Alex Berenson: The Silent Man

Grigory grabbed a rag from under the sink, wiped furiously across the kitchen table, hoping to rid the kitchen of the sweet orange smell. What was he doing? How could he consider helping these men steal a special weapon? No, no euphemisms now, no pretty names. It wasn’t a special weapon. It was a nuclear bomb.

But then, what choice did he have? He would be signing his own death warrant if he told the police what Yusuf planned. Even if the police believed him and arrested his cousin and Yusuf, Yusuf ’s friends would find him afterward. They would gut him front to back and toss his innards in the trash.

Anyway, what he’d told Yusuf was true. Without the codes, the weapons were useless. And Yusuf couldn’t possibly get the codes. Could he? No. Impossible. The codes were more heavily guarded than even the weapons themselves.

Grigory finished mopping and tossed aside the rag. He wouldn’t say anything to the police, not yet. Perhaps later, when he had more evidence. but he knew he was lying to himself. This was the moment to go to the police, not later. The further this went, the harder it would be for him to get himself out.

Fine. He would help. He would hope that Yusuf stuck to whatever bargain they made and didn’t kill him as soon as Grigory handed over the warheads. In the worst of all cases, if he learned that Yusuf had somehow gotten the codes, he would tell the police everything he knew.

“Only a fool trusts the devil,” Grigory said to the empty kitchen. He took another slug of vodka, but this time the drink was bitter in his throat.

THE DAYS HAD GONE quickly after that meeting, too quickly for Grigory. He gave Yusuf the dates when the next five convoys were scheduled to arrive. The little Arab disappeared for a few days and Grigory hoped he might be gone for good. And one night he looked at the envelope filled with hundred-dollar bills. He put on his best black shirt and covered himself in cologne, a new bottle he’d bought a day before. Hugo Boss, it was called. Grigory didn’t know it, but it sounded fancy. Then he extracted twenty of the bills and made his way to the Paddy O’Shea, a knockoff Irish bar that had somehow become the fanciest nightspot in Ozersk. The Russians felt a kinship with the Irish, their cousins in heavy drinking, gloomy novels, and depressive behavior. The Paddy played true to every Irish stereotype imaginable, throwing in a few Scottish stereotypes for good measure, like the set of fake bagpipes hanging from the ceiling of the bar. Grigory ordered shots of Jameson at 100 rubles — about $5—each for everyone at the bar. He pulled the wad of hundreds from his pocket, making sure the women in the place saw it. They did, and they forgot his pocked skin. For one night, he felt beautiful.

When he woke the next morning, the two hookers he’d brought home were gone. So was the envelope with the rest of his money. He’d hidden it, but not well enough. When he staggered into the bathroom to vomit, he discovered that they’d even taken his bottle of cologne. He knelt over his toilet, throwing up whiskey and Guinness, a thick brown ink that rolled down his chin and stuck to the sides of the toilet. He knew he should be ashamed, but he wasn’t, not a bit.

In the next month, convoys came and went. Grigory allowed himself to exhale. Maybe Yusuf had seen the difficulties he faced.

THE KNOCK CAME on a quiet afternoon. Outside, the sun had set. On the concrete plaza of the apartment complex, kids were playing in the dark. Grigory expected to see his cousin, but when he opened the door, Yusuf was alone.

“Is there still a convoy this Thursday?”

“I’ll double-check tonight, but yes. But the convoy is due in the afternoon.”

“Inshallah” —God willing—“it will be late.”

“The later the better.”

“I understand. Now explain again how you will do this.”

Grigory did. Even as he said the words, he wondered if he’d have the courage to go ahead. Yusuf must have sensed his uncertainty, for when Grigory finished he was silent. Finally he sat next to Grigory on the lumpy couch. He was much smaller than Grigory. And yet he radiated a strength that Grigory couldn’t hope to match.

“After you’re finished, I’ll meet you here. We’ll go on from there.”

“At best you’ll have only a few days. After Tajid and I don’t show up at work, they’ll open the boxes as a matter of course. Certainly, by the middle of next week they’ll sound the alarm. We’ll be the most wanted men in Russia.”

“That will be plenty of time. Inshallah. ” Yusuf stood. “You aren’t a believer, Grigory. I hope one day you will be. In the meantime, this will prove our sincerity.” He reached into his pocket for an envelope like the other one he’d given Grigory. He tossed it beside the chess set where Grigory traced out positions from his books. “Go with God,” he said.

In return, Grigory said. nothing. This man takes my tongue along with everything else, he thought. Without a word he reached out for the envelope.

NOW THURSDAY HAD COME, far too quickly. Maybe he’d be lucky. Maybe the convoy would already have arrived, and the steel boxes would be locked in the depot where he couldn’t get to them.

Yet somehow Grigory knew he wouldn’t escape so easily. He wasn’t a superstitious man, and he certainly wasn’t religious. He was a scientist. But the devil had tapped his shoulder and asked him for a game of chess, and he had no choice but to play. He had to see this through.

He finished his microwaved pizza and cleaned his plate. He pulled on his pants and found a clean blue shirt in his closet. He turned on the taps to wash his face and found the usual trickle of lukewarm brown water. He clipped on his badge, grabbed his thick winter coat, laced up his boots. And as he walked out the door, he felt almost relieved. What would be would be.

They sat in a circle in the basement room, crutches and prostheses laid by their chairs. The night outside was cold and clear, but the narrow baseboard heaters, and the body heat of a dozen men, kept the room uncomfortably warm. A refrigerator stocked with soda sat in one corner, and the men held Cokes and coffee cups.

They’d been silent for almost a minute when a young man in a gray T-shirt whispered a single word: “Overpasses.”

Grunts of recognition from the rest of the circle. The man looked around uncertainly, as if he’d surprised himself by speaking at all. His name was Paul Redburn, but he’d introduced himself as Stitch, tribute to the seventy stitches sewn into his stomach. And so Stitch he was.

“Tell us, Stitch.” This from the group’s informal leader, Kyle Stewart, a marine sergeant who’d come home two years before — against his wishes — after taking a sniper’s bullet in the neck in Ramadi.

“How you were talking about stuff that makes you crazy,” said Redburn. “All out of relation to what it should. Like when somebody from high school says how they almost signed up and then they got some lame bullshit why they didn’t.”

“I want to wreck them,” Stewart said. “Not afraid to say it.”

“For me it’s overpasses. Every half-mile on 202, there’s an overpass. And every time I drive under one. every time. I wonder if some haji’s watching, gonna grab his phone, call his buddies so they know I’m coming.”

“Or just toss a grenade down on the roof,” said the man to Redburn’s right. Freddie Sanchez, an army private who had lost his right leg when a bomb blew out his Humvee in Baghdad.

“That is so,” Redburn said. “And you know, some days are easier, some days I can just about do it. Then some days I have to pull off, find another way to get where I’m going.” He fingered the small silver cross that hung from his neck. “Just like everything else.”