"Who?"
Bucharov cursed and turned. He stormed back to his Volga and climbed inside. Suddenly, he pulled out of line and made a squealing U-turn. The other KGB drivers and police followed their leader, squealing U-turns, and heading back the direction they had just come at breakneck speeds.
Nikolai stood. He gently placed Sasha and her doll back in the knapsack and lifted her like a bundle of luggage. Then he walked over to the vehicles being inspected before they were checked at the actual crossing gate.
At the second embassy vehicle, he knocked on the glass. "Please open your trunk again."
Danbury got out of his vehicle and opened his trunk a second time. Nikolai bent forward and looked in the trunk, lifting small bags and examining them as a border guard would. “TINKER,” he whispered. Then loudly, “Leave it open, thank you," he told Danbury. Now he was blocking the view of the cars behind with the American’s trunk lid.
Nikolai went forward. Longfellow's glass was down. "Open your trunk again, please," Nikolai told Longfellow.
Longfellow again reached inside and retrieved his keys, then proceeded to the car's trunk and inserted the key. He twisted, and the trunk flew open.
"What do we have here?" Nikolai asked, and then he bent double, leaning forward as if inspecting the trunk. He then handed his knapsack and Sasha to Longfellow. Longfellow then witnessed the border officer bend down and turn onto his side and draw his knees to his chest. He said, "I am Colonel Nikolai Semenov. Close the trunk, please."
Astounded, Longfellow slammed the trunk shut. He turned and looked around. Sasha’s hair barely showed above the top of the knapsack. All officers were busy with other vehicles, dogs here and there, sniffing, agents looking inside and out. Longfellow's hands were shaking as he climbed back inside the car. He handed the knapsack and baby to Sue Ellen.
"What is it?" Sue Ellen asked, no longer considering that the KGB would be listening in.
"Twisted my back, that's all," said Longfellow. "Had to open the trunk for the officer. My back is on fire."
"Goodness. We'll find a back doctor."
"Indeed."
82
7:15 p.m. 106th Tallinn Border Detachment
Danbury shut his trunk and climbed back inside his car. He started the engine. Longfellow and Danbury then pulled forward into a car park. They went inside the Border Troops station. They joined the queue at the customs and immigration counter. Filling out paperwork for leaving the Soviet Union could take a long time. Sue Ellen prepared for a ten-minute delay, at least.
Nikolai, his eyes growing accustomed to the dark, held perfectly still, so the vehicle didn't sway on its suspension. Angie was awake and grumpy, crying out and wanting her bottle. The soldiers ignored it. Babies always wanted something.
Finally, Sue Ellen picked her up and walked between her car and the next. The woman in that car also had a small child, so the women began chatting while Sue Ellen rocked the baby and patted her on the diaper. She then looked back into their Saab and was relieved to see Sasha was taking a late nap. Lucky was happily working on a rawhide bone.
Border guards passed between the lines of cars, looking right and left. Sue Ellen braced herself to suddenly become violently ill if they tried to search the trunk. She would demand that all searches stop under the Geneva Convention. At that point, they would probably all be arrested.
“Get back in your car, please,” said a young border guard passing by.
Sue Ellen nodded and placed Angie into her child seat before she climbed into the passenger seat. Lucky was next to Angie, gnawing her bone and taking up way more than her share of the back seat. Next to Lucky was Sasha.
Longfellow made Russian small talk with the woman working the customs kiosk. He had to control the impulse to hurry her as she looked over the dozen or more student visas that had preceded him into the station as the Finnish students headed back to Helsinki. The other cars searched were mostly Finnish visitors heading home from Moscow. Drugs would be the target ever since the Moscow Mafia had flooded the streets with illegal drugs.
Inside the trunk, it was sweltering from the vehicle's transmission and high-speed run. Nikolai shifted his weight, causing the car to rock ever so slightly.
Sue Ellen turned in her seat. A Soviet dog handler appeared and stood eight yards away, looking intently at the British and American embassy cars and stroking his German Shepherd.
Further back, she saw a second sniffer dog inspecting a container truck. The first dog approached, eager and panting, straining at its chain. Sue Ellen reached casually for the second rawhide bone with its distinctive meaty flavor. She pushed open the door and held the bone out for the dog, bobbing it under his nose. He quickly snatched the rawhide up in his mouth. His handler commanded him to drop it. The dog only looked at him. His handler commanded again in his harshest voice, but the dog still ignored him and turned and began walking away. He would have continued, except he hit the end of his chain. Yet he wouldn't drop the bone, no matter the threats from the Soviet guard. At that moment, his unsmiling handler yanked him away. But when he stooped to remove the bone from the dog's mouth, it growled, baring its teeth, and the handler came upright, red-faced. He continued with his dog back down the line of cars.
The other dog had closed in on the car and was sniffing at the trunk, inches away from Nikolai. The fugitive heard the muffled sound of Soviet voices.
As the dog circled the car, sniffing as it went, Sue Ellen knew it was time to walk Lucky. Lucky hated when other dogs sniffed around her family. She was very possessive and wouldn't hesitate to bare her fangs. Sue Ellen let Lucky head for the rear of the car, where she encountered the German Shepherd aching to get inside the trunk. Sue Ellen loosened her grip on Lucky's chain, which Lucky took as a signal. Instantly, Lucky headed for the German Shepherd, whose handler saw her coming. He knew all about the breed—they were Russian and used to guard the meanest prisoners in the world inside Soviet prisons. Alas, they were also used by the Russians to hunt bears. He jerked with all his strength at the German Shepherd's chain, removing it from Lucky's immediate danger.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Sue Ellen cried in Russian. She caught up and seized Lucky's collar.
Having had enough and caring too much about his dog's welfare, the guard moved along the line to the next car, Danbury's car. It was unoccupied, so the officer headed for the car next to Danbury’s. After Lucky went to the bathroom on a swatch of grass, Sue Ellen and Lucky climbed back inside their vehicle, where Lucky resumed gnawing her rawhide bone. Sue Ellen’s heart was thumping in her chest.
It had been too close.
The men returned with the completed paperwork. They re-entered their vehicles and began waiting with the others.
Fifteen minutes later, a border guard came casually strolling outside the guard station, holding up the three consents to leave the Soviet Union. He leaned inside Longfellow's car and checked the signed clearances against the adults. Same thing with Danbury's car. Satisfied with the matching faces and photos, he smiled and wished all a safe trip.
A line of seven cars had formed at the last barrier, consisting of a razor-wire fence with two elevated lookout posts and machine guns.
For the next twenty minutes, the vehicles inched forward, submitting passports a final time, then driving onto the ferry. Longfellow broke out in a drenching sweat though the outside air was freezing in late October. The line was taking forever, and he was about to lose it, even for a veteran spy. They had to be careful since they were scrutinized every few seconds by guards with binoculars in the towers.