Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

I was yanked from the floor to my knees, gasping for air with my eyes bulging and searching for the face of my assailant. Before I could turn my head to look at the police officer a black cloth hood was thrown over my head and synched at the neck. I could see only small dots of light through the woven threads but no detail of people or objects in front of me as I was forcefully removed from the train station by two men, each holding me by my shackled wrists and upper arms on each side. A third man was giving orders and opening doors. We exited the platform through a narrow service access door. A hand then pushed my head down and pushed me forward and onto the backseat of a car. I heard the other three men climb into the car as well and all three doors slam closed. The car bounced on its springs. As the motor started up I could hear the faulty muffler with its high-pitched sputtering that was indicative of a Volga sedan. I didn’t speak a word. They had quickly beaten the struggle out of me. I sat still and leaned up against the far-left door with my shoulder, and tried to keep the handcuffs from digging too deep into my wrists. I listened carefully to every word the men spoke to try to understand who they were, which group they were acting for and what was probably waiting for me when we arrived at the mystery destination. I was having trouble controlling my bowels and bladder. I was scared to the most inner part of my organs. How I regretted making that phone call to Lara!

I felt the car head over the bridge to the old city and climb the steep bluff. We must have passed through Minin Square and shot up Bolshaya Percheskaya as I felt the tires of the car slip over the smooth iron street car tracks in the middle of the road. “Oh shit!” I said to myself. “We’re headed to The Monastery”. The regrets of my stupidity in twenty-three short years piled on my heart. I wouldn’t even get the chance to say goodbye to my mother! Tears were streaking down my face as I held in the sobs, trying to maintain some sort of dignity. It simply seemed pointless to beg these guys. They were obviously working on orders and had no sympathy for me. The car was steered roughly around a corner, but it was the wrong direction to go to the Monastery if I was right about our location. That was enough to give me hope! Curiosity dried my tears and I became once again more aware of the entire situation. The men were professionally silent. Nobody was smoking. The car was being driven fast, but the driver seemed to be in good control of the vehicle. The thought started small and grew until I was almost sure that these were professional security officers, not henchmen of the late Mr. P. This offered me some relief and I tried hard to regain my composure. I tried sitting up straight in my seat with some success, but the handcuffs made it difficult. The car stopped abruptly and my covered head and face lunged into the back of the seat in front of me. Three doors opened simultaneously. My door opened with a violent pull. I made it easy to pull me from the back bench but struggled to keep my feet under me as I tripped over a curb and steps leading up to a door. I could feel the sun on my hood before we entered the cavernous dark of a stairwell. I heard the empty echo of a wooden door slamming behind us and the footsteps of their heeled shoes on the rough concrete floor. I smelled the stench of stale cigarette smoke and the urine of drunks. I heard an elevator sliding down its shaft to us. The doors of the same slid open with a stutter. My handlers pushed me face first into the back wall of the narrow elevator cabin. With a jerk, the elevator pulled us up five floors, hesitating and restarting in a slip second as it passed each set of doors on each floor; one, two, three, four, open. Keys were jingled. A door opened, light flooded through the pores of my mask. Door closed. An inlaid wooden floor squeaked under my feet. An apartment? A safe house!

“Sit down!” came the first words from my captors, “Sit down!”

I hesitated not being able to see nor feel anything to sit on. I turned my head indicating I was looking for something to sit on. A chair was shoved into the back of my knees. I collapsed abruptly with a thump on my back side on to a wooden chair, my hands still uncomfortably pinned behind me. I still said nothing. I was scared for my life.

The room’s blinds were pulled and the dots of light in my hood dimmed considerably. I was not supposed to know where I was. I felt hands around my neck, nothing threatening. The hood was yanked off with one tug from the top. When my eyes could focus in the room none of the three tried to hide their faces, nor did they shine a bright light on my face. One stood behind me ready to grab me should I try to make a break for it. One sat on a hard-backed chair almost directly in front of me and the third on a sofa with an ashtray balanced on his knee. He was just lighting up a cigarette at that moment. The tip of the paper glowed red, and then smoke came out his nostrils. He flicked his lighter closed and set it on the side table next to him. All were dressed in gray and brown suits with dingy white shirts and tasteless neckties. The one smoking had a belly. Too much alcohol, potatoes, and smoking, no doubt. All at once I recognized the fat one smoking. This was the same FSB agent I had threatened with my kitchen knife, who asked me all sorts of questions about my stay in Nizhniy while the others looked around and inspected my apartment. I couldn’t remember what the other two had looked like. I said nothing and waited.

My backpack was opened up and all the clothes pulled out of it. I saw my passport flip by and onto the floor. My plane ticket and visa as well. For some odd reason, I was relieved to see those. My address book flittered past as well. I thought of Lara for a split second. Every pocket of the bag was searched. Every pocket of the pants and shirts was searched. I had no idea of what they were looking for. I knew that there was nothing in that bag that mattered so I chose not to stress about it and watched with a curious look on my face.

“Mr. Turner. We can do this easily and quickly if you will simply tell us where the disc is,” the fat one said blowing smoke out the side of his mouth.

“As you can see, I don’t have any disc with me,” I replied like an idiot.

“You need to tell us then where you have hidden it or who has it and we will see you on the next flight to the USA,” he stated very politely.

“I don’t have any disc. I don’t have a computer to use a disc in. I have no disc and I am not hiding any disc,” I answered as resolutely as possible, trying hard to keep my voice from cracking and wobbling.

The man sitting directly in front of me slapped me hard across the face with the back of his right hand, spinning my head the other direction. The blow came so unexpectedly that I felt my eyes would fly out of their sockets. I tried to close the eye lids but instead, I just watched the room blur in front of me as my head whipped around. I waited with my face turned the other direction for a second blow. No second blow came. The left side of my face burned and ached at once.

The fat one began again, “Mr. Turner, we are professionals and will get what we want from an inexperienced goat like you. Let’s save us all a lot of time and money and in your case, teeth, and you tell us where you have hidden the disc or to whom you have sent it and we will all go together to retrieve it and you’ll be on your way. We have no interest in you for the murder. We just need the disc back.”

I could not believe what I was hearing. A murder? Not interested in me for THE murder? What murder? I didn’t kill anybody!

“I didn’t kill anybody. What are you talking about?” I asked like a mouse with his lower half caught in the vice of a trap.