Chapter 69 – Stirg in Flames
The Russian Ministry of Cultural Affairs has a small fleet of aircraft at its disposal, and Gergiev now sat in one of them, a Tupolev 204 medium range, narrow body jet, on its way from Charleston to Saint Petersburg. Sometimes riding in a state owned plane was a good thing, and sometimes it wasn’t. Gergiev was sure this wasn’t a good thing. He would plead innocence, of course; would plead victimization, of course; and that would be an accurate portrayal of reality. He had, after all, been kidnapped, hadn’t he? And he wasn’t defecting, was he? Not like the dancers. He was returning to the fold. Still, he knew another reality would intrude very soon. Someone had to take the fall for this, and he was pretty sure it was going to be him.
There was something else, too. Another concern, another reality he was going to face, had to do with the check. The cashier’s check made out to cash, one of three such checks Stirg had set on the table during the meeting with the three politicos and three lawyers, a month earlier. One check had gone to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, one had gone to the Mariinsky lawyers, and one had gone to him. Gergiev was quite sure someone was going to ask him what he had done with that third check.
Stirg and Nev sat in the hotel suite, waiting for the Tupolev to touchdown, waiting for the car to bring Gergiev to the Ministry office, waiting to hear what the Ministry was going to do to find forty-five world class dancers to replace the forty-five dancers the fucks had stolen from him. From him. Nev was thinking of the time when he was in Mossad, and some Chechen guys had kidnapped a dozen Russian ballet dancers during a tour of Israel, and made political demands of the Russians. Mossad wasn’t going to negotiate with the Chechens, and sent in the first anti-terrorist team. Nev had been on the backup team, and had had to sit around outside the area for four hours, waiting to see how the rescue attempt went. If it went bad, his team would be sent in. It went well, and he didn’t have to make an assault, but the waiting part of it was tough. Waiting now, with Stirg pacing the floor, back and forth, back and forth, Nev thought this was worse.
To break the tension Nev got on the phone and called room service. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but ordered food for three. Some people eat more when under stress, and some eat less. He was picking at a potato casserole when the bell rang, and Gergiev, the politico, and a security guy in a suit came into the suite. Stirg ignored the politico and the security guy, walked up to Gergiev and said, “What happened? How did you let them do that? The dancers were your job, and now they aren’t dancing, here. They’re dancing there, in the fucks dance. What happened?”
Gergiev figured it was going to be like this, either from the politicos, or the lawyers, or the security nuts, or Stirg the moneyman, and he was prepared for the barrage of abuse. Him, the victim. Him, the kidnappee. Ok, let it rain. And rain it did. After Stirg braced him, the politico braced him, and then the security guy. When that was over he looked at Nev, said, “Don’t you have anything to say? Don’t you want to get into the act? Here I am, let it rip.”
Nev went to the table, opened a bottle of beer that was in a bucket of ice, and handed it to him. The other three guys, who had been standing, surrounding Gergiev during their successive tirades, sat down. Nev opened three more bottles of beer and passed them around. He said, “What are we going to do now? We gotta move on.” Looking at Gergiev he said, “Is there any way to get them back?”
Gergiev shook his head, no.
Stirg said, “How did they do it? What did they offer them? What did the June woman do?”
Gergiev shook his head again, and said, “What’s it matter? They’re not coming back. We gotta figure a way to get other dancers. Unless you want to cancel the production.” He looked sad, which the others attributed to the prospect of cancelling the production, but which in reality stemmed from Gergiev thinking about the fate of the seven other cashier’s checks, all made out to cash, several of which he had been sure would come his way. And now they were floating away on a cold Siberian breeze.
The security guy said, “You can talk about the show now, but later we’re going to talk about how the dancers went away, and who made that happen.”
Gergiev nodded. The politico said, “There are two weeks till our opening night, and three weeks till their opening night. Where can you get more dancers?”
“There are only two possibilities: borrow them from the Bolshoi, and the school. And the Bolshoi is in South America.”
Stirg asked, “What’s the school?”
“It’s our school, the Mariinsky Academy. Where we train the dancers. The best of them, a few of them, move up to the show, the big time.”
“Are they good?”
“They’re all good. They wouldn’t make it to the Academy if they weren’t good.”
“Are they great?”
Gergiev looked at Stirg, wondering how he was supposed to answer such a stupid question. “They’re good. Good is pretty good. They’re better than most.”
“Are they great?”
Gergiev saw the last of the cashier’s checks floating away, disappearing from view, and his face got sadder. Stirg didn’t know a lot about producing a ballet, but he saw the reality of the situation, and sensed his dream of a world class premiere slipping away. His face got sadder, too.