Morgan Stone - The Russian Factor

“I don’t know. Too much. Forget replace, just get old passport back from the mother. She is called, ‘The Skater,’ no?”

“Whoa, how much do you know, Timo?”

“Too much… not enough, but Skater, she needs to give back passport. I remember Saratov was not so long ago, and I am feeling like making drive in the countryside.”

I remembered Saratov too, a dark and depressed Russian city on the Volga in the dead of winter. Timo had shown up in the nick of time with a bundle of passports that probably saved the lives of a group of nuclear scientists.

“Nizhny Novgorod is not far and right there is passport for Anna. Real one. No forgery, no monkey business, like you say. I will have talk with Yana Keitel, Skater, and she will give passport. Is only reasonable way.”

“Why would you do this? You’re not involved.” I said.

“I am now, my friend. I not forget what you do in Saratov.” Timo paused. I didn’t know what to say. A couple of raucous magpies hopped around tossing dry leaves from an empty fountain out in the courtyard. “Sit tight. Take walk. Enjoy good weather in Odessa. Moscow very cold. No sun. I phone you tonight.” He hung up before I could say goodbye — or thanks.

“Sit tight…” Who was he kidding?

I left Anna at the Windsor Arms, skulked to the Athena mall, and pulled my daily limit of American dollars from an automatic teller machine. I’d been doing that every day for a while, amassing a small fortune in US cash. No idea when we’d have to make a run for it or I got severed from my bank account. Getting back with some wine and groceries I’d picked up in the basement of Athena, I called my bank in Vancouver and liquidated the last of my savings. Some things are best not given too much thought. But we were alive, together and not entirely out of options. At least, not yet.

We were doing what we could to battle the skyrocketing cost of living on the run. We’d long since forsaken eating out for in-room dining and were gobbling tinned sardines with toothpick utensils when Timo phoned, as promised. I snatched my cell phone with oily fingers and poked at the green receiver icon.

“I have got it — the passport of Anna Keitel. Mama, she give it back.” Timo didn’t waste time with a greeting.

I thought he was joking. “Really? She just gave it to you?”

“Keitel is reasonable. I meet her at office. I show identification, say it not good for Russian government to know she takes it away from daughter. She agree right away. Gave passport from handbag.” Timo chuckled. “Very humorous. She nervous. Not wanting coworkers to know I come for visit.”

“Timo, you’re FSB?” I asked, naming the current incarnation of the former KGB.

“We all work for someone now.” He sighed.

I didn’t push for more information. Timo was a rather imposing blonde Nordic giant, which in itself must have had some influence on the outcome of negotiations. “Well, however you did it, thank you. I’m buying the Finlandia when next we meet.”

“Tomorrow, but no time for vodka. I’m flying to Budapest. I shall go through Odessa to give to you passport. We meet at airport, just like old times.” Timo laughed.

Like old times, indeed. I thought back to a hilltop airfield outside of Saratov. It was well before 5:00 am, ice-fog and jet-fuel swirled behind a chartered Yak-42, its turbines whining. Then Timo, a grinning Wagnerian Siegfried, comes striding toward the jet, carrying a briefcase.

I heard honking in the background. “Are you on the road?”

“Jah, I drive and talk on phone, very bad. But not like Russian kids, drunk, driving like playing video game.” More honking and muttered swearing. “I get back to Moscow tonight… maybe.” Timo chuckled. “Then call with arrangements.” He never called, but my cell phone announced a text message an hour after I’d fallen asleep. His coding was hilarious, like something from a spy spoof. I answered in kind.

The art deco passenger terminal at the Odessa airport smacks of the golden dawn of commercial air travel. Then again, travel of any kind, let alone by air, was a luxury out of reach to the average Soviet. It’s part of the mystique that makes this icon of indulgence an oddity in a landscape of Stalinist architectural oppression. From the backseat of a hotel limo, I watched a tall familiar man in a scarf and sunglasses stride a dozen or so meters from the terminal before coming to a stop in the bright sunshine. He put down his briefcase and contemplated his cell phone. My own cell phone announced a new text message and, as arranged, my driver left the limo, met Timo and escorted him to the car. The driver held the back door open while Timo got in beside me.

We said nothing but “hello,” showing each other our cell phones with the text messages we had each sent. Formalities over, Anna, in the front passenger seat, turned and faced Timo. He held up her passport, carefully compared her smiling face to the photo, and asked a few personal questions that could only have originated in a database. Satisfied it was hers, Timo handed it forward. I watched the hotel driver through the windshield, his back to the car, nonchalantly smoking.

“There is more to passport than meets eye,” Timo started. “Yana Keitel made it too easy so I make a check at office. It not is good. Passport is tagged.”

“Of course, damn it! So, it’s no good?” I asked.

“Jess, so impatient, must let me finish. File says Anna is terrorist, dangerous, evade arrest in Kiev.”

“What! I’m a terrorist?” Anna shouted.

“Perhaps no, but that is what system says. Someone make charges against you maybe one week ago. You must not use passport in CIS.”

“Hoe-lee shit!” I said, knowing CIS was short for the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Russian imposed designation that includes (or did at the time) a reluctant Ukraine. “Anna can’t leave Ukraine with that! What about other countries? She’ll be arrested almost anywhere.”

“Maybe, maybe no.” Timo explained. “Charges only there for one week now. CIS only, not time to, how you say in English, grow, like tree with many branch, leafs?”

“Propagate, you mean propagate through the police and immigration databases of other countries?”

“Jah, that is it. Maybe, maybe not. If someone in Moscow have lots of money and make charges, propagate very quickly. Nizhny Novgorod with not so much money, maybe not so fast. Maybe not get onto Interpol.”

“Mama takes my money from bank, takes stocks also.” Anna said. “Can that much money make trouble?”

“Possible. Anyhow, never use passport in Ukraine or Russia, no CIS! Maybe it be okay for in Bulgaria, Poland, Greece for two, three weeks — even Turkey, Israel, maybe. To tag passport not easy outside of CIS but possible with right people and much money.”

“Thanks Timo,” I sighed.

“Last time in Saratov you have plane ready to go. This time you don’t even have ticket. You must hurry, go.”

“Last time I had a job.”

“Yes. Terrible business.” Timo shook his head.

“You know about all that?”

He forced a grin.

“Whatever is done is done, I appreciate your doing this for me now.”

“I don’t always work for government and I maybe need favor some day. You two must go fast from this place. Be safe.” And with that he left the car, saluted the driver and disappeared into the terminal.

Flash! A brain piercing bolt of sunlight reflected from the terminal’s facade. I closed my eyes, begging the blind spot to fade.

“Back to the hotel?” The driver started the engine.

“No… I mean, okay, but wait just a minute.” Eyes still closed, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.