The Greatest Pretenders

03.2

Moscow, Solntsevo (Russia)

Солнцево Отель

7 04 2016

1215 hours

Their motel is located in the heart of that shady neighborhood, so they can 'keep an eye on things' and locate Romanov's apartment before they do anything drastic.

"When Ricki said the neighborhood was dangerous, he wasn't lying," Irina mutters when they get out of the taxi in front of the motel.

Even though it's sunny outside, there's a group of people who seem to be high off their minds right at the end of the street, and two prostitutes sitting on the curb, smoking.

"I've seen worse," Ryn says and opens the door.

Poe makes a face and mocks her silently as he follows her to the front desk.

There's a middle-aged woman behind the desk, smoking while browsing through a magazine. She doesn't even look up when the three of them stop a few feet away. It's only when Poe rings the bell that she lifts her head and continues chewing her gum.

"Yes?"

"Can we get a triple room?" Poe asks.

The woman looks at him as if just spoke Chinese to her.

"прощение?" she asks, confused and bored at the same time.

"трехместный номер," Ryn says and she nods, before she turns around to look for a key. She hands it over to Ryn and points to the prices on the desk.

Irina hands her three thousand Russian rubles, which should be about 28 pounds, and then walk over to the stairs.

"You know Russian?" Poe asks, surprised as they walk up the stairs towards room 15.

Ryn nods. "I know ten foreign languages."

"And those are?"

"German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, Japanese, and Mandarin."

"That's impressive," Irina tells her and stops in front of the door.

The key turns about seven hundred times until they manage to get the door open and walk inside.

"This place smells like death," Poe states and drops his suitcase on one of the beds.

Irina unzips her suitcase and pulls out a shirt, "I'm going to take a shower."

"I'm not sure how safe and sanitary it is to take a shower here," Ryn mumbles and looks around; meanwhile, Poe spends his time smelling the pillow he'll be sleeping on.

"I'll figure something out."

While Irina's taking a shower and Ryn is unloading three different types of guns from her suitcase, Poe looks for bars and pubs in the area they can visit in order to find out Romanov's whereabouts.

He gets in contact with Ricki to tell him to run the names of the pubs through the database and let him know which one would be their best shot.

"The Lion's Den is famous around the neighborhood because of the nearly daily bar fights and the occasional murder. I'll send a photo to your watch so you can see how it looks from outside."

"Alright, thanks Ricki."

He turns off the earpiece because keeping it on would be useless; at least until they get to the pub. Poe and Ryn shower once Irina comes out of the bathroom (separately, of course), so they don't leave their room in the next thirty minutes, because they also spend time hiding their suitcases under their beds.