Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

“We thought they were the hooligans trying to break into our apartment,” was my apology.

“Did they take anything from you?” he asked the same question that Raiya had.

“No, I think they had Valentina Petrovna do that this morning to keep it from escalating or making me…,” I paused briefly and corrected my thoughts “make us suspect that they have a direct connection to Mr. P.” I ventured.

“What connection could they have to Mr. P? FSB is involved in state security, not local criminal activities,” the Dean slowly took his chair again as he expressed his amazement at this information.

“Are you sure you want me to keep looking for that missing link, sir?” I gave him a look filled with sarcasm and second guessing.

“Perhaps we should take a break for the May holidays and see where things are after that. I did not think that Igor was capable of getting involved in high crimes and treason. He never even seemed capable of signing his own name to a confession,” the Dean sounded a bit spooked.

“Perhaps I will head back to the library and refocus my research this week so that I can still make a paper about the privatization process of the factories and focus on the foreign investors. This way, everybody will clearly see that we didn’t use the local materials, and we can all walk out of this with our legs unbroken,” I proposed.

“I think that this might be a smart course of action, Peter, just until we can find our feet again,” was the Dean’s reserved response after he had regained his composure.

“Dean, you might think I have a big imagination, but, do you have a back door to this place?” I asked carefully.

The Dean walked with me to the concierge’s room on the ground floor and spoke to him in a low voice that I couldn’t understand and pointed to me a few times. The old man took a bushel of keys from his drawer and without speaking a word motioned for me to follow him. Before we reached the exit to the courtyard and then the street, we turned left down a corridor with a door which was always locked. He deftly picked a single key from the mess of metal and with it opened the door and ushered me through it and locked it behind us. We walked down a dimly lit narrow concrete staircase into the basement of the building. It was dank and dark and I could smell that we were underground. The old man led me through a maze of small corridors and past many locked storage rooms, hot water pipes with insulation hanging from steaming pipes. Dim light bulbs lit the way through the labyrinth, left, right straight on. After passing through this subterranean maze we ascended another similar staircase to the one we descended from the history department. When we emerged again at ground level we were in the lobby of the medical school that lies on the same block but kitty-corner to each other, not back to back. The lobby of the building opened up on the upper embankment street near the Chkalov monument and the grand stair case. I thanked my guide and darted out the door and down the stairs as fast as my legs would carry me. I caught a bus at the river station to the metro at the Moscow station; no sign of the ‘British Knight’ following on my heels.

Upon arriving at the train station, I stopped at the public phones to see if I could reach Yulia and ask if I could stop by to collect my money and plane ticket that I had left in her apartment just in case I needed to think about a quick exit from the city. Perhaps I was being a bit too paranoid? I asked myself. The phone at Yulia’s apartment was not answered. She must have still been at school. As I hung up the telephone I saw through the blurry, scratched glass of the phone booth a familiar figure step out of a taxi. She wasn’t Russia that was for sure, but I couldn’t place her for a split second.

“Els? Els is that you?” I called out to her still on the curb.

Just then, Del stepped out from around the other side of the taxi and was fishing in the trunk of the car to retrieve their travel cases.

“Del! Els!” I called out again. This time they heard me and looked my way, but didn’t see me immediately. I stepped up closer. “It’s me, Peter,” I removed my cap so they could see my face.

“Oh, Peter! What a coincidence. What are you doing here in the middle of the day? Shouldn’t you be in lectures?” Els asked me.

Yes, I should be but some difficulties have arisen. I am just on my way back to my place on the metro line.” I tried to keep my answer vague and untroubled. “Where are you heading?”

“We’re catching the two o’clock to Moscow. We have some business to take care of there.” Del replied.

I was startled to hear that they were leaving and feared that they may not be coming back.

“Peter, what is wrong?” Els asked me, “and don’t lie to me!”

“Is it that obvious?” I asked with ashamed eyes.

“You can’t fool this one, Peter. She can read everybody like a book,” Del conceded.

“Are you coming back?” I asked with concern in my voice.

“We’ll be back next Thursday. We just have a few meetings over the next week with different people,” Del informed me. “Heard that you have had some troubles since the weekend.”

“You aren’t leaving because Misha and I were followed and you all had the apartment broken into and all?” I asked a bit relieved.

“Kid, let’s step inside where we can have a private word,” Del said as he turned to pay the waiting taxi driver. “It’s not good to speak about such things where everybody can hear us.”

I helped carry their bags into the train station and the three of us found a table in corner of the station restaurant where we spoke in quiet tones. Del sat with his back to the wall so he could keep a full view of the people in the restaurant.

“Kid, since our chat on Friday night we have been able to uncover a bit of information that you should probably know about.” Del spoke to me but never looked me in the face, his eyes scanning the dining room and the door. “It turns out that in fact Mr. P’s plans are real and he is planning to officially submit his application for a building permit during the May holidays so that nobody from the steering committee is around to prepare any resistance. Technically, the mayor’s office is open these weeks even though all of his staff will be on holiday. Citizens are therefore able to submit requests per legal procedures. The mayor, of course, will stay in the city for the Victory Day ceremonies so business can be done ‘legally’ but under the radar.”

“Who told you this? How did you find out?” I was puzzled.

“Everybody has a price, kid. Problem is that I can’t act on it without jeopardizing my information source for the future. Past info has also proven to be correct, so I believe it’s very credible,” he avoided answering my direct question.

“Why does this concern me?” I protested, not wanting to hear Mr. P. ’s name again that day.

“Because he is at a critical phase of planning and it would be a good idea if you stopped stirring the pot for a while. The word is out that Mr. P. is having somebody followed to make sure that they don’t cause any further trouble for him. I can only guess that what he told you was not meant to be in the open before the tenth of May,” Del speculated.

“What’s so important about the tenth of May?” I asked.

“He has an appointment with the mayor that afternoon when he will submit the application for what we understand will be a quick approval process with different witnesses to the process.” he answered.

“But what about your project?” I protested, “they can’t just set your project aside.”

“Listen kid, it gets better. You know our little side hustle of searching for apartments for expats? Well, a councilman, also on the city’s steering committee evidently had the same idea. So, we have some competition,” Del confided.