“Comrades! We’re from Moscow!”
Then he caught the tall bespectacled man in the ginger coat — he was still following us with his notebook — in a drunken embrace and inquired: “And who are you, my friend?”
“The Embassy’s interpreter, Pavel Lvovich Goncharov,” the man stammered, almost dropping the notebook.
“Fine,” Borya said, breaking into a wide smile. “Are there guards here from the eighth infantry battalion? The ones who guarded the plane? Don’t fuss, Pasha, we don’t need all of them, just grab whoever’s closest!”
The interpreter dove into the crowd, and heads swarmed around him in a whirlpool; there was a vague buzzing, and he returned with a triumphant look:
“The plane was guarded directly by Jose Guidinos Herrera,” he waved a page torn-out from his notebook. “The day after the ac
