Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

“Mr. Turner. We don’t have time for games and a long interrogation. The longer that disc is unguarded, the more people’s lives are in danger, good Russian lives. If you will not help us now to recover this data then we will not stop until you do. We have our orders,” he said leaning forward from the couch to make sure his words made it to my ears.

“If I had a disc, believe me, I would have given it to you already,” I replied looking at the floor.

“Then you will need to help us to locate Mr. Sanning before we can let you go. If you do not have the disc. I’m sure that he will be so pleased with you for turning him over to us that your organization will do worse things to you than we could. It always hurts more when it comes from your own side. The shame will hurt more than our fists,” He said in a flippant, offhand manner as the agent across from me punched my face as hard as he could, lifting his backside off his chair to use his weight behind the fist. I felt the blood in my nose fill my nostrils and trickle down to my lips. I started to cry.

“Mr. Turner, you will lead us to Mr. Sanning as quickly as possible or this will continue all day long. I have two men who can hit you until tomorrow morning, taking turns for smoking breaks. It will be much easier if you give us what we need and we can all be home for dinner with the kids before the school holidays are over tomorrow!” he said again in a more vicious tone.

“Del Sanning lives just around the corner from here on Frunze Street. He’s not hard to find,” I said trying to lick blood from my lips and speak coherently.

Another blow to my face knocked me off my chair to the floor. I laid helpless on the floor bleeding on the rug. I couldn’t get myself up because of the handcuffs still holding my hands behind my back. The agent standing behind me picked me up and put me back in the chair. I was sobbing now trying to hold in the sounds of my crying. Sniffing only filled my mouth with blood. I swallowed it to try to save some dignity of spitting blood on the floor.

“Mr. Sanning disappeared from Nizhniy on the same day you disappeared. His apartment is also empty of any helpful information. He was the smart one to stay hidden. Maybe he took a private car to Moscow and is back to Virginia already and left you here take his punishments. You go underground, change your appearance, change your clothes and then you put your head above water again showing your passport after the murder and think you can just slip out of the city? I have never seen a more unprofessional operation in all my years,” he said with disgust and dismissal.

“I wasn’t hiding from the police! I was hiding from Mr. P’s thugs. Those guys don’t check passports. The clothes and the hair were to keep them from spotting me while I left town,” I sputtered.

“Why would you be hiding from Mr. P’s thugs then, because they think you killed him?” he questioned.

“I didn’t kill anybody! I just read about that an hour ago in the newspaper!” I protested looking straight at my interrogator with desperation. “I was running from him because he was trying to kill me! You know the fire bomb on Minin Street at the University? That was to get to me, to keep me quiet. He smashed up my apartment and beat me on the street on Victory Day because I found out too much information about him! When I disappeared from Nizhniy last week it was because I was running from his henchmen who were trying to pick me up again. That was last Saturday morning early. I jumped on board a boat, the Zhukov, and sailed back and forth to Volgograd. I just got back into port today at five-thirty and went straight to the train station with what was in my backpack. I didn’t know he was dead until after I had already bought my train ticket. I read it in the newspaper,” I paused my plea and took a breath, my captors seemed to be considering my story. “How could a student like me get close enough to Mr. P without his bodyguard to shoot him at point blank when he was the one looking to do me in? Why would I even hang around? It doesn’t make any sense!”

I braced myself for another punch to the face by turning and lifting my shoulder as high as possible to shield my nose and cheek bone. There was no attempt made. I opened my eyes again and looked carefully at the leader of the three to see if the reprieve was just a whim.

“What is your relationship with Mr. Sanning?” was the short, searching question.

“No relationship. I was doing some ad-hoc work for him, looking for apartments for expats, but that project didn’t go well. We had stopped in April,” I confessed.

“Why did you stop?” he questioned further.

“Because somebody on the city council was doing something similar and had hired his own thugs to stop Del from doing the same. It’s how Russians deal with competition best. They literally cut the throat of the competition. Del told me to stop searching for apartments to rent for his and my safety.” I was singing like a canary. I thought it was a useless detail but it seemed to be very interesting to them.

“Did Sanning talk to you about Mr. P. at all?” they pressed further.

“No, I was the one who was talking with him. I was doing research on Mr. P. for my studies and would talk to Del about what I learned. Del has more experience in Russian business and he was able to help me understand what I was learning. I am the one who told him all about his hotel plans, his protection rackets, his car smuggling and his father!” I spilled it all out hoping to avoid a fourth hit to my aching, bleeding face.

“How is this possible? How could Sanning not have known about Mr. P?” a real question was asked, nothing implied, while the interrogator looked to his colleagues.

“Del always said that so many people have shadow lives and hidden agendas that they don’t just volunteer information. I learned about him from my professor and went to interview him for an academic project; that is when all my trouble started with him. He told me too much information about his financial plans for his hotel and thought he needed to shut me up. I told Del all about Mr. P. He didn’t even know who he was until I went to the night club one night.” If I was telling too much I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out alive.

“Surely Sanning was sent to Nizhniy because of Mr. P!” the fat one said again in a bit of disbelief.

“I don’t understand,” I mumbled, not understanding who would have sent Del anywhere.

“How did Sanning know how to contact Mr. P and kill him and steal the data?” I was asked.

“I don’t know. The last thing I learned about Mr. P. is that his real family name was S., not P. Del seemed to make some sort of connection when I told him that. He didn’t explain anything to me. That’s when he said I had to get out of Nizhniy as fast as I could. He said I wasn’t safe anymore. I tried to get out, but Mr. P’s men were after me and I couldn’t get to the train. So, I asked if I could stow away on the Zhukov with my friends until I found another way out!” I was so relieved not to be being punched any longer, that I would have told them every thought in my head.

The lead agent sat and scratched his chin in thought. He gave a signal to one of the junior officers who stood me up and removed my handcuffs. My wrists ached more out than in them for the first few minutes. I sat in my chair like an attentive school boy rubbing my wrists and arms waiting for the next list of exam questions.

I volunteered the next bit of information. “I thought I was only helping Del protect his hotel project by giving him this information. Del knew so much about the mafia activity in Moscow so I would tell him what Mr. P was up to and Del would help me understand the illegal activities it was hiding. I didn’t know about any data or secrets that could be stolen. I thought I had already given Del information about all the secrets that Mr. P. was hiding about his money, his family connections, his hotel plans and the rest. I don’t know about any disc or about who murdered Mr. P.”