One Cup Chronicles. Tales Within a Tale of the Russian Underworld. Vladimir Ross

the bedroom, while three others paced about the yard. Only at the crack of dawn would they disappear into the annex designated for the staff.

      Bakharev was extremely zealous about his security. He would wake up before dawn, listen attentively to the silence accompanying the cautious steps of the guard of honor and peep into the neighboring room. The slightest doubt in the quality of protection, be it muffled chuckles behind the window or a sleepy, inattentive face, would spiral into immediate dismissal of the whole “secret service.”

      One night, after waking up in the darkness, Bakharev rubbed his head, still spinning from the tranquilizers, and spat an oath.

      “Oh, hell! Even a double dose is useless!”

      The noise drifting under his door did nothing to ease his anguish. A merry fellow with whom he entrusted his life was passing the dull hours of the night listening to sugary hits on a popular radio station. Apparently immersed in one such banal tune, he was singing in a nasally falsetto and tapping his foot in time to its pulsing rhythm.

      “Three days have passed since I employed the new service. I shall have to fire them again. Such diversion is unacceptable during work hours. Someone could be in my room at this very moment smothering me to death, and he wouldn’t even notice. What date is it today? Oh, yes, it’s the twenty-eighth.”