The gas mask at the British Broadcasting Corporation's Moscow Bureau is there for emergency situations like wars, terrorist acts, coups and putsches. But last week, production assistant Misha Smetnik began wearing it at his desk.


The only war raging is between the BBC and Americom Business Centers, the prestigious broadcaster's landlord at the Radisson Slavjanskaya Hotel. And in this battle, the smoke is what it is all about.


Virtually every day since the BBC took up residence at Americom last year, the office has been bombarded with noxious gases -- pernicious, black vapors that belch right out of the bureau's air ducts -- according to the BBC staff.


The side effects are rather unpleasant. All that exhaust causes extreme exhaustion, not to mention dizziness, splitting headaches and nausea. As a result, the BBC has stopped payment on its $250,000 annual rent.


"I feel like throwing up," said Yvonne Wong, the BBC's office manager.


"At the end of the day, you have a huge headache," Smetnik said.


"There have been several occasions when I've had work to do, and I can't go on," said BBC television correspondent Angus Roxburgh. "It feels almost as if we're sitting next to a lorry."


Actually, they are. The BBC -- and the Moscow bureau of the National Broadcasting Company -- are victims of an acknowledged design flaw at one of Moscow's most lavish hotel and business complexes. Their ventilation duct takes its air directly from the hotel's loading bay, where drivers keep their engines running as cargo is loaded and unloaded.


"There's no gas crisis in this office," said NBC Moscow correspondent John Dancy, punning on the city's recent shortage of gasoline.


Discovering the problem was easy enough. The fumes also pour into the offices of some Americom employees, said Sean Wood, a spokesman for Americom Business Centers.


"I can tell you that the Americom Technology Center, which is much closer to the source of the fumes than any of the other two organizations, is in the same situation, and they are our own employees," he said.


Fixing it, however, is another matter. After first denying that the problem was newsworthy, Wood said efforts have long been underway to change the building's ventilation system.


"You have to understand," he said. "It is a very difficult situation to correct when you have a systemic problem in the engineering and construction of the building. This building is solid concrete."


Then there is the equally solid wall of local bureaucracy, Wood said. "It sometimes takes much longer to get things done in this city and in this country that in does to get things done in the West. It's just a fact of life here."


The people at the BBC know that, as does NBC. But the BBC's Roxburgh said Americom had promised to clear the air -- literally -- months ago. As a result, the BBC stopped its rent payments in February. NBC, according to assignment editor Preston Mendenhall, has not yet decided what action to take.


Other parts of the building fed by other ducts do not suffer from the fumes, Wood said.


One attempt at solving the problem failed. Americom told the BBC and NBC to call every time they smelled fumes. An Americom employee, in turn, would run down to the loading bay and tell the drivers to turn off their engines.


"We wound up calling six, seven, 10 times a day," said Roxburgh.


A second attempt failed. Over a period of almost two years, Americom had city architects and engineers examine the hotel's duct system. "They were not able to come to a complete understanding of why this problem exists," Wood said.


So Americom brought in an international engineering firm. That company, Ove Arup and Partners, has already submitted its report. But that is when the fractious board that runs the building got involved.


The joint venture that owns the hotel property is governed by a complex board made up of representatives of the Radisson hotel chain, the Americom business center and the Moscow branch of Intourist. Wood said the board had decided to invite another company to make a report as well.


"We are one partner in a joint venture where there are two other partners who have a say and a hand in giving the go ahead to actually implement any decision," Wood said. "Their decision was to tender another bid. I don't have the specifics as to who said what."


Meanwhile, the BBC is getting letters asking them to pay up on their rent. "We got a letter demanding payment." Roxburgh said. Wood promised Americom would be "flexible" on the issue of rent, "as with all other questions." He said Americom had dedicated all its strengths to a prompt resolution of the problem.


If only the odors came from the hotel's kitchen, things might have been different. Or maybe not.


"We used to get kitchen smells," Roxburgh said, bringing to mind the sweet odors of fresh baked bread and chewy warm cookies. "***Awful ***kitchen smells."