On the fourth day a vote would be taken to narrow the list down to three. Another round of intense debate would occur, and then a final selection would be made two days later. Unanimity would only be required on the last vote, as the national referendum mandated. All other votes would be by simple majority. If no candidate was selected after this six-day process, then the whole procedure would start again. But there seemed a general consensus that, for the sake of national confidence, every effort would be made to select an acceptable person on the first attempt.
Shortly before the noon break, Lord and Hayes retreated from the Great Hall into the Sacred Vestibule. Hayes led him into one of the far portals, where the bushy-headed driver from that morning waited.
"Miles, this is Ilya Zivon. He'll be your bodyguard when you leave the Kremlin."
He studied the sphinxlike Russian, an icy glint radiating back from a vacant face. The man's neck was as broad as his jaw, and Lord was comforted by an apparent hard, athletic physique.
"Ilya will look after you. He comes highly recommended. He's ex-military and knows his way around this town."
"I appreciate this, Taylor. I really do."
Hayes smiled and glanced at his watch. "It's nearly twelve and you need to get to the briefing. I'll handle things here. But I'll be at the hotel before you start." Hayes turned to Zivon. "You keep an eye on this fellow, just like we discussed."
NINE
12:30 PM
LORD ENTERED THEVOLKHOV'S CONFERENCE ROOM.THE WINDOWless rectangle was filled with three dozen men and women, all dressed in conservative attire. Waiters were just finishing serving drinks. The warm air, like the rest of the hotel, carried the scent of an ashtray. Ilya Zivon waited outside, just beyond the double doors leading to the hotel lobby. Lord felt better knowing the burly Russian was nearby.
The faces before him were etched with concern. He knew their predicament. They'd been encouraged to invest in the reemerging Russia by an anxious Washington, and the lure of fresh markets had been too tempting to resist. But nearly constant political instability, a daily threat from themafiya, and protection payments that were sapping away profits had turned a rosy investment opportunity into a nightmare. The ones here were the major American players in the new Russia: transportation, construction, soft drinks, mining, oil, communications, computers, fast food, heavy equipment, and banking. Pridgen & Woodworth had been hired to look after their collective interests, each relying on Taylor Hayes's reputation as a hard-nosed negotiator with the right contacts within the emerging Russia. This was Lord's first meeting with the group as a whole, though he knew many on an individual basis.
Hayes followed him inside and lightly patted him on the shoulder. "Okay, Miles, do your thing."
He stepped to the front of the brightly lit room. "Good afternoon. I'm Miles Lord." A quiet came over the gathering. "Some of you I've already met. To those I haven't, nice to have you here. Taylor Hayes thought a briefing might help answer your questions. Things are going to start happening fast and we might not have time to talk during the days ahead--"
"You're goddamn right we have questions," a stout blond woman yelled with a New England twang. Lord knew her to be the head of Pepsico's Eastern European operations. "I want to know what's going on. My board is nervous as shit about all this."
As they should be, Lord thought. But he kept his face tight. "You don't give me a chance to even get started, do you?"
"We don't need speeches. We need information."
"I can give you the raw data. Current national industrial output is down forty percent. The inflation rate is approaching one hundred fifty percent. Unemployment is low, about two percent, butunder employment is the real problem--"
"We've heard all that," another CEO said. Lord didn't know the man. "Chemists are baking bread, engineers manning assembly lines. The Moscow newspapers are full of that crap."
"But things aren't so bad that they can't get worse," Lord said. "There's a popular joke. Yeltsin and the governments that followed him managed in two decades to do what the Soviets failed to accomplish in seventy-five years: make the people long for communism." A few snickers came. "The communists still have a solid grassroots organization. Revolution Day every November is marked by impressive demonstrations. They preach nostalgia. No crime, minimal poverty, social guarantees. That message has a certain appeal to a nation deep in despair." He paused. "But the