprise to him. One of the oldest cities in Russia, it was an attractive, European-looking city, situated on the Dnieper River, with green parks and tree-lined streets. Churches were everywhere and they were spectacular examples of religious architecture: there were the Churches of St Vladimir’s and St Andrew’s and St Sophia’s, the last completed in 1037, pure white with its soaring blue bell tower, and the Pechersk Monastery, the tallest structure in the city. Susan would have loved all this, Robert thought. She had never been to Russia. He wondered if she had returned from Brazil yet. On an impulse, when he returned to his hotel room, he telephoned her, and to his surprise the call was put through almost immediately.