Morgan Stone - The Russian Factor

“Good lord, I had no idea.”

“Yes, I’ve had enough of this. One way or another I have to get away from here with you… somehow.” Anna put down her snifter and leaned toward me. “My passport is going to be a problem.”

“Going to?”

“She is very serious and determined. She is going to make it as hard as she can on me, on us. It is just one trick she can play on me. She told me this.”

“I need a lifeline. It’s time to phone a friend.” I quoted a popular game show.

“Phone a friend?” Anna had no idea what I was talking about.

“You need a passport. Dealing with creeps and criminals has been yet another fiasco, to say the least. There is someone I worked with before, a man in Moscow with government connections. I wonder if there’s some way I can reach him?” I mused aloud.

“Work? I thought you were fired.”

“Right, and I really shouldn’t do this, but there’s this guy, Timo, a Finn working in Moscow, he can get documents in a matter of days.” I inhaled the vapor from my glass of Jameson and took a long slow sip. “He did it before; even hand-delivered them. Then again, I wasn’t paying him, my employer was — back when I had one.”

Anna, thinking it best to switch into English, formulated her words. “This Timo, he is an agent like you?”

A lone Brit whooped from one of the roulette tables. At least someone was having a good night.

I shushed Anna. We weren’t the only Anglophones in the joint. “I don’t know just what he does, but he’s in the right place and can get passports. It’s a chance and I’ve got to take it.” I finished the last of my whiskey, letting it roll down my throat and infuse me with golden warmth. “The real kicker is, it might be our last chance.”

After I left, Anna and the intoxicated Englishman were the only non-employees left in the opulent casino. Anna said she wanted to stay a while longer, and I think the bartender appreciated her company. In the business center, I flipped on the lights, signed onto a desktop, and sent Gavin an encrypted email. I needed him to search my files for Timo’s contact information. I hoped he’d get on it right away. That was all I could do for the time being. I went back to the room, slid between crisp sheets and relished being briefly but blissfully alone.

I’d set the ring-tone on my cell to a retro-cool, nostalgic simulation of an actual telephone. When it went off at three in the morning, I grabbed the room phone: a real-life, old fashioned telephone with an actual, physical ringer. Nothing. I hung up. It rang again. I picked it up. Nothing. I hung up. It rang again. Anna groaned, “Get your mobilenick, dummkopf!”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.” With a slap, slap, thump, and crash, I located the cell phone on the bedside table.

“Hey sis, did I get you up?” It was Gavin. “I’ve got a number for Timo. It’s Moscow, right?”

“As far as I know.” I stumbled across the room, wrote down the number.

“I don’t know what you’re up to, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that calling an operative from a closed contract is a bad idea.”

“You don’t have to tell me, and it’s not really your business. I appreciate the number, though.” I yawned.

“It is my business if it involves our business and I never agreed to that spy crap. Oh yeah, the office lease is up. What do you want me to do with your stuff?”

“What stuff? International roaming on my cell and you want to talk about stuff? Geeze, Gavin, get a grip.”

“I’m shutting it down, Jess. You’re not here to help and I sure can’t do it all myself. Maybe when Sandy graduates… I’ve been seeing her lately, you know.”

“Congrats, I like Sandy and I know she likes you. As for the so-called business, do what you need to do. Besides, Chang won’t rent that hole-in-the-wall before I get back, and I’ve got way bigger fish to fry over here.” Then it hit me. “…Like international roaming on my cell phone! Five bucks a minute, Gavin. You keep on talking, I’m hanging up.”

“Wait, what you want me to do with your stuff?”

“Oh, I don’t know, pile it in my living room. How much stuff can there be? You’ve got a truck. Get Sandy to help you, then wine and dine her for her efforts. It won’t take much convincing, believe me, little brother.”

“Hey, yeah. I’ll ask her. Okay, go back to sleep.”

I killed the desk lamp. When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I looked over at Anna. The slope of her shoulder was silhouetted under the blanket. Tufts of her mangled, chemically damaged hair stuck out crazily, catching mercury vapor light from the courtyard. She sighed like a child, completely content. I envied the way she felt safe enough to sleep like that.

“Moscow’s an hour ahead, right?”

Anna cocked her head to give it a think. “I had to put my watch back an hour coming to you in Kiev and I have not changed it since, so yes.”

“Good, let’s hope it’s not too early.” I tried the number I got from Gavin that morning at three. Profoundly surprised, Timo spat out a new number and told me to call him back on it. He hung up. I called back and told him about the passport incident at the Russian consulate in Odessa.

He might as well have been chit-chatting about the weather. “Jah, twenty thousand is about right,” he concurred with the Russian consular official in my story. “It is not so much. You want British passport, is over a hundred thousand.” Timo insisted on speaking English. Maybe it provided a tiny extra layer of encryption. If anything, it took a few minutes to find a translator.

“You can’t bribe a British official, and this woman has a passport. She just needs it replaced.”

“It mostly same thing. New passport must be made, documents authorized and database entries for many ministries. Takes time. Two weeks is fast and I cannot do better.” Timo explained.

“But the passport already exists.”

“Why to replace it then?”

“Her mother stole it.”

“Her mother!” Timo said. “And you are asking officials for replacement? Why not ask mother? Is much cheaper.”

I explained the situation along the lines of blowing cover and running with collateral — in other words Anna.

“Jessie, such trouble you make for yourself. Why not maybe steal money or cars from mafia? Easier than taking kid. You have death wish?”

“She’s not a kid. She’s twenty-seven and she ran with me. She wouldn’t let me leave her behind.”

Timo laughed. “Twenty-seven, she is kid and you can not leave her? She big strong kid, ties you with rope, makes you take her away from Kiev? Jessica, Jessie, Jessitchka.” Putting, “…itchka,” on any name in Russian turns it horribly sweet, endearing, cute — patronizing.

“Enough, ‘Jessitchka,’ already.” I took a long slow breath. “Timo, I like her. I’d rather die myself than let this kid down.”

Timo was silent for several excruciating seconds then, “She really confront mama in payoff?”

“Yeah, she really did.”

“Jah, okay, give me some minutes. I see what can I do and phone back to you.” He hung up on himself in the midst of, “Jessica, Jessitchka, Jess…” Click.

A minute later I got the inevitable text message reminding me that I was roaming, but to keep on talking. I groaned.

While Anna and I hovered over the breakfast buffet, my cell phone rang back at our table: Timo calling back. I ran for it, swapped my half filled plate for the phone, moved to the courtyard, and answered.

“You take long enough. You still in bed?”

“No, I’m down getting breakfast. So, what’s it going to take to get Anna’s passport replaced?”